Now Playing: Maurice Jarre--"Jesus of Nazareth" (soundtrack)
I'd intended to start a semi-regular "dinner and (several) movies" series, but it's been snowing steadily for the past few days and I decided to spend the entirety of my days off inside this week, thereby rejecting the opportunity to forage for berries and hunt for game--I mean, stop by Hiller's. Next week, I'll hopefully be on the case. In the meantime, I've been catching up on at least one web series, writing, cleaning, and watching NBC podcasts of the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, with some great skiing, snowboarding, and skating action and entirely avoiding Bob Costas' self-important, narrative-clutching blather. As with Torino, I've taken a huge shine to some of the Canadian athletes--back then, it was Cindy Klassen and Clara Hughes; now it's Maelle Ricker and Ashleigh McIvor. Sadly, following links willy-nilly leads to lame Internet puff pieces about certain intramural skiing rivalries and the largely witless, misogynistic and illiterate comments, especially on Yahoo. I'm sorry, I have to do this; it's just too awful. From one "fan" on a slightly controversial skiier: "She is a sensual woman. A woman of passion! Watch her climb atop the man and pursue the heights of her inclinations. Look at how excited she is! Under the designer label satin of dawn, the colour of summer when one closes their eyes..." I'm torn between hilarity, disgust, and a certain amount of jealousy that I didn't come up with that as a snippet of dialogue. The Internet giveth and the Internet taketh away, I suppose, although I still managed a few movies to make up for my culinary negligence.
Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (2008): I'd meant to see this when it came out, and now I can't remember the reason for my initial enthusiasm. Teen movie? Taunting "middle America" for not living in New York? A toothachingly twee indie soundtrack? Speaking of the latter, Michael Cera? It was almost like Nick and Norah's was begging me not to watch it. I wasn't reassured by the opening scenes, featuring a notebook covered with logos for bands who probably got way too much time on WCBN. Fortunately, it's not that bad, with some pleasant performances that lift it slightly above the pack. Nick (Michael Cera) is dumped by his girlfriend Tris (Alexis Dziena), and turns to his gay bandmates for support. Norah (Kat Dennings), a fan of Nick's band and his mixes that Tris routinely throws in the garbage (she doesn't know that the musician and mixer are one and the same), tries to keep a level head while looking after her wild chum Caroline (Ari Graynor). In the course of a mad night in search of a secret show put on by the mysterious Fluffy (some doubtlessly god-awful Vampire Weekend clone), Nick and Norah come together despite the obstacles thrown in their path. The big story here is Dennings, whose remarkable performance as Norah manages to completely sidestep the various stereotypes the aughties have thrown up for young women (in particular the egregious "manic pixie dream-girl," most grotesquely essayed by Natalie Portman in Garden State) and who really creates something all her own; there's a scene (and particularly one shot) in a recording studio in which she's absolutely breathtaking. Cera's a happy surprise, eschewing the lovable indie dork persona from Arrested Development, Juno and Superbad to show some genuine, non-"ironic" charm (hopefully the fact that he drives a yellow Yugo is some kind of purposeful, Lady Gaga-like exaggeration of hipster pretension meant as mockery). Graynor is hilarious, perfecting the drunk party girl wandering the streets of Manhattan to such an extent (in some pretty gross sequences), that it's hard to believe it all wasn't really happening (something tells me it's pretty hard to convincingly fake that kind of soused abandon). The bandmates, in making it their mission to bring Nick and Norah together, come dangerously close to whatever gay equivalent exists of the "magic Negro" phenomenon, but there have been many worse jobs. Maybe the most interesting job is done by Dziena, who's given the cartoonish "mean girl" to play but who seems to be straining at the bit to subvert it at every opportunity; it creates some compellingly weird character interactions. There are some great cameos (Andy Samberg, Kevin Corrigan) and some lame ones (Devendra Banhart), and who should show up at one point but Bishop Allen, led by Justin Rice of Mutual Appreciation fame! I've only spent one night as an adult in New York, but based on that admittedly slim experience, Nick and Norah's comes closer to recapturing my personal impressions of the city than any other of the eight bajillion flicks set there (probably doesn't hurt that at least one scene's clearly set in St. Mark's Place in the East Village, where I spent a wonderful few hours with friends at the Grassroots Tavern). Some interesting photography and images help to make a difference, too, creating a Manhattan that's at once both fantasy and all too real, a paradox the two central characters seem to be living in their growing relationship.
Jinnah (1998): Sir Christopher Lee, judging from some of the interviews he's given since the late 1990s, might be very satisfied if you remembered him as Count Dooku from those "Star Wars" "movies" or as Saruman from the Lord of the Rings trilogy, rather than from the record-breaking number of other films in which he's appeared over the years (to my knowledge, he's still listed in the Guinness Book as the actor with the most credits to his name). Of them, he's primarily remembered for his several iconic performances as Dracula for the Hammer films of the 1950s-70s and is just as primarily pissed off because of it (I don't blame him, to be honest, as he was a bit crap in them)*. Fortunately, along with some of the dubious big-budget stuff he landed in his twilight years, he found a role that he apparently prizes as one of his finest, and I'm tempted to agree. Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1876-1948), lawyer, politician, and primary founder of Pakistan, was seen in Attenborough's Gandhi (1982) as a vaguely unsavory figure, allowing his oversensitivity to the minority status faced by Indian Muslims to sabotage the chances of a fully independent India that included the entire territory of the British Raj, essentially both India and Pakistan. Considering the shared, frequently fraught history of the two nations since then (not to mention the latter's problematic present relations with the United States), with three, arguably four wars fought since the tragedy of Partition in 1947, and the frequent discussion of Pakistan as a "failed state" in the Western media, it's hard not to feel a certain amount of wistfulness at the thought that the potential of a fundamentally free and open state, the most populous such in the world, could have been an even greater and more powerful force had it not split into two. It's a view that gains a lot of purchase in Jinnah, which centers around the curious conceit of the recently deceased Jinnah in a heavenly waiting room (heaven just upgraded to computers--there's a great shot of the classic "flying toaster" screensaver that instantly made me as nostalgic for the 1990s as, say, listening to Lush), attended by the celestial Narrator (a jovial Shashi Kapoor), who takes Jinnah through his life's formative experiences and later triumphs and failures to determine just where he fits into history. The whole thing has a slightly didactic feel to it but gets across much of the history quite well--Jinnah's early Westernized upbringing, his youthful romance with a beautiful Parsee (a radiant young Indira Varma), his rise to power in the Indian National Congress and later the Muslim League, and his dealings with and suspicions of Jawaharlal Nehru (Robert Ashby) and Lord Mountbatten (James Fox). His relationship with Gandhi (Sam Dastor) is perhaps the most interesting, as his attachment to Western lifeways as well as political ideals ran athwart Gandhi's often stubborn mysticism. All in all, it's a much more evenhanded portrayal of the situation than in the later portions of Attenborough's Gandhi--though sympathetic, Jinnah isn't let off the hook, with his own stubbornness contributing to the deteriorating political situation up to independence and problems in his personal life, as his daughter Dina ironically falls in love with a Parsee and he opposes the marriage. There are a couple of bravura scenes in the afterlife, once when he tries Lord Mountbatten in a celestial court for primarily contributing to the bloodshed of Partition through slothful action, and when he confronts Nehru and Gandhi in a heavenly television studio as they watch scenes of Hindu mobs attacking Muslims in the late 90s India of the BJP ("you realize these are the same people who killed me," Gandhi reminds him as Jinnah becomes self-righteous on his Hindu colleagues' responsibility for the violence). There were understandable complaints raised on the issue of European actors portraying Asians during the movie's production, but the portrayal on all sides seems to be quite respectful and fair (maybe a little too much). All in all, it's definitely good for learning (or being inspired to learn) more on South Asian history, and a fine late feather for Lee's cap.
Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog (2008): Joss Whedon's brilliantly creative musical web series was probably the biggest thing to come out of the Hollywood writer's strike a few years back, and it was fun to follow its progress through outlets like Entertainment Weekly (my chief guilty pleasure, despite/because of Owen Glieberman and Lisa Schwarzbaum's godawful film reviews, of which I've complained in the past). Dr. Horrible (Neil Patrick Harris), a two-bit "supervillain," is anxious to get into the prestigious Evil League of Evil rather than settle for the "Henchman's Union," as his chum Moist (The Big Bang Theory's Simon Helberg) advises. His plans, naturally, are threatened by his archenemy Captain Hammer (Nathan Fillion), and so he sets to work on the ultimate weapon. Against all odds, though, his latest heist is interrupted by his longtime laundromat crush Penny (Felicia Day). Can he juggle business and pleasure, become a supervillain, and win Penny from the squeaky-clean clutches of Captain Hammer? It's a good, slightly unclean hoot, with winning performances all round. This is hardly a surprise from Harris and Fillion, who could probably do this kind of thing in their sleep (but, to their credit, do not). Whedon, too, honed his musical chops on the now-iconic Buffy all-singing episode "Once More With Feeling" (2001).** One happy surprise was Day, who I didn't think I'd seen in anything before, but who turned out to have played one of the apprentice Slayers in the final season of Buffy. She not only more than holds her own against her co-stars, but also wrote and starred in the web series The Guild, on which more later. The writing is often laugh-out-loud funny, with some slightly lame gags balanced out with immortal moments (the end of one laundromat exchange between Harris and Fillion in particular). One thing I noticed again is how foreign Whedon's California always looks to me; I can't explain it. The same thing happened with Buffy, especially, I think, with "Once More With Feeling." The most extravagant "Old Hollywood" productions don't manage to make it seem as faraway and dreamlike as Joss Whedon does. Mind you, I was there for a week several years ago, and my memories are mysteriously hazy. That should be a compliment, I think; I greatly admire his work in general, after all. Whatever the case, it adds an extra level to these films and shows that enriches them for me if for nobody else.
*His Lord Summerisle in The Wicker Man (1973), though in my opinion not quite up to the late Edward Woodward's brilliant turn as Sergeant Howie, is apparently his favorite role, and I'm very fond of his Rochefort in the Richard Lester Musketeers films (1973-74). As far as Hammer is concerned, he's outstanding in their "pirate films" of the early 1960s: The Pirates of Blood River (1962) and The Devil-Ship Pirates (1964), the latter an interesting backdating of the Nazi takeover dreaded during the war (that showed up in classic British sci-fi TV like 1955's Quatermass II and the 1964 Doctor Who classic "The Dalek Invasion of Earth") to post-Spanish Armada England. One of his weirdest roles (and he's very good) is in the 1981 US TV oddity Goliath Awaits, about a sunk 1940s luxury liner in which the crew and passengers have not only survived but created an alternate society. Avoid the Jess Franco Fu Manchu "films" of the 1960s at all costs.
**It's hard to overestimate the effect--on several levels--the duet between Alyson Hannigan and Amber Benson had on me. Arguably one of the all-time sexiest moments on TV.
Updated: 25 February 2010 10:15 AM EST
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