Credit, then, is due to Richard Linklater for his attempt to portray Welles at the apex of his theatrical fame, during the legendary 1936 staging of ‘Julius Caesar’ for the Mercury Theater. lt was Welles’s idea to present ‘Caesar’ as a harbinger of the fascist movements gaining hold in Europe, as a warning to those who still may have dismissed Hitler as a nuisance, that what was happening in Germany, and elsewhere, was utterly real, and utterly frightening. The beginnings of this production are the backdrop to this charming, if very slight, film, which concerns a young novice, Richard Samuels (Zac Efron, doing his best) who, through sheer luck, is hired by Welles (Christian McKay, in an effective portrayal) to play a small part in the production. Once inside the Mercury, where he is soon smitten by another member, Sonja Jones (Claire Danes), we watch as Richard watches many of the names who would soon become famous either through their own talents (Joseph Cotten), or to their connection to Welles via the Mercury (John Houseman, Norman Lloyd). He swoons a bit at the indifferent Jones, and tags along with Welles when he can.

Much of the action backstage entails the sort of theatrical extravagance that has gotten many a high school drama student beaten up; people trying to outwit, out charm and out seduce the other members of the company. Samuels is a bit of a cipher, which Linklater seems to get very early. While Efron is ostensibly the ‘star’ of the film (likely because it was his name that got this film green lit in the first place), the film is at its best when the camera focuses on Welles, as he bullies his cast, eyes the ladies, and performs in a radio play. A great credit goes to McKay for never allowing his portrayal of Welles to become a caricature; in Tim Robbins’ dreadful Cradle Will Rock, it showed Welles as a lout, and a blowhard, and nothing more.

This film was barely released to theaters last year, then quickly thrown in the garbage by the good people at Warner Brothers, who undoubtedly had a talking dog movie to promote. While it is hardly a lost masterpiece, Me & Orson Welles is a very smart film, similar in look and feel to a mid-period Woody Allen film, small in stature but heartfelt in both its presentation of a time when the American theater presented major works instead of hopeless trivialities, and in its reminder of when artistic ambition was used for the sake of the audience, instead of the investors. – [DVD]

Drama

Rated PG-13

DVD Release Date: 8/31/10

Caine plays an ex-serviceman living in a South London neighborhood where gangs of drug-pushing punks harass, beat and even kill the local citizenry. After they brutally murder his best friend, Caine decides to dispatch them himself, a sympathetic cop (Emily Mortimer) close on his trail.

This is one bleak movie. No one in it is happy, no one ever smiles and the punks are predictably nasty people. I also don’t recall seeing any actual sunshine. It’s either overcast, raining or nighttime. Mortimer walks around in a constant funk, and Caine’s character suffers not one, but two wrenching personal losses. He’s a miserable man.

I didn’t necessarily mind the solemn tone, but it does seem just a tad ridiculous to be so serious when your movie is about a 77-year-old man single-handedly blowing away scumbags. People expecting a proper British drama might get the wrong impression. I mean, this thing is violent. Junkies shoot up and punks get stabbed in the chest and shot in the neck or stomach as CGI blood spurts out.

Again, not complaining, and Caine does solid work, covering a number of emotional bases. He weeps at the loss of those closest to him, interrogates a punk by threatening to blow off his knees and, in the film’s lone light moment, gets to deliver a clever quip to the lowlife (Jack O’Connell, perfectly scummy) from whom he tries to buy a gun.

As well director Daniel Barber proves very capable in establishing mood, like how Caine moves zombie-like through his morning routine. And he generates superb suspense when Caine confronts a couple punks in the public underpass where the gangs congregate. Speaking of which, he makes that underpass–the film’s what’s-wrong-with-kids-today symbol–seem truly forbidding.

All in all, it’s not nearly as enjoyable as Gran Torino, but still makes for a respectable two hours. It wraps up with a fiery finale that features not only a weak plot twist, but a chance to laugh at Mortimer’s ridiculous late-in-the-game plea to Caine to stop the killing. If she’s what the British police force considers to be one of its smarter members, it’s no wonder Alfie started packing heat. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Crime/Drama/Thriller

Rated R

DVD Release Date: 8/31/10

This, in a nutshell, is the philosophy of novelist David Peace, a native of Yorkshire in England, whose series of books about crime and corruption are the base for this excellent trilogy, originally broadcast on the BBC. Peace is a progenitor of pulp, and obvious student of American crime writers Jim Thompson and James Ellroy. He has made a study of historical fiction, much like Ellroy, in taking true events from the past and making them his own. Fortunately, like those two, he also understands that the true nature of noir is, in fact, a nasty business mandating that, once the story is established, the downward spiral must commence soon after. His series of books, which make up the skeleton of Red Riding, are quick and to the point, consumed with sex and violence and written almost entirely as internal dialogues in an amphetamine rap. The challenge for writer Tony Grisoni in adapting these books into a plausible narrative was immense; as impressive as Peace’s novels are, it could be argued that Grisoni’s efforts are even more so, as he has effectively torn apart and reassembled the books into a compelling whole, crafting a haunting and brutal three part series about police corruption, murder, and the secrets a city will keep to maintain order.

I’m loath to give away much in the way of detail, as the trilogy needs to be experienced from the very beginning, in 1974, through to 1980, and finally finishing with 1983. Let it be known that the fulcrum of the story is a murdered child, a ten-year-old girl, who is found in a dump with swan’s wings crudely sewn into her back, which is the latest in a series of abductions which have plagued the city. The series begins as Eddie Dunford (Andrew Garfield), a son of York, returns to Leeds from London to work as a crime reporter on the local paper. He gets himself involved with the case, despite the efforts of both his editor and the police to keep him in the dark. A fellow reporter on the paper soon clues him in on the facts about life in Leeds; the local constabulary are utterly corrupt, using members of the force as thugs, and are in the pocket of one of the cities leading businessmen, John Dawson (Sean Bean), whose money speaks quite loudly.

The 1980 story drops us into the true story of the Yorkshire Ripper, a serial killer who the Leeds police have been unable to find after thirteen murders. A Manchester cop, Peter Hunter (Paddy Considine), is sent to Yorkshire to aid in the investigation, bringing with him two other officers, and also to quietly try to learn why it has taken the police so long to catch the killer. A particular murder, long attributed to the Ripper, catches Hunter’s eye, which leads him to suspect there is something afoot in the Leeds police department. Violence, arson and blackmail are all the tools of the trade of the Yorkshire force, which is united under the maxim “This is the North. We do what we want!”

Finally, 1983 shows the snake eating its tail, as another child abduction leads to intertwining investigations, one by Leeds detective Maurice Jobson (David Morrissey) who was on the original case, and one by local lawyer John Piggott (Mark Addy), who finds himself representing both the long-convicted Michael Myshkin and the now-suspected Leonard Cole. Guilt drives them both to discover the truth behind these child murders, and to finally bring the killers to justice.

There are a number of plot threads, characters and flashbacks which tie together each of the films, but I can’t possibly detail them all, nor should I. Suffice it to say that there are slags, corrupt cops, pornography, a medium, hard-drinking reporters, adulterers, murderers, grieving mothers and a young rent boy who seems to know everyone’s secrets. The acting is terrific throughout, from a number of faces familiar to viewers of British cinema and television. The leads in each film are all top-notch, with Garfield showing an impressive charisma akin to Ewan McGregor’s early days that would hopefully lead to better things, although the fact that he is playing Spider-Man next is very disappointing. Considine, Morrissey and Addy are all superb, and aided by Rebecca Hall, Sean Harris, Warren Clarke, Jim Carter, Daniel Mays and many others in providing small but indelibly portrayed characters. The three directors (Julian Jarrold, Anand Tucker and Man on Wire Oscar winner James Marsh) all present a dark, grimy menace to the proceedings, which offer impressive period pieces without relying on stylistic clichés. A word of warning, however. The dialogue is true to its surroundings of northern England, and at times it can be difficult to make out the dialect. As odd as it may sound, even for a series of films in English, the subtitles option may be a way to go.

Noir is a nasty business. Each of these films is dark, often cruel, violent and despairing. Which is how these things are supposed to go, you know. Much like the recent The Square, an Australian film which lays bare the bones of aberrant human behavior in exquisite detail, Red Riding offers little hope in the caverns of human nature, and remembers that it is the horror of man which should frighten us the most. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Crime/Drama/Mystery/Thriller

Unrated

DVD Release Date: 8/31/10

Andy Garcia

Garcia’s character, Vince Rizzo, and his family, consisting of domineering wife (Julianna Margulies), daughter-who-unbeknownst-to-the-rest-of-the-family-is-a-stripper (Dominik García-Lorido), and son-with-a-sexual-hang-up (Ezra Miller), are all dissatisfied and a bit lost in their lives (who isn’t?). Vince is so petrified by his wife’s constant haranguing, he can’t even tell her of his acting aspirations, much less the acting class he must sneak off to regularly. On top of this, his acting teacher, played by Alan Arkin, is of the old, old school of acting, and believes that Marlon Brando was a mumbler who didn’t know how to act, i.e., read the lines cleanly. This is obviously anathema to Vince, who not only loves Brando, but is of the loud Bronx school of self-expression himself. When Vince goes to a Martin Scorsese casting call, he must deal with both sides of the acting coin.

And speaking of acting methods, I initially bridled when hit not only with the gale force of the Bronx accents, but also the sheer lung capacity with which they were delivered. However, as I grew accustomed to it, it seemed much more natural to the environment and to the characters involved. If they had all been genteel, or even just plain old New Yorkers, they really wouldn’t have fit the milieu or the striving of the Bronx lower-middle-class.

As someone I know said recently, all the really good films these days are so depressing. Well perhaps so, but herein lies a remedy: City Island – a well-acted charmer, sure to please. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Comedy/Drama

Rated PG-13

DVD Release Date: 8/26/10

Written by Nash Edgerton and Matthew Dabner, it details how the life of a construction foreman (David Roberts) begins to rapidly unravel after the hairdresser (Claire van der Boom) with whom he’s having an affair brings him a bag full of cash and asks him to run away with her.

This is a thriller set on low simmer. There’s no breathless urgency, no flashy editing and barely any score. At times I wish it had one or all of those things, but Edgerton (who also directed) and Dabner do such a skillful job showing how neatly events escalate out of control for Roberts–including his accidentally committing murder more than once–that I ultimately didn’t mind.

It helps that the cast is relatively unknown, at least in the US. This goes especially for Roberts, who does a great job as an everyman in over his head in a desperate bid to a leave a lackluster marriage. He makes the man’s desperation and guilt perfectly palpable. Everyone else does decent work, including Edgerton’s brother Joel and Australian acting legend Bill Hunter in a colorful cameo.

Overall, it’s slightly better than your average mystery flick, lack of production values notwithstanding, and even features a brief but well-shot car chase and a superbly shocking finale. If you like it, check out The Bank or Lantana, a couple of excellent thrillers from Down Under that are decidedly more polished. – [DVD]

Drama/Thriller

Rated R

DVD Release Date: 8/24/10

Temple Grandin

HBO’s Temple Grandin, starring Claire Danes in the title role, offers us a glimpse of this life. It introduces its protagonist standing in the midst of a room that she reveals to be an optical illusion, giving us a taste of the visual trickery and humor the film uses, to great effect, in explaining how she perceives the world. It begins its story in the 1960’s, when Grandin first moved to Arizona to go to college and stay with her aunt and uncle at their cattle ranch. While at the ranch, she began to contemplate the world of livestock herds and how they were a reflection of cows’ evolution and perception of the world, which she carried into her later education and career. Her horror at the clumsy, inhumane design of cattle handling facilities inspired her to design her own devices and pens, taking advantage of her insight into animal psychology.

The film tells this story in a remarkably compelling and intelligent way. HBO has earned a reputation as a producer of some of the best biopics in years, including the two recent Winston Churchill films, The Gathering Storm and Into the Storm, and the epic John Adams miniseries. The director, Mick Jackson (L.A. Story), has a light but expressive touch here, finding a perfect balance between the intellectual fascination inherent in the story and the emotion and humor that grounds it in everyday reality. Danes is fantastic–she stands a fine chance of winning an Emmy and/or Golden Globe for her prickly, eccentric performance–and she is joined by a superb supporting cast. Catherine O’Hara is perfect as her smirking but indulgent aunt. Julia Ormond, always a welcome sight, expresses the hardships and fears faced by parents of autistic children without becoming a caricature herself. Best of all, perhaps, are the scenes with David Straithairn, who plays Grandin’s high school science teacher and mentor.

When I consider the emerging revolution in our understanding of neuroscience and human cognition, looking back to the 19th and 20th Centuries–when supposedly scientific crazes like phrenology and eugenics held sway–I can’t help but be relieved that such ideas have been debunked. As we are learning today, human genius can take many forms, even in ways that might once have been considered insurmountable disabilities. It’s valuable to have people like Temple Grandin to build a bridge from the minds of those with autism or Aspberger’s syndrome into the larger world. This film, apart from being entertaining as heck, does a remarkable job of building a bridge into her mind. After you watch it, you may catch yourself stopping to look at the local feedlots and their inhabitants with a renewed interest. Not many movies can manage that. – [DVD]

Biography/Drama

Rated PG

DVD Release Date: 8/17/10

The City of Your Final Destination

Merchant-Ivory films have always taken a critical shellacking and, admittedly, even their best ones, like A Room With a View and Howards End, are really only good dramas dressed up in period finery. But come on, how many films in 100+ years of film history are considered great art – a few hundred or perhaps a thousand? Isn’t there also room for good drama, acted to the hilt, with great attention paid to production design? I think the answer is an obvious yes, and Merchant-Ivory have provided such warm cocoons more than just a few times; they (or at least James Ivory and his other usual collaborator, writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala) do once again with City.

A professor of literature at C.U. is attempting to write an authorized biography of the South American writer Julius Gund. He must first obtain permission from Gund’s surviving family, and so he travels to Gund’s South American estate to meet them and get the signatures. This process makes for the bulk of the movie, and much beautifully shot (by Javier Aguirresarobe, who also shot Vicki Cristina Barcelona, with similar blacks and dark earth tones predominating) acting ensues. Anthony Hopkins as Gund’s brother, Laura Linney as his widow, and Charlotte Gainsbourg as his mistress, are all excellent, and obviously really enjoy acting in this small but involving drama.

Gainsbourg, especially, is terrific, in what is a departure for her. Directors have always seemed to equate her epicene looks with a brittle and scornful type of character (brought to full fruition in the not-yet-on-dvd Antichrist). In City, she is anything but this, playing a completely passive woman, who is made more interesting by this characteristic’s duality with the young writer’s passivity, especially when he is being dominated by his harridan of a girlfriend (played to the chilling hilt by Alexandra Maria Lara, of Downfall and Youth Without Youth). Gainsbourg’s character and the young writer are drawn to each other, as often happens when mirrored people meet.

Recommended as superior drama, as per usual from Merchant-Ivory productions, even without Merchant. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Drama

Rated PG-13

DVD Release Date: 8/17/10

Upon their arrival, they are greeted by their neighbors Larry (Gary Cole) and Summer (Glenne Headly). Summer wants to be welcoming and friendly, particularly if it gives her an edge in selling her own Avon-esque product line. Watching her launch into her awkward, rehearsed sales pitch to the Joneses, I was hard-pressed to know whether I was supposed to laugh or cry. Unfortunately, The Joneses spends a little too long reveling in the very lifestyle it means to satirize. Though it does quickly reveal that these people have flaws and yearnings that are incompatible with their objective (and could be alarming, even disturbing to anyone in the audience who isn’t in on the joke from the get-go), these character details are presented more as inconvenient liabilities than humanizing qualities.

The Joneses does succeed in illustrating how the desire for status symbols and novel possessions is unsustainable and self-defeating, but I can’t help thinking that it might have been more interesting if the title characters weren’t the protagonists. If the film had centered on Larry and Summer, the slow revelation of their new neighbors’ purpose would have been much more interesting and threatening, as it ought to be. Larry is the true embodiment of recession angst, not Steve. There was a lot of potential for this film to become a sort of inverted Truman Show, where instead of an appealing illusion built around a single genuine human individual, a group of genuine human individuals are infiltrated by a similarly appealing and dangerous influence. As nice as it is to see Duchovny and Moore again, I think I actually prefer when Jim Carrey dishes out the satire. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Comedy/Drama

Rated R

DVD Release Date: 8/10/10

Triage

Based on a book by war correspondent Scott Anderson, it’s set in 1988 and shows Irish photojournalist Farrell returning home far worse for wear from an assignment in Iraqi Kurdistan to the news that his best friend (Jamie Sives), who accompanied Farrell, has yet to return himself.

As directed by Danis Tanovic, who made 2001’s similarly-themed No Man’s Land, the film is more effective early on. We witness the horrors brought on by the Anfal Genocide instituted by Saddam Hussein’s regime–a Kurdish doctor (Branko Djuric) shoots wounded Kurdish rebels he can’t save–and watch as Farrell’s need to capture a meaningful shot leads to him nearly being killed.

The second half basically becomes Good Will Hunting for the war set, as Farrell suffers psychologically and his concerned girlfriend (the beautiful Vega) reluctantly asks her grandfather (Lee), a psychiatrist during Franco’s reign of Spain, to find out why. And we discover that, indeed, something major is gnawing away at Farrell.

Farrell’s much better in the first half, by the way, energetic and reckless, prodding his friend for them to stay just one more day so he can get that prize-worthy picture. He’s less successful at showing his character’s pain later on, but he also doesn’t embarrass himself. I still think his best work is in the excellent In Bruges and the decade-old Tigerland.

As the doctor, Djuric (who starred in No Man’s Land) overshadows Farrell, despite far less screen time. His character’s a compassionate, soft-spoken man doing the best he can medically with the pitifully few resources he has. His use of blue and yellow strips to determine who can be saved and who can’t makes for the tensest moment in the movie.

Lee’s the best thing about the film, though, and it’s great to see him in a non-genre role. He apparently had to learn more dialogue for his part here than for anything else he’s done, and the effort pays off. He’s absolutely amazing to watch, Spanish accent and all, be it defending his Franco-era work to Vega, or, in the film’s best shot, telling fellow survivor Farrell that he “must bury the dead.” – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Drama/War

Rated R

DVD Release Date: 8/10/10

But, I’m getting ahead of myself.

There have been any number of political thrillers released in the last few years, the culmination of the ‘lost years’ of America, where the Bush administration, and its allies in England, have come in for a right kicking over any number of right-wing policies. Most of the results have been fairly lukewarm, either due to an institutional timidity, or a teeth-grinding stridency which has led to any number of well-meaning films left to die, unwanted and unloved, in the bargain bins of history.

Fortunately, last year, the British film In the Loop, used the microscope of satire to finally put a cinematic stamp on much of the shenanigans of the last decade. Now, as a sort of sidekick, we have The Ghost Writer, an extremely expert and engaging political mystery based on a pulpy book entitled “The Ghost”, which was written entirely as a sort of kidney punch to the legacy of former England Prime Minister Blair, fictionalized on the page and on the screen as Adam Lang, portrayed with keen gusto by Pierce Brosnan as a mixed drink of Blair and his blueprint, Bill Clinton.

Lang, we learn, has been ridden out of England on a rail, after his support for the War on Terror proves to be untenable in a country long tired of being America’s pet beagle. He has landed in a compound off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard with his wife, Ruth (an icy, and excellent, Olivia Williams), his assistant Amelia Bly (Kim Cattrall, somehow cast as an Englishwoman, and somehow pulling it off just fine), and his auld acquaintance, and ghostwriter, Mike McAra. As the story begins, we learn that McAra is now, in fact, dead. He has apparently drowned, and his body washed up on the beach. This, naturally, means that another ghostwriter is needed, and he soon appears in the form of Ewan McGregor, a failed novelist who makes a living knocking off the sort of quick buck projects that support much of the publishing world. McGregor’s character is a man seemingly without an island of his own. We never learn his name, he has no family to speak of, and he is assigned the task of fixing another man’s work, as McAra’s manuscript is finished but needs to be re-written to the more exacting demands of Lang’s publisher.

Soon after McGregor arrives, Lang learns that he is to be accused of war crimes by his former Foreign Secretary, Robert Rycart, with calls for him to be tried in the International Court. Lang’s attorney then informs him that he will have to remain in America, since, as Henry Kissinger gratefully appreciates, the U.S. doesn’t acknowledge the jurisdiction of the Hague. The pressure is now on not only Lang, but McGregor as well, as his publisher wants the book in a month to take advantage of the media attention, which daily surrounds the house along with political protesters.

Initially a disinterested party, the ghostwriter sets to work on fixing up the manuscript, when he begins to discover clues relating to his predecessor’s investigations, which may or may not have led to his untimely demise. It is our protagonist’s wont to attempt to untangle the many tendrils of not only Lang’s political origins, but of McAra’s demise. This leads him up and down the Vineyard on a snipe hunt that may, or may not, reveal the truth as he meets an assortment of characters with a story to tell. But, as the ghostwriter learns more and more, we are left to ask ‘What does it mean?”

Roman Polanski, who knows a thing or two about international persecution, masterfully culls all of this together into a taut and delightful thriller, something else that he knows a bit about, having directed some of the darkest mysteries of the last 50 years, starting in 1962 with Knife in the Water. Polanski is able to use a cast of waiver wire pickups (Cattrall, Jim Belushi, Eli Wallach), veteran pros (Brosnan, Williams, Tom Wilkinson), and a once-prized prospect who never quite made it big (McGregor), combined with a best-selling novel, and enough barely-disguised winks towards the recent past (picking out the villains of the decade can be done as a parlor game, if you so choose) to earn comparisons to brilliant echoes of the genre like Parallax View and The Manchurian Candidate. Polanski’s long-standing refusal to find silver linings for his characters blissfully remains intact, which leads to my favorite ending to a movie in a long time, and makes The Ghost Writer, much to my surprise, my favorite movie of the year so far.

How Tony Blair feels about it, we can only guess. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Drama/Mystery/Thriller

Rated PG-13

DVD Release Date: 8/3/10