The Migraine Sufferer's Wife

We just saw The Time Traveler's Wife at the movie theater. I thought the movie was much better than the mediocre reviews that I've seen. The dialog is crisp. Rachel McAdams has a great smile. The treatment of time travel is as good as in any recent main stream movie; it's a fairly novel conceit: spontaneous, uncontrolled time travel triggered by some correlation to stress, just for one individual, just for Henry; it reminds me of my migraines -- they're pretty rare but take me completely out of the present -- I lose time to them (not so much now as before, but still sometimes). And they have something to do with stress and/or drugs like caffeine.
Also, I enjoyed the use of "Love Will Tear Us Apart" as a couple's wedding song -- sounds like a terrific cover by Broken Social Scene.

My Remembering My Dinner With Andre

Perhaps it is just because it's evocative of my halcyon days at university, you know "those butt planted, heel slamming mornings" (sorry I've drifted off into someone else's poem). Rather: when my intellect was precipating from the academic solution that I was immersed in. Or maybe it was a novel film for 1981, but I've just watched the freshly-released-on-DVD-and-now-available-at-Netflix "My Dinner With Andre". It is surely a remarkable, simple film. You remember, the film that suggests that once in a while you go through a day using only you're left hand (if you are right-handed), just to be sure that you shake your life up a little, often enough. And that maybe flags sewn for a purpose, to fly over your endeavors and your friends and capture their essence for you to hoard, that well, maybe such things can be evil incarnated inanimately -- and the solution is to burn them and bury them, ritualistically. And that maybe we live our lives in a trance and maybe we need an occasional trance to make us live our lives alive. And where you can see Wallace Shawn say "Inconceivable!" six years before he does it again in "The Princess Bride". Ahhh.

Not So Bad Christmas Movies and Non-Times-Square Ball Dropping

So we saw the movie Four Christmases this afternoon. Probably wouldn't have except we had some free tickets from a newspaper contest. The reviews I'd read were pretty negative; one critic complained about too much profanity and a disrespectful Nativity play; and that it's not a family film. Okay there's a bit of profanity but the Nativity scene seemed no more or less respectful than many modern farces -- certainly as much so as most local productions of the play "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever". I do have to agree that this is mostly a vehicle for Vince Vaughn, and I'm not a big fan of his -- an anti-fan, really. But there are some legitimate chuckles here and not much that is offensive beyond some swearing and the usual farce ridiculousnesses.

I don't expect Four Christmases to land on many people's annual "must re-watch every year" holiday movie lists; and it's not as clever or endearing as, say, Love, Actually. But as much as I like Love, Actually, it's not a family film eithre, nor is it without ridiculousnesses. Anyway, Four Christmases is about Christmas in California, which is a bit different than in the heartland (or the Bible Belt). They used a Tom Petty Christmas song and everything ("Christmas All Over Again").

And we get the satisfying ending, with a little cherry on top. Family harmony, after a fashion, after all. Since it's actually New Year's Day today, with resolutions and promises to live better, truer, longer lives, I also wanted to point to some family-first wisdom from Dave Winer's site, and just say "Right On" (click through for the full quote):

"A rubber ball will bounce and someone else can pick it up. That's your work life. The glass ball is family, friends, your health. Drop it, and if you're lucky it'll just crack. If you're not so lucky, it'll break into a million pieces. "

Finally, maybe I was put in a better mood for the film by seeing a "First Look" at the upcoming Watchmen film during the previews. I recently read this graphic novel that is on Time magazine's All Time 100 Novels list. I also just loaned my copy to my parents, not only for them to read, but for my Reverend Uncle, too; I think he'll get a lift out of it.

Sweet Home Scotland

Tonight I saw a new movie in a rather sparsely attended theater. The film is a Patrick Dempsey vehicle, a bit of a chick flick, Made of Honor. He gets to be the MOH, i.e. the Maid of Honor, to his (so far) platonic girl friend. The gender reversal unexpectedly provides some decent laughs. And some of the Scottish scenery is gorgeous, I'm thinking it might be worth a visit. But what I kept thinking through the film is that this storyline isn't really closest to My Best Friend's Wedding, the Julia Roberts romp where she tries to spoil her long time friend's wedding, but more like another Dempsey film, Sweet Home Alabama, but in that one he's the hapless newcomer in a long term boy-girl friendship with Reese Witherspoon as the leading lady. Pleasant enough if you have someone to share it with, as I did. (BTW, beware of Kevin Sussman in MOH, he steals at least a corner of the show as "Tiny Shorts Guy".)

Best Ex-VP and Obama for your Stocks

I've said that Jimmy Carter is the best ex-President of my lifetime, now I'm thinking that Al Gore is our best ex-Vice President. Not that he has a whole heckuvalot of competition.

I was never a big Al Gore fan while Bill Clinton was in office, nor while he was running for President, but I finally watched his movie this weekend, An Inconvenient Truth. I tend to steer away from this type of films, like I haven't seen any of Michael Moore's films since Roger and Me. (I know someone with an editting credit on that one, though he doesn't show up on IMDB.) They tend to make my blood boil or make me feel like I'm wasting my career, or both. But I watched and it was compelling, and somniferous at the same time. Al Gore himself is the dull part, although there are spotty bits of true humor. His presentation though is strong. Like comparing the current denials and "balanced reporting" on global warming to the counter-propaganda of 40 years ago from the cigarette companies. He debunks the "balance" with facts like that in a survey of 968 peer reviewed scientific papers on global warming, exactly zero of them found that humans were not a cause. That, yes, there have been historic "warm" periods as recently as the middle ages, but there has never been carbon dioxide at its current level in the atmosphere, never above 300 parts per million, it's currently above 370 ppm. Ouch. And he squeezes the current administration on twisting the arms of scientists and editting their reports. That's something I hope the next White House reverses.

Which leads me to point at an interesting editorial from Ken Fisher, a self made billionaire and fiscal conservative who sees an Obama Presidency as not necessarily bad for Wall Street in his latest article (since these tend to disappear after a few weeks, here's the salient quote: "First, years in which Democrats capture the White House are usually bullish years for the stock market. Second, inaugural years following a Democratic win in November are better than Republican inaugural years.")

John Sayles into Alabama, Honeydripping

Friday night I attended, along with about 300 of the more eclectic denizens of Huntsville and its surrounds, the Huntsville Premiere and Party for John Sayles' new film, Honeydripper. Filmed in small towns in Alabama like Greenville, Georgiana and Midway they didn't need to do a lot to make these towns fit into the 1950's movie: clear some modern cars off the streets and swap out some of the merchandise in the store front windows. Standing around in the theater lobby with some of us before the showing, Maggie Renzi, the producer, told us that they are organizing a number of these film co-op parties around the country because they just don't have the 20 million dollars to mount a commercial marketing campaign.

John Sayles was also mingling before the show and at the party afterwards at the new location of the Flying Monkey Arts Center. He is very personable and loves to talk about his craft. I was introduced to Sayles' filmmaking in the early 80's at college by my housemates who were taking film classes. We saw The Brother from Another Planet (1984) and Return of the Secaucus Seven (1980). Maggie Renzi is in both these earlier films. Sayles has Writer and song writing credits to go with his directing credit on Honeydripper.

And this film is really about the music, although we have to build to it through some great dialog and a bit of slow moving slice-of-tough-life drama. None of the big star actors came to our premiere (not Danny Glover, Charles S. Dutton, Vondie Curtis-Hall, etc.). But a couple of the musicians came to the party and sat in with Microwave Dave and the Nukes. Henderson Huggins only plays Danny Glovers' hands at the piano in the film, but he can sing and go to town on the keyboard. Eddie Shaw is the other cast member who sat in. I'm not a sax nut but this transported you to the best of another era and culture. After an hour or so I started to feel bad for Microwave Dave's regular saxist who was standing around the edges of the audience with his instrument dangling at his side, just in case Shaw got tired. That wasn't happening.

It was a powerful evening and a worthy film. Mr. Sayles asked us to ask our friends to see it. Simple enough. Go. Enjoy.

D'You Know Juno? And the Sound of August Rush?

I don't remember buying a "soundtrack album" since Pretty in Pink, until recently that is, and I've bought two in the last couple months. The music opens up Juno and I caught myself thinking thinking that it's going to be a loooonnng movie if we have to listen to this low rent folk for 2 hours, but even that first tune (All I Want Is You by Barry Louis Polisar) quickly grows on you as you realize that it gloves the movie.

Back to the first soundtrack, which was August Rush, I got it for my wife for Christmas. (I wrote about the film here.) Van Morrison's "Moondance" is the classic here but it's the interplay of the music and the world and the world of the film that makes this one special. It's rich and symphonic and Irish rock and experimental; ethereal then cathartic.

Juno's got The Kinks, Mott the Hoople and The Velvet Underground providing classics (and Sonic Youth's cover of The Carpenters' "Superstar" which I hadn't heard before and it's pretty devo). But it's The Moldy Peaches and Kimya Dawson that rule the film and set the tone. The simple arrangements and acoustics sucked me in to the characters. Not that I identify with Juno herself much, at least not with her predicament (Uh, teen, pregnant). I didn't feel any parallels with Bleeker either (Hmm. What'd'ya think, Cindy?). Maybe high school was just too long ago. I did empathize with Juno's dad (J.K. Simmons); and with the Would-Be-Adoptive-Father-Wishes-He-Still-Rock-n-Rolled (Jason Bateman).

And the Juno soundtrack has Liner Notes! They're written by the Director, Jason Reitman and provide nice insights, just like Liner Notes of old!

Come to think of it, my son did buy the soundtrack to O Brother, Where Art Thou? when it was fresh (2000) and these are in that same vein.

(I only see one soundtrack album on David Rawson's top album lists (1996's Trainspotting came it at #72 and he usually only takes the top 40), but there are more individual songs scattered among his top 100 songs lists so maybe there's something here to his liking....)

August Rush in November

Three of us went to see August Rush the movie this evening. It was unexpectedly good. Kind of a realist fairytale about the magic of music, Cider House Rules meets Stardust. The actors for the three main characters were pretty new to me and so they were fresh: the kid (Freddie Highmore) and the star-crossed parents (Keri Russell and Jonathan Rhys Myers). But there's a supporting cast of more familiar faces like Robin Williams as a character reminscent of The Fisher King and Terrence Howard as a very likable social worker.

The film moves a bit fast in parts -- I would've liked to savor some of the kid's musical awakening a bit more as well as his teachers'/discovers' amazement. Maybe a book version could have dwelled on these more, but what couldn't happen in a book is the magical musical integration, like where the film shows cutbacks between his mother's solo cello and his father's Irish rock band singing and guitar while the two songs play simultaneously and are interwoven. It's a nice effect. So is turning the everyday motions of wind on wheat, and people and traffic in New York City first into a symphony of joy and then into a cacophony of confusion. It's cool.

Pleasantly Robin Williams doesn't steal the show; the music does. We're already talking about picking up the soundtrack.

Stardust Memories

I'd like to say it was a real cross-over, mainstream kind of crowd that sat with us at the early-evening, opening night showing of Stardust on Friday, but even in this geek-tilted town where rocket scientists and their sons and daughters abound, I'm afraid there was a disproportionate lot of cerebral and slightly socially fringed attendees. And more daughters than sons. Not that I really think Stardust is a chick-flick, I just think that Neil Gaiman's fan base turned out in strength here. Groups of girls from their teens to their thirties dominated the theater, some with a couple of male companions, the kind of young men that are especially glad to be hanging out with women, any women (not that these were unattractive girls, just ones with a separate sense of fashion).

At any rate, either Neil's fan base is bigger than thought or more than his fans turned out across the country since Reuters pegged a 4th place box office pull for Stardust, not bad at all.

Early in the film I had misgivings, thinking the treatment seemed very matter-of-fact, if well staged; but by the second half of the film, as the threads began to pull together and seeds planted in the early dialogue blossomed into cause and effect, I started to identify with the characters. It was my mistake to listen to the comparisons with The Princess Bride, that caused expectations for farcical wit. While a suitably broad genre may encompass both TPB and Stardust, Stardust takes itself a bit more seriously, even if its world is a bit more fantastical. There are unicorns here but no badly animated Rodents of Unusual Size, and not many one-liners. Only Claire Danes deadpan heroine performance matches Robin Wright's Princess Buttercup, other parallels don't exist. For example, Robert De Niro's Captain Shakespeare is no Dread Pirate Roberts. De Niro does nearly steal the show, but the strength of the rest of the ensemble cast holds together and Tristran's transformation (largely at the hand's of Shakespeare's shears) is both quaint and powerful. Michelle Pfeiffer well plays scary and evil; I wish the dead princes would have been used more as a greek chorus -- my guess you can find a fair amount of that on the cutting room floor. Imperfections aside (and there aren't any more here than in any movie where you've already read the book), it's a beautifully-shot feel- good film.