The first one was "The Proposal". It's is a movie about a couple who start out hating each other and end up liking each other. It's a funny thing about that. I started out hating the movie and ended up liking it.
So I was sitting there, cringing, knowing with uncanny certainty where the story was going. No movie begins with scenes of a man and a woman who are utterly incompatible unless it ends with them in love, unless perhaps it might be one about Hitler and Eleanor Roosevelt. They will fly to Alaska, she will be charmed by his family, she will be moved by the community spirit, she will love the landscape after the skyscraper towers of Manhattan, and they will have misadventures, probably involving unintended nudity and someone falling off a boat. So it is written.
But slowly, reluctantly, disbelievingly, they will start to warm up to each other. And it was about at that point when reluctantly, disbelievingly, I began to warm up to them. Bullock is a likable actress in the right roles, which she has been avoiding frequently since "Speed 2: Cruise Control" (1997), which I liked more than she did. She is likable here because she doesn't overdo it and is convincing when she confesses that she has warmed to his family's embrace -- and who would not, since Andrew's mother is the merry Mary Steenburgen and his grandmother is the unsinkable Betty White. His father, Craig T. Nelson, is not quite so embraceable, but only because he is protective.
The key scene involves Steenburgen and White fitting Granny Annie's wedding dress for Bullock, and the presentation of a family heirloom. I don't care how much of a witch a woman is, when she sees herself in the mirror wearing her grandmother-in-law's gown, she's going to cave in. For that matter, Bullock was never that convincing as the Office Witch; she could not have touched Meryl Streep's work in "The Devil Wears Prada."
"The Proposal" is much enhanced by all of the supporting performances. Betty White, at 87, makes her character 89 and performs a Native American sunrise ceremony beside a campfire in the forest, which is not easy, especially in the Alaskan summer when the sun hardly sets. And look for a character named Ramone (Oscar Nunez), who will remind you of an element in "Local Hero."
"The Proposal" recycles a plot that was already old when Tracy and Hepburn were trying it out. You see it coming from a great distance away. As it draws closer, you don't duck out of the way, because it is so cheerfully done, you don't mind being hit by it.
By the way, that's Roger Ebert's review, not mine. But he summed up my thoughts exactly. In fact, I was so lifted by this romantic comedy that bravely decided to go for another. This time I chose one who featured a great actor and a great director. Can't go wrong, right?
The last time Russell Crowe and Ridley Scott got together, the resulting movie included dudes getting impaled by tridents, barbarians being killed by the hundreds and Joaquin Phoenix throttling Richard Harris to death with his bare hands.
After all the carnage in "Gladiator," perhaps the actor and director felt they owed the world a chick flick -- and it arrives this week with "A Good Year," a decapitation-free piece of cinema about wine and love and the things that money can't buy.
Crowe and Scott bring a lot of effort to a project that probably meant a lot to both of them, for entirely different reasons. But despite some stunning visuals and a lot of nice moments, the finished product feels like the work of an actor and director who are out of their element. It's difficult to ignore the fact that they've created a romantic comedy that has almost no romance and even less comedy. So said Peter Hartlaub of SF Chronicle
And I agree. The second movie was not as good but both had a ring of truth to it, especially since I was watching it after two weeks away on business. It's the longest in 2 decades that I've had to travel like that so it was somewhat cathartic to watch a woman (in the proposal), then a man (in a good year) stop to smell the roses they've missed in the harried big executive success.
Indeed, there's a raw hit the nerve sentiment expressed by Johnny Cash, "Success is having to worry about every damn thing in the world, except money". So true. I mention him because I found some time to do two things between work while in the US: running and buying records. And I bought two Johnny cash records cortesy of having heard him on emirates excellent music selection on board and feeding my current craze of collecting vinyls. So, most naturally, I watched the movie.
Credit: Maria Proietti Pinterest
"Walk the Line" follows the story arc of many other musical biopics, maybe because many careers are the same: Hard times, obscurity, success, stardom, too much money, romantic adventures, drugs or booze, and then (if they survive) beating the addiction, finding love and reaching a more lasting stardom. That more or less describes last year's "Ray," but every time we see this story the characters change and so does the music, and that makes it new.
What adds boundless energy to "Walk the Line" is the performance by Reese Witherspoon as June Carter Cash. We're told in the movie that June learned to be funny onstage because she didn't think she had a good voice; by the time John meets her she's been a pro since the age of 4, and effortlessly moves back and forth between her goofy onstage persona and her real personality, which is sane and thoughtful, despite her knack for hitching up with the wrong men. Johnny Cash for that matter seems like the wrong man, and she holds him at arm's length for years -- first because he's a married man, and later because he has a problem with booze and pills.
The film's most harrowing scene shows Johnny onstage after an overdose, his face distorted by pain and anger, looking almost satanic before he collapses. What is most fearsome is not even his collapse, but the force of his will, which makes him try to perform when he is clearly unable to. You would not want to get in the way of that determination. When Cash is finally busted and spends some time in jail, his father is dependably laconic: "Now you won't have to work so hard to make people think you been to jail."
Although Cash's father (played with merciless aim by Robert Patrick) eventually does sober up, the family that saves him is June's. The Carter Family were country royalty ever since the days their of broadcasts from a high-powered pirate station across the river from Del Rio, Texas. When they take a chance on Cash, they all take the chance; watch her parents as they greet Johnny's favorite pill-pusher.
It is by now well known that Phoenix and Witherspoon perform their own vocals in the movie. It was not well known when the movie previewed -- at least not by me. Knowing Cash's albums more or less by heart, I closed my eyes to focus on the soundtrack and decided that, yes, that was the voice of Johnny Cash I was listening to. The closing credits make it clear it's Joaquin Phoenix doing the singing, and I was gob-smacked. Phoenix and Mangold can talk all they want about how it was as much a matter of getting in character, of delivering the songs, as it was a matter of voice technique, but whatever it was, it worked. Cash's voice was "steady like a train, sharp like a razor," said June.
Another Roger Ebert review.
Critics have a way of putting it....Life hurts. Success hurts. But love lifts... Or does it?
In Alaska, Claudio Cupellini brings us a story of love, solitude, ambition and violence, halfway between a fairy tale and a tragedy, with his new and well-structured film Alaska [+], the third and final fictional film to feature in the Official Selection of the 10th Rome Film Fest. The journey embarked upon by the two sweetheart protagonists of the film (Elio Germano and Franco-Spanish actress Astrid Bergès-Frisbey) has an epic feel to it; their path is littered with obstacles in their race for happiness, from Paris to Milan, between arrests and accidents, betrayal, brawls, and actions driven by visceral passion. Two desperate characters who are fragile yet determined and, guided by instinct, make mistake after mistake, making them all the more human.
Credit: Silenzio Communication
It all starts on the terrace of a 5-star hotel in Paris. Nadine is smoking a cigarette in a swimming costume, having just had a modelling audition. Fausto, who works in the hotel as a waiter, offers to show her the most expensive suite they have, which is actually occupied. This is where the trouble begins: Fausto beats up the occupant who unexpectedly comes back to the room while they’re there and ends up in prison. It’s just the first in a string of unfortunate episodes the pair end up at the centre of, lost souls who have been uprooted and possessed by a streak of madness, hungry for life and its experiences, and for money. Indeed, it is Fausto’s uncontrolled ambition that creates problems for the couple when they are reunited in Milan, breaking the mutual trust they share. How can you trust a man who takes possession of all your savings for a shaky investment without even asking you?
What follows is a series of highs and lows for both of the characters, in a constant imbalance of the two (“things are going well for me because they’re going badly for you”, says Nadine): she becomes a highly sought-after model whilst he’s in prison; he opens a successful club whilst she’s stuck lying in a hospital bed. They trade places constantly, right up until the end. They often feel emotionally uncomfortable, which stops them from climbing the social ladder. They leave each other but always end up back together, one being the reflection of the other. “Our aim was to make a powerfully emotional and romantic film”, said Cupellini, who wrote the screenplay with Filippo Gravino and Guido Iuculano. “All the characters have an element of the Shakespearian about them because they’re unique, full of life and willing to do anything”, observes Germano. Is it love or money that makes people happy? This seems to be what this passionate, visceral film, whose story takes place over the space of five years, with perfectly functional story arcs and secondary characters (the cast also features Valerio Binasco, who plays Fausto’s business partner, and Elena Radonicich, as his rich wife-to-be), seems to be asking. It’s also a coming of age story which, despite the fact that its ending brings it full circle, leaves its characters as very different people to how they started off.
It's the most painful movie to watch yet. Because it's so real. The two characters could be anyone: trying to get ahead in life and to find love, simultaneously but never quite getting both. Life is a balancing act. Never balanced. Like the Tao symbolism.
So told, life hurts. Does it have to? Richard Curtis provided a salving answer in "About Time". I've watched this movie on another flight but thought I didn't finish it. So I watched it again, in the last leg of a trip that started a fortnight ago to Doha, then Riyadh, then Dubai, the Bethesda and Washington DC, Chicago, and then flu ally flying home from San Francisco via Hong kong.
I read through more reviews and the one from James Russell Lingerfelt resonated....
The writing is wonderful. The casting and acting is spot on. But what else could we expect from Writer/Director Richard Curtis? He brought us Notting Hill and Love Actually. Mr. Curtis breaks rules screenwriting coaches swear by. His twists are explosions, and just when you think you know what will happen next, it doesn’t happen. I found myself delighted throughout the journey of the film, gratefully surprised at every junction and reveal.
Credit: Universal Pictures
Tim (Domhnall Gleeson), who has just turned 21, is guided by Dad (Bill Nighy) to dwell on the beauties of life. Dad is a former professor who retired at age 50 to spend time with his family on the English countryside. We fall in love with Tim immediately because he reminds us of our reserved, unsure, inner child when he pokes fun at himself about his dreams and insecurities.
Dad and Tim play table tennis everyday, which Tim wins. The family, including Tim’s mom (the glue of the family) and his adolescent sister (a wallflower) gather at the beach in their backyard everyday for tea.
Dad pulls Tim aside during his 21st birthday to inform him that men in their family can travel through time. Just enter a dark place (like a closet or room) close your eyes, think of where you would like to go (you can only travel within your own lifetime) squeeze your fists, and you can return to correct any wrong.
Mr. Curtis spends no time explaining the magic of this form of time travel because it’s simply the medium to tell the love story.
Dad says winning money and never working screws people up. So Tim pursues romantic love. First, he tries to win over his first crush. And we don’t blame him. Charlotte (Margot Robbie) is dynamite. But Tim learns quickly:
Lesson one: “You can’t make someone love you.”
Tim accepts a job in London. After six months, he meets Mary (Rachel McAdams) in an opaque restaurant, dining in the dark and having conversations with people you can’t see. When Mary is revealed as a cute, young, nerdy librarian type, she stumbles in her shoes and pokes fun of her appearance. But she and Tim are smitten.
A message Mr. Curtis may not have intended: Choose to date a person by closing your eyes.
So the two fall in love, and during the middle of the film, Tim bumps into Charlotte at the theater. And she invites Tim to her hotel. Now, since we believe this movie is a romance, Tim will enter the room, sleep with Charlotte, and ruin things with Mary. Tim will try to fix this by traveling through time, realize there’s a glitch or hiccup that Dad didn’t warn him about, and now he will spend the rest of the film proving his love and devotion to Mary, while learning some valuable lessons about himself and winning her in the end.
But Mr. Curtis turns this on its head, twice. First, Tim leaves Charlotte at her door and zips home. Second, Tim drags Mary out of bed and proposes to her in the most untimely and unromantic fashion. I was left wondering: “So where’s the Dark Night of the Soul moment?”
When Mary meets Tim’s parents, he warns her not to accept an invitation to tea, but she does, of course. Tea turns into an all day event. As tradition, Tim and Dad engage in a game of table tennis. Dad, through time travel, has learned:
Lesson two: Quality and quantity time with the people you love are the most cherished moments in life.
Instead of Tim’s mom asking Mary what she does for a living, Mom asks Mary to share her faults. These quirks, and what we consider faults, are the fun stuff. They remind us that we’re human and completely different, yet, because of that, entirely the same. We fall in love with what it means to be human all over again.
At Tim and Mary’s wedding, a rainstorm destroys the event, but the family, being led by Dad, has, by habit, learned to dwell on beauties. Tim chooses Dad to give the best man speech. Dad realizes, afterwards, that he didn’t say he loved Tim. So Dad travels back through time and gives the speech again.
Tim narrates: “Married and pregnant, and so begins lots and lots of types of days. Worrying about the future is like trying to solve an algebra problem by chewing bubble gum.”
Lesson three: “The real troubles in life will always be the things that never crossed your worried mind.”
Tim and Mary give birth to a blonde-haired girl. As we think something dramatic will happen between Tim and Mary, because we believe this is a romance, but it’s Tim’s sister who experiences the dark night. She has a fight with her abusive boyfriend and drives away drunk. A horrible car accident lands her in the hospital.
So Tim goes back in time to save her. However, he returns home to a different baby! Dad informs Tim that if he changes anything before his child is born, a different child could be awaiting him given the shifts in his hormones and sperm. Therefore, Tim allows his sister to have the wreck, thus the family has an intervention. Tim says to her: “We have to make sure nothing like this ever happens again.”
Lesson four: Sometimes, terrible things must happen in order for life to change for the better.
I won’t tell you what happens in the third act, because I can’t bear to spoil it for you. But I sobbed like a child, right there in my cinema seat. Not because it’s sad or joyful, but because it’s redemptive.
I cried because I got it. I get it, Mr. Curtis. This wasn’t a romance. This is an epic about a father’s love for his son, and watching his son turn into a man, with all the lessons of love that come with it. And if you want to call that a romance, I cannot disagree.
Tim ends the narration explaining a final lesson Dad had not yet learned. Not only has Dad raised Tim into a man, but Tim has grown further than Dad. And in this, Dad has done his job, well. Tim says:
Lesson five: “The truth is, now I don’t travel back at all, not even for the day. I just try to live everyday as if I’ve deliberately come back to this one day. To enjoy it. As if it was the full final day. Of my extraordinary, ordinary life.”
The actors and actresses did a fantastic job. But the standouts in this film are: Bill Nighy (Dad), where he reminds you of your favorite dad, uncle, or grandfather, Domhnall Gleeson (Tim), who reminds you of yourself, or your kid brother, and Rachel McAdams (Mary) who executes her role as a cute, winsome, nerd. But let’s be honest. Should we expect anything less from Rachel McAdams as an actress?
Here’s evidence of fantastic acting, writing, and directing. When the film was finished, I missed the characters. I wish I had known them. I wish I was a relative in the story who could have experienced each moment of their journey with them. You can thank the entire cast and crew for experiences like that, but only because of Mr. Curtis.
And so I would like to publicly say: Mr. Curtis, a standing ovation would not do you and your team justice. Because that’s too easy. I paid $5.50 to watch the Saturday matinee. If I had known the depths and wonderful experience I would gain from watching this film, I would have gladly paid $500.50.
I read somewhere, Mr. Curtis, that you don’t want to direct movies anymore. But please don’t stop writing. I’ll be putting this movie on the same shelf as Field of Dreams, It’s a Wonderful Life, and Life is Beautiful.”
