If, for some reason, you ever wanted to screen a film festival at a retirement home, this year’s indie/arthouse crop would yield three films you could show in succession.   

Start with “Alexandra,”  a Russian film about a elderly woman who visits her grandson, who is in the military and engaged in the Chechnyan conflict.   She wanders around and clucks a lot, and builds an unlikely friendship with a Chechnyan woman.    Then show “Cherry Blossoms,”  a German film about an elderly man who visits his son in Tokyo, who isn’t very excited to see him and leaves him alone most of the day.   He wanders around and marvels at how different things are in Japan, and builds an unlikely friendship with a homeless dancer.   

Then you can show “A Thousand Years of Good Prayers,”  an American film about an elderly Chinese gentleman who visits his daughter in America, who isn’t very excited to see him and leaves him alone most of the time.   He wanders around and takes notes on English slang, and strikes up an unlikely frienship with a Lebanese neighbor.  

His daughter doesn’t like him very much, and we get the sense that he wasn’t a good father while she was growing up.   She also doesn’t much like that he’s still a believing Communist.   He is very worried about her, her marriage prospects, and the way she eats.   She doesn’t seem very happy, but she certainly doesn’t want his help in fixing that.  

Part of the problem with “A Thousand Years of Good Prayers” lies in its structure.  In the last few minutes of the movie, there is a revelation that changes just about everything the daughter thought she knew about her father and his life.   It is a heartbreaking revelation, but it comes so late in the movie that it’s hard to start caring.    The movie is based on a short story by Yiyun Li, and I can imagine this kind of heartbreaking revelation working much better at the end of 25 pages of mostly nothing happening.  2 hours of mostly nothing happening is a lot to take.

“Of Time and the City” is not a movie, in the proper sense of the word.  It’s not even a  documentary, exactly.  Really, it’s a visual poem, which I guess could also be a misleading term, since we often refer to movies as “poetic” or “lyrical.”    But this is something different – instead of a poetic film, it’s a cinematic poem.   I was struck by a sense, in the middle of it, that the perfect presentation of “Time and the City” would not be in a dark cinema, but in a college lecture hall, with director/writer/narrator Terence Davies speaking the narration in front of, not behind, the images.   The way I used to go see poets read in college.   

It’s a rumination on Liverpool, the town of Davies’ youth and young adulthood.   Davies’ narration is, for certain, quite lyrical, and he often borrows bits and pieces from other poets – Joyce, Shakespeare, Morris.   He rails against the Church, the Queen, and the Beatles, but is not afraid to be silent in front of the images.   The music verges on churchy – classical and choral arrangements that I suppose are meant to feel holy and sacred, juxtaposed against images of dirty children and old women peeling potatoes.   

There’s going to be only a small audience for a film like this.   It will be the kind of people who buy and read poetry, who can name the current Poet Laureate of wherever they live, and who attend poetry readings not held at bookstores.   If this is you, you will love this film.   If not, you might want to take a pass and choose a “real” movie instead.

"Is there more to life than sweaty sex in dorm rooms?"

“Summer Palace,”  the latest film from Chinese director Ye Hou, was submitted to Cannes this year, and then yanked by the Chinese government’s Film Review Board, due in part to scenes involving the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989.  Hou has been banned by his government from making films for five years.   this has created quite a buzz around the movie, and I went in expecting to see something sharp, satirical or insightful about the Chinese government and its abuses of power, how people react and resist in that country, etc.    I was sorely disappointed.   

Turns out it’s more of a movie about dorm room sex.   (Ah, college – probably the only time in one’s life where most of the copulation takes place on a bunk bed.)  The sex scenes are plentiful, long, and, to be honest, repetitive and a touch boring.   Maybe they shouldn’t be censored by the government – I believe in freedom of expression as much as anyone – but they could stand to be edited a little.   

Lou’s protagonist (Lei Hao) leaves behind her small provincial town to go to college in the big city.   She intends to “experience life to the fullest”  which she understands to mean having lots and lots of sex.   I knew people like this in college; it never seemed to me like they were living more interesting or richer lives than anyone else around them.   In fact, like Hao, they usually ended up in obsessive, destructive relationship patterns, and sex became a substitute for happiness.  

There is a scene involving the Tiananmen Square debacle, but it’s muddy and confusing, and it’s hard to see what the Chinese censors would find objectionable about it– maybe they just don’t want any kind of negative anything about their country portrayed on screen.   Or maybe they just got sick of all the full frontal nudity and sweaty scenes in “Summer Palace.”   I know I did.

Do they really look like they could've been college roommates?

“State of Play” pretends to be a political thriller, but in reality it’s a homage to print journalism and that dying breed, the rumpled, well-connected, inside track D.C. reporter.    Russel Crowe plays that character, and lives in his skin.   He’s been at a paper that’s probably supposed to be the Washington Post for longer than most of his colleagues have been alive.   He’s on a first-name basis with everyone in town, from the minority whip to the gal at the morgue.   He owes favors and is owed just as many.   He has an understanding with the chief of police, who seems to see him as sort of an auxiliary detective.    They have, for the most part, the same goals, and Crowe is often more interested in getting to the bottom of a case than his own men are.   Cops keep their jobs, whether or not the cases get solved.   Reporters who can’t get stories, or get their stories wrong, aren’t so lucky.

Enter Rachel McAdams, employed by the paper to write a blog about the goings on of Capitol Hill.    The two don’t exactly hit it off, and, to tell the truth, I don’t blame Crowe one bit for giving her the finger.   She’s a rookie reporter; he’s an old hand.  Some respect is in order.   We’re supposed to watch them learn to work together as the movie progressed, but I never did warm to her.   She’s constantly complaining about the division of duties he suggests, and whines that he’s taking the juicy pieces and leaving her the legwork.   Well, duh, sweetheart.    Seniority counts for something.

“State of Play” provides a somewhat painful look at journalism today; Helen Mirren plays, with great enthusiasm, the editor of the paper.  Like the chief of police in a Dirty Harry movie, she’s got new management breathing down her neck. She is perpetually tired of Crowe’s antics, while always relying on him to get the story.  If you’re reading the papers these days (or maybe I should say if you’re reading the blogs) you know that papers are folding left and right, being replaced by newsblogs and the miniscule overall costs of news websites.    I don’t see any reason to believe that means that old school fact-gathering favor-doers like Crowe are on their way out – they just need to learn how to use a computer, for heaven’s sake.

Back to the plot.    The senior aide of a squeaky clean congressman (Ben Affleck) was hit by a train.   Was she pushed or did she jump?   Turns out she was sleeping with the congressman.   Why this would shock anyone anymore is beyond me, but there you go.   Just as everyone is assuming she jumped because her heart was broken, Crowe makes a connection between her case and another murder he’s covering, and starts to see the dim outline of a conspiracy.   Affleck is heading up an investigation into a defense contractor, one with 40 billion reasons to make him look bad.   Are they behind this death?

It’s against a good critic’s ethics to tell you what happens in a movie, but really, the pleasure of “State of Play” comes in watching Crowe fact-gather – using various means, both over and under the table – rather than in the revelations that he unearths.   The movie is a bit leaden as a thriller – the chase scenes are kind of dull, the twists are easy to predict, and the ending, especially, turns things around so that they’re about half as exciting as they were before the final twist.   It’s amazing that it manages to be a pretty entertaining movie in spite of all that.

Recommended

• if you’re a big fan of political thrillers
• if you work, or once worked, for a newspaper, or have a degree in journalism.
• if “All the President’s Men” is your all-time favorite movie.

Not Recommended

• if you’re going to be disappointed by the lack of car chases and gunfights in this so-called “thriller.”   Really, it’s pretty weak in the sweaty palms department.
• if you write a political blog.
• if you’re wondering what the title means (I have no idea.)

By Willie Krischke — August 1, 2008.

When it was on TV, “X-Files” episodes divided into two categories: the “Mythology” episodes, about the government conspiracy and aliens and Cigarette Smoking Man and Mulder’s sister and the alien bounty hunter (the longer the series went, the more complicated – and ridiculous – the conspiracy became) and then the “Monster of the Week” episodes, in which Mulder and Scully investigate garden variety monsters or supernatural occurrences. These were often a welcome break from the mythology and included quite a few of the best episodes (“Eve,” “Humbug,” and “Jose Chung’s From Outer Space,” to name a few.) Having officially laid the conspiracy to rest with the (underwhelming) series finale, “X Files: I Want to Believe” is of the Monster of the Week variety. But if it had been an episode of the TV show, it would not have been one of my favorites. The whole thing feels deflated and uninspired. Perhaps Chris Carter is ready to move on to other projects. Perhaps he already has.

It is fun to see Mulder and Scully again – I, like many, watched the show so much and for so long, they feel like old friends, and the new lines on their faces make this moviegoing experience feel like a reunion of sorts. Gillian Anderson is a top-notch actress who turns in a fine performance here, and David Duchovny, though not really of Anderson’s caliber, brings that mischevious curiosity and deadpan wit that was so sorely missed from the show when he left. Chris Carter allows them, for the first time, to actually have an adult relationship; they can actually say what they mean to each other these days. Some will find this boring, others, more deep and interesting. The way the movie is written and directed, it’s clear that these characters, their relationship, and how they’ve aged is the only thing that still holds Carter’s interest. Their scenes, as well a few of the outdoor scenes, are shot in a way that really surprised me. They carry a weariness, almost sadness, a sense of age, and tender weakness, and love. It might sound ridiculous, but I was reminded of Ingmar Bergman’s films. Maybe it was all the snow.

But a movie with “X Files” in the title is not supposed to be an exercise in melancholy. It’s supposed to be a supernatural thriller. Right? But on that front, “I Want to Believe” just doesn’t cut the mustard. The paranormal aspects range from humdrum to the laughably ridiculous. Really, guys, a criminal psychic who knows where the bodies are? IS there an older play in the paranormal thriller playbook? And what he leads them to… well, I shouldn’t really say, I’d be spoiling the movie for you, but let’s just agree that it’s a pretty bizarre and unbelievable medical procedure. It belongs in X-Men, maybe, but not X-Files. The less I say about the plot, the better. At its worst, “I Want to Believe” feels like a made-for-TV movie, an desperate attempt to keep the franchise alive, a placeholder episode while the geniuses who write this stuff think of something better. But the franchise didn’t need a boost – DVD sales of the series are still going strong – and “I Want to Believe” doesn’t add anything to the series’ legacy. If it does anything at all, it makes me want to go see Anderson and/or Duchovny in something else, something not quite so played out.

Recommended

• for X-Files fans who were always more interested in Mulder and Scully than in anything they investigated

Not Recommended

• for X-Files fans who were always more interested in the plots and storylines than in who was investigating them.
• for anyone who’s not an X-Files fan already.
• for hardcore X-Files fans hoping to see lots of references to their favorite parts of the show.

By Willie Krischke — originally posted August 15, 2008. 

“Step Brothers” is a Will Ferrell movie, starring Will Ferrell. It has Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly in it. I’m telling you this is a Will Ferrell movie because if you’ve seen one Will Ferrell movie, you’ve seen them all, and thus you ought to know by now whether or not you like Will Ferrell movies, and thus you already know whether or not you’re going to like this movie. I don’t think there’s anything I could write to make a Will Ferrell fan hate this movie, not is there anything I can write to make a Will Ferrell hater enjoy it. Now I’ ve written “Will Ferrell” nine times, just to make sure nobody who likes Will Ferrell (ten) misses the point. So there you go.

That said, there are a few other things that might be said about this movie. They may not fall into traditional “movie review” format, but, as I have already shown, a movie like this does not benefit or suffer from a traditional movie review.

1. “Step Brothers” functions as a parody of Judd Apatow movies, most notably “Knocked Up.” But that movie is a parody of twentysomething men who act like adolescents. So this is a parody of a parody. And that phenomenally, catastrophically doesn’t work. And the people who made “Step Brothers” are the same people who made “Knocked Up,” and they seem to know it doesn’t work. Seth Rogen actually appears about halfway through the movie, to spell out why it doesn’t work. Reilly and Ferrell show up for a job interview at a sporting goods store wearing tuxedoes. Rogen thinks the tuxedoes are supposed to be funny, ironic, sarcastic; a commentary on life or jobs, or something. Then John C. Reilly farts. For a really long time. And Rogen thinks maybe the tuxedoes aren’t funny and sarcastic, maybe they’re just stupid and naive. So he tells the “boys” to get lost. Not just out of his store, but out of his entire movie universe, where one can be an overgrown adolescent and still intelligent, sarcastic, and ironic. Because all these boys can do is…fart.

2. John C. Reilly used to have a soul. He used to show up in movies like “The Anniversary Party,” “Gangs of New York,” “Chicago,” and “The Hours,” and regularly steal his scenes – not by overacting, but by underacting. Then he met Will Ferrell. Now he plays an overgrown, idiot man-child in movies like “Talladega Nights,” “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story,” and now this one. Now he plays every scene to the rafters. I’m sure he’s making more money than ever. John C. Reilly, I dub thee Faust. Prove me wrong, I beg you.

3. Probably the funniest, most interesting part of “Step Brothers” is Ferrell’s brother, played by Adam Scott. (Certainly the funniest scene involves his perfect Family of Four™ singing a cappella in the car.) Scott’s performance is sharp and polished, like Reilly’s autographed samurai sword, and I kept wishing he’d show up in more scenes. Scott is much more successful than his older brother; he’s a VP of a helicopter company and rolling in dough. But it becomes apparent that Derek isn’t really any more grown up than Ferrell; he’s just found a socially acceptable, financially lucrative way to act like an adolescent.

4. Which raises a deeper issue. If Ferrell and Reilly can’t grow up, and Scott can’t grow up, and their father Richard Jenkins just spends all his time dreaming about sailing around the world, then where are the grownups? Is “Step Brothers” trying to make a statement about men in our society, or about the way our society treats men and what it expects from them? Do modern males have two choices: either give up and embrace a lifeless, joyless existence, or find a socially acceptable, financially lucrative way to continue to act like a child? Is that why I write movie reviews? I may be stretching to say that “Step Brothers” actually asks these questions –it’s more interested in collapsing bunk beds and licking dog poo – but perhaps you’ll ask them yourself, as I did, when you get bored of the fart jokes.

Recommended

• if you like Will Ferrell movies.
• If you ever thought it might be funny to watch a bunk bed collapse on top of a grown man.
• If fart jokes make you laugh—every time.
  

Not Recommended

• if you don’t like Will Ferrell movies.
• If you’re fed up with your 30 year old underachieving son living in your basement and insisting on “following his dream.”

By Willie Krischke — July 11, 2008

A movie set some 800 years in the future, “WALL-E’ is a throwback of sorts. It pays tribute to lots of movies, from the expected – “2001,” “Close Encounters,” “E.T.” and “Short Circuit,” but also to more unexpected, and more human, sources, like “Hello Dolly,” “Modern Times,”  Buster Keaton’s films, and any number of Jerry Lewis and Woody Allen characters. This nostalgia gives a “sci-fi” film a big heart, which is good, since it’s about an abandoned planet and nearly hopeless future for our kind.

Our hero (his name is short for Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth Class) is the last inhabitant of Earth, except for a cockroach. The planet is covered with garbage, and the generators of all that trash have moved on – apparently, even the Earth was disposable. WALL-E keeps compacting trash, because he’s a trash compactor, and what else is he going to do? He erects vast towers of piled garbage, shaped like the Empire State Building. He has the right personality for the job, and this is perhaps the best joke in the movie: WALL-E’s the kind of guy who likes going through trash, because every now and then he finds treasures. These he collects, as well as anything that might be useful, and his abode looks like your typical software engineer’s desktop – completely overwhelmed with nifty junk, organized in some way known only to him. His favorite possession is a worn out VHS copy of “Hello Dolly,” which he watches obsessively, trying to puzzle out the civilization that left him behind. (God help us if mounds of trash and “Hello Dolly” are all that remain of human civilization. Isn’t there a dog-eared copy of “Hamlet” floating around out there somewhere? )

The first 40 minutes of WALL-E are magical ones. They are utterly absent of dialogue, save a few incidental sound bytes (which fill us in on where all the people went) and WALL-E’s emotive whistles and beeps, reminiscent of R2D2’s. It plays like a great lost Charlie Chaplin film, as our silent character navigates his way through a not-so-silent landscape, lost in the moment, taking what comes his way, and getting tangled up in comedic messes.

[metacafe]http://www.metacafe.com/watch/2051838/bedtime_rituals/[/metacafe]

EVE appears, a probe sent from above, and WALL-E falls in love.  Their relationship is part “Nutty Professor” and part Woody Allen – WALL-E’s the lovable nerd who collects stuff, EVE the sleek, efficient modern woman who promptly destroys his eggbeater.  EVE has been sent to earth by the surviving humans to look for organic life.  She finally finds what she’s looking for – in the form of a tiny plant –filed between WALL-E’s rubix cube and bubble wrap (which she also destroys.) She freaks out, shuts down, and, after WALL-E totes her around endearingly like Christopher Reeve for a few days, the mothership returns to gobble her up. WALL-E hangs on desperately. And thus ends the really great part of the movie.

And begins the “story” part of the movie. Up until this point, “WALL-E” has been content to futz around without much of a plot, conflict, or story arc, but no longer. The mothership contains the exiled human race, and EVE’s plant is evidence they can go home. The problem is, it’s been 700 years, and nobody remembers home, or cares. The movie’s environmental message, which to this point has been gentle, melancholy, and somewhat humorous, now becomes more overt, and a little mean-spirited.  The people are egg-shaped, beyond fat; living in low-gravity and riding around on couches for 700 years, their bones have softened and shrunk. (I wonder if this is an animator’s joke – Pixar’s humans have always looked a little soft, and now they use that weirdness to their advantage, sort of.) They never take their eyes off the TV screens in front of them, and have forgotten what authentic human interaction is.
Nonetheless, the captain (voiced by Jeff Garlin) gets excited about returning to Earth, the autopilot (in a throwback to HAL) revolts, and it’s up to WALL-E and EVE to lead a rogue robot army against the mothership and get the people back home. Yawn. This half of the movie really isn’t bad – in fact, a lesser studio (like DreamWorks?) probably would’ve jettisoned the first half and focused here – but it’s so inferior to the first half, it feels… beyond anticlimactic.

Naturally, as soon as WALL-E comes out on DVD, parents will buy it for their kids. And the kids will watch it incessantly. My guess is that most parents will stick around for the first half, but as soon as WALL-E rockets into space, find better things to do with their time. Like sort the socks in the sock drawer. That’s what I’d do, anyway.

Recommended

• If you’re going to take your kids to something this summer. WALL-E’s the one to see. (Though “Kung Fu Panda” wasn’t bad, either.)
• If you’re a Chaplin/Keaton fan, and would like to introduce your kids to those old classics.

Not Recommended

• If you’re tired of futuristic movies that paint a bleak picture of where we’re headed.
• If you’re a sci-fi geek. Someone somewhere is bound to post an article titled “The Scientific Inconsistencies of WALL-E” – they are plethora – and if that’s all you’re gong to see, you’re going to miss all that’s good about this film.

By Willie Krischke – originally published July 12, 2008

Guillermo Del Toro has a distinctive, captivating visual style that is reason enough to go see his movies. In this way, he reminds me of Jim Henson’s more “serious” endeavors, movies like “Labyrinth” and “The Dark Crystal.” They were so visually inventive, so different from anything anyone else was doing that things like pacing and plot didn’t really matter. “Hellboy II: The Golden Army” feels like that. Some summer movies get by without these basic elements by being non-stop roller coaster rides; Del Toro’s films, like Henson’s, are tours through a creepy-fascinating wax museum chock-full of things straight out of both dreams and nightmares.

“Hellboy II: The Golden Army” is much more distinctively Del-Torian than the original: the director is coming into his own after the success of “Pan’s Labyrinth,” and visually “Golden Army” has more in common with that movie than its prequel. While “Hellboy” was forced to concern itself with an origin story, and felt weighed down by notions of where Red came from and what he might be capable of, this one can dispense with all that meandering and just get right to the action. Or the comedy, as it turns out.

This time around, an elf prince with a deep hatred for mankind (seems he has a thing against parking lots and strip malls) and some serious martial arts skills decides it’s time to stop hiding in the woods and move to the city. He looks like a cross between Jet Li and Legolas, and is really good at making his numerous shiny blades go swish and swoosh. He’s got some great friends, too: first he sets loose a swarm of the meanest tooth fairies you’ve ever seen, then “grows” a tree god in the middle of New York City. His ultimate Evil Plan to Save the World (every supervillain has one) is to activate an ancient, indestructible “golden” army, who will do his bidding. However, he’s missing a piece he needs to activate the Golden Army (Hitchcock would call this item a “MacGuffin;”) this piece is in the hands of his peacenik sister. Hellboy and the rest run into her in the Troll Village (a Del-Torian version of Mos Eisley, and easily the most fascinating scene in the movie) and end up protecting her, sort of. Naturally, chaos ensues. And lots of fight scenes.

Del Toro clearly loves the “Hellboy” characters, and the strongest scenes in the movie are the character-driven ones. Red’s domestic disputes with Liz, as well Abe’s lovesick attempts to woo foxy elfin Princess Nuala, are so sharp and funny, it’s almost a shame the movie ever has to venture outside the complex and onto the battlefield. Once there, Del Toro’s visual creativeness does not disappoint, but…well, grace and athleticism have never been hallmarks of Hellboy’s fighting style. Watching two CGI creatures hit each other as hard as they can until one of them gives in just doesn’t hold my attention.

On top of that, “Golden Army’s” plot just doesn’t make much sense. Without giving too much away, let me say that it hinges on two characters who feel each other’s pain, and really should culminate in these two engaging in a bizarre, sadomasochistic duel. But it doesn’t. Instead, we get some other big fights, and an ending that was guessable from the beginning (and might be guessable from this review. If so, I apologize, but I don’t feel too bad about giving away an ending that was so blatantly predictable. I did pretty well on “Dark Knight,” didn’t I? You didn’t see THAT coming, did you?)

In a summer chock full of comic book movies (I promise this is the last one I’ll review for a while), “Hellboy 2: The Golden Army” kind of gets lost in the shuffle. Del Toro cements his reputation for striking creatures and great sets, but while “Pan’s Labyrinth” was a revelation, “The Golden Army’s” not much more than a spectacle. Like Jim Henson before him, Del Toro has an incredible gift, but unless he’s careful and remembers to subordinate his remarkable visual creativity to resonant, well-developed stories and characters, he may find himself demoted to teaching children their numbers and letters on PBS. Fancy that.

Recommended

• If you’re a “Hellboy” comic book fan. Del Toro clearly is.
• If you’re a Guillermo Del Toro fan.
• if you just can’t get enough superhero movies this summer.

Not Recommended

• If you’re trying to decide which superhero movie to watch this summer. There are plenty better.
• If you really couldn’t care less about CGI creatures and how cool, or uncool, they look. This movie will hold little interest for you.
• If you hate it when you can guess the end of a movie from the beginning. Or from the review.

“Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day” is the kind of movie my mother would like. In a word, it is sweet. It’s frothy and frivolous, as well as a rather unsuccessful attempt at farce. It kind of wants to be a screwball comedy, a Woody Allen frenzied flick or a throwback to the days of Frank Capra, but never really finds the tricky rhythm a film like that requires. But just when you think it might be fizzy enough to give you a tummy ache, it pulls up and shows you some heft, a little gravity, a certain bittersweet aftertaste. And suddenly you’re glad it didn’t succeed on all those other notes, because this one is so much more satisfying.

Set in Mahvelous England between the Wars, Frances McDormand plays the Pettigrew of the title, and yes indeed, the events take place over the course of 24 hours, however unlikely that may seem. A nanny who can’t seem to hang on to a job, she is faced with the dual prospects of homelessness and hunger when she steals a namecard from her employment agency and shows up at the door of Amy Adams, pretending to be a social secretary. Adams is a flibbertigibbet, entertaining one man in another man’s flat on the day yet a third man plans to propose to her. Clearly, she needs help from the kind of level-headed, down to earth, practical sort of woman who…can’t keep a job looking after children. Well, anyway.

Frances McDormand and Amy Adams are entertaining as opposites, for a few minutes. It’s hard to imagine more contrasting actresses, but easy to imagine others in these roles; I kept thinking about Emma Thompson as I watched McDormand, and Adams made me think of Nicole Kidman. Their characters are one dimensional, and quickly grow tiresome. Happily, “Miss Pettigrew”’ introduces, right at this point of weariness, a whole rainbow of colorful, supporting characters, perhaps every one of them better cast than our leads. We meet Lee Pace, Adams’ One True Love, who looks and acts like a young Clive Owen, but with a soul. Then there’s Ciaran Hinds and Shirley Henderson, a quarrelling couple of polar opposites about to get married – or not. Henderson squeaks instead of speaks, and moves with a certain effortless, arrogant confidence. Her nose is always in the air, in the most attractive, disgusting way. Hinds is a big man, smooth and handsome, with an eye for the finer things in life – like the lingerie he designs. It’s clear from his first moment onscreen that he’s of a different sort than these, and satisfying when that intuition is later proven right.

And the movie proceeds as one would expect it to, Adams using her body to get into trouble (as well as expensive clothes, flats, and exclusive parties) and McDormand using her mind – and manners – to get Adams out of trouble. But then – wait for it –“Miss Pettigrew” peels back a layer, and shows its surprising heart.

All of a sudden, a few of the characters have dimensions, and the movie has a bittersweet undertone. The characters have a past, and a future. Now all the foolishness and fancy swirling around Miss Pettigrew feels terribly fragile, and we understand frivolity is something to be protected and prolonged, however doomed (and idiotic) it may be, because it can only happen in times of peace. And now we see the connection between McDormand and Hinds, and can guess the rest of the movie. I wish director Bharat Nalluri had seen fit to leave the subtext simply stated in that one scene, but the points gets belaboured a bit. Hiding under a table during an air raid drill, Amy Adams says “We’re going to war, aren’t we?” and McDormand simply must launch into a speech that begins, “Yes, we are. And that’s why you must not waste one second of this precious life.” We could’ve done without this speech; everything within it had already been suggested in much simpler, more graceful ways. And yet it doesn’t take away the bittersweet taste of that first moment, the golden touch of McDormand and Hinds together, remembering. That scene is what I will take away from this movie, and the feeling of that scene the feeling I will associate with “Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day.” For all the scenes, moods, and moments it gets just slightly wrong, it gets that one exactly right. That’s something.

Recommended

• to my mom
• to fans of light, sweet frivolous films
• to fans of old “screwball comedies” ie Frank Capra and Ernst Lubitsch

Not Recommended

• to my dad
• to those who need something plausible right now
• to art film geeks who like to make fun of sweet movies with heart. 9Unless you’re looking for a new film to ridicule.)

“Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day” is available today, August 19, on DVD.

There are not many movies out there like “Brand Upon the Brain.” Consider: when it premiered at the Toronto Film Festival, it was accompanied by a live orchestra, narration, and a set of Foley artists (ie, sound fx guys.) Yes, it is a silent film. Made in 2006. Now you’re starting to get the picture.

It had a limited theatrical run (sadly, not many theaters are equipped with live orchestras these days.) Surely it’s weird stuff like this that makes living in the big city worthwhile, despite the rats and smog. I wasn’t sure it was going to be released on DVD at all, but thankfully Criterion has picked it up. There are 6 different narrator choices on the disc. I went with Isabella Rossellini. I’ll let you make your own choice.

Surreal, silly, pulpy, and subterranean, “Brand Upon the Brain” feels like a collaboration between Salvador Dali and Franklin W. Dixon, the guy who created the Hardy Boys. 12 year old Guy lives on a mysterious island with a bunch of orphans. The island is ruled by his mother, who may be the worst matriarchal figure ever – she rules via telescope and a thing called an “aerograph,” a sort of telephone that can only be used when one is speaking to a loved one – or when one is hopping mad. She routinely threatens to sell the island (which Guy is due to inherit) and/or commit suicide to make her children and the orphans do what she wants.

Wendy Hale, one half of the crack teen detective team “The Lightbulb Kids” shows up on the island to investigate mysterious holes in the orphans’ heads. But Wendy falls in love with Guy’s free-spirited sister and disguises herself as her own twin brother Chance in order to woo Sis with a pair of kissing gloves. Naturally, the investigation falls by the wayside, until a bizarre series of events leads to a bizarre series of revelations, which leads to another bizarre series of events, which… well, you’ll just have to watch the movie.

“Brand Upon the Brain” certainly ventures into some swampy acreage. Director Guy Maddin is in love with all kinds of pulp material, though Quentin Tarantino he’s not. The Hardy Boy gee-whiz earnestness gets crossbred with a much grittier type of pulp mag material, the kind that hosts lesbian vampires and the like. And underneath the pulp sexuality simmers another level of sexual preoccupation; Guy and his mother have a slightly icky relationship, and then there’s the whole thing with his naked resurrected father and the nightly visits that make Mother twenty years younger.

Filmed in black and white, taking enthusiastic advantage of old tricks like iris lensing, double exposures, and partially blurred images, “Brand Upon the Brain” is fascinatingly original, but can be a lot to handle. It’s edited at a hyper, sometimes headachy pace – I would guess that no image is on the screen for more than four seconds. Then cut, then cut, then cut. Once upon a time, I would’ve suggested this be watched while in a “chemically altered” state. I realized last night I was wrong about that. “Brand Upon the Brain” doesn’t require drugs; it works like a drug itself. If you allow it to, it will alter your state of consciousness, lead you through a weird, trippy, surrealistic experience. If you resist it, you might be in for a bad trip.

Recommended

• if you’d jump at the chance to go see a modern silent movie accompanied by a live orchestra, Foley artists, and a narrator.
• If you dream vividly and write down your dreams, but never get around to interpreting them.
• If the idea of a movie that might be able to function as a drug intrigues you.
• If you’re an art major. Particularly a performance art major.

Not Recommended

• if you consider yourself a normal person.
• If you’re epileptic, and prone to seizures induced by rapidly changing images.
• If you grew up on a mysterious island populated by orphans, and the memory is painful for you.