To Rome with Love ***

Director: Woody Allen

Cast: Alec Baldwin, Alessandro Tiberi, Alison Pill, Ellen Page

Fabio Armiliato, Flavio Parenti, Greta Gerwig, Jesse Eisenberg

Judy Davis, Penélope Cruz, Roberto Benigni, Woody Allen

When watching the newest Woody Allen movie, it's almost impossible not to bring up familiar issues; the most prominent of all being, of course, how Woody always brings up the same issues. However with each passing film, it becomes more obvious that even if his themes become repetitive, they are never dull and a so-so Woody Allen film is still leagues ahead of anything else being done.

Take To Rome with Love for example; after the delight that was Midnight in Paris, it seems almost "mediocre" in comparison to the pure joy exuded by the previous one and the deftness with which it wove different eras and stories. Yet the truth is that in each European city, Woody has made a movie that reflects the city's personality through his own neuroses. 

Time and time again, he has exclaimed that his movies aren't autobiographical, and it would be easier to believe him, if he hadn't created a persona we have come to assume is the real Woody Allen.

In Rome, he plays Jerry, a retired musical director, married to a psychoanalyst (played with extreme gusto by the oh-so-ever-fabulous Judy Davis). Jerry is recently retired and according to his wife, equates this with being dead, therefore he sets his hopes in his daughter's (Pill) future father-in-law (Armiliato) a mortician who also happens to have an extraordinary voice.

Obsessed with turning this man into a star, in the process regaining back "life", Jerry dares to stage a version of Pagliacci that defies all good taste and after the critics speak unfavorably, his daughter goes "he's been called worse".

This fighting spirit, which acknowledges how Jerry didn't manage to please critics, might as well be meant to represent Allen's career. For all we know, what if the time-travel concept of Midnight in Paris had been deemed ridiculous? Or what if the ghostly themes in Scoop had been universally praised?

What we come to understand is that he isn't as obsessed with the result as he is with the creative process and that might very well be the unifying theme of the movie; how people are in a constant search of creation.

Besides Jerry's story, we have three other plots that make up the film: there's newlyweds Antonio (Tiberi) and Milly (Mastronardi) who get caught up in a misadventure borrowed from Fellini's The White Sheik and involves movie stars and prostitutes (played by Luca Albanese and Cruz respectively). We also meet John (Baldwin) a famous architect who becomes the voice of the conscience to the young Jack (Eisenberg) as he struggles between staying with his girlfried (Gerwig) or going after her free-spirited friend Monica (Page). Finally there's Leopoldo (Benigni in an unusually restrained performance) an everyman who one day wakes up to realize he's become famous.

All of these stories are told effectively and all seem to represent something that Woody might've wanted to explore further (perhaps on a feature length?) and the film's biggest flaw might be precisely that it wants to cover too much.

The forced finale of the John/Jack story for example (which echoes of the brilliant Vicky Cristina Barcelona) make it seem as if it's the resolution what matters the most and not the fact that we are never told if John is the older version of Jack, or if he's just a "friendly" manifestation of his subconscious or perhaps some playful spirit. Nuances like the Bergman-ian fact that Jack and John are practically the same name, get lost in the tangle of overwritten dialogues and awkwardness from Eisenberg and Page who never fully bloom as truly sexual creatures. 

Then there's the delicious ode to home as seen in the newlywed story, which might not be linked to any other plot (none of the stories ever cross paths) but shares a theme with Leopoldo and his sudden overdose of fame. Allen is a wry observant and lets us know he's aware of how all the Kardashians of the world are occupying spots that once were allotted to people who earned their notoriety on positive terms. 

The movie as a whole, despite its golden cinematography and constant reminders of the city's beauty, can't help but be tinged with bittersweetness, something Allen must've gotten from Fellini's La Dolce Vita, which also made us wonder about the price we pay for fame and reinventing our humdrum lives. 

While Fellini's masterpiece had almost nothing pleasant to say about our society and even declared at one point, everyone would give their backs to purity in the name of hedonism, Allen's take is meeker and shall we say humbler? He is aware of the destruction and chaos, but he makes us look at Rome, with its gorgeous ruins and timeless architecture, and asks us if this isn't worth trying a little harder for.

I Know You Are, Pe...

I make it my mission never to watch trailers - or to seek them actively at least - however I could not resist the temptation of watching the Woodsman's newest. All I can say is: I want it now!

Watch here.

Update: I discuss the trailer over at The Film Experience. Go read now!

Sheet-y Saturday.

Where we take a look at posters for upcoming features.

With horror posters going lazier and lazier every day, it was quite refreshing to see this one-sheet for The Cabin in the Woods, which is comprised of...wait for it, critics' blurbs! It probably makes sense that if you make a horror movie and it, gasp, gets good critical notices, you're going to want to feature them somewhere. Then again if you have the likes of Chris Hemsworth in your movie you'd also want to show him, right? The boldness of this poster alone is enough to guarantee I'll be watching this ASAP.

When you're a Woody Allen movie you have to be prepared to receive criticism for every single thing you do. If you're good, you still will never be as good as Annie Hall, if you're bad, you're an offense to humanity and your maker should suddenly be arrested and jailed for marrying his step-daughter. If your maker cared about all the crap people will say about you, you'd never be released. However your maker loved making you so much that you should be proud of him and face the world with dignity. Who cares if your poster looks like it was put together by Nancy Meyers' sloppy marketing team? At least you can brag about boasting one of the most charmingly peculiar casts ever put together.

Excited about either of these releases? Wondering how on earth can Woody still make a movie a year?

Sheet-y Saturday.

Where we take a look at posters for upcoming features.

While not a big fan of the Alien series myself (feel free to burn me at the stake...) I find myself all sorts of excited about the upcoming Prometheus. The first teaser, of course, says absolutely nothing more than "I am a dark moody sci-fi flick that might haunt your nightmares for years to come", but they got themselves one killer tagline!

Are all teasers for 2012 going to be shadows against blueish spotlights? (See above!) Unlike Prometheus though, Rock of Ages is all about flaunting that cast. Is it me or are all of you excited to see CZJ in another musical? A Tony and an Oscar prove these might be the only thing she should be working in...

The Bright Side.

When all is said and done the 2009 Oscars will be remembered because the best nominated movie won.
"The Hurt Locker" might not be the most popular movie ever made but popularity isn't always the best way to appraise art and Kathryn Bigelow's historic win contributed to make a night whose winners we might remember, but the ceremony already stands as one of the dullest.
Most of the winners were set in stone despite their lacking quality and the "suspenseful" race between "Avatar" and "The Hurt Locker" was over before it even began.
Apparently Adam Shankman's tactics which aimed to make the Oscar more tween friendly paid off in terms of viewers (41.3 million tuned in, compared to 39 the year before) but the show lacked coherence and respect for what might be Hollywood's most irrelevant honor but also the most respected.
When Shankman insisted on bringing out the "Twilight" kids, Miley Cyrus and that sweet natured but very random tribute to John Hughes (He gets a special tribute and Eric Rohmer barely got applauds during the In Memoriam?) it was obvious that this wasn't an Oscar ceremony meant for grownups.
Shankman might have meant well but his talents are more appropriate for a Nickelodeon awards show not the Oscars.
It all was even funnier-in a bad way-when the acting winners amounted to being one of the oldest set of winners all decade long and the youngsters- like Martin and Baldwin quipped about two young presenters-probably didn't even know who they were.

The show overall proved to be a step down from the elegant ceremony Hugh Jackman hosted a year ago. The fact that they even went back to saying "and the winner is" resulted in one of the tackiest twists the Shankman posse could've mustered, especially when some of these winners resulted so meh.

It was a year of experiments at the Oscars and with the song performances and honorary awards removed from the telecast one would've expected them to be refreshed for the best. What we got instead was an awkward ceremony filled with odd details (that sudden Tom Hanks announcement sucked! No drumrolls even?) all for the sake of rewarding more films.
Who knows if the whole ten slot thing worked? Sure it got Pixar finally nominated for Best Picture but it also got Sandra Bullock an Oscar (she won the second "The Blind Side" was nominated) so the effects might still not be win-win.
And seriously they have got to give up that "The Dark Knight" guilt, the use of it to explain the difference between the sound categories (which they seem to have to do every single year) was preposterous and more obnoxious than all the white guilt in "Precious", "District 9" and "The Blind Side".

No One Wants to Do It alone Award
Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin did a great job as hosts (if only because of how much they made the glorious Meryl Streep laugh). It's obvious that Alec was mostly there to counter Steve's zaniness (he had never been funnier!) And together they had amazing chemistry that was perfectly encompassed by Neil Patrick Harris who called them "the biggest pair since Dolly Parton".

Best Speech(es)
Mo'Nique showed them it can be achieved without the media circus and it "can be about the performance and not the politics" as she collected her Best Supporting Actress Oscar.
While Best Costume Design winner Sandy Powell dedicated her win to "the costume designers that don't do movies about dead monarchs or glittery musicals" reminding AMPAS that she already had two statuettes back home and they really should start widening their limited views.
Both smug girls showed them how it's done!

Runner-ups
Kathryn Bigelow
It was delightful to see her so surprised even when she was the favorite for the win since January.
Babs presenting the award pretty much sealed the deal and honestly it was "the moment of a lifetime indeed".

Most WTF Best Picture Presentation
To have Chris Pine introduce "District 9" when his own "Star Trek" was viciously passed over was truly uncomfortable.

Best Revenge from the Audience
When they reminded them that the honorary awards had been given last year (done to save telecast time...) and introduced recipients Lauren Bacall and Roger Corman in the audience, Eywa herself couldn't have prevented the roaring standing ovation they both got, giving us a moment Oscar almost stole from us.

Geekiest Aww Moment
When a winning art director from "Avatar" told James Cameron "this Oscar sees you".

Best Introduction
Steve Martin faked a teleprompter error but correctly introduced Tom Ford and Sarah Jessica Parker as "two world renowned clothes whores".

Least Use of Subtlety
Demi Moore was introduced with "Unchained Melody" to introduce the In Memoriam section.
Eeesh for a minute or two I thought Shankman would have zombies perform "Thriller" as well.

Best Reminder of What the Oscars Used to Be
Quentin Tarantino and Pedro Almodóvar present Best Foreign Language Film accompanied by Nino Rota's score from "Amarcord". It was an exquisite touch in a rather cheap night.

Best Sight for Sore Eyes



















The So You Think We Care About Dancing Award
Really Shankman?
Remove the Best Original Song presentations (and rob us of the opportunity to watch Marion Cotillard) but by all means bring back interpretative dancing to present Original Score.
What was up with the choreography to "The Hurt Locker"?



The "Didn't Find it Funny the First Time, Find It Sad Now" Award
When Sandra Bullock won Best Actress as expected (in what's sure to become one of the worst wins in the category's 82 years) she once ahead brought up her feud with Meryl Streep.
And really I know Streep is above all a good sport who knows she's way better than all these women who keep winning her awards but am I the only one who finds she's been losing some class with the whole making out with SaBu shtick?
I felt bad for Bullock, because even she knew she was robbing all the other nominees and in the end her speech was more of the "you really like me" variety than a great Oscar moment.

Best Use of Meryl Streep
Steve Martin referring to her record setting nominations as "most losses" was hilarious and sadly very true. When he said this I hoped every person in that theater felt guilty for not voting for her!
Also when he asked "what's up with all that Hitler memorabilia?" [Meryl supposedly collects] I thought I was going to die from laughing so hard.

For a complete list of winners go here.

LOL

It's Complicated ***

Director: Nancy Meyers
Cast: Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin, Steve Martin
John Krasinski, Rita Wilson, Lake Bell, Zoe Kazan
Hunter Parrish, Caitlin Fitzgerald

Since Nancy Meyers insists on delivering films that take place exclusively in settings where women take baths while having wine and men wear navy blue sailing jackets as if they're impossible to live without, someone had to eventually come and shake her world a bit.
Not surprisingly this person is Meryl Streep, who in "It's Complicated" delivers what might be her sexiest screen performance just as she turns sixty.
She plays Jane, a divorced bakery owner who unexpectedly begins an affair with her ex-husband Jake (Baldwin) who's now married to a younger woman (Bell). They also hide from their children (played by Kazan, Parrish and Fitzgerald) who apparently are still getting over the decade old divorce.
"It's Complicated" is not complicated at all, Meyers inserts a new dilemma in the shape of Adam (Martin), Jane's sensitive architect who's into her and is obviously better than the guy who dumped her for a kid.
But Meyers fools herself into thinking that the turn of events in the film will be surprising as if she hadn't been recycling this same kind of story throughout her directing career.
What she has this time is Meryl, who makes this Martha Stewart world of passionate domesticity something completely her own.
When Jane insists she needs a bigger kitchen (when she has one that already looks like a studio apartment) we don't take it as upper class capriciousness but as the only thing this woman seems prepared to take on at the moment.
Streep gives Jane the right amounts of carelessness to make us believe she's just a drama queen, but watch as she turns this back on us by revealing a woman who only masks her insecurities through this joie de vivre.
Watching her with Baldwin is like watching her time traveling as she looks as beautiful and fresh as she did in, some parts of, "Sophie's Choice". Her animal side is evident when she takes on Jake with passion that overcomes guilt.
To see her actually choose lust over guilt just with a facial expression is the equivalent of Viagra to Jake.
In scenes with Adam she takes on another more earthy side that makes her glow. "I'm always surprised when I can count on someone" she confides in him and we know she means it.
Wherever the screenplay takes her, Streep turns it into a delicate portrayal of someone who might not be as mature as her age suggests instead of the slight beige and white nutcase some of her actions might steer her to.
"Turns out I'm a bit of a slut" she says completely surprised with this realization. In return she has kept surprising us all along as well.

Gavin, Jack and Oscar.

"I am happy to co-host the Oscars with my enemy Alec Baldwin" - Steve Martin

The amazing Steve Martin is returning to host the Oscars and this time he's bringing Alec Baldwin with him.
The news are all over the internet by now (read here) and they truly fill me with joy.
When's the last time we had a truly funny Oscar show? I mean truly, outrageously funny...
Perhaps Ellen Degeneres' wonderfully offbeat hosting three years ago, but we've come little to be close to the glorious days of Billy Crystal.
I, for one, am sure that these two will kick major ass and somewhere in NYC Tina Fey (who should be at every awards show from here til the end of times) is smiling gladly at the idea of Gavin Volure and Jack Donaghy together one more time.

My Sister's Keeper *1/2

Director: Nick Cassavetes
Cast: Cameron Diaz, Abigail Breslin
Jason Patric, Sofia Vassilieva, Evan Ellingson
Joan Cusack, Alec Baldwin

How can anyone say or think something bad about a cancer-related film? That seems to be the idea around which director Nick Cassavetes worked to deliver this manipulative, lazy excuse of a movie.
During the opening credits we learn that Anna (Breslin) was conceived in vitro as a perfect genetic match for her sister Kate (Vassilieva) who suffers from leukemia.
Her "spare parts", as called by a doctor, have kept her sister alive for more than ten years, but when she has to donate one of her kidneys Anna decides it's been enough. She goes to lawyer Campbell Alexander (Baldwin) and sues her parents to obtain "medical emancipation" creating the ethical dilemma at the center of the film.
Is she the bad seed or does she have a point?
As played by Breslin, Anna is the only character in the whole movie we would like to know more of. Breslin who possesses amazing abilites to act like a kid (not like a creepy grownup trapped inside a kid's body) gives her character little traits that make her believable and touching.
When she's confronted by her parents Sara (Diaz) and Brian (Patric), Anna goes into her own little world; most of the movie Breslin makes us linger between the two possibilities, only to be let down by Cassavetes awful screenplay and direction.
The thing about the film is that it has already taken sides and we spend the whole movie watching all the pain Kate has gone through.
From vomiting blood, to losing her hair, to falling in love and then losing that too and we rarely get insight into why Anna's plead also has justifications.
If this bias wasn't enough, Cassavetes goes the extra mile to make the whole movie seem like a collection of Kodak moments and upbeat musical montages that pop out of nowhere and last for ages (as that famous online spoof goes "is this a movie or a CD?").
Shot beautifully by Caleb Deschanel, who even makes the chemotherapy room look dreamlike, the contrast between the visuals and the emotions the characters try to convey is distasteful.
The actors do their best with what they're given though, Baldwin is good (even if sometimes he narrates like a detective out of a film noir), Cusack is moving as a sensible judge (despite the burden of corniness she's given to carry) and it's refreshing to see Diaz stretch her acting muscle a bit, even if she doesn't always succeed.
But most of this gets lost in the amalgam of cliché Cassavetes concocts. Whenever the action is steering to make Anna seem sane he inserts a random flashback reminding us why Kate is more important.
Then there's a whole subplot full-o-holes with their brother Jesse (Ellingson) who lingers in the streets and sits atop building rooftops harboring what seems like something awful which we never fully understand.
Exploiting likeability to the ultimate factor, Cassavetes also becomes aware that while cancer patients are impossible to dislike, so is Abigail Breslin.
And he gives her character a final twist that should make us shed the waterworks, but only serves to expose the utter lack of respect the filmmaker has for both the sick and the healthy.
Please, don't give this movie its shot.