a supposedly dumb movie i'd love to see again

Hi. I haven't written in a long time. See, I was trying to come up with a way to make the blog work better. A way to make it more interesting for me and for you. So here it is. I have decided to have theme posts. I don't know how many themes there will be, but probably no more than 5. Gonna keep it simple. All my posts will have to fit into one of the themes. That's gonna be the rule.

You may wind up with some favorite themes and some others you skip. That would make more sense than just having to read about every movie I see. Also, I don't feel like writing about every movie I see.

So, Introducing Theme #1: A supposedly dumb movie I'd love to see again. Yes, of course I'm riffing off the late great David Foster Wallace's book. Apologies, RIP, David.

Recently I saw a couple movies that fit this category perfectly. One was 27 Dresses with the fun-to-watch Katherine Heigl. Oh! This gives me a chance to share with you that I have categories of actors, too, btw. Already in place but nowhere written down. The categories of actors are (roughly in order of highest to lowest): Capable of Anything; Extremely Gifted; Very Talented; Fun to Watch; Those I'd Love to Know; Always Seems the Same; Semi-Talented; and Not Talented. Only a couple of these categories contain an actual judgment call. The others are fun ways to talk about acting.

So, Katherine Heigl is in the fun-to-watch category. One of the categories I don't have to explain. She's fun. I loved seeing her parade through one garish bridesmaid dress after another.

But seriously. What was great about the movie was, it was supposedly just a romantic comedy, but it really touched on something many of us single gals feel deep inside and can't talk about. We can't talk about it because, well, it's so trite and we're supposed to have overcome it. The Wedding Dream. And the fact that we're supposed to have overcome it is part of the problem that the movie touches on. Jane (the main character) believes in love, but not in a silly way. She just does. Period. She still holds on to the Wedding Dream - the idea of marrying someone for love. Real love. And the great thing about Jane is, she doesn't mind talking about it. And the movie doesn't mind. And it's all normal and OK, and - even better! - the movie takes a gentle approach introducing the big problem we all face. The problem slips into Jane's consciousness in a subtle way, slowly coaxing her to give up her dream. That's how it happens to most of us in real life, too. The problem is, relationships are hard and flawed, so having high expectations for love is therefore naive, and when you're a grownup you're supposed to be realistic. Etcetera. These are all the reasons that many single gals can't talk about their unrealistic, naive, but still passionate feelings about marriage. "27 Dresses" is sweet, heartfelt, and honest. All without being too serious. It's a romantic comedy, after all. You get to watch Katherine Heigl singing "Benny and the Jets!"

Philadelphia - 15 years later

I saw the advertising on AMC for the 15-year anniversary of "Philadelphia," that modern-day classic starring Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington, which brought the dark persecution suffered by victims of AIDS into the broad daylight of everybody's lives. It sought to teach the common man, the ignorant man, that AIDS was not an illness anyone could catch, not transmitted through ordinary human contact, and that we should not treat AIDS patients like the lepers of biblical times. It actually did more than that -- it made people face the fact of discrimination against gays, in general, in a way that as far as I know, no other movie had done before. (Please correct me if I'm wrong.)

So I thought I'd watch it again. Interestingly, something has happened to me between 1993 and now. (Something relevant to my take on the film.) I've learned a little bit about the law. I worked in a law school, first, then later worked in several law firms, dated a couple of attorneys, and then worked in a big-city courthouse. I've also done a lot of reading: law reviews, legal history essays. It's an area you might say I'm familiar with. So when I saw this film, which is a courtroom drama by genre, I paid some attention to the presentation of the case. I became less interested in the emotional aspects of a dying man's fight against discrimination. In this context, it's a totally different movie.

If you look at it for what it was meant to be (see first paragraph) it has a big emotional impact. For sure. Here's Denzel Washington, shaking a man's hand and then stepping ten feet back after he learns that the man has AIDS. Here's Tom Hanks, trying to read in the public library, but they want to put him away in a private room as if he needs to be quarantined.

However, if you begin paying attention to the actual court case, it becomes an infuriatingly bad movie. If you are trying to follow the arguments being made, you see instantly that they don't work. For instance, the defense attorney, in her cross examination, asks Tom Hanks a series of questions about his sexual encounters in a gay movie theater. What's the relevance in a wrongful termination lawsuit? Objection! When an objection is raised she states that her line of questioning goes to credibility. So, I the viewer take this to mean that she is going to prove he's a liar -- isn't that what you would think? That he can't be trusted? His word is no good? Something along those lines? Yet, she never proves nor disproves anything about whether the man is credible. She never even raises that issue! It makes no sense whatsoever. All she's doing is asking him about his sex life. When did he contract AIDS? Was it in a movie theater? Was it when he had sex with a stranger? Yes, yes, yes, he says (he doesn't deny anything). So for the movie's theme, I get it. People are homophobic. People thought homosexuals deserved to get AIDS because of their "lifestyles." It was ugly, ignorant, prejudiced and wrong to think that way. No one deserves to get AIDS.

OK. Does this line of questioning have emotional impact? Yes. Does it even try to sound like a point is being made, in a legal argument? No. He doesn't lie. She doesn't say he lied. She doesn't show that he lied. She doesn't even try to find out whether he lied about anything. The issue isn't even addressed.

Here's an even more glaring problem. Suppose I am not paying attention to the arguments and I'm willing to ignore the fact that neither of the attorneys is making a case. I mean, what if I had never worked in a law firm or courthouse? I'm just the average viewer now, and I don't pay any attention to the arguments. (Although this would be difficult, considering the entire movie takes place in a courtroom.) Minimally, I as the viewer care about what happens to Tom Hanks. Don't you? All my heartstrings are being pulled. Clearly I want him to win the case; I am pulling for him. So -- how bad is it that, when the movie is over and he wins the case, I can't even tell you why or how he won it?!

Usually, in almost every courtroom drama you'll see, there's a moment when the case turns; something is revealed, either in evidence or in testimony that changes the case and turns it around, usually in favor of the protagonist. Anyone, any viewer, even one with no legal knowledge, can point to the moment. It's the drama of the movie, so it's supposed to work. In "Philadelphia," that moment is skipped over. There is no convincing argument made by either side. All we have is one emotional moment after another, followed by the win, which I guess they figured we were expecting -- so it didn't have to be convincing. What a let-down. Way to treat your viewers like children. "Yay! He won the case! We're happy now, because this is what we knew would happen and it takes away the sting of death at the end! Everybody applaud the success!" Give me a break. I want to know, please tell me (now that I've invested all these hours in this courtroom), how did he manage to win it?

Was it because the partners could see lesions on his face? (There's this gut-wrenching scene where Tom Hanks unbuttons his shirt to reveal the prominence of lesions, viewable by the entire jury.) But we knew all along they could see the lesions, so nothing was proven by that display. In the beginning, the point was conceded that his employers saw the lesions but didn't know what they were. So that wasn't a breakthrough in the case. How dumb do you think I am? You think I've already forgotten the first half hour of the movie?

What I expected was that, at some point in the movie, Denzel Washington was going to uncover some proof that the partners knew about the AIDS. They claimed they didn't know; he had to prove they did in order to prove wrongful termination. He never proved that. So, I was very, very disappointed. And even though I can say, as I did in the first paragraph, that this movie did amazing things for society, when it was released in the early 1990s, it truly had impact because it opened our eyes to persecution -- I can admit that, but I can't say it was a good movie. It just didn't really try. That was the saddest part. Many movies include a legal case, and they also have another agenda, and yet they manage with a little effort, to weave together a story that is reasonable as well as emotional. This one didn't even give us the chance to use our brains. It wanted our hearts and that was all it went after. It didn't even try to put the pieces together in a way that made sense. "Who cares if it doesn't make sense? It made you cry, didn't it?" I hate that.

Elegy

What a sad, sad movie. I love Ben Kingsley, I love his seriousness and his composure and his changeability and his intensity and his depth of feeling. I love his eyes and in this case, they were sad eyes. He can do anything with them; he can make them mean or cold or angry or hostile or threatening or intimidating or loving or gentle or sweet or intelligent or calculating or pensive or... I love Sir Ben Kingsley. What a fine, fine British actor he is. I loved him in "House of Sand and Fog" and "Schindler's List" and here again. What a treat.

I didn't love the movie, "Elegy," however; as much as I love a great romantic story, this one was just too damn sad. You've got to be prepared for some sadness with a title as obvious as "Elegy," but you don't need a somber piano score and a lot of extra tear-jerker dialogue when you've already got your heart out there on the line for doomed romance. Yeah.

Young at Heart

I watched this old movie, quite by accident. Though I rarely channel-surf, I hit upon this movie the other night and became hooked. I even recorded it; I have since watched it a couple more times. What was it, Doris Day's seductive voice? She has a way of speaking that is feminine and melodic, gentle, and yet commanding. Her voice goes into a whisper for effect and yet it can also rise up quite matter-of-factly when the need arises. Was it the time warp evoked by the trio of blonde hairdos, by the 1950s attire? (As the three sisters look up at once, smiling in perfect stylized synchronicity, not a hair out of place, all lip-glossed and golden, it reminds me of an Olympic sport... Were all the women in the 50s so perfectly put together? I think of Plath and how she suffered for it.)

No... These things moved me, but what really hooked me, I think, was Frank Sinatra. Honestly, his character cast a spell. Barney Sloan. The gaunt cheeks, the deep self-pity. Doris Day stood in contrast, as what Barney called "the gay-young-thing type." She was all sunshine and he was all gloom. Exactly as billed.

But more than that - The way they talked to each other - it evoked the most poignant aspects of a time when our culture was fundamentally different, when certainly women approached men a different way, and likely vice versa. Yet although men may have been said to have the "power," at least politically speaking, women had the real power when it came to romance. Laurie (Doris Day's character) was like the muse -- she provided the beauty, the inspiration, the magnetism which in turn provided Barney a reason to live. But I oversimplify. She was commanding, as I mentioned, and nurturing as well. A woman in charge of herself who could be "someone to watch over" him. (Yes. He sang that song in the film. She was watching.)

How is it achieved? I wonder. This balance of seduction, attraction, beauty, femininity, with strength, presence, confidence? And why do women now feel that if they intentionally make themselves attractive to men they'll lose respect, at least self-respect? Why do women now feel that to be powerful they have to be "ballsy" and hard -- stiff, unmoved, like Hillary Clinton? It was her downfall ultimately that she fought exactly this internal battle. Although I raged against that fact as a feminist, when I watch Doris Day I think maybe Hillary could've learned something from her. Am I crazy?

But in the movie, you wouldn't see all this without him. Man and woman truly complement each other here. That's the hook. Say all you want about Doris Day. It all boils down to Barney - Sinatra acting Barney - and the way he appreciates her.

There's a scene where he's in a bar, playing piano and singing ("Just One of Those Things"), and smoking his cigarette, feeling down on his luck, and the whole picture, which has since become cliche -- but at the time was not, so it's OK -- and Laurie walks in, and he's surprised to see her. "What are you doing here?" he asks. "I could ask you the same question," she says, "And a few more besides." He tells her about his latest round in the battle with the Fates. The latest bad card they have dealt him. He's in love with her and she's about to be married. Why, he asks, does she have to be so beautiful? If only her eyes were dull or her nose shiny...

As I said, she's perfectly put together, but it's his appreciation that really draws out the magic; it's his pain that makes this scene romantic. He wants her. Sinatra's able, somehow, to make us feel this quality of wanting. Throughout the movie, with his stance, his face, his voice (of course), we see a man wanting. A man needing. And he's no less masculine for it!

She's totally in charge of herself, even when he seems to stop feeling sorry for himself, when he stands up and says he's going to fight for her. Even when she starts to cry, because she feels so deeply for him. She might seem to be acting like the weepy female, but she's acting conscientiously like a woman who's careful with a man's ego. So she allows him to say "Go." And after a pause. "Go!"

Maybe this is the romantic movie I've been looking for. It's not one or the other of them, but man and woman together, as I said before, in perfect complement.

Youth Without Youth (and Funny Games, briefly)

Francis Ford Coppola is a name we all respect. Why? Because of "The Godfather. "

Last night I watched "Youth Without Youth" which was billed as Coppola's comeback film. I didn't say it; some high-falutin' film critic did. Or more accurately, several high-falutin' critics. You know, the professionals. They build 'em up, they knock 'em down. That's what they did in this case. Told us he was a master, told us this was the master's comeback, then told us the master's comeback was crap. What happened to the respect? the adulation? Hmmmm?
What I want to know is, why didn't they like the film? I suspect it's because they raised their collective expectations too high. Waaaaay too high.

Anyway, I liked the film. Sure, it has some extraneous and confusing stuff in it. But on the whole, it was a beauty. Here you have two characters. One is an old man, who represents age [read: time passing] and wisdom [read: benefit of time passing]. One is a young woman, who represents beauty and youth [the opposite of age, of time, of wisdom]. Yes, they are symbolic characters.

The old man (Tim Roth) participates in a miracle. His youth is restored to him. He is able to gain time, in other words. When you're 70 you don't think you have that much time left. If you were suddenly made 35 again, you've gained exactly 35 years (wow, I can do math). Why would this happen?

The reason he gains the time is because he's overly ambitious. He wants to learn the whole of human knowledge. He's writing a book that can never be finished. He's a student of languages but hasn't got time to learn all the languages of all the periods of history. Until!

Enter the second character, Young-Girl-Youth-and-Beauty. She participates in a miracle too. She is able to channel the languages of all time, and hopefully can take Old-Man back far enough in time so that he can discover all of human knowledge. Problem is, while he remains young, she enters into a rapid aging process because of channeling all that ancient history. He had to get younger to have more time to write the book. She had to get older to feel the weight of ancient time. It's all very beautiful and poetic, magical and metaphorical. You must see this coming: Old-Man falls in love with Young-Girl and he has a choice to make.

Let her turn into a 25-year-old with wrinkles? Let her descend into death long before her time, for the sake of knowledge? Or... leave her and restore her youth and beauty. Abandon knowledge and wisdom (and love! which is evidently the fruit of wisdom). Abandon the value of expanding time, embrace the value of the finite, accept that life is short for a reason.

I found it beautiful. We didn't need Hitler's goons chasing Old-Man down with a gun. That part was a little ridiculous and quite unnecessary. There were some other tossed-in scenes that may have added to the confusion some of the critics apparently felt. (Even Almighty Ebert used the word "confusing!" It's less confusing than "Inland Empire," man.) But it was still very powerful. I can forgive Coppola these little mistakes. He's only human, after all.

Tim Roth, coincidentally, has been on my screen a lot recently. I also watched "Funny Games" the other day. It's a thriller - no one would dispute the label in this case - and a dark one. Ask yourself: Do you want to watch Tim Roth and Naomi Watts be tortured? That's all it is. The end was surprising, but not in a good way. All I can say is, this was a ride I really wanted off of. But I am starting to understand Tim Roth. I used to think of him as simply a Tarantino man, for obvious reasons ("Pulp Fiction," "Reservoir Dogs"). Now I'm understanding that Roth'll take anything that might be unnerving -- he's simply confrontational, as an actor. He must be a very interesting person to talk to.

Twelve Angry Men

"Twelve Angry Men" does exactly what it's supposed to do. An amazing feat for a movie, I say. So often we start out with high expectations and we're disappointed. We balk at a movie that claims it will provide us with a profound experience.

Here, You start out with one juror who believes the boy is innocent and you know he's supposed to convince all the other jurors. They are ready to send the boy to the electric chair. It's the proverbial lone juror. Ay ay ay.

So you know the situation immediately. You know what is supposed to happen. You know that, by the end, all the jurors will be persuaded to change their minds. You know too that, this will have implications beyond the personal, beyond the political. It will teach us something about the quality of humanity.

However, it seems impossible! Both for Henry Fonda and for the movie. How can one man persuade all these other men (who are not just angry, but sweaty, impatient, bullying, rude, and exhausted, who have people to see and places to go) to change their position on something so serious as a murder? This is an old-fashioned, deeply serious, moral movie. Yet how can one little movie teach us something truly profound about the humanity in all of us? Wow. Even as I write the words, it sounds like too much to take. "Give me a break!" I might say. Or "Don't give me that!" Sounds overbearing, over-profound, too much for this movie to shoulder.

Yet, it succeeds 100% and there isn't an overblown moment in the whole darn thing. It is one of those extremely rare things - the perfect movie.

Takes you for a ride, entertains you, lets you coast while it does all the work (another rare feat for a movie, at least these days), keeps you guessing, you're in suspense - you think you can predict it but you can't, keeps you emotionally involved - you actually care about each and every character! - and keeps you at the center of the issue, never leaves you bored or yawning, it makes you laugh, makes you think, makes you re-evaluate your own certainty about whether certainty is possible. Makes you re-evaluate what it means to be a human being, what is at the heart of all of us. And lets you do all this without getting irritated with yourself. What a treat.

Eyes of Laura Mars

What a hoot! Watch this and tell me how long it takes *you* to recognize Tommy Lee Jones. Seriously. This is a classic 1970s thriller which puts all the fun back into thrillers - for those of us who have grown weary of seeing Jodie Foster or anyone else trapped on an airplane.

Faye Dunaway, once again. I'm becoming a fan of hers. In this movie she's so convincing as a photographer whose vision is interrupted constantly - even when she's behind the camera! - by the vision of murder, seen through the eyes of the murderer! Hold on models, stop posing! Stop the shoot! It's also great when Laura's fumbling around in her apartment, trying to feel her way to the telephone, as if blind! Meanwhile, with her eyes open, she's actually watching her friends be killed - one by one, and she can do nothing about it!

Mostly, this was just pure fun to watch. Fun to play "who's that actor" with some recognizable but much-younger faces. (It's like a reverse version of "where are they now?") Fun to get swept away by the pounding, overly melodramatic music score. Fun to watch Tommy Lee Jones running down the street in a typical 1970s chase scene. Really fun to laugh your head off at the close-up shots of Faye Dunaway's eyes. Yep. Get this one from Netflix. It's a joy.

Network

"We're mad as hell, and we're not gonna take it anymore!"

Oh, so that's where that line came from!

What an incredible, scary, prescient, bizarre film this is. I almost don't know what to say. When I read the description I thought it would compare to "Broadcast News," another of my all-time faves. It did start out like that (the end of unchoreographed old-fashioned news reporting on television). But then, "Network" spirals downward into surreal, almost science-fiction, very dark territory more closely resembling a film like "Naked Lunch" than "Broadcast News." No kidding. It seriously freaked me out. But it got its point across. Everyone should watch it.

I've been on a bit of a Faye Dunaway kick lately, having also watched "Three Days of the Condor" and "Chinatown" (for a second time, each) within the past month. She's really something in "Network," though; I think it beats those other two performances by a landslide. She's gorgeous, robotic, driven, heartless and completely believable. She's raving, while having sex (!), about network television series ideas such as "the Mao Tse-Tung hour" featuring acts of terrorism by radical left-wing militants. The moment when William Holden tells her he can still feel emotions, he's got to leave her, she's nothing but a humanoid? Unforgettable. It feels so, so...True. So much like everybody I see around me all the time. What has television done to us?

Interiors and Cassandra's Dream

Looking at the poles of Woody Allen's career is unsettling. At least, it is for Woody Allen fans. "Annie Hall" is one of my all-time favorite movies (as it is for millions of people -- it's a classic), and "Hannah and Her Sisters" is a film I never get tired of watching! Even "Melinda and Melinda" was pretty entertaining. So what the heck happened with "Cassandra's Dream?" This is a pretty standard Allen theme (cf. "Crimes and Misdemeanors," or "Match Point") -- it's basically about murder and guilt (or the lack thereof). We're supposed to see characters so changed (or not) by what they've done that it forces us to reflect on the great existential meaning of life, and so on.... Yet Ian (Ewan McGregor) and Terry (Colin Farrell) are never really in our hearts to begin with, even before they take a life. Ian has absolutely no interesting qualities. So he likes a girl and wants to get away from it all. Big whoop. Who is he, as a person? Who is this Ian guy? His brother Terry's mildly more interesting but in a cliched way -- he's got a gambling problem. OK, and? They're such boring characters in fact, it doesn't seem surprising when they decide to commit murder. Why? Because they don't seem like real people. (And these are not totally untalented actors or anything. Witness Ewan McGregor in "Young Adam!" Or "Trainspotting.") So it doesn't seem like that big a deal what these two guys are doing -- I'm sitting there thinking, just another variation on the standard, but noticeably this time it doesn't call into question any existential truths, nor make me think about the value of life. Could it be that I'm just getting tired of Woody Allen? Have I seen the same plot too many times? Or is it over for him, has he "lost it"? One looks for a career trajectory...

So I also watched "Interiors" - it's not like any of the others. It's not about romantic relationships and it's not about murder. It's one of his earliest films, deeply psychological, and not funny at all (I don't think there's a single moment of comedy in it). It's not about New York, and doesn't use any music. It's different. However. Turns out, I didn't like this film either. It was boring! It consisted of one dreary, weary, life-is-weighing-us-down moment after another... It's supposed to be about a family in crisis, but if I don't care about the characters (the family members), how can I care about the family? And each of the sisters was more boring than the next. I could've taken a snooze while the film was on, and opened my eyes and not missed a thing. Lots of dark, dark shots where you can't see what's going on, anyway.

Also, lots of unfinished business. Did one sister's husband rape (or molest) her sister? (I thought I saw that, but it was so dark I couldn't tell.) What happened there? And what about Michael (Sam Waterston)? He opens the movie; he seems to be an important character - he has a very revealing dialogue with the mother and apparently loves one of the sisters - but he disappears entirely in the final sequences. What happened to him? Where did he go?

So one is forced to ask oneself if Woody Allen was ever that good? Maybe "Annie Hall" was just a fluke? Maybe the only reason I love "Hannah and Her Sisters" is the music? (Count Basie and the like)? It's unsettling.

Delirious

Wow, that movie was slow to get going. Sloooooooooooooow.

The only thing that's wrong with this script is the timing of it. Which is, of course, everything.

Ach, it's such a bummer because there were so many things I liked about it!

It takes a long time to get into the characters (and consequently, a long time before the viewer cares about them. After 19 minutes I was about ready to turn off the movie for lack of interest in the characters). Then, once you do start getting to know them it takes a long time for a major plot point to occur (so now we know who they are, but is anything going to happen in this movie?). Then, after quite a few good scenes where the action picks up and we're finally getting involved in the story, there's this weird lull, a slow-down accompanied by some strange tangential filler material. Calm before the storm? Nope. Instead we get a bizarre character twist that feels like we're suddenly watching a different movie.

I guess that means there are two big flaws in the script. One, the timing (pacing) is all wrong. Two, our main character turns into someone else after we've invested a lot of time getting to know him.

Steve Buscemi has appeared in a lot of great movies (Reservoir Dogs, Barton Fink, Fargo) and quite a few terrible ones. Unfortunately "Delirious" goes in the terrible category - but it's not Buscemi's fault! It's all about the script. Buscemi makes us feel weird emotions. That's what he's great at. We can look at him and think, 'Man, you're a weirdo' or even 'You're creepy, dude!' and still be able to relate. He does it again quite skillfully here. He plays a guy who wanted to be a photojournalist and wound up being a paparazzo. He obviously inflates the importance of his work in order to make himself feel better about it. He's got a precarious hold on self-esteem. The smallest insult makes him crumble into misery. Buscemi does a beautiful job making us sympathize with someone who's extremely unlikeable.

Thing is, this character is pathetic in the original sense of the word. Inspiring pathos. So why would he turn psycho killer in the end? Of course he doesn't, really, turn psycho killer (thank goodness). But why does the movie try to make us believe that he would? Why, why, why?

All along the movie is about a friendship. Well, it's also about obsession with celebrity, and feelings of self-worth, and whether or not fame and success are the only thing that will make these characters feel OK about themselves. But it's a friendship. For the first time in his life, Les (Buscemi's character) feels like he's gotten himself a friend, a companion. He's got someone who makes him feel good about himself -- even his dubious career. And when that guy turns out to have a heart, actually caring about celebrities as people, we don't blame him for wanting to turn away from the paparazzo lifestyle. The sad thing is we've come to care about Les, and we don't want to see him abandoned. There's a poignant scene where Les is in a bathroom trying to compose himself so that he can speak articulately to his idol Elvis Costello. This is the Les we know and love.

This is the heart of the movie. His friend will move on without him, precisely because he doesn't have Les's insecurities. This is the story of Les's life. It's realistic. It's human. So why, why, why did someone decide that, after a long lull, Les was going to go psycho killer? Sure, he doesn't actually pull it off, but I'd swear the last sequence belonged to another movie altogether - not the one I was patiently watching, and finally beginning to enjoy. Oh, well.

The Notebook

I wonder why everybody was gaga over this movie. Supposedly it was "so romantic," "so moving," it would make me cry, ("even made my dad cry," one friend told me), it was the "greatest love story" in modern film. Sure. What are we, desperate for romance?

I remember so well that conversation with my girlfriend when I remarked on the lack of great romance in films these days. Where's the passion? Where's our Clark Gable, our "Gone with the Wind"?

"You should see 'The Notebook.' It even made my dad cry."

Well, now I've seen it and, apart from appreciating the quite lovely Rachel McAdams, I didn't enjoy it. A great romance has to have conflict. These two young people fell in love smoothly enough, but there wasn't much in the way of passion, of tormented desire. They really didn't have any conflict. They were happy-go-lucky. Then what happens? Sure, sure, they're separated - it's a plot twist and causes a temporary delay to the relationship, but does that cause conflict within their love? No. The love doesn't suffer from it, there's no doubt they still love each other just the same. It's so obvious that they're going to get back together anyway, since the whole time you've got the two of them together in old age narrating the entire story. So where's the intensity? Where's the emotion? Where's the heat?

Hell, I think there was more passionate romance in some of those old "Dawson's Creek" episodes where Pacey is pining for Joey but can't make a move because she's Dawson's girl. And everybody said that was corny - but they liked "The Notebook"?

Charlie Wilson's War, The Jane Austen Book Club, My Summer of Love

What do these three movies have in common? The enchanting, daring Emily Blunt. I've become a great admirer of hers. The first time I saw her in a film - which I won't discuss right now - was actually something else, something called "Gideon's Daughter." That was beautiful, too, but I've decided that in this blog I'm going to write reactions to movies I've just seen. I won't start writing about all the movies I've seen in the past. It would be fun, but then I'd never get anything else done.

So let's talk about these three. In "Charlie Wilson's War," Emily Blunt has a very small appearance, but it's crucial. It happens so fast you almost don't realize it's happening. We've just barely been introduced to the character of Charlie Wilson (Tom Hanks); so far we've seen him in two settings: 1) Las Vegas and 2) his office. In his office we see women with big hair, cleavage and a mysterious efficiency belying their bimbo looks. So we've gotten a quick and dirty impression of who the man is and what he likes and the way he likes it. OK. Then there's a small scene in which Peter Gerety comes in as a Texas preacher demanding a defense for displaying a creche on secular land. He brings along his daughter Jane (Emily Blunt), for no apparent reason. Note she seems quiet, reserved, conservatively dressed - a good Christian girl. And she's just sitting there, waiting patiently while everyone runs around. Cut to the next scene. Jane is now in Charlie's suite, wearing only his shirt, sipping a cocktail. She continues to undress until she's wearing only underwear, and then we see her lounging on the sofa, her perfect long legs extended gracefully before us. She is a vision of seduction. Charlie, however, opts to take the phone call from Joanne Herring (Julia Roberts) instead of paying attention to Jane.

Why this transition in Jane? Why is she in her underwear? How did Charlie seduce the nice Christian girl? How did the nice Christian girl turn out to be so sexy? And why is Charlie not taking advantage of the situation? Why give Emily this short and seemingly meaningless appearance? The phone call has to be really important.

It is. It's the phone call that gets the whole plot moving. Joanne gets Charlie to go to Houston, then she gets him to go to Pakistan, then she gets him to go into Afghanistan, and the rest is history. So think of it! Think of how important this phone call has to be to get the movie rolling. And then, further think how attractive and seductive Emily Blunt has to be, in order to highlight the importance of the phone call - that Charlie should choose to ignore her and stay on the phone.

In "The Jane Austen Book Club," Emily Blunt plays a lonely, snobbish young French teacher named Prudie, unhappily married to a man who doesn't appreciate her. She's the odd woman out in the book club, having been invited on a whim by a stranger, while the other women know each other already. At the outset, Prudie's probably your least favorite of the women in the club, (Maria Bello is probably your favorite), unless you like lonely, prude-y, pale-faced women with dark hair and light eyes. At first we don't sympathize with her plight of being married to an unappreciative husband. (That is a worn-out cliche and the film suffers for it as well as others scattered throughout.) No, the only thing worth noticing about Prudie at the outset of the movie is that she is very pretty in an unopened-flower kind of way.

Then one of her students forms a crush on her, and this blurs her sharp borderlines for a minute, and then her aging-hippie mother shows up with some marijuana and this too, creates a mess in Prudie's life and she begins to be more interesting. At some point in Prudie's gradual mellowing, when she begins talking to the book club members, we find out she has never even been to France. She cries, "A French teacher who has never been to France!" (or something like that). Ah, no wonder she was so upset her hubby wouldn't take her abroad.

I won't tell you how, in a climactic moment, Prudie unfolds, but I will say that it takes a really good actress to achieve the scope of change her character has to come through in a limited number of scenes. (And she's taking turns with Maria Bello and Kathy Baker and Amy Brenneman and others, almost competing with them for attention in a badly-constructed movie.) In an otherwise lame movie, Emily Blunt takes us from uninterested to curious to hooked - and admiring. Once again.

And if you really want an exciting performance from Emily Blunt please see "My Summer of Love," an exceptionally daring film about two British girls who try each other on for size. One is poor and orphaned and being raised by an ex-con-turned-preacher brother. That's Mona (Nathalie Press) whose accent tells us everything we need to know about her. The other girl is Tamsin (Emily Blunt) whose accent is very refined. Tamsin rides in on, literally, a white horse to save Mona from her brother, poverty, and boredom above all. She says in effect, 'Mona, you're a wild one, but come into my mansion and try on some beautiful dresses. Try on my life for a summer. See if you don't come out feeling beautiful.'

Tamsin is a self-described "fantasist" and she sure can weave a tale, whether it's a ghost story or a love story. She does tell Mona these and other stories quite convincingly, sipping red wine and making the viewer feel haunted or bewitched, right along with Mona. There's even one tall tale about Edith Piaf, and her alleged crimes of passion (I will admit, adding the gorgeous French voice belting out "La Foule" in the scene does provide support for Tamsin's spell-casting over Mona). What crime of passion will Mona commit at the end of all this, we wonder.

The Paper Chase

I used to like this movie, when I saw it the first time. Cute flick about a cute boy who's on his way to becoming a lawyer. Lots of good classroom scenes.

I don't know what I thought it was "about," except there's a guy struggling in law school (Harvard no less) and he's got a sorta-romantic subplot which is sorta interesting.

Recently I watched it again and I decided, it's political. And I don't like the political statement it makes. And furthermore! I don't think it makes any sense. Like many liberal "statements" this one is corny and rings false. Do you really think that a Harvard law student wouldn't care about his grades at the end of the year? Just because his teacher didn't know his name?

Throughout the movie there's this repeated mantra - "It's all about the grades." Then there's a scene where the pretty, but frankly boring, romantic interest tells the boy that he's on a paper chase (note the lack of subtlety). She compares attaining a law degree to attaining a driver's license and an insurance policy. Hm. Let's think about that.

And the boy, struggling through law school -- Harvard law school -- is supposed to swallow that and decide (in a sudden moment of gushing realization when his teacher doesn't remember his name) that suddenly his grades don't matter? He actually makes a paper airplane out of them and sends them out flying over the ocean. It doesn't come any cornier than this.

Great performance by John Houseman, though.

Things We Lost in the Fire

I expected to be depressed by this movie. I heard it was about a heroin addict, so naturally, I assumed it would be a downer. Imagine my surprise to discover what an uplifting movie it actually is! And it gets better: This film celebrated my favorite quality (if one can be said to have such a thing as a 'favorite quality' without being accused of vagueness). That is, subtlety. It's my favorite quality in people and in acting and in filmmaking. It's my favorite quality in flavor and in flirtation and in intelligent conversation. It's my favorite quality.

Anyway, subtlety. Let me give you some examples.

Subtlety in camerawork: A lingering closeup on one - just one - of Halle Berry's eyes. The mark of tears, but no tears, on the side of her face. When she goes to the sink then, to wash her face, we see the water softly splashing as she washes her hands. (Subtle substitute for image of crying, you see.)

Subtlety in character development: Benicio del Toro plays the part of Jerry, the long-time friend of a man who's just died. Jerry shows up at the funeral and it's clear that no one knows who he is. (Well, even before the wife - Halle Berry - called him, people were asking "who's Jerry.") Jerry is alone at the funeral, wandering, sort of lost, smoking one cigarette with another behind his ear. We, the viewers, already know that he's an addict, and that the friendship was kept hidden for a reason. Thing is we don't know how Jerry feels about it. He seems sad, but how close were they, really? We're wondering. We're watching Jerry for a few good minutes and we want to like him, but we're not sure if we can. Then, he approaches the two kids on the swing. And slowly, he begins revealing himself to them. He lets them know that he knows stories about them. Something about a burn or a birthmark or a fear one of them has.

We, the viewers, can see then that he was a good friend of the dead man, a confidant. We realize that Jerry can be taken seriously. This is the superficial work of the scene. What's the subtlety, you're wondering? Consider: Jerry reveals himself only to the kids.

There isn't much in the way of "plot," and I understand why critics panned the film.

You may be curious about thematic subtlety (as I often am); i.e. "What's the point of this movie?" It's often hard to figure out when you've got mostly mood to go on, and some subtle writing.

I'll tell you. There is only one major plot point in the film - several small ones, of course, and plenty of beautiful camerawork and character development to keep you going, but only one major plot point. The key to theme is in that plot point. If you can figure out why it happens - What do Audrey and Jerry have in common? - then you've got it and everything that was subtle becomes obvious, all of a sudden. All of a beautiful sudden.

The question is, Can mood, subtle camerawork, and subtle character development keep you going until you get to this point? For me, they can.