Movie Review: The Voices

The Voices
Directed by: Marjane Satrapi.
Written by: Michael R. Perry.
Starring: Ryan Reynolds (Jerry/Mr. Whiskers/ Bosco/ Deer/Bunny Monkey), Gemma Arterton (Fiona), Anna Kendrick (Lisa), Jacki Weaver (Dr. Warren), Ella Smith (Alison), Paul Chahidi (Dennis Kowalski), Stanley Townsend (Sheriff Weinbacher), Adi Shankar (John), Sam Spruell (Dave).

Jerry is one of those anonymous nice guys we all know from the office – but no one really knows who they are. He seems cheerful and friendly – the type of guy who doesn’t complain about the smocks he has to wear in the warehouse is bright pink, who whistles a happy tune during the day, and still sees it as an honor to be picked for a party planning committee – that meets after business hours, and is unpaid. At that party, he throws himself into the dance with abandon. And yet, there is something off about Jerry. No one can quite put their finger on it, but you see it on their faces when they walk away from Jerry – a look of slight befuddlement, before they move on with their day and never give Jerry another thought – that is, until the next time they see him.

Jerry is played by Ryan Reynolds in The Voices – the new film by Marjane Satrapi, who lets the audience know what is wrong with Jerry fairly early in the proceedings. Jerry is mentally ill – and severely, although he can hide it pretty well, and emulate normalcy almost precisely – but it’s the almost that leads to that befuddlement. We will eventually flash back and find out more about Jerry’s past – unnecessarily to me, but whatever – but we know it’s pretty bad early. It’s never a good sign when the Sheriff knows your name, and asks “How you’re doing?” with concern every time he sees you. And his doctor (Jacki Weaver) is very concerned that Jerry should doesn’t appear to be taking his drugs. Oh, and Jerry’s dog, Bosco, and cat, Mr. Whiskers, talk to him – Bosco, the little cartoon angel assuring Jerry that he is in fact a nice guy, and Mr. Whiskers, the cartoon devil, wanting Jerry to burn it all to the ground. If Jerry had listened to Bosco, a lot more people would be alive at the end of the movie – but not much would really happen.

Jerry does, in fact, become a serial killer in The Voices – but an odd one. His first victim is the self-described “office hottie”, Fiona (Gemma Arterton), who Jerry takes a liking to – and even asks her out. She blows off their date for a night of drunken karaoke – and as she’s walking home alone, Jerry comes across her with his car, and offers a ride home. A series of events happen, she winds up dead, and listening to Mr. Whiskers, Jerry decides to cut up her body, and keep her head in the fridge. The head, by the way, keeps talking to Jerry. She’s lonely – she wants a friend. Perhaps that shy girl from the office – Lisa (Anna Kendrick), who takes a liking to Jerry.

The Voices does get fairly grisly at times – there are multiple murders and dismemberments in the film, but they’re not quite as harsh as that sounds. It’s impossible to know just what really happened, as the movie locks into Jerry’s point-of-view early, and never leaves it. To him, all these deaths are merely accidents. He didn’t kill them. He’s a nice guy – even Bosco thinks so. But we are trapped in Jerry’s ill mind. There is a telling sequence mid-way through the film where Jerry takes his doctor’s advice, and actually takes his pills – and he wakes up to see the reality of everything he has done, and doesn’t much like it – so off the meds he goes again.

Reynolds is excellent here – it may just be his finest work to date. Perhaps the best thing that could have happened to Reynolds as an actor is that his movie star career kind of stalled a little while ago – when his DC movie, Green Lantern, bombed, and his Marvel movie, Deadpool, got delayed (that one is at least back on). It’s forced Reynolds to take some roles in smaller movies like this, and Atom Egoyan’s The Captive – which wasn’t a good movie, but in which Reynolds is actually quite good. Reynolds has movie star good looks and charm – but he’s capable of dimming that a little bit to play a guy like Jerry. Outwardly, Jerry is nice – but there is something not quite right, which is why most people steer clear. All Jerry really wants is to belong – to have some sort of connection with someone else, and since he cannot have that, because of his illness, he makes them up in his head.

The Voices is not a great movie. The tonal shifts between comedy, drama and grisly murder are a little much to take at times, the characters other than Jerry feel underwritten (although Arterton and especially Kendrick make them more than what they appear to have been on the page) and once director Satrapi and writer Michael R. Perry set everything up, they really have nowhere to go with the premise – no way to end it in a way that would truly satisfying. They come close enough though.

Movie Review: Wild Tales

Wild Tales
Directed by: Damián Szifrón.
Written by: Damián Szifrón.
Starring: Darío Grandinetti (Salgado), María Marull (Isabel), Mónica Villa (Profesora Leguizamón), Rita Cortese (Cocinera), Julieta Zylberberg (Moza), César Bordón (Cuenca), Leonardo Sbaraglia (Diego), Walter Donado (Mario), Ricardo Darín (Simón), Nancy Dupláa (Victoria), Oscar Martínez (Mauricio), María Onetto (Helena), Osmar Núñez (Lawyer), Germán de Silva (Casero), Erica Rivas (Romina), Diego Gentile (Ariel).

The brief opening segment of Wild Tales sets the tone for the five shorts that will follow. A pair of people – a model and a music critic – are talking on a plane when they realize they have a tenuous connection. At one point, the model was dating a classical composer – things ended badly, but she assures the critic she still likes him – when the critic asks for her ex’s name – you know, just in case he has heard of him. She assures the critic he hasn’t – he was a failed composer after all, but tells him anyway. Shocked, the critic announces, that yes, in fact he does know him. He once submitted his work to a panel the critic was on – and the critic ripped it to shreds. It was laughably horrible. Then, gradually, the other passengers on the plane overhear the conversation, and realize that they too know the man they are talking about, and they tell their story about him. It is a virtual tour of hilarious misery, as no one has much nice to say about the man. And then, with dawning horror, the passengers figure out why they are all one the plane together – but by then it’s too late.

This opening sequence, which is the briefest of the 6 shorts that make up the movie, sets the tone for the rest of the movie. The sequence is dark and disturbing, but also hilarious, highly stylized and entertaining as hell. The film moves at a brisk clip throughout, and never overstays its welcome in any one segment – even when one threatens to, it’s because writer director Damian Szifron isn’t quite done screwing with you yet.

The first story is the most overtly comic (although given recent events with airplanes, it takes on darker tone than was perhaps intended) – but all of them have an element of comedy mixed in with the bloody drama. The story of a young waitress whose only customer on a dark and stormy night is the man who destroyed her father – and cook who says they should get revenge. Another about an upper class guy in a luxury car, who flips off a “redneck” in a pickup on a desolate stretch of highway – and then has to face him again when his car breaks down. The longest is about a man (Argentinian star Ricardo Darin) who gets a parking ticket, ruining his day, and eventually his life, as he tries to fight the bureaucracy. The darkest is about a rich man trying to pay his gardener to take the fall when the rich man’s son kills a pregnant woman in a hit and run accident. The film ends with a delirious segment at a wedding where the bride discovers her new husband is cheating on her. Most directors would end this one with the wife getting revenge with a cook on a rooftop – but Szifron is just getting started.

The stories are not about good guys and bad guys – but about flawed people, who are both good and bad, or perhaps neither. You may often find your loyalties switching from one character to another during any one segment – and if I’m being honest, most of them ended with me thinking that everyone involved are horrible, spiteful people – who more often than not get what they deserve.

So, yes, the picture of humanity that Wild Tales paints is dark and pessimistic. But the movie hardly is. Szifron is a natural filmmaker, and his film is highly stylized, moves at lightning speed, and is often hilarious in addition to disturbing. I’m not sure Wild Tales really adds up to very much – I don’t think it has anything on its mind, rather to entertain with its portrait of horrible people doing horrible things in the most entertaining way imaginable. And in that, it succeeds brilliantly.

Movie Review: Home

Home
Directed by: Tim Johnson.
Written by: Tom J. Astle and Matt Ember based on the book by Adam Rex.
Starring: Jim Parsons (Oh), Rihanna (Gratuity 'Tip' Tucci), Steve Martin (Captain Smek), Jennifer Lopez (Lucy), Matt Jones (Kyle), Brian Stepanek (Gorg Commander / Father / Boov).

There is nothing really wrong with Home – the new animated film from Dreamworks. The film is colorful, without being headache inducing, moves quickly without getting confused or muddled. It has decent voice work, and has some decent jokes throughout – jokes that thankfully rarely getting bogged down either in toilet humor or pop culture references, like some of Dreamworks other animated films. The film moves along fairly quickly, and in the final act, actually does touch on some emotions that will make big softies (like myself) tear up a little bit. My three and a half year old daughter was transfixed by the movie – and liked it even more I think because there weren’t really any “bad guys” in the film – just people with differing goals. She had a blast. I didn’t mind Home while it was playing – but to me it is the very definition of a mediocre movie – a mildly enjoyable film while it plays, and one that is instantly forgettable once it’s over.

The film is about the alien race, the Boov. Led by Captain Smek (Steve Martin), the Boov spend their entire existence running away from their mortal enemies, the Gorg. The Boov are small, cute little aliens – with multiple feet, long horn like ears, who change color based on their emotions. They are also, like seeming many aliens, motivated purely on logic. Anything that doesn’t serve an immediate purpose is gotten rid of – and anything with a bad probability of success isn’t even attempted. They move from one planet to the next – taking over, until the Gorg finds them, and then they’re off again. Their latest conquest is, you guessed it, Earth. Through a series of events too complicated to explain, one Boov – Oh (Jim Parsons), who doesn’t fit in with the rest (because he screws up a lot) has to team up with a 13 year old girl, Tip (Rihanna) and go on a journey. She needs to find her mom – who, like the rest of humanity except for her, has been relocated to Australia, and he needs to hide, because he has inadvertently screwed over his entire race. These things happen.

You know what will happen. The pair at first don’t understand each other – and don’t like each other much either. But forced together, they slowly start to understand each other and even become friends. Their trip – in a supped up car that hovers and runs on slurpies – is a wonder.

The problem is that once the move establishes its premise, it doesn’t really have much to do until we get to the finale – which is the best part of the movie. The movie spends half its running time on its journey, and really not a whole lot happens on it. We know where the characters are going to end up before they do. There is a lot dancing, and some inoffensive Rihanna songs, scattered through the movie – and they don’t add much, but the do help pass the time.

 
The film works to a certain extent – and kids will like it. Adults, forced to endure it, will probably not mind it – but the film never does reach the heights of the best animated family films. It’s just kind of there – not good, not bad, just there.

Movie Review: Welcome to New York

Welcome to New York
Directed by: Abel Ferrara.
Written by: Abel Ferrara & Christ Zois.
Starring: Gérard Depardieu (Devereaux), Jacqueline Bisset (Simone), Marie Mouté (Sophie Devereaux), Pamela Afesi (Maid), Drena De Niro (Executive Assistant), Amy Ferguson (Renee), Paul Calderon (Pierre), Paul Hipp (Guy), Ronald Guttman (Roullot), Anh Duong (Livia), Natasha Romanova (Russian Yelena), Anna Lakomy (Anna), Shanyn Leigh (Female Journalist), Lucy Campbell (Roxanne), Raquel Nave (Russian Desiree), JD Taylor (Josh), Emmanuelle Vill (Emmanuelle).

Note: This review is based on the original 125 minute cut – not the 108 minute cut released in America. See the note at the bottom of the review for more information.

The brief opening scene of Abel Ferrara’s Welcome to New York shows its main character, Devereaux (Gerard Depardieu) in an interview – where he is articulate and intelligent, talking about politics. It’s really the last time for about an hour he has anything intelligent to say – or really anything save from some grunts and a few shouted “Do you know who I ams” – directed at various people. From that brief opening, we move to a scene of Devereaux in his office, when his security chief walks in and tells him about his trip back to France – and what will happen there. Devereaux doesn’t care – apart from him and his security chief, the rest of the people in the room are attractive, young women – who are all over Devereaux. They offer the security chief a blowjob, which he politely refuses, although they don’t listen. From there, we see Devereaux walking into a fancy New York hotel – converse politely with the staff, and then head upstairs to his room. Already there are two other men, and three, young attractive women. Devereaux will engage in forceful sex with one of these women, then the party retires for a cocktail of “whiskey, ice cream and Cialis” – and more sex. Eventually, everyone else leaves, walking off into the night, and Devereaux collapses onto his bed like a beached whale. But he isn’t alone for long – soon two new young prostitutes arrive, and he’s back at it again.

It’s almost become a cliché for critics to say that any movie with a lot of sex in it “isn’t really sexy” – sometimes that’s true, and sometimes it’s not. But it definitely isn’t true in Welcome to New York. The sex scenes are disturbing for any number of reasons like the animalistic grunts of Depardieu emits throughout. But mainly, they are disturbing because Devereaux never even sees the various women as people at all – merely as sexual playthings there for his own gratification and amusement. The first sex scene in particular – with the rough oral sex – is downright disturbing, particularly the way that director Abel Ferrara never turns away from it. It just goes on and on and on. Eventually Devereaux’s view of women merely as servants to his sexual desires will get him in trouble – the night after the debauched party, an African maid comes in to clean up – and although he clearly doesn’t want his advances, he advances anyway (his defense of his actions in this scene late in the film is horrific). A complaint is filed, he’s pulled off a plane, and arrested and processed – the various police officers, prison guards and fellow inmates don’t know who he is, and don’t care. If he saw women as merely pieces of meat in the first half hour of the film, everyone sees him the same way for the next half hour.

The film takes a turn at the hour mark into its second half, which isn’t nearly as effective as its first. The first hour of the movie is almost all visual – there is not a lot of dialogue spoken, and even what is, isn’t all that important, save for a crude scene with Devereaux, his daughter and her new boyfriend. It’s here that the movie makes it best points – and drawing the line between how Devereaux treats women, and how he is in turn treated by the criminal justice system. Both are chilly and impersonal – neither cares about the people themselves, just what they need to do. Depardieu has always been a good actor, but it’s been a while since he has been this good. His performance in the first hour is all physical – and it’s brilliant.

The second half of the film doesn’t work as well – even though it contains some of the best acting I’ve seen out of Jacqueline Bissett in years. She plays Devereaux’s wife – the heiress of a wealthy family, who has grand ambitions for her husband. Already the head of the IMF, he was well on his way to becoming the President of France – but this scandal permanently derails those plans. She is privately humiliated, while maintaining the supportive demeanor in public. The scenes between Depardieu and Bissett are the highlight of the second half of the film – as they rip into each other, with hurt feelings and mockery (he tries to blame the whole thing on his sex addiction, which, of course, he cannot control – she isn’t buying it).

The rest of the second hour doesn’t work as well. We see another few younger women enter Devereaux’s life and bedroom, one willingly, one definitely not, who once again he refuses to see as people. We already got that in the first hour. And Devereaux’s pretentious ranting to himself – about how idealism turned to cynicism and how he hates the world simply underlines and makes explicit ideas that were already made – more effectively before. The second hour of the film, to be honest, is more than a little bit of a slog.

Co-written and directed by Abel Ferrara, the director has found the material he is best suited for – and has made the best film of his since his early 1990s heyday (King of New York, Bad Lieutenant, The Funeral and the grossly underappreciated Body Snatchers). Ferrara has always been drawn to dark, lurid subject matter – and at his best, he deftly walks the line between art and sleaze. He is one of the few directors you would want making this thinly veiled Dominique Strauss-Kahn movie, about the real life scandal that ended the political career of one of France’s rising stars. Welcome to New York is not a pleasant experience to say the least – in fact, for the most part it’s downright repellant (as it should be). And yes, the film drags at times, and probably could have used a little bit more judicious editing (but by Ferrara, not without him). Still, Welcome to New York is not an easy movie to forget or shake off. That’s the first time in many years I can honestly say that about a Ferrara film.

Note: This film has been subject to much controversy between director Abel Ferrara, and IFC, the distributer in America, and Wild Bunch, the European studio who funded the film. For release in America, Ferrara’s 125 minute film was cut to 108 minutes in order to secure a R Rating– and he’s none too happy about that. Most of the reviews I have read – from the one on Rogerebert.com to the one on The Dissolve, say that they reviewed the 108 version, and that the 125 minute version was “unavailable” to them – as the 108 version is the only one going to theaters and On Demand. Oddly, I rented the film off iTunes Canada this past weekend – and they had the 125 minute version. I am not sure, but this looks like one of those rare cases where Canada actually gets something better that our American counterparts. Rejoice fellow Canadians, and remember this the next time we have to wait nearly 6 months longer than Americans to see a film like The Babadook.

TV Miniseries Review: The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst

The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst
Directed by:  Andrew Jarecki.
Written by: Andrew Jarecki & Marc Smerling & Zachary Stuart-Pontier.
Featuring: Robert Durst.

Robert Durst is a very creepy guy. It doesn’t take long into his first onscreen appearance in Andrew Jarecki’s 6 part, 5 hour television miniseries documentary about the man to figure that out. Here is a man who was born with all the advantages in life – the oldest son of one of the wealthiest men in New York City, who made his money in real estate. He has so much money can he pretty much do whatever he wants – and if that’s nothing, then so be it. Durst has admitting to killing one man – Morris Black – but claims it was in self-defense (and a jury in Texas agrees) and is suspected in two other murder – that of his wife, Kathie, who disappeared more than 30 years ago and has still not been found, and that of one of his best friends, Susan Berman, the daughter of a mobster, who ended up shot, execution style, in her some back in 2000 – just as the New York Police and D.A. were about to interview her as part of their renewed investigation into Kathie Durst’s disappearance. Many believe that Durst, who was in California at the time, killed her to keep her quiet about what she knew about Kathie Durst. Robert Durst comes across in the interviews that make up much of The Jinx (and almost all of its best parts) almost how you expect a spoiled, entitled, probable three-time murderer to come across. He seems emotionless much of the time, defensive, dismissive, and angry. He’s undeniably smart – and seemingly wants to prove just how smart he is. It’s not enough that if he has did kill Kathie, they have found no real evidence of it in decades of digging – just rumor, conjecture and speculation. Or that if he did in fact kill Susan Berman, the only thing anyone had been able to prove before this miniseries is that he was in the same state as her when it happened (and as Durst points out, California is a big state). Or that Durst was somehow able to kill Morris Black, cut his body up and throw it into a bay in various garbage bags and one suitcase, and STILL get acquitted of murder by pleading self-defense, which under Texas law the prosecution than has to disprove, which they cannot do (possibly because they never can find the head, which has the bullet wound). The fact that Durst has perhaps gotten away with murder three times would suggest he is very smart (and yes, the money helps too) – but Durst almost reminds me of Dustin Hoffman’s character in Wag the Dog. He wants the credit.

In 2010, director Andrew Jarecki – then best known for Capturing the Friedmans one of the best documentaries of the 2000s, decided to make All Good Things – a feature film about Durst, although with the names changed. Despite the fact that it had Ryan Gosling playing the Durst role, the film ended up mostly being forgettable (I had to dig back to find my review to recall much of the details of the film – basically that I liked it, but didn’t love it. It is basically a less successful version of Foxcatcher, truth be told). For whatever reason, after the film came out, Robert Durst reached out to Jarecki – and wanted to tell his side of the story. Durst has been a tabloid staple for years, but has never given interviews. As his lawyers tell him – even in the course of The Jinx – he has nothing to gain from it. But damn it all, Durst wants to tell his story anyway – apparently suffering from the delusional belief that if people could just hear him tell it, they would believe it. The opposite is really true. Jarecki fills The Jinx with all sorts of talking heads – cops, lawyers, friends and family of the victims, and almost all of them will tell you that they think Durst is guilty. Jarecki will obsessively pour over every piece of evidence against Durst – even some that really are not evidence at all (sorry, just because Kathie used to the word “Cadaver” when she had one at medical school doesn’t mean that Durst wrote the now infamous Cadaver letter as one interview subject implies). But what convinced me that Durst was probably guilty was the man himself in the interviews – and yes, that was long before the shocking ending that turned The Jinx into a cultural phenomenon.

But let’s back up for a second here – as I am getting ahead of myself a little bit. The series is broken up into 6 parts, each running around 45 minutes long – and they aired on HBO, one week at a time starting in February. I didn’t watch the series as it went along – a little too busy – although I was interested, and I ended up binge watching it over a couple of nights last week. The first segment doesn’t start at the beginning – but almost, really, at the end –with the body of Morris Black being found in Galveston Bay, Texas. This episode concerns the twisted discovery, and the police investigation that followed, that lead (very quickly) back to Robert Durst. Jarecki and company then cycle back to tell us more about Durst, and his checkered history. He is barely in that first episode – Jarecki is slowly building up his appearance in the film – but he leaves an impression when he does.

Over the rest of episodes, Jarecki slowly expands his view on Durst – slowly revealing information, and basically building his case against him. Jarecki eventually says that he likes Durst, and wasn’t sure if he was guilty or not when he started the film (which is odd, since All Good Things definitely paints Durst as a murderer – but I suppose it leaves a little ambiguity about it), but at some point in the series, you can definitely tell he moves from filmmaker to prosecutor. The film has been compared to that other true crime cultural phenomenon from last year – Serial – and it’s true to a certain extent, as both Jarecki and Koenig use fictional style storytelling, complete with shocking twists and reveals, in crafting their projects. Serial also had something that The Jinx does not though – and that actual evidence to dig into: Jay’s testimony, cell phone records, witness statements, etc. The shocking thing about The Jinx is just how little evidence there is against Durst, although how much Jarecki makes of what there is. Consider one sequence when Jarecki uses a few collect phone calls from New Jersey to the Durst offices in the days following Kathie’s disappearance. Through his editing, and various talking heads, Jarecki leads the audience to believe that these are evidence of Durst’s guilt – when if you actually pay attention they really aren’t. What he has is a few collect phone calls from New Jersey to the Durst office (the only real “fact” he has). The police say that witness from the Durst office (who we do not see) say only Robert and his father Seymour ever made collect phone calls to the office. Durst himself admits he used to call the office collect all the time – because he didn’t want to pay for the calls, but says he did not make those phone calls. The area in New Jersey that the phone calls originated from are apparently a known dumping ground for mobsters – and Durst’s friend, Susan Berman, was the daughter of a mobster, so she would know this (never mind the fact that Susan was from Vegas, not New Jersey, and she herself claimed she didn’t known her father was a gangster until she was in college), therefore so would Durst, so he must have been there disposing of her body. The only problem with all of this is we have no idea where Kathie Durst’s body is – it could be there, it could be anywhere. And we have no idea who actually made those phone calls. I don’t think the whole thing even rises to the level of circumstantial evidence.

I am not suggesting that Jarecki is trying to railroad an innocent man – for one thing, I think that Durst is probably guilty of all the killings he is suspected of. But I do think that The Jinx would be better if it questioned, a little bit more, some of what it presents. Serial went back and forth on whether or not Adnan Syed was guilty or not guilty, and it’s more than possible at the end of the series to think either way. Sarah Koenig thinks he isn’t guilty – I think he probably is, and Serial benefitted from having another voice at times, like the producer who in the final episode of Serial lays out a pretty damning case against Syed – telling us all the coincidences and things that would have to be true for him not to be involved. The Jinx however plays like the prosecutor’s case against Durst, and then it’s cross examination of him.

I have some other qualms about the series as well. After watching the film, I went back and re-watched its major visual inspiration for the first time in years – Errol Morris’ brilliant true crime doc The Thin Blue Line (1988) – one of the greatest of all documentaries, and probably the best true crime one ever made. Like Morris, Jarecki uses re-enactments and montages to break up the monotony of a series of talking heads. Unlike Morris, Jarecki doesn’t do it particularly well – Morris gives us re-enactments that are both haunting images in and of themselves (the “malted” slowly spiraling to the ground, the reflection of a Burger King logo on a police car), and valuable sources of information as well – showing us the re-enactments from different people’s point of view. Jarecki basically uses these re-enactments and interludes to juice the drama of the proceeding, and often it crosses the line into pure, manipulative melodrama (all the slow motion shoots of Susan Berman getting shot – and her dogs walking through the blood. Morris could have made those work – Jarecki cannot).

The final episode was particularly problematic for me as well – and that’s only partly because of the timeline issues, where Jarecki implies that an arrest of Durst for trespassing lead him back to the filmmakers for a second interview, even though that arrest was made months after that interview was already conducted (apparently – Jarecki and company aren’t talking, but his seems to be the prevailing wisdom you can look up elsewhere if you’re so inclined). Perhaps it’s just personal bias, but over the years I have grown tired of documentary filmmakers making the story about themselves and not their subjects (unless they do so in intelligent ways, which actually expand the scope of the documentary, like Claude Lanzmann in last year’s The Last of the Unjust). Almost the entire final episode of The Jinx though is about Jarecki – and his quest to get Durst back on camera, and everything he goes through to get him. The episode is redeemed however – almost wholly – by that haunting final interview, when Jarecki confronts Durst with the “Cadaver” letter, and his own handwriting, which seems to be very, very similar at least, and according to one expert a match. Durst is caught, for the first time, without a ready answer, without a way to explain it. He’s flummoxed – he lets out a burp. The series ends, of course, after that interview – with Durst, alone in the bathroom, apparently unaware that his mic is still recording (despite being warned about this earlier), delivering a haunting, powerful soliloquy/confession that would be the envy of most writers.

That is one of the reasons that, despite all my reservations, I still think The Jinx is an excellent documentary series. The flaws in the series are mainly Jarecki’s – in terms of his structure and the editing, and some of his stretches in credibility. But at the core, he has a fascinating interview with a man who just doesn’t know when to shut up. Durst had gotten away with it – with everything really. And during the course of The Jinx, while he comes close to admitting some things, and he makes pretty much everyone in the audience believe he is probably guilty, he never crosses that line – until the very end. Durst is a creepy guy – but he’s also smart, and at times funny (“How do you accidentally shave off your eyebrows?”). Long after I have forgotten most of what I didn’t like about The Jinx – I will remember Durst himself.

Movie Review: The Duke of Burgundy

The Duke of Burgundy
Directed by: Peter Strickland.
Written by: Peter Strickland.
Starring: Sidse Babett Knudsen (Cynthia), Chiara D'Anna (Evelyn), Fatma Mohamed (The Carpenter).

The opening credits of The Duke of Burgundy are a tease – promising a movie that writer/director Peter Strickland doesn’t really deliver. Those opening credits so precisely re-create the openings of 1970s, Euro-soft-core pornography, that you cannot help to expect that is the type of movie you’re sitting down to. There’s even a “Perfume by”, which is ridiculous, since no one in the audience can really know what anything on screen smells like – although simply having that credit there makes you think about it. The actual opening scene of the movie perpetuates the ruse Strickland is playing a little bit longer. A young woman, Evelyn (Chiara D’Anna), who has the perfect look to be the young woman in a movie like this, somehow both virginal and dripping with sexuality at the same time, rides her bike through the picturesque countryside. She arrives at the door of a ornate mansion, and rings the bell – and is immediately chastised by its owner, Cynthia (Sidse Babett Knudsen), who again perfectly fits the bill for the “older” woman in a movie like this (which means she is in her 50s) – rich, severe, cold and cruel – she gives Evelyn one demeaning task after another, all the while she either completely ignores her, or is outwardly cruel. When Evelyn messes up Cynthia’s laundry – the pair disappear behind a door, so that Cynthia can “punish” Evelyn – the punishment having something to do with dripping liquids, and is clearly sexual in nature. So far, Strickland seems to be delivering precisely the movie those opening credits promised. But that’s just the beginning of the movie – one in which Strickland will do far more than simply pay homage to those 1970s Euro soft core films – much like in his last film, Berberian Sound Studio, where he did far more than simply pay homage to the Giallo horror films of the same era. Strickland has a deep love of those movies – who can feel that in how precisely he recreates aspects of them. But he isn’t interested in making a copy – he has something deeper in mind (SPOILER WARNING. If you plan the to see the film, you may want to stop reading here. I won’t reveal everything about the plot to be sure, but even the earlier twists, about which it is impossible not to write, are something who may well want preserved. You’ve been warned).

If you go into The Duke of Burgundy expecting it to be what it looks like – like the Seinfeld gang wanting to see Rochelle, Rochelle – a young girl’s strange, erotic journey from Milan to Minsk – you will likely be disappointed. Yes, the movie is about a Sadomasochistic lesbian relationship between Cynthia and Evelyn, but Strickland doesn’t dwell on the sex in movie. Yes, there are a few sex scenes – but surprisingly few. The movie does go into some detail about their sex life, but much of it isn’t actually the sex part – and can be rather un-erotic, as other people’s sexual fantasies often seem to outsiders, or else played for subdued humor (as in an hilarious sequence where a carpenter, specializing in bed with chambers, and human toilets, comes to speak to the pair). What The Duke of Burgundy is really about – and what makes it a universal story, even if it seems very specific – is what it means to really love someone, what you sacrifice, and what you indulge them with to make them happy, even if it doesn’t much interest you.

We start to see this in a sequence almost immediately following the first one, where Evelyn shows up, is chastised and demeaned by Cynthia, before being taken into the backroom for punishment. We see what is essentially the same sequence again – but this time, we don’t follow Evelyn, we follow Cynthia. She squeezes herself into the clothes, makes an effort with her hair, reads what are essentially cue cards trying to memorize what she is supposed to say, and drink glass after glass after glass of water (we will see this throughout the movie, and it takes on an edge of comedy eventually). Cynthia may be older, but Evelyn is the one in charge – and Cynthia is indulging her. She will do this throughout – from locking her into a box in the corner of the bedroom, and other things. They get into a fight when Cynthia comes to bed wearing something normal – and Evelyn is mad that she isn’t wearing the clothes she bought for her. “I need instructions to get into half the clothes you buy me. I just want to be comfortable for once” – Cynthia snaps back.

Do the pair actually love each other? I think Cynthia does indeed love Evelyn – which is why she indulges her in her sexual fantasies, even if they are not fantasies she shares. We all indulge our partners in something we don’t really like – whether it sadomasochistic fantasies or watching crappy TV. The pair of them are entomologists, and they spend a lot of time at lectures (curiously, only attended by women – I don’t think there is a man in the entire film). Cynthia sometimes lectures, and is quite clearly well-respected. Evelyn is more junior, and sometimes asks “silly” questions that embarrass her afterwards – but Cynthia always comforts and reassures her afterwards.

But at those same lectures, Evelyn cannot help noticing the woman who runs them – and her nice shiny, leather boots. Cynthia has a pair of those, and it’s one of Evelyn’s “duties” during their playtime to polish them. But what if she polished this other woman’s boots? What if this other woman were to chastise her, punish her. Evelyn eyes her hungrily, and her mind races. Does she love Cynthia – or is she simply using her? What do we make of some of what Cynthia does near the end of the movie – is she finally fed up, or is she just raising the stakes of the “game”.

Strickland is obsessive in the details of what is onscreen – those opening credits show that, but it runs through the rest of the movie as well. The costume are precisely, the score strangely erotic, yet also haunting, the sound mix is one of the most complex you will hear this this year. The movie verges of the avant garde at times – butterflies make an apt metaphor for the two women, and he has sequences here that almost bring to mind Stan Brakhage in that regard.

All of this is at a story that is at once very simple, and yet strangely moving and even somewhat profound. Strickland doesn’t clutter the movie with anything resembling a plot – nor even supporting characters. Aside from Cynthia and Evelyn, only the saleswoman and the speakers at the lectures even speak at all in the film. Strickland doesn’t need all those elements – he has everything he needs in the house, these two women (both actresses, by the way, are brilliant – especially Knudsen, who deserves Oscar consideration she will never receive) and their relationship. This is an early highlight of the year so far.

Movie Review: Cinderella

Cinderella
Directed by: Kenneth Branagh.
Written by: Chris Weitz.
Starring: Lily James (Cinderella), Cate Blanchett (Stepmother), Richard Madden (Prince), Helena Bonham Carter (Fairy Godmother), Nonso Anozie (Captain), Stellan Skarsgård (Grand Duke), Sophie McShera (Drisella), Holliday Grainger (Anastasia), Derek Jacobi (King), Ben Chaplin (Ella's Father), Hayley Atwell (Ella's Mother), Rob Brydon (Master Phineus).

Last year’s Maleficent envisioned the “villain” of the Disney classic animated film, Sleeping Beauty, as a victim out for righteous vengeance on the man who used and abused her. And that was just the latest in a string of films made by Disney that looked to update their beloved animated classics for a more modern age – the animated mega-hit Frozen, gave us two Princesses who didn’t need a man (although one got one anyway), Tangled was a more complicated look at parental abuse than you would think Disney capable of, and Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland made its heroine into an ass kicking warrior – for good and bad. All of these, and more (like Sofia the First, and charming animated series I’m stuck watching approximately 1,000 time a week because of an adorable three and half year old who cannot get enough of it), seem to be Disney acknowledging the criticisms of their past, and trying to issue a corrective in the present (while still, of course, making lots and lots of money). So the latest Cinderella – directed by Kenneth Branagh – is somewhat strange in that regard, and it doesn’t seem to try and update the story at all. It gives the title character a little (very little) more moxie and spunk then the doormat of a character in the 1950 animated film, and give a little (again very little) shading to her evil Stepmother to make her somewhat more human, but for the most part this Cinderella is a straight ahead, live action remake of the 1950 animated original. Sure, it adds a few more (completely unnecessary) plot complications, but for the most part, this is the same film as we all grew up – just with real people, instead of animation. That can make watching the film kind of dull at times to be quite honest – but then again, I have to acknowledge I’m not exactly the target audience here. That three and half year old who makes me watch Sofia the First all the time? She loved it (except for those mean people who weren’t “very nice” to Cinderella).

The movie adds slightly more details to Cinderella’s childhood year. Her mother (Haley Atwell) and father (Ben Chaplin) adore her beyond all reason, and they basically spend their days in complete bliss. Then, mother gets sick (presumably with the same disease that has effected women in the movies at least as far back as Ali McGraw in Love Story, where you still die, you just look beautiful doing it) and gives Cinderella advice that she will repeat (over and over again) throughout the movie “Have courage, and be kind”. Her father continues to dote on her through her teenage years, which she also spends in complete bliss (despite their being no evidence that she ever leaves her house, or has friends beyond the servants – oh, and some mice) – but then marries the Lady Tremaine (Cate Blanchatt), and brings her, and her two daughters (Sophie McShera and Holliday Grainger) to live with them. They are a nightmare from the start – but Ella “has courage” and is “kind” to them – even after her father dies, and they treat her as the maid. One day, she gets so upset, she goes racing off through the woods, and ends up meeting “Kit” (Richard Madden), who tells her he is an apprentice, but in reality he is the Prince (of course). They two immediately like each other. He’s nice and charming, she has spunk, and that’s all the really need. This is an added scene – probably there because in the original film, the Prince basically falls in love with Cinderella because she’s pretty, and she falls in love with him, because he’s a prince. At least in this version, there is a little more shading there.

We know what happens next. There is a ball – Cinderella isn’t allowed to go, but her fairy godmother (Helena Bonham Carter) shows up and helps her. Cinderella and the Prince meet (in this case, again), a glass slipper in left behind, etc, etc, etc. The movie throws in some more complications with the Prince as well. The Grand Duke (played by Stellan Skarsgaard, so of course, he is, as my daughter would say “not nice”) has other plans for who the Prince should marry. The ailing King (Derek Jacobi) is far more sympathetic – and eventually sees eye-to-eye with his son (in a way that makes him one of the best fathers in a Disney movie ever, which is kind of sad really). But we know how things will end, right?

The film was directed by Kenneth Branagh, presumably since we no longer live in a movie era where anyone will give him money to make Shakespeare movies (and considering his 1996 Hamlet is perhaps my favorite “straight” adaption of Shakespeare ever, we are all the poorer for that). Branagh is a strange choice for the film – but perhaps the right one, as he gets on board with the straight forward screenplay by Chris Weitz, and plays the movie right down the middle. The film seems to be designed to appeal directed to girls under the age of 11 or so, and basically gets it right – lots of frilly dresses and glitter, and the castle and forest, and Cinderella’s home, and all the rest look like they are right out of a fairy tale – which of course is exactly what they were going for.

The performances are about as good as could be expected. Lily James gives Cinderella as much personality as is possible to do under the circumstances – and I guess you could say the same for Madden as the Prince. I still want to see Helena Bonham Carter play a normal person again at some point – but there’s no denying she is ideally cast as the loopy Fairy Godmother (and narrator) of the film. And it’s always a pleasure whenever Blanchatt comes on screen – for two reasons. The first is because she does so much with so little – she has a way looking at Cinderella with utter, withering contempt, and a slight sneer which is quite scary, but she’s still able, in a late scene to make us feel some sympathy for her – and for woman like her, who at the time, had little in the way of options other than to marry, and hope their husbands could care for them. The second reason, of course is because you cannot wait to see what amazing costume she is going to come out wearing next – especially the hats. No one wears a hat like Blanchatt anymore.

Ultimately, I didn’t much like this version of Cinderella. Personally, I prefer the movie that add a new twist on an old classic – really, if you’re not going to do that, then what the heck is the point of remaking a film like this in the first place? But then I watched my daughter watch the film – and saw how much she loved it. I take her to the movies as often as I can, and more often than not, she’s stuck seeing a movie about little boys who become heroes – with women as secondary characters (if they’re there at all). She likes those movies to – but I was glad to have a movie aimed directly at her this time. Sure, the gender politics in the movie are less than ideal. But I think I can wait until she’s a little older than three and half to address that, don’t you? For now, it’s enough to just let her be enchanted by a movie. And this version of Cinderella did that.