Funny People **1/2

Director: Judd Apatow
Cast: Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen, Leslie Mann
Jason Schwartzman, Jonah Hill, Aubrey Plaza, Eric Bana

"Comedy usually is for funny people" says George Simmons (Sandler) and the usually in that quote is the keyword to best describe the mood of this film.
Judd Apatow's third film as a director takes an inside look at Hollywood, filtered through a comedian's eyes.
Simmons is a comedy superstar, in the vein of Sandler, who made a name for himself starring in raunchy adolescent oriented comedies and crass stand up routines.
He's a millionaire but lives a pretty lonely life. Things change for him when he learns he has a terminal disease and he tries to make things right.
Not in a Frank Capra way, but right by his own standards; therefore he hires a down on his luck comedian named Ira (Rogen) to be his assistant and also tries to rekindle his love with old flame Laura (Mann) who has a husband (Bana) and children.
Sandler, who rarely gets enough credit as an actor (because of his career choices mostly) makes George someone we have a hard time liking.
He's the kind of conceited superstar who thinks the world asks too much of him-he even sings it-and only reaches down from his Olympus when he needs something.
But Sandler also gives him a soul. He doesn't turn him into a fable character ready for a big change; even when the screenplay tries to make us see him with both pity and disdain, the actor makes George someone who won't give a damn about how we perceive him, until he needs an audience to turn his next movie into a blockbuster.
It's a brave performance because he's never afraid of showing his ugly side, which is most of it.
Apatow as usual gives the supporting cast great moments and Mann once again shines as the complicated Laura. Her kind of down to earth sexiness is incredibly appealing and this time around she plays someone we'd have no trouble believing existed.
Some of her choices are ridiculous, but Mann plays them out like a grown up (perhaps the only real adult in the movie). Rogen once again plays the sweet, slightly awkward sidekick and he's good at it, while Hill bores with his umpteenth take on the potty mouthed nerd.
Bana was a real surprise, he plays an Australian and when the movie wants us to hate him (he's the only character who isn't in show business and has a corporate job) we simply can't, because the actor makes us realize that even something a Hollywood star can find boring, can be dignified.
His comedic timing is ace and the dislikeability factor the screenplay attributes him comes only looking as a manifestation of how he represents people like Simmon's worst nightmares, both in and outside the movie.
He's very handsome, while the other guys often make jokes about their average looks, he's successful and he gets the girl they wanted.
And as an actor Bana is proving that you don't have to say "fart" and "cock" to make people laugh; his sarcasm might just steal more laughs than Sandler's funny voice shticks.
With him the movie reveals its weakest link because Apatow never stops to ask what it means to be funny, he has forgotten that comedy isn't a universal language.
He takes for granted that by thinking of funny we must be the kind of people who laugh at his' and Sandler's jokes.
With this unintentionally arrogant move he assumes that he is a fine comedian.
And he can be; but his kind of comedy has only gained importance during this decade and "Funny People" is an egocentric-slightly self critical- ode to himself and his newly founded reign.

The Limits of Control *1/2

Director: Jim Jarmusch
Cast: Isaach de Bankolé, Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton
Gael García Bernal, Hiam Abbass, John Hurt, Paz de la Huerta

Watching "The Limits of Control" two questions come to mind: does Isaach de Bankolé ever smile and what the hell was Jim Jarmusch thinking when he made this movie?
The stone faced de Bankolé stars as a hitman on some sort of a mission that has him traveling across Spain where he meets with strange characters that give him matchboxes.
Somewhere in between conversations about molecules, Rita Hayworth, bohemians and old guitars Jarmusch expects us to have an epiphany about existence.
What he fails to see is that he's the one who's going through an existential crisis and a plot-less movie will not help him solve it.
The movie plays out like a really bad dream (if Jarmusch was trying to pay homage to David Lynch he never reaches the fascinating creepiness and surprising universality of Lynch's stream-of-consciousness movies) with selfindulgent cinematography by Christopher Doyle who does capture beautiful images, that play like awkward Renault commercials.
The saddest thing is that Jarmusch is probably aware of how empty his movie is and often tries to justify himself in the silliest ways.
When a gangster (played by Murray) asks de Bankolé "how did you get here?" he answers "I used my imagination". This response plays more like "The Matrix" by way of "Sesame Street" than as a spark to make us reflect on how the whole thing might be a dream within a dream.
During the film's only interesting scene Swinton appears as a blond (Jarmusch references tons of film noirs here) with a movie obsession.
She tells de Bankolé that she likes movies where you don't know if you're having a dream or watching a film.
Jarmusch should've learned that sometimes dreams, like films, should be kept all to oneself.

I Want Magic...

Dan Kois profiles Cate Blanchett and Liv Ullmann for "New York Magazine" (read article here) as they bring their production of "A Streetcar Named Desire" to the United States.
If there was a play I would kill to see it definitely would be this one, so I thoroughly enjoyed how Kois interprets the magnificent actresses involved in this production.
"One might call Ullmann an archaeologist and Blanchett an architect" he says as he explains Cate's flawless embodiment through imitation skills and Liv's introspective, quiet performances in Ingmar Bergman films.
I hear that tickets for "Streetcar" are practically impossible to get, but those of you in NYC, try as hard as you can so I can live vicariously through you.
Tickets and information here.

You, the Living ***1/2

Director: Roy Andersson
Cast: Jessika Lundberg, Elisabeth Helander, Kemal Sener
Eric Bäckman, Jessica Nilsson, Leif Larsson

Set somewhere between comedy and tragedy, Roy Andersson's "You, the Living" is the second film, of a planned trilogy, where the director explores human emotions through a set of vignettes.
There's not much of a plot to follow; the film is made out of fifty individual scenes (mostly shot in one take) where different characters complain about their lives.
An angry barber shaves an arrogant costumer, an elderly man laments how his bank treated him while a large woman rides him and an alcoholic woman cries while she asks her mother why is she serving non-alcoholic beer.
All of them are fascinating to watch as they contain entire lifetimes and reflect them in a few seconds. Andersson doesn't need to come up with extended dialogues for them to convey what they are going through.
We can see it in their eyes, in their posture, even in their surroundings.
The movie makes us wonder where does it take place, not only because of its claustrophobic-but-fablesque sets (most of it is done inside a studio) but of the actual population Andersson thinks is going through things like these.
Nobody in the movie is happy and yet we find ourselves laughing at their misery. This can work in two ways, as the director makes us forget our own troubles while he entertain us or by making us realize how selfish most of our problems are.
How can we go on and complain, like the people in the movie, when there's a million people complaining at the same time?
The film's greatest scene has a young woman (Lundberg) at a bar upset because she failed to make an impression with the rock musician she has a crush on (Bäckman).
She pauses and then tells us how she dreamed they were married.
Unlike the other characters in the movie who tell us their dreams, the girl's isn't filled with bizarre trials, apocalyptic crescendos and electric chair deaths, but with music, romance and hope.
This scene with its light Buñuel oneirism makes for such a hauntingly beautiful impression that the Dr. Strangelove-ish finale won't be what leaves the theater with you.

Be, Less, Italian...

OK, if there was an Oscar category for Best Poster design "Nine" wouldn't be getting in.
On its second poster released today we get a more cinematic feel and people who saw it without knowing what the hell it was about, would actually begin to understand the whole "oh they're movie people" thing.
However, cursed by the worst Photoshoppers in the history of the world, the Weinstein Co. artistic department came up with a preposterous, incoherent design.
For starters, who the hell would pose for the paparazzi like Marion, Nicole, Penélope and Kate are?
We get that the graphic designers were too lazy to look for any other images of the actors (they're exactly the same ones they used for the other poster) and don't get me wrong, they all look great (LOVE the Mastroiani feel of Daniel Day Lewis' hunch)...just not as a group.

This is never as evident as with the cast's gazes. Where the hell are all of them looking at? Marion apparently spotted something in Daniel's head and is doing flirty eyes at it.
Daniel is looking at Penélope's feet, while she smells her own armpit and falls down (judging from that too slanted position) and Nicole is straight out of her Chanel No. 5 ad looking for Baz.
Just look at how weird Penélope's position is. Not only do we have to wonder who can stand up like that and stay still, but what the heck did they do to her figure?
She's certainly beautiful and curvy, but by no means is she made out of plastic.

Last, but not least, there's the paparazzi. If you had those five together in the same spot, you'd want to take their picture right?
But look at the photographers in red, their eyes and their cameras? What on Earth are they taking pictures of?
It pains me that "Nine" is doing those wonderful trailers and gives no damn about posters. The whole production seems to be cursed with really, really bad Photoshopping.
Remember that "Vogue" cover?

I was appalled to learn that, contrary to what the final result looks like, the women were actually photographed together! (Watch video for proof)
As much as Italian society appreciates the extremes at which some women can take their appearance. Just look at everything Berlusconi dates or appoints to Congress.
There's still a limit to how retouched actresses should appear. Was there anything more breathtaking than Claudia Cardinale's and Anouk Aimee's natural look in Fellini's "8 1/2"?
Rob Marshall should definitely approach these designers with care, ask them to put down the airbrushing tools and pray not to be blurred or stretched in some Mac.

Be, More, Italian!

The idea behind the new poster for "Nine" is kinda cute. The whole poster within a poster thing has been done in the past to great effect (remember "Notting Hill"?)
But something about this poster is too damn selfconscious.
It is too damn crowded, there's too much going on and you don't really know where the hell you should be looking at first.
Wouldn't it have been superb if the poster featuring the women had been done in the style of the era: with illustrations a la Anita Ekberg in "La Dolce Vita"?
At least this one's better than the Korean version.