TFC Journal at TheFilmChair.com

Towelhead (2008)–**
Quickie Review

Jasira, a 13-year-old girl of Lebanese descent, must deal with racism and conflicting messages about sex in suburban Texas. American Beauty writer Alan Ball’s feature directorial debut begins as a piercing, uncomfortable social commentary but devolves into a Bizzaro World after school special. Rarely funny and too badly acted to be dramatic, this so-called dark comedy needed someone with Todd Solondz’s sensibilities to make it both interesting and entertaining. Only Aaron Eckhart, in his role as the older neighbor who lusts after Jasira, finds the harmonic balance between funny and tragic. Also starring Peter Macdissi, Toni Collette, and Summer Bishil as Jasira.

Every December, as the rest of the film community is busy compiling lists of the year’s best movies, the Library of Congress announces 25 films that will be preserved for future generations.  So when the robots finally take over, they’ll be able to experience one of the classic sci-fi films that predicted their rise to power: The Terminator.  

From the Library of Congress press release:

Under the terms of the National Film Preservation Act, each year the Librarian of Congress names 25 films to the National Film Registry that are “culturally, historically or aesthetically” significant, to be preserved for all time. These films are not selected as the “best” American films of all time, but rather as works of enduring significance to American culture.

Joining The Terminator in the National Film Registry this year are classics like Sergeant York, Harryhausen’s The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, John Huston’s The Asphalt Jungle, and Universal’s monster movie The Invisible Man. 

Here are the 25 films selected this year to be stored in the explosion-proof vault with the Charters of Freedom when the bombs go off:

• The Asphalt Jungle (1950)
• Deliverance (1972)
• Disneyland Dream (1956)
• A Face in the Crowd (1957)
• Flower Drum Song (1961)
• Foolish Wives (1922)
• Free Radicals (1979)
• Hallelujah (1929)
• In Cold Blood (1967)
• The Invisible Man (1933)
• Johnny Guitar (1954)
• The Killers (1946)
• The March (1964)
• No Lies (1973)
• On the Bowery (1957)
• One Week (1920)
• The Pawnbroker (1965)
• The Perils of Pauline (1914)
• Sergeant York (1941)
• The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958)
• So’s Your Old Man (1926)
• George Stevens WW2 Footage (1943-46)
• The Terminator (1984)
• Water and Power (1989)
• White Fawn’s Devotion (1910)

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)–****

Zemeckis, an undisputed master of film technology, shows off an equal aptitude for vivid storytelling in bringing Winston Groom’s picaresque novel to screen.
–Rita Kempley’s 1994 Washington Post review of Forrest Gump

Seriously?

I hated Forrest Gump. Hated, hated, hated Forrest Gump, as Roger Ebert would say. Every time I see the 1994 Best Picture winner on television, I dislike it even more. The notion of the story, the film’s saccharine sentimentality and the unbelievable protagonist, grate on my sensibilities as a moviegoer. And then there are the visual effects, which in those early days of computer technology killed my already challenged suspension of disbelief.

Why mention this in a review of David Fincher’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button? Because if there was any film that succeeded exactly where Forrest Gump failed, it’s Button.

Let’s face it. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is narratively designed to be even more unbelievable than the story of a mentally challenged man and his many adventures. Here Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt), a man who ages backwards, has a life-long romantic entanglement with Daisy (Cate Blanchett), a girl who ages like everyone else. They meet when Benjamin looks like he is in his seventies and Daisy is still a girl of around 10. Somewhere in the middle, the two meet again, fall passionately in love, and are happy, if only for a few good years.

Their love isn’t happily ever after. It’s a fleeting passion that surfaces at the moment the time is right for both. They have other lives and other lovers. It’s not the type of romance you usually see in a sweeping Hollywood picture. In fact, there’s a cool sentimentality to Fincher’s first foray into epic drama territory that makes me wonder if the New New Hollywood has finally arrived.

Outside of blockbuster tent poles, it’s hard to find a film that so intricately weaves its use of technology into the filmmaking. We’ve come to expect motion capture technology in superhero movies or fantasy films. We don’t blink at the computer-generated landscapes. But here Fincher employs technology that allows the audience to take in the story, albeit one with fantasy elements, in order to make us fall for the romance of it all.

Pitt, as Button, seems at much at ease with the technology as does Fincher. He gives a performance that is at times breathlessly romantic or desperately lonely, so much so that we begin to understand the film and its other characters even more. Pitt has never impressed me more.

I’d love to say more about the cast, including the always perfect Blanchett, but so much goes right with this film, it’s hard to find space in a single review to list it all. Donald Graham Burt’s stunning production design, Alexandre Desplat’s enchanting score, and most vividly, Claudio Miranda’s cinematography combine to create Fincher’s most unexpectedly alluring film yet. It may not be his best, but it’s an achievement that we’ll be talking about for ages.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett and directed by David Fincher, is in theaters now.

I may be the only person on the Internet calling this the best news ever, but damn it, I’d rather live in a world where a Watchmen movie was never been released, let alone made.

The AP is reports today:

An attorney for 20th Century Fox says the studio will continue to seek an order delaying the release of Watchmen.

For those of you who missed the bomb that was dropped on Warner Bros. last week, U.S. District Court Judge Gary Feess wrote a five-page ruling saying that “Fox owns a copyright interest consisting of, at the very least, the right to distribute the Watchmen motion picture.”  The New York Times delivered that Christmas present to Warner Bros. on Dec. 24. 

While I get excited everytime I see a trailer for the movie, I keep reminding myself that my initial reaction after reading the graphic novel was, “There’s no way you can make this into a movie.” Zack Snyder directing only makes it seem less likely that this will be a successful cinematic venture.  I don’t want another V for Vendetta, a film I liked but knew had focused on visuals to the detriment of the greater story.

Watchmen will be released. Fox and Warner will cut a deal. It may not be in March, but you’ll see it sometime next year for sure.  But I’m starting to wonder if the movie will even be half as entertaining as the behind-the-scenes drama we’re seeing right now.

Doubt — ***
Frost/Nixon — ***1/2

The differences between Doubt, an adaptation of John Patrick Shanley’s stage play directed by the playwright, and Frost/Nixon, an adaptation of Peter Morgan’s play directed by Hollywood filmmaker Ron Howard, reveal two approaches to theatrical adaptations. Doubt looks like a stage production forced to be a movie, while Frost/Nixon is a cinematic production of a popular play.

Both Doubt and Frost/Nixon are good films, but Frost/Nixon borders on greatness because, despite being more cinematic, I’m never aware that I’m watching a movie.

Doubt, with distracting oblique camera angles and calculated, theatrical dialogue, makes it hard to engage the story at its most basic level. And it’s a story that should be engaging. Sister Aloysius (Meryl Streep) accuses Father Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman) of sexual abuse based on novice Sister James’ (Amy Adams) reports. “So, it’s happened,” says Sister Aloysius when she’s first told of Flynn calling an altar boy to the rectory, as if she was waiting for this her entire career.

Streep’s performance doesn’t feel true to the story, especially in the film’s final moments. She creates a character that is marvelous to watch, but being of the YouTube generation, her most severe moments would be more entertaining strung together in a video montage, out of the context of the film.

Does that mean the film isn’t well acted? I wouldn’t go that far. Streep and Hoffman have an emotional exchange late in the film where Streep’s Aloysius tells Hoffman’s Flynn that she will not relent and Hoffman begins to realize exactly what he is up against. Adams and Hoffman have a more delicate interaction in the church’s garden earlier in the film where he lays out Father Flynn’s case to Sister James. Adams, whose innocent exterior is so often confronted by an internalized awareness, is perfectly cast as Sister James, the nun in the middle.

But Viola Davis, playing the mother of the altar boy, gives the film’s most devastating performance. As she explains why pursuing the charges would destroy her child to Sister Aloysius, we see the film’s truest moments. In these exchanges, we are invited into the movie through some of the best screen acting this year. But it’s Shanley’s overly cinematic direction and, I never thought I would say this, Roger Deakins distracting cinematography, that violently pull you out of the film.

I never enjoyed the slow burn of Doubt because of its little distractions, whereas Frost/Nixon, a film equally heavy on great acting, demands your attention. Peter Morgan, who wrote both the stage play and the screenplay, has an enviable awareness of both mediums. And Ron Howard, who is a sentimental filmmaker, adds his own touch of humanity to Morgan’s work. When Howard gets his teeth into something with a little bit of intellectual heft, he makes great films. Frost/Nixon is as close as he’s come to greatness since A Beautiful Mind.

I’ve never seen Frost/Nixon on stage (or Doubt for that matter), but I have a feeling Howard was able to amplify Frost’s troubles beyond what is called for in the theatrical production. Michael Sheen as British talk-show host David Frost, who originated the role on the London stage, is thrilling to watch as he realizes just how much he has on the line. When Richard Nixon (Frank Langella) agrees to the Frost interview, the first since his resignation, he expects a soft-ball approach. Frost meets those expectations until the playboy/showman finally understands that he is doing something of greater importance than just another celebrity interview.

Frost/Nixon progresses like a boxing match, with the competitors retreating to the corners and getting advice from their trainers. It’s Nixon who finally and unexpectedly throws in the towel.

Like Sheen’s Frost, Langella’s Nixon is amazing to watch. (Langella also played Nixon in the original stage production.) He’s guarded and tricky, borders on mad, not unlike Anthony Hopkins in Oliver Stone’s Nixon. But it’s the moment Nixon makes the decision to admit his guilt when Langella gets the chance to expose Nixon, the man. We may not see his soul, but at least we experience his conscience.

Those final moments in Frost/Nixon seem much less stagy than those in Doubt. Both films, however, make me wonder if contemporary theatrical adaptations can even become great movies. Neither achieves the greatness of a film like Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? or a Tennessee Williams adaptation from the 1950s. Just look at other recent stage-to-screen productions like Rent, The Producers, or Proof. Something is lost in the adaptation.

Though I have faith Frost/Nixon will get better with subsequent viewings, I still have doubts about Doubt. I guess that says something about both films. Frost/Nixon makes me want to see it again. It’s solid entertainment. Doubt isn’t.

Making up for EW’s mistake, the Associated Press has named Tiny Fey, star of 30 Rock and part-time Sarah Palin impersonator, their Entertainer of the Year.

From the AP:

“Tina Fey is such an obvious choice,” said Sharon Eberson, entertainment editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “She gave us funny when we really needed it and, in a year when women in politics were making huge strides, Fey stood out in the world of entertainment.

And now for a random Liz Lemon quote:

[On the phone] Hi, my name is Liz Lemon and I received flowers from your shop tonight and I can’t tell who they’re from. No, no, I did read the card but it’s not signed…no, I’m not with so many men that it’s impossible for me to guess…well, that is just…oh, well you know what, I found the card, actually, they’re from your mom, so tell your gay mom I said thanks!

Thanks for a great year, Lemon.

Werewolves in Manolo Blahniks? Carrie finally, and quite literally, ripping Big’s heart out of his chest on a full moon? Oh yes.

My favorite news item of the day comes by way of the Hollywood Reporter. Fox is developing a show about four female werewolves in the City titled Bitches.  This has the potential to be chock full of good badness. Take that HBO and your True Blood.

Michael Dougherty, writer of X2 and Superman Returns and director of the unmarketable horror flick Trick ‘r Treat, is the Bitches mastermind.

Honestly, I just like that I’ll have a socially acceptable excuse to say Bitches over and over again at work.

Me with all my co-workers at the lunch table.
Co-worker one: Did you watch anything good last night?
Me: Bitches.
Co-worker two: Excuse me?
Me: You heard me. Bitches.
Co-worker one: That was a period and not a comma after “me,” right?
And…scene!

This is going to be great.

In any other year, we wouldn’t be talking about The Dark Knight, Milk, WALL-E, and Slumdog Millionaire as serious Best Picture contenders. In any other year, the Best Actress trophy wouldn’t be a race between a classic icon and an icon in waiting. In any other year, performers playing a professional wrestler and a gay rights activist wouldn’t be the frontrunners for the Best Actor trophy. In any other year, the idea of a posthumous Oscar win for a late-twenties actor playing a super villain wouldn’t even be worth a laugh.

But this year isn’t any other year.

There’s plenty of quality to go around in a very small number of pictures. Unlike last year where quality didn’t mean ratings, the movies making waves are beloved works. Those Oscar pictures we usually see appear to be big bores by comparison. Is it art house exhaustion? Is it prestige fatigue? Or is it that in this year, unlike most years, the blockbusters and the feel-good movies hit the right cinematic notes while still appealing to a mass audience? Is this the new Hollywood?

There’s no doubt about it. This year’s race feels different. It’s not just because at this time of the year, we usually have an idea of which picture and players will eventually win Oscars. It’s also because of the types of films and performances that may win.

God, I love this race.

Oscar charts updated: 12/19/2008