Random Cinematic Awards 2012

Malin Akerman & another dude are here to present Cinema Romantico's annual Random Cinematic Awards!

As always, here are a few awards to tide you over until the bigger pronouncements still to come! Enjoy! I hope.

Best Line of the Year: Matthew McConaughey in "Bernie." See here.

Best Line of the Year Runner-Up: "If you could keep your caterwauling down to a minimum so I can finish my line of inquiry with young Django." - Christoph Waltz, "Django Unchained"

Best Movie Ringtone of the Year: "Can't Get You Out Of My Head", Kylie Minogue in "Holy Motors."

Best Movie Review Quote of the Year: "The secret of 'The Avengers' is that it is a snappy little dialogue comedy dressed up as something else, that something else being a giant A.T.M. for Marvel and its new studio overlords, the Walt Disney Company." - A.O. Scott, New York Times (contrary to what the jaundiced Samuel L. Jackson says it is soooooooooooooooooooo true)

The Annual Malin Akerman Award, formerly known as The Sienna Miller Award (presented to the movie character of the past year on whom I had the biggest crush): Lizzy Caplan in "Bachelorette."

The Annual Then He Kissed Me In Goodfellas Award (presented for the best use of pop music in a movie this year):  "The St. Valentine's Day Massacre" in "Not Fade Away"

The Annual Best Of My Love In Boogie Nights Award (presented for the second best use of pop music in a movie this year): "Always Alright" by Alabama Shakes in "Silver Linings Playbook"

The Annual "Three Amigos" Award (presented to the most entertaining movie trio of the year): James Spader, John Hawkes & Tim Blake Nelson in "Lincoln." We need these three on Capitol Hill, and we need them there now.

The Annual Lady Gaga Soda Can Curler Hair Award (presented to the best wig in a movie this year): Salma Hayek in "Savages."

The Annual Merv Griffin Is The Elevator Killer Award (presented to the best movie cameo of the year): Cillian Murphy in "The Dark Knight Rises."

The Annual Scarlett O'Hara Curtain Dress Award (presented to the best piece of cinematic clothing of the year): Robert DeNiro's green sport coat in "Silver Linings Playbook."

The Annual Roger Ebert Award (presented to the best movie essay of the year): "A Reason To Love Multiplex Theater Lobbies", Jessica of The Velvet Cafe. If you could not already tell from the name of my blog, I am a hardcore romantic. Particularly (obviously) when it comes to the cinema. And so I always appreciate when others can romanticize the cinematic experience and no one has ever done it better than my esteemed colleague when she cleverly employed the wordage of C.S. Lewis to convey her adoration of movie theater lobbies. Bravo, I say.

New Age Gangster Squad

Recently before a newly released film I saw a trailer for the infamously delayed "Gangster Squad", a film in 1940's L.A. in which a band of semi-vigilante, badass policemen go to war with huffing, puffing mobsters from back east.

The trailer that immediately followed "Gangster Squad" was for a movie titled "This Is The End" which apparently features Seth Rogen, James Franco, Jonah Hill, Danny McBride, Craig Robinson, and Jay Baruchel all playing themselves and cracking wise. And that's when it hit me.

Rogen, Franco, Hill, McBride, Robinson & Baruchel is our generation's Gangster Squad.

Which is to say, God help us all.

Stolen

One would be excused for assuming Nicolas Cage's "Stolen" (and Nicolas Cage's did-it-all-for-the-money movies really should include his name before the title in the manner of John Carpenter) would feature yet another crazy-eyes Cage performance. However, in Nicolas Cage's "Stolen", Nicolas Cage shockingly takes the role of the straight man. He is noted bank robber Will Montgomery and director Simon West and writer David Guggenheim go to extreme lengths in the action-packed prologue to prove that despite being on the wrong side of the law, Will is a "good guy."

He takes a phone call from his daughter pre-bank robbery and chats happily with her about a bedtime story. He refuses to allow one of his bank robbing accomplices, Vincent (Josh Lucas), to murder an innocent witness. "We're not killers," Will explains. And he refuses to name the names of Vincent or his other accomplices, security expert Hoyt (M.C. Gainey) and comely getaway driver Riley (comely Malin Akerman), when put behind bars by vengeful cop Harlend (Danny Huston, in a jaunty hat) after his refusal to murder the innocent witness lands him behind bars.

And once he is released eight years later he plans to go the route of comely Riley and lead the straight life, making up with his aged daughter (Sami Gayle). But problems, as they must, emerge. 1.) His daughter wants nothing to do with him. 2.) His daughter is kidnapped by re-christened cabbie Vincent who locks her in the trunk of his taxi and demands $10 million from Will to spare her life.

See, Will burned the $10 million from the previous bank job to lessen his jail sentence and Vincent has always held a grudge. The grudge, in fact, has caused Vincent to go to - in the words of comely Riley - "dark." So dark he has (gasp!) grown long, ratty hair and (egads!) acquired a prosthetic leg. In other words, Josh Lucas does the crazy-eyes acting here.

Crazy-Eyes Josh Lucas, or is that Chris Elliott?

Trouble is, Lucas basically looks like Chris Elliott in "Scary Movie 2" and is about as threatening. The timbre of his voice was just never meant to generate menace and when he goes off the deep end he is in water 12 feet less deep than when Nicolas Cage goes off the deep end.

Nicolas Cage's "Stolen" is set, for the most part, over a 24 hour period on Fat Tuesday in New Orleans. Theoretically this is to allow for a certain sense of atmosphere, but really this is to allow a great many crowds and/or floats which characters can use to conveniently escape either from the authorities or from other bad guys when the screenplay cannot quite figure out how to manufacture the escape on its own. It also allows for the obligatory shot of Nicolas Cage dramatically running up and over cabs while "the clock is ticking." And really that's what Nicolas Cage's "Stolen" is all about - Nicolas Cage running up and over cabs while "the clock is ticking."

Although it's also about the comely Malin Akerman helping Nicolas Cage thieve $10 million in gold bars in a sequence that makes robbing a bank look at least as easy as Gary Oldman hi-jacking "Air Force One"......while dressed in chic high heel boots. You could poke a lot of holes in the story of Nicolas Cage's "Stolen" but you cannot deny that the comely Malin Akerman could pull off a bank robbery while dressed in chic high heel boots.

That might have been the single most credible plot point of a movie in 2012. I mean, if the comely Malin Akerman can't pull off a bank robbery while dressed in chic high heel boots, cinema may as well just go ahead and retire as an artistic medium.  

The comely Malin Akerman, who pulls off a bank robbery while dressed in chic high heel boots.

Borrowing Another Movie's Riff

"I love records. They're not for everyone, you know? You really have to take care of vinyl. It's very delicate, it can get wrecked so easily. You really have to love it." (Pause.) "Do you hear how full it sounds? You want to buy a thicker record. They're more stable, the grooves in them are deeper and wider. You can get more detail. They're heavier, they're harder to carry around, but they're worth it. My parents have this amazing turntable. It's vintage cherry wood Victor 45. Perfect turn. All the original parts. Can't wait to hear it again."

This is a speech Keira Knightley’s Penny delivers in the final third of “Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World.” As I heard her recite these words while giving the film a second viewing, I was struck by their similarity to the speech Paul Giamatti presents to Virginia Madsen regarding the delicacy and finer points of his favorite wine, Pinot Noir. “Pinot,” he says, “needs constant care and attention.” The point, of course, is that Giamatti is talking about himself as he talks about Pinot Noir just as Knightley is talking about herself as she talks about vinyl. “It’s very delicate, it can get wrecked so easily.” Noting this, I then noted how “Sideways” probably cultivated this speech better than “Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World.”

But then I thought about it some more, and I wondered if this was the right way to approach it? To say “X” is better than “Y”? Vinyl is used to play music, obviously, and musicians are constantly riffing or borrowing or straight-up stealing previous material recorded by others for their own material.

At this past year’s South by Southwest Festival, keynote speaker Bruce Springsteen explained and demonstrated how he lifted the riff of The Animals’ “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” for his own personal gain. In his words: “It’s the same f---ing riff, man.” (When Bruce does it, everyone chuckles. When Lady Gaga does it, everyone cries heresy. But don’t get me started.)

Writer/Director Lorene Scafaria merely borrows a “Sideways” riff for “Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World.” I didn’t mind. I’ve decided I like them both equally.

Pitching Serendipity 2

Julian, son of Jonathan and Sara Traeger, goes on an eighth grade band trip to upstate New York where he Meets Cute with fellow eighth-grader Haley in the midst of recording a group parody video of Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe.” Haley lip syncs “I just met you / and this is crazy / but here’s my number / so call me maybe” to Julian who immediately takes this as a sign that Haley should actually give him her phone number so he can call her (maybe, but probably).

Alas, Haley has a boyfriend and Julian admits he has a girlfriend. Thus, Haley gives him the traditional kiss on the cheek, they gather up their instruments (she to the string section, he to the brass) and go on their merry way. Double alas, Haley and Julian return to the bus minutes later at the SAME TIME. She has forgotten her lucky scarf. He has forgotten his lucky Eli Manning jersey (which he wears underneath the band outfit). They pause. They decide to blow off the concert and go skating and get a milkshake instead.

They reunite with their band mates afterwards outside the local mall where they were playing and he finally convinces her to give him her phone number so he can call her (maybe, but probably). Triple alas, Julian’s iPhone battery dies at the EXACT instant he is about to type in her number. Haley reads this as a sign. “It’s the universe telling us to back off,” she says. Julian tries to talk her out of it. She grabs his hand and drags him into the mall. She decides that if they choose the same restaurant in the food court they are meant to be together now. They do not choose the same restaurant. They lose sight of each other. They re-board different buses. She is dropped off at her school and he is dropped off at his. So it goes.

Flash ahead to Julian’s Winter Formal. He has broken up with his girlfriend seeing as how he cannot get Haley off his mind. He tells his parents about Haley. He explains he wants to take HER to the Winter Formal. Jonathan and Sara, we learn, have lost a great deal of that mystic romanticism from the previous film. They are older, worn down, resigned to reality and commonsense. But when their son proposes to traipse all over NYC in an effort to find Haley, his parents see it as………a sign. They decide to aid his effort and take turns as his sidekick in a desperate 48 hour quest to find the love of their son’s eighth grade life before the Big Dance.

Late in the third act BOTH Jonathan and Sara wind up side-by-side with their son and, improbably, fantastically, against every conceivable odd, Julian finds Haley and she agrees to go with him to the Winter Formal while his parents rekindle their romance and sense of destiny.

The film ends with Julian & Haley AND Jonathan & Sara cutting a rug to “Call Me Maybe.” (And Eugene Levy returns in his original role for a cameo as an eternally-chagrined parent dance chaperone.)

2012 Ultimate Mix Tape

Hey, everybody! It's that time of year again! The time to list my favorite 12 (13, "14") songs of the year, the 12 (13, "14") songs I will take from 2012 with me for the rest of my days! Enjoy! Maybe?

1. "You & Me", Sara Watkins. If there was a catchier tune that cried out for a sing-along more than this one in 2012, well, I didn't hear it because it's not out there. Listen.

2. "Cold Shoulders", Gold Motel. This Song = Rock 'n' Roll. Listen.

3. "Demons Don't Get Me Down", Lindi Ortega. If I've said it once, I've said it 46,000 times, if you claim not to like country music it is likely because you're not listening to the proper country music. Which is to say, you're not listening to Lindi Ortega. Listen.

4. "I Found A Way", First Aid Kit. Like getting carried away by a beautifully bitter breeze. Listen.

5. "Sweet Spot", Tift Merritt. My favorite song of 2012, hands down. Listen.

6. "The House That Heaven Built", Japandroids. Let yourself go and soar as high as this song dares to take you. Listen.

7. "It's Not My Fault, I'm Happy", Passion Pit. If Springsteen had hailed from 00's Brooklyn instead of 70's Jersey Shore and worn sweaters instead of work shirts. Listen.

8. "Into the Night", The Raveonettes. ........sigh........ Listen.

9. "Silence", The Ting Tings. An ode to the beauty of silence tucked away inside a rip-roaringly gorgeous melodic ode to noise. Listen.

10. "Looking Hot", No Doubt. Maybe if you graduated high school the same year you fell in love with Gwen & the boys you would understand why listening to Ms. Stefani proclaim her 40-something hotness (you go, girl!) to a song straight outta '96 is so nostalgically ass-shaking. Listen.

11. "Tomorrow", Niki & The Dove. The powerhouse gauntler-thrower-downer off my 2nd favorite album of 2012. Favorite non-Tift Merritt lyric of the year: "I'm gonna let you show me what it means to breath fire." Oh, hell yes. OH, HELL YES. Listen.

12. "Crescendo", Little Boots. Not even officially released yet, supposedly (hopefully) set for her eternally-forthcoming second album, it would not be right for me to resist including this on the year-end mix tape because it grabbed me and moved me that much. The refrain is just me, for better or (mostly) worse, through and through. When I catch those crescendoes, man, I have trouble letting go. Listen.

Special Mention: "Call Me Maybe", Carly Rae Jepsen. Yeah. That's right. You read it. I meant it. If you don't admit to liking this song (or saying you only like it "ironically") then your heart is just a cold, dark, sad place. (You know where to listen to this one.)

Note: I am not including "For My Heart" by the Divine Fits because to do so would simply make me that much more depressed about the Handsome Furs' break-up. I would like to think originally Dan wrote it with Alexei, but I know that in all likelihood he wrote it about Alexei. And that crushes my soul into oblivion.

My Favorite Album Of 2012

Perhaps it goes without saying but my favorite album of 2012, far and away, was "Traveling Alone" by Tift Merritt. It is my favorite album of 2012 because.....

It might be her best album. And to be her best album automatically means its packing serious heat.

Like all of her work it sounds different from her previous albums but it still sounds entirely like her (which is not anywhere near as easy as it sounds).

I totally respect people who truly understand the value of traveling alone, embrace it and are not bothered by it.

"Sweet Spot" is my favorite song from 2012.

I too am "looking for that sweet spot where I can live the way that I want" and whenever the hell I find it I too am "gonna give it everything that I got."

She and her band taking the stage at Chicago's City Winery and ripping into "Sweet Spot" without saying a word is one of my favorite memories of the past 365 days.

"Still Not Home" is my second favorite song from 2012.

She lets me know its just fine to still not be home yet.

She ain't got no time for maudlin "Small Talk (Relations)."

I suspect she ain't got no time for maudlin "Small Talk (Relations)" because she's the sort of person who thinks "a day is something like a prayer." If that's how you view a day then discussing the stock market just ain't gonna cut it, homey.

I like when she sings about how beautiful it is to be "talking to somebody ain't got no angles" because that's how I always feel when I listen to her music - like I'm listening to somebody who ain't got no angles.

"Sometimes my heart is all I got / sometimes my heart gets in the way" too - so much so to the point that it drives me absolutely crazy even though I also know I would never want it any other way.

It reminds me that you can both know who you are and not have it all figured out.

The older I get and with each successive album the more I realize Tift understands me and who I am and how I feel better then Bruce ever did.

Friday's Old Fashioned: Remember the Night (1940)

Written by the immaculate Preston Sturges just before he finally delved into directing, “Remember the Night” (1940) opens with the elements of the zany screwball comedies for which Sturges was so well known. But director Mitchell Liesen slowly reveals an intent to make this Christmastime movie something more than a string of lightweight laughs, though his touch with the weightier bits of business is never heavy-handed. There is something, when you get right down to it, romantically old fashioned about bringing a significant other home for the holidays for the first time, and “Remember the Night” employs that idea in very funny, very clever and very real ways.

Assistant D.A. John Sargeant (Fred MacMurray) is assigned to the case of a fairly bewitching shoplifter, Lee Leander (Barbara Stanwyck). Despite this being her third arrest, he is worried the jury, considering it is but a few days before Christmas, will let her off in the spirit of the season. Skillfully, he sees to it that the trial is postponed until after the New Year which means she will spending her holiday in the slammer. Thus, revealing his heart is made of more silver & gold then we initially realize, John posts her bail. (Let us now address the moment when John says of his black servant Rufus “He’s slow, but he’s a good cook” and let us shiver and shake our heads and express rightful disbelief that people in 1940 probably laughed at that line and let us do our best to move on.)

Alas, Lee has nowhere to go. She has no money and has been estranged from her family for eons. So John offers to take her home with for Christmas, back to Indiana which, as fate dictates, also from where Lee hails. “You’re a Hoosier?!” she cries in a line that echoes Tim Robbins’ “A Muncie girl!” in The Coen Brothers “The Hudsucker Proxy” (by which I mean the line in “The Hudsucker Proxy” echoes the line in “Remember the Night”). They set out on a cross-country road trip that, refreshingly, is less about the trip than the end point. John prods Lee to see her family and as opposed to descending into antics, it is genuinely heartbreaking and gives us – and John – a window into what has brought Lee to such a bleak place in life. For her, it has always seemed bleak.

Bleak is the opposite of the Sargeant household where John’s mother (Beulah Bondi), aunt (Elizabeth Patterson) and cousin (Sterling Holloway), residing on a picturesque country farm, to welcome their family member and this mystery girl from the city with open arms. They do not judge. And yet, they sorta do, for when John admits to his mother who Lee is and why she is here, his mother pledges forgiveness but also tracks down Lee to explain how hard her son worked to get where he is and how the wrong relationship could ruin him. She does not say this snootily, but honestly and matter-of-factly. It is the way it is, see, and Lee seems to understand, even if she also understands that she has love coursing through her veins for this kindly, handsome lawyer. And, of course, John has love coursing through his veins for her.

Sigh... Now THAT'S a movie shot.

Hovering all the while over these passages in wintry Indiana is the trial on January 3rd. The stakes are escalated by the comedic run-in John and Lee have earlier in Pennsylvania which finds them on the run from the law and unwelcome back to the Keystone State and which causes them to take a detour through Canada on the way back home. Of course, as John suggests, this means he could just let Lee go to have her freedom. But at what cost do you sacrifice potential true love for freedom? These questions are addressed in a handsomely shot sequence set at Niagara Falls which manages to transcend all the tackiness for which that naturally aweless location is now known.

MacMurray outfits his character with an easygoing dignity and Stanwyck truly shines, transitioning from kind of cocky to grateful to bashful about being treated so nice to browbeaten in front of her parents and, ultimately, to poignant regret. You have to respect a film that does not let its protagonist off the hook with convenient plot mechanics (though “Remember the Night” purposely feints in that direction) and instead places the outcome in her hands.

It's Written In The Stars

Re-visiting (Re-seeing) Your Sister's Sister

When I first saw Lynn Shelton's "Your Sister's Sister" back in June I was spellbound by the three lead performances of Mark Duplass, Emily Blunt and Rosemarie DeWitt and for the first sixty minutes figured I was seeing one of the best films of the year. But upon the arrival of the "twist" after the sixty minute mark, coupled with a figuring-things-out montage and a closing shot heralding a post-film life that seemed well past the point of ridiculous, the movie had lost me.

Yet......those performances. Oh, those performances! (And I will have a few more things to say about those performances in the coming weeks, believe me.) They drew back me in to a re-watch. And for a second time I was spellbound by the first hour while mentally preparing myself for the severe downward slope of the final thirty minutes. And then......

Before I go further I should stress that I will be giving away EVERYTHING. The "twist", the reveals, the end, the whole indie-scented bouquet. Thus, if you still wish to see "Your Sister's Sister", and you should, and see it cold, check out for now and check back in later.

Obligatory background: The brother of Jack (Duplass) has died. Jack's best friend and his brother's ex Iris (Blunt) sends Jack off to her father's cabin in the woods for bit of "finding yourself" time. Except Iris's sister Hannah (DeWitt) is already there for the same reason. Jack and Hannah drunkenly hook up. Iris turns up the next day. Iris confesses to Hannah that she loves Jack. And whatever you may think of this synopsis solely from reading it, you have to SEE it to truly appreciate the natural wonder with which these three act it all out.

Reveal: Hannah wants to have a baby. Jack panics. Hannah reminds them they used a condom when having sex. Jack settles down, but not for long. He tracks down the condom. He tests it. Ye gods, Hannah poked holes in it. As this is happening, Hannah is off in the woods with Iris confessing she had sex with Jack. This leads to......

The Traditional Shouting Match: Iris, Hannah and Jack all right in a row. Iris shouts at Jack for having sex with Hannah. Jack shouts that Hannah poked holes in the condom to get herself pregnant. Hannah shouts at Iris that she never would have slept with Jack if she had known Iris loved Jack. Which, of course, Jack did not know. Which, of course, means in the span of, what, 40 seconds every secret has been spilled on account of all the shouting.

Now, I was willing to forgive the Holes-in-the-Condom Reveal, but what I was not willing to forgive was The Traditional Shouting Match. Dammit, a movie that had been this good was so far ABOVE a Traditional Shouting Match. Could these secrets not have been revealed less noisily? But what was even worse was that then the movie proceeded directly into......

The Figuring-Things-Out Montage. Heaven help us, I remember thinking, as it unfolded on that movie screen in June. Jack goes off for a bike ride through the countryside. Iris and Hannah remain at the cabin but remain silent. They just sort of mope around, ignoring one another, until, at some point, they reach out to one another, make tiny inroads, and then seem to apply the first significant patch back to their fractured relationship. At which point Jack turns up in order to give......

A Big Speech. He's messed up. This, that, and everything else, but he loves Iris and wants to be with her and he wants to help Hannah in whatever way helping her may entail. And the movie ends with the shot of them huddled around Hannah's pregnancy test before fading to black before we learn the result. Not that the result mattered either way because, quoting myself from my original review, "What sort of future obstacles await? Dozens, I assume. There is a moment earlier when Jack tells Iris and Hannah that there should be no whispering behind anyone's back. But just imagine the whispers that will be going on behind their backs after all is said and done."

And yet - yet!!! - as I watched the movie a second time, different things came into focus and I wondered if perhaps I had it all wrong. I wondered if perhaps Lynn Shelton was using all the tropes not as crutches but as ammunition. Hear me out.

For an hour we have a film packed with brilliant unpolished dialogue, masterfully delivered with easy grace, but even more so we have three characters in a small setting that are RIGHT ON TOP OF EACH OTHER. Iris wants to sleep with Jack and Jack did sleep with Hannah and they are all tip-toeing around each other and drawing closer and closer and closer until there is no room to hide anything any longer and then WHOOSH! It all thunders out in the Traditional Shouting Match.

And once they have shouted, once they and all their secrets have all crashed right up against each other, for the first time ALL film, the talking stops. Jack goes for his elongated bike ride and does not talk. Iris and Hannah stare daggers and do not talk. No one talks. They retreat inside themselves. I was recently listening to Judd Apatow's interview on NPR's Fresh Air and he was talking about how noisy our minds are and how we have to find a way to quiet them down. That's what this montage is presenting - the three characters trying to quiet their minds down.

Which leads to that last shot which, in a very real way, harkens back to the beginning of the film, which I had not thought of when composing my original review, when everyone is toasting Jack's deceased brother with whimsical stories of his only his best of times and Jack offers a story of his worst of times. "If we're going to toast the man," he says, "let's the toast man." As in, let's toast the WHOLE man, not just the specific part of the man you want to remember.

This last shot honoring the WHOLE movie, not just specific parts of the movie we want to remember. This movie, like life, in the end, is beautiful, complicated and really, really fucked up. What happens next? Who knows?

But what I do know is that I don't know whether everything I just wrote is something I truly mean or whether I'm attempting to justify the remainder of the film in my own mind merely because I love the performances that much. Because I do think I love the performances so much that I would be willing to lie to myself to make it seem like the end of the movie is okay when it's actually not. Which, come to think of it, contrary to what I just said, is exactly what the characters might actually be doing in that last shot.

I'm so confused.

The Fitzgerald Family Christmas

When I went on IMDB in preparation for this review to acquire the names of all the actors in the many roles I realized that I could not tell most of the actors apart. And this reminded me that while watching the film I could not tell most of the characters apart. This, however, is a compliment, not a criticism. To have seven kids in a three-bedroom household would no doubt lead to such overwhelming familiarity. At a certain point you stop recognizing who is in the bumper cars you keep bumping into and just notice the cars.

The Fitzgerald family has been reeling ever since their father, Big Joe (Ed Lauter), struck it rich and ditched they and their mother and their working class Long Island neighborhood for the bright lights. Now it’s Christmas, he is dying of cancer, because of course he’s dying of cancer, and he wants back into their lives for at least one night. Thus, self-appointed family matriarch Gerry (Edward Burns), the one left to tend to his mother and his father’s business when he split, goes about eliciting opinions of each sibling as to their father’s wish.

Written and directed by Burns, he ably plays the lead role with a lackadaisical charm perfect for navigating the incessant squabbling of such a sprawling family. He also provides himself with a love interest strikingly played by Connie Britton because, well, I’m fairly certain Burns is incapable of writing himself a role without a requisite love interest. Though, rest assured, each brother and each sister comes equipped with his or her own traditional bit of yuletide drama. A brother is dating a woman too young for him and a sister is dating a man too old for her. A sister is in the midst of divorce and another sister is pregnant AND in an abusive relationship and a brother just got out of rehab……ON CHRISTMAS EVE. Etc., etc., etc.

Yes, yes, yes, I know what you’re thinking. But you know what? This is the sorta s--- that happens to people. People get sick and people get divorced and people end up in relationships they shouldn’t be in and people get hooked on drugs and alcohol. And it’s Christmas – “a time for people with love in their lives” as Billy Mack once sagely observed – when these issues are magnified. And Burns, deftly, IMPROBABLY, does not over play any of it because he plays as, well, the sorta s--- that happens to people.

Magical resolutions do not beckon. The flight of Santa’s sleigh will not tender good will for all. The Fitzgerald Family’s roots of despair run deep but they are, after all, a family and a Catholic family can take off the gloves long enough to go to Mass on Jesus’s birthday and then have a big dinner and pretend everything is okay for a few hours even if it isn’t.

In an early moment Michael McGlone’s older brother Quinn has the film’s key line when his sister Sharon (or was it Erin?) is grilling him and he and she and we realize he does not know where she went to high school, where she went to college, or even how old she is. She is flabbergasted. He says: “I don’t know you from Adam but you’re my little sister and I love you.”

Starlet

To an outsider, such as myself, I suspect Los Angeles is often seen as a vapid sprawl, overflowing with beautiful but brainless women skimpily dressed in clingy clothes who all come standardly equipped with sunglasses and a shopping bag. But, as with anywhere, appearances can deceive and you never know when you might find that very stereotype unlocking the real her off the beaten path.

The heroine of "Starlet is Jane (Dree Hemingway, energetically unpretentious), a 21 year old who constantly curses not for effect but offhand, living out of suitcases in a Formica room in a Formica house in the San Fernando Valley with Mikey (James Ransone) and Melissa (Stella Maeve) who are content to wile away their days with weed and video games. Yearning to spruce up her dreary 10 x 10 quarters, Jane gathers up her omnipresent chihuahua  - a purposely less charismatic "Beginners'" Arthur - and tracks down deals at yard sales. This includes a thermos she plans to transform into a vase bought from an ornery elder, Sadie (Besedka Johnson), at a house overrun with shrubbery, suggesting she simply wishes it would swallow her up.

Except it turns out the thermos is packed with rolled-up, rubber-banded hundred bills totaling ten grand. Jane goes to return it. Sadie tells her "no refunds" and shuts the door. Jane goes on a shopping spree. Guilt intrudes. Jane, decidedly unsubtly, worms her way into the standoffish existence of Sadie, who is at first quite resistant and then, eventually, just merely reluctant. Jane drives her to the store. They play Bingo. They talk, but never get much beyond the surface. Behavior and choices made are what fill in the gaps instead.

Edited with a great deal of trendy quick cuts, though also often pausing to revel in particular sights and sounds, director/editor Sean Baker swaths the majority of the picture in that warm California sun, glinting on the camera and suggesting how this relationship, however fragile and primitive it may be, brings a strange glow to each woman's life. Secrets, as they must be, are harbored, but are in no hurry to be revealed and are divulged plainly. For example, even though Jane is shown to be involved in the more sordid side of Hollywood, it is not presented or included just for shock and awe (even though several of the images may elicit shock and awe) but as another one of her mixed-up pieces.

"Starlet" hides nothing from the audience specifically because the playing field between the audience and characters is level. We learn what we learn when we would learn it, not a moment sooner or later. The inevitable admittance of the basis of Jane and Sadie's relationship dangerously stands on the cusp of formula only to stop short. By this point, the characters have too much trust in each other and the film, bless its marvelous soul, has too much trust in us.

And the final twist is in actuality not a twist at all, but the moment when Sadie finally chooses to open the proverbial door and allow Jane all the way in. The coda, a simple but absolutely stunning shot, shows Jane's hair whipping in the wind and hiding her face, as if to say when she re-emerges from behind those bangs she will no longer be who she was.

This is one of the very best movies of the year.

Friday's Old Fashioned: Bush Christmas (1947)

In the Australian outback of 1947, four children – three siblings and their English friend who has come to stay with them – are dismissed from school for Christmas. They link up with their aborigine pal and take a detour up to a high ridge where they encounter a couple rascals who, unbeknownst to them, are wanted horse thieves. Thus, when one of the kids makes mention of their father’s prized mare, the horse thieves make a mental note, turn up in the dead of night and abscond with it.

This is problematic because that prized mare was needed for the family to make their annual trip to the city for the holiday. No mare, no trip. The father and the authorities light out after the thieves but it is the band of kids, all five of them, who of their own foolish but brave accord track the thieves deep into the bush, intent on reclaiming the stolen animal and settling the score.

“Bush Christmas”, written, directed, produced, Shyamalan-style, by Ralph Stanley, is one of the more straightforward movies you will find, a beeline of adventure, bravery and polite comedy. Character is not really the issue here, which is not to suggest these kids do not have character but that the film frames them very much as a group, all for one and one for all. Helen (Helen Grieve) is the oldest and, thus, theoretically in charge, but this is clearly a mutual effort with each child contributing to this daring case of espionage in his or her own way. And the narrative rarely allows forays into each gang member’s respective personality, focusing universally on the task at hand, success, failure and suspense.

And for as much as it feels like an adventure book for youths, underscored by the narrator who steps in now and again to fill in the blanks and provide context, this is not entirely a story of innocence. The kids are out to retrieve their beloved Mare and tattle on the bad guys, sure, but they also try to TAKE OUT the bad guys with boulders. And the bad guys might be laconic but they are also carrying rifles and seem less than concerned with the age bracket of their tormentors. It’s not there is a palpable sense of extreme dread or danger throughout - we know how stories like this must end - but just slightly more sinister underpinnings than you normally find in fare for the whole family.

An American holiday movie of the past involves a young Macaulay Caulkin “Home Alone” and forced to defend it and hearth against a couple of bozo thieves. Since he is on his own, however, this underscores an individualist's attitude, whereas "Bush Christmas" goes to show how we so often get by with a little help from our friends.

The Merry Gentleman: Sounds of Silence

“(T)his little movie -- while brimming with quiet confidence -- almost slinks nervously under the rug to escape being noticed.” – Michael Machosky 

In “The Merry Gentleman” a co-worker of Kelly Macdonald’s Kate Frazier wonders if they are friends and Kate confirms that, yes, of course, they are, and why did she even have to ask. Her co-worker replies: “Because I tell you everything and I don’t know the first thing about you.” I’m pretty sure I gasped the first time I heard this line, particularly because people have SAID that line to me – much more than once. Maybe this is bad, maybe this is good, but we’re not here to psycho-analyze me.

No, this is simply my way of saying that my people – the introverts – don’t get enough love at the movies. Well, of course they don’t. It’s not easy to make a movie about people who prefer to abstain from other people for extended periods. And this, I suspect, contributed to the lukewarm reception to “The Merry Gentleman” because, to be sure, the two main characters at its core are introverts.

Kate is private because her situation necessitates privacy, yes, but she is also portrayed as being genuinely shy, introspective even when in public and polite to a fault – which is to say, she would rather let herself get stringed into a date with a “fat alcoholic chain smoker” than speak up against it.

Michael Keaton’s Frank Logan’s profession is hitman (as so many movie character’s professions are) which, by nature, cuts him off from a solid percentage of the world. But then, take a look at his cover job. He’s a tailor, tucked away behind a curtain in a remote room in back, walled off from everyone. Even when someone is allowed in there, he barely forms a word.

This, above all else, is what the makes the relationship so plausible. It would be easy to say they have nothing to say to each other, except that real introverts know this is not true. They have things to say to each other, they just don’t know how to say them or don’t want to bother the other person by saying them or just plain don't feel like talking. And this brings me right along to one of my favorite scenes in recent cinema, a scene I suspect left many a viewer looking for a way out.

It is set in the hospital room where Frank has been brought by Kate on Christmas on account of pneumonia. She visits him in the afternoon. She brings him sugar cookies and rum balls. She suggests he eat the sugar cookies because "Nurses love rum balls.” She pauses. “I don’t know what that means.” (If I had a dollar for every time I’ve made some inane statement and then declared “I don’t know what that means.”) She sits. He stands across from her at the window. And the silence in this scene is just extraordinary.

It is extraordinary not necessarily because silence is rare at the movies but because silence in a scene based entirely around a conversation is essentially unheard of. Keaton, as director, puts no music on the soundtrack. All we hear are the words exchanged and, even more crucially, the spaces in between those words. I cannot over-emphasize how risky and irregular this is, to HEAR silence. Not silence in the service of suspense, mind you, but silence on account of the search for what to say and how to say it.

He mentions the weather. She jokes that they have so little to talk about that they are already discussing the weather. He apologizes. Then they discuss the weather anyway. They discuss plans for Christmas, kind of, and her Christmas tree. Not much else really. It is not necessarily awkward in a tradtional sense - it is more akward because we sense that they sense that the social norm dictates that they need to say something in order to be comfortable when just hanging back and not saying anything is actually what brings them comfort.

They like each other, sure, of this there is no doubt, but they like each other so much because they sense how desperately the other one craves slinking under a rug to escape being noticed.

The Merry Gentleman: Ruminating On A Perfect Shot

It is one of my favorite shots in all the cinema, and it is so straight-forward. Two people standing in a quiet field watching a Christmas tree burn.

My favorite shots tend to be framed simply, but elegantly, while conveying a whole heap of meaning and/or emotion. This is a skill becoming less prevalent in the era of the steadicam and visual pyrotechnics.

Post Yuletide, Kate, with the assistance of Frank, tosses her formerly ornate Christmas tree next to the garbage bin in a Chicago alley. It reminds me of the Jerry Seinfeld line about our love/hate relationship with the Christmas tree, how we go to such lengths to make it appear so extravagant and then once the holidays cease we immediately discard it in the street in the manner of a mob hit. But Kate, bless her soul, is a feeler and, thus, at the sight of this bloodless hit, she assumes a face not so much of guilt as of genuine heartbreak.

Frank registers the look, reclaims the Christmas tree and the next shot is of the evergreen strapped to his car roof so it can be taken to more a suitable, shall we say, burial ground. And that is how we come to find Kate and Frank watching it burn.

One of the traditions of Twelfth Night is removal of the Christmas tree from the home whereupon it is burned. Twelfth Night is the holiday in early January that officially concludes The Twelve Days of Christmas, marking the date in which the Wise Men themselves finally reached the birthplace of one Jesus to pay reverence and deliver gifts. It is a holiday oft-forgotten, rarely mentioned, as if the sped-up modern world no longer possesses enough patience for the Magi to show up at the front door. "The First was rung in and it's the second so toss away that tree so we can just move on to our resolutions and......wait, what were our resolutions again? That is soooooooo twenty-fours ago." And this is why there is something wonderful in these two characters, whether by design or not, sticking it out for the full twelve days and adering to the ritual.

I have been thinking about this shot a lot recently – about once a day, in fact, and this is because every morning when my train rounds the corner between the Southport and Belmont stops it passes an unappealing, litter-strewn roof that, for reasons I will never know, acquired a plastic Nativity scene wise man laying face down, as if discarded by drunk revelers that thieved him from a nearby church. It genuinely breaks my heart every morning. And every morning I imagine pushing the emergency button to stop the train right as we go around that corner and hopping off the rails to the roof and to retrieve the wise man so it can be put to rest properly.

I can only assume that is what Kate Frazier would do.

The Merry Gentleman: Opening Credits

The first seven or so minutes of "The Merry Gentleman" is a textbook on how to perfectly establish not only your film's tone but its setting and its situtation. There is not a wasted moment, not a wasted shot, not a wasted breath, because every single thing signifies something.

It opens with simple but flawless shot of the film's director and co-star Michael Keaton as hit man Frank Logan, a tolling bell over black, fading in and then the camera moving left to right to find him sitting alone on the very end of a Chicago park bench. He looks straight head, not so much lost in thought as without thought. All alone.

The shot switches and we are behind Frank to find him sitting before the expanse of a park. Eventually he leaves the bench behind and elegiac music whispers on the soundtrack, signaling the film's primary tenor. The next shot finds him strolling past what it appears to be a church which merely underscores the religious theme the film will address.

Next up is a shot of Kate Frazier (Kelly Macdonald) in a bathroom with a bag of ice pressed up against a black eye. Then we see her husband (Bobby Cannavale) down the hall from the bathroom, sitting, two men standing above him, talking to him, though we don't hear anything they say. Then a shot of Kate as she begins to cry which is followed by her husband escorting the two men to the front door. One of the men pats her husband on the back. But why? Why does it appear they are letting him off the hook when it is clear he is the one who caused his wife's black eye?

Now we see Kate in the traditional pretending-to-asleep-in-bed pose with her husband in the background in the bathroom. Jump ahead to her husband out of the bathroom, alongside the bed where she is still "asleep" and he tucks a gun into his pants. Uh oh. But then he hangs his police badge around his neck. A ha! So that's why he got let off the hook!

Now the film has moved outside where Kate is about to get into a friend's car. But before she does she stops to observe the garage door behind her shutting. She's leaving this home behind. The next shot is kind of a mirror image of Keaton alone on the park bench as even though Kate's friend is driving the car we don't see the friend and just see Kate, slumped in the passenger's seat and gazing out the window, not so much lost in thought as without thought. All alone.

The film moves back to Keaton's Frank, the camera pushing up a small alley and finding him, back to the camera, just outside a black gate. He is watching a trio of men across the deserted street as they exit a bar. Frank coughs and chugs what appears to be cough syrup. So the guy's sick. He watches one of the men leave the other two and go his own way. Frank follows. The man climbs into a car. Frank reveals a gun, marches right up to the car and taps on the window, and as he does the camera whirls around the rear of the car and to the other side just in time to see blood splatter the inside of the passenger's side window. Frank walks away, quickly but coolly. "Jingle Jangle Christmas" shows up on the soundtrack to, you know, juxtapose a murder with the Holiday spirit.

The shots now shift back and forth between Frank walking the streets of Chicago and Kate taking a plane to arrive in Chicago but, of course, the one constant in all these shots is that they are both presented alone in the frame. And then it all concludes with the written credit as Frank, back in the same park where we originally saw him on the bench, passes an outdoor Nativity scene where one of the wise men has fallen over. He stops, considers, bends down, lifts up the wise man, re-positions it, and continues on his way. It is a shot that suggests in a way no long-running monologue ever could what kind of heart this hitman really has and then.....Fade To Black.

Now go back over everything I have just written and do you realize what never happened? What neither character ever did? What the movie never used to establish anything?

A single spoken word.

A Week With The Merry Gentleman

Longtime Cinema Romantico readers may recall my zealous affection for Michael Keaton's directorial debut "The Merry Gentleman." I did not merely name it my #1 film of 2009 nor did I merely name Kelly Macdonald's turn as my #1 performance of 2009 - no, I went so far as to make a spectacularly idiotic and unsuccessful attempt to get her an Oscar nomination.

Anyway, because so much of the film is set at Christmas and because I just watched it again recently and was struck by it once again (like I always am) and because I fancy myself a champion of this film who must, in a sense, go tell its wonders on the mountain, I am going to go tell its wonders on my blog all this week (three posts, really, up through Thursday).

Won't you join me? And then go see this movie? Please?

Atonement: Why I Love Movies

Jessica, proprietor of the blogging brilliance that is Velvet Café, just recently unleashed a mild-to-moderate storm, it seems, when she posed a simple question via the Twitter-sphere. She Tweets: “I can’t wrap my head around why film fans these days seem to be disappointed about every film they see. Do you even like films anymore?”

You can read her post addressing the topic further here, a post that elicited a great many comments - and I left her a comment in which I, more or less, assumed her side, even though I do completely understand the need for film criticism in the purest sense of the word. The timing of this whole debate intrigued me, though, because today marks the 5th anniversary of the day I walked into a showing of “Atonement” – a film I had not necessarily planned on seeing – and left two hours later moved to the very depth of my being.

I don’t want to use this space to add on to what Jessica said but just to say simply, as I’ve said so many times before, “Atonement” is why I love the movies. “Atonement” is why I go to the movies. “Atonement” is why I write about movies. And that is why today, if you will indulge me, I’d like to re-offer the review I wrote five years ago still burning in the afterglow of that unforgettable experience. Here's looking at you, Cecilia & Robbie.

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A few weeks ago I had a semi-argument with friends regarding the presence of DVD players in automobiles. I declared if I were ever to have kids my car would not possess a DVD player. Why? This can only hamper a child's imagination. If a child is assaulted with electronics at every turn, including the car, how can they ever find time to imagine?

Now you could watch "Atonement" and say a child's imagination is as susceptible to bad as to good. I, however, having watched "Atonement", will say it is one of the most powerful, persuasive arguments for the power of the imagination - good or bad - I've ever seen. In one felled swoop the imagination can change lives, but it can also atone for sins of the past. "Atonement" - adapted from a novel by Ian McEwan of the same name - is not just one of the best films of the year. It is one of the best films of the decade. A towering achievement. A flat-out masterpiece.

The film opens on a luxurious English estate on the eve of WWII. Cecilia Tallis (Keira Knightley) is the daughter of a rich Englishman who has assisted in putting one of their servants Robbie (James Mcevoy) through Oxford. They harbor a passion for one another and this will come to a front in the richly beautiful passage that opens the movie. But there is also Cecilia's younger sister Briony (played by three actresses - Sairose Ronan, Romola Garai, Vanessa Redgrave - as the movie spans several decades), who will become the film's key player. She is - as Cecilia puts it - "fanciful". The first time we see her she has, despite her age, just completed her first play.

There is an encounter at a fountain between Cecilia and Robbie, seen first from Briony's point-of-view and then from the point-of-view of the two involved. In truth, it is a romantic episode between people that probably love each other. Briony, however, in the throes of her own crush on Robbie, sees it differently. A rape happens to another houseguest. Briony gives a version of the event contrary to what actually happened and events spiral out of control.

Robbie is taken away by the police and given the choice of jail or enlisting in the army. He enlists. We catch up with him later during the war, separated from his group during a "strategic withdrawal". Cecilia meanwhile has become a nurse, and the older version of Briony has done the same - perhaps to atone for her sin.

This is our set-up and I will give no more specifics of the plot, except to say it only gets deeper and richer, entering into that realm of human mystery where only a few films ever traverse. It is most fascinating to watch how the episodes of WWII work to symbolize what has already happened, deepening the plight of each character. Everything here is wrapped up together, barreling toward a conclusion that seems inevitable, except it's not.

Mention also must be made of a tracking shot that follows Robbie and two fellow English soldiers. It is among the great technical achievements in filmmaking history. The reason for its greatness? It's thematic. The entire film works as a war between reality and imagination and here we find one person realizing the true toll of war all at once and so we experience it as he does - with nowhere to hide, it just keeps coming. It's reality contrasted against the imagination. It's hypnotic. I confess to missing what happened in the following scene because I was still trying to recover.

But back to that conclusion. It left me in literal tears. An eloquent, powerhouse summing-up of the argument I made in the opening paragraph. The imagination, whether for good or for bad, is our most powerful tool. No film made has said it better.

This is a weekend in which I planned to see "The Golden Compass". But my office is moving and my last day at the old building was Friday, which meant it was the last day I could indulge in one of my favorite Chicago activities - hiking down Michigan Avenue on a Friday after work to catch the 5:30 show of a movie the night it opens at the AMC 21. "The Golden Compass" did not have a 5:30 show. "Atonement" did. That's why I went.

I hope and pray before every movie I see that it will leave the screen behind to step down to where I'm sitting and punch me in the gut and speak to my soul. Unfortunately, my prayers often tend to go unanswered. But last night they did not. "Atonement" left the screen. It punched me in the gut. It spoke to my soul. This is the movie of the year.

Magic Mike

“Magic Mike,” despite doubling as the protagonist’s nickname, may as well also describe the sleight of hand employed by its ever-evolving auteur, Steven Soderbergh. Beyond question this is not one of his “great” movies, yet that he can achieve something so affable and even (somewhat) poignant centered around a group of stripping Floridian bros is testament to his versatility.

Channing Tatum is Mike, roofer by day, stripper by night, and in a no-strings-attached relationship with Joanna (Olivia Munn), a burgeoning shrink which makes us instantly sympathetic for her future patients. He works the stage at a surprisingly lavish club run by the charismatic lothario Dallas (Matthew McConaughey, born to play the part). On a roofing job, Mike meets Adam (Alex Pettyfer), a wayfaring college dropout staying with his sister, responsible, uptight Brooke (Cody Horn), and before long, against Brooke’s wishes, Mike has ensnared Adam in his lewd, party-all-the-time underground world where the women and money are found side by side.

Not that these characters don't have dreams. Characters always have dreams! Based upon Tatum’s own experiences (how much?) as a 19 year old stripper and written by his pal Reid Carolin, Mike yearns to concoct some sort of vaguely defined furniture-making business but can’t get the credit to get the loan. Dallas dreams of moving his apparently thriving business from the passable beaches of Tampa to the extravagant beaches of Miami. Adam dreams of, well, something and Brooke dreams that Adam would stop.screwing.up.

Essentially these little bits of business go exactly where you expect but they turn out to be more like, say, the stripper pole than the stripper – the prop used by the stripper in service of the show. Most movies would have mistakenly force-fed the dreams and turned “Magic Mike” plot heavy, but Soderbergh is almost grandiose in his casualness. His camera often comes across like the partygoer just looking to chill out and observe and the acting, rather than getting bogged down in pesky emotions, is mostly just breezy.

McConaughey, in a way, is just taking the McConaughey persona cultivated in the public’s mind in the past few years and twisting it, his act belying a twangy ruthlessness. The keys, however, are Tatum and Horn. In Soderbergh’s other 2012 film, “Haywire”, he offered non-actress Gina Carano in the lead, but generally put her into position to succeed by playing to what she could do. He does the same with Horn and Tatum. Horn only has a few films under her belt, and Tatum a few more than that, but no one, harsh as it may sound, would, at this juncture, call them “rangy” actors. Nevertheless, Horn’s sorta stilted delivery of dialogue works perfectly for a character so buttoned-up emotionally and Tatum’s big-hearted frat boy good-times gang leader is squarely in his wheelhouse. (Pettyfer is the weak link. For all the allure he’s meant to have as “The Kid”, he doesn’t seem very alluring. Then again, I’m not a lady. Which is why I’m placing this statement in parentheses and excusing myself from the conversation.)

The movie really only starts stepping wrong in the third act when it trades in its low-pressure vibe for souped-up drama. No one here feels quite as tortured as the varying situations would lead us to believe. But that might be the right call for the material because the end might be Magic Mike acknowledging it’s time to give up this life of leisure. The difficulty will come after the credits roll.

Vamps

In this brave new post-“Twilight” world it would seem foregone that re-uniting the writer/director – Amy Heckerling – and star – Alicia Silverstone – of 1995’s teen classic “Clueless” for a story of swank urban vampires would be ripe with satire and gags. And it is. Goody (Silverstone) and Stacy (Krysten Ritter) are the Laverne & Shirley of vampires, sweet and wholesome, choosing only to suck the blood of animals, not humans, and living in a Manhattan flat where they sleep side-by-side in chic coffins and bantering on their smart phones from inside when the birds chirp and the sun comes up.

Complications arise when Stacy begins dating a cute boy (Dan Stevens) whose father is revealed to be……wait for it……Dr. Van Helsing (Wallace Shawn!)! Meanwhile the girls’ stem, the vampire who turned them, Ciccerus (Sigourney Weaver, oddly subdued in what should have been a cut-it-loose role), seems dangerously unhinged, on the verge of exposing and ruining all the gentle-soul vampires just trying to take it one day at a time.

Jokes hit, jokes miss, and so it goes, but Heckerling waits to reveal all her cards. The two undead debutantes appearance, of course, belies their real age. Stacy, having gone vampire in the 90's, is actually a forty-something and Goody's turning anniversary dates all the way back to 1841. Not that she tells this to her B.F.F. She doesn't want to startle, Stacy, of course, though she threatens to give herself away with numerous out-of-date references and archaic fashion choices, but mainly this is her having that which all earthly citizens have craved at least since Ponce de Leon arrived in Florida - eternal youth.

A viewer and/or reviewer must admit when he/she is possesses a personal liability regarding a film and, thus, I must admit I was watching "Vamps" through my Silverstone-stained glasses (which is not as weird as it sounds). She is essentially my age. I was there when she broke as That One Chick in the Aerosmith videos and I'm still here nearly twenty years later. I don't know her, I'll never know her, but, nevertheless, she and I have gotten old together. And I felt sadness pangs as "Vamps" itself turned - though not as gracefully as one would hope (this film will not - repeat, NOT - receive an Oscar nomination for Best Special Effects) - to show what might have happened to Cher Hororwitz when she was all grown up.

The end, improbably, carries real weight. When you're young, they tell you how fast it goes the older you get. Of course, you can't grasp this until you get older. So, how fast does it go? It goes as fast as the final scene. One minute you're be-boppin' and skattin' at the club, the next minute it's all just ashes to ashes and dust to dust.