THE ARTICLES

AUGUST08

Photo Courtesy © Columbia Pictures

Stepbrothers

Directed by: Adam McKay

Written by: Adam McKay and Will Ferrell

Starring: Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Mary Steenburgen, Richard Jenkins, Adam Scott and Kathryn Hahn.

The good news is that Stepbrothers was directed, produced and written by the same crew that brought us the hilarious Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby and Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. The bad news is that unlike those two films, both of which had some semblance of an actual storyline (although this one technically does as well), Stepbrothers is just one long often-hilarious skit. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, especially when you have the comic team of Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly at the center. The two of them are hysterical as the titular stepbrothers who loathe each other at first and then become best friends. All of the gags that are featured in the trailer (including the “let’s turn our beds into bunk beds!” bit) are still surprisingly funny in the film, as are the small cameos by Seth Rogen and (surprise-surprise) Horatio Sanz, but that still doesn’t carry enough weight to make this film anywhere near as good as the Apatow-helmed 40-Year-Old-Virgin, Knocked Up or even Superbad, which he just produced. All of these films had characters and a story that you cared about and related to on some level making them instantly memorable and re-watchable; Stepbrothers however is just funny.

Lily@picturesandframesmagazine.com

AUGUST08

Photo Courtesy © Universal Pictures

Hellboy II: The Golden Army

Directed by: Guillermo Del Toro

Written by: Guillermo Del Toro and Mike Mignola

Starring: Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, Doug Jones, Jeffrey Tambor, Anna Walton, Luke Goss, Seth MacFarlane and John Hurt.

It is no secret that I love Guillermo Del Toro—I love his passion, his intelligence, his dark sense of humor, and I especially love his ability to scare the shit out of me with horrific looking creatures. Having said all of this, the fact that I loved Hellboy II: The Golden Army so much more than the first Hellboy did come as a surprise considering how much I loved that film. From the very beginning of this film I was enthralled—by the way the story unfolded, by the growth of the characters, but most of all, by the incredible world that Del Toro envisions. The scene where Hellboy and the rest of the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense gang go into the underground troll world reminded me of the Mos Eisley Cantina scene in Star Wars, except sooo much cooler and filled with even creepier and freakier creatures. Del Toro, with the help of “Hellboy” comic book creator Mike Mignola, tells the story of Hellboy with such care and attention to detail that it is truly awe-inspiring to watch. Add to the mix the perfect casting of Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, Jeffrey Tambor and, my personal favorite, Doug Jones as Abe Sapien (my heart flutters especially for him!) and you have yet another fantastic comic adaptation. Watching this film I couldn’t help but imagine the world that Del Toro will create for his upcoming Hobbit films. “Oh the places we’ll go…Oh the people we’ll see…”

Lily@picturesandframesmagazine.com

AUGUST08

Photo Courtesy © Miramax Films

Brideshead Revisited

Directed by: Julian Jarrold

Written by: Jeremy Brock and Andrew Davies

Starring: Matthew Goode, Ben Whishaw, Hayley Atwell, Michael Gambon and Emma Thompson.

There is nothing like a great British costume drama to make you long for the days when Merchant and Ivory films where a semi-annual theatrical occurrence rather than just a novelty on PBS or BBC America. Directed by Julian Jarrold (Becoming Jane and Kinky Boots) and written by the writers of such films as The Last King of Scotland, Charlotte Gray, Mrs. Brown, Bridget Jones and the beloved “Pride and Prejudice,” the film adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited is exactly the kind of movie that would have been at home in the 80s and early 90s. These are the kinds of films that my father would rent frequently for us—where an English middle class bloke falls in love with a higher-class family only to find himself shamed—and I have to say that I have a soft spot for their melodrama still. (Yes, they are very melodramatic, but in a very enjoyable, delicious “lazy Sunday afternoon” sort of way.) What makes this particular adaptation so interesting is the high-caliber cast that it features. I never watched an episode of the original mini-series, which featured Jeremy Irons as Captain Charles Ryder, the middle class bloke, but Matthew Goode is certainly Irons equal in this adaptation. He is sexy and smart and smoldering, in equal parts, and his acting talent, apparent in films such as Matchpoint and The Lookout, is really on display here. Michael Gambon, Hayley Atwell and Ben Whishaw are also quite good in the film but the star of Brideshead is without a doubt this month’s Spotlight focus, Emma Thompson. Thompson is terrifying and, strangely enough, heartbreaking in every scene that she is in and it is her performance that made this good English costume drama truly great.

Lily@picturesandframesmagazine.com

JULY08

Photo Courtesy © Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

WALL-E

Written and directed by: Andrew Stanton

Starring: Ben Burtt, Elissa Knight, Jeff Garlin, Fred Willard, John Ratzenberger, Kathy Najimy, Sigourney Weaver.

It’s hard to believe that it has been almost 13 years since Pixar’s animation team first caught our attention and collective imaginations with the landmark Toy Story. Since that film Pixar has become the standard in animation—a brand name that is as recognizable (and successful) as, say, Starbucks or even Apple (the latter is no coincidence considering Jobs’ still owns shares in Pixar). What is particularly remarkable about the company is how they manage to raise the bar consistently with nearly every film that they release (the underwhelming Cars not included). When you saw Monsters. Inc. or Finding Nemo or The Incredibles, you marveled at the moving story, at the realistic characters, and at the level of animation technology being put to use on the screen. Film after film, it was a given that Pixar would deliver on all of these fronts, but with their latest release, WALL-E, they have surpassed even my wildest expectations.

WALL-E is a joy to watch from beginning to end. From the very first moments when you glimpse our beloved robot walking through trash heaps, collecting knick-knacks for his private collection, and squeaking and miming adoringly…well, let’s just say that WALL-E “had me at hello.” Equal parts E.T. and Number 5 (“Number 5 is alive!), WALL-E may just be the cutest Pixar creation ever. Every moment that he is onscreen you are beguiled and enthralled by what he will do and discover next. It is as if you are seeing the world for the very first time, experiencing the joy of falling in love and being loved back, all through the heart and eyes of a Charlie Chaplin-esque robot.

WALL-E features all of the wit and humor that we’ve come to expect from Pixar—the sound of WALL-E powering up never got old—but what steals your heart (and in my case, makes you sob) is the touching story of one lonely robot’s search for someone’s hand to hold. (Yeah, there’s also a whole underlining we-human-beings-are-destroying-our-environment-thing, but that’s neither here nor there.) It may seem ridiculous to some but WALL-E’s search is THE universal search—I can’t even begin to tell you the number of days that I’ve spent watching movies (not quite Hello Dolly! but…), honing in on the love story and longing for it to mirror my own. The sight of a trash-compressing robot like WALL-E finally finding love with EVE is the animated-equivalent of Hanks and Ryan finally meeting each other at the top of the Empire State Building on Valentine’s Day in Sleepless in Seattle.  

Lily@picturesandframesmagazine.com

JULY08

Photo Courtesy © Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

Directed by: Andrew Adamson

Written by: Andrew Adamson, Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely.

Starring: Ben Barnes, Georgie Henley, Skandar Keynes, William Moseley, Anna Popplewell, Peter Dinklage, Eddie Izzard and Liam Neeson.

For years many talented filmmakers tried to bring C.S. Lewis’ famous fantasy series The Chronicles of Narnia to the big screen. Although it already existed in the form of a terrific four-part television mini-series produced by the BBC in the late 1980s and early 90s, the true scope of Lewis’ imagination and his Narnia had yet to really be seen. It wasn’t until the success of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings film adaptations that I think producers were finally able to envision, and invest in, the beloved fantasy film, and with the success of 2005’s The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, it seems that Disney and Walden Media are forging on with big-screen adaptations of all seven novels.

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian is the second in the series and it does not disappoint. It is moving and engrossing, with action sequences that feature interesting hand held shots (pay close attention to a particularly incredible sword-fight toward the end of the film) and close-ups that were not only not seen in the first film, but aren’t really characteristic of most children’s films (with the possible of exception of the more recent Harry Potter films). Although Andrew Adamson directed both films, Caspian feels so vibrant, action-packed and yet equally gruesome and dark that you would swear that an entirely different director was at the helm.

It is a given that some children’s books translate to film better than others, and while I enjoyed The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, as a reader and as a 20-something year-old woman rather than a 7-year-old-girl, it still felt like just a kid’s film. It lacked the depth that I so fondly remembered of the Pevensie family’s stories. That is certainly not the case with Prince Caspian. This film takes its time in developing the many story arcs and plot points, and it also fleshes out the character of Susan in particular (although they do odd and almost hooker-esque things with her make-up throughout the film), a character that I always loved growing up and one that serves as a really great role-model for girls.

The battles scenes are riveting, the special effects are flawless, and the introduction of Peter Dinklage (if you haven’t seen the Station Agent go out and buy it now!) as Trumpkin is absolutely delightful. Caspian is also a lot funnier than it’s previous counterpart, thanks largely in part to Trumpkin’s sarcastic wit, but also (intentionally or unintentially, it remains to be seen) due to the rather Inigo Montoya-esque accent that the English actor Ben Barnes purports throughout as the title character. (The Telmarine’s were supposed to be descendents from an area that I always assumed to be Spain so I guess it makes sense.) As a second in a series, Prince Caspian defies the sophomore slump of Indiana Jones and Back to the Future-fame and leaves me hungrily anticipating my next trip through Narnia with 2010’s The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

Lily@picturesandframesmagazine.com

JUNE08

The Film Club by David Gilmour

“When I go to a movie now, I seem to be aware of so many more things: the man a few rows over talking to his wife; someone finishing his popcorn and throwing the bag into the aisle; I’m aware of editing and bad-dialogue and second-rate actors. Sometimes I watch a scene with a lot of extras and I wonder, Are they real actors, are they enjoying being extras or are they unhappy not to be in the spotlight? There’s a young girl, for example, in the communications center at the beginning of Dr. No. She has one or two lines but you never see her on the screen again. I wondered out loud to Jesse what happened to all those people in the crowd shots, those party shots: How did their lives turn out? Did they give up acting and go into other professions?

All these things interfere with the experience of a movie; in the old days you could have fired off a pistol beside my head and it wouldn’t have interrupted my concentration, my participation in the movie that was unfolding on the screen in front of me. I return to old movies not just to watch them again but in the hope that I’ll feel the same way that I did when I first saw them. (Not just about movies, but about everything.) – David Gilmour, The Film Club

Steven Spielberg once said: “the only thing better than seeing movies is reading about them.” This is one of my favorite movie-related quotes (you can find it plastered on our home page) and not just because it was said by one of my favorite directors—I love it simply because it is true. Reading about movies is almost as thrilling as seeing movies themselves, especially when the writer shares your passion intimately, as film critic/novelist David Gilmour clearly does in his memoir, The Film Club.

The Film Club is about many things: it is about a father coming to terms with his own self-worth and value; it is about a struggling writer dealing with unemployment; it is about a teenage son trying to find his own identity within the confines of adolescence; and it is about the magical unexplainable thing that happens when two people sit in front of a screen and watch a great movie together.

Jesse was a 15-year-old who hated high school and was flunking out of all of his classes. He wasn’t a bad kid—quite the opposite in fact—but his father, David Gilmour, saw in him a restlessness and boredom that he didn’t quite know how to counter. So rather than lose him entirely, he offered him the option to drop out of school—as long as he attended another school of sorts, a film school, that would be held three times a week in their own living room. The first film that they watch? The apt Truffaut classic The 400 Blows. From there Gilmour the professor ran through such varied coursework as Beetlejuice to Notorious to To Have and Have Not to Showgirls, all with a clear and concise lesson plan in mind. The result is an education that is truly unique, inspired and worthwhile. As a reader, you find yourself discovering (and revisiting) films right alongside the Gilmour boys, as if you too were a part of their late afternoon viewing sessions.

The Film Club is a joy to read as a movie lover as David Gilmour imbues his film descriptions with hypnotic nostalgia and passion (one of my personal favorite scenes in the book is his explanation of the brilliance of Robert Redford’s underrated The Quiz Show). But the book is also a joy to read on a completely different level, one that is harder to put into words. I remember very clearly being Jesse’s age and feeling the way that he did in high school—lost, bored and skeptical. My outlet was found at the movies—both at the theater and at home—and I still remember the days when I would stay home from school to watch movies with my mom. The films ranged from classics such as All About Eve to A Place in the Sun to Overboard, but their significance didn’t lie solely in the films themselves, but in that time that we spent together and that magical thing that took place when the two of us stared into that flickering screen. It still happens whenever we get together to watch movies, and I still marvel at that unspoken exchange that is somehow communicated during those brief moments of time.

David Gilmour does the impossible in The Film Club by capturing these very moments with his own son. His descriptions of Jesse will at times break your heart; there is a sensitivity and femininity to the way that Gilmour writes that I rarely find in male authors. He understands how precious and brief this time spent with Jesse is, and he mourns for it even as he experiences it. Jesse eventually outgrows their film club, graduates from high school and goes to college (he is now studying to be a filmmaker). David eventually finds work again and returns to writing. But those late nights are never forgotten. These films and their shared experience forever alter both men. And in a strange and magical way, they do the same for us.   

Lily@picturesandframesmagazine.com

MAY08

Photo Courtesy © Paramount Pictures

Stop-Loss

Directed by: Kimberly Peirce

Written by: Mark Richard and Kimberly Peirce

Starring: Ryan Phillippe, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Channing Tatum, Timothy Olyphant, Mamie Gummer, Linda Emond, Ciarán Hinds and Abbie Cornish.

Sitting through Kimberly Peirce’s sophomore film, Stop-Loss, was a lot harder than I expected. Not because it wasn’t a great film, which it is, or because I didn’t enjoy it or find it engrossing, both of which I thoroughly did. It was hard to watch the film because it was strikingly real. Too real. There were moments in the film that I have heard American soldiers and veterans of this Iraq war themselves describe. There were lines of dialogue that were eerily reminiscent of testimonies that I have read…and it all struck a painful chord.

Clearly Peirce did her homework. Much like her debut film, Boys Don’t Cry, which tells the story behind the life and tragic death of Brandon Teena, Stop-Loss feels authentic because of the amount of time and effort that obviously went into researching the film. Peirce spent years talking to soldiers and veterans of this war and even her own brother, himself a soldier who has done several tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. The result is a film that many have likened to Deer Hunter, a comparison that fits when you look at the importance of the subject matter of both films and their relevancy at the time that they were released.

Unless you read the paper or watch the news frequently, chances are you don’t know too much about the term “stop-loss.” The stop-loss policy was created shortly after the Vietnam War and it states that the military can involuntarily extend the service of an active duty officer under the guise of their initial enlistment contract. What that means is that a soldier who signed up to serve eight years in the army (which is what the standard contracts state)—2 to 4 of which he actually serves in the war, the other four which he is supposed to serve at home on a reserve base—can (and, considering our current predicament, most likely will) be called to serve those remaining four years fighting an indefinite war. As a result of this policy, over 12,000 soldiers have been stop-loss since the Iraq War first began.

This is a very hard concept to wrap your head around and Peirce does an incredible job in the film of not only explaining the inane bureaucracy of the military but also captures the essence of what is at stake with this issue: the lives of American soldiers. Stop-loss is moving and profound, with moments that will drive straight into your heart, and that is due almost entirely to Peirce’s direction, her terrific screenplay, co-written with Mark Richard, and the tenacity of the cast. Being a big fan of Joseph Gordon-Levitt (I do believe that he is the best actor of my generation) I was a little disappointed as to how small his role ultimately is in the film, but it is still a pivotal one and Gordon-Levitt delivers an emotionally graceful and mature performance. His sadness as the haunted Tommy is not easy to shake off.

The big surprise in Stop-Loss, however, is Ryan Phillippe. Having seen him in Gosford Park and Breach, I knew that he was capable of dramatic acting (and, I have to admit, he was pretty enjoyable in Cruel Intentions), but I had no idea that he could carry a film. There is so much that is required of Phillippe as Staff Sergeant Brandon King—physically, emotionally and mentally—and he pulls it all off tenderly and effortlessly. So many of the moments that stayed with me days after having watched Stop-Loss were due to Phillippe’s performance, and that is something that, with all due respect, I never thought I would say.

I won’t be shocked if Stop-Loss is all but ignored come next year’s awards season. Regardless of what you may have read or how much money the film brought in at the box office, this is this year’s first truly “required viewing.”

Lily@picturesandframesmagazine.com

APRIL08

Anthony Minghella

January 6^th, 1954 – March 18^th, 2008

“No journey that you enter into with a fairly open heart isn’t rewarded in some way.” – Anthony Minghella, Minghella on Minghella

It won’t surprise those who know me well to learn that the first thing that I did when I learned that Anthony Minghella died was cry. I was at my internship and had just returned from lunch when I checked my Gmail only to see the following subject line: “Director Anthony Minghella dies.” I was shocked and, although it may seem insane to most, felt like I had lost a member of my family. My first instinct was to call my brother, an actual blood relative, which I did immediately only to encounter the same kind of bewilderment on the other end of the phone line that I myself felt. Like Cameron Crowe, Spike Lee, Steven Spielberg and a handful of filmmakers who have shaped my life, Anthony Minghella was a writer and director that I always turned to, film after film… In many ways, he was the writer/director of my life, having lit a spark in me in 1996—with a little Oscar-winning film called The English Patient—that was largely responsible for my love of film.

Born on Ryde, Isle of Wight to Italian immigrants, Minghella always felt like an outsider in his own country, a theme that would often come up in many of his films, including The Talented Mr. Ripley. Minghella graduated from the University of Hull with a theater degree, one that he immediately put to use—first as a successful playwright in London, and then as a scriptwriter on such popular British TV series as “Inspector Morse.” In 1984, the London Theatre Critics named Minghella “Most Promising Playwright of the Year,” and two years later, his drama “Made in Bangkok” won the London Theatre Critics' award for best play.

1990 saw Minghella leave the stage for the big screen with his feature-film directorial debut, the romantic comedy Truly Madly Deeply. The movie stars Alan Rickman as a ghost who returns to be with his true love, played by Juliet Stevenson. Minghella wrote the role of Nina specifically for Stevenson as the two of them had worked together previously on the stage and she would work with the director once again in 2006’s Breaking and Entering.

Truly, Madly, Deeply was a big success for Minghella—both in his native Britain and here in the States—which prompted Warner Brothers to offer him his very own ‘big studio film’ in the form of 1993’s romantic comedy Mr. Wonderful. Although not a terrible film by any means, when compared to the other films in his oeuvre it is easy to pinpoint it as the most lackluster and out of character of the bunch. It lacks the warmth and intimacy that Minghella’s movies are usually brimming with, and as a result, it feels generic, a word that I would never use to describe Minghella’s work. The film would be a sore point for Minghella for years to come—it was the only film that he did not write the screenplay for himself—and it would also serve as a lesson for him when choosing future projects: never make a film that you do not connect with on a personal level.

“I feel like such an amateur filmmaker, but not an amateur writer. I will always feel like a writer who directs and not the other way around.” – Anthony Minghella, Minghella on Minghella

Minghella waited nearly three years after Mr. Wonderful before embarking on another film. The time paid off as the film in question, The English Patient, not only won nine Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director, but it also became by and large the most successful film of Minghella’s career. Minghella read the book of the same name by Michael Ondaatje as an unpublished novel and immediately fell in love with it—so much so that he decided to adapt it. Working alongside famed producer Saul Zaentz, who owned the rights to the book, Minghella spent over a year adapting the novel for the screen in a most unorthodox fashion—by never turning to the source material again. This is a technique that he would fashion again when adapting Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley as well as Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain.

Minghella believed that he could never truly provide a faithful screen adaptation of The English Patient—that it was impossible—and therefore he decided early on in the process that he would instead write his own version of the novel, including in it what he loved most about it, the scenes and characters that stayed with him on that initial first reading. This is a technique that very few screenwriters employ today and yet I think that it is probably the best way to make a successful let along great film rather than simply a faithful word-for-word adaptation.

I saw The English Patient nine times in the theater the year that it was released. I skipped several days of high school in order to see repeat viewings of it at Kendall Town & Country and the AMC in Coconut Grove. I would doodle dialogue from the film on my French notebook and at night I would listen to the film (all 2 ½ hours of it! Which spanned four tapes!) on my recorder, which I had snuck in to the theater on one of my many screenings. I had a bad case of English Patient-itis, a syndrome that affected many women across the world at the time.

Watching the film today, it still moves me, although not in the same way that it did at the age of 14, obviously. I am no longer the heaving-bosom-romantic that I once was and therefore the love story between Almásy and Katherine or Kip and Hana, does not leave me sobbing for days as it once did. What still strikes me today, however, is how well the story is told. I read the novel after seeing the film and I appreciated then just how heady a task the adaptation was—the story spans decades, countries and characters in every chapter—but this is something that still amazes me as a writer. The fact that Minghella was able to make a film that stands on its own and yet represents all of the themes that the original novel references is amazing—and he does all of this with his own distinct flair and attention for detail. All of the things that I love about the film—the sweeping landscapes, the moments of beautiful silence and the hypnotic score—, all of which are unique to the film, are all the direct result of Minghella’s incredible vision and unique taste. (In fact, Marta Sebestyen, the Hungarian folk singer whose haunting “Szerelem, Szerelem” serves as the film’s theme, was a discovery of his as well.)

“I think the camera is of no interest whatsoever to me, as indeed dialogue is of no interest to me whatsoever in that I’m not looking to get wonderful dialogue. I’m looking to get something which feels like you’re a witness. That you’re there and you’re experiencing the intensity of pain or pleasure that some other people are experiencing, and you’re given the privilege of understanding how it’s happening. You’re allowed to get a vantage point on a process which you’re so rarely allowed to have in your own life.” – Anthony Minghella, Minghella on Minghella

1999’s The Talented Mr. Ripley, 2003’s Cold Mountain and 2006’s Breaking and Entering are, at first glance, entirely different films and yet, looking back on them today, they are almost like a trilogy in the study of man—man on a journey to finally find and accept himself; man on a journey through war and back again to his one true love; man on a journey to discover love again. (These all, curiously enough, also feature actor Jude Law, a personal friend of Minghella’s, and in many ways, the Jimmy Stewart to his Hitchcock.) All three films feature characters who are outsiders in every sense of the word and yet, thanks to Minghella’s superb writing, they feel more like intimate acquaintances and counterparts than distant wallflowers.

These three films were neither commercial successes (like Patient) nor across-the-board critical successes (also like Patient), but they all cemented Minghella’s reputation as one of the most important filmmakers working in Britain today, a fact that his own country recognizes as he served as the Chairman of the Board of Governors at the British Film Institute from 2003 – 2007.

In 2000, Minghella joined Mirage Enterprises, the production company that Sydney Pollack founded in 1985, and alongside Pollock (who produced The Talented Mr. Ripley and all of his subsequent films), he produced such memorable films as Iris, Heaven (a big-time Kieslowski fan, Minghella counted Blue as one of his favorite films), The Quiet American, Michael Clayton, The Reader and the upcoming Kenneth Lonergan film Margaret. Minghella even added “actor” to his list of accomplishments in 2007 when he appeared onscreen in the role of the interviewer in last year’s Best Picture nominee Atonement.

Anthony Minghella died of a hemorrhage on the morning of March 18, 2008 at Charing Cross Hospital in London, England at the age of 54. Minghella had undergone an operation to remove a growth on his neck the previous week and was expected to recover without consequence. He had just finished shooting the pilot for “The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency,” which he co-wrote with Richard Curtis, and was preparing to work on his segment for New York, I love You, the American follow-up to Paris, je t’aime. He is survived by his wife, Carolyn Choa, a choreographer, his son Max, an up-and-coming actor, and his daughter Hannah.

There are many reasons to mourn for the loss of such an amazing man—with his death, a husband, a father, a director, a writer, a friend, the list goes on and on, have all been taken. Even though I never knew Anthony Minghella personally, I felt like I did. He put so much passion and so much of himself into his films. He was a fan of the art form—of writing, of film, of music and of literature, among many others—and of simply being a fan. His enthusiasm both on and off the set rivaled that of the more notable Scorsese and Tarantino, but it was his kindness that was cited time after time in the wake of his death by those who knew him best, a kindness and simplicity that seeped into every frame. I will miss the experience of seeing an Anthony Minghella film because it was an experience exclusive only to his work. But I will forever mourn the loss of this man because he let me into his world and into his characters and because, for several brief moments, when everything else around me failed, he gave me a home to escape and belong to.

Lily@picturesandframesmagazine.com

“It is hubris of an extraordinary kind to make the world similar to your dream of it. I read that Bertolucci hopes every night to dream the next scene, to dream what it feels, smells and tastes like so it has a kind of inevitability. If you ever feel like you’re pretending, the minute that you’re conscious of your own artifice, the scene immediately loses its sense of reality. In the end what you’re creating is something which is a mixture of invention, necessity and their own historical references. Partly you’re leading and partly you’re being led. That, in a miniature, is the way that I would wish to work all the time—witnessing something as opposed to being the engineer of it.” – Anthony Minghella, Minghella on Minghella

Filmography

“The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency” (2008)

Breaking and Entering (2006)

Cold Mountain (2003)

“Play” (2000)

The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)

The English Patient (1996)

Mr. Wonderful (1993)

Truly Madly Deeply (1990)

MARCH08

Photo Courtesy © IFC Films

4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days

Written and directed by: Cristian Mungiu

Starring: Anamaria Marinca, Laura Vasiliu, Vlad Ivanov, Alexandru Potocean

I had a film teacher in college who believed that the only good films ever made were either independent or foreign, arguing, essentially, that only art films were worth watching. Holding The Back to the Future and the Indiana Jones trilogies on my list of favorite films, I would try and counter this point incessantly having—even with only 20-or-so-years under my belt—seen plenty of mediocre not to mention terrible “art films.” But I knew what she was getting at, and I also knew that she wasn’t alone in her opinion let alone wrong. Independent and foreign films tend to be better than most Hollywood films simply because they put stories and characters at the forefront rather than snazzy action sequences or special effects—a film like Linklater’s Slacker or Jim Jarmusch’s Night on Earth or even Erick Zonca’s The Dreamlife of Angels could never have been made within the Hollywood studio system.

These were the thoughts that kept running through my head after I saw Cristian Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. This shocking, grim and unforgettable Romanian film about an illegal abortion that changes two college friends’ lives could never have been made in the U.S. When it comes to abortion, we make films that shy away from actually discussing the topic, that only skim the surface. Ex: The Cider House Rules, Citizen Ruth, and, although not American, even Mike Leigh’s Vera Drake. Which is just one of the things that makes 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days so shocking—you see the abortion take place; you see the dead fetus once it is removed. And once all of this has taken place, you see the repercussions that this act has on the two women involved. 

Mungiu’s film is so painfully direct and bare that it chances are you will find yourself cringing at several scenes in the film, and not just the ones that I mentioned above. The suspense that this writer-director builds from the very beginning of the movie is remarkable—all throughout the film you fear for what lies ahead at the next turn and for what will happen to our two female leads, Gabita and Otilia, played beautifully by Laura Vasiliu and Anamaria Marinca, respectively. The film is in many ways what I believe a Hitchcock movie about abortion would have been like, had he ever touched upon such social issues so directly in his films (although he would have never shown us the dead fetus).

The film won the Golden Palm at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, the festival’s most prestigious honor and was on many a film critic’s Top 10 List last year. It is not difficult to see why, just as it is not hard to see why the Academy ignored it entirely when it came time to nominate foreign films this year. It is not an easy film to watch, but it is definitely and amazing one…one that serves as yet another example of what foreign films often do right.

Lily@picturesandframesmagazine.com

MARCH08

Photo Courtesy © Fox Searchlight Pictures

La misma luna/Under the Same Moon

Directed by: Patricia Riggen

Written by: Ligiah Villalobos

Starring: Adrian Alonso, Kate del Castillo, Eugenio Derbez

At the end of 2005’s Devils & Dust tour, Bruce Springsteen would always close the night by playing a solo-organ version of Suicide’s “Dream Baby Dream.” It would usually last anywhere from 7 to 8 minutes, with Springsteen repeating the words, “C’mon on baby dry your eyes, Yeah, I just want to see you smile, Now, I just want to see you smile, C’mon keep on dreaming, C’mon keep on dreaming, C’mon dream baby dream, C’mon on baby dream baby dream…” over and over again. It was hypnotic, moving and unforgettable, a moment so poignant and brimming with emotion and intensity that it knocked the breath right out of you. (Thanks to fandom and YouTube, you can actually see him perform it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4EzcBL1yDY&feature=related)

This song, and Springsteen’s cover in particular, kept coming to mind as I watched first-time feature director Patricia Riggen’s La misma luna/Under the Same Moon. The film tells the story of a young boy named Carlitos, played gracefully by Adrian Alonso, a veteran Mexican soap actor, and his quest to be reunited with his mother, Rosario, played by Kate del Castillo, yet another Mexican soap star. The problem is that Carlitos is in Mexico and his mother is in East L.A., working as a housekeeper to try and better her family’s life in the hope that one day she will bring her son over to the States. Rosario dreams of a better life for herself and Carlitos, and Carlitos dreams only of being with his mother. These two different dreams are at the very core of the film and serve as the key to understand it’s not-so-subtle message: the American dream of success and prosperity is useless if it means being separated from your family.

I am full aware of how cheesy this sounds and sadly, the film often ventures into soap-opera-Lifetime-drama territory. I think this has more to do with the script itself than the fact that it is cast almost entirely with Mexican soap opera actors (although I do think that certainly helped), but in spite of it’s “heart warming” intentions, the movie is still really moving, and I would argue, important. There are not nearly enough films being made about the tortuous journey that many Mexican immigrants endure in crossing over to the States, and it speaks volumes about the immigrant experience overall with its honest depiction of their daily U.S. lives and dreams in contrast with their Mexican ones. It is in the moments where Carlito’s makes his journey over the border, the moments when Rosario loses one of her jobs and is forced to literally go from house to house begging for work, that the film really shines about it’s own sentimentality. Much like Ken Loach’s superb 2000 film Bread and Roses, Under the Same Moon is at its best when it sticks to the realities of the immigrant experience in this country (something that makes sense when you consider Riggen’s previous films, all documentaries). Living in this country, we often forget that we are all immigrants, and that we all made it over on the backs of our families’ dreams.

Lily@picturesandframesmagazine.com

FEBRUARY08

Photo Courtesy © Sony Pictures Classics

Persepolis

Written and directed by: Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi

Featuring the voices of: Chiara Mastroianni, Catherine Deneuve, Danielle Darrieux, Simon Abkarian, Gabrielle Lopes Benites, Gabrielle Lopes, François Jerosme, Arié Elmaleh, Mathias Mlekuz, Jean-François Gallotte, Stéphane Foenkinos and Tilly Mandelbrot.

I first read Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novels Persepolis while visiting my best friend one weekend in D.C. It was one of those standard chilly thus lazy afternoons when rather than go off and explore the world with said friend, I chose to stay in, surrounded by her comforter, and watch TV. But, as usual, there was nothing on. So I ventured into her roommates room and asked if she had anything good to read—she thrust Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood into my hands and, about an hour and a half later, I was borrowing Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return.

Reading them I found myself laughing out loud—something that I did not expect to do with a story about a young girl growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution—crying and relating sincerely to Marjane’s dreams, stories and pain. Satrapi’s illustrations leapt off the page and brought to life her words in ways that only a movie can usually do…which explains why turning Persepolis into a film seemed like a no-brainer.

And yet, and yet…I hesitate in writing this because I did actually enjoy the film. I thought that both Vincent Paronnaud, in conjunction with Satrapi, did the seemingly impossibly in capturing the beautiful and unique imagery that made the graphic novels such a wonderful read (I was especially thrilled to see that Marjane’s impromptu dancing was included in the movie). But somehow the emotion, sincerity and sadness that abounded in the novels was, in my view, missing from its big-screen counterpart.

I’ve thought long and hard about why this is and I have to say, I still don’t have an answer. The film is in French, and as we all know, no one does pain as convincingly as the French, and yet, as a viewer, I felt a continuous wall throughout the movie that prevented me from ever truly connecting with Marjane or her family’s complicated story. But maybe I’m suffering from the standard literary-snob’s disease (which also, along with a general disdain for the director at the helm, prevented me from jumping on the Atonement bandwagon) where having connected and loved the book I find the film to be sub par. Either way, one thing is clear—Persepolis, and Satrapi’s story, is worth knowing, watching and reading, regardless of the package that it is wrapped in.

Lily@picturesandframesmagazine.com

FEBRUARY08

Photo Courtesy © National Geographic Entertainment

Directed by: Catherine Owens and Mark Pellington

Starring: Bono, Adam Clayton, The Edge and Larry Mullen, Jr.

As a band, U2 has gotten more collective shit, coupled with semi-equal amounts of praise, over the past few years than any other band currently still releasing albums. Bono alone is on many a “worst douche-bag” list, and yet it is undeniable that no band has taken bigger risks by been at the forefront of new technology before it is cool, hip or approved by the general mass.

In the 80s they made wearing your heart on your sleeve, both politically and spiritually, successful. In the 90s they took rock stadium tours to new heights with their massive stage and light productions, and even bigger remote-controlled satellites and TV screens. In 2004, U2 were the first to collaborate with Apple on their own signature iPod (you could NOT escape their ad campaign if you tried) and now, with their latest venture, U2: 3D, the first live-action movie shot, produced and exhibited solely in digital 3-D, they’re making history once again.

U2: 3D is made up of nine different concerts shot in various parts of South America during their Vertigo tour, where the filmmakers took over 100 hours of footage and dwindled it down to a concert that lasts a little over an hour and a half.  The result is astounding. Remember that first time that you rode the Back to the Future Ride at Universal? Remember how insanely thrilling and surreal it felt? Take that same feeling, multiply it by a million, then throw in the thumping of Adam Clayton’s bass (who, for my money, is the star of the show here), the pounding of Larry Mullen Jr’s drum kit, the electricity of Edge’s guitar and the nothing-short-of-theatrical performance by Bono himself and you will begin to get a general idea of just how fucking incredible U2: 3D really is.

Catherine Owens and Mark Pellington, longtime U2 collaborators, along with the hundred or so cameramen that worked with them in each city, shot scene after scene and song after song in a variety of angles that has never before been seen with 3-D technology. From the very beginning you as a viewer are a part of the crowd at the concert—there is no distinction between the theater that you are sitting in and the stadium that they are standing in—and when Bono stretches out his hand toward his audience, he is reaching out to you as well. At times being that close to Bono and the gang was actually somewhat frightening (something that I never thought I would say), but all of this was masked by what has to be one of the best audio experiences (not being as skilled an audio geek as I’d like this is the best I can do) that I have ever had in a concert film. The music is crisp and clear and sounds so unlike anytime that I’ve ever seen U2 in concert—where mass screaming or massive, blaring speakers tend to often ruin the clarity of the music being played onstage. If you’ve never had the privilege of seeing them in concert (which definitely should be on your list of “Things to Do Before I Die”), U2: 3D is truly the next best thing.

U2: 3D is being distributed by, believe it or not, National Geographic, and although its currently playing in limited release in select cities, it will go wide to an IMAX theater near you February 15^th.

Lily@picturesandframesmagazine.com

JANUARY08

Photo Courtesy © Columbia Pictures

Walk Hard

Directed by: Jake Kasdan

Written by: Judd Apatow and Jake Kasdan

Starring: John C. Reilly, Jenna Fischer, Tim Meadows, Kristen Wiig, Chris Parnell and Matt Besser.

Growing up, about the most lewd comedies that my father ever allowed us to watch were the Mel Brooks films—Blazing Saddles, High Anxiety, The Producers, Young Frankenstein, A History of the World: Part I, and then later, Spaceballs, Robin Hood: Men in Tights and Dracula: Dead and Loving It—and I like to think to this day that it is there where I first discovered my love of all things wacky, mocking and filled with sexual innuendo.

Walk Hard is a parody film very much in the vein of Brooks’ High Anxiety and Spaceballs, and even this year’s action tribute film Hot Fuzz. Jake Kasdan, who directed the brilliant and totally underrated Orange County, is at the helm once more with Walk Hard (he also co-wrote the screenplay with producer Judd Apatow) and John C. Reilly finally gets his due as a leading man as Dewey Cox, the film’s Johnny Cash-esque protaganist.

The film is not as hilarious as this year’s other Apatow releases Knocked Up and Superbad, but it is on another playing field altogether, one that requires the viewer to be familiar with the standard biopic conventions and plot points in order to really laugh out loud. And if you are, you will—take one of the movie’s running gags via Tim Meadow (so good to see him back on the big screen): remember the scene in Ray (there were similar scenes in El Cantante and Walk the Line) where he catches one of his band members doing drugs and the guy goes, “You don’t want no part of this, Ray”? In Walk Hard, this line becomes a standard refrain and one that never fails to deliver a laugh, as is Dewey’s pension for ripping out sinks right off the wall and the random extended close-up shots of groupie dick (Brooks never went that far but I think he secretly wanted to).

The movie also features cameos galore—everyone from “Office” cast members to Paul Rudd, Jason Schwartzman, Jack Black, Jack White and Justin Long—and best of all, really terrific songs, courtesy of the amazing Dan Bern, that you will find yourself singing out loud long after the movie ends. Kasdan and company set out to mock everything it is that they both love and hate about rock n’ roll biopics and they succeeded, but in the process they also created a rare comedy classic.

Lily@picturesandframesmagazine.com

JANUARY08

Photo Courtesy © Universal Pictures

Charlie Wilson’s War

Directed by: Mike Nichols

Written by: Aaron Sorkin

Starring: Tom Hanks, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Julia Roberts, Amy Adams 

Ask any Aaron Sorkin fan why they’re Aaron Sorkin fans and chances are that they will cite his writing—his tendency to write strong, intelligent characters, spitfire dialogue and subtle sexual tensions set him apart from all modern day writers working on television and in Hollywood. For the past couple of years however, Sorkin fans have had to get their fix strictly on TV as 1995’s The American President (which served as a kind of preview for what would ultimately become “The West Wing”) was his last foray into writing for the big screen until Mike Nichols’ latest film, the Tom Hanks-fronted Charlie Wilson’s War.

When Charlie Wilson’s War was first announced, with Sorkin as the writer, Nichols as director and Hanks, Julia Roberts and Philip Seymour Hoffman (this month’s P&F Spotlight) as the film’s leads, the Oscar buzz was palpable, even six months before the movie’s December release. Which meant of course that about three months before it even hit theaters, the backlash started and the entertainment media began to write about the film as one that failed to deliver the caliber originally expected of it. As usual, they were wrong.

Charlie Wilson’s War is exactly the kind of film that Howard Hawks, Billy Wilder and Frank Capra would have made had they been making films today, in the wake of terrorism and with the threat of nuclear war constantly looming overhead. Hanks’ Charlie Wilson is a breath of fresh air and dazzling to watch—he is a womanizer, a boozer and a user, but one whose heart is even bigger than his many vices and habits, and as such, he sets out on a mission to single handedly take down the Soviet Union, with the help of religious nut and sometimes lover, beauty queen Joanne Herring (played by a perfectly cast Roberts) and genius CIA operative Gust Avrakotos played by Philip Seymour Hoffman.

The film has many high points—the story unravels so perfectly that, much like with the best “West Wing” episodes, you find yourself hanging on every word that is spoken just in case you missed anything, and visually, the grainy 80s war sequences serve as a really interesting parallel to the scenes taking place on Capitol Hill—but the most exciting moments in the movie undoubtedly belong to Hanks and Hoffman. Watching these two riff off of each other is tantamount to watching Newman and Redford, their chemistry and mutual bravado is unmatched. Their relationship carries the film’s ultimate message—look what we accomplished, but also, look how much we fucked up—and serves as a reminder of just what is possible when people work together, regardless of party affiliation, race, creed or patriotism.

Lily@picturesandframesmagazine.com

JANUARY08

Photo Courtesy © Warner Bros. Pictures

Blood Diamond

As a movie fan, it pains me to be this transparent but I feel that I should as (I think) it serves the purpose of the review: although I Netflixed Edward Zwick’s Blood Diamond in September of this year, it is only now, nearly four months later (I am ashamed to admit), that I finally got around to watching it.

There are two main reasons as to why it took me four months to actually watch this film: A) being a pretty big Edward Zwick fan (love his work on TV—“My So-Called Life,” “Once & Again”—and most of his film work, particularly Glory) I was disappointed with his last film, The Last Samurai, and therefore was hesitant about watching this one; B) it was hard to come home at the end of the day and get excited about a film that I knew would tear me apart and make me cry—especially one that dealt with the murderous diamond trade in Sierra Leone. Both of these reasons are pretty dumb, I know, and I feel especially stupid having now seen and loved Blood Diamond.

It is strange and almost ridiculous to get excited about a film that was nominated for Oscars almost a year later, when everyone has either seen it or has moved on from it, but that is where I find myself now, basking in its subtle glory and uncharacteristically un-preachy message, and in the brilliance of Leonardo DiCaprio, Djimon Hounsou and Jennifer Connelly, the film’s three leads.

Djimon Hounsou and Leonardo DiCaprio were both nominated for Best Supporting Actor and Best Actor Oscars, respectively, for Blood Diamond and looking back, it is pretty amazing that neither won. Hounsou delivers a performance that is both tender and yet full of blinding rage, and DiCaprio, who also turned in a mesmerizing performance this same year in The Departed, steals every scene that he is in (which is pretty hard to do with Hounsou as a co-star). He is quickly becoming one of the most interesting actors to watch and follow on screen, disappearing into one terrific and challenging role after another, and he is still only in his early 30s.

Jennifer Connelly was the real surprise to me here however—the past couple of years she has become an expert at playing the role of “the wife and mother,” first in A Beautiful Mind, most recently in Little Children and Reservation Road, and although she has been great in all of these films, it is a welcome change to see her fiery independence in the role of journalist Maddy Bowen. Connelly has long been one of my favorite actresses over the years and I am always amazed by the beauty, that goes beyond simply just the physical, that she commands onscreen.

Blood Diamond ultimately, succeeds where, I feel, The Last Samurai fails. Zwick has long been an expert at narrowing down the emotions and actions that drive the human heart in his stories and has tackled subjects on film that have tried both, but unlike Samurai, which felt cold and oddly far-removed, Zwick clearly connects with the story behind Blood Diamond and that is apparent in every frame of the film. The movie is gripping and heartbreaking and increasingly difficult to watch because of its harrowing subject matter, but somehow Zwick draws us in slowly, daring us not to look away. With Blood Diamond, as with Glory, he has made a message film, one that looks to educate even as it entertains, but its message is one of hope and possibility, where the actions of one man still hold meaning… not at all the grim sermon that I long avoided or feared.

Lily@picturesandframesmagazine.com

JANUARY08

The Killers – Sawdust

“Indie Rock and Roll is what I want/It’s in my soul /It’s what I need/It’s Indie Rock and Roll for me…”

So bellows Brandon Flowers on “Glamorous Indie Rock And Roll,” a new track off of The Killers’ latest release, the B-side and cover songs-driven Sawdust. The song is a fun sing-along ballad but it is also clear that Flowers takes what he is saying very seriously—it really is all about Indie Rock and Roll for him, and that is especially thrilling to listen to as a music fan let alone a rock fan.

Over the past year, The Killers have quickly become one of my favorite bands—not just of the moment but ever. Listening to them, especially to their sophomore album Sam’s Town, I feel like there is hope for the future of rock, that all the naysayers are wrong and deaf, and that hope lies in the earnest fucking phenomenal music being made by these four lads from Vegas—frontman Brandon Flowers, guitarist Dave Keuning, bassist Mark Stoermer and drummer Ronnie Vannucci.

When I heard that they were releasing Sawdust this year, a B-sides compilation nonetheless, after only having two albums under their belt, my first thought was, ‘They sure do have some balls on them.’ Singles and B-sides have gone the way of the cassette tape thanks to the cheap and accessible formula devised by iTunes, and it is even more rare to hear of a popular band (outside of home-grown favorites such as Pearl Jam or Dave Matthews Band, both of whom have years and years behind their respective names) releasing an album entirely comprised of rare tracks and cover songs. And then I remembered the last band that I love that did this, also having only previously released two full-length albums, the Smashing Pumpkins, whose B-sides CD Pisces Iscariot contains some of my favorite Pumpkins’ songs including “Starla,” “Plume” and the wonderful cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide.”

This is exactly what I love about The Killers—their seemingly-brazen career aspirations which includes emulating the path that their own rock gods paved for them. Time and again, their instincts serve them well, and Sawdust is no exception. Featuring songs that are stamped with either the Hot Fuzz new wave sound, such as “The Ballad of Michael Valentine,” or the more guitar-rock oriented Sam’s Town, on songs such as “All the Pretty Faces,” “Where the White Boys Dance,” which was actually included on the UK version of Sam’s Town and “Daddy’s Eyes,” a B-side for the “Bones” single and features the beginnings of what would eventually become Keuning’s singular Sam’s Town guitar sound.

Some of the other highlights on the album are “Show You How” which begins with Flowers singing the song’s opening lines onto a cell phone, Jacques Lu Cont's Thin White Duke Mix of "Mr. Brightside," that turns what was always a dance song into an actual dance song, and the Lou Reed duet “Tranquilize,” a song that took me several listens to really warm up to but ultimately pays off in the coupling of Reed and Flowers’ voices.

Sawdust really shines however on the covers—First Edition’s “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love To Town,” which features a terrific country-western guitar hook, Dire Straits’ “Romeo And Juliet,” taken from their “Live from Abbey Road” sessions and “Shadowplay,” the Joy Division cover that transports you back in time to a packed 80’s era dancefloor somewhere in Manchester. When Flowers yells “Woo!” in the middle of the song it only serves to echo the intensity and joy of the music, and the fun that can be had when it is blasting on your stereo. Although not originally their own, every one of these songs becomes an instant Killers classic by the sheer infectious and original passion that they instill in them, and by default, in playing tribute to these bands via Sawdust, they further cement their own place in rock and roll history.

Lily@picturesandframesmagazine.com

DECEMBER07

Photo Courtesy © Buena Vista Pictures

Enchanted

Directed by: Kevin Lima   

Written by: Bill Kelly

Starring: Amy Adams, Patrick Dempsey, James Marsden, Idina Menzel, Timothy Spall, Rachel Covey and Susan Sarandon.

I wasn’t exactly running to see Disney’s new hit film Enchanted—if it isn’t a Pixar film, I tend to not really make an effort to see their family films theatrically—but after maintaining the number one position at the box-office two weeks in a row (maybe more, after this is published), my interest in the re-imagined fairytale was piqued.

The movie stars the adorable Amy Adams as Giselle, a princess in every sense of the Disney-image—animals flock to her á la Cinderella, she is fair, patient, kind and beautiful, loved by all, etc.—who is waiting for her “true love’s kiss.” That kiss is supposed to come in the form of her beloved Prince Edward (James Marsden), but the Prince’s evil step-mother, Queen Narissa (Susan Sarandon), fears that she will be dethroned once they are married so she never actually allows them to meet. Until one day, purely by accident, as the story goes, they do and all hell breaks lose.

Narissa sends Giselle to “the real world” (via a New York City sewer) in the hopes of separating her from Prince Edward forever but her plan does not go accordingly and soon Giselle, Edward and her newfound love interest Robert, played by Patrick Dempsey, find themselves re-writing their own fairytale.

Everything up until Giselle’s entrance into Times Square is animated in the traditional Disney form; once she steps through the manhole, she comes to life in the form of the lovely Amy Adams. The animation works really well in setting up the obvious “this is a fairytale” intentions (I kept having to remind myself that this film was made for people, say, 15 years younger than me), but what makes the film worth seeing, and also makes for the funniest sequences, are the scenes set in “the real world.”

Director Kevin Lima is a pro at making Disney films having directed Tarzan, A Goofy Movie and 102 Dalmations, but it is screenwriter Bill Kelly who we have to thank for the story’s overall wit and charm. Kelly also wrote the extremely underrated Brendan Fraser-vehicle, Blast From the Past, and much like that film, which takes a cute premise and turns it on its head by incorporating genuine and likable characters, Enchanted ultimately works because we like and relate to its stars.

Amy Adams, who I will always picture as the adorable braces-wearing nurse in Steven Spielberg’s Catch Me If You Can, wins you over from the very first moment that she smiles on screen. She is the perfect embodiment of the princess that every little girl grew up believing in and yet her innocence and ingenuity at the “real world” that she suddenly finds herself in never feels forced or over-the-top. Her performance is helped largely in part by the adorable Dempsey as Robert the love-weary lawyer, not to mention James Marsden’s goofy Prince Edward, Timothy Spall’s (that’s Peter Pettigrew to you HP fans) insecure villain Nathaniel, Susan Sarandon’s spot on bitchy step-mother, and Rachel Covey’s Morgan, one of the most effortlessly cute little girls I’ve seen in a Disney film in a really long time.

Enchanted is sweet and well, enchanting, with just enough funny jokes and gross-out scenes (every New Yorker’s worst fear is on full-display in the Giselle-cleans-Robert’s-apartment scene) to entertain those of us way beyond the film’s intended PG-rated-audience. It is however, despite what the trailer might have you believe, still just a Disney fairytale—replete with a Princess, a Prince and an ending where everyone lives “happily ever after.”

Lily@picturesandframesmagazine.com

NOVEMBER07

Photo Courtesy © Buena Vista Pictures

Dan in Real Life

Directed by: Peter Hedges

Written by: Pierce Gardner and Peter Hedges

Starring: Steve Carell, Juliette Binoche, Dane Cook, Norbert Leo Butz, Dianne Wiest, John Mahoney, Emily Blunt.

I have long been in love with Juliette Binoche. From the moment that I first saw her as Hannah in my beloved English Patient, I knew that I would follow that beautiful face with its sad, tender eyes anywhere. In high school, after my brother showed me Kieslowski’s Bleu for the very first time, I ran out and cut my hair exactly the same way that she wore it in the film. (I sadly remember taking the cover of the film’s soundtrack to the salon and telling the hairdresser, “Make me look like her.”) To this day, my haircuts tend to be variations on this same style, my unconscious homage of sorts to the French actress.

Like many actors who become exceedingly brilliant at playing one particular kind of character, Binoche is known mostly for her dramatic, borderline tragic roles. I have to admit that even though I have seen her in lighter romantic comedies such as Jet Lag and A Couch in New York, these are never the films that automatically come to mind when I think of her. Instead, there’s Michéle in Lovers on the Bridge, Tereza in The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Julie in the Colors Trilogy, Alice in Alice et Martin and Pauline in The Widow of Saint-Pierre—all characters who share one thing in common: intense, gut-wrenching suffering.

As a result of her tendency towards the heartbreaking, I grew accustomed over the years to never seeing Binoche smile let alone laugh…and I have to admit that this rather strange fact never even dawned on me until I watched her in her most recent film (the first American production that she has done in years), Dan in Real Life.

In the film she plays Marie, a beautiful and interesting woman who falls in love with Steve Carell’s Dan while attending a family reunion of sorts with her boyfriend, who also happens to be Dan’s brother, Mitch (played by, yawn, Dane Cook).

The part of Marie is nothing remarkable (the only requirement the character seems to have is that she be “cultured” and interesting, meaning, foreign) and the same could really be said for the feel-good movie itself, which felt oddly reminiscent of 2005’s The Family Stone. It is the obvious chemistry between Binoche and Carell, however, which makes the film worthwhile and steals the show. The best parts of the film are the scenes where Carell makes Binoche laugh hysterically—after seeing her in crying scene after crying scene for so long, I had forgotten just how magical her smile could be, something that Carell, who is really great in the film and a terrific (handsome!) leading man, plays off of with ease.

This is director/co-writer Peter Hedges second film; the critically hyped though somewhat middle-of-the-road Pieces of April was his first. I’ve read several reviews of Dan in Real Life where viewers stated that they wished the romance had been its own separate film, without all of the annoying family drama in the background, and I can’t say that I disagree. None of the supporting characters really bring anything new to the story and ultimately take away from more Binoche-Carell interaction. Several times throughout the film I found myself wishing that I were watching the movie at home so that I could fast-forward through all of the background noise and get to the good parts—the scenes where Carell and Binoche just stand there, smiling goofily at one another and lighting up the screen.

Lily@picturesandframesmagazine.com

NOVEMBER07

Photo Courtesy © Focus Features

Reservation Road

Directed by: Terry George

Written by: Terry George and John Burnham Schwartz

Starring: Mark Ruffalo, Joaquin Phoenix, Jennifer Connelly, Mira Sorvino.

My first reaction when I saw the trailer for Terry George’s Reservation Road was: “Ugh, why would I want to put myself through that?” Just watching the trailer was painful—akin to visiting the dentist—something that you dread and fear doing but you know that you have to do regardless.

Now, I know what you’re thinking; watching a movie isn’t really something that you have to do but when you’re a movie fan and you see a film that a) is directed by the same man who brought you Hotel Rwanda (who also wrote the screenplay for the extremely underrated Daniel Day-Lewis film The Boxer); b) has Oscar-nomination written all over it; and c) stars Mark Ruffalo, Joaquin Phoenix and Jennifer Connelly, not to mention the rarely-seen as of late but always terrific Mira Sorvino, you really don’t have much of a choice in the matter.

Before I go any further with this review, however, in the interest of full disclosure (and, oddly enough, in keeping with the themes featured in the film), I feel that I should come clean about something: I missed the first 10 minutes of Reservation Road. Due to circumstances beyond my control i.e. thanks to the kind folks at the MTA, I was not at Lincoln Center Plaza at 9:25 and thus did not see what is, by and large, the driving force of the movie (or as my mom would say, “The most important five minutes of “Law & Order.”): the crime. As a result, by the time I rushed into the theater and grabbed a seat, Ethan (Joaquin Phoenix) and Grace Learner’s (Jennifer Connelly) son Josh was already dead, Dwight Arno (Mark Ruffalo) and his son had fled the scene, and the film was in a state of full-on, heightened emotions, feelings that I really couldn’t match having just walked in.

Even though it was only ten minutes that I missed, I felt like I was playing catch-up emotionally for the remainder of the movie. On the other hand, I do think that had I seen Reservation Road in its entirety, I would still be as confused about the movie as I am now. All of the elements that make a great and memorable film are there—well-told story, fantastic actors, and interesting, unforeseen arcs—and yet I walked away from the movie feeling like I had just watched something good on HBO. Although the dialogue in the film and the plot felt real enough, and the scenes featuring Phoenix and Ruffalo really do resonate powerfully, no substantive connection is made with any of the characters. Reservation Road is the kind of good film that proves just how hard it is to make a great film—there is no guaranteed formula and sometimes neither great actors nor a well-written script can prove otherwise.

Lily@picturesandframesmagazine.com

NOVEMBER07

Foo Fighters - Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace

The Foo Fighters have always been a band that is impossible to pin down musically. Go to most record stores and you’ll most likely find their albums filed under “Pop/Rock” and yet the fusion of these two genres don’t even begin to do the band’s intricate sound justice. Every one of their past albums, from the amazing The Colour and The Shape (which was actually re-released earlier this summer for its 10-year anniversary) to last year’s solid, hard-rock fueled In Your Honor, contains songs that range from sad, pensive ballads to romantic love songs to screaming rage-filled anthems…and yet nothing could have prepared me for their surprising new album, Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace.

The last time that I heard an album this diverse in the rock realm was in 1995 on The Smashing Pumpkins seminal double album, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. (In fact, “Once and For All,” a bonus track included on Patience has an opening guitar hook that is eerily reminiscent of Pumpkins signature guitar sound.) On Echoes, lead singer Dave Grohl goes to places vocally and in his songwriting that he has never been to before. Sure, the album contains the familiar guitar-rock oriented, radio-friendly Foo Fighter tunes—“The Pretender,” their first single off of the album is a blast to listen and rock out to, with a chorus that was created to be yelled loudly, as do songs such as “Cheer Up, Boys (Your Make Up Is Running),” “Erase/Replace” and “Long Road To Ruin,” the latter which will be their next single—but these are actually few and far in between on this album.

Instead we have introspective, lyric driven songs such as “Home,” “Statues,” the lovely, melodic “But, Honestly,” and my personal favorite, “Stranger Things Have Happened.” “Goddamn this dusty room/this hazy afternoon/I'm breathing in the silence like never before/this feeling that I get/ this one last cigarette as I lay awake and wait for you to come through that door/Oh maybe, maybe, maybe I can share it with you/I behave, I behave I behave so I can share it with you,” Grohl sings on the track, his voice brimming with emotion.

Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace is the Foo Fighters sixth album and it really is amazing to hear how this band has evolved. “Ballad of the Beaconsfield Miners” is a clear example of the new direction that the band seems to be going in. The guitar instrumental (which also features guitar goddess Kaki King) was written by Grohl for the miners involved in the Beaconsfield mine collapse in Tazmania. The story goes that two miners who survived the collapse were asked by rescue workers, who knew that it would take several days to get them out of the rubble, if they could get them anything to ease them through the wait. One of the miners requested an iPod with only one album on it—the Foo Fighters’ In Your Honor. Grohl was so touched that he penned the song for them and the result is a beautiful and moving tribute.

There isn’t really much more that I can say about this album except to say this: every track on it is a potential single, and every song is a joy to listen to, again and again. I have a feeling that Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace will be featured at the top of many a music critics year-end list—it will definitely be on mine.

Lily@picturesandframesmagazine.com

NOVEMBER0