DVD slight return

Paramount Pictures releases classics from their archives under the banner Centennial Collection. The transfers are beautiful to look at and although each set comes with two discs most of the abundant extras are nominal. Regardless if you consider yourself a movie maven these are films you should have on list of movies to see at least once.
The story of two divorced men who despite being total opposites become roommates The Odd Couple remains Neil Simon's best play. TOC starts out dark with Felix about to kill himself. The direction of Gene Saks is pedestrian but the self loathing of Simon's play comes through albeit theatrically. The television show jettisoned the shadow areas although it kept the Neal Hefti movie theme. Both Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau have died but the extras include commentary from their respective sons Chris and Charlie. Their thoughts and memories are inviting especially to fans of those actors.
Even though it's 56 years old (That's nothing, Guiness is 250 years old.) Roman Holiday was shot using the box aspect ratio. Made during the transition from square movies to long rectangular movies RH has to be the single best film to launch a star. Even next to on-location Rome scenery Audrey Hepburn steals the show with a performance that won an Oscar for lead actress in her first film. Gregory Peck is a cad although he has the film's best character arc since he realizes what a dick he's been and tries to change. Verily, the 1950s was the last decade when being an actual princess was relevant to the way people lived and Hepburn makes her idyllic Princess and the Pauper routine work even when the film insists on make believe situations. Extras include a lengthy docu of films Hepburn made at Paramount.
Speaking of princesses, Grace Kelly became the princess of Monaco but only after meeting her future husband while shooting To Catch A Thief. The color photography won an Oscar but that wasn't hard with Vistavision and the French Riviera, fireworks and twisty mountain roads. The young femme and older man (Cary Grant) romance actually works here in a manner that doesn't jive with similar relations in contemporary films. "The cat has a new kitten," Kelly warns Grant referring to his character's pasttime as a high wire jewel thief. One extra that was particularly insightful takes viewers to locations in France where select scenes were lensed.

Paris 36

Paris 36 (Faubourg 36) presents a sweeping vision of 1930s Paris, set in a music hall but encompassing the social and political change taking place between the have and the have nots. The film by writer/director Christophe Barratier varies in tone, for instance juxtaposing scenes of workers having an attempted strike thwarted with violence with the lyricism of putting on a musical revue.
Pars 36 starts with defeated old man Pigoil (Gérard Jugnot) confessing to police about a shooting death and then flashes back to the beginning of the story. Pigoil's wife has left him taking their child. All of them perform or work for the Chansonia. As the story proceeds the Chansonia has shuttered its doors, an event fueled by cruel well-dressed businessman Galapiat (Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu) who's just purchased the entertainment palace with plans to tear down and rebuild. Galapiat also wields political power and is in fact the man behind the union busters. In one of Paris 36's more dramatic scenes Galapiat's political connections tell him to lay off the violence before they can provide any quid pro quo for his campaign contributions.
Enter charming chanteuse Douce (Nora Arnezeder) who becomes the object of everyone's affection, from the corrupt bosses to the stage hands. Paris 36 works best when emphasizing the musical angle. The drama portion involving labor agitators and attempts by the actors to pursue other avenues of employment don't exactly lead to dead ends yet seem at odds with the do-it-yourself theater silliness going on down the street.
Paris 36 never overstays its welcome however, especially towards the end as the story comes full circle and the homicide seen at the start is giving full explanation. Tech credits are superb. Many times Paris 36 sparks a scene with spectacular establishing shots of the Chansonia and its relation to Paris. The musical interludes are always engaging. Paris 36 is playing exclusively at the River Oaks Three.

Houston Film Festival Resource

A few film festivals will commence in Houston starting this week. In a sense film festival attract different movie goers than general release studio films. In some cases there are the genre and agitprop issues. Several North American cities host a Gay/Lesbian FF or a Polish FF or a Jewish FF all programming the same film traveling films.
In April the Worldfest Houston, the Houston Palestine Film Festival and the Latin New Wave at the MFA will offer audiences diverse points of view and unforgettable cinematic excursions into mostly unseen territory.
Worldfest Houston spins at the AMC Studio 30 and features appearances by Patricia Neal as well as new films from Harrod Blank (art car documentary) and cartoonist Bill Plympton. The festival unwinds from April 17 - 26 and frankly this is one of the best lineups Hunter Todd (festival head honcho) has offered in years. Pat Neal is a screen legend and will always be remembered as the stoic femme from the original The Day the Earth Stood Still.
The Houston Palestine Film Festival shows current feature films and shorts from the Middle East over the next two weekends at the Rice Media Center with an opening Thursday, April 16 at the El Dorado Ballroom at 2310 Elgin. Free Press Houston will host the closing night feature Pomegranates and Myrrh with director Mahdi Fleifel in attendance at the RMC (April 25, 7 pm.).
The Latin Wave showcases important films unspooling nine Latin American features over the April 30 - May 3 weekend (Thursday through Sunday). Screenings take place at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. In many cases the director will be present. These films cover many riveting releases from various countries in the Americas that otherwise would be missed.

Everlasting Moments

Everlasting Moments wash over the viewer with warm sepia images in this Swedish import from master filmmaker Jan Troell. The story spans a generation, set in turn of the 20th century working class Sweden and chronicling a long suffering wife Maria and her brutish husband Sigfrid along with their ever growing family. Everlasting Moments takes in marital and labor strife and incorporates events like WWI into the mix.
The movie offers more than just an epic take on poverty and social upheaval though by making a camera that Maria wins in a lottery an essential part of the plot. It becomes apparent that photography has not infiltrated the everyday way of life especially for Maria's class like it has in modern times. Part of the film's conflict comes from Maria becoming unsettled at the way photos provoke emotional reactions. For the people of this time their memories are recorded in words or passed down as spoken family myths. It's almost too much for Maria to have the hard copy in her hand, whether it's picture of the pet cat, a moth against a window pane or her other neighbors. The Swedish title of the film is Maria Larssons eviga ögonblic or Maria Marsson's Everlasting Moments.
Just as the photograph seems to cement an image in time so is Maria's life bound by tradition. Despite herself being a teetotaler Sigfrid goes on wild drunk benders. The film gives Sigfrid some warm traits such as his devotion to horses but his home demeanor is marked by abuse and cheating. Maria begs her father to let her absolve the marriage but dear old dad (practically on his deathbed) tells Maria she must submit for the sake of her soul. Somehow Sigfrid exhibits such son of a bitch tendencies you want him to get killed in WWI, but he only gets fat on extra rations.
Troell works hands-on performing many duties on his films (cinematogrpahy, writer, director) and his guiding hand provides Everlasting Moments with thematic continuity. The changes in society are mirrored in Maria's own fortunes. Not enough of Troell's films get distributed domestically, in fact his last salvo was in the eartly 70s with The Emmigrants and The New Land, both highly lauded films.
Early on Maria takes her camera to sell to a photo studio run by the amusing and sincere Pedersen (aka Piff Paff Puff, played by Jesper Christensen who played Mr. White in the current James Bond series). Rather than buy the box Pedersen offer Maria lessons and sets her on the path of becoming a documentarian of her world. It's through this skill that Maria is able to make money for her family when Sigfrid does prison time for trying to kill her. The relation between Pedersen and Maria comes full circle in the third act although not in the way one might expect. A fully accomplished cinema experience, Everlasting Moments gives all its characters a rich emotional arc and makes a simpler era come alive even while eluding to our current obsession with collecting images.

Fast and Furious

Fast and Furious, the fourth of a series that stated with 2001's The Fast and the Furious may be a box office champ but it's a chump action flick with plot holes a mile wide. Even a routine Jason Statham starrer like the Transporter films has F&F beat for excitement chops. Fast and Furious represents the triumph of marketing over content, what with the original cast - Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Michelle Rodriguez and Jordanna Brewster - reunited in what actually turns out to be the single high profile film that any of them has made in years.
Diesel has had his share of flops like the Riddick thing and the botched version of Babylon A.D. while Walker has perhaps been the most fortunate getting by on his surfer dude looks with leading roles in mostly bland films. The main exception is that Walker has managed to appear in some very cool films over the years like Pleasantville, Running Scared or Joy Ride while Diesel gets no traction when he tries to actually act as in Lumet's underrated Find Me Guilty. Brewster and Rodriguez would otherwise be forgotten save for their association with F&F.
Director Justin Lin (also helmed the third installment Tokyo Drift) rushes through exposition scenes that work in films with good directors. Explain how something like Miami Vice directed by Michael Mann can actually be enjoyable and make sense with the same plot details (busting a drug smuggling cartel). Lin doesn't seem to care if Fast and Furious makes sense from an action choreography point of view and he hardly even finds time to fetishize the cars, the main ingredient on display. Car races start and stop without any real feel for the mean streets on which they thread. Lin wastes too much time with GPS graphics combined with studio shots of the drivers that do nothing more than push in on the actor while the car sways on a gimbal.
F&F starts out with Diesel and Rodriguez hijacking a gas tanker in the Dominican Republic. You've never seen a tanker this long and you've never witnessed the ease with which the furious ones leap from speeding cars to the top of the tanker. After this useless sequence the action shifts to L.A. and Diesel hooking up with his sis (Brewster). Walker, currently with the FBI in L.A. gets wind of Vin and enlists him to help bring down a drug kingpin he's been investigating.
There's a chase through a US/Mexico border tunnel that's just ridiculous even in comparison to what's come before. There's barely enough room to stand in the tunnel yet when the action warrants a car will flip over and explode without impacting the other cars in queue. This part of F&F plays so much like a video game that one character can be heard saying "Game over."
Fast and Furious was not made for a demanding audience. Anyone seeking true muscle car momentum should find a copy of Breaking Point or Bullitt or more recently Deathproof. The only place F&F will win a race is for bad sequels.