A failed experiment: Project Nim, and what it tells us about humans

The HBO document "Project Nim" uses documentary footage (mostly home movies and stills, plus some clips from newscasts of the era) going back to the early 1970s, current interviews with the principals, and quite a bit of re-created or re-enacted footage (not identified as such but pretty obvious), and a rather persistent and annoying musical score to examine the so-called experiment in which an infant chimp was taken from its mother and raised among humans - in this case, a blended upper west side nyc family with 7 kids of varying ages. A columbia prof, Herb, was supposedly studying this chimp's acquisition of language. The problems are many: professor herb is a rampant egotist who has seemingly no scientific method for observation and gathering data, and he's also a sexual predator - ultimately, he ruins not only the experiment but the lives of several of the people involved in this scheme, though he does gain some media fame - although at least he's honest enough, years down the line, to admit that the experiment proved nothing. Despite hyped media claims, the chimp, Nim, did not acquire language. The woman who adopted him, without giving any thought to how he would affect her family or her marriage or to what it would take to raise a chimp and teach him English signs, is a total fool who learns nothing, it seems, from her attempt to interfere in the lives of others. Of course we feel bad for Nim throughout, although he's not exactly lovable, like a pet dog or horse - there are reasons why people don't keep chimps as pets - they're strong and incorrigible and dangerous, as many now know. This is a pretty good documentary about an experiment gone awry that tells us more about (some) people an their limitations than about animals and their possibilities.

At the big neon sign by the old Bowladrome: The PNG Follies!

Last night it was Follies Time @ the Venus de Milo (Swansea), and one of the best shows in years for sure. As I say almost every year, though at times I miss the raggedy informality of the Providence Newspaper Guild Follies of old (flubbed lines, crappy mikes, bumbling "choreography"), the talent level is now frighteningly high and makes for a great show: powerful musical numbers with hilarious costumes, cool set, great comic timing, great moves, tremendous vocals - thanks, all, and congratulations. Everyone's been talking about the surprise star turn from mystery guest Bob Flanders (he was never so funny when he was Regents chair - who knew he could sing?), but let's also give the cast members their due: Andy Smith, director and opening monologue with some truly funny lines (haven't been watched by so many people since I went to take a piss at the Coffee Exchange), and fabulous cast members (couldn't ID them all from my seat among the gods) with great impersonations of Governor Chafee (treated rather kindly this year - though the subject of a fundraiser for politicians suffering from Delayed Gesture Syndrome) and of Angel Taveras, in a hot Latin number! The Gina Raimondo # was very powerful as well, and, as one of the gags had it: If you're here from North Providence, thank you thank you thank you. Plenty of zings for what co-worker H. calls "The Guido Triangle" (Cranston, Johnston, NP) - and only the Follies cast would do a costumed skit that begins: Hello, I am Angel Taveras's sperm. I had a very good year! And it was a very good year for the Follies, too. Thanks, all!

When melodrama gets pushed over the top and into the absurd

When a decent 90-minute melodrama is drawn out to six hours over 5 episodes, or "parts," if you will, the effect can be the opposite of what the director intended: instead of increasing the intensity of the drama and the feelings, the longer form attenuates the drama and threatens to push over the top and into the realm of the absurd. Case in point: Todd Haynes's ambitious "Mildred Pierce," which has some things going for it: a nicely captured look of the 1930s, great acting from Kate Winslet. But beyond that - there's hardly a scene that isn't drawn out too long as we watch the rise and fall of Mildred through many, many long takes - as she goes from impoverished divorcee with two daughters and strong but pent passions and on into entrepreneurial business-woman, grieving mother, passionate lover, aspiring socialite, stage mom - and then the downfall, falling for the wrong guy, stupid business decisions to keep up lavish lifestyle, and most of all attempt to dominate her daughter's life, which drives her daughter away and ultimately into completely destructive relationship - all this works more of less when the movie (as the 1945 version did) has a head-long pace but when the pace is slow enough for us to think about all these improbable and overblown twists and turns - e.g., could her daughter at age 20, with no training, suddenly be discovered as an opera star and give sold-out performances at the Philharmonic? - the miniseries kind of breaks apart at the seams. Haynes has some talent obviously and a feel for the retro - I really like Far From Heaven - but he also has a weakness for self-indulgence (e.g., I'm Not There - a movie I was dying to love and couldn't get my mind around), and I hope his next work is less of more.

Why The Taste of Others goes beyond what we expect of the ensemble romance genre

There are no doubt a thousand French movies like this one, English, too, mutatis mutandis, but "The Taste of Others" is one of the best of its type - by no means perfect, but entertaining and thoughtful above and beyond what we expect from the genre. The genre? Ensemble pieces that follow several separate but related story lines, in which the characters change and evolve (usually improbably), learning about their own limitations and prejudices and bonding over time with those whom they'd scorned at the outset. This genre goes back at least to Shakespeare, probably to Terence and Plautus and in more recent movies: think of Crash, 4 Weddings, any English Hugh Grant comedy. This recent (2000) French film - director Agnes Jaoui, which may explain the relative lack of sexist stereotyping - the male characters don't all end up with much younger, hotter mates - focuses on a dull and conformist businessman, his bodyguard, and his somewhat younger chauffeur: the latter two who both fall for the same bar-girl part-time drug dealer, and the businessman falls for a 40+ actress - at first he's far too conventional and uncultured for her, but as it turns out he's far more sensitive to feelings than she thought, and she realizes she's underestimated him and treated him cruelly. She repents, all - or almost all - end up better off, though not necessarily happy, at the end (as in most Shakespeare comedies, btw); parts of the movie involve discussion of why the theater troupe should do more comedy, less tragedy - people don't like tragedy, the business bluntly but accurately says - and the final scene of the movie is a wonderful literary joke (spoiler here): we see famous last moments of Hedda Gabler, Hedda shoots herself - and then the curtain calls, and she sees the businessman cheering the audience, and as we step out of the frame tragedy turns to comedy in a flash.

If it could be told in 90 minutes, why drag Mildred Pierce out to 6 hours?

Half-way through - three "parts" - of the HBO "Mildred Pierce." Reminds me of: I used to be in a writers' group (PAWs, Providence-area Writers), and once presented a story and some in the group said: It should be a novel, and my thought was, sure, I could spend a few years and build this out as a novel, and when I'm done I'd probably look back and say: I could have told the whole thing as a short story. A work of literature, or film or TV or whatever, should have no unnecessary "parts" (Strunk and White, q.v.). Mildred Pierce was a reasonably good Joan Crawford romantic melodrama about a woman's struggles, triumphs, and defeats, circa 1945 (set in the Depression 1930s) - and it was probably about 90 minutes; if the HBO Todd Haynes mini-series could add to this by expanding the story to six hours, well and good, but it seems in watching it that it could definitely be told in 90 minutes flat: the scenes are extended forever, to no purpose, the same information is conveyed again and again, the sex scenes seem ludicrous, the music is dreadful - the strengths are two: Kate Winslet's acting - she's always a total pro - and the period details, which seem pretty accurate though it doesn't look like Glendale, Cal. Haynes is a very indulgent writer/director and I'm not sure what he's doing with these characters but it certainly seems like they don't belong in the same family: a no-good two-timing dad (who at times is really kind and thoughtful?), a bratty and spoiled teenage daughter (who alternates between mother's best friend and deepest foe), and Mildred herself: sometimes a career woman, sometimes a set-upon wife, sometimes ashamed of having to work, sometimes proud of same, devoted to family but willing to run off at the drop of a proverbial hat with the first handsome guy she meets: inconsistencies and confusion of character may have been tolerable in a shorter movie but in this six-parter with its leaden pace we have all too much time to ponder the incongruities and absurdities.

The world was not ready for them to tell their stories on their own: The Help

Honestly I did not expect to like "The Help" and found myself much more captivated by the film than I thought I'd be: it's not totally my kind of movie, on the surface - quite melodramatic at times, a bit overplayed, lots of tearjerker scenes, some over the top comedy, annoying soundtrack - and yet, and yet - the movie as a whole works very well, does not pander to the audience, presents a pretty honest and unflinching look at race relations in the South in the 1950s and early '60s. At first, I was a little disturbed by the concept: white southern girl Skeeter (Emma Stone) decides to write a book capturing the "perspective" of the many maids in her community - was this going to be another movie in which the white people have to speak for the blacks, like the horribly condescending The Gods Must Be Crazy? But actually, as it develops, the black women are the real heroes - two of the maids in particular (here's hoping Viola Davis gets the Oscar for her role!) - risking everything to tell their stories in the only way that they can. They are recognized and honored, but The Help is honest enough that it has plenty of rough edges as well - in fact, most movies would have ended on the fake triumphal note of everyone's joy over the success of the book, which earns Skeeter a shot at a job in NYC - but the movie goes on from that point and we see how difficult and sad it will be for these black women who have to continue to live and work in this small city (Jackson, Miss. - home of Eudora Welty, who wrote very little about these themes) - the world was not ready for them to tell their stories on their own. So, yes, I accept that it's a shame that there were so few great roles for black actors this year other than maids - but it is a historical piece that effectively captures the mood of the time and that among the maids creates two fully realized characters and looks unflinchingly at the stark differences between the conditions of black and white communities in Jackson.

Why The Good Wife is just So-So

Who doesn't like Juliana Margulies?, and on the basis of that plus some word of mouth we decided to watch the top of "The Good Wife." Margulies doesn't disappoint, which I guess is mild praise - but she's as far as I can tell the only reason to keep watching this series; we watched the pilot and first 3 episodes of season 1 (though I hear season 2 may be better). The series starts off pretty well, Margulies's husband, the Chicago (Cook County?) DA, is indicted and imprisoned on corruption charges - apparently used bribery money to pay for various mistresses and escapades - some echoes here of Gov. Spitzer? - and Margulies tries to get on with her life, as a now single mom and newly hired junior at a big Chicago law firm. OK, plenty of possibilities for plot development - does her husband, with all his law connections, help her in some of her criminal trials? Or are people who hate her husband going to sabotage her career in various ways? The problem is that The Good Wife does little with these premises - they serve only as a scenic backdrop for what in each episode is an increasingly ridiculous and improbably case that Margulies and her firm handle - so ultimately TGW is just a slightly dressier version of a legal drama in the mode of the old Perry Mason: lawyer takes on tough case and through careful sleuthing gets wrongfully accused client off the hook, or variant on that theme. 4th episode, slightly different, involves civil case in which someone (spoiler) who turns out to be M's client, bribes a juror. If you think for 5 seconds about the likelihood of this - or of any of the other cases I saw in the first 4 episodes - the series turns into dust. I probably won't watch any further, but if later episodes really use M's relation with her husband to explore the law and politics and the city the show has some upside potential. Imagine what Scott Turow might have done with this material (and weep). Unfortunately, from what I saw, Good Wife is just So-so