John Talbott's Paris

An Education: the movie not my life story.

After avoiding seeing An Education for months, I recently had the opportunity, if you can call it that since it was the only film semi-interesting on the flight, to view it.

Why was I resistant?  Because a movie about an older petty-crook seducing a teenager siply is not my cup of tea.

Surprise!  I liked it.  Not the stuff of PhD theses but good enough for an airplane film.

Last Station & It's complicated: What a difference a director makes. Cinema Saturdays.

With the Last Station and It's Complicated the viewer can really understand the difference a good director and script make, even with superb actors.

Both films have wonderful actors at the heights of their careers - Helen Mirren, Christopher Plummer and Paul Giamatti in the former and Meryl Streep, Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin (who along with William Hurt and Sam Waterston is one of the most underappreciated actors living) in the latter.  But whereas Nancy Meyers gets the best from her crew, Michael Hoffman wastes his talented cast.

Of course the cynical point out that Hoffman's cv is a bit threadbare, including such films as Soapdish, One Fine Day and A Midsummer Night's Dream whereas Meyers is known for two Father Knows Bests. 

But both wrote the screenplays and bear that responsibility as well.  Oh, and the Merchant-Ivoryesque tone Hoffman seeks is ruined by the stagy background of noble Russian peasants going about their labors.

Cinema Saturdays: The Fugitive

The Fugitive is the perfect airplane movie and since United finally heeded my suggestion to run one channel of old movies, I had a treat.

Saturday Cinema: A serious man; Come on Coen's you can't be serious.

I just saw the Coen brothers new movie – A Simple Man (whoops, I mean Serious) – in a French movie house.  I found it too, too Woody Allenesque, in that I laughed, I knew most of the German and Yiddish spoken (I was watching the vo, but a French version), understood most of the Jewish angst and religious rites, certainly knew the Manhattanite code words, but exited from the theater wondering why I hadn’t walked out earlier.  

 

Simply put - it had only moments of humor, but hours of tsouris and years of pain. It was simple but in the sense of childlike, dim-witted, lacking intelligence or common sense.

Cinema: Extract and its character actors.

Extract is a great airplane movie, ideal for its lack of depth, unclarity or depressiveness.

It made me realize though how much movies depend on character actors, wrongly often referred to as bit-players.  Like Paul Plishka the greatest non-star at the Met Opera, who played the sacristan in Tosca and Benoit in La Boheme, folks like J.K Simmons, Clifton Collins, Jr and Ben Affleck make this more than an airplane movie, they make it fun to watch.

Saturday at the Movies: Invictus and The Road

Invictus is quite simply the best sports film since Breaking Away and a feel-good marvel.

Morgan Freeman’s regal bearing and nuanced political approach are startlingly realistic and Matt Damon, who comfortably inhabits the skin of every character he plays, is a perfect foil/accomplice.

Bill Keller, now Executive Editor of the NYT, wrote in “An Actor Nails the Cadence and the Charm” that Mr. Freeman does not “do” accents - perhaps, but the speech and accent coaches for both Messrs. Freeman and Damon deserve Oscars; Freeman’s halting speaking style and Damon’s Afrikaner-tinged English are spot-on.

Go?  Not if you’re one of my two right-wing fascist-leaning Republican friends because it will remind you too much of a sensible, thoughtful black man elected President in the distastrous times created by his predecessor.

I went to the movie version of The Road with enormous reservations/questions: how could anyone top Cormac McCarthy’s prose tale and how on earth (literally) could such a bleak landscape be found.

This was and will be, I suspect, “the” serious film of 2009.  For a movie in which nothing happens, a lot actually does.

The performances are impressive and the landscape deserves almost equal billing.

Go?  A must.

Stone of Destiny: Cinema Saturdays

The Stone of Destiny is another ideal airplane movie.  Released in 2008, it retells the story of a bunch of beautiful Scottish nationalist young people who (if you have any Scots blood in you) restore the stolen Stone of Scone to Scotland.

I thought the cast was wonderful, the plot no matter how well known, well-rendered, and the denouement sad for those of us who think the British royalty deserve a poke in the eye every now and then.

Inglourious Basterds: What a silly film.

 

Inglourious Basterds has a great cast that has to deal with a silly premise, silly plot, silly acting, silly scenes, silly editing and a silly ending.

If I could have caught Quentin Tarantino outside CineCite I’d have held him up for my 10.20 € back.  What a waste of time.

Then how about this?  Cine Cite runs an ad saying Fight Obesity: Don’t eat Between Meals and hand out Haagen-Dazs coupons and have a Haagen-Dazs ad before the silly film.

Fast & Furious: Cinema Saturdays

This is the perfect airplane movie - castless, senseless, plotless, mindless, reckless and boundless.  But don't pay a dime for it; let United bring it to you.

Julie & Julia: the film

I disagree with the critics who wanted more Julia (Meryl Streep) and less Julie; she (Amy Adams) held her own and the peg on which to hang this plot was just fine.  It did remind all those of us who eat in America, though, of just how much we owe Julia Child.