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Posts Tagged ‘Robert Budreau’

“STOCKHOLM”: Dim bulb afternoon

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on April 25, 2019| Leave a Comment »

Ethan Hawke, Noomi Rapace

“STOCKHOLM” My rating: B- 

92 minutes | MPAA rating: R

On a sunny day in 1973 a man wearing a ridiculous disguise — black leather jacket with a Texas flag on the back, cowboy boots and hat, long-haired wig and sunglasses — walks into a Stockholm bank, pulls a machine gun from his bag, has everyone lie down and tunes a portable radio to a Bob Dylan song.

So begins Robert Budreau’s “Stockholm,” a riff on a real 1973 incident in which a couple of not-terribly-bright lowlifes held a handful of bank employees hostage for several days before finally being overwhelmed by the cops.  To survive their ordeal the hostages bonded with their captors…a situation now described by the term “Stockholm syndrome.”

The idiot in the cowboy getup is Kaj, and he’s portrayed by Ethan Hawke with a curious sort of dim-bulb charisma. Waffling between cockiness and panic, he demands that the authorities free his best bud Gunnar (Mark Strong) from prison and deliver him to the bank.

Kai also wants $1 million and a Ford Mustang getaway car…he specifies that it be just like the one Steve McQueen drove in ” Bullitt.”

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“BORN TO BE BLUE”: Blue-eyed jazz

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on April 14, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Ethan Hawke as Chet Baker

Ethan Hawke as Chet Baker

“BORN TO BE BLUE” My rating: B

97 minutes | MPAA rating: R

We are introduced to musician Chet Baker (Ethan Hawke) in a filthy jail cell. He’s lying on the concrete floor in a fetal position, sweat pouring off him, surrounded by cigarette butts. He seems to be going through heroin withdrawl.

So we know from the getgo that “Born to Be Blue,” Canadian filmmaker Robert Budreau’s feature about the “James Dean of jazz,” is going to be a rough ride.

Trumpeter/vocalist Baker (1929-1988) is famed as the inventor of West Coast swing. He is also the very model of the white junkie jazz genius, his main competition for the title being the late Art Pepper.

“Born to Be Blue” isn’t a formal biopic. Rather, writer/director Bureau attempts something like Todd Hayne’s Bob Dylan-themed “I’m Not There.” Think of it as a fantasia on the life and loves of a terrific musician who was also a deeply flawed individual.

The junkie jazzman is hardly a new cinematic concept, but “Born…” benefits from what may be Hawke’s strongest performance. Chet Baker was a handsome, charismatic charmer who, when he wasn’t creating great music, was battling demons.

Watching Hawke’s work here, we realize why people were drawn to Baker, and why most eventually bailed.

The film begins in 1954 with the young Chet playing New York City, pursued by swooning bobbysoxers and desperate to earn the approval of his idols and competitors, Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie.

In this black-and-white segment he picks up a beautiful black woman and takes her to his hotel suite, where she turns him on to heroin. Their buzz is interrupted when the woman (Carmen Ejogo, the Brit who played Coretta Scott King in “Selma”) breaks character and accuses Chet of ignoring their dialogue and improvising.

 

 

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