Schlock night at the movies

Time once again for our occasional feature, the night Windsor Detroit Film joins the masses for a blow out cheap Tuesday movie at the local cineplex. And since there are few quality films shown, time to get down and watch some perfectly glistening schlock. This week it was Melissa McCarthy’s The Boss. Admittedly it is our first McCarthy film (sorry, movie). And any time we'd seen trailers of her in other films she looked pretty rolly polly dishevelled. In The Boss she’s still rolly polly but has been made up to the nines. She wears thousand dollar wardrobes and her makeup and hair are impeccable. That, of course, is because she is “The Boss!” As Michelle Darnell (think a cross between QVC and Martha Stewart) she rules the roost of her megalomaniacal larger-than-life persona. But like The Stewart her delusions of grandeur get the better and she’s imprisoned for insider trading. Fair enough (ha ha). When she leaves the prison gates, to her chagrin, there is no Lincoln Town Car waiting for her. She must hoof it to…where? Her mansion has been foreclosed on. She ends up walking the streets of Wrigleyville (Chicago) and foists herself upon her onetime long-suffering assistant, Claire (Kristen Bell). Claire’s daughter Rachel (Ella Anderson) is in a Girl Scout-like group. But bossy (she is The Boss, after all) Michelle, can’t figure out why the girls would go to so much trouble to fund raise for such little benefit. As it happens Claire makes out-of-this-world brownies. Putting her capitalist instincts to work, Michelle seeks a new empire for herself by selling Claire's brownies en masse. She hijacks the local scout group and turns them into a cross between the Black Panthers, Guardian Angels and a Mao-like cult. (The writers can’t get away from these long-in-the-tooth left wing clichés.) Supposedly much amusement ensues as the renegade troupe clashes with the legitimate scouts. There’s even a street fight that is more brutal than regular gangland violence. It’s actually disgusting, and what are the filmmakers trying to say? I know, they’re trying to be funny. Otherwise the film is kind of a sewer pipe of verbal filth and personal nastiness, with admittedly a few laugh out loud (slightly) scenes and occasional witty dialogue. The Boss is simply more of what Hollywood typically dishes out (and I guess rightly so, since the movie is top at the box office after opening Friday) – despicable characters in their odious worlds. Makes you wonder what continuing effect this stuff has on audiences' minds.

By the way, this having been cheap night and all – and typically crowded – my seat mates were a young woman and a seemingly older guy. The guy sat next to me. He seemed tired and awkward. He was wearing shorts (I know, no long pants after April 1st). He proceeded to take off his high tops and place his bare feet on the seat ahead. Meanwhile his young seatmate seemed to anticipate the McCarthy lines, clapping and shrieking when they came.

The unkindness of others

It’s hard to know whether to laugh, be amazed, saddened or even depressed by the story that unfolds in the more than two-hour long Marguerite (opening Friday at the Main Art Theatre), directed by France’s Xavier Giannoli. Actually, if you’re like me, you’ll experience all of the above. But perhaps I’m more saddened than anything. This is a story, based on true events, of a woman in the 1920s, of some means and influence, who successfully created a minor career for herself as an opera singer. Yet it was totally based on delusion. In this case the character is Marguerite Dumont (Catherine Frot). But almost a century ago in the salons of New York it was Florence Foster Jenkins (soon to be played by Meryl Streep), who made it all the way to Carnegie Hall before she was confronted with the truth of her woefully inadequate performance and died a month later after suffering a heart attack. In both stories we have the case of a woman who, for rather unknown reasons, has a highly inflated opinion about her singing abilities. Marguerite is obsessed with opera and the classics, so much so that she collects elaborate props and has more than 1000 musical scores including one with notes by Puccini, she is happy to point out. She performs in private concerts among the wealthy elite where politesse rules the day. Not even her husband Georges (André Marcon) has the courage to confront her, as her middling career starts to take a trajectory upwards. While bourgeois society smiles indulgently with some retiring to the next room, our star is launched into the big time, if you will, at the mocking hands of a journalist and cartoonist. The cartoonist, Kyrill (Aubert Fenoy), is a Dadaist, an art movement that essentially wanted to overthrow all prevailing institutions by mocking them absurdly. Kyrill, seeing Marguerite’s off key singing as a perfect way to undermine the national anthem, has her sing La Marseillaise in a bohemian club. Marguerite, of course, has no idea she is being set up, and is expelled from her socialite arts society. But her career rise continues. Her cynical Dadaist friends hire a failing opera star, Atos Pezzini (Michel Fau), as a voice coach, and a public concert is scheduled with her solely on the bill. Throughout it all no one confronts Marguerite about how truly awful her singing is, allowing her to, shall we say, fail upwards. Frot is terrific as the lead character, winning best actress at France’s Césars. She balances just the right amount of charm, innocence and delusion – was it extreme eccentricism or a mental disorder? – as she tips the scales on notes of such classic arias as Mozart’s Queen of the Night, Delibes’s The Flower Duet and Bellini’s Casta Diva. (Partly it’s Frot’s own voice – she took lessons!). You will crack smiles but there’s also something rather disturbing about this story, and I guess it has to do with the cruelty of others. All this film’s performances are excellent, as are the costumes and sets that create a kind of French version of Downton Abbey. And the film’s depiction of Parisian avant-garde cafe culture is the best I have ever seen.

Worth moving to LA for

City of Gold (opening Friday at the Main Art Theatre), directed by Laura Gabbert, is not about a famous musician, painter or architect. It’s about someone probably no person outside of Los Angeles has ever heard of. It’s about the food and restaurant critic for the Los Angeles Times, Jonathan Gold. Yet the documentary is fascinating. That’s because of who Gold is. Hardly a pedestrian restaurant critic slapping on three stars to the latest bourgeois-bohemian eatery in a gentrifying part of town, Gold’s reportorial canvas is the almost 5,000 square miles of Greater Los Angeles, a kaleidoscope of a myriad ethnic cultures that have exploded over the last 40-50 years, unfolding in a tapestry on a scale greater than in any other US city. The film’s title says it all. For portraying Gold isn’t just depicting an exquisitely curious writer, fascinated by the seemingly unending variety of food and restaurant culture in Los Angeles. It’s about how his writing about those hundreds of ethnic cuisines – and numerous permutations within seemingly monolithic cultures – transcends the artful descriptions of the meals themselves to portrayals of a city of highly differentiated villages that have knitted LA together. Says urban theorist Michael Dear: “His culinary mapping becomes a cartography of the region, and through leading us we come to understand our city.” In his characteristically southern California pickup truck, the long-haired (and former classical and rock music writer and performer) Gold, heads out on the wide boulevards visiting the often unsung eateries of nondescript blocks and strip plazas, where glorious gastronomic delights await. The variety is profound and astounding – the singular delights of Chengdu Chinese cuisine, Chinese serving up American Chinese food as exotic to fellow Chinese, a restaurant that serves boiled duck with all the fat taken out, Korean street food “previously unimaginable in both California and Seoul,” dishes like hand-cut tonkotsu ramen, Thai pad see ew, and exotica like Oaxacan grasshopper soup and Hagfish or slime eels – “the filets are gelatinous,” he says. In Gold’s love for the city I’m reminded of Randy Newman’s 1983 song I Love LA. Gold believes the city is portrayed wrongly as undifferentiated urban sprawl. But, as exemplified by its cuisine and cultures LA is “less a melting pot than a great glittering mosaic.” But Gold is, after all, a restaurant critic, and explains the tricks of the trade. He makes reservations under different names, and has used disposable phones with different numbers, though recently threw off any pretense at being identified. He doesn’t write a review until he’s visited a restaurant at least four or five times. He’s as much cheerleader as critic - “you want these guys to succeed.” Still, it must be uncomfortable being eyeballed. And what kind of feedback does he get when he’s written a negative review? Have his pieces closed restaurants? The film doesn’t say. I would also have liked the film to continue identifying those it interviews, a common irritant of documentaries. Yet the movie is a stunner: about food, yes, but more about LA and its thriving intricacies of culture.

The 1930s iconic look, defined

Some people binge on Netflix. This week I binged on Turner Classic Movies (TCM), specifically five movies in a row form the 1930s, the earliest, 1930, almost from the dawn of the talkies. All were by early Hollywood pioneer Nick Grinde. The first film was The Bishop Murder Case (1930) starring Basil Rathbone as super sleuth Philo Vance, whose eye for the subtly of behaviour itself is worth watching the film for. This whodunit has a tight plot and it strings the audience along, very suitably, to the rather unexpected end…..Remote Control (Nick Grinde, Malcolm St. Clair & Edward Sedgwick, 1930), is a comedy about a self-centred and absolutely hilarious radio announcer (William Haines as William J. Brennan) who takes over  a radio station but inadvertently hires a member of a mob (John Miljan as Dr. Kruger) for a radio show, and who in turn gives coded hints on air to his crime gang…..Shopworn (1932) stars Barbara Stanwyck as Kitty (Lane) in a romance that is as much about class conflict and the double standard facing women as anything else. Lane is “shopworn,” sniffs paramour Dave Livingstone (Regis Toomey)’s mother (Clara Blandick) to “decent society,” and is banished to jail on trumped-up - what else? - morals charges, only to rehabilitate herself and become a stage star, but nevertheless still considered second class…..In Jailbreak (1936), a mobster going legal is murdered (not unlike Jimmy Hoffa) but the dumb gumshoes (often a theme of Grinde’s movies) are upstaged in the crime-solving department by a reporter (another of his themes), in this case the fast-talking Ken Williams (Craig Reynolds). All signs of guilt point to career criminal Ed Slayden (Richard Purcell) when the real murderer is someone, um, more officious…..Fugitive in the Sky (1937) is an early airplane hijack story, not be terrorists (of a sort) but by criminal thug Killer Madsen (Howard Phillips). Intrigue, romance and humor – also a hallmark of Grinde’s films – interplay. A reporter (Warren Hull as Terry Brewer) again saves the day (ah, the press!) while the airborne cast tosses loads of one-liners during their flight into perilous destiny. “I won’t sit down till I’m good and ready,” says one passenger. “Sit down!” shouts Killer. “I’m ready,” says the passenger…..Grinde’s films define what we think of as movies of the 1930’s, with hard-boiled gangsters, wiseacre reporters, scenes of spinning newspaper headlines, tough dames who usurp their stereotypical roles – often addressed as “sister” - dueling competition for the same gal between antagonists who collaborate in the end, and films which often end with a romantic kiss. 

Classic takeaways

I drew these thoughts while watching several classic movies lately…. Luis Buñuel’s L'Age d'Or (The Golden Age) - screenplay by Buñuel and Salvador Dalí – is a subversive comeuppance of the French aristocracy. But employing the Surreal and Dadaist values of that period, so exemplified by Dali, the film’s absurdist humour is anything but didactic. Instead it’s amusingly comic, as when cows casually wander through a formal cocktail party, and a cook gets blown out of a kitchen and the cocktail-swilling swells pay no attention…...In The Lodger (John Brahm, 1944), the story of Jack the Ripper starring Merle Oberon and Laird Cregar (as the Ripper), dance hall scenes set in 1880's London made me think that this is one of the few ways we can access the past. We don’t have time machines but we can live vicariously by being present in an earlier era through movies of another age…..In Sabrina (Billy Wilder, 1954), we catch Aubrey Hepburn again in all her glory. She is often thought of as the elegant fashion icon in her unintentionally patented little black dress. But Hepburn, in this and other films, also exudes a kind of bohemian flair. For example, in a key scene, she shows up at industrialist Linus Larrabee’s (Humphrey Bogart) downtown office building, wearing top coat and underneath, perhaps odd for the times, not heels and dress but ballet flats and leotard……In Vincente Minnelli’s 1956 Lust for Life, the story of Vincent van Gogh (played by Kirk Douglas) and based of course on the Irving Stone novel, the movie is filmed in the softest of colours, Metrocolor (the trade name used by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for films processed in its lab; virtually all films were shot on Kodak Eastmancolor – Wikipedia), with each frame itself like a lush colourful work of art……The Asphalt Jungle (John Huston, 1950) (photo above)  is a satisfyingly complete film, in that all the planning, execution, sub plots, and conclusion, come together in great clarity and effortlessly. The classic story is about a jewel heist and stars some of the biggest names of the era – Sterling Hayden, Louis Calhern, James Whitmore and Sam Jaffe, and in a minor and one of her first roles, Marilyn Monroe.

Oscar picks, and a little live opera

Okay, the Oscars happen this Sunday. As usual I’m bored stiff and will probably ignore it. Actually, more likely, I’ll be watching movies on Netflix. But I did get to see several of the pictures in nomination – pretty much forcing myself since there were next to none I wanted to see (Dec. 12 post). So herewith my pick for Best Picture. (Disclaimer: I didn’t see Bridge of Spies, Mad Max: Fury Road and The Martian.) …..The Revenant (Alejandro González Iñárritu) should win based on cinematography, drama, acting, and story……My next fave is Spotlight (Tom McCarthy), a journalistic procedural about abuse in the Boston Roman Catholic archdiocese. If you’re a journalist you’ll love it since it captures a newsroom atmosphere and its (flawed) personalities. Though I still don’t understand how these folks, as portrayed, could have done a major investigative report and write a voluminous story based on just jotting down a few notes here and there……Third fave is The Big Short (Adam McKay), the take of how the housing crisis brought down Wall Street, and almost the world, during the Greeaaatt Recession. The movie was lauded for how it so simply and entertainingly explained the arcane jargon of Wall Street. Nevertheless I still didn’t get all of it. The film was also biased by blaming only capitalism as the cause for default mortgages. Where was the critique of government policy that sought to make available a home for every family just like politicians of a bygone era wanted a chicken in every pot? And nowhere portrayed were the greedy and gullible average mortgagees who should have known they never could have afforded a house......Whoever knew that Brooklyn, the borough, was so Irish? There isn’t a Jewish deli in sight in this movie of the same name (Tom McCarthy) that paints an insular Irish world across the East River, post World War II. It’s a nice period portrayal of Irish immigrants and good character study of one in particular, with great acting by Saoirse Ronan. Finally, Room, (Lenny Abrahamson) had its moments and - spoiler alert - thankfully wasn’t set entirely in, uh, one space, the real human story breaking out in the second half of the film.

I caught a recent Metropolitan Opera Live in HD at the cinema for the first time. It was rather interesting and almost better than actually being at Lincoln Center. This included the almost football game like intermission. Instead of players being pulled away by a reporter before going to the locker room, the breathless opera singers were corralled by the ebullient host Renée Fleming for a scene by scene assessment. In this case there was soprano Diana Damrau (above) as lead Leila in Bizet's Les Pêcheurs de Perles (The Pearl Fishers). She’s so good she made it seem her performance was like a walk in the park. Altogether the experience made for an enjoyable Saturday afternoon. But where was the audience? There were all of seven people in the AMC Fairlane Town Center theatre.

Locking horns in northern Iceland

This review was done for a film that had been scheduled to open this weekend but has since been cancelled. Still, it's an interesting film that readers might want to know about and which of course may end up in some other form of media. 

There is brotherly love, and there is brotherly hatred. In Grímur Hákonarson’s Rams, two brothers in northern Iceland live side by side and raise ancestral prized sheep. They compete against one another in contests. But the brothers, Gummi (Sigurður Sigurjonsson) and Kiddi (Theodór Júlíussn), haven’t spoken to each other in 40 years. Who knows the reason? Family passions run deep. Of course the film’s title is a metaphor. The story opens with Kiddi winning top prize in a regional sheep rearing competition to, of course, Gummi’s chagrin. Gummi, surreptitiously, checks the prized sheep and finds signs of Scrapie (BSE), a dangerous incurable disease. Authorities are contacted and all the sheep herders in the valley will have to cull their flocks. This doesn’t sit well since in this remote area sheep raising is the farmers’ only income. Moreover, the region identifies with sheep, a livestock their families have raised for generations. Nevertheless, a quarantine is imposed and the flocks are exterminated. Gummi decides to slaughter his own, an official no-no. But this way he spirts aside his prized ram, Garpur, and some ewes, out of the eyes of authorities. Meanwhile his brother shoots out a couple of windows of his house, accusing him of being a sore loser by indirectly condemning his herd to slaughter. Later, when the cull is finished, a government inspector inadvertently hears the sounds of the sheep coming from Gummi’s basement. Gummi asks Kiddi if he can hide them at his house. But the brothers realize this is a short term solution. They must spirit the small flock to the mountains where the animals can overwinter. As they drive the sheep up the mountain they encounter a blizzard. This is Hákonarson’s first feature, which won the Un Certain Regard prize at last year’s Cannes film festival. It’s a character driven story. There is limited dialogue so much of the interpersonal cues come from looks, grunts and emotional outbursts. At this Sigurjonsson and Júlíussn, two of Iceland’s leading actors, are brilliant. The actors, who in real life are urban based, also seamlessly portray rugged independent farmers. The movie’s story is more about the brothers’ relationship than the moral imperatives of destroying diseased livestock. The film doesn’t answer the ethical question of whether what the brothers are doing is right. Presumably it’s depicting its characters just the way they are – hardly heroes in their obstinacy and anti-authoritarianism – but yet capable, on some level, of human connection.