Jeffrey Wells

For me, one of the most appalling episodes in Hollywood Elsewhere history happened a month ago (on 4.10) when I ran a qualified rave of Bobcat Goldwaith‘s God Bless America.

I called it “a very moral film” with which Goldthwait “is really saying something about the increasing levels of rampant egotism among the mall mongrels and people failing to behave in a considerate, compassionate fashion, and that things would be much nicer all around if people showed more class and manners,” etc.

The appalling part came when some readers said my review was lacking in irony and/or self-awareness, meaning that I, in their opinion, would be a target of Goldwaith’s Frank character (played by Joel Murray) if I happened to exist in the world of the film.

Sure thing. I didn’t feel all that comfortable with the metaphorical wanton slaughtering that occupies the second half of the film (which didn’t seem to build or lead anywhere) but one of the observational veins in this column for the last seven years has been about the coarse, loudmouthy, movie-theatre-texting uglies out there. Frank’s views, in short, are where this column lives to a certain degree so I’m afraid I need a little help in understanding the irony aspect.

What happened, I believe, is that the right knows or senses that God Bless America is about them and their family so they came out guns blazing. As I noted last moth, “Most of the targets in this movie are Middle-American mall people and anti-Obama, anti-gay righties and Tea Party slime, but Frank also hates showbiz lefties in certain ways.”

Various egotists and me-me-me vulgarians eat lead in this film. The only types missing from the hit list, I realized later on, are those wonderful people who lean their seat back 45 degrees in coach on commercial flights.

God Bless America currently has a respectable 84% Rotten Tomatoes rating. Here’s a well-phrased rave from Marshall Fine.

I’d be surprised if Tom Cruise‘s performance as Stacee Jaxx in Adam Shankman‘s Rock of Ages (New Line/Warner Bros., 6.15) isn’t some kind of hoot. Cruise always slams into a role, gives it 110%, etc. But something about this image doesn’t fly. He just doesn’t seem believable as a Steven Tyler-ish rock ‘n’ roll horndog. Has he exuded any palpable sexual vibes since Risky Business? Cruise always plays guys ruled by passion, determination, doggedness. But getting into women’s pants? Not so much.

Last night Gullermo del Toro delivered a master class lecture inside Toronto’s Bell Lightbox about Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious. The classic 1946 espionage thriller was also screened. Peter Howell called GDT’s remarks “masterful.” I wrote GDT and a couple of others about whether digital footage will be made available anytime soon.

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That North Carolina IMAX ticket stub told the tale after all. Collider‘s Steve Weintraub reported around 9 pm Monday night that 20th Century Fox “has confirmed Prometheus will be rated R for ‘sci-fi violence including some intense images, and brief language.'”

Yesterday Sasha Stone, Phil Contrino and I did our usual-usual, focusing for the most part on last weekend’s phenomenal Avengers numbers and how this is somewhat or slightly lamentable, given the pounding repetition and unexceptional nature of the film. This led to all kinds of segues and digressions. Here’s a stand-alone mp3 link.

Memorial to Murdered Jews in Europe — built in ’03 and ’04, opened to public in ’05.

If I’d eaten even half of this I wouldn’t be alive to post these photos.

Location of long-destroyed Hitler bunker on Gertrud-Kolmar Strasse (between An der Kollonade and in der Ministergarten), only two or three blocks from Memorial to Murdered Jews of Europe.

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My Dark Shadows friend says Noelle Adams‘ review for The Movies, a leading South African website, is fairly observed.

“There’s no denying that Dark Shadows is a bit of an oddity, flip-flopping between comedy and gothic melodrama,” Adams begins. “These tonal swings are not always convincing, but it doesn’t detract from the fact that the film is a good chunk of nonsense fun, clearly made with love and style.

“Just as importantly, the film is one of the more gratifying of the now eight collaborations between director Tim Burton and leading man Johnny Depp — eschewing the irritating character quirkiness for quirkiness’ sake that crept into Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Alice in Wonderland.

“[But] in the film’s final third, Barnabas suddenly becomes sexual catnip for the forward women of the 1970s, and the film starts losing its grip. And unfortunately Eva Green sits at the centre of the chaos. It’s no fault of the actress, but her scarlet-lipped Angelique seems present simply to introduce all-too-predictable conflict and drive the plot…when a focus on the tender courtship between Barnabas and the sweet Victoria (Bella Heathcote) would have made for a better narrative.

“In fact Dark Shadows would probably have been a very different film if it was centered on Heathcote’s character, and scrounged up some real substance instead of sticking to the slick, superficial and obvious.

“[So] it’s a genuine pity that everything becomes such a mess during Dark Shadows‘ climax. This is not an uncommon problem with Burton films actually (remember Beetlejuice?), as they stumble over their own feet racing for resolution after a lengthy set-up. So suddenly there are betrayals, explosions and angry townsfolk as well as a supernaturally powered battle, peppered with ‘WTF?’ revelations and nifty special effects.

“Ultimately the film works best as a black comedy – a quirky tale of family dysfunction with a dash of horror for extra flavor. It gets completely overblown by the end, but that doesn’t detract from the initial enjoyment it provides. Fun, but very flawed.”

I know how the Cannes Film Festival tends to go. If I’m lucky I’ll fit in maybe 23 or 24 films over a nine-day period. Nonetheless I’m choosing 26 and hoping for the best. I’m not listing the discards but the ones I definitely intend to see. As explained before, N means neutral, HE means special interest and M = meh.

Competition (17): Moonrise Kingdom, dir: Wes Anderson (N), Rust & Bone, dir: Jacques Audiard (HE), Holly Motors, dir: Leos Carax (N); Cosmopolis, dir: David Cronenberg (HE); The Paperboy, dir: Lee Daniels (N); Killing Them Softly, dir: Andrew Dominik (HE); Reality, dir: Matteo Garrone (HE); Amour, dir: Michael Haneke (N); Lawless, dir: John Hillcoat (HE); Like Someone In Love, dir: Abbas Kiarostami (M); The Angel’s Share, dir: Ken Loach (N); Mud, dir: Jeff Nichols (HE); Post Tenebras Lux, dir: Carlos Reygadas (M); On The Road, dir: Walter Salles (HE); Paradis: Amour, dir: Ulrich Seidl (N); The Hunt, dir: Thomas Vinterberg (M); Beyond The Hills, dir: Cristian Mungiu (HE).

Un Certain Regard (1): 7 Days In Havana, dirs: Benicio Del Toro, Pablo Trapero, Julio Medem, Elia Suleiman, Juan Carlos Tabio, Gaspard Noe, Laurent Cantet (HE)

Out of Competition (2) Io E Te, dir: Bernardo Bertolucci (HE); Hemingway & Gelhorn, dir: Philip Kaufman (N).

Special Screenings (4): Polluting Paradise, dir: Fatih Akin (HE); Roman Polanski: A Film Memoir, dir: Laurent Bouzereau (HE); The Central Park Five, dirs: Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, David McMahon; Les Invisibles, Sebastien Lifshitz.

Restored Revivals (2): Once Upon A Time in America, Lawrence of Arabia.

No Mad Men in Berlin last night, or at least not at the place I’m saying. Here‘s a way to stay abreast of episodes online while in Europe. In the meantime these Press Play recaps/summaries help fill in the gaps.

Founded in 2006, the German Pirate Party (or Piratenpartei Deutschland) is some kind of digitally minded younger person’s political party that might (or at least could) bear a tangential relationship on some level with the Occupy-ers if you wanted to creatively merge their manifestos or mission statements. Imagine how exciting it would be if there was a comparable party in the U.S. — an under-40, fuck-you-boomers-and-your-economic-enslavement-of-our-generation party. You can’t say it wouldn’t feel like or in fact be a healthy thing.

Piratenpartei Deutschland “states general agreement with the Swedish Piratpartiet as a party of the information society, [and] is part of the international movement of pirate parties and is also a member of the Pirate Parties International,” the Wiki page says. “Since 2011 the party has succeeded in attaining a high enough vote share to enter three German state parliaments (Berlin, Saarland and Schleswig-Holstein).

“According to political theorist Oskar Niedermayer, the party sees itself as part of an international movement to shape with their term of ‘digital revolution’ which is a circumscription for the transition into information society. With their focus on freedom in the net and their fight against government regulations of this sphere, they hit the nerve especially of the younger generation.

“Even if the network policy is the core identity of the party, it is now more than just an advocacy party of ‘digital natives’ and characterizes itself as a social-liberal-progressive. Former federal chairman Sebastian Nerz sees the party as social-liberal party of fundamental rights which among other things wants to advocate for political transparency.”

As noted on 3.2.12: David Ayer‘s End of Watch (9.28.12), a young-LA-cops drama costarring Jake Gyllenhaal, Michael Pena, Anna Kendrick, Frank Grillo and America Ferrera, “unfolds entirely through footage from the handheld HD cameras of the police officers, gang members, surveillance cameras, and citizens caught in the line of fire.”

Yesterday afternoon I walked over to Cinemania, a Berlin DVD store, and rented Nicole Kassell‘s A Little Bit of Heaven, the Kate Hudson ass-cancer love story that opened last Friday and got creamed by critics. I was expecting something grotesque, but was surprised to discover it isn’t all that painful.

It’s a fundamentally dishonest and treacly movie about making the most out of the fact that you’re about to die. The life-embracing “up” attitude that it’s selling is synthetic and calculated, and about as phony as a three-dollar bill. But once you get past that (or digest that), it’s watchable.

Hudson performs reasonably well as Marley, a New Orleans advertising exec who experiences emotional and spiritual growth when she learns that she’s got advanced colon cancer and has only a few weeks to love. Gael Garcia Bernal‘s oncologist character, who becomes Marley’s lover starting in Act Two, looks trapped but not entirely miserable. He mans up and does the job. Kathy Bates and Treat Williams play her anxious and conflicted parents with at least a semblance of dignity. And Whoopi Goldberg plays a mind’s-eye version of God…don’t ask.

Hudson‘s success is based on her roles and acting style reflecting the lives and attitudes of shallow, not terribly perceptive girls everywhere (the ones who used to read Cosmopolitan in the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s), and this is a shallow, not terribly perceptive film that tries to turn a story about a young woman’s premature death into a transformative turn-on — a movie that, as Hudson’s Marley character puts it, tries to “put the FUN back in funeral.”

As I watched it hit me that Hudson, now 33, has moved past that pristine youth-glow look and is now squarely in her 30s. Her face is a bit heavier. She’s no longer Penny Lane, looking a wee bit older than her years.