This movie made a really big splash in Cannes for being a Russian film that completely tears apart Russia's corrupted system of government. Even though it was raved about at the festival (many believe it should have won the Palme D'Or, but it was awarded with the Screenplay prize instead) no one thought it would ever be submitted by Russia as their Foreign Film entry in the Oscar race, and just this week it was announced that lo and behold, it will be (after the director of the committee's first choice withdrew his film from consideration, saying he doesn't believe in competition). It's pretty shocking of them to do this, but perhaps they're trying to make themselves look good by being able to point to it as an example of Russians having free speech after all. Right. Well, at least we'll be able to see it here eventually (probably early next year).
REVIEW: "Obvious Child" (2014) Jenny Slate, Jake Lacy. Dir. Gillian Robespierre
It's awfully depressing to have to write about how appreciative you are that a movie was made that has the "guts" to tackle the issue of abortion in a frank, genuine and unfearful manner- let's be honest, this is 2014 and the fact that a movie like Obvious Child is considered controversial speaks to a sad and terribly regressed state of affairs. But if I'm being honest in another way, I don't think I've ever seen a movie that speaks so candidly and truthfully, and communicates the way real women actually talk about abortion, than this one, which is in many ways a light coming of age comedy. It's even sadder to say this is a film that needed to be made, but it did, and it makes all manner of sense that it was written and directed by a woman, who knows and is familiar with how this issue is confronted in reality, as opposed to the bizarro way abortion is treated in movies, where it's so obvious that the subject is broached with so much fear and trepidation that you can't make any statement at all.
Well, Gillian Robespierre, who adapted this movie from her own short film on the topic (which won recognition at Sundance), knows how to deal with it, and that's to simply make it personal. When you tell a personal story, they often wind up universal because the honesty shines through it in every instance. That's certainly the case here, where we are introduced to Donna Stern, a 28-year-old aspiring stand up comic played by Jenny Slate in a fully realized, specific, lived in performance that makes us feel who she is in all her struggles, desires, shortcomings and sense of humor, almost from her first five minutes on screen. Donna is a dorky, ambitious, yet not at all settled in life millennial, whose boyfriend cheats on and dumps her after a set one night, and who is then let go from her part-time job at a failing local bookstore. So right away, we see that things aren't exactly going smoothly, although they could certainly be worse. Donna lives with a roommate who's more like a sister (Gaby Hoffmann) and has a good relationship with both of her parents, who are divorced but have her over for dinner all the time, so they can gently needle her about getting her life in order, but also joke about their own time as a struggling young adult.
We see that Donna's not in a great place, but it seems more like one of those occasionally troubled moments in life before suddenly, on top of everything, she finds out she's gotten pregnant from a rebound one night stand. Now, what was just a bump in the road becomes a potential rest of your life mistake, and Donna knows immediately that she's not going to have a baby. There's no conflict of decision-making here, we know and she knows that it was a mistake that she doesn't deserve to be saddled with from now until forever, and the situation is written so naturally in the conversations that jokester Donna has with her friends, her mom, and eventually the would be father of her child that everyone will recognize the swing of emotions. Donna's of course upset, worried, and regretful of her own mistakes, but she never waivers or thinks she ought not to go through with it. Like millions of women who've dealt with this issue, she knows what has to happen and only wants to go on with her life.
The conflict after that comes from the object of the ill fated hookup, a guy named Max (Jake Lacy) whom she literally just met, but who, when he turns up at her store and wants to take her out to lunch, she realizes she might actually like. The potential awkwardness and the question of whether you can begin to date a guy whose abortion you're going to have raises some strange questions that you might ask yourself if you were ever to be in Donna's shoes. She attempts to field out these unknown areas with a little bit of stumbling, her ever present stable of wisecracks, and the luck that the too good to be true Max actually does turn out to be almost saintlike in his supportiveness and affability. Through all this meandering, the movie drifts between Donna's varying mental state as she continues to forge ahead with life, even though the time between being pregnant and not being pregnant leaves her in an awkward in-between zone as pertains to whatever burgeoning relationship she might want to have with this guy.
There are moments of filler in the movie (a scene with comedian David Cross, who shows up as someone akin to himself, is unnecessary and doesn't work at all), and you can feel that it was lengthened from what was obviously a more focused short film on the clear subject at hand, but the formulaic nature of the screenplay does not prevent it from packing the punch of finally addressing a topic that mostly male filmmakers and writers have been unable to get right. I'm sorry, but I can only hope that Judd Apatow sees this film and wishes he had never written that awful scene in Knocked Up where a bunch of horrified guys sit around gasping at the idea that any reputable woman would ever really consider having a "shmashortion." Yes, it does happen, gentlemen, and it's usually not in a dirty, no good clinic (see Juno for the reference), but in an actual well-lit professional doctor's office, if you can imagine it. And women do this and they're not ruined and they're not miserable and they're not forever scarred with shame. It's unfortunate that this little well-meaning (and very funny) comedy was something that got labeled as controversial for even discussing and portraying this common legal procedure as an option that actually works out, but it's a fact of life that is way too often ignored in both film and television. In spite of that, sometimes movies come along that do reflect life the way it really is for millions of women, and while Knocked Up and Juno were fantasies, this is the one that finally rings true. It's too rare a sight to see.
* * *
TRAILER: "American Sniper"
Here's hoping that Clint Eastwood's latest turns out better than Jersey Boys did earlier this summer. Bradley Cooper stars as Chris Kyle, the Navy Seal whose autobiography the film is based on, and even though this teaser is pretty good, it could always turn out to be this year's Lone Survivor. It's coming out on Christmas Day, but not expanding until January 16th, so it even has that previous film's release date. I don't have a lot of faith in Eastwood as of late and his last really great movie was Letters From Iwo Jima back in 2006, so I guess we'll just have to wait and see if this one turns out okay.
Halloween Movie Month is Here
October is here, everyone! In honor of horror movie month I'm presenting the list of ten "Creature Features" to kick back with until Halloween arrives. These are some of my favorite horror movies (and horror movie comedies) and they include picks like Shaun of the Dead, the original James Whale Frankenstein classics, The Exorcist and the cult hit An American Werewolf in London (above), among many others. The theme was monsters of course, be it a mad made, undead, terrorizing birds, Satan himself or what have you. The list also now includes all the original trailers or scenes from the films in the case of availability issues. So head over to the Movies for Every Month page to read October's description and click here for the full list of ten great monsters of the cinema. Happy Halloween!
TRAILER #2: "The Imitation Game"
A new UK trailer for The Imitation Game shows a lot of the same clips from the first one, but there are some new bits in there too. It's being touted as a strong Oscar contender since its very popular showing in Telluride and then winning the People's Choice Award at Toronto, and Benedict Cumberbatch is in a very good place to be nominated for Best Actor, maybe even contending for the win. The movie comes out Nov. 21st, so look out for it.
TEASER: "Inside Out"
It's been quite a while since Pixar has come out with a real classic, on par with its winning streak from Finding Nemo through Toy Story 3, which I would argue was its last great one. I suppose some people liked Brave, but the truth is, apart from the stunning visuals, that movie wasn't nearly as good as their previous entries, and since then they've been doing sequels like Monsters University and Cars 2, with a Nemo one on the way. But this just may be a return to the creative innovation of the glory years, or at least on paper it has the potential. A young girl has arguing emotions that live inside her head, a risky concept, but with Pete Doctor directing (he last directed Up) and a screenplay from Toy Story 3's Michael Arndt, I might actually be excited about a Pixar movie again. Not a whole lot to see from this teaser (it draws heavily on clips from past hits), but the movie's coming out next June.
REVIEW: "Ida" (2014) Agata Trzebuchowska, Agata Kulesza. Dir. Pawel Pawlikowski
Pawel Pawlikowski's Ida, one of the best movies of the year, takes its cue and a lot of its look from the European films of the 1950's and 60's- filmed in a stark and beautiful black and white (and in the old-fashioned 4:3 aspect ratio) and with a minimalist acting style, it recalls the best of directors like Robert Bresson and Ingmar Bergman. But the story is all its own, and entirely focused on the inner lives of two women, which helps it to stand apart from many of the movies that are coming out this year, and every year, which so often focus on the journey, inner or otherwise, of a male protagonist.
Pawlikowski though, is interested in something else, which is the life the young woman in question, Ida, played by amateur actress Agata Trzebuchowska. She's maybe twenty years old, and was brought up in a convent since birth, never having set foot outside the hallowed walls of the church, with its formidable nuns roaming the hallways. She was an orphan who doesn't know who she is or where she came from, and is suddenly confronted by the appearance of her only living relative, an aunt named Wanda Gruz, played by Agata Kulesza. Ida must see this relative for two days before taking her vows, and though she doesn't want to, she follows her orders and goes to visit this older woman, her mother's sister, who is unfriendly and at first harsh towards her, but is rather quickly exposed as a person who's been suffering from grief, guilt and the pain of a traumatic past involving the mystery of Ida's parents.
It's Poland in the early to mid 1960's, and many, especially Jews, are still reeling from the horrors inflicted on the population during WWII. As Wanda takes Ida under her wing, she resolves to give her some kind of identity and resolution (Ida didn't even know she was Jewish) and the two embark on a quest to find out what happened to her parents and where they are buried. In a sense, this is partly a coming of age story, as Ida observes the outside world for the first time and comes into contact with people and activities she's never before been let in on. But her reactions to these observances remain oblique, and Ida herself is a largely inscrutable character whose inner thoughts we are never allowed to penetrate. Trzebuchowska has a strikingly unique and mournful face, which Pawlekowski focuses on in closeups, and although her eyes are always alert and focused, she herself remains an intriguing cypher, as we are left to wonder what she's thinking and feeling at any given moment, even in the later parts of the film, where a series of startlingly drastic decisions give us a hint as to her thought processes, but only just, before she pulls back into her own isolation.
Ida's aunt is just the opposite, a hard drinker and former Communist party member with a terribly bleak past, and we are let in on her history, her regrets, and her personal devastation so as to feel unsurprised by her own sudden and impactful decision later in the film. The journey and the bond that these two women make in their short but meaningful two days together is powerfully felt, even within the style that Pawlekowski chooses to film, which employs the subtle, understated, Bresson-style of acting where looks and actions are quiet, yet beautifully wrought and rendered quite effective. The film is something of a throwback to the 50's and 60's style of New Wave filmmaking, yet the story is harrowing and the mystery not just of Ida's parents, but Ida herself remains a compelling and fascinating subject. This is Poland's Oscar submission in the Best Foreign Language Film race this year, and though it's not the sentimental, overly emotional kind of film that often wins in the category, the beauty of the filmmaking and the powerful simplicity of the story (which comes in at just 80 minutes) could easily make an impact on the voters. Seek it out if you can- this movie should not be overlooked.
* * * *
TRAILER #2: "The Theory of Everything"
A lot of new trailers today, and here's a second for one of the Toronto Film Festival favorites, about Stephen Hawking's relationship with his wife Jane. I know people seemed to like this movie a lot at Toronto, but I'm still wary about the sentimental tone of these trailers. Obviously Eddie Redmayne looks like he turned in a great performance as Hawking, but I just can't get too invested in a marriage that ended the way theirs did in real life. I'm in wait and see mode on this one, which is coming out in the U.S. on Nov 7th.
TRAILER #2: "Exodus: Gods and Kings"
So, now we get a longer look at Ridley Scott's Exodus, and I gotta say...not liking what I'm seeing. First of all, the makeup on Joel Edgarton looks ridiculous and I'm probably not going to be able to get past that while watching it. Second, screaming your dialogue is not acting to me (as Angelina Jolie showed in Maleficent), and there's an awful lot of that going on in this trailer. Christian Bale doesn't look that great in the part of Moses, and finally, it just looks like the showing off of a ton of CGI, which is frankly, not that impressive when you look at old movies like The Ten Commandments and see that they had to actually use a cast of thousands of extras to get this done. At least back then what was on the screen was really there. So yeah, looks like a misfire to me, and Ridley Scott's had quite a few of those lately, so I wouldn't be surprised if this one doesn't measure up.
TRAILER #3: "Interstellar"
Another new and presumably final trailer for Christopher Nolan's space epic Interstellar shows more of the actual space stuff, which is really the part I'm most looking forward to. I'm not a huge fan of his in particular, mostly because his human characters never seem very human to me, always talking in dialogue that sounds overly written and borderline speechifying, so that we are bludgeoned in the face with whatever the movie's "about." I assume that will be the case with this one too, but the part where they take off for space looks pretty awesome, and in IMAX, where it's debuting early, I'm sure it's going to leave quite an impact. Interstellar's coming out Nov 7th.
Blu-Ray Pick of the Week: "Elmer Gantry" (1960)
The movie that Burt Lancaster won Best Actor for, and he's a bombastic ball of energy who tears up the screen with his sleaziness in this film based on the 1927 novel. He stars as a traveling salesman who turns his talents to preaching evangelism when he stumbles across a revival meeting and immediately becomes infatuated with Jean Simmons, the lady in charge of the troupe. Lancaster's having a great time preaching hellfire to all who'll listen, a kind of early Billy Graham or Ted Haggard. It's a hugely entertaining and eerily prophetic movie that most people probably haven't seen, so you should seek it out.
Original 1960 Trailer:
TRAILER: "Inherent Vice"
Finally! The long-awaited trailer for Paul Thomas Anderson's Inherent Vice (which is premiering this Saturday at the New York Film Festival) has finally dropped, giving us the first look at what the eclectic, sometimes oddball director has up his sleeve for this one. It looks wacky alright, as though it wants to be something like The Big Lebowski, in my opinion. Can't wait.
