Week Of August 28, 2006 - Mon Love / Berloff Wed / Fri

September 1, 2006

Telluride is here. And with it, embargoes crashing everywhere.

(By the way… love Telluride… but this Oscar preview spin is making me puke. All of the Oscar potential films will also be at Toronto next week and I get the sinking feeling that the only reason some outlets are promoting this take is that they are there and others aren't. Telluride is about movie love, not Oscar. Get with it.)

My Little Children review, as it is, can be found on Movie City News today and as the weekend progresses, I will add more on Babel, Day Night Day Night, and Vovler. I suspect that Stephen Frears' latest greatest, The Queen, is going to land quietly into a TBA on Sunday up in the hills. But until it does, I will hold my tongue… except to say that it is a masterful piece of intimate filmmaking.

For the moment, I'm going to take some short looks at a few titles…

INFAMOUS - The really hard road for Doug McGrath's take on the story of Truman Capote writing In Cold Blood is not so much last year's movie as the fact that as this year's movie… it kinda sucks.

I know. Brutal. But this is the Capote movie that we all feared Capote might be. Lots of celebrity cameos that don't really work. (The best thing in the film are the socialite women of New York who Capote plays and plays with, portrayed by Isabella Rossellini, Sigourney Weaver, Hope Davis and, most spectacularly, Juliet Stevenson as Diana Vreeland.) I adore Sandra Bullock, but her Harper Lee is shallowly written and, try as she might, never has the easy discomfort of Catherine Keener's. I am a big Daniel Craig fan, but his dyed hair and dark-contact eyes are painfully distracting. He looks like some X-Man character, ready to shift shape.

And Toby Jones looks more like Capote and sounds more like Capote than Phil Hoffman… but whatever chance he ever had is undone by McGrath's writing and directing, which don't seem to trust the audience to go with him without endless manipulation.

There are a lot of performances like Jeff Daniels… pretty good, but marginalized by the filmmaker/writer. The only embarrassing turn in the film is Lee Pace, who apparently has a good rep on the indie scene, as Dick Hickock. The script does him no favors, but the only reason I could comprehend for hiring him here is that he bears a remarkable resemblance to the young Scott Wilson, who played Hickock in In Cold Blood. The performance seems to be a carbon copy.

The film is not a complete loss. It is moderately entertaining. But it is not a very good film. It is the fluff of Capote's cocktail life and not the weight of his novel that defines the movie. And who needs that?

THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND - This is a well made, well intended film. But in spite of good performances (though James McAvoy seems to have inspired the filmmakers to the traditional Ewan McGregor every-woman-needs-my-penis-now schtick), the movie just doesn't get where it is trying to go.

Telling the story in 50 words or less is easy and attractive. Here we go…

Young doctor travels to Uganda in search of his higher self, gets seduced by a childlike Idi Amin, becomes besotted with the power of his new pal, and eventually has to pay for his dance with the devil.

Great.

And where is my problem with this movie?

Idi Amin really was a mad man. And in order for us to have a rich emotional experience with the McAvoy character - the lead - the horror of what he is getting involved with has to be apparent no later than the second act of the film. We, as the audience, have to be holding him accountable. And we don't. Not really. We all know that Amin is nuts. We saw it on TV. But the movie seems willing to pretend he might not be, allowing him room by way of his childishness. Then, in the last 20 minutes… hell on earth.

Forrest Whittaker is terrific as Amin. That is true. But if you ask me, Ghost Dog was a better, more complex performance.

Lots of people seem to like this film a lot. But for me, it was a lot of interesting ideas that simply never congeal.

THE U.S. VS JOHN LENNON - Lionsgate's documentary has one great element… access to a lot of materials on and music from John Lennon. This movie would make an excellent Added Features DVD for Imagine: John Lennon, the 1988 John & Yoko doc from Andrew Solt.

This film was made by producer/director team David Leaf and John Scheinfeld, most recently responsible for the excellent Harry Nilsson doc, Who Is Harry Nilsson (And Why Is Everybody Talkin' About Him?). And again, great footage.

But then you hit the wall… the title. You expect to see a movie about how the government persecuted John Lennon. And the reality of the film is, he was being watched by the FBI and boo hiss and all… but even at its worst, it seems that he pretty much did whatever the hell he pleased - with one notable exception - just like every other hippie billionaire.

I'm happy he never got deported. I'm happy that he never really suffered under Nixon's dislike. I'm happy that he enjoyed New York. And I am sad that a nut job shot him on the street. I really miss the guy. But you'll have to forgive me for expecting a movie that baits the U.S. government like this to actually deliver with some damage… or even the accusation of damage.

I look forward to watching this one on cable, where it belongs. And I do hope the Nilsson doc will soon hit theaters, where it belongs.

Keep an eye on MCN for more reviews through the weekend… and enjoy Jerry Lewis!

And you can see how boring things are around town in this week's Lunch WIth David, which is not a telethon, but plays one on TV...

E Me.

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