NYMPHOMANIAC VOLUME 1

Unrated

Stars: Charlotte Gainsbourg, Stacy Martin, Stellan Skarsgard, Shia LeBouf, Christian Slater, Uma Thurman

Director:  Lars von Trier

Genre: Art House


Lars von Trier's Nymphomaniac: Vol.1 isn't about magic (you wouldn't call it magical in any way) but there is lots of sleight-of-hand going on. What appears to be actual oral sex is accomplished with the use of a prosthesis. A brief shot involving penetration turns out not to be the "name" actors in the film, but rather some porn star body doubles. That said, there's still enough provocative stuff here to push the limits of anything you'll ever see at a "regular" theater. (That's one where you're not likely to be sitting next to Pee Wee Herman, who's signing an autograph for you with his free hand.)  

But Nymphomaniac: Vol.1 wants to take itself seriously, so we must decide whether to do the same. That's a bit difficult to do, though, because there's lots of dark humor here.

Charlotte Gainsbourg, who will do or say basically anything in front of the camera (catch her in von Trier's Antichrist for validation of this), takes on the more genteel role of story teller--recounting her sexual escapades to an older man (Stellan Skarsgard) who found her beaten and bloody in the gutter. The real action (should we call this an "action" film?) falls to young Stacy Martin playing "Joe," the younger version of Gainsbourg's character. Joe and an equally free-spirited friend have a contest to see how many men each of them can seduce on a train. 

There is one brilliant scene where Uma Thurman plays a woman scorned who shows up at Joe's apartment with her young sons in tow. Her husband has abandoned her for the nympho nymphet, thinking she's in love with him. Thurman spreads it on thick with the melodrama, laying a guilt trip on the guy that's one for the ages. When another suitor knocks on the door, the real fun begins.  

Don't know if I'd spend the money to see the conclusion of this two-parter, though the explanation for how Joe ended up in the battered condition we found her in at the beginning of the film is likely to be curiously kinky. May just wait for the DVD, as it's the kind of fare perhaps better enjoyed at home when you've slipped into something more comfortable and have all the shades drawn.

Grade: B

JILL'S TAKE

"Short and sweaty." That's how I'd describe this flick. Only it wasn't short by any means... Like NYMPHOMANIAC: VOL. 1, a film that's presented in five chapters, I will chop up this review accordingly.

1. If you think penises are all pretty much the same, go see this movie.
2. If you want to see Christian Slater's ass crack, go see this movie. (He plays the nympho's caring, tree-fixated dad; a man whose struggles with alcohol are never even hinted at before he winds up in a straight jacket shitting himself.)
3. If you want to be the only female in the audience, go see this movie.
4. If you want to see every nook and cranny of Stacy Martin's rail thin, prepubescent-looking body, go see this movie.
5. .If you want to get turned on? Read Fifty Shades of Grey

Grade: C

THE COMPANY YOU KEEP (2013)

Rated:  PG-13

Stars: Robert Redford,  Shia LaBeouf,  Susan Sarandon, Julie Christie

Director: Robert Redford

Genre: Mystery/Suspense, Political Thriller 


The Boston Marathon bombing has given The Company You Keep  a kind of relevance and topicality it might not otherwise have appeared to possess. The film pings upon historical events from the politically turbulent sixties and seventies to present a fictionalized story that bears the ring of authenticity.   

The Weather Underground, which came to be known as the Weathermen, grew out of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in the late sixties.  It was a revolutionary group that conducted bombings of U.S. government buildings, and other targets, primarily in protest of the Vietnam war. As the movie opens,  a  former member of the group, Sharon Solarz, (Susan Sarandon) who had been hiding out as a suburban housewife, is preparing to turn herself in for her part in a bank robbery that turned deadly back in the seventies.  (Look up Sara Jane Olsen, aka Kathleen Soliah!) 

The ensuing publicity results in one of her cohorts, lawyer Jim Grant, being ferreted out by  cub reporter Ben Shepard, (Shia LaBeouf) who is still cutting his teeth at an Albany, New York newspaper.  Grant (Robert Redford) is in reality Nick Sloan, and he may or may not be guilty of having participated in that same robbery. He goes on the run to attempt to prove his innocence, and in the process reunites with some of his old comrades, which gives Nick Nolte, Richard Jenkins, and Julie Christie a reason to be in this movie.  

Sloan is particularly anxious to hook up with his old flame, Mimi Lurie, (Julie Christie) who, unlike some of the others, hasn't developed a different perspective through the passage of time. (Christie, who is now in her early seventies, is eerily reminiscent of Katherine Hepburn here.)  Lurie is unapologetic for carrying the same ideals that galvanized her, and many of her contemporaries back in the day, to demonstrate what people power can actually accomplish by bringing an unjust war to an end.  When their clandestine meeting finally occurs,  Lurie still has fire in her eyes--still railing against a system that brought us Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and the loss of so many innocent lives on all sides. 

 I think it was Redford's intention, by taking on this project,  to give a little poke at a society that has grown complacent in many ways--and to say HEY, the questions raised in the Vietnam era haven't gone away--they are still here, as relevant today as they ever were. 

To those too young to have lived through these events, The Company You Keep may simply seem to be relating a tale of homegrown terrorism from another era.  Baby boomers are more likely to grasp the complexity of the issues that existed at the time. And while there is  no disputing that  their actions were tragically misguided, the difference between organizations like The Weathermen and the Boston bombers is that the former believed that they loved their country, whereas the latter apparently hated it. 

That said, The Company You Keep  does a good job of bringing some balanced perspective to an era that becomes ever more misunderstood as time passes and we grow farther and farther away from the fact. Efforts to try to rewrite history for the purpose of promoting a particular agenda are something that should be vigilantly guarded against.

There are some intriguing twists and turns, and a few loose ends don't get tied up at the conclusion, but beyond the nuts and bolts of the plot, The Company You Keep is a thoughtful attempt to examine still relevant questions about the use and misuse of government power.

Grade:  B +

    

TRANSFORMERS 2: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN

Yes, Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen is totally BANANAS-- but I like bananas, generally speaking. The transformers are giant shape-shifting robots that fall into two camps: The AUTOBOTS and the DECEPTICONS. Like the Democrats and the Republicans, they've been at war with each other since day one. On their home planet, Cybertron, they battled over Allspark--the energy source that gave them life. The Allspark gets shipped off the planet (Federal Express?) and ends up on Earth. That's the bare bones backstory from the first movie, and now the stage is set in Transformers 2 for the autobots--led by Optimus Prime, and the decepticons, led by Megatron--to battle it out again, this time with the fate of our planet hanging in the balance.

Hapless college student Sam Witwicky, (Shia LaBeouf) who killed Megatron in the first film, is swept up in the conflict again--along with his girlfriend Mikaela, (Megan Fox-the obligatory eye candy for teenage boys) and his parents (Kevin Dunn and Julie White).

Transformers 2 is nearly non-stop action, with a few short breathers here and there--and sometimes it's hard to tell who's beating the living crap out of whom, since one big hulking robot looks pretty much like another (which wouldn't be politically correct to say on Cybertron). It's a big, ostentatious, chaotic, clang and bang fest--and I was just impressed by the sheer immensity and spectacle of it all (but then, I'm impressed by the 4-slice toaster!)

It's kind of like life...you may not know what's going on, but you can still enjoy yourself.

My favorite scene has got to be when Sam's mother gobbles some pot brownies, totally loses it,

and then runs amuck--which I've always wanted to do in a gorilla suit. There's something endearing about a gorilla suit that makes people more forgiving of the one who's running amuck.

There's a lot of off the wall humor in Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen--surprising, and yes, refreshing--since most action/thriller flicks take themselves much more seriously.

But I suppose that, when it comes down to it, what really appeals to me about this film is the many faces of heroism--both human and otherwise. I'd like to think that we'd all step up to the plate if some crazy, two-storied, clanking hulks of scrap metal were fighting and screwing around on top of the pyramids and causing them to, like...start to crumble and stuff. Somebody already messed with the nose on the Sphinx, and I'm still annoyed about that.

And now a word about reviving "dead" characters in sequels. Ever since J.R. Ewing got shot and supposedly died in the TV finale of Dallas in 1980--then got resurrected five years later in a follow up film--TV and screen writers have been playing fast and loose with the facts of life and death in Freddy Krueger-like fashion. A character like Megatron can be killed and revived as many times as may be convenient, when millions of bucks are on the line. The special effects (or computer graphics imagery) are the real stars of these blockbuster movies, and because it takes a lot of time and and a grueling amount of work to design and animate one of these big bad boys, expect that the dead shall rise again in the inevitable third installment.

GRADE: B +