In Memory

Awakenings- 1990

Dead Again-1991

Fern Gully-1992

Toys- 1992

Mrs. Doubtfire-1993

The Birdcage- 1996

Good Will Hunting- 1997

One Hour Photo- 2002

Death to Smoochy- 2002

American Hustle

Bale and Adams

There are many things to say about the film "American Hustle" most all of them good but the the most important one as far as I'm concerned has to do with the fact that Christian Bale gives a performance that you cannot take your eyes off of. I mean everyone is amazing. Everyone give a kick ass performance but why was I intensely drawn to this portrayal of a middle aged, beer belly having insane comb over creating character? I wonder if a woman could get away with this.

There is not one iota of Bale in this man or should I say there is not one iota of who we think Bale is in this character. When we say that actors disappear into their roles, maybe what's really happening is that they're just showing up more presently in isolated behaviors which best illustrate the character they are playing. If that's the case, then Bale is all gone in this character. He finds the physicality, the cadence and most of all a core, a soul in this character and he works from there, keeping it alive always. He does not do what is easy ever. He never has and for the most part it pays off big time.

This almost made me want to watch the last of the "Batman: Dark Knight" films of which I am not at all a fan. I've been very ambivalent about watching Bale on screen because his intensity is sometimes a bit much for me to stomach. I have to wonder why he gives himself up so completely. "American Psycho" for instance, made me think he was truly psychotic. "Laurel Canyon" gave me a little pause but only because it was a film about the complexities of relationship which made his performance easier for me to take.

I don't think I'll ever be able to watch him in "The Machinist" where he intentionally lost so much weight he looks like a holocaust survivor. Well never say never but no time soon.

In any case, after watching "American Hustle, I will never sleep on Bale again.

...he still kinda freaks me out though. LOL!

Bustin Makes Me Feel Good

"I think he can hear you Ray."

Sexism and misappropriation of occult religious symbols aside, Ghostbusters has to be, hands down one of my favorite New York movies of the 80s. I watched it twice last week, once for Halloween and the second time just to watch it again with my sweetie. Lets not talk about the incredible cinematography, or the wonderful use of familiar local NY City neighborhoods, high rises, isolation, politics, horror and haunted spaces. Lets not even talk about the amazing score! I could listen to the Ghostbusters score without even watching the movie. Lets not talk about the strange joy of watching the city get trampled by a giant Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. That special effect still wows me every single time. I'm like a kid again.

The thing that I loved then as now in addition to all those things and more was Bill Murray and the way that all his wierdassness fit into this movie like a glove. All of his oddities of his usual comic performance took off like a rocket with Ivan Reitmans direction.  We could see this begin to emerge with Reitman in "Stripes" (1981) another film I enjoy but in "Ghostbusters" Murray's formidable power is at it's highest. You almost feel as if Reitman gave Murray free reign to do whatever he wanted. Watching Murray in this film even now, feels like new. Nothing about it feels dated or imitative because no one else is like Murray. No one else takes these chances with dialogue, comic timing, meter and arbitrary self reference. From the very beginning, you're on his side. There's something wrong with him and you don't know what but you sympathize. His cynicism, overconfidence, selfishness, sentimentality and dare I say romantic idealism/read sexism are a strange mix in the character of Peter Venkman, but somehow Murray makes it work in a way I can't imagine any other actor doing. For me, I don't think any other vehicle came along for him that worked as well until "Rushmore"
in 1998.

 For me, Murray is not as great a straight dramatic actor as he believes himself. He is Bill Murray. He has never strayed from his Bill Murrayness in any successful way that I'm aware of. I cringe when I think of his portrayal in a 1984 version of "The Razor's Edge", a film whose second remake in 1946 is among my favorite films. Murray was awful in it. Just miscast and terrible. And I don't care how people rave over "Lost in Translation." His performance in Coppola's Japan wack off fest was fine but nothing close to his performance in "Rushmore" where his poker face, flat delivery, unique comic timing had re-emerged as something which had become more refreshing, more evocative and more pleasurable to watch.

Mandela

I cannot even describe the feeling I get inside when I watch this trailer. I've seen "Sometimes in April" so I know that Idris has what it takes to own this kind of role. And although I cannot imagine what an overwhelming undertaking it was for him to play such a giant, I can already see that he has taken this project to soaring heights. If a movie trailer is a promise of what it will deliver as a feature than this one is going to be history making. I have been waiting for so long for Idris to be offered the lead role in a film with weight and guts and heart and vulnerability, all of which he has in spades as a performer. I am so looking forward to this. I kind of want to see it with a large group of people, friends and family that I love. This has to be one of those kinds of film pilgrimages like when my High School took us to see Malcolm X and Schindler's list.

Fave use of light: Witness

Weir Worlds

So "Film Scene Friday" didn't take at all. I guess I'm bad at giving myself reoccurring blog deadlines even on subjects I love. I'm going to move on now to technical aspects in movies only true film lovers can appreciate. Like use of lighting. Yeah, this is usual that portion of the Oscars where you usually go to the bathroom are start a side conversation or just nod off. But I watch movies I really love over and over for technique on many levels. Light is kind high on that list and "Witness" directed by Peter Weir aside from being one of my all time favorite movies ever is also pretty high up there on my list of movies whose use of light knocks me out time after time. The use of light to convey something painterly and holy, warm and natural, even menacing is a skill Weir used masterfully in Witness.

Lets not even speak of framing and composition. Every shot is a masterpiece. From the opening shot of tall wheat swaying gently in the wind to the closing shots of John and Rachel (Biblical much?) part ways, each into their own separate worlds after changing one another for life.

Claire Morning

The truth is I’m very fragile inside. When I was a young girl, I was always the worrier, the over thinker, the romantic, daydreaming weirdo who was touched deeply by things no one else really noticed. I was very quiet and shy and living in my head. I always had my face in a book and I connected very deeply to the interior of certain fictional character narratives. I felt their feelings, remembered their memories.  I got very emotional at the movies, very attached to stories. I still do. I cried while watching Joan of Arc in the dark in my film class this semester. I can’t help it. I was always the one thinking things that no one felt needed to be bothered. I liked to bother those things. I dared disturb the universe.  Mystery intrigued me. The unknown was where I most wanted to go, the mysterious places where no one was. This is one of the reasons I have always felt so connected to characters played by Claire Danes.  The strength of her fragile portrayals have always been compelling to me. 

 “I Love You, I Love You Not” is certainly not one of the best movies ever. I think the worst thing about it is the horrible title, but the film itself is one of my personal favorites. This morning, on my way to work, I started singing “Daisy Bell” a song that is sung in the film. I think the tune just comes to mind at particularly beautiful times when I’m alone and my heart is feeling light.  I decided to check Netflix to see if the film was streaming since I had to be to work an hour earlier than normal at work this morning and no one was around. Immediately I was swept away again. An adolescent girl is profoundly disturbed by the historical tragedy that pervades her Jewish descent, which she feels will keep her from ever being “normal.”  She is in love with the hopelessly, carelessly beautiful and popular Ethan, played perfectly by Jude Law whose talent I have always found to be brilliantly sensual and cruel at its best. 

Claire Danes is just incredible. Delicate, powerful sensual, she just embodies that time of life so well. And for me, it’s like watching the way I was at that age in a mirror. The feeling, for whatever reason of never being able to fit in, the longing for someone so much, and yet the need to live with that someone more in your mind, in your dreams where it’s safe as opposed to reality where things have a tendency to fall apart and never live up to those dreams. And then there is the story of her grandmother’s survival from the Jewish concentration camps in Auschwitz. Her Grandmother, “Nana”, played just superbly by the great Jeane Moreau, still lives with the memories of being ripped from her own safe memories of normalcy. She lovingly employs the tools of story and beauty and a life of bohemian intellect as diversions to keep her own spirit from being torn apart by the betrayals of her own youth and the deep friendship she shared with a beautiful girl who eventually turned away from her when she needed her most. The connection that Daisy and Nana share with one another, the time they spend together although primarily in leisure is essentially in a space of unearthing hidden wounds and healing from them. 

For me it is heartbreakingly beautiful and it still gets me right at the core. Something about the romance between Daisy and Ethan, between her grandmother and her long lost friend and most evidently, between her and Daisy, mirror each other in the most devastatingly touching way. It never fails to reduce me to tears. Claire Danes could never be normal and thank God. Because how could we ever relate to someone normal, whatever that is? It’s taken me a long time to accept the beauty in the things in myself which do not “fit” in an idea of social normalcy and I consider it a triumphant victory. When I see these things reflected in art and media and any form of personal expression, I applaud them not only out loud but from deep within. Normalcy is a fantasy, a romance. And we need that illusion for contrast in the study of our lives. The truth is much more complicated, and if we look closely, with care, with sensitivity, much more beautiful than any fantasy.

Chris Messina: 28 Hotel Rooms

"What do you like about me?"

I guess I've been on kind of a Messina kick ever since I happened upon "Giant Mechanical Man" a few weeks ago. I remember seeing him for the first time in "Six Feet Under" one of my favorite tv series ever several years ago. I didn't think much of him one way or the other. Then I saw him in "Humboldt County" and wasn't sure what to think. By the time I saw Messina next in "Away We Go" which I loved, I knew at the very least that I liked it when he showed up in a film. After  "Giant Mechanical Man" which I watched over Spring Break I kind of fell like a ton of bricks for Messina and went searching for anything with him in it that was streaming on Netflix and am now obsessed with "The Mindy Project" which is an amazing show with a fantastic cast in it's own rite but which is even more so somehow because a dramatic actor like Messina is on it for some odd reason I can't imagine but am deeply thankful for.

Last night after watching Messina in "28 Hotel Rooms" I'm convinced he has real talent. In fact most of the time I find it hard to believe he is acting. I tend to feel everything he's doing as if it's actually happening and not carefully rehearsed. "28 Hotel Rooms" just to be clear is not just a film to watch so you can see Messina's penis. Although if that's all you're looking for, yeah, you're gonna get some full frontal Messina. Far from the sensation of nudity or sex for that matter, this film is a skillfully edited collection of scenes chronicling the intimacy that evolves between two people, both in relationships or married to other people as they hook up in hotel rooms during business trips over an unknown period of time. The hotel door numbers are used as intertitles/time stamps and nothing else. We see this couple, who they are, what they learn about each other and themselves only when they meet up or end up in these 28 Hotel rooms. It took me a while to really get drawn in because I had a little trouble connecting to the female lead character played by Marin Ireland who I have never seen before. Her character is someone whose conservative ideals are very at odds with my leftist sensibilities and yet it's these kinds of films which make you squirm in discomfort that make you realize how much you have in common even with someone you may never want to speak with or have anything to do with in real life. Her character evolves from a seemingly cold and distancing exterior in the beginning to something inevitably more human and vulnerable by the end. This is not necessarily a good or bad thing. It's just what happens and it's interesting and a bit harrowing to watch.

Messina's power as I recognize now, even in "Six Feet Under" is in an understated kind of delivery. The irony about this though is that he is able to be about six or seven different versions of his character during the course of this movie. I won't say that he doesn't have range. He does. But at the core is something very "Messina-like" which consists of an astounding ability he has to let himself be on camera without doing too much. He's definitely physical but he never seems to be putting on an act. His very Jewish New York accent, his endearing sort of sideways smile, the way he lets things in with his eyes, feels very much like something I've seen him do to some degree in many of his performances and yet he always seems to temper each performance to make all these same elements evoke something different in the viewer each time. Much is due as well to the director, Matt Ross who creates these somewhat airless hotel interiors where it feels often as if you're right there in the room like a voyeur, observing these two people. Very rarely does he use a musical score when they are dialoging and even when they're not, he just lets the silence be what it is and there are a few really long, pregnant silences where all you can do sit with the awkwardness of what may  may not be happening between these two characters while nothing is being said.