Dec

31

This support spotlight from ward-comedian-cum-notorious-cult-figure Paul Reubens (alias Pee-Wee Herman) isn’t in the same class as Pee-Wee’s Weighty Feat, but still provides plenty of prizewinning pickings for kids, kooks and academics. Pee-Wee is down on the farm with his talking pig Vincent when a circus pitches tent in the adjacent field. Soon our hero is convinced there’s sawdust in his veins. So are we, because comedians don’t come much alien than Pee-Wee. You’d think twice about taking sweetmeats from this baby, but his deadpan perversity is both funny unique to and funny ha-ha.

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Dec

30

Redbelt (2008)

December 30, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Redbelt 09

Venerable screenwriter-director David Mamet brings subterfuge to the world of mixed martial arts in a muscular tale of trust and honour. Chiwetel Ejiofor is the L.A. jiu-jitsu instructor whose strict personal code is put in a stranglehold by mounting debts and several cruel twists of fate. Emily Mortimer and Tim Allen are among the suits, scammers and celebrities throwing up diversions as he looks for a way out. Think The Karate Kid with added karma.

“There is no situation you cannot escape from” says kung-fu guru Mike Terry (Ejiofor) to all his students.

 

He is given ample opportunity to prove it as David Mamet sets him on the path to righteousness in this grown-up version of The Karate Kid.

 

It begins with an incident at Mike’s gym whereby a skittish lawyer (Mortimer) inadvertently causes havoc with a gun, adding to the problems of an already troubled cop and heaping more financial woe on Mike and his exasperated wife (

I Am Legend

’s Alice Braga).

 

She insists that Mike goes to her club-owner brother for a loan. Too proud to ask, all he comes away with is a knife wound and the gratitude of Chet Frank, the going-to-seed movie star he saved in a bar-room brawl (Allen, playing it straight if not exactly stretching himself).

 

But while a dinner invitation from Chet seems to mark a change in the Terrys’ fortunes, it merely casts them into a cesspool of unscrupulous producers, promoters and loan sharks played by Mamet regulars Joe Mantegna, Ricky Jay and David Paymer.

 

A tragedy and multiple betrayals leave Mike with no choice but to forget his samurai mantra – “competition weakens the fighter” – and enter the ring for a big prizefight in front of the TV watching masses and his old master.

Shelter your karmic bubble because patently money corrupts and nonentity plays okay any more.  

Grabbing his leading role with both hands, Ejiofor shows unwavering commitment in holding together Mamet's hit-and-miss mixture of martial arts and meditative mumbo-jumbo.

With disaster epic 2012 under his belt, the East End lad is rapidly becoming one of the most versatile contenders in Hollywood.

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Elliott Noble

Redbelt Pictures


1:40PM, Jan 06, 2009

Redbelt 02
1 of 9



Redbelt

In writer-director David Mamet's characteristically sophisticated action drama, Chiwetel Ejiofor plays a martial-arts instructor who becomes involved with a troubled lawyer (Emily Mortimer), a movie star (Tim Allen) and her shifty manager (Joe Mantegna) when he lands a job in the film business.

Dec

29

Pearl Harbor review

December 29, 2009 | Leave a Comment

POLITE APPLAUSE
PEARL HARBOR: Action romance. Starring Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnett and Kate
Beckinsale. Directed by Michael Bay. (PG-13. 180 minutes. At Bay Area
theaters).


“Pearl Harbor” is about a passionate love triangle that gets
interrupted when enemy planes bomb an isolated military outpost. Directed by
Michael Bay, the picture has less to do with America’s entry into World War II
than it does with the romantic dilemmas of a pretty nurse played by Kate
Beckinsale torn between Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett.

Yet any film that maintains audience interest for three solid hours is, by
definition, some kind of good movie. That’s what “Pearl Harbor” is — some
kind of good movie.

It has more cliches than fireballs. But it expertly capitalizes on the
emotional associations Americans have with Pearl Harbor and renders the battle
scenes with an excellence that goes beyond proficiency and into the realm of
art. Audiences will find themselves swept away, even if they were snickering
moments before.

Still, there’s plenty to snicker about. This is the kind of movie where, if
someone throws a punch, it turns into a bar fight. If a woman throws up, she’s
pregnant. If someone leaves for war, the lover is late getting to the train.
People carouse and drink on Dec. 6, 1941, as if they’re in “From Here to
Eternity.” And an officer actually utters the line “You know, we may lose this
battle, but we will win this war.”

There’s one (fairly modest) sex scene, and it’s hard to know what to make
of it, since it takes place to the accompaniment of a chorus singing, “Ooh,
ooh, ooh” on the soundtrack. Perhaps that means the angels approve.

But would the angels approve of the way FDR is presented here? The script
turns Franklin Roosevelt (Jon Voight) into a comic-book president who speaks
in platitudes





and has none of the wit, shrewdness or geniality of the actual man. Take
away the wheelchair, the pince-nez and the cigarette holder and replace them
with a beard and a stovepipe hat, and he might just as well be Lincoln.

Like life itself, then, “Pearl Harbor” could be described as a comedy for
those who think and a tragedy for those who feel. The difference is that,
unlike life, “Pearl Harbor” was produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, and
Bruckheimer’s movies inevitably force viewers to feel something. When the
Japanese bombers take off, and we see them flying above the clouds on a
beautiful day, there’s no escaping the sense of historical moment. We don’t
just know but feel America leaving one world and entering another.

The love story is the old-fashioned kind, a little the worse for wear.
Affleck plays Rafe, an American fighter pilot who can’t wait to see military
action. Before America enters the war, Rafe leaves his nurse girlfriend,
Evelyn (Beckinsale), and goes off to Britain to fight in the Royal Air Force
(at which point he might have spelled his name “Ralph”). The frequent shots of
the two writing and pining for each other bring home the sacrifices made by
that generation of young people.

After Rafe is reported dead, the grief-stricken Evelyn and Rafe’s childhood
buddy, Danny (Hartnett), also a fighter pilot, overcome their grief by
becoming lovers — just in time for Rafe to turn up alive and get mad at both
of them.

“Pearl Harbor” juggles its personal story with scenes meant to convey, in
shorthand, the political situation. Mako plays Adm. Yamamoto, who, even as he
plans the Japanese assault, is none too happy at the prospect of waking a
“sleeping giant.” Dan Aykroyd has a small role as a military decoder, and Alec
Baldwin gives a middle-aged gutsiness to Lt. Col. Doolittle. Still, the focus
remains on the personal, with the coming war a mere backdrop.

But what a backdrop. The Royal Air Force dogfights, early in the film, are
more rapid and intense than those in any other World War II film. And when the
attack finally comes, director Bay is in his element. “Pearl Harbor” is not
just big, it’s finely detailed. People wake up to the sound of planes flying
low overhead. Americans are so taken by surprise that a seaman looks unalarmed
as he watches a torpedo about to crash into his ship.

The camera follows a bomb as it falls through the sky and hits the
battleship Arizona, taking more than 1,100 men with it. Some bombs look like
duds. They’re not. American pilots struggle to get their planes in the air,
but they’re shelled before they can leave the ground. The ferocity of the
attack, its abruptness, its devastation, is daunting to behold. The explosions,

rendered by computer, don’t look real so much as hyper-real, as though
emanating from some collective American nightmare.

Bay even capsizes a ship, calling to mind “Titanic,” the film “Pearl
Harbor” most resembles. The truth is, people who loved “Titanic” will probably
only like “Pearl Harbor,” while people who hated “Titanic” just might enjoy
“Pearl Harbor.” This one is neither as good nor as bad as “Titanic.” It’s less
corny, less romantic and takes fewer chances, but in the end, it gets the job
done.


This film contains lots of military violence and a modest sex scene.

E-mail Mick LaSalle at mlasalle@sfchronicle.com.

Dec

26

The Movie:
“What does a scanner give some thought to? Into the head? Down into the sentiment? Does it see into me, into us? Absolutely or darkly? I hope it sees clearly, because I can’t any longer see into myself. I see single murk. I anticipation for everyone’s account the scanners do better. Because if the scanner sees only darkly, the aspect I do, then I’m cursed and cursed again. I’ll only pick up up dead this way, knowledgeable very hardly, and getting that Lilliputian fragment ill-treat too.”

-Bob Arcter

A Scanner Darkly, based on the novel by Philip K. Dick, is the darkest, funniest, most tragic, most surreal, most not sci-fi and most sci-fi film of 2006. It centers around Bob Arcter (Keanu Reeves), a man hopelessly addicted to Substance D, a mind-destroying drug in the near future. He lives with Barris (Robert Downey Jr.) and Luckman (Woody Harrelson), and dates Donna (Winona Ryder). They’re all drug addicts, and they all know it. What they don’t know is that Bob is actually an undercover narcotics agent for the Orange County Police Department. He routinely steps into a Scramble Suit, a thin membrane which overlaps images of other people so Bob cannot be identified, and goes by the name of Fred as he reports on the goings on at his house. Since his identity is to remain anonymous, he has to report on himself as well. Unfortunately, Substance D has certain side effects, one of which includes the splitting of personalities. Soon Fred doesn’t know that Arcter is inside his Scramble Suit, and Arcter knows he’s being watched, but he doesn’t know he’s the one doing the watching.

Philip K. Dick lived in Berkeley during the height of the counter culture movement. He lived through the Nixon years, where informants infiltrated political groups and other “subversive” collectives. Dick, high on amphetamines, was certain he was under surveillance (and he might have been partially correct). A Scanner Darkly is about his experiences, and about his friends. The film and the book both end with a coda listing people Dick knew who were permanently damaged or killed by the drugs they took. As you can see, the book was very personal to Dick, and one would imagine that it would be more difficult to adapt than some of his earlier, more purely science fiction works.

But then one hasn’t taken into account the creative brilliance of Richard Linklater. The director, who started his career with Slacker and had a massive hit with the Jack Black comedy School of Rock, has always been unpredictable, sending out feelers in many directions at once. Look at some of his experiments, including Tape, Before Sunrise, and Waking Life, and you’ll see a director not afraid to take chances, even if it means failure. And I have to point most heavily to Waking Life, Linklater’s rotoscoped ode to the sort of mindless rambling that you’d find in a college freshman philosophy 101 course. Waking Life is the definition of cinematic masturbation, having no point while vainly trying to hoodwink the audience into thinking it unveils deep secrets. However, the film did allow Linklater to refine the art of rotoscoping, which is where someone shoots live action material and then has animators draw over the scenes to make them look animated. It’s not a new technique, but it’s usually confined to small portions of a movie. Linklater used it for an entire feature in Waking Life and did so again for A Scanner Darkly.

It’s this rotoscoping that allows Linklater to faithfully bring Dick’s harrowing story to the screen. The novel reads like a paranoiac acid trip, and the rotoscoping does a perfect job of separating the film from every day reality. Even the simplest shots have items subtly changing shape and size, and everything has an unreal look to it. Of course, this technique allows for the seamless integration of the Scramble Suits, which is easily the visual high point of the film. Linklater smartly does not overuse the rotoscoping to make each scene filled with cartoonish hallucinations. Instead, he lets the story unfold in a disjointed manner, reflecting the mindset of someone who would be taking Substance D. The film is tied together by Bob Arcter, whose experiences inform the rest of the film.

Keanu Reeves gets a lot of flak as an actor, but the truth is that without him, this film would not have been made. He spent a long time with the script and with Linklater, learning who Arcter is and what makes him tick. He does an admirable job carrying the picture, slowly disintegrating into two different personalities. The real highlight, though, is Robert Downey Jr. as Barris. Downey disappears into Barris, using him to indulge in the craziest mannerisms possible. He’s absolutely hilarious and also contains an edge of menace. The rest of the cast fill things in nicely, but the real core of the movie is the interplay between Reeves and Downey.

When asked about A Scanner Darkly Philip K. Dick commented that he isn’t a character in the novel, he’s the novel itself. And his spirit definitely inhabits the movie, as well. A Scanner Darkly is easily the most faithful Dick film adaptation to date. Most screenwriters take an idea or two from Dick and use them as a springboard for their own thoughts. And in the case of a work like Blade Runner, that worked. But Linklater stayed true to the source material, giving the whole piece that extra resonance for those familiar with Dick’s work. It also shows the genius of Dick’s writing. A Scanner Darkly is tough and essential viewing.

The HD DVD:

The Image:
Warner Bros. Home Entertainment presents A Scanner Darkly in a 1080p 1.85:1 VC-1 encode. Being a brand new film, A Scanner Darkly looks predictably excellent. Of course, due to the rotoscoping, the film is essentially animation, which large swaths of uninterrupted color and low detail. This makes the encoding process so much easier (also why upconverted SD animation can look almost as good as the same material in true HD), but just because it’s easy to make the movie look good doesn’t mean that we should be any less appreciative when it does. The transfer ably recreates the way the movie looked in the theater, with deep black lines and subtly shifting imagery. I couldn’t find any compression artifacts, even when I was scouring the screen, which was quite often considering how beautiful this film is.

The Audio:
You’d think that for a new release, Warner would have been able to provide a lossless Dolby TrueHD track. Sadly, we only get a Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 track. To be honest, the film is almost entirely all dialogue (with the exception of a pair of aurally amplified gunshots and some car trouble), so perhaps a lossless track wouldn’t have done much, anyway. What we do have works. There’s not much surround action going on after the opening, but dialogue is clear and intelligible.

The Supplements:

The Conclusion:
A Scanner Darkly is the most faithful adaptation of a Philip K. Dick novel to date. That alone makes the film worth seeing. But it also helps that it’s a really strong piece, with some great performances and a cinematic trick that never wears out its welcome. The HD DVD looks fantastic and has a strong set of supplements that make this one Highly Recommended.

Daniel Hirshleifer is the High Definition Editor for DVD Talk.

Dec

24

After ascending to the throne of Valusia, Kull (Kevin Sorbo)
faces immediate opposition from imperilled prince Taligaro (Thomas
Ian Griffith) and Kull’s own unusual bride. She is really the flagitiousness
goddess Akivasha (Tia Carrere), who has recently risen in
spectacular fashion from a 3,000-year entombment. Akivasha wants
to gather over Valusia and enslave it, making it into a living
hell. Overthrown, Kull and his beautiful slave girl, Zareta
(Karina Lombard), and her brother reverend (Litefoot) go on a long
journey to capture the Breath of Valka, which (obviously) is the
alone junk that can kill Akivasha.

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Dec

21

The Boys (1997)

December 21, 2009 | Leave a Comment

BOYS, THE


SYNOPSIS:
On his return home after a year in gaol, Brett Sprague (David
Wenham), one of three brothers, discovers things have changed and
his insecurities build. Brett?s girlfriend, Michelle (Toni
Collette) resents the modus vivendi = ‘lifestyle’ Brett has changed. His brothers, Glenn
(John Polson) and Stevie (Anthony Hayes) are restless and
boozing; Stevie?s fruitful girlfriend (Anna Lise) is a
nusiance, hanging around. Chaos reigns in the Sprague domicile as
their materfamilias, Sandra (Lynette Curran), makes a stand against her
sons' behaviour. George (Pete Smith), Sandra?s current
lover, steps between Sandra and Brett at the tallness of a drunken
rage and is flattened by Brett. Sandra orders her sons not allowed of the
dwelling. Rejected by their respective girlfriends and their mam,
the Sprague boys are communal in a futile paddywack against the straws of
them. Brett leads his brothers below average into the nightfall. Wound in every way
the story is the aftermath of that night in the form of
sign-forwards.

"Other than with a handful of films like Romper Stomper,
Metal Skin or Blackrock, Australian filmmakers have not been
drawn to the dark side of life in Australia?s communities,
the areas from which come the crimes that hit the papers. The
Boys – originally a play but you wouldn?t know it looking at
the film ? was prompted by a series of crimes in which young
women were plucked from the street and brutalised; the most
memorable, perhaps, being Anita Cobby. To its credit, The Boys is
more interested in the exploration of the mindset of its three
central characters, than in showing us a bashing and a rape.
Sewell?s script, structured (like the play) with sparsely
used flash forwards that jump further and further ahead in time,
carries us through the flimsy walls of the Sprague house into the
lives of this ill-fated family, with its broken marriage,
disgruntled and aimless sons, the pathetic pregnant girlfriend
and its ticking time bomb of a young man whose personality and
circumstances have combined to turn him into an anti-social,
anti-pathetic, anti-sensitive packet of dysfunction. David Wenham
gives a sensational performance as Brett the brat, matched by the
entire cast for intensity, complexity and credibility. Rowan
Woods demonstrates the passion and drive of a first time director
with his striking sense of story telling and cinema, while
Tristan Milani?s camera becomes a surgeon?s scalpel as
we are taken further and further into the film?s substance.
Producers Robert Connolly (who also produced the play) and John
Maynard have brought together the right elements here to make The
Boys one of the most powerful, observant and artistically
satisfying Australian films ever made.


Andrew L. Urban

"Gritty and powerful, The Boys is a hard-hitting drama
that simmers expectantly with underlying frenzy. In his feature
film over inauguration Rowan Woods captures profound tension and mood with
head start close ups and a brusque look at three boys who are out of
exercise power. Highly productive is the cinematic style of flash
forwards, allowing the legend and its consequences to unfold in a
visually powerful and worthy way. While it?s not a pretty
story, the smokescreen?s pulse engages with passion and superb
performances. David Wenham is remarkable as Brett, whose displease
and frustrations are bottling up like a gas vital ready to blow.
Obsessed with avenge, he believes that we are all gods of our
own world. Brett is like an sensual stalking its prey – his mostly
calm exterior shows brooding undertones of danger and murderousness a harm.
Equally numerous are his screen siblings: John Polson has adroit
screen presence as Glenn – he desperately wants to improve
himself, but is feeble-minded, relying on his brother for leadership and
motivation. Lynette Curran is extraordinary as Sandra, the nurse
who desperately tries to keep her boys on the straight and
decrease. The conflict Curran portrays of her maternal pet coupled
with her struggle for a passion of her own and being a compassionate
benefactor being, is all too plain. She is sadly a woeful
rune, with Curran?s brave gig a highlight. The
Boys is cinema vérité, an exciting, awe-inspiring and powerful new
Australian photograph destined to leave its mark."

Louise Keller

"It?s been a long time since an Australian film has
emerged with as much power and energy as this remarkable work by
director Rowan Woods. Taking the stage play, Woods has opened it
up to create a true cinematic piece, one where cameras move about
frenetically to create the image of a character on the edge. The
Boys is a masterful study of family loyalty taken to the
extremes, and the connection, and sometimes lack thereof, that
exists between mother and son. Though the film focuses on a
horrific crime, Woods never takes us there directly, nor falls
into the trap of showing us any major violence. Yet, the film is
a chilling portrait of a man on the verge of his own
self-destruction, and the film?s power lies in its ability
to take us inside a complex and unnerving human creation. David
Wenham created Brett on the stage, and on film, he?s truly
extraordinary. Not since Russell Crowe?s performance in
Romper Stomper, has an Australian actor emerged on the scene with
as much intellect, precision, emotional force and sheer
complexity as Wenham. He?s made this character his own, and
the result is the most intricate and mind-blowing screen
performance in years. Others in the cast are just as formidable,
especially Lynette Curran (also in the play), who gives strength
and vulnerability to the complex mother. Toni Collette is also
strong as Brett?s girlfriend, though it?s a performance
we?ve often seen before. Skilfully directed, superbly and
evocatively shot, brilliantly edited, The Boys is a tough film,
but a rewarding one. Compelling and disturbing, with this movie,
Australian cinema has produced one of its most exciting and
original offspring seen in the last years. This is certainly a
film not to be missed."


Paul Fischer

CRITICAL FIGURE OUT
Auspicious: 4
Unfavourable: 0
Mixed: 0




Infer from Paul Fischer's interview with



THE BOYS


(MA)
(AUS)

CAST: David Wenham, Toni Collette, Lynette Curran, John
Polson, Jeanette Cronin, Anthony Hayes, Anna Lise, Pete Smith

DIRECTOR: Rowan Woods

PRODUCER: Robert Connolly and John Maynard

SCRIPT: Stephen Sewell (based on original play The Boys by
Gordon Graham)

CINEMATOGRAPHER: Tristan Milani

EDITOR: Nick Meyers

MUSIC: The Necks

PRODUCTION DESIGN: Luigi Pittorino

RUNNING TIME: about 90 minutes

AUSTRALIAN DISTRIBUTOR: Globe

AUSTRALIAN RELEASE: May 7, 1998

Dec

19

Casino (1995)

December 19, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Ace bookie and professional gambler Sam Rothstein (Robert De Niro) is sent to Las Vegas in the ancient 1970s by his mafia bosses to step on it the popular landmark casino, the Tangiers. Accompanying him to this dismount of riches is his hot-headed childhood friend Nicky Santoro (Joe Pesci), a made man and notorious stand-over mock. With the two friends eagerly trying to master the city by their own methods: Sam under the aegis proper company and Nicky through strong-arming and organised wrong. Tensions between the two adorn come of strained. But when song-time casino hustler and Sam’s spouse Ginger (Sharon Stone) begins to play the two of them off against each other, as seep as causing major headaches by fabulous up a relationship with her former lover Lester Diamond (James Woods), their world of riches and power begins to implode, risking all they drink created as well as their own lives.

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Dec

17

An sinister-considered union of Greek tragedy and Hollywood romance, “Flesh and Bone” simply not in any degree tops its masterfully staged prologue, which depicts the protagonist’s task in a multiple lay low 25 years earlier. A possibly extinct teeny boy — actually a shill for his thieving inventor (James Caan) — is infatuated in by a kindhearted Texas couple, stuffed full of fried chicken and put to bed with their kids. After midnight, the boy opens the door with a view Caan, who plans only to steal the silver but winds up killing everybody in the dynasty but the toddler.

In a twist that went out with Sophocles, the boy, Arlis (Dennis Quaid), and the baby, Kay (Meg Ryan), meet again years later and gradually fall in love. It’s not surprising, given his heinous past, that Arlis has developed haunted eyes and an emotional detachment. A handsome husk with a string of vending machines, Arlis travels from town to town ministering to his equipment and his various women.

In constantly restocking the Cheez-its, Kools and Trojans, he is doubtless engaged in a subconscious attempt to fill up his vacant heart. Indeed he is somewhat prophetically in the act of refilling a roadhouse condom machine when Kay enters his life again. She is quite literally the drunken filling in a bachelor party cake, from which she jumps more or less into his reluctant arms.

The scene, which compares favorably with some in writer-director Steve Kloves’s directorial debut, “The Fabulous Baker Boys,” is as cute as the actress who plays it. Of course, cute doesn’t quite feel right given the story’s violent origins and the subsequent reappearance of Arlis’s chop-lickin’ father. Just when we had started to relax and let opposites attract.

Quaid and Ryan, husband and wife in real life, make an engaging screen couple, but she doesn’t really inhabit the film the way he does. In fact, she seems to think she’s still in “Sleepless in Seattle.” Call it marital miscasting.

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Quaid, who hasn’t played opposite his wife since the aptly titled “D.O.A.,” probably would have been better off partnered with Gwyneth Paltrow, a sensational newcomer who walks away with the movie in a nonessential role. Paltrow, the daughter of Blythe Danner, is really something of an addendum as a punky young grifter apprenticed to Caan’s chilling con man. It’ll be nice for her resume.

Kloves has taken us on one more ride down this same old Texas highway, with its cheap motels and gloomy cowboys. Ain’t much more to it than that.

“Flesh and Bone” is rated R for sexual situations, nudity and violence.

Dec

12

“… somehow can’t get its feet
on the ground to tell its story without hitting you over the head with
its adolescent charm.”

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

A modern screwball comedy that is bursting with good ideas for both
comedy and dramatics, but somehow can’t get its feet on the ground to tell
its story without hitting you over the head with its adolescent charm.
The talented director Wes Anderson (Bottle Rocket/Rushmore) has
proven to be an interesting young filmmaker who takes chances and doesn’t
rely on formulaic scripts, and is someone who should be admired for his
ambitious plans in this venture more than the results. In the end, the
film suffered from trying to be too cute and quirky without drawing out
too much comedy and by short-changing the drama. The film had a hollow
intellectual feeling to it throughout. It seemed to be the work of a director
who is showing off how clever he can be, without letting the story become
more heartfelt on its own terms.

The fantasy New York City depicted consists of richly ornate brownstones
and swank limestone hotels and buildings. It takes us into richly decorated
brownstone rooms with mahogany furniture and lush red velvet furnishings,
and outside to NYC gypsy cabs and the Green Line bus as its favorite means
of transport. There’s also a Y located on the fictional 375th street that
is used as a contrast to the rich lifestyle of the Tenenbaums, where the
story’s failed hero must now reside after his downfall. All these locations
set up a colorful background for the eccentric Tenenbaum family to operate
in, whose con man patriarch Royal (Hackman) is three-quarter Irish and
one-quarter Hebrew–which goes along with the multi-cultural theme it presents
of this century’s changing American family characteristics.

The main focus is on the manipulative and cruel Royal, who tells
his story of regret that he wasn’t a good father and is now trying to see
if he can reconnect with his children whom he hasn’t seen the last 22 years
as he tries to make things right again.

The film is narrated by Alec Baldwin, seemingly as if this was a
literary presentation. It’s told in the form of a book being opened to
chapters about this brilliant family, which consists of three child prodigies
(all different archetypes): Chas (Stiller), Margot (Paltrow) and Richie
(Luke Wilson, Owen’s brother). Chas became a financial whiz at age 7; Margot,
the adopted child, became an award-winning playwright when in elementary
school; and, Richie, papa’s favorite, became a national tennis champion
at 17. These child prodigies blossomed at an early age, but have all recently
fallen upon personal failures.

The family was abandoned by Royal and was raised by their over-nurturing
mother, Etheline (Anjelica Huston), who has never divorced Royal. Her longtime
friend is also her accountant and bridge partner, the well-dressed and
prosperous landlord, the African-American widower Henry Sherman (Glover),
who has surprisingly asked her to marry him. This is something she said
she would think about.

At this time Royal is being kicked out of the Lindbergh Palace Hotel,
where he has lived for the last 22 years except for the time he spent in
prison because of tax fraud. He was a malpractice lawyer who was disbarred
and has now run short on funds. Royal concocts a scheme to get him back
in his wife’s house with the trusted servant he brought back with him from
a trip to India, Pagoda (he knifed Royal and then saved his life), and
with his hotel’s bellboy, Dusty (he will impersonate a doctor to convince
his wife that he has terminal stomach cancer and will die in 6 weeks).
Also at this same time, all three children return to live with Etheline
in their same childhood rooms because of impending problems they have.
Chas is a widow who has become frightened of life expecting a disaster
to strike at any moment and he brings his two young children with him because
his own place has no fire sprinklers. Margot leaves her older husband Raleigh
St. Clair (Bill Murray), a neurologist, who performs weird attention-getting
experiments on a strange boy-genius named Dudley in order to write a best-selling
book. Margot leaves to get more space for herself to think about her unhappy
marriage (she currently spends most of her time locked in the bathroom)
as she’s secretive in the hopes of finding her own identity and has not
told the family that she once married a Jamaican for 9 days, has had many
different types of lovers, and has smoked cigarettes ever since she was
12. Raleigh hires a private detective to follow her because he believes
she’s having an affair, and she’s caught red-handed on camera with the
eccentric drug-addicted novelist, Eli Cash (Owen Wilson). He’s a neighbor
of the Tenenbaums from childhood who was enchanted by the family and always
wanted to be a Tenenbaum. He writes books because he wants to be accepted
by the family as a fellow genius and has remained best friends with Richie,
whose tennis career went into a meltdown and now pines only for Margot.
Richie returns from a stress-relieving cruise to stay with his security-blanket
mom and sulk about not being with Margot.

The characters were more cartoonish than real and never connected
with the flow of the story but seemed to be merely putting on a quirky
show for the sake of being quirky. The comedy was taken out of Bill Murray’s
dry role, while Luke Wilson never seemed appealing or going anywhere with
his bizarre characterization. As for Owen Wilson, he wrote himself a 
tiresome character to portray. Without the narrator, this film wouldn’t
have been able to connect all the dots it presented.

Gene Hackman is the film’s main staple and he’s such an accomplished
actor, that his is the only role that doesn’t seem paper-thin. He does
it with a gesture here and there, a quiet look, or with the wicked smile
of a rogue who doesn’t seem all that bad when he confesses he’s a cad and
continues to hustle. He shines best when he has his two grandchildren in
tow and teaches them how to have fun in life by being reckless. They cross
in traffic against the light, throw water balloons at a passing cab and
shoplift in a grocery store. Gwyneth Paltrow has a bewildered look throughout,
as she underplays her neurotic role and in no way connects with anyone
else in the film. The same could be said about the Danny Glover and Anjelica
Huston roles, as their characterizations could have been saying something
big but somehow never got around to saying it just right. While Ben Stiller
plays a one-dimensional role of the overprotective parent of Ari and Uzi,
and whose Oedipal angst is constantly aimed at Royal in an annoying and
unfunny way (He hates Royal because he stole money from the trust fund
he earned as a child). I wanted to like this film more than I did, as I
think the performers were up to their tasks and there was something in
the story about how families can’t relate because they don’t know how to
honestly communicate with each other that is worth hearing. It also could
be a story about those who achieve success too early in life and then inevitably
fail without knowing how to recover. But the problem I kept having, was
that I didn’t think this was a real family but a bunch of individuals who
couldn’t connect with one another or with the audience. I therefore saw
the film as an awkward sketch of individuals with too many quirks who were
left hanging out to dry waiting for laffs.

The music track has some of the following solos and groups playing
in the background: Nico, The Velvet Underground, The Stones and the Beatles
singing their rarely played  “Hey Jude.” The music was just fine.
Anderson’s film was co-written by his University of Texas friend, actor
Owen Wilson–as these two broke into film together and have still not outgrown
working on their themes of adolescent rebellion, insecurities and bittersweet
memories.

Dec

11

Impecunious Italian nobleman Prince Amerigo (Jeremy Northam) loves Charlotte Stant (Uma Thurman). To rectify his social and budgetary fortunes he marries Charlotte’s ally Maggie Verver (Kate Beckinsale), the daughter of American millionaire Adam Verver (Nick Nolte). When the widowed Verver marries Charlotte, her passion with Amerigo is re-ignited and an illicit affair begins.

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