manhattan

Who’s That Girl

Link posted on by moviebloke

(USA 1987)

“You gotta see me spend money to really appreciate me.”

—Nikki Finn

“¿Quién es esa niña?” asks the buoyant but trite title song, which topped the Billboard Hot 100 charts for a week during the summer of 1987. We all know the answer: it’s Madonna, of course. Perhaps a better question is, what happened with this movie?

Madonna is Nikki Finn, a playful gumcracking ex-con who just got out of jail serving time for a crime she didn’t commit. She’s rough around the edges but dead serious about her mission: she’s determined to find out who framed her for the murder of her boyfriend, Johnny.

Enter uptight humorless yuppie tax attorney Loudon Trott (Griffin Dunne), who works for Manhattan mogul Simon Worthington (John McMartin) and is about to marry his daughter, Wendy (Haviland Morris). Louden is charged with the task of picking up Nikki from the pen and making sure she gets on a bus to Philadelphia. Surprise: it’s not that easy with someone like darling Nikki, which becomes abundantly clear to Louden over the next 24 hours. Talk about causing a commotion.

Originally titled Slammer, Who’s That Girl is an homage of sorts to the screwball comedies of the 1930s and 1940s. It’s a total “summer movie.” Written by Andrew Smith and Ken Finkleman, and directed by James Foley, it shows glimpses of some okay ideas. It’s supposed to be fun, and to a degree it is. Madonna and Dunne concoct a believable chemistry, I’ll give them that. Dunne is a great straight guy, on par with his performance in After Hours. The problem is, Who’s That Girl just isn’t very funny. The jokes are lame, the laughs are far and few between, and the plot is predictable. The whole thing loses steam about halfway through. Murray the cougar (Murray) is a pointless gimmick that, sadly, doesn’t add anything.

The animated opening sequence is cool (and parts of it ended up in the music video for “Who’s That Girl”). The soundtrack is better than the film. Overall, though, Who’s That Girl is a pretty uninspired work. I love Madonna and I ran to the theater when this came out. I was underwhelmed then; after waiting almost 30 years to see it again, I’m underwhelmed now. Fun fact, though: Stanley Tucci and Mike Starr both have minor roles as dockworkers.

With Coati Mundi, Dennis Burkley, James Dietz, Bibi Besch, John Mills, Robert Swan, Drew Pillsbury, Liz Sheridan

Production: Guber-Peters Company

Distribution: Warner Brothers

92 minutes
Rated PG

(iTunes purchase) D+

 

Florence Foster Jenkins

Link posted on by moviebloke

(UK 2016)

“People can say I can’t sing, but they can’t say I didn’t sing.”

—Florence Foster Jenkins

A lot of hype surrounded Florence Foster Jenkins before it arrived at a theater near us last fall. We wanted to catch it during its original run, but it came and went before we got around to seeing it. So, inspired by a post earlier in the day, I rented it on a Friday when we had no plans other than dinner at home. The night we watched it just happened to be Friday the 13th, which somehow seems appropriate.

Based on actual events and set during WWII, Florence (Meryl Streep) is a rich Manhattan society lady of a certain age who runs in an arty circle and knows a lot of people, some with money and others who follow it. She operates a private venue dedicated to opera, the Verdi Club, where she stars in a show and has a non-speaking role. Dying of either syphillis or the treatment for it—mercury and arsenic!—her one wish is to perform for an audience at Carnegie Hall. The problem is, she can’t sing; she’s downright awful. Her entrance here, lowered onstage from a rope and pulley while dressed as an angel with a harp, reminds me of Sarah Jessica Parker’s entrance (“I offer you mortals the bird of peace so that you may change your ways and end this destruction”) in Ed Wood, Tim Burton’s 1994 biopic about a similarly talentless film director who came along a decade or so later. The comparison is so apt that I wonder if it was intentional. Here, Florence’s husband, St. Clair Bayfield (Hugh Grant), doesn’t help matters by exaggerating her talent.

Determined to make her dream come true, Florence hires a vocal trainer, Carlo Edwards (David Haig), and a pianist, Cosmé McMoon (Simon Helberg), to put together a show. Established and well-known Carlo is content to take Florence’s money, build her ego, and let her dream on. Budding Cosmé, however, struggles with lying to her about her obvious ineptitude, not to mention her negative impact on his professional reputation. He soon sees that those around Florence stretch the truth about a lot of things when dealing with her.

Nicholas Martin’s script is kind to its characters, going for laughs in a way that doesn’t demean any of them. I never heard of her until this film, but the actual Florence Foster Jenkins was an interesting person. Her singing truly was awful:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hcs9yJjVecs. As always, Streep is spot on with her portrayal. She seems to have fun in this role, and it shows. Grant, who usually bores me but doesn’t here, is well suited for St. Clair: he’s stuffy and straight, but he nicely coveys an underlying deceitfulness that doesn’t come off as sinister. I like the way director Stephen Frears plays with deceit here, ultimately using it to depict a very touching side of St. Clair—who lives with his mistress (Rebecca Ferguson) in Brooklyn in apartment that Florence pays for. Much to my surprise, though, Big Bang Theory‘s Helberg steals practically every scene he’s in: keeping it subtle with Cosmé’s homosexuality (as Cosmé himself no doubt would have done during his day), he plays his character as a spineless, perennially uncomfortable, asexual bundle of nerves. He peppers his performance with grimaces and nervous giggles. Later, he delivers a line to explain his tardiness to Florence (of course, it involves sailors) with perfect and priceless dryness. He outshines everyone here.

Florence Foster Jenkins has some funny moments and some very touching ones. I found it enjoyable enough, but certainly not a knockout. It could have benefitted from a little more quirk and edge, especially considering its title character who showed no shortage of either.

Also starring Nina Arianda, Stanley Townsend, Allan Corduner, John Sessions, John Kavanagh, David Menkin, and Sid Phoenix

Produced by Qwerty Films, Pathé Pictures International, and BBC Films

Distributed by Paramount Pictures (USA)

111 minutes
Rated PG-13

(iTunes rental) C

http://www.florencefosterjenkinsmovie.com

Sad Vacation: the Last Days of Sid and Nancy

Link posted on by moviebloke

(USA 2016)

It doesn’t get more P.R. (“punk rock”) than the final days of Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen, the notorious and dysfunctional so-called “Romeo and Juliet of punk”—frankly, I’ve always viewed them as not too far off from John and Yoko, but I digress. Two messy heroin junkies, they bounced around for most of 1978 after the Sex Pistols disbanded. In September, they landed in Manhattan, where they rented a room at the Chelsea Hotel and Nancy appointed herself Sid’s manager. A month later, she ended up slumped next to the toilet in their room, dead from a stab wound to the abdomen (though she had multiple shallow stabs all over). Sid was arrested and allegedly confessed to her murder. While out of prison on bail, he died of a heroin overdose—some claim accidentally administered by his mother, others claim suicide—just four months later.

Danny Garcia’s Sad Vacation, a straight-to-video release coming out almost exactly 30 years after Alex Cox’s biopic Sid and Nancy, revisits these legendary rock and roll deaths. Interviewing many a soul who was there—Steve “Roadent” Conolly, Kenny “Stinker” Gordon, Hellin Killer, Walter Lure, Howie Pyro, Cynthia Ross, Gaye Black, Phyllis Stein, and Sylvain Sylvain to name a few—Garcia presents the facts, which are conflicting and not at all clear. Although Sad Vacation covers a little history of the punk movement, Malcolm McLaren, and the Sex Pistols, the focus is assiduously on what happened at the Chelsea. Narrated by Fun Lovin’ Criminals front man Huey Morgan, Sad Vacation takes on the tone of a crime documentary, laying out evidence and showing the holes in it. Not surprisingly, Garcia reveals some of the “eight thousand or so” conspiracy theories surrounding the murder, with those who knew the couple speculating on who really killed Nancy. Many point to Rockets Redglare, a drug dealer and bodyguard who worked for them. Redglare, who went on to appear in a number of films you’ve actually seen, died in 2001 (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockets_Redglare).

Sad Vacation is not essential viewing; it doesn’t uncover anything new, raise any points that haven’t been raised before, or even pick a theory to endorse. It concludes that no one will ever know what happened. Big wow. That said, Garcia succeeds in showing that Sid and Nancy were kids—flawed ones, but still. After hearing words like “mess,” “dysfunctional,” and “destructive” to describe their relationship, it’s sweet to learn that his ashes were spread on her grave because they couldn’t be buried together. Now that’s P.R.

94 minutes
Not rated

(Home via iTunes) C

https://m.facebook.com/sadvacationdocumentary/

http://www.chipbakerfilms.com

Bullets Over Broadway

Link posted on by moviebloke

(USA 1994)

“The world will open to you like an oyster. No, not like an oyster. The world will open to you like a magnificent vagina.”

—Helen Sinclair

Apparently, I’m not the only one who holds 1994 in very high regard as a landmark year for film: http://wtop.com/movies/2016/01/best-years-ever-movies/;
http://www.killcure.com/2009/12/05/the-5-best-years-for-movies/;
http://ew.com/article/2009/08/05/which-was-the-best-year-for-movies-1977-1994-or-1999/; http://www.maxim.com/entertainment/10-movies-prove-1994-was-best-year-film-history; http://twoguysonemovie.com/editorial-1994-the-best-year-for-movies-ever/; https://www.quora.com/Was-1994-the-best-year-in-the-history-of-film-making-in-Hollywood; http://luminarydaily.com/no-huffington-post-1993-wasnt-the-best-year-for-movies-1994-was/. Seriously, here’s what I saw that year: Pulp Fiction, Quiz Show, Heavenly Creatures, Ed Wood, Shawshank Redemption, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Killing Zöe, and of couse Bullets Over Broadway. I think I saw Schindler’s List that year, too—at least, by the time it opened where I lived. Fuck yeah, what a year! If this were a report card, I’d have straight A’s.

Now for Bullets Over Broadway: I suspect that once we as a culture got to the ’80s, complete artistic control became a pipe dream. This is because by that point, entertainment already was a bona fide industry with backers, lawyers, trademarks, and a human resources department—a mix of commerce that sometimes can but most of the time just doesn’t mix with art. Let’s be honest: how could it?

This is what makes Bullets Over Broadway so much fun! Set in 1920s Manhattan, Woody Allen—himself an artist by this point in his career—is making fun of, well, artists. And commerce. And you know what? The whole thing is fucking brilliant! I mean, if anyone knows how that works…

John Cusack is David Shayne, the Broadway playwright du jour. His agent (Jack Warden) gets his play produced—but it requires a series of concessions, some of which literally are do or die. You see, a mafia kingpin (Joe Viterelli) agrees to finance the play as long as his girlfriend, Olive Neal (Jennifer Tilly), is cast as the lead. OK, but…Olive has no talent. And remember: this is Prohibition. Who’s going to say anything—especially when Olive arrives to rehearsals with a bodyguard (Chazz Palminteri)? Bueller?

You’d be surprised—like an asshole, everyone has an opinion. Some, particularly those with artistic credibility (but not necessarily looking out for the best interests of the play), get David’s attention more than others—lead actress Helen Sinclair (Dianne Wiest), for one. Never mind that she pretends she wants to sleep with David—she’s got his ear. Too bad David writes off the ones with the best ideas—and the best intentions. Who’s the artist now?

With excellent appearances by Jim Broadbent, Rob Reiner, Mary-Louise Parker, Harvey Fierstein, and Tracey Ullman, Bullets Over Broadway is one of Allen’s best films. For some strange reason, it’s damned near impossible to find on home video—DVD maybe, if you get lucky; but definitely not a download. I don’t understand why.

98 minutes
Rated R

(Home via DVD) A-

http://www.woodyallen.com/filmography/directed-by/

Breakfast at Tiffany’s

Link posted on by moviebloke

(USA 1961)

“You musn’t give your heart to a wild thing. The more you do, the stronger they get, until they’re strong enough to run into the woods or fly into a tree. And then to a higher tree, and then to the sky.”

—Holly Golightly

So, “Audrey Hepburn is having breakfast at Tiffany’s”?! Why, yes, I would love to join her!

When Fathom Events, Turner Classic Movies, and Paramount Pictures invited me to “fall in love again” for a special 55th anniversary screening of Breakfast at Tiffany’s in a select theater near me, well, I couldn’t say no. Until now, I’ve only seen it on my television or computer screen.

I admit, I’m a sucker for this film—even though it’s not the kind of thing I usually go for, and Mickey Rooney as Mr. Yunioshi was a terrible idea even if many films of the era did the same thing to get a big name involved. Whatever. I’ve never met anyone who didn’t like this film. Directed by Blake Edwards and adapted for the screen by George Axelrod, Breakfast at Tiffany’s is a fine midcentury fairy tale. Set in Manhattan, Holly Golightly (Hepburn) leads a life full of the very trappings I imagined myself having as an adult: a cool apartment in a big city, great clothes, wicked accessories, lots of fashionable friends and acquaintances, wild parties, drinks all the time, travel plans, and generally risqué fun and fabulousness. I have some of them.

What’s brilliant about this story, though—and probably why it appeals to me—is its dark side. Nothing here is what it seems: what we see is a ruse—to use the words of O.J. Berman (Martin Balsam), Holly is a phony. Her life is phony. She puts on an act. It’s more than simply running away from her past, represented by ex-husband Doc (Buddy Ebsen) and his references to her former self, Lulamae. She’s not the naïve eccentric she would have everyone believe she is. She’s also not the high society sophisticate she presents, either: the apostrophe ‘s’ she adds to the name of her ideal escape (the store is called “Tiffany & Co.”) gives her away. Frankly, she’s not even true call girl material, however downplayed that part of her personality is (we’re only told that she gets fifty bucks for the powder room).

Like her dark sunglasses and the Halloween mask she steals from the five and dime with fellow phony Paul Varjak (George Peppard), Holly’s working a facade she hides behind. Holly is a product of Lulamae’s imagination; she left behind her life in Tulip, Texas, for a bigger, more exciting one. The problem is, she doesn’t seem to know exactly what she wants, bouncing carefreely from one half-baked plan to another. She’s afraid to commit to anything because doing so puts her in a vulnerable position. Why else would one call her cat, “Cat” (Orangie)? Oh, the poor slob without a name!

At the end of the story, Cat represents something different. Holly throws him out of the cab into the rain in a “bad” neighborhood. She realizes that she wants to belong somewhere, to someone. Ummm…Paul? I know Truman Capote wrote a different ending, and I tend to disdain a neat, happy Hollywood ending; but here, it’s perfect. I can’t see a better way to end this story. Sorry, Mr. Capote.

Three more things: Patricia Neal is fantastic as stylish girl “2E.” Henry Mancini’s score is the cherry on the top of this sundae—mmmmm! If I ever have two dogs, I’m naming them Sally Tomato (Alan Reed, who went on to be the voice of Fred Flintstone) and Mr. O’Shaunessy (Joseph J. Greene).

In 2012, the United States Library of Congress deemed Breakfast at Tiffany’s “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry (https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-film-preservation-board/film-registry/complete-national-film-registry-listing/).

114 minutes
Not rated

(Evanston Century) A

Fathom Events

Winter of the Witch

Link posted on by moviebloke

(USA 1970)

I never heard of this nifty gem of a short until I saw it, but it’s apparently quite big with Gen X. I can see why: a precursor to Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore and Scooby Doo with Bewitched and The Addams Family thrown in, it’s about a single mother (Anna Strasberg) who skips town (Manhattan) in her VW Bug with her young son, Nicky (Roger Morgan), and buys a dilapidated old Victorian mansion in the boonies for cheap. Real cheap: $400 cheap. Turns out, there’s a catch: the place is haunted by a gloomy and depressed 300-year old witch (Hermione Gingold) who’s given up on the world.

Adapted from the book Old Black Witch by Wende and Harry Devlin, screenwriter and director Gerald Herman turns in something unintentionally impressive. I can see why this is such a hit with members of my generation. Aside from a few nouveau social issues for the time (a single parent and a vaguely gay little boy) and the mysterious untold backstory of this mother-son team, Winter of the Witch is really fucking weird. What kid’s story mixes the occult and “magic pancakes” laced with something no one will identify? The damned pancakes make everyone who eats them happy, so… The quality of the film is cheap and eerie, adding to the mood. Plus, Burgess Meredith narrates.

Winter of the Witch is roughly the length of a sitcom episode, which makes me think it was a pilot that didn’t get picked up. Regardless, I love it! See for yourself below.

24 minutes
Not rated

(Music Box) B+

Music Box of Horrors

Annie Hall

Link posted on by moviebloke

(USA 1977)

“A relationship, I think, is like a shark. It has to constantly move forward or it dies. And I think what we got on our hands is a dead shark.”

“You know, this guy goes to his psychiatrist and says, ‘Doc, my brother’s crazy. He thinks he’s a chicken.’ And the doctor says, ‘Well why don’t you turn him in?’ The guy says, ‘I would, but I need the eggs.’ Well, I guess that’s pretty much now how I feel about relationships: you know, they’re totally irrational and crazy and absurd, but I guess we keep going through it because most of us need the eggs.”

—Alvy Singer

Classic Woody Allen is an acquired taste, kind of like gefilte fish: too weird and off putting to appreciate right off the bat, you find that you actually look forward to his annual appearance once you get what he’s about. There’s no way around it: Woody Allen is for the urban set.

Annie Hall is hands down my favorite Woody Allen film, at least out of the ones I’ve seen—and I haven’t seen them all. It’s everything that makes a Woody Allen film great: lots of nervous banter, self-deprication, uncomfortable situations (usually but not always related to sex), an obsession with manners and etiquette, and hilariously pointed observations on the absurdities of modern life. It sounds like Seinfeld, but Allen was first.

The plot is simple enough: Alvy Singer (Allen) examines his relationship with Annie Hall (Diane Keaton), an aspiring Manhattan singer and photographer. They play a cat-and-mouse game because neither wants to make the first move. Alvy and Annie are awkward and bizarre, but I still found myself rooting for both of them. The relationship doesn’t work out, but it’s really something while it lasts. Along the way are small, sublime parts for Carol Kane, Shelley Duvall, Jeff Goldblum, and Christopher Walken.

Annie Hall stands out even as a Woody Allen film, and for an obvious reason. Underneath its entertaining and brilliant storytelling, underneath its many bells and whistles—subtitled subtext, a cartoon segment, and cameos by Marshall McLuhan, Paul Simon, and the Evil Queen from Snow White? Fuck yeah!—is a poignant reality: people change. For all its warmth and wit, Annie Hall spends more time showing its protagonists fall out of love than in it. Rich and layered, it’s funny yet wrenchingly accurate. While we laugh out loud, it plays on our worst fears—none of us wants to end up where Alvy and Annie do.

In 1992, the United States Library of Congress deemed Annie Hall “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry (https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-film-preservation-board/film-registry/complete-national-film-registry-listing/).

96 minutes
Rated PG

(Music Box) A

http://www.woodyallen.com

Date Night

Video posted on by moviebloke

(USA 2010)

I love me some Tina Fey, I usually like Steve Carell, and I certainly won’t complain if Mark Wahlberg is shirtless in every scene. Add James Franco, Mila Kunis, Mark Ruffalo, Kristen Wiig, and even Common, and you’d expect to have a winner on your hands. Right? Wrong.

Date Night is a cute adventure film, but it’s certainly not an adventurous undertaking. It’s formulaic, predictable Hollywood milquetoast aimed at married suburban couples—director Shawn Levy’s specialty. Fey and Carell play the Fosters, a normal, middle-aged, overworked New Jersey couple whose longtime marriage has lost its mojo. They do date night periodically to keep things alive—it doesn’t seem to be working. One night, they decide to be adventurous and head to Manhattan. When they learn that the wait for a table at an exclusively hip restaurant will be a few hours because they don’t have a reservation, they pretend to be another couple, the Tripplehorns, to snag theirs. The Fosters end up with way more excitement than either of them bargained for after a pair of mobsters (Common and Jimmi Simpson) confronts them about a jump drive their boss (Ray Liotta) wants.

Fey and Carell have a sort of chemistry, but it’s benign. They do this thing where they imagine the conversations that patrons at other tables are having—it’s cute and very Seinfeldian. The Maitre D’ (Nick Kroll) is funny because he is such an asshole—in a David Spade way. Other than that, the laughs here are far and few between. The problem isn’t the actors—it’s Josh Klausner’s lame script, which plays out like a bland and weird ripoff of After Hours, Adventures in Babysitting, and True Romance. Date Night has a few good lines and a few good scenes, but not enough to make it funny for very long.

88 minutes
Rated PG-13

(TBS) D+

Paris Is Burning

Link posted on by moviebloke

(USA 1991)

“Opulence. O, P, U, L, E, N, C, E, opulence. You own everything. Everything is yours!”

—Junior LaBeija

Before The Crying Game and Transamerica, RuPaul’s Drag Race, Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner, and Scissor Sisters’ “Let’s Have a Kiki,” there was Paris Is Burning. I first saw it at a screening on my college campus, I think, when it was fairly new—I remember a double feature with Madonna’s Truth or Dare, so it had to be summer or fall 1991. I’ve since seen it countless times. It’s one of the films I quote most. I love it, even as it turns 25 years old. It is, in two words, fucking fabulous!

Shot in 1987 with a short check in three years later, Paris Is Burning is ostensibly a documentary about the Harlem nightlife ball culture (pronounced “boo-wall” by most here). The film takes its name from one said ball, a rather clandestine affair held in a shabby party hall somewhere near Lexington/125. A world unto itself, ball culture was loaded with costumes, wild dancing, attitude, hierarchy, and tons of rules. There was blood, sweat, tears, and fighting—but there was also community and (for some) glory. As one subject, Willie Ninja, informs us, the balls may have been long and drawn out, but they were never boring. Amen! This is clear.

Much to her credit, director Jennie Livingston goes—excuse how this sounds—beyond the balls, getting into the daily challenges not only gay men and drag queens faced, but also actual bona fide transgender women. This was probably the first exposure I had to that. I mean, being gay in the Reagan Era was bad enough: if you weren’t destined to live a long and lonely life in the closet, you were going to get AIDS. Either way, the only thing straight about you was your road to hell. Transgender was…something else altogether. America was not ready for it when Paris is Burning came out, which makes it all the more remarkable.

Paris Is Burning is a big middle finger to all that thinking. While not everyone subscribed to that view, Paris Is Burning was the first film to show a lifestyle like this in a positive light. It was effective; it showed how fun and liberating it could be to walk a ball, fake tits or not. Hey babe, take a walk on the wild side. Damned fun! No wonder Madonna co-opted vogueing and snagged two Xtravaganzas for her tour.

Although there are undertones of sadness throughout, every person in this film is a hero. They were courageous simply living their lives how they did, when they did. The key was a mix of self confidence and major guts. Dorian Corey gave me a crash course on reading and shade. Pepper LaBeija showed me that living the good life takes more than money. Venus Xtravaganza showed me that life is a negotiation. Whatever category you choose, you better work it!

Sadly, the era and the players of Paris Is Burning are long gone, but their spirit doesn’t just live on—it thrives. Paris Is Burning and its subjects are legendary.

Side note: everything has its dark side. This is a perfect example: http://dangerousminds.net/comments/dorian_corey_the_drag_queen_had_a_mummy_in_her_closet

In 2016, the United States Library of Congress deemed Paris Is Burning “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.

71 minutes
Rated R

(Home via iTunes) A

http://www.jennielivingston.com/paris-is-burning

The Wolf Pack

Posted on by moviebloke

(USA 2015)

The Wolf Pack is Crystal Moselle’s bizarre account of one family’s reclusive life imposed upon it by its weirdo patriarch in a public housing project on the lower east side of Manhattan. Forbidden to leave the apartment, pretty much everything the Angulo kids “know” comes from movies. The juxtaposition of the Empire State Building outside the small apartment’s window serves as a constant, nagging metaphor for their situation: trapped in a box inside one of the biggest and busiest cities in the world, watching but not participating as life goes on without them.

The Wolk Pack wowed me on many levels. Watching the Angulo pack get through an awkward trek to Coney Island shined a light on each brother’s personality, perhaps to illustrate nature-versus-nurture. The coping mechanisms they adopted, like acting out perfect imitations of Tarantino and Batman movies as an escape, were downright heartbreaking. To see that these kids, mostly boys, came out of this experience as relatively well-adjusted, cool people is fucking amazing.

(Music Box) A-

http://www.thewolfpackfilm.com