August: Osage County (***1/2)

This is one of those stories about dysfunctional families coming together that usually take place over a Thanksgiving weekend or at Christmas. In this case, it’s a disappearance, but the elements are the same. Start with the mother, whose pain-pill dependence and freewheeling tongue provide another scenery-chewing role for Meryl Streep. Her husband (Sam Shepard) is a onetime poet who, oddly provides the opening narration, quoting T. S. Eliot, then goes missing. Soon after, the daughters show up. Ivy (Julianne Nicholson), the caretaker, has never left Oklahoma. Flighty Karen, the youngest, chattiest, and cheeriest, comes from Florida with her fiancé (Dermot Mulroney). Barbara (Julia Roberts), the eldest, is the one most resentful of, but most like, her mother. She brings her estranged husband (Ewan McGregor) and her daughter (Abigail Breslin). If we knew the future, she tells the 14-year-old , “we’d never want get up in the morning.”

The rich dialogue is among the pleasures of this adaptation of the Tracy Letts play; Letts himself provides the script, and it retains a certain play-like quality and structure, although a few scenes are set outdoors. This means lots of dialogue, well-crafted characters, and a lot of confrontational scenes, any of which, in some other movie, might be the centerpiece scene. Many of these are funny, which means the heavy themes — addiction, alcoholism, adultery, to take just the letter A — never seem ponderous. Instead, they provide just the right mixture of pathos and juicy revelation.

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viewed 1/19/14 1:00 pm at AMC Marple; posted 1/22/14

The World’s End (***)

Some people are calling this the third in a trilogy, because it’s the third movie, after Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, from the team of Edgar Wright (writer/director), Simon Pegg (writer/actor), and Nick Frost (actor). The only other thing that unite them is their certain brand of bro-centric humor, sometimes smart but rarely highbrow, frequently vulgar but not too low-brow (i.e. a minimum of pratfalls and jokes about body functions). Unlike the other two films, this is not really a genre parody, though it could be argued that there’ve been so many movies about groups of men trying to recapture their lost youth that it constitutes a genre of its own, and it is the expectations of those of those films (Old School, Wild Hogs, The Hangover, etc.) that are being subverted.

In this one, the story centers on five 40-year-olds who set out to re-create a legendary 12-stop pub crawl (the “Golden Mile”) that they failed to complete back in 1990. Pegg plays Gary King, the de facto leader of this bunch. Where the other men, played by Frost, Martin Freeman, Paddy Considine, and Eddie Marsan, have moved on with their lives, King has gone from the 12-stop program to the 12-step one, and doesn’t like it. So, he gathers up the old gang to return to his hometown and finish what was started.

The World’s End turns out to be the name of the last pub, the rest of which have names like The Trusty Servant and The Two-Headed Dog.

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viewed 9/22/13 2:00 pm at Riverview; posted 9/23/13

Take This Waltz (**1/4)

This is the second feature from actress/writer/director Sarah Polley, whose Away from Her was an affecting of a man watching his wife’s memory drift away due to Alzheimer’s. Polley brings an equal degree of emotional authenticity to this, the story of a much younger wife (Michelle Williams) and her romantic friendship with another man (Luke Kirby). In fact, I sort of felt embarrassed watching the in which Williams and Seth Rogen, as the unwitting husband, engage in a game in which each describes elaborate ways of killing the other. It was like overhearing a couple using pet names and baby talk to each other, though weirder. So, the marriage is not a bad one, but the other man beckons as a diversion.

Though we wonder whether this new relationship will be consummated (other than through a very erotic, talk-only seduction), the subject is not infidelity as such. It’s more like, is happiness a matter of perception or reality? Do we make ourselves unhappy by imagining the unattainable? It’s a different take on the subject than, say, Unfaithful. However, it’s also painfully stagnant and sometimes redundant. (The imaginary-killing game described above recurs in several scenes.) Sarah Silverman’s perhaps surprising appearance as an alcoholic relative brings, at first, welcome comic relief. Later, she’s featured in a cut-through-the-bullshit scene that quickly sums up what’s played out, very slowly, over the previous 90 minutes. Michelle Williams’s very fine performance is also to be recommended. Nonetheless, as someone who usually has patience for stories that are slow to develop, I found this honest, but honestly dull.

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viewed 6/26/12 7:30 pm at Ritz 5 [PFS screening] and reviewed 7/30/12

Everything Must Go (***1/2)

There seemingly comes a time in every comedic actor’s career when he or she (well, usually he) must essay a serious dramatic role. That time has come for Will Ferrell. This adaptation of a Raymond Carver story doesn’t completely lack humor, but its the humor of pathos, specifically of a man who has lost his job and his marriage on the very same day, and whose lawn sprinkler has suddenly become his alarm clock, wetting his face on a dry Arizona morning. Getting fired from his sales job and having his wife place all of his belongings on the front yard (and change the locks, and freeze the joint accounts) have something to do with his drinking problem. The coincidental timing of those events and the nice new, and temporarily single, neighbor (Rebecca Hall) moving in, is kind of a contrivance. Still, maybe that’s why the movie wasn’t depressing for me. I think the real experience would have felt lonelier. Or maybe it’s because having everything go all at once can be liberating as well as depressing and frightening. At least on film.

At any rate, I don’t think this felt like a bleak film about an alcoholic. (He is, in fact, not drunk much, as the story develops.) Ferrell plays the role, and first-time director Dan Rush has written it, more like an everyman character, and the alcoholism his particular cross to bear. At least that’s how it seemed to me. And so, as he sits on his lawn for days, with the lonely fat kid he’s paid to watch, or sell, his stuff, it doesn’t seem so bad, although one scene in particular choked me up. The period covered is only a few days, and Rush doesn’t make the mistake of having the alcoholic turn his life around too much. But he believably suggests there’s hope for him, and all of us.

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viewed at Ritz 5 and reviewed 5/19/11

Country Strong (**3/4)

Some may forget Gwyneth Paltrow’s singing “Bette Davis Eyes” and Cruisin’ (a hit pairing her with Huey Lewis) on the Duets soundtrack in 2000. Evidently, Paltrow had the urge to do it (though not duet) again, this time as alcoholic country-music star Kelly Canter in this likeable melodrama. She’s not the only singing actor in the film. Leighton Meester (Gossip Girl) plays an up-and-comer with stage fright. Musically, her character’s a bit like Taylor Swift, but her voice is better. And Garrett Hedlund has such a fine baritone that I was surprised that his background was in acting. (Clearly, I failed to take note of him in Troy, Friday Night Lights, Eragon, or Georgia Rule, and didn’t see his concurrent role in Tron:Legacy.) Although set in the world of country music, writer-director Shana Feste’s (The Greatest) subject, broadly, is the price of fame. Roughly, the plot resembles A Star Is Born, the 1976 Barbra Streisand version, except that Paltrow takes Kris Kristofferson’s role of the self-destructive superstar.

Paltrow ably conveys a wide range of emotions, but the problem is that we never have an idea where they all come from. Maybe what Kelly says in the film is true, that you can have love and fame but not both, but Feste didn’t quite sell me on the point. Probably the movie would’ve made more sense if it began with her arrival at rehab rather than her premature departure. It isn’t clear exactly how fame has ruined her or her relationship with her manager-husband (actual country star Tim McGraw, who only sings on the soundtrack). I did like the performing scenes though, and not just because the songs are good, but because in these characters you really get the sense of how the performer feeds off of the audience—or fears it, in the case of Meester’s character. As for the ending, I had the same issue as with The Greatest, a drama about how a teen’s death impacts his family. As with that film, a little more subtlety would’ve improved it. Recommended, then, for those who will enjoy the tunes and overlook the unfocused narrative.

viewed 1/5/11 at Ritz 5 [PFS screening] and reviewed 1/5/11

Crazy Heart (***1/4)

From the moment country singer Bad Blake, personified by Jeff Bridges, steps out of his old truck in front of a bowling alley, you can practically imagine the plaque on his arteries, the tar covering his lungs, and the alcohol saturating his liver. Bad is bad to his body, seemingly a collection of bodily fluids. But he’s very good on stage, even if he has to take whiskey breaks, and the stage is in a bowling alley in the Midwest. Actually, Bridges is very good, sounding like an undeservedly forgotten great from the outlaw heyday (the 1970s) of country music, not a singing actor. As it happens, give him a scraggly beard and he looks a lot like Kris Kristofferson. Kristofferson must have been an inspiration to first-time director Scott Cooper, who had wanted to make a biopic about Waylon Jennings but instead adapted a novel by Thomas Cobb. It helps that the songs written by T-Bone Burnett and the late Stephen Bruton are entirely convincing as old classics, especially the song that’s supposed to be Blake’s signature song. (“Funny how falling feels like flying…for a little while” goes the chorus.)

Blake doesn’t seem like a unique character, but rather someone who feels familiar from the first, even if you may not know anyone like him. (The 2001 movie Jackpot covered some of this same turf, but less successfully, and with lesser singing talent.) The next low-paying gig, the next bottle of whiskey, and the next (hoped-for) record deal keep him moving forward. He resents the success of his onetime backing-band member (Colin Ferrell, who also sings) who now plays His shot at redemption—a romance with a Santa Fe single mom (Maggie Gyllenhaal)—is a fairly obvious plot device, too. Yet the movie, like its central character, has an easy charm about it, and the portrait of life on the road, and Bridges’s captivating performance, make this worthwhile, especially, though not exclusively, if you like rootsy country music.

IMDB link

viewed 1/27/10 at Ritz East and reviewed 1/27–29/10

Wah-Wah (***1/4) [opens Friday]

Actor-turned-director Richard E. Grant’s autobiographical movie, set in the waning days of the British Empire, is a trenchant, non-nostalgic portrait of family dysfunction and a disappearing way of life.

Set in the waning days of British colonialism, actor-turned-director Richard E. Grant’s autobiographical drama takes place in Swaziland. Partly a coming-of-age-drama, it features Nicolas Hoult as a version of the teenaged Grant. Judging by his movie’s portrayal of an alcoholic dad (Gabriel Byrne), abandoning mom (Miranda Richardson), and motley assortment of snobs and adulterers, Grant’s recollection of the time isn’t entirely fond. His movie lacks the air of nostalgia you might expect and that partly permeates, for example, Nowhere in Africa, 2003’s foreign-language Oscar-winner. Yet it’s also funny at times, especially the parts with Emily Watson as pretension-piercing American among this lot of strangely anachronistic British Africans. (Watson coincidentally also co-stars in The Proposition, which opened the same weekend.) Byrne is especially good as the hard-drinking diplomat, even if the transformation of his character from kindly father to drunk is jarringly quick. The mixture of trenchant family drama and a look at a disappearing way of life is unusual and worthwhile.

IMDb link

posted 8/19/13

Pollock (**3/4)

Like or hate the famous “drip paintings” of the artist Jackson Pollack, there’s no denying that he was a unique artist with a distinct sensibility. But, despite fine performances by Ed Harris as Pollack, and Marcia Gay Harden as his wife, fellow abstract painter Lee Krasner, the movie makes the art less interesting, not more. Concentrating on the post-war years the couple spent on Long Island, Harris (who also directed) paints his character a rather ordinarily self-important, not atypical alcoholic, and Krasner as an all-too-typical spouse who chose to stay with the talented but difficult man.


 viewed 3/22/01 6;15 pm at GCC Plymouth Meeting and posted 7/26/14

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