After 87 years of abiding the law, J.L. “Red” Rountree robbed a bank in 1998. In fact, he became a serial bank robber, robbing banks until his final incarceration at age 92. The documentary This Is Not a Robbery explores how this could have happened. Spoiler: nonagenarians do not excel at the art of the getaway.
Cleverly structured, This Is Not a Robbery intersperses the modern robberies with biographical segments that finally reveal the arc of Rountree’s singular journey. We get to see Rountree explaining himself. He’s a kick, but the most revealing comments are from his friends, who relate the pivotal points in his business career and family life.
At only 70 minutes long, it’s a good watch. This Is Not a Robbery is available on DVD, on Netflix streaming and sometimes plays on the Sundance Channel.
Richard Widmark running out of luck in THE NIGHT AND THE CITY
On July 15, Turner Classic Movies is showing the under appreciated film noir classic Night in the City (1950). Richard Widmark is superb as a loser who tries to corner the pro wrestling business in post-war London – and, as in any noir classic, it doesn’t end well for the sap.
The American director Jules Dassin had just made the noir classics The Naked City and Thieves’ Highway when he shot Night and the City in the UK. He was blackballed in the McCarthy Era and never moved back to the US.
At the request of a studio exec, Dassin created a role in Night and the City for the stunningly beautiful but emotionally fragile Gene Tierney. The cast also includes real life wrestlers Stanislaus Zbyszko and Mike Mazurki.
Night in the City (along with The Wrestler) represents wrestling on my list of Best Sports Movies, and there’s a clip of an extended wrestling scene from the movie on that page. (Also, Dassin’s Brute Force makes my list of Best Prison Movies.)
I Am a Ghost is a singular ghost story about a young woman who has haunted her Victorian home since her death a century ago. First she ambles about the house, repeating the most ordinary chores – sweeping the hall, frying eggs and the like. Then she communicates with a medium hired to rid the house of the ghost; neither can see the other. The medium is having a tough time because, in her life, the young woman suffered from Multiple Personality Disorder (so there are multiple personalities to guide to the Other Side). The movie climaxes with some jolting scares.
It’s a change of pace for writer H.P. Mendoza, whose previous films have been contemporary musical comedies, including the hilarious Colma: The Musical (available on Netflix streaming). At the screening I attended, Mendoza said that I Am a Ghost is neither low-budget, very low-budget or micro-budget – he directed it on no budget (financed on his credit cards). Yet it looks better than some Hollywood films and is a whole lot smarter.
Besides the creepiness and the frights, the story is about memory. The ghost thinks she is having new experiences, but she is merely reliving her past experiences, most of which are banal. Mendoza doesn’t explain this until the audience has endured about 35 minutes of repetitive household tasks.
I Am a Ghost is only 74 minutes long. If you go with the memory idea, it works. If you don’t have the patience, you’ll find the first half of the film to be very tedious.
The dialogue between ghost and medium evokes a session between patient and therapist, with both becoming increasingly frustrated. This interchange is funny and is the highlight of the film. I Am a Ghost is a good choice for ghost story aficionados who are open to a genre-bender.
Here’s a great movie unlike any you have seen before. A small girl and her dad live off the grid in a tiny hamlet on a Southern Louisiana tidal bayou. Responsible for their day-by-day survival by fishing and gathering, the dad is stressed, self-medicating and ailing. Then a killer hurricane threatens to obliterate their home, their way of life and them.
The story is told from the child’s point of view. The audience experiences both her reality as she understands it and, when she switches off reality, her imagination. In her mind, threats can take the form of prehistoric beasts called aurochs. Writer-director Benh Zeitlin shot the film from child height with a handheld camera, and used an entirely untrained cast. The result is a boisterous panoply that celebrates the indomitable human spirit.
In her first role, Quvenzhane Wallis carries the movie. She is on screen at least 70% of the time, and her performance is stirring. Zeitlin audaciously bet his debut feature on the performance of a six-year-old. He went all in and won the jackpot.
Beasts of the Southern Wild is a special film, and one of my Best Movies of 2012 – So Far. Universally critically acclaimed, it won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance and the first film award at Cannes. You can find it in some theaters this weekend, but it will be more widely available on July 13.
Take This Waltz is a woman’s movie, but in the best possible way. It’s not a shallow chick flick and there’s no wedding scene. Instead, it’s an exploration of attraction and fulfillment from a woman’s perspective.
Margot (Michelle Williams) and Lou (Seth Rogen) have been happily married for five years. They are affectionate and playful with each other, but they have hit a patch where it’s easy for one to kill the other’s buzz and for a romantic moment to misfire. But Lou is a fundamentally good guy who loves Margot, and he is definitely not driving her into the arms of another man.
But Margot meets Daniel (Luke Kirby) and is fascinated by him. He is completely attentive – not in a chocolates and flowers kind of way, but by observing her deeply and pointing out things about her personality that she hasn’t recognized herself. Daniel exhilarates her, and she can’t keep herself from engaging with him.
Michelle Williams is once more transcendent. She is our best actress. We know that Rogen can play a goodhearted, ambling guy, but when his character is profoundly hurt, he delivers a tour de force. Sarah Silverman co-stars as Margot’s sister-in-law, a recovering alcoholic whose relapse sparks a fierce moment of truth telling.
Take This Waltz could not have been made by a man. In particular, there is a remarkable shower scene in which women of a variety of ages and body types have the type of frank conversation that women share with each other. Although they are all naked and fully visible, the scene is shot as to be devoid of any eroticism or exploitation. All that is there is the content of the conversation and the female bonding.
33-year-old Canadian actress Sarah Polley wrote and directed; Polley’s debut feature was Away From Her, my pick for best movie of 2006.
Take This Waltz is a beautifully shot film, but generally not in a showy way. The film opens with Williams backlit as she prepares a batch of muffins; it’s a simple kitchen scene, but Polley showcases Williams as Margot reflects on her choices and their consequences.
In one extraordinary scene, the camera swirls with Margot and Daniel on an amusement park ride blaring “Video Killed the Radio Star”. Their faces show fun, then an urge to kiss, then regret that they can’t kiss, then fun again and, finally, disappointment when the music and the ride end way too harshly.
Later, Polley reprises the muffin baking scene, paired with “Video Killed the Radio Star” in an unexpectedly rich way. After just two features, Sarah Polley is established as one of today’s top filmmakers. Take This Waltz makes my list of Best Movies of 2012 – So Far.
Alma is pushing 16 and lives in rural Norway, in a tiny community so remote that her mom works in a turnip factory. Her hormones have been unleashed, and she can think of nothing but sex. She spends her free time having poignantly innocent (and incomplete) sexual fantasies, masturbating and running up phone sex bills. Her schoolmates misinterpret her encounter with a boy and ostracize her as the village slut. So begins this wise, sympathetic and funny Norwegian coming of age comedy.
The humor comes from the film’s knowing view of human nature and, especially, of teenagers. One of Alma’s pals aspires to move to Texas and end capital punishment by raising awareness. For another, no amount of lip gloss can be enough. None of them can figure out how to pilot their budding urges without embarrassing awkwardness. And all the while, Alma’s beleaguered mom tries to figure out what to do with her.
The laughs are mostly chuckles instead of guffaws. Turn Me On, Dammit! is only 76 minutes of long, which is just the right length for this story. It’s a good-hearted and funny movie.
The title says it all – To Rome with Love is Woody Allen’s affectionate missive to Rome, more amusing than the average greeting card but no more substantial. It’s not great Woody, nor is it bad Woody. But minor Woody (like To Rome with Love) is still funny and smart, even wise sometimes.
Allen cuts between four unrelated and more or less simultaneous stories. In the first, a comedy of manners, Woody and Judy Davis play an American couple in Rome to meet their daughter’s (Alison Pil) Roman beau and his family. There’s a culture clash and the impulses of Woody’s character create comic havoc.
In the second (and best) tale, Alec Baldwin plays a man in his fifties who is recalling the Roman adventure of his twenties, this time imparting his life wisdom to his younger self (Jesse Eisenberg). What mature man wouldn’t want to relive his single days knowing what he now knows about women? In this case, Eisenberg’s girlfriend introduces him to her alluring but surely unreliable gal pal, played by Ellen Page. Baldwin’s sage is warning him off, but the younger man can’t help but become entranced with a woman who strews relationship carnage behind her. When Eisenberg thinks that he is seducing Page, Baldwin cynically points out that Page has just popped a Tic-Tac to be ready for a kiss. When Woody has him “melt” Page’s actress with a line about her being deep enough to play Strindberg’s Miss Julie, we recall that the real Woody has dated the likes of Louise Lasser, Diane Keaton, Stacy Nelkin and Mia Farrow. It’s good stuff.
The third story, and least successful, is a farce in which a young Italian bridegroom must impress his uptight relations despite some contrived mistaken identity.
The fourth story is an allegory on today’s culture of silly and unearned celebrity. Roberto Benigni is perfect as an ordinary Giuseppe plucked out of his hum drum routine and made an instant celebrity. No comic can play befuddlement or nouveau entitlement like Benigni.
To Rome With Love stars the usual splendiferous Woody cast. Judy Davis, Penelope Cruz, Alison Pil, Alec Baldwin and a host of Italian actors are all just fine, but don’t have to stretch; (this also applies to 2012’s annoyingly ever-present Greta Gerwig). But Woody himself is outstanding, as are Ellen Page, Jesse Eisenberg and Roberto Benigni.
William Demarest and fellow Marines comfort Eddie Bracken in HAIL THE CONQUERING HERO
On June 30, Turner Classic Movies is broadcasting six classic comedies by the great writer-director Preston Sturges. Sturges’ masterpiece, of course, is Sullivan’s Travels, a fast-paced and cynical comedy about a pretentious movie director who goes out on the road to be inspired by The Average Man – and gets more of an adventure than he expects.
The brilliantly funny Hail the Conquering Hero is one of Sturges’ less well-known great comedies. Eddie Bracken plays a would-be soldier discharged for hay fever – but his hometown mistakenly thinks that he is sent home a war hero. Hilarity ensues. All the funnier when you realize that this film was made in 1944 amid our nation’s most culturally patriotic period.
TCM’s other Sturges choices are thigh slappers, too: The Lady Eve, The Palm Beach Story, The Great McGinty and Christmas in July.
OK, so the filmmakers turned the most revered statesman of the 19th Century into an action hero. I am a Lincoln buff, and I chose not to be offended and to go with it, but… Seth Grahame-Smith adapted the screenplay from his best-selling novel about Abe avenging his mother by running amok through the vampires with a silver-edged axe.
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter has two things going for it. The first is vampire-killing action scenes and lots of ’em. The second is the silly irony of putting Abraham Lincoln in a vampire movie. The silliness is enhanced by the vampire-killing Lincoln being as stiff and humorless as the marble statue in the Lincoln Memorial. (The real Lincoln was earthy, down-to-earth and very funny.)
Unfortunately, that’s just not enough. I’ll save you some time and give you the abridged version. Vampire pops up, gets killed by Abe. Repeat.
3D or not 3D? If you MUST see this movie, eschew the extra cost and see it in 2D.
Brave is Pixar’s much anticipated fable of a Scottish princess. Pixar is a brand name that represents excellence in animated movies, and Brave continues the tradition.
As we have come to expect, the animation is magnificent. The heroine is a girl with an exuberant tangle of unruly red curls, and it’s difficult not to enjoy her wild head of hair in every scene.
The other Pixar trademark is depth of story. Other studios can make a girl power story with mother-daughter conflict, but Pixar brings more to the table here, with themes of making immature mistakes and then growing up and taking responsibility.
Brave‘s story isn’t as deep – and Brave isn’t as good – as those of Toy Story, WALL-E and Up, but even mid-level Pixar is better than movies from Disney, DreamWorks or other animation studios. Adults will enjoy Brave, and it’s a must see for kids.
3D or not to 3D? I was satisfied with the 2D and would definitely recommend against paying the premium for 3D.
