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.