Invictus

Invictus is the story of Nelson Mandela's post-Apartheid South Africa, and his attempt to unify the country using rugby as his tool of choice. Mandela (perfectly realized by Morgan Freeman), ascends to power in South Africa's first-ever democratic election, prompting the country's white Afrikaaner population to fear their fates. Mandela astonishes his people by announcing that he wants blacks and whites to work together for the good of the nation. His first move is to override a vote to do away with South Africa's rugby team, the Springboks. Mandela thinks the team can galvanize the relationship between black and white South Africans, allowing them to come together and root for a common goal. Matt Damon plays the Springboks captain, Francois Pienaar. Sporting a prosthetic nose and physique that has deftly shed its Informant! lbs., Damon's Pienaar is spot-on. Good Christ, he is talented. Damon's Afrikaaner accent is excellent, as is the physicality he employs to become a larger-than-life sports icon.
Sadly, Freeman and Damon are the only bright lights in this cloying bit of treacle. The film was directed by Clint Eastwood, a skilled monolith at times (Million Dollar Baby), and a laboriously heavy-handed helmer at others (Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil). The pacing is choppy and off-putting, which makes for a very disappointing muddle of a movie. At one point, the music oozes more cheese than an Ed Hardy t-shirt on an overweight reality dad. However, though some have denounced the story of Invictus as a mere historical footnote, I feel that attention must be paid to it. Clint Eastwood doubtless saw the parallels between Mandela, a highly educated African leader and our own highly educated African-American one. If only Barack Obama could use, say, the Chicago Cubs to solve our country's mounting shit storm of problems. But I digress. My Comment this week focuses on the very magnanimous posture that Mandela took as he lead South Africa into the future. When apartheid ceased to be, many of the country's black population wanted the Afrikaaners to pay dearly for their years of oppression. There was a palpable anger and universal feeling that Lex Talionis, or the Law of Retribution, should be visited upon the Afrikaaners. Nelson Mandela knew that this would only perpetuate the violence and segregation that had been the legacy of this most beautiful country. Mandela asked the black South Africans to rise above their anger and work with the Afrikaaners. He knew that the country could not succeed without the white infrastructure that had been in place for over a century. Mandela's pragmatism came wrapped in one of the more zen packages ever delivered by a modern leader.
By asking his people to forgo their thirst for revenge, Mandela elevated the psyche of his people. Why does it feel like Americans are miles to go before they sleep from that possibility? We want to hit Al Qaeda with the force of a thousand Oppenheimer specials, but then what? How can one punish an enemy if the ultimate punishment (death) doesn't frighten said enemy? Our hands are tied, and Americans do not like their hands tied. How Mandela got to a place of forgiveness after decades in prison, I'll never know. Moreover, how he had the brass ones to ask his countrymen to forgive their oppressors for the good of the country completely astounds me. Can you fathom our president asking us to do the same? I must stress that Mandela was not a perfect leader, particularly concerning his very black and white (forgive the pun) stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Maybe Mandela's brilliance lays in the decision to imbue such a seemingly innocuous pastime such as rugby with so vital a meaning. Although I doubt that in a country as large as ours you'd ever even get us to agree on one sport, let alone one political philosophy. It is a shame that Eastwood didn't give us a better lens with which to view this fascinating orchestration of leadership.

Me and Orson Welles

I have to declare that while I loves me some period films, what really sparked my interest in seeing Me and Orson Welles was a David Letterman interview with it's main box-office draw, Zac Efron. I know, I know, Efron does not at all jibe with my pretentious proclivities. But there was something about him. Behind the cerulean stare and all the pretty hair, was a shockingly well-spoken and curious soul. Efron was intelligent, self-deprecating and did not once let Dave get the better of him. Admittedly, I love nothing more than when Letterman turns a guest like Richard Simmons into a simmering gay soup. But it's all the more titillating when a seeming flash in the pan displays some real gravitas.
So, off to the movies I go with Marc- my only real and true fellow critic. Other than Pauline Kael of course, but she can't hit the theaters without some serious voodoo magic. Me and Orson Welles was directed by Richard Linklater- he of Dazed and Confused indie fame. The story takes place in New York in 1937, when Orson Welles was directing Julius Caesar at the storied Mercury Theater. Efron plays the fictional Richard, a young wannabe actor who finagles his way into the stage production. Richard meets Sonja, a slightly jaded theater company manager who is played by the always real Claire Danes. Within the span of a week, Richard becomes enamored of both Sonja and the bohemian theater lifestyle. The tingly Christian McKay as Welles is exactly the bellowing blowhard we've come to expect in a portrayal of the rotund hyphenate. McKay gives more of an impression of Welles, rather than a fully realized character. That can actually be found in Liev Schreiber's Welles in the HBO film, RKO 281. But what of young Efron, you ask? I'm sorry to report that Zac Efron is not yet ready to carry a film. Clearly, casting felt the same way and chose to surround him with more experienced players like Danes and James Tupper. Efron conveys a sweetness and naivete that while perfect for this part, are traits he must work to shed if he really wants to have staying power in this business.
Welles, in my opinion, is a prickly thorn to pluck. Erudite and talented within an inch of his life, Welles was declared a prodigy at the age of twenty. His brilliant and creatively different stagings of Shakespeare rocked Broadway and eventually radio. When Welles and Herman Mankiewicz wrote Citizen Kane, it was nearly crushed by the monolith that was William Randolph Hearst. But the film was soon recognized for it's thematic intelligence and is still hailed as one of the best movies ever made. That it was made by a twenty-six-year-old first-time filmmaker is goddamned awe-inspiring to me. My Cultural Comment is about the way in which we label "genius" on the kinder, and what that does to them. The Gotham theater world and soon Hollywood fell under the spell of the raw, unspoiled talent displayed by Orson Welles. He drank it in, found it profoundly intoxicating, then became addicted to it. When it waned, Welles became the petulant enfant terrible and threatened to leave the business. Then he returned. Many times. Soon, hearing nothing but a collective yawn from the powers that be, Welles gathered up the last of his dignity and expatriated to Europe. This would be poetic and even a bit Hemingway-esque if he had stayed in the Old World. But, (cringe) Welles came home, having ballooned to nearly four hundred pounds. He also had an attitude. A European one. Unable to believe that the film world no longer would tolerate his need for complete control, Welles became a director for hire. He would continue to work until his death until 1985, but he never achieved the sheen of his early success.
Peter Bogdanovich made The Last Picture Show and cast a young Cybill Shepherd. He finished the film with Shepherd as his new lover and the critics proclaiming that his directorial debut was "the best first film since Citizen Kane". Bogdanovich waltzed around Hollywood with Shepherd on his arm and the biggest-shit eating grin anyone had ever seen. Finally, a merciful Cary Grant took Bogdanovich aside and said "Peter, no one wants to hear how fucking happy and successful you are. It only serves to remind them how unhappy and unsuccessful they are" (Please imagine Grant saying it- it probably had a less bloggy ring to it). Bogdanovich made more films, and acted quite a bit, but he never married Shepherd and he never got back the same glowing reviews as he had for Picture Show.
I felt the theme of genius running through Me and Orson Welles. Claire Danes recently said that turning thirty has dimmed some of the prodigious praise she had gotten used to as a tween starting out. Whereas then she was referred to as "precocious", she is now simply thought to be "appropriate for her age". Danes displayed a startling sureness of character while playing the angsty Angela in MTV's My So-Called Life. But with each passing year, her abilities have not been squandered. She continues to deliver textural, true portrayals in each film. It it said that Meryl Streep thinks Danes is the best young actress working today. I don't need to tell you of Streep's staying power either. Maybe it's luck. But I can't think of Brando without wanting to shed a tear. For some, it's too much- that damning label of genius at such a tender age. I wonder if Richard Linklater thought of this as he directed this movie. Unfortunately, Linklater feels like just another prodigy-turned-director-for-hire.

The Men Who Stare at Goats

The Men Who Stare at Goats is based on Jon Ronson's book detailing his journey into the secret military world of the U.S. Army's First Earth Battalion. The Battalion was an alleged division that employed New Age techniques and psychic soldiers to fight wars with alternative methods. Ewan MacGregor plays Bob Wilton, a reporter hungry for a life-altering scoop. After his wife leaves him for another man, Wilton heads to Iraq at the onset of the 2003 American invasion. There he meets Lyn Cassady, played by George Clooney who thinks he's in another Coen brothers film. He's not. Cassady proceeds to lead Wilton on a mind-bender of an adventure complete with flashbacks detailing the origins of the Army's foray into psychedelic combat. Any Lebowski fan will suck greedily at the teat of a Jeff Bridges hippie appearance, but alas, this sighting comes up a bit short. Although Bridges is as compelling as ever, you simply do not get enough of him in Goats. MacGregor and Kevin Spacey are watchable and interesting, but I need to wax neurotic about Clooney.
After his ill-fated flirtation with boffo box-office Batman and Robin, Clooney took a powder and plotted his next move. This pause resulted in some of the best performances of his career. O Brother, Where Art Thou? has Clooney almost lampooning his dreamy persona by making some of the most buffoonish expressions ever. He gets screwball comedy funny- he's Cary Grant without all the pesky gay rumors. I must declare emphatically that I do not believe Clooney is a good actor. He has been in the business a long time and worked with the best directors out there, which enables him to avoid looking like a hackety-hack. But Clooney is a holder-backer (not a technical acting term I know, but screw you, it's my blog). He does not commit fully to any role, even the ones he gets nominated for. But he is intelligent, handsome and completely worthy of his insider's moniker, "Gentleman George". I met Clooney once in the early 1990's and if the way he tolerated my hyperhidrosis (sweaty palms) during the handshake was any indication, he is indeed a prince. Clooney learned that his ineffable charm and Irish rapscallion looks would be a good juxtaposition with goofy roles meant for ugly character actors. He also earns some intellectual cred by producing high-minded occasionally political statement films. My Comment has to do the business of being entertained. Are actors and films simply meant to allow us to enjoy ourselves for two hours? I'm not speaking of the difference between Billy Madison and Schindler's List. Most of us know that one is art and one is Spielberg's apology for Always. I am asking, if we know that an actor isn't ready for Shakespeare, but we love to watch him or her, what's so wrong with that? I am a self-professed snob, but I am admittedly tittering over the possibility of an Ocean's 14. This has more to do with the film geek in me imagining the camaraderie between the cast than the desire to look at Pitt, Clooney and Damon in shiny suits. Well, kind of. My point is, sometimes a movie is just a movie and an actor is just there to make us want to watch him. I can still maintain my snobbery and feel that way.

An Education

I have been struggling with writing this review since I saw this film. On paper it has all the makings of great movie. A European director, unencumbered by the directives of the bottom-line bottom-dwellers who make up Hollywood studio heads, a screenplay by Nick Hornby (whose "High Fidelity" was one of the best books made-into-a-movie ever) and exciting actors. Set in 1961, the film stars Peter Sarsgaard as an unctuous crook who romances the much younger Jenny, played by newcomer Carey Mulligan. Much has been made in the press of Mulligan's performance, and of her inevitable fame. The press is absolutely correct. Mulligan is a joy to watch. She is present and real, but never comes across as too technical or jaded. Mulligan is one of those rare actors who you cannot imagine in any other role until you see her in one. She fully imbues Jenny with the wide-eyed guilelessness of an inexperienced girl who happens to be brilliant.
Hornby, however is a big disappointment. His dialogue would never survive in the mouth of John Cusack, and the story (while not his own), is not exactly revelatory. We've seen better versions of the May-December romance, and Hornby doesn't really do the 60's justice. Although, once you've gotten "Mad Men" in your soul, nothing else really compares. But who really chaps my hide is Sarsgaard. He sports a mediocre British accent, which frankly, I find bush-league to beat the band. Any actor worth their salt better have that handled, particularly in a film striving to be more than it is. Why is it that once an actor is in a few independent films, critics begin to anoint him or her as the second coming of Marlon Brando? Sarsgaard has garnered praise for his roles, but a careful look at his work will leave you feeling unsatisfied and probably a little creeped-out. But having established the appropriate amount of indie cred (marriage to a fellow avant-garde actor,a house in Brooklyn), Sarsgaard keeps on keepin' on.
My Comment has to do with the lemming-like way in which we all hop on the bandwagon. Didn't we all learn from 1950's architecture? Homogeneity bad, individualism, good. I find it the height of irony that independent film has simply become a barometer for people to judge whether or not an actor can be successful in mainstream movies. It makes me sad, it makes me mad, but mostly it make me lament the loss of individual critics who called out medium talent when they saw it.

Coco Before Chanel

Let me start off by saying I am a sucker for a good period piece. The lushly luxuriant costumes, the sumptuous scenery..I become rapturous at an Austen-era film aiming to educate me about the customs of times past. Emma Thompson's adaptation of Sense and Sensibility was luminous in the realization of its characters, making the average viewer want to actually read the novels everyone pretended to read in college. The writing was so on point, and the performances so true, that the viewer almost doesn't need the beautiful score or the gorgeous shots of the bucolic English countryside. Biopics are an even trickier type of period piece to master. The true details of one's life, lurid or not, have a tendency to feel like a book report on film. The decent ones (adequate script, excellent acting), like Ray and Walk the Line usually have something to rely on when the story begins to feel rote. In both of those cases, it is unequivocally the music.
Coco Before Chanel tackles the early life of Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel, before she became the international atelier of worldwide acclaim. Le petite gamine Audrey Tatou plays Chanel, and physically, she couldn't be any more the embodiment of "Mademoiselle" as Chanel was known. Tatou is feisty and determined, and owed us all a little character penance after the holocaust that was The Da Vinci Code. Alessandro Nivola plays Arthur "Boy" Capel, the rich self-made playboy responsible for financing Chanel's eponymous salon. Capel was Chanel's first and only true love, and he showed a belief in her talent as well as her unconventional looks. Admittedly, the chemistry between Tatou and Nivola is intoxicating. But anyone interested in the legacy of Mademoiselle will no doubt be familiar with the early period of her life, given the recent rash of Lifetime movies and sub-par fictionalized novels. Thus, when Coco Before Chanel veers towards typical biopic blather, one would assume that the clothes would be front and center. Not so. Director and screenwriter Anne Fontaine mistakenly makes Chanel's fabulous frippery a minor character in the film. Chanel's groundbreaking fabrics and tailoring should be used as a metaphor for Chanel herself; different, beautiful and a boon to women everywhere. Somehow, this film misses that crucial point.

My Comment has to do with the very constraints (both sartorial and otherwise) that Coco Chanel cast off, enabling her to be a truly modern woman. Women in our culture are often vilified for attempting to poach the richest and most powerful men. We are taught that our currency is our beauty and sexuality and men's currency is, well, currency. I've often wondered what would occur if the women who hunted rich men spent as much time trying to get rich on their own. Chanel is what occurs. Coco knew that she would never be well-born, or married to a titled aristocrat, so she simply chose to play a different game. Other than that pesky little Nazi incident, Coco's life was spectacular. I only wish I had tasted that flavor in the film.

Couples Retreat

Lest any of you think I only review art house fillums, I give you the broad comedy. Couples Retreat is a collaboration between Jon Favreau, Vince Vaughn and former child actor Peter Billingsley (A Christmas Story). Jason Bateman and Kristen Bell play a type-A marrieds who convince their friends to go on a New Age sojourn to a beautiful secluded island. Faizon Love, Favreau and Vaughn bring their respective partners and take part in the typical doughy regular-guy meets clueless esoteric hardbody routine. And let me tell you, it is doughy. You know it's a bad sign when the four male leads strip and Jason Bateman looks like the Adonis.
The dialogue is what we have come to expect from any Frat Pack flick-snappy, snarky and perfectly hip. Or at least it was hip in 2005. I am a huge fan of Vaughn and Favreau. Both have excellent comic timing and a great sense of how to move a scene forward. But I couldn't help feeling like I was watching a 50 million-dollar excuse for them to hang at the Bora Bora Four Seasons.
All of the women in the cast (Bell, Malin Akerman, Kristin Davis and Kali Hawk) are relegated to being "the girl" in each of their story lines and contribute little to what makes any scene watchable. Each actress looks fabulous- fit and radiant, as if they spent months dieting and exercising. Why then, do the men look like they purposely tried to do the opposite? Vince Vaughn looks like he ate Trent from Swingers, and I find it impossible to believe that Faizon Love was able to be insured for the movie, given the extreme probability he could have collapsed and killed the best boy.
So, to my Comment. I have crossed my own personal Rubicon with being able to tolerate the schizophrenic feelings in this culture regarding weight. The same woman who criticizes Britney Spears for her considerable Fritos penchant probably has a few addictions of her own. If the nationwide obesity problem is any indication, she very may well have trouble fitting into her husband's Sansabelt pants. However, while fat actresses are a no-go, fat actors seem to be magically delicious. I'm reminded of rotund comedian Kevin James being asked once how funny he was. James pointed to his ridiculously hot Latina wife and said "You see that-that's how funny I am". Well that's actually hysterical, so bravo Kevin James. But the point is, how are the terrorists going to embrace our swimmin' pools and movie stars if we can't even treat our ladies right?
Couples Retreat is not a bad movie, nor is it good. It almost strives to be an out-of-shape, modestly funny, average-looking guy. Is that what's wrong with us? Is Couples Retreat a metaphor for American culture? Maybe. But it was probably just a good way for Vince to avoid the Chicago winter.

The Informant!

Anyone who appreciates true dramatic talent has been biding their time through Ocean's 11, 12 and 13 waiting for Matt Damon to really show up. While the Bourne franchise itself is solid, the films are no shining example of what Damon is capable of. I don't want to hear protests of "but what about The Good Shepherd, The Departed?", because I'll beat your teeth in.
In Shepherd, Damon was hampered by the very controlled directorial style of Robert DeNiro, who insisted that Damon's Edward Wilson be automaton-like in his emotionality. While that may have been true to the fictionalized character (based loosely on James Jesus Angleton), it proves tediously tiresome when wanting to empathize with a character. As for The Departed, Damon did do a serviceable job. Although hearing the lilting and dulcet tones of a Boston accent, one longs for Will Hunting to take control of every situation Damon's Colin Sullivan mucks up.
In Steven Soderbergh's The Informant!, Damon reminds us why he played Will instead of Ben. Set to Marvin Hamlisch's schmaltzy sounds, The Informant! is based on the Archer Daniels Midland price-fixing scandal of the mid 90's. Damon is Mark Whitacre, a high-level executive at ADM who conspires to bring down the agribusiness' top brass. Damon's Whitacre is an angle-free bundle of half-truths and excuses who makes us cringe with nearly every line. For all you actors and wannabes out there, Damon is someone who is remarkably in control of his instrument. For the rest of you who actually make a living, Damon is someone you buy as this character. Perfectly.
In 1998, if you were a young turk starting out in entertainment, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck loomed large. As Good Will Hunting garnered award after award, aspiring creative types saw its success as the new road to fame and fortune. Every actor tried to write, while most writers spent time begrudging Damon and Affleck's talent. Soon, as both men secured acting gigs with top-notch directors, young Hollywood began its feeding frenzy. Two male actor friends of mine claimed to know with certainty that Damon and Affleck had never actually written Hunting, citing the boys' lack of a follow-up script as evidence. My actress friends still tried to sleep with both at parties. Unsuccessfully, I might add. Much has been made of the different paths Damon and Affleck took as actors. Ben Affleck reveled in every minute of his newfound status, gambling, drinking, dating beautiful women, engaging in the fabulously OTT Armageddon. Conversely, Damon put his head down, took every opportunity to work on arty fare and engage in monogamous lower-key romances. Despite his film choices flailing at the box office, Matty was viewed as the "smart and sensible" one while Ben became the classic Hollywood cautionary tale. It wasn't until Affleck married Jennifer Garner that his trashed rep rose like a chiseled Phoenix. But my Comment isn't about the separate journeys these two talents chose, nor is it about they way in which the media feasted on Affleck. It is really about the way in which we all did so. Why do we as a culture have such a hard time seeing someone truly enjoy their (hard-earned) success? We approve of Matt's quiet and discerning lifestyle and let the blood run down our fangs when Gigli elicits laughs from eight-year-olds during its previews. When we get old we cluck our tongues at our children and tell them that youth is wasted on the young. But we don't want to see any seedling actually enjoying that youth. Perhaps we are, as the French so often complain, Puritanical hypocrites. But really, fuck them, they're French.

The September Issue

To any fashion addict, the arrival of director R. J. Cutler's "The September Issue" was cause to salivate. It has been billed as the real-life "The Devil Wears Prada" but for those of us who really do believe that haute couture is art, "The September Issue" disappoints. For years, thinly-veiled novels and Page Six items have transmitted the idea that Vogue's longtime editor-in-chief, Anna Wintour is a cold, demanding micro-manager who is frighteningly out of touch with everyday people. After seeing the film, I can say definitively that Anna Wintour is a cold, demanding micro-manager who is frighteningly out of touch with everyday people. Wintour apparently allowed Cutler unparalleled access to the Conde Nast offices in the months leading up to the largest September Issue Vogue had ever published. But for all that face time with Wintour, the audience is never really allowed in. We don't learn anything new, nor are we able to see the depths of Wintour's character. A good documentary film doesn't have to be gossipy, but it must reveal something about its subject. This is precisely why Vogue's creative director Grace Coddington steals the film. With her Titian-tinged frizz and hippy-dippy frocks, Coddington is Wintour's polar opposite, allowing her vulnerability to take center stage. We see her soar with Icarus-like wings while she directs a photo shoot, then falls, heartbroken, when Wintour kills the images, preventing them from ever gracing the pages of the magazine. Coddington bemoans the advent of the celebrity cover, but admits Wintour's savvy in realizing its sales potential well before anyone else in the business. This brings me to my Cultural Comment. I refuse to believe that I'm the only person who is as nauseated by "America's Celebrity Obsession" as I am by the media's coverage of it. We get it, Bill Maher. We Americans are wholly and unabashedly concerned with Jon Gosselin's late night dalliances. Mostly with young women who should really cease posing for the camera while they're knee-deep in bong resin. Yes, I believe that it's wrong for a cameraman who missed the last stage of evolution to scream obscenities at Ben Affleck's daughter. That does not mean that I don't slip Us magazine slyly into my robe and devour it while I'm bathing, pretending to be reading The Economist. I know I am awash in a hypocritical schadenfreude-laden rationalization. But I don't need to be lectured by other hypocrites who are employed by those same media conglomerates who give me my fix. Anna Wintour places actresses on the cover of Vogue. They are dressed in the latest sartorial splendor and made up by the likes of Pat McGrath, the most talented make-up artist working today. They reveal a bit about themselves, pose for the photographer and look gorgeous. What is so wrong with that? Anna Wintour is brilliant. Just not in front of the camera.

Manifesto

Welcome cinephiles, pop-culture wonks and general intellectual snobs. I am Jennifer Wright, and in this, my first blog, you have found your Jim Jones. Drink my Kool-Aid babies, it's so good. I will review a film, extrapolate the most relevant bits and discuss how it relates to the cultural Zeitgeist. Why, you ask, am I qualified to do this? I have spent most of my life involved in film, theater and criticism. As an English major I studied the great literary criticism of Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault. I have worked for a major film production company and written and produced my own short film with my erstwhile writing partner, Marc. I have a degree from The American Academy of Dramatic Arts, and have acted in theater productions in Chicago and Los Angeles. But the real reason you should read my blog is my savant-like knowledge of film and my near hysterical passion for story. So please, take a break from your porn and your shopping and your things of this nature, and enjoy The Wright Report.