Was The Ghost Writer overlooked because of a backlash against Polanski?

I'm surprised at how "The Ghost Writer" has been almost entirely overlooked and underappreciated. Maybe it's a backlash against director Polanski? True, it did pop up as an also-ran on a few Best Movies of 2010 lists (would have made mine as well had I seen it sooner), but I can't remember anyone seeing it or talking about it - yet it's a movie that should have drawn a solid commercial response, and if he'd only been able to cast a more box-office lead actor there's no reason this smart, provocative suspense film shouldn't been as successful as the Bourne films, for example. In fact, it's much smarter than the Bournes, let alone the Bondses. The Ghost Writer, based on a book by Richard Harris (I think) and not to be confused with the Philip Roth novel, is about guy hired to ghost the memoirs of a former British PM closely modeled on Tony Blair - big supporter of the U.S. and of the Bush admin. The first-hired ghost was found dead, apparent suicide, weeks before publication deadline. Obviously we know the writer is in way over his head, and strange his world gets increasingly threatening as he learns that the manuscript he's working on is top secret and as it's reported that the PM is under investigation as a war criminal. There's CIA involvement, complex relations between the writer and the PM's very powerful wife, lots of interesting and completely credible plot twists, very good tense sequences, and a powerful conclusion. Worth noting that all this accomplished with no high-tech high-jinx, action-comic car chases, or deadly explosions. A very literate thriller that kept me guessing and thinking and, at the end, wondering: how much of this could be true?

Best (not recent) movies I saw in 2010

A few days ago I posted notes on the 10 best movies I saw in 2010, but that top-ten list was all of recently released films (released either in theaters or on DVD in 2010 or late 2009 maybe in some cases). But a true best-movies list should also pay homage to some of the classic or at least not-recent movies I saw during the year, so here are notes on the 5 best older movies I saw in 2010, some of them classics, one a seldom-seen but ought-to-be classic, and two too recent to be classics but really good movies that have slipped through the cracks of critical acclaim and ought to be better-known. Here's my list, in alphabetical order:

Cinema Paradiso. I saw the tedious, bloated 3-hour "uncut" version, and I recommend you ignore that monstrosity and find the original 90-minute version and watch that. The original Cinema Paradiso is a charming picture about a boy from a small town, where the entire social and cultural life centers on the movie theater, who goes off to the big city and becomes famous but loses touch with his origins, and returns home for a funeral and finds that everything has changed - and then, that amazing ending!

I Was Born...But. Ozu's 70-year-old silent about two schoolboys boys and their relationship with their father. By today's standards, the story is slow and the somewhat stagy - but still far, far ahead of so many other stilted silents - some beautiful shots of the family gatherings, of the two boys in the landscape of the industrial suburbs of Tokyo, of their father walking the boys to school. You can see the beginning of Ozu's sensibility - which will culminate in great Tokyo Story.

Lantana. Australian. ca 2002? One of those movies with multiple point of view, several strands to the story, you're not clear how or if the strands will intersect, then ultimately the whole design become clear to you. Unlike so many movies and TV series with "surprises," the surprises and twists in Lantana are all credible and in character. And the film also has a serious dramatic dimension. On the surface, it's about a murder investigation, but it's truly about people coming to terms with marriage and trust and faith and infidelity.

Red Road. This Glasgow-set picture from ca 2006 is taut and grim and graphic and very much accomplishes its ends of holding our attention from the first mysterious frame - protagonist Jackie watching multiple screens of video surveillance as part of a police/security anti-terrorism system - and hitting us with various twists and surprises along the way, building to a bang-up conclusion that challenges our assumptions.

Rome Open City. Filmed in the late 40s in what is obviously still a war-ravaged Rome, mostly on location settings, on the cheap, while another, Rome Open City is about resistance to the Nazi occupiers. You're always on edge watching this movie. Anyone could be arrested or shot at any time. The reality of the film is brutal. In so many similar movies, you know the lead characters will survive, because they're stars - but here any character can go at any time. Totally worth watching.

A sendup of the art establishment: Talk about easy targets!

Many years ago I saw a documentary about the artist Bruce Naumann, an eccentric minimalist, and I was convinced that there was no such person, that he was a hoax invented by fellow-artists, that his entire corpus and existence was a form of performance art (the term didn't exist then). Over the years, I've seen so many references to Naumann (even the name suggests No Man, right?), and I even have a book about him, that I've come to accept he's a real person - unless someone has been playing this real person for an entire lifetime. The film "Enter Through the Gift Shop" plays with that same concept - part documentary, part mockumentary, about a filmmaker named Thierry Guetta who sets out to document the work of street artists and becomes a successful street artist himself. The film is in itself a work of street art, in that the career of Guetta is clearly a fabrication and a sendup of the commercial success street artists and the gullibility of the art establishment and of the public. Okay, but unfortunately, it's not that funny a sendup and it's been done before. If Spinal Tap had not existed, never mind Best in Show et al., this would be a better movie, but it's hardly the kind of groundbreaking work of cinema you'd expect from the highly creative and brave and unconventional street artists - the real ones - whom we meet in the film. In fact, the documentary footage of the street artists is by far the highlight of Gift Shop, and I wished I'd watched a real full-length doc about their work, not this hybrid.

The 10 Best (recent) Movies I Saw in 2010

A friend of mine was recently telling me about his new 55-inch flat-screen with 3D. I told him I didn't really need a 3D screen - most of the movies I watch are just barely 2D, as will be obvious to anyone who reads my list of the 10 Best Movies of 2010. These are actually the 10 best (recent) movies I saw in 2010, some of which were made or released in 2009 - but mere mortals, as opposed to film critics and industry insiders, can never see all or even most of the good movies in the year of release. Note the NYT recent 10-best lists: how many of those movies are not yet released? How many have opened in NY and LA only? Also, like most people these days, I see most of my movies @ home on DVD. Anyway, this list does not include a few of the true classics and recent classics that I saw this year, which may be topics for a future post. Here are the 10 best movies I saw this year, none in 3D, listed alphabetically:

Headless Woman. Argentine. It's a story of fate and of moral and ethical decisions. Short, not pretty, totally compelling, and haunting.

The Hurt Locker. One of the few American movies on my list, and one of the few "hits." 2+ hours of complete tension and engagement, without a sense of exploitation, gratuitous violence, or video-game extravagance. It feels totally real, genuine, as if you're in the boots of the men on the ground in Iraq.

Mother. Korean. It's a great movie because of its exploration of characters and relationships, and because of the mother's gradual and surprising awakening as the movie progresses. Great movies (and novels) are about crisis, collision of forces, leading to growth, change, knowledge - and this is the epitome.

Precious. Here's one I liked much more than I thought I would. Really strong acting by the leads, and for once a movie doesn't blame everything on the unfeeling social workers and the crushing bureaucracy of the system. The social agencies do help, and Mariah Carey, surprisingly, is terrific as a thoughtful but tough social worker.

Revanche. Austrian. Though this sounds like an action picture - and it does have some very tense scenes, a robbery, a chase, a lot of graphic sex - it is a surprisingly deep and thoughtful movie, with a lot of exploration of the spiritual angst of the characters (obvious echos of Bergman) and a very credible portrait of a criminal couple who are obviously losers.

The Secret in Their Eyes. Argentine. Definitely jumps to the top of the list as the best movie I saw in 2010, even one of the best of the decade - a totally compelling story with lots of surprises and an absolutely terrifying ending.

The Social Network. The only big-budget film on the list. It's as good as the hype. The tone and the playing is exactly right, down to the small scenes - the two rich jocks coming to Larry Summers and expecting his help is a great moment, as is the already-famous first scene of the movie.

Summer Hours. Very French. A beautiful film, and not only because of La Binoche - the whole movie, the look, the acting, the very smart script, just loose and open enough to keep you thinking and guessing, but very nicely structured to bring you through the course of a year, summer to summer, in the life of one family. This one struck many personal notes for me.

The White Ribbon. Austrian. A geopolitical allegory, without the allegorical trappings. Beautiful to watch in a strange and mysterious way (it's in b/w), and some of the scenes of nastiness and marital strife and verbal cruelty are painful to watch and powerful and make Bergman look like a Disney cartoon.

Winter's Bone. An American indie makes the list. A totally captivating movie especially because of the work of its star, Julie(?) Lawrence, young actor who captures the plight of this 17-year-old nearly overwhelmed by the responsibilities of her life - invalid mother, two young sibs, dad on the run, no money, no social or family supports (at least so it seems). You'll never again, when visiting the Ozards, wander unannounced into a meth lab.


The also-rans, in no particular order, include: The Maid, 35 Shots of Rum, District 9 (waiting for the sequel), Gomorrah (The Wire via Italy), In the Loop (very funny! - wish I had a comedy for the Top 10, but this isn't quite up to the level), Lorna's Silence, Ajami, and the strange Mexican-made Silent Light.

No chases, no guns, no special effects - just an exciting movie : Red Road

"Red Road," a Glasgow-set picture from ca 2006 (by Andrea Arnold?) is taut and grim and graphic and very much accomplishes its ends of holding our attention from the first mysterious frame - protagonist Jackie watching multiple screens of video surveillance as part of a police/security anti-terrorism system pervasive in Britain - and hitting us with various twists and surprises along the way, building to a bang-up conclusion that challenges our assumptions. Actress playing Jackie is in virtually every scene, and she's really strong and courageous, especially in the extremely graphic sex scene near the conclusion. Movie not for everyone - the grimness of Glasgow in this and other pictures, e.g., Trainspotting, is a well-known off-putter - but Red Road is much more tense and realistic and vivid than any number of crappy crime dramas and thrillers that rely on car chases and shootouts. This one done with no special effects, nothing high speed, no guns or weapons of any kind. Basic plot line is that Jackie, through her surveillance, spots the man now out of prison who killed her husband and child, and she sets off to exact revenge. Here come the spoilers, so stop here if you might see the film: The only downside to Red Road is that it's practically impossible to believe that Jackie or anyone short of psychopath (which she is not) would embark on a revenge plot that involves having sex with the target and then charging him with rape. Also we do feel a bit manipulated by the film, in that we are strongly led to believe that the target was a "killer" out of jail, when in fact he turns out to be a former drunken driver, now trying (not very effectively) to reform - film wants to have too many things both ways. Those quibbles aside, though, it's a really intelligent film, shot with great economy and using real Glasgow street locations, and stands up very well alongside the many much-better-known dark American indie films of recent years.

Sometimes you have to live with a series for a while before it begins to make sense

The Canadian series "Intelligence" (2006?) season one pilot episode, a 90-minute take, gets the season off to a great start, full of tension and odd twists, sets up a really interesting antagonism between Vancouver major crimes unit leader and her chief underling, with lots of overtones of interoffice rivalry, rivalry between agencies, racism, sexism, and the strange relations established between cops and crooks when the cops recruit spies within various criminal gangs. Episode was very compelling, but like so many of its type pretty hard to follow at times, especially because of some of the low-budget casting and directing: minor characters who mumble and are rather indistinguishable, totally forgettable names (and faces sometimes), murky lighting in some key scenes, exceptionally elliptical plot exposition. Still, I got enough of it to follow the story line and to want to see more of the series, which will I think unfold some of these narrative creases. I felt the same way to an extent after the first episode or two of The Wire - with some of these series, you have to live with them for a while before you understand and recognize the characters and their life stories. To try to give a brief summary of the pilot: Mary (?) being recruited by Canada CIA has to bring with her a # of inside sources in Vancouver crime; staff develops a list of such; the list is stolen from deputy (Ted?)'s car; they have to bring all the sources in; leading crime figure (Reardon) obtains the list; deal-making ensues.

Tragedy, comedy, farce - and an ending that's much like Shakespeare : Final episode of Slings & Arrows

Last episode of final season of "Slings & Arrows" is a perfect summation of the three seasons of the series. It's sweet and touching, but not saccharine - and ends as I expected with some sad and wry notes as well, a true Shakespearean ending. To no one's surprise, they do manage to pull off a great performance of King Lear, with the dying Charles Kingman rising to the occasion. But this final performance is done outside the festival, in a church. Simply by running through this performance (and in Anna's case b attending it), the actors and crew put their contracts with the festival in jeopardy. And the surprise (spoiler!) is that Richard ultimately turns out to be a selfish prick. He fires the whole crew, brings in Derrin as the new artistic director, decides to make the festival much more commercial, appeasing his thuggish board chairman and retaining his job. Through the three seasons he veered from being an uptight businessman led around by a dominating woman to a sensitive guy who just wanted to be loved - and then in this final season we see that he's shallow and self-centered. So there's tragedy and comedy and face in this final episode: the season actually echoes Lear in some way, in that the characters have everything stripped from them. But unlike the tragic Lear, they do rise and survive: we see that Sophie/Sara Polley will go on and have a great career, Ellen and Jeffrey at last get married and they seem OK about moving on to new careers in Montreal, and the ghost of Oliver leaves (though he does seem to attach himself to Charles, as predicted). Very realistically captures the feeling of the end of a long run.

Could things get any worse (for the actors) in Slings & Arrows?

True to form, the 5th (of 6) episode in Season 3 of "Slings & Arrows" ends as other episode 5's did, with the entire cast and the entire New Burbage Festival at its nadir - everything going wrong and the problems seemingly insolvable on the eve of opening night: King Lear has been moved to the small theater, with the musical now on the main stage and the tensions between the two casts at the highest pitch; Charles, the old man playing Lear, has once again had a medical breakdown and literally attacked Ellen/Martha Burns on the stage, causing her to resign; Sophie/Cordelia/Sarah Polley as glum as she can get, at last tells her co-actor that she's been in love with him and he's broken her heart as he's pursued the star of the musical; the Lear understudy injured in a bar fight and on his way to the hospital. All this plus Jeffrey still in the throes of Oliver's ghost and the diva Barbara making life miserable for all. A lot to wrap up in episode 6! We all are sure that Charles will pull through with at least one great performance of Lear - his dying wish. Of course Sophie and the guy (he plays Edgar I think) will get together at last. I'm guessing that Ellen will make good on the contract she's signed for a TV series and leave New Burbage. Oliver will finally disappear - perhaps going off stage with Charles's ghost, as Charles dies? A shame this series has to end - but perhaps three seasons was all that the writers could draw from this materials, and it's better to go off too soon than too late.

The most demading role in the comic reportory? : School for Wives

We're really lucky to have nearby, in Warren, R.I., the amazing 2nd Story Theatre, where director Ed Shea puts on one terrific production after another, and last night we go to see the best one I've seen there yet, Moliere's "School for Wives," starring Shea himself and he really does steal the show, as well as serving as an inspiration to the many young (and not so young) actors in his troupe - a demonstration of all that can be done in a comedy. His role, Arnaud, has to be one of the most demanding in the repertory - not only a tremendous amount of material to learn, but all of it in rhymed couplets and all of it requiring pinpoint execution to keep the comic pace moving fast. Shea didn't miss a beat last night, and his inspiration I think brought the rest of the cast up to a higher level, with particular kudos to Tom Roberts, who not only played his part well but did an amusing prologue in verse that he wrote himself. The play is a curiosity, of course, dated, sexist, but still strangely contemporary - as the sexist old man who wants a pliable wife loses out in the end and the young couple - to nobody's surprise - end up in each other's arms. As is typical of the genre, the old many storms off the stage before the wedding - Shakespeare of course broke with this comic convention and often left the old man alone on stage till the end (e.g., Antonio), for an added S'ean touch of pathos and wistfulness. Moliere far more traditional, a play with a comic plot well engineered as a Swiss watch and with the pleasure in the witty versification (Wilbur's translation is incredible) and, in this production, Shea's slightly Brooklyn-tough-guy version of the old French fool, Arnaud.

Very touching words in Slings & Arrows: Then you'll have had a life

Back to "Slings & Arrows," episode 4 of season 3, as the production of King Lear goes into preview and there are major problems with the lead, Charles,who is increasingly ill and unable to manage his lines and cues. Now, everyone in the cast knows how severe the problem is - the understudy seems woefully incapable of stepping in, and it's obvious that Charles will play the part, eventually - there's no other way this drama could work itself out satisfactorily - but in this episode the production is at its low point, director Jeffrey has no easy answer (he's amazingly solicitous toward Charles), he's still tormented by Oliver's ghost, who's offering no particular help. The talented Sarah Polley plays a very dour young actress cast as Cordelia, and she's particularly out of spirits as the crazy musical, East Hastings, has become a big hit. She'll have to end up with someone, right? Maybe one of the guys from the musical? Though there are many dark elements in this episode, Slings & Arrows is obviously a work of high comedy, and it'll have to end with everyone coupled off - and with Jeffrey's demons put to rest (probably Oliver will go off in discussion with Charles - either dead of nearly so?), though in true Shakespearean fashion there may be some wry notes at the end, too, one character perhaps left alone - an Antonio, Malvolio, or Jacques. Very touching scene: the Lear cast gathered in the bar after preview canceled, and the two elderly gay Brit actors try to console Polley, telling her she will have a great career, and she will also have plenty of "cockups" like this night's disaster, but that's good, because then you'll have stories to tell, then you'll have had a life. Very touching words, and very true.

It simply defies comprehension: Shutter Island

Doesn't Martin Scorsese make great movies? Yes, when he can get out of his own way. There may be a great, or at least a good, movie lurking somewhere inside of Scorsese's miserable "Shutter Island," but to get there you'd have to strip away layers of mannerism and pretension and just tell the story. Too many dream sequences. Too many flashbacks to the trauma of a soldier (DiCaprio) who liberated Dachau and saw the horrors. Too many scenes in which ghost of wife (Michelle Williams) appears in dream of fantasy. So strip all that away and then what? (Spoilers to follow - have to talk about end of story) This is a story so Gothic and convoluted that it defies comprehension, let alone credibility. At the end, we face two possibilities: Leo has spent two years in a psychiatric prison and the entire film, in which he sees the hospital as evil and criminal, is his distorted vision OR Leo is right that the hospital is run by a cruel doctor engaged in mind experiments and he has been victimized and imprisoned because he's approached the truth. Either way, Scorsese has broken a fundamental compact that a filmmaker establishes with his audience: when there are obvious visual/auditory clues that some scenes are dreams or visions, we have to believe than that the other scenes are real and not hallucinatory. This film is all over the place, and never clear to the audience, or maybe to anyone else, as to what scenes are real. It's a confusing mess. If it's meant to be a massive conspiracy against DiCaprio, I could have accepted that - but with so much unresolved ambiguity about which characters are real, which are just his own visions, in fact about whether the entire fir hour of the film (his arrival at the hospital as a U.S. Marshall assigned to investigate an escape) ever actually happened, the movie just pushes the audience away rather than engages us on any level, neither emotionally nor intellectually. A grand failure. Finally, this was obviously not filmed in the Boston Harbor Islands (where Lehane's source novel is set), so why even bother to retain that idea as the setting - just makes the movie even more ridiculous for anyone from New England.

Almost impossible to describe how bad this film is

"I Love Your Phillip Morris": How do we even begin to discuss how bad it is? It would be easy just to dismiss this mess of a movie with a throwaway line: it proves once and for all that movies about gay conmen/lovers/prisoners can be just as horrible as movies about straight conmen/lovers/prisoners. A big step toward equality on screen. This Jim Carrey vehicle reels about from comedy to pathos and hits none of the notes correctly. It's told in the first person, Carrey narrating the story of his life as a con man and impostor, a story apparently based on a real person's life and memoir, but with who knows with how much embellishment? Lot of parallels here to Catch Me If You Can, by no means a great movie but Citizen Kane compared with Philip Morris. In Catch, the hero is likable and fun and charming, in this one he's odious and cruel and selfish - but I guess we're supposed to be laughing at Carrey's jaunty behavior and faux naivete (a much older version of The Truman Show, with Carey now seeming idiotic as he greets coworkers). One scene after another is preposterous - the sex scenes, his childhood flashbacks, his meeting his birth mother, on and on. Then the movie becomes a gay Shawshank: Hey, prison can be a lot of fun if you're a gay guy, right? Insane. Out of prison, Carrey/Steven Russell dupes a lot of rubes improbably, but with no levity, no sense of fun. Then it becomes a tearful Philadelphia story, all would be OK if Carrey could maintain his relation with the much-wronged eponymous Phillip, but we don't believe a moment of it, nor do we care a moment for either character. This film is beyond hope.

One of the most haunting scenes you'll ever see on film : Restrepo

The National Geographic documentary "Restrepo," directed by Heatherington (?) and Sebastian Junger, is the best inside look at the war in Afghanistan that we're ever likely to get. We see in 90-minutes exactly what it's like to be in a platoon stationed at the most remote outpost, in the Korengal Valley near the Pakistan border. Some of the war footage is extraordinary - you don't see the incredibly exciting drama that we always see in scripted war movies, such as HBO's Pacific of the the movie Generation Kill, both excellent in their way. No, this is more vivid because the skirmishes seem so random, so out of control (couldn't help thinking of War and Peace, and Tolstoy's belief that all the planning and strategy ends when the battle begins). The scene in which one of the men is shot to death and we see the horrified panic of other soldiers is one of the most haunting scenes you'll ever see on film. Kudos to the team for living with the soldiers not only for the skirmishes but for the long tedium of warfare, for cutting the film to 90 minutes (must have been tempted to do a 10-part series with all the footage, but 90 minutes works), and for incredible bravery under fire and on the road (vehicle hits a mine at one point -another amazing scene). When you see this film you'll see why our presence in Afghanistan is a disaster - and not through any sermonizing or tendentiousness - you just watch the soldiers trying to ingratiate themselves with the village elders, after we've bombed their fragile homes and killed and injured people and livestock, and you just have to feel sick. We've been there before.

"This isn't a sitcom!": Slings & Arrows Season 3

Episode 3 of Season 3 of "Slings & Arrows" develops four plot lines: the old man playing Lear is increasingly ill and heading toward death, and now the cast is aware of this and may grow to tolerate his nasty abuse of young cast members, especially Cordelia/Sarah Polly; Jeffrey has to move out of Ellen's house because of increasing conflict with the diva, Barbara (not sure where this is going); Richard getting great joy out of this contribution to the musical production, esp when he shows up the idiotic director, Derrin; and romance builds between actor in Lear and star of the musical, kind of a miniature R&J taking place backstage (with Sara Polley keenly jealous). So in this season more than the first two the dramatic arc is building, but what I do miss is more of a role for Jeffrey - he seems to have no engagement in his production of KL, other than that he reveres the star actor, Charles? - but he lets him bully the cast and act like an idiot and says nothing, he shows no particular vision for this play. To me, some of strongest scenes in earlier seasons were when Jeffrey instructed the actors and drew out the characters, but that hasn't happened yet. At one point, amusingly, when Jeffrey threatens to sleep on the couch, Ellen (Martha Burns) cries: This isn't a sitcom! Of course not, but it shouldn't be a melodrama, either. And it's not - but let's hope it doesn't go there. As with all previous episodes, characters are very likable - even the idiots, in their hapless and amusing way - and the backstage behavior is completely credible, as anyone who's spent time around actors at work will verify.

The best of the 3 seasons of Slings & Arrows

"Slings & Arrows" Season 3, which centers on a King Lear production, reprises some of Season 2 with, once again, a bombastic lead actor who threatens to ruin the show and challenges director Jeffrey Tenant's authority, but in this case the Lear, as we learn, is dying of cancer and pleads with Jeffrey to go on with the show. This season so far looks to be the best of the three - with a lot of interesting tensions building within the cast - the actors hate the bullying of the lead, particularly his snapping at the lovely young Cordelia - and the actors in KL are facing off against the younger, hipper actors in Derrin's original musical, which the director in his usual way is in the process of subsuming to one of his latest artistic theories. Richard still trying to come to terms with his success - he's a good comic actor, his scene where he gets drunk and makes a pass at Anna is really very funny. Ellen fading a bit as a character in this episode, though I do like her a lot, she need to have a sharper role than that of the cast spokeswoman - perhaps something will develop with her friendship with new cast member, Barbara? Meanwhile, Jeffrey starts therapy with a minister; he's still haunted by the ghost of Oliver, but Oliver now has the capacity to dissolve and fade away, so we can kind of see where this obsession is going by the end of the season. I really enjoy learning about Shakespeare in production from this series - loved seeing the dramatic reading, in which Lear summarizes the entire plot, bringing it right down to its primitive elements.

The series matures and comes into its own: Slings & Arrows Season 3

Season 3 of "Slings & Arrows," the final season, appropriately concerns staging of King Lear, and is off to a great start. The director Jeffrey Tenant settling more into his role and becoming less of the cartoon figure he was in Season 1 and more of a talented director troubled by psychological demons, clearly some kind of depression - and as with many such diagnoses, his depression doesn't make sense to others as he's achieved great success and is in a solid relationship with Ellen, so this strand will develop. Also Richard, the producer, is more confident on some level, thanks to success of the festival, but also really uncomfortable with himself, with his subservience to the bullying board, with the pressure of the job. Like Jeffrey, he breaks down in tears. Meanwhile the play: the issue is whom to cast as Lear and Jeffrey opts for an unknown semiretired aging actor, whom we learn in last sequence is a drug addict, passing over a well-known actor, who punches Jeffrey in the nose in anger, kind of a reprise of the Macbeth casting from previous season but so what. To me most interesting parts of the series involve the actual direction and rehearsals and opening night, so I'm eager to see them start working with the play. The secondary production, again by that crazy pretentious academic director (can't recall name, Dennis?) will be a musical, so that should offer some great counterpoint. (Jeffrey asks Richard to be the artistic director on that one - for further weirdness.) Very promising start for this series, which gradually has matured and come into its own.

Strong ensemble cast and solid screenplay: The Kids Are All Right

"The Kids Are All Right" is not the kind of film I'd ordinarily see or even like but I have to admire how well made and well done this movie is - a rare example in today's world of craftsmanship and seemingly of teamwork: strong ensemble cast, well directed, sold screenplay, no pretensions, the film never calls attention to itself or wallows in technique - just a story about a family that is seemingly unconventional family (two lesbian moms with their two kids born one to each from same sperm donor) that really at base is entirely conventional, one partner a bit of a straightarrow overachiever and the other a nonachiever, stay-at-home, less bound by convention sexually and parentally - story takes place at time of crisis as older child (daughter) turns 18 ready for college and she and brother look up id of donor dad, then build a relation with him and he insinuates himself into the lives of the family in very damaging ways, which they rise above. High praise for Mark Ruffalo who plays the donor dad with cool insouciance. Julianne Moore and Annnette Benning play the moms very well - the don't overplay - Benning gets the better role, teetering on alcoholism, a long dinner in which she bonds with Ruffalo and sings Joni Mitchell and then all falls apart. She may get an Oscar for it. Daughter played by girl who starred in The Lovely Bones, and she deserves this chance to be in a good movie. Anyone else, by the way, getting annoyed at how the go-to occupation for dozens of movies all of a sudden is restaurateur, with a 2nd place going to landscape gardener? This movie has both.

Potentially a good movie, if director just trusted his materil: A Single Man

"A Single Man" is a truly disappointing movie because there's a kernel of a really good story in there somewhere and it's totally destroyed by Tom Ford's far over-the-top, over-determined direction, full of lengthy dreamy sequences of bodies floating in water, interminable swells of cornball music meant to lift us to a high realm of emotion, I guess, but totally offputting, flashbacks and quick cuts that are entirely confusing and make it impossible for him to focus on the good acting that he does elicit, at least from Julianne Moore (Colin Firth is good when he's not mumbling). If only he director had trusted his material and his actors and told the story in a straightforward way. But no; Tom Ford is I hear a great designer making his directorial debut. Terrific. Now I can't wait for the Martin Scorcese line of men's clothing. His sense of how to construct a film is like an ambitious film student circa 1970. And by the way how are we supposed to interpret the lengthy foreplay between Firth and one of his college students - hardly acceptable even in 1962 (when film is set) and certainly troubling today. Film is the story of a day in the life of a homosexual man completely distraught about the recent death of his 16-year partner. After flirting with suicide he (spoiler) ultimately dies of a heart attack - quite a day! Yes, it's a total downer and all rather improbable - but the potential for greatness is there in one sequence, the flashback to the phone call Firth received in which he learns of his partner's death and of the family's refusal to welcome/acknowledge his existence and their relationship. This is the profound sorrow - the suffering an outsider feels and the lie he has to live, and if the movie had really built on that in any serious way it could have been quite good, but instead it just wallows in sentiment. A good movie builds character an allows us to feel empathy but this heavy-handed movie just crushes the life out of its material and out of us.

A series about a tragedy that ends as a comedy: Sings & Arrows

"Slings & Arrows" Season 2 ends with a wry twist: though the entire season has been about staging a tragedy (Macbeth), well two actually (R&J), the series itself ends as a classic comedy, with all of the couples pairing off and stepping away into the night, leaving one older, effeminate man (Oliver) alone at the end (cf Antonio, Jacques, Malvolio). Perhaps too many strands to tie up to make it a great closing episode, but still a very good season - ending with a production of Macbeth in which Jeffrey wrings a great performance out of Henry (Macbeth) but keeping his off balance the whole night, changing his cues, his entrances, and his stage directions - the idea that his uncertainty makes him a better actor, less stagy. We'd seen this before in the episode where the understudy played the part so it's not as much of an insight as it might have been. Nice touches are seeing hunk boyfriend Sloan back in the bar and speaking the voice of reason - Jeffrey and Ellen are destined for each other. Also nice to see the old guy who'd played ghost of Hamlet, whom Jeffrey fired, now back and almost the voice of reason in the company - he's big enough to know he was wrong and to know talent when he sees it. Ellen's auditing never amounted to anything. As predicted, the idiotic marketing strategy worked, bringing a "youthquake" to the theater - and saving Richard's job. His relation with the bullying board chairman is rather funny and could be developed in season 3. We'll see.

An understudy steps in - for one of the best episodes of Slings & Arrows

Fifth episode of season 2 of "Slings & Arrows" is one of my favorites so far, as we are riveted by the understudy's performance as Macbeth, after Jeffrey fired the visiting star and huge egotist, Henry Breedlove. It's really exciting to see the understudy work his way through the play, uncertain of his cues and directions, the asst stage manager calling out to him, everyone in the wings tense, the understudy himself sweating, the scene of him approaching the stage walking through the gauntlet of cast members, great, like an athlete entering the arena. Adding to the tension, Henry and another fired and disgruntled actor are in the audience, Henry bitterly commenting, the other guy rising above his bias to note that the production is very good. Part of the beauty of this episode is its accuracy - it's not some Hollywood star-is-born nonsense, in that everyone knows, as Henry observes, an understudy can do it once, as his fear and audience sympathy lead to a higher level of engagement, but ultimately you have to get the star back in there. Which Jeffrey does - in a very smart scene he asks Henry back for opening night. Other plot elements kind of whither beside this main event - Ellen's audit is mildly funny as she treats her auditor like a therapist; the idiotic production of R&J is also funny, but we don't see much of it (nor should we); to nobody's surprise the publicist for the festival is revealed as a complete fake and goes to jail - and I think we can all see what's coming here: in episode 6 no doubt we'll learn that the insane publicity campaign will turn out to be a success and will draw young enthusiasts to the audience.