Leonard Link

Me and Orson Welles

As soon as I read the NY Times review on this, it went to the top of my "must be seen" list.  Having seen it, it goes directly on to my "have to get the DVD" list.  This is, without doubt, the most purely entertaining film I've seen in a very long time.  Zac Efron absolutely nails the youthful lead role of Richard Samuels, the theater-bedazzled NY high school student of 1937 who beguiles his way into a bit part in the historic production of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar by Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater Company.  Christian McKay is also quite brilliant as Orson Welles - a stunning impersonation of an entertainingly flamboyant character - and Claire Danes is superb as Sonja Jones, the administrative backbone of the theater company who quickly develops a fancy for cheeky young Richard.

Everybody involved on the technical end of this production has gone to great lengths to recreate the time and place in a way that seems absolutely authentic.  Of course, this is all richly imagined by screenwriters Holly Gent Palmo and Vince Palmo, presumably based on memoirs and newspaper accounts of the period.  Richard Linklater, the director, has put the entire thing together with perfect timing and dramatic emphasis. 

If you haven't figured out by now that I LOVE THIS FILM.... well, you must have.  When I think about the millions upon millions raked in by Twilight, a piece of elegantly made nonsense, over the past two weeks, and then think about this masterful bit of work, providing profound insights into human character, which is pulling its thousands if lucky as an indy film in small theaters (only two small screens in Manhattan at present), I want to cry.  By all rights, this it the film that should be way up there....

New Moon (Twilight Series, No. 2) - The Film - warning, plot spoilers

Not much playing over the Thanksgiving holiday that looked worth seeing at the Ormond Beach multiplex, so by process of elimination Mom and I went to see "New Moon," the second film in the Twilight series.  I had seen the first and found it modestly enjoyable.  I've never read any of the books, so what follows comes from somebody to whom the story is entirely new.

OK, so there are these high school students who hang with each other and it turns out one is a member of a vampire family that has foresworn human blood as a nutrient.  How they get away with this is unclear to me, since my understanding from the old Dracula films was that vampires can't come out during the day and need human blood to survive.  So, anyway, this high school student named Bella is all moon-eyed over Edward the skinny vampire with the permanently-bored look on his face.  At the end of the first episode there was some wild violence that convinced Edward it was best for Bella that he buzz off, so at the beginning of the film after some mooning about together Edward buzzes off, leaving Bella (who lives with her Dad, Charlie, the only normal character in the film it seems) stranded in the Pacific Northwest without a boyfriend, a fate worse than death for any high school girl.  For solace she latches on to this solitary long-haired American Indian type, Jacob, who was another skinny kid in the first film but suddenly grew up to become Mr. Muscles and who has always carried a torch for Bella anyway.  She seduces him by bringing him two beat-up rejected motorcycles to repair.  He repairs them like a pro, shows off his muscles, and shows her the other boys he sometimes "runs" with, who entertain themselves by jumping off cliffs into the ocean from great heights.  Oh, I forgot to mention, every time Bella finds herself in a situation where prudence says she should retreat, a ghostly image of Edward materializes before her, telling her to retreat, but she always goes right ahead -- because tempting fate is the only way to make the ghost of Edward appear to her.  So, back to the shirtless boys - oh, did I mention that Jacob and his crowd run around shirtless, showing off the fact that they all lack body hair and work out like crazy, but none so much as Mr. Muscle Jacob.  It turns out that Jake and his friends are all really werewolves who are out to hunt vampires.... honestly, after this, I can't continue this plot summary, only to point out that since the Twilight series will eventually run to 4 or more films, this one obviously has to end with all the main characters still "alive" in some sense - if you call vampire life living, and that it seems like Bella is on the verge of becoming....  no, I won't say whether she decides to go with the vamps or the wolves....  Readers of the books know how it continues and why spoil it for everybody else?  Find out for yourself.

OK, so the film is crazy, but it is also compulsively entertaining, even the slow bits, and although Robert Pattinson seems to be sleep-walking through the role of Edward, maybe that's consistent with the character, who is supposed to be among the barely-living dead.  Kristen Stewart as Bella is appropriately love-sick and inarticulate throughout the film.  Young Taylor Lautner, Mr. Muscles, carries the film on his broad shoulders.  He is undoubtedly the reason why this is such a hit with teenage girls and gay men.  Everybody wants to surrender to the big, bad wolf -- at least, in his shirtless, hairless, muscle phases.  And Billy Burke as Charlie, the bewildered Dad, is his dependable self.  Chris Weitz, the director, is great at keeping things moving along.  I don't think this is a masterpiece deserving of the extraordinary opening weekend it enjoyed, and I wonder whether there will be a sharp falling off of business now that the hyped opening has occurred... but it has already made tons of dough, so there will be more sequels.  Can Mr. Lautner keep up the gym routine?  Can he get any bigger?  These are the questions agitating all fans of the series, I'm sure.

Moverman's "The Messenger"

I've been away from blogging since last weekend - a very busy week and no really noteworthy LGBT legal developments - but more on that in a subsequent blog.

For now, I have to report on attending a matinee performance of a new independent film, Oren Moverman's "The Messenger."  Actually, Moverman (who - full disclosure - is my second cousin once removed - we are both descended from a Moverman who lived in the town of Kamenets-Podolsky in what is now the Ukraine in the late 19th century) is co-author of the screenplay and director of the film, and he jointly devised the plot with Alessandro Camon.  Interestingly, this very American tale was devised by an Israeli (Moverman) and an Italian (Camon).   The plot is simply told.  Sgt. Will Montgomery, a 20-something US Army member who was wounded in Iraq and has come back stateside to recuperate while his enlistment plays out, is assigned to a next-of-kin notification unit with Captain Tony Stone, a veteran of Operation Desert Storm (which went by so quickly that Stone saw no real action).  The movie is structured around their notification missions and the gradually forming relationship between the two men.  To say more would be to give away the plot.

What makes this film so fine is the sensitive acting and directing.  This is Moverman's first professional directing effort -- according to news features, he was invited to direct by the producer after an experienced director who had agreed to the project dropped out.  One would not know that from the finished product, which seems to have been deftly directed to elicit excellent performances from his leading actors, Ben Foster as Will and Woody Harrelson as Tony.  They interact beautifully, and fill the story with interesting personality development as they do so.  Samantha Morton, as a new widow who provides the "love interest" for Will, is less convincing to me in her role, but at least adequate, perhaps a bit more than that.  The pacing is excellent for the most part, although I did find a slightly slow patch about 2/3 of the way through the film.

But overall I found this quite engaging and gripping.  From the subject matter, one would expect it to be unremittingly grim, but it isn't.  It is fascinating, entertaining, sometimes even funny, and the performances by Foster and Harrelson are really special, worth seeking out.  Foster, in particular, is the mostly-quiet but compelling center of this story, and this is a real star-making performance for him if the right people see this.

This is an independent release, so it may not show up quite so widely as one would hope, but perhaps the laudatory reviews that have begun appearing (see New York Times and The New Yorker this week) and good attendance at the limited venues where it is starting will win it a broader release.  I can't wait to get it on DVD as well.  See it!

Where the Wild Things Are - or Aren't

What wild things?  The only wild thing in this movie, really, is Max.... and perhaps not really.  I thought there were some interesting parts, but also patches of boredom in this attempt at a live action film version of Maurice Sendak's extraordinary children's picture book.  But I think this would better have been made as a shorter animated feature.  Sendak's drawings were an integral part of what made the book a great success, interesting for adults as well as kids.  Ditch the drawings, approximate the wild things with cutesy costumes, add an extended live-action front story, and it's a different thing altogether and not particularly interesting.  I guess the celebrity of the book gave it a big opening weekend at the box office, and there was a decent size but by no means large crowd when I saw an early evening screening on 42nd Street on Wednesday.  But I think ultimately this film is not a success.  I wouldn't warn people who are fans of the book not to see it, but I will warn that many will feel let down.

"Bright Star" - A Tragic 19th Century Love Story

I saw this film Wednesday night when I needed an "escape from the world" due to a medical emergency that occurred at the beginning of my Contracts class that morning.  (A student suddenly suffered a seizure, emergency medical assistance was called, several students valiantly rushed to his assistance and rendered life-saving care.... it was emotionally exhausting to experience it.  We cancelled the class and scheduled a make-up for next week. The student recovered and was actually back in class this morning, eager to resume his law studies....)

Maybe "Bright Star" was not the right film to see under the circumstances, although it did effectively transport me for a few hours from 21st century New York to early 19th century London, where the unappreciated, emaciated, tubercular British poet John Keats and the ardent Fanny Brawne conducted their brief, chaste love affair before Keats sailed off to Italy, to die a young and broken man.  (Although Keats had a devoted circle of young admirers, the critical establishment was mixed on the work published in his lifetime, and he only achieved recognition as a great poet after his death.) 

Jane Campion's film is predictably stately in pace, while immaculate in period depiction.  The acting is restrained, realistic.  Ben Wishaw as Keats is appropriately wispy and charming in a bemused, laid-back sort of way.  With the heavy application of make-up to his already thin-faced look, he was convincing as a young Romantic consumptive on the verge of collapse.  Abbie Cornish as Fanny Brawne, the young woman who fell for him but played hard-to-get for a while, was excellent, as was the supporting cast.  In some ways, this is a movie where nothing much really happens, more of a character study with glimpses from the life of a talented young man, misunderstood in his time, as viewed from the perspective mainly of the young woman who recognized his genius but was constrained by the formality of the time from doing more than pining for him.  Keats had an overprotective friend who tried to shield him from Fanny's attentions - perhaps out of concern for his health, as the movie suggests.  The thing ends so sadly... it did not lift me from the torpor of the day, but I thought it was well done, the kind of movie that might even be more effectively viewed on the small screen.

The Time Traveler's Wife - Plot Spoilers

Usually I try to avoid discussing a film in a way that will give away plot developments to people who may chance upon my blog as a result of a google or bing search about a particular film.  But I find it is really impossible to discuss this movie without giving things away.  Thus the title above, and I hope anybody who doesn't want to spoil the surprises for themselves will stop reading here.

Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams are fantastic in this film.  I first became a fan of Bana with the film "Munich."  That's the one where I first really paid attention to him and decided that he was a favorite.  I haven't seen every film he's made since then  --  some just didn't sound interesting enough -- but I really appreciate his work, and in this film he is called upon to play a man at different ages in an interesting and provocative way.  Rachel McAdams also has to play a woman at different points in her life, but somehow it is less unsettling because she is not a time traveler....

At any rate, am I the only one who has gone to see this movie without having read the book?  My brother Dave and his wife Carol are fans of the book and went right away to see the movie when it opened, full of expectations.  My Mom had also read the book and eventually got to the see the movie with expectations as well.  I am totally unfamiliar with the book, so all I knew before seeing the film just now came from the previews, which do give a general idea of the plot but carefully conceal many of the major plot developments that make the film so interesting.   So I am not one to be able to talk about how faithful or unfaithful it was to the book.  I can only talk about this as a film experience.

As such, I have to say that it is fascinating as it unfolds, but then when you start thinking about it afterwards, the logic collapses in on itself.  Of course, you have to accept the premise early on that there are some individuals who, due to some genetic anomaly, slip back and forth through time, without being able to control the where and the when.  Why do they slip between predictable places - so predictable that they can veer in and out and intersect repeatedly with the lives of the same group of people?  And since they apparently are not immortal, are there boundaries to their slippage?  I would have thought that these "time travelers" could not travel back to a time before their birth - but Henry's daughter at the age of ten slips back to before she was born to see her parents.  And I would have thought that they can't travel beyond the time of their life, yet Henry manages to slip forward in time to see his daughter at age 10 when he is at an age when she hasn't been born yet and - at that age - he has been dead for five years.  So what is going on here?  I guess when you are writing fiction you can make up the rules, but the rules to some extent seem arbitrary, not internally consistent.  Successful science fiction and fantasy depends on the reader's suspension of disbelief.  It isn't really quite so entertaining if you are constantly saying to yourself - how can that be?  In no universe can that happen.  And I had that feeling from time to time with this movie.  How would Henry die?  He had foreseen his death, but not in its exact particular of causation, and then is cast into a situation where it happens so fast that he can't avoid it even though he knows it is about to happen.  And the irony of the moment is overwhelming, too.

While I was watching it, I really enjoyed it.  Watching these characters interact was entertaining, and the slippages back and forth in time were quite ingeniously handled.  Eric Bana is in great shape, although they were more discrete for this general release film than they would have to be for cable -- so I'm hoping that when the director's cut DVD comes out, they loosen it up a bit.  A man who lands naked every time he time travels can make some more spectacular entrances than he does here!!!  Ha! 

Am I inspired now to seek out the book?  Maybe, although my to-be-read stack at home is pretty tall....

Tarantino's "Inglorious Basterds"

If you've seen any prior Tarantino film, you'll know what to expect.  This man is the master of setting up an interesting confrontation scene, building it through various heart-clutching moments, and then resolving it in a blaze of violence.  And he does it over and over again, and that's what this movie is made up of....  an elaborate Jewish revenge fantasy for WWII and the Holocaust.  It is very much a fantasy, and quite an entertaining one, but not for the squeamish, because Tarantino likes his violence....

The performances.  Brad Pitt.  What can I say, a master of characters and accents.  This is NOT one of his pretty-boy roles.  He plays a battle-scarred American mountain-man quasi-terrorist, and he does it with pizzazz.  Melanie Laurent, playing in French, is a wonderful Mata Hari.  And Christoph Waltz, the leading player on the German side, practically steals the movie.  Where has this guy been?  I see a big future for him in American flicks if he wants it.  His English is great, so's his Italian, but most important is the pure gusto he brings to his role.  Wow!

This is entertainment cinema, with thrills and chills.  There's nothing very deep here, just a terrifically inventive mind at play, given the budget to construct his fantasies and using his talent to keep the audience enthralled.  And the theater at 6 pm on a Sunday in August was PACKED, so I think the second weekend will rack up well after last weekend's glorious opening.  This should play well on the small screen as well, given the excellent performances, but seeing it on the big screen with hundreds of other people in a theater with good projection and sound is a must.

In the Loop

Last night I saw the British comedy, "In the Loop," which had been recommended by a friend.  I was not impressed with it as he was.  Many of the British characters have heavy Scottish accents, or so it sounded to me, and I was struggling to follow the fast paced, frequently shouted, dialogue.  Virtually every character in the film, whether on the British side or the U.S. side was excessively unattractive (I don't mean physically, I mean as characters), with the notable exception of the American general portrayed by James Gandolfini, who seemed to be honest, smart, laid-back, and almost the only non-shouter in the bunch.  While there were a few hysterically funny bits of business, I found myself becoming bored and then totally disconnected, letting my mind wander until suddenly I found myself watching closing credits, the final scenes of the movie having escaped my attention entirely.

Not a recommendation!

District 9

I guess this is very much in the tradition of "War of the Worlds" and other sci-fi attempts to depict the clash of civilizations.  I was disappointed that humans are depicted as so crass and unfeeling in this encounter.  Surely our curiosity should incline us to be more receptive to trying to understand the aliens, especially aliens who in many respects are depicted as relatively benign.  At any rate, this film gives you lots to think about, and it tells a straightforward and coherent story, unlike too many of the trendy big studio films getting wheeled out these days.  The acting, by people of whom I had never heard before, was generally good, although I thought the main character was a bit over the top....   At any rate, I felt it was worth seeing, and for a small-budget independent film, it packs quite a punch.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

Things are getting pretty desperate down here in Ormond Beach, FL, for entertainment, so Mom and I found ourselves at this extravaganza this afternoon.

CGI City for DAYS!   Virtually the entire film seems to have been composed on computer screens.  Key scenes seem to be parodies drawn from prior hit movies.  (Remember the light sabre fight between Luke and Darth Vader????)  It is unremittingly noisy, so action packed that you lose your breath trying to follow along, and the acting is totally stock cardboard characters.  The two hours fly by.  There is nothing to engage the brain.  (The NY Times review was dead-on....)  But I can understand why it is pulling in tons of money.  I can also predict that it will sink quickly after the spectacular opening weekend....