I DO (PRETE-MOI TA MAIN)
Directed by Eric Lartigau
Romantic comedies.
Love ‘em, or hate ‘em, most of us have been wooed by a tale of cutes falling in love on screen. No matter how far-fetched the premise, how dumb the dialogue, or how predictable the plot, most of us have fallen for a romcom.
I DO (or, “How to Get Married and Stay Single”) is a guilty pleasure to enjoy without shame. It is a smart, well-written, well-made comedy. It’s populated with terrific characters and plausible complications that keep you guessing.
Romantic comedies.
Love ‘em, or hate ‘em, most of us have been wooed by a tale of cutes falling in love on screen. No matter how far-fetched the premise, how dumb the dialogue, or how predictable the plot, most of us have fallen for a romcom.
I DO (or, “How to Get Married and Stay Single”) is a guilty pleasure to enjoy without shame. It is a smart, well-written, well-made comedy. It’s populated with terrific characters and plausible complications that keep you guessing.
Luis (Alain Chabat) is the little brother in a family of older, domineering women. He has been unsuccessful in securing a wife. This fact is fine with him, but not with his mother and sisters who constantly nag him to find a nice woman and settle down.
With the help of a friend, he hatches a plan. He will meet and become engaged to the fetching Emma (Charlotte Gainsbourg). And she will dramatically leave him at the altar, thus indelibly breaking his heart. This trauma, he feels, will quiet the nags for once and for all.
But it won’t work out that way, of course. You can probably guess how it will end…still, what a charming ride.
2006 \\ Color \\ 90 min.
Studio Canal
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: France
Studio Canal
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: France
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MY ARCHITECT: A SON'S JOURNEY
Written & Directed by Nathaniel Kahn
MY ARCHITECT is Nathaniel Kahn’s personal journey to forgiveness and reconciliation with his rogue father, one of the 20th Century’s most brilliant architects.
Kahn’s film moves along patiently, painstakingly…each frame filled with the grief of a son, mostly unknown to his father, searching desperately to know his dad and, ultimately, to love him. To “hug his buildings.”
There is no question that Louis I. Kahn’s work is fascinating, moving, powerful. And it is not really surprising to learn that he died poor and alone...that his life was filled with dysfunctional relationships, poor business decisions, and general self-absorption. It is the all-too-familiar “genius artist’s” tale.
But MY ARCHITECT works as meta-Biblical narrative…the lost son seeking his creator father…within his creation. Kahn’s tale resonates more deeply, and the peace he ultimately finds during this journey is more rewarding.
(The one-minute scene of Nathaniel Kahn roller-blading at his father’s ethereal Salk Institute courtyard, underscored by Neil Young and Stephen Stills’s “Long May You Run,” is pure cinema…rare for a documentary.)
Nathaniel Kahn’s film manages to celebrate his father’s work, damn his paternal failings, and restore his own sense of origin, of family in less than two hours. It is an amazing accomplishment.
2003 \\ Color \\ 116 min.
New Yorker Films
COUNTRIES OF PRODUCTION: Bangladesh, __________________________________________________
AFTER LIFE
Written & Directed by Hirokazu Koreeda
Nearly a decade after Albert Brooks suggested that each of us must prove his mettle in an after-life court of law (DEFENDING YOUR LIFE, 1991), Japanese director Hirokazu Koreeda imagines us starring, post-mortem, in a supernatural film of our life’s happiest moment.
AFTER LIFE is a richly imagined, completely original, and deeply moving film for an age when most understand the story of their lives as cinema.
The first part of the film is about each character remembering, deciding, and then choosing a memory that will follow them into eternity.
This is an agonizing choice for some…very easy for others. Some choose simple moments, while others pick more dramatic, obvious moments. Yet in each character’s choice, we see ourselves, our own lives…our own life-defining stories.
The second part of the film plays like a behind-the-scenes, making-of documentary about each character stepping in to the literal role of their life.
Koreeda smartly supports his documentary-styled narrative with a parallel story…that of a quasi-romantic relationship that develops between two after-life facilitators/social workers. And it is in this sub-plot, that he gives voice to the concerns of the still-living.
This is fascinating filmmaking from one of the world’s brightest and most honest filmmakers.
1998 \\ Color \\ 118 min.
Artistic License
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: Japan
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LOST IN TRANSLATION
Written & Directed by Sofia Coppola
One might imagine the set of Sofia Coppola’s spare masterpiece as a solemn place…she and cinematographer Lance Acord speaking gently to each other…stars Scarlett Johansson and Bill Murray flirting quietly in the wings…crew members whispering breathlessly that this might be the day father Francis comes to visit…
(In fact, if you are Aaron Sorkin, that’s precisely how you’d imagine it.)
The reality, I believe, is much better: a slim crew camped out in a high rise Tokyo hotel for a few weeks making a movie. Their aim? To capture the tiniest, most fleeting…the most indelible moments of an accidental friendship between two lost souls.
LOST IN TRANSLATION is often mistaken as a fish-out-of-water, romantic comedy. It is not. It is better. It is a patient meditation on how people cope in this new, small world we share. Indeed, it is a film about taking care of each other…about being with each other.
Johansson and Murray have never been better than this. And neither has Coppola. The film sweeps you up from first frame to last. It befriends you. It stays with you.
It is a rainy Saturday movie for people who like to wander, but don’t like to feel lost.
2003 \\ Color \\ 104 min.
Focus Features
COUNTRY OF PRODUCTION: Japan
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THE DAMNED UNITED
Written by Peter Morgan, Directed by Tom Hooper
Before giving us Best Picture THE KING’S SPEECH (2010), Tom Hooper made the glorious, British “football” biopic, THE DAMNED UNITED.
You needn’t know of Leeds United, 1970’s-era English football, or even manager Brian Clough to adore this film. Morgan’s screenplay (based on David Peace’s novel) creates a most compelling triangulation of adult male friendships and rivalries.
Clough (played to perfection by Michael Sheen) adores his dutiful right-hand man, Peter Taylor (Timothy Spall), while despising his rival Don Revie (Colm Meaney). When he takes over for Revie (who leaves Leeds to coach the English national team), Clough’s on-the-field failures lead to a falling out with his friend.
UNITED is a joyride of a sports film. There is the thrill of competition and the agony of defeat, of course...made all the more so by the inner turmoil that drives the talented Clough, who is haunted by father-figures from opposite ends of the spectrum.
Sheen’s performance here could have been just brash and cold, yet it is his portrayal of Clough’s desperation and vulnerability that gives this film a beating heart and a loving soul.
THE DAMNED UNITED is classic Tom Hooper in that way; damnable famous men resized to next-door neighbor scale.
2009 \\ Color \\ 98 min.
Sony Pictures Classics
COUNTRY OF PRODUCTION: United Kingdom
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THE BROTHERS BLOOM
Written & Directed by Rian Johnson
This movie is a con.
THE BROTHERS BLOOM purports to be a heist movie, a “who’s conning who?” trick, an homage to George Roy Hill’s THE STING (1973) or Frank Oz’s DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS (1988).
But BLOOM is actually a film about how people form their life narratives…how and whywe write the stories of our lives.
Stephen (Mark Ruffalo) and Bloom (Adrien Brody) have been con-men since childhood. Now, they’re all grown up. And Bloom has had enough. He wants out. And his big brother has a plan…an intricately plotted, magnificent plan…one last con.
Only…Bloom falls for the “mark,” beguiling American heiress, Penelope (Rachel Weisz). And all bets are off.
Fans of Rian Johnson’s BRICK (2005) will recognize the director’s stylish directing and whip-smart writing from frame one. Indeed, Johnson is the star of this feel-good travelogue (though Ruffalo, Brody, and Weisz are most compelling). Johnson is spinning a yarn about spinning yarns. And his conclusion—that “there’s no such thing as an unwritten life…only poorly written ones.”—is inspiring.
BLOOM is a fascinating, quickly-paced film that occasionally slows in its good-natured quirkiness. And yet, the sum of its parts is more rewarding than most of its con-film predecessors.
2008 \\ Color \\ 114 min.
Summit Entertainment
COUNTRIES OF PRODUCTION: Czech Republic, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia
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BARCELONA
Written & Directed by Whit Stillman
Many fans of 90’s art house phenom, Whit Stillman, dismiss the second of the writer-director's “young-yuppies” trilogy as uneven.
Indeed, METEROPOLITAN (1990) and THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO (1998) are both brilliantly written and acted films, but “middle-child” BARCELONA is more heartfelt.
The story follows the arrival of Naval officer Fred (Chris Eigeman) who has come to Barcelona to do “advance work” for the impending arrival of the American fleet. Fred crashes at his corporate salesman cousin Ted’s (Taylor Nichols) flat.
Nichols and Eigeman are perfect voices to Stillman’s muse. Here, on the heels of breakout METROPOLITAN, they prove to be valid big-screen buddy-comics…in the tradition of Woody Allen and Tony Roberts in ANNIE HALL (1977).
Whereas Stillman’s other films tread softly (though purposefully) through the pleasant terrain of comedy of manners, in BARCELONA, things eventually get physical, dangerous. What begins as a witty, cross-cultural dialogue becomes far more aggressive…then violent.
BARCELONA is about the bright possibilities of being smart, attractive, and actively engaged with a fascinating foreign culture, growing grayer, wiser. It is certainly a funny and entertaining film, yet its brilliance lies in a surprise punch landed squarely on the eye. And the inevitable sorting out that follows.
1994 \\ Color \\ 101 min.
Castle Rock Entertainment
COUNTRY OF PRODUCTION: Spain
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BEFORE SUNRISE
BEFORE SUNSET
Directed by Richard Linklater
Two people talk for an entire movie. Then, almost a decade later, the same two people, playing the same characters…talk again. For another entire movie.
And both films are perfect!
American auteur Richard Linklater directs both of these unusually fresh and fascinating films, which star Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke as lovers who are just as anyone who has fantasized about falling in love with a stranger on a European train would have them be.
Both films are directed with an exquisite playfulness that keeps them smart, but not ponderous.
SUNRISE matches a broken-hearted American (Hawke) bursting with fashionable undergrad cynicism with a delicate French poetess (Delpy) who is easing into womanhood. The two fall in love, promise to meet again in six months, then part ways.
SUNSET brings them back together. Only, this time, the roles are reversed. Hawke has become the delicate one…the author of a romantic novel based on their chance encounter. Delpy plays the cynic…hardened by broken relationships and near misses, she has finally lost the sweet blush of youth.
And yet, here they are again…falling in love again. But…do they finally get together?
Aw, come on. I’m not going to tell you…see the movies!
BEFORE SUNRISE
1995 \\ Color \\ 101 min.
Castle Rock Entertainment
COUNTRY OF PRODUCTION: AUSTRIA
BEFORE SUNSET
2004 \\ Color \\ 80 min.
Warner Independent Pictures
COUNTRY OF PRODUCTION: FRANCE
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ONCE
Written & Directed by John Carney
Music by Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová
Some day people will hear the anthemic ballad “Falling Slowly” and have absolutely no idea that it formed the emotional core of the most beloved film of the 2000s.
It’s just that good a song…it really is.
Of course, there will also be future-cinephiles that discover John Carney’s lovely music-film ONCE and find themselves awed by the discovery of so gorgeous a paean to romantic love tucked away in such an unassuming little Irish indie.
Indeed, ONCE is a film that most of us fell very quickly for, actually.
ONCE succeeds largely on the shoulders of its powerhouse songs…co-written and performed by its two stars, Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová. There is a story of course…two lonely souls fall in love while making beautiful music together…but make no mistake, ONCE is more concerned with connecting its relational dots with sweet melody, not pitch-perfect plotting.
In addition to the aforementioned “Falling Slowly,” other standout songs/scenes include the heart-pounding opening number “Say It to Me Now,” the soaring “When Your Mind’s Made Up,” and the most heartbreaking break-up ballad ever, “Lies.”
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a film that makes me feel more human, more hopeful, more loved…than John Carney’s ONCE.
2007 \\ Color \\ 86 min.
Fox Searchlight Pictures
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: Ireland
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EL DORADO
Written & Directed by Bouli Lanners
There are some stories that start in an unfamiliar place, follow a completely unpredictable path, and land somewhere…else. Bouli Lanners’ strange and wonderful road movie, ELDORADO, is such a tale.
Here’s the story. A used car salesman drives a drug-addicted young man home…along two-lane highways in rural Belgium. But home is not as it should be. So he drives the kid back to the big city.
But road movies are rarely about destinations. They are about what happens between travelers along the way. And a whole lot happens to these offbeat travelers on their journey.
There are the predictable road movie moments: the falling asleep at the wheel near-miss, the broken down in the middle of nowhere scene. But these are handled so imaginatively, so not-cliché: a very naked man steps out of his RV to offer assistance, a local yokel has a fetish for accident scenes.
Both characters are haunted by lost relationships—and it is this point of connection that keeps them together, moving forward. Until there is nowhere left to go. And this relationship is lost, too.
ELDORADO is funny, heartbreaking, strange, and incredibly entertaining from first to last frame…a must-have addition to any home film library.
2008 \\ Color \\ 78 min.
Film Movement
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: Belgium
