Quick review: WOODY ALLEN - A DOCUMENTARY (World Cinema Showcase)

The director of How to Lose Friends & Alienate People and a number of Curb Your Enthusiasm episodes directs this entry in the American Masters series, this time focussed on the confrontational, hard-working, prolific, funny, maudlin, still working, nebbish, brand unto himself, Woody Allen. 

This nearly 3 hour long documentary covers the entirety of Allen's life, going back to his parents and grandparents. And while the film covers a lot of ground - from Woody's early writing days before moving into stand-up and then through to writing film and then directing - there are still a number of omissions. What about his actual first directorial effort, What's Up Tiger Lily? Or the voice work for Antz? Or the large number of films during the 90's and early 2000's that were just really no good?

It borders on hagiography - there is little dissent from the view that Allen is an unmitigated genius. While, yes, Allen is indeed an important cultural voice, to argue that he is without fault (as this documentary seems to) is ignorant at best and wilfully rewriting history at worst. But, there is little wonder this is the approach taken - this is for the American Masters series and there would little point in tearing down one of those masters. There are interviews with long-time collaborators, various actors, producing partners, agents and one or two ex-wives. Mia Farrow (and Soon-Yi at that) are notable by their absences. 

Perhaps you think I'm being too hard on the film or Allen. Perhaps so. I enjoy some of Allen's films; not everyone does. Allen is an intensely interesting figure, as much for what he says in his films as how he says it. While I certainly would have preferred a fuller picture of Allen the man and Allen the artist, the film does do well in following Allen through a 6 decade long career.  

World Cinema Showcase: OUR IDIOT BROTHER

The opening night film for this year's World Cinema Showcase was the very charming, very funny Paul Rudd starring Our Idiot Brother. As a film to open a film festival it's an interesting choice: a relatively unchallenging comedy with a cast of Hollywood A-listers. No serious-minded Swedes and their existential dread here thankyouverymuch.

And how thankfully refreshing it is. While it may not set the tone for the rest of the Showcase to follow, Our Idiot Brother is still an intelligent and engaging comedy about a well-meaning and aimless drifter affecting and disrupting the lives of his uptight sisters.

Paul Rudd is that brother and, frankly, the film had me within the opening moments. Rudd is sent to jail for selling pot to a uniformed officer and, while being far from an entirely smart thing to do he isn't entirely idiotic. He is simply a more open, more naive and optimistic character. And when Rudd leaves prison, shaggy hair and beard flowing with a large grin on his face I couldn't help but be enamoured. It is the rare person who doesn't like Paul Rudd; that nicest guys of nice guys in Hollywood. Coming home from prison, he no longer has a home on the organic farm he once worked on and so finds himself bunking at his mother's, before moving through his sister's accommodation and goodwill. 

Emily Mortimer is the eldest sister; the mother with two children who, with her distant English director husband, is trying to raise her children in a politically-correct molly-coddled way. Elizabeth Banks is the career focussed journalist who is in love-denial with the cute neighbour across the hall (Adam Scott). And Zooey Deschanel is the youngest of the female siblings, a bisexual stand-up comic currently involved with Rashida Jones' very cool lawyer. They live in some sort of communal loft/open apartment thing. Deschanel seems to playing the most against type of the three; she isn't the happy dreamer or "manic-pixie-dream-girl" that has become so associated with her, especially with her new (rather good) sitcom New Girl. 

The family is fractured and largely happy with that status quo. Or, if not happy, then at least settled into it. And Rudd just wanders through it all, the epitome of the well meaning doofus who stumbles into bad situations. He doesn't so much upset the apple-cart as set it on a collision course down the hill, chasing after it in his crocs and causing more damage than the actual cart.

The film is not without its flaws or moments of predictability but these quickly make way for the next joke or set-up. Our Idiot Brother is an intelligent comedy centred around the charming performance of Paul Rudd. In any number of actor's hand the character could have been more annoying than anything, but with Rudd's easy likeability he anchors the film around him and allows the audience to have a good time with him. 

Reviews at the Speed o' Light: SHAME, MILDRED PIERCE, IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT

This is first in what I assume will be an ongoing new feature here at rockets and robots are GO! With my primary focus for the year being my MA, I'm not going to have anywhere near the amount of time I would usually spend on writing up reviews for everything I see at the cinema. It's unfortunate, but the blog just cannot be my sole writing focus for the year. However, I am determined to keep this blog as something of an online journal of my cinematic viewings so, at the end of every month those films that I have yet to write up individually (usually retro or classic films) will be featured here.

To kick it off:

Poster design by Mark Carroll

Shame

British artist-turned-filmmaker Steve McQueen's Shame is a stark look at one man's addiction, the depths he sinks to and what it costs him. It doesn't pull punches and really doesn't shy away from showing anything and everything. And that is graphically shown in the first few minutes of the film with Michael Fassbender's Brandon wanders to and fro in his fancy apartment, absolutely starkers and yes, his cock in full view. 
But despite all of the nudity and the subject matter this is no erotic film. It is, in fact, entirely un-erotic, the sex and nudity being frank, matter-of-fact or entirely hollow and emotionless.

Brandon is a charming, well groomed and intelligent man with a job he seems to enjoy and is particularly good at. He has a nice enough apartment, no doubt expensive. He enjoys a drink with the lads. He is a sex addict. He picks up random women from bars or employs prostitutes. He spends his night's at home hollow-eyed and hunched over his laptop, surfing the internet for porn. He's not picky where he gets his fix from and, like most addicts, manages to keep it all secret from his boss and workmates.

This perfectly structured life of Brandon's is interrupted and thrown around by the arrival of his sister Cissy (Carey Mulligan), a singer who has decided to stay for an indefinite period of time. There is a lot of history between these characters hinted at, rather than spelled out. There is that sibling closeness, followed by Brandon blowing up at having to constantly "look after" Cissy.

McQueen allows scenes to run and run, the takes lingering and only cutting away when it becomes absolutely necessary. In this way, he allows the film to really get under your skin; to soak into you. The camera doesn't look away and, thus, neither can you. This long-take technique never becomes pretentious or allows itself to become a distraction to the viewer but instead is just another tool in McQueen's director's toolbox.

When you have a director who is using long-takes, it helps to people the film with actors who are really at the top of their game. Fassbender and Mulligan, two young British actors who have really broken out in the last couple of years, own the frames. Fassbender is an actor who projects and easy charm and charisma, as evidenced in Inglorious Basterds and as the globe totting Erik Lensherr in X-Men: First Class, and Shame is the first time I've witnessed that dark side he is capable of. 

Mildred Pierce
(Wellington Film Society screening)

The Film Society kicked off it's mini-season of noir films on 35mm with this Joan Crawford starring classic (recently remade with Kate Winslet in the title role). And thanks to the truly horrendous and spoilt daughter of the heroine, it was no less a difficult watch than Shame.

Mildred Pierce begins with a death. From there the story of how we reach that death is a tale told by Mildred to the cops. Mildred is a strong, independently-minded woman who has always wanted to do the best for her two daughters, especially eldest Veda. Poor Mildred is a woman used and abused by all the males close to her though; her cheating first husband, her close friend Wally and her lover/second husband Monte. They all use Mildred in different ways, the only half-way decent one being the cheating first husband Bert.

Michael Curtiz (Casablanca and the Errol Flynn starring The Adventures of Robin Hood) directs the screen legend as Mildred opens her own restaurant which becomes a flourishing chain. Veda sees the business as nothing more than money for her to buy things. This girl, this incomparable brat of a girl, is one of the most horribly selfish, materialistic and mean-spirited characters I've ever had the displeasure to witness. She truly cares not a whit for anyone or anything past herself and her own enjoyments. When Mildred finally whips round and slaps the hussy a well-deserved open right hand, I cheered.

A film that grips you rather than has you gripping the edge of your seat, the tale takes its twists and turns but is nowhere near as lurid (to modern eyes) as the advertising would have us believe. Instead Mildred is a strong woman in a man's world played by a strong woman in a man's world.

It Happened One Night
(Embassy Retro Showcase)

This is in fact the first Frank Capra film I've ever seen. Yup, including It's A Wonderful Life. Starring Claudette Colbert and Gone With the Wind's Clark Gable It Happened One Night puts modern romantic comedies to shame.

Colbert stars, luminously, as heiress Ellie who is, essentially, held under house(boat) arrest by her wealthy father. Actually, these opening moments, to modern eyes, give the feeling that this is going to be anything but a romantic comedy. More like a horrifying thriller.

But she escapes! Huzzah! Because she is in love with (and married to, though Daddy wants an annulment) Westley, who is in New York. Penniless but determined Ellie sets out from Florida to New York, travelling by bus. It is on the bus she bumps into Gable's drunken newspaperman, Peter Warne. He is a character of the age; an intelligent, charmingly drunk reporter of strong moral character(ish). He's a fast talker and a bit of a wise ass, though she's no slouch in that department either.

These two knock each other about cross-country, Warne looking out for the heiress who has little idea how the world works outside her sheltered life. And, surprise surprise, they find themselves falling in love. It's a light-hearted romp, with plenty of sparkling dialogue brought to life by two actors with a fine ear for it and actual chemistry together.