High profile director Guido Contini (Daniel Day-Lewis) has everything he needs to make his ninth movie and more. Much more. It is Italy in the early 1960’s and Guido is a glamorous celebrity, a name brand, a commodity. His production team is ready, including his close friend and adviser, costume designer Lilli (Judi Dench), his star and muse Claudia (Nicole Kidman), and his producers. He also has a devoted wife Luisa (Oscar winner Marianne Cotillard), a mistress Carla (Penelope Cruz), a mother (Sophia Loren), a pretty reporter from Vogue named Stephanie who wants more from him than an interview (Kate Hudson), and memories of the first woman to teach him about desire Saraghina (Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas).
What he does not have is a script, or even an idea of where to begin.
Which gives him something in common with director Rob Marshall (“Chicago”), because beyond the idea of a director who has too much on his mind and not enough ideas this movie does not have anything to say. Marshall has a great appreciation for female beauty and a lot of style. That’s a great reason to watch a music video but it is not really a reason to make or watch a movie.
Marshall trots out his bevy of international beauties, and each gets a musical number, some of them stunning. Fergie’s deep, rich-throated “Be Italian” and an almost-endless chorus line of tambourine-beating back-up singers, is sheer electricity. But the only one that comes close to reaching that level is Hudson, channeling her mother, Goldie Hawn, in a spangled silver mini-dress and go-go boots.
Cruz finds some sizzle in the notorious “Call from the Vatican” number, though no one can match the late Anita Morris, whose performance was considered too incendiary (and her costume too revealing) for the Tony Awards broadcast in 1982. But the musical numbers are not up to the level of “Chicago” and the lyrics in particular cannot stand up to the loving attention given to them by these actresses. At the end, it’s as empty as its subject.
Forget the accents. Forget the anguish, the steely resolve, the iambic pentameter. All hail Meryl Streep for what she is best at — comedy. She spins screenplay straw into movie gold, turning yet another fungible Nancy Meyers saga about a beautiful and accomplished middle-aged woman triumphing over a womanizing man into a miracle of warmth, heart, and wisdom just from the power of sheer acting genius and being the truly and deeply glorious person that she is.
Meyers does have a talent for, in the words of one of her movie titles “What Women Want.” She knows that there is an eager audience for a story about a middle-aged woman who is so universally adored that even her ex-husband, the hound who left her for a gorgeous young woman (cue the slo-mo stroll in the midriff-revealing sarong) can’t get enough of her and admits that he was crazy to let her go. What could be more satisfying than that?
One of the wisest and most entertaining books ever written about movies is Stanley Cavell’s Pursuits of Happiness: The Hollywood Comedy of Remarriage, where he discusses the power of movie romances that bring estranged couples back together. As beguiling as it is to think of the freshness of first falling in love and the pleasures of learning everything about one another, there is something even more deeply satisfying about the idea of falling in love with someone with whom there are no illusions, and especially having that someone fall in love with you. Anyone can fall in love with what we think we know or with someone we’ve seen at his or her best. But when it’s someone we’ve seen at his or her worst; that’s got to be love for sure.
Or, it can be something satisfying in a different way — payback.
Streep plays Jane (as in plain?), divorced for ten years from Jake (Alec Baldwin, perfecting the art of the appealing but infuriating male) finds herself in bed with him following a tipsy dinner when they are in New York together for their son’s graduation. She can’t resist the chance to feel pursued, validated, desired. The spark they once had is still there. And she would be inhuman if she did not feel a little triumphant about his preferring her to his beautiful young wife.
But there are (grown-up) children to consider. Being back together frees Jane to admit that she was not blameless in their break-up. It allows her to allow Jake to see her (literally) as she is, not as he remembers. And it opens her heart to some other possibilities, including the shy architect working on the addition to her house — including the dream kitchen to replace a kitchen already pretty darn dreamy.
Meyers, astutely profiled by Daphne Merkin in the New York Times Magazine, seems to be the only person in Hollywood today interested in and capable of connecting deeply to an audience of women who want more from a movie than frothy rom-coms or sex and shopping. Rare in the world of chick flicks, there are no trying-on-clothes montages or makeovers. Her movies feature capable women with good friends and loving families. The most preposterous fantasy in her films may not be the gorgeously decorated settings or even the swains in pursuit but the unequivocally devoted friends and especially children and even the prospective son-in-law — take another look at the way Jude Law’s little girls fall into instant love with Cameron Diaz in “The Holiday.” Like Jane in this film, who considers and then rejects the idea of a little cosmetic surgery, Meyers’ women start out fine with who they are and then get even more so.
Streep is what Meyers’ women want to be — supremely warm and nurturing (watch the way she keeps feeding everyone exquisite but apparently completely non-fattening meals), self-aware, and able with a little adorable struggle, to impose some boundaries in a very familiar way. She fills in what Meyers’s slightly calculating formula leaves out and makes this movie as guilty a pleasure as those chocolate croissants she whips up that make her date fall for her as we already have.
The players get played in a romantic buddy comedy with one important distinction — one of those players is the resident of an assisted living facility who gets some assistance he was not expecting when a frisky fellow resident slips him some Viagra. And that resident is played by Andy Griffith. Opie, I don’t think we’re in Mayberry any more.
Paul Campbell (“Knight Rider,” “Battlestar Galactica”) plays David, a car salesman whose standard operating procedure is spin, whether with the customers or the ladies. The one true thing in his life is his relationship with his grandfather, Joe (Griffith). David visits Joe regularly and makes sure he is well taken care of. And since David’s idea of being well taken care of includes female companionship (and more than companionship), David starts to coach his grandfather on how to get as much action from as many ladies as possible. Joe is not the quickest of studies. It has been a while since he dated. But he has one thing going for him — numbers. Most of the residents of the home are women, and it seems that almost all of them are very interested in some companionship themselves. And more than companionship. At least one of them, Edna (played by “Seinfeld’s” Liz Sheridan) is quite frisky. But we know she will not be The One because she has a funny old-lady name. Rose (“Everybody Loves Raymond’s” Doris Roberts), on the other hand, has a pretty name. And a pretty grand-daughter.
She has a pretty name, too — Julie (Marla Sokoloff of “The Practice” and “Dude, Where’s My Car?”). David tries his best maneuvers on her. But she manages to evade them and he finds himself caring about her.
It all feels thin and sit-com-y, in part because its quintet of performers are all associated with television. It slides uneasily from frothy rom-com to raunchy ew-fest, with sexual references and situations so explicit the film would have qualified for an R-rating without Griffith’s disinfectingly innocent line readings and the MPAA’s automatic assumption that geriatric sex is more comic than erotic. The plot twists are awkwardly handled. And Campbell is bland. But the film shows promise in its writer-director Marc Fienberg, whose affection for his senior citizen characters is palpable and whose commitment to making them real characters is appealing. Too often, older characters are one-dimensional, on screen just to pass along life lessons, usually involving their deaths. But even with the heightened rhythms of a broad comedy, these are vibrant, engaged, real people. Campell is bland by comparison. But Sokoloff is a find, and she makes Julie so appealing we can see how she has David wondering if he’s been playing for the wrong team.
NOTE: The DVD being released this week is a stripped-down 2D version. Later this year there will be another release with many more extras.
Writer-director-producer James Cameron (“Titanic,” “Terminator”) spent a record-breaking $230 million on “Avatar,” and the good news is that he got his money’s worth on the technology — the 3D motion capture technology is stunning, many levels above anything that has ever been done before. He has literally created an entire world, the planet Pandora, so that every insect, plant, animal, waterfall, humanoid creature, and landscape and all of the physical properties that govern the way they interact has to be carefully thought through and consistently applied so that it is at the same time imaginative and credible. If it manages the second better than the first, that is still very impressive. And if it runs out of imagination and even some credibility when it comes to the plot, well, there is still enough on the screen to qualify as entertaining eye candy.
It takes place more than a hundred years in the future. Sam Worthington plays Jake, a former Marine confined to a wheelchair following an injury. His twin brother, a scientist, has been killed and Jake is given the chance to replace him on a major project for a big corporation. Jake does not have his brother’s training and experience but he has something even more important — the same DNA. Jake’s brother and his colleagues have mixed some of their DNA with that of a humanoid race on the planet Pandora to create hybrids that can be used as sort of puppets, manipulated by the humans to interact with the creatures on Pandora. Since Jake’s DNA matches, he qualifies. And he has a powerful incentive to participate. With the money he will get, he will be able to afford the surgery that will restore his ability to walk, which is not covered by his VA benefits. (Apparently, even a century from now we still won’t have that health care thing licked.) So Jake goes into a pod sort of thing and the next thing and into a sleep sort of state and the next thing you know he is digging big, blue toes into the Pandorian ground (I guess you don’t call it earth if it’s on another planet).
Those are very big, blue toes. The Pandorians are 10-foot tall, skinny, long-limbed creatures, sort of like America’s Next Top Model if they were blue and had tails. They have cat-like faces and long, braided hair that surrounds a sort of tentacled membrane that can be used like a USB cable to plug into energy sources in plants, animals, other Pandorians, and whatever they call what we here call earth. And speaking of whatever they call things, I’m just going to refer to them as people from now on.
So the Pandorians are a gentle people who commune deeply with nature. They kill animals for meat but they do it respectfully. They plug into to the special tree as though it was a cell phone recharger and reach out to each other in kumbaya circles to get in touch with their ancestors. And here is where the juggernaut of Cameron’s budget and energy outruns his imagination and it all starts to look like it was pieced together from bits of “Ferngully,” Pocahontas, National Geographic, assorted historical failures of colonialism, imperialism, and international intervention from the Indians to Viet Nam and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, plus “Dances With Wolves.” “When people are sitting on that you want,” explains one character, “you make them your enemies.” And, sure enough, the mercenary former Colonel calls the Na’vi “hostiles,” “aborigines,” and terrorists.
All of that work goes into designing the look of the planet and then the best name they can come up with is Pandora? As in the woman who unleashed all the troubles of the world, at least here on planet Earth? Why? And, since we know there has to be some sort of McGuffin (Alfred Hitchcock’s term for whatever it is that the hero and heroine have to get or do before the end of the movie) that must be difficult to obtain, let’s call it “unobtainium.” That sounds like something Dr. Evil would be cackling about while Basil Exposition brings Austin Powers up to date. It made me want to give Cameron an ultimatium.
Unobtainium is some very rare and precious ore underneath a tree sacred to a Pandorian tribe called the Na’vi that the evil corporation headed by Giovanni Ribisi wants to get at any cost. But for some reason, the Na’vi have resisted their efforts to cajole or bribe. When they agree to teach Jake their ways, the corporation realizes that if he gains their trust, they can use him to lead them to the tree. And then no more Mr. Nice Corporation. Bring out the bulldozers and the private army. Meanwhile, Jake is getting very close to the daughter of the Na’vi leaders (Zoe Saldana, with this and “Star Trek” now the 2009 fanboy dream girl). Apparently, another thing that is universal is kissing. And also falling for the guy your parents don’t approve of.
I am willing to believe those things occur on all planets, even the pervasiveness of the evil corporation as bad guy, too. But there are other elements in the story that just seem unoriginal and not very well thought through. The creatures seem like tweaked versions of Earth animals. Putting an extra pair of legs on a horse is, like stretching out a human form, not all that exciting, though it does add a bit more thunder to the hooves. The Na’vi wear conventional noble savage attire (skimpy, lots of beads), but the human avatars somehow fit cargo pants and t-shirts onto their Pandorian bodies (dealing with the tails must be a challenge).
But let’s face it, the unobtainium we seek in a movie like this one is not profundity. If the story is not new, the visual effects are. Even the subtitles (for when the characters speak in Na’vi language) help give the frame additional depth. The 3D is inviting and immersive, adding to the sense of vertigo or constriction. The integration of the live action and CGI footage is seamless and the performances of Worthington, Sigourney Weaver as a scientist, Michelle Rodriguez as a pilot and Stephen Lang as the Colonel provide some of the depth and grounding that the pixels and script do not deliver. And the pixels deliver the kind of fun that movies — and fangirls like me — were made for.
Jeff Bridges does not portray Bad Blake, a broken-down, once-successful country singer; he inhabits the role, showing us not just what is happening to the man on screen but everything, every success and every failure, every love and every loss that the man has had in his 57 years.
Blake once played arenas and was a mentor to Tommy Sweet (Colin Farrell), who is now a huge star. He once had money, and his own band. Now he is lucky to get a one-night gig at a bowling alley, with a pick-up band for back-up.
Bridges makes us feel that Blake is someone we have known and listened to all our lives, as though just last week, driving in the car, one of his old songs came on and we said, “You know, I really used to like that guy. Whatever happened to him?”
Like the songs Blake sings (from Stephen Bruton and T-Bone Burnett), the story feels completely authentic and fully lived. We know at the very beginning, as soon as Blake pulls up to the bowling alley parking lot that he is destined to disappoint everyone, and that he knows it, too. And yet, he still has the power to surprise us, to beguile us, to make us think, against our better judgment, that things might be different next time.
Did this happen because he drinks too much or does he drink too much because it happened? Probably both. Substance abusers, even those who have some self-awareness, maintain their denial by compartmentalizing so they can reassure themselves that there is some part of their life they are not messing up. We see what’s left of that with Blake when he is on stage. He may spend the rest of his life hiding from others and even himself how much of his energy goes into obtaining and drinking booze and recovering from drinking booze. But he holds onto what was precious to him. He may skip rehearsal and duck off stage to throw up in the middle of a big number, but he will do everything in his still-considerable power to deliver to the audience. He can still muster some grace on and off stage.
Jean (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a single mother and aspiring journalist, interviews Blake for an article. There is a strong attraction between them, her for what he has been and him for what he sees of himself in her eyes. An unexpected setback gives them a break to explore what they might be to each other, and Blake’s genuine connection to her son makes Jean even more vulnerable. But anyone who’s ever listened to a country song knows why Blake’s first name is Bad.
And anyone who sees this movie will know why Bridges’ first name should be Good. One of our finest actors has been given one of his finest roles, and that makes this a very good film to see.
, where he discusses the power of movie romances that bring estranged couples back together. As beguiling as it is to think of the freshness of first falling in love and the pleasures of learning everything about one another, there is something even more deeply satisfying about the idea of falling in love with someone with whom there are no illusions, and especially having that someone fall in love with you. Anyone can fall in love with what we think we know or with someone we’ve seen at his or her best. But when it’s someone we’ve seen at his or her worst; that’s got to be love for sure.