LISTEN UP PHILIP: maddening self-absorption can be funny

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Elisabeth Moss and Jason Schwartzman in LISTEN UP PHILIP
Elisabeth Moss and Jason Schwartzman in LISTEN UP PHILIP

The dark indie comedy Listen Up Philip features perhaps the most self-involved character in cinema (and that’s really saying something).   The young novelist Philip Lewis Friedman (Jason Schwartzman) believes that his writing talent entitles him to simmer in permanent rage and to crap on every one in his path.  To the credit of writer-director Alex Ross Perry, this supremely unsympathetic character is very fun to watch.  (And, unlike in most mumblecore movies, Philips’s self-absorption is not accepted as an aspect of normal life, but treated as appallingly aberrant and cruel.)

Philip is living with his photographer girlfriend (Elisabeth Moss), whose career is beginning to eclipse his.  It’s pretty clear that their home will soon be tossed on Philip’s trail of relationship carnage.

Just when Philip might have to face the natural consequences of his behavior, he meets the WORST POSSIBLE mentor – an older famous novelist (Jonathan Pryce).  The older guy, who has his own collection of relationship wreckage, is ready to enable, nurture and magnify all of Philip’s worst tendencies.

Perry cleverly moves the story’s focus from one character to another and adds a hilarious voiceover narration that parodies the tone of many modern American novels.  Be sure to watch for the faux book covers during the final credits.

Listen Up Philip is smart and funny, but plenty dark.   It’s available streaming on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

Movies to See Right Now

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Felicity Jones and Eddie Redmayne in THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING
Felicity Jones and Eddie Redmayne in THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING

It’s the Holidays, and theaters are featuring movies from my Best Movies of 2014 list:

  • The cinematically important and very funny Birdman.
  • The best Hollywood movie of 2014, the thriller Gone Girl, with a career-topping performance by Rosamund Pike.
  • I liked the droll Swedish dramedy Force Majeure, which won an award at Cannes and is Sweden’s submission for the Best Foreign Language Oscar.

And here are some other hearty recommendations:

  • Reese Witherspoon is superb in the Fight Your Demons drama Wild, and Laura Dern may be even better.
  • The Theory of Everything is a successful, audience-friendly biopic of both Mr. AND Mrs. Genius.
  • The Imitation Game – the riveting true story about the guy who invented the computer and defeated the Nazis and was then hounded for his homosexuality.
  • Set in the macho world of Olympic wrestling, Foxcatcher is really a relationship movie with a stunning dramatic performance by Steve Carell.
  • Big Eyes is a lite audience pleaser.
  • J.K. Simmons is brilliant in the intense indie drama Whiplash, a study of motivation and abuse, ambition and obsession.

My DVD/Stream of the week is the smart and hilarious The Trip to Italy, which showcases the improvisational wit of Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, along with some serious tourism/foodie porn. The Trip to Italy is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from iTunes, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.

On January 6, Turner Classic Movies brings us War Hunt, a 1962 film about Robert Redford joining a Korean War unit as a new replacement, with John Saxon as the platoon’s psycho killer. Along with Redford, Sidney Pollack and Francis Ford Coppola are in the cast, making War Hunt the only film with three Oscar-winning directors as actors. Don’t blink, or you’ll miss for Coppola as an uncredited convoy truck driver.

Tomorrow night, TCM is airing Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962). Anthony Quinn is Mountain Rivera, a fighter whose career is ended by a ring injury by Cassius Clay (played by the real Muhammed Ali). His manager, Jackie Gleason, continues to exploit him in this heartbreaking drama. There’s no boxing in this clip, but it illustrates the quality of the writing and the acting.

MR. TURNER: great acting, mesmerizing light and 30 extra minutes

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Timothy Spall in MR. TURNER
Timothy Spall in MR. TURNER

Mr. Turner, Mike Leigh’s biopic of the 19th Century British landscape painter J.M.W. Turner, is visually gorgeous, is centered on a career-topping performance by Timothy Spall as the title character, and is just too damn long.

It kills me to say that, because I’m a huge admirer of Leigh’s films, especially Secrets & Lies and Another Year;. But it’s 150 minutes long, and there’s only 120 minutes of compelling story in there. I took a party of several seasoned art house film goers to a screening at the Mill Valley Film Festival, and EVERYONE agreed that Mr. Turner dragged.

That’s too bad, because it wastes a stunning performance by Leigh regular Timothy Spall. Turner was driven by his artistic passions, distracted by his carnal appetites and didn’t invest much energy in getting along with most people. Spall uses a palette of grunts, not as a gimmick, but as a means to reveal what this guy – otherwise trying to be so contained – was thinking or feeling. (So heartbreaking in Secrets & Lies, Spall is most recognizable as Peter Pettigrew/Wormtail in the Harry Potter movies.)

As in any Leigh film, all the acting is excellent, but Dorothy Atkinson turns in an especially noteworthy and vanity-free performance as Turner’s long suffering maid.

The real Turner was a groundbreaking genius in his use of light. Leigh’s greatest achievement in Mr. Turner is visual – evey exterior shot looks like it could have been painted by Turner. It’s a remarkable visual achievement.

Alas, the stunning photography and two great performances weren’t enough to keep my mind from wandering.

2014 at the Movie: farewells

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James Shigeta (Right) in THE CRIMSON KIMONO
James Shigeta (Right) in THE CRIMSON KIMONO

Actor James Shigeta, who along with writer-director Sam Fuller, broke ground in 1959’s The Crimson Kimono, died in July at age 85. Shigeta’s  first movie role was in The Crimson Kimono, another sensationalistic and deliciously exploitative cop noir from the great Sam Fuller. Always looking to add some shock value, Fuller delivered a Japanese-American leading man (Shigeta), an inter-racial romance and a stripper victim. The groundbreaking aspect of The Crimson Kimono is that Fuller’s writing and Shigeta’s performance normalized the Japanese-American character. Shigeta’s Detective Joe Kojaku is a regular hardboiled, jaded and troubled film noir protagonist.  Of course, Fuller certainly relished the fact that many 1959 Americans would have been unsettled by a Japanese-American man’s intimate encounter with a white woman – another groundbreaking moment in American cinema.

We’re going to miss some other cinematic masters.  Some icons.  And some that we were expecting to create yet more film treasure:

And Philip Seymour Hoffman: His heartbreaking death was a punch to the gut on Super Bowl Sunday.  That’s the thing about addiction – not everybody makes it.

Philip Seymour Hoffman in CAPOTE
Philip Seymour Hoffman in CAPOTE

Happy Anniversary to The Wife

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Myrna Loy in THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES – the second best wife ever

Happy Anniversary to The Wife, also known as Lisa The Love of My Life!

This year, I cherished sharing my VERY BEST movie experiences with her – my top two movies Boyhood and Ida, along with the very moving Alive Inside.  (She loves to catch me weeping at a movie.)

She tolerated my spending huge chunks of time at Cinequest, the San Francisco International Film Festival, Noir City and French Cinema Now.  She even accompanied me to four Cinequest screenings (The Grand Seduction- YAAY!) and sat through the looooong Mr. Turner at the Mill Valley Film Fest.

Without her pressing me, I wouldn’t have seen Gone Girl, and that would have been a big loss for me.  It was even HER glorious idea to settle in for a Bogie double feature of The Maltese Falcon and The Big Sleep!

She’s the biggest fan and supporter of this blog, and I appreciate her and love her.  Happy Anniversary, Honey!

Best Movies of 2014

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Eller Coltrane, Ethan Hawke and Lorelei Linklater in BOYHOOD
Eller Coltrane, Ethan Hawke and Lorelei Linklater in BOYHOOD

Visit my Best Movies of 2014 for my list of the year’s best films, complete with images, trailers and my comments on each movies. My top nine for 2014 are:

Boyhood
Ida
Dear White People
Birdman
Gone Girl
Locke
Force Majeure
Calvary
Alive Inside

The other best films of the year are: True Detective (the HBO mini-series), A Coffee in Berlin, Borgman and The Grand Seduction.

I’m saving space for these promising films that I haven’t seen yet: A Most Violent Year, Inherent Vice, Selma, American Sniper, The Overnighters and Two Days, One Night.

DVD/Stream of the Week: THE TRIP TO ITALY – wit, more wit and amazing food

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Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon in THE TRIP TO ITALY
Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon in THE TRIP TO ITALY

The smart and hilarious The Trip to Italy showcases the improvisational wit of Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, along with some serious tourism/foodie porn. As in The Trip, the two British comics are sent off on a hedonistic road trip to review spectacular restaurants – this time in Italy’s most stunningly beautiful destinations. Along the way, they needle each other and virtually any occurrence can trigger a very funny riff. As in The Trip, they compete for the funniest Michael Caine impression; but this time, their funniest impression is of a harried Assistant Director trying to give notes to the mask-wearing Tom Hardy in The Dark Knight Rises.

And – if you enjoy travel and fine dining – the restaurant scenes are unsurpassed. The Trip to Italy is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Netflix, iTunes, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.

BIG EYES: amazing story, lite movie

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Christoph Waltz and Amy Adams in BIG EYES
Christoph Waltz and Amy Adams in BIG EYES

Now here’s an amazing true story:  those ubiquitous but creepy images of waifs with exaggerated eyes were created by painter Margaret Keane, but the credit for them – and income from them – were taken by her con man husband Walter Keane.  In the entertaining Big Eyes, the couple is played by Amy Adams and Christoph Waltz.

Adams’ performance is perfectly tuned, so we can understand how Margaret could be charmed and bullied into such a disadvantageous situation.  Waltz does a good job in the first two-thirds of the movie, when he depicts Walter’s charm and chutzpah;  but his performance in the final third of the movie seems very broad.  Big Eyes also features especially fun supporting turns by Danny Huston and Terence Stamp.

Big Eyes does a good job of illustrating the overt sexism of the pre-Women’s Lib 1950s.  And the serious issue of domination and control in a relationship lurks in the background.  But Big Eyes has been distilled down to a simplistic Good Gal/Bad Guy story.

Denizens of the San Francisco Bay Area will enjoy the familiar Bay Area locations, especially the recreation of North Beach in the Beat Era and Woodside in the Sunset Magazine 1960s.

Bottom line: Big Eyes is a satisfying audience-pleaser, but not a movie I’ll be thinking about tomorrow.

2014 at the Movies: most overlooked

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Macon Blair in BLUE RUIN
Macon Blair in BLUE RUIN

Talk about “overlooked” – there were some great movies this year that didn’t even get a meaningful theatrical release. Let’s start with Blue Ruin – a completely fresh take on the revenge thriller.

Then there’s the romantic drama a la Twilight Zone, The One I Love, with brilliant performances by Elisabeth Moss and Mark Duplass.

The year’s best documentary – Alive Inside – didn’t even get shortlisted for the best Documentary Oscar. I dare you to watch this movie without tearing up.

I thought that the Canadian comedy The Grand Seduction would become a long running art house hit like The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel or The Full Monty. But, despite being the year’s funniest and most audience-friendly comedy, it came and went quickly.

I loved the darkly droll German slacker comedy A Coffee in Berlin, but only a few other folks saw it in this country.  It was a big hit in Europe – for a reason.

Fortunately, Blue Ruin, The One I Love, The Grand Seduction and A Coffee in Berlin are all available on DVD and/or streaming. Follow the links above to find out how to watch them. But two wonderful films that I saw at Cinequest – the outrageously dark Hungarian comedy Heavenly Shift and the provocative Slovenian classroom drama Class Enemy are not currently available to US audiences. When they are, I’ll let you know.

2014 at the Movies: the year of the dual performance

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Elisabeth Moss and Mark Duplass in THE ONE I LOVE
Elisabeth Moss and Mark Duplass in THE ONE I LOVE

This year we’ve seen an unusual number of actors playing multiple roles in the same movie. Jesse Eisenberg in The Double and Jake Gyllenhaal in Enemy play guys who encounter their dopplegangers – and the fun is in the contrasting personalities of the lookalikes.

In The Face of Love, a grieving widow falls for the exact double of her late husband (but she doesn’t tell the new boyfriend about the resemblance).  Ed Harris plays both roles.

In the The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby, Jessica Chastain and James McAvoy plays a couple who have experiences a tragedy. In a Rashomon-like manner, part of the movie is told from her perspective and part from his, so McAvoy and Chastain are playing the same character, but shaded by the differing viewpoints.

And here’s my favorite.  In The One I Love, Elisabeth Moss and Mark Duplass each play two characters, but I’m not going to spoil,the movie by telling you who they are. It’s a superb Twilight Zone-like experience.  Just watch the movie.