How quaint.
Wes Anderson directs this stop motion animated children’s tale based on Roald Dahl’s book Fantastic Mr. Fox. It had been my belief after watching Anderson’s first films like Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, and The Royal Tenenbaums, that someday Anderson would make an American masterpiece. Three not so great movies later, this one being the best of them, I have become somewhat disheartened. Wes Anderson may have a unique vision as a director, he may be one of the best art directors out there, but all of his stories lack that certain amount of passion that sets great movies apart from ordinary ones. All of the characters, whether real-life or animated as in this film, walk and talk with great reserve and sophistication. This lends to the movies irony and dry bone wit but it also takes away from the urgency of the problems and the weight of the plot. Actors in his movies walk around like robots and talk in whispers. (The special exception is Jason Schwartzman who can deliver Anderson’s muted lines with such precise intensity that they can sound somewhat purpose-driven.) Making everyone a stop-motion puppet doesn’t really help. What does help is an adapted storyline that involves a lot of guns, bombs, and very bad men. But still, the overall movie is somewhat forgettable.
It must not take much time and effort from Actors to do an animated film. That must be why so many big names can be attached to a single film. Here we have George Clooney as Mr. Fox, Meryl Streep as Mrs. Fox, and Jason Schwartman as Ash Mr. Fox’s son. Filling in roles that have but a few lines are Willem Defoe and Owen Wilson. Most of these actors lend little to the parts more than their names. For instance this is perhaps the first time in a long time that I saw Meryl Streep perform in a movie and thought, “wow, anyone could do this role just as well as Meryl Streep.”
The idea of stop-motion animation plays to Anderson’s strengths. He has a great knack for filling in the sides of the movie screen with a lot of little details. Here, he recreates an entire world full of mean farmers, fox-holes, and plenty of other locations. He uses the camera a lot of differently than other stop motion animators also (Basically just Tim Burton) He uses much more horizontal pans and other camera moves I don’t know the names of. It’s at least interesting to witness if you are ever aware of that sort of thing.
The music in the film is also fine. I don’t know whatever happened to Mark Mothersbaugh, the great composer for Anderson’s first three films, but wherever he is, he is being missed. Anderson has such a reserved vision that he very much needs composers that are bold, actors (like Schwartzman) who are passionate, and storylines that have a lot of action in them. Here all he has is the adapted screenplay from Dahl. Schwartzman can hardly be used to his potential because he a stop-motion doll, and the composer though okay, has a boy’s choir sing the bad guy’s theme song. Someday Anderson may get all of his ducks in a row, but this isn’t the movie and I am starting to doubt it will be his next either.
Showing posts with label meryl streep. Show all posts
Showing posts with label meryl streep. Show all posts
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Julie and Julia (4/5 Stars) August 26, 2009
The story of an extraordinary cook who wrote an extraordinary book and the woman who read it, cooked it, and didn’t learn a thing!
“Julie and Julia” is director Nora Ephron’s latest film, which is an adaptation of two memoirs. The first is “My Life in France,” by Julia Child, which chronicles her culinary education in France and the writing of her book “Mastering the Art of French Cooking.” The second is “The Julie/Julia Project,” a blog by Julie Powell chronicling her self-appointed quest to cook all 525 recipes in Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking,” within a year. The two lives though separated by a good fifty years are interspersed with each other. The Julia Child story is far more enjoyable than the Julie Powell story but it is important that both stories are told (though it may have not been the maker’s intention) because it provides a contrast between different attitudes towards the art of cooking. The food in both stories looks fantastic and I’m sure tasted great.
Meryl Streep plays Julia Child in one of those roles you can only see Meryl Streep inhabiting. Here she grows several inches and perfects Child’s buoyantly cheerful accent. Her husband played by Stanley Tucci is an ambassador in Paris in the early fifties. She has nothing to do. Noticing that what she really likes to do is eat, she signs up at a chef’s school and the rest as they say is history. Her scenes bristle with Child’s extraordinary passion for French cuisine. In one early scene she exclaims, “I just can’t get over it. How the French eat French food…everyday!” Child’s enthusiasm is contagious. In a letter her husband describes watching her cook like watching a conductor in an orchestra. Streep’s performance lives up to the description. (She will surely garner another Oscar nomination for this performance. According to IMDB that would make her total of nominations to a record setting sixteen times.) One problem Child comes upon rather early is that at that time there was not a single book about French Cooking in English. This becomes her mission in life, as she cannot imagine something that would be more important or fun to do. She corroborates with a French cook named Simone Beck in creating that book over a course of more than a decade. At one time a publisher rejects her work because it is too long. A first planned version of the book clocks in at the size of a seven-volume set. She abhors making it any smaller lest something be left out and the world bereft of the recipe. Finally after several revisions the book catches the eye of a publisher who takes it home and cooks up a recipe of Child’s Boeuf Bouguignon (Beef Stew in Red Wine, with Bacon, Onions, and Mushrooms.) Yum, how about a book deal? Halfway through this story we are treated with the arrival of Child’s even bigger and equally flamboyant sister, who is played by the fabulous improviser Jane Lynch. It’s a treat to watch the two of them go at it together in some of the best scenes in the movie.
Amy Adams plays Julie Powell in a role that could have been played by any number of actresses provided that the set had a competent makeup artist who was capable of drawing tear stained cheeks on every other day. A lowly cubicle worker, Julie Powell devised a way to use her talent for cooking into a scheme that would provide meaning to her life (i.e. get a book deal) and show up her relatively successful friends. Her plan to cook all 525 recipes in Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking,” is a Herculean task and the movie shows it. Amy Adams spends a majority of her screen time in a gloomy tired mood. She frets continually that nobody is reading her blog, has several meltdowns, feels her marriage strained, and worries that her great effort will not result in the attention she hoped to gain. Meanwhile she makes great food and praises the spirit of Julia Child quite a lot.
She does accomplish her dream of getting a book deal, which is why we are watching a movie about her, but there is very interesting moment near the end of the film where Julie receives a phone call from a reporter in CA who had asked the real Julia Child of what she thought of Julie’s blog. In short the real Julia Child wasn’t too thrilled about it. We can only imagine why the now deceased Julia didn’t like Julie’s blog (the movie hints that she felt it was “disrespectful”) but perhaps we can guess at it. Could it possibly be that Julie kind of missed the point of the book completely?
The point I gathered from the Child storyline is that cooking can be a passion akin to any other kind of art form. A person can take up cooking, much like drawing, dancing, or writing, and use it to expand one’s horizons, experiment, and have good fun. And like any other art form it can be used not only for personal fulfillment but also to bring friends and family closer together. (The portrayal of the Child marriage in this film is perhaps one of the happiest I have seen in any movie.) Cooking is perhaps especially adept at this because it provides real physical nourishment and regular intervals in the day to do so. We are especially beholden to Julia for giving us directions on how to use cooking in this way.
Julie Powell did not use cooking in this way. What she did was perform a stunt in the attempt to intrigue complete strangers at the detriment of her life, her job performance, her marriage’s well being, and the enjoyment of the food itself. Powell was going to write a blog about something anyway. She chose cooking because it was the one thing that she was already good at. And then her purpose wasn’t to learn about French Cuisine or to have fun cooking French food; it was to get a book deal. At one point, it is articulated that the whole thing really is but an exercise in narcissism. I couldn’t agree more.
Once Julie gets that book deal however everything is forgiven and she is treated as a triumphant hero by the movie. This is a mistake of the movie as much as it is a problem we may have as a society. If she succeeded a book deal then the way she went about it was okay, right? One of the more disturbing things in this movie is how Julie constantly talks of Julia as this incredible role model while having an attitude toward cooking that is at complete odds with her. Julie says things like, “Julia Child changed the world,” and “I was lost until I found the Mastering the Art of French Cooking.” When she is joined for dinner with Amanda Hesser, the food critic at the NY Times, she admits to having regular imaginary conversations with Julia Child in her kitchen. You know, just like they were best friends! As a cook would say she’s really “laying it on thick.”
Frankly the two cooks couldn’t be more different. What Julia saw in food naturally excited her intellect and curiosity. Julie’s main like about cooking is its consistency. She is comforted by the fact that after a long day at work she can go home add eggs to milk and flour and know that it will thicken. Phew, no hard thinking necessary there. Watching this movie I became aware of something actually quite profound. What I was witnessing was the portrait of two talented people approaching the same subject in two very different ways. One was an artist, the other was a sell-out. Can you tell which is which?
“Julie and Julia” is director Nora Ephron’s latest film, which is an adaptation of two memoirs. The first is “My Life in France,” by Julia Child, which chronicles her culinary education in France and the writing of her book “Mastering the Art of French Cooking.” The second is “The Julie/Julia Project,” a blog by Julie Powell chronicling her self-appointed quest to cook all 525 recipes in Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking,” within a year. The two lives though separated by a good fifty years are interspersed with each other. The Julia Child story is far more enjoyable than the Julie Powell story but it is important that both stories are told (though it may have not been the maker’s intention) because it provides a contrast between different attitudes towards the art of cooking. The food in both stories looks fantastic and I’m sure tasted great.
Meryl Streep plays Julia Child in one of those roles you can only see Meryl Streep inhabiting. Here she grows several inches and perfects Child’s buoyantly cheerful accent. Her husband played by Stanley Tucci is an ambassador in Paris in the early fifties. She has nothing to do. Noticing that what she really likes to do is eat, she signs up at a chef’s school and the rest as they say is history. Her scenes bristle with Child’s extraordinary passion for French cuisine. In one early scene she exclaims, “I just can’t get over it. How the French eat French food…everyday!” Child’s enthusiasm is contagious. In a letter her husband describes watching her cook like watching a conductor in an orchestra. Streep’s performance lives up to the description. (She will surely garner another Oscar nomination for this performance. According to IMDB that would make her total of nominations to a record setting sixteen times.) One problem Child comes upon rather early is that at that time there was not a single book about French Cooking in English. This becomes her mission in life, as she cannot imagine something that would be more important or fun to do. She corroborates with a French cook named Simone Beck in creating that book over a course of more than a decade. At one time a publisher rejects her work because it is too long. A first planned version of the book clocks in at the size of a seven-volume set. She abhors making it any smaller lest something be left out and the world bereft of the recipe. Finally after several revisions the book catches the eye of a publisher who takes it home and cooks up a recipe of Child’s Boeuf Bouguignon (Beef Stew in Red Wine, with Bacon, Onions, and Mushrooms.) Yum, how about a book deal? Halfway through this story we are treated with the arrival of Child’s even bigger and equally flamboyant sister, who is played by the fabulous improviser Jane Lynch. It’s a treat to watch the two of them go at it together in some of the best scenes in the movie.
Amy Adams plays Julie Powell in a role that could have been played by any number of actresses provided that the set had a competent makeup artist who was capable of drawing tear stained cheeks on every other day. A lowly cubicle worker, Julie Powell devised a way to use her talent for cooking into a scheme that would provide meaning to her life (i.e. get a book deal) and show up her relatively successful friends. Her plan to cook all 525 recipes in Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking,” is a Herculean task and the movie shows it. Amy Adams spends a majority of her screen time in a gloomy tired mood. She frets continually that nobody is reading her blog, has several meltdowns, feels her marriage strained, and worries that her great effort will not result in the attention she hoped to gain. Meanwhile she makes great food and praises the spirit of Julia Child quite a lot.
She does accomplish her dream of getting a book deal, which is why we are watching a movie about her, but there is very interesting moment near the end of the film where Julie receives a phone call from a reporter in CA who had asked the real Julia Child of what she thought of Julie’s blog. In short the real Julia Child wasn’t too thrilled about it. We can only imagine why the now deceased Julia didn’t like Julie’s blog (the movie hints that she felt it was “disrespectful”) but perhaps we can guess at it. Could it possibly be that Julie kind of missed the point of the book completely?
The point I gathered from the Child storyline is that cooking can be a passion akin to any other kind of art form. A person can take up cooking, much like drawing, dancing, or writing, and use it to expand one’s horizons, experiment, and have good fun. And like any other art form it can be used not only for personal fulfillment but also to bring friends and family closer together. (The portrayal of the Child marriage in this film is perhaps one of the happiest I have seen in any movie.) Cooking is perhaps especially adept at this because it provides real physical nourishment and regular intervals in the day to do so. We are especially beholden to Julia for giving us directions on how to use cooking in this way.
Julie Powell did not use cooking in this way. What she did was perform a stunt in the attempt to intrigue complete strangers at the detriment of her life, her job performance, her marriage’s well being, and the enjoyment of the food itself. Powell was going to write a blog about something anyway. She chose cooking because it was the one thing that she was already good at. And then her purpose wasn’t to learn about French Cuisine or to have fun cooking French food; it was to get a book deal. At one point, it is articulated that the whole thing really is but an exercise in narcissism. I couldn’t agree more.
Once Julie gets that book deal however everything is forgiven and she is treated as a triumphant hero by the movie. This is a mistake of the movie as much as it is a problem we may have as a society. If she succeeded a book deal then the way she went about it was okay, right? One of the more disturbing things in this movie is how Julie constantly talks of Julia as this incredible role model while having an attitude toward cooking that is at complete odds with her. Julie says things like, “Julia Child changed the world,” and “I was lost until I found the Mastering the Art of French Cooking.” When she is joined for dinner with Amanda Hesser, the food critic at the NY Times, she admits to having regular imaginary conversations with Julia Child in her kitchen. You know, just like they were best friends! As a cook would say she’s really “laying it on thick.”
Frankly the two cooks couldn’t be more different. What Julia saw in food naturally excited her intellect and curiosity. Julie’s main like about cooking is its consistency. She is comforted by the fact that after a long day at work she can go home add eggs to milk and flour and know that it will thicken. Phew, no hard thinking necessary there. Watching this movie I became aware of something actually quite profound. What I was witnessing was the portrait of two talented people approaching the same subject in two very different ways. One was an artist, the other was a sell-out. Can you tell which is which?
Doubt (4/5 Stars) 12/12/08
Required viewing before you see this movie is the superb documentary 'Deliver Us From Evil.' It is about five years old and concerns itself with a Catholic priest named Father O'Grady who was one of the most notorious pedophiles in the church. He had maybe over a hundred victims. Whenever anybody complained, he was promoted.
'Doubt' takes place in 1964 about a year after the Kennedy Assassination and during the great 'freshening up' of the Catholic Church. It is important to note though that it was adapted from a 2005 Pulitzer prize winning play. So although it takes place in the sixties, it is very much of today's time. Everything you have heard about priests in the last decade bears down on the edges of this story. But far be it from this movie to only have one Big Issue. It throws in a couple more like the alleged child victim being the first black kid to be desegregated into the school, a conflict between the old Catholic Church and the new one, and an unflattering view of church hierarchy and sexism. The mere fact that this movie can get through two hours without dodging any of the issues and without directly offending everybody is probably the reason it got the Pulitzer. I think it deserved it. (Sort of, I mean if the Pulitzers wanted to be respectable they would start giving out awards to the most substantial art-form in the world right now. Need I say the word 'movies.' If they did that I could give out a list of more deserving titles. But I have no doubt that this would make one hell of a play.)
Like a play there more talk than walk, but I don't think it will bore anyone without Attention Deficit Disorder. There is a trio of very good performances. Leading the pack is Meryl Streep who always seems to get the best roles. She will definitely get an Oscar Nomination. If she hadn't already won so many they would probably throw the Oscar at her for this one. Her character is one of her best. A very stern, strong, and disciplined nun. The type little kids would fear as they walked to the principals office. But this is no caricature. Streep infuses into the character much to admire. For instance she takes on the parish priest she suspects with very little evidence and absolutely no authority. Love her or hate her, this woman has a lot of guts. If the priest were guilty, and he might be, Sister Aloysious is the type of person you would want around.
The priest is played righteously by Phillip Seymour Hoffman. I don't care if this guy is innocent, he's still an asshole. He might be really nice to the black kid, but he's a complete jerk to the nuns. He sits in Meryl Streep's chair, he uses his sermons to get back at Amy Adams, he seems to completely disregard the sacrifice the sisters make every day. I've got a problem with the Catholic Church in general and how it treats its woman, and I think this movie makes it quite clear what is wrong. The nuns get up at five am to pray. They eat in silence. The men eat with music playing and laughter in the air. The nuns teach history and discipline the students. The priest teaches gym. The women wear the most constrictive and ugly black cassocks. The men dress in flowing gowns and get the fame of preaching sermons. What makes Meryl Streep's performance so great is that it captures that torn conviction of a true believer who knows that her superiors are not as saintly as she is. She is like many of us, forced into dead end jobs and seeing younger less experienced people rise through the ranks to be the boss. No wonder she is such a bitch.
Rounding out the trio of great performances is Amy Adams who does a terrible job at not being beautiful. She is the shy type of nun. (Nuns come in two types: shy and mean. Over time the shy become mean.) There is some talk of giving an Oscar Nomination to the mother of the black kid who only has one scene in this movie. I do not understand this sort of thing. Every year the Academy will pull a stunt like this, give a nomination to an old veteran that does a big boo-hoo with a tiny unsubstantial role that nobody will ever remember (Ruby Dee, anyone?). It would be a real travesty if they gave it to this woman because a much better, much more important performance is staring them right in the face. And that is the one by Amy Adams. Her character is important because it is the middle ground between the two fighters. We see most of the story through her eyes. Both Meryl and Philip try to win her to her side. and it is Amy's reaction to them that sways our point of view back and forth between them.
In the end we are not very sure if it happened or didn't happen. This doesn't make the movie any less suspenseful. In addition to gripping my coat the entire length of the movie I was looking fervently into the corners of the screen to glimpse any extra evidence of what actually went on. Both sides are plausible, both sides are realistic, both can't be right. This movie is not big enough to get serious Oscar treatment, but it should be enough for an acting nomination for Meryl Streep and an Adapted Screenplay Nomination for John Patrick Shanley. The cinematographer is the great Roger Deakins who is perhaps the most unduly snubbed cameraman Hollywood has ever produced. Like all of his movies, this one has a very original, crisp and beautiful look to it. The way it is shot makes us feel the cold winter breezes. I don't know enough about cinematography to justify a prediction but I would say its about time that the Academy started throwing Oscars at Deakins. He's the only cinematographer I know by name and for good reason. (For examples of his work look at No Country for Old Men, Jarhead, A Beautiful Mind, O Brother Where Art Thou, Fargo, and The Shawshank Redemption.)
'Doubt' takes place in 1964 about a year after the Kennedy Assassination and during the great 'freshening up' of the Catholic Church. It is important to note though that it was adapted from a 2005 Pulitzer prize winning play. So although it takes place in the sixties, it is very much of today's time. Everything you have heard about priests in the last decade bears down on the edges of this story. But far be it from this movie to only have one Big Issue. It throws in a couple more like the alleged child victim being the first black kid to be desegregated into the school, a conflict between the old Catholic Church and the new one, and an unflattering view of church hierarchy and sexism. The mere fact that this movie can get through two hours without dodging any of the issues and without directly offending everybody is probably the reason it got the Pulitzer. I think it deserved it. (Sort of, I mean if the Pulitzers wanted to be respectable they would start giving out awards to the most substantial art-form in the world right now. Need I say the word 'movies.' If they did that I could give out a list of more deserving titles. But I have no doubt that this would make one hell of a play.)
Like a play there more talk than walk, but I don't think it will bore anyone without Attention Deficit Disorder. There is a trio of very good performances. Leading the pack is Meryl Streep who always seems to get the best roles. She will definitely get an Oscar Nomination. If she hadn't already won so many they would probably throw the Oscar at her for this one. Her character is one of her best. A very stern, strong, and disciplined nun. The type little kids would fear as they walked to the principals office. But this is no caricature. Streep infuses into the character much to admire. For instance she takes on the parish priest she suspects with very little evidence and absolutely no authority. Love her or hate her, this woman has a lot of guts. If the priest were guilty, and he might be, Sister Aloysious is the type of person you would want around.
The priest is played righteously by Phillip Seymour Hoffman. I don't care if this guy is innocent, he's still an asshole. He might be really nice to the black kid, but he's a complete jerk to the nuns. He sits in Meryl Streep's chair, he uses his sermons to get back at Amy Adams, he seems to completely disregard the sacrifice the sisters make every day. I've got a problem with the Catholic Church in general and how it treats its woman, and I think this movie makes it quite clear what is wrong. The nuns get up at five am to pray. They eat in silence. The men eat with music playing and laughter in the air. The nuns teach history and discipline the students. The priest teaches gym. The women wear the most constrictive and ugly black cassocks. The men dress in flowing gowns and get the fame of preaching sermons. What makes Meryl Streep's performance so great is that it captures that torn conviction of a true believer who knows that her superiors are not as saintly as she is. She is like many of us, forced into dead end jobs and seeing younger less experienced people rise through the ranks to be the boss. No wonder she is such a bitch.
Rounding out the trio of great performances is Amy Adams who does a terrible job at not being beautiful. She is the shy type of nun. (Nuns come in two types: shy and mean. Over time the shy become mean.) There is some talk of giving an Oscar Nomination to the mother of the black kid who only has one scene in this movie. I do not understand this sort of thing. Every year the Academy will pull a stunt like this, give a nomination to an old veteran that does a big boo-hoo with a tiny unsubstantial role that nobody will ever remember (Ruby Dee, anyone?). It would be a real travesty if they gave it to this woman because a much better, much more important performance is staring them right in the face. And that is the one by Amy Adams. Her character is important because it is the middle ground between the two fighters. We see most of the story through her eyes. Both Meryl and Philip try to win her to her side. and it is Amy's reaction to them that sways our point of view back and forth between them.
In the end we are not very sure if it happened or didn't happen. This doesn't make the movie any less suspenseful. In addition to gripping my coat the entire length of the movie I was looking fervently into the corners of the screen to glimpse any extra evidence of what actually went on. Both sides are plausible, both sides are realistic, both can't be right. This movie is not big enough to get serious Oscar treatment, but it should be enough for an acting nomination for Meryl Streep and an Adapted Screenplay Nomination for John Patrick Shanley. The cinematographer is the great Roger Deakins who is perhaps the most unduly snubbed cameraman Hollywood has ever produced. Like all of his movies, this one has a very original, crisp and beautiful look to it. The way it is shot makes us feel the cold winter breezes. I don't know enough about cinematography to justify a prediction but I would say its about time that the Academy started throwing Oscars at Deakins. He's the only cinematographer I know by name and for good reason. (For examples of his work look at No Country for Old Men, Jarhead, A Beautiful Mind, O Brother Where Art Thou, Fargo, and The Shawshank Redemption.)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)