A "*" indicates a movie seen by both Herman and Eva
*Station Agent
. Dir. Tom McCarthy, w/ Peter Dinklage as Finbar McBride, Patricia Clarkson as Olivia, and Bobby Cannavale as Joe, three emergent friends. The leading man is a dwarf. Train hobbyists figure. Good!
*The Pianist Directed by Roman Polanski, w/ Adrien Brody as Wladyslaw Szpilman, on whose memoir the movie is based. The real W.S. (1912-2000) was a famous classical pianist in Warsaw before and after WW II. During the war, the period covered here, he survived in the ghetto and then on the run, as did Roman Polanski as a child. Adrien Brody won the Best Actor Oscar for his performance.
*Frida. Dir.Julie Taymor. Salma Hayek, who plays the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, was deservedly nominated for the Best Actress Oscar. Alfred Molina plays Diego Rivera. I didn’t recognize Geoffrey Rush as Leon Trotsky. I enjoyed the movie more than the biography by Hayden Herrera on which the movie was based. The physical pain and emotional fireworks are in both but they come to life in the movie. Mexico looks great. 1922 looks great. The music is upbeat. The extended family is tempestuous. The movie is filled with sunshine and bright colors. I am not a big fan of Frida’s painting, but it was presented attractively in this movie. I love weddings and meals in movies and this one had both. Frida won Oscars for music and makeup.
*Capturing the Friedmans by first-time documentary filmmaker Andrew Jarecki. Tour de force. Unsettling. It stimulates thought about the issues. Herman agrees but says he’s not going to recommend it to anyone.
*Mystic River Dir. Clint Eastwood. w/ Tim Robbins, Sean Penn, Kevin Bacon, Lawrence Fishburne, and Marcia Gay Harden. One critic said this does for the Whodunit what The Unforgiven did for the Western. It’s filmed in East Boston, Herman’s neighborhood of origin. I liked the kitchen and back porch scenes. I appreciated the fact that most of the violence happened offscreen.
Reno: Rebel Without a Pause A comedienne’s political monologue on September 11 delivered 12/01 and filmed by director Nancy Savoca (Dogfight). Reno lives in the neighborhood of the World Trade Center, so she and her neighbors watched 9/11 together live and, out of the corner of their eyes, on TV, "for validation." When word came that a plane had crashed into the Pentagon too Reno quipped, "Oh god, now it’s a felony." She calls Attorney General John Ashcroft "General Ashcroft." Seen at the Coolidge Corner Theater.
Bowling for Columbine I was bowled over by this, to my surprise, since I had not appreciated Michael Moore’s previous acclaimed effort, Roger and Me, which also had a dreary look. I liked this one from the opening bars of The Battle Hymn of the Republic. It was imaginative. It had point of view. Yes it was grainy, and the topic is depressing. But I did not find it a downer. Michael Moore ponders why the U.S. has proportionately more deaths by gunfire than any other modern republic. We have more guns than Europeans, but Canada has lots of guns too, without the deaths. Could it be American TV news coverage’s emphasis on violence? "If it bleeds it leads." Bowling for Columbine won the Oscar for Best Documentary.
*Rabbit-Proof Fence Dir. Phillip Noyce. w/ Kenneth Brannagh. Set in Australia in the 1930’s. 2 girls walk 1200 miles home to Jigalog from a boarding school for half-castes to which they had been forcibly removed. They followed the rabbit-proof fence. Based on a true story. We enjoyed this in the company of Polly S.
*Whale Rider New Zealand. Politically correct movie with a happy ending that worked artistically. Based on a novel by Maori Witi Ihimaera. The 11 yr. old heroine Pai is played by Keisha Castle-Hughes.
Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself. The only movie at the Boston Film Festival I got to this year (Looking for a job is time-consuming!), but it was a good one, with the Danish director, Lone Scherfig, present. Having made Italian for Beginners, which was about people who make their lives a tiny bit better, she wanted to grapple with big issues now, like love and death. With Adrien Rawlings, Jamie Sives and Shirley Henderson as Harbour, Wilbur, and Alice. Set in Scotland in a used-book store. There's a Christmas scene.
*Winged Migration. Documentary, 81 min. France. 2001. Coming from Jacques Perrin, the director of Microcosmos, that knockout footage of insects with opera soundtrack, we looked forward to seeing this and were not disappointed. The cast of characters: mostly geese, cranes, pelicans and seabirds. A few ducks. Passerines get screentime en passant: yellow-headed and red-winged blackbirds and (European) robins. Was the film crew in harm’s way in the Himaylayas? One minute we get closeups of resting geese. The next minute, alerted by the roar, the geese escape the avalanche just in the nick of time. The American West is showcased. Eastern Europe gets to represent world pollution. There’s choreography: mating dances, rockhopper penguins...There’s humor, as when a posse of Canadian Geese appear over the mesa one by one.
Etre et Avoir Dir Nicolas Philibert. A documentary about a primary schoolteacher in a one room school in the Auvergne region of France. Enjoyed with Dorothy. Now that I am certified to teach in Massachusetts (Math grades 5-12) I am interested in pedagogy. David Denby of The Nyer says "Americans might find themselves wondering how such terrific children can grow up into such irritating adults." The thought never occurred to me, but I quote it to remind us that this was a year France said "Non!" to U.S. foreign policy.
*Spellbound Dir. Jeff Blitz. Documentary about, to quote The Phoenix, "the agony and the ecstasy of 8 diverse…contestants in the 1999 National Spelling Bee….the pathos, dignity, and humanity of real human beings." These kids handled stress pretty gracefully. I recommended Spellbound to my SAT students.
*Nowhere in Africa (Nirgendwo in Afrika)Dir. Caroline Link (Ger.) Winner of 9 Lolas (German Oscars) and the Best Foreign Film Oscar. Good story based on an "autobiographical novel" by Stephanie Zweig. In 1938 Walter and Jettel (Juliane Kohler) and daughter Regina (Lea Kurka/Karoline Eckertz) flee to Kenya where Walter manages a farm (He used to be a judge). Regina adjusts better than her parents. Their marriage founders. A few years ago I saw and liked Links’ previous movie, Beyond Silence (Jenseits der Stille).
American Splendor About the life of Harvey Pekar, file clerk. Harvey Pekar’s claim to fame is that he storyboarded his life for American Splendor comic books illustrated by Robert Crumb and others. The movie, by Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman, is well-cast. For example Hope Davis looks very much like a younger version of the real Joyce Pekar. The real people are in the film as well as their dramatized younger selves (Paul Giamatti plays Harvey). I liked the spare visual composition of the studio scenes with the real Harvey Pekar. I liked the way cartoon balloons and drawings are occasionally—just when it serves the directors' expressive purposes—blended into scenes with live actors. MaryDan didn't care for this movie. It does have a dismal quality—it’s set in Cleveland, for Pete’s sake—but my thumb is unequivocally up.
Taking Sides Dir István Szabó, with Stellan Skarsgård as conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler and Harvey Keitel as Major Steve Arnold, who’s been assigned to prosecute Furtwängler in 1945 as a collaborator. Offscreen another American is preparing Furtwängler’s defense. The actual hearing (trial??) happens after the action of this movie. The epilogue tells us Furtwängler, who died in 1955, was acquitted but barred from the U.S.
Veronica Guerin. Dir. Joel Schumacher,w/ Kate Blanchett & Ciaran Hinds (John Traynor). If I must see a police story let it be in Ireland with a journalistic slant. Gerard McSorley plays John Gilligan who The Phoenix says in real life dealt in marijuana, not needle drugs. Marion Molloy and I saw this together. MaryDan did not see how we crowded all the conversation I reported andVeronica Guerin into one evening.
Stone Reader 135 min.Mark Moskowitz’s documentary about his quest to find Dow Mossman, author of The Stones of Summer which Moskowitz couldn’t get into when it came out in 1972, but which he recently picked up with an entirely different outcome. Publisher Robert Gottlieb looks like a cross between Woody Allen and Art von Au. Every book mentioned in the movie is in the credits, like songs in other movies.
*Bend It Like Beckham Dir. Gurinder Chadha. Accurately billed as a feel-good movie that does make you feel good. Set in Britain. Parminder Nagra plays Jessminda (Jess) Bhamra. Her Anglo friend Jules is a fellow soccer enthusiast. This movie has a colorful wedding scene. And I love the way the credits were done. I liked Bend It Like Beckham a lot better than The Phoenix did. About Jules’ buffoonish mother (Juliet Stephenson) it says "Her hamminess is upstaged by her purple hat." OK. So she was a little over the top.
Typing Explosion (30 min.??)The director, a young woman from Seattle, was present at this Independent Film Festival screening at the Somerville Theater. This is a filmed version of a live street-theater/poetry happening. Three women dress up like 1950’s and ’60’s era secretaries. They type spontaneous 3-part assembly-line poems. If a customer interferes they honk a horn like Clarabel. It was arresting. It was in a double bill with Ruthie and Connie: Every Room in the House, a 56 minute documentary about a senior citizen couple who went from married neighbors with kids in Brooklyn to closeted lesbians to out activists.
Shelter A documentary about director Lorna Lowe Streeter’s successful search for her birth parents. Streeter, a 30 year old black Boston lawyer, was present at the Coolidge Corner. Worthwhile movie. Good discussion.