Butler's Cinema Scene

“THE FACE OF LOVE”: Performance trumps pretentiousness

March 27, 2014 by butlerscinemascene

Ed Harris, Annette Bening

“THE FACE OF LOVE” My rating: B- (Opening March 28 at the Rio)

92 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

Great performances can trump great pretentiousness.

That’s the story on “The Face of Love,” an eye-rollingly improbable yarn that, thanks to some very fine acting and terrific dialogue, rises above its contrivances and gets under your skin.

In the opening moments of Arie Posin’s film we get scenes from the life of married couple Nikki (Annette Bening) and Garrett (Ed Harris). Theirs appears to be a perfect relationship…although we may be getting an overly rosy view.

Because before too long Garrett drowns while vacationing at a Mexican resort and Nikki is left to rebuild her life. Those flashbacks may represent her idealized view of her marriage.

Five years later Nikki is visiting an L.A. art musuem when she spots a man who looks exactly like Garrett (Harris again). At first she’s stunned, then curious.

She returns to the museum hoping to see him again, then begins stalking him. Discovering that the man — his name is Tom — teaches art at a local college, she approaches him about taking some private art lessons. One thing leads to another and soon they’re dating — although Nikki never lets Tom know that he’s her late husband’s doppelganger.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Annette Bening, Ed Harris, Robin Williams | Leave a Comment »

HOLLYWOOD’s GREATEST YEAR: “DESTRY RIDES AGAIN”

March 23, 2014 by butlerscinemascene

James Stewart as Tom Destry Jr.

“Destry Rides Again” screens at 1:30 p.m. Saturday, March 29, 2014 in the Durwood Film Vault of the Kansas City Central Library, 14W. 10th St. Admission is free. It’s part of the year-long film series Hollywood’s Greatest Year, featuring movies released in 1939.

Max Brand’s 1930 novel Destry Rides Again is about a short-tempered cowboy who is framed for a robbery, sent to prison, and upon his release goes gunning for the crooked jurors who put him away.

It’s pretty grim stuff.

Which is exactly the opposite of the 1939 film version directed by George Marshall and written by Felix Jackson, Gertrude Purcell, and Henry Myers.

In many regards, “Destry Rides Again” is a boilerplate oater. A crooked gambler (Brian Donlevy) runs the town of Bottleneck with his gang of thugs, abetted by his barroom singer girlfriend, Frenchy (Marlene Dietrich). That is, they run things until a new deputy sheriff named Tom Destry (James Stewart) arrives to set things straight.

Okay, so that’s not terribly original plotting.

But “Destry” is a hugely enjoyable film for one reason: James Stewart in the title role.

When he made this movie, Stewart was just starting to move up from the ranks of supporting actors to star status. “Destry” represents the first time most moviegoers had been immersed in the actor’s trademark aw-shucks comic style, and they fell hard for the lanky actor.

Without Stewart, this film would be pretty weak tea. The movie only really comes alive 30 minutes in when Destry makes his first appearance. From that point on it’s all smooth sailing.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Destry Rides Again, james stewart, Marlene Dietrich | Leave a Comment »

“STAY”: December-May love

March 21, 2014 by butlerscinemascene

Aiden Quinn, Taylor Schilling

“STAY” My rating: C+ (OpeningMarch 21 at the Glenwood South)

99 minutes | No MPAA rating

“Stay” is a well-acted, minor-key Irish love story that is probably too minor-key for its own good.

Dermot (Aidan Quinn) is a sixtysomething retired history professor now living in a small burg on the coast near Galway, Ireland. As “Stay” begins, he’s happily cohabiting with Abby (Taylor Schilling, star of Showtime’s prison dramedy “Orange Is the New Black”), a woman half his age.

All seems blissful until Abby realizes she’s preggers. Dermot has never hidden his antipathy toward fatherhood and Abby’s condition aggravates whatever cracks are in their relationship.

She heads back home to Montreal and her blue-collar father (Michael Ironside) to decide whether to have an abortion or go through with the pregnancy.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Aiden Quinn, Taylor Schilling | Leave a Comment »

“BLOOD TIES”: Brothers in crime

March 20, 2014 by butlerscinemascene

Clive Owen, Billy Crudup

“BLOOD TIES” My rating: C (Opening March 21 at the Leawood)

127 minutes | MPAA rating: R

The crime drama “Blood Ties” has a hell of a pedigree.

The cast boasts of Clive Owen, Marion Cotillard, Billy Crudup, Mina Kunis, Zoe Saldana, James Caan and Lili Taylor. Behind the camera is the French director Guillaume Canet, whose 2006 “Tell No One” was one of the most satisfying thrillers of recent years.

And yet the movie is a mutt.

Marion Cotillard

Okay, so maybe that’s a bit extreme. “Blood Ties” is competent. It’s just totally uninspired. There’s more oomph in five minutes of, say, “Goodfellas,” than in two hours of this effort.

The setup isn’t exactly original. Two brothers. One is a cop. The other is a crook.

Chris (Clive Owen) is finally released from prison after doing time for murder. He’s greeted at the gates by his sister (Lili Taylor) and younger brother Frank (Billy Crudup), an NYPD detective. They take Chris home for a reunion with their dying father (James Caan).

Chris claims he wants to go straight, but he has lots of baggage to deal with. His ex-wife, Monica (Marion Cotillard) is a call girl and periodic junkie. She has managed to raise their two kids, who are now young teens and virtual strangers to Chris. But she wants money, lots of it.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Billy Crudup, Clive Owen, James Caan, Lili Taylor, Marion Cotillard, Mila Kunis, Zoe Saldana | Leave a Comment »

“THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL”: Where’s Waldo in a layer cake

March 20, 2014 by butlerscinemascene

Ralph Fiennes in Wes Anderson’s “The Grand Budapest Hotel”

“THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL” My rating: B (Opens wide on March 21)

100 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Wes Anderson’s “The Grand Budapest Hotel” is a whopper of a shaggy dog story – or more accurately, it’s a series of shaggy dog stories that fit neatly inside one another like one of those painted Russian dolls.

The film’s yarn-within-a-yarn structure and a delightfully nutty perf from leading man Ralph Fiennes are the main attractions here. I had hoped that “Grand Budapest…” would scale the same emotional heights as Anderson’s last effort, the captivating “Moonrise Kingdom.”

It doesn’t. But there’s still plenty to relish here.

Describing the film requires a flow chart. But here goes:

In the present in a former Eastern Bloc country, a young woman visits the grave of a dead author and begins reading his book The Grand Budapest Hotel.

Suddenly we’re face to face with the writer (Tom Wilkinson), who is sitting at the desk in his study. After a few introductory comments and a brusque cuffing of a small boy who is proving a distraction, the author begins telling us the plot of his novel.

Now we’re in the 1990s in the formerly sumptuous but now dog-eared Grand Budapest hotel in the Eastern European alps. Staying there is a Young Writer (Jude Law) who befriends the mysterious Mr. Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham). An aged empresario who owns several of Europe’s most luxurious hotels, Moustafa keeps the Grand Budapest running for nostalgic reasons.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Adrien Brody, Bill Murray, Edweard Norton, F. Murray Abrham, Harvey Keitel, Jason Schnwartzman, Jeff Goldblum, Jude Law, Ralph Fiennes, Saoirse Ronan, Tilda Swingon, Tom Wilkinson, Wes Anderson, Willem Dafoe | 2 Comments »

HOLLYWOOD’s GREATEST YEAR: “UNION PACIFIC”

March 16, 2014 by butlerscinemascene

Barbara Stanwyk and Joel McRae in "Union Pacific"

Barbara Stanwyk and Joel McCrae in “Union Pacific”

“Union Pacific” screens at 1:30 p.m. Saturday, March 22, 2014 in the Durwood Film Vault of the Kansas City Central Library, 14W. 10th St. Admission is free. It’s part of the year-long film series Hollywood’s Greatest Year, featuring movies released in 1939.

Cecile B. DeMille didn’t do anything halfway.

To three generations of Americans his name was synonymous with big-screen epics, from his fabulously lurid depiction of the Roman games in Sign of the Cross (1932) to his crowning glory, The Ten Commandments (1956).

And his taste for excess didn’t end when his movies were completed. DeMille was a master publicist who, like a very few other directors of his day (D.W. Griffith and Alfred Hitchcock, come to mind), was considered as important a selling point as the plots and stars of his productions.

Consider the hoopla orchestrated for the premiere of his 1939 film “Union Pacific,” a big Western about the race to complete the first trans-continental railroad.

DeMille and his Paramount team centered the events not in Hollywood but in Omaha, Nebraska, the point from which the Union Pacific railroad began laying tracks westward in the years after the Civil War.

The film company unveiled the movie simultaneously at three different Omaha theaters on April 28, 1939, within days of the 70th anniversary of the driving of real golden spike which joined the rails of the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific in Utah in 1869.

It was all part of a four-day event called the Golden Spike Days Celebration. A quarter of a million visitors flooded Omaha for the various activities. The town’s population doubled overnight; the National Guard was called out to maintain order.

A special train brought DeMille and stars Barbara Stanwyck and Joel McCrea from Hollywood. It was a three-day trip with stops planned several times each day to allow the stars to address the gathered locals.

The celebration in Omaha began when President Franklin Roosevelt pushed a telegraph key at the White House, thus opening the city’s civic auditorium. There were parades, radio broadcasts, banquets.

It was described as the biggest movie premiere in history.

Did “Union Pacific” live up to the hype?

In its day, yes. Audiences loved the DeMille touch.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged "Union Pacific", Barbara Stanwyk, Cecil B. DeMille, Joel McCrea, Robert Preston | Leave a Comment »

“ELAINE STRITCH: SHOOT ME”

March 13, 2014 by butlerscinemascene

“ELAINE STRITCH: SHOOT ME” My rating: B+ (Opening March 7 at the Tivoli)

80 minutes | No MPAA rating

Elaine Stritch has long been a veteran of the Broadway stage, and for most of that time she’s been the object of cult adoration on a scale matched only by the fan mania surrounding Bernadette Peters.

Her trademarks: Brassiness, determination, a wicked sense of humor, a deep appreciation of the Broadway songbook. A friend describes her as “a Molotov cocktail of madness, sanity and genius.”

But at age 87, she’s on the downside of her career. That’s the sobering but weirdly uplifting message of Chiemi Karasawa’s documentary “Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me,” which mixes old footage of memorable Stritch performances with revelatory (often painfully so) cinema verite observations.

We first see Stritch wandering the streets of Manhattan, looking like a puff ball (she loves big animal fur coats – although it might be faux fur) striding on two skinny legs encased in black tights. (One acquaintance compares her to an ostrich.)

Passersby stop to tell her they’re fans. She sings a duet with the elevator operator in her residence hotel. She takes the compliments graciously, but turning away from the fans she’ll often look at the camera and roll her eyes.

Elaine Stritch is a tough old broad. But she’s a tough old broad on borrowed time, and she knows it. In many ways it’s her determination to say “screw you” to the years and forge ahead that makes her so…well, not loveable, exactly, but compelling.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Elaine Stritch | 2 Comments »

“ENEMY”: To thine own self be true…

March 12, 2014 by butlerscinemascene

Jake Gyllenhaal, meet Jake Gyllenhaal

“ENEMY” My rating: B (Opening March 21 at the Leawood )

90 minutes | MPAA rating: R

The old saw “He’s his own worst enemy” gets a new and disturbing twist in “Enemy,” a slowly-percolating thriller that finds Jake Gyllenhaal confronting his own doppelganger.

This is the second teaming up of actor Gyllenhaal and Canadian director Dennis Villeneuve. Last fall they had a modest mainstream hit with the kidnap drama “Prisoners.” “Enemy,” by contrast, is aimed squarely at the art house crowd.

Adapted by Javier Gullon from Jose Saramago’s novel , “Enemy” centers on Adam (Gyllenhaal), a Toronto history professor whose specialty is the methodology by which totalitarian states control their populations. Adam is a rather nondescript academic who only gets excited when delving into his favorite subject. At those times he seems borderline obsessed.

Adam seems to have little life off campus. He lives in a chilly, spartan apartment. He has a girlfriend, the cool blonde Mary (Melanie Laurent), but their relationship is less one of passion than of comfortable routine.

On the advice of a coworker, Adam rents a DVD of a period comedy, and is stunned to see himself as an extra, playing a bell hop in a 1920s hotel. A bit of research reveals the name of the actor, and suddenly Adam is consumed with finding out about his mystery double.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Jake Gyllenhaal | Leave a Comment »

HOLLYWOOD’s GREATEST YEAR: “JESSE JAMES”

March 9, 2014 by butlerscinemascene

Tyrone Power as Jesse, Jane Darwell as Ma James

“Jesse James” screens at 1:30 p.m. Saturday, March 15, 2014 in the Durwood Film Vault of the Kansas City Central Library, 14W. 10th St. Admission is free. It’s part of the year-long film series Hollywood’s Greatest Year, featuring movies released in 1939.

You don’t watch the Tyrone Power/Henry Fonda version of “Jesse James” for an accurate history lesson.

If you want something approaching realism in a depiction of the infamous James Gang, try 2007’s excellent “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” with Brad Pitt as the psychotic outlaw and Casey Affleck as the repellent little creep who shot him in the back.

Back in 1939, though, audiences were all about a romantic Jesse James, and this Henry King-directed Western delivered.

It’s highly selective in the story it tells. For example, it makes no mention of the James brothers’ background as ruthless Confederate guerrillas during the Civil War. Rather, Jesse (Power) and Frank (Fonda) are presented as simple farm folk (albeit good with guns) who turn to violence when a brutish agent for the railroad attempts to seize their land – and kills their mother with a bomb.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged henry fonda, Jesse James, Tyrone Power | Leave a Comment »

“STRANGER BY THE LAKE”:

March 6, 2014 by butlerscinemascene

“STRANGER BY THE LAKE” My rating: C+ (Opening March 7 at the Tivoli)

97 minutes | No MPAA rating

There are movies with gay characters, and then there are gay movies.

Writer/director Alain Guiraudie’s “Stranger By the Lake,” to its detriment, falls into the latter category.

Guiraudie is nothing if not ambitious. Here he has created an erotic thriller about a young man who falls for a hunky fellow whom he knows is a murderer. Alfred Hitchcock’s fingerprints are all over this tale of sexual obsession, and Guiraudie’s distinctive presentational style has its source in Antonioni’s 1966 headscratcher “Blow-Up.”

The film contains a great deal of casual male nudity — which is no big deal. But the enterprise is very nearly derailed by several hardcore sex scenes — the full stand-up-and-salute monty — which work against the eerie mood Guiraudie is trying so hard to create. At this point “Stranger By the Lake” stops being a thriller populated by gay characters and becomes a gay movie, one geared to satisfy the sexual voyeurism of the gay audience.

(I’m not picking on gay cinema. If the relationship depicted had been heterosexual it, too, would have trouble recovering from full-penetration porn moments.)

The entire movie unfolds during one summer week at a rural lake where gay men congregate. Franck (Pierre Deladonchamps) is a pleasant young guy out cruising for a bit of action. He makes the acquaintance of the oddball Henri (Patrick d’Assumcao), a fat, sad-sack straight guy who sits apart from everyone else like a contemplative Buddha. But Franck’s real interest is in Michel (Chrisophe Paou), a moustachioed Adonis who is dealing with a very clingy and jealous boyfriend.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

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Butler's Cinema Scene

Movie criticism taking the long view

“THE FACE OF LOVE”: Performance trumps pretentiousness

HOLLYWOOD’s GREATEST YEAR: “DESTRY RIDES AGAIN”

“STAY”: December-May love

“BLOOD TIES”: Brothers in crime

“THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL”: Where’s Waldo in a layer cake

HOLLYWOOD’s GREATEST YEAR: “UNION PACIFIC”

“ELAINE STRITCH: SHOOT ME”

“ENEMY”: To thine own self be true…

HOLLYWOOD’s GREATEST YEAR: “JESSE JAMES”

“STRANGER BY THE LAKE”:

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