Rated: PG-13
Stars: Sixto Rodriguez and friends
Director: Malik Bendjellout
Genre: Documentary
He had a Roy Orbison-like affectation, (never took off his sunglasses) a Dylan-esque musical style and sound, and looked a bit like Jose Feliciano. Mexican-American singer-songwriter Sixto Rodriguez (who went by "Rodriguez" professionally) was discovered by two record producers who caught his act in a Detroit bar during the late sixties. They signed him to a record contract, figuring the guy would take off like gangbusters. But the two albums Rodriguez put out flopped in the United States.
Curiously, his music--which paid homage to the common man, with anti-establishment political overtones--caught fire with opponents of apartheid in South Africa. And was promptly banned--which is always going to make something seem more enticing for people to seek out. (And yes, South Africa's racial policies were disgraceful, but as you nod your head in agreement, don't forget about our own appalling segregationist laws which prevailed in America prior to 1964.) That Rodriguez was not aware that he had become more popular than Elvis on this other continent seems incredible in this day of instantaneous communication via the internet. Here, he faded back into obscurity--which wasn't hard for him to do--working manual labor construction jobs, and occasionally doing some singing gigs in Detroit bars.
Searching For Sugar Man is the documentary that begins with the compelling mystery of Rodriguez. Rumors can take on a life of their own, and sometimes become legend. Many believed that he had committed suicide by setting himself afire onstage. Through interviews with friends, family, and former record producers, we discover what really happened to the man. Interspersed are songs from his albums Cold Fact--1970, and Coming From Reality--1971.
While listening, you will wonder why Rodriguez--whose songs were plaintive and poignant, and whose voice was as distinctive and mellifluous as any you will ever hear, didn't catch on in the states. Such is the fickle finger of fate. Though now, since the release of Searching For Sugar Man--a compelling, inspirational film that will make your spirit soar--perhaps he will.
Bring tissue.
Grade: A
P.S. My movie-going friend thinks Searching For Sugar Man is surefire Oscar nomination material. But then, she predicted the Edsel would be the most popular car on the market.
RATED: PG-13
Stars: Logan Lerman, Ezra Miller, Emma Watson, Mae Whitman
Director: Steven Chbosky
Genre: Drama
Steven Chbosky brings his coming-of-age novel to the screen as writer and director of The Perks Of Being A Wallflower. The central character is Charlie, (Logan Lerman) a high school freshman with some unspecified mental problems (the bulk of which are revealed near the end) that cause him to be so shy that he won't raise his hand in class when he is the only one with the right answer to the teacher's question.
The story is set in an unspecified time, but we see Charlie, who wants to be a writer, pecking away on a manual typewriter, so we know the era is pre-internet. (In fact, it is the early nineties.)
As an incoming freshman, Charlie doesn't know where he fits in, but step-siblings Patrick (Ezra Miller) and Sam, (Emma Watson) a couple of other misfits, come to his rescue and befriend him. Patrick is gay and still in the closet. Sam has been around the block some for her age, and her thing is that she picks the wrong guys to get attached to. But they are both good dancers, and much of the process of learning to navigate one's way through the perils and the pitfalls of high school is played out at teenage house parties where Charlie eventually gets his back up off the wall and ventures onto the dance floor. Then, being the total innocent he is, unwittingly consumes a pot brownie and becomes a much more interesting conversationalist. (While the energy kicks into gear with some great eighties tunes like "Come On Eileen" and "Don't Dream It's Over.")
Charlie is developing a thing for Sam, but it's that unrequited love of the painfully shy, who always seem to end up with someone less appealing but more accessible, as when he gets involved in an awkward pairing with punk rocker Mary Elizabeth (Mae Whitman).
Ezra Miller gets a "A" on his report card for his work in this one.
But there are things about The Perks Of Being A Wallflower that feel slightly off-kilter. Maybe it has something to do with the age of the actors. At this writing, Logan Lerman is 20, Ezra Miller is 20, Emma Watson is 22, and Mae Whitman is 24. All just a bit past their sell-by dates to be totally believable as high-schoolers.
But I really think it's because The Perks Of Being A Wallflower wants so terribly to be precious and poignant, and tries too hard to convince us that it is, and as a result its affectation is showing. Sort of like a figure skater with a lot of potential who hasn't quite mastered the art of making it look effortless.
The movie wants to be in the same class with similar themed classics like The Breakfast Club and American Graffiti. But it isn't.
GRADE: C
Rated: R
Stars: Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranston, John Goodman, Alan Arkin
Director: Ben Affleck
Genre: Suspense/Thriller
Argo is a real film and a fake film. The fake film is what the real film is about. Ben Affleck does a masterful job of directing the real film, including himself in the pivotal role. (It must have been weird to see him do his split-second switch from actor to director, yelling "CUT" right after delivering his own lines.)
The fake film Argo is a cover story to spirit six American diplomats out of Iran during the infamous hostage crisis that began in late 1979 and continued on into 1981. Having overthrown the corrupt Shah, Islamic militants are hungry to have his head on a platter, but he has been given asylum in the U.S. The American embassy has been stormed and fifty-two Americans have been taken hostage. But six others have managed to evade capture and are given shelter in the home of the Canadian ambassador. However, it's only a matter of time before they are sniffed out and meet a truly unpleasant fate.
Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck) is a CIA guy who heads to Iran with the hair-brained scheme (but the best one they have) of turning the six fugitives into Canadian crew members of the nonexistent movie--supposedly to be filmed in Iran--to get them out of where they are holed up and on a plane to freedom.
Affleck and company--with special kudos to the editing and music score--deftly ratchet up the tension and suspense throughout Argo, keeping us on the edge of our gooey gummy seats (don't reach underneath there) from start to finish.
With any film that is "based upon a true story," as is this one, you can expect a certain amount of embellishment of the truth and dramatic license to be taken, and there is a goodly amount of that in Argo. But when you look into how the real events of this joint Canadian-CIA operation unfolded, (which weren't revealed publicly until years after the fact) you will see where a little tinkering with the truth was necessary to end up with a film as compelling as Argo.
Now, let me pander a little to the conspiracy theorist lurking somewhere in all of us. Is it just coincidence, or just COULD it be the timing of this movie's release is designed to coincide with the stirring up of anti-Iranian paranoia over that country's impending nuclear capabilities, and with Israel ostensibly on the brink of making a preemptive strike? Ya gotta sell it to the public, ya know, just like some people think the "unthinkable"--that 9/11 was staged to provide our government a rationale for the invasion of Iraq.
Well, I'll leave that kind of speculation up to you. But as they say in the world of comedy: Timing is everything.
Grade: A -
Rated: PG-13
Stars: Clint Eastwood, Amy Adams, Justin Timberlake, John Goodman
Director: Robert Lorenz
Genre: Drama
The latest Clint Eastwood vehicle, Trouble With The Curve, is standard formulaic fare, with the major plot developments pretty easy to spot coming straight down the pike. And yet, I'm still just enough of a romantic sap to have gotten drawn in by the emotionally manipulative Walter Mitty-in-a-baseball-cap climax, which saves the win for this movie in the final inning.
Clint Eastwood is Gus Lobel, a snarly over the hill major league baseball scout who possesses a sixth sense about evaluating the upcoming young talent he has been hired to observe. And he needs it, because his eyesight is failing. (Eastwood is now 82 years old. In the real world, a Gus Lobel would have been put out to pasture long ago, but Eastwood can pass for ten years younger than his chronological age, so the bounds of believability are not stretched too terribly tight on that score.)
So Gus's thirty-something daughter, Mickey, (Amy Adams) an attorney with a good shot at making partner in her firm, puts an important case on the back burner to become dad's seeing eye dog in the evaluation of one particular player--a hot prospect named Bo Gentry (Joe Massingill.) But is she ultimately sacrificing her own career for the sake of saving not-so-dear-old-dad's? (They've had a strained relationship over the years.)
Enter the obligatory romantic interest for Mickey in the person of Johnny Flanagan, (Justin Timberlake), former pitcher and now working as a scout for a different team. But Mickey has had trouble getting close to people, and it's tied up with the abandonment she felt about her father's absence during her formative years.
Amy Adams turns in the only noteworthy performance in Trouble With The Curve. though they've tried to make her character some super-human savant, like the ones who have memorized the contents of the telephone book. Yes, she's a chip off the old block, but she spouts off obscure details of decades old baseball games (who were the three batters that Sandy Koufax retired in the bottom of the ninth when he pitched his perfect game in 1965? That kind of stuff.) Nobody who doesn't sit around and devote their whole life to memorizing baseball statistics would come up with that stuff, and as an attorney we assume she has better things to do, so here they HAVE stretched the bounds of believability to the breaking point. It may be a small thing in the context of the entire film, but for me the devil is in the details.
Clint Eastwood will never veer too far from some modified version of Dirty Harry, or the sullen cigar-chomping tough guy from his spaghetti western days, and he growls his way through Trouble With The Curve in similar fashion. He does get a shot at demonstrating some emotional depth here, but comes off sort of like Popeye crying in his spinach. But fans won't care, because if they are true fans they have long ago accepted his limited range, and they are in love with the persona--kind of like the way that I will watch anything Zooey Deschanel is in and become completely absorbed into the black holes of her eyes, and not remember or care about anything else in the movie.
It's all wrapped up in a neat bow at the end, but the climactic scene is a real fist-pumper, and for that reason I am grading this movie on the curve.
GRADE: B
Rated: R
Stars: Robert De Niro, Paul Dano, Jullianne Moore, Olivia Thirlby
Director: Paul Weitz
Genre: Drama
Being Flynn opens with Jonathan Flynn's bombastic narration: America has produced only three classic writers: Mark Twain...J.D. Salinger...and ME! Of course, we've never heard of Jonathan Flynn, (Robert De Niro) so at the outset we know the guy is off his nut.
The narrative passes from father to son--like the writing ability Jonathon has purportedly passed on to Nick Flynn. Nick (Paul Dano) weaves a tale about his alcoholic, delusional , con man of a dad who shows up in his life after being absent for most of it. The story centers on a homeless shelter where Nick has landed a job, and where his dad has taken up residence. Faced with having to deal with the man up close and personal, Nick struggles to not become his father--though his sometimes girlfriend (Olivia Thirlby) begins to observe more and more similarities-- as the debate of nature versus nurture is opened once again. We see the nurture aspect of Nick's life in flashbacks to his deceased mother (Julianne Moore) who raised him in her husband's absence.
Jonathan is an out and out racist and homophobe, and Being Flynn is that rare creative work where there are no punches being pulled in the name of political correctness to tone down his offensive language and behavior (the script tries to be faithful to the real Nick Flynn's award winning 2004 memoir, Another Bullshit Night In Suck City.) And that, in my opinion, is why Being Flynn had such a short run in the theaters. I was all set to see it, but I blinked and it was gone. Suffice it to say the average movie goer may feel squeamish with the in-your-face crudeness that spills from Jonathan's lips at every turn (though I couldn't help but cackle at some of it). So in a climate where certain words and ideas have essentially been banned from public expression in America, let's just quietly make this film disappear, (I can hear them saying) and anyone who really wants to see it can wait for the DVD. Which I did.
And I say too bad that not a lot of people saw it, because De Niro is on top of his game as an individual who has hit bottom. I was flashing back to Ratso Rizzo, Dustin Hoffman's character in Midnight Cowboy, though the similarity is only that they are two brilliant portrayals of down-and-outers. But, you'll be happy to know, the theme here is redemption, and whether it's possible for a man like Jonathan Flynn. Or his son for that matter. With a captivating soundtrack by Badly Drawn Boy.
Being Flynn is not a pretty movie. But it is beautiful.
Grade: A
Rated: PG-13
Stars: Bradley Cooper, Jeremy Irons, Zoe Saldana, Dennis Quaid, Olivia Wilde
Director: Brian Klugman & Lee Sternthal
Genre: Romantic drama/ Mystery
A friend of mine predicts that Jeremy Irons' performance in The Words will garner him an Oscar nomination. My crystal ball is somewhat murkier on that score. It's a damn good turn, to be sure, but knowing how the Academy normally has to be ga ga about the film itself to bestow such individual recognition--and The Words is getting panned by a lot of critics--all bets are off. Those who aren't dismissing the film, however, are glowing about it, creating a dichotomy of opinion that I always find intriguing, and therefore ready to jump into the fray and lay out the naked truth...the gospel...the straight poop. (Regular visitors to this site know that I've never dispensed any crooked poop!)
Fact is, that by the time the closing credits were rolling, I was blown away by this movie--but it wasn't until the actual ending that it had grown on me to that degree. The Words is a tale within a tale within a tale, which can make you forget who the Original Storyteller is to begin with...kind of like all of us wee lost souls here on planet earth (the "riders on the storm" that Jim Morrison sang about).
Bradley Cooper is Rory Jansen, a talented writer, but apparently not talented enough to get his novels published. When he discovers an old manuscript that he instinctively senses is better and more marketable than anything he has created himself, he does some soul searching--but not a whole lot of it--and decides to claim the work as his own. Now a celebrated author, Rory's karma catches up to him in the form of the old man who actually wrote the book (Jeremy Irons)
Interwoven is the story "Old Man" (he is never given a name) created in his novel, about his days as a GI in Paris, the woman he falls in love with, and the personal tragedy they bear together.
Eventually we are steered back to the creator of both these fictional tales, writer Clay Hammond, (Dennis Quaid).
Or ARE they fictional? Heh heh.
Or...has a writer so fallen in love with one of his own characters that the lines between fiction and reality have become so blurred as to be indistinguishable?
The ending of The Words should leave you questioning just what is and what isn't--which may be disconcerting to some--but as a writer I was entranced by the ambiguity...by the possibilities being raised...by a film that actually made me think enough about it as I was heading for the exit that I forgot to stop and take a pee! And one that I will definitely consider seeing again. The only question in my mind is whether the average film goer is going to find it quite as fascinating as some of us literary types will be wont to do.
Grade: B +
.
Rated: PG-13
STARS: Jared Gilman, Kara Hayward, Bruce Willis, Bill Murray, Edward Norton, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton
DIRECTOR: Wes Anderson
GENRE: Comedy
You've got your quirky film characters, and then you've got your quirky films, and Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom--a sepia-toned homage to young love--fits the latter category.
Sam and Suzy (Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward) are two twelve year old social misfits who carry through on a pact to run away with each other. Sam is a would-be orphan who has worn out his welcome with his foster parents, and has just "resigned" from his Khaki Scout troop because he feels he doesn't fit in . Suzy is a surly problem child in a family of parents who are bored out of their gourd with each other (Bill Murray and Frances McDormand).
Their flight is largely symbolic, because they are on an island off the coast New England, and it's not like they won't eventually be sniffed out by police captain Sharp (Bruce Willis) or the gaggle of Scout Master Ward's charges who are hot on the missing couple's tail. Willis is playing against type here--as a sensitive kind of guy with a heart, and it's refreshing to see.
Any film that Bill Murray is in, I'm expecting him to be the dominant presence, (unless it's a true cameo) displaying his deadpan wit and charm to full advantage. But that takes a back seat in Moonrise Kingdom to the two young stars and Edward Norton's adultolescent Scoutmaster Ward.
So Sam and Suzy traverse the island, setting up camp and relying on Sam's scouting skills to survive, while exploring their puppy love in innocently provocative ways. But there's a big storm a-brewing off the coast, creating a renewed sense of urgency amongst the adults to locate the runaways. The storm could be a metaphor for all of the institutionalized societal and parental forces forever poised to quash amorous exploration by the young with an iron fist.
While Sam and Suzy are precociously testing the waters of adulthood, some of the grownups in Moonrise Kingdom are cartoonishly dorky and not terribly mature. But the story is set in 1965--a time when most adults WERE still pretty dorky--plaid pants and all.
And while the film is listed as a comedy, the humor is so unswervingly deadpan that nary a chuckle was heard from the patrons at the showing I attended, though I think most must have been sitting there, like myself, with a bemused grin throughout. And any film where you haven't correctly guessed what is about to come next goes a long way toward winning me over.
The only misstep, in my opinion, is the magic realism that literally strikes from the heavens in the latter part of the film, turning a tale that was still plausible--if unlikely--into the realm of a cartoon where Wile E. Coyote gets his ass blown up by a bomb, or falls off a cliff, but jumps back up a second later no worse for the wear.
Tilda Swinton has a turn as the demanding and uncompromising bureaucrat known only as "Social Services," who wants to nab Sam and stick him in an orphanage. Jason Schwartzman and Harvey Keitel also appear.
With a creative and imaginative soundtrack by Benjamin Britten.
Grade: B +
