The Road(USA) Directed by John Hillcoat  Written by Joe Penhall  Starring Viggo Mortensen; Charlize Theron; Kody Smit-McPhee; Robert Duvall; Guy Pearce; Molly Parker; Michael K. Williams; Garret Dillahunt

Much speculation surrounded the release of Australian director John Hillcoat’s The Road, including reports that last years’ cut of the film had to be re-edited to counteract the bleakness quotient as execs feared audiences would be turned off by a view of a post-apocalyptic America virtually devoid of recognizable humanity. As is, the film remains fairly dire, filled with monochromatic images of a gray, sparsely populated, and largely plant and animal-less landscape as barren as the stomachs and souls of those still inhabiting the earth.

Based on the 2006 award winning novel by Cormac McCarthy (No Country For Old Men; Blood Meridian), Hillcoat and screenwriter (British playwright) Joe Penhall don’t stray far from the source. Though there are invented details added to the mix, the film respects the book’s minimalistic base and narrow scope and includes most of the major plot points. And while it might be said that Hillcoat, directing his fourth feature, never manages to cinematically transcend the book in the way one imagines most successful  literary adaptations ultimately accomplishing, there is also something to be said for the concept of fidelity, especially when it comes to re-imagining well-loved/respected work, and if nothing else The Road artfully manages not to besmirch McCarthy’s violent, spare telling. 

Whether Hillcoat captures the spirit of the novel is open to debate, but he does well evoking a washed out, burned out, and de-populated America still experiencing traumatic earthquakes and fires years after the undefined and unexplained cataclysmic event. For those who haven’t experienced the novel, the film is largely a two-hander with the ever youthful middle-aged Viggo Mortensen as The Man and young Kodi Smit-McPhee as The Boy. The story is a simple one - the father and son making their way on foot to the warmer coast climate where they hope to connect with other “good people” to start a better life.

Thankfully, Mortensen and newcomer Smith are both excellent and believable together, which is a good thing because the film all but entirely rests on their performances. Charlize Theron has a smaller role as mother and wife, seen in a series of flashbacks, including several color splashed ones highlighting the actresses still stunning beauty, as The Man repeatedly dreams of images and moments of a life that was. Hillcoat also effectively employs name actors like Guy Pearce (fellow Aussie and lead in his previous film, The Proposition); Molly Parker; Michael K Williams (Omar from The Wire); and Robert Duvall in supporting roles that essentially amount to cameos.

To Hillcoat’s and Penhall’s credit, they obviously decided against creating additional facts that might’ve been woven into the dialogue or voiceover (Mortensen) in order to better explain the current world situation, illuminate the specific cause and nature of the catastrophic event, or detail what exactly The Man hopes to find as he and the boy move south toward the ocean. The build is slow and meandering and even the more sensational of the sections have a muted quality to them that do not work either individually or joined together in the way that traditional thrillers, horror, or action flicks usually do. Rather, they serve merely as divergences along a narrative path that trudges forward in the same manner that The Man and The Boy do as they struggle mightily to haul their meager possessions in an old shopping cart, traversing woods, mud, and hills toward a fuzzy future neither can predict.

One of the major themes of the book and the film is the idea of forging ahead despite the negative that so often surrounds us. The concept of suicide as an opt out of the pain, and specifically as a final expedient solution for the boy if the father is killed, is one that is present throughout. Their world is filled with darkness, hunger, and predatory scavengers. The boy stands as a beacon of innocence in a dark and dismal universe, as well as being The Man’s one reason to live. For the boy, his “Papa” is the prism through which he sees the world, his protector and sole source of information about the present and the past. Always looming, however, is the threat of the many rapists, thieves, murderers, and cannibals who roam the terrain in an attempt to prey on whomever and whatever comes in their wake. In an existence fraught with a constant series of very real threats, far removed from any and all modern convenience or comfort, pleasure must be drawn from the simple - finding a rare can of Coke, playing with a small toy, the protection of some new found temporary shelter. 

The subject matter, of course, is far from novel, and the film calls to mind others of the type - Time of the Wolf; Mad Max; Waterworld; Stalker; The Stand; Le Dernier Combat; Boy and His Dog; The Quiet Earth- in its painting of a scorched post-apocalyptic world, but the book and films restraint in refusing to overtly tackle broader political or moral questions means that with the exception of several platitude infused moments we as audience avoid the kind of grand pronouncements usually afflicting films of the type. And while several scenes have the kind of scary, frenzied quality of some recent well-known zombie films, the narrative remains in the realm of the real with only the boy’s recitation of his father’s lessons as screed (based on his age, lack of education/ contact with others, and having never experienced the old world) smacking of the mythologizing so prevalent in apocalyptic and dystopic fiction.

While there is a definite flatness here, some of that might be understandably attributable to the depression and sensory deprivation of the beaten down, unwashed, and ill-fed characters, as well as the structure of the very film itself, containing as it does a plot constituted mostly of scenes with The Man and The Boy withstanding multiple life and death challenges as they attempt to survive their journey. The accumulated effect of their harrowing experience on an audience is equivalent to that of a boxer taking one too many jabs in the face, although it should be stressed that there is genuine and deeply felt emotion in the tender father/son connection, the one overriding tactile element of warmth in a desolate, depraved environment populated by the desperate and the deprived - individuals barely clinging to the memory of what made them human in the first place

Sin NombreDirector Cari Fukunaga  Written by Cari Fukunaga  Starring Edgar Flores; Paulina Gaitan; Luis Fernando Pena; Tenoch Fuerta Majia; Diana Garcia; Kristina Ferrer

A stunning feature debut from Cari Joji Fukunaga, the 31 year old American (of 1/2 Japanese descent) writer/director responsible for Sin Nombre (which translates to Without A Name or Nameless). Fukanaga who grew up in California, and attended NYU film school, reportedly spent research time riding the trains with Mexican and South American immigrants on their way to illegally emigrate to the United States.

The visuals (shot by cinematographer Adriano Goldman) evoke the rich, vibrant colors of the landscape, but the beautiful green scenery is juxtaposed against the squalid living conditions endured by a portion of the Mexican and Central American population. The decision to use 35mm is an interesting one in the age of the mobile HD camera, especially with a story taking place in such rough terrain, and relying on a fluid verite’ feel.

Young Willy (Edgar Flores), AKA El Casper, is a member of the local chapter of the fearsome Mara Salvatrucha (or MS-13) gang led by El Sol (Luis Fernando Pena) and his brutal right hand man Lil’ Mago (Tenoch Huerta Majia), who sports a scary full facial tattoo. Obviously feeling the weight of the internal conflict over his participation in this life of crime and violence, the seemingly pensive Willy has a beautiful girlfriend Martha Marlene (Diana Garcia), who lives outside his neighborhood. Though he has been trying to keep her a secret from the gang and vice versa, Martha is becoming increasingly suspicious of his comings and goings. Willy also worries about new 12 year old gang recruit El Smiley (Kristian Ferrer), who has been assigned to him, although he is powerless to dissuade him from the life the young boy has already chosen/been sucked into.

At the same time a dual story unfolds involving a teenage Honduran girl, Sayra (Paulina Gaitan). Reunited with her father after a long absence (he has been deported from the U.S. and is seeking to return there), she is convinced by her uncle to travel with the two of them to the U.S. to join her father’s second family in New Jersey. Sayra is clearly less than overjoyed about making the arduous and dangerous trek, but her uncle prods her by pointing out that there are no opportunities where they are. Though the distance between Sayra and her father is evident, she is completely reliant on her two older and more experienced family members to see her through safely.

Heading north, they embark on a journey through Guatemela and Mexico, riding on the top of trains as their primary means of travel. They also encounter Willy and friends along the way, and it is here that the two stories intersect and become one. Through a series of events, Sayra becomes drawn to the nearly silent Willy, who is facing an uncertain future with the threat of death lurking around every corner.

Shades of the great El Norte from Gregory Nava are evident in this violent, tragic tale. Scenes taking place at La Bombia, a kind of way station, highlight the extreme poverty and the sheer numbers of those who attempt to cross over however they can in the hopes of a better life. The young, inexperienced actors are uniformly believable, and the relationship between the emotionally scarred Willy and the innocent, confused Sayra is sensitively composed. Sin Nombre was a big hit at Sundance in 08 (winning best director and best cinematography awards) and deservedly so. Fukunaga is a director to watch.

Inglourious Basterds(USA) Directed by Quentin Tarantino  Written by Quentin Tarantino  Starring Brad Pitt; Christoph Waltz; Melanie Laurent; Diane Kruger; Michael Fassbender; Eli Roth; Mike Myers

Quentin Tarantino is the master of the B movie mash-up, with a history of creatively updating and re-invigorating some of the genres he so adores by producing hybrid, difficult to precisely categorize versions of the same. This referential approach worked to a tee in his first three films. His use of once popular (though often outdated and thus obscure) music; hyper violence; colorfully profane dialogue; vivid scenes (the kind that actors live for); and dialogue chalk full of asides referencing food and pop culture initially bowled us over in all its sheer, utter audacity and style.

There was a kind of orgiastic movie geek fest at work with Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction (not to mention the one that got away, True Romance), which were shockingly stylistic, and seemed to be both solidly grounded in the gritty B gangster and crime films they mirrored, while updated with a modern sensibility and punchy, entertaining dialogue spoken by memorable characters. Although he did not originate the material for his third film  (as it was based on the novel Rum Punch by Elmore Leonard), Jackie Brown (1997), it seemed to represent positive growth, with characters expressing adult emotion, pain, and world weary knowingness that seemed grounded in reality as opposed to feeling like reproduced movie emotions borrowed from any number of low grade sources.

The question after the altogether excellent and underrated Jackie Brownbecame, what would he do next? This writer, for one, felt that Tarantino was unlikely to ever again reach the heights he’d scaled in his first three (ignoring his superior Romance script, and his pedestrian segment in the failed Four Rooms) undertakings. That is not to say that the belief here was that he wouldn’t go on to create popular films that succeeded at the box office, for his adolescent view of sex and violence comes in a package teenagers and ageless comic book and movie nerds across the globe have always, and will always, eat up. The problem is, though Tarantino can talk about classic and world cinema, though he sits as a judge at Cannes, though he requires little prompting before waxing philosophic on the history of the art of film (never failing to tout his place in the pantheon in the process), his tastes lead directly to the schlock he devoured as a youth. And try as he might in the years to come (particularly as he has stated his disinterest in adapting anyone elses work again - ironically, the very thing that might help reign him in - the thing he is perhaps most in need of), it is going to be difficult for him to break free of those chains.

No one would deny that Tarantino is anything but an enormously talented screenwriter and director. We won’t even hold the fact that he has, for years, tried to convince us that he is also a great actor (even though his performance in every film in which he has appeared has been woeful) against him. His 2003/04 Kill Bill films received mostly glowing praise from critics and mass audiences alike, leaving some (like this writer) scratching their heads as to what all the fuss was about. In order to love a reductionist offering like Kill Billone must, to some extent, feel nostalgic for the films they recall (i.e. 70s martial arts movies), and if one does not, and never did dig that stuff, it’s difficult to buy into all the absurd hyper violence, action, and mythic storytelling going on. One can admire the panache, one can applaud the technique and the sheer derring-do of the elaborate set pieces; myriad extras; expertly shot and designed visuals; and playfully obtuse, speech-laden dialogue, but all of these factors do not automatically translate into films that are moving, emotional, dramatic, or funny. Well done from a technical standpoint, yes, but so are any number of cartoons.

Following Kill Bill 1 & 2 (which came a full six years after Jackie Brown), Tarantino teamed with Director Robert Rodriguez, another overgrown kid who revels in the same type of fantastical escapism that floats Tarantino’s proverbial boat. Like his pal, the guitar toting Rodgriguez loves movies, and wants to take part in (and attach his name to) nearly every aspect of making them, and while his films haven’t made the same impression on professional critics that Tarantino’s have, he definitely matches his big headed comrade in arms in one area - ego. One might put forth the argument that Rodriguez hasn’t made a single quality film, but that is a discussion for another day. What is certain is that the reaction to Death Proof (Tarantino) and Planet Terror(Rodriguez), the pairs’ dual attempt to recreate a double drive-in bill was hit with decidedly mixed results. Critical reaction varied but was, on the whole, lukewarm. The films, originally intended to be shown as a package, also under-performed at the box office. While they both represent a fitting homage to the cheap action/horror/suspense 1970s B films upon which they are based, and incorporate a host of stunning visual tricks to recreate the look, they also (cleverly, of course) reproduce the bad acting and dearth of quality story-line virtually inherent in those low budget originals. Intentional or not, the two films still boil down to empty-headed exploitation, and thus their appeal is largely winnowed down to those who either feel an affinity with films of this type and/or the period in which they were shot, or those who are genuinely into the titillation and/or campiness they provide.

Which leads us to Inglorious Basterds. Tarantino has been talking about his WWII extravaganza for at least a decade, and for a long time it seemed as if this was one of those dream projects that would never get done. According to Tarantino, he couldn’t stop writing, and wound up with hundreds of pages centering on a female character out for revenge, but when he eventually made Kill Bill, employing the same basic premise,  he had to scrap the unwieldy script, re-tool, change the focus, and what arose was a kind of pastiche dedicated to the WWII gang-of-misfits-out-to-pull-off-a-mission like The Guns from Navarone (1961) and The Dirty Dozen (1967). The film upon which this one owes it’s “bastardized” title, Inglorious Bastards (1978), was actually an Italian production starring Fred Williamson and Bo Swenson. Tarantino’s film, of course, also harkens back to The Seven Samurai (1954), as well as the various Westerns taking their inspiration from Kurosawa’s classic, such as the The Dirty Dozen (1967); The Magnificent Seven (1960); and of course, Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch (1969). The difference here, however, is that those other films were after telling one story, while Tarantino is intent on giving us a number of them, and because of this we never really get to know any of Basterds other than their leader Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) as they simply aren’t on screen for very long.

Make no mistake, Inglourious Basterdsis bravura film-making, and Tarantino’s talented hand is all over the film. It also contains an obtrusive, incongruous, distracting, and in some cases wholly inappropriate soundtrack culled mostly from various spaghetti westerns (time to hire a composer); a run time that is at least 1/2 hour too long; splashy text introducing characters with an unnecessary exclamation point; and individual scenes, constructed to build tension through dialogue, often stretched entirely too long. Told in chapters that are each like different, self-contained films, Inglourious Basterds is ultimately more like several films in one, and the tonal shifts we have come to appreciate from this director don’t always work here.  What seemed so fresh (or at least as fresh as conscious re-invention can be) in Pulp Fictionnow feels overly ordered and constructed, giving short shrift to the multiple movies contained within. Somehow too there is something vaguely offensive going on. It’s as if the overall agenda of the men on a mission is merely a thinly disguised excuse for Tarantino to get his rocks off.

While something like The Producersclearly had a sharply satirical edge, one gets the feeling that Tarantino merely likes the idea of The Nazi uniform and their collective mentality as theoretical villain, and the same goes for the Jews as victims of their hate filled fascist regime (the “Jews/rat” speech being similar to his “Moor/Sicilian” one in True Romance). Perhaps it’s his utilization of this subject matter to fetishize the roles of victim and victimizer for his own dramatic purposes, and further, as an excuse to serve up his form of ultra violence; or perhaps it’s his cavalier attitude toward history as it occurred (particularly this history), or perhaps it’s some combination of these factors and more, but there’s something here that feels offensive. It’s as if the film in some way reduces these very real events, this very real history to fodder for Tarantino’s perverse fun. Altering history under the auspices of arriving at some greater artistic truth is one thing (and still problematic); re-imagining the events surrounding the Holocaust in order to jerk off is quite another. One shouldn’t forget that this history involved ethnic cleansing of historic proportions, and the vicious, unrelenting murder of millions of living breathing men, women, and children, and this kind of mingling of drama and comedy, history and fiction, seems quite a different business than Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator(1940); Lubitsch’s To Be or Not to Be; or The Three Stooges skewering of Adolf Hitler and The Third Reich. The closest one could come to finding a comparison tonally would probably be the television show Hogan’s Heroes, though (despite it’s questionable taste), the shows lack of pretensions toward anything resembling serious drama at least approaches inuring it against the kind of attacks this film opens itself up to.

Playing with history is a narrative writer/director’s prerogative, but they do so at their own peril. It’s difficult to state definitively whether making mincemeat out of the events of the Holocaust is acceptable at a base level from either a moral or artistic standpoint, but in these hands it certainly pushes the entire affair into comic book territory. Brad Pitt belongs, in fact, in a Coen Brothers film, playing Nazi hunter Raine with a knowing, winking irony. The hillbilly accents a gaff, and never for a moment (unexplained rope burn on the neck aside) do we think he’s anything but Brad Pitt having a good time. It might even be possible to imagine that this characterization might represent a mere(though more accurately, major) miscalculation by the actor, except that this is Tarantino’s baby all the way, and he knows exactly what he wants, and Pitt’s joke of an accent is far from the only element of whimsy here. And that’s the strange thing about Tarantino in general, and specifically the film itself - it’s schlock dressed up as serious art, and what’s stranger still is Tarantino seems deadly serious about it - or, is it just that he’s deadly serious about himself? It is perhaps even more troubling to consider that Tarantino is (like Raine) from Tennessee and also reportedly (like Raine) part American Indian, which leads one to believe that he rather inexplicably views Pitt/Raine as some version of himself, like a child dreaming of being a handsome badass superhero. Boy.

Equally as perplexing is the presence of a group of excellent European actors who are all but marooned on their individual (though literally overlapping) island sequences. The standouts include Melanie Laurent as Shosanna Dreyfus, a Jew who owns a Paris cinema; Brit Michael Fassbender as film critic/operative Lt. Archie Cox; and Diane Kruger as actress/spy Bridget von Hammersmark. Well noted by now is the breakout performance by German TV actor Christoph Waltz as Colonel Hans Landa. Waltz is exceptional as the devious, multi-lingual officer, relishing the chunks of dialogue he’s given, while keeping himself restrained enough to avoid veering into cartoon-land, something that cannot be said for Pitt. Each of the above mentioned characters (Raines excluded) is compelling enough to have commanded far more screen time, and it’s obvious that their performances must in part be credited to Tarantino (it would be silly to imply that the director does not know actors or performance), but they are so good that there are numerous times when their very presence seems in direct conflict with any of the Basterds sequences, as well as the overall ironic tone of the film itself. And tone is perhaps the biggest problem here - Tarantino’s film isn’t parody, farce, or comedy, but surely this isn’t meant to be taken literally (because if it is the director really has lost touch with reality).

While a variety of scenes (most notably those involving Pitt and Waltz) are clearly set up for the main players to let it all hang out, encouraging excess or at least actorly flourish, in terms of the movie as a whole it’s as if thespians like Waltz, Laurent, Kruger, and Fassbender are all dressed up with no where to go. Thus, when we cut to certain visually over-dramatized shots demonstrating the abject terror some of them will ultimately face there can be no genuine emotional response from the audience because the film itself is too ridiculous to have fully enlisted our sympathies at any point in the proceedings (a scene involving Raine using a foreign accent is dumb enough to render any serious aspirations moot). Thus, several of the concluding scenes come off as forced melodrama, or so much pastiche-like nods to true dramas of the kind, but the intent and effect is muddied to the extent that there is a genuine disconnect in terms of their causal linkage to the rest of the film. These indulgent, soapy mini-denouements further demonstrate the fact that Tarantino wants it all from his audience - he wants us in on the jokes, and having fun with the wild characters and long winded dialogue, enjoying the irony of his distance, bemused by the insider cinema talk,  charmed by the incongruous inclusion of a style befitting the era of movie making he is enamored with (and not the period in which the film takes place); reveling in the extreme violence; accepting the more dramatic scenes at a surface level; and… oh yeah, he wants us to feel too.

A perfect illustration of enough never being enough is the inclusion of a seemingly endless stream of filmmaking references. Not satisfied with a few insider allusions to the cinema we know (we know) Tarantino loves so much, we get a lead character running a cinema; the cinema itself as setting for the climactic event of the film; Landa smoking a Sherlock Holmes like pipe; another lead who’s a German movie star; a third who’s a film critic; the character of Goebbels, propaganda film producer; a character who’s a German actor; a mention of Audy Murphy; reference to Leni Riefenstahl; a character who works as a projectionist at the theater; the appearance of an actor playing Emil Jannings; discussions about Pabst; German propaganda films; Sergeant York; Charlie Chaplin, and so on and so on…

Throughout the film the major thing that comes to mind is excess. Too many story-lines. Too many tonal shifts - or at least the absence of one that’s consistent. Too many elongated speeches. Too many characters. Too many unnecessarily oddly angled shots. Too much dialogue. Too much exposition. Too many words. Where is the person behind the scenes telling Tarantino no? Inglourious Bastards, for all it’s panache, is an example of ego run amok. A director and writer in love with his own words, and concepts, completely lacking a sense of how banal his musings often are. Fetishism substituted for genuine intellectual exploration. Stock movie characters where human beings should be. Whether it’s Top Gun; or cheeseburgers; G.W. Pabst; or Nazi-ism, the subject matter isn’t delineated because what Tarantino is actually fascinated by is the sound of his own voice. The more meandering the speech the better as far as he’s concerned, if only because it allows his characters to say more of his cool lines. He talks about writing through his characters, while quite the opposite is true - in every character, in every speech, resides the voice of Quentin Tarantino endeavoring to prove how clever he is.

While Inglourious Basterdsis filled with some wonderfully written individual scenes, marvelous design with nicely (and some lavishly) turned out set pieces; crisp, fluid visuals; and excellent performances (including one career making turn); as well a bevy of great (although not all completely formed) ideas (or at least scenarios), it fails (despite its lofty ambitions) to hang together as anything close to a classic. And because it comes from one man, an auteur director who wants the glory and the criticism that comes with that, its failures can only fall on one person’s shoulders. Here, Tarantino gets an A for audacity and style. Of course, it’s not his talent or nerve that’s in question, rather, his inability to edit himself, as well as some unquestionably questionable taste.

Lorna’s Silence(FR) Directed by Jean-Pierre Dardenne; Luc Dardenne Written by Jean-Pierre Dardenne; Luc Dardenne  Starring Arta Dobroshi; Jeremie Renier; Alban Ukaj; Anton Yakovlev; Fabrizio Rongione; Olivier Gourmet

There is something unyielding about the films made by the Dardennes (Luc and Jean-Pierre), the Belgian brothers who write and direct films that practically moan with authenticity. Their fidelity to life being lived as opposed to the stylization that colors much of the narrative film landscape, at times leaves audiences with the feeling they are watching life unfold before the camera.

In terms of the subject matter and setting, The Dardennes have located all of their four previous features in their home town of Dairang, and each of these stories have been about people living on the edge of society, those barely making ends meet. There are other directors who thrive in this gritty milieu - Brit Ken Loach is perhaps the best known (and this film harkens to his recent It’s a Free World in its focus on foreign labor), but newer directors like Irishman Lenny Abrahmson (Adam and Paul; Garage) and American Bahrin Ramani (Chop Chop; Man Push Cart; Goodbye Solo) are two of note who also create character studies about members of the underclass.

The Dardennes have been as faithful as anyone in terms of setting parameters and sticking to them. These “rules” are self-imposed of course, in the same way that members of the French New Wave established certain aesthetic criteria before making particular films, blending genres and creating new ones in the process; or the way Dogma 95 members imposed upon themselves a finite list of limitations governing how they would shoot their films. And yet with The Dardennes, one feels (as one does with Loach) an intense commitment that extends beyond mere intellectual and/or artistic conceptualization or gamesmanship. Like Loach, The Dardennes got their start making documentaries about social issues effecting workers, and one feels the dedication they must have to a certain world view, telling stories that expose societal ills, and also put a human face on a oft marginalized and thus dehumanized class of people.

It is perhaps because of this strict adherence to a set of aesthetics developed amongst themselves that there has been some degree of negative audience and critical reaction to the slight shift in tone and structure demonstrated in Lorna’s Silence. While we still get intimate close-ups with extended scenes that, at times, reveal little more than simple everyday actions and/or moments of quiet introspection on the part of our protagonist; characters struggling around the poverty line who are endeavoring to improve the quality of their lives; the presentation of difficult moral dilemmas faced by these same protagonists; and a telling (nearly) devoid of scored music, there is more plotting here - a story that seems somehow more constructed, more written.

Perhaps to those purists out there, and those devotees of all things Dardenne, this shift represents some form of sacrilege that the brothers are committing upon the temple they have erected. However, it is the artists’ prerogative (and perhaps even responsibility) to change and evolve, and whatever results from taking chances on a piece by piece basis, these changes (one hopes anyway) will ultimately lead to discovering new avenues of expression for said artist that will continue to be reflected in some form in their later work.

Lornas Silenceis set in Liege, an industrial city housing in its confines and among its population a cross-section of newer legal and illegal immigrants. One of these is Lorna (Arta Dobroshi), an ethic Albanian and dry cleaner worker. She and her boyfriend, itinerant laborer and fellow Albanian Sokol (Alban Ukay), dream of owning their own snack bar, but need money to make it a reality. The two have already partnered with Taxi/cafe owner/thug Fabio (Fabrizio Rongione) by having arranged a fake marriage between Lorna and drug addict Claudy Moreau (Dardenne favorite Jeremie Renier). As a result, Lorna has her EU/Begian citizenship now, but the next step is to divorce/get rid of Claudy in order to marry Russian Andrei (Anton Yakovlev) so that he too can gain his prized legal entry.

As Claudy attempts to get clean from heroin, Lorna’s conscience is under scrutiny as she becomes increasingly uncomfortable with her role in the scheme. The Dardennes also include some additional elements in the mix, which point to larger metaphysical/philosophical questions regarding morality and guilt, the kind of hazy abstraction mostly missing from their previous work. Still, the question of personal morality and one’s responsibility to behave in a righteous way as juxtaposed by the struggle to meet basic human needs is not much different from the challenges faced by previous Dardenne protagonists - in Rosetta, a young girl willing to do almost anything to get a job; a troubled young man in L’Enfant dealing with his unwanted child; a father in The Son, haunted by the past and trying to reconcile his conflicting emotions.

There is something different here - additional plotting, suspense arising from the possibility of several different potential outcomes, that contribute to a general feeling of the film being more “written” than simply unfolding before out eyes, but the slightly enhanced scope is but a veering from an ingrained course as opposed to a full turn in style, and perhaps to assuage the worries of a faithful audience Olivier Gourmet even arrives a police inspector, as if to prove that these are, in fact, the same guys. And yet, at the end of the film - WALLAH, there it is, some scored music shows up. It will be interesting to see what these talented auteurs do next. Could a technicolor musical be in the offing?

Let’s Get Lost (USA) (DOC) Directed by Bruce Weber

Bruce Weber’s films have a signature look - lush, high contrast black and white with scenes that sometimes seem as if they’re solely comprised of a series of expertly posed still shots. No surprise perhaps as Weber is best known as a fashion photographer. As he did with Oregon boxer (and Calvin Klein model) Andy Minsker in Broken Noses(made the year before), here he focuses on a single individual - jazz trumpeter Chet Baker, and poses him in a series of locations (driving in a convertible; at the beach; at an amusement park; at The 1987 Cannes Film Festival), weaving them with voice over, photographs (including the famous William Claxton ones) interviews, and music (much of it Baker’s) to great effect.

Baker was fifty six when Weber began making the film in 1987, and by 1989 he’d be dead. His middle-aged, wrinkled, sunken, hard-luck face is juxtaposed throughout the film with clips and photos of his fresh-scrubbed, high cheek-boned, youthful self. Imbued with Baker’s smooth though mournful music and haunting tenor vocals there is an air of sadness permeating the film. For all his professional achievement, this is not a life lived well or happily, and the regrets are inextricably linked with the main subject’s recollections of his own past.

Chesney Baker was born in Oklahoma in 1929. His family moved to California when he was ten years old. His father, who he describes as distant and cold, was a country western musician. He bought young Chet a trumpbone, which was too big for him to play, and then a trumpet, and within days the boy with a natural ear was playing his instrument with the skill of someone who’d had years of lessons.

Baker was a heroin addict for the majority of his adult years, a fact that is openly discussed in the film. As the film goes on it becomes evident that Baker is still an active addict, and there is more than one interview where he slurs his words or nods out. At one point Weber asks him about the best time of his life and Baker goes on to describe getting high by mixing heroin and cocaine. Like most addicts, Baker inflicted more than his share of pain on those who loved him, including his mother (who admits, with great difficulty, that he has been a disappointment as a son), his past loves, and four children.

It is to Weber’s credit that he doesn’t shy away from allowing those in Baker’s life to share in the telling. He is described by still bitter ex girlfriend, singer Ruth Young (herself a long time drug abuser), as being a manipulator and con man whose story about himself is always self-aggrandizing, and thus circumspect. She talks about an incident when Baker had his teeth knocked out, and says the real story is that Baker owed drug dealers and was beaten up because of it (Baker claims he was simply robbed while going to buy drugs). His second wife, British native Carol, the mother of three of his children (Paul; Missy; and Dean), talk about him blowing in and out of their lives whenever he felt like it, never telling them when he was coming or going.

Long time girlfriend Diane Vavre is in many of the scenes with Baker, but even she describes him as being untrustworthy, manipulative, and abusive, stating at one point that as long as you understand Chet’s a junkie you’re okay. Paul, Missy, and Dean (in their twenties at the time of filming), speak about living in small town Oklahoma, and seeing their father only on rare occasions. At one point one of them jokes that someone should tell their father they need money. We never hear from his oldest child, son Chesney Aftab, with second wife Halima, though Carol and his other children talk about Chesney coming to visit them and always managing to miss Chet’s visits, a fact they say upsets the young man who hadn’t had much contact with his biological father.

Though he died tragically in Amsterdam, having fallen from a hotel window, Baker survived longer than many of his fellow drug-addicted Jazz contemporaries, undergoing the loss of his teeth, which cost him years of playing trumpet (he eventually re-learned to play with dentures), failed marriages, and various drug related arrests. His professional life included playing with Charlie Parker, who had a hand in discovering him, being part of the Gerry Mulligan Quartet, with whom he made some of his most famous recordings (including My Funny Valentine); being named top performer of the year in the fifties; long stints in Paris, and other cities across Europe, where he was wildly popular; and even an acting appearance in an Italian film (he was also jailed in Italy for possession). He was too the basis for the lead character Chad Bixby in the 1960 filmThe Fine Young Cannibals (directed by Michael Anderson), played by Robert Wagner.

Although opinions on the measure of Baker’s talent vary, he is at least in the discussion by most experts as one of the greatest jazz trumpeters who ever lived. His style was an embodiment of the cool, California sound, a fluid style thought to have arisen in relation to the temperate climate. Though Baker did not read music, or at least only had a rudimentary understanding of it, and though he did not compose, he had a tremendous ear for music, and a knack for being able to pick up nearly anything after listening to it once. His underrated voice had a kind of singular quality, mirroring a mellifluous instrument in some ways as he extended certain notes.

Though Weber, an openly gay man, is clearly objectifying Baker to some extent, admittedly having been initially drawn to a photo of him (as he likely was with boxer Minsker), there is perhaps something fitting about the treatment. Long after his death, Baker continues to enjoy iconographic stature, a fact that is likely attributable to several factors (including his race and talent), not the least of which being the way he looked. It is slightly odd though to see Minsker, Baker, and singer Chris Isaak (a Baker enthusiast) at a restaurant table in Cannes, looking a bit like the same person at three different ages.

The Academy Award nominated Let’s Get Lost has long been unavailable on DVD, although it has recently appeared on The Sundance Channel on cable.

Tyson(USA (DOC) Directed by James Toback

Iconoclast James Toback directs this documentary, which consists of interviews with boxer “Iron” Mike Tyson mixed with news and fight footage. Toback and Tyson have a long history going back some twenty plus years. Tyson has appeared in several of Toback’s films, most notably Black and White, where, playing a version of himself, he chokes a character played by Robert Downey Jr. when he tries to hit on him.

Here, at age forty two, sporting his infamous facial tattoo (modeled after a Maori tribal piece), he discusses past victories and failures, beginning with his horrific Brownsville, New York childhood, which included being beaten up by local bullies, then becoming a bully himself; his extensive youthful criminal history (thirty eight arrests by the age of fourteen); being sentenced to a juvenile facility, where he came across boxing trainer Bobby Stewart; and then, after his release, on Stewart’s recommendation, going to live and train in The Catskills with Cus D’Amato, who became mentor, trainer, and father figure.

This is not the first attempt to document the troubled life of a man who long ago became a symbol for a kind of monstrous, raging, animalistic type, with all the racial undertones that implies. First, famed fighter, trainer, and analyst Jose Torres wrote the 1987 book Fire and Fear, detailing Tyson’s childhood experiences and explaining how he used his deep rooted fear as a motivator, turning it into unfettered rage when in the ring. The book was later made into the 1995 HBO drama Tyson: Uncaged. Veteran documentarian Barbara Kopple also featured Tyson in 1993s Fallen Champ: The Story of Mike Tyson.

While there is no major revelation here, we do get an opportunity to hear from Tyson as he attempts to explain his personal life and career from the perspective of being out of the sport with no chance of doing anything to affect his professional legacy. We hear only Tyson’s voice in the footage Toback culled from some thirty hours of interviews, and there is an advantage to this kind of narrow focus. Toback uses split screen, and some audio effects in repeating certain lines, but essentially (other than the archival media footage and fight highlights) there is one voice.

Tyson’s boxing highlights include golden glove/amateur championships. At age twenty he became the youngest heavyweight world champ in boxing history. Tyson started his career with a ferocity unlike that of any modern day fighter - he not only knocked out his opponents (many in the first round), he terrified them, and his angry domination (and punches thrown with “bad intention”) caught the interest of the entire nation. As champ, he unified the title, and had a series of successful defenses, but losing D’Amato, his teacher and friend, seemingly weighed heavily on him, and the lifestyle his new found wealth and fame afforded himself began to take precedence over his disciplined training regimen. Once he won without having worked hard to prepare he began to imagine himself untouchable.

Tyson’s shocking 1990 defeat in Japan to Buster Douglas was only the beginning of the end of his fight career. He had previously disassociated himself with everyone connected to D’Amato, a fact which some experts point to as the key to his losing his famed discipline, his shift in style, and eventual downfall. During his interviews with Toback, Tyson talks in depth about marrying and divorcing Robin Givens, as well getting sandbagged by her on national television in an interview with Barbara Walters; getting convicted of raping beauty contestant Desiree Washington and doing three years in prison as part of a ten year sentence (he still insists he’s innocent); his conversion to Islam; winning another championship belt; and then losing twice to Evander Holyfield (and biting his ear twice during the second fight).

Beset by depression, bi-polarism, drug & alcohol addiction, and wild overspending, Tyson has fathered seven children by three women; lost all or most of his three hundred million in purses; declared bankruptcy; and, at the end of his career (fighting only for money) was beaten by several journeymen. Later, Tyson even got involved with professional wrestling, thoroughly embarrassing himself and tarnishing an already shaky professional legacy. He may have been used and abused by degenerate handlers like Don King, but, by his own admission, squandered the riches and talents bestowed upon him. The same anger and ferocity that made him successful eventually ate him up. In 2006 he was again arrested for drug possession and DUI, and served a brief jail stint as part of his sentence.

Despite the malapropisms, twisted grammar, and rambling free association that marks Tyson speech, he is not without introspection, and the spot when he repeatedly attempts to talk about D’Amato is heart-wrenching. Though often dispassionate when recollecting the traumatic events in his life - his experiences as victim and victimizer, the veneer breaks down during this section as he cannot even get a full sentence out to describe the effect that D’Amato had on his life, or his feelings about the man. It speaks to the deep pain and loss at the root of the man’s anti-social and self-destructive behavior.

There are huge omissions in the story here that, along with the details of the events surrounding the rape he was charged with, include Tyson’s dealings with several of the men closest to Cus D’Amato. Head trainer Kevin Rooney, who replaced D’Amato as Tyson’s trainer, was then replaced himself by Tyson soon after becoming champ. Current boxing analyst Teddy Atlas was part of D’Amato’s crew of assistants who worked closely with Tyson when he was an amateur. When Tyson was fifteen Atlas’ eleven year old niece accused him of fondling her, and Atlas subsequently threatened Tyson’s life with a gun. Though Atlas was reportedly offered 5% of Tyson’s winning for life, he refused the deal and walked away from the camp.

The relationship between documentary maker and subject is a precarious one, and here we benefit from the comfort and trust level between these two men, which translate into an inescapably fascinating intimacy. Though this is a valid and worthwhile document about one of the most controversial athletes in history, the film may ultimately lack the skeptical eye of a director without an investment in a long term personal relationship. It cannot ultimately be ignored that the subject is a menacing individual with a horrific personal history of violence (sanctioned or otherwise) that includes a rape conviction. Even at 42, theoretically wiser and removed from much of the turmoil that has long beset his personal and professional life, Tyson’s misogyny and seething, deep rooted anger emanates from his every pore.

As a postscript, Tyson has, since the film’s completion, lost a young daughter to a tragic death. He also made a successful cameo appearance in the hit film, The Hangover. As he says at one point in the interview, he never thought he’d live to be forty years old, a statement that perhaps gives us a glimpse into the psyche of man who has lived a reckless existence, and is still clearly haunted by the demons of his past.

Funny People(USA) Directed by Judd Apatow. Written by Judd Apatow Starring Adam Sandler; Leslie Mann; Seth Rogen; Jonah Hill; Eric Bana; Aubrey Plaza; Jason Schwartzman; RZA; Iris Apatow; Mabel Apatow; Torsten Voges

Say what one will about Judd Apatow, the man has been responsible for a shift in the landscape of American comedy. His influence is felt in the films he has produced, written, and directed, and also in the talent he has helped cultivate from his days in charge of several critically successful, albeit short-lived television series. Since the unfortunate demise of the second of those series in 2003, the list of feature film comedies he has been associated with over the past six years include some of the most critically and financially successful of the type: Knocked Up; Forgetting Sarah Marshall; Superbad; Pineapple Express; The 40 Year Old Virgin; and Step Brothers. There have been misses thrown into the mix to be sure, but Apatow has become a kind of reservoir from whence seemingly all film comedy now flows.

Funny People, his third directorial effort, ups the drama quotient from Knocked Up and The 40 Year Old Virgin, and also marks something of a return to the general tone he achieved with Undeclared and Freaks and Geeks on TV. Apatow has employed the talents of some of the young people who starred in those shows - James Franco; Jason Segel; Martin Starr; Seth Rogen; Carla Gallo, et al to great effect, as he has actors like Paul Rudd; Jonah Hill; Ken Leung; Craig Robinson, and family members including wife Leslie Mann, and daughters Maude and Iris. And as the patriarch of some sort of comedy family tree, some of his (figurative) offspring have (often under Daddy Apatow’s auspices, of course), in turn, begun producing their own material.

Despite the frat-like raunchiness marking a lot of the comedy (which has a kind of stoner/nerd/adolescent based humor of man-boys who haven’t been around women very much) Apatow clearly values loyalty, at least in terms of staying connected to the same group of actors who helped propel his career into the stratosphere. No surprise then that here he hooks up with old real life roommate Adam Sandler, having him play a part written specifically for (and some might say, about) him.

Give Sandler credit for taking on a character that might easily be confused with his real life self. George Simmons is a spoiled comedian and movie star who makes films that are popular with the public, but not necessarily the critics. George is rich, and (perhaps because of the money, or perhaps because this is the way he really is anyway) he’s a bit of a prick. He doesn’t have any real friends left;, and has all but cut ties with his family. Unmarried and childless (Sandler is neither), and living what is essentially a hedonistic, self-indulgent lifestyle, he’s stunned to discover that he’s dying from a rare blood disease.

The news drives him back to the comedy clubs where he made his bones, and it is in this world where the film is at it’s best. George meets aspiring comedian Ira Wright (Seth Rogen), who works in a supermarket deli to support himself while trying to make his way in the world of stand-up. Ira lives in a modest apartment with his friends Leo (Jonah Hill), another comedian, and newly famous TV actor Mark Taylor Jackson (Jason Schwartzman). Ira sleeps on the couch because he can barely afford to pay his bills, has little success with women, and isn’t sure he has what it takes to make it. When George offers him a job writing jokes and being his assistant, however, he leaps at the chance the association offers, reveling in the change of lifestyle and the career boost it seems to promise.

Though sentimentality naturally seeps into this rather maudlin and cliched set up, Apatow is smart to undercut the schmaltz by having Ira be manipulative in his attempt in cashing in on the opportunity with George. Rather than help his friend Leo, who is only doing marginally better than him, Ira instead desires only to improve his own chances at success. Apatow has stated that his original hope was to be a performer, a dream circumvented by his lack of stage prowess. Though clearly nostalgic for those days of yore, Apatow still acknowledges the cut throat aspect of a business that has a bunch of hungry scavengers on the bottom vying for their place on the next step in the pyramid.

Though he is our protagonist, who is dying, and is naturally portrayed as relatively sympathetic, George is also shown to have some serious flaws. Amiable as he may be as he poses for photos with the fans who have made him millions, there is a roiling anger underneath the jokey exterior that speaks to deeper issues, some of which are mentioned when the subject of George’s father comes up. George explains at one point that his Dad was something of a prick himself, and that George spent his childhood trying to win the old man’s attention by making him laugh. It’s not a far stretch to think that similar stories abound among comedians, as not everyone has the stamina or pressing need to subject themselves to the judgement of anonymous assembled strangers while trying to amuse them.

While the basic premise of the script has been seen many times before, Apatow’s dialogue is, as always, strong. Characters try to make one another laugh, and play a game of one-up-man-ship that most guys (and particularly nerdy Jewish guys into comedy) certainly do. There is a healthy portion of pop culture references contained in the put downs, upping the hip factor ante, and also occasionally demonstrating the disparity between the forty year old George and the twenty-somethings he comes in contact with. Though he is rich and famous, tired of himself and his own ennui, sick, dying, and has been enjoying the spoils of his fame and fortune for years, George still probably has more in common emotionally with these people than he does others his own age who have gone on to traditional careers, marriages, family, etc., mostly because he never grew up.

Bemoaning the errors of his past, George contacts ex-girlfriend Laura (Mann), at first to apologize for cheating on her way back when and ruining their relationship, and then later to inform her of his disease. Laura naturally feels sorry for him, and though married to Aussie husband Clarke (Eric Bana) with two kids and a nice home, she obviously has some unresolved feelings for George. The film eventually has George and Ira traveling to Laura’s house, and it is here that things bog down some. Though there are amusing moments that arise out of the odd dynamic of George visiting the family of his ex, it seems as if the film as a whole may have benefited from this section receiving a good deal of editing down in order to keep us on track. The nearly 2 1/2 hour running time isn’t so much the problem as is the percentage of it ultimately devoted to this visit. The most interesting part of the film is George’s relationship with Ira and his own comedy roots, not his connection with Laura, which we all know is being romanticized because of the recent events in both of their lives.

Though Apatow’s impressive comedy resume goes back to The Larry Sanders Show and The Ben Stiller Show in the early to mid nineties, one should keep in mind that this is only the third film he has directed. And although the film contains the aforementioned highly overextended pit stop, a major structural misstep, Funny Peopleultimately redeems itself because Apatow refuses to succumb to the sentimentality threatening to choke the life out of plot. While we do get something of a coda in the end that has George doing a nice deed it is only after he has behaved awfully and refused to do the right or selfless thing in regards to the people he purports to care about. A testament to Apatow’s aversion to pat tie-ins is his complicating the relationship between Ira and a young, female comedian Daisy (Aubrey Plaza) with a series of events occurring between them that both speaks realistically to the nature of fame, and also seems somehow true to life. One’s fantasies about how things should go rarely turn out that way - rather, relationships are complicated, and messy, and take real effort and commitment.

There is enough solid humor to quantify this as a comedy, and the film includes several amusing scenes with RZA as Ira’s deli co-worker; a series of mostly successful semi-insider cameos from comedy stars like Ray Romano; Sarah Silverman; Dave Atell; Andy Dick; Norm MacDonald; and Paul Reiser; a weirdly funny scene with Eminem; composer/musician Jon Brion popping up as a band member George has to pay to jam with; and finally, the appearance of Ernest Thomas as a Principal on Jason Schwartzman’s characters television show, Yo Teach. And after all, any film with Raj from What’s Happenin? in it can’t be that bad, can it?

500 Days of Summer(USA) Directed by Marc Webb. Written by Scott Neustadter; Michael H. Weber. Starring Joseph Gordon- Levitt; Zooey Deschanel; Clark Gregg; Minka Kelly; Chloe Moretz; Geoffrey Arend; Matthew Gray Guber

Perhaps it’s a measure of the individual and collective strength and appeal of actors Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt that a film with several major, obvious missteps can wind up being as mostly successful as this one. Taking its cue from the template for all creatively structured romantic comedies to follow, Annie Hall, and following the lead of other recent young love stories containing well measured lumps of sweetness like Nick and Nora; Juno; Adventureland, and Garden State, 500 Days of Summer follows two late twenty-somethings into the abyss of a failed relationship.

Right off the bat we are told this is not a love story, although, in fact, it is one in a way - just not an ultimately successful one (the relationship that is, not the film itself). Gordon-Levitt is Tom, a greeting card writer who once aspired to be an architect, working for the same company as secretary Summer (Deschanel), new to town and adamantly (she explicitly states more than once) not looking for a relationship or anything serious. We are told in the beginning by the deep voiced, unidentified omniscient narrator that Summer is the type of girl who is average, but not usual, and we are given a series of semi-comic examples of her vast appeal to men. Dressed in her usual array of vintage outfits, Deschanel, She and Him member and indie cinema darling, is her standard appealing self, slightly aloof, vaguely monotone, though pleasingly attractive, cooly smart, and of course, hip.

In this pairing, Tom is the traditionally female character in that he is in love pretty much from jump street and therefore wants nothing more than to commit to Summer. As we are privy to his initial longing and angling to get close to her, as well as some of the far off places his imagination travels to, we know just how much he digs her, even as he puts forth his best efforts to play it cool when they are together. The fractured time frame has us jumping around the beginning, middle, and end of their relationship and beyond (day 2; day 147, etc.). There is never a question as to how this will end so what drama is present arises out of the way Tom and Summer interact with one another. Their relationship, as we soon learn, essentially boils down to an old (though no less painful) truism - one person is always more into the other.

And yet to the film’s credit it’s not as simple as all that. Though the story is, for the most part, from Tom’s perspective, and therefore not all of the information is necessarily completely credible (and thus the addition of omniscient narrator guy to deflect this fact), we are privy to enough nuances of their relationship to understand the dynamic. Who among us hasn’t fooled ourselves in ways big and small about a potential or actual relationship with another we surmised was “different” or “better” or “totally our type”? The human heart is a curious thing, and timing, fate, and our own past experiences (as well as those we partner with) all contribute to the precarious, mind-bending force that is romantic love. Tom and Summer originally bond over shared taste in music, but as good as The Smiths may be, love of the tune-age does not a healthy and full relationship make.

The structure of the film is pleasingly innovative with bits that include: a full on dance sequence to a Hall and Oates ditty replete with Dysney-esque cartoon bluebird (zipeety-doo-dah); a series of mock excerpts from foreign art films referencing Bergman (including The Seventh Seal) and The Red Balloon; a clip of the the final scene of The Graduate; and a scene that involves Tom suddenly merging into a darkly animated set. There are plenty of other fun divergences, like the split screen that juxtaposes Tom’s expectations with the reality of what is happening. Unfortunately, there are also a healthy heap of flat indie 101 cliche’s that include Rachel (Chloe Moretz), Tom’s preternaturally wise younger sister (a stock character seen in, among other films, Bottle Rocket); a terribly corny extended frolic through Ikea; Tom’s two (stock) de rigueur nerd friends Mckenzie and Paul, who are both clueless about women; and a inane, jokey scene in a park where our two lead characters shout the word penis with escalating volume (joy).

Where 500 Days succeeds is in showing us two close to real life people with agendas that seem like the kind human beings might actually have. Who hasn’t been in a relationship with someone who didn’t seem entirely emotionally present? Who hasn’t had questions about a significant others past, the feeling that some unspoken sadness or regret  was lingering in their heart? Who hasn’t be involved with some great someone who just didn’t love you the same way you loved them? Conversely, who hasn’t been the one who just didn’t feel the same way about someone else? Who hasn’t been the one who just didn’t love the other enough?

Deschanel has the rather thankless duty of playing a character who is, in many ways, an empty slate. New to the city, there aren’t any friends or family to help demonstrate what kind of person Summer really is. Most of what we get from her (besides the bits the narrator dude lets us in on) is through the prism of Tom’s conception of her, and it’s not an accident that the details are fuzzy. Due perhaps to this very decided lack of background information, Summer comes across as somewhat cold-hearted.

That Summer cannot manufacture the necessary feelings to be with Tom is, of course, not her fault, but Tom is our hero and we are naturally sympathetic to his plight. Tom’s feelings for Summer are real if only because they are meaningful to him, but they can only truly penetrate Summer’s consciousness to the extent that she is invested in him and their future together. Summer is, of course, lying to Tom on some level, using him for companionship, sex, friendship or whatever it is people get from one another, but it is impossible to determine to what degree and when (if ever) she is aware of this, and therefore difficult to accurately gage the level of her culpability. And besides, we all do this type of thing to one another in variety of ways, delude ourselves, settle, make compromises, tell ourselves we’re being honest and not hurting the other person, and yet we do hurt one another all the same, all the time.

The youthful looking Gordon-Levitt is remarkably open as Tom, conveying a sincere, well-meaning young man who is, in many ways, inexperienced and immature. Though we barely hear her speak of her past, one gets the sense that Summer has been through more life than Tom somehow, that she has experienced things he has not. One hint we get is when we see them sitting in the movie theater watching The Graduate. Summer is crying at the end of the film, and Tom looks at her as if he hasn’t the foggiest idea of what it’s all about. The end of The Graduate has, for this writer anyway, always been one of the great moments in film. As Elaine (in her wedding dress) and Benjamin sit at the back of the bus, they look, for a few seconds anyway, smugly(?) satisfied over their daring getaway, and then, almost immediately, complicated looks appear on both of their faces that seem to indicate many things at once, but perhaps one of the things being communicated might be, “now what?” Summer obviously identifies with the poignancy of this moment because she understands how complicated life is, and it is through these telling moments that one senses the emotional layers residing within her. People we are unable to penetrate always seem cold to us, but that does not necessarily mean they are so.

While Tom will bear the scar of his unrequited love for Summer, and carry that hurt into his other romantic involvements, their pairing has also pierced his innocence and made him more experienced and wiser (with both the good and bad that implies), qualities one can only hope will serve him in better stead in his relationship with whomever follows Summer. In the same way that Tom will carry on, 500 Days of Summer manages to overcome its failings, mostly because, like Tom, it’s heart is in the right place, and there is something endearing and laudable about that.

Made in the U.S.A. orLa Nuit Americaine(FR) Directed by Jean-Luc Godard. Written by Jean-Luc Godard. Starring Anna Karina; Jean-Pierre Leaud; Laslo’ Szabo’; Yves Alfonso; Jean-Claude Bouillon

“We were in a political movie - Walt Disney with blood.” - Paula Nelson (Anna Karina)

Set in the vaguely futuristic Atlantic Cite’, Made in America stars longtime Godard muse Anna Karina (who was, at this point, separated from, but still legally married to the director) as investigative journalist Paula Nelson. Actually filming simultaneously at some points with Two or Three Things I Know About Her, this was, perhaps, Godard’s final flirtation with genre reconstruction. Bursting at the seams with political, cinematic, and literary references, the plot, which essentially involves Paula investigating the politically motivated murder of her lover, Richard (”Dick”; “Richard P.”) Politzer, is wafer thin. Godard’s disillusionment with traditional cinema, and his obsession with left wing politics, are all too clear throughout. Part essay film, part political noir, part auto-biographical exploration, part farce, Made in the USA fits comfortably into a stretch of similar films that followed Godard’s most critically successful period that include Une Femme Marriee;Two or Three Things I know About Her; Weekend; and La Chinoise.

Visually, the color is ultra vivid, juxtaposing highly contrasted monochromatic backgrounds with lush wardrobe or vice versa - the kind of eye popping palette of which contemporary  Jacques Demy might have been proud. Shot by genius cinematographer Raoul Coutard, Godard referenced pop artist Piet Mondrian in his description of the look, and a debt is also owed to one of the sources of the entire Lichstenstein/ Warholian pop art movement - comic books, which are mimicked in the film a variety of ways. Godard goes so far as to show comic book-like inserts that punctuate the action on screen (at one point a card reads “Bing” as Paula is accosted). The sound design also leans toward the cartoonish, with numerous dissonant honks, horns, and plane noises (although some were used to cover material the French censors would have eliminated anyway) assaulting our senses.

Inspired by Hawks’ The Big Sleep, and nominally based on a novel Juggerby Donald Westlake (aka Richard Stark), the actual film plot bears little resemblance to the source material. There are, however, numerous allusions to film noir and pulp fiction, beginning with the dedication in the opening credits to Sam (Fuller) and Nick (Ray), two directors whom Godard, and his fellow Cahiers du Cinema critics had, short years before, championed as artists to be admired and emulated. The film is stocked with insider nods to various noir films, with some of the most obvious references being characters named Aldrich (Robert); Seigel (Don); Widmark (Richard); Mizoguchi (Kenji); and Goodis (writer David, who was responsible for the source novel for Truffuat’s Shoot the Piano Player); and streets named Preminger (Otto) and Hecht (Ben).

Godard’s meta approach and subversion of narrative is in evidence as, on multiple occasions, characters speak asides to the camera (a favorite device), and at various times the sound of the dialogue is merely dropped so that the audience cannot hear what the characters are saying. Various characters also mention the movie audience as being easily fooled, talk about a garden location being a good one for a film, and in one bar scene have a protracted discussion about semiotics, a scenario that also includes Marianne Faithful in a cameo singing As Tears Go By(later popularized by The Rolling Stones). Of course there is the famous line spoken by Karina about Walt Disney and blood. Additionally, there are numerous devices employed by Godard to further sublimate the narrative and comment on the artifice of cinema itself, including having a neon sign reading VO popping up at various times while voice over is being spoken, using signs and images to telegraph the plot, and employing an insert card reading liberte (freedom), which is then riddled with bullet holes.

The entire story, in fact, functions as a kind of excuse to deliver excerpts from Godard’s Marxist political and personal philosophical screed, and at no point is there a sense that we, as audience, should be invested in the characters or the events they are participating in. Any mystery involved with gun-toting Paula’s search for the truth is undercut by an almost complete lack of credible or believable danger or suspense. Violent acts are committed, but they are shown in a farcical light. Godard’s use of the Brechtian devise of alienating audience through form aggressively separates his films of this period from the reconstructed, though more tradition narratives he, and the other members of The French New Wave, had become famous for.

The political topics addressed in the film in ways big and small are often steeped in the intricate details of historic and current day 1960s French politics, but for the most part involve the struggle between left and right. Some of the matters addressed include colonialism in general and matters relating specifically to the French - Algeria (a topic Godard visited in Le Petit Soldad); Morocco; and the Vichy. Ever the Marxist, Godard, as he did more specifically in Un Femme Mariee, also targets old favorites like consumerism and advertising (which he relates here to fascism), as well as American imperialism and the war in Vietnam (two characters named Richard Nixon and Robert Macnamara talk about enjoying killing), criticism that would only increase in the years to follow. In fact, the next year he would participate in an anti-Vietnam project called Loin Du Vietnamwith fellow French directors including Left Bankers Alain Resnais, Agnes Varda, and Chris Marker.

Despite the arch quality to the delivery and tone, Made in the U.S.A.is not without obvious reference to Godard’s personal life and work. It would seem that both the David Goodis writer character (Yves Alfonso) and perhaps the Donald Siegel (Jean-Pierre Leaud) character are, in their own way, stand-ins for the director himself. In fact, on two separate occasion Paula kills Leaud’s character, a possible reference to her leaving Godard and the dissolution of their marriage. Godard also employs his own voice (as he would continue to do in other films) on tape as the disembodied Richard Politzer talking about actual political events of the day. Throughout the rest of the sixties and seventies, Godard’s work would prove to be of an increasingly political nature, and his films would reflect the rigidity and fervor of his commitment. He would, simultaneously, increasingly distance himself from the formal constructs of traditional cinema, although his work in the 80s and 90s would eventually include films that had the trappings of story and plot.

Godard’s abandonment of the very style of film-making he and his Cahiers compatriots championed, and then emulated through their own work and deconstruction of the same, is fascinating from a cinematic historical perspective, although, as was clearly his aim, the audience for the films of this period and beyond would grow smaller, increasingly relegating his audience to the intellectual elite, those sharing his political leanings, and hardcore Godard/cinema enthusiasts.

Gran Torino(USA) Directed by Clint Eastwood. Written by Nick Schenk. Starring Clint Eastwood; Christopher Carley; Bee Vang; Ahney Her; Elvis Tharo; Jerrry Lee; Lee Mong Vang; Brooke Chia Thao; Chee Thao; John Carroll Lynch; Brian Howe; Brian Haley; Xia Soua Chang

Seventy nine year old director Clint Eastwood has enjoyed a kind of late career resurgence or re-imagining if you will, that is perhaps unprecedented in film history. There have been others who have made quality films into their seventies, but no one, seemingly, has all but re-invented themselves, doing most of their best work past the age of sixty five. It’s not as if Eastwood hasn’t done excellent work in the past (Unforgiven, for example, which is perhaps his finest), but nothing that compares to his consistent output since 2003. The closest comparison one could come up with perhaps is Robert Altman, who made the critically successful Gosford Park at age 76, but Altman was recognized for one film, while Eastwood has given us six critically praised efforts between the ages of 73 and 79.

Eastwood’s recent spate includes Mystic River (2003); Millionaire Baby (2004); Flags of Our Fathers (2006); Sands of Iwo Jima (2006); The Changeling (2008); and Gran Torino no doubt marks the work of a director at the height of his particular talent. There is, however, a thread of cloying sentimentality, self-importance, and grandiose moralizing running throughout these films that while not negating the achievement, certainly calls into question the degree to which they will hold up to future circumspection.

In the case of the five Eastwood films that preceded Gran Torino, one could legitimately argue that they were all well shot, edited, designed, cast, and acted. There is little doubt that they are a bit operatic in scope and style, and in perusing the list they all seem very… well, Catholic, for lack of a better word, at least in terms of story - baroque moral battles waged on an elevated stage, set to a dramatic score. Unlike Unforgiven, which clearly breathed new life into the a genre teetering on its last legs, these latest films seem to contain little sense of irony, or the kind of meta reductionist sensibility that marks so much of American movie-making today. But what’s wrong with sincere, straightforward film-making? You know, “the kind they don’t make anymore”. Many would say, in fact, there aren’t enough films of this kind available to the public - movies with an actual story about real, living, breathing human beings instead of robots or robo-trucks or mechanically enhanced superheroes.

That all of Eastwood’s latter films do, to an extent, reach back in time (either because they are literally set there or through their lead characters nostalgia for their own past) likely has something to do with the director’s age, but the real point is more in the handling, and each of these films are very much rooted in old fashioned Hollwood film-making. They are, at heart, morality plays, all, full-on dramas with characters facing some form of serious impropriety in their own past, or inequity in the world around them, told with the kind of style and sweep one could imagine being endorsed by old masters Ford, Wyler, Wellman and Hawks.

In Eastwood’s latter day film world the price of moral turpitude is always raised to the nth degree, personal internal battles waged, which quite obviously and unabashedly stand as metaphor for a struggle for the redemption of the immortal soul. These are the kinds of epic-stakes, high-pitched offerings that audiences, theoretically, clamor for, which is why films falling into genre categories like thriller, horror, war, cop, gangster, and action are produced en-masse - audiences like their movies big, or so the idea goes, with archetypal characters and story-lines they can readily recognize. Harrison Ford; Sly Stallone; and Arnold Schwartzenegger stood for something in their day in the same way that Duke Wayne; or Mitchum; or Audie Murphy did - people knew who and what they were getting when they spent their hard earned dollar at the box office. The characters behaved in expected ways, and the stories resolved themselves in predictable fashion. No one understands all of this better than Eastwood, a man who made a career out of playing stock types in genre films following tried and true formulas.

Gran Torino’s Walt Kowalksi fits in quite nicely with Eastwood’s own recent list of morally compromised anti-heroes (Sean Penn’s Jimmy Markum; Eastwood’s own Frankie Dunn). Kowalksi is a decorated Korean war veteran suppressing a well-stream of anger and resentment, along with some tamped down secrets having to do with his actions in the war. Walt himself is a readily identifiable type in an American society that has undergone tremendous social changes in the years that Walt has been alive: WWII; The Korean War; The Cold War and it’s end; the migration of Southern blacks to urban centers across the country; The Kennedy and King shootings; Watergate; Vietnam; The Peace movement; Women’s rights; The Reagan era; Iran Contra; the influx of Asian and Spanish speaking immigrants; changing economies and a move to a technological and service based economy; the loss of traditional manufacturing jobs; outsourcing; 9/11 and the rise in nationalism and conservatism; the financial crisis, and the election of our first black president.

Walt has been through all of this, and has been directly effected by a new economy as it is revealed that for many years he was an autoworker at a Ford plant. Real world Detroit has been devastated by these changes, and Walt has seen his once very middle-class (albeit blue-collar) neighborhood change drastically. He remains one of the few white families on a block that was once exclusively white, sharing his living area with, among others, Hmongs, mountain people who fled Asia, in part because of their opposition to communism.

The loss of Walt’s wife, who he clearly cared for (although we have no real idea what there relationship was like) seemingly angers and frustrates him further. He has no real relationship with his married sons and/or their families, who are all portrayed as selfish, spoiled, and self-involved, at one point admitting he never really got along with his own children. Walt no longer works, and his friends seem limited to a few local merchants and drinking buddies at the veterans post; his life has become smaller and he is faced with surviving however many days he has left, essentially alone, with only his tinkering around the house, cigarettes, and cans of domestic beer to occupy him and distract him from the pain and regret he tries to keep at bay as he grits his teeth and snarls at the world.

The problem with Gran Torino is not the set-up, and it certainly isn’t with Eastwood’s portrayal of Walt, although the noises and grimacing played for comic effect do wear thin pretty quickly. But Eastwood is Eastwood or rather, Clint is Clint, and if he doesn’t display the same kind of youthful fervor and strength he did playing Josey Wales, or Harry Callaghan, he’s still Clint. Stoop shouldered, wrinkled, and slow moving, he hasn’t lost that squint-eyed, withering glare, nor miraculously, the gravitas to hold an audiences’ attention on screen. The problem here though is Clint - or Eastwood rather, the director. He might have done the score himself, and the guilt, regret, Catholicism, and arching moral conflict might all be wound into the plot, but the film itself is a mess.

First, the writing. Gran Torino is littered with cliche’s and platitudes. There are scenes that are so poorly constructed (i.e. Walt’s exchanges with the Italian local barber (John Carroll Lynch), who looks about as Italian as he is in real life, and a construction foreman)  that it seems impossible they would have survived to make their way into a big budget film. The dialogue between these working class men is nothing more than someones false notion of how blue-collar people talk, and never for a moment does one believe that the pithy exchanges represent real people speaking to one another in a real way. The actors (even Eastwood, as good as he is) cannot avoid the self-consciousness that speaks to actors being aware that they are speaking lines and delivering them in an ironic way, as opposed to a patterned natural banter or patois forged over years of regular interaction.

It is difficult to know, on the other hand, how exactly to slice up the blame pie when it comes to the many amatuers cast to play the Hmong residents, although inevitably it is the director who must bear the brunt of criticism regarding poor performance. This becomes doubly true when one is talking about non-actors, who need the guidance of an experienced director to help smooth their performance. Across the board, the non-professionals in this cast are as bad as anything in recent memory, their portrayals comparable only to the lowest of low budget films. There are plenty of directors who use non-professionals in film after film with great success, but almost all of them employ long rehearsal periods. Mr. Eastwood, he of the few takes and short shooting days, obviously did not spend nearly enough time work-shopping these “regular” people.

Throughout the film, Eastwood’s amateurs look utterly lost, whether tripping over the weak lines they are provided, or trying to muster up ad libs that wind up sounding forced and contrived. All of the scenes involving the Hmong gang members, and the scene where young Sue (Ahney Her) is accosted by three African American street kids are particularly poorly handled. The actors are uncomfortable, and directionless, trying to get through the scenes with no sense of what they’re doing - truly embarrassing to watch.

Eastwood has two non-actors in lead roles - Bee Vang as Thao, or as Walt calls him, “Toad”, and Her as Sue, his older sister, and while they both do their best, each fall woefully short in their attempts to create characters whose behavior bears even a slight resemblance to real people. They both come off more like robots, tentatively repeating lines written on a script, clearly nervous and unsure of what they’re doing. Their performances cry out for the things that can help solve, or at least deflect, these issues - more rehearsal, more direction, more takes. It’s not just the Hmongs who struggle here either - Christopher Carley as Father Janovitch is wooden and unconvincing, and his presence seems like a direct replay of a similarly handled scenario in Millionaire Baby, with Eastwood’s Frankie Dunn having the exact same kind of antagonistic, cliched relationship with his parish “padre”.

Eastwood and writer Schenk simply want too much from us in Gran Torino. They want us to like and identify with Walt (which many obviously have), and think his racial slurs are “funny” because he’s just an old curmudgeon who only half means it. And because he’s really a good guy, we can forgive him his racism and hate speech. Unfortunately, the plot is pure melodrama, so Eastwood/Schenk have to try to mask this fact by having Walt continue to spout insulting racial epithets, long after he has befriended the Hmong family. And because the filmmakers have to constantly fight the treacly soft underbelly that is the true nature of this entire melodramatic enterprise, they keep demonstrating to us over and over again that Walt’s not an old softie (except at heart).

And so, when we’ve long gotten the idea of who and what Walt is, the old man continues to verbally abuse the people he has come to know, picking on a young girl and defenseless young man in the process. If this is, in fact, his character, and something a veteran, and legitimate tough guy would do, okay, but the plot wants to have its cake and eat it too. It wants us to be moved by the relationships, while the Hmongs ignore the vitriolic insults he continues to hurl at them, absorbing them like preening indentured servants. Yes, we understand, he saves them from danger and becomes a reluctant hero, and they owe a debt of gratitude for that, but how much verbal abuse several young, Americanized teenage immigrants would endure is open to debate. The fact that the script has Walt trading insults with his white friends comes off as contrived and false, and does nothing to mitigate the bullying of two innocents. Most true tough guys would not behave like this, regardless of how embittered, or how deep their racism runs. Eastwood, however, is dedicated to dealing in polemics, and having Walt’s behavior be anything but a massive cliche would be too subtle for his tastes. In the same way, he needs Thao to be a true innocent (why couldn’t he have simply been on the fringe of the gang instead of being forced to steal the car?) so that there is no blurred lines or moral ambiguity. As audience, we are given almost zero credit to be able to determine what is moral and what the shades of grey are, because there is no shading, only hammering of the obvious. We are thusly forced to endure cringe-inducing scenes like the numerous, repetitive ones when the Hmomg gang comes to visit Thao, the “little cousin.”

This is, supposedly, Eastwood’s swan song in terms of acting, and if so we are saying goodbye to an actor who did as well as anyone playing a particular type. This directorial effort is, unfortunately, an inconsistent, uneven effort from a man who might be experiencing the downward slope of an incredible run. Clint the actor never let us see him sweat, but there appears to be some signs of fraying from the director’s chair.