review Archives - Page 7 of 16 - Ramblin' with Roger

MOVIE REVIEW: Synecdoche, New York

On Christmas Day, the wife and I left the daughter in the capable hands of the parents-in-law and traversed to the Spectrum Theatre in Albany to see Synecdoche, New York.

There were four basic reasons I wanted to see this film:
4) Roger Ebert gave it a four-star review.
3) I have liked some of the movies Charlie Kauffman has written, such as “Being John Malkovich” and “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”; “Adaptation”, not so much. This was Kauffman’s directoral debut.
2) It has a stellar cast, with Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener, Michelle Williams, Samantha Morton, and Hope Davis.
1) The movie’s first setting is in Schenectady, New York, where I lived for 20 months before moving to nearby Albany. (An interesting piece on Schenectady and the title word here.)

Early on, I’m loving this film. It’s a dark comedy that pegs Schenectady in the first song, in the architecture. I found a particular imagery of a house on fire hysterically funny. I laughed out loud more than once. It is wonderfully performed. Yet somewhere in the theatrical remaking of the life of Caden (Hoffman), it just unraveled for me, as too long, too unfocused.

Here’s a cheat: I’m going to quote from various Rotten Tomatoes reviews, both positive (63%) and negative, that reflect as well as anything how I was feeling.

POSITIVE
Charlie Kaufman’s latest example of screenplay extrapolation begins with an obscure definitional allusion…and ends in some sort of self-referential apocalypse. – Bill Gibron

It is a portrait of disappointment and melancholy, tickled by bits of wit, that defies logic and resists description. – Duane Dudek

For about two-thirds of its length, this is an extremely funny if extraordinarily dark comedy… But we begin to measure out the time in teaspoons, and the movie becomes banal and morose. – John Beifuss

You could quite possibly be enthralled — or not. – Pete Hammond

NEGATIVE
This makes the film interesting in concept but disappointing in execution. And surreal touches added throughout that just do not add up to anything but a film more challenging than rewarding. – Mark R. Leeper

It’s all crazy enough to work for a while, but the 124 long minutes don’t pass soon enough. – Jeffrey M. Anderson

…a picture that is (a) brilliant, in scattered parts, but also (b) a reminder that virtually every writer needs an editor. – Kurt Loder

For a film that desperately wants us to empathize with its main character’s plight, Kaufman’s inability to reconcile his overambitious gimmickry with the story’s emotional demands is a fatal flaw. – Jurgen Fauth

Watching the film is also wearying, like assembling a puzzle from a box into which a sadist continually pours new pieces. – Lawrence Toppman

More than one critic compared it, unfavorably, to Fellini’s “8 1/2”.

Ultimately, the line that described it best for me is this technically positive review by Philip Martin: “An impossible, bewildering and brave failure of a movie …”

I would not say, “Don’t see it.” You may enjoy it, “get” it more than I did. Or not.

ROG

MOVIE REVIEW: Vicki Cristina Barcelona

A friend of mine met a woman at a party that I threw. They had a torrid, tempestuous relationship that he once described as “like heroin”. Couldn’t live without her, couldn’t live with her.

That description pretty much describes at least one of the relationships in the new Woody Allen movie Vicki Cristina Barcelona, which I saw on Columbus Day by myself – well, OK, with four other people, but without my wife, who kindly stayed home with the daughter. She knows my favorite film is Woody’s Annie Hall, that I’ve seen several Allen films, and was anxious to see this one, especially since the reviews were mostly positive.

Like many good Allen movies, VCB is about sex. Whether it’s about a giant condom or a split screen ascertaining whether three times a week is “all the time” or “hardly at all”. In this case, it’s about whether the two title characters, played by Rebecca Hall as the engaged Vicki and Scarlett Johansson, a Woody Allen regular, as the unsettled Cristina, will succumb to the title vista. That includes Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem) as the most forthright Lothario you’ll ever meet.

I found the movie to be a quite nice experience when Maria Elena (Penélope Cruz), the ex of Juan Antonio shows up. She is a force of nature, and ramps up the film from a pleasant diversion to one worth seeing.

There’s also a mildly interesting subplot involving the Nashes (Kevin Dunn and the always great Patricia Clarkson) that informs the main story. Chris Messina is stuck with that thankless role of Doug, the earnest, somewhat unpleasant finance of Vicki, the archtype which shows up in every other romantic movie, but the twist in this storyline makes that ultimately pay off as well.

I’ve watched a LOT of Woody Allen films, though none since 1995’s Mighty Aphrodite, save for the disappointing The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001). This is Woody Allen back, if not in his 1970s form, at least in his 1980s form, which is good enough to recommend.

ROG

MOVIE REVIEW: Man on Wire

On August 7, 1974, Phillipe Petit spent 45 minutes walking, dancing and lying on a cable that connected the North and South Towers of the World Trade Center. How he does it is the story of Man on Wire.

That the outcome is known makes the fact that James Marsh’s documentary, enhanced greatly by home movies that were made by those planning the caper, works so well as a suspense film. The best comparison I can think of is the movie Apollo 13, when I waited impatiently to see if we’d hear the astronauts’ voices again, EVEN THOUGH I KNEW THE OUTCOME! It’s that kind of story.

The core of the saga, of course, is Petit himself, who, at 5’8″ and 135 pounds, was as small as his surname suggests. That he dreamed of doing the crossing before the buildings were even constructed was just one glimpse into the mind of a man who could inspire others to do his bidding by the sheer force of his outsize personality. We get to see Petit and many of his co-conspirators as they have what are essentially dry runs in Australia and France.

The heart of the tale was getting teams up each building to set up the proper equipment to keep Petit from falling 110 stories to his death. The film does not touch on 9/11, though seeing the construction site of the WTC looks eerily like the hole after the cleanup. There is one shot of Petit on the cable as a plane flies by that’s momentarily jarring. Petit himself has said that he doesn’t want to talk about 9/11 because he has his own memories of the Towers.

If you had forgotten, or never knew this story, it’s probably because it took place only two days before Richard Nixon resigned as President – only obliquely referred to in the film – and that DC news took over the news cycle for several days.

This movie, as of October 11, 2008, had a score of 100% on the Tomatometer. Carol and I saw the movie last Sunday at our favorite cinema, the Spectrum 8, and while we both liked the film very much, we didn’t love it, though I’m definitely recommending it.

This movie was rated R at my theater (though PG-13 on IMDB and in most references) largely because of one scene near the very end of the film and for drug references.
ROG

BOOK REVIEW: Across the Charts-the 1960s

I am an unabashed fan of those Billboard books such as Top Pop Singles and Top R&B /Hip Hop Singles. Arriving in the mail this week, Joel Whitburn Presents Across the Charts-the 1960s. It takes all the songs that hit the Hot 100 (HT), Bubbling Under (BU), R&B (RB), Country (CW) and Adult Contemporary (AC). from January 1960 through December 1969. Additionally it notes those “list” songs such as the Rolling Stone 500 greatest songs, RIAA/NEA 365 songs of the (20th) century, BMI top 100 songs of the century, etc.

Examples: Whipped cream by Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass entered the AC charts on 3/20/66 and got to #13, spending 8 weeks on the charts, while it hit the HT charts on 2/20/66 and stayed there for 10 weeks, but only got to #68.

The Beatles’ From Me to You was released on 8/3/63 but only got to the BU charts at #116, but was re-released on 3/7/64 and got to #41. Another Beatles’ song, Something, was #3 on the HT but also #17 on the AC, the ONLY Beatles song to reach the AC in the decade. Also, Something was #273 on the Rolling Stone list and #17 on the BMI rating.

Nat “King Cole’s Ramblin’ Rose was #1 for 5 weeks in 1962 on the AC charts, #2 for 2 weeks on the HT chart AND #7 on the RB charts. Similarly, the 1960 Elvis Presley hit Stuck on You was #1 for 4 weeks on the HT, #6 on the RB(!) and #27 on the CW. I note these last two examples to describe the universality of music, and why I was never able to organize my albums by “genre”.

Additionally, the book lists all the songs alphabetically, so I can see that All My Loving charted for the Beatles, the Chipmunks, Jimmy Griffin and the Hollyridge Strings.

There are three songs that made it to #1 on three of the four charts
I Can’t Stop Lovin’ You by Ray Charles (1962): RB (10 weeks), HT (5 weeks) and AC (5 weeks); #161 on the Rolling Stone list, #40 on the BMI.
Big Bad John by Jimmy Dean (1961): AC (9 weeks), HT (5 weeks), CW (2 weeks).
AND, OMG
Honey by Bobby Goldsboro (1968): HT (6 weeks), CW (3 weeks), AC (2 weeks).

There’s is only one song that made the Top 10 in all four charts, HT, RB, CW, and AC. Any guesses?

This is a really fun book, at least for a music junkie of this period such as I. For more information, go to RecordResearch.com.

(This was an unpaid, unsolicited announcement for a book I’m loving.)

ROG

VIDEO REVIEW: Enchanted

Friend Fred , way back on February 23, extolled the virtues of the 2007 cartoon-and-live-action Disney film Enchanted. It starred Amy Adams, who Roger Ebert loved in Junebug. A couple months later, I went to my local library to put it on reserve. And waited and waited until, when a call came from the library saying my item is in – without actually specifying what item it might be – I had forgotten about it.

Two days later, I get the DVD and the family sits down to watch it. Big mistake. The four-year-old is terrified of the ogre, and by the time we get to the slaying of the bus dragon, she’s done.

So I watch it by myself (and later my wife, herself). You know what? Fred was correct! It’s fun! It’s romantic! It has some great songs, including “Happy Working Song” that Adams sang at the Oscars this year, a great riff on “Whistle While You Work” from Snow White. In fact, what was truly remarkable were some of the exact shots used in various animated and live action Disney films.

The art was great. I recognized the cartoon version of Susan Sarandon before I recognized her voice. The other characters that inhabited both worlds were likewise well-rendered in animated form. The DVD extras enhanced my appreciation of the moviemaking. Those birds and rats that were cleaning? NOT CGI, but actual trained animals. New York City at the climax? CGI.

In fact, the only quibbles I had the DVD touched on. A couple deleted scenes, one of which would have explained the motivation of one character better, I might have kept. But this is a minor thing.

I had forgotten that Patrick Dempsey was that McDreamy guy from Grey’s Anatomy. But, as Fred noted, the film lives or dies with Amy Adams, and she was radiant. Perhaps coincidentally, Giselle spoke to her prince (James Marsden) about what happens after “happily ever after”; a recent TV Guide promises that Grey’s will answer the very same question this coming season.

Highly recommended for people who know the Disney oeuvre or like musicals. Recommended for most everyone else who isn’t grumpy. Not recommended for very sensitive four-year olds.

ROG