Tag: review

Movie review: The Spectacular Now

But then a road trip really crystalized the narrative for me, making what has come before much more significant.

Last Friday, the Daughter was still with the neighbor, the Wife and I were back in Albany, and it’s HOT out. Let’s go to the movies at the Spectrum in Albany to see the 1 pm showing of The Spectacular Now. We’d recently seen the previews, and I knew it had reviewed well. It was directed by James Ponsoldt, and written by Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber, based on some young adult novel by Tim Tharp I had never heard of.

Sutter (Miles Teller) and Cassidy (Brie Larson) are that popular couple in high school, a fun, hard-partying duo. She breaks up with him, though, for reasons he doesn’t initially understand. He crashes into the orbit of Aimee (Shailene Woodley), a nice girl, who he befriends, somewhat out of pity, and ends up in a rebound romance with her.

Sutter believes in the spectacular now, that growing up isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. His mom won’t even tell him where his dad is, and he thinks that geometry stuff that Aimee is trying to tutor him in is useless anyway. Yet he has an interesting streak of honesty and integrity that disarms people around him.

Telling more would probably give away too much. The coming of age movie went along, interesting and pleasant enough. But then a road trip really crystalized the narrative for me, making what has come before much more significant.

The performances are great. Miles Teller I had never heard of, but Shailene Woodley was wonderful in The Descendants. Also strong were Jennifer Jason Leigh as Sutter’s mother (a long way from Fast Times at Ridgemont High), Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and Kyle Chandler. Halfway through, I didn’t think the movie was spectacular, but by the end, I thought it was at least very good.

MOVIE REVIEW: Blue Jasmine

How much of the past can we shed, and how so, before we cross that line between lying and just moving on?

It’s true: after over 30 years of watching Woody Allen movies, I have had to limit myself to those that review well. That’s because bad Woody Allen films are perhaps more painful to me than the bad films of other writers and/or directors.

I watched Midnight in Paris, which I liked. I avoided To Rome with Love, because it was critically savaged. Perhaps if I were seeing as many movies as I did 15 or 16 years ago, I would be more willing to take cinematic risks. Blue Jasmine got mostly great reviews, and understandably so.

But the title Jasmine is a bit difficult to like. She’s this odd mixture of two characters, one real, one fictional. She’s part Ruth Madoff, the wife of Bernie, the Ponzi scheme king, who claims that she was oblivious to his financial shenanigans that ruined other people’s lives. She’s also part Blanche DuBois of Tennesse Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, with her suddenly needing the kindness, if not of strangers, then of her estranged, lower class, sister Ginger living a continent away.

Is it just a coincidence that the BLANCHE character is played, and brilliantly so, by Cate BLANCHETT? She will likely get some nominations, come awards season. Ginger is played by Sally Hawkins, who I enjoyed in 2010’s Made in Dagenham. She’s also fine here as a character trying to negotiate between her beau, Chili (Bobby Cannavale), and her sister.

Necessarily to the plot, the storyline goes from present to past, no more effectively when Jasmine is in a second-hand guitar shop and discovers the reason for yet another estrangement.

Also very good in their roles are Alec Baldwin (who looks a little too much like that guy from 30 Rock), Peter Sarsgaard, and a great revelation to me, Andrew Dice Clay, a comedian I could not stand in his heyday, whose character may be the moral center of the whole story.

I should say that, at the end of the film, I am sympathetic to Jasmine, just a bit. And worried.

The movie got me thinking about the process of reinventing oneself. How much of the past can we shed, and how so, before we cross that line between lying and just moving on? Movie stars used to do it all the time; Marion Morrison became JOHN WAYNE, and Norma Jean Baker, MARILYN MONROE, for good or ill. I do have some examples in mind from my circle of acquaintances, but it’s not for me to say.

MOVIE REVIEW: The Way, Way Back

The Daughter is visiting the grandparents for the week, so it’s almost mandatory that The Wife and I go to the movies. But what to see? When one’s seen only a handful of films this year, so there were a half dozen contenders. The Wife chose The Way, Way Back, which we saw Wednesday at the Spectrum in Albany.

I was surprised. I expected, based on the trailer, to be some summer coming-of-age flick that I’ve seen once too often. And while there are elements of the formula, I found the movie surprising affecting.

The premise is that a divorced mom, Pam (Toni Collette) has a new beau, Trent (Steve Carell), who’s taking them, his teenage daughter Steph (Zoe Levin), and her 14-year-old son Duncan (Liam James) from their home in Albany, NY [;-)] to Trent’s summer New England seaside getaway.

The neighbor is Betty (Allison Janney, who drives the bulk of the early humor), and her two kids, bored Susanna (Annasophia Robb) and “different” Peter (River Alexander). Trent’s friends Joan and Kip (Amanda Peet, Rod Corddry) have a boat they all can ride on.

Ever been to a party, or another event, where everyone seems to be having a good time except you? I know I have, and that epitomizes Duncan in the early part of this movie.

Fortunately, Duncan has a chance encounter with Owen (Sam Rockwell), who is manager, pretty much in name only, of an amusement park; Caitlyn (Maya Rudolph) really runs the show, while Owen does … whatever Owen does, in a way that nearly steals the film.

The movie is written and directed by Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, who also have small parts in the film itself. This could have been a by-the-numbers pic, but Faxon and Rash managed to have believable characters; I spent the ride home with The Wife comparing several of them to people I have known. Throw in some clever 1980s pop references, and I understand why it reviewed so well.

Book Review: Who I Am, by Pete Townshend

Townshend foresaw a day when music would be delivered digitally long before it happened.

I was a fairly big fan of the band The Who. I never bought any of their singles – I wasn’t much into 45s – and the first album I picked up wasn’t until Tommy (1969), but I purchased every studio album since, the earlier The Who Sell Out, as well as Live at Leeds and a couple compilations.

The lead guitarist of The Who, Pete Townshend, has written an extraordinary book, Who I Am. Part of the great strength of the book is based on Townsend’s fortunate habit of keeping journals.

The first part has amazing detail about his parents and grandparents even before he was born. I’m jealous; I wish I had such information about my recent ancestors. Then he talks about the development of the band. I’ve read a number of rock biographies, some of them quite good. It’s different, though, when one hears the story from the point of view of one of the participants, especially one who writes so well and so thoroughly.

The development of the rock opera Tommy is fully explained. It utilizes, as a jumping-off point, some of the actual abuse Pete experienced while in a grandparent’s care. He added the pinball motif fairly late in the game, in order to get a better review.

Teenage Wasteland

He explores the stresses on the now successful band, after Woodstock, Live at Leeds, and the Who’s Next album. In some ways, the pressure was just as great as when the band struggled to find an identity. The smashed guitars were an artistic expression, not just random mayhem.

Somewhere in this period, particularly after Who drummer Keith Moon died, I was hoping that Pete would stop with the sex and drugs, and stick to the rock and roll. His (now ex-)wife Karen must have been a saint. He could not quit the booze until 1994, though he had tried as early as 1981.

Townshend summarizes, right before his successful abstinence: “Although my marriage was failing, I had a beautiful son as well as two beautiful daughters who were doing well at university, I had fallen in love, and the girl I had found was slowly falling in love with me too. And I was rich. So what was messing me up?

“It would be easy to point to alcohol, but the problem wasn’t the booze; it was the fact that it longer worked as a medicine to fix the dire consequences of my self-obsession, overwork, selfishness, and manic-depression.”

I enjoyed watching his interaction with a variety of musicians, from the evolving relationship with Who singer Roger Daltry to folks such as Joan Baez, Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Stevie Wonder, and Paul Simon.

A great read, which he started way back in 1996, and once Pete got his head on straight, I wanted to read more. The false accusation that he was dealing with child pornography wounded him greatly. He foresaw a day when the music would be delivered digitally long before it happened. An interesting feature, mostly in the latter half of the text, are footnotes to The Who website, probably in part a function of having to reduce the manuscript from 1000 pages to 500.

Highly recommended.

Links

Rolling Stone book review.

Pete Townshend receives 2013 Les Paul Award.

Lefty Brown reviews Quadrophenia.

 

Movie Review: Quartet

Incidentally, I discovered that there was a 1981 movie called Quartet, also starring Maggie Smith.

The Wife and I decided we wanted to see a movie Sunday afternoon, which was a bit ambitious since church tends to run long on the first Sunday. The Daughter and we fairly bolted out the door, picked up the babysitter – no, make that child watcher, per the Daughter’s instruction – dropped them at home, then got to the Spectrum at 12:47 to see the 12:55 showing of Quartet.

There is a home for retired musicians in a lovely part of rural England. Every year, there is a concert to make sure the home will be solvent for another year. The director of the production, Cedric (Michael Gambon), imperiously decides who is in and who is out. Reginald (Tom Courtenay), the musician who sees parallels with opera and rap, is in, as are the lecherous Wilf (Billy Connolly), and the increasingly addled Cissy (Pauline Collins). Then Jean (Maggie Smith), someone from their past moves into the home; Reg is particularly peeved by this turn of events. Jean, proud and sad to be forced into this situation, has her own issues with yet another resident.

I enjoyed this film by 75-year-old first-time director Dustin Hoffman, who tells a pleasant tale about aging, fear, and complicated personal histories. The characters were engaging, and I found myself caring for them a great deal. I also enjoyed the minor characters, many of whom you find out more about in the end credits.

Oddly, this film has been compared, generally unfavorably, with the depressing film Amour. One example by Matt Pais of RedEye: “Unlike the devastating portrait of aging in Michael Haneke’s Amour, Quartet favors cheeky over honest.” Well, I sure hope so! Quartet is primarily a comedy, its dealing with the ailments of getting older was meant to suggest that one perseveres anyway, while one can.

A couple weeks ago, Maggie Smith was on CBS News’ 60 Minutes. She HATES doing interviews and it showed; she’s indifferent to the fame the British TV series Downton Abbey has suddenly foisted on the 78-year-old actress. However, she was most effusive with her praise for director Hoffman. For his part, he appreciated her being “difficult” because it was always about creating a better movie.

Incidentally, I discovered that there was a 1981 movie called Quartet, also starring Maggie Smith.

Ramblin' with Roger
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