Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): *** (Overall)

The BBC has lately bestowed upon us several collections of work by England's current grand dames of entertainment: Maggie Smith, Helen Mirren and-—the Dame under consideration here--Judi Dench. This nicely boxed set, featuring many of her early appearances, includes--count 'em!--eight discs, each one packed with several hours of the actress' work, much of it prime and dating back to her Cherry Orchard of 1962.

Made for television and taken from the Royal Shakespeare Company version of Chekhov's masterpiece (staged by Michel Saint-Dennis and directed for TV by Michael Elliott), the play was shot in black-and-white and appears here in a surprisingly well-handled transfer to DVD. John Gielgud adapted this version and also plays Gaev, with Peggy Ashcroft as Madame Ranevsky, Dorothy Tutin as Varya, Ian Holm as Trofimov, Roy Dotrice as Firs, and Dench as daughter Anya. Gielgud's version is stately, as are the moving performances; it is a pleasure to see all these fine actors, many of whom are gone now, in top form.

Continue reading "Judi Dench Collection" »

Posted by at 11:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): ****

Among the dozen or so excellent reasons to watch Carve Her Name With Pride is the fact that this film--about a WWII hero who happened to be woman--holds up marvelously. From its romantic scenes to its suspense, from the surprise at seeing a classic British beauty being put through a set of karate moves, to the heartfelt moments that bring a sudden reminder about "duty to country" in what was arguably--screw it: what was clearly--the last war that needed to be fought for reasons of right, wrong and necessity, this movie works.

And another reason is to acquaint, or for the older viewer, reacquaint oneself with a marvelous actress named Virginia McKenna. Best known for the international hit Born Free (about the Kenya couple Joy and George Adamson, who raised the famous lion sub Elsa to maturity), McKenna had much of the beauty, class, talent and breeding of our own Grace Kelly (but with more a spirited, natural, country-girl appeal than the highly made-up, fashion-conscious "Country Girl" that Kelly usually essayed), McKenna was an oft-nominated BAFTA winner (for the 1956 version of A Town Like Alice). Awarded an O.B.E. (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in 2004, and she's still with us, a grandmother who continues to act--mostly on British television, most recently in a "Miss Marple" episode filmed in 2005.

Continue reading "Carve Her Name With Pride: The marvelous Ms. McKenna" »

Posted by at 1:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Reviewer: Maria Komodore
Rating (out of 5): **

The subject of unwanted, or unplanned, pregnancy was quite a hot one for US and foreign films alike last year. But with the exception of Romanian Cristian Mungiu's abortion drama 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days (2007), all of the others, even if apolitical, have essentially been "pro-life."

In the U.S., in addition to Jason Reitman's indie hit Juno (2007), there was the late Adrienne Shelly's Waitress (2007), and of course Judd Apatow's supposedly comedic Knocked Up (2007). No matter how different in inception and presentation these films might be, they all have one thing in common: abortion is out of the question. The female leads decide to, respectively, keep their babies even if that means giving them up for adoption after they're born, bringing them up all by themselves, or settling down with an immature slacker.

Although made in 2006 and by a Mexican filmmaker, Alejandro Gomez Monteverde, the independent film Bella deals with the same subject matter and in a similar kind of way to the other films. Soon after she finds out that she's pregnant, Nina (Tammy Blanchard), a waitress in an upscale Mexican restaurant in New York, loses her job--a humiliating scene where her boss Manny (Manny Perez) fires her in front of her colleagues and friends. Jose (Eduardo Verástegui), the restaurant's cook and Manny's brother, is so affected by the incident that he deserts his kitchen in the midst of lunch-hour craziness, and starts following her around the city doing everything possible to persuade her to keep the baby. Turns out, before becoming a cook, Jose was a successful soccer player whose career got destroyed when he accidentally killed a little girl in a foolish car accident.

Continue reading "Bella" »

Posted by at 1:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): ****

At this year's Film Society of Lincoln Center Latinbeat Festival, a special sidebar was devoted to screenings of, as the FSLC put it, "Four Breakthroughs from Mexico's New Cinema": Amores Perros, Japón, Duck Season, and Violet Perfume: No One Is Listening. The first two, and to some extent the third, are well-known to most movie buffs, but the latter, outside of festivals, has hardly made a ripple in the USA. Now that Violet Perfume is here on DVD, audiences have the chance to see and understand why the film is indeed a breakthrough of sorts. It's also a mega-downer, which may account for its not finding theatrical release.

Continue reading "Violet Perfume: Feminist breakthrough from Mexico" »

Posted by at 11:38 AM | Permalink

Reviewer: Erin Donovan
Rating (out of 5): *****

After the debate and controversy surrounding the recent Darjeeling Limited (did everyone just suddenly realize en masse Wes Anderson had racial issues?), Criterion's release of Gus Van Sant's directorial debut Mala Noche serves as a fine reminder that it is possible to make films about romantic relationships between people who are on unlevel playing fields without rendering one of the people (psst, the brown one) mute or a ridiculous caricature.

Based on the autobiographical novella by Walt Curtis, Walt (did I mention autobiographical?) is a cashier in a seedy liquor store obsessed with Johnny (Doug Cooeyate), one of the young Mexican immigrant rentboys who works the streets of downtown Portland. Johnny is uninterested but has fun hanging out and toying with Walt (played by Tim Streeter). Johnny endures the trials of his legal status with humor and good spirit, he's constantly hungry, getting evicted and being chased by the police. Walt offers him safe (albeit somewhat lecherously) harbor with no small amount of white- and class-guilt-induced smugness about the nature of his generosity. Walt isn't always an easy character to like but his youthful pretensions and ignorance are well-balanced out by his painfully earnest lust and his ability to laugh at himself when Johnny gets the better of him.

Continue reading "Mala Noche" »

Posted by at 3:41 PM | Permalink

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): ***

I must admit to some shock at the mostly devastating criticism received by Evening (a 26% score on Rotten Tomatoes!), and I can't help feel that expectation has more than a little to do with this. Here is a "dream" cast by any literate moviegoer's standards: Meryl Streep, Glenn Close, Vanessa Redgrave, Claire Danes, Eileen Atkins, Toni Collette, Natasha Richardson (Redgrave's daughter), Mamie Gummer (Streep's daughter), with Patrick Wilson and Hugh Dancy holding up the male side. Add, as the director, Lajos Koltai, one of the world's great cinematographers whose first directorial job resulted in the memorable, devastating, yet strangely beautiful Holocaust tale Fateless. Finalize with a screenplay by Susan Minot (from her well-regarded novel) and Michael Cunningham (the popular novels "A Home at the End of the World" and "The Hours"). How could expectations not be sky-high? And while there is reason for disappointment in the end result, there is also much to savor in this elegiac film.

Continue reading "Evening: A tapestry of past and present" »

Posted by at 1:09 PM | Permalink

Reviewer: Erin Donovan
Rating (out of 5): ****

In a recent New York Times op-ed piece, Judith Warner wrote, after attending a recent screening of the friendship/revenge/road film Thelma and Louise (a screening hosted by Sen. Susan Collins R-MN and Rep. Jane Harman D-CA... huh?) that the 1991 film's portrayal of the sexual politick already seemed incredibly dated. She noted that the interim changes haven't actually been useful evolutions, but merely the development of many, many shades of gray.

With Stephanie Daley, writer/director Hilary Brougher achieves a mighty feat of making a film about religious education, child abandonment, miscarriage, infidelity and teenage sexuality that's neither lurid nor a polemic. And even with one character fighting for her life there are no Oscar-baiting monologues of hysteria (in fact, the most powerful scene in the film is completely silent). Like Brougher's debut film, Sticky Fingers of Time, Stephanie Daley uses a fragmented narrative to show how the interactions of two people stuck in a morass of denial inspires the other to lift themselves out of their stasis.

Continue reading "Stephanie Daley: Neither lurid nor a polemic" »

Posted by at 8:50 AM | Permalink

Reviewer: James Van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): **½ (add a star if you're an opera buff)

Not being an opera fan, I have seen Carmen maybe twice in my life (and the ballet version a couple more times), so I am not the best judge of this South African film version, in which the actors speak and sing (or are perhaps dubbed) in Xhosa. The time is now and the place a South African township where the women labor in that ubiquitous cigarette factory and the men are either townspeople or police. Some of this works quite well, and the transfer from Spain to South Africa is a perfectly good one.

Continue reading "U-Carmen: Bizarre Bizet adaptation works, off and on" »

Posted by at 12:25 PM | Permalink

Reviewer: Erin Donovan
Rating (out of 5): ****

Parker Posey's Nora in Broken English exists further down the continuum of roles she played in the nineties in films like Daytrippers, Clockwatchers, Party Girl and Kicking and Screaming: neurotic, sarcastic, and sort of unambitious. But in your thirties these things are no longer cute (or "quirky", as Posey is so often called) but sort of annoying and self-defeating. In the new Broken English, she's single among married friends, working at a barely above entry-level (but "cool") job in a stable of trust fund-insulated successful artists. She's in crisis and the people in her life think crappy blind dates will lead to fairy tale solutions. But by now she's become so accustomed to isolation and condescension that she no longer trusts her own instincts and has become her own worst enemy. She meets a similarly burnt but far less cynical French dreamboat (Melvil Poupaud of Time to Leave) and they have a weekend romance before he leaves for Paris.

Continue reading "Broken English: An assured debut" »

Posted by at 2:53 PM | Permalink

Reviewer: James Van Maanen
Puccini: Rating (out of 5): ****
Sweet Land: Rating (out of 5): ***½

We watch a lot of movies in our household; even our cat is starting to develop critical tendencies. But when my companion did not realize that the same young woman had played the lead role in two new-to-DVD films we'd watched within three days of each other, I realized that there might well be other movie-lovers out there not making this rather extraordinary connection. The films are Puccini for Beginners (released on July 3) and Sweet Land (July 10) and the actress is the pretty, petite Elizabeth Reaser, who creates two utterly disparate characters with conviction and aplomb. Reaser has worked more in television ("Grey's Anatomy" and "Saved") than in film, but since I watch almost none of the former, I found myself a virgin to her rather extraordinary talent.

In Puccini, Reaser is the narrator and lead, a young NYC lesbian named Allegra who bemoans her fate as one who consistently chooses the wrong mate. The most recent of these choices is Julianne Nicholson, and soon she becomes involved with a young man played by Justin Kirk and a young woman (Gretchen Mol of The Notorious Bettie Page)--both of whom are currently seeing each other, which, of course, Allegra is unaware. We are in the sub-genre of the NY-relationship comedy, lesbian-bisexual style, complete with witty, racy repartee that offers ideas and remarks on everything from life and opera to eating habits and art. Some critics were as keen on Puccini as others were cool, but I found it lively, funny, fresh and a big step up from writer/director Maria Maggenti's movie outing of the decade previous: The Incredibly True Adventures of Two Girls in Love.

Continue reading "Elizabeth Reaser two-fer: Puccini and Sweet" »

Posted by at 6:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Reviewer: Craig Phillips
Rating (out of 5): ***½

Fay Grim is a follow-up to Hal Hartley's 1997 indie hit Henry Fool, but if you haven't seen that film (and I certainly recommend that you do), don't worry. You'll be caught up with who's who rather quickly in this fairly fast-moving (for Hartley), playful and sophisticated espionage comedy, which is uneven but still one of his more enjoyable films in years.

Parker Posey's Fay married the titular philosopher Henry (the underused Thomas Jay Ryan) in the last film, sired a child (now 14), then disappeared. Fay Grim, picking up seven years later, opens with Fay discovering via two CIA agents (Jeff Goldblum, who should be in more Hartley movies; The Wire's Leo Fitzpatrick) that Henry is dead. Or so they tell her. Believing Henry's entire literary work was in fact a secretly encoded history of international atrocities committed by multiple governments, they want Fay to find his notebooks (don't ask why, just go with it); in exchange, she wants her brother, Simon Grim (perfect Hartley abettor James Urbaniak) to be sprung from prison. Of course, that's only the beginning, and while the plotting may seem overly complicated it is likely that way on purpose.

Continue reading "Fay Grim: Hartley being neither grim nor foolish" »

Posted by at 12:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Reviewer: Erin Donovan
Rating (out of 5): *

If I made up a list of the trends in American cinema that if continued over time could eventually turn my love of the medium into a distant memory and a dull headache scoring high would be Behind the Music-ification of the biopic (pronounced to rhyme with 'myopic' with no irony intended). In the past, these formulaic twaddles would have been pipelined for television (and eventually, righteous obscurity) but now with slightly improved cinematography and a flush of new credibility they now make the sky turn black with raining Oscars.

Part of this is no doubt due to our ease to accept that accomplished people's lives can be boiled down to two or three elements that are worth remembering: John Nash was crazy and smart, Queen Elizabeth doesn't smile and is very British, Idi Amin was totally scary and from Africa, Ray Charles sang and was blind, June Carter was married to Johnny Cash or something, Edward R. Murrow was really serious, Capote talked kind of odd = Cut. Print. Exalt.

With that in mind, Fur, an original story that shirks all previous biographies and expectations about one of American's most controversial photographers setting her in a 1950s Greenwich Village fairy tale, held much promise.

Continue reading "Fake "Fur"" »

Posted by at 1:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

[Even though they essentially agree on the film, we thought it'd be fun to get two reviewers' takes on this one, two perspectives for the price of one! First Erin, and then James. -- ed.]

Reviewer: Erin Donovan
Rating (out of 5): ****

[Note: Release date changed to May 15.] A more cynical viewer could see the recent popularity of vignette storytelling as a desperate move for cash-strapped productions to attract big name talent to their films with the lure of a small time commitment and big showpiece scenes without the burden of having to carry an entire narrative. But the flipside of that coin is that to effectively tell those stories a director needs very good actors who can quickly engage our imaginations.

Writer/director Karen Moncrieff's film was inspired by her experiences as a juror on a murder trial after seeing the temporary community that had sprung up around the witnesses called to testify. The Dead Girl is the story of a murder that's become ghoulish normalcy in almost any part of the country: a drug-addicted prostitute is randomly killed, her mutilated body dumped in a field and discovered a few days later by a passerby. The discovery creates a small stir in the local media, but there is very little outrage and no one is ever arrested for the crime.

Continue reading "The Dead Girl: the slivers of universal truth" »

Posted by at 3:30 PM | Permalink