"Uh-Oh, Love Comes to Town," Talking Heads

No, no, you're right. I can't deny it. I have been remiss. No doubt you're all expecting the usual convoluted compendium of excuses and justifications and rationalizations, but in fact I can sum up the reason for my pseudo-critical neglect in just two words: new girlfriend. (I was about to sum it up in three words, but the object of my adoration -- who, for reasons too complicated to get into here, is justifiably a tad paranoid -- has requested that I not refer to her by name.) (No, she's not famous.) (Yet.) Enough said, yes? You're all hip to the way that love, in its initial amphetaminic stages, envelopes your existence and hijacks your attention span and makes you wonder why the hell you ever bothered performing any of the mundane daily tasks that had once seemed so all-fired important, right? Suffice to say that since about mid-January I have been, with respect to this column, The Man Who Wooed Too Much.

Upshot is that I've once again got more movies in the ol' queue than I can reasonably tackle in one column in my standard format; and since I plan to address another two dozen films (albeit briefly) in my subsequent annual New Directors/New films column, it would behoove me to get my passion-addled ass in some remote facsimile of gear, here. To speed things along, therefore, I've decided for this installment to borrow the format that my friend Charles François used for his invaluable reports from the 1997 Toronto International Film Festival. (Charles is currently in the process of adding slightly revised versions of these reports to his own site; here's an example, to whet your appetite.) I refer to this format as "notes for a review I probably won't ever get around to writing, knowing me"; employing it will allow me to address the salient issues in each case without pausing to think up clever segues or strained witticisms. (I'll be curious to see whether mail urging me to stick to this format comes a-pourin' in. For the record, I don't intend to. Stick to it, that is.) Unlike Charles, I don't actually jot anything down, either during or immediately after a film, but I do generally make copious mental notes on the way home, and a handful of those usually forms the basis of my subsequent review. So what you'll see this week is more or less my immediate post-film thinking -- as I remember it, anyway -- unadulterated by my anal-retentive desire to progress from point to point in a logical and orderly (if terminally digressive) fashion. Welcome, in short, to my mind: a nice place to visit but. If you know what I mean.

• As Charles notes, the less you know about this film going in, the better. Of course, simply being told that in advance is enough to put you on your guard, so it's really a no-win situation.
• Having been utterly bamboozled by Mamet's House of Games eleven years ago, I was suspicious of everything and everybody, and wound up consistently one step ahead of the labyrinthine plot. And yet the stately, precise movement of the gears is so intensely satisfying -- nobody else wants to make movies like this anymore -- that I didn't much mind not being surprised. The best pure plot I've encountered in too long to recall.
• Few actors truly excel with Mamet's terse, mannered dialogue. Add Steve Martin to the list. And there's more: Martin's goofball persona has been so firmly established over the past two decades that it never even occurred to me that that persona is really just a stone's throw from genuine menace. Here, his eyes narrowed, his baritone flat and curiously affectless, his manner alternately/simultaneously avuncular and dispassionate, he's absolutely riveting. An inspired choice, and the front-runner for my supporting actor award this year.
• Wow: now that I check, this is the first time I've seen Martin onscreen since 1992's HouseSitter. And I'm not really sure why I even saw that, actually. Chris, why did we go see that?
• So is it a) that Mamet consistently marries women who can't act, or b) that Mamet's wives are less inclined than anybody else to take his unorthodox theory of acting with a grain of salt? Either way, Pidgeon is the weak link here, just as Lindsay Crouse was in House of Games. Her character's supposed to be ambiguity personified, but Pidgeon's performance is so relentlessly chipper (in a weird, animatronic sort of way -- she has no sense of how to gracefully handle Mamet's repetitions and deliberate pauses) that I never had the slightest doubt about her (the character's) intentions.
• Mamet here turns his penchant for withholding information into a running gag, to good effect. When a dollar amount is written on a chalkboard, only the $ is visible in the frame; when Martin shows Scott a picture of his sister, he holds it at the precise angle at which the glare from the light source completely obscures the woman's face. Not unlike the lamp gag in Big Night, but with an extra thematic zing.
• Strong contender for Line of the Year: "My troika was pursued by wolves."
• Resolution a tad anticlimactic, I thought. Especially for Mamet.
• Carter Burwell is apparently incapable of writing an unmemorable score.
• Note to Theo: I guess I do look a bit like Campbell Scott, now that I've stared at him for two solid hours. (Judge for yourself.)

• Gotta give Yakin credit: the man's got guts. First he tackled the story of a pre-teen "inner-city" drug courier (and with such authority that New Yorker critic Anthony Lane mistakenly assumed that he, Yakin, is black); now he's turned his attention to the secretive, patriarchal world of New York City's Hasidim. Clearly he has no fear of controversy.
• Unfortunately, where Fresh (which made my top ten list for 1994) was tightly -- some might argue too-schematically -- plotted, Rubies is hopelessly muddled, drifting from scene to scene with no sense of narrative rhythm or pacing and precious little sense full-stop. Recurring fantastical elements -- the ghost of a dead sibling; a mysterious bag lady -- seem especially ill-considered.
• Performances a mixed bag: Zellweger demonstrates again that she can do more than Cute; Glenn Fitzgerald, as the devout hubbie, is hit and miss (but brilliant whenever he hits); Christopher Eccleston might as well be wearing a set of plastic horns and carrying a rubber pitchfork.
• Scores bonus points for ambition and the occasional direct hit (e.g. the final scene, beautifully played by Zellweger and Fitzgerald).
• A bizarre plot twist in which our heroine's sexual passion is apparently indirectly responsible for the 1994 death of Rebbe Menachem Schneerson (unnamed here, but who else is it supposed to be?) is maybe the dumbest thing I've seen so far this year. Truly chortle-worthy.
• I'm a sucker for movies in which an apparently inconsequential minor character turns out to be neither inconsequential nor particularly minor. Serious film buffs don't often get to enjoy such machinations, because we're more familiar than most with the character actors who tend to be cast in such roles; I was fooled here, however, and happy to be fooled. I'll say no more.
• In Defense of Screen Nudity: Ms. Zellweger apparently declined to reveal her body, which is her right; unfortunately, the contortions required to avoid exposing her erogenous zones to the lens during a lengthy montage sequence depicting her character's trip to some kind of creepy (at least as photographed by Yakin) ritual bath are not merely distracting but downright irritating. Either cast actors without hangups, or have the characters keep their clothes on. The coy alternative is too jarring. (This goes double for frontal male nudity.)
• The fine musical score is credited to one "Lesley Barber," who either is Stewart Copeland in drag or was hired specifically because of her uncanny ability to write and orchestrate in blatantly Copelandesque fashion. (Copeland wrote the score for Fresh, and since this was one of those credits-at-the-end type deals I simply assumed throughout that Yakin had returned to him; nothing in the movie was as shocking or surprising to me as the revelation that he hadn't.)
• Personal aside: one scene in this film was shot like a minute's walk away from my current abode.

• Not quite a return to form for Linklater, whose first three films -- Slacker, Dazed and Confused, and Before Sunrise -- are among the sharpest and most entertaining independent pictures of the decade. Following last year's stagy, hectoring adaptation of Eric Bogosian's subUrbia, however, it's a welcome step back in the right direction.
• Straying for the first time from his patented "a day in the life" structure -- this is the first of his films in which the action continues for more than 24 consecutive hours -- Linklater attempts that most frustrating of cinematic genres, the biopic, chronicling the pleasantly low-key exploits of the eponymous siblings, allegedly the most successful bank robbers in history.
• Not really a whole heckuva lot going on here dramatically, but the lackadaisical tone is surprisingly agreeable, especially after five years of Tarantino-inspired films in which nattily dressed criminals alternately trade hip, profane one-liners and sever each other's limbs and digits and heads and such. That it's so stubbornly angst-free occasionally makes it feel slight (since it isn't primarily a comedy, despite many funny moments), but at least it doesn't come across as cynical and nihilistic.
• Best scenes depict the gung-ho, devil-may-care, borderline inept manner in which the boys attempt (often successfully) to liberate other folks' cash. Worth the price of admission all by its lonesome is the wonderfully incredulous can-you-believe-this? look Ethan Hawke shoots the camera as he attempts to make off with a bag full of money while a security guard clings tenaciously to one of his legs.
• Speaking of Hawke, somebody should advise him to stick close by Linklater's side -- he (Hawke) tends to come off as smug and irritating in other people's pictures, but both here and in Before Sunrise he's relaxed and charismatic.
• ...though not half as charismatic as fellow Linklater alum Matthew McConaughey (the jailbait-addled stoner in Dazed and Confused), who can so act, and I don't care what anybody says. Granted, his range isn't the widest -- my nightmares are still plagued by the specter of Contact's touchy-feely hunk o' priest Palmer Joss -- but the role of Willis Newton is tailor-made for his limited abilities, and he effortlessly carries the picture with a cocky grin here and a passionately sincere monologue there.
• The other two Newtons are something of a wash. Skeet Ulrich is saddled with a boring character, the conscience of the family (just the role you'd expect, uh, Johnny Depp to play...); Vincent D'Onofrio, meanwhile, as the fourth Newton (I'm tempted to refer to him as the fig Newton, since a fig is pretty much what we don't give about him) is given nothing at all to do -- his part could have been played just as convincingly by a gibbon in a heavy overcoat. (Ironic, that, since D'Onofrio is fully capable of wiping the mat with his three co-stars, given the opportunity.)
• Overshadowing the young turks, in any case, is country-music star Dwight Yoakam, as convincing here as a soft-spoken explosives expert as he was in Sling Blade as a loudmouthed, abusive hick. I must confess that I've never heard any of Yoakam's tunes, as I have a longstanding aversion to his chosen musical genre (patent anomalies like k.d. lang and Lyle Lovett excepted); but if he's half as good a musician as he is a thespian, I think I may be in the market for some first-class twangin'.
• You probably won't need me to tell you this, but stick around for the closing credits, which feature plentiful footage of the real Willis and Joe Newton, circa the mid-1970s. (The events in the film take place in the '20s.)
• Any time Julianna Margulies is on-screen, conversely, is a primo time to visit the restroom or refreshment stand, if you're so inclined. Enough with the perfunctory romantic subplots, people.

• I feel like scheduling a massive group therapy session for those members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences who voluntarily chose to serve on 1997's Foreign-Language committee. Four of the five nominees in the category this past spring -- including this, the eventual winner -- are primarily concerned with parent-child angst, invariably from the point of view of the wounded child. Unresolved issues? Are these the same guys who broke down when Ray Kinsella asked his spectral dad if he wanted to play catch? If you film it, they will vote.
• Very Dickensian story involves a protracted power struggle between a powerful, heartless "bailiff" (according to the subtitles -- this is apparently a different job description in the Netherlands than in the U.S., where bailiffs mostly clear courtrooms for ticked-off judges) and his illegitimate son. Is Dad, who repeatedly uses his vast influence to wreak havoc with his offspring's burgeoning law career, the total bastard that he appears to be? Or do his Machiavellian machinations hint at more complex emotions? Gee, the former doesn't sound too interesting, does it?
• Arresting pre-title sequence promises a corker of a climax, which corker never in fact arrives. Gotta love that shot of Junior sailing over the lens like a manic track-and-fielder, though.
• Entire lengthy film builds rather mechanically to a single-word revelation of either ineffable beauty (AMPAS voters) or banal schmaltzitude (yours truly). Keep in mind, though, that I don't respond to this kind of familial heart-tugging the way that most do; if you felt weepy during last year's Oscar-winner, Kolya, odds are there's another lump in your throat's future.
• Fine acting, elegant camerawork, and remarkable production design make the shaggy-dog aspect of the film's emotional arc more tolerable as it unfolds than it seems in retrospect. I was occasionally exasperated, but never bored.
• Highest marks to Victor Löw as the Dutch equivalent of Mushmouth on "Fat Albert." He and Billy Bob Thornton should get together and compare jaw muscles.

• Tiresome, didactic Eurosludge, courtesy of one of those justifiably obscure auteurs with profound ideas aplenty but zero interest in framing said ideas in a context that might engage the audience emotionally. The cinematic equivalent of a two-hour semiotics lecture by a frustrated T.A.
• Structurally similar to Bill Forsyth's underrated-but-still-not-terribly-good Being Human, with the actors playing multiple roles in separate stories (interwoven rather than consecutive, in this case) that span several centuries. Determining how these unconnected narratives inform one another is the only respite from boredom to be found.
• Iosseliani's thesis seems to be that cruelty and malice and brutality have existed throughout human history, and that the notion that any era is or was more "civilized" than another is laughably naïve. Like, is it just me, or is this not exactly a breaking story?
• In any case, much of what Iosseliani attempts to convey here has been depicted with considerably more panache and less pretension by others. One lengthy, monotonous scene observes the humdrum daily existence of the men who prepare and distribute instruments of torture to those conducting official interrogations; Terry Gilliam took about 30 seconds to tackle the same subject in the same depth in Brazil ("Cor! These 'elmets don't 'alf make your 'ead itch!" "Don't mention it! And they make you sweat!"), while telling an engaging story at the same time.
• Why "Chapter VII"? Is it an 8 ½ kinda thing? Sometimes I wish I were a real critic, so I could consult the press kit.
• Enough said, especially since virtually nobody reading this (including, if they're out there, most real press-kit-receiving critics) will ever have an opportunity to see it.

• The best example of the concept of 'diminishing returns' I've seen since jr.-high econ: one hour of inspired nonsense followed by about thirty minutes of nonsense that's considerably less inspired followed by twenty minutes or so of furtive-wristwatch-glancing-caliber nonsense. But those initial sixty minutes more than compensate for the frustration and exasperation to come.
• Trailers and commercials implied a wacky romp involving an amateur bowling tournament, which in retrospect I rather wish that it had in fact turned out to be. Instead, our hilariously passive protagonist, The Dude, winds up involved in a convoluted noir-type scenario, which scenario I won't bother to summarize since it becomes increasingly clear, as the film progresses, that the Brothers couldn't care less about the elaborate plot that they've constructed. Turns out that its only real function is to provide a context for their favorite joke: The Dude's general lethargy in the face of crisis and intrigue. (Imagine Tommy Chong as Marlowe in The Big Sleep.)
• And a fine joke it is, too -- especially as interpreted by Bridges, whose befuddled delivery of The Dude's terminally distracted dialogue (his response to an imminent-ass-kicking threat: "Yeah well, that's just, ya know, like, your opinion, man") is the stuff of comedic legend. Inevitably, though, the gag begins to wear thin, and what remains is tedium occasionally enlivened by surreal flights of fancy (e.g., the wacked-out hallucination set to "Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In), and why didn't anybody tell me Kenny Rogers had talent once upon a time?).
• So am I the only one who's noticed how sloppy and careless Joel & Ethan's writing has become of late? Raising Arizona, for all its excesses and digressions, is a model of narrative economy compared to both this film and the wildly overrated Fargo; the latter attempted to disguise its weaknesses by pretending to be based on untidy real-life events, while Lebowski is openly contemptuous of anybody who invests time or energy into making sense of who's doing what to whom. Yeah, okay, they warn you in advance, courtesy Sam Elliott's meandering narration and the tumbleweed imagery, but it still strikes me as hindsight justification. Again, I wish that they'd discarded the byzantine kidnapping/extortion crap (especially since this is their third kidnapping movie to date -- enough already) and just made a largely plotless bowling comedy.
• All of that said, a mediocre Coen film is still superior to the best that just about everybody else in Hollywood has to offer, and the first few reels of this one are marvelous. Terrific performances abound (I especially enjoyed Phillip Seymour Hoffman's unctuous toady); the dialogue is as sharp as ever; the camera is rarely where you'd expect to find it. Not until Julianne Moore turns up halfway through as an unfunny caricature of a feminist performance artist (gender politics in this movie are less than cool, frankly) do things begin to go awry, and it's a fairly gentle grade downhill from there.
• Terrific cameo by John Turturro as a bizarrely effete bowler named Jesus (not Hayzeus, mind you -- Jeezus); one of the few advantages to writing this review two months late is that I can now point out that Turturro also has a cameo appearance in Spike Lee's He Got Game, playing opposite a character named Jesus (also pronounced the same way as the New Testament bigwig). Too bizarre.
• Go buy the soundtrack ASAP: it's the best, most deliriously eclectic collection of music for a single movie since Pulp Fiction, and odds are you currently own little or none of it.