Melancholia

First Hit: Although slow and at times meandering, it stays with you long after it's over and evokes deep feelings of melancholia.

The pacing of this film is known from the get go. It is going to be a slow unwinding piece. At the very beginning we know the outcome, but because it is represented like a smooth ballet, this knowledge is almost forgotten until the very end.

The end of the world may or may not come the way it is depicted here, but the way people react to the end may be far closer in these frames than how other apocalyptic films present the end.

Justine (played by Kristen Dunst) is getting married to Michael (played by Alexander Skarsgard). They are very late on arrival to their wedding festivities in very remote country club. Claire (played by Charlotte Gainsbourg) is Justine’s older sister whose very wealthy husband John (played by Kiefer Sutherland), is paying for this event.

Michael, Claire, and John all seem to be trying to manage Justine as she sways in and out of sadness, hopelessness and sparks of joy. They want her to be happy but the history is etched on their faces as to the futility of this management. Then Justine and Claire’s mom is heard from at the wedding table.

Gaby (played by Charlotte Rampling) is a severe pessimist when it comes to love and happiness. Her look tells you, that she’s disliked, or maybe hated, herself her whole life. However, there is enough going on for the audience to see that Justine’s melancholy is not only based on her upbringing by this mean spirited person. Her innate sensitivities to all that’s around her is probably a large factor in how she thinks, feels and acts.

As everything falls apart, the film's extraordinary cinematography envelops the audience into its fold for the final ride to the end.

Dunst shows us she wants to be taken seriously as an actress and and here she shows why. A very strong performance. Her fluctuations between melancholy and fleeting moments of joy and love towards others were very honest. Skarsgard, was perfect as the guy who hoped he could “save” Justine from her depressions and when he tells her he cannot believe someone so beautiful is with him, he’s right. His nuances of hopefulness and sadness were dead-on. Gainsbourg is an actress that I enjoy watching because I feel that in any moment she will explode, like dynamite. She never does but how she contains the energy in this film of being the smart squared-away sister until she realizes it is all going to end was wonderful to watch. Sutherland as Gainsbourg’s husband fit the role very well. There was enough arrogance and “how dare you” in his character which was rounded out by his obvious love and thoughtfulness towards his son. Rampling was the kicker. Her performance as the sarcastic fatalist was pitch-perfect. John Hurt as Justine and Claire’s father was the optimist in their family but he also liked his own life his way. Lars von Trier wrote and directed this film. He clearly knew how he wanted it to look and feel and he got strong performances from his choice for actors. About one third of the way through the film I thought, “jeez this is slow” and wondered “where this was going”. However, in the end it was very satisfying.

Overall: The images, thoughts about, and contemplations from this this film will stay with you for days after you see it. This is the character of a very strong film.

The Skin I Live In

First Hit:  Odd and interesting film about obsession, retaliation and redemption.

Almodovar does some interesting films, some are oddly funny while other films are unique in their view of life and behavior.

Here Robert Ledgard (played by Antonio Banderas) is a surgeon who performs magic on burn patients. Additionally he performs sex change operations out of his own operating room in his home. His wife dies from suicide because she is horribly burned and when she sees her reflection in a window for the first time, she cannot stand what she sees.

His daughter gets raped by a young man named Vincente (played by Jan Cornet) and because she is traumatized, commits suicide as well. Legard, as part of his research, is working on how to replace and grow skin as a replacement for burn victims.

In his anger at losing his daughter, he kidnaps Vincente the boy who raped his daughter and changes him into a woman named Vera Cruz (played by Elena Anaya). Because she is with him for years they develop a relationship.

However, this film is about revenge and redemption so it has its twists. The one thing that amazed me was how perfect Vera’s skin was. I know that this must have been the expert use of makeup as well as special effects.

The skin was amazing.

Banderas is very good as the somewhat mental, yet intelligent doctor. Cornet was well cast as the troubled rogue young man. Anaya was superb as Vera. Pedro Almodovar wrote and directed this interesting and thoughtful film.

Overall: A good film and worth watching.

The Rum Diary

First Hit:  This film started strong and fully engaged me, but started falling apart in the middle and by the end it was definitely time to go.

My guess is that this film was a way to honor Hunter S. Thompson who wrote the novel from which the screenplay is based. I did wonder if this story and film were a way to reflect Thompson’s real or imagined escapades.

Having read most of Thompson’s stories and stories about Thompson; Johnny Depp played Kemp (story’s main character) much like Thompson (his real life friend) himself. 

The film traces Kemp arriving in Puerto Rico to take a job at the local paper. He’s looking for a place to land and to find a career. The paper is being run by Lotterman (played by Richard Jenkins), a crusty old guy with a bad toupee who is halfway attempting to save the paper. Kemp learns early that he’s the only semi-sane reporter on staff as the other prime reporter Moburg (played by Giovanni Ribisi) is perpetually high on something but mostly rum.

Kemp gets courted to write positive words about a team of people, led by Sanderson (played by Aaron Eckhart), who are attempting to build hotels on an island owned by the US Government. Sanderson, has a girlfriend named Chenault (played by Amber Heard) whom Kemp falls in love with.

The longer the film goes the more it meanders. Half way through the film, I was left wondering what the point would be in the end. At the end, I didn’t care what the point was.

Depp did a good impression of Thompson for about ¾ of the film but lost the film lost it point the longer it went. Jenkins was good as the old newspaper guy who didn’t care much. Ribisi was very good as the perpetually high reporter who never went to work. Eckhart was strong as the sleazy guy who thinks he can get anyone to do what he wants. Heard was sweet and sultry as “the girl”. Bruce Robinson wrote this meandering screenplay and directed it the same way.

Overall: I had high hopes for this film and they faded by the middle of its 2 hour presentation.

Margin Call

First Hit: This smart educational film opens the door to understanding the mortgage crisis of the late 2000’s.

What this film does is give the audience a human flavor as to why the mortgage crisis happened.

Human not in the context of the mortgage holders, but the guys in a Wall Street house who created bundling of the subprime mortgage packages and sold them.

In this Wall Street firm, recent losses have created firings. One of the fired, Eric Dale (played by Stanley Tucci), has been working on some numbers which concern him. When he leaves he gives a thumb drive to a young new Analyst, Peter Sullivan (played by Zachary Quinto).

Sullivan works for Will Emerson (played by Paul Bettany), who works for Sam Rogers (played by Kevin Spacey). Will is smart and has about 10 years with the firm and when Sullivan finishes the analysis that Dale started, he immediately sees that the company is overexposed and is exposed for more than their capital worth.

Like the mortgages of many, they are underwater. This brings in the heavy weights. Rogers calls Jared Cohen (played by Simon Baker) who calls the CEO John Tuld (played by Jeremy Irons). A 2:00 AM meeting between all these players and lawyers, the meeting starts with Sullivan explaining what he discovered.

The Head of Risk Sarah Robertson (played by Demi Moore) indicates that they tried to tell Tuld this could happen but Tuld indicates that this is now water under the bridge. What can they do to save the company now? Tuld decides to sell all of their positions at a loss, even though they know that doing this will destroy the market for mortgages, their relationships with all other brokerage companies they work with, and maybe destroy the company.

However, by leading the charge to sell this bad debt they will lose less than the others. To do this they know what they are doing and that is where the morality of their decision comes into question.

Tucci is great as one of the guys who complies with the end decision, all for money. Spacey is wonderful as the head of sales who motivates the crew for the last selling spree, he does it for the money as well. Quinto is sublime as the smart analyst. Irons is absolutely dead on as a ruthless player. Baker is very good as the guy who didn’t listen enough and is mostly responsible for the company’s plight. Moore is OK as the woman who pushed for a change but was unconvincing enough. Bettany is very good as the guy who thinks he knows it all but really relies on the smarts of others. J.C. Chandor wrote and directed this film which was intelligent, educational, well scripted, and provided excitement and interest.

Overall: This was a wonderful film to see and provided enough of a layman’s language explanation to shine light on the financial mess we’re now in.

Footloose

First Hit: There were moments of great entertainment separated by long sections of pure boredom.

This film was so filled with clichés that it was virtually un-watchable at times.

The Reverend Shaw Moore (played by Dennis Quaid) over reacts to events, doesn’t look in the mirror to see his own faults and has a child who rebels against his righteous rule. His opponent, of sorts, is Ren MacCormack (played by Kenny Wormald) who appears to be a rebel but is actually trying to hold his life together after his mother dies of Leukemia.

Then there is Ren’s first friend whom he meets when he arrives at school on the first day, Willard (played by Miles Teller) who cannot dance but we all know that he’ll be great by the end of the film. Ren comes from Boston, Massachusetts to Bomont, Georgia where he finds things a bit different. The town has made dancing illegal (like this is actually believable) because some kids lost their lives while drinking and driving home from a dance.

Reverend Moore’s oldest son caused the accident that killed the five kids and he feels responsible to protect all other children. His daughter Ariel (played by Julianne Hough) is acting out because she feels lost without her older brother.

I was bored at the long sequences of predictable scenes all leading up to moments of great entertainment. Those scenes are the dancing at the drive-in theater, the little girls teaching Willard to dance, the scene where an angry Ren dances in a warehouse, and the final dance scene.

But outside of these entertainment events the characters are way too predictable, the scenes are marginally acted, and waiting for the entertainment was painful.

Quaid made a good uptight Reverend but there was no interesting ground broken here. Andie McDowell played Vi Moore the reverend’s wife, and was great to see again in a film. In her minor role she actually brought some wisdom to the film. Wormald was OK to watch, a very good dancer, but I always felt he was smirking through the role. Teller was one of the best things to watch in the film – engaged and enjoyable to watch. Hough was barely adequate as a girl rebelling. Yes she acted rebellious but there wasn’t anything coming through on the screen about her character being in pain or challenged. It was all outward and nothing came forth from an inward space. Dean Pitchford and Craig Brewer wrote this mostly awful script. Craig Brewer directed great dance scenes but the rest of it was wasteful.

Overall: Barely watchable on video or streaming. The young girls in the theater liked it but it was all hat and no cattle.