Midnight in Paris (5/5 Stars)

How to be an intellectual without being annoying about it.

There are two men in this movie that know an awful lot about Paris. One is, Paul, played by Michael Sheen. He’s the type of guy who would interrupt a tour guide, played here by 1^st lady Carla Bruni of France, with the words, “If I’m not mistaken, Rodin’s the Thinker was influenced more by his mistress than his wife.” First of all, he does not think he is mistaken and so is already disingenuous. Second, he is a jerk for upstaging the tour guide just in order to show off. I don’t know who influenced Rodin, but if Paul is right than he needlessly embarrassed the tour guide by making such a scene. If he is wrong than he needlessly made a complete fool of himself. All present should be annoyed. Than there is Gil Pender, played by Owen Wilson. He too is an intellectual, but his smarts show not by self-aggrandizing posturing but by a knowing wonder for the town. He keeps on bugging everyone to walk with him in the rain because as he says, “Paris is so beautiful in the rain!” The great thing about Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris” is that it understands so well the difference between these two ways of being a know-it-all. There is a difference between an intellectual who goes, “Wow! I can’t believe we’re in the same bar that Hemingway drank at! Hemingway was so cool and he drank so much! We’re going to have an awesome time here drinking and talking about Hemingway!” As opposed to an intellectual who lectures, “If I’m not mistaken, this is where Hemingway drank. His “Farewell to Arms” was okay but I felt in “A Moveable Feast” he was not as sure of himself. Also he drank way too much. That’s why he killed himself. You people should revere me because I am so knowledgeable about where we are.” “Midnight in Paris,” shows a vast familiarity with the 1920’s Lost Generation of Paris. It name drops excessively both from the well-known and not so well known people and places of the time and even includes quite a bit of French and Spanish, none of it in subtitles. But the movie never feels or seems pretentious. This isn’t an Honors English lecture. It is an inclusive party with old friends and one of the most enjoyable movies of the year. 

Gil Pender is a Hollywood hack screenwriter. It is good money but spiritually unfulfilling. He has a dream of moving to Paris and working on his novel because, well, all his literary heroes hung out in Paris and wrote novels. He visits Paris with his materialistic fiancé Inez, played by Rachel McAdams. There they bump into her parents on a business trip. The father refuses to enjoy Paris for political reasons. They also meet the pseudo-intellectual, Paul, who likes to label everything as romantic/surrealists/pre-new wave/etc/etc. One night, Gil chooses to leave the group and walk around Paris for no real reason but to do it. At midnight, a 1920’s car filled to the brim with flappers from the Rolling Twenties pulls up next to him. Before he knows it, Gil finds himself at a party where Cole Porter is playing the piano. A woman named Zelda starts a conversation with him. She is the wife of a guy named Francis Scott Fitzgerald. Zelda asks Gil what he thinks of the party. The bewildered/excited out of his mind/awestruck Gil doesn’t know what to say. “I know,” Zelda says, “this place is boring. We’re going to a better party. Want to come with us?”

What a trip! Not only is Gil meeting all his heroes, but also all his heroes are exactly as he thought they would be. Even better, they like him and are interested in the novel he is working on. Ernest Hemingway won’t read it himself because he is of the firm belief that a writer will either hate another's work or be envious of it and hate it all the more. But Hemingway will show Gil the manuscript to the only editor he trusts, one Gertrude Stein, played by Kathy Bates. As Gil enters the studio of Gertrude Stein she is critiquing one of Picasso’s new paintings with Picasso present and adamantly defending himself. “Gil,” Stein asks, “what do you think of Pablo’s new work?” Imagine that. Being asked to critique Picasso to his face. Having Stein read your novel. Drinking with Hemingway. Gil Pender spends a majority of the movie in a state of ecstasy. Owen Wilson, perfectly cast even at 40 years old, conveys a perfect sense of child-like wonder. There is a great shot with Gil back in the 21^st century, wide-awake in his bed and whispering to nobody, “I saw Hemingway. Gertrude Stein is reading my novel. I’m Gil Pender. I’m from Pasadena.” What is really amazing is that this is a Woody Allen movie. Allen has done over forty movies now and there has been such a consistent strain of pessimism and nihilism in his work. That has completely evaporated here and in its stead is gorgeous scenery, great larger-than-life characters, sharp and clever dialogue, and a protagonist who couldn’t possibly be enjoying himself more than he already is.

Standing at about 90 minutes, this movie is also a great example of story efficiency. It takes about two minutes to introduce all the real-life people and their different attitudes towards Paris. It takes another five to introduce the idea of nostalgia and the cynical view that it is an erroneous romanticization of the past to assume that it was a better time than it is now (This theme comes up again ironically when one of the 1920’s artists suggests that the real golden age of Paris was in the 1890s.) The literary figures show up at all the right places in all the right times. I especially liked who Gil explains his perplexing situation as a man who spends the night in the 1920s and wakes up in 2010. He says this to some 1920s surrealists and they see nothing strange about his situation. Salvador Dali, played nicely by Adrien Brody, seems far more interested with his new favorite word “Rhinocerous!” There is also room for a budding romance between Gil and one of the art groupies named Adriana, played by Marion Cotillard. Overall the movie, like all good comedies, is not too long but contains quite a lot. It moves fast, is consistently funny, and very romantic. And don’t forget Paris. It looks as good as ever. 

Revolutionary Road 03/22/09 (4/5 Stars)

Call it the feminist argument against Suburbia even though there is no explicit statement to that effect. What this movie illustrates though is why and how the suburban housewife becomes desperate. If I recall correctly, this is the second movie in the year 2008 that Kate Winslett killed herself in. And if I’m not mistaken, she has received a Golden Globe for this one and an Oscar and another Golden Globe for the other (The Reader). Surely, this will spawn jokes about actresses jumping at roles in which they die tragically in order to bait the Oscars. Hilary Swank has gone by that way twice already (Million Dollar Baby, Boys Don’t Cry). Anyway back to Revolutionary Road. I will admit that I liked this film, enjoyed it even. But that isn’t because it’s warm or funny or romantic. I liked it because it makes manifest in artistic form everything I believe about suburbia, in that, it describes it as empty and hopeless. This movie is preaching to the choir. I already thought that such a story was completely possible, and very rational. Call this movie Max Propaganda. I have had ideas of buying the DVD and hosting an anti-suburbia party in my New York City apartment. In it, we would play ‘Revolutionary Road’ on mute in the living room and celebrate the fact that we don’t live in such desperate, empty, and hopeless places. I really want to watch this movie in Paris. See the film, you’ll know what I mean. 
Anyway, now really back to Revolutionary Road. It concerns the volatile marriage of Frank and April Wheeler (played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslett respectively). They live in a suburb. Every morning Frank gets into the only car they own and commutes into the city to work at a job he hates. April stays at home, and stranded in the morass of nothingness that is suburbia (and with no way out because Frank took the only car to work) she does household chores and slowly goes insane with boredom. There is a particularly good shot of her taking out the trash and standing silently in her driveway looking down Revolutionary Road. You would expect tumbleweed to blow through the place is so dead. The only respite she seems to have from this existence is when a neighbor stops by. Then she has someone to drink coffee with for about five minutes. Other than that, she spends the day completely alone. After a couple of fights, April comes up with a crazy idea. Why don’t they completely ditch the godforsaken place and move to Paris. She would get a job and he would have time to find himself. Frank thinks about it and says that he will. April falls in love with him again because he seems to understand.
But does he really? There is this idea out there about suburbia in general. That the way it is set up and structured is fundamentally unfair to women. The effect of its design nullifies the responsibilities of the man to his family. He commutes to a distant place where he has free rein to do whatever he wants (Frank in this movie has an affair). In contrast, the wife is stuck at home and forced to raise the kids on her own. Is it a control thing? Did men (all the city planners were men) purposely design a system of living that gave themselves freedom to screw around while encapsulating the women in isolated places, thereby constricting their freedom. Whether there was malicious intent or not, the result is a system where women are deprived of the ability to take care of themselves and thus are dependent on their husbands for everything: money, shelter, and especially social connections. So when Frank decides not to go to Paris, April, of course, cannot also. Is it any wonder that the women of the baby boom generation, which grew up in these homes, took their college educations, got jobs, and exploded the divorce rate in the seventies? Surely they must have noted in some abstract way that the life of a suburban housewife is some sort of scam. 
Frank’s character in this story is given the benefit of the doubt. Once he is offered a raise at his job and April becomes pregnant, he thinks that the choice to stay has a certain amount of logic to it. Like many men, he doesn’t get why April would be unhappy. They have a beautiful house, nice kids, and all this stuff. And if she really feels bad about it, they now have enough money to send her to a shrink. This conveniently forgets the idea that stuff doesn’t make up for a lack of a life and a semblance of independence. (If that were true there would be a hell of a lot more women becoming nuns.) But whatever, you know, I suppose that’s a hard concept to grasp what with all that American Dream house with a white picket fence and two cars propaganda garbage. 
The director Sam Mendes has made good films about suburban malaise before (American Beauty) but they were never as biting as this. I loved a few scenes that brought back vivid memories of my own experience. A father asks his kids what is on TV and is answered with vacant stares directed at static, the whole presentation aspect of playing house: where so much energy is expended to impress the rare guest, and when the couple gets double parked when they visit a local bar they can’t leave because the local bar is too far away from their home. Just the overall quietness of the entire thing, where nothing is happening, nothing has happened, and nothing will happen was eerily familiar. There is possibly no truthful way to tell a story set in suburbia without it being boring. That’s why very few movies are set there. 
Michael Shannon got an Oscar nomination for his role as a crazy man that basically reiterates the only sane way to look at Suburbia. (See my comments above). For once I would love to see a rational person say these things, but I guess a mental patient is better than nothing. He does a very good job. He’s one of those actors you wish were better looking and thus would get better roles. See him in ‘Shotgun Stories’ if you want to see that guy do some great work in a leading role.

Bee Movie 11/07/07

. Education can in fact be fun and lively. And it is both in Jerry Seinfeld's new animated comedy "Bee movie." This movie not only provides plenty of one liners and colorful charachters but it is also surprisingly knowledgeable about bees, bee society, pollen and nectar cultivation, honey production, and bee psychology. It's probably as good as a anything on the DIscovery channel, and funnier too.
The story itself lags in some parts (due to the educational part) but there is some really clever stuff here. I liked the courtroom scenes, the plane landing, and the bee-human romance. The voice talent is incredible too. The beloved Renee Zelleweger sounds like a seasoned professional at this sort of thing. Her voice is unlike any other. It's distinctive and vibrant and there's isn't a fear of sounding silly. She doesn't have much tonal range and her voice hits this pitch where it starts to rasp and waver. She uses that to her advantage. It's a great performance. John Goodman is fantastic too as a corporate lawyer. It's amazing how different he sounds in this movie than his previously animated Monster Inc. charachter. The way the animators drew the charachters onscreen is great too. Apparently no one told them that any overacting was too much. The charachters bounce around everywhere. It's pretty cool.
Jerry Seinfeld trademark humor is at display here for the first time since his documentary "Comedian," which has been awhile. The story lags sometimes because I don't think Jerry is that comfortable with this new animated format, but there are consistent laughs throughout and the plot contains alot of material. I especially liked the jealous boyfried (Patrick Warburton) who sees a bee taking his place and decides to try to drown him in the toilet. Chris Rock has a mosquito was pretty funny also. Too bad he wasn't in the movie more. That is probably my biggest complaint (which isn't that big). I wouldn't have minded ten more minutes of movie.