We’re back!!

Sammy says as soon as she wakes up from her rash of recent museum excursions, she’s ready to share what she’s seen… but for now, she hit the snooze button until brunch…

From Cook Pu to Oscar Nom in 5 easy years….

It’s been an interesting Oscar nominating season with some fantastic advance screenings & a few infuriating ones as well.

Alexander Payne just never lets me down… with films that look at the human element and the way that people relate to each other and themselves.

In his latest film, Downsizing, a kind of modern sci-fi version of Gullivers travels, he looks at a slew of issues including class, cast, power, the environment, love and people. With his choice of cast of Matt Damon, Christoph Waltz, and Hong Chau, this ultimate road trip movie really worked for me.

While it’s all about Paul Safronek’s journey as portrayed by Damon, Hong Chau pulls in a solid performance as Ngoc Lan Tran, a Vietnamese dissident, that at first seems like a stereotypical immigrant character. Chau’s interpretation gives depth to the role, with a nuanced, emotional and comedic interpretation.

She’s come such a long way since her tiny day player role on How I Met Your Mother 5 years ago as a Chinese student named Cook Pu in Ted’s architecture class. The role was limited to just a few words spoken by a stereotypical meek Asian female student: her character kept trying to convince Ted that she was a real student in his class and not a made up childish prank of a name – Cook Pu.

As many an actor knows, you take any gig you can when you are starting out, especially if it’s on a hit tv sitcom. You give it 100% and try to make the role as human as possible, and that’s what Chau did with Cook Pu. She does it again with the role of Vietnamese dissident Ngoc Lan Tran in Downsizing and I think she’s just as strong as Kate Winslet is in Wonder Wheel. Funny thing is that Winslet addressed this issue of roles & scripts a few weeks ago during the Q&A for Wonder Wheel at an advance screening I attended downtown.

During one of the most spirited and animated Q&As I’ve seen in a long time, Winslet spoke about acting in the script, and how her job is finding the character in what may or not be a great script. Both she & Jim Belushi spoke about how many times an actor has to create a role when the writing isn’t quite there ( think of Cook Pu & try to find the humanity in that…!). Winslet, Belushi & Justin Timberlake then went on to discuss how Woody Allen is an actor’s auteur, writing a script that allows the actor to create a fully-fleshed, nuanced character with depth. They all had their own hilarious Woody impersonations, but they all agreed his writing worked for them as actors, and that he would go back to the page to rewrite a scene if it wasn’t working for them.

Jim belushi’s intensity in the film really surprised me, as well. He commented on his past experience as an actor in sketch tv, and how he reached for the emptiness in his role as Humpty, comparing the character to the broken quality & emptiness of the famous egg that sat on a wall. For Belushi, Wonder Wheel felt like working on Playhouse 90. This hit the nail on the head for me, as I felt the film had a very theatrical, filmed-theatre-production vibe throughout. Belushi’s ability to let go emotionally came through in scene after scene.

Winslet, meanwhile, tore it up as a middle aged woman whose life was not what she hoped it would be. With two incredible, heart wrenching monologues about the turns life takes, I can’t see Winslet not getting an Oscar nom, even though I am quite ambivalent about the film itself.

Why is that? While I hope Winslet gets that Oscar nom, I am not bowled over by woody allen’s need to insult Italian Americans with ethnic slurs in a movie that was pretty lily white with only 1 other mention of ethnicity at all, the full name of woody’s stand in character, Mickey Rubin. He chooses to insult the ethnicity of a small time hood that he names Frank Adano ( the only other fully named, albeit unseen, character in the film) instead of insulting the character’s criminality. Allen uses the archaic but no less insulting terms “gR$&3%ball” and “gutter g*^!?#” instead of using non-ethnic choices like “gutter thug”, for example. A non-italian colleague of mine commented that the slur is appropriate since the film takes places in the 1950s but he failed to notice that there is no other negative mention of race in the film at all. Now, we’re not talking Tarantino’s pointed use of language to portray the evil of slaves owners or of nazi murderers.

we’re talking about lazy, petty writing. Can you imagine the use of k$)!, s?$3!, N:?)7&, or s>#~, by a filmmaker & writer as heralded as Allen is in referring to Jewish, Asian, African American, or Latino characters? Not in today’s world, not unless he’s looking for his films to be boycotted.

So it’s surprising that Allen couldn’t be more creative in his choice of words in describing Humpty’s unseen son-in-law. The use of other racial epithets doesn’t occur to Allen in his films, so why this lazy, glaringly isolated use of slurs against Italian Americans? We all would have been better served if he insulted the criminal & not the ethnic background of his character. Such a dinosaur, un-PC move in a very PC climate by Woody Allen disappoints but sadly, doesn’t surprise me.

Booze, Books & Bocce!

Sooo much to talk about these past few weeks I don’t know where to start- some great film Q&As in LA & NY  ( including hell or high water & arrival), the soft opening of Barnes & Noble kitchen in my backyard ( I love #food&film but #boozeBooks&bocce is right up there! ) & Oliver Sacks’ thoughtful & oh so timely little gem, GRATITUDE. 

So, let me finish the post-Thanksgiving clean-up, get my holiday lights up & get back here to hash it all out. 

Sicario: War on drugs…shot for the Oscars

Where to begin with Sicario?
How I wasn’t prepared for such a rough ride…to be thrown back to the Middle Ages, where warlords hung & quartered their enemies, leaving the bodies to rot in public as a warning against any possible dissenters?
How I was blown away by Tom Ozanich’s tremendous sound design -wave after wave of silence and terror that propels you through the film the way a helicopter envelopes you in it’s rolling attacks of rising suspense?
How Roger Deakins’ camera work sucked me into a world that I shudder to think of as existing? How his beautifully fluid long tracking shot through what would otherwise be a house of horrors at the opening of the film is just a sweet, sweet taste of the visual candy, like the aerial shots of the no man’s land along the border between the US & Juarez, that is crammed into this technical delight of film making, kept me simultaneously entranced and repelled by Northern Mexico’s drug infested existence?

Or maybe I should focus on a really interesting story, one that looks at the effects of an industry that is the result of American demand for illegal substances? Josh Brolin, in the Q & A after this evening’s screening of the film in Manhattan, mentioned his interest in the topic. He’s read Don Winslow’s book, The Cartel, and he spoke about the documentary film, Cartel Land ( see the trailer

Gena Rowlands – insight into indie film

@genarowlands at screening of her film, 6 Dances in 6 Weeks. She is amazing! Gracious, talented & ever so kind! pic.twitter.com/7zZwf99jQa

— val franco (@ProfValFranco) November 7, 2014

Gravity & Nebraska: Limits, Universes & Universals

Watching screeners and attending Oscars & SAG awards Q & A sessions the past 2 months have had me unwittingly curate some very strange double features for my viewing pleasure. After watching Gravity & then jumping into Nebraska one night, it seemed like the running theme that week somehow ended up being about parents & the way we live our lives -either because of them, despite them, or as them.

I went from the grand scope of Gravity, where the intimacy & immediacy of death is played out by Sandra Bullock’s character in the vastness of the universe, to the much smaller canvas of a father/son road trip crossing state lines while exploring mental & emotional states.

While seemingly so different, both films shared the exploration of purpose & being. They both look at the questions of existence & use of life, forcing the viewer to ponder who we are & why our lives make a difference? Gravity asks why continue to fight for your life when you feel alone -when your reason to exist as parent is gone – why continue to age? Nebraska seems to ask not just how we age in society but how do our roles as children allow our parents to age? At an age when many people struggle with mid-life crisis issues & ideas of identity & self-acceptance, are we good caregivers of others? Are we good at helping others to age with dignity?

I couldn’t help but love the comparison between these two films & I’m glad I did them back to back. The incredible sound & special effects work of Gravity- where perception constantly shifts from the exterior to the interior, the limitlessness of space to the hyper close area within a space helmet & the reflection captured on the surface of an eye contrasts the endless vistas of the simple road trip and Americana of the American experience in Nebraska while both films tackle the limits & expanse of the mind & heart.

Slow & simple: weeping camels & Kentucky fried chicken

In a world where new is better & faster is the best, I have been captivated by several films that take their time to open up like a red wine that breathes & expands after it is uncorked. The German-Mongolian co-production The story of the Weeping Camel looks at the connection between the Mongolian people and their domesticated Bactrian camel herds. One family goes through great lengths to develop the missing bond between mother camel & newborn calf. Along the way, this 2003 docudrama shares with us the respect and love that this herding family feels for their animals, as well as for each other.

Meanwhile, 2002 saw South Korea create a story pitting city against country, excess against minimalism, grandson against grandmother. With a minimum of dialogue & set in an unforgiving but beautiful rural mountain village, The Way Home also takes a gentle look at the importance of familial bonds & maternal love. Like The Giving Tree in Shel Silverstein’s 1964 children’s book of the same name, the grandmother gives of herself repeatedly for the selfish boy under her care. Gently unwinding, the film guides us as we develop affection & respect for the grandmother (intuitively portrayed by a 76 year old non-actress) and an unexpected tenderness & understanding for her self-centered grandson.

These two films complement each other so well in their messages of intergenerational & interspecies love and respect. Grab a bottle of wine. Shut off your cell phone. Watch this peaceful & joyous double header.

Defenestration & Monsieur Lazhar

Monsieur Lazhar: (major spoiler alert!!!) I can’t help but be moved every time I listen to little Victor matter-of-factly tell his classmates that his grandfather threw himself out of the window after being tortured in Chile. The acceptance & casual sharing of such a tragic & profound event belies the fact that he has thought it about in a way that is textured by his parents’ point-of-view. In contrast, Bashir’s reassurance of Simon’s innocence in his teacher Martine’s suicide parallels Bashir’s own need for reassurance regarding his culpability in his own wife’s death. Such a gentle, lovely way to look at how our actions always affect those around us and how we should never shy away from leaping in where solace is needed.

Gravity & Nebraska: Limits, Universes & Universals

Watching screeners and attending Oscars & SAG awards Q & A sessions the past 2 months have had me unwittingly curate some very strange double features for my viewing pleasure. After watching Gravity & then jumping into Nebraska one night, it seemed like the running theme that week somehow ended up being about parents & the way we live our lives -either because of them, despite them, or as them.

I went from the grand scope of Gravity, where the intimacy & immediacy of death is played out by Sandra Bullock’s character in the vastness of the universe, to the much smaller canvas of a father/son road trip crossing state lines while exploring mental & emotional states.

While seemingly so different, both films shared the exploration of purpose & being. They both look at the questions of existence and use of life, forcing the viewer to ponder who we are & why our lives make a difference? Gravity asks why continue to fight for your life when you feel alone -when your reason to exist as parent is gone – why continue to age? Nebraska seems to ask not just how we age in society but how do our roles as children allow our parents to age? At an age when many people struggle with mid-life crisis issues & ideas of identity & self-acceptance, are we good caregivers of others? Are we good at helping others to age with dignity?

I couldn’t help but love the comparison between these two films & I’m glad I did them back to back. The incredible sound & special effects work of Gravity- where perception constantly shifts from the exterior to the interior, the limitlessness of space to the hyper close area within a space helmet & the reflection captured on the surface of an eye contrasts the endless vistas of the simple road trip and Americana of the American experience in Nebraska while both films tackle the limits & expanse of the mind & heart.