The Third Annual Havasu Film Festival, part two

This is a continuation of the previous post. I recommend you read them all in order.

7. The American

Starring George Clooney

Directed by Anton Corbijn

released: 2010

 Our Celebrity Guest Viewer was here for the showing of this movie, but consensus was no less attainable for that: we all agreed with Sherry's assessment that the movie spent a great deal of money on eyedrops, because the performers did so much staring: either at each other, or off into space. The film is an hour and forty-five minutes, consisting of a few shootings and one chase through a charming Italian hillside town, plus about seventeen minutes of dialogue. The rest of the time, the camera watches somebody stare.

 That is, of course, an exaggeration, but it does capture the mood of the film, which may be described as pensive or suspenseful but is really just slow. Very slow. 

 It begins promisingly with "Jack" (George Clooney) and a pretty girl relaxing in post-coital bliss in a remote Swedish cabin. They go for a walk and discover tracks in the snow. Jack pulls out a gun and starts hunting snipers. ("You have a gun?" says the girl.) Jack shoots a guy, then tells the girl to go call the police. When she, dazed and confused, finally turns to go, Jack shoots her in the back of the head. Why? It's never explained, and the four of us came up with three unsatisfactory explanations. Then Jack hunts down another shooter before disappearing into the crowds of Paris, where his employer or whatever tells him to lie low in Italy. The rest of the movie is concerned with Jack's growing ambivalence about his career choices. We watch him mull things.

 The American is very nicely photographed and edited, and the performances are for the most part capably done, with a special shout-out to Paolo Bonacelli as the town's priest. He deserved better lines. When Jack grabs a scooter and chases down another would-be assassin, we feel hope that things will pick up; they don't. When Jack meets a gun-buying customer in a restaurant, we think there'll be some action now, boy! There isn't. And when Jack proves that brain beats brawn in the penultimate shooting of the film, we are surprised, but then we knew it'd happen like that, because, you know, Jack is the Good Guy here and it has to. And then comes the final shootout of the movie, between the Good Guy and the Bad Guy. Nobody wins.

 

 I feel like I should say more, but there's really nothing else to say.

8. Becoming Jane

Starring Anne Hathaway and James McAvoy

Directed by Julian Jarrold

Released: 2007

 I suspect this film was chosen for the Third Annual Havasu Film Festival because it includes a small-ish though vital performance by Maggie Smith as the crusty Lady Gresham, who believes herself entitled to order a preacher's daughter to marry her heir. She has maybe three scenes in the film; it is possible to watch this beautiful movie from start to finish, admiring the glorious countryside (it was shot in Ireland, re-labeled as England), the elegant costumes and props and manners, the clever dialogue and the magnificent script, and remember only Maggie Smith's bitchy character informing Reverend Austen that she will not be attending church that day. 

 Maggie Smith is undeniably that good, but the film is about the relationship between the two main characters. Anne Hathaway (an American! Horrors!) and James McAvoy (a Scot playing an Irishman ... well, that's okay, apparently. He is known for his skill with accents.) portray Jane Austen and Tom leFroy, both real people. She's becoming the world-famous author, he's becoming a successful lawyer. They meet and fall in love. (History does not record most details of Jane Austen's private life, so this stuff is all made up. Go with it.) You really don't need to be told more than that. One of the nice things about our factual ignorance of what went on in Jane Austen's life when scholars weren't looking is that we can make her anything we want to. The makers of this film wanted to make her a hero for 21st-Century romantics, and they have succeeded. As a romantic myself (though really more of a 20th-Century version), I recommend this movie.

 

9. Notes on a Scandal

Starring Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett

Directed by Richard Eyre

Released: 2007

 

 Which is worse: an attractive thirty-something teacher who cheats on her older husband with a fifteen-year-old student, or the wizened old crone who blackmails her about it? The woman who is driven to madness, or the madwoman who pushes her down that road?

 In this case, the wizened old crone is Barbara, played by Judi Dench, a grumpy history teacher at an English school who has lost patience with newfangled methods and soft post-modern jargon. She has not a kind word to say about anyone or anything, and leaves no thought unexpressed, even if it's only expressed in her diary. She starts off criticizing, in voice-over, Sheba, the new arts teacher, played by Cate Blanchett. At first she seems only judgmental, a kind of crochety grandmother who, one suspects, has a lining of silver in the storm cloud of her thoughts. But after Sheba demonstrates a willingness to be friendly, Barbara latches onto her and attempts to supplant the younger woman's own family in her affections. She becomes the increasingly demanding friend who won't go away. 

 

 But once the old woman witnesses the arts teacher's indiscretion with a student, she realizes the hold she has over the younger woman. Her view of their relationship takes on an increasingly creepy cast, and we begin to feel a relative sympathy for Sheba, despite the culture of moral outrage that we feel bound to apply to her actions. Is Barbara jealous, and if so, is she jealous of Sheba's attractiveness or of her happiness? Does she want Sheba as a friend, a companion, or a lover? In the end, the two women destroy each other and I doubt that anyone would admit to feeling either's destruction is undeserved. We are voyeurs of the process; it's thrilling to watch through their windows and see how it's done.

 

 

 10. American Animals

Starring Evan Peters, Barry Keoghan, Blake Jenner and Jared Abrahamson
Directed by Bart Layton

released 2018

 The most remarkable thing about this "true-crime thriller" is that all four of the people who actually attempted the real-world heist came on camera to talk aboout their view of the scheme. They don't agree on the details, but the film handles the disagreements with shrewd juxtapositions, leaving the viewer to decide (a) if the variances matter, and (b) who's probably telling the truth. 

 The heist involves the theft of millions of dollars' worth of rare books from a Kentucky university library. We watch the conspiracy progress from wild idea to careful scheme, then watch it disintegrate into a briefly-successful farce. I felt no sympathy for any of the bone-headed conspirators: not the art student who let himself get sucked into a harebrained scheme; not the stoner student athlete who is the driver of the scheme; not the fastidious young man who is willing to help as long as he doesn't have to actually do anything; not the straight-laced young man who is recruited as a getaway driver. 

 As one of the real-world thieves puts it, "I was torn between the desire to keep the adventure going and waiting for the insurmountable obstacle that would stop everything in its tracks and return things to normal." But the obstacle never arrives: each difficulty is dealt with by these halfwits in what seems to them a logical way. The scheme comes together, and in the end they believe they can actually accomplish their heist. The movie chronicles the development of their plan and their ludicrous attempt to execute it. The result is a kind of testosterone-fuelled farce, entertaining on one level, laughable on another.

 

11. All is Bright

Starring Paul Giamatti and Paul Rudd

Directed by Phil Morrison

Released: 2013

 Dennis has just been paroled from prison in Canada after four years. He arrives home to learn that his wife told their daughter he was dead. "I just couldn't take it anymore," she explains. She expects to marry René as soon as he gets a divorce. 

 In this black comedy, Dennis (Paul Giamatti) and René (Paul Rudd) go off to make their fortune, such as it is, legally by selling a truckload of Christmas trees in New York City. Unlikely colleagues, they endure adversity -- often of their own making -- and find a sort of resolution in a most unlikely way. 

 I enjoy movies where characters show real growth; this is one such film. Interesting, even amusing at times, but not funny. And even though Giamatti tends to get on my nerves as an actor -- I don't know why, he just does; it's something to do with the shape of his face -- and I find René's reactions not really credible all the time, I would recommend this movie as a nice little Christmas film if you don't really want a Miracle on 34th Street kind of vibe.

12. Allied

Starring Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard

Directed by Robert Zemeckis

Released: 2017

 A love story set in Britain in World War II. Pitt plays Max Vaten, a Canadian officer who speaks French, albeit with a Quebecois accent. Sent to Casablanca as a spy after the fall of France, he is assigned to play the husband of Marianne Beauséjour, a Resistance agent there (Marion Cotillard). They fall in love while accomplishing their assignment (try not to think about the likelihood of such an arrangement in real life), and Max succeeds in getting Marianne back to London, where they marry and start a family in north London. 

 Difficulties arise. Information has been received indicating that the real Beauséjour was killed some time before in France, and a substitute put in her place. Max is called in to be informed, and instructed about how to behave while the authorities execute a plan to make a definitive determination. The scene where these instructions are delivered seems raw and out of place, as though Pitt never got to rehearse it; as though it was written, or re-written, just before being filmed. In any case, starting with that scene, Max demonstrates phenomenally bad judgment at every opportunity, gets one courier killed, royally fucks up another courier drop for his own purposes, endangers a number of French operatives in the process (and implicitly kills a number of unseen French girls as well), and tries to steal a British airplane. Just before that, we learn that his wife's judgment is every bit as bad as his own. 

 This movie is just over two hours long. There is plenty of action throughout, and I enjoyed the portrayal of that era, as always. I also enjoyed the twists of the plot to some extent, but I have to admit that the set-up phase of the story took way longer than necessary. It seems to me it could have been done in ten or twelve minutes, but was given 46: long enough for me to start noticing the flaws in the story. It would, I think, have been better to devote most of that time to building the characters, including supporting characters, in the part of the story that takes place in London. Or they could have devoted more time to the two tasteful sex scenes. I spent the first one wondering how anyone could have accomplished that in the tiny little coupe they were driving. The second was less distracting and all too brief.

13. Hook

Starring Robin Williams, Dustin Hoffman, Julia Roberts and Bob Hoskins

Directed by Steven Spielberg

Released:1991

 When Maggie Smith died, most of the tributes I found on the web site Imgur.com referenced her role in this film, so it's no wonder I was surprised to discover that it's a small part, bookends really: a couple of scenes near the start, then one at the end. She does it very well, of course, made up to look much older than her actual age at the time, but considering the breadth of her career, this was hardly a major performance by her. 

 And more surprising to me, it wasn't a great performance by Robin Williams. He is at his best when he goes off the leash, ad-libbing and extemporizing while others stand around and admire the talent. He didn't do that at all in this movie, and the result is a kind of flat, whine-y performance as Peter Banning, né Pan, rediscovering his heritage.

 Dustin Hoffman is much more the consummate performer as Hook. His kiddie-film villain is right on the mark. Is he scary to little kids? If he is, he can't be too scary. He's a fun villian.

 The real surprise is that Spielberg could produce such a sadly dated movie. I suspect that people who came of age in the 90s -- people who post on Imgur.com, I guess -- look on this bit of fluff as a seminal influence in their development, much as I see the British Invasion or The Graduate. (I've tried to think of some kiddie film from the mid-to-late 60s for comparison, but nothing comes to mind; I must not have had a childhood.) Hook is full of giant cellphones and skateboards, and Never-Neverland is done in those awful primary-color palettes. How was this movie nominated for Best Visual Effects? It must've been just on the strength of the names associated with it, because the reality was unimpressive so long after Star Wars Episode Four.

The Third Annual Havasu Film Festival

 The Mojave County Library now allows borrowers to take out fourteen videos at a time, but still only for a week. I'm here for about three weeks all told: first with my wife and her sister, then by myself; and we'll have a special guest juror for a small part of the time, as my former law partner Curtis is scheduled for a brief visit or two over the weekend(s). Naturally, as the sole author of this blog, I'm also the sole arbiter of film quality as reflected in the following reviews. I welcome the others' opinions, but don't promise to be swayed by them. You, dear reader, deserve the full righteousness of my own views on each film.

 I doubt that we will get through all the videos that we've checked out this first week. I got ten myself, using my tried-and-true method of picking a shelf at random and taking the first ten movies that sounded interesting from the blurbs on the jackets. I had heard of (and, in fact, seen) one of them before. My wife took five or six, but hers include at least two television series videos, which are ineligible for inclusion in the film festival report. Nancy got seven or eight. Our choices for actual viewing are sort of random, and the reviews reflect that random order, rather than any kind of merit.

1. The Song of Names

Starring Tim Roth and Clive Owen

Directed by François Girard

released: 2020

 

 This movie takes place in two times: 1951 and 1986. David Rapoport is a violin prodigy brought to London from Warsaw just before World War II begins; his father leaves him in the care of the Simmons family, who promise to do their best to develop Rapoport's musical skills. The father goes back to the rest of his family in Poland, and they disappear during the war. 

 Meanwhile, true to his word, Mr Simmons has done all he could for young David, including keeping the boy true to Jewish culture despite not being Jewish himself. Simmons' son, whom David calls Mottl, has become David's best friend.

 At the start of the film, Simmons has arranged a grand concert for David on the strength of a well-received recording of the young man's playing. Simmons, unwisely, has not insured the concert ("I didn't think I need to.") and when David fails to show up for the event, Simmons loses everything. Two months later he is dead. His son Mottl ends up being a music instructor in Newcastle. Thirty-five years later, by chance, he witnesses an idiosyncrasy of David's being performed by another music student. This starts him along the path of tracking down David, to find out what happened to keep him from appearing at his big concert.

 The drama of the story is wrapped up in the Holocaust and the sense of Jewish identity. David is an arrogant prick, and acts like it. Mottl tracks him down through 1980s London, Warsaw and New York to find out what happened, then sets up another concert for David as some kind of compensation to make everything better. 

 It's kind of hard, considering current political events, to keep from letting my view of this film be coloured, now that the State of Israel has lost all claim to any kind of moral high ground. (I'm not going to get into any arguments about whether it really ever had any such claims; suffice it to say that, growing up, I believed it did.) But by focusing on the Jews of London in 1951, I can appreciate the horrors they survived and the efforts they made to rebuild their society and culture. In that way, I can understand David's journey from the Simmons household to the final scene of the film. It is, in some respects, a sad journey, and his resolution is valid. But he's still an arrogant prick, and he still acts like it. He didn't deserve Mottl's friendship, and he doesn't really deserve our sympathy or respect as film viewers. 

2. Fantastic Mr. Fox

Animated; starring the voices of George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray and Owen Wilson

Directed by Wes Anderson

released: 2010

 

 My wife had this puppet show on some list she keeps of films that pique her interest. Having now seen it, she is unable to speculate on why it ever made it onto that list. Maybe it was because it's based on a book by Roald Dahl, about whom people tend to say nice things. At least she and I both got short naps during the film, which is intentionally so low-key as to be thoroughly boring.

3. All is True

Starring Kenneth Branagh and Judi Dench

Directed by Kenneth Branagh

released: 2019

 This was the one film that I had seen before, when it was in first run. I remembered it as an elegant film with a moving story. That's pretty much all I remembered about it.

 I was right about that, though it wasn't the tour de force that I recalled from five years ago. The cinematography is glorious, and the performances are superb, as one would expect from two of the English-speaking world's greatest actors (not to mention Ian McKellen, who plays the Earl of Southampton in one outstanding scene, wherein his character manages to lift Shakespeare up and put him down at the same time). 

 The story concerns the final three years of Shakespeare's life, after his theater has burned down in a performance of what would be his last play. He goes home to Stratford Upon Avon to take up the frayed threads of his family life, learning what lies he has been allowed to believe in his absence. The events recounted in the film are fictional (not much is known about what really happened, despite four hundred years of intense academic speculation) but they make for a coherent tale in Ben Elton's script. The references to truth -- "All is true"; "Nothing is true" -- come fairly thick in the film, keeping that theme front and center in the viewer's mind, but in the end you can believe either that nothing is true, or that all is, in fact, true. And the gentle pacing of the film (which I would not call "slow") gives you time to consider the idea as you watch it unfold.

 The single most enjoyable moment in the film is when Shakespeare turns on the local self-important snob and puts him down in a truly Shakespearean speech.

4. Along Came Polly

Starring Ben Stiller and Jennifer Aniston

Directed by John Hamburg

released: 2004

 The movie stars a ferret. That should be enough said. 

 Well, not really. Of course I picked this movie because it has Jennifer Aniston in it, so I was bound to like at least something about it. And I did. And not just her.

 The plot is entirely predictable, the jokes are somewhat tired, and what little character development there is goes exactly the way you would expect it to. Yet overall the movie is a modestly entertaining little romantic comedy. Ben Stiller plays Reuben, a tightass risk-assessment analyst who gets married to Lisa, played by Debra Messing. She betrays him on their honeymoon, whereupon he returns alone to New York to hang out with his moronic best friend Stan, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman. They go to a party, where Reuben meets Polly, his polar opposite, played by Jennifer Aniston. 

 Opposites attract, I hear. Boy meets girl; boy wins girl; boy loses girl; boy wins girl back and they live happily ever after. Is it really possible to spoil the ending of a movie like this? Short answer: No. None of the big-name stars (who include Alec Baldwin, Hank Azaria, Michelle Lee and Kevin Hart in small roles) is doing, or even attempting, their best work in this fluffy little film full of fart jokes, but it works on the level of a second date. It's good enough. And you get to see Jennifer Aniston salsa dancing. Did I mention she was in this?

 Oh, and by the way, the ferret is named Rodolfo and this is his first film role. He nails it.

5. The Miracle Club

Starring Laura Linney, Kathy Bates and Maggie Smith

Directed by Thaddeus O'Sullivan

released: 2023

 

 Maggie Smith died last week; her final film was this quiet little movie about three women who travel to Lourdes from Ireland in the 1960s. None of them is looking for a miracle in the physical sense, but they find one in the guise of reconciliation. They have an unpleasant history with each other that gets worked out -- rather easily, if you ask me -- by saying the things they perhaps should have said to each other forty years before, when Linney's character was involved with Smith's character's son, who died young. Bates's character seems to have been, at least in part, the catalyst for the group's falling out.

 Having never been to Lourdes myself, and having apparently never even seen pictures of the basilica there, I was a little surprised at how beautiful a place it was. But it's a distraction, really, from what I see as the real meaning of the film, which is encapsulated literally and metaphorically by a single word unexpectedly spoken in a whisper near the end of the movie. I won't spoil the ending by telling you what the word is or who says it, but will just say that all three starring actors, and several others, gave performances that make this slightly-too-cute film an enjoyable way to pass a couple of quiet hours at home.

6. Quartet

Starring Tom Courtenay, Billy Connolly, Pauline Collins and Maggie Smith

Directed by Dustin Hoffman

released: 2013

 

 Every now and then one comes to a film or tv show that seems to have as its main purpose the employment of old-time actors who have fallen out of favour. I'm thinking Murder, She Wrote; Matlock; and Diagnosis: Murder and any number of small movies aimed at the older generations. Younger people who stumble across these shows will ask "Who's that?", and their parents will be shocked by their children's ignorance of such huge stars and accomplished performers. It is the way of things. (It works the same in reverse, of course, which is why old folks tend to cancel their subscriptions to People. I can't tell you how long it was before I figured out that Lady Gaga is not a country-and-western group; and I'm still not sure what a Dua Lipa is.)

 

 This is one of those movies; and since it is thoroughly British, there's another layer of obscurity to factor in. I know who Maggie Smith is, of course, and I'm sure I've seen the rest of this film's stars in something or other over my lifetime, even if I wouldn't call them Big Names. (Well, except for Michael Gambon, who plays the pompous retired director; he did something in the Harry Potter series before he died, and so is almost as big a name as Ms Smith.) They've probably all been in Midsomer Murders or something like that.

 Anyway, all these people play retired musicians -- opera folk, mostly, but with a sprinkling of less highbrow backgrounds thrown in -- living in a fancy retirement home in the English countryside. Money for the retirement home's operations is running short, so the residents are putting on a fundraising show. (Mickey Rooney died before this film was made, and anyway he's not a musician. Or British. Although he could sing....) Into the bubbling cauldron of jealousy, rivalry and friendship a new personality is injected, as the retirement home welcomes a Great Star whose identity has been kept secret pending arrival. 

 

 Let me be honest: like in The Miracle Club, above, the great tragic consequences of a lifetime of snubs and betrayals get resolved rather too easily in Quartet, but that doesn't mean the film's not enjoyable, even moving in its storytelling. And because these are all huge stars and accomplished performers (presumably) they play off each other, inspiring each other to give the film their best. It is, on a human level, quite a good movie. And while we got the DVD to see Maggie Smith, I have to say that Pauline Collins as Cissy gave what I think is the best performance in the movie.

The Third Annual Havasu Film Festival will continue in the next post. I don't want it to get too long for 21st-Century readers.