A totally enjoyable movie if you can suspend disbelief: Chef

Though it breaks no new cinematic ground, Jon Favreau's Chef is a totally enjoyable movie - could even be a family movie, depending on family's tolerance for occasional language outbursts and a scene or two of smoking. Chef is in the long tradition of the "let's put on a how" movie: star chef (Favreau who wrote, diected, and starts) working an an LA restaurant where the owner (Dustin Hoffman, a not fully convincing heavy) insists on a traditional menu (this is the plot device that gets it moving - you have to just accept it) gets a lousy review from an aggressive online restaurant critic (Oliver Platt, under-used as the nemesis) and goes into a tailspin - but recovers his bearings, and builds loving relationship with young son (10 or so?), when he decides to go to Miami, start a Cuban food truck, and road-trip it back to LA (road-trip bonding is another movie trope, from Easy Rider to Miss Sunshine, with many in between). Add this to the list of many restaurant movies: Big Night, that ridiculous movie with Adam Sandler as a completely non-believable chef, East Drink Man Woman (four star!), Ratatouille  ... anyway, as noted, nothing much original here - yet it's a very charming film nevertheless, really seems to capture the behind the scenes style and ethos. The young actor playing Favreaus's son is excellent, by the way, and though I had trouble believing that it would be OK or even legal to put him to work in a food truck, I was very pleased that Favreau avoided a hoary movie cliche and had the son be a nice kid right from the outset - rather than a moody or troubled kid or young adult who "recovers" and becomes a dutiful and loving son (or daughter, cf Greek Wedding, for another restaurant as reform agent movie). The Cuban soundtrack music is terrific, it's always fun to watch expert chefs at work in the kitchen and at home, the dialogue is spry and credible, and if you can just suspend disbelief and accept a happy ending in which everyone holds hands and sings Kumbaya (figuratively), this movie is entirely pleasant and enjoyable.

Manhattan revisited: Watching Woody Allen's movie again after 35 years

It's literally impossible to watch Woody Allen's 1979 film Manhattan with the same pleasure and interest we took in this film 35 years ago - knowing what we do about his troubled life. Here's a movie about a 42-year-old intellectual, comedy writer, and literary aspirant - played by Allen as one of the near-versions of himself - torn between two relationships: with a woman his age who's smart, cultured, a literary snob, pretentious at times, high strung, and gets all his jokes, in other words, Diane Keaton, and a woman, no a girl, beautiful and vapid, played by Mariel Hemingway, who is, get this: 17 years old. Perhaps that was a bit off-putting when the film came out in 1979, but looking back at the film now it's totally odd and disturbing - and mainly because nothing in the film, nobody in the film, has the slightest sense that there's anything perverse, in fact, illegal about this relationship. Allen and his friends just remark that she's "young." In most movies, the hero would have to make a choice and would inevitably realize that the young girl is totally inappropriate and would choose he coeval and intellectual punching weight, Keaton - but no, in this movie, as in other Allen films, the sad sack protagonist doesn't get the girl whom he should - he goes back to Hemingway, she's the one. The strengths of this movie are many, legion, most notably Gordon Willis's incredible cinematography; Manhattan has never looked better, especially in the stunning opening montage against the NY Symphony Orch playing Rhapsody in Blue (the score is great as well, with the NY Symph also playing orchestrated versions of various great 30s and 40s #s, Embraceable You, But Not for Me, etc.). It has rightly been noticed, however, that Allen "scrubs" Manhattan - leaving out the crime, dirt, crowds, grime, suffering - life for these characters is so easy - just one example, his best friend, a high-school English teacher of all things - on a whim drops down many thousands for a classic Porsche. Oh really? What's not noticed so often, however, is that Allen also "scrubs" the story: Hemingway (a terrible actress, by the way - no surprise that unlike so many Allen stars her career on screen went nowhere) has no life outside of her relationship with Allen: no friends, no siblings, no classmates, her parents are mentioned in passing but they seem to have no interest in or knowledge of her relationship with a 42-year-old guy? Oh what a shame and what a waste: there are so many fine scenes in this movie and some of the funniest movie lines ever (I wish people could mate for life - like pigeons, or Catholics; You're so beautiful tonight I can't keep my eyes on the meter). I wish I could like it more, or like it still.

Counting by 7s: The Amazing Up Series by Michael Apted

49 Up, from 2005, is the next-to-most-recent entry into Michael Apted's amazing multiyear documentary social examination, the so-called "up" series, visiting about a dozen English men and women at 7-year intervals since they were 7 years old back in, I think 1966? - in this entry they're 49. At this point, only one has dropped from the project, quite amazingly. By this installment, the  changes in the peoples' lives are less dramatic and surprising - in part because, obviously, the 7-year intervals become "shorter" in relation to the entire life span (7 to 14 is a huge change whereas 42 to 49 is much less so). On the other hand, as the sometimes surprising evolution of the subjects settles and as they resolve themselves into mature adult life, it's easier to make general observations about what the series shows us. First of all, the initial premise proves to be almost entirely accurate: show me the child at 7 and I will show you the man (or woman). Whether by selective editing or not, we can definitely see how the early personalities remain intact all through life. More interestingly, we see that there is essentially no movement of social class - or to the slight extent that there is, it's entirely dependent on the decision as to whether to go to "university." The working-class kids from the East End stay in the working class, by and large; the ones in the boarding schools move on to professional success. That said, with the notable exception of Neil, suffering from severe mental problems and the heart and soul of the series, the subjects have all found prosperity and happiness far beyond the hardships and brutality of their childhood: I think we're all struck by very nice home environments of those who grew up in an orphanage or the tough East End, a mark of the improvement of life in England since the postwar years; as to the well-to-do, they are still prosperous but they are much more family-oriented than their parents were, and they are not sending their kids to those horrible, cruel boarding schools - and are generally happy with whatever decisions their children make about their lives. Several had divorced in or before 42 up and those who did are all remarried, apparently very happily - although some of their children seem to be making the same mistakes regarding early marriage or motherhood. Several of the spouses, btw, want nothing to do with this project and remain in the background. It's interesting to see how the young man who grew up in the orphanage and seemed to have learning disabilities has built a nice life for himself and his family in Australia: it's impossible to imagine him attaining the same success or happiness in class-bound England. I won't say much about Neil, as many will watch this film mainly to catch up on his life (Apted shrewdly leaves Neil to the last segment), but will only say that his odyssey continues - though, again, without the seismic shifts in life that we saw in him and others in some of the earlier installments. I'll watch 56 up (if nothing else, series has taught us to count by 7s), though not right away: it's good to leave at least a few years between your own viewing of these segments.

One of the great mysteries of American cinema: Why The Magnificent Ambersons?

One of the great mysteries of American cinema is why Orson Welles chose The Magnificent Ambersons, a very pedestrian best-selling novel of his day, as the source for his much-anticipated follow-up to Citizen Kane: though there are, at least as it appears from his screenplay, some opportunities for histrionic and cinematic tours de force - the emotional breakdown of Aunt Fanny, the Christmas ball, the sleigh ride and the car ride through the snow - the substance of the script is really pretty pedestrian - the daughter of the wealthiest man in a small Indiana town marries the wrong guy and, when they're both widowed, they are basically unable to find love with one another because of the jealousy and Oedipal rivalries that surround them; their children, seemingly destined to marry each other, are driven apart - and the movie ends in wistful sorrow. Not quite a great American tragedy, and, lacking in the strong central character whose evolution over time was driving force of Kane - and of course also lacking in the great mystery that forged the unusual plot structure of Kane. What Welles did find in this less promising material of Ambersons was the opportunity once again for some truly stunning scenes: the women gossiping in the beauty salon, facing the camera, in a composition as copmlex and odd as a Velasquez painting; the above-noted Christmas ball with its very long tracking shots; the plein air scenes in the snow, challenging to film and still beautiful today; the dark gothic interiors of the Empire-style midwest mansions, the emptiness of the train station late at night. Consistently, he shoots "up" at the characters - as he did in Kane - emphasizing their grandeur and power. Generally, directors are ill-advised to cast themselves, and their was no obvious role for Welles in this script, but you can feel his absence - none of the leads, even Joseph Cotton, is powerful enough to engage us fully. The closing credits are very cool, with Welles's voice-over crediting the major contributors to the film, actors and crew. I think there's a long history to this film, with many scenes cut of with $ running short - and perhaps W. had a much greater vision of its potential - maybe it could have been a tremendous operatic film about a death of a dyanstic family and a way of life (the arrival of the motor car in the Midwest is a big theme) - a fore-runner of Visconti's The Leopard, which did have a hugely powerful lead (Lancaster) and of course a much, much better source novel (Lampedusa).

The best (or worst) example ever of cinema high camp: Queen Margot

I can't quite tell if the French film Queen Margo is so bad it's good or if it's just plain bad. Probably the latter. Is there a grander example anywhere, however, of high camp? This weird film makes Peckinpaugh look like a Disney cartoon and Pasolini look like an ABC family made-for-TV. Ostensibly, it's a film about the massacre of the Hugeuonots in 18th-cerntury (?) France, under Catherine de Medici as the regent as her idiot son, Charles the IX?, ostensibly ruled - and Catherine's marrying off youngest child, the eponymous Margot, to a Hugueonot to bring about peace between the Catholics and Protestants - but really to bring the H's into Paris to celebrate the wedding and then to kill them all. Got it? It's literally impossible to follow the plot of this movie, so don't worry - that's not the point anyway. The point seems to be to show many scenes of brutal slaughter and of grubby and extremely unlikely sexual encounters. Hey, if you want to do a film in which a bunch of guys carrying swords get to run around about about 500 naked dead bodies - do a film about the massacre of the Hugeaunots, dress it up in historical garb. The acting is ridiculously over the top, esp Catherine, with her hair pulled back in a bun so tight her face looks distorted, like a botched face lift. The movie probably cost a fortune - the production values are actually excellent - probably won some Oscar or Cannes nods for costume design - but has so much money and talent ever been spent to serve such base purposes? I watched an hour plus of this 2.5 hour monstrosity - more than enough.

A stange conjuncion of old and new: Anatomy of a Murder

Otto Preminger's 1959 Anatomy of a Murder, is a classic of the genre and the forefather of dozens of other courtroom drama - but somehow none have the earnestness, the flair, and the sense of American hegemony - postwar America, when we thought the world was ours and that prosperity would be never-ending and that all was right with American democracy and social justice - as the 50s melodramas. This movie, very long and very earnest, even for its day, is a tautly plotted movie, based I would guess very closely on a novel, with some really strong actors - James Stewart, lee Remick, Ben Gazzzara, and a young George C. Scott - in the lead roles. Very briefly, Steward is a down-on-his-luck country attorney (the Michigan Upper Peninsula - a very cool and unusual setting for a Hollywood movie, and I suspect Preminger may have shot it on location - can you imagine that today? Not shooting on the location of the lowest taxes?); Gazzara is an Army lieutenant who, in a rage, kills the man - a local roadhouse owner - who allegedly raped his wife, a very sultry Remick. If this will surprise you stop reading here - but of course Steward gets Gazzara off, building a case that he killed in blind rage and didn't know what he was doing, so he's innocent of Murder 1. Well, I don't know about the niceties of the law but I would suspect the admitted killer would not have walked off free - and though the rapist was no doubt a horrible man, I feel a little disturbed by the movie's unflinching endorsement - the innocent verdict leads to riotous courtroom celebration - of a guy taking the law into his own hands - a precursor, again, of many right-wing movies of the 60s and 70s. That said, Preminger paces the movie really well and engages us in thinking through the plot in (almost) every scene, as least up to the supposedly feel-good ending. One of the extreme pleasures of the movie of course is a fabulous score by Duke Ellington - as cool as if JS Bach had scored one of Shakespeare's plays - and Ellington even appears (as a band leader named Pie Eye) and gets to say a few lines. The movie was extremely provocative in its day - I remember my parents' discussing it - and pretty advanced in its frank discussion of sexuality and violence - a strange conjunction - of old ordder and new - looking back from 55 years - of the avant garde and the last gasp of postwar American pro-military pseudo-patriotism.

Second Time Around: The TV series Fargo may be better than the original movie

I'm off and on with the Coen Brothers, though they have done some fine films and maybe Fargo above all - my memory of the film has faded over the years, but it definitely established a tone - a mix of sentiment and snarkiness, affection and condescension - with a good story line suppposedlly based on "true events" and with some great acting - pretty much introduced Frances McDormand and William Macy to a wide audience. The TV series loosely based on the movie, from first two episodes, seems to have picked up just enough from the original while also expanding the plot wide enough to embrace a full season of episodes and possible season renewals. The seemingly ditzy but actually quite wise and brave female officer is still there, as is the self-effacing, insecure family man drawn into a brutal crime - and most of all the sense of the cold winter landscapes of northern Minnesota and the good people trying to get along with one another and live their lives of quiet desperation - until events upend their lives. The strongest character seems to be the malevolent but beguiling hit man - Billy Bob Thornton, terrific in the plot, charming and revolting all at once - who's a pro at his job but can't resist messing with the lives of others off the book, so to speak. The series works especially well - at least so far - because of the constant surprises that force us, again and again, to reconsider our initial assessments of the main characters, yet that also seem consistent with their behavior (and misbehavior); the film plays just at the edge of plausibility - OK, sometimes stepping over the edge (could BBT have actually survived so many close encounters with thugs and bullies, just by his menacing tone and demeanor?; is it possible that Macy character, Nygaard, could live in his hometown for 18 years before he suddenly re-encounters his bullying high-school nemesis? No, not really, but who cares?), and, at least to my memory, it is developing a whole new plot line centered on a Duluth cop (Colin Hanks) who encounters the killer BBT and must determine whether to report that info and risk the safety of his daughter.