Marie Antoinette (October 2006)

If you knew nothing of Marie Antoinette, knew nothing of her story or her fate, and sat down to watch Sofia Coppola's latest feature you would guess pretty much from the start that she is doomed. Taken from her homeland of Austria to France where she will marry the dauphin of France, she is initially stopped at the French border where she is stripped and put into French clothes before having her beloved dog taken away. "You can have all the French dogs you want," she is told. And it's at this moment you realize what's going on. Yes, she's going to be the queen of France but really she's just a 14 year old girl who wants to keep her precious dog, damn it.

Once she arrives at Versailles she meets he (Jason Schwartzman) who will be her husband, who cowers - hardly able to even look her in the eye. Her mornings consist of waking up to find 47 people in her room, getting dressed for the day and bowing. There is all kinds of bowing. I mean, they must have set aside 3 hours a day in this society just for bowing. She eats a lot. She drinks a lot. She throws lavish parties. But her primary occupation is attempting to procreate with the dauphin. It's not so much an arranged marriage as it is an arranged procreation except seeing as how his daily meals and hunting trips hold more importance than his wife, this arranged procreation takes a bit of time. And for this she gets immense pressure from back home in Austria. Not to mention the fact she is not attempting to further the cause of her home country within France.

This is a lot for a girl not yet 20 years of age to handle, yes? I'm 29 and I think at this age if I were the dauphine of France I too would be more interested in Parisian opera than politics.

When the current King passes on and the dauphin is made the new king he utters the most telling line in the film, "We are too young to reign." He's clearly not the smartest guy in the world but even he is in touch enough to know this. Yet, they reign anyway.

As the viewer you can see the French revolution coming from several miles away but the characters in the film do not. They are locked away in the world of Versailles. The King receives information from his advisors but has no idea what to do with it or probably what it even means.

Coppola chooses not to show anything in relation to the growing opposition toward the Queen and King. This is the correct decision. The story is told entirely within a contained world, that world being the palace at Versailles. There are scenes set at Marie's countryside retreat but even here we get no glimpse of the outside world - just as the Queen would have no glimpse of it. She is oblivious of the coming storm right up until the end.

Even when the mobs finally do make their way to the palace the people inside its walls don't seem to fully understand what is happening and what will happen. The King is out hunting when he is told a mob is headed for them. Marie Antoinette sits in her nightgown in bed listening to the people outside. They both sit at their dining table as their servants follow the same rituals, right down to the end. Like I said, doomed from the start.

As the title character, Kirsten Dunst is simply fabulous. I long thought she held a potential as a great actress but over the years I have come to see she does have - to some degree - a limited range. But here she is totally within that range and nails it. I don't think there are many actresses who could have accurately captured the young girl Marie Antoinette really was quite like Dunst.

Much has also been made of Coppola using modern music throughout the film but this decision feels right too. Marie Antoinette is from another world and never quite fits in with the French populace. The music underscores this fact.

The woman sitting next to me commented as the credits rolled, "They didn't even show the most important part." She was, of course, referring to the infamous beheading of our main character. But within the story Coppola was telling it would have been false to show this. Again, it's set within a contained world and once they leave the world the story ends. Plain and simple.

I really liked this movie, and I like it more and more the more I think about it. That's always a wonderful thing.

Ice Pirates (October 2005)

I first saw "Ice Pirates" with my mom at the luxurious Valley 3 Cinemas in Des Moines, Iowa. We were forced to sit in the front row because the film was sold out and every one of us in the theater knew as we watched this movie we were witnessing something special. It is rare in the cinematic universe that the stars align in perfect formation and create a constellaton of such beautiful awfulness but with "Ice Pirates" the universe blessed us and I urge you to partake in such an unusual blessing.

I can only assume at this point you're questioning the validity of a film existing with this title. But I assure you I do not jest. "Ice Pirates" is all too real.

The story concerns a motley crew of pirates - the heroic but scruffy leader, the bumbling sidekick who doubles as the token black guy, the fiery love interest, the tough-as-nails female, on and on - who live in a universe where almost all the water has dried up, leaving it as the most precious commodity. They survive by stealing it from the evil Templars (gotta love it). But, as it must, a persistent rumor of a mythical water planet exists.

As the movie opens our motley crew is hi-jacking water from a Templar ship and while doing so the heroic but scruffy leader happens upon the fiery love interest sleeping in some sort of sci-fi movie contraption and kidnaps her and her faithful servant. But the fiery love interest turns the tables on our motley crew by blackmailing them into helping her locate her father who has been on a quest to find the mythical water planet. Unfortunately, the plan goes awry, the pirates lose a video game (I'm still not jesting), the Templars take back the fiery love interest and sell the heroic but scruffy leader and the bumbling sidekick doubling as the token black guy into slavery.

From this point my head starts to hurt as I attempt to recall the wacky hijinks posing as a plot. Let's just say more mayhem ensues - including, but not limited to, a time warp, a masquerade ball, hench-women on unicorns, a jive-talkin' pimp robot, and a conveyor belt with a castrating machine.

Somewhere around the time Bruce Vilanch shows up you're probably going to crave turning off the TV and re-gaining your sense through whatever liquor is readily available. I urge you not to do it. Keep that DVD going, by God. You may have only thought you've seen the world's biggest afro. But if you survive to the finale of this, you'll realize how wrong you were.

The cast is headed up by the late Robert Urich in the type of role that usually translates to agents being fired. He is joined by the heralded Ron Perlman, the renowned Mary Crosby, and the revered Michael D. Roberts (perhaps now best known for his villainous turn as Roger Ipswitch on an episode of "Seinfeld"). Though let the record show Angelica Huston also co-stars.

Yes, an Oscar winner is in "Ice Pirates". I'm guessing she lost a bet over one too many whiskey sours with Robert Urich.

Now, by this point you may be asking why this review is being posted in conjunction with Halloween. An excellent question for which I have an excellent answer. Halloween is meant to frighten, is it not? It's meant to scare? I guarantee "Ice Pirates" will frighten you more than any vampire, werewolf or zombie ever could. The fact this movie somehow was allowed to be greenlit and then actually made without the production screeching to a halt will terrify you for days on end. You don't believe me?

I haven't even mentioned the space herpe yet.

A Prairie Home Companion (June 2006)

There is a movie-watching phenomenon which I refer to as the Unforced Smile. This occurs when you view a film and suddenly realize that you've been smiling for the last 10, 15, 20, 25, who-knows-how-many minutes but didn't even know it. This isn't necessarily because the movie has been funny. It's because the movie has been so damn good you can't help but grin. I was smiling during every last second of "A Prairie Home Companion". It's wonderful - just wonderful - and therefore fairly obvious to say I found it to be far and away the best movie thus far of 2006.

The film is not really an exposé into the goings-on backstage at the real Prairie Home Companion. Nor is it a character study of the real Garrison Keillor. This is, however, a Robert Altman movie which makes it very distinct. There is not a great deal of so-called plot. Scenes tend to meander. Altman shoots it very much like a play with long takes and the camera gliding from one actor to another. There is also a lot of singing. I don't ever recall the movie being billed as a musical but it may as well have been. There are ballads and bluegrass tunes and songs about awful jokes and coffee. And they're all glorious, just as they are in real life on the real show. Early in the film Lily Tomlin (half of the delightful singing duo The Johnson Girls with Meryl Streep) says, "Singing is the only thing that keeps my mind right." This speaks for every character in the film. They all need their songs to keep right and this is a night when they desperately need to stay right.

It's the last broadcast of "A Prairie Home Companion", a show that's been on the air "since Jesus was in third grade". The Axeman (Tommy Lee Jones) from Texas is coming into town to close it down and turn the Fitzgerald Theater into a parking lot. On top of that an Angel of Death (Virginia Madsen) hovers in the wings, waiting to take a person or perhaps persons with her.

There are those who will say the movie is about nothing but this could not be further from the truth. This movie is about everything. It is about life and death and facing one own's mortality. But most of these issues are never addressed head-on. They're discussed in short spurts and fits but mostly things simply happen to the characters, the characters react to them, and it's their reactions that give us insight.

The host of the show GK (Garrison Keillor himself) is forever going off on long-winded passages - often stopping in the middle to correct himself - that sometimes last right up until the nanosecond before the show returns to the air. Is he in denial about the show ending? He's not. "I do every show like it's my last," he proclaims at one point. People often say this type of thing but GK is a person who says it, means it and does it.

Guy Noir (Kevin Kline) is the theater's security guard and not only occupied with the show's impending doom but also with the Angel of Death ("her hair is what God had in mind when he said let there be hair"). The singing cowboys Dusty (Woody Harrelson) and Lefty (John C. Reilly) continually irritate the poor stage manager. The Johnson Girls share a rapport that is utterly Minnesotan. Listening to them talk was just like listening to relatives and family friends talk during my many trips to Red Wing, Minnesota as a kid. The chemistry between Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin as The Johnson Girls is simply amazing. It might be the best thing in the movie (and that's saying something). In classic Altman fashion their dialogue overlaps, and then they break into song, and back into dialogue, and so on and so forth.

Meryl Streep's daughter Lola (Lindsay Lohan) writes poetry laced with death. ("People hanging themselves with extension chords......things like that.") A word here about Lohan. Everyone else in the cast is marvelous - though that pretty much goes without saying - but Lohan - who, of course, gets much attention for her off-screen activities - is pitch-perfect. And, I must say, I saw a little of myself in Lola. Oh, maybe not in the obsession with death but there were numerous times I found myself as a kid sitting off to the side of adults scribbling in a notebook and dreaming of getting called to the "big stage" to save the adults' bacon at a key moment.

Even the Angel of Death herself has a few questions regarding the subject she represents. It seems she died in a car crash while listening to GK's show years ago. He had told a joke and while she was trying to figure out what made it funny she wound up driving off the road and that was it. Now she wants to know just what made that god-damn joke so humorous.

A key development is an old-time singer (L.Q. Jones) who passes away during the late stages of the show. GK won't do a tribute to his passing the same as he won't do a tribute to the show's passing. Lola is the young idealist and confronts him. "I'm at the point where if I start doing eulogies it's all I'd do," he says. The Johnson Girls perform a song honoring him but never say such. Dusty and Lefty sing a seemingly never-ending tune, "Bad jokes - Lord, I love 'em. Can't get enough of 'em." They need to sing to keep their minds right, remember?

The ending is the most poetic moment in the whole film. There are also those who will call the ending ambiguous but it is not ambiguous at all. I won't say anything else than to say it doesn't matter who she's come for since she comes for every one of us eventually.

The Da Vinci Code (May 2006)

I never realized that Tom Hanks and Audrey Tatou were such incredible listeners. In "The Da Vinci Code" if one isn't listening to the other present some amazingly long winded passage on the Knights Templar then they're both listening to Ian McKellen spout for eons on Mary Magdalen and the "greatest cover-up in human history." There is soooo much talking in this movie. It just goes on and on and on. It's agonizing.

Please don't misunderstand. I love movie dialogue. I worship it. It's one of the world's finest art-forms (right up there with 16th century cartography) as far as I'm concerned, and an art I and many others have still not mastered. But dialogue must be about something. It can't exist solely to move everyone and everything from Plot Point A to Plot Point B. Then it's just a race to see what theater patron falls asleep first.

The script even contains the ancient device of planting a question and/or comment early on (in this case a joke that was once made at Tom Hanks' expense), not answering it and then bringing it back later in the movie. This can in certain instances be quite effective but here it's brought back at the wrong time and feels terribly awkward.

Granted, "The Da Vinci Code" novel spent - what? - 1,314 weeks as the New York Times Bestseller. I have yet to read it but perhaps Dan Brown's novel was never meant to be adapted for the big screen and that's pretty much what I'm forced to assume after viewing the film. There is nary a moment of character development. Oh, we get some mish-mash about Tom Hanks being trapped in a well as a kid and that makes him frightened of small spaces but this felt like Brown flipping through the Big Book of Character Tics and choosing this one. Tatou's Sophie Neveu gets even more of the shaft in that regard. Well, at least until the end when she's revealed to be.........but then I don't want to give anything away for the "12 people who haven't read the book".

As we begin symbologist Robert Langdon (Hanks) is summoned from his lecture/book signing by a French police inspector (Jean Reno) to assist with a murder in the Louvre. It seems Langdon is the chief suspect. But Tatou's Sophie - a police cryptologist - arrives to warn Langon that he is in danger and reveal the murdered man to be her grandfather who wanted her to meet Langdon. Helpfully, the murdered grandfather has left an assortment of clues that set Langdon and Sophie forth on their quest. A quest that leads them to Langdon's old friend (Ian McKellen) who - also rather quite helpfully - happens to know every last thing about the conspiracy which Langdon and Sophie are tracking.

We also follow the more brutal tale of monk/assassin Silas (played strongly by Paul Bettany) who's into self-flaggelation for atonement of his sins. I'm not at all familiar with the Opus Dei, apparently a rather devout sect of the Catholic Church that follows doctrine rigidly but judging by Silas it does not appear to make for a romping life. Silas is in league with the so-called Teacher (a character who allows for the mandatory "twist") who are out to protect the conspiracy of the Holy Grail from everyone and anyone.

They brave an assortment of chases and narrow escapes, all of which seem mechanical and uninvolving. I wonder if the book barely mentions these moments while director Ron Howard realized he needed to pump up the action quotient seeing as how this is a summer movie. Whatever the case, they seem oddly boring though I must admit they're a welcome interlude from all the speechifying.

The Catholic Church is all up in arms and every day there's a new story detailing the controversy created by this book but I think everyone's missing the point. Dan Brown wanted to make millions off an "airport rack book" but knew a typical plot wouldn't do the trick. Brilliantly (I must admit), he hit on the whole Holy Grail conspiracy and used that as his jumping-off point. It worked since, as we mentioned earlier, it's been the New York Times Best-Seller for 1,314 weeks. But really it's just a conventional thriller gussied up with a religious twist and in the guise of something deeper. Hey, he got me too. I paid $9.25 to see it.

There comes a moment when the police are bearing down on our main characters and it seems all hope is lost. How will they get away?! Ian McKellen smiles and declares, "Well, actually I have a plane." Maybe it was just me but this moment reminded me of the scene in Tim Burton's "Mars Attacks" when Jim Brown says to Tom Jones (playing himself), "Can you fly a plane?" And Tom Jones replies non-chalantly, "Sure. Ya' got one?" The only problem is the scene from "Mars Attacks" was more convincing.

(Footnote: "The Da Vinci Code" very nearly becomes only the 2nd movie after "Before Sunset" to be set in Paris and not show the Eiffel Tower. But, tragically, only moments before it ends, Ron Howard cuts away to stock footage of........well, you know. So close, yet so far.)

Stromboli (October 2005)

There are many reasons why thus far I’m in love with the city of Chicago and last night another reason vaulted to a spot very near the top of the list. Last night I was able to watch "Stromboli", one of my 3 favorite Ingrid Bergman movies, on the big screen....with a beer. THAT’S a reason, ladies and gentlemen.

As my love for old movies has grown, so has my love for Ingrid Bergman. I came to her through the old warhorse “Casablanca” but it’s her complex portrayal of the conflicted spy in Hitchcock’s “Notorious” and her turn as the torn spouse in “Stromboli" that set her apart.

“Stromboli” was the first of a wave of the so-called Italian neo-realism films. Not realism in the sense they feel precisely real and authentic (hence the scene in which the svelte Bergman is hiking an active volcano in her sundress but never mind) but in the sense they shunned filming on sets for actual locations. That practice is now commonplace but a huge step forward in the 40’s.

At the end of World War II Bergman is living in a refugee camp and agrees to marry an Italian solider in order to leave the camp. The couple then returns to the soldier’s hometown, the island of Stromboli where she finds a rigid life and no acceptance from the locals which leads to her planning escape.

All this is the so-called plot but really the plot is just a way of letting the dear Ms. Bergman give a tour-de-force performance that belongs in the annals of the finest cinema has produced. Seeing the film for a 3rd time on Tuesday night allowed me to wallow specifically in her acting and not have to concern myself quite as much with the story. For instance, when the “happy” couple is married watch Bergman’s face closely – her expressions are restrained almost to the point of being non-existent but at the same time you can see the anguish and the crisis of conscience. I will argue strenuously this is one of the moments that bridged the gap between the over-emoting of early actresses to the more subtle acting of more contemporary actresses. She wasn’t necessarily the first, but she was among them and perhaps the best.

There are scenes in which the camera tracks with Bergman – never cutting – and just watches her. There’s no place for her to hide, as so many films do in this day and age. But maybe most notable is the scene in which she visits the priest to, apparently, ask for help in getting off the island. The scene lasts, maybe, four minutes but it watches her go through – as Cosmo Kramer might say – “a full palette of emotion”. The writing leads her on the journey but she has to convince us. And she does.

Hovering in the background is the island’s always active volcano. The volcano works as That Which I Normally Don’t Speak Of (i.e. symbolism). Maybe it’s just me but it seems the Europeans are much more adept at handling symbolism in films than Americans. We prefer to bash people over the head with our symbolism, reinforcing the point we want to make for fear our audience is too stupid to understand what’s going on whereas in “Stromboli” the volcano simply enhances Ingrid Bergman’s plight.

We all know the volcano is going to blow but before it does we see a scene in which Bergman’s fisherman husband and the rest of his motley fishing crew reel in fish after fish, killing them right there on screen – or so it appears. And then the volcano blows. This is the film showing us man terrorizing nature and then nature terrorizing man. But instead of learning anything man winds up terrorizing man, man turns on himself, and it all ends where so many of our personal episodes do (well, at least where mine end up) – screaming at God.

In the hands of a modern-day performer this scene probably sinks but with Bergman it rises to the level of mythic.

Paradise, Hawaiian Style

"I like my job. It's fun. It's interesting. And I meet a lot of nice people."
"Nonsense. Tourists aren't people. They're....tourists."

This is one of the many "classic" exchanges in the "landmark" 1961 musical "Blue Hawaii", in this case between Chad Gates (Elvis Presley) and his she-witch of a mom (Angela Lansbury - yes, you read that right). I mention it because I am on the verge of becoming a terrible tourist myself in the Aloha State as I jet out tomorrow to visit my friends Becky (blogger extraordinaire) and Eric on the Big Island. And, thus, I'd like to advise that since I have no intention of even thinking about this blog while I'm away, let alone posting on it, fabled Cinema Romantico will be shrouded in darkness for the next two weeks. Sort of.

I recently waded through the dreck of this blog's early, pioneer days when I sporadically updated and was trying to figure out 1.) How to write movie reviews and, more specifically, 2.) How I wanted to write movie reviews. So I've set a few auto posts with some of the more decent (I think) work I managed to churn out - the work where I managed to get across what I was going for - when this was but a fledgling blog and negative five people were reading. Enjoy. Maybe. If not, I will eventually return with my "much anticipated" summer movie spectacular.

And what better way to say a hui hou than with this rad-to-the-max "Blue Hawaii" clip?