Lovers of cringe, rejoice: here's a good one, about a "psycho prom queen bitch" trying to steal her high school boyfriend from his happy marriage and new baby. Charlize Theron dims her luminosity with good acting and makeup and convinces us that she's a bats**t crazy, mean-spirited loser, with the help of a script by Diablo Cody (a former stripper, she won an Oscar and a pile of other awards for her debut screenplay Juno (2007), then created the masterful series United States of Tara, sadly now cancelled) and direction by Jason Reitman (covered in Up in the Air). One bit of trivia Jack and I noticed as well as imdb: Theron's character Mavis drives a mini-Cooper, just as she did in The Italian Job (2003). We also noticed a continuity error missed on that site: the Cooper bangs something but doesn't appear to be damaged until the next shot.
Theron (I liked her debut performance in the noir 2 Days in the Valley (1996), don't remember her in the excellent That Thing You Do! the same year, loved The Devil's Advocate (1997), Celebrity (1998), The Cider House Rules (1999), The Italian Job, Monster (2003) which won her her Oscar, The Life and Death of Peter Sellers (2004) in which she played Britt Eklund, North Country (2006 - nominated), and her hilarious turn in a series arc in Arrested Development in 2005) is great as the deluded writer of Young Adult genre novels. Patrick Wilson (wonderful as the "Prom King" in Little Children (2006) and good, though I wrote little, if anything, about him, in the following: Lakeview Terrace, The Switch, and Morning Glory; he also starred in the Broadway adaptation of The Full Monty, and has a good voice--I have the soundtrack) is fine as ex-boyfriend Buddy, as is Elizabeth Reaser (I wrote about her in The Art of Getting By) as his wife Beth. I really like Patton Oswalt (covered in the excellent Big Fan) and he plays his character Matt, Mavis' fellow barfly, with all dimensions. For fans old enough to remember L.A. Law, Jill Eikenberry plays Mavis' mother; and Mary Beth Hurt (another age test, her biggest hits were Woody Allen's unfunny-but-fabulous Interiors (1978) and The World According to Garp (1982)) plays Buddy's mom.
As to be expected, a Jason Reitman movie has a good soundtrack--you can listen to clips on this page. Set and mostly shot in Minnesota, where Cody lived for a time, this is a fun way to spend just over an hour and a half if you don't require all sweetness and lack of loose ends in your cinema experience. Oh, and if you love Pomeranians, as Vivian does, you must see this for those scenes.
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Another Happy Day (2011)
Fans of cringe-y dysfunctional family stories will like this, as we did. Others will not. Ellens Barkin and Burstyn go head to head as an acting-out grown daughter and her "quietly furious" mother at the wedding of their son/grandson. The directing debut of Sam Levinson (Barry's 25 year old son) who also wrote it, this is an example of Jack's maxim that no matter how messed up you think your family is, someone's is worse. Oh yeah, and the title is a complete lie.
My favorites of Barkin's work are Barry's debut Diner (1982), Desert Bloom (1986), Down by Law (1986), Sea of Love (1989), Switch (1991)--so funny--where she plays a man trapped in a woman's body, This Boy's Life (1993), Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999), and She Hate Me (2004). Here she is a woman on the verge, with terrible TMJ and a knack for pushing away those she wants closest. For Burstyn, I loved her Oscar winning role in Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974), her nominated roles in The Last Picture Show (1971), The Exorcist (1973--okay, I didn't like that one much), Same Time, Next Year (1978), Resurrection (1980--it was on my short list of all-time faves once), Requiem for a Dream, as well as The Fountain (2006), W., and the series The Book of Daniel. Then there's a big and impressive cast of supporting characters, including Ezra Miller (covered in City Island), Kate Bosworth, Thomas Haden Church, Demi Moore (very funny as the trashy second wife), George Kennedy, young Daniel Yelsky, and, as the shrewish laughing sisters, Siobhan Fallon and Diana Scarwid.
Here is a song from Ólafur Arnalds' soundtrack. The movie was shot entirely in Rochester, Michigan, half an hour north of Detroit.
And, ladies and gentlemen, we have a new winner of the Producers Plethora Prize, formerly held by Get Low at 23. Jack and I usually count. This has end credits, and we thought we had counted 20 including executive, co-, associate, and one each supervising and line, and then there were two cards with six more each, bringing our total to 32. 29 are listed on imdb, which is still a winner. The long list includes Barkin (here's an interview with her at Sundance, where the movie was nominated for Best Picture and won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award) and Michael Nardelli, who plays the son getting married. This may not be the best cringe-y dysfunctional family movie you'll ever see, but it's still pretty good.
My favorites of Barkin's work are Barry's debut Diner (1982), Desert Bloom (1986), Down by Law (1986), Sea of Love (1989), Switch (1991)--so funny--where she plays a man trapped in a woman's body, This Boy's Life (1993), Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999), and She Hate Me (2004). Here she is a woman on the verge, with terrible TMJ and a knack for pushing away those she wants closest. For Burstyn, I loved her Oscar winning role in Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974), her nominated roles in The Last Picture Show (1971), The Exorcist (1973--okay, I didn't like that one much), Same Time, Next Year (1978), Resurrection (1980--it was on my short list of all-time faves once), Requiem for a Dream, as well as The Fountain (2006), W., and the series The Book of Daniel. Then there's a big and impressive cast of supporting characters, including Ezra Miller (covered in City Island), Kate Bosworth, Thomas Haden Church, Demi Moore (very funny as the trashy second wife), George Kennedy, young Daniel Yelsky, and, as the shrewish laughing sisters, Siobhan Fallon and Diana Scarwid.
Here is a song from Ólafur Arnalds' soundtrack. The movie was shot entirely in Rochester, Michigan, half an hour north of Detroit.
And, ladies and gentlemen, we have a new winner of the Producers Plethora Prize, formerly held by Get Low at 23. Jack and I usually count. This has end credits, and we thought we had counted 20 including executive, co-, associate, and one each supervising and line, and then there were two cards with six more each, bringing our total to 32. 29 are listed on imdb, which is still a winner. The long list includes Barkin (here's an interview with her at Sundance, where the movie was nominated for Best Picture and won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award) and Michael Nardelli, who plays the son getting married. This may not be the best cringe-y dysfunctional family movie you'll ever see, but it's still pretty good.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
The Muppets (2011)
Jack wanted to see this the minute he saw the trailer and he loved the movie, as expected. I'm not as big a fan as he but there is plenty to entertain grandparents on down to toddlers in this update co-written by Nicholas Stoller and co-starring/co-written by Jason Segal, who said Disney was understandably skeptical of the team since in their first movie, Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008), Segal showed his penis (they also worked together on the raunchy Get Him to the Greek, though Segal doesn't appear in that; after I covered him in I Love You, Man, he was in Bad Teacher). In the same NPR interview Segal also commented that the way these Muppet guys can form facial expressions with only one hand is amazing. James Bobin makes his feature directorial debut here after similarly less-than-Disney-clean experience on 11 episodes each of Da Ali G Show and Flight of the Conchords (he was a creator of the latter and writer on all episodes). Surprising.
Segal as Gary and Amy Adams (after I wrote about her in Julie & Julia, she was in The Fighter, which earned her her third Oscar nomination--this won't be number four) as his girlfriend Mary, plus villain oilman Tex Richman (Chris Cooper, covered in some detail in The Company Men) are the main humans and they all sing and dance--Cooper's number is very funny, and Gary has a muppet-like brother Walter, to whom he is devoted. There are more celebrity sightings than you'll be able to count, including Rashida Jones who appears several times, Micky Rooney and Alan Arkin a couple of times, Sarah Silverman, Rico Rodriguez (Manny on Modern Family), and many, many more (take a look at the cast). Also, the beautiful Los Angeles Theatre was used for the interiors (details in this article) and for the exterior of it they used El Capitan, which is owned by Disney, on Hollywood Boulevard, and closed down that main thoroughfare for at least two nights to shoot the finale!
Composer Christophe Beck is a known entity, but his music isn't featured on the soundtrack (you can listen to clips on the amazon page, but the "Artist" listed for each song isn't accurate and some of the songs are more fun if you don't know they're coming, so I consider the list there and here as spoilers, so view at your own discretion). What you'll hear are covers, licensed songs, and new material by Bret McKenzie, half of the Conchords (here's a song from their brilliant HBO series). Here is McKenzie singing a duet with Kermit of the movie's opening song.
Good fun and lots of laughs, especially if you're a fan. There were a couple of kids in the room with us, but mostly adults, including Sally and Mike, who laughed, too. And, by the way, Jack's favorite Muppet character was the Swedish Chef. And I think he would like me to mention that this movie has a 97% rating on rottentomatoes.
Segal as Gary and Amy Adams (after I wrote about her in Julie & Julia, she was in The Fighter, which earned her her third Oscar nomination--this won't be number four) as his girlfriend Mary, plus villain oilman Tex Richman (Chris Cooper, covered in some detail in The Company Men) are the main humans and they all sing and dance--Cooper's number is very funny, and Gary has a muppet-like brother Walter, to whom he is devoted. There are more celebrity sightings than you'll be able to count, including Rashida Jones who appears several times, Micky Rooney and Alan Arkin a couple of times, Sarah Silverman, Rico Rodriguez (Manny on Modern Family), and many, many more (take a look at the cast). Also, the beautiful Los Angeles Theatre was used for the interiors (details in this article) and for the exterior of it they used El Capitan, which is owned by Disney, on Hollywood Boulevard, and closed down that main thoroughfare for at least two nights to shoot the finale!
Composer Christophe Beck is a known entity, but his music isn't featured on the soundtrack (you can listen to clips on the amazon page, but the "Artist" listed for each song isn't accurate and some of the songs are more fun if you don't know they're coming, so I consider the list there and here as spoilers, so view at your own discretion). What you'll hear are covers, licensed songs, and new material by Bret McKenzie, half of the Conchords (here's a song from their brilliant HBO series). Here is McKenzie singing a duet with Kermit of the movie's opening song.
Good fun and lots of laughs, especially if you're a fan. There were a couple of kids in the room with us, but mostly adults, including Sally and Mike, who laughed, too. And, by the way, Jack's favorite Muppet character was the Swedish Chef. And I think he would like me to mention that this movie has a 97% rating on rottentomatoes.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Melancholia (2011)
Hard work. Jack said watching this was like being punched in the face every seven minutes. Some have called it a masterpiece. We call it depressing and heavy handed, although Kirsten Dunst's performance is amazing, and the movie has staying power--I'm still thinking about the images and the story combining a depressed bride Justine (Dunst), her sister Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg), and other family with an apocalyptic planetary event. Danish director/writer Lars von Trier was born Lars Trier, but adopted the Germanic "von" because some of his friends called him that during his time at Danish Film School. He was also banned from this year's Cannes festival for joking that he was a Nazi sympathizer. He said later that he's not sorry he said it, though he should have said he was joking, and that the French just don't get the Danish sense of humor. Von Trier has been on my radar screen for a while but I never made it to any of his movies. When Antichrist came out in 2009 it sounded so hateful we didn't want to see it, and then I read this article (caution, it's got spoilers--read it only if you have seen or don't plan to see Antichrist) which validated my decision.
When I read that Dunst (I wrote about her in All Good Things, including that she has had in-patient care for depression) won Best Actress at said Cannes festival earlier this year we decided to see it. The movie is divided into three parts, 1. a prologue, with slo-mo images of the rogue planet Melancholia in space, eventually crashing into earth (I reveal this only because von Trier has said he wants there to be no doubt from the get-go), 2. an act called Justine, which takes place at the wedding reception, and 3. an act called Claire, where the family is at their estate, looking at the sky through a telescope, and discussing whether or not they will be hit. Gainsbourg didn't win anything for this, but won plenty for Antichrist (including Best Actress at Cannes), however she has usually annoyed me a bit in some otherwise good movies, e.g. My Wife Is an Actress (Ma femme est une actrice - 2001), 21 Grams (2003), I'm Not There (2007). And yes, this time I did not take to her character, trying very hard to care for her sister and cope with impending doom. There are moments of comic relief, some involving the wedding planner (Udo Kier, who was in but not mentioned in my post on Soul Kitchen), some with Claire's husband John (Kiefer Sutherland, best known as Jack Bauer in the series 24, he also won MTV's best villain for A Time to Kill (1996) and Phone Booth (2002)), and some with Claire and Justine's bitter mother (Charlotte Rampling, last covered in Never Let me Go). Is it nitpicking to be bothered by the fact that Rampling and John Hurt, the parents, and Gainsbourg have British accents, but Dunst's is American? Or that the setting is supposed to be America at a vast estate (near a "village") with a stable full of horses and a golf course, but Tjolöholm Castle in Sweden, the shooting location for exteriors, is grander than any McMansions I've seen here. I really thought it was a hotel for the longest time. This might be a good place to mention that von Trier has many phobias, including airplanes, and travels around Europe only by car--he has never set foot on American soil. The interiors were shot at a studio in Sweden as well.
Also featured are Stellan Skarsgård (after I wrote about him in Angels & Demons he was in Thor) as Justine's boss, his son Alexander (plays Eric in True Blood, but you couldn't prove it by me) as the groom, Jesper Christensen (The Debt) as the housekeeper, inexplicably called Little Father.
The music is, other than some ditties at the wedding, excerpts from Tristan & Isolde by Richard Wagner, performed by Orchestra the city of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra and conducted by Richard Hein.
This movie literally made me sick with Motion Picture Motion Sickness (I've made a list for those similarly afflicted). I didn't move to the back soon enough and was extremely nauseated by the end. All this having been said, the reviews have not been bad: rottentomatoes' score is 78% critics, 75% audiences, and metacritic gives it 81 and 66. Now you know what we think. The rest is up to you.
When I read that Dunst (I wrote about her in All Good Things, including that she has had in-patient care for depression) won Best Actress at said Cannes festival earlier this year we decided to see it. The movie is divided into three parts, 1. a prologue, with slo-mo images of the rogue planet Melancholia in space, eventually crashing into earth (I reveal this only because von Trier has said he wants there to be no doubt from the get-go), 2. an act called Justine, which takes place at the wedding reception, and 3. an act called Claire, where the family is at their estate, looking at the sky through a telescope, and discussing whether or not they will be hit. Gainsbourg didn't win anything for this, but won plenty for Antichrist (including Best Actress at Cannes), however she has usually annoyed me a bit in some otherwise good movies, e.g. My Wife Is an Actress (Ma femme est une actrice - 2001), 21 Grams (2003), I'm Not There (2007). And yes, this time I did not take to her character, trying very hard to care for her sister and cope with impending doom. There are moments of comic relief, some involving the wedding planner (Udo Kier, who was in but not mentioned in my post on Soul Kitchen), some with Claire's husband John (Kiefer Sutherland, best known as Jack Bauer in the series 24, he also won MTV's best villain for A Time to Kill (1996) and Phone Booth (2002)), and some with Claire and Justine's bitter mother (Charlotte Rampling, last covered in Never Let me Go). Is it nitpicking to be bothered by the fact that Rampling and John Hurt, the parents, and Gainsbourg have British accents, but Dunst's is American? Or that the setting is supposed to be America at a vast estate (near a "village") with a stable full of horses and a golf course, but Tjolöholm Castle in Sweden, the shooting location for exteriors, is grander than any McMansions I've seen here. I really thought it was a hotel for the longest time. This might be a good place to mention that von Trier has many phobias, including airplanes, and travels around Europe only by car--he has never set foot on American soil. The interiors were shot at a studio in Sweden as well.
Also featured are Stellan Skarsgård (after I wrote about him in Angels & Demons he was in Thor) as Justine's boss, his son Alexander (plays Eric in True Blood, but you couldn't prove it by me) as the groom, Jesper Christensen (The Debt) as the housekeeper, inexplicably called Little Father.
The music is, other than some ditties at the wedding, excerpts from Tristan & Isolde by Richard Wagner, performed by Orchestra the city of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra and conducted by Richard Hein.
This movie literally made me sick with Motion Picture Motion Sickness (I've made a list for those similarly afflicted). I didn't move to the back soon enough and was extremely nauseated by the end. All this having been said, the reviews have not been bad: rottentomatoes' score is 78% critics, 75% audiences, and metacritic gives it 81 and 66. Now you know what we think. The rest is up to you.
Monday, December 5, 2011
Hugo (2011)
Spectacular! Jack and I honestly had not read anything about this before we chose to see it Wednesday, but we loved Martin Scorsese's PG 3D masterpiece about a boy living behind the clocks in Paris' Montparnasse train station. With live action supplemented by lush computer-generated graphics, it features outstanding performances, gorgeous images with saturated color, a rich score, and it's no wonder the National Board of Review picked it as the Best Picture of 2011, with Scorsese winning Best Director. Asa Butterfield (The Boy in the Striped Pajamas) who plays Hugo, was 12 when the live action part was shot in the winter of 2010 as was Chloë Grace Moretz (Kick-Ass) who plays Isabelle, but he looks much younger. In any case, these young actors are superb, as are Ben Kingsley (after I wrote about him in The Wackness he was in Elegy and Shutter Island) as Papa Georges, Helen McCrory (Narcissa Malfoy in the Harry Potter franchise, Cherie Blair in The Queen (2006)) as Mama Jeanne, Sacha Baron Cohen (covered in Brüno) as the silly Station Inspector (his humor is physical this time, rather than raunchy dialogue), and, in small parts, Richard Griffiths and Frances de la Tour (they performed together in The History Boys (2006), among others), Emily Mortimer, Jude Law, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Christopher Lee. All but two of these actors are British, and everyone in the movie speaks English with a British accent, even though it's set in Paris. Written things are in French, but the dialogue is not. Moretz' and Stuhlbarg's accents are good, to my ear.
Rule #2 is strictly observed as the camera/computer zooms around the city. I saw many parallels to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button with all the clocks but, in this case, the clocks and machinery are plot-driven rather than metaphors. And the machinery is quite wonderful--technology of the early twentieth century and before.
Scorsese (summary in Shutter Island--this is his first movie in seven years not starring Leonardo DiCaprio) makes a cameo in a flashback of the happier days of Georges and Jeanne--he plays a grinning photographer with a big noisy flash (when his character turns around we can see it becomes someone else). His artistry is predictably apparent in every frame, this time working from a script by John Logan (Oscar-nominated for co-writing Gladiator (2000) and writing Scorsese's The Aviator (2004), he also co-wrote Any Given Sunday (1999) with Oliver Stone, co-wrote The Last Samurai (2003), and adapted the stage play into Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007), among others) adapted from Brian Selznick's historical fiction picture book The Invention of Hugo Cabret. If you are familiar with the book or with certain historical elements you will not be surprised by any of the plot, but we weren't and so we were! I see now that the author Selznick has his own cameo as "Eager Student," but we missed it. Here is his photo so you can find him when you see it. I think the "official behind the scenes video" from that site is full of spoilers, so perhaps you shouldn't watch it yet.
Composer Howard Shore (won three Oscars for two Lord of the Rings movies (2001 and 03), among his 87 credits, from big studio pictures to little independents, and plenty of Scorsese's work) could get another Oscar nod for his sweeping, Parisian-style (think accordions) score. You can listen to the whole thing numerically on youtube (14 was hidden--I had to go to 15 to find it).
We recommend this for anyone who has the attention span to sit through a movie that is two hours and seven minutes long. It's rated PG for "mild thematic material, some action/peril and smoking." We debated whether to spring for the 3D, because Thor's was so bad. I read some audience comments and decided to go for it. And despite being outfitted with "child size" glasses (learn from our mistake and check the wrapper before you go in) that barely covered our prescription lenses, it was totally worth it with magnificent pictures to go with everything else. Not just for kids. See this before the Oscars.
Rule #2 is strictly observed as the camera/computer zooms around the city. I saw many parallels to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button with all the clocks but, in this case, the clocks and machinery are plot-driven rather than metaphors. And the machinery is quite wonderful--technology of the early twentieth century and before.
Scorsese (summary in Shutter Island--this is his first movie in seven years not starring Leonardo DiCaprio) makes a cameo in a flashback of the happier days of Georges and Jeanne--he plays a grinning photographer with a big noisy flash (when his character turns around we can see it becomes someone else). His artistry is predictably apparent in every frame, this time working from a script by John Logan (Oscar-nominated for co-writing Gladiator (2000) and writing Scorsese's The Aviator (2004), he also co-wrote Any Given Sunday (1999) with Oliver Stone, co-wrote The Last Samurai (2003), and adapted the stage play into Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007), among others) adapted from Brian Selznick's historical fiction picture book The Invention of Hugo Cabret. If you are familiar with the book or with certain historical elements you will not be surprised by any of the plot, but we weren't and so we were! I see now that the author Selznick has his own cameo as "Eager Student," but we missed it. Here is his photo so you can find him when you see it. I think the "official behind the scenes video" from that site is full of spoilers, so perhaps you shouldn't watch it yet.
Composer Howard Shore (won three Oscars for two Lord of the Rings movies (2001 and 03), among his 87 credits, from big studio pictures to little independents, and plenty of Scorsese's work) could get another Oscar nod for his sweeping, Parisian-style (think accordions) score. You can listen to the whole thing numerically on youtube (14 was hidden--I had to go to 15 to find it).
We recommend this for anyone who has the attention span to sit through a movie that is two hours and seven minutes long. It's rated PG for "mild thematic material, some action/peril and smoking." We debated whether to spring for the 3D, because Thor's was so bad. I read some audience comments and decided to go for it. And despite being outfitted with "child size" glasses (learn from our mistake and check the wrapper before you go in) that barely covered our prescription lenses, it was totally worth it with magnificent pictures to go with everything else. Not just for kids. See this before the Oscars.
Thursday, December 1, 2011
My Week with Marilyn (2011)
Loved, as we expected, this memoir of then 25 year old Colin Clark's time working on the movie The Prince and the Showgirl (1957). Michelle Williams, Eddie Redmayne, and Kenneth Branagh are superb as Marilyn Monroe, Clark, and Laurence Olivier, respectively (I last mentioned Williams in Meek's Cutoff, covered Branagh in Pirate Radio, and here are my favorites of Redmayne's work: The Good Shepherd (2006), The Other Boleyn Girl (2008), and this, although I heard Savage Grace (2007) was very good). Williams, especially, is accruing awards for her performance as the moody Monroe (we noticed they padded her hips, not consistently, but didn't give her enough up top to match the voluptuous star--see these pictures 1, 2, 3, for yourself). Also noteworthy are Judi Dench as Sybil Thorndike, Zoë Wanamaker as Paula Strasberg, and Julia Ormond as Vivien Leigh. We're not quite sure why they cast Emma Watson of Harry Potter fame as Lucy; perhaps it was to bring in the younger set. She's all right but there's something odd about the way she looks and the way her part is written. Director Simon Curtis makes his feature debut after a number of TV movies and shows in the UK and Adrian Hodges (co-adapted the excellent Tom & Viv (1994), about T.S. Eliot and his wife Vivienne Haigh-Wood) does a fine job adapting Clark's memoir.
Composer Conrad Pope's (orchestrator on 101 titles, composer on 15) lush score is complemented by tracks from Chinese pianist Lang Lang, Nat King Cole, Dean Martin, and La Tropicana Orchestra, and Williams sings all of Monroe's songs in the movie. The soundtrack is great. Listen to previews on amazon, or this site in French. Also, those cars! Especially the two-tone Rolls Royce!
Here's my Marilyn Monroe story. No, I didn't meet her. In 1962, I was an awkward fifth grader in New York City. My mother was a big Marilyn fan and had a similar blonde hairstyle and va-va-voom hourglass figure in those days. One day in school, the "roving reporter" stopped me as I was rushing to a class, and asked me who would I like to be. I said, impulsively, "Marilyn Monroe!" and ran off. They published my answer with the others in the school newspaper. And then, months later (August 5, age 34), she was found dead of a drug overdose. This sensitive kid was embarrassed--I had picked the superficial addict, rather than anyone with depth or apparent intellect. Oh, well. I guess I have always liked show business.
If I hadn't begun my post about The Descendants with the word sublime, I would surely be using it here. With the added benefit of going behind the scenes of movie-making in the 1950s, the whole package is great fun. Highly recommended.
Composer Conrad Pope's (orchestrator on 101 titles, composer on 15) lush score is complemented by tracks from Chinese pianist Lang Lang, Nat King Cole, Dean Martin, and La Tropicana Orchestra, and Williams sings all of Monroe's songs in the movie. The soundtrack is great. Listen to previews on amazon, or this site in French. Also, those cars! Especially the two-tone Rolls Royce!
Here's my Marilyn Monroe story. No, I didn't meet her. In 1962, I was an awkward fifth grader in New York City. My mother was a big Marilyn fan and had a similar blonde hairstyle and va-va-voom hourglass figure in those days. One day in school, the "roving reporter" stopped me as I was rushing to a class, and asked me who would I like to be. I said, impulsively, "Marilyn Monroe!" and ran off. They published my answer with the others in the school newspaper. And then, months later (August 5, age 34), she was found dead of a drug overdose. This sensitive kid was embarrassed--I had picked the superficial addict, rather than anyone with depth or apparent intellect. Oh, well. I guess I have always liked show business.
If I hadn't begun my post about The Descendants with the word sublime, I would surely be using it here. With the added benefit of going behind the scenes of movie-making in the 1950s, the whole package is great fun. Highly recommended.
The Skin I Live In (La piel que habito - 2011)
Even more psycho-sexual-horrific than Black Swan, Almodóvar's 18th feature is a heartstopper. It has a massive twist and if anyone tries to tell you just put your fingers in your ears and repeat, "Oh no, you won't!" Antonio Banderas is intense as the mad plastic surgeon, though the director apparently told him to tone it down, Elena Anaya is breathtakingly beautiful as his captive Vera (she does yoga to calm herself), and Marisa Peredes (an Almodóvar regular) is deep as the surgeon's housekeeper and accomplice. I've seen half of Almodóvar's (he has pretty much given up his first name of Pedro; I last wrote about him in Broken Embraces) features, and liked them all (the Academy has liked quite a few as well) and Banderas was wonderful in his Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988), Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (1990), as well as The Mambo Kings (1992), The House of the Spirits (1993), Miami Rhapsody (1995), Frida (2002), Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003), and many more, including a small but pivotal part in You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger. I have seen a few of Anaya's previous movies, but didn't remember her. Now I will.
The director adapted Thierry Jonquet's novel Mygale (it was in French, then published in English as Tarantula) into this multi-layered script. The rich music is by Alberto Iglesias, who in addition to collaborating with Almodóvar on all of the above, was Oscar-nominated for The Constant Gardener (2005) and The Kite Runner (2007). Here's a medley, or go from this page to iTunes and click Preview All for minute and a half samples from this soundtrack. The sets and locations are fabulous, with production design by Antxón Gómez and cinematography by José Luis Alcaine, both frequent Almodóvar collaborators, shooting in Tolédo (not Ohio) and Santiago de Compostela (the goal of The Way), Spain.
Now that I've warned you about spoilers, read this spoiler-laden summary ONLY AFTER seeing the movie. Even if the movie leaves you feeling unhappy or violated, you will laugh out loud. But please, save it for later. Mary Ellen put her hands in front of her face more than once, but she liked it a lot, as did Dan, Jack, and I. Yes, you can read the subtitles. It won't kill you.
Speaking of reading, this compulsive proofreader has been bothered for a long time by the title ending with a preposition (there's a line about it in my post on I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With). I realized months after first posting this that the correct Spanish translation would be The Skin I Inhabit, but apparently no one thinks we English speakers will understand that.
The director adapted Thierry Jonquet's novel Mygale (it was in French, then published in English as Tarantula) into this multi-layered script. The rich music is by Alberto Iglesias, who in addition to collaborating with Almodóvar on all of the above, was Oscar-nominated for The Constant Gardener (2005) and The Kite Runner (2007). Here's a medley, or go from this page to iTunes and click Preview All for minute and a half samples from this soundtrack. The sets and locations are fabulous, with production design by Antxón Gómez and cinematography by José Luis Alcaine, both frequent Almodóvar collaborators, shooting in Tolédo (not Ohio) and Santiago de Compostela (the goal of The Way), Spain.
Now that I've warned you about spoilers, read this spoiler-laden summary ONLY AFTER seeing the movie. Even if the movie leaves you feeling unhappy or violated, you will laugh out loud. But please, save it for later. Mary Ellen put her hands in front of her face more than once, but she liked it a lot, as did Dan, Jack, and I. Yes, you can read the subtitles. It won't kill you.
Speaking of reading, this compulsive proofreader has been bothered for a long time by the title ending with a preposition (there's a line about it in my post on I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With). I realized months after first posting this that the correct Spanish translation would be The Skin I Inhabit, but apparently no one thinks we English speakers will understand that.
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