Ray

Grade: C-

New Movie Rules:

1) No more neon lights, spinning records, or Billboard Magazines to represent being on the road, recording new albums, or climbing the charts.

2) No more comatose audiences who are immediately won over and start clapping and dancing 30 seconds into your first song.

3) No more coming up with instant classics after only 30 seconds of piddling on the piano.

4) No more sweaty, hand-fan waving, Baptist funerals where the mourner throws herself on the coffin.

5) No more heroin addicts being introduced to the big, bad world of drugs by being offered a drag off a marijuana cigarette.

6) No more bribing radio stations to get your song some air time.

7) Never ever say “It’s cold out there” under any circumstances.

8) Never call your mistress by your wife’s name.

9) Vomiting = pregnant. Always.

10) Richard Schiff (Toby from “West Wing”) should never, ever, ever be permitted to wear a hairpiece.

Ray arrives alone in Seattle to begin his career, and hears a teenager playing a trumpet outside a two bit jazz club because he’s too young to actually enter. The lad introduces himself as Quincy Jones. Oy. You just know you’re in big trouble.

Jamie Foxx is thoroughly believable as Ray Charles – he smiles, bobs and lip-syncs in all the right places. But there is not one single, solitary, isolated, split second, prayed for moment that is not the cliché-ridden stereotype of a singing sensation’s meteoric, drug addicted, womanizing rise to fame, fortune, fall from grace and ultimate redemption. Add blindness (replete with “Institute for the Blind” infomercials about the power of hearing in a world of darkness) and stir. Add childhood, sepia-like, sugary dripping flashbacks and stirring becomes more difficult. Add a final, withdrawal-induced reunion with dead relatives who tell you to make them proud and the time has come to throw the concoction out and start all over again.

The film comes in at 2½ long hours, yet covers the final 40+ years of Ray Charles’ life in a 30 second crawl on the screen. I guess nothing interesting happened.

Hit the road, Jack, and don’t you come back no more no more no more no more.

More Movie Info: http://imdb.com/title/tt0350258/

Undertow

Grade: C+

What makes this early entry at the New York Film Festival notable is an exquisite performance from young thespian Jamie Bell. From “Billy Elliot” through “Nicholas Nickleby” and his American film debut here, one can literally chart the ever-increasing richness of depth and subtleties in performance that will be studied years from now when Bell is the star he will ultimately become.

Alas, this based-on-a-true-story indie doesn’t have enough there there for it to truly recommend. Somber, determinedly slow, and sprinkled with occasional pretentiousness, this tale of two young Southern brothers on the lamb to escape the consequences of fratricide never really gets moving enough for their odyssey to inspire much emotion. The acting is strong here, including Dermot Mulroney as a father grey before his time and Josh Lucas as his ne’er-do-well sibling. Although the film often sags under the weight of ill-explored character idiosyncrasies (such as a little brother who eats mud and paint from an unexplained anxiety disorder) and lines filled with overly-dramatic import (“Where are you from?” another runaway asks Mr. Bell. “Nowhere” he opines. Earlier, a young woman explains the loss of her child, “I tried to feed him, but he wouldn’t take my milk. He was a stranger to my breast.” Ugh.), the actor’s have an uncanny ability to rise above the stilted and overly symbolic material. The film is at its best when at its most quiet, observing circumstances rather than commenting on them.

Director David Gordon Green has a deeply felt eye for his environment, and the south feels appropriately languid, impoverished and gritty. Yet his storytelling is sporadic, and he jars his audience with youthful directorial flourishes – including stop frames and other choppy editing techniques – better suited to an overzealous NYU student trying to impress than a seasoned filmmaker in full command of his setting. It takes genuinely dreadful music to merit mention, and here composer Philip Glass has written one of the worst scores in recent memory, filled with archangels singing and jazzy/pop melodies that come out of nowhere and bear no relationship whatsoever to the overall tone and feel of the work.

But at the heart of the piece is Bell who, in addition to stunningly casting off all hints of Cockney in deference to Southern tones, carries the weight of the world on his shoulders – impish in his charm and yet mournful beyond his years. He almost makes the journey worth taking.

More Movie Info: http://imdb.com/title/tt0360130/

Sideways

Grade: A-

I love White Zinfandel. There, I said it. If this does nothing to eradicate my reputation as a priggish elitist nothing else will. I will drink Chardonnay or Pinot Grigio when I’m dining in public, but give me a glass of the pink stuff when I’m home alone.

I have six bottles of Berenger’s White Zinfandel stacked in my closet as we speak. Sideways. Makes sure the cork stays moist so air doesn’t contaminate the wine. This is just about all that I know about wines, which explains the “White Wines for Dummies” handbook hiding in my kitchen. As if White Zin could get contaminated in the first place. Let’s face it – my favorite wine is not unlike a cockroach in a nuclear war. Nothing can kill it.

Against a backdrop of the California Wine Country, two pals couldn’t be more different if they tried – one muted, introverted, filled with dark coloring, the other robust, full bodied, bursting with life – not unlike the wines they enjoy. This beautifully written buddy road picture uses the exaltation of fine wine as a metaphor for the longing, richness and depth of real life. It makes one desire something more sophisticated than White Zinfandel.

Paul Giamatti, who I admit bored (okay, irritated) me in his indie-raver “American Splendor,” here deserves an Oscar nom for effortlessly treading a fine balance between maudlin, comical, and endearing. He has lost both his wife and his dreams, but his sarcastic wit, romantic hopes, and passion for vino still endure under the surface. Thomas Haden Church adds well-meaning buffoonery as the ne’er-do-well “Get Me to the Church On Time” sidekick who revels in last minute sexcapades and shenanigans. Virginia Masden illuminates the screen whenever she’s on it, and Sandra Oh has a “Fatal Attraction” moment that is so outrageously funny it would make Glenn Close blush.

At once outrageously ribald funny, quietly and sincerely touching and – dare I say it – unobtrusively educational, director/screenwriter Alexander Payne has created fine wine for the cinema.

I’m thinking a Château La Mondotte Saint-Emilion 1996.

More Movie Info: http://imdb.com/title/tt0375063/

Being Julia

Grade: B-

Annette Bening deliciously devours the scenery as a grand dame of the London theater who forgets to stop giving a performance once she’s offstage. What starts with several servings of “Don’t fu%k with me fellas” Joan Crawford bravado quietly begins to show the chinks and frailties in the armor, and her performance is simultaneously larger than life and surprisingly vulnerable.

Alas, a choppy and threadbare screenplay denies us the richness the story so dearly deserves. All the people in her life – from an adorable opportunist to an older male companion to her committed assistant to her lesbian patron to an aspiring ingénue to her devoted son – are all painted in light brushstrokes that come and go without ever being fully integrated into the storyline, phantom characters that exist solely to induce an emotional opportunity for the star – giggly infatuation, raging hostility, demonic revengefulness, melodramatic jealousy. They are Edmund Kean-esque flashes of lightning to be sure, but feel less than grounded in the reality of breathing relationships. Her long dead mentor makes the occasional appearance to comment on her daily activities as well, yet here too we never fully appreciate a relationship of such influence that she carries him with her long after his demise. Jeremy Irons is pleasant wallpaper as the husband/director, but his character is also a shadow in the background. Character motivations are sometimes hinted at, backgrounds occasionally implied, relationship histories vaguely suggested, but there is never enough to make one believe our star has real connections to any of them.

A finale replete with the utterly implausible and thoroughly irritating convention of a star rewriting her scenes on stage in front of a delightedly unaware opening night audience drags the piece into the realm of farce. “Don’t change a thing!” the husband/director declares. Nothing like good old improv to bring a play to life. Really, really dumb.

And yet, there is Bening, and if one is willing to grab onto her coattails and hang on for the ride, one is willing to forgive a great deal.

More Movie Info: http://imdb.com/title/tt0340012/

Shall We Dance

Grade: B-

A charmingly heartfelt, yet clunkily formulaic bit of summer fluff oddly released in October. Richard Gere has charisma to burn as a husband/father stuck in the doldrums who just wants to break free from the bonds of predictability and explode on the dance floor.

Don’t we all?

The film has a kind and gentle nature, and Gere is quite jovial as a basically content man looking for an extra spark, an extra bit of joy to add some color to his existence. It is nice to see him so loose and youthful, a twinkle in the eye and a carefree jaunt in his step. The rest of the cast are barely one note window dressings, including Jennifer Lopez as a mysteriously soulful hoofer with a story, Stanley Tucci as a flamenco-dancing coworker with an outrageous wig, beaming fake teeth, and a bottle of orange tanning lotion in his closet, and Susan Sarandon as a devoted and trusting wife who nonetheless hires a private investigator rather than have an actual conversation with her husband.

The situations are predictable, contrived, broad and occassionally slaptick, yet there is also a cheekiness and levity that makes it hard to judge it all too harshly. If one wishes that the screenwriters worked a little harder to differentiate this version from the original Japanese film on which it is based (a son asking his father along on a date may work in Japan where children actually have respect for their parents, but is nothing short of absurd here) there are also moments that can’t help but make one smile. If one wishes the screenwriters worked a little harder to resolve the storyline (a letter from J-Lo practically turns the film into an epistolary novel in the final reel), there is also enough romance to place the requisite lump (albeit briefly) in one’s throat. If one wishes there was actually a hint of real chemistry between Gere and Sarandon, at least nobody in his 50s sleeps with anyone in her 20s.

The filmmakers have given the audience a light-hearted wink. Rocket science it ain’t.

More Movie Info: http://imdb.com/title/tt0358135/

Vera Drake

Grade: A

Film auteur Mike Leigh has taken one of the most politically-charged issues of our time and created a film stunning in its subtlety, simplicity, and grace. Imelda Staunton gives the performance of a distinguished lifetime as a dowdy, ever-humming, kind-hearted wife and mother who also “helps young women” terminate their pregnancies. While there is no ambiguity as to the filmmaker’s perspective on a woman’s right to choose (the film is even dedicated to his physician father and midwife mother), Leigh tells his story through richly textured characters of sometimes undefined yet deeply heartfelt motivations. There is no moral certainty or superiority. No soapboxes. No political diatribes. Understated yet detailed. Straightforward yet complex. Partisan yet open-armed welcoming of thought and interpretation. This is easily one of the finest works of the year.

It is the early 1950’s in London. Abortion is legal for women of means who can afford the 150 pounds to receive psychiatric dispensation and a clean hospital bed free from judgment. Meanwhile, Vera takes care of her husband and two children. She cuddles in bed with her beloved partner, warming his icy feet with hers. She welcomes friends into her home. Searches for a bridegroom for her daughter. Tends to her bedridden mother. Takes delight in meals with her extended family around a tight table space. Goes to rich women’s homes and cleans them to make ends meet. Goes to poor women’s homes and performs abortions. She is a caregiver. There is no distinction between her taking care of her family and her taking care of these women. It is the right thing to do. It is her nature.

Heroic and heartbreaking, we are eavesdropping. A company of mesmerizing actors creates a real family. They have spent their lives together. How they relate to one another, play and relax together, eat together, how they support, judge and care for each other is the true heart of this masterful work. Filmed with poignant decorum, there is little music to emphasize how we should be feeling, few declarations to tell us what we should believe. The story is told in Vera’s eyes, in Vera’s humble tone of voice, in Vera putting on a pot of tea. We see a woman’s heart bursting forth, in the simple yet uncompromising way she lives her life. A Rembrandt.

More Movie Info: http://imdb.com/title/tt0383694/

Friday Night Lights

Grade: B+

He liked a football movie? A FOOTBALL movie. From coast to coast, relatives are wondering what has become of their son, brother, nephew, cousin…

Yet this is a very fine football movie. It’s not just about football.

Director Peter Berg brings a documentary style to this fictionalized account of a real year during the life of a small town in southern Texas, where football isn’t merely king – it is all there is. His film stock is grainy, metallic and cold, yet his characters are filled with pathos, depth, pain and empathy. For parents, it is the memory of their glory days and the one chance their kids have to escape a world of poverty, racism, and hopelessness. For the kids, it is self-aggrandizement, crushing defeat, overwhelming pressure, the faint glimmer of hope. We never see the inside of a classroom, never experience a moment that is not about the game. Even a trip to the burger joint is filled with adult expectation and examples of the football food chain. If this all sounds like a cliché we have seen before, it has never been quite so blunt, straightforward or stark.

Billy Bob Thornton leads a solid cast as a coach who finds dozens of “for sale” signs posted on his lawn after a team loss. He is at once beloved, respected, vilified, judged, second-guessed at every turn. Everyone is an expert. He is ever the outsider. Lucas Black stands out as a joyless quarterback who never, ever smiles. The pressure is so intense he seems on the verge of tears at virtually any moment, as apt to cry during a one-night stand as he is while trying to contend with his mentally unstable mother.

If the football games themselves are a bit confusing and choppy (scoreboards tend to change without explanation), this is neither the standard sports inspirational nor an overtly hostile condemnation of an American obsession. It is a portrayal filled with focused observations and simple moments.

When the quarterback finally, finally smiles, it is a smile of such extraordinary relief that it cannot help but break one’s heart.

More Movie Info: http://imdb.com/title/tt0390022/

Tying the Knot

Grade: B+

When asked why the Declaration of Independence was a necessary document, Thomas Jefferson replied, “To place before mankind the common sense of the subject, in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent.” At least that’s what happened in “1776.”

“Tying the Knot” makes a case for gay marriage that is so clear, so elementary, so frustratingly obvious, that it commands the subject’s assent.

There is nothing melodramatic in the telling here. We see footage of gay couples taking over a city clerk’s office in the 1970’s, and realize the battle is not new. In the 90’s, Bill Clinton cowardly signs the Defense of Marriage Act in the dark of night, then capitalizes on one of his Administration’s more shameful acts by taking out radio ads in the Christian media to define himself as the “family values” candidate willing to stand up to gay extremists. Today, a woman loses her police officer partner to a bullet in Florida, and must fight the deceased’s family for pension benefits. A farmer loses his land to his partner’s family because a second witness signature was missing from a will. Hatemongers expose their bible-thumpingly evil hearts, while couples struggle valiantly onward to maintain their dignity and secure the fundamental rights they deserve. An elderly heterosexual couple pronounce their support for the rights of gays and lesbians to marry, and we have hope. A child espouses her parent’s venom and vitriol, and we are mortified albeit not even remotely surprised. Right-wing politicians fill the screen with their satanic leanings, while progressive politicians (do the initials JFK ring any bells?) stumble over themselves in feeble attempts to explain why domestic partnerships are acceptable but gay marriages are not. Although one wishes for broader definition of our families (gay and lesbian partners with children are not terribly well represented here), the telling is gaily straightforward but utterly compelling.

The very nature of the discourse is upsetting to one’s soul. For most of us, we are simply not doing enough for what is truly the civil rights issue of our time.

More Movie Info: http://imdb.com/title/tt0410818/