At The Movies

Watching WALL-E in Blu-ray on a 42-inch HDTV is enough to make me consider giving up seeing movies at the theater. But only momentarily. Sure, the modern home-theater experience provides a lavishness of detail that goes beyond the local multiplex, but there’s still something to be cherished from the communal experience of the theater. Comedies are made funnier by laughter, thrillers are made scarier by screams, adventures are made more exhilarating by cheers and dramas, almost invariably, are intensified by silence. Had I waited to see WALL-E on DVD, I suppose I might have been even more wonderstruck at the apocalyptic beauty of that little trash-compacting robot’s dusty tread-prints. But in the process I would have missed out on the thrill of feeling a packed theater struck still with angst over the fate of the main character.

That brings me here: We often pretend that the movie-going experience is universal, but the truth is otherwise. The first 2008 movie I attended was Rambo on a Sunday at 10 am – the movie, day and time selected precisely because I was curious to see what kind of person goes to see Rambo on a Sunday at 10 am. The answer, it turned out, was this kind of person; I was the only one in the theater. Had I seen Rambo amidst a packed opening-night crowd, I doubt that Sylvester Stallone’s ignominious victory lap (what do you call an encore that no one wanted?) would have been elevated to high art. But it might have been made rousing thanks to a chorus of cheers or jeers. Instead, playing merely for little old me, the movie seemed as unnaturally large and limp as Stallone’s HGH-mangled face. Believe me: unless you saw Rambo on the big screen in a theater populated only by you, we didn’t see the same movie.

I mention this today because of James Joseph Cialella, the 29-year-old Philadelphia man reported to have shot a fellow moviegoer for talking during a Christmas Day showing of The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button. I hope I needn’t make it clear that Cialella’s actions are indefensible at least, and possibly also genuinely deranged. But I’d be lying if I said that the headline “Man shoots talker at movies” didn’t tickle me. Year after year, audience misbehavior and inconsiderateness seems to increase so that now I almost exclusively attend movies at times unlikely to draw a crowd. Most often, the strategy works. The downside is that in a sparsely attended screening, it only takes one asshole to ruin the entire experience, and there are fewer people in the audience to hush the person into respectfulness. Alas, some people seem to confuse an empty seat next to them with a sound barrier.

Before I go on sounding all uptight, I should mention that two of my all-time favorite movie-going experiences involved college-town audiences that were positively raucous. In 1995, it was seeing Four Rooms and feeling the audience’s initial fidgety boredom shift into full-throated cheers by the end – a heroic effort by an audience that was determined to be entertained. In 1997, it was seeing Scream 2 at a free on-campus screening during finals week and hearing cheers of approval over the opening scene (two friends heading to see a scary movie, with one of them complaining that he’s supposed to be home studying), which inspired participatory yelling the rest of the way (“Don’t go upstairs!”). In these instances, the crowd got so loud that I often couldn’t hear myself laughing, never mind the movie. But that was the point.

Other times, not so much. There’s no reason anyone should ever get shot at the movies, sure. But there’s also no reason anyone should ever talk on the phone, even if it’s to answer a phone that should have been turned off in the first place by saying: “I can’t talk! I’m at a movie!” There’s no reason anyone should ever send or read a text message. There’s no reason anyone should ever tear open a box of candy during the opening credits when there have been 30 minutes of noisy ads and trailers beforehand. There’s no reason why anyone who misses one line of dialogue should cause his or her neighbors to miss five lines more by loudly asking: “What did he say?” There’s no reason why anyone should attempt to show off by announcing who the killer is five seconds before the detective is about to tell us (guess what: we all figured it out 10 minutes ago … shut up!). There’s no reason why anyone seeing a classic movie at a revival house should recite the dialogue along with the main character. And if any of these things happen, there’s no reason I should have to tell you to shut up once. And there’s certainly no reason I should have to tell you to shut up twice.

Poor movie behavior is sometimes as memorable as the film itself. I still haven’t forgotten the dolts behind me at Forrest Gump who talked through the movie as if it required footnotes (“It’s the Watergate break-in!” “Those are the letters from Jenny!”). Nor have I forgotten the disruption caused by a woman at Schindler’s List who got up from her middle-of-the-row seat halfway through the film to go get her popcorn bucket filled. If a Holocaust movie can’t make you lose your appetite, what can? Then again, Schindler’s List also provided me with my most cherished movie-going moment: watching perfect strangers hug one another after the credits. Over the years, I’ve sat with countless audiences that have been reduced to tears, but that’s the one and only time I’ve seen a movie inspire immediate acts of compassion. It was touching.

I know all movie-going experiences can’t be special. (This year my favorite, beyond the aforementioned WALL-E, was the supercharged atmosphere of two opening-weekend showings of The Dark Knight.) But I’d settle for uneventful. So if you’re an obnoxious movie-goer, please stop. And if you’re not sure whether you’re an obnoxious movie-goer, consider what The Office creator Ricky Gervais said about Michael Scott, the tragically self-unaware boss played by Steve Carell: “Everyone has known a Michael Scott. If you haven’t known a Michael Scott, it means you are Michael Scott.” Indeed.

Put in movie-going terms: If you’ve been to the movies lately and haven’t been entirely appalled at the behavior of someone nearby, you might very well be part of the problem. Or else you’re just far more patient than I am. And I think I’m pretty damn patient. Still, it’s probably a good idea that I don’t start carrying a gun, for everyone’s sake.

Best Movie Posters of 2008

Queue It Up: The Fountain

[In anticipation of Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler, The Cooler offers the following review, written upon the film’s release in the author’s pre-blog era.]

In the 16th Century a Spanish conquistador in the jungles of Guatemala climbs the precipitous steps of a Mayan temple. In the 21st Century a doctor throws himself into radical medical research that he hopes will save his dying wife. In the 26th Century a celestial explorer ascends toward the heavens in a bubble protecting a withered tree. And in the present we try to make sense of it all.

The Fountain, the third film by Darren Aronofsky, is a paradox. It’s a film that spans a millennium and yet exists always in the present. It’s a movie that unfolds over three continents, and in outer space, that almost never leaves the soundstage. It’s a story of losing love and finding it – of tragedy and triumph – that’s epic and yet elemental. And even though the tale’s three stanzas often lack literal coherence, the mood of this cinematic poem is never in doubt.

I’ve seen the movie twice now and I’m crazy about it, though let me caution you from the beginning: it isn’t for everyone. While I left the theater with goose bumps of excitement, I was also keenly aware of the deep loathing of others in the audience. It was palpable. And understandably so, I guess, because most filmmakers today wouldn’t be so audacious with material that is so rudimentary at its base. The Fountain is like an extensive scavenger hunt leading to a bouquet of roses, and some audience members will leave the movie like disappointed wannabe brides who would rather have been delivered greater goods for significantly less effort (“Just get down on your knee and give me a ring, dammit!”).

But for me and others – because I think this film will have some passionate devotees – that’s the beauty of The Fountain. Through its twists, turns and daring leaps, it restores the extravagance of issues and emotions that are too often oversimplified in movies: life, death, love and eternity. It is, I’m confident in saying, the most romantic film of 2006. And it makes me recall 2002, when I had the same feeling about Steven Soderbergh’s Solaris – another movie that alienated many moviegoers unable to embrace romantic themes in a science fiction setting.

This time there’s some irony to that (and since there’s pleasure to be found in cracking this movie’s code, it’s time I issue a serious spoiler warning for the rest of this paragraph). The Fountain, ultimately, is about how reality is shaped by perception. The trunk of the movie’s narrative tree is the 21st Century tale of Dr. Tommy Creo and his tumor-afflicted wife Izzi. The tales unfolding 500 years before and after are the branches, stretching out on their own but existing only because of the trunk. The yarn of Tomas the Conquistador, sent halfway across the world by Spain’s Queen Isabel to find the Tree of Life, is one dreamt up by Izzi in the present as a way to rationalize why her husband spends more time in a lab searching for an unlikely cure than at home with her in their final earthy days together. Meanwhile, the episode in 26th Century space is concocted by Tommy to grapple with what it means to lose his beloved.

The male leads are played by Hugh Jackman: Tomas, the bearded and weathered conquistador; Tommy, the scruffy and determined doctor; and Tom, the entirely clean-shaven cosmos-politan. Rachel Weisz plays his love: Isabel, the extravagantly gowned queen in the past; and Izzi, the ailing writer in the present who also appears as a vision to Tom in the future. The duo’s acting is committed. Jackman sporadically slips into melodrama in the present-day chapter, but he nicely captures the insatiable determination of Tommy’s three incarnations, and Weisz is alluring throughout, giving a performance even more heartfelt than her Oscar-winning turn from The Constant Gardener.

Aronofsky, Weisz’s real-life mate, hardly made it easy on his actors. Though the writer/director is a master of visual verse, his dialogue has the grace of a drunken goose. When Weisz is in control of the language we hardly notice, but when Ellen Burstyn, as Tommy’s boss, is handed the jackass’s share of hackneyed lines (calling her breaking-the-rules doctor “reckless” and all but threatening to make him turn in is stethoscope, for example), it’s enough to make you hide your eyes.

But picking at the dialogue seems petty considering the degree to which The Fountain functions without words. Providing far more truth than any verbal discourse is a positively outstanding score by Clint Mansell – performed by the Kronos Quartet (three violins and a cello) and Mogwai (piano, guitar, bass and drums) – that propels us onward, onward, onward to echo Tommy’s unrelenting quest to save his wife by whatever means necessary. If after the movie’s first 30 minutes you were to shut your eyes and just listen to the music, you might follow the story with greater ease.

But don’t be so foolish. To close you eyes would be to miss out on the lyrical visuals of a director who’d better not wait six more years to release his next movie. Save an exterior shot in a snowy field, it doesn’t appear that Aronofsky ever left the Warner Bros. backlot to make this galaxy-trotting picture. But he didn’t need to. Just like the Wizard of Oz was meant to unfold in fishbowl-esque pseudo-reality, The Fountain belongs in its plastic-makes-perfect world. The Mayan ruins have the fantasy qualities of a Disneyland ride, and the futuristic bubble looks like a neglected arboretum. The sets feel as if they were stitched together from threads of dreams, which is precisely right.

But for those who find it difficult to ping-pong between Aronofsky’s worlds of light and dark, this experience will be a nightmare. Jumping forward and backward in time and moving in and out of reality, The Fountain takes the long road to find its little peace of mind. Yet it could be no other way. For a film about the courage required to make a leap of faith, it’s only appropriate that a conquistador’s spirit is required. Amidst the vast cinema landscape of been-there, done-thats, this movie springs up majestically like a temple in dense rainforests – incongruous but grand. To achieve its nirvana you’ll have to trust, let go and move toward the light. So do so. Behold!

[“Queue It Up” is a series of sporadic recommendations of often overlooked movies for your Netflix queue.]

Queue It Up: Conversations With Other Women

[In celebration of a favorite film femme, The Cooler offers the following review, written upon the film’s release in the author’s pre-blog era.]

He sidles up to her with the too-charming-to-be-trustworthy swagger that is fast becoming Aaron Eckhart’s trademark. She takes him in with the dark, haunting eyes that could only belong to Helena Bonham Carter. He advances relentlessly, like a guy who knows that bridesmaids are supposed to be easy targets. She plays defense effortlessly, like a woman who has been a bridesmaid before. He sees her almost-40 figure for the twentysomething she used to be. She sees both of them for what they are: too old for this sort of thing.

In Conversations With Other Women the Man and Woman characters – we never learn their names – meet again and for the first time. Instantly they recognize one another’s type, and soon we learn that they might know each other even better than that. But there are rituals to be followed, a certain level of etiquette to be respected. And so even if they know immediately that they will go to bed together – attending a wedding reception in the banquet hall of a New York hotel they are tantalizingly close to so many empty rooms – they dance the dance. Quickly we realize that it isn’t the horizontal mambo they’re craving, it’s the waltz.

With a running time of 84 minutes, Conversations unfolds more or less in real time over the course of one late night. Written by Gabrielle Zevin, the screenplay is almost nothing but talk and reminds of the Richard Linklater films Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, encapsulating a full relationship from birth to death in a matter of hours. Yet these characters are more pragmatic than the philosophizing, love-drunk pair played so touchingly by Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy. They are jaded, a bit cynical and experienced enough to know that the excitement they feel in one another’s presence will go flat along with the champagne bubbles.

The bond that they share is merely illusionary. Then again, what is love without magic, and what is magic without illusion? In a pair of marvelous performances Eckhart and Bonham Carter defy what should be possible. Their characters are entirely foreign to one another and yet as close as family at the same time. Zevin’s script provides a treasure trove of superb dialogue, but it’s the actors who make the lines sparkle like polished gemstones. This is as confidently-acted a film as you’ll come across, starring a pair of veterans who are wound up and then unleashed to fantastic results.

Seeing Bonham Carter on the screen is a joy. The actress appears in at least a movie a year but recently she’s been obscured by heavy makeup and hideous wigs in the films of her director husband Tim Burton. In Planet Of The Apes, Bonham Carter made for a surprisingly sexy simian, but this is so much better. Here she seems nothing but human: her lower eyelids a little wrinkly, her hair done up and yet a bit disheveled, her abdominals hidden by a beautiful bit of tummy. Tucked into her pink dress Bonham Carter is a stunning almost-40 bridesmaid, though you get the sense that her character isn’t just waxing poetic when she notes that “the illusion of effortlessness takes quite a bit of effort indeed.”

At the other end of the spectrum, Eckhart makes it look all too easy. His turn might be just as good as Bonham Carter’s, but his performance is so relaxed that it doesn’t feel like acting. More like playing. Armed with a politician’s smile and a schoolboy’s charm it’s as if he’s always a moment away from trying to sell us something. And though he’s dressed sharply in a suit, he’s as relaxed as if in pajamas – so comfortable that it’s difficult to imagine him wearing anything else.

While Bonham Carter’s character drags her heels to make her pursuer work for his spoils, Eckhart glides an inch above the floor, unaffected by gravity. Recognizing the brilliance of these heartfelt performances is easy, but enjoying them requires that we adapt to their unusual presentation: Director Hans Canosa lets the entire film play out in split-screen, Eckhart in one frame, Bonham Carter in the other, even when they’re so close together that the frames overlap. The result is what I imagine the world looks like to those lizards with independently moving eyes, and it takes some getting used to, especially because in early scenes Canosa doesn’t balk at having other wedding attendees walk across each frame.

In the end though, it works. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a brilliant technique, but the technique is brilliantly applied. Sometimes one of the images is used to show a character’s memories. Other times it’s used to portray a character’s hopes and desires. But mostly the split-screen reminds us that the two characters come to each other with walls built around them. Getting physically close is easy. But truly letting someone else in? That’s much harder.

(Spoiler warning) It’s no accident then that the one scene where the line between Eckhart and Bonham Carter essentially disappears comes just after their characters part ways. Riding away from one another in their own taxis, the split-screen images are lined up so perfectly that Eckhart and Bonham Carter appear to be in the back of the same cab. The message is clear: for the first time this night and morning the man and woman are truly experiencing the same emotion. For the first time they are free to drop their fortifications. But all too late.

Could Conversations work without split-screen? Most definitely. The writing and the performances would impress regardless. But the atypical approach provides more than a break from the norm. By underlining the distance between the two characters, the chasm becomes a character in itself. It reminded me of standing at the south rim of the Grand Canyon and gazing toward a north rim: close enough to see, but a long, difficult journey to reach. The things keeping these two characters apart are just as daunting. But that doesn’t stop them from enjoying the view.

[“Queue It Up” is a series of sporadic recommendations of often overlooked movies for your Netflix queue.]

20 Favorite Film Femmes (Right Now)

I just had to get in on the 20 all-time favorite actresses meme that originated at The Film Experience. Trouble was, narrowing an all-time list proved to be too difficult. So instead I cheated and decided to name my favorite actresses working right now. That means no Grace Kelly, obviously. It also means that someone like Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio doesn’t make the list either, because it’s been too long since she’s delivered a performance worth getting excited about.

So here’s a list of actresses who get me excited to go to the theater right now. Favorite performances listed in parenthesis.


Amy Adams (Junebug)
Having not yet seen Doubt, which arrived in town today, Adams is still more promise than proven. But Junebug alone is reason enough to be excited for what’s to come.

Cate Blanchett (Notes On A Scandal)
In the parenthesis above, I could have put “Just About Everything.”

Helena Bonham Carter (Conversations With Other Women)
See Blanchett comments. Ditto.

Rose Byrne (Sunshine)
Sleeper pick! Byrne’s most robust work is in the otherwise mediocre Wicker Park. But in a tiny role in Sunshine I can’t take my eyes off her. I’m convinced she has a classic performance in her. It’s only a matter of time.

Eva Green (Casino Royale)
Think The Dreamers is memorable? Green is unforgettable in Casino Royale. The strength of Quantum Of Solace is the way Vesper’s spirit hangs in the shadows, serving as Bond’s Rosebud. We never see Vesper, sadly, but she’s always there.

Anne Hathaway (Rachel Getting Married)
An accomplished career already, and her best days are ahead. Versatile. Fearless.

Diane Lane (Unfaithful)
Her Unfaithful performance is one of my all-time favorites. Oh, and she’s sexy as hell!

Q’orianka Kilcher (The New World)
Yep, she makes the list on the strength of one performance – a performance that happens to be another of my all-time favorites. When Kilcher finally shows up in another film, I’m there.

Julianne Moore (Boogie Nights)
Even when she’s just average, she’s fantastic. Tremendous range!

Samantha Morton (In America)
Perhaps my favorite actress working today. She’s the highlight of Synecdoche, New York, and her Mary Stuart was the best part of Elizabeth: The Golden Age (take that, Cate!). Not to be overlooked? Code 46.

Michelle Pfieffer (Dangerous Liaisons)
If not for the magic she generated in Stardust, one of my all-time darlings wouldn’t have made the cut. But her Catwoman in Batman Returns remains one of the sexiest cinema creations ever. And then there’s Dangerous Liaisons, The Age Of Innocence …

Natalie Portman (Beautiful Girls)
She’s been turning in memorable performances all her life. I’m not sure she’ll ever get a better part than in Beautiful Girls, but I’m hopeful that her best work is ahead. Best performance no one ever talks about? Cold Mountain.

Susan Sarandon (Bull Durham)
She’s still got it.

Kristin Scott Thomas (The English Patient)
I’ve Loved You So Long is a reminder of great talent that I hadn’t begun to forget. Must see her more!

Tilda Swinton (The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe)
An actress we’re starting to see more of here in the States, to my great delight.

Audrey Tautou (Amelie)
She makes me grin like a garden gnome.

Uma Thurman (Kill Bill: Volume 1 and 2)
Maybe the most underrated actress working today. The physicality of the Kill Bill films tends to overshadow the memory of her emotional vulnerability.

Rachel Weisz (My Blueberry Nights)
She’s enchanting in The Fountain. She’s heartbreakingly tragic in My Blueberry Nights.

Kate Winslet (Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind)
Has she ever turned in a poor performance?

Robin Wright Penn (Unbreakable)
Lucky to be on this list, per the Mastrantonio rule. But she actually made me consider seeing Beowulf. That’s saying a lot!

So, Cooler readers, let’s see some favorite actress lists – all-time or of-the-moment. Who did I overlook?

A Straight Story: Milk

There are no great scenes in Milk. No moments that suggest the film will go down as a classic. No moments that ensure that it will ride a wave of acclaim to vast success this awards season, though it might. Gus Van Sant’s biopic about the first openly gay man to hold public office in this country has all the earmarks of what we derisively call “Oscar bait.” It’s based on a true story; it stars a big-name actor (Sean Penn) in a gender-bending-type performance; and it ends both triumphantly and tragically – all Academy favorites. But while Milk lacks any truly great moments, it also lacks something else: any poor ones. Milk is formulaic, yes. Predictable, yes. But it’s also a solid example of straightforward, efficient storytelling that’s frequently moving and never boring. This year, for sure, that makes it special.

Milk is written by Dustin Lance Black, and it’s an unusual biopic in at least two respects. First, the film picks up its subject at the age of 40 and never looks back. There are a few references to Harvey Milk’s pre-San Francisco existence, but there are no flashbacks and nothing is mentioned about his formative years in New York; his childhood is a complete mystery. Second, Milk tells us exactly how it will end, with its subject’s assassination in 1978, less than a year removed from being elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, the equivalent of city council. Such major details would be known beforehand by much of Milk’s adult audience, but Van Sant levels the playing field by showing post-assassination news footage within the first 10 minutes. Since films live forever and are born again to new audiences, it’s a surprising decision. And a brilliant one. Van Sant’s film is called Milk, but it’s about a moment and a movement more than it’s about a man. Harvey Milk’s story is a tale of fighting and losing, fighting and losing, fighting and losing, fighting and finally winning, and then losing his life with his largest victory still intact. If Harvey Milk once served as the megaphone leading the gay rights movement, within this film he becomes the looking glass through which we observe a significant moment in our country’s civil rights history.

Penn’s performance in the lead role is a challenge to describe. He doesn’t quite disappear into the part the way, say, Toby Jones becomes Truman Capote in Infamous, but Penn is at a disadvantage. He’s a familiar face playing a man with nary a distinctive feature, unless you count Harvey’s haircut, which is perfectly duplicated here. But Penn nails Harvey’s accent and mannerisms, and that’s transformation enough. If Penn had glasses, a mustache or sideburns to hide behind, this might be regarded as a virtuoso type performance. Instead it’s just a great one. Penn’s biggest mistake is making it look easy, despite appearing in nearly every second of the 128-minute film. Meanwhile, the screenwriter’s biggest error is never giving the main character a scene in which he’s on the verge of cracking. Over the course of the film, Harvey loses elections, has challenging relationships and receives death threats, but he handles everything with an optimistic ease. Penn’s Harvey has the confidence of Barack Obama and the enthusiasm of a TV weatherman. If he isn’t beaming with glee, he’s smiling like the cat that ate the canary. Harvey may have been late to the political game, but Milk suggests that he took to it like a drag queen to the Castro District.

I choose that last image carefully, because while today San Francisco is thought of as a kind of gay haven, Milk is a reminder that the city that gave us the peace, love and dope of Haight-Ashbury also treated homosexuals with prejudice and hatred. Milk depicts Harvey, the self-crowned “Mayor of Castro Street,” getting in on the ground level of an effort to unite homosexuals in that neighborhood. His movement generated immediate excitement, but change was a long time in coming. Even in San Francisco, homosexuals were arrested, beaten or worse for being gay. Things have changed since then, of course. Things have changed since fundamentalist Christian singer Anita Bryant (depicted here via news clips) openly compared homosexuals to prostitutes and thieves. Things have changed since California senator John Briggs (Denis O’Hare) called San Francisco a “sexual garbage heap.” But things haven’t changed entirely. Last month’s passage of Proposition 8 in California, taking away the previously granted right of homosexuals to marry, is a bitter reminder of that. And so it is that this story from 30 years ago feels so timely today.

That said, if you appreciate the way movies can function as historical flashcards (I can’t think of the 1930s South without recalling To Kill A Mockingbird, for example), one hopes that – if nothing else – Milk will redefine within the public consciousness the events of November 27, 1978. Harvey Milk’s death by the gun of fellow supervisor Dan White (Josh Brolin), who also murdered San Francisco mayor George Moscone, is arguably less remembered than White’s famous “Twinkie defense,” in which White’s attorneys successfully argued that their client was of diminished mental capacity due the over-consumption of sugary foods and drinks. Today, White’s alibi makes for head-slapping trivia, and the reduction of his crime from murder to manslaughter ranks among the most despicable of our country’s legal calamities, but such details shouldn’t overshadow the victims of the crime and what those men stood for. To its endless credit Milk bucks the trend followed to an excruciating degree by this year’s Changeling and opts not to spend a second in the courtroom. Instead it condenses the legal aftermath to a single textual epilogue. It’s a minor filmmaking decision, but it makes a major impact. Milk is about what it’s about, and nothing more.

For many, I suspect, the narrow scope of Milk will be a disappointment. The biopic formula has become so engrained that Milk seems almost negligent in its failure to tie Harvey’s political aspirations to some kind of childhood trauma. But the solution to this disappointment is simple: Quit thinking of Milk as an Oscar-baiting biopic. Instead, think of Milk as a historical thriller ala All The President’s Men, about a little guy who worked tirelessly to change public perception. Or think of it as something like a sports film, about a man who never quit and eventually persevered. Better yet, don’t bother to classify it. Harvey Milk’s movement was all about taking people for who and what they are and leaving preconceptions behind. It’s only appropriate that we should do the same with this film. Like the career of the man whose life it follows, Milk is a slice of what it might have been, sure. But what remains is powerful.

Saddle Sore: Australia

To see a herd of beefy cattle crossing a river in Baz Luhrmann’s Australia is to encounter a cinematic image that’s as familiar as it is rare. The cattle drive is a staple of American movies, but then so is smoking; we don’t see much of either anymore. I’m 31 years old, and if I’ve seen one cinematic cattle drive, I’ve seen dozens. But how many of them have I been fortunate enough to catch on the big screen? Only three come to mind: those of Open Range, City Slickers and The Man From Snowy River. And so it was that the initial cattle drive in Luhrmann’s throwback epic set my heart aflutter, transporting me less to 1939 Australia than to a time when the Western ruled and cinema’s visual grandeur was too big for an iPod screen. Alas, this high was short-lived. Luhrmann’s conjuring of the Old Hollywood aesthetic created a promise that he wasn’t prepared to keep.

The longer it goes, the more it becomes clear that Australia is New Hollywood, perhaps not in genre but certainly in technique. Next to a fine-silver creation like John Ford’s The Searchers, Luhrmann’s Australia is stainless steel – prepolished, sterilized and, these days, ubiquitous. By the time Australia reaches its second cattle drive, the real herd that thundered through the river is replaced by a digital bevy of bovines, and all at once a sight for sore eyes becomes an eyesore. Stampeding toward a canyon, the cattle remind less of Red River than of Indiana Jones & The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull, another picture in which the cooked-up drama freezes amidst its videogame treatment. The best CGI makes the impossible possible – most of Peter Jackson’s King Kong being a good example. Australia’s CGI is the other kind: it makes the impossible seem indeed impossible, thereby disturbing our celluloid dreaming.

The cartoon cattle aren’t the only offenders here. Luhrmann and cinematographer Mandy Walker frequently make the human actors seem inauthentic, too. This is especially true in fast-paced horse-riding scenes. Even the best Westerns shy away from close-ups in such conditions, because the shots are more trouble than they’re worth. To pull them off, you need actors talented enough to ride and deliver their lines at the same time, plus a camera crew that can keep the action in focus. It’s an unfeasible combination, and yet Australia is full of such shots – obviously created with green-screen technology – to the point that I began to wonder if stars Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman did any actual riding at all. Come to think of it, maybe that initial cattle drive that made me go gaga wasn’t so real either. When you’re so inundated with computer enhancements, including the curious halo that occasionally surrounds the actors, it becomes difficult to believe in anything.

And yet Australia is a movie that believes in itself very deeply, and that’s worth something. Luhrmann’s story overflows with romance, spirituality and melodrama, not to mention with love for American cinema. Kidman plays Lady Sarah Ashley, a proper Englishwoman who shrieks, huffs and gesticulates like a star of the black-and-white era. That she’s as emotive in tight close-ups as in distant helicopter shots tells you everything you need to know; Kidman plays to a back row located somewhere around New Zealand. Jackman, meanwhile, plays the role of Drover with the gruffness of Humphrey Bogart and the six-pack-abs sexuality of Matthew McConaughey. If all Outback cattlemen were as ruggedly beautiful and inescapably charming as this, The Land Down Under would draw women like a Michael Bublé concert.

That said, the Lady Ashley-and-Drover love affair is as expected as your morning coffee, and only about as thrilling. The fault is not that of Kidman or Jackman, who are clearly having fun here, but of the story, which dedicates an inordinate amount of time to the subplot of a half-caste child named Nullah (Brandon Walters). Inordinate, because though Nullah narrates the tale, the movie never really steps into his sandals. Walters is beautiful in body and spirit but his character is a little empty. Hinted to be the next great mystic of his Aboriginal people – if he’s ever allowed to go on a damn walkabout with his flamingo-posing grandfather (David Gulpilil) – Nullah is so convincingly fearless that he makes for a rotten helpless victim, despite the screenplay’s many attempts to thrust him into the role. The developing mother-son relationship between Lady Ashley and Nullah works in places, but just as often it’s tarnished by direct references to The Wizard Of Oz that wind up feeling forced, well-intended though they are.

The same might be said of the film’s constant allusions to another 1939 film, Gone With The Wind. From the bickering couple falling in love, to the war-time context, to the sunset motif, there’s no mistaking Luhrmann’s inspiration. But the emotional gravity isn’t the same, and the bombing raid of Darwin by the Japanese, though impressive, doesn’t fit like Atlanta in flames. In fact, Australia’s entire third act feels tacked-on, a misguided attempt to make a romantic epic into a historical one. The resulting artistic shift alone is jarring, like trading the untamed beauty of Out Of Africa for the gray military tableau of Pearl Harbor. We go from a world kissed with a heavenly glow to one that looks as if it’s never seen the sun.

And then there’s the running time: 165-minutes going on five hours, or so it feels. Australia is ready to end once, twice, three times, oh my, but somehow it plows ahead, caught in the momentum of its own stampede and unable to detect its emotional climax. If Dorothy could get from Kansas to Oz and back again in less than two hours, it seems that Luhrmann could have at least trimmed 30 minutes. By dong so, he might have realized that Australia isn’t a love story between a man and woman or between a woman and a child. It’s an affair between a filmmaker and his native land. And by the end it’s as tedious as a home-video.

I Want To Be In The Movies!

I looked both ways, walked across a gravel road, stepped over a chain and strolled right past a sign that just might have said “no trespassing” (man, my eyes are getting bad), and I was in a cornfield. On the edge of a cornfield, to be precise, on a path that had seen vehicular traffic at some point, but not in a while. It was a typically sweltering summer afternoon, and I was in southern Virginia, day-tripping out of Washington, DC, with Cooler friend Hokahey. Amongst tall grass and barbs I walked quickly, somewhat out of fear of being seen, but mostly with excitement for what I hoped I was about to lay eyes on. Down the path we went, ducking branches here and there. Then around the bend. And there it was!

It was the modest home of John Rolfe and Pocahontas. Well, not really. Such a structure from the early 1600s no longer exists, but this dwelling – built almost 400 years later – was equally historic, at least for me. This was the home of John Rolfe and Pocahontas as portrayed by Christian Bale and Q’orianka Kilcher in 2005’s The New World. This was an abandoned Terrence Malick movie set. I was there.

How I got there is a story for a little later. First let me address why I’m telling this story now: Over the past 24 hours I have read three stories that relate to famous film locations. At the blog she coauthors with David Bordwell, Kristin Thompson writes of visiting Petra, where Indiana Jones went to find the Holy Grail in The Last Crusade. At Film In Focus, Caveh Zahedi writes of $585, 10-hour Vertigo landmark tours (he settled for the $285, 5-hour variety). And on the wire there’s the story of officials in Salzburg blocking plans to make a hotel out of the former home of the family von Trapp. In this latter case, we’re talking about the actual home, not the shooting location, as I understand it. But without The Sound Of Music, it’s safe to say there wouldn’t be such interest.

Why do film locations cast such a magic spell? New York has an abundance of bus tours that will take the geeky (and the lazy) past sundry famous exteriors from films like Manhattan and TV shows like Sex And The City. Personally, I can’t imagine doing something so, well, fanny-packish. But on my first trip to New York a few years ago, you’d better believe that I swung by the Dakota, the gothic apartment complex from Rosemary’s Baby (and also the site of John Lennon’s assassination, and just across the street from Central Park – so it’s not like it’s a limited thrill). I don’t particularly like Rosemary’s Baby, but I had to go. I wanted to feel like I was walking in a movie.

It’s not a unique desire. Then again, whereas Zahedi’s tour was all about enjoying the San Francisco-area locations through a Vertigo filter, Thompson insists that she didn’t trek all the way to Jordan in an act of cinemania. I believe her. Petra was recently named one of the new Seven Wonders of the World. But that doesn’t mean Thompson made it out of Petra without thinking about a certain whip-cracking adventurer in a fedora. For a movie fan, that would have been impossible. I had a similar experience a few years ago when I went to the ruins of Tikal in Guatemala, which provided the added benefit of geeking out over a visual I’d seen countless times in my youth: To stand on Temple 4 is to be amidst the secret rebel base from Star Wars. Way cool!


I don’t think there’s anything odd about wanting to walk through film history. But what I find fascinating in my own experience is how frequently these reality-made-fiction locations trump truly historic places. For example: The day Hokahey and I made it to The New World’s Rolfe house, we also visited Civil War battlefields at Fredericksburg and Petersburg, the latter including the site of The Battle of the Crater, dramatized in Cold Mountain. As if that weren’t history enough, the Rolfe house itself, built expressly for the film, is on the grounds of Berkeley Plantation, which is touted as “Virginia’s most historic plantation,” and with good reason. Berkeley Plantation is the site of the first “official” Thanksgiving in 1619, the birthplace of William Henry Harrison and the place where “Taps” was composed. All pretty nifty. But for me and Hokahey, nothing beat the Rolfe house.

It’s the only reason we went to Berkeley Plantation, which otherwise was 45 minutes out of our way. Just to be safe, a call was placed before we made the diversion, confirming a vague mention on the Berkeley Plantation website that the minor piece of cinema history remained on the grounds. “Oh, sure,” a voice on the other end assured us. “And we can see it?” we confirmed. “Yeah, come on down.” And so we did. About an hour later, the nice woman in the souvenir shop was running my credit card for a self-guided tour of the grounds as she informed me otherwise: “Oh, no. The house is here. But it’s not on tour. You can’t see it.”

Tired from our journey, this news was more than disappointing. It made Hokahey and me positively cranky. “Did she gesture?” Hokahey asked, wondering if we might be able to sniff out the Rolfe house among 1,000 acres. No, she hadn’t. But we aren’t the type to give up. For close to an hour, Hokahey and I walked every inch of the self-guided tour grounds, no doubt looking foolish as we made only passing glances at the supposed must-see landmarks in favor of staring off into the distance, trying to spy evidence of our coveted relic. The Rolfe house was nowhere to be seen. Driving down the long gravel road, headed back toward the highway, we talked it out: “Okay. This place needs to be far enough away from the mansion so as to be free of power lines. And it’s by an open field, we know that. And it would probably be near an access road where the trucks could get the equipment in.”

That last sentence was barely out of my mouth when we spotted what looked like the remains of an access road. Leaving the rental car running, I dashed out the door and sprinted through some trees to the outskirts of a field. From there, I saw a small rooftop a few hundred yards away. It might only be a maintenance shed, or it might be something more. I parked the car in the most secluded spot I could find, and off we went.

You know the rest. For 30 minutes or so, we basked in the surroundings. We walked inside the house. We scaled its stairs. We laughed at ourselves for expecting the faux well to be a real working one. And for a brief time we were transported, not to the early 1600s but to someplace even more special: Movieland.



And so now I ask you, Cooler readers: What’s your favorite film location you’ve visited in real life? Which movie locations would you like to visit? Which locations of pure movie magic (worlds created via backlots, soundstages, green screens, etc) would you most like to visit if it were possible?

Just Believe: Slumdog Millionaire

Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire begins with a multiple-choice question for the audience. To answer it, you won’t need a lifeline. This film, about an unlikely contender on a TV game show in India, unfolds on the set of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, but it borrows its structure from Jeopardy! We get the answers, and then we get the questions. Some films thrive on mysterious conclusions, but not this one. This is a movie about fate, and thus suspense isn’t found in doubt about what will happen but in the anticipation of how things will happen. Slumdog Millionaire isn’t a destination, it’s an experience, and a thrilling one at that.

To enjoy it you must be willing to give yourself over to it, and in this age of cynicism and sarcasm that isn’t a given. These days it’s as if we want our endings happy, but not too happy. We want to revel in hope, and yet we get uncomfortable when that hope is contrasted with visceral, true-to-life suffering. It’s as if we don’t want to acknowledge that some of the world’s greatest evils might be susceptible to change, if only we could believe enough to try and make a difference, if only we could believe enough to care, to love, to dream. If this notion seems too mushy to you, well, that’s the pervasive anti-sentimental sentiment in our culture that Slumdog Millionaire is up against. This is a film that asks you to leave your gloom at the door and bask in its warmth. Which isn’t to say that it lacks chilly breezes.

This epic of the heart begins with an image of heartlessness. Teenager Jamal Malik (Dev Patel) is one question away from the grand prize on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, and so he’s spending the night in a Mumbai prison. Confused? Jamal is a mere chai-wallah. A tea-boy. A peasant. A slumdog. His kind isn’t supposed make it onto the show in the first place. Become a millionaire? Not a chance. And yet Jamal might do just that, unless the police can torture him into admitting that he’s cheating. Because Jamal must be cheating. It’s that or he’s a genius, or something else: fate. Like I said, this is a multiple-choice question you don’t need help to answer. It’s a gimme. But the more challenging question persists: How? How could fate get Jamal one correct answer away from becoming a millionaire?

To answer those more important questions, we flash back to Jamal’s childhood, where the bulk of the drama unfolds. We see a religious cleansing raid, an escape from slaveholders and a scamming operation at the Taj Mahal. We see betrayals, reunions and tragedies. We see heroes and villains. Together these ingredients coalesce to make Jamal the young man he is: uneducated but life learned. In matters of fate, that’s wisdom enough. Boyle’s film, based on a novel by Vikas Swarup and a screenplay by Simon Beaufoy, gives us a character in tragic circumstances who refuses to become part of the tragedy. Jamal’s is a life defined by achievements of the impossible. When you’ve saved yourself from poverty, homelessness and slavery, becoming a millionaire on a game show doesn’t seem so unattainable.

Does he win? Well, to call the film predictable is to be accurate while missing the point. By such measurements, Man On Wire is predictable. So is Milk. Heck, so is Batman Returns. Simple? Sure, Slumdog Millionaire is that too. So are most love stories: You find someone, you fall in love, your love meets obstacles, your love finds a way. Slumdog Millionaire’s beauty isn’t in the tale, it’s in the telling. Boyle’s previous successes have been thematically diverse: the darkly drug-obsessed Trainspotting, the sweetly uplifting Millions, the adrenaline-fueled sci-fi adventure Sunshine, to name a few. What these films have in common is conviction. Like Jamal, Boyle dives in. The only way to survive wearing your heart on your sleeve is to wear it proudly. Some audiences will be turned off by the blatancy of the emotion. Others will be won over by it. In that respect, Slumdog Millionaire could wind up being as divisive as 2004’s Crash.

And that isn’t the only thing Boyle’s film has in common with Haggis’ Best Picture winner. Slumdog Millionaire isn’t as sermonizing as Crash, yet it might also be accused of oversimplification by those who take offense to the juxtaposition of real-world horror and fairy tale triumph. Then again, Slumdog Millionaire is just that: a fairy tale. That it can also feel acutely truthful in portraying the devastating gap between India’s haves and have-nots is to its credit – a page out of the playbook of Pan’s Labyrinth. Boyle and co-director Loveleen Tandan are guilty of optimism, yes, but they don’t turn a blind eye to the fetid corners of the film’s setting. Utilizing the color palette as effectively as any movie this side of Wes Anderson’s The Darjeeling Limited or Tarsem’s The Fall, the directors and cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle do for the slums of Mumbai what City Of God did for the ghettos of Rio de Janeiro and The Constant Gardener did for the shantytowns of Nairobi. If the jubilant conclusion of Slumdog Millionaire is obvious from the beginning, so too are the horrors we pass through along the way.

The downside of this narrowly-focused time-spanning narrative is that the characters age without evolving. Three actors play Jamal, his brother Salim and his love interest Latika to chronicle the characters’ physical development. But only Salim sees significant shifts in personality, and usually right when the plot needs a jolt. Jamal and Latika, meanwhile, are one-dimensionally love-bound. When late in the film Jamal confronts his brother about the whereabouts of Latika, Salim responds with appropriate exasperation: “Still!?” Sure, Jamal is as single-minded as Frodo on the way to Mount Doom, but can you blame him? Freida Pinto, as the eldest Latika, is Grace Kelly-beautiful. It would be easier to win a game show than to forget her, and who would want to try?

The same goes for the film. As Slumdog Millionaire rolls past the 90-minute mark, it becomes increasingly formulaic as the vivacity of childhood is replaced by the platitudes of teen romance, and as grudge-holding villains are reduced from petrifying to pathetic (a mistake that doomed The Kite Runner). But there’s a spiritual beauty to this film that can render someone willingly blind to its faults. If Slumdog Millionaire doesn’t win you over with its drama, it’ll get you with the rousing closing credits, which alone make the movie worth seeing twice. Pulsating with a soundtrack featuring M.I.A’s “Paper Planes,” Boyle’s film reverberates with vitality. To let it in is to live, love, dream and, just for a moment, know all the answers.

This Bull Can Rage: JCVD

There’s a lengthy, uncut scene in JCVD in which Jean-Claude Van Damme looks into the camera and delivers a stirring, sometimes tearful monologue that made me think of Robert De Niro in Raging Bull. Oh, I won’t be so bold as to say that what Van Damme does here, playing a fictionalized version of himself, surpasses or even rivals what De Niro did as boxer Jake La Motta. But while it isn’t in the same neighborhood, it’s at least in the same county. It’s a performance that takes seeing to believe. And, even then, accepting what you’ve seen might not come naturally. Which is precisely what makes JCVD a magical, if modest, cinematic experience. Until now, Van Damme, the karate-chopping “Muscles from Brussels,” has been a punchline as often as he’s been a puncher. Here, he’s just a knockout.

It’s a clever bait-and-switch. Director Mabrouk El Mechri, who co-wrote the screenplay with Frederic Benudis and Christophe Turpin, has created a satire, heist flick and character examination rolled into one that toys with our preconceptions of the forgotten action star – sometimes satisfying them, other times defying them. That’s why it works. To consistently subvert our image of Van Damme would have meant shattering the pseudo-reality of the character while becoming as predictable as a crank call on April 1. Instead, JCVD gives us a recognizable personality who is deeper, more fragile and more talented than we expect, and yet one who is familiarly washed-up and still comically compared to fellow 1990s standout Steven Seagal, who is mentioned so often in this film that he should get an acting credit.

The story begins in Brussels. Van Damme returns to his native land after starring in yet another amateurish action flick that will be lucky to find an audience on DVD. Privately, the Universal Soldier star desires credibility, but even more he yearns for steady work. Anything to pay the bills. In Los Angeles, Van Damme is mired in a custody battle with one of his ex-wives. His cute blond-haired daughter doesn’t want to live with him because she gets teased at school in a town where it’s more disgraceful to be related to a Used To Be than to a Never Was. A decade removed from his last major commercial success, Van Damme is still competing for roles with Seagal, only the gigs don’t pay like before. His longtime lawyer threatens to drop the custody case if Van Damme can’t come up with some money immediately. But Van Damme’s pockets are empty. His ATM and credit cards won’t work. And so like a nobody he heads off to wait for a wire transfer, only to be harassed for photos and autographs along the way by people who remember when he was a somebody.

This is a man at the end of his rope. And so if this seems like it’s the easiest role Van Damme has ever played, keep in mind that it’s also the best. While the imminent potential of a Van Damme roundhouse kick infuses JCVD with some fanboy suspense, this is an actor’s film, not a martial arts expert’s. And that’s a departure. Up to now, Van Damme’s career has resembled that of an adult film star’s: It’s his physical prowess that’s landed him roles, not his acting chops. And so while in the past his earnest line readings between sequences of sweaty action have often made for unintentional comedy, it’s fair to ask: Was Van Damme entirely to blame? To put it in adult film terms: How much thought goes into writing the pizza-delivery scenes? (Nuff said. But, just in case, consider that in 1993’s Hard Target, Van Damme plays a mullet-wearing, bow-hunting Cajun named Chance Boudreaux who has an Uncle Douvee played by Wilford Brimley. I mean, really. Name an actor who could have pulled that off with his dignity intact.)

In this picture, Van Damme acts like a world-weary man who is too exhausted to put up a fight. One look into his hopeless eyes might leave you feeling sympathetic toward the character, and yet neither Van Damme the actor nor JCVD asks that we feel sorry for the real man. JCVD has a wry sense of humor about its star’s career and celebrity. Van Damme makes it clear that he knows we’ve been laughing at him at least as often as we’ve been laughing with him. He knows our expectations are nil. And if the guy truly lacked talent beyond his fists and feet, he’d blow this opportunity by overplaying every scene like Norma Desmond hungry for a close-up. But instead Van Damme exudes quiet confidence and poise, as if he’d come to Hollywood from the stage rather than the dojo. His hangdog expressions are so convincing that it would be easy to forget this is all an act. And yet in JCVD, Van Damme’s act is the show. The movie is propelled by an intriguing little plot involving a case of mistaken identity and a villain who looks like a cross between No Country For Old Men’s Anton Chigurh and Fredo Corleone circa The Godfather: Part II, but there’s no mistaking that its chief allure is the metamorphosis of Van Damme into an utterly captivating figure.

The only significant blunder then of JCVD is that it obscures Van Damme within a questionable visual treatment by cinematographer Pierre-Yves Bastard that leaves the actors over-lit and yet ill-defined. The bank interiors especially are almost two-toned – not black-and-white but light-and-dark. The technique succeeds in creating a dreamlike aesthetic that reinforces that this is a meditation on a fictionalized Van Damme and not a docudrama. But if Kodak sent you prints like this, you’d mail them right back. Still, it’s a small misstep for a film that is otherwise impressively assembled. The screenplay is structured so that bits of the action to unfold twice from alternate perspectives, but JCVD never overstays its welcome in any one scene. It’s entirely void of filler – as lean as Van Damme himself. And the whole 96-minute exercise is capped off by what I’m ready to call the best final shot in cinema this year – a sublime marriage of writing, staging and acting by Van Damme.

Of course, as much fun as the film provides, JCVD doesn’t do anything to elevate Van Damme’s previous performances. Nor is it conclusive evidence that Van Damme was capable of this kind of depth before, or that he’ll match this performance in the future. In the argument that the key to strong acting is strong writing, this is Exhibit A. And yet to imply that JCVD is nothing more than that would be unjust. There’s genuine talent on display here, and you don’t have to grade on a curve to call Van Damme’s performance what it is: terrific. Whether critics and art-house types can deign to be so praiseworthy remains to be seen. But long past the point in his career when Van Damme might have been able to demand respect, he has finally earned it. His self-portrayal isn’t better than De Niro’s best work, no. But it’s better than a lot of it. And there’s no shame in that.

Irritatingly True: Happy-Go-Lucky

Your Honor, fellow members of the critical blogosphere, movie lovers everywhere: It is with great frustration and a hint of shame that I announce that I am recusing myself from the case of Objectivity v Happy-Go-Lucky. This is difficult for me. As a proud member of the cinema-loving jury, I had hoped to fulfill my critical duty by writing a thoughtful review about Mike Leigh’s film, which is enchanting critics around the country to the tune of an 84 score on Metacritic. But after much soul-searching, I have determined it would be unethical to proceed. See, ladies and gentlemen, I have a previous relationship with one of the defendants, the uber-upbeat Poppy. And despite repeated attempts to convince myself otherwise, there’s no way I can give Happy-Go-Lucky a fair trial.

Oh, yes, Your Honor. I realize that Poppy is only a fictional character, played with aplomb by Sally Hawkins. I’m not insane. I don’t mean to imply that I’m a character in Leigh’s film. I simply contend that I have known Poppy before, under different names and guises. I have worked with Poppy. I have met her at parties. I went to school with Poppy. In fact, I went to school with several Poppys – more on that later. And it’s because of my Poppy-filled past that I recognized her right away in Leigh’s film. Within five minutes, I’d say. And as soon as I realized who Poppy was, the totality of Leigh’s vision and Hawkins’ performance was rendered moot, because – gosh, there’s no other way to say this – I absolutely loath Poppy.

What’s wrong with her? She lacks self-awareness. She’s ditzy. She’s obnoxious. She’s disrespectful. She turns everything into a joke. She’s smart but behaves stupidly, which is worse than being stupid. She takes almost nothing seriously. She masks her self-doubt with awkward jokes, like SNL Weekend Update correspondent Judy “Just Kidding” Grimes. She’s always “on.” She avoids reality. She’s faux optimistic in the sense that she lacks an ability for pessimism, which means she sees the proverbial half-full glass as entirely full because she’s blind to the empty half. She’s annoying. She’s immature. And she lacks substance.

Poppy irritates me to no end. I think I handle it OK. I don’t go into saliva-spewing fits of rage like Scott the driving instructor, played with chilling conviction by Eddie Marsan. But if I spot a Poppy, I walk the other way. Check that: I run. Which is why spending nearly two full hours with Poppy made watching this film absolutely excruciating. Was that the point? Perhaps. I realize that Leigh is playing with audience preconceptions here. He knows that we’ve been raised on cynical fare where no good deed goes unpunished. He knows that screenwriting gurus like Syd Field suggest that dramatic architecture is built on the pillars of conflict and change. He knows that unremittingly cheerful people like Poppy populate the planet and yet are almost criminally overlooked by dramatists, who find more color in the terminally anguished. But, well, did I mention that Poppy irritates me to no end?

It’s a pathetic argument, I know. And it’s beset by hypocrisy. After all, is Poppy all that different from Johnny Depp’s J.M. Barrie in Finding Neverland? There’s another individual who refuses to grow up, and we admire him for it; Barrie’s iron-grip on childhood fantasy is nothing short of courageous. So what’s Poppy’s crime? Is it being less interesting, or avoiding the death of a loved one that underscores the limited power of positivity? That seems unfair. Even I agree. If Barrie never grows up, why should Poppy? Then again, I wonder: Would critics be so quick to celebrate the exuberance of the character if she were a he and if he were played by Adam Sandler? My suspicion is at that point more people would call a spade a spade and an immature adult an immature adult. But maybe I’m wrong.

What does it say about me that I find Poppy so disagreeable as to be unwatchable? There Will Be Blood’s Daniel Plainview is abhorrent and primitive and I find him captivating. No Country For Old Men’s Anton Chigurh is even more one-note, and he’s vicious, and yet I’d rather sit down to dinner with him than with Poppy – provided he didn’t have any loose change in his pockets, of course. So am I really this cynical? Is Leigh’s film cleverly revealing some frustration with my own life that I’m so put off by the sight of someone so utterly content? And who I am I to say that Poppy is empty? Maybe she has a lot to teach me. But I doubt it.

Your Honor, Poppy behaves like a giggly, insecure teenage girl. She’s as tedious and as false as a posturing frat boy. She is the epitome not of an optimism I hope to achieve or maintain but of a vapidity I try to avoid at all costs. I cannot celebrate her. I cannot enjoy her. I recognize that Hawkins’ performance might land her an Oscar nomination for Best Actress, and, believe it or not, I would support it. Hawkins’ immersion into Polly is entire. She plays the character as conceived. Poppy is false, yes, but Hawkins isn’t. It’s actually to Hawkins’ credit that I find Polly so aggravating. And I’m thankful that Happy-Go-Lucky provided me with two fleeting scenes in which Poppy sobers up long enough for me to enjoy Hawkins’ range and depth. Her talent is unmistakable. So why can’t I appreciate this film?

I don’t mean to be so rigid. I hate that this statement implies I subscribe to the notion that all films need to have, you know, plot, and/or that those plots must follow established, consumer-friendly conventions. Fuck all that. Why, it was only a few weeks ago, in a review of Meantime, that Ed Howard of Only The Cinema made this astute observation: “Leigh is undoubtedly a downer, and his films engage with political and social realities only to the extent of documenting the ways things are and why: he sees no way out for these people and thus offers no solutions. This unwavering commitment to actuality, to giving center-stage to the forgotten and ignored, is Leigh's greatest strength. These are people who, in mainstream cinema as in life, have no voice and no representation, and Leigh's humanist attention to these downtrodden sectors of society is the only attention they're likely to get.”

Your Honor, I cheered that observation then and cherish it still. I’m grateful that Leigh is telling these stories with his singular voice. I wish there were more filmmakers like him. I hope that the process of watching Happy-Go-Lucky perhaps knocked down some walls of preconception that will make it easier for some other unconventional film to come along in the future and find my heart. But movie-going and art appreciation is subjective. The charge of the critic, in my opinion, is to be objective enough to recognize one’s subjectivity and then to write honestly from that perspective. To praise as a masterpiece a film that didn’t so move me would be disingenuous. To condemn a film merely for shining a light on a truth I find disagreeable would be a crime. And so I admit today that I cannot formulate any reasonable judgment on Happy-Go-Lucky. Polly’s aura has blinded me with irritation.

Bourne Again: Quantum Of Solace

You noticed. Of course you did. You watched the hyper-cut fistfight that unfolds at about five blows per second. You saw the hero speeding around on that motorcycle. You watched him, on foot, leap from one balcony to the next in frantic rooftop pursuit amidst a romantic European setting. You watched him brawl people for reasons he didn’t always understand while wrestling a personal monster within. You saw all this and you said to yourself, man, this James Bond guy reminds me a lot of Jason Bourne. And he does. And that’s the problem.

In a series 22 films long, James Bond has made the mistake of being married before (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service). And he’s been silly before (the Timothy Dalton era, for example). And he’s been tired before (most of the Pierce Brosnan era). But he’s never been a wannabe before. Until now. Congratulations, Bourne fans. The circle is now complete. When The Bourne Identity was released in 2002, Matt Damon’s spy was but the learner, but now he’s the master. Quantum Of Solace is many things not-so-good: boring, one-note and often unintelligible. But worst of all it’s this: a white flag of surrender.

Even if you adore Bourne, and even if you’ll never stop loving Bond, it’s a sad thing to witness. It’s like watching Batman emulate Robin, the Fonze trying to be like Richie Cunningham, Jack Nicholson aping Christian Slater. No offense meant to Bourne, but this whole thing is backward. James Bond is James Bond. He’s an icon. He’s a brand. He hasn’t always been worth seeing, but people have been going to see him for 46 years just the same. A guy like Bond is so big-time that he doesn’t realize that a guy like Bourne exists. And if he does, he pretends not to. Heck, it even goes with the character: cocky to the end, shaken not stirred. But Quantum Of Solace finds its Big Man on Campus looking like a fifth-year senior so desperate for relevance that he’s taking cues from the incoming freshmen. Pathetic.

It’s not as if they’re bad cues. Not in principle, anyway. But for all the Bourne-esque elements being added, the trademark Bondian ingredients are disappearing faster than you can say, “Bond, James Bond.” In fact, that celebrated introduction is one of the quintessentials of the 007 series that you won’t find here. Ditto: “Shaken, not stirred.” Also, like 2006’s Casino Royale before it, we’ve still got no Q and no gadgets. A suggestively named female adversary, ala Pussy Galore? Nope. A diabolical villain with grand, Lex Luthorian aims who could be stopped by no one other than Bond? Not that either. So who is this guy?

He’s a brooder. We learned that much in the previous film, and it’s even more pronounced here. Daniel Craig’s Bond spends the entire picture glowering about his lost love, Eva Green’s sultry Vesper Lynd, whose demise at the end of Casino Royale marked what is arguably the most heartbreaking moment in the history of the franchise. And yet even though Vesper’s death and the mystery of whether she was trying to save or betray Bond are designed to serve as 007’s chief motivating force in this picking-up-where-we-left-off sequel, Bond comes off less like a man ruined by love than like a moody teenager who just got dumped and wants you to ask him about it. Casino Royale established the blond Bond as cold, stubborn, unflinching and most decidedly pissed off. This one just seems grumpy.

This is a Bond without swagger, without humor, without charm and, get this, without libido! Bond beds exactly one woman in the film, and we don’t get to watch, and he delivers his pickup line with all the joy of someone ordering a hamburger at McDonald’s. It’s wrong. By snubbing these cherished elements of the series, we’re left with exactly four traits that tie this character to the brand: he looks good in a suit; he works for a broad named M (Judi Dench); he has a British accent; and he calls himself James Bond. That’s it and that’s all. And, sure, you can argue that the Bond series needed a reinvention, because it did. But this is an overhaul akin to building a triangular sandcastle in Malibu and calling it one of the Great Pyramids. To be fine with this character representing the Bond franchise is to be OK with a Superman who can’t fly, a Lone Ranger who doesn’t ride a horse, a Harry Potter who can’t cast spells, or a Catherine Tramell who doesn’t know her way around the bedroom. What’s the point?

But Quantum Of Solace would have been a disappointment even had it aced its character study. For years, Bond adventures opened with action spectacles. In Quantum Of Solace it’s hard to get away from them. Combining the freneticism of a Paul Greengrass Bourne film with the bloat of Peter Jackson’s King Kong, the action sequences aren’t just over-frequent, they’re overdone. Each smacks of “bigger,” “faster” and “more expensive,” as if those ingredients assure “better.” They don’t. If you’ve seen Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, you have the right idea. These are action scenes to be endured rather than enjoyed. Watching one of them is like being rattled about in a cocktail shaker. It’s enough to make me wish I could order my Bond merely stirred.

Directed by Marc Forster and edited by Matt Chesse and Richard Pearson, Quantum Of Solace is frequently incomprehensible. Sometimes it’s intentional, such as in the opening car chase in which Bond comes around a bend to see a wall of police cars waiting for him, only to have the “Oh, no!” moment spoiled when 007 simply hangs a left around a corner we didn’t know was there. Sometimes it’s unintentional, such as the boat chase in which Bond and hottie Olga Kurylenko’s Camille bicker, strategize or trade meatloaf recipes; I couldn’t tell you which, because I couldn’t hear a word either of them said amidst the howling motors. (Aside: Wouldn’t this film have been more Bondian with an actress named Camille playing a woman named Olga, instead of the other way around? But I digress.)

I want to be able to dismiss Quantum Of Solace as a single misstep. In the end, that might be all it is. (The 007 series has rebounded before, and it can do so again.) But I fear this is indicative of something more. Until now, the Bond films have largely been paint-by-number, but the films have remained true to their own definitive color palette. Not anymore. It’s no longer a matter of comparing Craig’s Bond to that of Sean Connery or Roger Moore. Because as of now, Bond is back in the tank with the rest of the action heroes, most of them pretenders who would love to establish the kind of celebrated iconography that Quantum Of Solace cavalierly snubs. Which brings us to the other way that this James Bond reminds us of Jason Bourne: He doesn’t know who he is. This is a man without an identity.

The Truth Hurts (& Heals): Rachel Getting Married

She thinks about it first. Then she gives in. She dances. For a moment, she even lets go. Then she stops, suddenly aware of herself. This is Anne Hathaway’s Kym at her sister’s wedding reception in Rachel Getting Married. And if you think this moment is incidental, think again. For the others shaking their booties under the tent, this dance is just like any other. But not for Kym. A drug addict on leave from a rehab clinic, Kym’s dance might as well be her first. Because this time she’s sober.

Jonathan Demme’s film about a woman trying to figure out who she is and where she fits in the world is filled with small but profound truths like this one. Sadly, many of them will go overlooked, because they are just that subtle, because you might need to know a little about addiction and recovery in order to spot them and because for all its brilliant understatement Jenny Lumet’s screenplay also includes moments when significance is jammed down our throats with a shovel. Yes, like its main character, the film’s faults are uncomfortably apparent and sometimes definitive. But more often than not Rachel Getting Married succeeds by doing what any recovering addict must: it forgoes the illusion of perfection and lives one moment at a time.

As the title suggests, the moments unfold around a wedding – an elaborate and yet intimate affair at Kym’s childhood home in Connecticut. Kym arrives from the inpatient clinic to a house abuzz with final preparations. She is embraced by a father (Bill Irwin) who believes that with nonstop enthusiasm he can will peace and harmony on his family’s present and past. She is greeted apprehensively by Rachel (Rosemarie DeWitt) who is eager to see her sister and yet fearful that Kym will eventually be replaced by a drug-fueled monster. She is treated with disdain by Rachel’s friend (Anisa George) who sees Kym as nothing more than a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Such is the sentence of a recovering addict. Kym’s image is constantly filtered through a prism of what she was before. And that includes the image Kym sees when she looks in a mirror.

This is how Rachel Getting Married stands out. Films showcasing family dysfunction and/or exploring the ills of addiction are easy to come by. Demme’s picture is special because it demonstrates the impact of addiction on an entire family. The film shines when scribbling its story in the margins, through glances unreturned, through conversations avoided and through truths left unsaid. Kym’s family history is one best felt intuitively, and we do. Their demons forever threaten to knock us off our feet like an undertow. Where the film gets into trouble is when it surrenders to the overt – a sister’s yearning for a sibling long gone, a father’s breakdown over a sentimental keepsake. These unfortunate episodes when Lumet communicates in all-caps defy the film’s otherwise overpowering emotional realism.

But on the whole, Rachel Getting Married thrives, in large part because it effortlessly evokes the truism that for so long eludes Caden Cotard in Synecdoche, New York. Indeed, life’s extras are stars of their own stories, and Lumet’s screenplay is populated by characters focused on their own plotlines. Kym can’t see beyond her tenuous sobriety and keeps waiting for some acknowledgment and support. Rachel has her life pointed toward a future with her soon-to-be husband, and she guards details of this transition to ensure that her sister remains an extra in this new act, instead of a supporting player. And then there’s Debra Winger’s Abby, Kym and Rachel’s quasi-estranged mother, who has such tunnel vision for her own storyline that she makes only a cameo appearance at Rachel’s wedding.

This is a film in which the characters seem to live beyond the frame, so it’s only fitting that the frame should move. Demme and cinematographer Declan Quinn capture the action in the all-too-familiar jerky hand-held style that feels like a tired indie cliché until it proves to be the natural choice. While the home-video aesthetic matches the wedding tableau, Demme’s camerawork helps us to identify with Kym: As her invisible travel companions, we are outsiders. Unwanted guests. Over time it becomes clear that the resentment of Kym has less to do with misbehavior past or present than with the way she changes the atmosphere of her surroundings. Kym is a black cloud, casting a shadow of heartbreak and angst into every room she enters, and the roving camera underlines the tranquil home’s vulnerability.

Prior to this film, you might not have expected that Hathaway had it in her to be a storm of doom, but her performance is entirely convincing. Hathaway owns Kym’s isolation, anger, shame and self-centeredness. At one end of the spectrum, Kym flashes childlike unease in the presence of her mother. At the other end, she disappears into the empowered serenity of her mandatory AA meetings – the one place Kym doesn’t have to carry the weight of an addict’s stigma. For a promising young actress still searching for her limits, the film is a showpiece. And yet the strongest performance might be that of DeWitt, who as Rachel gracefully rides the wave from bitter to joyful, from vindictive to nurturing. The treat is that Hathaway and DeWitt share so many scenes together. As well any film I can think of, Rachel Getting Married lays bare the tangled contradictions of sisterhood.

With that said, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that watching this film is a tumultuous experience. A handful of scenes are so uncomfortable that you’d be wise to avert your eyes. But unlike Noah Baumbach’s Margot At The Wedding, Demme’s film doesn’t revel in misery or dysfunction. At its core, Rachel Getting Married is hopeful – a hopefulness perhaps best exemplified by Rachel’s marriage, which bucks the cinematic cliché by presenting a couple that’s confidently in love from the moment we meet them right on through “I do.” How refreshing. In this film, discomfort is a transitional phase to something better. It’s a sign of growth. When the film begins, Kym has already seen an addict’s proverbial rock bottom, and so Lumet’s screenplay finds her at an arguably more awkward phase: the uphill climb. Before Kym can find out who she is in recovery, she must make peace with herself about who she was. The process is rarely pretty. But it’s honest.

Down the Rabbit Hole: Synecdoche, New York

Charlie Kaufman is the writer of such imaginative films as Being John Malkovich and Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, and with Synecdoche, New York he is out to prove that he’s a genius. Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Caden Cotard is the convention-bucking theater director of Death Of A Salesman, and with Synecdoche, New York’s play-within-a-play he’s out to prove that he’s a genius. Tom Noonan’s Sammy Barnathan is an actor obsessed with Caden Cotard, and in Synecdoche, New York’s play-within-a-play-within-a-play he’s out to prove that Kaufman and Cotard are geniuses. Anyone detect a pattern?

Synecdoche, New York, both written and directed by Kaufman, and for all intents and purposes starring him, is a film packed with visionaries that has eyes for only itself. Kaufman’s previous films have been self-aware and even self-referential – in Adaptation, Nicolas Cage plays a tormented screenwriter named Charlie Kaufman – but this is the first time that a portal into Kaufman’s mind has revealed nothing more than the screenwriter’s brain. Whereas with Eternal Sunshine Kaufman viewed familiar concepts (love and fate) through the kaleidoscope of his imagination until they were distorted enough to seem new again, here he takes a microscope to the mechanism. Synecdoche has themes and emotions, sure, but they are peripheral distractions – ends necessitated by the means. For all the effort involved in creating a spectacle on par with The Great and Powerful Oz, the film ultimately prefers that we bow down in praise of the little man pulling the levers.

Some will say that’s Synecdoche’s triumph. Don’t believe them. This is a film in which art imitates life until Kaufman’s life is the only art we see. The main character, and Kaufman stand-in, is Hoffman’s Caden, a theater director who is doomed by a literally fatal blend of aspiration and self-doubt. Recipient of a “genius” grant that gives him virtually unlimited funds for his next project, Caden resolves himself to live up to the grant’s name and its worth. He starts by procuring a seemingly infinite warehouse in which to stage the production, which of course creates the pressure of designing a drama big enough to fill it. He determines that this next play will be his lifetime achievement, and thus he operates like a man determined to spend his lifetime achieving it – as if anything less would be settling for mediocrity. He becomes so consumed with the fear that he’ll die before making something of himself that he begins to age more rapidly – growing noticeably weaker, sicker and frailer by the day. Paralyzed by his own expectations and void of any true artistic vision, Caden slaves away at vagueness for so long that his dogged pursuit of art becomes his art. His play can never be realized, because then he’d lose the struggle and the whole operation would cease to have meaning.

Caden’s play within Kaufman’s play generates another play within that. That’s where Noonan’s Sammy comes in, playing Caden trying to direct his theatrical performance and sort out the pieces of his life at the same time. Confused? Don’t worry about it. Per the structure, Sammy will illuminate Caden, who illuminates Kaufman ad nauseam. Meantime, we sit back and endure the tedium with little to grasp onto. Sure, it’s nifty the way all these physical worlds and pseudo-realities sit one inside the other like nesting dolls, but what does it reveal beyond Kaufman’s cleverness? Caden’s long-time-in-coming epiphany is the notion that all the extras of the world – regular folk like you and me – are in fact stars of their own productions. But while that’s true in the big picture, it’s a sham within this one. Just like Caden is seen walking past his actors, spitting one-line directions at them to suit his whims while they slave away in his interminable rehearsal, Kaufman is less concerned with any of his individual players – Caden included – than with the enormity of his undertaking.

If Synecdoche seems complex, challenging or elusive, you’re working too hard and giving Kaufman too much credit. Yes, the film has peculiarities, like the always-burning house of Caden’s assistant and quasi love interest Hazel (the ever captivating Samantha Morton), or the diary that writes itself. But these are empty riddles. They can be answered however you’d like because they lack any official definition. By contrast, in Citizen Kane we at least come to learn that Rosebud is a sled, leaving us to figure out for ourselves what’s so damn important about it. Here we merely get the word. With Synecdoche, Kaufman is faking it like a wannabe poet at open-mic night, convinced that the convolution of the tale makes it profound. To be moved by this indistinct mindfuck is to read your horoscope in the paper and believe it’s written especially for you. Your emotional reaction will be genuine, but it says more about you than about the art.

Kaufman’s unconventional approach is refreshing on the whole, but a filmmaker shouldn’t be praised for playing his instrument backward and occasionally hitting the right notes. Combine Kaufman and this impressive cast, which also includes Catherine Keener, Michelle Williams, Emily Watson and Dianne Wiest, and it’s hard to resist the urge to impose depth on this 124-minute tangled mass. But save for an intriguing first half-hour that’s brightened by a winsome Morton, it just isn’t there. Guess what: if it looks like an anvil and feels like an anvil, it’s an anvil. Synecdoche is dead weight. It’s a gigantic idea that delivers nothing beyond the blunt force of its scale. Like Caden, Kaufman put so much attention into the meta and the minutia that he lost track of any emotional core, the reason for creating the story in the first place.

As chance would have it, prior to seeing Synecdoche I was killing time in a bookstore and happened to pick up from the bestseller rack the self-titled autobiography of Slash, the guitarist from Guns N Roses. After glancing through the photo inserts, I thumbed to the chapters pertaining to 1991, when I was a freshman in high school and the band was at its peak: releasing two albums simultaneously that debuted at the top of the charts and creating mind-bending epic videos for play on MTV. In his book, Slash describes how the creation of those albums (Use Your Illusion I and II) required him to lay down his guitar riffs alone in a recording studio, whereupon the tapes would be sent to lead singer and creative director Axl Rose, who put all the pieces together in Howard Hughes-like seclusion. It worked. The band’s output was more complex and lush than ever before, and yet it marked the moment Slash felt the band’s identity slipping away: Guns N Roses was creating records, true, but it was no longer making music. It wasn’t a band anymore.

So seems to be the case for Kaufman. Synecdoche marks the moment his storytelling process finally overwhelmed his story. For the moment, he has disappeared down the rabbit hole, and in a year that has seen tremendously disappointing films from such gifted storytellers as Steven Spielberg and M Night Shyamalan, it’s hard to keep from fearing that Kaufman might never come back out again. To complete the previous cautionary tale, it’s worth noting that after a sloppy follow-up album (The Spaghetti Incident), Rose set to work on the band’s next supposed masterpiece, Chinese Democracy. The year was 1995. As of today, the album remains unfinished. If Synecdoche is a window into Kaufman’s psyche, America’s most talented screenwriter may be sinking into his own abyss of ambition, expectation and neurosis. It would be a loss for us all.