'Enemy' Starring Jake Gyllenhall. Directed by Denis Villeneuve.
When Marilyn Monroe first came to Toronto back in the 1950's, she looked around and supposedly said, "I didn't know they had buildings in Canada."
In the film 'Enemy', Quebec director Denis Villeneuve gives us a Canada, a Toronto in fact, that's only buildings. Most of the film plays out in huge high rise apartments that sit under a grey sky. Here, a bearded Jake Gyllenhall a political science instructor at the University of Toronto, finds his double who's an actor.
"We look exactly alike," Adam the instructor tells his double Anthony. Yet they're not totally alike and soon they clash and at the end they switch places. Based on the novel 'The Double' written by Brazilian Jose Saramago, 'The Enemy' moves at times too slowly and too heavily. Maybe scriptwriter Javier Gullon intended this.
Melanie Laurent plays Adam's partner, while Sarah Gadon is hooked up with Anthony. If you hope that both women will bring some light into the film you've guessed wrong. The women don't seem to escape their partners' obsessions. Even the sex scenes seem joyless.
Is 'Enemy' one Quebecker's verdict on Toronto which many Quebeckers and other Canadians in other parts of this country sometimes resent? It could be. I waited for more dialogue and lightness in 'Enemy'. Yet they never showed up.
Denis Villeneuve is a talented director. Still, his previous film 'Prisoners' was far more exciting and riveting than 'Enemy', and you can't blame traffic-choked, smog-ridden Toronto, at least as it appears in the film, for this.
'Enemy' is interesting but no more than that.
Tuesday, 25 March 2014
Saturday, 15 March 2014
'Ccopying a masterpiece takes time
'Tim's Vermeer' Starring Penn Jillette and Tim Jenison. Directed by Teller.
It takes me about 130 minutes to do a small watercolour painting. Yet when geek Tim Jenison painted a copy of Johannes Vermeer's famous 17th century masterpiece 'The Music Lesson', it took him about 130 hours, or 60 times as long.
For Jenison's painting time just capped off a huge project. Before painting a replica of Vermeer's painting, Jenison spent seven straight months, building a replica of the room where Vermeer's picture took place.
Tim Jenison was a man with a mission but no painting skills at all. Based in San Antonio, Texas, the 50 something Jenison has a theory. He believes that Johannes Vermeer used a mechanical aide to do his painting. Jenison isn't the only one who believes this. Famed British artist David Hockney and art historian Philip Steadman agree. They wrote books on this topic and they show up in the film to encourage Denison in his project.
"You've set out to disturb a lot of people," Hockney says. Art historians, or most of them, don't like this idea at all. Jenison's invention is a comparator mirror, that helps him paint a copy of 'The Music Lesson'. This is the heart of this documentary and the sheer boring hard work of painting, nearly drives Jenison mad. You can't blame him. Still, in the end Jenison survives and proves his idea by completing the task.
Alongside Jenison stands or sits Penn Gillette, helper, comic and friend. His wisecracks and comments give the film a funny side that stands as a relief to all the boring hard work Jenison does. Then there's lovely music by Conrad Pope that accompanies Jenison on his lonely task. Teller, the director, takes us to England and back to the U.S. of A. briskly and quietly. Travel's not the topic here. Work is.
John Berger, the English art critic once pointed out that "the fundamental difference between Vermeer and other Dutch painters is that everything in the interior that he paints refers to events outside the room."
In 'Tim's Vermeer' Jenison builds a room and a painting to go along with it. It's one hell of a task that makes for an interesting film.
It takes me about 130 minutes to do a small watercolour painting. Yet when geek Tim Jenison painted a copy of Johannes Vermeer's famous 17th century masterpiece 'The Music Lesson', it took him about 130 hours, or 60 times as long.
For Jenison's painting time just capped off a huge project. Before painting a replica of Vermeer's painting, Jenison spent seven straight months, building a replica of the room where Vermeer's picture took place.
Tim Jenison was a man with a mission but no painting skills at all. Based in San Antonio, Texas, the 50 something Jenison has a theory. He believes that Johannes Vermeer used a mechanical aide to do his painting. Jenison isn't the only one who believes this. Famed British artist David Hockney and art historian Philip Steadman agree. They wrote books on this topic and they show up in the film to encourage Denison in his project.
"You've set out to disturb a lot of people," Hockney says. Art historians, or most of them, don't like this idea at all. Jenison's invention is a comparator mirror, that helps him paint a copy of 'The Music Lesson'. This is the heart of this documentary and the sheer boring hard work of painting, nearly drives Jenison mad. You can't blame him. Still, in the end Jenison survives and proves his idea by completing the task.
Alongside Jenison stands or sits Penn Gillette, helper, comic and friend. His wisecracks and comments give the film a funny side that stands as a relief to all the boring hard work Jenison does. Then there's lovely music by Conrad Pope that accompanies Jenison on his lonely task. Teller, the director, takes us to England and back to the U.S. of A. briskly and quietly. Travel's not the topic here. Work is.
John Berger, the English art critic once pointed out that "the fundamental difference between Vermeer and other Dutch painters is that everything in the interior that he paints refers to events outside the room."
In 'Tim's Vermeer' Jenison builds a room and a painting to go along with it. It's one hell of a task that makes for an interesting film.
Thursday, 13 February 2014
A Journey Through the Eternal City
'The Great Beauty'. A film starring Tony Seville. Directed by Paolo Sorrentino. In Italian with English subtitles.
Suppose you want to do a film about Rome. 'The eternal city' someone called Rome. Maybe it is or was. It was founded by twins Romulus and Remus, who mythology says were suckled by a goat. Then Rome was the headquarters of the Roman Empire.N ow the Pope rules over more than a billion Catholics from Rome and his headquarters in the Vatican City.
If you're director Paolo Sorrentino you're influenced by the late Federico Fellini. So you cast Jep Gambardella as an ageing writer. For him Rome is a place of beauty. His balcony looks out onto the Colosseum. The film takes us to modern art shows, old sculptures and paintings and memories of a young woman. This is a woman who Jep Gambardella (Tony Seville) loved but never married.
"Everything around me is dying," he says to his tiny editor. It's true but he and his intellectural friends still keep on smoking cigarettes, drinking, talking and making love.
Director Sorrentino doesn't serve up much of a plot. Along the way he takes digs at the Italian Communist Party, well at least some political party and the Catholic church. An ageing cardinal talks endlessly about his cooking skills. A 104 year old saint based on maybe the late Mother Teresa can barely talk. A critic out of Fellini's '8 and 1/2' looks for deep meanings in art works. Then there's an abusive author of 11 novels who clashes with Gambardella who's only written one novelette in his entire life.
If you want to go on a tour of Rome and its beautiful touristy places, 'The Great Beauty' is a film you'll like. "At my age a great beauty isn't enough' Gambardella says. So Rome will fit the bill for him and other old people too.
Anyway at movie's end, Jep's planning to write another novel after a break of 40 years. Who knows? Maybe he'll pull it off. After all, in the eternal city, hope often springs eternal..
Suppose you want to do a film about Rome. 'The eternal city' someone called Rome. Maybe it is or was. It was founded by twins Romulus and Remus, who mythology says were suckled by a goat. Then Rome was the headquarters of the Roman Empire.N ow the Pope rules over more than a billion Catholics from Rome and his headquarters in the Vatican City.
If you're director Paolo Sorrentino you're influenced by the late Federico Fellini. So you cast Jep Gambardella as an ageing writer. For him Rome is a place of beauty. His balcony looks out onto the Colosseum. The film takes us to modern art shows, old sculptures and paintings and memories of a young woman. This is a woman who Jep Gambardella (Tony Seville) loved but never married.
"Everything around me is dying," he says to his tiny editor. It's true but he and his intellectural friends still keep on smoking cigarettes, drinking, talking and making love.
Director Sorrentino doesn't serve up much of a plot. Along the way he takes digs at the Italian Communist Party, well at least some political party and the Catholic church. An ageing cardinal talks endlessly about his cooking skills. A 104 year old saint based on maybe the late Mother Teresa can barely talk. A critic out of Fellini's '8 and 1/2' looks for deep meanings in art works. Then there's an abusive author of 11 novels who clashes with Gambardella who's only written one novelette in his entire life.
If you want to go on a tour of Rome and its beautiful touristy places, 'The Great Beauty' is a film you'll like. "At my age a great beauty isn't enough' Gambardella says. So Rome will fit the bill for him and other old people too.
Anyway at movie's end, Jep's planning to write another novel after a break of 40 years. Who knows? Maybe he'll pull it off. After all, in the eternal city, hope often springs eternal..
Tuesday, 28 January 2014
Things Heat Up Inside and Outside An Oklahoman House
'August: Osage County'. A film starring Meryl streep and Julia Roberts.
"This is the Plains," Barbara (Julia Roberts) corrects her husband Bill (Ewan McGregor) who thinks Oklahoma state is part of the American Midwest. And she adds as they and their 14 year-old daughter (Abigail Breslin) exit their car, "Goddamn, it's hot."
It's hot inside the dark Weston household too as a family re-unites in Osage County, Oklahoma, to mourn the death of poet and family patriarch Beverly Weston (Sam Shepard) Weston's widow Violet(Meryl Streep) is a cancer-surviving, pill-popping, chain-smoking abuser. Violet has problems standing up, but she does tend to see all of her family's secrets.
Barbara, is just like her mother Violet. She's bound to clash with Violet and does. Another of Violet's daughters is Karen a gabby Florida resident who babbles on and on about her life. Yet Violet soon intuits that Karen's sleazy fiance played by Dermot Mulroney, has been married many times before. Stay-at-home daughter Ivy (Julianne Nicholson) has fallen in love with slacker Little Charlie (Benedict Cumberpatch).
Violet senses this romance too. Little Charlie is the supposed son of Violet's sister Mattie Fae (Margo Martindale) and Charlie (Chris Cooper). Mattie Fae and Charlie also show up to mourn and fight.
Yet Ivy and Little Charlie's romance can go nowhere. Then there's Johna(Misty Upham) who's the live-in cook and caregiver. She watches over this totally dysfunctional brood with dignity and compassion, which seem rare qualities in this house.
A memorial dinner brings the whole film to a brutal climax. Director John Wells frames Tracy Letts's Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name 'August:Osage County' as a battle between two prime time abusers, namely Violet and daughter Barbara. Letts also wrote the film's script.
"My mother was a mean old lady," Violet tells her three daughters one night in the back
yard. So is Ivy - and Barbara.
Director Wells gives us some beautiful views of the flat, broiling, sun-baked Oklahoman wheat fields. Yet as another reviewer points out, "No one in the film seems to be sweating." Also some of the scenes are too jumbled together. Yet that's probably the result of shrinking a three-hour play into a two-hour picture.
Over 50 years ago, I travelled through Oklahoma twice in the summertime. I'm glad I went to see this film but I'm glad I never met up with the Weston family on my long ago journeys through Oklahoma.
"This is the Plains," Barbara (Julia Roberts) corrects her husband Bill (Ewan McGregor) who thinks Oklahoma state is part of the American Midwest. And she adds as they and their 14 year-old daughter (Abigail Breslin) exit their car, "Goddamn, it's hot."
It's hot inside the dark Weston household too as a family re-unites in Osage County, Oklahoma, to mourn the death of poet and family patriarch Beverly Weston (Sam Shepard) Weston's widow Violet(Meryl Streep) is a cancer-surviving, pill-popping, chain-smoking abuser. Violet has problems standing up, but she does tend to see all of her family's secrets.
Barbara, is just like her mother Violet. She's bound to clash with Violet and does. Another of Violet's daughters is Karen a gabby Florida resident who babbles on and on about her life. Yet Violet soon intuits that Karen's sleazy fiance played by Dermot Mulroney, has been married many times before. Stay-at-home daughter Ivy (Julianne Nicholson) has fallen in love with slacker Little Charlie (Benedict Cumberpatch).
Violet senses this romance too. Little Charlie is the supposed son of Violet's sister Mattie Fae (Margo Martindale) and Charlie (Chris Cooper). Mattie Fae and Charlie also show up to mourn and fight.
Yet Ivy and Little Charlie's romance can go nowhere. Then there's Johna(Misty Upham) who's the live-in cook and caregiver. She watches over this totally dysfunctional brood with dignity and compassion, which seem rare qualities in this house.
A memorial dinner brings the whole film to a brutal climax. Director John Wells frames Tracy Letts's Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name 'August:Osage County' as a battle between two prime time abusers, namely Violet and daughter Barbara. Letts also wrote the film's script.
"My mother was a mean old lady," Violet tells her three daughters one night in the back
yard. So is Ivy - and Barbara.
Director Wells gives us some beautiful views of the flat, broiling, sun-baked Oklahoman wheat fields. Yet as another reviewer points out, "No one in the film seems to be sweating." Also some of the scenes are too jumbled together. Yet that's probably the result of shrinking a three-hour play into a two-hour picture.
Over 50 years ago, I travelled through Oklahoma twice in the summertime. I'm glad I went to see this film but I'm glad I never met up with the Weston family on my long ago journeys through Oklahoma.
Thursday, 16 January 2014
A Folk Singer Failure
'Inside Llewyn Davis'. A film directed by Ethan and Joel Coen. Starring Oscar Isaac.
"Success has a thousand parents," U.S. president John F. Kennedy once said. "But failure is an orphan." Llewyn Davis, played by Oscar Isaac is a folk singer in the age of Kennedy. He's a failure but not an orphan. For his father, a retired seaman, lies old and mute in an old seaman's home.
'Inside Llewyn Davis' is a sad journey through the folk singing world of New York City in the early 1960's. Shivering in the winter cold, and without an overcoat but carrying a cat, Davis travels on a nightmare journey from New York to Chicago, and back again.
Based loosely on the life of folk singer Dave Van Ronk, the film ends sadly. Davis lies beaten up in a night time street. Meanwhile the young Bob Dylan has started singing his way to wealth and success inside the cafe where Davis just performed, perhaps for the very last time. In real life Van Ronk taught Dylan a lot about folk music but this is not in the film.
"Everything you touch turns to shit," Davis's sometime lover and now pregnant woman shouts at him. "You are shit."
It may be true and the film's directors, the Coen brothers. have given us a very gloomy glimpse of early 1960's New York City. The film comes alive when Davis picks up a guitar and sings. In fact Justin Timberlake is doing the vocals.
Yet the folk music is the high point of 'Being Llewyn Davis'. The rest of the film is just one long downer.
"Success has a thousand parents," U.S. president John F. Kennedy once said. "But failure is an orphan." Llewyn Davis, played by Oscar Isaac is a folk singer in the age of Kennedy. He's a failure but not an orphan. For his father, a retired seaman, lies old and mute in an old seaman's home.
'Inside Llewyn Davis' is a sad journey through the folk singing world of New York City in the early 1960's. Shivering in the winter cold, and without an overcoat but carrying a cat, Davis travels on a nightmare journey from New York to Chicago, and back again.
Based loosely on the life of folk singer Dave Van Ronk, the film ends sadly. Davis lies beaten up in a night time street. Meanwhile the young Bob Dylan has started singing his way to wealth and success inside the cafe where Davis just performed, perhaps for the very last time. In real life Van Ronk taught Dylan a lot about folk music but this is not in the film.
"Everything you touch turns to shit," Davis's sometime lover and now pregnant woman shouts at him. "You are shit."
It may be true and the film's directors, the Coen brothers. have given us a very gloomy glimpse of early 1960's New York City. The film comes alive when Davis picks up a guitar and sings. In fact Justin Timberlake is doing the vocals.
Yet the folk music is the high point of 'Being Llewyn Davis'. The rest of the film is just one long downer.
Friday, 27 December 2013
A biopic that leaves a lot out.
Mandela: Long walk to Freedom
Starring Idris Elba and Naomie Harris. Directed by Justin Chadwick.
'Mandela:Long Walk to Freedom' which is based on Nelson Mandela's autobiography
was released a few weeks after Mandela's death on December 5, 2013. this film is three things.
First off, it's a love story. Here, Nelson Mandela, a rising young black lawyer in white ruled South Africa, meets a young telegenic social worker called Winnie Madikizela played by Naomie Harris. The two fall in love, get married, go to prison and then fall out of love.
Second it's the story of the black South African struggle for freedom against a violent white racist white apartheid regime. In the end the black and brown people succeed but they pay a terrible price. For example, Nelson Mandela played by Idris Elba spent a backbreaking 27 years in prison for his violent acts. Tens of thousands of other anti-apartheid activists were killed in the struggle, or tortured or both.
Finally, the film shows us the true side of Winnie Madikizela Mandela who was a genuine heroine. "I piss on you," she shouts at one of her white torturers and she does. She serves a lesser time in prison than her husband. Yet she emerges from behind bars as a true revolutionary while her husband moderates his views
This portrayal of Winnie Mandela is long overdue. Too often in the media she was shown to be a murderer who threw burning rubber tires or 'necklaces' as they were called over other black people. The fact that many of these people were black informants or snitches wasn't mentioned .
'Mandela' is chockful of mostly white-on-black violence, inspirational speeches by Mandela and tender love scenes between Winnie and Nelson. All of this is interesting and well-acted. But this biopic leaves out one big thing and it's called 'communism'.
Communist rulers in the 20th century were tyrants. No one can deny this. Yet the now defunct Soviet Union and East Germany, as well as Castro's Cuba and non-communist but socialist Algeria gave the Mandela-led African National Congress, money advice and weapons to help bring down the white dictators of South Africa. The South African Communist party played a key role in bringing down apartheid too, but none of this is in the film either
Nor does 'Mandela' deal honestly with the negotiations between nelson Mandela and his white rulers. The white leaders, led by South african president. F.W. de Clerk, played by Gys de Villiers were certainly worried about their fate in a black-ruled South Africa. Yet they also worried about what would happen to the economy.
After all, the original freedom charter of the African National Congress, called for the nationalization of the the white -owned banks, diamond mines and gold resources. Mandela and the ANC leadership scrapped this idea and some blacks were angry.
"My husband went into prison a revolutionary," Winnie Madikizela Mandela told Nobel Prize winning author V.S. Naipaul. Yet when he came out of prison, she said, he had changed his politics .
None of this in the film and I didn't expect it to be. Nelson Mandela emerges in the film as a true hero, angry but forgiving and wise and patient. Yet this film isn't the final word on Nelson Mandela.
It's a feel-good film for a feel-good conservative era. I enjoyed watching it, but a whole lot was left out of the story.
Starring Idris Elba and Naomie Harris. Directed by Justin Chadwick.
'Mandela:Long Walk to Freedom' which is based on Nelson Mandela's autobiography
was released a few weeks after Mandela's death on December 5, 2013. this film is three things.
First off, it's a love story. Here, Nelson Mandela, a rising young black lawyer in white ruled South Africa, meets a young telegenic social worker called Winnie Madikizela played by Naomie Harris. The two fall in love, get married, go to prison and then fall out of love.
Second it's the story of the black South African struggle for freedom against a violent white racist white apartheid regime. In the end the black and brown people succeed but they pay a terrible price. For example, Nelson Mandela played by Idris Elba spent a backbreaking 27 years in prison for his violent acts. Tens of thousands of other anti-apartheid activists were killed in the struggle, or tortured or both.
Finally, the film shows us the true side of Winnie Madikizela Mandela who was a genuine heroine. "I piss on you," she shouts at one of her white torturers and she does. She serves a lesser time in prison than her husband. Yet she emerges from behind bars as a true revolutionary while her husband moderates his views
This portrayal of Winnie Mandela is long overdue. Too often in the media she was shown to be a murderer who threw burning rubber tires or 'necklaces' as they were called over other black people. The fact that many of these people were black informants or snitches wasn't mentioned .
'Mandela' is chockful of mostly white-on-black violence, inspirational speeches by Mandela and tender love scenes between Winnie and Nelson. All of this is interesting and well-acted. But this biopic leaves out one big thing and it's called 'communism'.
Communist rulers in the 20th century were tyrants. No one can deny this. Yet the now defunct Soviet Union and East Germany, as well as Castro's Cuba and non-communist but socialist Algeria gave the Mandela-led African National Congress, money advice and weapons to help bring down the white dictators of South Africa. The South African Communist party played a key role in bringing down apartheid too, but none of this is in the film either
Nor does 'Mandela' deal honestly with the negotiations between nelson Mandela and his white rulers. The white leaders, led by South african president. F.W. de Clerk, played by Gys de Villiers were certainly worried about their fate in a black-ruled South Africa. Yet they also worried about what would happen to the economy.
After all, the original freedom charter of the African National Congress, called for the nationalization of the the white -owned banks, diamond mines and gold resources. Mandela and the ANC leadership scrapped this idea and some blacks were angry.
"My husband went into prison a revolutionary," Winnie Madikizela Mandela told Nobel Prize winning author V.S. Naipaul. Yet when he came out of prison, she said, he had changed his politics .
None of this in the film and I didn't expect it to be. Nelson Mandela emerges in the film as a true hero, angry but forgiving and wise and patient. Yet this film isn't the final word on Nelson Mandela.
It's a feel-good film for a feel-good conservative era. I enjoyed watching it, but a whole lot was left out of the story.
Monday, 16 December 2013
Mathew McConaughey Stars in a Film About AIDS.
'Dallas Buyers Club' Starring Matthew McConaughey, Jared Leto and Jennifer Garner. Directed by Jean Marc Vallee.
'Dallas Buyers Club' opens with a mustached, pencil slim Matthew McConaughey in a rodeo, up close to the bull riders' pen. The film ends with McConaughey playing Ron Woodroof riding a bull in a rodeo. In between these moments, Woodroof has died.
Woodroof is a cocaine-snorting, hard drinking, homophobic electrician. He's a Texan redneck who hates gays. Then suddenly he's HIV positive which came from screwing an infected woman and not wearing a condom.
"You've tested positive for HIV," the doctor at a Dallas hospital tells Woodroof. "You have 30 days left" to live.
A shell-shocked Woodroof can't believe this. Then he rebels against the verdict and the medically imposed use of the drug AZT that's supposed to help AIDS
patients. Still a businessman, he sets up the Dallas Buyers Club which HIV infected people can join. Here they can buy alternative drugs that will keep them alive.
In the U.S. of A. in the 1980's, which is where the film takes place, Woodroof's course of action leads to clashes with the government. Along the way Woodroof meets Rayon, played by Jared Leto. Rayon is a transexual who at first disgusts Woodroof, but then he cures Woodroof of his homophobia.
Director Jean Marc Vallee is a Quebecker who in this film shows us the grim side of HIV infected lives and the terrible prejudice the disease provokes. Yet there are also decent people in the film like Doctor Vass played by Griffin Dunne. Dunne saves lives in his Mexican clinic.
"I want kids," Woodroof says at one point in the film. Yet Woodroof never did live to have children. His life, which is based on a true story, ended in 1992, seven years later than the Dallas doctor predicted.
Matthew McConaughey has now changed in his film career from being a heavily muscled hunk, into now being an anorexic looking actor. "Dallas Buyers Club' sometimes goes over the top and sometimes becomes too sentimental. Still, it's well worth seeing.
'Dallas Buyers Club' opens with a mustached, pencil slim Matthew McConaughey in a rodeo, up close to the bull riders' pen. The film ends with McConaughey playing Ron Woodroof riding a bull in a rodeo. In between these moments, Woodroof has died.
Woodroof is a cocaine-snorting, hard drinking, homophobic electrician. He's a Texan redneck who hates gays. Then suddenly he's HIV positive which came from screwing an infected woman and not wearing a condom.
"You've tested positive for HIV," the doctor at a Dallas hospital tells Woodroof. "You have 30 days left" to live.
A shell-shocked Woodroof can't believe this. Then he rebels against the verdict and the medically imposed use of the drug AZT that's supposed to help AIDS
patients. Still a businessman, he sets up the Dallas Buyers Club which HIV infected people can join. Here they can buy alternative drugs that will keep them alive.
In the U.S. of A. in the 1980's, which is where the film takes place, Woodroof's course of action leads to clashes with the government. Along the way Woodroof meets Rayon, played by Jared Leto. Rayon is a transexual who at first disgusts Woodroof, but then he cures Woodroof of his homophobia.
Director Jean Marc Vallee is a Quebecker who in this film shows us the grim side of HIV infected lives and the terrible prejudice the disease provokes. Yet there are also decent people in the film like Doctor Vass played by Griffin Dunne. Dunne saves lives in his Mexican clinic.
"I want kids," Woodroof says at one point in the film. Yet Woodroof never did live to have children. His life, which is based on a true story, ended in 1992, seven years later than the Dallas doctor predicted.
Matthew McConaughey has now changed in his film career from being a heavily muscled hunk, into now being an anorexic looking actor. "Dallas Buyers Club' sometimes goes over the top and sometimes becomes too sentimental. Still, it's well worth seeing.
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