The year is 1973 and British intelligence has fallen from American favor. After the botched defection of a Czech Army general in Budapest and capture of the operation’s MI-6 agent, it’s becoming increasingly clear that there’s a leak at the highest levels of the Circus. The two men least likely to be double agents, Circus chief ‘Control’ (John Hurt) and George Smiley (Gary Oldman), are forced to resign over the debacle. Timing could not be worse though. Some of the officers who Control suspects as possible moles are about to begin feeding Langley secrets obtained from a communist informant known as “Witchcraft”, an intelligence source that neither Control nor Smiley believe is reliable, but who some at the Circus think will foster a better relationship with the CIA. You would think that a room full of spooks would recognize when something’s too good to be true.
Mr. Smiley isn’t quite ready for retirement though, so the devout civil servant picks up where his boss and old friend Control left off. The aged master spy sets off to uncover his agency’s mole, one of four men he’s served with for a very long time. Sometimes casting gives away the identity of a cloaked villain, but not in this case. My suspicions of the mole’s identity did prove correct, but only because said actor was afforded more on-screen time than the other suspects. What impresses me most about Gary Oldman (as well as other actors in this film) is his ability to act a scene with little or no dialogue, yet say volumes.
Clandestine terminology is part of what gives espionage stories their charm. ‘Circus’ is the in-house name of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) and refers to the location of its headquarters at Cambridge Circus, London. On the other hand, Ferrets, Housekeepers, Debs, Scalphunters, Coat Trailers, Shoemakers, Wranglers, Lamplighters and Cousins are all words you’ll need to look up on your own, if I tell you I’ll have to kill you.
Venue: AMC Pacific Place
Country: France, UK, Germany
Language: English, Russian, Hungarian, French
Genre: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Melancholia:a distinct mood disorder, identified by unremitting depressed state of mind, vegetative dysfunction, and psychomotor disturbances, verifiable by neuroendocrine tests, and treatable by electroconvulsive therapy and tricyclic antidepressants. Also, it’s the name of a mega planet 10 times the size of Earth and on a collision course to wipe out all of humanity.
Melancholia has a long medical history and goes by many names. Treatments have evolved over time, I’m not sure that electroshock is still prescribed. It sounds like a debilitating disease, but which state of human existence is the “correct” one? By definition, a pathology is the functional deviation from the medical norm, or perhaps from society’s expectations. Director Lars von Trier considers himself a melancholic and the primary objective of this project was not the production of a film, but von Trier’s exploration of depression and a means of getting himself back on track emotionally. It always helps to combine goals.
The movie opens with Justine’s visions of the end of the world, a sequence of beautifully composed, ultra-slow motion scenes that capture the moments leading up to Earth’s destruction. Lars has lived with an anxiety of doomsday for much of his life and believes that the human race is alone in the universe. Justine (Kirsten Dunst) is a melancholic with the same disposition as Lars. The upfront disclosure of our planet’s fate sounds like a plot spoiler, but it’s arguably necessary in order to achieve the film’s secondary goal–a character study of how Justine, her sister and her brother-in-law react to certain death.
The trio’s story begins a few months earlier on Justine’s wedding day. She’s hours late to her own reception, a catered evening at a Swedish castle on the cusp of an 18-hole golf course. Family tensions are high and Justine’s sister Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg) is trying desperately to keep the guests from one another’s throats. Though Justine is the depressive of the pair, her mood seems to calm during the weeks following the wedding. As Trier explains, the sisters’ demeanors are reversed–melancholic people are often most functional when circumstances are dire, and “normal” people tend to fall apart. Yet others, like Claire’s husband John (Kiefer Sutherland), are convinced that the scientists are right (or at least not lying) when they say that Melancholia will fly past the Earth and keep on going. John is clearly in denial.
You might be asking yourself “where did this planet come from?” Like another 2011 movie (Brit Marling’s Another Earth), Melancholia has been hiding behind the sun. Unlike Marling’s dreamy and self-blaming screenplay, we are not introduced to the new planet by a family gathered in their living room to watch the live, television broadcast of first contact with a doppelganger-filled world. Not surprisingly, von Trier’s treatment of this discovery is much more surreal. Audiences gradually gain knowledge of the characters’ predicament through devices such as matter-of-fact conversation or Claire’s viewing of the phenomenon’s Wikipedia page. The color, lighting and overall cinematography is dreamlike and beautiful. Emotionally, there is a draining finality to the story that made it difficult to watch.
If you’re a festival follower, or just listen to entertainment news, you may recall the controversy stirred at 2011 Cannes by Lars von Trier’s comments about the Nazis. Honestly, other parts of that interview were more bizarre than his proclaimed understanding of Hitler. Part of the problem is that von Trier sometimes neglects to fully explain his comments (I had no idea why he brought up the idea of making a 4 hour porno flick until I did some research and discovered that his next project may be about nymphomania). After being added to the festival’s “unwelcome” list, Lars publicly apologized for his statements, only to revoke that apology a few months later. The mortified look on Dunst’s face during the original interview says it all. I worry that these incidents will prevent the film from being nominated for any Oscars, which looks to be the case if its exclusion from the SAG and Golden Globe awards is any indication.
There is a real celestial body in our solar system named Melancholia, but it’s an asteroid, not a mega planet. For more information, visit NASA’s web page describing the orbit of 5708 Melancholia. As for the film’s title, it’s in reference to the planet Saturn and its association with one of the four ancient temperaments: sanguine, choleric, phlegmatic, and melancholic.
Venue: DirectTV On-Demand
Country: Denmark
Language: English
Genre: Drama, Sci-fi
The Muppet Show first aired on the 19th of January 1976 and ran for 5 seasons, taping 120 episodes before being cancelled. It’s been off the air for 30 years now, but the franchise has spawned several feature length films. The latest installment, simply titled ‘The Muppets’, is a musical comedy romance starring Amy Adams, Jason Segel and Chris Cooper.
The plot of this film is both simple and dissociative. On one hand, it’s about the urgent reunion of Jim Henson’s beloved characters from the old Muppet Show, complete with opening dance number, special guest star, musical skits and back stage drama. On the other hand, it’s about the dysfunctional adult relationship between Mary, Gary and Gary’s “little” brother Walter. Mary and Gary have been dating for 10 years, but Gary still lives (and shares a pair of twin beds) with his brother Walter at a separate residence. On the superfluous third hand, it’s a tale of betrayal and corporate greed as capitalist “Tex” Richman (Chris Cooper) secretly conspires with the Muppet hecklers Statler and Waldorf to tear down the old Muppet theater and drill for oil…in the middle of Hollywood.
I was only mildly a fan of the original series. Probably like many children, my enthusiasm for Kermit and friends peaked as a pre-teen and plummeted with the rapid onset of middle school and discovery of girls. It wasn’t that the puppets or their eclectic list of guests had become infantile, it was the series’s repetitive use of stale gags and lack of timely material. Watching Miss Piggy clobber somebody one more time isn’t much more entertaining to me than listening to Sesame Street’s Count von Count recite the numbers one through ten, but it is nostalgic.
The new Muppet movie is packed with nostalgia, frivolous cameos, unexplainable screen writing, and a defeatist attitude. The overall tone gives us the impression that Kermit’s gone off his meds, evidenced by the frog’s hermit lifestyle and electric fence he’s erected around his home. Gary’s little brother Walter, obsessed with the Muppet Show since a child (and a puppet himself), has little problem persuading Kermit to mount “one last” fund-raising performance and save the theater. However there’s a catch: despite a story filled with superstar cameos, no one wants to guest host the show … so they kidnap Jack Black.
Just out of curiosity, not because I really care:
Why no song and dance from Mr. Black? — You go to the trouble of committing a class A-1 felony against the actor only to tie and gag him back stage. I’m disappointed that Tenacious D didn’t get to jam with Animal.
Why were scenes of Kermit’s incarceration deleted? — If the producers were trying to spare children the image of an amphibian in handcuffs, there weren’t many kids at the screening I attended–just saying.
Why was the ending was so contrived? — Adding a nonsensical (and violent) twist to the last five minutes of a screenplay doesn’t make for a clever plot point.
Bottom line is that the frog depressed me (more than usual). The bits and pieces of this film contained some entertaining scenes and musical numbers, but the script as a whole felt like that powder blue, polyester leisure suit my parents dressed me in as a child on Easter. Amy Adams is a beautiful and talented actress, and this movie has a PG rating. Nevertheless, if you’ve been dating Amy for the past 10 years and are still sharing a bedroom with your brother, there are some important questions you might want to ask yourself.
Venue: Cinerama
Country: USA
Language: English
Genre: Musical, Comedy, Romance
Director-writer Alex de la Iglesia’s most recent film opens with a machete wielding man in makeup. Padre-Payaso tonto (Father-Clown fool) is a “happy” circus clown who would rather not choose sides in the Spanish civil war. However, the year is 1937 and a right-wing authoritarian regime is about to take control of Madrid. Denied even a change of clothing, Father-Clown and his big top troupe are drafted to fight the nationalists while still in costume. After single-handedly slaughtering an entire platoon, the fool is captured by Franco’s soldiers and imprisoned at a work camp … where he’s later trampled to death by a horse.
The opening scenes set the tone for the rest of the film, a brutally absurd, grotesque collage of not-quite-comedic situations and insane acts. Leaping ahead to 1973, we’re introduced to the movie’s love triangle and three main characters. Sergio is a “happy” clown and star of his circus. He likes to beat his wife in diners and in front of co-workers. Natalia is Sergio’s wife, a beautiful temptress and aerial contortionist, a girl who likes it rough. Javier is the “sad” clown. He has a lot of psychological baggage, and did I mention that he’s the traumatized son of Padre-Payaso? The fact that Javier’s job is to be publicly humiliated by Sergio at every performance is probably not in the best interest of society at large–something’s liable to snap in Javier’s fragile psyche, and it eventually does.
Javier’s obsession with freeing Natalia from her abusive marriage plunges the circus into chaos. After savagely beating Sergio (almost to death) and disfiguring his face beyond the repair of even their skilled veterinarian, the ringmaster is forced to close the big top and open a go-go bar called “Kojak”. That’s right, the trapeze artists trade in their horses and elephants for a stage backed by giant mural of Telly Savalas.
Meanwhile, running naked through the countryside and hiding from the authorities, Javier is nurturing his psychoses and devouring uncooked deer meat. At one point he manages to fall in with a pack of scent hounds and spends time retrieving shot laden pheasants for one of Franco’s hunting parties. But alas, Javier bites Franco’s hand and is let go.
The sets and cinematography of The Last Circus are its strong points, they remind me more than a little of the 2008 film Il divo (the politics were foreign but it still managed to entertain with its carefully architected visuals). The image of Javier preparing for battle, bleaching his face with chemicals and using a hot iron to create the guise of rosy cheeks and red lips is both unsettling and bizarre. The screenplay itself does not make for a terribly interesting story, so don’t expect an engrossing plot filled with complex characters, pretty much everyone in this story is selfish and insane.
Mark Zuckerberg is a controversial figure. No one will deny that he’s extremely wealthy and has succeeded in creating the most popular social networking site to date. Beyond the indisputable lies a fog of inseparable fiction and fact though. I don’t know Mark, therefore I can’t speak to his personal virtue or true intentions, but The Social Network paints him as a shallow, uncaring, unlikable, socially inept individual. We the audience are the jury, and we’re asked to render a verdict based upon the arguments and first-hand accounts provided by the story’s characters.
The story opens with Mark’s juvenile, yet believable, response to a girlfriend dumping him over his condescending attitude towards her and her friends. In a knee-jerk reaction, Mark begins blogging hurtful gossip about his ex. At the same time (on the same night) he tosses back a few beers and throws together a web site that will allow users to comparatively rank the female students of Harvard. The Facemash site is so popular that its high traffic almost immediately crashes the Harvard network. Clearly, Mark’s character craves recognition, but the way in which he attracts attention demonstrates an objectifying anger towards women (and the IT department).
Not long after, and without much surprise, Mark finds himself before the school’s administrative board where he’s accused of “breaching security, violating copyrights and violating individual privacy by creating the website, www.facemash.com.” The same pattern of misbehaving-accusation-discipline continues for the remainder of the story.
We eventually discover the film to be a series of long flashbacks, chronicling the events from 2003 onward. In present day, Zuckerberg spends his time cooped up in a law office conference room listening to plaintiffs recount their grievances through past events. At times, it’s nearly impossible to tell what case we’re watching unfold. Changes in clothing and participant seating were the only ways I was able to tell that we’d moved forward or back in the timeline, and even then I wasn’t sure in which direction.
With the exception of a few peripheral characters, nobody in this film is likeable. Jesse Eisenberg (Zombieland) has a gift for narrating his characters’ thoughts and delivers a convincing portrayal of someone with Asperger’s syndrome (no, I’m not saying that Mark Zuckerberg suffers from that disease, everyone else on the Internet has speculated about that already).
One of the biggest annoyances in this movie for me is the name dropping of technology. I don’t enjoy the over-stated, over-dramatization of insider terminology and technical mumbo-jumbo unless (maybe) it’s tongue-in-cheek. The fact that you’re registering your domain name with Network Solutions, or talking us through how you’re using the wget command to download images of girls, or how you keep having to “break out” your favorite Perl script in order to crawl Harvard’s college web sites is going to be lost on the majority of movie goers. More writers and directors should take a lesson from films such as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009). Lisbeth Salander doesn’t cram what she’s working on down our throats, but quietly lets us watch over her shoulder in case we’re interested in what she’s hacking and how she’s going about it.
It’s a great movie with a lot of good acting. Just remember, before taking everything you see or hear at face value, stop and consider that people are more often judged based on public opinion rather than facts or concrete evidence (even in a court of law). As one of the female lawyers puts it to Mark near the end of the screenplay, “I’ve been licensed to practice law for all of 20 months and I could get a jury to believe you planted the story about Eduardo and the chicken.” Whether Eduardo was ever cruel to a chicken, we may never know, but now I’ve got you thinking about the possibility.
