About that Amanda Seyfried, and dear old Will

Two weeks ago I didn't even know who Amanda Seyfried was although probably a good chunk of the rest of the world did. Then I saw The Housemaid. I certainly knew who Sydney Sweeney - today's H'Wood It-Girl - was but didn't know who the hell the opposite character in this  comedic-horror picture exactly was. Long blond hair and very pliable acting persona, check and check. The Housemaid isn't that great a film but adequate and will bring a smile to your face. It's directed by Paul Feig, who seems to specialize in suburban comedy-mysteries. I really liked his A Simple Favor (2018) with mischievously quirky - and cute - Anna Kendrick. In this film Sweeney as the maid is paired

against Seyfried as the house chatelaine. I'll let you decide how the dynamic unfolds. The story actually had me going, not expecting the monumental plot twist that eventually happens. Seyfried, however, plays a blend of personalities showing off quite a wide breadth of styles. That's enough about The Housemaid. A few nights later I caught The Testament of Ann Lee,  Mona Fastvold's take on the 18th century Quaker Shakers sect, which apparently only has two remaining members. Seyfried plays Lee. Of course this is an entirely different character and extends Seyfried's range - is it limitless? But not only that, this is a musical - the best thing I loved about the film although the numerous scenes of Shakers doing their shaker thing - wild stiff hypnotic body movements -  was pretty awesome. And her voice is sweet and melodic voicing a score (Daniel Blumberg) based on traditional Shaker hymns. Fastvold may have conceived the film as a feminist take on evangelical Christianity as Shakers believe Jesus' Second Coming will be as a woman. 

Hamnet - It was a big in-theater movie week last week for me - count 'em, three nights is a row! - when I took in the movie everyone is talking about. I shouldn't have got my hopes too high. Hamnet (Chloé Zhao) is a very well made film and the acting by Jessie Buckley as Agnes Shakespeare and Paul Mescal (another one who is everywhere these days) as good ol' Will, is fine indeed, even though I wondered about that earring in Mescal's ear. But if you're expecting a wide sweep about Shakespeare's life and times forget it. This is essentially an intimate family drama - substitute the Shakespeares, in fact, for any modern family - and not about the Bard's genius. In fact he comes off as a bit of an oaf. And it might even resonate with that whole "long distance relationship" thing. The last scenes of the production of the play Hamlet (another name for Hamnet) at London's Globe Theatre, however, are magnificent. Everybody says this movie will wring out your tears. I must be a pretty insensitive type because it didn't do that for me, though the woman sitting beside me did take out a Kleenex and dabbed her eyes at the very end. 

Seyfried redux: Despite her stupendous acting I can't let mention of her go by without commenting on her Marie Antoinette tendencies. Our dear Amanda recently spent tens of thousands to have her pooch transferred on private jets to her Testament shooting locales in Hungary and Sweden. "It was not in my best interest financially, but it was in his best interest, and my emotional best interest, because I needed him there," says the diva. Revolutions were started because of behavior like this. 

Marty Supreme: a lot of sound and fury

Poor Johnny Oleksinski of the NY Post and myriad other critics in thinking Josh Sadie's Marty Supreme is the best movie of 2025 - "It’s cinematic Mountain Dew. You’ll be wired for the entire 2½ hours." Not quite. With laurels like this - it has a 95% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes (and admittedly an 83% fan one) - I couldn't wait to run to a theatre to see it. But, alas, disappointment reigns. Okay I'll give the movie props for an exceedingly realistic re-creation of the early 1950s. And undoubtedly star Timothée Chalamet's acting is a tour de force as much as his metaphoric ping pong player character's tour of Europe and Japan is in the film. He deserves the Oscar (he's already been awarded two acclaims). I'll also credit Sadie with laboring an astonishingly meticulous depiction of the game of table tennis, and good direction generally. The problem is: is this a story to have slaved over so much? Sure, ping pong is a niche underrated - especially when you see the gamesmanship here - sport. And it's great (I guess) the Sadie is bringing it out of the doldrums. Some people would say who cares. But it doesn't matter what the subject is so long as the movie depicting it makes sense and flows with enough energy. Okay, Marty Supreme flows heavily and is fast-paced. But after awhile all this kinesis starts to become numbing and rather unrealistic. Scene after scene Marty is engaging in some over the top argument or scam or physical confrontation with family members, friends and indeed enemies. Can one person - let alone a nebbish ping pong player - display such extreme vim and vigour? And I couldn't figure out why he would steal money after a seemingly successful tour albeit as a freak athlete. If this is a movie about a little known but wondrous marginal sport I wanted to see it, not another gangland style picture. A phrase kept coming to mind, "full of sound and fury, signifying...." as I also looked at my watch wondering when the conclusion would come to this 2.29 minute somewhat extravaganza. Meanwhile, an over the hill Gwyneth Paltrow - why her? - as Marty's Hollywood heartthrob actress, was meh. But I must say it was a gas to see Shark Tank's Kevin O'Leary not just in cameo but throughout as a ruthless businessman. Is more acting in Mr. Wonderful's future?

Chase's everyman a comic delight, and hi-def's loss of mystique

I tuned into CNN's I'm Chevy Chase and You're Not much hyped doc last night. Usually I don't get sucked into hype but I have a genuine interest in Chevy Chase going back to the first iteration of SNL characters. I never realized what an over the top outrageous guy (some have used other terms) in real life he was/is. Hard to believe he's now 82 and looks every bit it. What was almost as interesting was watching interviews with seminal characters in his rise to fame and how they have aged along with him, like Goldie Hawn (still looking pretty good) and SNL producer Lorne Michaels (who looks as aged as Chase) and how so many look a respectable "older person" as opposed to their hairy hippyish 70s versions. Regardless, on screen, there was always something uproariously funny and everyman about Chase's characters as per European Vacation (Amy Heckerling, 1985), Christmas Vacation (Jeremiah Chechik, 1898) or Caddyshack (Harold Ramis, 1980). He's one of those comedians I'll never get tired of watching.

I'm not sure if I like hi-definition video. I have been watching Turner Classic Movies (TCM) on an advanced/contemporary TV during my vacation stay (or "advanced" to me since I don't have TV at home) and the experience is somewhat jarring. I'm simply not comfortable with it. Sure the video is clearer - much clearer - almost like being on the set of the film shoot with the camera crew all around me. There is Joan Crawford as Mildred Pierce (in Michael Curtiz's 1945 Mildred Pierce) walking out of a living room with her dead lover (Zachary Scott as Monte Beragon) sprawled on the floor - a little too close for comfort. Or Orson Welles as John Foster Kane (in Welles's 1941 Citizen Kane, photo above) marching into the city room of the New York Inquirer about to turn the staid newspaper into an exuberant journalistic force to be reckoned with. Whoa, I'm loving the scene but a little distance please! Or Anthony Newley's Charlie Blake making clumsy romantic overtures to Sandy Dennis's Sara Deever in the original version of Sweet November (Robert Ellis Miller, 1968). Don't get me wrong, it's astonishing that movies can be shown this clearly. Hi-definition technically refers to at least 480 vertical scan lines compared to standard definition or analogue viewing. It reminds me of video from some early-1960s television shows which also had a higher - or clearer - look to them and which to me are too realistic. Interestingly, when we see movies on the big screen in theatres, despite digital projection, the result is still the same as it's always been, a kind of "distance" between viewer and action. Perhaps it's simply what I'm used to, but by being so absolutely intrusive, hi-def takes away a certain mystique. 

Another Knives Out: is there something I'm missing?

 

I may not be the sharpest pencil in the pack but every once in a while, a movie comes along that utterly befuddles me. A few come to mind: The Maltese Falcon (John Huston 1941), Gosford Park (Robert Altman 2001) and the Knives Out series of movies, all directed and written by Rian Johnson, the latest being Wake Up Dead Man (after a two-week theatrical release it's on Netflix beginning today). I caught it last week in London UK in a very pleasant Curzon chain theatre, where they serve food and beverages at your seat. Since I never fully got the plot of the only other Knives Out film I’ve seen, 2022’s Glass Onion (the second in the series), I didn’t have high expectations for this. Who knows – all this might just be above my brain level. And I was right - I didn’t get it. Or, I kind of did. But, come on, another convoluted and almost ridiculous plot just like Glass Onion? Maybe I’m just not a murder mystery buff but at least in Agatha Christie or Alfred Hitchcock you can follow the plot. Of course, I won’t go into detail here. But I also notice in the four or five reviews I’ve read of the movie - all by reviewers who loved it – no once delves into the plot either, and I don’t think it’s because they want to give it away. Sure, we like twists and turns. But with Johnson we have twists, turns, dead ends, cul de sacs and both one- and two-way streets. Again, maybe I’m just not bright enough. Or maybe I was just bored and turned off. But why can’t a movie be a whodunnit without all the minutiae of details? Here’s the basic outline. The story takes place in a Catholic church. There are several generations of priests. There is a valuable inheritance. Of course, the plot pivots around a mistaken perpetrator, par for the murder mystery course. Forget the convolutions, the story itself isn’t interesting, and why all this effort to solve an exceedingly unreal scenario? Daniel Craig, as always, is southern detective Benoit Blanc, and he does a good job (so funny watching his transition from James Bond). Josh O’Connor, the central character, is Rev. Jud Duplenticy (duplicitous?). It was also nice seeing an (appropriately) aged Glenn Close as Martha, the priests’ assistant. Jeremy Renner takes a turn as the good doctor Nat Sharp.  Josh Brolin has a central role as a vulgar priest. The other question I have about this film is its context: the Catholic church. The film doesn’t exactly assault Roman Catholicism but uses its symbols (the crucifix, the confessional, a corrupt clergyman) as props. Popular culture has long derided the church, from Tom Lehrer’s The Vatican Rag, to Pope on a Rope to even calling the pope’s vehicle the Popemobile. I was brought up Catholic and I guess I’m not offended. But what other religion have you seen so mocked?

And congrats to the Windsor International Film Festival (WIFF) for breaking another attendance record this fall, more than 50,000 tickets sold. The festival indeed is on track not only to become one of the country's premier regional festivals but a distinct destination-oriented festival for cinephiles far and wide, similar, say, to Sundance. And its gravitas grows as it draw film professionals from across the country and abroad. In its now 20th year it's more than the little festival that could, screening 231 features, 141 films from leading world film fests, more than 60 francophone films and 25 local ones. It's a genuine Windsor success story, and increasingly a Canadian one as well. 

You want a good film? I give you Truffaut's The Soft Skin

My interest in films is waning (May 19 post). Is it my declining attention span or are movies more mediocre? Or is it because I’ve seen so many that I’m jaded? I read about the accolades for Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value (which won the Cannes’ Grand Prix and has large Oscar potential) or Bong Joon Ho’s 2019 Parasite (Oscar for Best Picture and the Cannes’ Palme d'Or; 99% on Rotten Tomatoes). Trier’s film while interesting was overly long and sentimental. Ho’s was a complete bore and I stopped watching after 45 minutes. What, I kept asking myself, is so good about this story of a poor family running amok at a rich family’s designer home? Ah, said a critic this weekend on NPR, the “social” message of the poor eating the rich. He rated it, of course, his number one film. Yes, yes but…that’ s a social message, I want a cinematic message. Occasionally, however, in these gray days for film, I come across one that reinvigorates and shows what the medium is capable of. I give you Francois Truffaut’s 1964 The Soft Skin (part of Criterion Channel's French New Wave 'Now Playing' series) I’d seen this movie before, loved it, but didn’t want to watch again because of its (spoiler alert) tragic ending. Only the ending differed from what I remembered though no less disconsolate. And a bonus: it stars Françoise Dorléac, Catherine Deneuve’s older sister, a rising star in her own right who died tragically in a car crash in 1967. The film is about an affair. Here’s what’s great about it. The subtlety of the story captures the psychological tension of the players vis-a-vis the married couple (Jean Desailly and Nelly Benedetti as Pierre and Franca Lachenay) and the mistress (Nicole, played by Dorléac). In other words, it’s easy to see how unexpected mutual attraction can lead to immersive love eviscerating a mundane marriage. So, in portraying this interpersonal dynamic the film excels, from the camera capturing furtive eye contact to initial awkward gestures. But more than the personal story the film – as a film – makes for captivating viewing. Because Truffaut never lets your interest wane. Even in the most pedestrian moments – driving in a car, riding an elevator – the camera locks on to otherwise nondescript elements (a dashboard panel, numbers of the passing floors), that serve as punctuation marks that keep the momentum flowing. Another example: instead of a stereotyped shot of an airliner the camera is in the cockpit as the plane lands. In other words, every scene is fresh and different and therefore counts and glues the whole thing together. Which is, folks, the sign of brilliant filmmaking. 

Cleanup in aisle five, and more

Sometimes a film comes along that is both delightful and innovative, seeming to break the mold of movie plots. Such is the case with the 1996 Japanese film Supermarket Woman directed by Juzo Itami. I caught it bored one night and with all else failing tuned to Criterion Channel’s relatively new 24/7 on which their curators screen films round the clock, similar to Turner Classic Movies (TCM). Only there’s more mystery to these as Criterion doesn’t give a title; you have to look it up on a separate website and then do your own research. What was wonderful about Supermarket Woman is it’s a film about a subject few directors would have ever thought about – daily life in a supermarket. You mean “clean up in aisle five?” Yes and more, much more. Itami has taken this most plebian of subjects and added an intriguing plot, fantastic characters, quick pace and hypnotic score and created a movie that not only is absolutely fun to watch but has a lot to say about personal relationships, working for “the man”, standing up for yourself, and personal and business integrity. The star is none other than Nobuko Miyamoto (now deceased Itami’s wife), a whirling dervish of an actress who plays a similar role here. The plot is simple. Hanoko (Miyamoto) runs into an old school friend who now runs a supermarket. She’s a housewife who’s a canny consumer. He’s manager of a store that’s failing. She offers some basic tips – everything from how products are shelved to advertised sales. He hires her on the spot and, like Charles Foster Kane in Citizen Kane as newspaper publisher, she turns the grocery store upside down in finding efficiencies and ways to grow sales and fend off acquisition to an inferior rival chain. But no authoritarian manager she. Rather her talent lies in good naturedly improving logical floor practices and challenging the old guard's “how it’s always been done” thinking, not least sticking up for employees bullied by other staff (the butchers are the main culprits). The pixie-like Hanako literally creates a whirlwind through the store’s aisles, resulting in a transformation that delights skeptical bosses and employees alike, for whom she’s a hero. This is altogether an exhilarating and comedic drama. Whoever thought a movie about a supermarket could be so much fun?

At WIFF - when an audience doesn't get a film

What happens when an audience doesn’t “get” a film? You have what happened last night – the final night and one of the last screened films – at the Windsor International Film Festival (WIFF), If I Had Legs I’d Kick You (Mary Bronstein, who stars as Dr. Spring). The Chrysler Theatre was two-thirds full and sometime after the film started various laughs could be heard, quite inappropriately I thought, for very dramatic moments in the film. This went on continually for the picture’s entire length, in some cases huge guffaws at otherwise poignant, heartfelt and searing moments. One guy near the front was continually guffawing. A woman a few rows back couldn’t contain her laughter. I couldn’t understand it and the constant tittering became annoying. If I was near one of them, I wanted to admonish “don’t you understand this is a serious moment!?” The plot: Linda (Rose Byrne), ironically a therapist, is dealing with an overload of family problems – a sick daughter hooked to an IV, a “mansplaining” husband (Christian Slater) away on a business trip and not facing familial problems, an apartment roof that crashes in forcing mom and daughter into temporary motel quarters. It’s quite apparent that Linda can’t bear this alone and is emotionally coming apart at the seams. Even her therapist (Conan O’Brien) doesn’t understand. It’s Diary of a Mad Housewife (Frank Perry 1970) brought up to date. Yet at various turns in the movie, which were not comedic at all, a good number of audience members laughed or giggled, apparently oblivious to the nature of the scenes before them. I’m not quite sure why this was. I have my theories. Many audience members are only used to “Hollywood” films or comedies and confronted with a more intense probe into the human condition, can’t grasp it or default into thinking it just has to be comedic. Another is simply not believing what they’re seeing in front of them – of course someone can’t be suffering as badly as that, strangely unaware that countless women undergo these problems every day. Another is simply not having an ability to understand something more complex. One idiot after the film let out a huge “hoot” to mock what he saw. This is the first time in all the years I’ve attended the festival that I’ve witnessed this kind of audience reaction. Not very sophisticated or even smart, folks.  

If this audience didn’t get If I Had Legs…what would they have done with a film like Marianne (Michael Rozek) – slit their throats? For not only is this an hour and a half monologue by one actress on her living room couch and talking directly into the camera, it deals with themes that, shall we say, are a little complex? And ironically, mocks the very type of films those audience members would probably love. When I saw the actress was Isabelle Huppert, my favorite working today, I of course jumped at seeing it. But admittedly it is difficult and the urge to turn one’s mind off during the first half hour is strong. But if you hang in there it has some rewards and is certainly a film I thought about afterwards. The character (Huppert) is eviscerating the current state of movie making – vapid escapism for boffo box office returns - and at one point tells the audience – attention laughers at If I had Legs... - to “wake up!” 

I also caught famed director (Z, The Confession, Missing) Costa-Gavras’s Last Breath. I had been expecting a straight up philosophical discussion among characters about the subject of death, something rarely addressed in popular media, reminiscent of a film like My Dinner with Andre (Louis Malle 1981). In fact, this is a drama about a philosopher, Fabrice Toussaint (Denis Podalydès) and a palliative care doctor (Kad Merad) and his team caring for patients literally on their death beds.  Toussaint follows the doctor on his rounds gathering material for a book but leading him to confront his own future. I won’t say the film was scintillating but it competently depicted a slice of life - or end of life – that is rarely shown, especially as all of us are aging.

I was interested in watching Kristin Scott Thomas’s My Mother’s Wedding if only because I’ve been a big fan of KST and wanted to see what she could do behind the camera in her directorial debut. In fact, she’s also the “mother” in the film. Other appealing cast were Scarlett Johansson, Sienna Miller and Emily Beecham. But the story is less about the mother than the daughters – one in particular – and wasn’t much different from umpteen “chick flicks” about mother-daughter relationships replete with laughter, whimsy and drama, albeit set in the beautiful English countryside. The audience was 90 per cent women.