Richard Gere Fakes His Way Through Being A Fixer in NORMAN

Now playing at an indie arthouse near me (the Rialto in Raleigh being the closest):

NORMAN (Dir. Joseph Cedar, 2016)

In Israeli writer/director’s first English language film NORMAN (aka NORMAN: THE MODERATE RISE AND TRAGIC FALL OF A NEW YORK FIXER), Richard Gere schleps around Manhattan stalking powerful people who he promises to introduce to other powerful people.

Gere’s Norman Oppenheimer constantly networks, trying to make political connections, handing out his business card for “Oppenheimer Strategies,” faking his way through being a fixer with most of his prey knowing, or sensing that he’s just a small time operator with no real clout.

That is until one day when he meets Micha Eshel (a smooth, charming Lior Ashkenazi), the deputy Israeli minister of trade and labor, outside a high end clothing store (Norman was staking him, of course), and the two establish a friendship - mostly because Norman buys Micha an outrageously expensive pair of shoes.

Three years later, Eshel is made Prime Minister of Israel, and Norman aims to rekindle their relationship as it appears that he finally has an “in.” Norman is subsequently sought after, while his past is scrutinized, and he finds he’s being followed. Then Eshel gets caught in a scandal involving bribes and corruption, and Norman may be in hot water as the unnamed businessman that Eshel will have to use as a scapegoat in order to escape prosecution.

Gere, while neither Jewish or a schlub (albeit a well dressed one with a cashmere coat and nice suits), is terrific as Norman, who at times appears to stare into the abyss as we see looking through his eyes at unforgiving surroundings.

Utterly believable as this pathetic, delusional loser who believes he’s a winner and fancies himself a macher (Yiddish for an important or influential person), Gere interacts with the rest of the cast in sometimes amusing, sometimes cringe-worthy ways.

The rest of the cast includes Michael Sheen as Norman’s skeptical nephew, Steve Buscemi as a Rabbi who stupidly trusts Norman to find an investor so he can save his synagogue, Hank Azaria as the guy following Norman who turns out to be a “Norman” himself with a similar business card for a non-existent company, and pitches that he can connect powerful people with one another; and Charlotte Gainsbourg as a woman who Norman blabs to on a train, who turns out to be an Israeli prosecutor.

It’s billed as a thriller, but Director Cedar, working from his own screenplay, plays a lot of this material in a comedic fashion by populating the film with doublespeak dialogue and a sometimes silly score by Japanese composer Jun Miyake which is dominated by a bouncy brass section.

NORMAN may take a bit to get going, but once it does it’s a wicked delight. It could be seen as a companion piece to Oren Moverman’s TIME OUT OF MIND, which starred Gere as a delusional homeless man wandering the streets of New York, hoping to re-connect with his daughter.

Gere’s Norman may be homeless himself as while a rent-controlled apartment that he inherited is mentioned, we never see it. He also says he has a daughter, but we’re not sure we believe him. The man who once starred in a movie called POWER, and has made a career out of playing slick affluent men, is now excelling at playing scruffy people who have no power.

Gere used to be an actor that didn’t appeal to me back in the day, but now having seen how f-in’ good he is at slumming it, he’s more than earned my respect.

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The Upscale Thriller ARBITRAGE Is Right On The Money

ARBITRAGE (Dir. Nicholas Jarecki, 2012)

Not since “Bonfire of the Vanities” (the book not the awful movie) has witnessing the potential downfall of a financial bigwig been so entertaining.

In Jarecki’s also Manhattan-set “Armitrage,” Richard Gere is indeed what Tom Wolfe called “a master of the universe” in “Bonfire,” and he, like his spiritual descendant Sherman McCoy (a so miscast Tom Hanks in the movie version, which again is terrible) gets into a tragic automobile accident that could derail his wealthy standing.

Gere is great here as the sort of suave investment genius that graces the cover of Forbe’s, and is regularly profiled on MSNBC.

In an early scene, while suiting up, Gere asks his wife (Susan Sarnadon) how he looks. “Regal, wise, and a bit worried,” she responds. This is before the accident, when Gere’s only problem is that his company is millions in debt, and he’s having trouble closing the deal for its sale. Sure, that’s a mighty big problem, but throw in involuntary manslaughter, and you’ve got yourself a clusterfuck of fraud and murder.

After Gere falls asleep at the wheel of his car, and wrecks it killing his mistress (Laetitia Casta), he pulls a Teddy Kennedy and flees the scene. Gere doesn’t phone the police - no, he calls Nate Parker, as the young black son of his former chauffeur to come pick him up.

Soon on the tycoon’s trail is Tim Roth as a slouching scruffy detective, who knows Gere’s guilty.

Roth has a Columbo-ish interrogation style. Take his casual last question “what happened to your head?” as he’s leaving Gere’s office and notices a scab on the man’s forehead. Sure has a “oh, uh, one more thing…” ring to it to me.

As Gere’s daughter and business partner, Brit Marling (“Another Earth”) has a few choice scenes as she is as much on the trail of wrongdoings that Roth is. The emotional tension is palpable when Marling finds out the awful truth about her dad, same with Sarandon, although she acts less shocked. Sarandon appears to have been expecting Gere’s dynasty to crumble for ages.

In what could’ve been a thankless accomplice part, Parker puts in a convincingly stressed-out performance - almost a counterpoint to Gere’s much more expensive stress.

I was reminded not only of Wolfe’s “Bonfire,” but of Woody Allen’s CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS. The guilty V.I.P. in that film (Martin Landau) suffered more over issues of morality in his dire predicament, yet both films share the bewilderment over what price the wealthy will pay to stay wealthy.

Compellingly plotted, and as sophisticated as the luxurious trappings it depicts, ARBITRAGE signals the beginning of awards buzz season.

Gere has undeniable star power whether you’re a fan of him or not, and here he more than earns an Oscar nomination. The same could be said for director/writer Nicholas Jarecki, whose first full length feature this is.

The ending, I’m sure, may leave some folks cold, but this upscale thriller is on the money and well worth your time.

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Swank's On A Plane

Now playing at multiplexes and art houses, but I bet, not for long:

AMELIA (Dir. Mira Nair, 2009)

It's apparent up front that 2 time Oscar winner Hillary Swank has the right stuff to step into the shoes of world famous American aviatrix Amelia Earhart.

She's got the tiny waif-like frame, the smiling eyes, and, yes, the big teeth. 

She infuses Earhart with the tom boy pluck of a young Katherine Hepburn; a fierce independently willed woman fighting to make a name for herself in a man's world. 

Unfortunately the movie she anchors was assembled according to the rulebook for Conventional Biopic 101. 

The basic obligatory biopic formula rules are as follows: You start near the end of your subject's life, and then flash back through the greatest hits. 

You show your subject as a child when the light of inspiration first flashed through their eyes. You have a montage showing when your subject first got famous - here it's a sweep through ticker-tape parade spectacle, press quotes, and re-staging of well known photographs. 

You then get the rough patches with the subject rising above marital discord and the doubts of peers before your ostensibly emotional finale. At the very end you show historic footage of the real person and folks leave the theater thinking they've seen a noble tribute to your subject. 

Then you sit back and wait for your Academy Award. 

So there are no surprises in this by-the-book biopic but it's fair to say that nobody was expecting any. Mira Nair makes competently crafted films and on the surface this is a good looking and well acted work. It's just that the pure passion and sense of purpose to make this project fly (sorry) are sorely missing.



Swank reaches for passion and comes close at times, especially when she tells her promoter turned romantic pursuer George Putnam played by Richard Gere that she must be free - "a vagabond of the air." But beyond that she's got nothing but strained cock pit close-ups and there's not enough to latch onto throughout the broad strokes.


Despite some fleeting charm, Earhart's alleged affair with Gene Vidal (Ewan McGregor) particularly has little effect. Gere is too wooden as the jilted husband to make us care so the infidelity comes off as an inconvenience not heartbreak. The flying sequences are beautifully shot though, with gusto and suspense hinting at a movie that could've been if the rest of it been given the same Oomph. 

Because it so aesthetically fits the Academy mold, AMELIA may still come home with some gold. Swank is sure to be nominated but I'll be shocked if this film gets anywhere close to a Best Picture nod. See? That's what it all comes down to. Through all the hype and noble trappings, this is just formula biopic Oscar bait - nothing more. 

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Dylan Mythology Dissected Magnificently

"It has chaos, clocks, watermelons...you know what I'm sayin'...it's everything." - Jude (CATE BLANCHETT) I'M NOT THERE (Dir. Todd Haynes, 2007) It's funny that the upcoming WALK HARD: THE DEWEY COX STORY (the Judd Apatow written and produced comic mock epic with John C. Reilly as the lead) proposes to set fire to the tried and true clichés of modern music bio-pics because after the exciting experimental experience that is I'M NOT THERE those worn methods are already ashes. As most reading this know well by now Bob Dylan is portrayed by 6 different actors (Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Richard Gere, Marcus Carl Franklin, Heath Ledger, and Ben Whishaw) who embody the man in different distinct eras and incarnations. Each has a different name, a different attitude, and of course, a different aesthetic. It may seem weird or even a bit pretentious in concept to cast a young black kid as a box-car hopping tall-tale telling pre-fame Dylan or an Australian Academy Award winning woman to play his Bobness at the height of his amphetamine-fueled rock star glory but the way it's played out here is mindboggling in its magnificence. The finger-pointing protesting period provides the always up to the task Christian Bale with the Bob with most conscience through separate eras one - political and one intensely religious. Gere's Billy The Kid hiding from society persona seems to be the Dylan who is the most free - or at least pretending to be. Seemingly drawn from a tapestry woven from words spoken in every Dylan interview, every song in Dylan's catalogue being official or bootleg, and every single photograph or footage of the real man, some of the most affecting moments are the quietest. When Gere's Billy-variation-on-Bob surveys the vast unpopulated wilderness beneath him from a high mountain trail a notion of what Greil Marcus called the "Invisible Republic" can be sensed. That however is the musing of a Dylanologist like myself - someone who can't quote Bob chapter and verse may find that and other sequences slow and hard to decipher. Man, I pity those people. Cate Blanchet as Jude has the most amusing and electric (yep, I went there) material and her presence in the black and white as-if-filmed-by-Fellini mid-60's montages never falters. As many have remarked she may look and act the most like Dylan - at that particular time that is. She has obviously studied DON'T LOOK BACK so she has every mannerism perfected -right down to the handling of a cigarette and the frantic on-stage flailing of arms. Blanchett's Jude is the most hostile and cornered of all the Dylans. If you've seen NO DIRECTION HOME or have at least heard the leering lyrical equivalent to acid being thrown into a former lover's face ditty "Positively 4th Street" - you may have an inkling why.Ben Whishaw as Arthur is the Bob with the least impact and screen-time. He simply recites carefully chosen media-taunting cryptic one liners from the public record. While the quotes are good - he's my vote for the weakest link here. Ledger's section (or sections as the structure gets broken up quite frequently) in which he plays an actor playing Bob (or actually Jack - Christian Bale's character) has a lot of merit with its discomforting domestic bliss breakdown and break-up intertwined with a Vietnam war time-frame but it's not as well visualized and vital as Blanchett's or even Gere's portions. Marcus Carl Franklin's bits are achingly sweet and for the youngest player here - his assured poise transcends any thought of gimmick casting. Other than the Dylans, the supporting cast is splendid - David Cross as Allen Ginsberg, Julianne Moore wonderfully mimics Joan Baez, and Bruce Greenword beautifully personifies the over-educated but still clueless interviewer / interrogator Mr. Jones from Dylan's classic "Ballad Of A Thin Man". Filled with mostly Bob originals and a number of great sharp covers, the soundtrack * is spectacular but that's far from surprising. What is surprising is how this perverse take on the bio-pic formula works so damn well and how hypnotic its effect is. One shouldn't go see it to make sense of the myths or to put into any concrete cinematic context the life of Bob Dylan (director/writer Todd Haynes knew going in that that's impossible) but if one views it like a piece of modern art - where you have to squint to make certain parts focus and you have to open your eyes wide to see how distorted the details really are - they are certain to get more than just mere glimpses at greatness. * As I suspected the bulk of the covers that make up the 2 disc so-called soundtrack (previously reviewed - Film Babble Blog 11/10/07 I'M NOT THERE Soundtrack Is Where It's At) are not featured in the movie. The amount of original Dylan recordings used could make up a nice alternate/actually accurate soundtrack - hey, now there's an idea for a great CDR comp! More later...

Some Fall New Release DVDs If You Please

Catching up on some new DVDs fresh out of the red Netflix envelope into my DVD player then onto my blog. Let's start with yet another movie I recently regretted missing at the theater:

NO END IN SIGHT (Dir. Charles Ferguson, 2007)

I was not the only one that missed this one in its brief limited release, from what I've heard it played to mostly empty theaters. 

Seems like most are tapped out when it comes to another liberal hatin' on Bush anti-war documentary so folks stayed away in droves. That's a damn shame because this is such a different animal than such staples as FAHRENHEIT 9/11 or WHY WE FIGHT, in that it gives us much more of a precise and sobering overview of the war in Iraq from one horrible decision to the next. 

Campbell Scott's straight narration (some have called it flat but I think it has more gusto than that) lies over the many interviewees that this manifesto is mostly made of. The ones interviewed are so high up in there that it can't be denied - sorting out the good guys from the bad can be quite a game.

I figure Colonel Paul Hughes who was director of strategic policy for the U.S. occupation in 2003 to be one of the good guys; Walter Slocombe (who comes across as a 'dumbfuck' as Natalie Maines would say) - senior advisor for National Security and Defense and head of CPA is, by my guess, one of the bad guys. 

It's funny how the line - "refused to be interviewed for this film" is so dramatically used again and again but not so funny when it pertains to administrator of the CPA L. Paul Bremer (whose 3 central mistakes make up the bulk of this film's crux), Dick Cheney, Condolezza Rice and asshole golden boy Donald Rumsfeld whose glib remarks like "I don't do quagmires" will anger any reasonable human.

Less an ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN than a 'All Satan's Men' this documentary is the definition of 'incendiary.' As a blogger pretending to be a substantial film critic I would say this is a "must see," but as a guy watching this in an apartment sitting on a couch with a cat - I just can't help from tearing up.

 
MR. BROOKS (Dir. Bruce A Evans, 2007) 

Without a doubt the best Kevin Costner film in ages, yeah I know that's not saying a lot, but hear (or read) me out. Costner plays Earl Brooks, a box company CEO who is in the dark of night a cold calculating serial killer. His murderous impulses are personified to him and us in the presence of Marshall (William Hurt) - an alter ego or better yet -an evil imaginary friend.

After a murder of a young couple in the bed of their townhouse, Mr. Brooks finds himself being blackmailed by a voyeur played by Dane Cook who has compromising photographs (the curtains were left open in the couple's bedroom). Cook though wants to be a killer himself, and wants Mr. Brooks to show him the ropes. This idea scares Brooks but amuses and challenges Marshall so on they go off into the night following a measured, but still convoluted scheme.

Meanwhile Demi Moore (who is far from believable but that may just be my own personal problem with Moore) as a beleaguered police detective suffering through a tortured and costly divorce is on their trail and Costner's daughter (Danielle Panabaker) is home from college under mysterious circumstances so the plot thickens. Maybe some would say it gets too thick, in more than one sense of the word.

I am reminded by the late Pauline Kael, several years after she retired from writing, speaking in a Newsweek interview about a little late '90s dog called THE DEVIL'S ADVOCATE (starring Al Pacino as the devil disguised as a big-time New York lawyer taunting up-start Keano Reeves).

Kael said that that film had a "hambone quality" to it that she enjoyed. I strongly feel the same thing can be said about MR. BROOKS. It has a lot of meticulously plotted psychological edges but they all frame what is essentially pulp - highly entertaining but kitsch all the same. This is what makes it work though, you don't employ Dane Cook if you are not aware of the diciness of your material, so director Evans and screenwriter partner Raynold Gideon (both collaborated on MADE IN HEAVEN, STARMAN, and STAND BY ME) know what they're doing to some degree.

Costner with his charisma in check coupled with Hurt's smug leering sociopath repartee, and a strangely sober yet almost satirical hold on the material makes MR. BROOKS resemble at more times than I'd like to admit a really good movie. Ham-boned as it is.

THE HOAX (Dir. Lasse Hallström , 2006) 

Definitely the best Richard Gere film in like...forever! In this tasty tale of a man who lies his way into a major book deal, Gere hits all the right marks. The man was struggling novelist Clifford Irving, and the lie was that in the early ‘70s, he conducted a book’s worth of interviews with Howard Hughes. Irving boasted that the resulting book would be “the most important book of the twentieth century.”

Hughes had been legendarily reclusive and completely out of the public eye for well over a decade so Irving, and professional partner Richard Suskind, portrayed by the always “on” Alfred Molina, speculate he would not come forward to denounce the fabricated project.

Gere and Molina also figure that Hughes denies everything anyway, so who would believe him. How could they go wrong?

The how is a huge part of the fun as is the amusingly audacious Gere and Molina’s back and forth banter. The cast is “on” as well, including Marcia Gay Harden as Irving’s exasperated wife and Julie Delphy as actress Nina Van Pallandt, who was Irving’s mistress.

THE HOAX takes some truthiness liberties that at times turn towards the surreal. That comes across in the almost cartoonishly pretentious people at MacGraw Hill that Irving pitches to, and the overwhelming sense that we don't know what to believe of what we’re seeing, especially when the supposed hired goons of Hughes’ show up at Irving’s door.

These fantastical touches though are executed in a more successful manner than in George Clooney's CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND - a likewise questionable, yet still engrossing, adaptation of ‘real’ events. Irving is credited as “technical advisor” on this film, but reportedly he disowns it, and has heavily denied its accuracy.

Irving really should get over himself! This may be the best thing he's ever had anything to do with.

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