Hello I Must Be Going (2012)

"Hello I Must Be Going" is very funny and sweet.  It's also very well written.  The title comes from a Marx Brothers movie which Amy likes watching to cheer up.

It's about a woman (35) who moves back home with her parents in Connecticut after a divorce from an entertainment lawyer and has an affair with her dad's potential client's son (19).

Three different characters (the mom, the brother, the dad) tell us how important it is for the woman not to screw up this dinner with the client's family which is a bit overkill.

And I don't get why the dad would just give up on her in the end as he has been her ally throughout the whole film.

But this is nitpicky stuff.

The two leads, Amy and Jeremy, really help each other out emotionally and their dialogue is great.

I'm glad we eventually meet her ex.  And yes he's 180 degrees different than Jeremy.

I downloaded the soundtrack too.  It's good. Shazam-worthy.

 

Amy hitting bottom

I hate the two reviews I've read so far for this movie--one uses football references when there is nothing about sports in this movie and the other one talks about if she's pretty enough to be attractive to a 19 year old! Wtf?#!

Yes, Melanie Lynskey is beautiful and I definitely see the sparks between Amy and Jeremy.  Every time they get together they are all over each other.  And she's whimsical.  And he's not your average 19 year old because he has acting experience playing Robert Mapplethorpe and is about to play Walt Whitman.

This movie leaves me smiling so definitely watch it when you have been wearing ratty t-shirts for a week or you want to down a pint of Ben and Jerry's ice cream.

Citizen Kane (1941)

This week my film class covered mise-en-scene (everything in the frame) and Citizen Kane.

If there is one movie that every film teacher has to teach, it has to be Citizen Kane, right?

Every scene has virtuoso shots, brilliant cinematography, great acting. It was Orson Welles' first feature film and he was only 25 at the time! From then on, Orson Welles would still make films but would be given less and less creative control and so none were as good as Citizen Kane.

Citizen Kane is the number one movie on American Film Institute's best 100 movies and was also number one on Sight and Sound's list until recently (2012) when Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo bumped it off the number one spot.

Citizen Kane was a hard movie for me to like at first because it is not a love story. At least it's not a love story between Kane and another woman.  It could be considered a love story between Kane and himself.

 

fish eye lens shot

Once I got over that though, it is mesmerizing to watch the innovation of camera technique, lighting and editing in every scene.

There is a fish eye lens shot from the vantage point of a broken snow globe. There is a shot where the lighting makes a book glow on a table. There is a shot so wide that Orson can walk all the way to where the windowsill is above his head and back.   There are shots where the camera goes in through a neon sign and down into a skylight in the roof.  There is a shot that tracks up and up and up to a catwalk high above a stage. There are low angles so low, Orson ripped up the floor boards to go lower. 

There is a famous montage that shows a marriage of many years at the breakfast table in two minutes.

And more.

The whole thing is a mystery, what did Kane's last dying word mean when he whispered, "Rosebud"?

Even when you know the answer, you can enjoy the film for all the techniques it uses.

Cemetery Junction (2010)

A nostalgic 70s movie set in England? I'm so there.  "Cemetery Junction" though obvious about where it's going is still a nice ride.

It takes place in 1973.  Matthew Goode who normally plays the romantic lead now plays a "bad guy." Ralph Fiennes plays a "bad guy."  Not bad so much "bad" as "stodgy" insurance salesmen.  Or guys who need to "piss off." Christian Cooke who plays Freddie, however, is not a bad guy.  Will he learn that he doesn't belong with the likes of them, then?

Felicity Jones who plays "the boss's daughter" is "conveniently for plot purposes" engaged to Mathew Goode and admired by Freddie.  Is it a coincidence that her name is Julie and they've styled her hair like Julie, the hostess "The Love Boat"?

Felicity Jones as Julie

Anyway, carrying on, Julie is quite daft throughout the film until the very end.  (As you can see, I'm trying to put as many English expressions as I can in this review.)  Emma Watson plays Julie's mom in the film.  It was hard for me to see such a wild actress who has been in movies like "Breaking the Waves" play a repressed woman, but that was the part.

Cemetery Junction is the name of the town and apparently, if you live there, you might as well already be dead because you'll just work in a factory, hence the name "Cemetery."

Tom Hughes who plays the tough guy, Bruce, works in such a factory with Freddie's father, played by Ricky Gervais from "The Office," and is always getting into fights because he thinks his dad is a useless drunk who watches telly all day.  I LOVE how the story plays with this stereotype at the end of the film.  Bruce's character and his black leather jacket so reminded me of Matt Dillon in "The Outsiders."

My favorite part of the film occurs when Bruce hears that his friend Snork wishes to sing and he makes it happen.  Bruce talks to the band at an insurance ball and gets his mate Snork a chance to sing with the band.  In the audience, Bruce smiles and gives Snork a wink of encouragement. To me, this is a very sweet moment of friendship between the lads.

And so I ended up spending a lot of the time during this movie wondering, "Well, is there going to be a bird for Bruce, then?"

I must say, there is a significant lack of snogging in this movie.

The themes of the film are great ones.  Look out for your mates, avoid all things predictable, there is someone out there for everyone, and if some fine woman sets down a cup of tea for you, for God's sake, say thank you.

Ordinary People (1980)

"Ordinary People" is the second film I showed to my film class this week.  It was adapted from the book by Judith Guest and was Robert Redford's debut as a film director. It beat out Martin Scorsese's "Raging Bull" that year as Best Picture at the Oscars.  "Raging Bull" is arguably more stylish but not as well written.

We were talking about narrative in film class and the difference between "plot" (how events are shown in a movie) and "story" (the events in chronological order including backstory and events not shown).  "Ordinary People" has a lot of cool flashbacks that are well placed throughout the film and that slowly reveal what happened to this outwardly "perfect" family.

Flashbacks include Conrad, the son, seeing rows and rows of headstones as he's stopped at a railroad crossing in a car full of boys heading to school that is very curious and disturbing.  Then there is Calvin, the dad, remembering dancing with a younger Beth in some disco bar.  There are the memories Calvin has of banging on Conrad's door and then a shot of a red siren flashing that is very powerful. And the nightmares Conrad has about some boat in a storm at night.

I hadn't seen this film in awhile, but I remembered loving it.  It holds up well after 30+ years.  I still think it's one of the best movies on depression.  It shows how some people don't want to deal with it, some people are ashamed of it, and some people ask stupid questions about it.

I also adore Donald Sutherland in this movie and in "Klute."  Timothy Hutton too is perfect in this role as a twitchy guy who has pretty large mood swings, one scene breaking down or hiding in his room, and one hilarious scene where he is so happy he sings "Hallelujah" at the top of his lungs all the way home from school.

 

Judd Hirsch (I love how his tie is all askew here.)

Judd Hirsch plays Conrad's therapist, Dr. Berger, and though he says "kiddo" too many times in my opinion, he is a therapist we'd all like to have.  Therapists don't answer phones in the middle of the night to my knowledge anyway.  The therapy scenes are extremely funny too as Dr. Berger encourages Conrad to get angry and Conrad gets to talk about masturbation.

Elizabeth McGovern

Elizabeth McGovern plays a girl from choir whom Conrad is interested in.  She's really cute in this movie.  I told my students about three different times, "She's the mother in 'Downton Abbey' now," but I don't think they were excited about this as I was.

The last scene of the film is overly sappy--dad and son hugging and crying, so much so I was embarrassed showing that part to my students.  Why am I so uncomfortable when men are over-emotional?  Maybe that's bad conditioning on my part.  Maybe they could just have Calvin say to his son, "We're going to be okay."

Another aspect that makes me uncomfortable about this movie is that the mom, Beth, is such a nightmare.  The student beside me said about five times out loud, "She is so scary."  Beth is almost as evil as Nurse Ratched in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest."  Both roles are scary to me because I think roles like these can make people seriously hate women, but hopefully that is just me being paranoid.

Alvin Sargent wrote the screenplay for this movie and his name and this movie comes up a lot in books on screenwriting I read. I took a screenwriting course last summer and the scene where the grandparents are taking photos of the family and Beth doesn't want to take a photo alone with Conrad was shown as one of the best examples of subtext.

I've also read that a film like "Ordinary People" would never get greenlit in today's Hollywood.  If this is true, I hope this changes because this movie is the type of movie I really enjoy seeing.

In Search of a Midnight Kiss (2007)

"In Search of a Midnight Kiss." Crazy. A date that leads up to midnight New Year's Eve. Homemade camera feel (low-budget).

Warning: All characters have potty mouths.

She's CRAZY.  He's looking for crazy.  (Vivian and Wilson). Some surprises happen along the way.

He's definitely down and out, and I was definitely rooting for him.  Who doesn't want a sensitive guy in a dark pea coat following you around, willing to empty his bank account for you?

She seems to cry and get mad for no good reason. I did want to like her.  She has a great sense of style and she is spirited.  In the end she takes something from his bathroom that I thought was a nice moment.

There is a great scene where his roommates dress him up for his date in hip hop gear and he feels a little awkward.  There is another great scene that comes to mind when they save her (plush) bunny.

Why are all the images of this movie on the web in black and white?  This is not a black and white movie on my DVD. (I think some version released was.)

I like this film because it is experimental and it shows off L.A. (places like the Orpheum theater) and because the plot goes to some interesting places.

It won an Independent Spirit John Cassavetes Award in 2008! However, I'm rather surprised it got such good reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and reception other places because it is so raw and the characters and situations are so over the top.

But if you throw reality out the window, you will have fun watching this movie.

Tonight You're Mine (2011)

"Tonight You're Mine" is a movie I can watch a million times because it's a rock n' roll love story and the rock n' roll is very good.

I would never have found out about this movie if it had not been a preview on the DVD of "The Artist" that I watched recently and I'm glad I did.

It is quite a cinematic feat because the whole movie takes place at a real rock festival, T in the Park (in Scotland), with hordes of people, so how many retakes could they have really done?

The premise is a lot of fun: Two musicians, Adam and Morello, who are right away at each other's throats are handcuffed together by a security guard who walks off with the key and they are stuck together for the rest of the night.

As a friend Pat MacEnulty reminded me, the two leads in Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps are also handcuffed together by another person (a cop). The woman thinks the man is a scoundrel and they have to spend the night together on the run so it could be a slight tribute to that.

For hours everyone in both bands: the Make (the boy band) and the Dirty Pinks ("why don't you just call yourselves the Vaginas?") are looking for "bonecutters" to break the chain.

The two chained musicians both have other significant others.  Adam is dating Lake, a model, and Morello is dating Mark the banker --though the way that "banker" is said in the movie, it sounds like "wanker."

One of my favorite moments occurs when Adam and Morello and Lake are sitting in a backstage tent and they are comparing how many Twitter followers they have--hilarious!  Of course, Lake has the most.

There is also such a standout performance by Mathew Baynton, who plays Adam's bandmate, Tyko.  I could have sworn the whole movie that his name was "Psycho."  Wouldn't that have been a great name for a stage persona?  He has some great one-liners and some wicked dance moves.  I love how Adam and Tyko look at each other and scream their heads off before they perform.

Tyko

At dawn, Tyco walks out onto the festival grounds full of rubbish from the previous night's festivities and stumbles upon a bra which he slowly picks up in the same manner as a floor-sweeper does in the first scene in the original 1932 version of "Scarface."  Another tribute? Who knows?  It's cool how I saw those two movies close together though and was able to pick that similarity out.

In a quieter moment, late in the night in a backstage tent, Adam and Marello play an improvised blues acoustic number (E-A-E-A-B---you can watch her shape the chords! as he strums!) based on Marello calling Adam a "womanizer" that is pure guitar heaven for me.

It all leads up to a really hot shower scene...  And an onstage reunion helped out by fans, a scenario I've read in many young adult books.  But if you like this sort of thing, it's loads of fun with standout performances, great music, and beautiful shots!

The Artist (2011)

"The Artist" is the first film I'm showing my film class tomorrow.  It's a great film and a good one to start with because it is a silent film that celebrates old Hollywood when the sign on the hill said "Hollywoodland."  Students will get to see a story told just in pictures--what Alfred Hitchcock referred to as "pure cinema."

This film got great reviews, five stars on Rotten Tomatoes, New York Times Critics Pick... It was nominated for ten academy awards and won five including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Costume Design and Best Original score.

The movie takes place in 1927, when silent films were golden, through 1929 with the coming of sound and the stock market crash, and all the way up until 1932.  A silent film star, George Valentin, (surely a play on the silent film actor name Randolph "Valentino") gives a new star, Peppy Miller, her start and then their roles reverse and George is floundering in a world of "talkies" while Peppy flourishes.  In this way it reminded me of the films "A Star is Born" (all three versions: Janet Gaynor, Judy Garland, Barbara Streisand) though with a much happier ending.

Great supporting roles include a jack russell terrier, John Goodman as a studio boss, Penelope Ann Miller as George's first wife, Malcolm McDowell as the butler, and James Cromwell as George's chauffeur.

There are moments in the film that are so beautiful.  One of them for me occurs when Peppy shows up at George's doorstep in the pouring rain apologizing for her film doing well and not his.

Hopefully my students won't find the range of emotions too melodramatic and hopefully they will enjoy the dance numbers that are Fred Astaire/ Ginger Rogers-quality.  The best part of the film, for me, is how it portrays the ability of one person to bring another back from the brink of despair.