Posted on August 4, 2013 at 3:59 pm
Hungarian director György Pàlfi worked for three years and assembled 450 selections from movies to put together this love letter to the history of film. Can’t wait to see it.
Posted on August 4, 2013 at 2:41 pm
And the new Dr. Who is…Peter Capaldi, most recently seen in “World War Z” but perhaps most memorably seen in “In the Loop,” as the purveyor of the most impressively, explosively, excoriatingly profane tirades of invective ever put on screen. And that includes David Mamet. I will always remember him fondly as the sweet Scot from “Local Hero.” I look forward to his portrayal of the Time Lord.
Posted on August 4, 2013 at 8:00 am
I was very pleased to be included in a new article about the way folklore continues to be at the heart of 21st century storytelling.
Folklore is the mother of all stories – “every story told since stories began has its roots in ,” states Minow. “It was in folklore that the great themes of good and evil, fear and courage, ignorance and understanding, love and selfishness, heroes and villains, were first explored,” she explains.
The Brothers Grimm would recognize many of the themes in today’s movies about superheroes — and super-villains.
All in all, cinematographic portrayal of a folk tale is no boring history book – the audience loves a good story, even if retold for the umpteenth time. Just like tales don’t seem to bore little kids who ask to retell them every night, folk plots keep the audiences in cinema theatres engaged. Provided the screen is bursting with impressive graphics and charismatic actors, of course.
Posted on August 3, 2013 at 8:00 am
Many thanks to Tara D. Sonenshine for allowing me to post this guest commentary about the portrayal of aging in recent film:
Movies come in thematic waves. Recently I’ve noticed many new releases about—well, getting old. Aging actors playing aging characters. Are baby boomers running Hollywood and desperate to remind us we were born many moons ago?
But there’s a twist in these aging sagas: most of the main characters are old men playing male caregivers taking care of aging wives. That’s a switch! The men live longer.
From “Amour” to “Unfinished Song,” from “Quartet” to “Still Mine,” the plots are about the sunset years…which turn out not all that golden. The Motion Picture Association of America might need a new disclaimer: BEWARE: These movies contain scenes of physical and mental deterioration related to the aging process.”
What happened to “aging gracefully?” Aren’t we supposed to be living “longer and stronger?”
Not according to Hollywood.
In “Amour” Austrian director Michael Haneke insists we have few, if any, light moments. Anne, a retired music teacher, endures a stroke early in the film and for two hours we watch, literally watch, as Anne grows frail and incapacitated. We move with her into a wheelchair. Her husband is nothing short of heroic in trying to take care of her, but he ages, not very well, throughout the process of coping with end-of-life grief. Relief comes only in imagining heaven as an upbeat alternative.
Vanessa Redgrave is stunning in “Unfinished Song” as Marion, who is dying from cancer and has only a few months to live. Although it is not a very cheerful premise, Marion’s attitude towards life and music and her fierce dedication to sing with an elderly chorus, makes this a kind of second-chance film. But even though the movie has its uplifting moments and happy songs, the fact remains that Vanessa Redgrave weakens and dies. Her husband, Arthur, played superbly by Terence Stamp, is the classic grumpy old man, who only lightens up in the last fifteen minutes of the film—too late, really, to enjoy the rest of his marriage to Marion.
The most upbeat of these aging films is “Quartet” which takes place in a British retirement home for musicians. There are funny moments of elder romance and old love affairs to distract you from the fundamental reality that some of these residents don’t really want to be living in a group home but have little choice. But after seeing life in “Beecham House,” the British retirement home in the movie, it sure beats aging at home.
As for powerful and poignant, I’d pick “Still Mine,” a Canadian film starring James Cromwell as the 87-year old Craig Morrison, desperate to build a new house for his aging wife who is losing her memory. Genevieve Bujold is brilliant as Irene Morrison, Craig’s wife of 61 years, but you have to endure her steady decline to the point of losing her way, falling, and breaking a hip. The best line of the film is “age is an abstraction, not a straight jacket.” Great — unless you happen to be getting old.
Film critics and historians will rightly point out that growing old is not a new theme. Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth goes downhill in the 1600s over the course of the play. At one point her Elizabethan doctor says that Lady Macbeth is “with thick coming fancies”—resembling modern day Alzheimer’s. (Shakespeare kills off Lady Macbeth with a romantic twist as she begs to be “unsexed.”) Similarly, in “King Lear” we meet an old man faced with regrets and resentment at how his daughters turned out. He begins to decline early in the play. By the end, Lear is self-described as “a very foolish old man” whose mental prowess is fading—by his own account “not in my perfect mind.”
Growing old can be productive. In the Book of Genesis, Sarah does it—pretty well, bearing a child in her eighties and proving that with age comes wisdom. We all want to look like we imagine Sarah looked in the Bible. Good.
Perhaps the answer lies in the movie ratings. “G” sounds good to me. “Gleeful” and “glad” to be part of a generation that thinks “strokes” are for tennis games or golf courses.
In the end, given the choice, I’d pick youth over aging. But if old age is the only option, there are plenty of good lessons to be learned—at the movies.
Posted on August 2, 2013 at 3:59 pm
I am so happy that Christy Lemire, former movie critic for AP, now has her own website and I look forward to checking in often to see what she has to say. One of her first posts is about the popular concept of the “manic pixie dream girl,” first described in those terms by critic Nathan Rabin in discussing the Kirsten Dunst character in the Cameron Crowe film, “Elizabethtown.” This is the female character who represents the Life Force, adorkably quirky and given to spontaneous outbursts and impulsive childlike whims.
I’m not as bothered by the manic pixie dream girl as some people. For one thing, the idea of a Life Force changing the direction of a play-by-the-rules type has been around as long as there have been stories. The conflict between characters representing the id and superego has been played out endlessly, going back to ancient myths and fairy tales. Screwball comedies like “Bringing Up Baby” and “Nothing Sacred” are classic examples, and yet no one calls Katharine Hepburn or Carole Lombard manic pixie dream girls. Of course there are manic pixie dream boys as well — think of William Holden in “Picnic,” Melvin Douglas in “Ninotchka” and “Theodora Goes Wild,” and Burt Lancaster in “The Rainmaker.” Even the dull Vince Vaughn movie “The Internship” this summer featured a Life Spirit character who had to show the overly serious Rose Byrne how to find joy in life.
And I’d much rather watch a manic pixie dream girl than her far less interesting counterpart, the arrested development boy-man so often portrayed by Adam Sandler and the entire Judd Apatow repertory company. Vince Vaughn’s “Internship” character counts twice because he was also in the arrested development category. Even worse is the female character often matched with those perpetual pubescents, the thankless role of the “Johnny, when will you grow up?” nanny/schoolmarm types. I felt very bad for Mila Kunis in “Ted,” a very talented comic actress who was relegated to that overdone character.
Christy Lemire lists five of her favorite manic pixie dream girls. Mine include Jane Fonda in “Barefoot in the Park,” Katharine Hepburn in “Bringing Up Baby,” Goldie Hawn in “Cactus Flower” and “Butterflies are Free,” Maggie Gyllenhaal in “Stranger than Fiction” (bonus points for making her not so stereotypically free-spirited that she can’t still be a meticulous and organized small business owner), and Barbara Stanwyck in “The Lady Eve.”
