jürgen fauth’s muckworld

Noah Baumbach can certainly write snappy dialogue that rings true, but after about half an hour, the characters’ limitations and the improbable storyline of his new family drama had me checking my watch. And what’s up with the bleached, underlit look? Marcy is writing the review for About.com; I’ve got more photos from the press conference with Nicole Kidman, Baumbach, Jennifer Jason Leigh, John Turturro, and Jim Hoberman on flickr.

Margot at the Wedding. Noah Baumbach, 2007. **

• Rotten Tomatoes
• The Squid and the Whale
• More from the New York Film Festival
  

“It’s 1183 and we’re barbarians!” proclaims Eleanor of Aquitaine (Katharine Hepburn), and she’s got a point. The infighting between aging Henry II (Peter O’Toole), his jailed queen, and jealous sons vying for the crown (Anthony Hopkins, John Castle, Nigel Terry) is some of the ugliest — and most twisted — I’ve ever seen.

Based on a play by James Goldman, the dialogue reaches levels of viciousness usually reserved for Edward Albee, with many more quotable lines than you can digest on first viewing and acting that should never have lost an Oscar to Oliver! or Charly. Like The Ice Harvest, this movie belongs on our list of Top Ten Christmas Movies for Cynics. With Timothy Dalton as King Philip of France.

The Lion in Winter. Anthony Harvey, 1968. ****

Angelina Jolie plays Mariane Pearl in Michael Winterbottom’s docudrama about the kidnapping and murder of her husband, the journalist Daniel Pearl. After United 93 and several other pointless exercises in dramatizing the “War on Terror,” you might ask: why bother? We all know what happened to Daniel Pearl–what’s the use in rehashing the story? Is the agony of a pregnant widow-to-be really worth sitting through, even if it’s portrayed by an A-list movie star?

Fortunately, Michael Winterbottom, the prolific and versatile talent behind The Road to Guantanomo, 9 Songs, and Tristram Shandy, supplies a convincing answer. As journalists, the Pearls believed that open dialogue would lead to better understanding. Unlike United 93, which was devoid of context and took liberties with known facts, A Mighty Heart, based on Mariane Pearl’s book, constantly refers to events before and after, to people’s motivations, to reasons, arguments, and possible explanations. The film is dedicated to the Pearl’s son Adam, and like the child that never met his father, we have much to gain from a better understanding of the complexities of what happened, and why.

In films like In This World and The Road to Guantanomo, Michael Winterbottom has perfected a semi-documentary style of filmmaking that relies on real locations, small crews, and serendipity to achieve an immediacy that’s rarely seen on the screen. A Mighty Heart was shot in Pakistan, and the presence of Angelina Jolie, in a wig and sans make-up, rarely distracts from the sense that we’re watching real events. From the teeming streets of Karachi, where Daniel (Dan Futterman) is last seen taking a cab to the guarded house where Mariane anxiously awaits his return, the texture of the film is full of impressionistic details that we couldn’t have gathered from the news. For some reason I can’t quite explain, I was especially touched by the way Daniel holds the microphone of his hands-free headset up to his mouth when he speaks to his wife.

The film narrates, from Mariane’s perspective, the days after Daniel’s disappearance on the way to a dicey interview on January 23, 2002 until his death is confirmed nearly a month later. The Pearl house quickly turns into the headquarters for the uneasy alliance of Pakistani and American agencies who are conducting a hectic search, along with journalists and editors from the Wall Street Journal. Emails and documents are searched for clues. A whiteboard fills with a tangled web of contacts, fixers, and mysterious sheiks. Pearl’s Indian colleague Asra (Archie Panjabi) is a accused of being an Indian spy. A chef is brought in to keep pregnant Mariane well-fed. Colin Powell announces that negotiating with terrorists is out of the question for the U.S. government. Suspects are taken into custody and interrogated. Mariane gives an interview on CNN but refuses to cry. A Pakistani toddler plays in the yard, his arms hennaed with curly patterns. The movie’s frantic bustle releases into an explosion of grief when Mariane finds out what we already know.

A Mighty Heart opens next Friday.

A Mighty Heart. Michael Winterbottom, 2007. ****

The trailer:

Dullsville. In Jeff Lipsky’s story of a marriage, talk talk talk does not add up to plot or character. Justin Kirk and Julianne Nicholson play thoroughly unremarkable people doing thoroughly unremarkable things; then they break up. Occasional gestures toward kitchen sink realism are undermined by clumsy, overwritten dialogue that doesn’t go anywhere and leaves us feeling nothing. Who are these people, and who cares? Justin Kirk is wasted; Flannel Pajamas is 124 minutes long.

Flannel Pajamas. Jeff Lipsky, 2006. *

• Very mixed reception on Rotten Tomatoes: 55%
• Andrew O’Hehir adored it

AKA the Danish movie that didn’t win the Oscar. Susanne Bier’s drama about a Dane who runs an orphanage in India but has to return to Copenhagen to ask a wealthy man for money is the kind of tale that loses a lot in the telling, and even more if it’s told in advance. It’s a very good movie, so I won’t spoil it. You’ll have to contend with the director’s statement and four stars:

After the Wedding is a film about secrets. About how you live close together, love each other and how it is being part of a family… And about how you can keep deep and important truths hidden from the people you love without really feeling any shame.

Efter brylluppet. Susanne Bier, 2006. ****

• Official Site

Breezy fun. For anybody with a passing interest in the lives of celebrities, the workings of the entertainment machine, and the conspicuous consumption of women, cars, and multimillion dollar houses formerly owned by Marlon Brando, this show is pure catnip. Over three short seasons, Vince and the boys have slowly revealed a little too much integrity to be entirely believable, but it doesn’t matter: the real star of the show is hopped-up super agent Ari Gold (Jeremy Piven). ***

[tags]tv, hollywood, celebrities, agents, 3 stars, hbo, california, los angeles, comedy, turtle, drama[/tags]

Drama about a teacher in a frustrated marriage (Cate Blanchett) who begins an affair with a 15-year-old student, and the bitter old spinster (Judi Dench) who develops an unhealthy crush on her. It’s all told in the voice of Dench’s journal entries, which provide a cynical counterpoint to the slightly pathetic front she puts on. But whoever wrote this thing (Patrick Marber, based on a novel by Zoe Heller) takes Dench’s character much too far into the schlocky B-movie territory of Fatal Attraction or any number of insane-babysitter movies. We’re left with a very well-acted popcorn flick, ripped, I’m sure, from some headline or other. Opens December 27.

Notes on a Scandal. Richard Eyre, 2006. **

[tags]2 stars, film, drama, england, judi dench, cate blanchett, bill nighy, teachers, kids, affairs, obsession, richard eyre, zoe heller[/tags]

Toni Collette, Marcia Gay Harden, Rose Byrne, Mary Beth Hurt and finally Brittany Murphy are the main characters in interconnected episodes surrounding a murder that play like high quality short stories. I’m too swamped to say anything else right now, but I have a feeling this movie will be talked about for a while. Opens December 29.

The Dead Girl. Karen Moncrieff, 2006. ****

[tags]toni collette, marcia gay harden, rose byrne, mary beth hurt, brittany murphy, karen moncrieff, piper laurie, giovanni ribisi, james franco, mary steenburgen, kerry washington, film, murder, short stories, 4 stars, drama, episodes[/tags]