GET LOW: The Film Babble Blog Review

GET LOW (Dir. Aaron Schneider, 2009)

Set in depression era Tennessee, this is a whimsical tale of a mysterious old hermit who has an unusual plan for his funeral – he wants it to be a party while he’s still alive.

A grizzled Robert Duvall is the hermit, the kind who’d put up a self made wooden sign stating: “No Damn Trespassing – Beware Of Mule” on the road leading to his rustic house.

From his night sweats we see that Duvall is sick and dying. Knowing he has little time left he goes into the small town he lives on the outskirts of to make arrangements. “About time for me to get low” he tells the local pastor (Gerald McRaney).

A young funeral home employee (Lucas Black) overhears this and tells his boss – a mustached worried wart of a man played beautifully by Bill Murray – that their ailing business may have a possible client.

This is a perfect timing for Murray as he was just talking about how down the death business has been lately. Murray: “What are the odds of a funeral home going broke? We have a business that everybody on earth needs. If you can’t make that work it’s got to be you. Right? And yet, I don’t know. What do you do when people don’t die?”

Everybody in town appears to have heard rumors and gossip of all sorts about Duvall’s past. He wants it known that everybody who has such stories should come tell them at his “funeral party.” Duvall in turn will tell his story.

Sissy Spacek is an old flame who appears to be charmed by the old codger, but like everybody else she is tight lipped about what went down back in the day.

As the film began with a flashback to a burning house with a silhouette of somebody on fire jumping out of an upstairs window we have some hints about what will be revealed.

GET LOW has a lot of folksy charm, but it feels like it needed to be a lot more fleshed out. It sails sweetly on the strength of its performances largely Duvall and Murray, but it doesn’t take the risks necessary to give it the emotional power it sorely lacks.

As an African American preacher that Duvall wishes would attend his “going away” affair, Bill Cobbs unfortunately reminds us that this is a whitewashed version of the ‘30s in the South – one with no detectable racism.

The depression era really has no baring on the plot - it could've taken place anywhere at any time, but as it is loosely based on a true story that happened in 1938 Tennessee, that's how we have it.

Also the idea that the town folk would open up at the funeral party and the stories would fly never comes to pass. The climatic event contains a wonderfully delivered confessional speech by Duvall, but after that the ending peters out.

Still, Duvall is always an appealing actor and he never plays a false note as this cantankerous character, and Murray’s masterful portrayal of a broken-down-yet-still-chugging-along-salesman oaf makes every scene he’s in as absorbing as they are amusing.

Spacek and Black are fine in their roles, but both are broad strokes as supporting players which would've benefited from just one more rewrite by the screenwriters (Chris Provenzano and C. Gaby Mitchell).

It’s a light drama sprinkled with light comedy that gets a little too carried away with its own whimsy. That’s okay though, I have a feeling that many audiences will get carried away with it.

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MADEMOISELLE CHAMBON: The Film Babble Blog Review

MADEMOISELLE CHAMBON (Dir. Stéphane Brizé, 2009)

It’s a simple story – married man meets woman and they flirt in a restrained manner. Will they consummate their slowly budding relationship? How much will it mean to us if they do or don’t?

Unfortunately these bare bones of a premise are all there is to sift through in this extremely spare French film adaptation off a 1996 Éric Holder novel.

The man is a stoical mason played by Vincent Lindon who we often see on his job smashing walls with a mallet.

The woman is the title character played by Sandrine Kiberlain – a new schoolteacher in town (an unnamed village in France) who asks Lindon to come to her home to fix a drafty window.

After finishing the job, Lindon sees that Kiberlain has fallen asleep in her bedroom and he pokes around her apartment taking interest in the fact that she plays the violin.

When she awakes he asks her to perform the instrument for him. After some hesitation she complies, but with her back turned to him.

He is transfixed by her, but nothing romantic happens between them – yet.

Lindon’s wife (Aure Atika) gradually feels that her husband is drifting away which is confirmed at a Birthday party the family has for Lindon’s father (Jean-Marc Thibault).

Kiberlain plays the violin for Thibault and Atika witnesses her husband’s suppressed passion. There is quiet beauty in several sequences in “Mademoiselle Chambon” but it isn’t enough to make for a vital movie going experience.

The camera lingers on too many sad shots which make the film feel padded. The characters are supposedly suffering inside, but we only get broad surfaces that never bring us inside this material.

Lindon and Kiberlain were once married in real life and there is a palpable chemistry between them especially in a tense scene in which they sit and listen to a CD of chamber music together, their hands finding each others naturally.

This scene is indeed effective and if the rest of the movie had its hold we might have something special here. As it stands however, MADEMOISELLE CHAMBON is too slight, too twee, to be a memorable experience.

MADEMOISELLE CHAMBON is now playing at the Colony Theater in Raleigh. Check the theater's website for showtimes.

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Sylvester Stallone & His All Star Band!

THE EXPENDABLES (Dir. Sylvester Stallone, 2010)



This is the definition of a critic proof movie – as its rating on the Rotten Tomatometer rapidly falls (in a week it fell from 58% to 39%) its box office rises - its been #1 since it opened with a gross nearing $70 million so far.

Apparently America wants a big badass blockbuster with a crew of well known action stars. Call it “Monsters of Mediocrity” if you will, but triple threat (actor/writer/director) Sylvester Stallone has assembled a solid B-Team of action movie mavericks including Jason Statham, Jet Li, Terry Crews, Randy Couture, and Dolph Lundgren.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that from the trailer that Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger are on the mission too, but they only appear in one scene that tries, but fails to make much of a punch.

That could be said of the whole movie with its generic let’s-overthrow-a-corrupt-Latin American-dictator premise, but there is some fun to be had with this ‘80s throwback even if it oddly has too much downtime.

Mickey Rourke has a longer appearance than Willis and Schwarzenegger, but it’s still another glorified cameo as he never leaves his tattoo parlor. Rourke has one of the only serious dramatic moments telling a story about a woman that he failed to save from suicide that brings tears to his eyes. In a movie like this I really didn’t expect to see Rourke cry.

It’s mainly Stallone and Stratham’s show as they spend the largest amount of screen time getting each others backs in fights and shoot outs. The ending is a giant shit-storm of machine gun fire and explosions on top of explosions as expected. It’s played out in a lot of darkness and hyper cutting that makes it hard to follow, but if you like a lot of fiery explosions it should make your day.

Oh, there’s also Giselle Itié as the underwritten damsel in distress (What - An underwritten woman role in a Stallone action flick?) fighting for her poverty stricken people, her angry General father played by David Zayas (Angel Batista on Dexter), and Eric Roberts as an evil ex-CIA man agent backing the dictatorship.

THE EXPENDABLES is undercooked and overblown at the same time, but its core audience doesn’t appear to care. I shouldn’t either because this kind of mindlessness really shouldn’t be minded.

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