This review is a bit more spoiler-y than usual, but it's not as if there's really all that much to spoil in what is a fairly standard Hollywood action flick.
The setup, which you're no doubt familiar with from the trailers and ads, is a clever one. CIA agent Evelyn Salt (Angelina Jolie) is interviewing a Russian defector who claims that a Russian spy, who has been living in the US under deep cover for years, will kill the Russian president tomorrow at the funeral of the American vice-president in New York City. The name of that spy: Evelyn Salt. Salt protests that this is nonsense, but she runs as soon as she gets the chance.
This being a Hollywood movie, and Angelina Jolie being the star, we know that Salt will eventually be revealed to be a good guy after all. But one of the movie's biggest surprises, and one of the things I most liked about it, is how long it sustains the ambiguity about whether Salt is or is not a Russian spy, and whose side she's really on. Even the movie's climax is less heroically redemptive than usual, leaving Salt as more of an anti-hero than a hero (and even more blatantly than usual setting up a sequel).
What works in the movie? Jolie, above all else. Even during the first half of the movie, when Salt is doing horrible things and we're being led to believe that she actually is working for the Russians, she is still somehow a character; we're rooting for her to get away with things we shouldn't want her to get away with. Credit for that goes almost entirely to Jolie, who does such a good job of establishing Salt in the opening scenes as someone we like and want to trust that we are willing to stick with her even as the movie calls upon her to perform far more heinous acts than we're accustomed to from even our most morally ambiguous action heroes.
The action scenes are also terrific. An early freeway chase in which Salt leaps from the roof of one moving vehicle to another (several times) is a thrill, and the scene at the vice president's funeral is cleverly staged and imagined.
There are a few moments that strain credibility. I'm pretty sure that you can't actually use a cop and a taser to drive a car in quite the way that Salt does during one chase (though it does make an amusing scene), and the movie's makeup is sometimes less than compelling (Jolie as a blonde? Almost always a bad idea), becoming laughable in a short scene where we're expected to believe that Salt is convincingly passing as a man.
And there's one glaring plot hole near the end (and this really is a bit of a spoiler if you haven't seen the movie, so you might want to skip the rest of this paragraph): After the battle between Salt and Winter (and was I the only one who couldn't stop thinking "you can't fight in here; this is the War Room" through that whole scene?), when Salt is arrested and the Secret Service escort the President away, why doesn't the President tell anyone that it was Winter who shot everyone and knocked him out? There was an easy fix available; I don't know that I'd have found it convincing, but I'd have gone along with a simple line of dialogue like "the President has regained consciousness, but has no memory of what happened in there." But then we wouldn't have gotten the nifty strangulation of Winter, I guess.
If you're not into the Hollywood "that blowed up real good" genre, this may not be for you. But as such things go, I thought the unusually prolonged attempt to sustain some ambiguity about the protagonist's morality and the unbridled star power of Jolie made it a fine piece of summer popcorn entertainment.
August 16, 2010
August 09, 2010
MOVIES: Get Low (Aaron Schneider, 2010)
I had mixed feelings about this one. There are some fine performances and a nice eye for Depression-era period detail, but the story is structured in a clumsy fashion, and it lumbers along so badly that I'd recommend waiting for cable/DVD.
Robert Duvall stars as Felix Bush, a notorious hermit who has lived on his own for 40 years or so; the locals have turned him into a monstrous bogeyman, telling stories to one another about the horrible things he's done that led to his isolation. He comes into town one day and asks funeral director Bill Murray to arrange a "funeral party," at which everyone is invited to tell their stories about him, and he'd like to have that party now, while he's still alive.
It becomes clear fairly quickly that Felix is hiding a secret, and that he's throwing this party in the hopes that someone will tell the story he can't bring himself to tell about what really happened 40 years ago. (I'm not sure who he expects to tell the story, since everyone else who was present at the time is long since dead, but we're not encouraged to think about that too much.)
The actors generally do good work, though Duvall is unfortunately at his worst in the big monologue, which reeks of "Look, Ma, I'm acting!" Murray continues to amaze me with how much he conveys without seeming to do much of anything, and Lucas Black is utterly charming as Murray's assistant, who struggles with the ethics of throwing a funeral party for the living. Sissy Spacek's role as Felix's old flame is rather underwritten, though she's lovely to watch in the few scenes she does get; and the reliably fine Bill Cobbs has some nice moments as another old friend who is reluctant to take part in Felix's party.
But the movie is built to lead inexorably to Duvall's big monologue; no one's actions feel organic, and nothing is allowed to be said (or, more often, not said) unless it will move the story in that direction. It's the clunkiest screenplay I've seen in a long time, ticking off the obvious beats to its Big Finish, and you can surely find a better way to spend your movie dollars.
Robert Duvall stars as Felix Bush, a notorious hermit who has lived on his own for 40 years or so; the locals have turned him into a monstrous bogeyman, telling stories to one another about the horrible things he's done that led to his isolation. He comes into town one day and asks funeral director Bill Murray to arrange a "funeral party," at which everyone is invited to tell their stories about him, and he'd like to have that party now, while he's still alive.
It becomes clear fairly quickly that Felix is hiding a secret, and that he's throwing this party in the hopes that someone will tell the story he can't bring himself to tell about what really happened 40 years ago. (I'm not sure who he expects to tell the story, since everyone else who was present at the time is long since dead, but we're not encouraged to think about that too much.)
The actors generally do good work, though Duvall is unfortunately at his worst in the big monologue, which reeks of "Look, Ma, I'm acting!" Murray continues to amaze me with how much he conveys without seeming to do much of anything, and Lucas Black is utterly charming as Murray's assistant, who struggles with the ethics of throwing a funeral party for the living. Sissy Spacek's role as Felix's old flame is rather underwritten, though she's lovely to watch in the few scenes she does get; and the reliably fine Bill Cobbs has some nice moments as another old friend who is reluctant to take part in Felix's party.
But the movie is built to lead inexorably to Duvall's big monologue; no one's actions feel organic, and nothing is allowed to be said (or, more often, not said) unless it will move the story in that direction. It's the clunkiest screenplay I've seen in a long time, ticking off the obvious beats to its Big Finish, and you can surely find a better way to spend your movie dollars.
July 31, 2010
MOVIES: Despicable Me (Pierre Coffin & Chris Renaud, 2010)
A few cute moments, but they're spread too thin.
Gru (voiced by Steve Carell) is a would-be supervillain whose schemes haven't been going well, and lately, he's being upstaged by a young upstart named Vector (Jason Segel). Gru thinks he has the answer -- an elaborate plot to steal the moon -- but he's in such a slump that he can't even get financing from the Bank of Evil ("formerly Lehman Brothers") anymore. As part of his plotting to get even with Vector, Gru reluctantly adopts a trio of orphaned sisters, who -- surprise, surprise -- melt his heart and bring out his softer side. Unexpectedly, the gooey sentimental half of the movie works better than the action-comedy supervillain stuff.
Which isn't to say that any of it actually does work, mind you. It's bland and uninspired, with voice casting that never quite takes off. Part of that is due to strange casting choices; given that Carell's doing Gru with an indefinable, vaguely eastern European accent, why would you cast Julie Andrews as his mother? Accents aren't her strong suit, and while she gets a few laughs -- she can sling a disapprovingly maternal "meh" as well as anyone -- her attempt to recreate Carell's accent falls flat. And while Segel as Vector at least understands that voice acting requires a different type of energy than on-screen acting, his performance is only manic, with none of the subtlety or emotional depth that might make the character interesting.
Carell is the best thing about the movie; his punchlines are perfectly timed, and there's a genuine sweetness in his relationship with the little girls. But the writing doesn't give him much to do, and the movie's visual style isn't memorable. The bar for quality animation has been raised awfully high these days, and in a year that's given us How to Train Your Dragon and Toy Story 3, a movie like this simply doesn't cut it.
Gru (voiced by Steve Carell) is a would-be supervillain whose schemes haven't been going well, and lately, he's being upstaged by a young upstart named Vector (Jason Segel). Gru thinks he has the answer -- an elaborate plot to steal the moon -- but he's in such a slump that he can't even get financing from the Bank of Evil ("formerly Lehman Brothers") anymore. As part of his plotting to get even with Vector, Gru reluctantly adopts a trio of orphaned sisters, who -- surprise, surprise -- melt his heart and bring out his softer side. Unexpectedly, the gooey sentimental half of the movie works better than the action-comedy supervillain stuff.
Which isn't to say that any of it actually does work, mind you. It's bland and uninspired, with voice casting that never quite takes off. Part of that is due to strange casting choices; given that Carell's doing Gru with an indefinable, vaguely eastern European accent, why would you cast Julie Andrews as his mother? Accents aren't her strong suit, and while she gets a few laughs -- she can sling a disapprovingly maternal "meh" as well as anyone -- her attempt to recreate Carell's accent falls flat. And while Segel as Vector at least understands that voice acting requires a different type of energy than on-screen acting, his performance is only manic, with none of the subtlety or emotional depth that might make the character interesting.
Carell is the best thing about the movie; his punchlines are perfectly timed, and there's a genuine sweetness in his relationship with the little girls. But the writing doesn't give him much to do, and the movie's visual style isn't memorable. The bar for quality animation has been raised awfully high these days, and in a year that's given us How to Train Your Dragon and Toy Story 3, a movie like this simply doesn't cut it.
MOVIES: Inception (Christopher Nolan, 2010)
A thinking man's popcorn movie.
By now, everyone's probably already seen it, or at least has some idea what it's about. Leonardo DiCaprio is the world's greatest "extractor," a thief who steals ideas from your mind by building dreamspaces. He's asked by a powerful tycoon (Ken Watanabe) to pull off the more difficult feat of inception -- planting a new idea in someone's mind. And so off goes Leo to assemble, as in Ocean's Eleven and every heist movie you've ever seen, the team of experts that can help him pull off this supposedly impossible feat.
It's a very good movie, but not the masterpiece that some are calling it. The wintry Bond-esque section of the movie drags on a bit too long, and it's not always precisely clear who's doing what, if only because everyone is dressed in virtually identical white snowsuits. And some of the set-up exposition in the first twenty minutes is less clear than it could be, mostly because Watanabe's accent is quite thick and sometimes difficult to understand.
Aside from those two relatively small problems, though, I have been perplexed by the number of people who say they find the story difficult to follow. Sure, there are multiple threads of dream/story taking place simultaneously, but Nolan does an impeccable job of differentiating them visually; whenever we cut from one level of dream to another, it's always instantly clear which level we're in. He's aided immensely by Lee Smith's editing, which is a spectacular tour de force, particularly in the last 45 minutes of the movie.
It's not a movie that calls for dizzying feats of acting, but the cast gives us some fine moments. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Tom Hardy, as two of DiCaprio's team members, have a nice bickering rivalry; and Ellen Page, as the newest member of the team, is saddled with the thankless task of delivering lots of exposition, which she handles with more grace than you might expect. I was less impressed by Marion Cotillard, as the wife who haunts DiCaprio's dreams; I still don't find her a terribly convincing actress in English. (To be sure, there are reasons within the story for her character to be somewhat flat and two-dimensional, so maybe I'm being too harsh on her.)
And visually, the movie is stunning. The zero-gravity fight scenes, the origami folding of a Paris neighborhood onto itself, the crumbing cliffsides of DiCaprio's deepest subconscious -- gorgeous images. Throw in a top-notch Hans Zimmer score (occasionally blared at us much louder than it needs to be, but that's not his fault), and you've got a smart, thoughtful piece of entertainment that gives you all the thrills of a good summer popcorn flick without making you feel stupider for having sat through it.
By now, everyone's probably already seen it, or at least has some idea what it's about. Leonardo DiCaprio is the world's greatest "extractor," a thief who steals ideas from your mind by building dreamspaces. He's asked by a powerful tycoon (Ken Watanabe) to pull off the more difficult feat of inception -- planting a new idea in someone's mind. And so off goes Leo to assemble, as in Ocean's Eleven and every heist movie you've ever seen, the team of experts that can help him pull off this supposedly impossible feat.
It's a very good movie, but not the masterpiece that some are calling it. The wintry Bond-esque section of the movie drags on a bit too long, and it's not always precisely clear who's doing what, if only because everyone is dressed in virtually identical white snowsuits. And some of the set-up exposition in the first twenty minutes is less clear than it could be, mostly because Watanabe's accent is quite thick and sometimes difficult to understand.
Aside from those two relatively small problems, though, I have been perplexed by the number of people who say they find the story difficult to follow. Sure, there are multiple threads of dream/story taking place simultaneously, but Nolan does an impeccable job of differentiating them visually; whenever we cut from one level of dream to another, it's always instantly clear which level we're in. He's aided immensely by Lee Smith's editing, which is a spectacular tour de force, particularly in the last 45 minutes of the movie.
It's not a movie that calls for dizzying feats of acting, but the cast gives us some fine moments. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Tom Hardy, as two of DiCaprio's team members, have a nice bickering rivalry; and Ellen Page, as the newest member of the team, is saddled with the thankless task of delivering lots of exposition, which she handles with more grace than you might expect. I was less impressed by Marion Cotillard, as the wife who haunts DiCaprio's dreams; I still don't find her a terribly convincing actress in English. (To be sure, there are reasons within the story for her character to be somewhat flat and two-dimensional, so maybe I'm being too harsh on her.)
And visually, the movie is stunning. The zero-gravity fight scenes, the origami folding of a Paris neighborhood onto itself, the crumbing cliffsides of DiCaprio's deepest subconscious -- gorgeous images. Throw in a top-notch Hans Zimmer score (occasionally blared at us much louder than it needs to be, but that's not his fault), and you've got a smart, thoughtful piece of entertainment that gives you all the thrills of a good summer popcorn flick without making you feel stupider for having sat through it.
BOOKS: Faithful Place, Tana French (2010)
Third in French's series of loosely linked novels about the Dublin police. (My comments on the first two: In the Woods and The Likeness.)
In 1985, Frank Mackey and Rosie Daly were 19, and couldn't wait to get away from Faithful Place, a dismal run-down little street in Dublin whose residents barely cling to working-class status; they'd arranged to meet and run away to London together. Rosie never showed up. A broken heart didn't stop Frank from running himself, though. He never got as far as London, but he did become a successful member of the undercover unit of the Dublin police.
Now, 22 years have passed, and Frank hasn't been back to the Place since; he's had only occasional contact with one of his sisters, and hasn't seen the rest of the family. But when Rosie's suitcase is found hidden in the abandoned building where she and Frank were supposed to meet all those years ago, he finds himself sucked back into the neighborhood and into the spectacular dysfunction of his family.
What's interesting about this book is that it really isn't primarily a crime novel. Yes, the mystery of what happened to Rosie is what propels the action forward, and we do get a well-plotted and satisfying answer to that mystery, but all of that plays out nearly in the background. The real drama here is the story of the Mackey family -- the long-buried resentments, the sibling rivalries and jealousies, the toxic mix of love and hate that comes from living with abusive parents.
As always, French delivers intensely vivid characterizations. The complicated relationships among Frank's family are precisely drawn, and we understand precisely the distinctive nature of the relationship between each pair of siblings, or between each child and the Mackey parents. Even relatively minor characters -- Rosie, who is seen only in brief flashbacks, or Frank's ex-wife -- are so richly detailed that they feel more alive than some novelists' protagonists.
A recurring theme in French's novels is how strongly we are shaped by, and how damned hard it can be to escape from, our past. Frank's struggle to break free of his family's cycle is often painful to watch, never more so than when he realizes that his young daughter may already be more of a Mackey than he'd have hoped.
Three novels from Tana French, three spectacular successes. She's the real thing, folks, and if you haven't been reading her all along, you should. Each novel stands perfectly well on its own, but since the protagonist of each is a minor character in the preceding volumes, I'd recommend starting at the beginning. (If French continues that pattern, it'll be interesting to see which character from Faithful Place takes center stage in the next book; I'm sort of hoping it'll be the ambitious young detective Stephen Moran.) Go. Read the book already.
In 1985, Frank Mackey and Rosie Daly were 19, and couldn't wait to get away from Faithful Place, a dismal run-down little street in Dublin whose residents barely cling to working-class status; they'd arranged to meet and run away to London together. Rosie never showed up. A broken heart didn't stop Frank from running himself, though. He never got as far as London, but he did become a successful member of the undercover unit of the Dublin police.
Now, 22 years have passed, and Frank hasn't been back to the Place since; he's had only occasional contact with one of his sisters, and hasn't seen the rest of the family. But when Rosie's suitcase is found hidden in the abandoned building where she and Frank were supposed to meet all those years ago, he finds himself sucked back into the neighborhood and into the spectacular dysfunction of his family.
What's interesting about this book is that it really isn't primarily a crime novel. Yes, the mystery of what happened to Rosie is what propels the action forward, and we do get a well-plotted and satisfying answer to that mystery, but all of that plays out nearly in the background. The real drama here is the story of the Mackey family -- the long-buried resentments, the sibling rivalries and jealousies, the toxic mix of love and hate that comes from living with abusive parents.
As always, French delivers intensely vivid characterizations. The complicated relationships among Frank's family are precisely drawn, and we understand precisely the distinctive nature of the relationship between each pair of siblings, or between each child and the Mackey parents. Even relatively minor characters -- Rosie, who is seen only in brief flashbacks, or Frank's ex-wife -- are so richly detailed that they feel more alive than some novelists' protagonists.
A recurring theme in French's novels is how strongly we are shaped by, and how damned hard it can be to escape from, our past. Frank's struggle to break free of his family's cycle is often painful to watch, never more so than when he realizes that his young daughter may already be more of a Mackey than he'd have hoped.
Three novels from Tana French, three spectacular successes. She's the real thing, folks, and if you haven't been reading her all along, you should. Each novel stands perfectly well on its own, but since the protagonist of each is a minor character in the preceding volumes, I'd recommend starting at the beginning. (If French continues that pattern, it'll be interesting to see which character from Faithful Place takes center stage in the next book; I'm sort of hoping it'll be the ambitious young detective Stephen Moran.) Go. Read the book already.
July 14, 2010
BOOKS: Blue Boy, Rakesh Satyal (2009)
It's not easy being Kiran Sharma. Being a 12-year-old Indian-American in Cincinnati in 1992 would be bad enough, but that's hardly the only thing that sets Kiran apart from his classmates. There's his preference for ballet over basketball, for one thing, not to mention his fondness for Strawberry Shortcake dolls or his habit of sneaking into his mother's bathroom to play with her makeup. Kirin has begun to think that he will never fit in anywhere when he has an epiphany: He must be the long-awaited tenth incarnation of the Hindu god Krishna.
Satyal's novel is a marvelous entertainment that does a lot of things well. It's a sharp portrait of a tight-knit community of recent immigrant families, a viciously accurate look at elementary school social dynamics, and above all, a compassionate story about a boy learning to find strength in his difference. Kiran is an unforgettable character, and his frustration and confusion about a world that seems to have no place for him could be heartbreaking; that pain is leavened, though, by Satyal's wit and warmth, and by Kiran's own resilience and his refusal to give up on himself.
I have only one real reservation about the book, and that's the narrative voice. Kiran narrates, in the present tense, but this is not the voice of any 12-year-old who's ever lived. Take this passage, in which Kiran explains his love of ballet:
Now that's nice writing -- spectacular writing, even. But it's not the voice of a 12-year-old boy from suburban Cincinnati. I found myself too often yanked out of the story by passages like that, which just don't suit the character.
Still, Blue Boy is a delightful novel, and all the more impressive for being Satyal's first. Can't wait to see what he brings us next.
Satyal's novel is a marvelous entertainment that does a lot of things well. It's a sharp portrait of a tight-knit community of recent immigrant families, a viciously accurate look at elementary school social dynamics, and above all, a compassionate story about a boy learning to find strength in his difference. Kiran is an unforgettable character, and his frustration and confusion about a world that seems to have no place for him could be heartbreaking; that pain is leavened, though, by Satyal's wit and warmth, and by Kiran's own resilience and his refusal to give up on himself.
I have only one real reservation about the book, and that's the narrative voice. Kiran narrates, in the present tense, but this is not the voice of any 12-year-old who's ever lived. Take this passage, in which Kiran explains his love of ballet:
I want you to see the world the way that I see it. I want you to feel the lift of my body when I see the beauty of a pirouette or the ecstatic fact of a swishing sari. I want you to see the beauty in locking your face in colorful makeup and the beauty in twirling around and puckering your lips. I want you to know the meaning of dance, the things you do when no one is home, when you grab your ballet slippers and slap them on your feet and fly around the house, leaping over footrests and spinning around the island in the kitchen. I want you to understand the joy of pulling out several sheets from a paper towel roll and running around the empty house with it trailing behind you, then letting it go, letting yourself fall to the ground, and then letting the white streamer float onto you. I want you to understand how fluent my feet are, how they kiss the linoleum, the carpet, the kitchen table, armchairs, desks, beds. I want you to understand that this is the world, this is the acceptance, this is the big bear hug and the gold-star sticker. There is such beauty in the world, despite all of the harsh realities about it, and they are contained here for me. They are contained in a plié, in a rond de jambe. I have my own language. I am my own language.
Now that's nice writing -- spectacular writing, even. But it's not the voice of a 12-year-old boy from suburban Cincinnati. I found myself too often yanked out of the story by passages like that, which just don't suit the character.
Still, Blue Boy is a delightful novel, and all the more impressive for being Satyal's first. Can't wait to see what he brings us next.
July 12, 2010
BOOKS: Insignificant Others, Stephen McCauley (2010)
What I like about Stephen McCauley's novels is that his characters are fundamentally decent people. They may hurt one another, as we all occasionally do, but it's never deliberate; McCauley isn't interested in writing about cruelty or dramatic unkindness. Or "dramatic" anything, for that matter; his novels are decidedly low-key, without a lot of huge earth-shattering plot points. Instead, McCauley tends to show us relatively ordinary moments in people's lives, and to surprise us with how fascinating the small things can be.
Insignificant Others, for instance, begins when Richard finds evidence that his partner Conrad has been having an affair. He's not terribly surprised by this; they have an unspoken understanding that physical monogamy is less important in their relationship than emotional fidelity, and Richard has an "insignificant other" of his own. Still, knowing is different than suspecting or imagining, and Richard begins to wonder if his life isn't quite so well-ordered as he'd believed.
Some of the symbolism of Richard's work life -- he works in the personnel department of a software company that assists corporations with video conferencing and the like -- is a touch heavy-handed (oh, he helps people communicate! how ironic...), but that's a small flaw when compared with the novel's strengths. McCauley's characters are vivid and endearing; even minor characters like Richard's personal trainer are given more depth than you'd expect from the comic relief. The constantly shifting relationships between Richard and the other principal characters are always convincing, and McCauley's story has an emotional depth that's a bit surprising in what initially seems to be just a light, fluffy comedy.
Insignificant Others, for instance, begins when Richard finds evidence that his partner Conrad has been having an affair. He's not terribly surprised by this; they have an unspoken understanding that physical monogamy is less important in their relationship than emotional fidelity, and Richard has an "insignificant other" of his own. Still, knowing is different than suspecting or imagining, and Richard begins to wonder if his life isn't quite so well-ordered as he'd believed.
Some of the symbolism of Richard's work life -- he works in the personnel department of a software company that assists corporations with video conferencing and the like -- is a touch heavy-handed (oh, he helps people communicate! how ironic...), but that's a small flaw when compared with the novel's strengths. McCauley's characters are vivid and endearing; even minor characters like Richard's personal trainer are given more depth than you'd expect from the comic relief. The constantly shifting relationships between Richard and the other principal characters are always convincing, and McCauley's story has an emotional depth that's a bit surprising in what initially seems to be just a light, fluffy comedy.
July 11, 2010
MOVIES: The Kids Are All Right (Lisa Cholodenko, 2010)
The critical buzz has been overwhelming on this one ever since Sundance. Unfortunately, I didn't think the movie came anywhere near living up to the hype.
Julianne Moore and Annette Bening star as a couple whose lives are thrown into turmoil when their teenaged kids locate their sperm donor father (Mark Ruffalo). Moore and Bening aren't remotely convincing as a longterm couple, in part because they refuse to communicate with one another. Instead, they spout treacly new age psychobabble that sounds like communication, but really amounts to nothing more than passive-aggressive hostility. (Typical conversation: "That's not how I feel!" "Of course it is. Maybe those feelings just haven't risen to the level of consciousness yet.")
As for Ruffalo, he's playing the character he always plays -- the lovably irresponsible, irresistibly charming rascal -- and we're not given a new character so much as a greatest hits reel. It's a performance that Ruffalo could give in his sleep, and it often feels as if he did; it's shamefully lazy.
Josh Hutcherson and Mia Wasikowska play the kids, and they give the movie's only good performances. Wasikowska is particularly good as the daughter who uses her father's presence as the opportunity for her first real acts of rebellion against her mothers.
There's an interesting story wanting to be told here, but it gets lost in Cholodenko's smirking contempt for her characters. The biggest disappointment of the year.
Julianne Moore and Annette Bening star as a couple whose lives are thrown into turmoil when their teenaged kids locate their sperm donor father (Mark Ruffalo). Moore and Bening aren't remotely convincing as a longterm couple, in part because they refuse to communicate with one another. Instead, they spout treacly new age psychobabble that sounds like communication, but really amounts to nothing more than passive-aggressive hostility. (Typical conversation: "That's not how I feel!" "Of course it is. Maybe those feelings just haven't risen to the level of consciousness yet.")
As for Ruffalo, he's playing the character he always plays -- the lovably irresponsible, irresistibly charming rascal -- and we're not given a new character so much as a greatest hits reel. It's a performance that Ruffalo could give in his sleep, and it often feels as if he did; it's shamefully lazy.
Josh Hutcherson and Mia Wasikowska play the kids, and they give the movie's only good performances. Wasikowska is particularly good as the daughter who uses her father's presence as the opportunity for her first real acts of rebellion against her mothers.
There's an interesting story wanting to be told here, but it gets lost in Cholodenko's smirking contempt for her characters. The biggest disappointment of the year.
July 06, 2010
MOVIES: Timer (Zac Schaeffer, 2010)
How would our romantic lives change if science could tell us the precise day on which we'd meed our soulmate? That's the premise of Timer, a charming SF-meets-romcom indie.
You get the Timer implanted on your wrist any time after you hit puberty, and it counts down the days until you meet The One. So long, that is, as The One is also wearing a Timer, which Oona's apparently is not. She's about to turn 30, and her Timer is still blinking zeros like a defective VCR. She's been dragging every Timerless guy she meets to have his implant, in the hopes that he's The One, but that's getting awfully frustrating. When she meets a cute young drummer with 4 months to go on his own Timer, she decides that for once, she's going to have a cheap short-term fling and enjoy it.
Writer-director Zac Schaeffer does a nice job of putting her characters in a variety of Timer situations that allow exploration of the many philosophical possibilities. Which would be worse, finding out at age 13 that you won't meet The One for 30 years, or finding out that she's due in 3 days? Does knowing when you'll meet your soulmate make you more inclined to save yourself for him, or to sow a ton of wild oats while you wait?
The cast is mostly made up of relative unknowns, though the supporting cast has that odd mix of B-stars and ex-stars you often find in indie films (JoBeth Williams and Tom Irwin play Oona's mom and stepdad). Emma Caulfield stars as Oona, and her years on Buffy the Vampire Slayer helped to sharpen her comic timing, which is top-notch here; she's immensely charming and likable. Michelle Borth does a nice variation on the lovably trashy sister, and John Patrick Amedori as Mikey the drummer has you rooting for him (despite a terribly awkward first scene that does not present the character in a good way).
You'll see some of the plot twists coming well in advance, though there are a few surprises, and happily many of them come in the final act, which doesn't play out at all the way I'd expected. But even the more obvious moments are handled nicely, and Schaeffer has thought through a lot of the Timer's interesting implications. One detail I loved comes in the first scene, when Oona has hauled yet another beau into the Timer offices for an implant; we see the new Timer on his arm, then cut to her wrist, and the 15-year-old model she's wearing is larger and clunkier than his, clearly an earlier version. Timer is an impressive first film that should get Schaffer the chance to play with a bigger budget, and I'm curious to see what she'll do with it.
You get the Timer implanted on your wrist any time after you hit puberty, and it counts down the days until you meet The One. So long, that is, as The One is also wearing a Timer, which Oona's apparently is not. She's about to turn 30, and her Timer is still blinking zeros like a defective VCR. She's been dragging every Timerless guy she meets to have his implant, in the hopes that he's The One, but that's getting awfully frustrating. When she meets a cute young drummer with 4 months to go on his own Timer, she decides that for once, she's going to have a cheap short-term fling and enjoy it.
Writer-director Zac Schaeffer does a nice job of putting her characters in a variety of Timer situations that allow exploration of the many philosophical possibilities. Which would be worse, finding out at age 13 that you won't meet The One for 30 years, or finding out that she's due in 3 days? Does knowing when you'll meet your soulmate make you more inclined to save yourself for him, or to sow a ton of wild oats while you wait?
The cast is mostly made up of relative unknowns, though the supporting cast has that odd mix of B-stars and ex-stars you often find in indie films (JoBeth Williams and Tom Irwin play Oona's mom and stepdad). Emma Caulfield stars as Oona, and her years on Buffy the Vampire Slayer helped to sharpen her comic timing, which is top-notch here; she's immensely charming and likable. Michelle Borth does a nice variation on the lovably trashy sister, and John Patrick Amedori as Mikey the drummer has you rooting for him (despite a terribly awkward first scene that does not present the character in a good way).
You'll see some of the plot twists coming well in advance, though there are a few surprises, and happily many of them come in the final act, which doesn't play out at all the way I'd expected. But even the more obvious moments are handled nicely, and Schaeffer has thought through a lot of the Timer's interesting implications. One detail I loved comes in the first scene, when Oona has hauled yet another beau into the Timer offices for an implant; we see the new Timer on his arm, then cut to her wrist, and the 15-year-old model she's wearing is larger and clunkier than his, clearly an earlier version. Timer is an impressive first film that should get Schaffer the chance to play with a bigger budget, and I'm curious to see what she'll do with it.
MOVIES: Knight and Day (James Mangold, 2010)
This movie doesn't deserve to be bombing at the box office as badly as it is. It's an entertaining popcorn flick, an old-fashioned light caper movie with a few pretty European settings (Salzburg, Seville), some well-done chase and fight scenes, and a pair of charismatic stars cast solidly in the middle in their comfort zone.
Tom Cruise is Roy, a charming, cocky spy, and there's no one better at this sort of strutting confidence. Cameron Diaz is June, the woman who gets caught up in his latest mission. One of the movie's pleasant surprises is that June isn't just a clueless airhead; she gets more confident as the movie goes on, and by the end, she's an equal partner in the action.
The plot is pretty much beside the point, as is customary for this type of movie; there's a McGuffin that everyone is chasing, and that's really all you need to know. The chase scenes are both exciting and funny -- I particularly enjoyed watching Cruise clinging calmly to the hood of a speeding car, repeatedly asking Diaz to open the door for him -- and the fight scenes are staged so that you can tell what's happening, which is something of a novelty these days.
I liked the running gag that has chunks of the story being presented in 4- or 5-second snippets as one character or another drifts in and out of consciousness after having been shot or drugged or otherwise taken out of commission. There's a solid supporting cast -- Viola Davis, Celia Weston, Peter Sarsgaard, Paul Dano -- and while this certainly isn't a movie that's placing any great acting demands on them, they're all doing entertaining work with none of the "just here for the paycheck" that sometimes slips through when talented actors do light entertainment.
Knight and Day isn't great art, and no one involved needs to be preparing an Oscar speech, but it's a lot of fun, and better than most of the drivel we've been given this summer.
Tom Cruise is Roy, a charming, cocky spy, and there's no one better at this sort of strutting confidence. Cameron Diaz is June, the woman who gets caught up in his latest mission. One of the movie's pleasant surprises is that June isn't just a clueless airhead; she gets more confident as the movie goes on, and by the end, she's an equal partner in the action.
The plot is pretty much beside the point, as is customary for this type of movie; there's a McGuffin that everyone is chasing, and that's really all you need to know. The chase scenes are both exciting and funny -- I particularly enjoyed watching Cruise clinging calmly to the hood of a speeding car, repeatedly asking Diaz to open the door for him -- and the fight scenes are staged so that you can tell what's happening, which is something of a novelty these days.
I liked the running gag that has chunks of the story being presented in 4- or 5-second snippets as one character or another drifts in and out of consciousness after having been shot or drugged or otherwise taken out of commission. There's a solid supporting cast -- Viola Davis, Celia Weston, Peter Sarsgaard, Paul Dano -- and while this certainly isn't a movie that's placing any great acting demands on them, they're all doing entertaining work with none of the "just here for the paycheck" that sometimes slips through when talented actors do light entertainment.
Knight and Day isn't great art, and no one involved needs to be preparing an Oscar speech, but it's a lot of fun, and better than most of the drivel we've been given this summer.
July 02, 2010
BOOKS: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, Stieg Larsson (2007/US 2010)
Third and final volume in the ridiculously successful trilogy of crime novels.
And this one makes it abundantly clear that this really was a trilogy. The first two volumes may have had their mysteries to keep us occupied, but what the series has really been about is the life of Lisbeth Salander, Larsson's prickly young computer hacker.
It continues to be a marvel that Larsson can not only make a heroine out of a character who's this antisocial and damaged, but make her the protagonist of a thriller even when she spends much of the book kept out of the action. Lisbeth spends more than two-thirds of Hornet's Nest in the hospital, recuperating from the wounds she suffered at the end of the previous book.
When the stories of the three novels are as tightly wound as they are here, it's a little difficult to say much about #3 that won't spoil #1 and #2 for those who haven't read them yet, but this one makes it clear that Salander isn't nearly as paranoid as her enemies portray her, and that the crimes against her have been going on for a very long time, and have been authorized at a surprisingly high level. High enough, actually, that a fairly hefty suspension of disbelief is required; the involved conspiracy that Larsson has concocted here is wildly implausible, and he gets away with it only because of his immense skill at keeping the story moving briskly ahead.
How he does that is beyond me, because he's guilty of some clunky writing along the way. Every outfit and every bit of food someone eats is described in great detail -- they get more attention than a lot of the characters do -- and he has the terrible habit of maintaining suspense by keeping us ignorant in a very showy way; there are far too many scenes that start with a bit of small talk, then end with something like, "Mikael sat down and explained his plan." ("But I'm not going to tell you silly readers what the plan is, so there, nyah nyah nyah!")
And yet, Salander is so fascinating a character, and her battle against overwhelming forces is so compelling, that I couldn't stop reading; I zipped through the book in two days. Larsson had reportedly planned a ten-volume series before his death (I hope his publishers will have the decency not to foist any uncompleted manuscripts on us, or, even worse, hire some hack to "finish" them), and it's a shame that we won't get to see what he had in mind. But on their own, the three books we've been given are a remarkable accomplishment.
And this one makes it abundantly clear that this really was a trilogy. The first two volumes may have had their mysteries to keep us occupied, but what the series has really been about is the life of Lisbeth Salander, Larsson's prickly young computer hacker.
It continues to be a marvel that Larsson can not only make a heroine out of a character who's this antisocial and damaged, but make her the protagonist of a thriller even when she spends much of the book kept out of the action. Lisbeth spends more than two-thirds of Hornet's Nest in the hospital, recuperating from the wounds she suffered at the end of the previous book.
When the stories of the three novels are as tightly wound as they are here, it's a little difficult to say much about #3 that won't spoil #1 and #2 for those who haven't read them yet, but this one makes it clear that Salander isn't nearly as paranoid as her enemies portray her, and that the crimes against her have been going on for a very long time, and have been authorized at a surprisingly high level. High enough, actually, that a fairly hefty suspension of disbelief is required; the involved conspiracy that Larsson has concocted here is wildly implausible, and he gets away with it only because of his immense skill at keeping the story moving briskly ahead.
How he does that is beyond me, because he's guilty of some clunky writing along the way. Every outfit and every bit of food someone eats is described in great detail -- they get more attention than a lot of the characters do -- and he has the terrible habit of maintaining suspense by keeping us ignorant in a very showy way; there are far too many scenes that start with a bit of small talk, then end with something like, "Mikael sat down and explained his plan." ("But I'm not going to tell you silly readers what the plan is, so there, nyah nyah nyah!")
And yet, Salander is so fascinating a character, and her battle against overwhelming forces is so compelling, that I couldn't stop reading; I zipped through the book in two days. Larsson had reportedly planned a ten-volume series before his death (I hope his publishers will have the decency not to foist any uncompleted manuscripts on us, or, even worse, hire some hack to "finish" them), and it's a shame that we won't get to see what he had in mind. But on their own, the three books we've been given are a remarkable accomplishment.
June 26, 2010
MOVIES: Toy Story 3 (Lee Unkrich, 2010)
Pixar's remarkable series of successful movies continues, with the darkest movie in the Toy Story series. There are adult themes and action sequences here that may be too much for the smallest kids, and a final scene that is tremendoubly moving.
Woody, Buzz, and the gang face an uncertain fate as Andy prepares to leave for college? Will he take them with him? Put them in the attic for safekeeping? Or might they even be (horrors!) thrown away?
Their ultimate fate may be even worse than the dumpster, as they wind up at the Sunnyside Day Care Center in the hands of rambunctious toddlers who haven't yet learned how to play nicely with their toys. (The first scene with the toddlers plays like a ramped-up action-movie take on the early Pixar short Tin Toy.)
Running the show at Sunnyside is Lotso (a fine voice performance by Ned Beatty, channelling every sleazy prison warden and syrupy southern Senator the movies have ever given us), a strawberry-scented tyrant with a tragic backstory; his presence turns Toy Story 3 into a spectacular riff on prison-break movies, as Woody works to rescue his friends from Sunnyside.
Lotso isn't the only new character. Timothy Dalton has some funny moments as Mr. Pricklepants, a porcupine who thinks of himself as quite the thespian; and Michael Keaton is spectacularly funny as Ken, who loves Barbie almost as much as he loves his Dream House and extensive wardrobe.
And of course, all of our old favorites are back, and everyone gets a moment of heroism -- Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head, Rex, Hamm, Slinky Dog, Jessie, the claw-worshiping aliens. Even Andy himself, who has been largely a background character in the first two movies, gets a few moments in the spotlight, and if his final scene doesn't have your eyes misting over, then you're tougher than I am.
(I very much liked this take on the movie from the Double X blog at Slate, arguing that the movie's real subject is parenthood.)
Preceding the movie is the short Day and Night, which cleverly combines Pixar's trademark 3-D computer animation with rounded, bouncy 2-D animated figures who reminded me of the UPA style from the 1950s and 1960s.
Woody, Buzz, and the gang face an uncertain fate as Andy prepares to leave for college? Will he take them with him? Put them in the attic for safekeeping? Or might they even be (horrors!) thrown away?
Their ultimate fate may be even worse than the dumpster, as they wind up at the Sunnyside Day Care Center in the hands of rambunctious toddlers who haven't yet learned how to play nicely with their toys. (The first scene with the toddlers plays like a ramped-up action-movie take on the early Pixar short Tin Toy.)
Running the show at Sunnyside is Lotso (a fine voice performance by Ned Beatty, channelling every sleazy prison warden and syrupy southern Senator the movies have ever given us), a strawberry-scented tyrant with a tragic backstory; his presence turns Toy Story 3 into a spectacular riff on prison-break movies, as Woody works to rescue his friends from Sunnyside.
Lotso isn't the only new character. Timothy Dalton has some funny moments as Mr. Pricklepants, a porcupine who thinks of himself as quite the thespian; and Michael Keaton is spectacularly funny as Ken, who loves Barbie almost as much as he loves his Dream House and extensive wardrobe.
And of course, all of our old favorites are back, and everyone gets a moment of heroism -- Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head, Rex, Hamm, Slinky Dog, Jessie, the claw-worshiping aliens. Even Andy himself, who has been largely a background character in the first two movies, gets a few moments in the spotlight, and if his final scene doesn't have your eyes misting over, then you're tougher than I am.
(I very much liked this take on the movie from the Double X blog at Slate, arguing that the movie's real subject is parenthood.)
Preceding the movie is the short Day and Night, which cleverly combines Pixar's trademark 3-D computer animation with rounded, bouncy 2-D animated figures who reminded me of the UPA style from the 1950s and 1960s.
MOVIES: I Am Love (Luca Guadagnino, 2009/US 2010)
Some interesting moments are wasted here, in a movie that's marked by a striking mismatch of story and tone.
Tilda Swinton stars as Emma, a Russian woman who has married into a wealthy Italian family. She has all the trappings of a perfect life -- a devoted husband; three adult children, each one seemingly on the way to success in various endeavors; staff of loyal servants; a home appointed so lavishly that even the editors of Palatial Estates Monthly might be taken aback by the excess. But alas, Emma is not happy, and her mid-life crisis leads her into an affair with Antonio (Edoardo Gabbriellini), a dashing young chef who happens to be her son's best friend.
What is called for here is heat, passion, over-the-top melodrama -- think Douglas Sirk at his most overwrought -- and what we get is chilly detachment. Tilda Swinton, talented though she is, is not an actress who brings to mind life-altering lust and unbridled passion. And the John Adams score (not new music, but selected excerpts from his work) is entirely wrong; his chugging, blocky rhythms and jagged, spiky fragments of melody would feel more at home in one of Soderbergh's more intellectual experiments than they do in this would-be potboiler.
There are a few things that work. The most interesting relationship is built in the background, almost without being noticed; it's that of Emma and Ida (Maria Paiato), one of her household staff. They are not friends -- Ida understands the Italian class system too well for that, even in those moments when Emma seems not to -- but there is an affection and a respect between them. Their moments together have an understated dignity; their final moment together, a rather frantic scene in Emma's bedroom, is particularly well played.
Beyond that, the sets are gorgeous to look at, as is Flavio Parenti, who plays Emma's son Edoardo.
Tilda Swinton stars as Emma, a Russian woman who has married into a wealthy Italian family. She has all the trappings of a perfect life -- a devoted husband; three adult children, each one seemingly on the way to success in various endeavors; staff of loyal servants; a home appointed so lavishly that even the editors of Palatial Estates Monthly might be taken aback by the excess. But alas, Emma is not happy, and her mid-life crisis leads her into an affair with Antonio (Edoardo Gabbriellini), a dashing young chef who happens to be her son's best friend.
What is called for here is heat, passion, over-the-top melodrama -- think Douglas Sirk at his most overwrought -- and what we get is chilly detachment. Tilda Swinton, talented though she is, is not an actress who brings to mind life-altering lust and unbridled passion. And the John Adams score (not new music, but selected excerpts from his work) is entirely wrong; his chugging, blocky rhythms and jagged, spiky fragments of melody would feel more at home in one of Soderbergh's more intellectual experiments than they do in this would-be potboiler.
There are a few things that work. The most interesting relationship is built in the background, almost without being noticed; it's that of Emma and Ida (Maria Paiato), one of her household staff. They are not friends -- Ida understands the Italian class system too well for that, even in those moments when Emma seems not to -- but there is an affection and a respect between them. Their moments together have an understated dignity; their final moment together, a rather frantic scene in Emma's bedroom, is particularly well played.
Beyond that, the sets are gorgeous to look at, as is Flavio Parenti, who plays Emma's son Edoardo.
June 25, 2010
BOOKS: From Away, David Carkeet (2010)
Denny is stranded in northern Vermont after crashing his rental car on the way to the airport. And when a mildly intoxicated woman barges into his hotel room, it looks as if the night might not be completely wasted. But before long, Marge is dead and Denny's the primary suspect. Unable to leave by plane or train (because the police have his name), and without a car to drive, Denny's stuck in town.
If that wasn't enough to make life complicated, Denny is mistaken by the locals for Homer Dumpling, a young man who left town rather suddenly a few years back and hasn't been heard from since. That bit of mistaken identity at least gives Denny a place to stay, but it has him frantically tap-dancing his way through conversations with all of Homer's friends, and some of them are starting to get suspicious.
Carkeet's given us a nice breezy comic mystery here, and a terrific protagonist in Denny, whose lack of social grace is alternately charming and irritating. Denny's increasingly frantic attempts to successfully pass as Homer give the story a touch of the con-man, and it's great fun to watch him gleaning tiny little clues from scraps of paper and overheard conversations. There's a fine assortment of supporting players, too -- Lance, the cop who's not sure about "Homer" from the start; Homer's prickly girlfriend, Sarah; and Nick, Homer's most loyal friend.
This is Carkeet's sixth novel (sixth for adults, at least; there are also a couple of YA novels), and he deserves to be better known than he is. I haven't read all of his books, but I've enjoyed the ones I have, and I think his first novel (Double Negative, in which a linguist must solve a murder based on the pre-verbal babblings of the toddler who is the sole witness) is a small masterpiece. From Away doesn't rise quite to that level, but it's a nice bit of entertainment.
If that wasn't enough to make life complicated, Denny is mistaken by the locals for Homer Dumpling, a young man who left town rather suddenly a few years back and hasn't been heard from since. That bit of mistaken identity at least gives Denny a place to stay, but it has him frantically tap-dancing his way through conversations with all of Homer's friends, and some of them are starting to get suspicious.
Carkeet's given us a nice breezy comic mystery here, and a terrific protagonist in Denny, whose lack of social grace is alternately charming and irritating. Denny's increasingly frantic attempts to successfully pass as Homer give the story a touch of the con-man, and it's great fun to watch him gleaning tiny little clues from scraps of paper and overheard conversations. There's a fine assortment of supporting players, too -- Lance, the cop who's not sure about "Homer" from the start; Homer's prickly girlfriend, Sarah; and Nick, Homer's most loyal friend.
This is Carkeet's sixth novel (sixth for adults, at least; there are also a couple of YA novels), and he deserves to be better known than he is. I haven't read all of his books, but I've enjoyed the ones I have, and I think his first novel (Double Negative, in which a linguist must solve a murder based on the pre-verbal babblings of the toddler who is the sole witness) is a small masterpiece. From Away doesn't rise quite to that level, but it's a nice bit of entertainment.
June 22, 2010
MUSIC: LA Philharmonic 2010-2011 season
So, after a year when medical problems kept me from even bothering to subscribe to the Philharmonic -- hardly seemed worth spending all the money for concerts I might not be able to attend -- things have settled down enough that I'm subscribing again for next season. This will be my first time seeing Gustavo Dudamel, who is conducting most of the concerts I've bought, including the entire 5-week "Brahms Unbound" festival in May and June. I'm a sucker for Brahms, and since each concert pairs him with a new work -- and I always enjoy the new music -- I couldn't resist doing the entire thing.
So, here's the season I've purchased:
So, here's the season I've purchased:
- Dudamel, conductor / Messiaen: Turangalila
- Pablo Heras-Casado, conductor; Peter Serkin, piano / Debussy: Jeux; Stravinsky: Concerto for Piano and Winds; Takemitsu: riverrun; Stravinsky: Firebird Suite
- Rafael Fruhbeck de Brugos, conductor; Hilary Hahn, violin / Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto; Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique
- Dudamel, conductor; Kelley O'Connor, mezzo-soprano / Adams: Slonimsky's Earbox; Bernstein: Symphony #1 ("Jeremiah"); Beethoven: Symphony #7
- Lionel Bringuier, conductor; Gautier Capucon, cello / Smetana: The Moldau; Schumann: Cello Concerto; Dvorak: Symphony #5
- Thomas Ades, conductor / Stravinsky: Les noces; Ades: In Seven Days
- Dudamel, conductor; Leonidas Kavakos, violin / Brahms: Academic Festival Overture; Golijov: Violin Concerto (world premiere); Brahms: Symphony #1
- Dudamel, conductor; Leila Josefowicz, violin; Christine Schafer, soprano; Matthias Goerne, baritone / Mackey: Beautiful Passing (West Coast premiere); Brahms: A German Requiem
- Dudamel, conductor; Glorious Percussion, percussion ensemble / Brahms: Tragic Overture; Gubaidulina: Glorious Percussion (U.S. premiere); Brahms: Symphony #2
- Dudamel, conductor; Pedro Carneiro, percussion / Brahms: Variations on a Theme by Haydn; Lieberson: Percussion Concerto (world premiere); Brahms: Symphony #3
- Dudamel, conductor / Gorecki: Symphony #4 (U.S. premier); Brahms: Symphony #4
Some works I've never heard and wanted to (Messaien, Takemitsu), a couple of warhorses that I like a lot (Berlioz, Firebird, German Requiem), a Bernstein work that doesn't get played often, two new percussion works (another particular interest of mine) -- it should be a good season. Goodness knows I'll probably miss at least one or two of the concerts along the way for one reason or another, but I'm happy with the lineup.
June 18, 2010
BOOKS: The City and the City, China Miéville (2009)
Miéville is best known as a science fiction writer, though there's no SF to be found here. Rather, we have a police procedural, albeit one with a distinctive twist. The precise nature of that twist has been given away in far too many of the reviews and commentary I've seen about the book; I think I'd have enjoyed the first fifty pages or so even more if I'd had to figure out for myself precisely what Miéville was up to. So I'm going to do the best I can not to give away the notion that makes the book so interesting.
Our hero is Inspector Tyador Borlú of the Extreme Crime Squad in the city of Besźel, somewhere in southern Europe. His current assignment is to solve the murder of a young woman, a job that becomes much more complicated when it is learned that the murder was committed in the neighboring city of Ul Qoma and the body dumped in Besźel. The two cities -- city-states would probably be a better description -- have a complicated geopolitical relationship under the best of circumstances, but political tensions at the moment are on the upswing. Each city has a radical nationalist movement, devoted to the destruction of the other; there's also a growing unification movement that longs to see the two cities united as one.
As Borlú's case becomes an international incident, he's forced to travel into Ul Qoma to work with their police force. The investigation leads them into the the nationalist and the unification movements, the complications of the two cities' relations with other nations, and the possible smuggling of archaelogical artifacts from one city to the other. And as Borlú didn't face enough pressure, always hovering in the background is the shadowy police agency known as Breach, independent of both Ul Qoman and Besź police. Breach is tasked with only one job -- to guard the boundaries between the two cities -- and it takes that job very seriously.
If it were only a run-of-the-mill murder mystery/police procedural, The City and the City would be a rousing success. There's a nice array of potential suspects, a few terrific chase scenes, and an entertainingly intricate plot that resolves in fascinating ways. And that central plot point that should remain a surprise complicates things in all the right ways, making the chases more suspenseful, adding layers of complexity to everyone's motives, and providing a surprisingly deep layer of philosophical contemplation about the nature of boundaries, both geographical and otherwise.
This is the first of Miéville's books that I've read. My friends who are fans tell me that while they enjoy the book, they definitely think it's among his lesser work. And I'll take that as good news, because if the rest of his books are even better than this, I've got some terrific writing ahead of me.
Our hero is Inspector Tyador Borlú of the Extreme Crime Squad in the city of Besźel, somewhere in southern Europe. His current assignment is to solve the murder of a young woman, a job that becomes much more complicated when it is learned that the murder was committed in the neighboring city of Ul Qoma and the body dumped in Besźel. The two cities -- city-states would probably be a better description -- have a complicated geopolitical relationship under the best of circumstances, but political tensions at the moment are on the upswing. Each city has a radical nationalist movement, devoted to the destruction of the other; there's also a growing unification movement that longs to see the two cities united as one.
As Borlú's case becomes an international incident, he's forced to travel into Ul Qoma to work with their police force. The investigation leads them into the the nationalist and the unification movements, the complications of the two cities' relations with other nations, and the possible smuggling of archaelogical artifacts from one city to the other. And as Borlú didn't face enough pressure, always hovering in the background is the shadowy police agency known as Breach, independent of both Ul Qoman and Besź police. Breach is tasked with only one job -- to guard the boundaries between the two cities -- and it takes that job very seriously.
If it were only a run-of-the-mill murder mystery/police procedural, The City and the City would be a rousing success. There's a nice array of potential suspects, a few terrific chase scenes, and an entertainingly intricate plot that resolves in fascinating ways. And that central plot point that should remain a surprise complicates things in all the right ways, making the chases more suspenseful, adding layers of complexity to everyone's motives, and providing a surprisingly deep layer of philosophical contemplation about the nature of boundaries, both geographical and otherwise.
This is the first of Miéville's books that I've read. My friends who are fans tell me that while they enjoy the book, they definitely think it's among his lesser work. And I'll take that as good news, because if the rest of his books are even better than this, I've got some terrific writing ahead of me.
June 17, 2010
TV: Hot in Cleveland (TV Land, Wed 10)
After years of surviving on sitcom reruns, TV Land dives into the original sitcom world with Hot in Cleveland, and for a first effort, it's not horrible.
The first episode is devoted to setting up the premise. Three friends from Los Angeles are on a flight to Paris. Melanie (Valerie Bertinelli) is still recovering from a recent divorce; Victoria (Wendie Malick) is a soap opera diva whose show has just been cancelled; and Joy (Jane Leeves) is a makeup artist who's started losing her celebrity clients. They're all feeling old and unattractive, and angry at being replaced by younger, prettier women.
The plane makes an emergency landing in Cleveland, and since they're stuck there overnight, the ladies head out to a local bar. Much to their amazement, they find that the local men (unlike the shallow Angelenos they're used to) are dazzled by their beauty, and that midwestern culture is not obsessed with youth and skinniness. ("Everyone eats," says an astonished Victoria, "and no one feels shame.") Delighted to be objects of lust again, the women decide to stay in Cleveland for good, renting a large house that comes with its own caretaker (Betty White).
The show's great weakness is its writing. The jokes are a bit corny and very predictable, and at a moment when the sitcom is seeing a variety of innovative new formats, the setup-punchline-setup-punchline flow of this one feels rather dated.
But these four actresses are old pros at this -- Betty White, for heaven's sake, has been making sitcoms for as long as there have been sitcoms -- and they find every laugh that can be found in the script, through the power of consummate craft, immaculate timing, and sheer force of will. They make the material seem better than it is. Bertinelli, though charming and immensely likable, is the weakest link in the cast, in part because of how her character is written; the perky ingenue shtick that worked well for her at 20 doesn't hold up well at 50. And White's character is the least well conceived; she was a late addition to the cast, and you sense that the writers haven't had time yet to rethink the character to play to her strengths. (Not that "running from the Nazis" jokes would work that much better with a different actress, but still...)
Given the familiarity of the faces, and the very old-fashioned style of the show, Hot in Cleveland feels right at home on TV Land. It's almost as if the network has commissioned a set of brand-new original reruns to go along with their classic reruns. The writing will have to improve if the show's going to survive in the long term, but the actresses are delightful to watch, and they're enough to keep me with the show for a few more weeks to see if the writing rises to their level.
The first episode is devoted to setting up the premise. Three friends from Los Angeles are on a flight to Paris. Melanie (Valerie Bertinelli) is still recovering from a recent divorce; Victoria (Wendie Malick) is a soap opera diva whose show has just been cancelled; and Joy (Jane Leeves) is a makeup artist who's started losing her celebrity clients. They're all feeling old and unattractive, and angry at being replaced by younger, prettier women.
The plane makes an emergency landing in Cleveland, and since they're stuck there overnight, the ladies head out to a local bar. Much to their amazement, they find that the local men (unlike the shallow Angelenos they're used to) are dazzled by their beauty, and that midwestern culture is not obsessed with youth and skinniness. ("Everyone eats," says an astonished Victoria, "and no one feels shame.") Delighted to be objects of lust again, the women decide to stay in Cleveland for good, renting a large house that comes with its own caretaker (Betty White).
The show's great weakness is its writing. The jokes are a bit corny and very predictable, and at a moment when the sitcom is seeing a variety of innovative new formats, the setup-punchline-setup-punchline flow of this one feels rather dated.
But these four actresses are old pros at this -- Betty White, for heaven's sake, has been making sitcoms for as long as there have been sitcoms -- and they find every laugh that can be found in the script, through the power of consummate craft, immaculate timing, and sheer force of will. They make the material seem better than it is. Bertinelli, though charming and immensely likable, is the weakest link in the cast, in part because of how her character is written; the perky ingenue shtick that worked well for her at 20 doesn't hold up well at 50. And White's character is the least well conceived; she was a late addition to the cast, and you sense that the writers haven't had time yet to rethink the character to play to her strengths. (Not that "running from the Nazis" jokes would work that much better with a different actress, but still...)
Given the familiarity of the faces, and the very old-fashioned style of the show, Hot in Cleveland feels right at home on TV Land. It's almost as if the network has commissioned a set of brand-new original reruns to go along with their classic reruns. The writing will have to improve if the show's going to survive in the long term, but the actresses are delightful to watch, and they're enough to keep me with the show for a few more weeks to see if the writing rises to their level.
MOVIES: Please Give (Nicole Holofcener, 2010)
This one just drove me nuts. It's set in an insular little slice of New York society, and I suppose it may be absolutely fascinating to those who come from that world, but as an outsider, I didn't find much to grab on to.
When your protagonists are a pair of well-off antique dealers whose principal preoccupation in life is waiting for the old lady next door to die so they can knock down the wall and expand their own apartment, then you're already starting off with a serious sympathy deficit, and it doesn't help matters much to have those characters played by Catherine Keener and Oliver Platt. They're fine actors, mind you, and I'm usually very happy to see them, but they both have a tendency to come across as rather smug and self-satisfied in a way that only adds to my annoyance with their characters here.
Keener, in particular, is a ghastly person. She's constantly wracked with guilt about all of the poverty and suffering that she sees every day. More precisely, she needs to be seen to be wracked with guilt; there are numerous scenes in the movie of her attempting to help someone, but there is always someone else present when she performs her acts of charity. And, yes, I think that "performs" is precisely the right word; Keener's conscience is less well-developed than is her need to have other people praise her for having a conscience.
Holofcener hasn't give us anyone else who's terribly likable, either. The old lady whose death Keener and Platt so eagerly await is a bitter, hateful woman (nicely played by Ann Guilbert), and the granddaughters who somewhat grudgingly care for her (Amanda Peet and Rebecca Hall) aren't much better.
The performances are all fine, I suppose, but the movie's social landscape is so narrow, and I didn't feel that any attempt was made to connect the problems of these shallow people to any broader, more general concerns. As a result, I didn't give a damn about any of their petty problems.
When your protagonists are a pair of well-off antique dealers whose principal preoccupation in life is waiting for the old lady next door to die so they can knock down the wall and expand their own apartment, then you're already starting off with a serious sympathy deficit, and it doesn't help matters much to have those characters played by Catherine Keener and Oliver Platt. They're fine actors, mind you, and I'm usually very happy to see them, but they both have a tendency to come across as rather smug and self-satisfied in a way that only adds to my annoyance with their characters here.
Keener, in particular, is a ghastly person. She's constantly wracked with guilt about all of the poverty and suffering that she sees every day. More precisely, she needs to be seen to be wracked with guilt; there are numerous scenes in the movie of her attempting to help someone, but there is always someone else present when she performs her acts of charity. And, yes, I think that "performs" is precisely the right word; Keener's conscience is less well-developed than is her need to have other people praise her for having a conscience.
Holofcener hasn't give us anyone else who's terribly likable, either. The old lady whose death Keener and Platt so eagerly await is a bitter, hateful woman (nicely played by Ann Guilbert), and the granddaughters who somewhat grudgingly care for her (Amanda Peet and Rebecca Hall) aren't much better.
The performances are all fine, I suppose, but the movie's social landscape is so narrow, and I didn't feel that any attempt was made to connect the problems of these shallow people to any broader, more general concerns. As a result, I didn't give a damn about any of their petty problems.
June 16, 2010
MOVIES: Solitary Man (Brian Koppelman & David Levien, 2010)
Low-key character study, dominated by a fine Michael Douglas performance.
Douglas plays Ben Kalmen, and as the movie opens, he's getting some bad news from his doctor. We immediately leap forward six years, and only gradually do we put the pieces together about who Ben was before that doctor's visit and who he's been since.
Once upon a time, Ben had it all -- happy marriage, successful string of auto dealerships (he was known as "New York's honest car dealer") -- but he's spent those six years slowly destroying everything that mattered in his life. Koppelman's screenplay makes the interesting choice to skip over all of those self-destructive years, and focus instead on the year or so during which all of Ben's birds come home to roost, and he's finally forced to face up to the shambles he's made of his life.
Douglas is fabulous here as a vain 60-year-old who expects the women to be just as interested as they were when he was 40, and doesn't seem to grasp how many relationships he's trashed, or what the consequences will be. He's surrounded by a solid supporting cast -- Susan Sarandon as his ex-wife, Mary-Louise Parker as the most recent in a long string of girlfriends, Jenna Fischer as his frustrated daughter, Danny DeVito as the old friend who may be the last person Ben hasn't driven away. Even Jesse Eisenberg, playing the annoying college kid that he always plays, comes off reasonably well, which is a significant directorial achievement all by itself.
Solitary Man isn't a great movie, but Douglas is so good in it that it's at least worth a rental when the DVD arrives.
Douglas plays Ben Kalmen, and as the movie opens, he's getting some bad news from his doctor. We immediately leap forward six years, and only gradually do we put the pieces together about who Ben was before that doctor's visit and who he's been since.
Once upon a time, Ben had it all -- happy marriage, successful string of auto dealerships (he was known as "New York's honest car dealer") -- but he's spent those six years slowly destroying everything that mattered in his life. Koppelman's screenplay makes the interesting choice to skip over all of those self-destructive years, and focus instead on the year or so during which all of Ben's birds come home to roost, and he's finally forced to face up to the shambles he's made of his life.
Douglas is fabulous here as a vain 60-year-old who expects the women to be just as interested as they were when he was 40, and doesn't seem to grasp how many relationships he's trashed, or what the consequences will be. He's surrounded by a solid supporting cast -- Susan Sarandon as his ex-wife, Mary-Louise Parker as the most recent in a long string of girlfriends, Jenna Fischer as his frustrated daughter, Danny DeVito as the old friend who may be the last person Ben hasn't driven away. Even Jesse Eisenberg, playing the annoying college kid that he always plays, comes off reasonably well, which is a significant directorial achievement all by itself.
Solitary Man isn't a great movie, but Douglas is so good in it that it's at least worth a rental when the DVD arrives.
June 15, 2010
MOVIES: Mother and Child (Rodrigo Garcia, 2010)
Garcia's movies are generally large ensemble pieces with strong roles for women, and this one is no exception. We get three interwoven stories about adoption, and our starring actresses are Annette Bening, Kerry Washington, and Naomi Watts.
The connection between two of the three stories is made clear very quickly -- Watts is the daughter who Bening gave up for adoption. Washington's story -- she and her husband are trying to adopt a child -- isn't directly connected to the others until late in the movie, but there is enough thematic connection that the jumps from one story to another never feel disjointed or awkward.
All three lead actresses are superb, but Bening and Washington made the strongest impressions on me. Bening is a self-described "difficult person," prickly and anti-social, who finds it difficult to respond appropriately to gestures of friendship. (And the movie seems to take the "nature" side of the "nature vs. nurture" argument, as Watts' own personality is just as difficult and offputting as her birth mother's.) Washington is heartbreaking as she goes through the emotional turmoil of the adoption process, with its frequent U-turns from delighted to anticipation to devastating heartbreak.
As usual, Garcia is a master of casting. The key supporting roles here are played by Samuel L. Jackson and Jimmy Smith; smaller roles are impeccably handled by such fine actors as David Morse, S. Epatha Merkerson, Cherry Jones, Shareeka Epps, LisaGay Hamilton, and Amy Brenneman. There's not a false note to be found in any of the performances, and the movie is like a masterclass in film acting.
I could have done without the "children make you a better person" meme that is so prevalent in American culture these days, but Garcia is one of my favorite directors, and this is another fine addition to his excellent body of work. (You should certainly check out his previous movie, Nine Lives, which I talked about here, and I really need to go back and take another look at Things You Can Tell Just By Looking at Her.)
The connection between two of the three stories is made clear very quickly -- Watts is the daughter who Bening gave up for adoption. Washington's story -- she and her husband are trying to adopt a child -- isn't directly connected to the others until late in the movie, but there is enough thematic connection that the jumps from one story to another never feel disjointed or awkward.
All three lead actresses are superb, but Bening and Washington made the strongest impressions on me. Bening is a self-described "difficult person," prickly and anti-social, who finds it difficult to respond appropriately to gestures of friendship. (And the movie seems to take the "nature" side of the "nature vs. nurture" argument, as Watts' own personality is just as difficult and offputting as her birth mother's.) Washington is heartbreaking as she goes through the emotional turmoil of the adoption process, with its frequent U-turns from delighted to anticipation to devastating heartbreak.
As usual, Garcia is a master of casting. The key supporting roles here are played by Samuel L. Jackson and Jimmy Smith; smaller roles are impeccably handled by such fine actors as David Morse, S. Epatha Merkerson, Cherry Jones, Shareeka Epps, LisaGay Hamilton, and Amy Brenneman. There's not a false note to be found in any of the performances, and the movie is like a masterclass in film acting.
I could have done without the "children make you a better person" meme that is so prevalent in American culture these days, but Garcia is one of my favorite directors, and this is another fine addition to his excellent body of work. (You should certainly check out his previous movie, Nine Lives, which I talked about here, and I really need to go back and take another look at Things You Can Tell Just By Looking at Her.)
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