The Cineman ::: Redux

Ricky Gervais and Matthew Robinson’s ‘The Invention of Lying’ is an American comedy with a British sensibility. It see-saws on a small novelty, where the world has not learned how to lie. Therefore, everybody speaks the awful truth. It wouldn’t matter how ugly you look, people on the street would be glad to tell you so. For Gervais’ self-written Mark Bellison, he is a chubby, snub-nosed writer for a film company that hasn’t evolved to tell a fictional story (Ha!) As he attends a date with the perky Anna (Jennifer Garner), she glibly tells him that there’s no chance they could be together – he’s a bad genetic match-up, and couldn’t stand to see her kids looking all…well, “chubby and snub-nosed.” He loses his job because he writes lecture pieces about the Black Plague (which his boss, played by Jeffery Tambor, knows will not sell), he is shut down again by Anna via email, and he is evicted from his house. But he goes to the bank, and when the system can’t pull up his bank account, Mark Bellison does something spectacular. He lies. And because no one can detect it, he pulls out enough money to pay rent. Posed with the great gift of getting anything he wants by means of the common lie, Mark goes on a mission to change his life. But with the added consequences – people start to realize how gifted he is. (Note: They never learn how to lie. And that’s not a spoiler.)

Gervais’ comedy in the past has been one of pure deprecation: he’s marvelous with insults, so his script with Robinson is rife with some sharp ones. His Mark Bellison character is a sulky loser, but a lovable one at that. And through his little script gimmick, the audience learns to appreciate his genuine simplicity; this is pressed upon by a tearful scene with his dying mother (Fionnula Flanagan). Garner is cute but exists as little more than a plot contrivance. While the same can be said for almost all the characters, silly performances from underrated comic Louis C.K. and Rob Lowe are still laudable. It’s chocked to the brim with unexpected cameos, ranging from Edward Norton to John Hodgman, but none of the starpower distracts from Gervais’ comic streak. A spat with organized religion by the writers seems out of place, but done tastefully enough that the USCCB shouldn’t have any major disputes. Laughs come at a sporadic pace, some heavier than others. But the film ties itself together nicely at the end, retaining a frenzied touch similar to Peyton Reed’s quirky ‘Yes Man’, yet sustaining as a polite and novel comedy.

[***]

If you read a synopsis or watched the trailer to ‘Paris’, it puts the accent on ‘cliché’. But when Cedric Klapisch, in the forefront of the New French Romanticists, directs ‘Paris’, the one-dimensionality dissipates. Yet he is still such a traditionalist, in the best sense of the word. You’ve got a series of cookie-cutter characters, ranging from the terminally ill dancer, the lonely 50-something city historian, the father-to-be and booming architect, the love-happy college girl, and the single mother with no imminent lovelife. But instead of those ‘I Love You, [City Name]‘ pastiches that float on the indie market, ‘Paris’ is self-assuredly in love with its surroundings. Top-notch cinematography by Christophe Beaucarne makes note of every little window and street corner, the vibrant colors of the farmer’s market, and the ominous colors en hiver. Pierre (Romain Duris) is the heart-failure-ridden dancer, whose days are numbered and lonely. Calling on the company of his single-mother sister (Juliette Binoche), they spend time while he tries to invigorate her own lost passion for life. Markert worker Jean (Albert Dupontel) is trying to find love, despite his recent divorce with co-worker Caroline (Julie Ferrier) who flirts too much on the job. Roland (Fabrice Luchini) tries to spark a relationship with free-love student Laetitia (Melanie Laurent), while his brother Philippe (Francois Cluzet) deals with his unplanned parenthood coming up. (Whew!)

Duris is in stark contrast with his jejune Xavier in Klapisch’s ‘L’auberge espagnole’ and ‘Les poupées russes’, but his lonely breaths of hope helpfully calibrate the unexpected events that take place in ‘Paris’. He is a powerful actor, no matter how short his screen time is. Dupontel and Binoche’s screen chemistry are fine replacements for that needed naïveté, as their own struggles to crack a sincere smile only accentuates Klapisch’s eye for his characters. Luchini’s performance as hopeless romantic Roland Verneuil seems on track with his lovelorn work in Leconte’s ‘Confidences trop intimes’, with the struggle of James Mason’s Humbert Humbert. Respectively, Laurent’s Laetitia is not as showy, especially in regard to her Shoshanna in Tarantino’s ‘Basterds’ – but her smile works wonders for the role. It’s a shame that Francois Cluzet (of Guillaume Canet’s tremendous ‘Ne le dis à personne’) is given so little to work with, yet he is still featured in one of the film’s finest sequences – a look at his expanding lifestyle via an architectual design computer program. If you haven’t already noticed, Klapisch can juggle enough characters without losing touch with them. He proved it with ‘Chacun cherche son chat’ in ‘96 and continues with an Altman touch for his characters. It’s a love letter to his city, not unlike Danièle Thompson’s ‘Fauteuils d’orchestre’ (also with Dupontel).

[***]

Kurosawa’s dive into Shakespeare adaptations result in complete triumph with ‘Throne of Blood’ (Kumonosu-jo), a film that takes such gratuitous liberties with ‘Macbeth’ that the Bard wouldn’t believe his eyes – until he sees ‘Ran’, that is. ‘Throne’ is an honorable foray into the tragic underminings of Japan’s feudal system, where Shakespeare’s reverence to his words is matched by Kurosawa’s unique illustrations. Our Macbeth is now Washizu (the stone-faced Toshiro Mifune) and our Banquo is now General Miki (Minoru Chiaki). It is the Sengoku Jidai – the age of the Country at War – where clans battle for domination of Japan. Washizu and Miki have helped win a major battle for their faction, Spider’s Web Castle. As they return, a ghostly spirit (Chieko Naniwa) foretells their destiny: Washizu will reign as the next king, while Miki’s son will reign as well. Disturbed and confused by this premonition, they return to the castle only to see their immediate promotions as good omens. But it is Washizu’s wife, Lady Asaji (Isuzu Yamada), who eggs on her husband in order to quickly gain the power he has been promised. Fate begins to transform Washizu from the honorable warrior he once was, into the bloodthirsty and delusional tyrant he must become.

Mifune’s performance is best watched when silent, letting his face and emotions take control of Washizu. For a character so driven by power and a woman’s intuition, Washizu leaves behind the grandiose language of a Macbeth and supplants the Noh theatrics of Kurosawa’s native composition to his character. Similarly, Isuzu Yamada’s ghostly Lady Asaji hints at her own ambiguous presence. A mother-and-queen-to-be, Asaji never seems fully there. She vicariously initiates her husband’s most evil tendencies for her own purpose, perhaps confirming the witch-like qualities of her counterpart Lady Macbeth. The forest sequences contain some of finest tracking shots in history, as the camera flawlessly gallops with the horses through the entanglement of trees. From its opening-and-closing haunting chorus, to its aesthetics of makeup, wardrobe, and limited composition, ‘Throne’ is cloaked in the Noh theatre. This is the beauty of Kurosawa: it strips away the luster of Shakespearean tragedy and discovers its niche in Japanese culture, while finding similar ground in the wartime psychology of its time and characters. When Washizu meets his demise at the end, there’s no need for a MacDuff – it isn’t the vengance of one that kills the king, but the sting of his army’s arrows that lay him to rest. It’s Kurosawa trying to tell us that we all have the ability to be ruthless.

[****]

Fresh animated fare is a hard bargain as of 2009, as Dreamworks continues to parade its brood of culturally referential franchises, and Pixar touts its never-changing formula of breezy family-centric epics. Coming out of left field is Phil Lord and Christopher Miller’s ‘Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs’, (apparently loosely) based off of Judi and Ron Barrett’s children’s book. Paunchy and proud, the film frenetically pushes boundaries in the new-3D era. There’s no doubt its detractors will complain of headaches, but who’s to say sitting in front of a screen for an hour or two wasn’t harmful in the first place? A clever story tops itself on a friendly gimmick – food rains from the sky. I left the theatre filling not so much hungry, as impressed with the sheer amount of clever sight gags and conscientious solutions to such a pungent production. Animation is top-notch, and laughs come generously on the side.

Nerd Flint Lockwood (voiced by Bill Hader) has tried very hard at being a famous inventor, but the failures keep piling up: genetic mutant rat-birds, indestructible spray-on shoes, and his most recent water-to-food convertor. His father Tim (James Caan) unsuccessfully tries to persuade his son into helping him with the famous sardine store – an industrial tourist stop in the town of Swallow Falls. But Tim’s fishing metaphors for life never translate with Flint. When the water-to-food machine is accidentally shot into the stratosphere, it miraculously rains cheeseburgers for days. The highfalutin mayor (Bruce Campbell) decides to sell the gimmick for all its worth and begins to overwork the machine – which for Flint and his newfound meteorologist girlfriend Sam Sparks (Anna Faris) – means bigger, more dangerous foods engulfing the town. Juggling the American obesity problem, father-son dynamics, marketing schemes, and a little romance is just one of ‘Cloudy’s many feats. Peter Docter’s celebrated ‘Up‘ features a dog with a thought translator, playing off simple doggy instinct jokes to further the plot. Compare to ‘Cloudy’s monkey Steve, equipped with a similar translator (hint of genius, Neil Patrick Harris): the simian repeats his name and ‘gummy bears’, and little more. Lord and Miller’s cynical stroke seems more comfortably and humorously suited than 2008’s ‘Wall-E’, though a far better motion picture itself.

[***]

Dino Montiel’s ‘Fighting’ plays out like a B-grade star vehicle for Channing Tatum, who broke out with the director’s self-adaptation of ‘Guide to Recognizing Your Saints’ - but rises above the heap by means of its outstanding technical choreography and the sincerity of its performances. A story seemingly exploitative at its core, the film tells the story of Shawn McArthur, a hustling Alabaman who wanders the streets of Manhattan selling counterfeit Harry Potter books. After a curbside altercation, he catches the eye of Harvey Boarden (Terrence Howard) who asks him to take part in some underground fights for easy money. After establishing a reputation, there’s no doubt that Shawn isn’t your average fighter – having been trained by his estranged father, he’s waging a fierce against his past. Insert cliched rivalry here, this leads to climactic final battle, and anything else is extraneous to his summary. The fighting – cause honestly, what’s the main reason people are seeing this – is electric and unexaggerated, making it far more entertaining than your average John Cena movie.

Tatum’s laissez-faire acting method gives ‘Fighting’ the approach of an Elvis Presley film with less music and more mayhem – there’s something to be said about his occasional flickers of naturalism. True, his stamina and phyisque suit him for the genre (and the abysmal ‘G.I. Joe’), but his acting usually escapes the audience’s expected meathead truism. Howard’s mumbling Boarden is a soulful yet paranoid urbanite, pairing well with the naïveté of Tatum’s McArthur. Their generation-defined chemistry, pressed by their lack of families, is strong and sometimes upstages the film’s outstanding action sequences. Boarden and McArthur recall another (better) example of the same chemistry, between Ben Kingsley and Josh Peck in Jonathan Levine’s ‘The Wackness’, also tied around a cinematographic affair with New York City and its vandalized staircases. The story itself falls apart due to an underdeveloped final antagonist (Brian White) and an undercooked romance, despite a quirky performance by the lovely Zulay Henao.

[***]