If you tend to believe in conspiracy theories, this film is for you. Set in communist East Germany in 1984, the Stasi is the local espionage agency, the big brother government that walks quietly before swinging the big stick. It’s not a stretch to see how the post 9/11 mindset in the US and the laws that it ushered in are not as far from East Germany as we’d like to think. This film richly deserved its Oscar for Best Foreign Film. 

Not your usual slickly made spy thriller with lots of flash and dash, The Lives of Others nonetheless brings suspense that most films only dream of.  

A Stasi Captain observes playwright Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch of Black Book) in his theatrical element and decides that the writer is arrogant. The combination of his artistic freedom and his romance with Christa-Maria Sieland (Martina Gedeck of The Good Shepherd) makes Dreyman an enemy of the state. In our current environment, we expect and accept to a degree, the untold number of cameras on streets and buildings to monitor our movements. We are willing to give up our privacy for “security.” The Stasi operation invaded the privacy of homes and offices. Recording devices made sure that “searches” were executed without a search warrant or your knowledge. 

The soul of the film rests with Captain Wiesler (Ulrich Muhe) as he listens, records data, and passes along the essence of what is going on in Dreyman’s home. Wiesler is anal and loyal to the state¾a true bureaucrat. But something about what the state is doing, and what he comes to believe about Dreyman, causes Wiesler to make decisions that could have devastating results for him. Wiesler could be declared a traitor and at a minimum he would lose his exciting job in exchange for something menial. 

The acting in the film is exceptional, in both the main and supporting cast. As in real life, the characters here prove that even people who are in your life for a short time can have a major impact.  

With just an edge of melodrama, The Lives of Others is able to walk the fine line between over the top and the uncomfortable feel of reality.   

Ira & Abby

Jennifer Westfeldt of Kissing Jessica Stein co wrote and stars in this film, a sharp witted screwball comedy with the energy of an I Love Lucy TV episode (not meant as a left handed compliment). 

Preview trailers on middling movies tend to show the best the film has to offer, which is not the case here. The previews on Ira and Abby give the impression that this is a one-note comedy about opposites who attract into a quick marriage destined to fail. While that’s true, it’s just the jumping off point for not only the relationship of Ira and Abby, but that of their parents as well. One set of parents is the example of a terrible marriage and the other the perfect one. Of course, neither is what it seems and as the audience along with Abby (Jennifer Westfeldt) and Ira (Chris Messina) slowly come to learn, their relationship is impacted in ways one could never project. 

Abby is quirky. Not only is she impulsive, but she does not tell Ira about her two prior failed marriages. She has a personality so engaging that she can emotionally connect with a subway robber that has a gun in her face. At the age of 33, Ira is so confused that he has trouble ordering lunch without changing his mind multiple times. Take these things, add in a multi-layered twist of psychiatry, and the film is warm, engaging and hilarious. 

Even the ending has a twist with the three couples that is New York City realistic.  

 Freaks

Freaks is one of the most shocking, disturbing and unconventional films of the 1930s. It’s usually classified as a horror film, but it also includes elements of romance, suspense, and dark comedy. It’s also one of the most convincing portrayals of carnival life ever (up until the unlikely but macabre ending). 

Freaks is a loose adaptation of the short story “Spurs,” which can be found at http://www.olgabaclanova.com/spurs.htm. In the short story the main character is much less sympathetic than in the film, and he is even hated by his fellow carnival workers. In the movie, Hans is completely innocent and benevolent, at least initially. 

The film is part of Rusty Nails’ 24-hour annual horror film marathon, The Music Box Massacre, at the Music Box Theater, 3733 North Southport in Chicago.

This film was extremely influential in the pop music world, and rock musicians have often seen the deformed characters as proud, self- sufficient emblems of difference.  

The Ramones even wrote the song “Pinhead” about one of the characters in the film, and they sometimes had people dress up like a pinhead in concert. David Bowie also directly referred to the film in the lyrics for his song, “Diamond Dogs.”  

Evidently, the film was considered too shocking when it first came out in 1932. It almost ruined the career of director Tod (Dracula) Browning, and it was banned in the U.K. for 30 years. It’s now considered a cult classic, and it is even in the United States Film Registry. 

One of the most interesting aspects of the film is the usual film polarities regarding beauty are reversed. The so-called “freaks” (always played by real sideshow people) are infinitely more moral and loyal then most of the “beautiful people” who turn out to be the real monsters.  

Tod Browning, the director, worked in a carnival before he was a filmmaker, which helps explain why his portrayal of circus performers was so sympathetic. 

The film revolves around an unlikely love triangle. Frieda is a female midget who is deeply in love with a little person named Hans. But Hans only has eyes for the duplicitous femme fatale, Cleopatra. Since she is normal sized, in his mind she represents a chance for him to embrace normalcy and prove he is a real man.  

When Cleopatra discovers that Hans is destined to inherit a fortune she marries him, and secretly continues her affair with the circus strong man. When the other performers find out about her evil plans she gets a ghastly comeuppance. 

In one of the most memorable scenes, at the wedding reception, the sideshow people chant “Gabba gabba. We accept her. One of us” to Cleopatra. These lines have been endlessly quoted in everything from “The Simpsons” to Bertolucci’s The Dreamers. Of course, the mean spirited Cleopatra spurns the offer of friendship, and throws everyone out.   

Aside from its horrific scenes, the movie is also oddly uplifting at times. It’s inspirational to see people with great physical deformities (such as missing limbs) acting self-sufficient and leading relatively normal lives.  

Freaks is still creepy to this day, and there is no other film like it (although some, such as She Freak have tried to imitate it). Every aficionado of the macabre needs to experience this uncanny cinematic classic at least once in order to become “one of us.” 

 I'm Not There

The great pop singer, Bob Dylan has had nearly as many seemingly contradictory personas or phases as Madonna or David Bowie.  He went from being a fake hobo folkie, to a left wing anti-war activist to a conservative, born again Christian, to a senior citizen journeyman rocker.  

I'm Not There is a mesmerizing biopic that actually uses different actors playing characters with different names, which correspond to Dylan's radical changes in appearance and musical style.  The changes are so drastic that it makes you question if there ever was a single stable, central Dylan personality. 

The film opens on Wednesday, November 21, 2007 at Landmark Century Theatre. 

I’m Not There is non-linear, and it jumps back and forth from one phase of Dylan’s life to another. Different actors portray him during several major events, such as his switch to electric instrumentation, his divorce, and his early rise in the folk scene. 

Believe it or not, Cate Blanchett makes the most convincing Dylan, and Richard Gere was the worse. But even Gere's performance works because he seems to be playing Dylan as a bad actor playing a Billy the Kid (of course Dylan played him in Peckinpah's fascinating flop Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid). 

Marcus Carl Franklin is the African American child actor who plays Dylan as a Woody Guthrie worshipper, who even calls himself “Woody.”  Even though this Dylan is bourgeois, he assumes the pose of a 40’s era hobo writing about antiquated subjects such as dust storms. A woman turns him around when she suggests that he should write about current events and what he knows. 

Heath Ledger is good as Robbie, an early Dylan persona who falls for a painter (a stand-in for the love of Dylan’s life, Sarah). In one scene, the couple poses in the same exact positions as the real Bob and Sarah Dylan on the “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan” album cover. 

Jude (Cate Blanchett in another Oscar worthy performance) is the mid ‘60s Dylan who was at the peak of his creativity. In one of the best moments he gets attacked by purist folkies (including a Pete Seeger look alike) when he plays with a rock band at a folk fest. This Dylan also crossed paths with many major ‘60s movers and shakers, such as the thinly disguised Beatles, and the beat poet Allen Ginsberg.  

Ben Whishsaw's performance is one of the most impressive. His character, Arthur is a combination of Dylan in his most rebellious period, and the French symbolist poet, Arthur Rimbaud (who is almost as much an icon in the poetry world as Dylan is in rock music). The film even quotes from a Rimbaud poem which relates to the theme of Dylan’s otherness or unknowability. 

Christian Bale is fascinating as Pastor John, representing Dylan when he was in his evangelical phase. Less interesting is Richard Gere as Billy (Dylan as a pseudo cowboy). I can’t always tell if Gere is intentionally playing a bad actor or if he is acting badly, but perhaps it doesn’t matter. 

The film has a great scene of one of the Dylan personas being carried off by a kite on his foot, which obviously represents the dangers in quick fame or overnight stardom.  

I’m Not There has some weak moments, and it is not as consistently satisfying as Scorsese's Dylan documentary, No Direction Home, but 3/4ths of the film is completely enthralling.  It’s certainly one of the more daring and experimental biopics ever made, and it gets extra points for the originality of its approach. 

 August Rush

It’s a magical, mystical ride through the turbulent young life of a musical prodigy, abandoned into the foster care system at birth, by his mother’s manipulative father.  

Young lovers who share a passion for music are thrown together for one romantic night. Lyla Novacek (Keri Russell, from Waitress) is a cellist, destined for concert hall greatness. Louis Connelly (Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Match Point and TVs “The Tudors”) is a standout guitarist in an Irish band, just about ready for a breakout. Lyla’s father will not let an upstart musician stand in the way of his daughter’s career, and he pushes her to leave the notion of love behind. 

Lyla discovers that she is pregnant and is determined to keep the baby, but when her son is born her father tells Lyla that the child died.

The boy (Freddie Highmore of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and later this year, The Golden Compass) sabotages every attempt to be adopted because he feels that his parents will come for him eventually¾and he wants to remain where he is so that they can find him. 

Every sound, every vibration is musical to this boy’s ears. Telephone wires hum a rhythm, and later in the film, New York’s noisy streets are a pure symphony. He’s run away and come to New York to find Richard Jeffries (Academy Award nominee Terrence Howard), a friendly social worker who visits the orphanage, and that he hopes can find his parents. 

It’s once he reaches New York that the boy is given the name August Rush, by a modern day version of Dickens’ character Fagin in “Oliver Twist,” named “Wizard” Wallace here (played by Oscar winner Robin Williams). Wizard heads up a group of young street musicians who hustle tips from passers by. He then takes his cut, of course. Wizard throws a bit of food the kids’ way and gives them a place to sleep in an abandoned theater. 

Wizard recognizes August’s tremendous talent, and he decides to cash in by booking appearances for the boy, for a percentage of the earnings. But fate has greater things in store for the musical prodigy. You must see what August experiences for the first time, and hear the beautiful musical score for this film, with original music by Mark Mancina. 

By this time, Louis has given up on his music and is now a successful businessman in San Francisco. Lyla is a music teacher in Chicago, who thinks constantly of her son, especially since her father confessed that he’d lied about the baby’s death. She’s invited to play at a concert in New York, and Lyla decides that she’ll go and she can look into what may have happened to her son. 

Of course, harmonic convergence takes over and Lyla and Louis are reunited through the music of their son August. Need a tissue¾maybe. Director Kirsten Sheridan (a writer on the film In America), from Ireland, delivers a fairy tale of a sort yes¾but beautifully orchestrated.  

It is Fine! Everything is Fine!

It is Fine. Everything is Fine! is one of the oddest and most disgusting films of the year. It’s one of those rare movies that resist any kind of critical evaluation. 

It’s difficult to judge this film or compare it with others because it’s unlike any film I’ve ever seen.  It is almost without any plot, and technically incompetent, but it kept my interest most of the time because of its novelty and weirdness. 

It is Fine. Everything is Fine! is playing November 30 through December 2 at 8 pm at the Music Box. Admission is $17 in advance and $20 at the door.  

The film is more like an old-time carnival geek show than a typical movie. It features Steven C. Stewart, a disabled man playing a real paraplegic.  Both the character and the actor also share the same name. 

Steven’s speech is almost completely unintelligible, but every woman he talks to understands everything he says. 

He has a fetish for long hair, and many beautiful long-haired women inevitably throw themselves at him. They always talk about cutting their hair, which angers him. This seems to be one of the reasons why he ends up strangling them.

It is Fine. Everything is Fine! was directed by David Brothers and Crispin Hellion Glover, who is remembered most of all for his performance as socially dysfunctional geek, George McFly, in Back to the Future. But the most significant work that he probably appeared in was The River’s Edge. 

The film was co-written by its star, Steven C. Stewart, who died of complications from cerebral palsy in 2001, shortly after the film was finished. 

It’s clear that Glover is on a different wavelength than most of society. I once saw him try to kick David Letterman in the face on TV, and I still don’t know whether it was an act. 

Glover won’t allow any of the films he directs to be screened unless he’s there in person. Before the critics’ screening of It is Fine. Everything is Fine! he read from a manual on how to be a good inspector, which seemed to have nothing to do with the film. 

It is Fine. Everything is Fine! is not recommended for the faint of heart or viewers that demand high standards of technical professionalism in their films. But some lovers of the eccentric may appreciate the film.   

 How much do you love me?

How Much Do You Love Me? is an entertaining and occasionally frustrating modern day version of what used to be called a European sex comedy (Laura Antonelli, Sonia Braga and Sophia Loren were associated with this genre). My theory is that these films have declined in popularity the USA, because American films have become sexually explicit. 

The movie will be showing the Gene Siskel Center on November 9-15. It plays on Friday and Monday through Thursday at 6:15 pm and 8:15 pm, Saturday at 3:15 pm, Sunday at 3:15 and 5:15 pm.  

The film has many things going for it including a stellar cast (perhaps they are overqualified for the material), a classic party scene, sympathetic characters, and wonderful quasi-poetic dialog, such as “Your curves have softened my edges.” 

The film was directed by Bertand Blier, who made some edgy comedies that pushed the envelope in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Many of them such as Going Places (1974), and Get out Your Handkerchiefs (1978), and Too Beautiful for You (1989) starred the irrepressible Gerard Depardieu.  

Depardieu is perhaps the most popular and prolific French actor of the last few decades. In this film, he plays Bernard, a tough talking gangster with a repressed sentimental side. It’s not a particularly challenging or impressive role, but Depardieu elevates his roles. 

Bernard was involved with an irresistible prostitute named Daniela (Monica Bellucci).  Daniela leaves Bernard to live with an ideal client, Francois (Bernard Campon), a man with a heart problem who has apparently just won the lottery. Their arrangement is that they she will live with him and sleep with him as long as his money holds out.  

Of course, Bernard and Francois eventually meet up, and in one of the film’s best scenes they come to an unexpected understanding. 

The film is really about loneliness as much as it is about sexual commerce, and there’s a great scene where Francois is bathed in an ethereal blue light, which expresses his inner melancholia. 

But the script completely implodes in the last few minutes. It’s almost as if the filmmakers chose the least intriguing, most anti-climactic ending on purpose. The film is absorbing most of the time, but at the last minute it robs the audience of much needed closure. 

Although How Much Do You Love Me? ultimately doesn’t really go anywhere, for most its duration the film is delicious, amusing and enthralling. 

 Margot at the Wedding

Writer/director Noah Baumbach has an eye for the dysfunctional family that can look bright and articulate to those on the outside, but is rotten to the core on the inside. His film The Squid and the Whale is a lighthearted comedy by contrast to Margot at the Wedding. 

While there are plenty of laughs ¾ most supplied by Jack Black as Malcolm, the hapless, unemployed groom ¾ you begin to realize that it’s not always because something is funny, but that the oddball stuff might be more humorous under different circumstances.  

Margot (Nicole Kidman) is the definition of narcissistic in that the world really does revolve around her. She loves her son Claude (Zane Pais) but when it comes to nurturing, her needs must be met first. Margot’s 

sister Pauline (Jennifer Jason Leigh), who is about to be married, shares a secret with Margot, who then tells others, and Margot explains it away by saying that she felt someone else needed to know. Margot is an author, and in every book she’s written she has betrayed her family’s trust by writing about intimate details of their lives.

The truth though is not that Margot shattered the family; the adults did that. There were some cruel acts that were perpetrated against the children when they were young. What we see on the screen are the light and shadow of each character. The sad part, which is worth understanding, is that children who grow up under these circumstances may not be like their parents, but more than likely, they’ll be no better. They may be worse. 

But Pauline invited Margot to her wedding to Malcolm, and there’re all here together now. Margot quickly sizes up Malcolm for who he is and as we come to know him, he’s even more of a jerk than he appears.  

From time to time you see a good movie that you can’t really say that you enjoyed watching. The characters or the situations made you uneasy.  Watching this film can make for some uncomfortable moments. You may recognize a personality trait that reminds you of someone you know in your own family, or even in yourself.  

 No Country for Old Men

Ethan Coen and Joel Coen (Fargo) create a terrifying on screen villain in No Country for Old Men. His name is Anton Chigurh and Javier Bardem portrays him with a single minded deadly purpose that strikes suddenly. But there’s an unbelievable triad of talent and character in this film. Tommy Lee Jones is Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, who’s on a killer’s trail, and who wants to keep one of his local bad boys alive. Jones could play the weathered lawman by rote, but he enlivens him with humor and wisdom. Josh Brolin as Llewelyn Moss is that not so bad boy, who just can’t leave well enough alone, and he knows it. Usually that mistake occurs at the end of a movie (Heat); here it happens at the beginning.  

Llewelyn comes across a shoot out in the Texas desert while he’s out hunting. The pick-up trucks are even circled, evidence of a last stand. It’s got the markings of a drug deal gone bad, dead bodies are splayed out everywhere. Llewelyn finds both the drugs and $2 million in cash. He grabs the satchel of money and stashes it under his house trailer. But in the middle of the night Llewelyn realizes that one man, who was not quite dead, might be able to recognize him, so he goes back to the scene. While he’s there, men with guns and mean dogs show up, obviously looking for answers as to why they have neither the cash nor the dope. Llewelyn gets away in the dark The Mexicans, as they are called, take the vehicle ID tag off Llewelyn’s truck and it’s just a matter of time before they know who he is and where he lives. The chase begins. 

Llewelyn knows that before noon the next day, the assassins will be at his front door. He grabs the money, and sends his wife Carla (Kelly Macdonald) out of town to visit her mother. Not only are assassins after Llewelyn and the cash, but Anton is after anyone who gets between him and the money and drugs. It’s sort of a twisted “no man left behind” logic. Anton is a man who sucks all of the air out of any room he enters, simply by being there. He arbitrarily kills anyone who happens to be the unlucky mouse to cross his cat-like path of destruction.    

Between the bloodshed, there is humorous relief in the film. It’s frequent enough to keep the violence from completely taking over unless you have a weak stomach for blood, which flows artfully across the floor in more than one scene.   

You know you’ve seen one of the best movies of the year when you want to know more and the running time seems too short. Some thought provoking ambiguities were moments that added intensity to the story. Bardem brings a new dimension to the role of the bad guy. Anton’s moral compass makes Denzel Washington’s cop in Training Day or Denzel’s recent turn as Frank Lucas in American Gangster look almost saintly. This film continues the Coen brothers’ look at the psyche of those truly evil among us, as well as those who get caught up in the maelstrom, as in Fargo and Blood Simple. 

 Juno

Juno is a cute comedy about a precocious yet immature high school student who finds out that her one-time tryst with a male buddy resulted in a pregnancy. The film is getting rave reviews, and it has a real shot at winning a best original screenplay Oscar, and perhaps a best actress nomination for its 20 year old star Ellen Page (in the film she plays a 16 year old). 

The film's devilishly clever dialogue was penned by a former stripper and super blogger, who goes under the pen name Diablo Cody (Diablo is Spanish for devil). It’s clear from this script and her autobiographical novel, “Candy,” that Cody has a rare talent for capturing saucy slang. To see her appearance on the David Letterman show, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIH13_KUlaI. 

Juno MacDuff (wonderfully played by Ellen Page) is a hip-beyond-her-years girl who is immersed in alternative popular culture and hipster trivia.  Her favorite three bands are The Stooges, The Runaways and Patti Smith Group (My high school teacher friend implied that this is more likely to be the tastes of the author than any 16 year old girl). 

Juno’s nonchalant attitude towards premarital sex and pregnancy is a bit startling, but this is probably how this particular character would act in these circumstances.  

She tells the biological father of her baby that she only slept with him because she was bored, and there was nothing to do. But he counters that it must’ve meant more to her because she even missed a chance to see The Blair Witch Project on TV to make love. 

When she springs the news of her pregnancy on her dad and foster mom they are understandably disappointed. They were hoping she was going to admit to something less terrible like drug addiction or alcoholism. 

Juno decides to get an abortion, but the clinic is so hideous and demoralizing that she decides to have the child. Part of the reason is also that one of her fellow students is outside protesting against abortion. 

Juno decides to give up the baby to a picture perfect couple (though we find out that appearances can be deceiving) that she found in the “Penny Saver” newspaper.  

The determined, affluent Vanessa (played by an exquisite Jennifer Garner in one of her better performances) has been trying to have a baby for years. Her husband, Mark (played by Jason Bateman) is less mature and not as eager to raise a child.   

Juno bonds immediately with Mark because they share common tastes in films and Indie rock. Juno seems attracted to the former musician (he is reduced to writing advertising jingles), but their developing friendship seems to threaten the adoption plan.  

The ordinary story is often brought to life with great images, paired with appropriate songs. 

The wonderful soundtrack includes classic rock songs from the Velvet Underground, Sonic Youth, and the Kinks. There are also newer songs by lesser known performers including Kimya Dawson and the Moldy Peaches, which reflect the themes in the film. One of the best moments in the film is when a new couple sings a delightful Indie punk-folk number. The newer songs reflect the personal musical tastes of the film's star, Ellen Page. 

The film’s minor weakness is that it suffers from what I call Kevin Smith syndrome. Almost every single character (except Jennifer Garner’s bland but beautiful wanna- be- mom) effortlessly spouts off clever dialogue or ironically dumb quips nearly every minute, and at times it approaches overkill. It's as if we have entered an alternative universe exclusively populated by hipsters who live only to deliver great one-liners. But it’s a fun and delicious alternate universe. 

Although the opening is undistinguished and plodding, once Juno shifts into high gear, it’s as irresistible as its title character. It is just as fresh and life affirming as Rushmore or the original The Heartbreak Kid. Based on this film, actress, Ellen Page and writer, Cody Diablo have unlimited potential. 

I Am Legend

Will Smith finds himself the last man standing when a military quarantine of NYC forces the evacuation of all individuals not showing signs of a deadly man made viral infection. Smith is Col. Robert Neville, a scientist who is determined to find an antidote for the hellish contagion that has ravaged the population and made blood thirsty, flesh eaters out of his fellow Americans. 

Neville’s wife Zoe (Salli Richardson) and his daughter Marley (real life daughter Willow Smith) were among the last out. Neville and his German shepherd are both immune to the airborne virus and have survived for three years. The dog has never been bitten or wounded, so Neville is not sure if he’s vulnerable to the disease through direct contact with the terrifying creatures that only come out at night.  

Neville’s Washington Square townhouse is a fortress, with steel shutters and powered by generators. It’s complete with a lower level laboratory where the doctor tests vaccines on infected rats, trying to reverse the progress of the malady. One vaccine looks promising. He’s tested it on one of the once human, now fiendish monsters that he captured. 

During the daylight, Neville tries to maintain his sanity by visiting familiar locations that he has “peopled” with mannequins that he talks to. When one of the mannequins turns up out of position, on another street, we’re all creeped out.  

Neville broadcasts each day for about two hours from the end of a pier, hoping that someone somewhere might hear him. He offers shelter and assistance. A crucial event occurs that propels Neville into a death wish. He allows himself to be completely vulnerable, at night. And they do come for him. In the midst of the attack, he’s saved by a woman and her son, who appear, seemingly, from nowhere. Her name is Anna (Alice Braga), and she and her son, Nathan, were on a ship from Brazil. They heard Neville’s broadcasts and tell him that there is a colony of survivors in New Hampshire, and they want him to come with them. Neville doesn’t believe that this colony exists. His determination, his guilt for helping to encourage the use of the original vaccine, which was touted at first as a cure for cancer, but then led to devastation, forces him to reject that idea. 

I Am Legend is at least the third film adaptation of Richard Matheson’s novel. The other two were The Last Man on Earth and The Omega Man. Francis Lawrence (Constantine) directs a fine debut piece. Writers Mark Protosevich (Poseidon) and Akiva Goldsman (The Da Vinci Code, Cinderella Man) tell a good story. Andrew Lesnie is Director of Cinematography, and the use of the handheld camera in certain sequences adds to the immediacy of some harrowing situations.  

This is Will Smith. This is a big holiday picture. This is a hit. But it’s also a lot of fun, and hella scary at times. Enjoy. 

 Youth Without Youth

I wanted to like Francis Ford Coppola’s new art film, Youth without Youth. He made some of the best films ever in the ‘70s (including The Godfather (1972), The Conversation (1974), and Apocalypse Now (1979), but most of his subsequent films were either out right failures or partial successes.

Now Coppola has gone back to his low budget/Indie roots, and I was hoping that he would find something he lost along the way. In Youth Without Youth, he has made a film that is perplexing, and intellectually ambitious, but it ultimately falls apart − a victim of its own ambition. 

The muddled philosophizing in Youth without Youth makes it more reminiscent of The Fountain than any of Coppola’s classic films. 

The film is based in a philosophic novel by the Romanian author, Mircea Eliade. It may be a prime example of an unfilmable novel, and Coppola’s adaptation is endlessly ponderous and talky. Only some of the conversation is engaging. 

The tale takes place over the span of the last half-century in several different countries.  

Tim Roth is Dominic, a 70 year old man in 1938 Romania who tries to commit suicide.  When he is hit by lightning, the high voltage somehow rejuvenates him, and he emerges from the hospital as a thirty-something man (one of the nurses even hits on him).  

Nazis find out about his situation, and they use any means to obtain him for experimentation. The mysterious and alluring femme fatale dubbed the woman in room 6 (a young Marlene Dietrich would’ve been great for the role) sets out to seduce him, and it’s not hard to guess what side she’s on because she wears a garter belt with a swastika symbol on it. 

Dominic flees to Switzerland to escape the Nazis, but he does not completely elude conflict. An evil doppelganger image begins to torment him (the situation is a bit reminiscent of The Fight Club). 

He eventually meets the lovely and luminous Laura, who also survived being struck by lightning. They fall for each other but she begins to talk in old languages and she shows signs that her body is being possessed by old spirits. 

This love story doesn’t end in a satisfactory manner. Despite Roth’s electrifying performance, the film completely loses its way in the last third. But it’s good that Coppola is not repeating himself, and the film is at least a noble failure (It would’ve been much safer to do a “Godfather IV”). 

 Dans Paris

Dans Paris is a dead-on-arrival French drama that only comes back to life sporadically. It’s not terrible, but it’s definitely one of the weakest foreign films I’ve seen this year. 

The film will be playing at the Gene Siskel Center in Chicago on   December 21-25. It will show on Friday, Wednesday and Thursday at 6:15 and 8:15 pm; Saturday at 3:15 and 8:00 pm, Sunday at 3:15 and Monday at 3:15 and 5:15. 

The film captures a little of the flavor and spirit of the early 60’s French New Wave films of Truffaut, but it’s far less fresh and stylistically inventive.  The main character also directly addresses the audience as if he is stuck in a Godard film. 

The director, Christophe Honore, did a much better job with his last feature, “Ma Mere,” but that film benefited greatly from a stellar performance by Isabelle Huppert. Here he’s a slave to his influences (which also include Salinger’s novels in addition to the French New Wave films.) Although Honore is a new director, this film is nearly as tired as Woody Allen’s late ‘90s films, but at least Allen used to be a great filmmaker. 

One of the protagonists, Jonathan, is like a long lost nephew of one of Truffaut’s characters. He’s a live-by-the-seat-of-your-pants hedonist that uses women then discards them like tissues when he’s done. It’s hard to see what all the charming, attractive ladies see in him. 

His brother, Paul, is the complete opposite. He’s become an anti-social, agoraphobic introvert, chronically depressed after his girlfriend left him.  His depression also has to do with the fact that losing his girlfriend opened up old wounds caused by the death of his sister.  

But this type of character was portrayed much more interestingly by Steve Carall in Little Miss Sunshine. 

Paul and Jonathan live with their dad, Mirko, a practical and somewhat abrasive man who keeps a strict time table, and he’s appalled by Louis’s bad habits and carpe diem lifestyle  (Jonathan  likes to wake up at 11 a.m. and juggle female lovers). 

Jonathan’s lovers in the film (that’s most of the female characters) are sexy but they are mostly bland, one dimensional, and interchangeable.  The script could’ve probably benefitted greatly from a woman’s input.
 

Dans Paris is an almost completely undistinguished film that is only recommended to the most fanatical Francophiles.  There’s no reason to see it when there are so many better entertainment choices this time of the year. 

 Starting out in the Evening

Many of the recent, critically lauded Indie films I have seen (such as Margot at the Wedding, Hannah Takes the Stairs, The Darjeeling Limited, and Romance and Cigarettes) have not lived up the hype.   

But Starting Out in the Evening is a well acted melodrama that   probably won't get enough attention. It has a low profile cast, and the plot can't be completely reduced to sound bites.   

It did manage to receive a nomination for the Grand Jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival, but the film didn't win any major awards. 

The film stars Frank Langella, a minor actor who never seemed to have all that much potential (he has gotten some rave reviews for his theatrical performances). He is probably best known for his turn as the title vampire in the dismal, Dracula (1979).  

But Langella is stupendous in Starting Out in the Evening, and the whole film is dependent on his wonderfully nuanced lead performance. It's certainly his best acting turn to date, and his breakthrough performance this late in the game is one of the cinematic year's great revelations. 

Langella plays Leonard, a quiet, socially disengaged professor who was psychologically shattered by his wife's death (though there are hints that they might not have had a picture perfect marriage).  

He was once a hotshot novelist with unlimited potential. But now all his books have gone out of print, and he is working on a new one. Leonard is somewhat reminiscent of Michael Douglas's character in The Wonder Boys. 

Into the mix comes Heather Wolfe (Lauren Ambrose) a plucky and determined graduate student who insists on focusing her PhD thesis on Schiller’s work. She argues that her studies could help restore his lost audience, and eventually he agrees to let her extensively interview him. 

Eventually she helps break down his emotional walls, and the two of them become intimate. The audience can't always tell if she really is infatuated with him or she's just using him to get ahead, but her last name “Wolfe” could be hinting at her true nature. 

Leonard’s forty something daughter (well played by the former Indie goddess Lili Taylor) is afraid that Heather will break his heart. But she has her own romantic problems, and she is involved with a selfish actor who does not share her desire to have kids. 

The film is very literate and includes some memorable dialog. At one point Leonard says, “Freedom isn't a choice the world encourages. You have to wear a suit of armor to defend it.” 

Nothing in Starting Out in the Evening is particularly innovative or surprising.  But the story is nicely developed, and the three main performances are first rate. Also, the film has one of the most emotionally devastating endings since Away from Her, which was even better.