45 Years

I've had a lot going on this week and I really needed to unwind a little bit last night so I decided to see 45 Years at my favorite art house theater.  It is the anatomy of a long and happy marriage in crisis and it is brilliant!  Geoff (Tom Courtenay) and Kate Mercer (Charlotte Rampling) are about to celebrate their 45th wedding anniversary with a lavish party when Geoff receives the news that a former girlfriend's body has been found in a melting glacier in Switzerland.  Katya, the girlfriend, had been killed while she and Geoff had been hiking together over fifty years ago and he was listed as her next of kin.  Kate reacts to the news with equanimity but soon becomes consumed with jealousy as Geoff begins reminiscing about his romance with Katya, including sneaking up to the attic in the middle of the night to look at photos of her.  In an incredibly powerful scene, Kate goes up to the attic when Geoff isn't home to look at the photos for herself.  Kate eventually confronts Geoff, in another highly charged scene, and they appear to reconcile.  He buys her a beautiful necklace for their anniversary and gives a loving tribute to her at their party but the ending of the film left me absolutely shattered!  I haven't been able to stop thinking about it!  It is an incredible, but devastating, exploration of two people who have spent their lives together but don't really know each other at all.  Their relationship is depicted by their daily routine during the six days leading up to their party (with intertitles designating the days).  It is so well done!  Although very little happens in the film, the tension increases little by little every day until the aforementioned confrontation and I was quite unsettled while watching it.  Courtenay is superb as a man driven to distraction by his memories and Rampling just might be a dark horse contender in the race for the Best Actress Oscar (you can read my commentaries on the other nominees Saoirse Ronan, Cate Blanchett, and Brie Larson) for her subtle, yet nuanced, performance.  Her close-up at the end of the movie alone is worthy of an Oscar!  This movie might not appeal to everyone but I found it to be very compelling.

Anomalisa

I have been so intrigued by this movie and I finally had the opportunity to see it last night.  Anomalisa is a brilliant tale about loneliness and existential angst using stop-motion animation.  Michael Stone (voiced by David Thewlis) is a motivational speaker who has traveled to Cincinnati for a conference.  We see him painfully avoid conversations with a seatmate on a flight, with a cab driver, with the bellboy at his hotel, and even with his wife and son during an awkward phone call.  He is so lonely that, in a fit of desperation, he arranges a rendezvous with a former girlfriend that ends in disaster.  Then he meets Lisa (voiced by Jennifer Jason Leigh), a sales-rep who has splurged on this conference just for the chance to meet Michael.  Even though she is plain and unsophisticated, he sees her as a breath of fresh air in his dismal life, the one person he has been waiting his whole life to meet, and invites her up to his hotel room (for one of the most interesting sex scenes you will ever see involving puppets).  He feels a deep connection and actually proposes that they run away together but, eventually, she becomes like everyone else and he ends up returning home to his boring life in Los Angeles.  One of the most intriguing aspects of this movie is that every character, other than Michael and Lisa, has the same voice (Tom Noonan) which highlights why Lisa is so special to Michael, an "anomaly" if you will.  When Michael becomes disenchanted with Lisa, her voice becomes Noonan's as well.  At first I found the use of one voice for all of the minor characters to be disconcerting but it ends up being an incredibly powerful device.  It is a beautiful and heartbreaking commentary on our desire for human connection that I haven't been able to stop thinking about.  I highly recommend it with the proviso that it might not be for everyone (the aforementioned sex scene is quite graphic).

Carol

I went to see Carol Sunday afternoon because Cate Blanchett's performance has garnered quite a bit of Oscar buzz but I left the theater completely blown away by Rooney Mara!  The film begins with a man interrupting a conversation fraught with tension between Therese (Mara) and Carol (Blanchett) and then flashes back to their first meeting to tell the story of how the two women got to that point (not a very original framing device but effective enough).  Therese is a young and naive woman who aspires to be a photographer but is temporarily working at a department store for the holidays in New York during the 1950s.  She has a sweet boyfriend who want to marry her but she is unsure of her feelings.  Carol, a beautiful and wealthy suburbanite going through a messy divorce, comes into the department store to buy a Christmas present for her daughter.  Therese helps her and, when Carol accidentally leaves her gloves on the counter, she retrieves her information from the sales slip and returns the gloves.  This leads to lunch, then a friendship, and then a passionate affair.  The nature of the relationship between Therese and Carol is the exact opposite of what I was expecting!  I thought that Therese would be the pursuer, leading Carol to completely disrupt the seemingly perfect life she had with her husband and daughter but Carol, who has had relationships with other women before, is the aggressor and she overwhelms the innocent Therese with just a smoldering glance.  I loved two things about the story.  First, neither woman is ashamed of the relationship, even in the repressive 1950s, and Carol refuses to admit that her homosexuality is wrong just for the sake of winning custody of her daughter.  Second, the relationship doesn't move forward until Therese becomes Carol's equal.  She lives on her own, begins a successful career in photography, and then chooses to be with Carol.  It is a compelling narrative that is beautifully told.  The production design and costumes perfectly capture the elegance of the 1950s and I thought the repeated use of the color red, especially against the stark white of winter, is particularly effective in portraying the vibrancy of the two women.  I loved the score because it is moody, atmospheric, and emotional.  Of course both Blanchett and Mara give incredible performances.  Blanchett is absolutely luminous and conveys more with just one look across a crowded room than many actresses do with pages of dialogue.  However, I was particularly impressed with Mara's ability to portray Therese's innocence and vulnerability (especially since my only exposure to her was as the antisocial hacker Lisbeth Salander in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo).  The scene where she silently cries on the train is incredibly affecting.  The Oscar buzz surrounding this movie is entirely justified and I recommend it.

Hitchcock/Truffaut

I have long considered Alfred Hitchcock to be one of my very favorite directors.  I watched many of his movies at a young age late at night on public television.  I had a small black and white TV in my room and, when I couldn't sleep at 2:00 in the morning, my only option was public television (this was back in the day when there were very few channels and many of them signed off at midnight!).  I was introduced to a lot of wonderful old movies in this manner but Hitchcock's made a lasting impression, particularly Notorious, Spellbound, Rebecca, and North By Northwest.  My first exposure to Francois Truffaut was, ironically, as an actor in Steven Spielberg's blockbuster Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which is a favorite!  I was very taken with his performance as a scientist investigating extraterrestrials and it was my Dad who told me that he was a famous director.  Of course, I have since become a fan of his movies, especially Day for Night.  What happens when one of the founders of the French New Wave meets with the Master of Suspense for one week to talk about the latter's entire body of work?  You get a groundbreaking book, published in 1966, considered by many filmmakers to be, not only a masterpiece, but a blueprint for the craft.  You also get a fascinating documentary by Kent Jones, which I had the chance to see last night, wherein he uses the films of both Hitchcock and Truffaut to illustrate the points mentioned in their epic conversations, which were recorded, with particular emphasis on Vertigo and Psycho.  Jones also interviews many of my favorite contemporary directors, such as Wes Anderson, David Fincher, Richard Linklatter, Olivier Assayas, Peter Bogdanovich, and Martin Scorsese, who talk about the effect the book, and Hitchcock's movies, had on them as filmmakers.  That they are effusive in their praise, which is interesting but gets to be a bit much, is to be expected;  however, it is incredibly compelling when they analyze specific scenes, especially when Fincher talks about Vertigo ("It's so perverted.") and Scorsese talks about Psycho.  I enjoyed this documentary immensely because it reminded me of why I love Hitchcock's movies and I think it is a must-see for any film lover.

The Danish Girl

I am a huge fan of Eddie Redmayne!  The one tear that falls down his face in his portrayal of Marius during "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables" in the movie version of Les Miserables just about kills me and his physical transformation as Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything is nothing short of spectacular.  When I saw a still of him as Lili Elbe during the filming of The Danish Girl last year, I was very intrigued and I couldn't wait to see the film.  It was released on Christmas Day and I had the chance to see it yesterday.  It tells the real life story of the Danish landscape painter Einar Wegener who underwent the first gender reassignment surgery in the 1930s.  Redmayne portrays the tortured Wegener as he comes to terms with the fact that he is a woman trapped in a man's body and Alicia Vikander plays his wife Gerda, who is also a painter.  When a model does not show up for a sitting, Gerda asks Einar to pose for her wearing stockings, ballet slippers, and a silk dress.  Einar enjoys the feeling of the silk and begins to wear Gerda's clothing.  At first, Gerda encourages this because it heightens their physical relationship.  Considering it a bit of fun, they create the persona of Lili whom Gerda dresses and coaches on how to appear as a woman (in some amusing scenes).  Gerda and "Lili" attend a ball but the game loses its appeal for Gerda when she sees Lili kissing another man (Ben Whishaw).  Einar continues to dress as Lili behind Gerda's back but finally breaks down in an incredibly charged scene and confesses to her that he feels more alive as Lili.  Gerda struggles to support Einar in his decision to become a woman because she loves him and wants him to be happy but she knows that it will mean losing her husband.  Her struggle is further compounded by the fact that her paintings of Lili have become the toast of Paris.  She needs Lili to be her muse but she wants Einar to be her husband.  It is a beautiful love story with incredible performances.  Redmayne, once again, undergoes a complete physical transformation for this role particularly when Lili stares into a mirror and practices feminine gestures.  You literally cannot take your eyes off him!  Vikander, whom I am beginning to respect more and more, is incredibly sympathetic as Gerda and her journey is just as compelling as Lili's.  I found her performance to be deeply affecting, especially when Gerda begs Lili to let Einar come back to her.  It is a lavish period piece filled with beautiful interiors juxtaposed with shots of Copenhagen, Paris, and Dresden, gorgeous costumes, and an evocative soundtrack by Alexandre Desplat.  It is very slow moving (there are a lot of scenes with Lili practicing gestures in a mirror, including one with full-frontal nudity) and it is sometimes difficult to watch, especially when doctors describe Einar as perverted and want to commit him and when he is attacked, but it is compelling, nonetheless.  It is not for everyone but I highly recommend it as a beautiful film with stellar performances.

Macbeth

If I had to pick a favorite Shakespeare play, Macbeth would definitely be at the top of the list (along with The Merchant of Venice) so I have been looking forward to Justin Kurzel's latest adaptation of the Scottish play for what seems like the longest time!  I got to see it last night and I was mesmerized by it.  When it comes to Shakespeare, I am definitely a purist (Hello, I am an English teacher!) and I do not like it when directors get too artistic and do things like set Julius Caesar during World War I or Romeo and Juliet during the 1950s.  While the filmmakers did take a few liberties with the source material (more about that later), I loved the fact that they remained unfailingly true to the time and place, medieval Scotland, with some of the most realistic medieval warfare I have ever seen (more about that later, too).  The bloody tale of ambition and guilt begins when Macbeth (Michael Fassbender), victorious in battle for King Duncan (David Thewlis), is confronted by three apparitions on the battlefield who reveal that Macbeth will be the Thane of Cawdor and then the King of Scotland.  When the King grants him the title of Cawdor, he is spurred on by his ambitious wife (Marion Cotillard) to kill the King and take the crown, thereby fulfilling the prophecy.  Eventually, they are both undone by their paranoia and guilt over their bloody deeds.  This adaptation focuses on the fact that Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are childless as motivation for many of their actions (which Shakespeare hints at but does not explicitly state), beginning the film with the burial of their dead child and having Lady Macbeth's "sleepwalking" soliloquy directed to the ghost of the child, and I found this to be highly effective.  The "weird sisters" are portrayed as spectral figures and much of their dialogue is omitted (no cauldrons with the eye of a newt, either) but they are terrifying, nonetheless.  Other changes include having Malcolm (Jack Reynor) witness the death of his father before fleeing in fear, having Lady Macbeth witness the deaths of Macduff's (Sean Harris) family, and having the Birnam Wood come to Dunsinane as ashes (which is absolutely brilliant).  Fassbender is astonishing in this role, giving an incredibly nuanced performance as Macbeth becomes more and more tortured by guilt.  I was especially impressed with the scene with Lady Macbeth after his coronation when he first mentions his guilt.  The one tear rolling down his face just about killed me.  Cotillard is also amazing as Lady Macbeth and I was particularly struck by her strength in the Ghost of Banquo scene (with her eerie blue eye paint) and her absolute vulnerability in the "sleepwalking" scene.  These two performances make this movie a must-see, in my opinion.  The cinematography is incredible, with many of the battle scenes suffused with a red glow which is quite unnerving.  In fact, much of the film's impact is visual, as quite a bit of Shakespeare's original text is condensed.  I loved the immediacy of the battle scenes, almost as if the audience is a part of the action.  It is gruesome, to say the least, but you cannot look away. The stark beauty of the Scottish highlands is used to full effect, the costumes are surprisingly sparse but very appropriate for the time period, and the score is atmospheric and intense.   I loved it!  To be sure, this adaptation does not follow the source material as much as I would have liked, but I was captivated by the performances and would highly recommend it.

Note:  One of the employees at the Broadway told me (yes, I go there so much that all of the employees know me and talk to me) that reactions were mixed on opening day.  People either loved it or hated it!

Youth

Last night I had the opportunity to attend a free advance screening of Youth, a film by Italian director Paolo Sorrentino.  Fred Ballinger (Michael Caine) and Mick Boyle (Harvey Keitel) are long time friends vacationing at a luxury spa in the Swiss Alps.  Fred, a well known composer and conductor, is being lured out of retirement by an emissary of Queen Elizabeth to play at Prince Philip's birthday celebration but he repeatedly turns down the offer.  Mick is working with a group of young writers to develop the screenplay for his next film which will only be financed if Brenda Morel (Jane Fonda), an actress he discovered, agrees to star in it.  They share the resort with a group of eccentric characters, including a young actor (Paul Dano) who is trying desperately to be taken seriously after playing a robot, Miss Universe (Madalina Diana Ghenea), an overweight former soccer star (Roly Serrano) who is never named but modeled on Diego Maradona, and Fred's daughter Lena (Rachel Weisz) who has recently been dumped by her husband Julian (Ed Stoppard), who happens to be Mick's son.  The story is told through a series of vignettes, some of which are absolutely hilarious and some profoundly sad, as Fred and Mick reflect on their lives, their regrets, and their uncertain futures.  The theme is developed very slowly but, ultimately, the characters learn that they must live life to the fullest.  There are so many things that I loved in this film: the series of horrible performers at the resort each evening, the cameo of European pop star Paloma Faith (playing herself) as the woman who steals Julian away from Lena, all of the swans made of towels, a couple who never speak to each other until they are surreptitiously observed by Fred and Mick in an intimate moment, the Queen's emissary literally begging Fred to come out of retirement, and the young actor playing Hitler at breakfast.  I laughed and laughed through most of the film but it is quirky and a bit unsettling (think Fellini), particularly the many scenes of bored people mechanically participating in activities at the resort.  There is also a fair amount of nudity which may be off-putting for some.  However, Caine and Keitel give incredibly affecting performances in a beautifully crafted film.  It is most definitely not for everyone but I certainly enjoyed it!

Spotlight

I'm not a big fan of Black Friday shopping because I don't like crowds.  I decided to see a movie instead but, ironically, I think half of SLC had the same idea!  The Broadway Theatre was just as packed with people as any mall!  Luckily, I chose to see Spotlight, which is one of the best movies I've seen this year, so it was worth waiting in the long line in the frigid cold to buy tickets!   This film portrays The Boston Globe's investigation of the sexual abuse of children by priests and the cover up of these crimes by the Catholic church.   The new editor of The Boston Globe, Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber), wonders why the paper hasn't written much about the sex abuse case against a defrocked priest and assigns the Spotlight team to investigate.  The Spotlight editor, Walter "Robby" Robinson (Michael Keaton), reluctantly agrees.  Michael Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo) interviews the mercurial attorney for the victim (a brilliant Stanley Tucci) and discovers hundreds more victims while Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams) interviews the prosecutor (Billy Crudup) and learns that the Catholic church has settled multiple cases against many more priests out of court in return for confidentiality.  Furthermore, researcher Matt Carroll (Brian D'Arcy James) learns that the majority of these priests have merely been moved to new parishes rather than removed from the priesthood.  As the team pours through clippings, reads endless directories, and knocks on doors looking for potential witnesses, the suspense builds and builds until it is almost unbearable.  The story is much more than a procedural drama because each of the members of Spotlight must grapple with how these revelations affect their own faith and it is very compelling.  The ensemble cast is absolutely incredible!  Lately, I'm becoming more and more impressed with Michael Keaton and Liev Schreiber.  This thought-provoking film is getting quite a bit of Oscar buzz and I highly recommend seeing it!

Room

Last night I went to see the film adaptation of Emma Donoghue's best-selling novel, Room (which my book club read several years ago).  It is extraordinary!  Joy (Brie Larson), a young woman who was abducted at age 17, has been held captive in a tiny garden shed for seven years with her five-year-old son Jack (Jacob Tremblay), who was fathered by her captor.  Despite the horror of her situation, she teaches Jack that the shed, which she calls Room, is the entire world and that everything in it is a friend.  When her captor reveals that he has lost his job and that he might lose his house, Joy realizes that she must take action to save Jack and tries to teach him about the outside world.  When they are rescued, Jack is completely overwhelmed by the world and everyone and everything in it and struggles with things as simple as climbing stairs.  However, as Jack becomes more and more confident in the world, Joy finds it difficult to reconcile the past seven years with her new life.   This movie is sometimes very unsettling to watch but it is also a beautiful story about a mother's love for her child (It reminded me a lot of the film Life is Beautiful where a father turns life in a concentration camp into an adventure for his son).  Both Larson and Tremblay give unbelievable performances, which are certain to be remembered during awards season, and I also really enjoyed Joan Allen's performance as Joy's mother, especially in her scenes with Jack.   The cinematography is very striking, particularly the dingy close-up shots which emphasize the claustrophobia of the shed juxtaposed with the wide and empty shots of the outside world.  While the novel is completely from the perspective of five-year-old Jack, this adaptation does a good job capturing his shifts in understanding (Donoghue also wrote the screenplay).  I would highly recommend this tense and psychological drama.

Note:  At this screening I saw the first preview for The Danish Girl.  I think I'm more excited to see it than the new Star Wars movie!

Suffragette

Every year I teach the memoir Night by Elie Wiesel to my sophomores.  I am always amazed at their intense reaction to this book.  I sometimes think that my students know, intellectually, that the Holocaust happened but they don't really have an understanding of how it actually affected real people until they read about Elie's first-hand experiences in a concentration camp.  Last night I went to see the movie Suffragette and, like my students, I feel like I had an intellectual understanding of the fight for women's suffrage but I didn't really know the horror of what these women went through until I saw events depicted on the big screen.  This movie was a visceral experience for me.  The story revolves around Maud Watts (Carey Mulligan), a young woman who works in deplorable conditions at a laundry earning much less than her male counterparts.  She learns of the women's suffrage movement from her co-workers and eventually becomes caught up in the cause.  As she becomes more involved, she endures social ostracism, the loss of her job, and the loss of her family.  It is heartbreaking to see, especially when her husband takes away her son, and I was horrified at the treatment many women received in prison, particularly when they are force-fed during a hunger strike.  These events were so upsetting to me that I actually had tears in my eyes for much of the movie.  Mulligan gives an incredible performance as Maud and Helena Bonham Carter is perfect as a fellow suffragette.  Bonham Carter plays so many eccentric characters that it is easy to forget that she is an exceptionally talented actress.  Ben Whishaw was very effective as Sonny, Maud's husband, because I hated him by the end of the movie (I like him better as Q).  I found it a bit odd that Meryl Streep had less than five minutes of screen time as Emmeline Pankhurst, a noted real-life leader of the movement, because she was featured so heavily in the marketing of the movie.  Many critics feel that the narrative is, at times, very heavy-handed.   However, I feel that the honest depiction of the struggle was necessary to show someone like me that I shouldn't take my very privileged life for granted.  I highly recommend this movie, especially to young women.

Note:  I have never enjoyed being told what to do so I feel sure that, had I lived during this time period, I would have been a suffragette!

Pawn Sacrifice

Last Thursday night I went to see the film Pawn Sacrifice at the Broadway.  It tells the true story of the epic chess tournament between American Bobby Fischer and Russian Boris Spassky during the height of the Cold War through the filter of Fischer's mental illness.  Tobey Maguire gives an incredibly nuanced performance (one of his best performances in years) as Fischer, a man who becomes incapacitated by his own paranoid delusions as government officials use him to score a victory over the Soviets in the wake of the Vietnam debacle.  Maguire portrays all of Fischer's eccentricities, such as demanding a match be moved because he can hear the sound of the television cameras, trashing his hotel room because he is certain that it is bugged, and battling reporters at the airport, without overshadowing the pathos of his isolation.  I was particularly struck by a scene showing Fischer cowering in a corner of his apartment tormented by the sound of the footsteps of people coming and going in the hall.  I also enjoyed Liev Schreiber's performance as Spassky because he was able to show both vulnerability and respect for Fischer's ability, especially in Game 6 when he concedes the match to Fischer. Their strong performances as men who were, themselves, used as chess pieces by their respective governments were compelling enough to make me invested in the outcome of a match conducted in near silence.  I, like many people in my screening, cheered when Fischer won!  The constant use of actual footage from coverage of the matches (there is a Forrest Gump moment with Dick Cavett) got old and the pop culture montages (especially the one with Jefferson Airplane's White Rabbit) interspersed here and there were a bit cliched.  However, I would definitely recommend this film as a compelling biopic about a complicated man.

The Diary of a Teenage Girl

On Sunday night my weekend film trifecta was complete when I saw The Diary of a Teenage Girl.  In my opinion, seeing three movies in three nights is a perfect way to spend your time!  I saw Diary of a Teenage Girl at Sundance this year but I wanted to see it again because it is incredibly powerful with an astonishing performance by Bel Powley.  Minnie Goetze (Powley) is a typical teenager who enjoys drawing comics and lives in San Francisco during the late 1970s.  Her mother Charlotte (Kristen Wiig) is a party girl and leaves her to her own devices most of the time and her father is not in her life.  One evening, as she is roughhousing with her mother's boyfriend Monroe (Alexander Skarsgard), she inadvertently gets him aroused and feels a tremendous sense of power by her ability to excite him.  She then pursues him and loses her virginity to him.  They have an on-again off-again affair because Monroe knows what they are doing is wrong but can't seem to help himself.  Minnie really enjoys her new-found sexuality and begins a relationship with a boy at school and even pretends to be a prostitute to make Monroe jealous.  When she receives a response to a fan letter from Aline Kominsky encouraging her to continue drawing comics, she realizes that she has more to offer than just her body and says goodbye to Monroe.  I love so many things about this movie!  Minnie narrates the story into a tape recorder as an audio diary so we hear everything from her perspective, including all of her teenage delusions about love, her insecurities, and her inconsistencies.  I love that no one rescues Minnie from her behavior.  She sees for herself that she is not emotionally ready for a sexual relationship and that Monroe is weak and not worthy of her.  Powley, who is in every scene, is absolutely brilliant as Minnie and her portrayal is real and honest.  I loved the 1970s rock and roll soundtrack and the art direction is fabulous (her house has a sort of Wes Anderson vibe to it).  Some people may object to the subject matter (there is a lot of sex and nudity in this movie) but Minnie's journey is ultimately so empowering, especially for girls, that I would highly recommend it.

Meru

While waiting in line for screenings at Sundance I had some amazing conversations about independent film with people from all over the country.  Inevitably, I would ask them about their favorite films from the festival and, more often than not, people would mention Meru.  I didn't know anything about this documentary but when I saw a trailer for it a few weeks ago, I immediately remembered these conversations and decided that I needed to see it.  As I mentioned, I tried to see it last Friday but it sold out all day because Jimmy Chin, one of the filmmakers, was giving a Q&A after each screening.  (Now that I've seen the film, I'm a little bummed that I missed hearing him talk about it).  I tried again on Saturday night and, I'm happy to report, I was successful.  The documentary is literally breathtaking and I found the story of the climb to be not only inspiring but also extremely compelling.  Meru follows climbers Conrad Anker, Renan Ozturk, and the aforementioned Jimmy Chin as they attempt to be the first to conquer the Shark's Fin on Meru Peak near the mouth of the Ganges River in India.  Interspersed with spectacular footage of the actual climb (shot, unbelievably, by Chin and Ozturk as they climbed) are interviews with the climbers and their loved ones telling the backstory of what led each of them to attempt something so dangerous as well as narration from Jon Krakauer, author of Into Thin Air (which I have my sophomores read), about the specifics of big-wall climbing in the Himalayas.  All three of them are fighting inner demons and are almost obsessed with conquering a peak so challenging that Krakauer says that it's not meant to be climbed.  There are moments when they are in genuine peril and I found myself holding my breath!  When asked about why climbers put their bodies through so much, Anker answers, "The view, man.  The view."  The view from my seat at the Broadway was absolutely amazing so I can only imagine what it must have been like at the top.  Do not miss this epic adventure!

Note:  Meru won the U.S. Documentary Audience Award at Sundance this year.  Good stuff!

Mistress America

There are three films that I want to see at the Broadway this week (and another opening next week).  Last night I went there fully intending to see the documentary Meru, which was at the top of my list, but it was completely sold out because Jimmy Chin, one of the co-directors, was giving a Q&A after the screening.  I quickly defaulted to Mistress America, the second film on my list.  It is absolutely hilarious!  It is a madcap screwball comedy where eccentric characters find themselves in crazy situations with lots of fast paced dialogue.  I laughed and laughed!  Tracy (Lola Kirke) is a lonely college freshman who is finding her first semester to be a disappointment, especially when she is rejected by the literary magazine.  Her mother suggests that she call her soon-to-be stepsister, Brooke (Greta Gerwig), and she immediately finds herself in Brooke's orbit.  Tracy is enchanted by the free-spirited and flamboyant Brooke but eventually realizes that she is full of plans and ideas which never come to fruition, such as running a restaurant/hair salon.  Tracy writes a short story about Brooke's life (titled Mistress America after a superhero character created by Brooke), which is finally accepted by the literary magazine, but it causes a rift in their relationship.  Gerwig gives a fantastic performance, playing Brooke with a frenetic energy that is fun to watch.  The film is full of witty dialogue, giving Gerwig, who co-wrote the screenplay, the opportunity to display her almost perfect comedic timing (my favorite line is, "He's one of those people that I hate, except that I'm in love with him.")  The supporting characters are also a lot of fun, especially Mamie-Claire (Heather Lind), Brooke's arch-nemesis and former best friend who stole one of her ideas (and her fiance).  This is the perfect film for a fun night out with friends and I really enjoyed it.

The End of the Tour

This weekend my sister and I packed up my entire house!  This included 18 medium boxes of paperback books and 14 large boxes of hardbound books!  Why do I have so many books?  By the time Sunday rolled around, not only did every muscle in my body hurt, but I was in serious need of a distraction.  I ended up at the Broadway, my usual Sunday night destination (although I went to the early show because I am now in school), to see yet another movie that I tried, unsuccessfully, to see at Sundance.  I had heard so many great things about The End of the Tour so I was very eager to see it.  David Lipsky (Jesse Eisenberg) is assigned to write a profile of the author David Foster Wallace (Jason Segel) for Rolling Stone.  He joins Wallace for the last five days of his 1996 book tour for the epic novel Infinite Jest (which I tried, unsuccessfully, to read several years ago) and records their conversations.  The movie opens 12 years later with Lipsky hearing the news that Wallace has killed himself and then flashes back to the tour as Lipsky listens to the tapes.  Believe it or not, this film is quite riveting, despite the fact that much of it involves two men talking, because the two men are so complicated.  Wallace just wants to be an ordinary guy and worries that fame will turn him into the very thing he criticizes in his novels.  Lipsky is an ordinary guy and wants nothing more than to be a famous writer.  He is in awe of Wallace but Wallace knows that it it is only the persona of "famous writer" that he admires.  Both men are desperately lonely and are immediately drawn to each other, bonding over junk food, but they inevitably become combative in their roles as "interviewer" and "interviewee."  It is an intense examination of loneliness, fame, depression, and popular culture and I couldn't look away from the screen!  Both Segel and Eisenberg give extraordinary performances.  I was particularly impressed with Segel because I am not a fan of much of his previous work (I am an absolute snob when it comes to TV) and I underestimated him!   I sometimes grow weary of Eisenberg's twitchy-talk-as-fast-as-you-can-in-a-monotone-voice characterization but it works in this role. The soundtrack is fabulous and features a score by Danny Elfman and songs by R.E.M.  (I think all soundtracks should feature R.E.M.).  I'm not sure that this movie is for everyone, but I found it fascinating!

Note:  After I see Meru and Mistress America, which both come out next weekend at the Broadway, I think I will have checked off everything on my Sundance wish list!

Ten Thousand Saints

Last night I had my final late night excursion to the Broadway Theatre before school starts and the film I chose to see was Ten Thousand Saints.  It generated a lot of buzz at Sundance this year and I tried, unsuccessfully, to get tickets.  I didn't worry because I knew that it would eventually be screened at the Broadway (like The End of the Tour, another film I really wanted to see, which opens next weekend).  This film is partly a bittersweet coming-of-age story about three troubled teenagers and partly a love letter to a New York City that doesn't exist any more and I loved it!   The plot revolves around a boy named Teddy (Avan Jogia) who ODs on cocaine on New Year's Eve and how his death affects his best friend Jude (Asa Butterfield), his brother Johnny (Emile Hirsch), a lead singer in a hardcore punk band, and Eliza (Hailee Steinfeld), a girl with whom he had a one night stand and is now pregnant with his baby.  They come together in the East Village during the late 80s, when writers, artists, musicians, drug dealers, and squatters all inhabited the iconic neighborhood before the yuppies invaded (in fact, a pivotal scene takes place during the Tompkins Square Park Riot when police used force to remove the homeless), to form a surrogate family for Eliza's baby.  Ethan Hawke plays Les, Jude's drug-dealing father, and Emily Mortimer plays Diane, Eliza's uptight prima ballerina mother who happens to be Les' girlfriend.  Les is a character similar to the one Hawke played in Boyhood but it doesn't matter because he is just so good at it!  He has some of the best lines in the film and I laughed and laughed when his ex-wife calls to see where Jude is and then Diane calls on the other line to see where Eliza is and, since neither one is there, he simply hangs up the phone!   All of the actors give wonderful performances, particularly Hailee Steinfeld.  She is something else!  I loved how the filmmakers painstakingly reproduced the East Village of the late 80s, especially a scene of Johnny's band playing at CBGB, a night club where the Ramones, Blondie, and Talking Heads once played.  I also really loved the scenes in the Krishna Temple!  I sometimes attend the SLC Krishna Temple and these scenes just made me happy.  Finally, the soundtrack is amazing, filled with atmospheric music from the 80s such as "Sixteen Blue" (sigh) from The Replacements and "Talk About the Passion" from R.E.M.  Good stuff!  It is a wonderfully nostalgic movie that will make all of my fellow Gen Xers laugh and cry!

Note:  Emile Hirsch got into a bit of trouble while he was in Park City promoting this film at Sundance!

Irrational Man

I am not a huge fan of Woody Allen (other than Midnight in Paris, which is one of my all-time favorites) but the previews for Irrational Man intrigued me so I decided to see it last night (I fear my late night Sunday excursions to the Broadway Theatre are numbered).  Abe Lucas (Joaquin Phoenix) arrives as a new philosophy professor at a small New England college suffering from existential ennui.  He eventually begins an empty affair with a married chemistry professor (Parker Posey) and a romance with Jill (Emma Stone), a student infatuated with his dark side.  He quotes Dostoevsky in the classroom and keeps a copy of Crime and Punishment, with passages highlighted, on his desk.  Like Raskolnikov, the protagonist of Crime and Punishment, Abe decides to murder a complete stranger because he feels that it would be to the greater good and the petty rules of middle class society do not apply to him.  Unlike Raskolnikov, who is tormented by what he has done, Abe finds renewed meaning in life and comes alive.  Jill eventually figures out what Abe has done and, like Sonya in Crime and Punishment, she becomes Abe's conscience when she urges him to confess.  Will Abe find redemption as Raskolnikov does?  The story is definitely interesting and the themes are thought-provoking (I was reminded of an intense discussion with a group of friends at a bar in downtown Denver about situational ethics where I said something very similar to what Jill says to Abe as she confronts him) but I don't think Allen quite pulls it off.  The dialogue (and there is a lot of dialogue, particularly when characters are walking from one place to another) is extremely stilted and contrived.  Even philosophy majors (and I know a few!) don't quote Heidegger, Kierkegaard, and Kant constantly in everyday life.  Phoenix and Stone do the best they can with the material but it still feels like they are reading pages of script with grim faces and I found it hard to care about them.  I found the students to be incredibly naive, especially in the Russian roulette scene, and the acting from the minor characters is, at times, completely laughable (they are trying so hard to be earnest).  The murder mystery also seems a bit implausible.  Jill figures out the entire complicated scenario during a conversation at dinner and then just happens to run into people who can give her proof.  Even the twist at the end of the movie felt a bit hokey rather than dramatic.  I found the relationship between a college professor and a student to be somewhat troubling.  Abe and Jill conduct their affair quite openly and I can tell you unequivocally, having taught on the college level, that it certainly wouldn't be condoned on campus and I can't imagine any parents who would be as accepting as Jill's (they invite him over for dinner!).  Clearly, Allen has no concept of appropriate boundaries in light of his own personal life.  The premise of Irrational Man is note-worthy but the execution of it is not.  Read Crime and Punishment instead and, if you want to watch an excellent Woody Allen film, find a copy of Midnight in Paris.

The Stanford Prison Experiment

I feel like all I've done this summer is watch movies (and pack) but, since I love movies, it's kind of a good thing!  Last night I went to The Stanford Prison Experiment which is a film that I tried, unsuccessfully, to see at Sundance this year.  It is absolutely riveting in an intense and disturbing sort of way but I still can't stop thinking about it!  Based on an actual experiment conducted at Stanford University in 1971 by psychology professor Philip Zimbardo, it tells the story of a simulation in which college students act as prisoners and guards to determine the cause of abusive behavior.   At first the students randomly selected to be guards are self-conscious and read from a provided script while stifling their laughter but they quickly become very abusive to the prisoners and take delight in humiliating them, especially a guard (Michael Angarano) who adopts the persona of a character from the movie Cool Hand Luke.  The prisoners, after a few attempts at rebellion by 8612 (Ezra Miller), eventually become docile and perform any degrading task required of them without question.  It is difficult to watch, particularly when Zimbardo (Billy Crudup) takes pleasure in what he is seeing on his monitors and refuses to intervene for the sake of his research.  His girlfriend Christina (Olivia Thirlby) accuses him of losing perspective and he eventually calls an end to the experiment after only six days.  The set of the make-shift prison in the hallway of the psychology building is extremely claustrophobic as are the tight steadicam shots which make you feel as if you are a part of the action.  The young and relatively unknown cast of guards and prisoners is excellent but, while the dehumanization of the students is the point of the experiment, I found it difficult to keep track of the characters because the prisoners are only referred to by number and the guards are all dressed the same.  The score is incredibly ominous and heightens the tension so much that it almost becomes unbearable to watch.  It is exhausting and uncomfortable but it is one of the most provocative films I've seen in a long time.  It certainly led to some interesting discussions in the lobby after my screening!  I definitely wouldn't recommend it for everyone but I found it to be fascinating.

Infinitely Polar Bear

This summer I've gotten into the habit of going to a late night movie on Sunday.  I love sitting in a darkened theatre with a group of total strangers watching images on a giant screen and after the movie I love driving in an almost abandoned city in the wee hours of the morning knowing that, unlike most everyone else, I don't have to wake up in a few hours.  Sadly, this practice must come to an end in a few weeks when I go back to school.  (Not surprisingly, very few people  are willing to commiserate with me on this sad turn of events!)   I've seen some wonderful movies on my late night excursions (go here, here, here, here, and here to check them out) and last Sunday I decided to see Infinitely Polar Bear which is also wonderful.  Cameron Stuart (Mark Ruffalo) is a manic-depressive member of a wealthy and aristocratic Boston family.  The matriarch of the family gives him just enough money to survive but refuses to support his family.  His wife Maggie (Zoe Saldana) is accepted to the MBA program at Columbia and makes the difficult decision to move to New York because it is the only way to improve her family's financial circumstances.  She leaves her young daughters in Cameron's care which results in some comedic and well as heartbreaking situations.  Ultimately, Maggie realizes that the girls are better off with Cameron because he is always there for them in a way that she cannot be.  It is writer/director Maya Forbes' own touching autobiographical story of her experiences with her father.  Her daughter, Imogene Wolodarsky, plays a fictionalized version of her and gives an incredible performance.  I have always been a fan of Mark Ruffalo and he is brilliant in this role.  He is both charming and belligerent and there were times when I was moved to tears over how he was treating his daughters and times when I laughed out loud at his antics, especially when he makes a flamenco skirt for a talent show.  I absolutely loved this movie and I highly recommend it!

Mr. Holmes

I have always really liked the stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (I even decided to pull out the classic The Hound of the Baskervilles for my seniors at the end of the year).  Sherlock Holmes is such a wonderfully complicated and idiosyncratic character so, when I saw the previews for Mr. Holmes, I was intrigued by the premise of an older and more fallible man in retirement.  It has been on my list and I got the chance to see it last night.   A 93 year old Sherlock Holmes (Ian McKellen) has been retired and living in a remote cottage in Sussex for over 30 years,  He is unhappy with how John Watson portrayed his final case and wants to write a true account before he dies (in some funny scenes he is also unhappy about his portrayal with a calabash pipe and deerstalker cap in the illustrations of the stories).  His memory is failing him but his housekeeper's son Roger (Milo Parker) wants to know the story and helps him piece together the clues.  The case, involving a man wanting to know why his young wife is so distraught, is presented in bits and pieces as flashbacks.  Holmes went about the case logically and uncovered the facts but he couldn't prevent a tragedy from occurring.  As a man facing mortality all alone, he finally realizes that he should have shown the young woman some compassion and this changes his relationship with his housekeeper (Laura Linney) and Roger.  McKellen is simply marvelous as both the celebrated detective in his prime in Baker Street and the curmudgeonly old man waiting for death by the sea, giving an incredible performance.  I was also impressed with Parker and the relationship between Holmes and Roger is beautiful to watch as it develops.  The plot moves slowly; it is not a typical detective story (although there are some really clever moments where Sherlock displays his genius) but, rather, it is an exploration of a man facing his legacy with regrets and I found it to be very moving.  In fact, my only complaint about this movie is Laura Linney's inconsistent accent, although she does an excellent job with some powerful scenes at the end of the film.  I loved it and I recommend it highly.

Note:  I think my favorite actor to portray the detective is still Benedict Cumberbatch.  I absolutely love the PBS series, Sherlock, which is set in present-day.