50/50

How you go create a movie about one young man’s battle with cancer that manages to respect its subject and still be funny is a mystery to me—even though the screenwriter, Will Reiser, is essentially telling his own story. Still, it’s a pretty neat trick to blend comedy with a story that’s moving and relevant; it helps to have a smart screenplay, a strong cast, and an overall good vibe. Those qualities make 50/50 one of the bright—
—spots on the fall movie map.
The ever-likable Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a 27-year-old public radio employee in Seattle who doesn’t smoke or drink, or even cross the street when the light is red—but all the same he’s diagnosed with a rare form of spinal cancer. How he and the people around him—his girlfriend (Bryce Dallas Howard), his overprotective mother (Anjelica Huston), and most of all his best pal (Seth Rogen)—react to his illness as it progresses is the crux of the film. There’s also a green young therapist (it’s a teaching hospital, they explain), played by Anna Kendrick, who plays a significant role in Gordon-Levitt’s ability to cope with feelings he’s never had to confront before.
There couldn’t be a more serious subject, yet Gordon-Levitt and especially Rogen (who co-produced the movie) make the comedy seem both spontaneous and organic. They do what all guys try to do by masking their emotions and using humor to deflect the real problems that are staring them in the face.
Director Jonathan Levine, who did such a good job with The Wackness several years ago, keeps the tone of the movie on-target at every turn, which is no small achievement.
50/50 had me crying by the finale, and gave me more satisfaction than many more ambitious films I’ve seen lately. If you, or someone close to you, is dealing with a serious illness, you might not be in the mood for it, but I can’t imagine anyone doing a better job of turning this material into a piece of uplifting entertainment.

Semper Fi: Always Faithful

The US Marine Corps prides itself on being the most devoted of all military branches and of taking care of its own. This makes it doubly surprising to learn, while watching the riveting new documentary Semper Fi: Always Faithful (now playing at the Laemmle Sunset 5 in Los Angeles), that approximately one million Marines and their family members stationed at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina from 1957-1987 were exposed to water contaminated with a variety of toxic chemicals. Many deaths and congressional hearings later, the Marine Corps has yet to acknowledge its negligence in this incident.
One courageous retired Marine, Master Sgt. Jerry Ensminger, has led the charge against the Corps leaders' cover-up since his 9-year-old daughter died of a rare form of leukemia in 1985. As Ensminger heartbreakingly recounts in Semper Fi, his dying daughter refused pain medication until he was offered some as well since, as she told her doctor, "My daddy's hurting, too."
Filmmakers Rachel Libert (Beyond Conviction) and Tony Hardmon (a veteran cinematographer on such acclaimed docs as The Boys of Baraka, Sicko and Jesus Camp making his directorial debut) follow not only Ensminger but several other former residents of Camp Lejeune. These include Major Tom Townsend, whose son died at six weeks of age; Mike Partain, who was born at Camp Lejeune and was diagnosed as an adult with rare, male breast cancer (as were an unusually high number of other men); and Denita McCall, a former Marine and resident at the camp who passed away during production of Semper Fi.
The first congressional hearing on Marines' claims of illness related to the since-discovered water contamination at Camp Lejeuene wasn't held until 2007. Much of the hearing is preserved here, including Major General Eugene Payne denying any connection between the site's dirty water and residents' health problems. Cinematic and journalistic exposes of military and government cover-ups are fairly routine nowadays, but Semper Fi documents blatant lies in such detail that it truly infuriates.

Having won significant awards at the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival, Semper Fi: Always Faithful is more than worth an investment of time and money on the part of both military personnel and civilians.

Queer as Folk

Like every American gay man in 2000, I was glued to the TV for the premiere of Queer as Folk, the US version of the critically-acclaimed yet controversial British series of the same name. I had heard about the "no-holds-barred" show from across the pond, with its frank depictions of gay life in Manchester and all its notorious scenes of sex, drugs and house music, but was still floored by what I saw onscreen. Was this really on TV? (To paraphrase their competitor's slogan, no "it's Showtime".)
I became an instant fan of the US QAF, even if the writing tended to be over-the-top and the acting was questionable at times. Naturally, as with most "Americanized" adaptations of British television (from The Office to Being Human), there were plenty of cries of "the original is better", yet I was never able to actually watch the UK QAF to see if all the nay sayers were right... until now.

Available today on DVD from Acorn Media is Queer as Folk: The Complete UK Collection, a three-disc set that includes all ten episodes of the original QAF (series one, originally aired as eight half-hours, is presented here as four one-hour episodes). Even though it has been 12 years since the series' faithful debut on England's Channel 4, QAF UK still feels fresh and vibrant and equally daring, and far from just a curiosity piece for those who have only seen QAF US.
For those viewers there will be plenty of deja vu moments while watching the original, as the US version borrowed heavily from it during its first year. And the basics are the same: Stuart (Brian in the US/played by Aiden Gillen) is the king stud of Canal Street (Liberty Avenue), always accompanied by his put-upon best friend Vince (Michael/Craig Kelly) and followed by the "one-night stand that wouldn't go away", 15-year-old newbie Nathan (Justin/Charlie Hunnam). Other familiar characters, such as Vince's overly-supportive mom Hazel (Debbie/Denise Black) and flamboyant fashionista Alexander (Emmett/Antony Cotton), are also on hand, but here the stories focus mainly on the three points of the dysfunctional love triangle at its center.

Minus the glitzy sheen that permeated America's, this QAF is grittier and more down-to-earth. This realism is no more so apparent than with episode three's tragic end to sad sack Phil (Jason Merrells), known as Ted in the US. Even so, the original still feels less cynical than its American counterpart, at least until its infamous final episode, where series creator Russell T. Davies seemingly gives up on any semblance of reality and logical character motivations half-way through and starts blowing stuff up.
Davies supplies a lengthy essay on QAF's origins for the set, which also features a healthy selection of bonus materials, including cast and creator interviews, photo galleries, deleted and extended scenes, trailers and the "making of" feature What the Folk?

West Side Stephen

“You are speaking indeed to the legend himself!”
With an introduction like that, you know that you are in for a great interview. Stephen DeRosa, a talented Broadway veteran and television actor, did not disappoint. The New York City native will be coming to a town near you in the West Side Story tour in the role of Gladhand, the male authority figure who tries to pacify the warring student gangs at the high school dance. “If you blink, you’ll miss me,” DeRosa joked. “I’m on for three minutes but I try to chew as much scenery as I possibly can.”
DeRosa, a graduate of the Yale School of Drama, was born and raised in Queens. “Don’t say it,” he exclaimed. “The joke’s already built in!” He went to school at Georgetown for politics, “but it involved too much acting.” Recently, DeRosa became an indelible part of the hit HBO series Boardwalk Empire, playing the role of comedian Eddie Cantor for director Martin Scorcese and Sopranos writer Terry Winter. He feels very fortunate to have parlayed a one-time role into three appearances, since the real Eddie Cantor was a friend of lead character Nucky Thompson, played by Steve Buscemi.

West Side Story is celebrating more than fifty years of exciting audiences with the battle between the white Jets and the Puerto Rican Sharks in New York’s Upper East Side. Most of the songs have become standards that everyone knows, such as “Tonight”, “I Feel Pretty” and the satirical immigrant anthem “America”. This latest revival directed by David Saint, based on Tony Winner Arthur Laurents’ original work, is innovative in that the Spanish-speaking characters do speak in Spanish much of the time. DeRosa loves the production, and says that you will not have any trouble understanding the scenes where this happens. “That’s part of the fun of my character, he tries to speak Spanish.”
“(Stephen) Sondheim and Laurents always hoped that the show could be a little more authentic. You need to read the book Original Story by Arthur Laurents, because it’s delicious. It’s his autobiography. It is such a good read for anyone who’s gay and anyone who loves the theater. You will devour it. It’s about being gay in the 40s and 50s, it’s about the creative process, it’s about trying to have integrity in Hollywood and all of the crazy backstage drama that happened on Broadway.” DeRosa explained that Laurents and Sondheim got the chance to tinker with the show’s book and lyrics, and that audiences will enjoy it. “It’s a very timely piece, and Arthur wanted it to be even more timeless. He wanted it to be about “Us vs. Them”. There’s always an “Us vs. Them” mentality and usually one of the main things that gets in the way is language, communication. “

“David (Saint) has given the show a real pace, he’s really infused the show with younger actors who have more passion and more energy. And there’s a playfulness, too. The “Officer Krupke” number’s just going to blow your mind, it’s so much fun. And it’s surprisingly homoerotic, which came from the text and from giving the actors the freedom to be as stupid as they wanted to be. It’s amazing how when you get a bunch of (mostly straight) boys together to fool around, inevitably, weird gayish, fratty kind of shit comes up. It’s very interesting.”
Based on the immortal story of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Leonard Bernstein, Sondheim and Laurents moved the action to the disaffected youth in the Big Apple, where rival gangs of immigrants and those who used to be immigrants battle each other for turf, and a boy and a girl from opposite sides have little chance of finding love. Tony and Maria give it their best shot, even as all of their friends and relatives try to tear them apart.
DeRosa made his first big Off-Broadway splash in a historic revival of Charles Ludlam’s The Mystery of Irma Vep, playing opposite Everett Quinton (Devil Boys from Beyond) in the multiple roles that Quinton had originated. DeRosa also played opposite Vanessa Williams as the Baker in the revival of Sondheim’s Into the Woods.

“It’s a great job, this job,” DeRosa exclaimed. “I got to work with the late, great Arthur Laurents who was so loving and generous and who rewrote some of my role, to try and bring a little more humor. It’s a great show and audiences love it. Plus, you get to go to work and be surrounded by gorgeous men in various states of undress. It’s a good job, I’m lucky. I’ll take it,” he said laughing.
“The bottom line is, it’s West Side Story. The score just blows your mind how beautiful it is, and the dancing... these kids are doing the original choreography and they’re all in their early twenties and strong enough and agile enough to (do it). It’s really exciting.”

The White Shadow

The unveiling last week of a nearly eighty-year-old British film on which Alfred Hitchcock served as assistant director, art director, and co-scenarist was another exciting event in the recent parade of major archival discoveries. On Thursday night, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences held the premiere screening of The White Shadow (1924)—or at least, the first half of the feature, which is all that survives. This is just the latest archeological “find” to emerge from a partnership of the New Zealand Film Archive, the American archival community, and the National Film Preservation Foundation that, most notably, unearthed—
—John Ford’s long-unseen 1927 feature Upstream last year.
The White Shadow, adapted by Hitchcock from a screenplay by Michael Morton, is a plot-heavy, often preposterous drama about twin sisters who lead different kinds of lives, because one has a soul (“a white shadow,” indicating purity) and the other is a hedonist. The favorite daughter turns her back on her stern father, who loses his mind as a result but somehow finds his way to Paris, where she has adopted a new identity at a Bohemian nightclub called The Cat Who Laughs. (Later, in what is described as “a vagrant flash of understanding,” he regains his senses—only to be struck by his daughter’s car back home in England. That incident, mercifully, occurs in the missing second half of the picture.) Meanwhile, a proper gentleman (Clive Brook) falls in love with the “bad” sister, so the “good” sister takes her place in his arms rather than see her sibling disgraced.

The film stars Betty Compson, a popular American actress who was lured to England by a lucrative salary of 1,000 pounds a week by producer Michael Balcon to star in Woman to Woman in 1923. It was a smash hit, unlike this follow-up, made by the same creative team.
A “new” Hitchcock film is tantalizing, of course. But, if you’ll forgive an expression I simply can’t avoid, it comes with a hitch: determining how much the future director influenced what we see. Graham Cutts is the credited director, but most histories agree that his young, ambitious assistant and jack-of-all-trades had a lot to do with what wound up onscreen. Hitchcock later said that he did the lion’s share of work as the official director was perpetually distracted. In Alma Hitchcock: The Woman Behind the Man, Patricia Hitchcock and Laurent Bouzereau write of her experience as the editor of Woman to Woman, “...She was apparently not particularly fond of director Graham Cutts. She did not think he was pleasant or professional; he knew very little and Alma felt she and Hitch were doing all the work.” (If one is looking for an objective view, it’s easy to trace Hitchcock’s rise and Cutts’ fall over the next decade by examining their filmographies.) In the same vein, cinematographer Claude McDonnell did nothing particularly distinguished in his brief career, which ended in 1930; Hitchcock chose to work with him only one more time, on Easy Virtue in 1928.
But just as it’s impossible to assess who did what, even on a contemporary film—where actors sometimes improvise lines, uncredited writers contribute to the screenplay, and a gifted production designer and cinematographer may compensate for a director’s shortcomings—it’s dangerous to be too certain about how a film from 1924 was crafted.
David Sterritt, current chairman of the National Society of Film Critics and author of The Films of Alfred Hitchcock, has done his homework, and comes to the conclusion in his Academy program notes that “even static images from The White Shadow convey a sense of Alfred Hitchcock’s early gift for creating drama by purely visual means. Betty Compson’s impish smile and half-open eyes framed by a jauntily angled hat and a wreath of artfully positioned smoke; the motley crew of men she effortlessly controls at the poker table; Clive Brook’s steely gaze set off by a slash of light across an otherwise dark background; the graceful shading of an ivy-draped window framing a wistful face. These and many other images confirm Hitchcock’s precocious talent for silent storytelling.”
There is no question that Sterritt’s overall assessment is correct, but I would be hesitant to credit anyone for a star’s impish smile or the jaunty angle of her hat unless I’d been on the set myself to see how the scene came to life.
As for content, it’s tempting to extrapolate that The White Shadow’s story of identity and duality is an early exploration of themes Hitchcock later pursued in Vertigo. Or the comparison might be ridiculous…who can say?
What matters is that another piece of film history has surfaced. I’m sure there are more discoveries yet to come.

Real-life story of a dolphin

 　　Not all family films are created equal. This one was inspired by the remarkable real-life story of a dolphin named Winter who washed ashore in Florida, had to have its tail amputated, and taught itself to swim even without the appendage. As it turns out, that wasn’t the end of Winter’s challenges.
Karen Janszen and Noam Dromi have built a screenplay around that true story that draws on familiar Hollywood-movie tropes, but plays well just the same. A likable young actor named Nathan Gamble plays a lonely boy, being raised by single mom Ashley Judd, who helps rescue Winter and develops a special—

—connection with the creature. Even the man (played by Harry Connick, Jr.) who runs a sea rescue facility in Clearwater has to admit that the dolphin responds uniquely well to the boy. It’s his determination that fuels many of the events that follow.
A parallel story involves the boy’s cousin, a kind of big brother who goes overseas to serve in the military and comes home after being injured wearing a leg brace. Winter’s need for a prosthetic tail becomes a direct source of inspiration for the young veteran, and many other grownups around him. Morgan Freeman plays a prosthetics specialist at the local V.A. hospital who takes on the challenge of fabricating an artificial tail for a species he’s never treated before.
Winter’s life-threatening crises, the boy’s loneliness, and the subplot of a close relative going away to war and being hurt in an explosion are the reason Dolphin Tale is rated PG, and not G. While the film might seem formulaic to adult viewers, it deals with pretty serious issues on its way to a happy ending; parents should know this going in.

It deals with these subjects in an admirably straightforward manner and doesn’t duck the realities with sugar-coating—but you may have to do some explaining to your kids.
Formula or no, by the end of the film I found myself tearing up—which I did a second time during a final sequence with home-video footage that shows how Winter continues to inspire youngsters who are missing arms and legs. They get a chance to spend quality time with the indomitable dolphin at his aquarium home in Clearwater. 　　Interestingly, this film was directed by Charles Martin Smith, who starred some years ago in a memorable movie about man and the animal kingdom called Never Cry Wolf.

Cheesy monster movies from years past

A movie that opens as well as this one does—and draws you in so effectively—ought to have a finale that doesn’t remind you of cheesy monster movies from years past. On the other hand, the visual effects in Rise of the Planet of the Apes are so astonishing that I have to cut the movie some slack.
Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver’s screenplay starts out on a strong note, as we meet genetic researcher James Franco, who is experimenting with a drug that may help victims of Alzheimer’s Disease—like his own father, nicely played by John Lithgow. Ultimately, Franco rescues a baby chimpanzee from the lab and raises it as a member of his family, but veterinarian Freida Pinto warns him that Caesar won’t be a playful young chimp very long. This is an eventuality Franco isn’t willing to face, but moviegoers will immediately recognize as—

As the story continues it veers more and more into B-movie territory, introducing such familiar character types as an unfeeling animal caretaker (played by Brian Cox, who starred in director Rupert Wyatt’s little-seen 2008 prison film The Escapist) and his mean-spirited son (played by Tom Felton, known far and wide as Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter movies). With people like that around, and Franco’s money-driven boss (David Oyelowo), it’s clear where the movie is heading…perhaps a bit too clear.
Knowing references to the 1968 version of Planet of the Apes abound, some more obvious than others. Fun is fun, but it’s easy to forget the impact that movie had back then—especially after it was parodied so memorably by The Simpsons. It was not only a huge hit, it was one of the most talked-about films of its time—with a twist ending that audiences didn’t foresee. It was based on a novel by Pierre Boulle, and adapted by two of the most esteemed writers of the time, Michael Wilson and Rod Serling. John Chambers’ makeup may seem quaint alongside the performance-capture technique that enables Andy Serkis to bring Caesar to life, but it was unprecedented, and amazing to behold.

If this film is remembered, it won’t be for its storyline, which reverts to cliché a bit too often as it approaches its climax, but for its eye-popping integration of live-action and movie magic. Just as the geniuses at Peter Jacksons’ Weta Digital in New Zealand made us believe that the aliens were real and actually interacting with humans in District 9, they pull off an even more ambitious agenda here using a process they invented for Avatar. The effects are phenomenal, and pretty much invisible. Rise of the Planet of the Apes seems to say that anything is possible, even creating a horde of simian creatures from thin air and having them run riot through San Francisco.
That said, I wish I liked the ending better—not just the destruction that leads up to it, but the actual story resolution. Like some other summer movies, the last scene seems to be little more than a set-up for a sequel. Shouldn’t a big picture like this have a real, satisfying finish as well as an open door for a followup?

Doris Day

Doris Day, Looney Tunes, Kodachrome…and more
Like many of you, I receive e-mail links almost every day from friends who pass along interesting posts. Some of them turn out to be gems while others are a waste of time. I’ve accumulated a few I definitely want to share, beginning with a charming printed conversation between Paul McCartney and Doris Day that appeared in Britain’s The Telegraph, to promote a new (and long-awaited) CD from the retired singer/actress. I know you’ll enjoy reading this, as I did.
Silent-comedy location specialist John Bengtson has made hay with a wonderful new discovery from film archivist Rick Prelinger. Prelinger has posted some razor-sharp 1940s footage of a—
—car driving around the Bunker Hill area of downtown Los Angeles, which looks so different today. John, in turn, has identified a number of spots where Harold Lloyd, Laurel and Hardy and others shot scenes for some of their comedies.
The only time I miss commuting is when I look at all the interesting radio documentaries and podcasts I’ve accumulated—without enough time to listen to them all. The latest cache is a week-long series produced by WNYC’s Soundcheck about cartoon music, featuring some old friends like Will Friedwald, Daniel Goldmark, Ross Care, and George Daugherty, who are experts in this field. There are individual shows devoted to Disney, the Fleischer studio, Carl Stalling at Warner Bros., The Simpsons, and “cartoon rock.”

 　　This next link has been online for months but only recently came to my attention: it’s from the Kodak website, and features the earliest tests of Kodachrome color from 1922, as preserved by the George Eastman House. This is fascinating footage, well worth four and a half minutes of your time.
While some major studios are ignoring their vintage film libraries, others are exploring new ways to bring old movies to the market, and sublicensing titles to entrepreneurs like Criterion (which has an agreement with MGM for its United Artists library), Olive Films (which has been mining the post-1950 Paramount catalog), and the new kid on the block, Twilight Time, an enterprise founded by producer-archivist-soundtrack aficionado Nick Redman and Warner Bros. studio veteran Brian Jamieson and distributed by longtime soundtrack source Screen Archives Entertainment. So far, Twilight Time has been producing limited-edition DVDs of 20th Century Fox films with isolated music tracks, to the delight of film music enthusiasts.
Past titles include The Egyptian (score by Bernard Herrmann and Alfred Newman—also available in Blu-ray), Woman Obsessed (Hugo Friedhofer), Fate is the Hunter (Jerry Goldsmith), Violent Saturday (Friedhofer), The Kremlin Letter (Robert Drasnin), and The Flim-Flam Man (Goldsmith).
Their latest release is My Cousin Rachel, with Franz Waxman’s score, and they’ve just announced the 1966 remake of Stagecoach with a Jerry Goldsmith soundtrack. These are not DVD-R copies but legitimately mastered discs, but they are pressed in limited editions of 3,000, so it would be unwise to procrastinate.
Now, Twilight Time has upped the ante with its recently-announced arrangement to release a monthly title from the Sony library on Blu-ray only. The series will kick off on November 13 with Mysterious Island, featuring Ray Harryhausen’s memorable visual effects, and continue on December 13 with Fright Night, the 1985 horror-comedy with Chris Sarandon and Roddy McDowall, which was recently remade. Needless to say, I wish Twilight Time a long and prosperous life.

One Day

Sometimes, a successful play or a popular book—even a comic book—has qualities that just don’t transfer to the screen. One Day is based on a best-selling novel, and the producers hired its author, David Nicholls, to write the screenplay, since he’s had plenty of experience making films and television series. I still think something has been lost in the translation.
When Emma (Anne Hathaway) and Dexter (Jim Sturgess) wind up together the night of their college graduation in 1988, they don’t become lovers but do—
—become friends—the kind of friends who confide in and lean on one another.
We follow the ups and downs of their lives over the next few decades, always on the same day, July 15. An aspiring writer, Em lacks confidence in pursuing that goal just as she does in every other aspect of her life. Dex just wants to have a good time, and does for a while until things come crashing down on him. The truth is, she’s loved him from the start—and he loves her, too, but isn’t willing to admit it to himself.
Unfortunately, One Day seems to go on for days; it’s dreary and repetitious, because we don’t get to know these characters enough to care about them and the vicissitudes of their lives. Dex is particularly sketchy and difficult to like, let alone understand. The two stars are attractive but the screenplay doesn’t give them much to work with.
Danish director Lone Scherfig should be on solid ground here—she did a fine job on An Education two years ago—but this movie sinks under its own weight, I’m sorry to say.
What ought to be a touching story of two star-crossed friends and would-be lovers is instead a tough slog. And don’t ask me about Hathaway’s on-again, off-again British accent.

Charlie Chaplin’s Motion Picture Cameras Preserved

 Would you like to see one of Charlie Chaplin’s motion picture cameras preserved? How about the cameras that filmed Gone With The Wind, Lawrence of Arabia, Star Wars, and Planet of the Apes? They are the property of lifelong collector Martin Hill, of Midland, North Carolina, and they are in jeopardy.
Not long ago I received an e-mail from Alex Buchhorn of Emulsion Arts, a small, independent production company based in Charlotte, North Carolina, telling me about an effort to complete a documentary about Hill and his unique collection. The purpose is to draw attention to—
—this treasure trove and, in so doing, find a way to save it.

 
Charlie Chaplin behind the camera in the silent era. Hill has one of the units Chaplin used to film The Gold Rush.I’ve become a skeptic when I hear about such “treasures” in private hands, having been burned before, but several knowledgeable friends of mine have confirmed that this collection is for real. Hill is a devotee who has amassed an enormous amount of material: cameras, projectors, lighting equipment, and memorabilia. It’s all stored in a Midland bowling alley that, itself, is in need of repair. Roof leakage could damage some of the precious goods inside.
If you’d like to see some of Martin’s prize possessions, click HERE. You’ll also learn how you can join Kickstarter and make a contribution to raise the nominal $6,000 it will take to complete Emulsion Arts’ documentary. I’m a newcomer to these grassroots fundraising projects, but I know they can work: if enough people chip in $5 or $10 apiece, a sum like that is not out of reach.
Yes, there are other institutions and individuals who have preserved historic movie cameras, beginning with the American Society of Cinematographers. And I’ve written about the impressive collection housed at theNiles Essanay Silent Film Museum in Niles, California. But each piece of equipment has its own history, and some of them are beautiful examples of mechanical design and functionality.
Would you like to see the brushes Leonardo Da Vinci used to paint the Mona Lisa, or the chisel Rodin employed to carve The Thinker? Think of these cameras in the same way and you’ll understand why they have artistic as well as historic value. Think some more and perhaps you’ll kick in a few bucks to help Emulsion Arts complete its documentary.

 
Here’s a typically impressive camera crane set-up for David Lean’sLawrence of Arabia. Hill has one of the cameras used in this epic production.

Restless

Restless is likeliest to appeal to young people who relate to the heightened emotions of its leading characters, a teenage girl and boy who share a budding relationship—and a fascination with death. That they are played by the wonderful Mia Wasikowska, looking like a young Mia Farrow or Jean Seberg, and promising newcomer Henry Hopper (Dennis Hopper’s son, in his film debut) helps a great deal.

I found most of Justin Lew’s screenplay to be an exercise in forced whimsy. We meet the young protagonists at a series of—
—funerals they attend, in colorful, attention-getting attire. That could torpedo the movie on the spot if it weren’t for the natural appeal of its actors, who breathe life into a pair of self-consciously eccentric characters.

As it turns out, the gloomy Hopper has never gotten over the death of his parents, while Wasikowska is expressing her disdain for the cancer that is going to end her life sometime soon.
Restless has some touching moments as the two loners realize they’re falling in love, but it threatens to suffocate in its own quaintness. It’s only natural for teenagers to see life in outsized proportions and respond to big issues like death with an intensified degree of drama. But it doesn’t always make for a convincing narrative.

Director Gus Van Sant shot Restless in his favorite city, Portland, Oregon, which provides compatible locations for the story. He approaches the material in an admirably straightforward fashion, avoiding melodrama, but the coy nature of the material overtakes him from time to time. (Wasikowska is passionate about Charles Darwin, and sketches her favorite specimens of nature in the park.)
This might play more persuasively to romantic idealists than it did to me—although I was raised on a diet of Hollywood-style romance. Restless adds to my ever-growing admiration for Mia Wasikowska and provides a pleasant sense of discovery in seeing Dennis Hopper’s son acquit himself so well in a part that any actor would find challenging to put across.

Breaking Dawn's New Trailer

　　Happy Birthday, Bella Swan! September 13 is Bella's B-day, but it looks like the Twilight fans are going to be the ones getting the presents. First Fandango announced today via Twitter that The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 tickets will go on sale October 1, giving fans nearly seven weeks to get their tickets/wedding invitations. It looks like somebody's trying to give the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 midnight opening box office record a run for its money.

　　In even more exciting news, a new, full-length trailer for Breaking Dawn Part 1 was released today We got a teaser last week, but today it's the real thing. It's got bits of the wedding, the honeymoon, pregnancy, werewolves, Volturi, and even a tiny bit more of Bella's wedding dress. What more could a twi-hard want?

Brighton Rock

Sometimes one can admire a film without truly liking it; that’s how I feel about the ambitious British remake of Brighton Rock. Graham Greene’s 1938 novel, first filmed in the late 1940s, has been cleverly reworked to take place in 1964, at the time of the “mods and rockers” riots in Brighton, signifying a time of change in England. That is just one of many clever moves by writer-director Rowan Joffe, who is able to explore some of the seamier aspects of the novel that censorship (and matters of taste) made impossible in 1947.
One of the new movie’s great strengths is its—
—casting. Relative newcomer Sam Riley plays Pinkie, an amoral, ex-Catholic hoodlum who’s looking to take over a criminal gang, and Andrea Riseborough is Rose, a wide-eyed, innocent, devotedly Catholic waitress who falls, hopelessly, in love with him. Their behavior is often extreme, so it’s vital that you believe the actors in these roles, and you do. But Pinkie is a difficult, quixotic, and unlikable character whose violent, antisocial behavior is difficult to stomach.



　　Andy Serkis appears briefly, but effectively, as a genteel crime lord, and John Hurt is a welcome presence as a bookmaker squeezed by the rival gangs who want his protection money. But the brightest light is shone by Helen Mirren as Rose’s employer, a worldly woman who refuses to see an innocent girl sullied without standing up for her. She knows how to use her feminine wiles to their full advantage, and does—and Mirren’s performance can best be described in one word: delicious.
The period flavor is tangible, and the evocation of a seaside resort that’s about to give way to social upheaval suits Graham Greene’s story quite well. But make no mistake: these are sordid people in an unsavory atmosphere, so while it’s interesting to observe the characters and their actions, it’s also highly unpleasant. I revisited the 1947 film, adapted by Greene and Terence Rattigan, and directed by John Boulting, with memorable performances by Richard Attenborough (who originated the part on stage), Hermione Baddeley, and Carol Marsh, to compare. It’s a good “Brit noir,” hampered by censorship restrictions of the time but still impressively seedy.
Joffe has been able to deepen and darken his character portraits; a scene involving Pinkie and Rose’s father is devastating and unforgettable. But this is “cold” material, hard to warm up to. That’s why I respect Brighton Rock, but I can’t quite say I enjoyed it.

Paul on Mazursky

　　
　　by Sam Wasson; foreword by Mel Brooks (Wesleyan University Press)
A filmmaker with Paul Mazursky’s résumé deserves a great book about his career—and now he has one, thanks to Sam Wasson, who is not only a gifted writer but (like his subject) a keen student of human nature. This is no dry dissertation, nor is it a conventional interview volume. Wasson takes us inside Mazursky’s world and makes us feel a part of it—not only by painting vivid word pictures of the daily doings surrounding each of their conversations, but by talking to many of the filmmaker’s closest collaborators, from casting director Juliet Taylor to the late actress Jill Clayburgh. He also adds his own incisive comments about each movie, even when his opinion clashes with the director’s.
The interviews with Mazursky—the ultimate mensch—are incredibly thoughtful and detailed, often interrupted by—
—phone calls and jokes. (One day, in the midst of a conversation, the director even dozes off!) They make you want to revisit all of his films, not just the hits and award winners (Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, Harry and Tonto, An Unmarried Woman, Enemies: A Love Story) but even the imperfect ones and outright failures (Alex in Wonderland, Tempest, Scenes from a Mall). I was especially interested to learn just how thoroughly Mazursky mined his own life for the poignant (and brilliant) Next Stop, Greenwich Village.
How many other writer-directors managed to tap into the zeitgeist so acutely in the late 60s, and right through the 1970s and 80s, without compromising his intelligence or ideals for the sake of box-office returns? His intelligence, and his humanity, make him a singular figure in modern American cinema, yet somehow he’s been overlooked, or taken for granted.
That’s not to say he hasn’t had his share of recognition, including five Academy Award nominations. Just this year the Los Angeles Film Critics Association presented him with its Career Achievement Award, which permitted him to hold court at our annual dinner. (SEE HERE)
But if Mazursky’s work was popular in its time, it’s also worthy of respect and renewed interest today. Any man who’s managed to pay homage to Fellini and remake Renoir in mainstream Hollywood has to be doing something right. (He even wrote a script for, and directed, Woody Allen.)
As to why a man this passionate and gifted has had so much difficulty launching projects in recent years, that’s a sad comment on the changing ways of Hollywood—which Mazursky isn’t reluctant to say out loud.
I thoroughly enjoyed Paul on Mazursky. It’s a great read as well as a valuable resource.