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.
Elena is a superbly crafted film that vividly peeks into a dark, very dark contemporary Russia. Directed and co-written by Andre Zvyagintsev (The Return), Elena is the triumph of drama over melodrama. There is an absolute minimum of on-screen action and no histrionics at all, yet the story simmers throughout.
Zvyagintsev builds the story upon his characters. It is set in a toney apartment in a quiet upscale Moscow neighborhood, home of Vladimir and Elena. Vladimir is pushing 70 and rich. I doubt that any softies got rich in post-Soviet Russia, and Vladimir is a hard man, devoid of sentimentality except for his estranged daughter. Late in life, he has married the working class Elena, his one-time nurse, now in her 50s. They have a comfortable, frank, affectionate and practical relationship.
Both have adult children from previous marriages. Vladimir’s daughter Katerina has no use for her father, but he subsidizes her lifestyle of perpetual partying. Vladimir and Katerina finally share a moment, bonding over their shared cynicism.
Elena’s nogoodnik son Sergey lives in a hard scrabble suburb and embraces his chronic unemployment with alarming indolence. His equally lazy and selfish teenage son, having an indifferent high school career, is now facing the dreaded Army unless someone can bribe his way into a college.
Elena is desperate to rescue her grandson from his self-inflicted predicament, but only Vladimir’s money can help, and Vladimir despises Elena’s trashy and shiftless family. The movie is built on this conflict, and it is Elena’s story. As Elena, the actress Nadezhda Markina reveals Elena’s affection, desperation and determination with her eyes, face and movements. Perfectly framing Markina’s outstanding performance by isolating it, Zvyagintsev delivers the film in a series of long shots, with terse dialogue and a spare soundtrack. There is no expository dialogue explaining the plot or swelling music manipulating our reaction.
Elena is a dark movie that asks its audience to invest patience, thought and energy – so it’s not for everybody. Elena is also one of the year’s best films, and an extraordinary example of a very pure breed of filmmaking.
The Norwegian drug addict Anders has been clean and sober after ten months in rehab, and has earned a day pass for a job interview in Oslo. In rehab, he has had plenty of opportunity to take stock of himself and the impact that his drug habit has wreaked upon his disappointing career and upon his family and friends. Anders concludes that the best response is to take his own life. First, he takes advantage of his day pass to seek out his best friend and his own family.
Oslo August 31 is well-crafted and utterly authentic. But, why was this movie made? What is its contribution to art or entertainment or our knowledge or our experience? Where is the payoff for the audience that makes the grim inevitability worth ten bucks and 95 minutes?
There’s one particularly spell-binding scene with superb sound design. As Anders is waiting for someone in a cafe, he eavesdrops on the other patrons. As he glances from table to table, we hear the conversation of each set of diners. It’s very cool.
Unusual for a film about drug addiction, Oslo August 31 depicts only one instance of hard drug use – and that injection is not to get high.
The Danish director Joachim Trier previously made Reprise, a wonderful film about sanity and the creative process in which two young novelists send in their manuscripts at the beginning of the film, just before one suffers a psychotic breakdown. Reprise was #4 on my list of Best Movies of 2008.
The Broadway musical Rock of Ages comes to the screen – a love story of hopeful young performers set on the seamy Sunset Strip in the age of Journey, Styx, Bon Jovi and the ever popular Whitesnake. It really doesn’t matter that there is only a barest shred of a plot – this is a musical, after all, and we just need an excuse to break into song.
The two young leads are fine, but the laughs come from the impressive crew of supporting actors: Tom Cruise, Alec Baldwin, Russell Brand, Paul Giamatti, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Mary J. Blige and Bryan Cranston. Cruise self-mockingly plays an Axel Rose type rock star, only more unreliable.
The inspired musical production numbers are staged ironically (there’s no other way to do a Quarterflash song). You haven’t really heard Foreigner’s I Want to Know What Love Is until you’ve seen Tom Cruise really selling it. At one point, Brand’s rockers belt out We Built This City in a duel with Zeta-Jones’ pastel clad church ladies singing We’re Not Going To Take It. All lighthearted and funny; it’ll be a good DVD/stream pick in a few months.
The Intouchables is the second most popular movie of all time in France – and it’s easy to see why. It’s an odd couple comedy that’s a real crowd pleaser.
A very, very rich French aristocrat has become a quadriplegic due to a hang gliding accident and hires a Senegalese good-for-nothing street hood as his caregiver. The plot, really just a series of set pieces, mines familiar territory as the poor guy learns about living in a mansion (see Down and Out in Beverly Hills) and revitalizes the rich guy’s zest for living. But it’s really well done and very funny.
The rich guy is played by the great Francois Cluzet (Tell No One), who gives a tremendous performance using only his head and neck. Omar Sy plays the poor guy and actually edged out The Artist‘s Jean Dujardin for France’s top acting award last year; that’s hard to figure, but Sy is very funny in The Intouchables. Overall, it’s a very satisfying comedy.
Somehow, this comedy gem never earned a theatrical release, despite winning the low budget award at Sundance. A decent guy is serving out his drug sentence and has a day job as a locksmith on work release. He is determined to keep his nose clean and not get in any more trouble. He meets a kooky gal, who – despite his resistance – introduces all kinds of chaos into his life. The Locksmith was originally titled Homewrecker.
If it had been released into theaters, I think that this working class comedy would have become a real crowd pleaser. Fortunately, it’s now available from Netflix.
