jürgen fauth’s muckworld

Since I’m behind the curve on most items in this Konsum roundup, the soundtrack for today’s post is provided by Talking Heads, performing “The Great Curve” in Rome in 1980. You can download a DVD of the entire show from Dimeadozen.

4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days
As apparently the last critic in New York City to see the freshly Academy-snubbed 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days, I don’t have much to add to the universal acclaim the film has garnered — only this: if you take a look at the Rotten Tomatoes page, you’ll see adjectives like “excruciating,” “harrowing,” “wearing,” “wrenching,” “bleak,” and “unblinking.” All of those fit, but it seems to me the terminology applied to blockbusters like The Bourne Ultimatum isn’t inappropriate, either: 4 Months is also an edge-of-your seat thriller.
4 luni, 3 saptamani si 2 zile. Cristian Mungiu, 2007. ****

Woman on the Beach
My favorite at NYFF06 — at least until INLAND EMPIRE showed up — is currently playing at Film Forum. Reason enough to take another look. Lo and behold, it’s still a wonderful film. J. Hoberman.
Haebyonui yoin. Hong Sang-soo, 2006. ****

The Duchess of Langeais
An About.com review of Rivette’s Balzac adaptation starring Jeanne Balibar and Guillaume Depardieu is forthcoming.
Ne touchez pas la hache. Jacques Rivette, 2007. ****

The Wire, Season 1
Yes, we’re ridiculously far behind, so I can barely participate in the conversation at this point. Anybody who’s been following this blog knows that I’m a sucker for structure, and The Wire’s intricate plot lines left my head spinning. Looking forward to catching up with the remaining four seasons, like, this weekend. ****

30 Rock
I love every single character on Tina Fey’s show, from Alec Baldwin’s head of TV and microwave programming to nutso Tracy Morgan and Kenneth the Page, and I haven’t seen a TV show that delivers as many smart laughs per minute since the first season of Arrested Development. 30 Rock makes me happy. ****

Californication
Thoroughly enjoyable HBO series about a sex-and-booze addicted writer (David Duchovny) who is still in love with his ex-wife (Natascha McElhone), and whose novel God Hates Us All was adapted into the “Tom and Katie” vehicle Crazy Little Thing Called Love. ***

Palm Pictures is releasing this made-for-TV documentary about photographer Peter Beard in August. It’s an unassuming portrait of a versatile artist that made me feel that it would be lovely if TV was in the habit of introducing fascinating people every day instead of carpet-bombing us with familiar bores. An adventurer, playboy, fashion photographer, and friend of Andy Warhol, Francis Bacon, and Mick Jagger, Beard moved down the road from Karen Blixen and documented his life in Africa in photographs and gorgeous collage diaries. A little googling reveals a fact the documentary politely omits: Beard was born to a wealthy family and could afford to concentrate on his art and travel thanks to a large trust fund. Good for him.

Scrapbooks from Africa and Beyond. Guillaume Bonn and Jean-Claude Luyat, 1998. ***

• Peter Beard’s Official Site
• Peter Beard: Fifty Years of Portraits
• Men’s Vogue Interview with slideshow
• Books by Peter Beard

After Twitch City, another outstanding TV show from Canada. Set at a provincial theater, Slings & Arrows is populated with all the stock types: the borderline-mad artistic director, the sell-out manager, the nosy American board member eager to put on Mamma Mia!, the aging diva, the budding ingénue (Rachel McAdams). Don McKellar makes an appearance as a hilarious conceptual artiste. Imbued by a snappy script with growing complexity and a rich back story, the characters are both hilarious and lovable at the same time. The Hamlet theme is elegantly woven through the entire season–director Geoffrey Tenant (Paul Gross) regularly chats with his predecessor’s ghost–and by the time opening night rolls around, all the actor jokes are redeemed by an honest-to-god glimpse at the magic of making theater. Remarkable.

Slings and Arrows, Season 1. Peter Wellington, 2003. ****

YouTube has what looks like entire seasons, cut up into ten-minute pieces. Here’s the opening of episode one:

This skilled BBC adaptation of Sarah Waters’ novel is a lesson in structure: the intricate plotting of the Victorian crime story has been simplified by screenwriter Peter Ransley, but the carefully layered revelations still affect and surprise. Casting is excellent, with Elaine Cassidy and Sally Hawkins as the tender lovers embroiled in Dickensian intrigue and Imelda Staunton as baby-trading Mrs. Sucksby. The academic in me is itching to write a treatise called “‘You Pearl:’ Voice, Identity, and Female Desire in Sarah Waters’ Fingersmith and Marcy Dermansky’s Twins.”

Fingersmith. Aisling Walsh, 2005. ****

• YouTube is full of fan-made Fingersmith music videos, but they’re bound to spoil it.

Most people seem to know Molly Parker from Deadwood, but to us she’ll always be the stripping drummer in that movie Paul Auster disowned. In this late nineties TV series set in a dinky Toronto apartment, she’s the hapless girlfriend of Curtis, a cereal-munching talk show addict shut-in played by Don McKellar, who also co-wrote the show. Twitch City undermines the wholesome Friends sitcom formula with a serious slacker attitude; the first episode revolves around who has to go out and buy the cat food. Curtis is refreshingly selfish and cynical, and much of the plot rests on the increasingly absurd parade of roommates who pass through, including a bunch of neo-Nazis, a sprawling Portuguese family, and a gang of criminals storing psychedelic cookies. In the midst of the satirical hip, there are flashes of real sweetness between Parker and McKellar. Like the Rex Reilly show Curtis tapes and rewatches compulsively, Twitch City is wicked addictive. All 13 episodes are out on DVD.

Twitch City. Bruce McDonald, ****

• Twitch City at Wikipedia
• Onion AV Club Review
• Top Ten Candian Films

It’s rare that a TV show ends before it has outstayed its welcome. Rome, which offered equal parts history, soap opera intrigue, gore, and soft porn, has run its course now, and the adventures of Vorenus and Pullo will be missed. The series covered the events of Joseph L. Mankiewicz’ Cleopatra — one half per season — and, with the ascent of Augustus, segues nicely into I, Claudius. The vibe of Rome, of course, was often more Caligula than Robert Graves. I’m sad it’s over. ****

Previously.

From Cleopatra, Liz Taylor’s arrival in Rome:

From Rome, Mark Antony’s arrival in Egypt:

From Caligula, Helen Mirren’s dance:

Like a distant cousin of Le Petit Lieutenant’s Nathalie Baye, Helen Mirren plays a determined female  detective in this BBC cop show. The series starts in 1991 when DCI Jane Tennison gets her first murder case; there are six more installments before the 2006 “Final Act.” The murders are grisly, London’s wet and gray, and her all-male colleagues won’t respect her, but Helen Mirren lights up the drab interiors with acting every bit as accomplished as the role she just got an Oscar nomination for.  I’m no expert on police procedurals–I’ve never seen a single episode of CSI: Anywhere–but the intricate and reversal-rich plotting of this first four-hour part is full of surprises. I particularly liked the extended focus on the suspect and his family, which creates something akin to what Karen Moncrieff, talking about The Dead Girl, called “the community of murder”–people brought together by crime. It’s also fun to spot future giants of English acting in minor roles. Ralph Fiennes, decked out in leather duds, is interrogated about a murdered prostitute, and Tom Wilkinson plays Mirren’s boyfriend, who expects her to solve the case and have the avocado dip ready for the dinner party, too. ****
[tags]helen mirren, ralph fiennes, tom wilkinson, crime, cops, murder, 4 stars, tv, london, nathalie baye, karen moncrieff[/tags]

After December’s mad movie binge, we’re catching up with some TV. This HBO show, which carries the names of John Milius and Michael Apted in the credits and is shot in Cinecitta, improves vastly on the production values of I, Claudius, though not necessarily on acting and drama. It begins earlier–season one tells of Julius Caesar’s rise and fall from the Battle of Alesia to the Ides of March. Interwoven with the familiar tales of the powerful are the stories of two common legionnaires, which adds an element of surprise to recorded history. Blood flows freely, betrayal, lies, murder and literal backstabbing are as common as dirt, and there’s incest, too. Cleopatra (who doesn’t much resemble Liz Taylor) has only been in an episode or two so far, but I’m sure we’ll see more of the drug-addled conniver when season two starts on January 14. ***

[tags]tv, rome, hbo, 3 stars, history, italy, julius caesar, vercingetorix, cleopatra, michael apted, john milius, blood[/tags]