Igo Primo Wince 6 0 2013 Torrent

[Lynelle Staudt]

One of my favorite films so far this year has been Noah Baumbach's Greenberg. An oddly compelling portrait of a misanthrope and the Florence Nightingale that gets involved with him, it's a film where soul and intelligence are at odds, seeking a middle ground where they can get along. Jason Bailey is also a fan, and he takes a look at the film on Blu-ray: "Greenberg is a very smart movie, and a very tricky one--it is not, as we might suspect from its ads, merely another tale of an introvert who has lost his way, and is brought to his senses by the love of a good woman (cue the Garden State comparisons). It is more complicated than that--Roger Greenberg is not a loveable loner, nor an amusing malcontent. He's got real problems, and they manifest themselves in ways that are not easy to get past. Florence is warned that Roger was recently released from a mental hospital, and we slowly piece together his back story; a good decade and a half ago, he was in a pop band, and he was the lone holdout when they were offered a record deal. In the years that followed, he moved to New York and went adrift. 'Right now,' he tells an old girlfriend, 'I'm really trying to do nothing.' She replies, 'That's a brave choice at our age.'"That girlfriend is played by Jennifer Jason Leigh, wife of writer/director Baumbach; she's also credited with co-producing and co-writing the story. She only appears in two scenes, but they're good ones, sticky and truthful. Particularly memorable is a painful coffee meeting between her and our protagonist--he's clearly angling to get back in her life, but as they talk, she's long forgotten even broad outlines of their time together, to say nothing of the specific details he keeps mentioning. It's a relatable but wince-inducing scene, made even more painful by her blunt, immediate response when he takes the next step and asks her out on a date."Her cold reception is a bit of a relief, as the film seems in danger of setting up a dull, familiar love triangle subplot; Baumbach has nothing so standard on his mind. He's more interested in exploring the hit-and-run dynamic of Gerwig and Stiller's characters; as the story begins, she seems a bit of a flake, and we're not sure how strong her judgment is when she fools around with him during what must be one of the more awkward first dates ever committed to celluloid. Baumbach's intelligent screenplay doesn't make it easy for them--or for us, inasmuch as his peculiar flashes of temper and seeming insistence on being troublesomely mean to her doesn't exactly set up the kind of rooting interest we've come to expect from our cinematic would-be romances. But the nuanced script puts the onus for the relationship on her, and when she mumbles, at a particularly vulnerable moment, 'You like me so much more than you think you do,' we know she's right."The script contains some of Baumbach's most quotable dialogue since his debut film, the incomparable Kicking and Screaming (no, no, not the shitty Will Ferrell movie). When asked how he's doing, Roger responds, 'I'm fair-to-middling. Leonard Maltin would give me two and a half stars.' When Ifans accuses him of 'pulling a Gatsby' by staying inside at his own impromptu pool party, Roger muses, 'I don't know that I need to document the reasons this isn't a Gatsby.' And when holding court with a group of twentysomethings at a party, he insists, 'I'm freaked out by you kids. I hope I die before I end up meeting up with one of you in a job interview.' But Roger doesn't get all the good lines, either; Baumbauch is the rare male writer whose women are perhaps more interesting than his men. His screenplay also takes some risks--he's trying all sorts of interesting ideas and unusual approaches. Not all of them work, but the ones that do pay off in spades."One could only hazard a guess what Burt Lancaster's character from The Leopard would make of Roger Greenberg. Suffice to say, it wouldn't be good. Stuart Galbraith IV writes of the new Criterion Blu: "The greatness of Luchino Visconti's film of The Leopard (1963) isn't easily described. Even in its restored, three-hour and five-minute Italian version not very much happens: a 19th century Sicilian nobleman becomes involved in a nephew's marriage to the daughter of a newly-moneyed mayor. But most of the drama is internalized, as the nobleman tries to come to terms with his eroding power in the face of Italy's democratic unification. Though almost unbelievably opulent, there's no sweeping action in the usual Samuel Bronston roadshow sense."Where the film comes alive is in its central performance by Burt Lancaster, which in this Criterion presentation is offered two different ways: with the actor's voice dubbed into Italian (with an aristocratic, Sicilian accent) and supported by English subtitles in its complete 185-minute version, and with Lancaster's own voice in the 161-minute English-language version. Frustratingly, neither is completely satisfying, though his performance, said to be Lancaster's personal favorite, unexpectedly comes through (and is even better) in the Italian-dubbed version."But the film's truly awesome achievement is its extraordinary recreations of aristocratic 19th century Sicily. The Leopard reportedly cost $3 million (20th Century-Fox co-financed its production) but it easily looks five times that. The extraordinary costuming, lighting, set design/decoration, and cinematography are like sprawling period canvases come to life. The film's influence on Stanley Kubrick (for his aborted Napoleon and later, Barry Lyndon) and Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather, Part II, etc.) is obvious."Aonther opulent Criterion re-release on Blu-Ray is the Powell and Pressburger melodrama Black Narcissus, reviewed by Adam Tyner: "Fascinated -- or at least, briefly distracted -- by Christianity and Western civilization, an aging Indian general (Esmond Knight) decides on a whim to convert a crumbling harem into a proper school and dispensary to be staffed by five British nuns. Led by Sister Clodagh (Deborah Kerr), the youngest Sister Superior in their order, they struggle to educate and care for an exotic people wholly disinterested in what Christianity in general and this group of nuns in particular have to offer. Even a fellow countryman (David Farrar) sneers at what he sees as a futile attempt at trying to impose their culture onto a people they fundamentally don't understand. With little experience to speak of, these five nuns are forced to rely purely on their faith to guide them, and even that is sorely tested as they're pitted against their impossible task and the hypnotic thrall of this mountainous, achingly beautiful stretch of India." "Adam goes on to note that the film was released at a time when India was transitioning into independence, and as such, not unlike The Leopard, the film carries a political load with its narrative: "This is a film in part about the West's fundamental lack of understanding about the very different cultures they seek to overtake. However, with a couple of notable exceptions, the most prominent Indians are played by British actors buried under mounds of thick brown makeup, and this adds -- perhaps unintentionally -- to the layer of satire prevalent throughout Black Narcissus. The film deftly juggles its more melodramatic moments with a smirklingly satirical sense of humor, with brief flickers of comedy accentuating the drama rather than deflating it.Black Narcissus is an astonishingly beautiful film, earning two well-deserved Academy Awards for its art direction and cinematography. The entrancing beauty of India isn't merely a backdrop -- it's one of the driving forces of the story and very much a character in its own right, largely to blame for the mental unraveling of the nuns.Black Narcissus does an outstanding job conveying the colossal scope and natural majesty of the Himalayas, and it's all the more impressive that this was accomplished through matte paintings, forced perspective, and an incomparable visual eye, with virtually every last frame of the film shot on a British soundstage. The three-strip Technicolor cinematography by Jack Cardiff continues to mesmerize more than six decades later, and despite the great strength of Black Narcissus' incisive script and outstanding performances, it would have been an almost unrecognizably different film without his talents. The craftsmanship behind Black Narcissus' ambitious visuals is nothing less than staggering. Despite the many years that have passed since the film was first produced, its visual effects work doesn't look dated in the slightest, and the matte paintings hold up marvelously under the scrutiny of this revealing high definition presentation."It seems to be a summer for brilliant restorations, and Flicker Alley brings us Chicago: The Original 1927 Film Restored. Long before Renee Zellweger was singing and dancing her way into an Oscar nomination, the character of Roxie Hart was scandalizing stage and screen alike with her delusions of fame and her way with a gun. The modern musical Chicago went all the way back to 1926 for its source material--a non-musical play by Maurine Watkins, who had been a journalist reporting on female murderers when she got the idea for her tale of tabloid journalism and Jazz Age virtue. A hit of its time, Chicago was ideal fodder for early Hollywood. Though most people might be more familiar with Ginger Rogers's 1942 bow as the homicidal flapper, Roxie Hart first sparkled on the silver screen in 1927 in a Cecil B. DeMille production. It's a film that was thought to be lost for a long time, until an intact print was found in DeMille's archives in 2006. Now, Flicker Alley has put together the two-disc Chicago: The 1927 Film Restored, and silent film fans can finally cast their eyes on the movie that started a tradition.The story should be familiar to most filmgoers. The blonde seductress Roxie Hart, here played by Phyllis Haver, has been two-timing her good-natured husband Amos (Victor Varconi). Roxie is a true gold digger, and Amos's empty pockets don't turn the girl on any longer. She has been having an affair with a moneyed businessman, Rodney Casely (gravel-voiced character actor Eugene Pallette), and when Casely tries to drop her, Roxie shoots him. The district attorney (Walter Richmond) is more than ready to string the murderess up, but a reporter (T. Roy Barnes) sees a way to milk the case and sell some papers. He dubs Roxie "the Jazz Slayer" and plasters her pretty face on the front page. A celebrity is born!Though there are some scenes with Roxie in the hoosegow, including a knock-down-drag-out catfight, this version of Chicago isn't as concerned with the jailhouse sirens as the more famous Broadway version. Velma Kelly appears briefly (depicted by Julian Faye), but once the lawyer William Flynn (Robert Edeson) enters the scene, Chicago becomes all about Roxie's trial. Flynn demands a steep fee, and Amos is forced to less-than-savory action to gather it. A big difference between this version of the movie and later incarnations is how much more of a participant Amos is. He is the closest we get to a sympathetic hero in the movie: he knows Roxie is a liar, he knows his love is wrong, but he is forced to stand by her. On the other hand, Roxie is not a very likable character. She's not even charming. The girl is rotten through and through. Which isn't to knock Haver, she's actually excellent playing the shallow schemer. So excellent, in fact, part of the fun of this early rendition is rooting for the temptress to get her just desserts.While Roxie Hart may have been a woman of her time, Michelangelo Antonioni's 1964 film Red Desert tells the story of one who is out of sync with her time. Apparently the original title of Red Desert was actually Pale Blue and Green. These are the colors of nature, and by their nature, the most soothing stripes on the rainbow. They suggest order, rightness, and calm. Though the title has a basis within the narrative--Monica Vitti's character, Giuliana, is considering them both for the interior of her proposed ceramics store, a safe haven she is creating for herself--the phrase didn't have the effect on audiences the director felt was required. Red Desert was more evocative. It is incendiary and barren.Giuliana is a wife and mother. She is married to Ugo (Carlo Chionetti), a manager at an industrial factory, and their boy (Valeria Bartoleschi) is of kindergarten age. The Italian town where they live is reliant on the manufacturing plants it is built around, but as with any aspect of progress, the move forward comes at a price. Not only is there strife within the citizenry (we are presented with the dual problems of a worker's strike as well as there not being enough able-bodied men around), but it also creates a tremendous burden on the local ecology. For every good thing these factories presumably make, they also dump waste into the environment. On one side of a tree line there are the bustling signs of creation, on the other destruction and decay. This is Giuliana's problem, as well. She is a woman at odds with herself. She was in a car accident that nearly killed her, and despite some recuperation time in the hospital, she has never been quite right since. There is something just a little off about her. Monica Vitti, who also starred in Antonioni's breakthrough pictures L'avventura and L'eclisse, avoids playing Giuliana as "crazy," but instead portrays her as a bundle of raw neuroses. She has the appearance of never being comfortable where she is, but also not knowing where else to go. She chews her nails, hides in her hair, and at any time looks like she is either going to cry or fall asleep.Though Antonioni appears to be painting with the same opaque brush throughout, anyone who understands paint knows there is no one color that is "white." There is no single, definitive "red." Antonioni's film is both narratively and visually complex. His sets are full of codes. Colors and shapes signal shifts in the psychological landscape as much as a torn-up field points out the side-effects of industry. When Giuliana finally makes a run for it, the hull of the ship she means to board is painted blood red--blood being both life and death and the confusion being which the ship offers. Shortly after, Giuliana sees yellow smoke belching from the stacks at her husband's workplace, and she tells her son it is poison. The color is another signal; the quarantine flag on the contaminated ship was also yellow. Yet, can we be sure the smoke is really yellow, or is that her perception? Did the sight of the red ship mark the border of her delusion, and she has now crossed over in the same way the fog drew a line between her and the "healthy" ones? There would be precedence for this, since Antonioni has already used sound as an outer expression of what is inside his heroine. Vittorio Gelmetti's electronic music for the film is unsettling, arising at times when Giuliana is the most discombobulated with the intention of drawing the viewer into her state of mind. Why shouldn't we be privy to her vision, as well?Giuliana suffers from a modern disease, and there are a lot of those going around. Aaron Beierle writes about one when he reviews the documentary Collapse. "Collapse is a horror film about what we face in our daily lives. The documentary, from American Movie director Chris Smith, looks into the life of Michael Ruppert, an older man who has been an investigative journalist but who has also had ties to the CIA, both in terms of his family (while working for the LAPD, it was discovered that he had a stunning level of clearance due to the connection to his father) and in terms of his personal life (he talks about the result of finding out about the CIA's connection to drug smuggling in the '80s, which is how director Chris Smith found him - he was seeking a film on that subject, and got one on another.)"The film is broken into different pieces. The first portion of the film takes a look into oil, as Ruppert discusses the decline in major oil fields - especially in Saudi Arabia (which is discussed in massive detail in Twilight in the Desert, the book by Matt Simmons) and the realities of Iraq (one of the first actions of the Bush administration was to create an energy committee looked over by VP Cheney; when minutes were finally released, it became clear that the task group's mission was to discuss the potential oil in Iraq) and the oil the country would offer."The second half of the film looks into the economic mess, which Ruppert predicted a few years in advance. Starting with the discussion of an increasingly debased fiat currency and an economy that requires infinite growth - infinite growth that cannot be sustained, especially without infinite resources and without an infinite capacity for debt. Countries are slowly beginning to crumble - states in the US are insolvent, Greece and other European countries are in serious trouble, etc. Ruppert works up to a number of conclusions, with the decline of oil leading to a possibly significant decline in population, given that the population growth since the start of widespread use of oil has been parabolic. The FDIC will be insolvent (it already is.) There will be shortages. Don't run for the hills because you will not be the first one with that idea. In the update included in the DVD, Ruppert talks about posting on the film's facebook page that certain cities in the US were turning off streetlights to save money, and got responses that other cities in other countries were doing the same. Ruppert does offer suggestions on how best to cope with what he views as an inevitable, difficult and possibly long transition for society."Additionally, what also gradually comes out of the film, bit-by-bit, is a portrait of a fascinating individual, who has seen difficulty and sadness (Ruppert becomes saddened by the 'No one could have ever seen this coming's from the government and media regarding the financial mess, when he and others were screaming about it in advance.) He tries, convincingly, to keep up hope and find light in simple things. Finally, the movie ends with an engaging story that illustrates Ruppert's quest. Overall, Collapse is a haunting, quite sober film that ranks alongside such documentaries as Fog of War."Another country known for political turmoil has a different, more personal light shone on it in Close-Up, the latest Criterion from Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami. Coincidentally, the 1990 film also looks at the effect film cameras might have on actual lives. Close-Up is the story of Hossein Sabzian, a print maker who convinces a middle-class family in Tehran that he is filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf. Makhmalbaf is a renowned Iranian director, at the time best known for his 1987 film The Cyclist. The fact that the identity Sabzian adopts is that of an actual person is one of the many layers that Kiarostami, who also wrote and edited Close-Up, overlaps to obscure the separations between fiction and documentary. Hossein Sabzian is even the actor's real name, and when we finally do see the real Makhmalbaf, they really do look alike. Which probably helped when he actually did pretend to be him once upon a time. Because, oh yeah, this is based on true events.The film opens up on a bumbling sting operation, where a reporter (Hassan Farazmand, also playing himself, as everyone in the film does) leads two police officers into the Ahankhah home to nab the alleged con man. This kick-off introduces Close-Up as a narrative construct, albeit a Neorealistic one. From a writing point-of-view, it starts with a bang, as it does drop us right down into the action--though not a typical crime movie bang. It's more of a criminal whimper, with Sabzian being carted off in a taxi cab by the arresting officers while Farazmand runs around looking for someone who can loan him a tape recorder so he can record the forthcoming interrogation. Woodward and Bernstein this guy ain't.Only in the second sequence does Kiarostami introduce the notion of Close-Up as faux documentary/docudrama. Having read Farazmand's magazine article about the story, Abbas Kiarostami himself shows up at the police station to try to gain access to the faker. He wants to film Sabzian's trial, and Close-Up follows the steps he takes to get permission, first talking to the meek criminal and then seeking permission from the presiding judge. Kiarostami also interviews the family members who fell victim to Sabzian's scheme, whatever that may have been. That's something they hope to figure out at trial.I hesitate to call the more traditional dramatic scenes "re-enactments," because essentially the entire film is a re-enactment. Sabzian did pretend to be a famous director, and the Ahankhahs were the intended victims, such as they were. Close-Up is not quite real, not quite fake--almost literally surreal in how it stands apart. It's like a distant cousin to Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman's Adaptation in that you really don't want to know what is truth and what is invention, what is technique and theory and what simply is.Also from 1990 and also dealing with cultural change in a politically volatile country is the Chinese film Black Snow, an import of which was reviewed by Thomas Spurlin: "Some time after the collapse of the Cultural Revolution in China, the lead character in Black Snow, Li Huiquan, has been released from a labor camp. He returns home with a knapsack and an underdeveloped education, vowing (non-verbal to us, but obvious) to stray from the life of crime that crippled his youth. Only 24, he hasn't had the chance to live much of a life outside of the loosely-threaded crime syndicate he operated within, never even having a chance to lose his virginity. As he returns to 'normal' life, he mans a clothing stand that rides the line between honest work and treading over into the black market, seeing many faces from his past through his everyday routine of peddling shoes, smoking to vast degrees, and holing up after-hours in a colorful music-filled nightclub. With societal stagnancy around every corner, the grasp of criminal activity begins to slowly pull him back into the life he lived before imprisonment."Directed by Beijing Film Academy vice president Xie Fei, this 'slice of life' piece from 1990 embodies a truthful illustration of post-Cultural Revolution life in Beijing amid the Tiananmen Square protests, while also reflecting on the inadvertent latency of societal rejection. As we watch the wispy smoke swirl around Li Huiquan -- aka Quanzi -- within the lounge where he unwinds, we gather a sense of his disconnect with the world around him. It's only in his interaction with his old 'buddies,' term used loosely, that he lights up a bit; he tries to obtain a form of forgiveness from a guy he roughed up at a young age, by handing him fistfuls of cash and free clothing, while reluctantly meeting with a sleazy bootlegger trying to rope him back into a life of illegal activity. And, in one of the film's darker, more pointed sequences, Quanzi gets wrapped up in an alcohol-fueled brawl that leads to an act of life-altering violence, something against his well-established reform."As compelling or emotionally stirring as the premise seems, and as accurate of an essence it ensnares about Quanzi's post-camp reintegration, Black Snow isn't, in itself, an attention-grabbing motion picture. We spent a lot of time staring into Quanzi's eyes as he, by interpretation, reflects on the life he's lost by being imprisoned. He coolly but observably stares at a female lounge singer, listening to the lyrics sang by this innocent-sounding girl -- over and over, which grows tiresome -- while being transported to flashbacks of his childhood. One glimmer of that reflection strikes an expressive chord, yet it's the persistent glances at Quanzi's forlorn smoking that can grow tiresome. Xie Fei incorporates multihued cinematography to give these sequences personality, capturing the late-'80s aesthetic well within off-and-on shots between twilight and daytime, yet they lack the verve needed to distinguish them through the cloud of cigarette smoke."More European intrigue is to be had in the 1981 Jean-Paul Belmondo vehicle The Professional. Stuart Galbraith IV describes it as "...a violent, clever, funny, and very sexy French spy thriller..It just dazzles. Based on Patrick Alexander's novel Death of a Thin-Skinned Animal...the story opens in the kangaroo federal court of Malagawi, a fictional African country, and obviously also a former French colony. (Unlike most thrillers set in fictional African nations, this one is entirely believable.) French secret agent Josselin 'Joss' Beaumont (Belmondo) is on trial after attempting to assassinate Idi Amin-esque President Njala (Pierre Saintons). Doped up during the trial, Beaumont is quickly convicted and begins a life sentence of hard labor. "Beaumont eventually escapes and two years later returns to Paris - the very week Njala is due for a state visit. But Beaumont's former colleagues aren't too happy to hear the news. After ordering him to Malagawi, the political winds abruptly shifted and the French government decided they needed the ruthless military dictator after all: Beaumont's own people helped facilitate his capture. 'We sold him out,' complains one colleague. 'No,' says another, 'We gave him away.' Later on the reason is subtly revealed: Njala's in town to negotiate French access to Malagawi's oil reserves in exchange for nuclear technology."The at times ingenious script by Michel Audiard and director Georges Lautner carefully sets up parallel stories that come together for the exciting climax: Beaumont's determination to carry out the assassination of Njala while avoiding his own agency's efforts to bring him in and perhaps kill him. His pursuers include world-weary one-time friend Valeras (Michel Beaune), mistress Alice Ancelin (Cyrielle Clair), and ruthless Inspector Rosen (Robert Hossein), who's like Tatsuya Nakadai's saucer-eyed psychopath up against Toshiro Mifune's Yojimbo."From beginning to end, The Professional infuses familiar situations in a genre all but dead by 1981 with great style and enormously satisfying inventiveness. More Harry Palmer than James Bond, the film is deeply cynical about the spy game, even more so than famous examples such as The Ipcress File and The Spy Who Came in From the Cold."Sounds like fun, as does the animated film A Town Called Panic, reviewed by Bill Gibron: "There was a time when the artform known as stop-motion animation was more or less dead. Unless your name was Rankin and/or Bass, or you had a limited F/X budget via which to render your 'money' shots, the handheld, one frame at a time process was useless to you. Oh sure, artists like Tim Burton and Henry Selick successfully resurrected the idea a few decades back, bringing to life the stellar stories of The Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach, The Corpse Bride, and Coraline, but unless you were trying to render your reality on the cheap, you didn't dare fly in the face of Harryhausen and his muse. Luckily, foreign filmmakers like Vincent Patar and StÃphane Aubier have been bucking the trend while making the irresistibly nutzoid TV show Panique au village. Translated as A Town Called Panic, it was a massive hit after appearing on screens worldwide in 2000. Now, ten years later, the pair responsible are bring the crazy characters and speedball silliness to the full length motion picture format. As usual, not only does the upgrade favor A Town Called Panic, it is guaranteed to jumpstart a whole new cult of converts."Toy pieces Cowboy, Indian, and Horse all live in the tiny village of Panic. Their neighbors include Policeman, Postman, farmer Steven, his wife Janine, their brood of pigs, cows, and chickens, as well as equine music teacher Madam Longray and her assistant Simon. When Cowboy and Indian mistakenly order 50 million bricks in order to build a birthday barbeque for Horse, they set off a chain of events that see their house destroyed, their efforts to rebuild it thwarted, and the discovery of some thieves from a parallel universe under the sea. In the meantime, Madam Longray is concerned about Horse. Though he's promised to attend her school and learn piano, he has so far failed to make a single lesson."A Town Called Panic is the cinematic definition of a hoot. It's a high energy goof, a nonstop homage to silent film comedy, kid's imagination, and plucky playthings, all accented with a surrealism all its own. It's Toy Story without the wistful adult nostalgia - or Pixar's pristine CG design. As the brainchild of Belgian artists Vincent Patar and StÃphane Aubier, it's the kind of perverse puppetoon anarchy that both references and reinvents the genre it is working within."The Danish crime film Terribly Happy has quirks on par with A Town Call Panic, and ones that Jason Bailey was charmed by: "Henrik Ruben Ganz's Terribly Happy begins with a horrible story of a two-headed cow, and how it drove a small village insane before they took it down to the bog. Turns out they take a lot of their problems to the bog in this town. "This story is based on true events," ends the opening voice-over. God I hope they're kidding."One of the dangers of taking in as many movies as I do is th