Four Snouts up for The Way Way Back--Prediction: sleeper of the year

(:)(:)(:)(:) snouts up for The Way Way Back which I predict will be the sleeper hit of the year.  This film is so good it brought me out of unplanned blogging retirement.  Inexplicably,given its provenance, this film seems to have had zero promotion budget and bad distribution.  So if you can find this film (now playing at Tower Theater in Sacramento), you should see it soon and help make my prediction come true.

By the creative team that brought us The Descendants (Nat Faxon and Jim Rash) comes this touching comedy set now (but really in the 80's) on Cape Cod but summer anywhere.  Steve Carell plays a jerk--not one we love, just a jerk--with a great girlfriend, Toni Collete, and a gregarious drunk summer neighbor, Alison Janney.  The focal point of the movie is his girlfriend's son, 14 year year old adorable silent awkward Duncan, played by Liam James, alienated by the constant adult assaholics at the beach, runs off to bond with a hilarious character Owen played by Sam Rockwell.

BTW, I'm still baffled by the film's title unless it refers to the fact that we walked to the way way back of Tower Theater and all the way up the stairs to the way way back of the biggest screening room to see it.  The one advantage to that: there is a secret exit out onto very high stairs going directly down to the parking lot--a bit much for this acrophobic.

This one is good for adults and teens.  Very very funny and very very touching.   See it.

(:)(:)(:)(:)(:) for Of Gods and Men (Des Hommes et Des Deux)

5 snouts up for Of Gods and Men on DVD now (a 2010 film in French with English subtitles).  I had read about this movie and I had wanted to see it when it was in theaters, but couldn't convince my kids that it would be fun to see a movie about Trappist monks in terrorized Algeria struggling with their faith.  Given that plot, maybe I won't be able to convince you either.  Yet, I was blown away by this extraordinary movie.

Set in Algeria in the 1990s during a brutal civil war between the government and Islamic terrorists, the film is based on a true story about these French Trappist monks who have led a simple sweet existence there for decades.  It is difficult to explain what is so compelling about the story.  I guess it may be as simple as while the background is hate, the foreground is love.

Despite (or perhaps because of) their deep faith, these monks actually rarely speak of God in their exploration of what's right for each of them and for their community.  For the first 2/3rds of the movie, Love is the stand-in term for God, which makes for very beautiful and accessible conversations.  Because there's so much at stake (the lives of the monks and the people around them), there's this backdrop of tension that you might not otherwise find in a movie about a monastery on a hill.  At any moment the terrorists or the army could kick in the door.

Watching the monks'  faith, peace and knowledge of the Koran meet the terrorists' violence and hate on Christmas Eve is spellbinding.  Much of their community life with each other takes place around the simple wooden dinner table.  The conversations between the monks are so compellingly written as to need to be re-played immediately.  The scene where they drink wine and listen to a record of Swan Lake is haunting.

It's been a long time since I've seen a movie this well-written, well-acted, well-conceived.

Four Snouts up for Crazy Heart

(:)(:)(:)(:) for Crazy Heart starring Jeff Bridges, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Robert Duvall. I enjoyed this movie very much. Jeff Bridges' performance is extraordinary--so is Maggie Gyllenhaal's. I believe entirely that Bridges' character Bad is a washed up, drunk country singer songwriter with a following. Jeff sings pretty darn well, and it's clearly his own voice. I believe that Gyllenhaal's character falls for him despite his gut, his alcoholism, and the age difference.

And I believe it in spite of heavy-handed flawed dialogue that doesn't always ring true (I thought the scenes between Bad and his protogee turned superstar were painfully badly written). I loved the ending too because it is not typical Hollywood, neither happy nor sad, just real.

4 snouts up for Everlasting Moments

(:)(:)(:)(:) snouts up for Everlasting Moments now playing at the Tower Theater in Sacramento.

We really only went to this film tonight because it was the only non Hollywood hell film with decent review playing at a normal time. (10:15pm for the only evening showing of The Class? C'mon Tower!)

It defied my nonexistent expectations. Billed as an "epic Swedish melodrama" one could really be in for it. What a reviewer might say is that this is a truly unique story clearly told from the perspective of the girl growing up in this turn of the (previous) century family with a philandering alcoholic tempermental father and a beautiful long suffering, artistic and industrious mother. The film is as much about the mother's limited choices as a mother of 4, no 5, no 6, no 7 children in that time as it is anything else.

Nonetheless, it held both our attention for the 2 plus hours with its closely observed story, beautiful cinematography and strong performances (beautiful yet credible actors too--very 3 dimensional characters and well-written, although admittedly my Swedish is not strong--the father while drunk and boorish is also charming and handsome and passionate, one can see how the mother might stay with him despite all; the mother while exploring her secret passion for photography and a particular photographer is also sensible and focussed)

See it while it lasts.

(:)(:) for No Country for Old Men

Two snouts up for No Country for Old Men the pointless "thriller" by the Coen brothers (known in Hollywood as "the two-headed director") now playing in movie theaters. I have loved many Coen brothers films despite the violence, Fargo, O Brother Where Art Thou? Raising Arizona, and Barton Fink, to name a few.

But this may have been my first foray into the really relentless Coen brothers films. I had previously spared myself Miller's Crossing and Blood Simple which I believe were much more bloody. So if it had just been me, I might have discounted my experience of this film. I don't tend to like overly violent pictures, and might have overlooked the brilliance of the Coen brothers as I sat bathed in the blood of the movie.

My husband, who has a high tolerance for violent films and also loves the Coen brothers , seemed to largely share my experience of this one. Our reaction could largely be summed up as "Whaaa?"

Despite compelling performances by Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin and, the stand-out, Tommy Lee Jones, arresting cinematography and lots of thrilling near death experience for our "hero" Josh Brolin (a vietnam vet turned n'er-do-well welder who stumbles upon $2 million in cash in a drug deal gone bad and goes on the lam with it), the movie is ultimately completely pointless.

Tommy Lee Jones character says things that sound like they are supposed to be profound or would give us some insight into why we've been subjected to what essentially is a horror show of the character played by Javier Bardem stalking his prey, Llewelyn (played by Brolin).

The Coen brothers make a number of completely inexplicable choices in the movie, providing us with a massively anticlimatic series of "endings," and no sense of why on earth we would ever want to have endured this movie. We get to watch Bardem kill person after person and sometimes compellingly not kill some people. And we watch Tommy Lee Jones, the near-retirement sweetheart Texas cop, not do a blessed thing about it despite his concern.

Do yourself a favor and skip the carnage. Read a good book instead.

(:)(:)(: for Love in the Time of the Cholera

Two and a half snouts up for Love in the Time of the Cholera soon to be playing in a theater near you. Beautifully filmed and costumed, with an able performance by Javier Bordem in the lead role, nevertheless the film cannot transcend a stagnant screenplay and some atrocious performances (not mention casting choices).

I was looking forward to the first adaptation for the screen that I have seen of a Gabriel Garcia Marquez book. This was a beautiful book, which I urge you to read. Fortunately or not, I remember little of it. I was able to simply experience this as a film, unfettered by the book.

Nonetheless, it doesn't work. The single worst problem being Italian actress Giovanna Mezzogiorno in the lead female role of Fermina Daza. Her cold withholding performance and tired screen presence leave every doubt as to how Florentino Ariza (Javier Bordem) could possibly pine away for her for 51 years. There is no chemistry or energy between the two of the them. Her side of the story is not believable.

Having said this, somehow within the constraints of a weak script and a terrible leading "actress," Bordem's character comes to life. I absolutely believed that he was a mild-mannered clerk bedding over 600 women while he waits "with fidelity" for Fermina's husband to die.

One problem is that Fermina's husband Juvenal Urbino is played so well by Benjamin Bratt, that you can't believe Fermina could have lacked for anything--he comes across as handsome, loving and wonderful, the ideal husband, save for a brief affair later in the marriage.

Finally, in 2007 I consider it an unforgiveable choice to create the movie, set in turn of the (previous) century Columbia, in heavily-accented English instead of Spanish with subtitles or unaccented English. This stupid choice was made all the odder by random bursts of Spanish song or calls of "ayudame!" from the many cholera victims. Do people switch from heavily accented English to Spanish as they grow sicker?

Skip the movie and read the book, in Spanish if possible.