I wouldn’t mind seeing John Schlesinger‘s Far From The Madding Crowd (’67) as a warm-up for Thomas Vinterberg’s version, which Fox Searchlight is finally opening on May 1st. But that seems unlikely as I can’t attend the upcoming London theatrical showing and the new British Bluray won’t pop until 6.1.15. If Fox Searchlight wanted to be clever about it, they would offer a screening of the 168-minute Schlesinger version to critics on both coasts. That effort, scripted by Frederic Raphael, shot by Nicholas Roeg and and starring Julie Christie, was regarded as a failure during its time. I have a recollection of it being handsome but dirge-like. If nothing else critics seeing (or re-seeing) it would probably emerge with a finer appreciation for Vinterberg’s film, as it runs almost a full 40 minutes shorter.
We can predict Bill Maher will say about the murder of 12 Charlie Hebdo staffers in Paris earlier today by Islamic wackjobs. And we can guess what Ben Affleck will say if asked (“This is no reason to condemn a billion peace-loving Muslims” or something along those lines). But the people who did this are tyrannical monsters, and you’d have to resort to extremely myopic thinking to not lay the inspiration for murders avenging the honor of Islam to the Quran. “The only religion that acts like the mafia, [that] says we will fucking kill you if you say the wrong thing or draw the wrong cartoon” — Maher. Jihadists and Islamists are arguably 20% of the Muslim world. But let’s not be harsh or dismissive or…you know, indulge in Islamophobia.
Israel Horovitz‘s My Old Lady (Cohen Media Group, 9.10) obviously costars Kevin Kline, Maggie Smith and Kristin Scott Thomas. This is one of those trailers that pretty much gives you the whole movie save for the last beat or two. It’s based on a Horovitz play that opened in 1996. Here’s a 2007 Denver Post review of a local production. Boilerplate: “Mathias (Kline), an all-but-destitute New Yorker, travels to Paris to sell a valuable left Bank apartment he’s inherited from his estranged father. Once there he discovers a refined old woman Mathilde (Smith) living in the apartment with her daughter Chloe (KST). Mathias quickly learns that he will not only not get possession of the apartment until Mathilde dies, but that he’s on the hook for monthly expenses of around $3K.” Terrific.
I say this every year, but no New Year’s Eve celebration of any kind will ever match what the kids and I saw in front of the Eiffel Tower when 1999 gave way to 2000. A bit dippy from champagne and standing about two city blocks in front of the Eiffel Tower and watching the greatest fireworks display in history. And then walking all the way back to Montmartre with thousands on the streets after the civil servants shut the Metro down at 1 a.m. No cabs anywhere. Here’s a non-embeddable video. Three videos of tonight’s 2014 Eiffel Tower action after the jump.
This taste of Sofia Coppola‘s The Bling Ring (A24, 6.13) isn’t anyone’s idea of assaultive or frenetic. Not too much information but enough to entice. Attitude, entitlement, Emma Watson, swagger, cops, trouble, Taissa Farmiga, flash-bang, Halston Sage (cool name!), Leslie Mann.
Wiki page: “The Bling Ring was a group, mostly of teenagers based in and around Calabasas, California, who burgled the homes of several celebrities over a period believed to have been from around October 2008 through August 2009. In total, their activities resulted in the theft of about $3 million in cash and belongings, most of it from Paris Hilton, whose house was burgled several times. However, over 50 homes were reportedly targeted for potential burglary.
A day before today’s French debut of Ridley Scott‘s Prometheus, Le Monde critic Isabelle Regniertrashed it. I’m translating it word for word as we speak, but the headline reads as follows: “Prometheus – Alien betrayed by his own creator, Ridley Scott.”
The snippiest quote in the 5.29 review doesn’t read all that eloquently (blame Bablefish) but here it is : “In the role of a company man being paid handsomely for his work, Ridley Scott follows the typical commercial road map. His mission: ressurect the Alien franchise and give the audience something a copy of something they like, nothing more.”
The refusal of Jean Dujardin‘s Valentin to venture into sound is due to his French accent, which he fears will be a career killer. Why not then return to France, “the home of cinema”, and join Marcel Pagnol, Jean Renoir, Jean Vigo and Marcel Carne “who were making, or about to make, films that entrance audiences to this day?,” asksThe Economist‘s “Prospero.”
This is not an option, he explains, because Valentin “is so in love with Hollywood that he would rather fail there, even to the brink of suicide, than return to ply his trade in France. If the actor’s vocal ‘flaw’ had been an accent that revealed unacceptably working-class origins, sympathy would be genuinely merited. Still, this is a major star and, we are assured by the very title, a true artist. But he’d rather die! He’d rather be a second-rate hoofer in Hollywood than anything else anywhere.”
The Descendants has won the WGA award for Best Adapted Screenplay, and Midnight in Paris has won for Best Original Screenplay. Some are saying this is how it’ll go down at the Oscars seven days hence. But The Artist wasn’t eligible for a WGA award so, as Sasha Stone forecasts, “if it sweeps major categories, it also wins Best Original Screenplay.” Best Original Screenplay for copying and pasting A Star Is Born and Singin’ in the Rain? REALLY?
Congrats again to Sony Pictures Classics on its announcement that Woody Allen ‘s Midnight in Paris has surpassed $50 million at the domestic box office — $50,062,843, to be exact. It’s now Allen’s biggest all-time North American earner even more so. If, that is, you don’t adjust the grosses of Annie Hall (’78), Manhattan (’79) and Hannah and Her Sisters (’86) for inflation. If you do that, as I pointed out on 7.18, their respective earnings are $135,027,530, $129,427,567 and $80,568,922. But there’s nothing wrong with popping the champagne over Paris. Good show all around.
There’s no fair-minded way to put down Woody Allen‘s Midnight in Paris, which I’m calling a relatively minor piece that works very well by way of charm and humor. The key phrase, of course, is “works very well.” When a film does this then words like “minor” or “trifle” go out the window because a film that knows what it’s doing is by definition substantial and not minor. It may not be the startling world-class masterpiece you’re looking to see, okay, but a success is a success.
You can complain like Indiewire‘s Eric Kohn, but you’ll sound like a guy who doesn’t know when to leave well enough alone. He remarked that while Allen’s film is “generally satisfying” and “casually likable,” it delivers “a slight entertaining touch,” using a “magical hook” — i.e., time travel — in “mostly a conventional way” that is “flimsily conceived” with the back-to-the-20s gimmick gradually “growing tiresome.”
And yet Midnight in Paris “does justice to the universe without taking it in any new directions,” he says, and that’s as good as you’re going to get these days from the 75 year-old Allen.
All you can hope for from a filmmaker who’s been around as long as Allen and has made as many films as he has is agreeable reinvention and refinement. All auteurs make the same film over and over again. Whatever idea Allen comes up with at this stage of the game is probably one he first devised 20 or 30 or 40 years ago. It’s very rare for an artist to capture anything that feels like fresh lightning in a bottle. And any film that delivers a basic truism that everyone can agree with — i.e., nostalgia is a trap, a form of denial — is one that can’t help but resonate. And that’s what you have here.
The advance buzz was correct: Woody Allen‘s Midnight in Paris is a goodie. I don’t think it’s possible to discuss it without using the terms “thinking man’s fantasy film” or “time-trip movie” or “a down-the-rabbit-hole excursion” so I’ll just say it’s his most charming and engaging film in this vein since The Purple Rose of Cairo…how’s that? And certainly his overall best since Match Point.
On one level it’s almost a trifle except that it’s thoughtful and reality-based (whatever that term may be worth in this context) and very funny…although in a way that requires the viewer to be at least glancingly familiar with the world of Paris in the 1920s and 1880s and ’90s (“la Belle Epoque”). In other words, you need to be at least semi-educated. As we all know that leaves out a significant chunk of 2011 moviegoers so we’ll see how it plays.
Life is always vaguely unsatisfying because it always has been and always will be vaguely unsatisfying to those caught up in the striving and sufffering and the hurly-burly (or in other words everyone, including those with heroin habits.) But Midnight in Paris satisfies very nicely. It is time well spent, and a time-trip worth taking. [Posted from iPhone while waiting for the Paris press conference to begin.]