Don't Worry, Be Poppy

Director Mike Leigh, best known for his emotionally wrought dramas such as Vera Drake and Secrets & Lies, takes a 180-degree turn with his latest film, Happy-Go-Lucky. An unabashed burst of sunshine, Leigh’s lead character is Poppy, a 30 year old grade school teacher with a nearly manic thirst for life. Always eager to put a smile on someone’s face or listen to a problem, Poppy floats through her days content with living the same way she did at twenty years old. Leigh finds all of this oh so charming, and hopes the audience takes Poppy’s approach to life to heart as well, finding something winning in her unrestrained good nature and take-it-as-it-comes-with-a-smile-on-your-face attitude.

Unfortunately for Leigh, Happy-Go-Lucky veers dangerously close to being a tourism trip to the lower classes to celebrate their exotic ways. Poppy and her flatmate seem to live a life that is an extended version of a slumber party, as they walk around in old PJs, hang out together in their bedrooms and order take out. Poppy is also, conveniently, a grade school teacher where her amped up happiness can only prove to be an asset. However, a major sequence in the film has Poppy, her younger sister and her roommate heading out to the suburbs to visit her older sister. Pregnant, married and living in a new house with a yard, Leigh scripts her as haughty and condescending of Poppy’s lifestyle. The notion Leigh puts forth is that it’s inconceivable of somebody in the suburbs being truly happy the way Poppy is. It’s simplistic at best and borderline offensive at worst, suggesting that even though Poppy is lower down the food the chain, her lack of responsibilities somehow grant her a magical potion for a stress-free lifestyle. Leigh doesn’t see that there is a middle ground. There are many single people and couples with “adolescent” impulses, that also manage to balance mortgages, children and savings.

In an interview with the Hour, a weekly Montreal newspaper, Leigh states that the film is about "...the way ordinary people without privileges just get on with things, or don't, as the case may be. It's an anti-miserablist film, we are destroying ourselves and each other and the planet, and there's much to be gloomy about, but there are people out there getting on with it." What Leigh seems to not understand is that "ordinary people" "get on with it" because they have to. Poppy's life as a single woman with no children and a steady job, simply isn't representative of "ordinary people" and it's a major flaw that prevents Happy-Go-Lucky from gaining any kind of insight into the true workings of the lower or middle class. If Leigh had chosen a single mother, or a family with both parents working and raising children, it would've been a truer representation of what so-called "ordinary people" do to "get on with it". But he plays it safe and familiar, giving the audience a digestible, quirky British girl to tell them to smile and be happy with their lot. Which, to put it in British terms, is a whole lot of rot.

Woody's Barcelona

For the better part of three decades, Woody Allen has been New York City’s unofficial biographer, capturing with a lover’s eye, that magical city's elusive allure as he wound his characters through the streets that never sleep. Who can forget the brilliant series of black and white still shots that open Manhattan; the architecture tour in Hannah & Her Sisters or the numerous apartments, theaters and parks that tracked a relationship in Annie Hall. It seemed impossible to think of Woody Allen even considering shooting in another city. But while European audiences continued to support Allen, the quintessentially American filmmaker couldn’t seem to find an audience at home, and in 2005 Allen crossed the Atlantic where funding and support were more readily available.

Match Point, Allen’s triumphant return to critical acclaim, marked the first of three films shot in England. While both Match Point and Cassandra’s Dream were exercises in morality, and Scoop a nostalgic take on classic comedy tropes, Vicky Cristina Barcelona vaults itself over any genre specifications and into the canon of Allen’s finest accomplishments. Moreover, it finds Allen training his camera with the same lingering sense of longing and beauty that he would in New York City, on the landmarks of Barcelona and provincial Spain.

Needless to say, I’ve been looking forward to this film all year, but even I could not have anticipated what an accomplishment Vicky Cristina Barcelona is. On the surface, the traditional Allen themes of romanticism versus pragmatism, art versus commerce and the sources of artistic inspiration are all to be found here. But what unfolds is something richer that taps deep into the well of the sacrifices that are made for passion and comfort, wrapped in a remarkable package that is by turns hilarious and sober.

Best friends Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Scarlett Johannson) are on vacation in Barcelona. Vicky is due to marry her thoroughly bland fiancee Doug upon her return to New York City, while Cristina is simply drifting, caught in a state of post-graduation uncertainty. One night at dinner, they are very openly propositioned by Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem), an artist who suggests they all spend the weekend together in the country, take in the sights, have some good food and of course, sleep together. The buttoned down Vicky is appalled, while Cristina is intrigued. They end up deciding to go with Juan Antonio, but with no guarantee of sex. Of course, both girls end up falling for Juan Antonio and from there, without spoiling the film for anyone, the wheels are put in motion for a very interesting summer.

Allen seems to have relished his time in Bareclona and Spain, as he scatters the film with shots of Gaudi’s famous buildings, the colorful alleyways of metropolitan Barcelona, and with a honey glazed lens, finds the soul of rural Spain, with simple shots of storefronts and quiet landmarks that left my fellow audience members literally gasping. But beneath these shots, and just visible under the dual love triangles that make up the film, is a very sophisticated script that offers up a progressive view of artistic relationships (both romantic and professional), that considers what each person brings into a situation, and makes quiet argument that sometimes multiple partners are needed to maintain the balance of sexual, artistic and emotional needs. It’s an intriguing logic, and certainly very “European”, but it’s all the more remarkable in that it’s coming from a man who is at an age when most directors and writers have long retired. It’s inspiring to find a director who is still working out new angles on familiar themes, with the intelligence many in the industry half his age simply lack.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona was more than worth the wait, and it ranks with Allen’s finest films. Funny and heartwarming, it’s a wonderful journey that doesn’t offer simple solutions for the lives of artists, but humbly suggests, without judgment, that the paths chosen are the ones best for the individual (or individuals) involved.

Clint Eastwood 1, Spike Lee 0

This summer, Spike Lee and Clint Eastwood got into a very public war of words, when Lee attacked Eastwood for not giving enough representation to African-American soldiers in his duo of WWII films, Flags Of Our Fathers and Letters From Iwo Jima. Lee made the comments at the Cannes film festival, where he just happened to be showcasing an eight minute reel of his own WWII epic, Miracle At St. Anna. While I understood Lee's point, his actions played out as nothing more than some bait to throw journalists to give free promotion to his upcoming film. As for Eastwood, his reaction was just as juvenile, and I frankly thought his WWII films were a pedestrian endeavor at best. All that said, I hoped that Lee would back up his vitriol with a film that would finally bring a real African-American perspective to WWII.

He didn't.

Miracle At St. Anna is a qualified trainwreck that conversely has too much and too little within its overly long two hour and forty minute running time. What is in excess is plot, with James McBride's script (adapted from his own novel) overflowing with multiple, meandering plot lines that often stall and stutter, instead of advancing the story. Thus, its all the more vexing that every character in the film - the quartet of black soldiers; German soliders; Italian citizens and even Americans back home - never develop beyond one dimensional characters. It's hard to believe that the same man who made the wonderfully furious and complex Do The Right Thing is responsible for the run of baby killing Germans, gesticulating Italians, backward hillbillies and ignorant American Army brass that populate the film. McBride and Lee even have the audacity of tossing in a "magical negro", an archetype which Lee himself so famously derided, into one of the lead roles.

As I waited with growing impatience for the film to end, wondering why John Leguizamo, John Turturro and Joseph Gordon-Levitt all signed up for roles that were essentially nothing more than (wasted) cameos, it was Derek Luke's magnetic performance that kept me invested in the film. And the photo still above starts one of the most powerful shots/sequences in the film, that ranks right up there with Lee's most memorable scenes, and it still gave me hope that Lee had something up his sleeve for the ending.

But it wasn't to be.

McBride's script closes the film with a conclusion so pat and sweet, you may need to see the dentist, and then as if to up the unbelievability factor, Lee treats the audience to "He's Got The Whole World In His Hands" over the end credits. Lee's film is so bad that comparing it Eastwood's film - or any other WWII film for that matter - is just embarrassing.

Spike Lee hasn't lost his passion, but with Miracle At St. Anna, he lost his focus. With the film unfolding in a few different directions - WWII epic, revenge film and fantasy film - it never gels into a cohesive whole. His indictment of the treatment of African-American soldiers simply gets lost in the mechanics of a preposterous, overly complicated story. I'm still rooting for Spike Lee but he needs to get back to the kind of lean, effective filmmaking that made Do The Right Thing, Clockers, Get On The Bus, 25th Hour and Inside Man so invigorating and powerful.

When Film Critics Don't Help Themselves

Film criticism has taken a severe beating over the past couple of years. With physical newspapers losing readership and relevance to the variety of up to date coverage available on the internet, media owners have begun trimming the fat and film critics have faced a purge as their perceived value has been diminished. Many pieces and arguments have been written about the state of film criticism, and why critics are vital to the development of cinema. While I won't rehash the argument here, needless to say, I too believe film criticism is necessary.

However, earlier this week I came across a piece by Boston Globe "film critic" Wesley Morris that frankly, blew my mind. It reminded me why film critics continue to be received as nothing more than nerds with an opinion, and furthermore, why anyone from casual bloggers (myself included) to "entertainment reporters" are given just as much credibility as scholars. Entitled "An Offer I Could Refuse", Wesley Morris uses the recent and celebrated BluRay release of The Godfather films to confess that he had not seen them. Using every excuse in the book from "I was born after it was made" to "I just missed them", Morris makes no bones about being a professional, paid film critic who just happened to be ignorant of the one of the most important, influential films of the past thirty-odd years. In short, The Godfather changed every film and story about the mafia that came after it, and to say that one "gets it" by the countless pop culture references it has produced (as Morris lamely does) is to miss the point completely. And as if to put the final nail in his coffin, Morris' final summation of the importance of the films is so completely superficial as to be meaningless. "Power corrupts" is just one of the many layers in Coppola's fable that moves beyond its gangland trappings to cover the American dream and the immigrant experience.

If I can dash this off in the few moments I have before leaving for the office this morning, surely if completely focused, I can do Mr. Morris' job with as much insight and perhaps even more (and I've already seen The Godfather trilogy). So to the editors of the Boston Globe and Wesley Morris I offer this challenge: let us write some head to head reviews of current films or new DVD releases and see if your readers can tell the difference. I'm certainly not a Yale graduate, but just by being a cinema lover in general, I bet I can bring the same degree of professionalism and depth to my pieces as Mr. Morris. If Mr. Morris and the Boston Globe are truly interested I'll be more than happy to pass along sample reviews of music and film from my stint with PopMatters.

I certainly hope Wesley Morris doesn't represent the new face of the film criticism, because if so, he may want to start updating his CV.

Vicky Cristina Montreal!

Well, it appears my little rant was for nought, as the film is finally opening in Montreal on September 19th. I'm not really sure what the reason was for the delay, as Allen's other films have generally arrived on time, but I'm glad I'll have the chance to catch it on the big screen.

Sam Raimi: From Daring To Dull

It’s odd to watch a once daring cult director settle so comfortably into mainstream mediocrity, but that’s just what has happened with Sam Raimi. During the ‘80s and ‘90s, Raimi made his name with his over-the-top meta-horror trilogy of Evil Dead films, while continuing with off-the-beaten path projects like Darkman and The Quick And The Dead. By the late ‘90s he even started to mine more serious territory, like his pals the Coen Brothers, with the excellent A Simple Plan. Raimi then stumbled a bit, starting with the Kevin Costner weepy baseball film For Love Of The Game followed by The Gift, which is most renown for giving the world a glimpse of Mrs. Tom Cruise’s breasts.

And then came Spiderman.

The teaming of Raimi and Spiderman was initially a fanboy’s dream, and the first film was a faithful adaptation, keeping the comic’s humor, tone and playfulness intact. However, as the franchise continued, it spawned two more, lesser sequels, in which the writers seemed more concerned about wooing tweenage audiences, than writing a credible story. Spiderman essentially became, a mopey teenager who spent more time pining for girls than flying around the city kicking ass. As for Raimi, his once unique stamp had all but disappeared in these films (aside from the obligatory cameos from his longtime friend Bruce Campbell) in a haze of poorly rendered CGI. However, the films were massively successful, but instead of leveraging that success into personal projects, Raimi instead fell into producing a spate of low-grade, PG-13 “horror films” or defanged J-horror remakes such as The Grudge, The Messengers and Boogeyman. Unlike Christopher Nolan who flexed his directorial muscles with The Prestige between his highly acclaimed Batman films, Raimi simply did nothing.

And now, Raimi has signed on to direct two more Spiderman sequels.

What has happened to Sam Raimi? While fans may point out he does have his first non-Spiderman film in nearly ten years, Drag Me To Hell, is coming out in 2009, it should be noted that Ghost House Pictures, his partner in the slurry of cheapie horror flicks noted above, is producing the film so it doesn’t make me optimistic about its prospects. In my mind, Raimi has effectively turned into George Lucas, reaping the benefits of a successful franchise, while no longer being interested in challenging himself as a director. The fire that once sparked one of the most inventive minds in the business has all but been snuffed out.

The only positive thing out of all of this is that it will hopefully put Raimi’s gestating, but ill-advised, remake of his own Evil Dead film on the backburner. But the director who once worked so passionately on the fringes, is now disappointingly complacent within the Hollywood machine.

See "No End In Sight" For Free

No End In Sight, the Academy Award nominated film for Best Documentary Feature, has now been made available for free viewing, in its entirety and adfree, on YouTube, through election day, November 4th, 2008. This is a film that can't be reviewed, so much as discussed; that can't be watched, so much as felt. Director, writer and producer, Charles Ferguson, interviews key players within the various governmental departments responsible for the war and documents the decisions and policies that led to the breakdown and insurgency within Iraq. It's an extraordinarily powerful work, that is a sobering and devastating critique of the Bush administration and a superb analysis of a war gone wrong. It's a film that is frequently frustrating in showing the level of arrogance, hypocrisy and plain stubbornness of officials as they time and again ignore official military intelligence or plain common sense in every step of this ill-timed and illegitimate war.

However, what also comes through is the extraordinary bravery of the everyday soldiers on the ground. While we've heard countless politicians give the same tired rhetoric praising their work, it's not until you hear it first hand that it really strikes you how difficult their task is, and how deeply felt their conviction is to do right by the Iraqi people. Seth Moulton, David Yancey and Hugo Gonzalez are eloquent in describing the struggles they faced in Iraq, and in their unwavering desire to see finished the work that so many of their colleagues died working to achieve.

While critically lauded, the film only received a limited theatrical run and is currently available on DVD. Thanks to the generosity of Charles Ferguson and Magnolia Pictures you don't even need to leave the comfort of your own home to see the film.

Watch it here, in a high definition stream and pass on the link on to anybody who cares where the United States is headed for the next four years, especially during one of the most important elections of the last decade.