Cheri

There's a type of filmmaking where you take the viewer through a tumultuous landscape of life and love yet only reveal the full scope, the end result if you will, of the protagonist's life in the film's closing seconds. Truffaut did this in many of his films, Wes Anderson did it at the end of The Royal Tenenbaums. Cheri, the latest film from Stephen Frears, accomplishes this subtle hat trick.
Someone mentioned The Queen (Frears' previous and widely lauded film) when I was discussing Cheri after having first seen it. I've always liked Frears and his sense of the working class in films like Liam or Dirty Pretty Things or High Fidelity, just to concentrate on films he's made in the last ten years. I liked The Queen but rate it low on the scale of Frears flicks.
Cheri, adapted from two novels by Colette, slyly observes the closing act of a fin de cycle Parisian whore. Set at the close of the 19th century and segueing into the early years of the 20th century allows Frears to comment on the end of a way of genteel life as the advent of the first World War evens out the classes. The script reunites Frears with his Dangerous Liaisons scribe Christopher Hampton and star Michelle Pfeiffer who plays Lea de Lonval.
Pfeiffer puts all of her talent on display for this character. After all it's not like she's highly visible nowadays. Her last starring role went straight to DVD (I Could Never Be Your Woman with Paul Rudd). de Lonval demands a mature, 50-ish woman in a role that doesn't require her to be stalked or involved in a nonsensical romance. There's romance to be sure but it's bittersweet.
Pfeiffer against her better judgement becomes involved with Cheri (Rupert Friend) the son of a fellow courtesan (Kathy Bates). The film charts their affair over a period of years and the effect it has on all involved. Cheri is witty, wise and as previously mentioned bittersweet because despite all the trappings of high society the love affair we observe has a poignant and real arc. There's a lot of passion on display and when that's gone it leaves an empty place in Lonval's heart that will resonate with the audience.

Food, Inc.

You are what you eat takes on a whole new paradigm with the documentary Food, Inc. Some facets of Fast Food Nation are reintroduced while the bulk of the film charts the modern transformation of the farm and that effect on American culture. Towards the end was a slight pedantic tone to the message but overall the docu reverberates with facts that cannot be denied.
The food we eat has been transformed by pesticides, additives and preservatives, and also genetically modified to the point that it’s not the same sustenance that nurtured people before the WWII era. Statistics on the number of items in grocery stores are simply mind-boggling. The film touches on the Montsanto effect of genetically altered corn and the resulting legal battles that have ensued. I felt that this point alone was so dense with information that it begged for a separate documentary only on that subject.
The agrarian America imagery used to sell food doesn’t really exist anymore. According to Food, Inc. in the 1970s the top five beef packers accounted for 25% of the product while today the top four beef packers control over 80% of the market. The typical hamburger you eat may be composed from over 1000 cows plus whatever chemicals have been used to purify the hamburger meat. Similarly through applied science the same acreage that bore 20 bushels of corn a couple of generations ago now yields 200 bushels.
Here’s a list of items that contain corn: high fructose corn sugar, cellulose, calcium stearate, ethyl lactate, maltodextrin, saccharin, xanthan gum, sorbital, gluten, sucrose, ethel acetate, citrus cloud emulsion, citric acid, absorbic acid, baking powder, di-glycerides, starch, there are others. I’m not even sure what this all means but the graphics in Food, Inc. give the corn byproducts prominent contrast.
Food, Inc. is an indictment of the food industry and its methods. Who needs to eat green tomatoes sprayed with ethylene gas so they will ripen while being shipped to market? Tomatoes can be ripened naturally by placing them next to bananas that give off ethylene. So who’s to say at what point harm enters the equation?
The film bounces back and forth from clever evidence to not so clever facts. The contrast between a corporate chicken farm and a free-range chicken operation could be Food, Inc.’s most eloquent allegory. But showing a poor family grappling over whether to spend a dollar on a stalk of broccoli or a fast food hamburger only panders to stereotypes. Another incident concerning a mother whose child died due to e-coli poisoning brings more personal feeling to the fore.
For the most part Food, Inc. separates the wheat from the chaff. Food, Inc. doesn’t advocate becoming a vegetarian for instance. When showing sensible methods of food production side by side with despicable quality control from corporate behemoths this film by Robert Kenner makes its best case. The food industry will ultimately have to change but as Food, Inc. implies so must the consumer.

The Stoning of Soraya M.

I have seen worse films this year than The Stoning of Soraya M. but then again I have watched almost 150 films to date so statistically some of them would have to be duds. Soraya isn't bad in the way that say Management (a straight to DVD title that will get a brief theatrical run at a single theater because it has two stars that somebody somewhere wanted to bang) is, nor is it bad in the sense that product like Wolverine unwinds as pure Hollywood crap.
The Stoning of Soraya M. is terrible because the director wanted to make a horror film but used his limited talent to instead make a film that combines islamic fascism with the sordid tale of a murder in a tiny rural community and tries to spin it with politically correct airs by making the entire affair look like it's all about women's issues. The film is simply a hodgepodge of agitprop posing as an art film. Unlike most films that I consider badly made The Stoning of Soraya M. contains stimulating performances and solid ideas that you may not be able to shake from your head.
We witness a cruel patriarchal punishment in a tiny Iranian village. Although the actual incident happened in the 1980s the story unfolds as though set in the present day. A traveling journalist (Jim Caviezel with a convincing French accent) awaits his auto repair after breaking down in the middle of nowhere. During his stay the village crazy lady (Shohreh Aghdashloo on an emotional roll) corners him and tells of a crime that's been covered up. Obviously she's not so crazy after all. A woman's husband wants a divorce so he accuses her of adultery which means the woman will be stoned to death.
Are you telling me that this same story could happen today in Iran? This was over 20 years ago. It was about ten years ago that a black man was chained to a pick-up and drug to death in East Texas. But a colleague informs me that "as recently as earlier this year a man was stoned to death for adultry
in the northern city of Rasht, Iran."
Soraya's story is related in a flashback. The director wants to show us the entire ritual. The woman has her hands bound to her side and she's buried up to her waist in the ground. The stoning goes on forever and if that's not long enough the director throws in bad slow motion. (When I specify bad slo-mo I mean motion that looks shutter adjusted like a video effect rather than classic high frame, highly lit camera slo-mo.) The Passion of the Christ had a lot of bloodletting but that was a well made film. Somewhere during Soraya's execution all I could think of was, okay the film is going to show this woman dying all the way to the end, and then we still have to wrap up the bracketing story of Caviezel getting his car fixed.
If anything grabbed my interest in the film it was the setting, small stone buildings surrounded by rocky desert. Although the context is modern the setting felt like the characters were still trapped in the primitive ways of their ancient surrounding. The Stoning of Soraya M. will inspire as many interpretations as there are fanatical political viewpoints.

DVD: Lennon & Plastic Ono Band

The year 1969 saw the first appearance of solo Beatle John Lennon with the Plastic Ono Band. Seemingly on a lark Lennon along with Yoko Ono, and Klaus Voorman, Eric Clapton and Alan White boarded a plane from London to Toronto to play in a festival that revolved around 50s rock icons. Only then Bo Diddley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard and Chuck Berry weren’t legends so much as overlooked musicians having a second coming.
The resulting film, shot by D. A. Pennebaker, was the only footage of Lennon with this band. (Beatle acolytes know that Alan White was used by George Martin to replace Ringo Starr on an early Beatles single.) After brief segments featuring the revival bands Lennon and the Plastic Ono band take the stage with a raw intensity.
Lennon rips through songs like “Yer Blues” and debuts “Cold Turkey.” The band is tight even when Yoko emerges from a black bag and begins vocal chanting over the rock and roll. The stage is small and the coverage is in your face, which fits the electric mood precisely.
Lennon hadn’t played live in three years and was obviously ready to bust loose. John Lennon & The Plastic Ono Band Live in Toronto ’69 on a single DVD released by Shout! Factory captures that magic and energy in its manic glory.

Woodstock Director's Cut on DVD

August marks the 40th anniversary of the Woodstock music festival an event that left an indelible mark. Three bright days of love and peace may have dimmed with the current reality of what the 60s really entailed (assassination on a scale never seen before or after, a protracted unpopular war) but rock concerts have never been the same. Later this summer an Ang Lee film, Taking Woodstock, presents its own version of the festival although centering on characters in the nearby town and not the actual concert. Some of the magic still hovers in the air.
Warner Brothers won’t be re-releasing the 1970 concert film theatrically but it’s safe bet that a three-hour documentary would go unnoticed by today’s short attention span theater crowd. Fortunately however Woodstock has been released on DVD in a director’s cut that runs just under four hours. An extras disc with a couple hours of bonus concert footage is available with the deluxe edition.
If you’ve seen the original Woodstock you be pleasantly surprised at a few of the changes director Michael Wadleigh introduces. The film still captures the event like a true documentary alternating between wandering footage of the crowd with straight-on music performances. Much of the film is seen in tri-panel imagery. The biggest difference occurs in the last hour with previously unseen footage of Janis Joplin. Joplin was not included in the original film and her presence electrifies the screen. The original film ended with Hendrix playing “The Star Spangled Banner” but that’s been replaced by an even longer Jimi Hendrix closing sequence featuring familiar songs as well as a lengthy solo jam.
The extras disc contains over two hours of concert footage from other artists that for reasons involving rights or time was left on the proverbial cutting room floor. Some of the filmmakers who worked with Wadleigh (and also seen in interview snippets) include assistant director Martin Scorsese and assistant director and editor Thelma Schoonmaker.
Wadleigh and associate producer Dale Bell provide background stories on everything from hijacking the negative from Warner Brothers after they found that Technicolor was making a duplicate negative for the studio to the methods they used for getting some of the best cameramen of that era to essentially work for food. Another extra and it’s a hoot features an interview with 1970s era Wadleigh (looking every inch the cosmic cowboy he was) on the Playboy After Dark show.
The extra concert footage delivers 18 songs from 13 bands. Among them Mountain, Creedence Clearwater Revival (Fogerty was so vital then), an alternative edit of The Who songs seen in the feature, Johnny Winter, and an amazing 30-plus minute “Turn On Your Love Light” from The Grateful Dead (fearlessly psychedelic). The Who, when seen in the feature version play the "See Me" segment of “We’re Not Going To Take It” in triple screen close-ups, which is followed by Townsend smashing his guitar and tossing it to the audience. On the extras we get single frame takes of the entire song, adjusted to allow more medium shots of the band. Plus the Gibson destruction actually occurs at the end of “My Generation” also seen in its entirety.
No doubt many reading this article weren’t alive when the festival went down and this 40th anniversary edition sets the record straight, provides pure entertainment and acts as a vital document.

Year One

Conceptually Year One bears fruit, but as a finished product the movie is overripe. Basically a hodgepodge of Biblical reference points (Cain and Abel as well as Abraham and Isaac are characters) mixed with stone age living conditions Year One posits that some boys from the country (Jack Black and Michael Cera) are banished from their tribe after Black eats from the tree of knowledge. It's just as well because the rest of the primitive village people are now Roman slaves. About the midpoint our bumpkin knuckleheads end their journey through Cathechism 101 and end up in the big city. That would be Sodom of Sodom and Gomorrah fame. Cue the anal rape jokes, the fart and poop jokes were used up during the first half.
Director Harold Ramis hasn't exactly been expelled from the garden but the tone and humor in Year One exists light years from his classic Groundhog Day. Despite some interesting comic cameos and enticing femmes Year One will be best appreciated by an immature teen audience. Oddly I doubt if that demo is familiar with two films from 1981, Caveman and History of the World, Part 1, second-tier comedies that lived on due to the advent of cable. You might laugh twice. it's obvious that Black and Cera are running on the fumes of everything they've done previously.

The Proposal

You remember when your momma told you not to say anything if you didn't have something nice to say. Fortunately she wasn't referring to movies. Sandra Bullock used to be in such interesting films. Even gobbledygook like Practical Magic or handsome thrillers like Murder By Numbers wouldn't make you cringe like The Proposal the romcom du jour this week.
Most studios make romcoms with the signature of television humor and The Proposal is no exception. You could've cast a mannequin level actress like Katherine Heigl in The Proposal without losing a semblance of laughs. There is one funny scene in the movie but it is woefully telegraphed.
Power business woman Bullock finds her dreams of corporate domination foiled when she learns she must be deported. Her solution to marry her younger hunky secretary (Ryan Reynolds) sounds logical given the circumstances although the immigration premise unwinds like a paper device in a rainstorm. Disney has actually made realistic human comedies like Dan in Real Life and one that involved immigration, Green Card (1990) that was nommed for an Oscar for writing and won a Golden Globe for best picture.
By contrast The Proposal skimps by on a ludicrous set up and recognizable cast. The direction by Anne Fletcher passes as pedestrian. One sequence involving an eagle that swoops down to steal Bullock's iPhone uses the same framing over and over making the CGI insertion of the bird obvious. In the actual ha-ha scene where the two leads bump into each other naked (yeah right) they appear to have a shade darker body makeup. The movie is mostly set in Alaska and there's some good scenery.