Woody Allen's Lightly Charming CAFÉ SOCIETY

Now playing at an indie art house near me:

CAFÉ SOCIETY (Dir. Woody Allen, 2016)

Jesse Eisenberg makes a great Woody Allen surrogate. Previously he performed the function in smaller doses in Allen’s forgettable 2012 ensemble comedy TO ROME WITH LOVE, but here he gets to carry the movie as Bobby Dorfman, a young Jewish neurotic (of course) from the Bronx.

Allen’s 47th film as writer/director is a period piece set in the late ‘30s that follows Bobby as he gets a job working for his uncle, high powered agent Phil Stern (Steve Carrell) in Hollywood, and falls in love with Phil’s secretary Vonnie (Kristen Stewart). Thing is, she’s having an affair with Phil, who’s married to a woman that we never meet (the way they talk about the wife made me think she’d have some actual presence but no dice).

Citing that he can’t leave his wife after 25 years of marriage, Phil breaks the relationship off with Vonnie, and Bobby, who doesn’t know that his uncle was his competition, starts pursuing Vonnie romantically.

Eisenberg and Stewart, who’s first Allen film this is, have palpable chemistry together in their courting scenes, most likely because they’ve worked together previously as love interests in ADVENTURELAND (2009) and last summer’s AMERICAN ULTRA.

Carrell, also an Allen veteran (he had a small part as Will Ferrell’s best friend in MELINDA AND MELINDA), has a juicy role as Uncle Phil, though it’s not as comical as I was expecting. Bobby’s budding romance is cut short when Phil leaves his wife and proposes to Vonnie.

Sad that Vonnie chooses Phil over him, Bobby returns to New York and opens a swanky night club called Café Society with his mobster brother Ben (Corey Stoll in a slick hairpiece). Bobby meets and marries a blonde bombshell named Veronica Hayes, played by Allen newcomer Blake Lively, but when Vonnie and Phil visit the club, emotions are again stirred up.

The love triangle starts out resembling the one in MANHATTAN, but later recalls CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS. So yeah, big surprise – Allen again trots out some of his old trusty themes.

Shot by Italian cinematographer Vittorio Storaro (LAST TANGO IN PARIS, APOCALYPSE NOW, REDS), CAFÉ SOCIETY looks gorgeous from start to finish. The glamour of golden era Los Angeles is lush, and the grittiness of Ben’s gangster world, in which people get wacked and then dumped into graves of wet cement, is splendid visually as well. It’s Storaro’s first film for Allen, and with hope not his last.

It’s an improvement over his last two films, MAGIC IN THE MOONLIGHT and IRRATIONAL MAN, but nowhere near the quality of BLUE JASMINE, which is one of Allen’s best later day films. Despite Bobby’s talk about all the industry talk, name dropping, and backstabbing of the “dog eats dog world” of showbiz, there’s a notable lack of stinging satire. The ritzy world of the beautiful people jet set isn’t so much commented on either. Allen appears to want to indulge in these old timey aesthetics, not skewer them.

Also Allen’s voice-over narration is really unnecessary as we can see what’s happening without him needing to tell us. Not sure why he felt it should be added.

Parker Posey, who was in Allen’s last film (IRRATIONAL MAN), and Paul Schneider play a married couple of happy socialites who befriend Bobby that I would’ve liked to see more of, as the blonde Posey lights up the screen, and Schneider just needs to be used more in movies in general.

With only intermittent flashes of wit, CAFÉ SOCIETY is only lightly comic, but its light charm made it work for me. Setting it in the post-Prohibition era may be just an excuse for Allen to again fill up a film with a jazz standard playlist – mostly Rodgers & Hart songs performed by Vince Girodano & The Nighthawks make up the movie’s wall-to-wall soundtrack – but it’s an era he obviously yearns for and one that can be fun to see him so lovingly recreate.

Sure, he did it better in THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO, RADIO DAYS, and SWEET AND LOWDOWN, but there's still amusement to be had here.

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No Rationale Makes IRRATIONAL MAN Into Worthwhile Woody Allen

Now playing at an art house near me:

IRRATIONAL MAN (Dir. Woody Allen, 2015)

In my review of Woody Allen’s previous film, 2014's MAGIC IN THE MOONLIGHT, I proposed that in the last decade or so of Woody Allen's nearly half-century filmmaking career, every other film is worthwhile. However, while his latest, IRRATIONAL MAN, is a considerable improvement over the fluffy, inconsequential rom com MAGIC, I'm seriously re-thinking that theory.

However, it does starts off intriguingly with protagonist Joaquin Phoenix as Abe Lucas, a boozing, tortured philosophy professor arriving at the fictional Braylin College in Rhode Island to teach a summer session. Phoenix’s inner monologue/voice over tells us that he’s hit rock bottom emotionally and existentially, while gossip among the staff and students around campus tells us that that’s exactly what makes him attractive (“I kind of like the burnout look,” we hear a coed tell her friends, who wholeheartedly agree).

Before long, Phoenix’s Abe is spending a lot of time with one of his students, Jill Pollard played by Emma Stone, making her second appearance in an Allen film (MAGIC was her first), and he’s also being pursued by Parker Posey as Rita Richards, an unhappily married science professor.

Abe succumbs to Rita, but his mental hang ups have rendered him impotent. This helps him to resist Jill’s attempts to seduce him, citing that she has a devoted boyfriend who’s more suited for her, the preppy Roy played by Jamie Blackley. Blackley is stuck with one of Allen’s clichéd archetypes – the nice guy boyfriend who’s destined to be cheated on.

So for a bit we follow Phoenix and Stone around as they stroll around Braylin (actually Salve Regina University), and Newport discussing the subtleties of situational ethics, and referencing the work of such grand thinkers as Dostoyevsky and Kant. Then an actual plot development occurs – in a diner they overhear a conversation in which a woman talking with friends about her bitter custody battle. The judge presiding over the case is on her ex-husband’s side, and he’s drawing out the trial in order to bleed the woman dry. “I hope the judge gets cancer,” she exclaims, but Abe, stricken by what he hears, starts to hatch a plan in his head.

Abe, believing that he has finally found a meaningful act that will snap him out of his despair, schemes to murder the judge. He figures that his lack of motive and connection to the involved parties will make this the perfect crime, and that the world will be a better place without the corrupt judge. This decision changes Abe’s outlook on life radically, and the scenes in which he plots his victim’s demise are the most compelling in the movie – aided in no small part by the well utilized lively piano jazz of the Ramsey Lewis Trio on the soundtrack.

Abe secures cyanide to do the deed by stealing Rita’s key to the college’s chem lab, and stalks the judge so that he can learn his routine. Early on a Saturday morning, Abe is able to successfully poison the judge’s orange juice while he’s taking a break from running to read the paper on a park bench.

Initially, it looks like Abe has indeed committed the perfect murder as the judge’s death is considered to be by heart attack, but days later an autopsy detects the cyanide. Both Jill and Rita begin to suspect Abe, especially after certain clues start piling up that point to his guilt. Jill confronts Abe and he confesses the crime to her, but sticks to his stance that the murder was morally justified. Then its announced that the police have a suspect and Abe has to deal with the fact that an innocent man may take the fall.

As similar situations have happened in Allen’s work before – most notably in CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS and MATCH POINT – it can appear that the 79-year old writer/director is obsessed with whether murder can be gotten away with or if we live in a moral universe where that’s impossible. Problem is that he’s handled these themes much better before (especially in CRIMES which it appears he's remade several times now) and in this effort it feels a lot like he’s yet again treading water.

Underneath all the talky philosophizing, there's no interesting ideas that are being expressed in Allen's screenplay. It's pretty by-the-numbers stuff narratively, and its ending is an unsatisfyingly rushed wrap-up. The love story angle, whether it's between Phoenix and Stone or Phoenix and Posey, is fairly unaffecting as well.

But it does feature some fine, appealing acting - Phoenix’s lived-in performance as Abe, a guy who's into Russian novelists and Russian roulette, beautifully conveys a kind of meticulous messiness, Stone makes an energetic effort in embodying Jill, and Posey makes the most out of a underwritten role. On another plus side, returning cinematographer Darius Khondji, who shot Allen's TO ROME WITH LOVE, MIDNIGHT IN PARIS, and MAGIC IN THE MOONLIGHT gives the film a great, lush look (the town of Newport, Rhode Island never looked better), but there’s just not any there there.

Allen’s 46th film as filmmaker is sadly another weak late period effort. It’s time for me to throw the “every other one is good” theory out the window, because there’s not a rationale I can think of that makes IRRATIONAL MAN into worthwhile Woody Allen.

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The Summer Of The So-So Sequel

"Gentlemen, I wash my hands of this weirdness." - Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN : AT WORLD'S END Last week all them there critic folk dumped on SHREK THE THIRD, the week before that they dumped on PIRATES 3, before that they dumped all over SPIDERMAN 3 so I can't wait for them to dump on OCEAN'S 13! Then stand back for what RUSH HOUR 3 has got coming! Okay so sure these are products of franchise blockbuster seasonal thing, sure - but does movie medriocrity have to be so slickly blatant? I guess so - here goes : PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN : AT WORLD'S END (Gore Verbinski, 2007) Man I was dreading this. I was so indifferent to PIRATES 2 (informal short title) I didn't post a review so this time out upon hearing it was just under 3 hours and word that it was another convoluted exercise in excess I was looking forward to it about as much as I was to a dental appointment (which incidently I had earlier the same day). Not to say the flick is a total waste - there is a fine cast of good actors (Depp, Bill Nighy, Stellen Skarsguard, Mackenzie Cook, etc.) who wade their way through the muck and provide some solid moments but woo-wee! All the lame jokes, un-affecting fight scenes, and pointless attempts at romaticizing map-mythology with supposed sacred artifacts holding eternal power just left me bombastically bored. I did however like the Keith Richards cameo (as Jack Sparrow's father no less). I heard there was a bonus scene like the other PIRATES had after the credits but at the 2 hour 45 mark I was dying to get the hell out of the theater - bet you will be too. So that's the #1 movie in the country - now for the #6 movie (yep, how's that for a seque?) : WAITRESS (Dir. Adrienne Shelly, 2007) Keri Russell is Jenna, a small town waitress with an abusive asshole husband (Jeremy Sisto) who may as well be always clad in a wife-beater sleveless t-shirt. She escapes her miserable existence by dreaming of new pie recipes but that may be harder to do since she finds out she's pregnant. Her fellow waitresses at the pie diner (Cheryl Hines and the director herself Adrienne Shelly) provide some solace - Hines with her wise-cracks - "good luck on your 5 minute date, don't forget to wear a 5 minute condom!" and Shelly with her affable hang-dog quirkiness. None of this matters as much as Jenna's new infatuation with her doctor (Nathan Fillion) who may just be who she's looking for. Meanwhile Andy Griffith puts in a rare film performance as the cranky old diner owner who of course spews weary wisdom before gobbling down a piece of the plentiful pie. Funny without being cloying WAITRESS may have an ending that's too pat but it achieves its "feel-good movie" goal and while I almost expected an announcer for the Lifetime channel to tell me what's coming up next over the end credits I still smiled at the earnest effort. Now as usual some new release DVD reviews. Dig in kids! : FAY GRIM (Dir. Hal Hartley, 2006) Hartley's HENRY FOOL (1997) was one of the best independent movies of the 90's. To make a follow-up (don't want to call it a sequel) now comes off as one of the oddest decisions in recent film history. What's odder is the film itself - a twisted, contrived, and frustrating series of espionage capers. That's right Hartley took the unique absorbing picture he painted in FOOL and made it into a rote spy thriller. Parker Posey returns as the title character and again proves she can carry a movie - it's just unfortunate it's this meandering mumbo-jumbo. It is nice to see Posey get back to her indie roots after such mainstream turns as YOU'VE GOT MAIL and SUPERMAN RETURNS - I just wish Hartley's heart were more into it. After being told of Fool's (Thomas Jay Ryan - who only appears briefly) death Fay makes a deal with an Agent Fulbright (Jeff Goldblum - who looks very tired) to get her brother Simon Grim (James Urbaniak) out of jail while she goes to Paris to retrieve the missing possibly world-threating confession journals of Fool's. That's all I'm going to write about the damn numbing plot. Action scenes are ham-fisted and mostly made up of freeze frame still shots and purposely not showing us the actual moments of impact. The result is we are not convinced and don't care about what's going on. I know I didn't. I believe I need to re-watch HENRY FOOL to get the sour taste out of my mouth from this dim grim (sorry - couldn't help it) mess. THIEVES LIKE US (Robert Altman, 1974) Having been an Altman fan for most of my life I was very curious about this movie. It was never available on VHS and I never came across it on TV so it was just a title in a filmography in some random film guide I would pick up from time to time. It's still glossed over in Altman's Wikipedia entry the last time I checked. Curious because it comes from Altman's most acclaimed and glorious period (the 70's, stupid) - I mean its right smack between CALIFORNIA SPLIT and THE LONG GOODBYE so what was the hold-up? Even more curious is that it's really good and should be more than just noted - it's a movie to savor. Just released by Paramount on DVD mere months after Altman's death we can finally see Keith Carradine, John Schuck, and Bert Remsen play bank-robbing ex-felons in Mississippi in the 30's. Hitting over 30 banks they build up quite a reputation as evidenced in the radio reports and newspaper headlines they grab. Along the way Carradine falls for Altman regular Shelley Duvall, Remsen marries a frumpy beautician, and Schuck gets drunker and drunker. The real meat on the plate here is the mundune every day life between the stick-ups where Coke bottles are clutched, bad jokes are told, and the notion of settling down is as daunting as the fear of being caught by the law. The only special feature on the DVD is a commentary recorded by Altman reportedly in the late 90's but it's the only extra it needs to have. In my adventures in Altman appraisal since the great man's death I've put together this handy list - THE ROBERT ALTMAN REPORATORY COMPANY (or stock company as Ebert calls it) ROLE CALL : For the most part I've stuck to his movies - the TANNER series and it's follow-up being the only exceptions. Also this is far from complete - the noting of everyone who puts in a brief cameo or just walks by in THE PLAYER ('92) who is in another Altman movie would take all day - sorry Andie MacDowell and Peter Gallagher! I don't ignore THE PLAYER (how can I?) but I tried to get the most relevant down. Stand up when your name is called thespians! Rene Auberjonois (pictured left) – MASH ('70), BREWSTER McCLOUD ('70), McCABE & MRS. MILLER ('71), IMAGES ('72), THE PLAYER (as himself) : Sure he may be better known from TV gigs like Benson and STAR TREK : DEEP SPACE NINE but it's his work during Altman's great early '70's run especially as Father Mulcahy in MASH that put him on the movie map. Ned Beatty – NASHVILLE ('75), COOKIE'S FORTUNE ('99) Karen Black - NASHVILLE, COME BACK TO THE FIVE AND DIME JIMMY DEAN JIMMY DEAN ('82) Keith Carradine – McCABE & MRS. MILLER, THIEVES LIKE US, NASHVILLE Geraldine Chaplin - NASHVILLE, BUFFALO BILL AND THE INDIANS, A WEDDING ('78) Bud Cort (pictured on the right) - BREWSTER McCLOUD, MASH- Only 2 movies but what a 2 movies to make a mark in! Forget about Harold for a bit and give Cort his due! BREWSTER McCLOUD is sadly still unavailable on DVD but there is a rumored release set for later this year that I pray is not just a rumor. Sandy Dennis – THAT COLD DAY IN THE PARK ('69),COME BACK TO THE FIVE AND DIME JIMMY DEAN JIMMY DEAN Paul Dooley – A WEDDING, A PERFECT COUPLE ('79), HealtH ('80), POPEYE ('80), O.C. AND STIGGS ('85) Robert Duvall – COUNTDOWN ('68) MASH, THE GINGERBREAD MAN ('98) Shelley Duvall – BREWSTER McCLOUD, McCABE & MRS. MILLER, THIEVES LIKE US, NASHVILLE, BUFFALO BILL AND THE INDIANS, 3 WOMEN, POPEYE Henry Gibson – THE LONG GOODBYE ('73), NASHVILLE, A PERFECT COUPLE, HealtH Elliot Gould - MASH, THE LONG GOODBYE, NASHVILLE (as himself), THE PLAYER (as himself) Sally Kellerman (above) - BREWSTER McCLOUD, MASH, THE PLAYER, PRET-A-PORTER ('94) Lyle Lovett - THE PLAYER, SHORT CUTS ('93), PRET-A-PORTER, COOKIE'S FORTUNE (also had songs in DR. T & THE WOMEN-2000) : Lovett was creepily effective as the plain-clothed cop on Robbin's back in THE PLAYER but you've really got to give it up for his crazed cake chef in SHORT CUTS. Julianne Moore - SHORT CUTS, COOKIE'S FORTUNE Michael Murphy - COUNTDOWN, THAT COLD DAY IN THE PARK, BREWSTER McCLOUD, MASH, McCABE & MRS. MILLER, KANSAS CITY ('96), (also the TV projects TANNER '88 and TANNER ON TANNER) : Definitely one of Altman's most reliable and solid players. Murphy has a handle on a particular late 20th century American male persona - polished and poised on the outside but in the inside a troubled tortured soul. Well used in the undeservably underrated Tanner series. Paul Newman - BUFFALO BILL AND THE INDIANS, QUINTET Bert Remsen – THIEVES LIKE US, BUFFALO BILL AND THE INDIANS, A WEDDING, THE PLAYER Tim Robbins - THE PLAYER, SHORT CUTS, PRET A PORTER John Schuck (pictured on the right) - BREWSTER McCLOUD, MASH, McCABE & MRS. MILLER, THIEVES LIKE US : Speaking of under-rated, Schuck is a wonderful unsung character actor who added much to Altman's golden age. However you may recognize him more if he had Klingon makeup on. Tom Skerrit – MASH, THIEVES LIKE US Lily Tomlin (pictured left) – NASHVILLE, THE PLAYER (as herself) , SHORT CUTS, A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION ('06) : One of the biggest comedy stars of the 70's, Tomlin displayed her best acting under Altman's tuteledge. For her to be happily on-hand for his last hurrah was a beautiful thing indeed. Nina Van Pallandt - THE LONG GOODBYE, A WEDDING, QUINTET, O.C. AND STIGGS More later...

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: The Film Babble Blog Review

"It's obviously inherently funnier to have in a comedy someone who isn't doing something very well. That is the basis of most comedy. If you're showing people where it's smooth sailing, where is the joke? If you go back to any movie, even a conventional movie, with any comedians, they're either not terribly intelligent or they're not doing something well." - Christopher Guest (Interviewed by Scott Dikkers, Onion AV Club 2/26/97) FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION (Dir. Christopher Guest) While I agreed with many folk that the ensemble Christopher Guest comedy revue film peaked with BEST IN SHOW, I have to say that I really adored A MIGHTY WIND. The formula in that folk music re-union show premise was transparent but the songs were catchy as Hell, the back stories convincing, and there were many genuine laugh out loud moments throughout. I hate to report that Guest's newest FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION is plainly one too many trips to the well. Though the mocumentary angle is discarded the same large cast is here with Ricky Gervais (The Office, Extras) thankfully being among the few new additions to the cast. This time out these folks are the actors, makers, and producers of a small indie movie "Home For Purim" who are given delusions of grandeur when the word of a few internet pundits speak of Oscar buzz. This really goes to the heads of the lead actors - Catherine Ohara particularly (unfortunately and way too obviously she's named Marilyn Hack). Her co-stars Harry Shearer and Parker Posey also freak out at the prospect of the lure of the award while the hilarity that was promised to ensue hides like a murder suspect. It's not just that the plot revolves around such predictably desperate for fame fools - it actually hurts that the jokes (and I know the cast improvised most of them) are all over 5 years out of date - "the internet, that's the one with email -right?" All the talk of hype online and never does the word 'blogger' come up. The publicity junket stuff that makes up the last third of the movie - which includes parodies of Access Hollywood, The Charlie Rose Show and D-list informercial appearances (infomercials? Make that over 10 years out of date) is in this age of reality shows, round the clock docs, and endless coverage of every miniscule media moment is tediously tired turf here already done to death nightly on any number of Comedy Central, VH1, E! or Adult Swim projects. The characters in THIS IS SPINAL TAP, WAITING FOR GUFFMAN, BEST IN SHOW, and A MIGHTY WIND had an undeniable sadness about them but as satirical statements they were as funny as movie personas can get. In FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION these people are just sad. It's just sad that Guest and his reperatory company are such terribly intelligent funny people who this time out are not doing something well. Please let this be the swan song of these movies! Or at the very least spare us another wacky Fred Willard hair-do! More later...

Superman Reboots

Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth) : But millions will die! Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey) : Billions! Once again, the press underestimates me. - SUPERMAN RETURNS (Dir. Bryan Singer 2006) SUPERMAN RETURNS is one of the only Summer blockbusters I was interested in seeing (don't really care as much for PIRATES or X-MEN) and I'm happy to say it didn't disappoint. Its no SPIDERMAN by any means but its a highly enjoyable piece of pop art that stands up with the first 2 movies. When I originally heard that this project over a decade in the making was going to be based in the world of the 1978 SUPERMAN : THE MOVIE right down to the resemblance of Brandon Routh to Christopher Reeve and the appearance of Marlon Brando in old outtake footage needless to say I was a bit worried - I mean the recent TV shows LOIS AND CLARK and SMALLVILLE (both of which I've never regularly watched) created new modern premises and styles to house the Superman legend so why wasn't this return going to be its own new thing? It turns out that the retro-lets-pick-up-the-story-as-if-SUPERMAN 3 & 4 (no need to link to these attrocities) never happened is the best thing about SUPERMAN RETURNS. The John Williams theme still has majestic power and the epic tone is fully revived. Kevin Spacey is a suitable replacement for Gene Hackman as Luther though his new land scheme plan is a bit silly. Nice casting abounds - Kate Bosworth, Parker Posey, and Frank Lagella are all spot on. The film is dedicated to both Reeve and his wife Dana which like just about everything else I've mentioned is a nice touch. More later...

The 1998 Mini-Doc INDEPENDENT'S DAY Now Out On DVD

This documentary about the booming world of independent film in the late '90s is currently available on the popular DVD format:

INDEPENDENT'S DAY
(Dir. Marina Zenovich, 1998)

"It's like taking the worst part of LA and the worst part of New York and just jamming it into Park City." - Tressa Von Bargen (Park City Resident) 

This fascinating albeit brief (54 min) doc, sporting the subtitle "The Ultimate Insider's Look at the Crazy World of Sundance," gives us an inside glimpse into the fun of film and the stress of competition that goes on in the most notable of American film festivals, Sundance.

Indeed, filmmaker Jay Chandrasekhar laments "everyone I talked to said Sundance is a blast unless you have a film in it." 

Unfortunately the lack of background info, and absence of Robert Redford (Sundance founder) make it to be not as intensely deep a documentary as I wanted, but still an intriguing walk through.

Worth watching alone for an amusing set-up sequence involving Parker Posey, this film is begging for a sequel. So much has happened in the years since 1997 in independent film, and in digital video that I hope Zenovich returns to Park City some day with camera in tow.

More later...