reviews for sept. 14

Super Noir (Printable Version , E-mail to a Friend )
A little bit of black goes a long way, and Hollywoodland bites off too much. But a couple of foreign films fly

I feel like I spent last Sunday in Europe. I watched The Secret of Roan Inish and followed that up with Russian Dolls. The first, a fairy/folk tale, takes place in Ireland, the second in Paris, London and St. Petersburg. Made me really want to go back to Europe. Watching the characters walk around in London and Paris, I could still remember the smells and sounds. It was a kind of torture, really.
 
Anyone need any travel stories written about Europe? Maybe I could hop the pond and report back? Anyone? No? Can’t blame me for trying, right?
 
Course, it was also opening weekend for the NFL. Watched a little of that, too. It can’t always be about movies. There are other forms of passive entertainment, after all.
 
Then again, I also saw Hollywoodland. Pretty much had a movie-filled weekend. Two of them were all right. Nothing special. The Secret of Roan Inish was pretty good, but then again, it’s the kind of story I like to read, so it makes a sort of sense that I’d like a film of its subject matter.
 
Let’s start with Hollywoodland, mostly to get it out of the way as it was the weakest of the three.
 
Pockets Full of Kryptonite
 
Back in the 1950’s, George Reeves (Ben Affleck), became the star of the first Superman television show. He always fancied himself a bigger star. He’d had a part in Gone With The Wind, after all.
 
He didn’t like acting on Superman, but it was a paying gig. Then the show got canceled. Reeves killed himself. Or did he? Some thought it was a murder.
 
That’s real life. In the movie version, we flash backward and forward in time. As the film begins, Reeves is already dead.
 
Louis Simo (Adrien Brody) works as a shady private eye. He takes jobs he shouldn’t take just to make a buck. Apparently he used to work for a reputable company and screwed it up by talking to the press and taking money. His old partner points him toward the Reeves case. Tells him Reeves’ mother is in town and thinks it’s murder.
 
Louis, after some headlines, pretty much makes her hire him. Louis really isn’t that nice a guy. Or maybe he is. You can’t really tell. Which is to say he’s pretty much a stereotypical noir gumshoe. He spends his “free time” sleeping with his assistant and visiting his ex-wife and son.
 
As he digs into the story, we learn about Reeves’ relationship with Toni Mannix (Diane Lane). She was the wife of prominent producer Eddie Mannix (Bob Hoskins). He had a mistress. She had Reeves. She was his “sugar momma.” Bought him a house. Got him the Superman part.
 
Louis also finds out about Leonore Lemmon (Robin Tunney), Reeves’ fiancée whom he met on a trip to New York as he tried to set himself up as a producer and director.
 
And then he was dead. But did he kill himself? Did Eddie Mannix have him killed? Did Leonore do it? After all, it too she and her friends 45 minutes to call the police after they found Reeves dead.
 
The film entertains all scenarios, not really providing any concrete answers, though it does choose the one the filmmakers want to believe.
 
Muddling up the Reeves story is the backstory of Louis Simo. This part of the film feels too contrived, too film noir. I didn’t like the mix. Maybe this part, too, is true. I dunno. I just didn’t buy the character. It was too cliché and too obvious a mechanism to dig around in the “mystery” of Reeves’ death.
 
Also, the film is paced poorly. It’s a two-hour film that feels like three. That’s not a good thing. It’s sad, really. The acting is great. Affleck is fantastic as Reeves, reminding us all that he can, in fact, act. Brody perhaps gets into the archetype a bit too much. I have a tough time buying the little guy as a scrappy private investigator.
 
Hollywoodland has some good moments, most of those feature Affleck, but ultimately comes up short. You won’t clap at the end. And you’ll wish you had gotten to leave the theatre half an hour earlier. It’s not a bad movie, it’s just missing something. Maybe it just tries too hard. I can’t really put a finger on it.
 
I do wish they’d gotten to keep the original title, which was Truth, Justice and the American Way.
 
From Russia with Borscht
 
Next up, Russian Dolls, which is a French film, by the way. It’s a sequel, of sorts, to The Spanish Apartment, which I can’t really remember if I saw or not. I know I read about it. It seems like I watched it. But I can’t remember. And my archives aren’t searchable.
 
Since I can’t remember the first film, I’m not including it in the review. You don’t really need to have seen it anyway.
 
Xavier (Romain Duris) has issues. He’s trying to write them out while on a train, but the battery on his laptop goes dead. Desperate for power, he holes up in the bathroom, plugs in, and begins typing his story.
 
He’s a struggling writer. Everyone tells him he’s got big, important stories to tell. They ask him about his novel. But he has no time to finish his novel because he’s busy paying the bills. He stumps around as a ghostwriter, cranks out a few articles and then gets a gig to write a script for a made-for-television movie. It’s a sappy romance.
 
Meanwhile, he’s trying to figure out his love life. Xavier seems to think the ideal woman is out there. His ideal woman is basically whoever’s on the current cover of Vogue. No one he can realistically meet.
 
He’s emotionally entangled with one of his exes, Martine (Audrey Tautou). They’re friends, but . . . you can’t really tell if he still has feelings for her or not.
 
Anyway, eventually, the screenplay he’s working on becomes complicated. The agency no longer wants it in French, they want it in English. So he pairs up with Wendy (Kelly Reilly), an old friend, and they begin reworking the script. And re-evaluating their relationship.
 
Then there’s a trip to Russia. I’d say things get complicated from there, but with Xavier, things are always complicated. Because he’s dumb and superficial.
 
Let me preface this by saying, I did enjoy Russian Dolls. Honest. I even understand the plot construction, but I think they went back too far. The first 30 minutes of the film could’ve been lopped off. I think they could’ve illustrated Xavier’s faults quicker. Then again, maybe I’m just impatient. Like I said, it’s not like I didn’t enjoy it. I did. Could’ve been shorter.
 
Overall, Russian Dolls is good stuff. It’s a smart romantic comedy populated by real people, as opposed to the candy-coated crap they call romantic comedies here in America. If I had to pick, I’ll pick the foreign version nine times out of 10.
 
Bit O’ Blarney
 
That just leaves us with the old movie. I say “old” because it came out in 1994, same year as Pulp Fiction. It’s playing at The Circle Sunday, Sept. 17, at 2pm and 4:45pm.
 
So you’re thinking “why are they showing a movie made in 1994?” Well, partly because the people who run The Circle love the film. And partly because it was a good opportunity. The film hasn’t been shown on screens in more than a decade, and it’s only playing at The Circle. It isn’t being picked up for re-release or anything like that.
 
But there’s more. Phil Fehrle, a former Tulsan, was the man who greenlit the The Secret of Roan Inish. He’ll be in town to discuss the story and how the film was made. He’ll also talk about what it was like working with visionary director John Sayles.
 
I always wanted to do something like this with Raiders of the Lost Ark. It was totally cool a few years back when Troy over at the AMC had that summer classics series and showed Raiders on the big screen again.
 
And that’s the point of this, by the way. To see a classic film shown on a big, beautiful movie screen. Sometimes, even a good home theatre system isn’t enough.
 
As for the film itself, it was, well, magical.
 
Fiona is sent to live with her grandparents on the west coast of Ireland, near where she lived when she was younger. She has memories of the island, Roan Inish, she and her family used to live on. And she has questions about the disappearance of her little brother, Jamie.
 
She begins hearing tales of her heritage and of Irish folklore. There are some, including her cousin Eamon, who think the tales are more than superstition. He thinks there’s more to her brother’s disappearance so many years ago. Something involving Roan Inish and the seals that live around it.
 
Everyone thinks her brother is dead. But not Fiona.
 
The film? Everything about it is beautiful. The music is haunting. Ireland looks both stark and vibrant. The characters are alive and the story perfect. It’s meant as a simple folktale.
 
It’s good stuff. This is your chance to see it how it was intended. And then get to experience some live “bonus” content. Check it out.
 
And that’s that. See you next week.