So what about Rachel Weicz deserving a Best Suppporting Actress nom for her work in The Constant Gardener? Right up there with In Her Shoes‘ Shirley MacLaine, Match Point‘s Scarlett Johannson, The Family Stone‘s Diane Keaton, Junebug‘s Amy Adams, et. al. And who except a total Producers water-carrier would seriously put forward Uma Thurman’s performance as any kind of competitor? Playing a dumb-blonde sex poodle in a broad, brassy comedy-musical…? C’mon!

Gold Derby’s Tom O’Neill, writing on the L.A.Times-owned site “The Envelope,” is projecting Peter Jackson’s King Kong as a credible Oscar nominee for Best Picture because director-writer Peter Jackson has taken three hours to “flesh out the love story between Naomi Watts and Adrien Brody” and “expand the psychological complexity of the movie’s lead characters, thus giving them more substance, while also fleshing out the plot so it can better explore the theme of commercial man exploiting innocent beast.” Uh-huh…and the 100-minute 1933 original didn’t address this theme sufficiently?

It’s not just me any more. New York Press critic Armond White has stood up and strongly praised Alfred Hitchcock’s Lifeboat, which recently came out on a Fox Home Video DVD. Lifeboat shows Hitchcock using “suspense tactics to reveal spiritual and philosophical mystery, [and] thus achieves profundity akin to The Birds. Hitchcock’s famous toying with psychological dread [in this film] has a complexity that also speaks to the present political moment. Contemporary critics feel no relation to John Steinbeck’s story, to judge by the DVD’s recent reviews; they simply dismiss it as WWII sentimentality. [But] Lifeboat deals with moral and sexual compulsion no less effectively than Vertigo. Hitchcock looks deeply into the circumstances of human crisis and creates in your mind (before your eyes) the essence of their terror, passion, vitality and horror. The reason Godard called Hitchcock ‘the greatest poet among us’ was to point out this gift for imagining the depth of human experience in the most deceptively simple, ‘popular’ ways. Between silent Griffith and Spielberg/DePalma, Hitchcock stands as the finest exemplar of genre filmmaking. But actually, his best films transcend genre and become strangely poetic visions”.

An interesting coincidence that the three biggest take-down movies of the holiday season — The Producers, King Kong and Munich — are all Universal releases. Did I just say that? I just know that prior to every holiday season a journo consensus forms about which of the big hoo-hahs are cruisin’ for a bruisin’ in the biggest, most self-aggrandizing way…movies coming in with such high expectations that’s probably a good idea to smack them down on general principle. I don’t want to hate anything or anyone, but if I had to predict which of the Big Three will give forward-thinking moviegoers the most difficulty, I would have to presume The Producers, closely followed by King Kong. I’ll be surprised if Munich is a problem on its own terms, but the teaser trailer (see item below) suggest that expectations are way overblown.

Has the big emotional fight scene between Anthony Rapp’s Mark and Adam Pascal’s Roger, one of the big emotional highlights of the Rent stage show, been cut from the Chris Columbus film? Rent has begun screening and there are issues…people having trouble with this and that…the staging of certain numbers, the infamous Columbus sugar-touch. Wait, there are good things. Rosario Dawson handles the singing and dancing pretty well. Pascal holds his own. Some of it works. Is it commonly known that Sarah Silverman has a brief, comedic, non-singing role? She told me so yesterday during our Boston interview. Her character is called Alexi Bright.

Saturday morning and the Munich trailer…er, teaser…is up. No surprises, no oddities…precisely the focus and tone anyone who’s been following this project might expect. Impressions can be misleading, but the teaser is telling us that Munich will totally adhere to the mode of a typical hard-wired procedural about some Israelis agents killing Palestinians and then feeling guilty about it. A hard-wired procedural directed by a relentlessly praised, obeisance-before-power, affluent-bubble-dwelling, 58 year-old director named Steven Spielberg. A teaser is obviously its own thing, and usually bears a catch-as-catch-can relationship to the film it’s selling…at best. But even with this acknowledgment, I’m starting to feel what this film (probably) is…I can feel the radio-antennae vibrations from the raised hairs on the back of my neck. The fact that the teaser starts off front-and-center with clips from Jim McKay’s “Wide World of Sports” coverage of the Munich tragedy speaks volumes about the apparent sensibility behind the film. (McKay’s Munich coverage is legendary, and therefore the most generic, least-imaginative, what-else-is-new? way to pass along what happened there.) I’m telling you…I’m telling Mr. and Mrs. America and all the ships at sea….that while Munich may turn out to be good or thrilling or rich in morality, the whole “wait for Munich….this is the big one…Oscar, Oscar!” drumbeat is based on little more than a generic kneejerk Spielberg kowtow. (There is also, to some extent, the Jewish-entertainment- journalists-who-want-to-see-Israel-kick-ass factor.) Watch the teaser and explain to me how it makes Munich look even a little bit challenging or startling..a bringer-of-the-next-thing aesthetic. It looks like a guilty license-to-kill so-whatter. A decent man with a family (Eric Bana in a ’70s haircut with sideburns) accepts the charge of Israel’s Mossad (his “M” is played by Geoffrey Rush) to lead a team of four (including a guy played by Daniel “007” Craig) to assassinate the Palestinian perpetrators of the 1972 Munich Olympic massacre of Israeli athletes. Ohhh, we have to do this for justice’s sake but I feel a little bit bad. Ohhh, mistakes are being made and innocent people are being killed along with the terrorists. Ohhh no…was that a little girl’s voice? Ohhh, I hope my daughter still loves me after the mission is accomplished. Am I a good man or a bad man? Honey, did you leave some pasta in the refrigerator that I can put into the microwave when I come home at 3:30 ayem? Ohhh, what a holiday muddle.

Has It Down

Today (Friday, 10.4) is Peter Sarsgaard Meditation Day, if you want to think like that. You know…thoughts of who he is and how sharp his mind is, what he’s got stewing inside, what that easy smile and those hooded eyes really indicate deep down, where’s he’s heading.
Sarsgaard, 34, has two new movies opening today — Jarhead, a Waiting-for-Godot- ish Gulf War drama in which he plays Troy, the hardest and truest Marine of them all…an intense embodiment of the modern deballed warrior…and The Dying Gaul, in which he plays a gay screenwriter involved in a sexual-ethical muddle with a big-studio executive (Campbell Scott) who wants to make a movie of his script, and the executive’s curiously frustrated wife (Patricia Clarkson).

Peter Sarsgaard

Both of Sarsgaard’s characters are given to internal suffering, which he conveys with his usual particularity. A lot of actors are good at subtle conveyences, but Sarsgaard is always fascinating when most of the energy is being pushed down and there’s relatively little to do. He doesn’t ever seem to say, “Look at me”…but you can’t help doing that.
He can also be riveting when asked to go in the opposite direction. There’s a start- ling, almost-on-the-cusp-of-being-too-much sexual scene in Gaul that proves this and then some. It’s “honest” in a way that almost no other actor I can think of would be willing to touch.
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I wouldn’t call either performance career-altering, but they’re a reminder of what everyone has come to realize about Sarsgaard over the least couple of years, which is that he’s an exceptional violin player, and that one day the right music and the right conductor are going to come along and…wham, out of the park.
Being an obsessive type, I keep wondering when Sarsgaard is going to play another quietly heroic, morally grounded role…a guy who knows much more than he’s saying, whose intelligence you can sense right away…another sympathetic, Chuck Lane-in-Shattered Glass type…a struggling 30ish guy with brains and integrity…maybe given to a little anxiety at times, maybe a sharp glance or two, but a guy you want on your team.

Campbell Scott, Patricia Clarkson, Sarsgaard in Craig Lucas’s The Dying Gaul

Like any artist with any kind of bravery, Sarsgaard doesn’t believe in repeating himself. He’s into discovery and twisting the dials in such a way that the audience is prodded into new territory, and would almost certainly find some way of saying “uhm, I don’t think so” if a producer were to take him to dinner and say, “I want you to do that again.”
But Sarsgaard is that guy…I think. That guy and then some. And he’s a lot more intriguing in person than what he is (or has been given to do) in his new films, not because the movies are shitty but because real-life conversation can sometimes turn your mind around in ways that performances can only poke at.
Sarsgaard “has become this year’s go-to guy by holding his feelings in check,” the Newark Star Ledger‘s Stephen Witty wrote today. “What exactly is going on behind those sleepy eyes? Sly and knowing, Sarsgaard’s characters always seem to be privy to some secret information…something always feels closeted.”
“As Robert convulses with wrenching emotional seizures, Mr. Sarsgaard gives the riskiest screen performance of his career,” wrote New York Times critic Stephen Holden. “Save perhaps for Sean Penn’s outbursts in Dead Man Walking and Mystic River, no actor in a recent American film has delivered as explosive a depiction of a man emotionally blasted apart.”
And yet Sarsgaard’s essence as a performer, I think, is about strength. He’s the guy who gets everything, who sees through every last dodge. That’s what those hooded eyes say to me…not malevolence, not some prickly loser attitude, but supreme perceptional confidence. In a friendly, non-arrogant way.

Sarsgaard, Maggie Gyllenhaal

It’s right there in that settled gaze and slight smile. I know, he’s saying. You know …we both do. You want me to tell you? I can but…we don’t need to play games, do we?
I met Sarsgaard late Wednesday afternoon near his place in the West Village, adjacent to Hudson Square.
My moody little fucking IPAQ 3115 didn’t feel like recording, but I remembered a few things without notes. Here’s a random sampling of topics explored at a little Italian place on the corner of Jane and West 4th Street.
He’s taller than he seems to be on-screen, and a bit fuller of face (especially with the beard) than he was in Shattered Glass. It may be an act (and wouldn’t that fit the whole picture if is is?), but his manner is about as easy and gracious as it gets.
Sarsgaard took some time off about doing four ’05 films in a row — The Skeleton Key, Flightplan (in which he played the villain), The Dying Gaul and Jarhead. He’s only just starting to read scripts again.
He can wait for the right ones to come along. He doesn’t spend his money (he drives a ’91 or ’92 car) and is under no financial pressure to do anything.

He’d like to play likable, sure, but he doesn’t get sent the pick-of-the-litter scripts (i.e., the ones that go to Tom Cruise, Bard Pitt, et. al.) and he often winds up getting offered this or that outsider-malcontent type. He’s pretty clear about which films are right for him and which aren’t, he says.
He’s loosely collaborating with Dying Gaul director-writer Craig Lucas on a new film project, although his input has been mostly in the vein of saying “this works” or “that doesn’t seem right” with Lucas doing the heavy lifting.
There’s a lot of concentration that goes into doing press junkets, he feels. He suggested to Jarhead costar Jake Gyllenhaal that he check out Albert and David Maysles’ Meet Marlon Brando (’66), a 28-minute doc about Brando doing press interviews for Code Name: Morituri in ’65,and never really getting into the promo- tional frame of mind, talking about this or that…an excellent behavioral guide for any actor looking to keep his/her dignity during a press junket.
His girlfriend Maggie Gyllenhaal is just starting work on Oliver Stone’s 9/11 movie, and Peter doesn’t claim to know too much about the when, where and how…not his deal.
After finishing shooting on The Dying Gaul, Peter and Maggie took a trip to Sicily but at one point decided to divert to Rome to visit the statue of the Dying Gaul (also known as the Dying Galatian or Dying Gladiator) in the Capitoline Museum. They stayed at Rome’s Hotel de Russie.

Dying Gaul statue at Rome’s Capitoline Museum.

A thought hit me during our chat that Sarsgaard (especially with his beard and all) would look right as an 1860s cabinet officer and Union military guy in Steven Spielberg’s Abraham Lincoln movie, which is supposedly going to begin filming in March ’06 with Liam Neeson in the lead.
We parted company around 6 pm, partly because Sarsgaard had to make it up to the Beacon Theatre to see Rufus Wainwright perform. He’s also a fan of a Rasta- farian group called Midnite (apparently they only perform in the wee hours). He later suggested my checking out two of their tunes on I-Tunes — “Propaganda” and “Mamma Africa.”
Check out this IMDB chat board showing that Sarsgaard has some revved-up female fans, with some singing his praises as a “soft” non-sculpted hottie.
Regular reader Dixon Steele wrote in this afternoon after reading an earlier, choppier version of this piece and said, “Peter Saarsgard is a very talented actor, always interesting…and I don’t think I’ve ever seen him in a total clunker.
“But on top of that, he gets to sleep with Maggie Gyllenhaal every night! Damn!! For that alone he gets our respect (and envy!). Maybe it’s the Double-A thing in their names.”
Acknowledgment: Special thanks to our friends at DigitalHit.com for allowing me to use the Sarsgaard photo at the top of the page.

Still from Albert Maysles’ 1966 documentary Meet Marlon Brando

Boston Grabs

Sarah Silverman during 20-minute q & a at Boston’s Seaport Hotel — Friday, 11.4.05, 12:40 pm.

On the way to the Silverman interview from Coolidge Corner on Beacon Street — 11.4.05, 12:05 pm.

On Chinatown bus to Boston, about 40 miles out — Thursday, 11.3.05, 4:10 pm.

On Green Line back to Brookline after Silverman interview — 11.4.05, 1:15 pm.

Jett Wells — Thursday, 11.3.05, 8:05 pm.

Coolidge Corner, looking southwest — 11.4.05, 11:58 am.

This is what I mean by widescreen TV idiocy, and I see it everywhere. Batman Begins, a 2.35 to 1 scope film, is stupidly misconfigured on this 16 x 9 screen — vertically, nonsensically compressed. The morons who set up hardware displays in electronics stores are always doing stuff like this, and when you mention it to them they always go “huh?”

Sarah Silverman — 11.4.05, 12:50 pm

Endeavor agent John Lesher has taken the Paramount Classics job..the one that Ruth Vitale and David Dinerstein shared all those years. Whenever a hip, priveleged, high-strung white person leaves a job, he/she is always replaced by another hip, priveleged, high-strung white person…which is why I rarely report about Hollywood hires. That said, it’s always been said of Lesher (and I’ve always liked the “idea” of Lesher because of this) that he doesn’t think or act like a typical suit. He has the personality of a frazzled director, a struggling screenwriter…he’s very much like the guys (Alejandro Gonzales Innaritu, etc.) he used to represent at Endeavor. So in that sense he’s cool…or so I’ve always heard. Is this “real” or some bullshit pose? If anyone has any first-hand observations…

Boston bus travel is going to get in the way of timely filings for the next few hours. I’l throw up what I can later today…

An impassioned, extremely well-made film with a sincere emotional current (i.e., one that actually makes you feel something with an application of professional finesse rather than hokey button-pushing) opens after being acclaimed by critics or film festival audiences or both…and what happens?

The public doesn’t respond with much enthusiasm. The movie opens in third or fourth or fifth place, or it opens okay but not as strongly as it should have, and then it’s dead by the second or third weekend, if not sooner.

Terrence Howard, Taraji P. Henson in Craig Brewer’s Hustle & Flow

And then journos start thinking twice about putting this or that insufficiently-loved film on their best-of-the-year lists because they don’t want their editors to think they’re out of touch or living in their own realm.

All because the marketing wasn’t handled in exactly the right way…or the market- ing was fairly on the money and the paying public still didn’t care that much and went to see…whatever….Saw II, Flightplan, The Legend of Zorro, Wallace and Gromit, The 40 Year-Old Virgin, etc.

I’m not talking about a disconnect between effete critics loving the latest downer- head, hard-to-stay-with, impossible-to-really-like art film, and audiences doing their usual avoidance-rejection of anything that doesn’t deliver a rousing visual punch, or that isn’t arresting on some primitive horrific-comedic level.

I’m talking about fairly high-grade, non-elitist, feel-good movies getting the cold shoulder, or at least they’re not getting the love they deserve. Why? I could theorize but I’d wind up sounding like a misanthrope.

I don’t have a long list of examples, but 2005 has availed itself of a few modest calamities in this vein.

The two most obvious are Craig Brewer‘s Hustle & Flow ($22 million so far), a movie with some euphoric musical-high scenes and a fully-earned righteous-uplift finale, and Curtis Hanson’s In Her Shoes, a movie with a $70 or $80 million quality aura that’s taken in only $30 million so far. I’ve written enough about this film, but it qualifies.

Beautiful Country director Hans Petter Moland, Damien Nguyen during filming

I don’t care if anyone agrees with me, but Hans Petter Moland’s The Beautiful Country delivered in the general realm I’m describing — it’s a heart movie with a carefully rendered tone — and it was all but ignored.

I’m a bit worried that Thomas Bezucha‘s The Family Stone, a smart, sophisticated family-friendly comedy, might underperform or fail to reach an appropriate-sized audience…partly because it’s opening relatively late in the holidays (12.16) and will lose a bit of its appeal after January 1, 2006. And partly because rural-sector audiences might say, ‘Is this dopey enough? Are these people like the people in my family or…?’

I’m afraid Fox marketing might have erred in abandoning the original early Novem- ber release, and that audiences might be smelling this indecision and starting to go ‘hmmm.’

I’ve mentioned this before, but I’m wondering more and more how much ticket- buying support Ang Lee‘s Brokeback Mountain — easily one of the most emotionally affecting mainstream films I’ve seen this year — will be getting. I’m not predicting anything, but if it gets cold-shouldered…maybe I shouldn’t bring this up.

Quality movies obviously do well (or fairly well) from time to time, or at least man- age to avoid box-office humiliations. The $28 million earned so far by A History of Violence isn’t bad, given what it is. The Constant Gardener‘s nearly $33 million domestic gross is a moderately satisfying thing…depending on your attitude. Intriguing cultivated-audience films all seem to top out in the high 20s or low 30s.

We all know about disparate movie appetites making a world. There are Saw II fans vs. fools for Capote. It’s not a crime to like primitive boilerplate films which (here comes a troublesome statement) are primarily made for people who lead straight-from-the-shoulder, not-deeply-examined, Carl’s-Jr.-salad-bar lives, and there are films for those with somewhat more developed interiors…folks who’ve gone to college, grown up a bit, read a few books.

Heath Ledger, Michelle Williams in Brokeback Mountain

What staggers me is when the instinctuals, who obviously comprise the majority, blow off films that are relative no-brainers and are also emotionally shrewd and affecting.
I’ve always presumed people of all stripes and persuasions go to movies mainly to feel something profound…to connect with this or that lump-in-the-throat emotion that they’re not experiencing all that much in their day-to-day lives…but maybe not.

I know that Dylan, my extremely bright (i.e., smarter than me) 15 year-old son, doesn’t care at all for lump-in-the-throat movies. He’s partial to intensely visual movies, naturally, and stays away from anything that smells square or schmaltzy.

Shruggers

Movie reviews always seems to lean in the direction of “thumbs up” or “thumbs down.” But what about those relatively engaging, not-that-bad ‘tweeners?
I’ve seen a lot of films that I can’t really rave about, but I’ve had a moderately okay time with. Didn’t hate ’em, didn’t love ’em…they left me not hungry, not angry…and maybe a little more than half satisfied.
I’ve always thought Ebert and Roeper should add a “thumbs sideways” rating. Thumbs sideways would mean “wait for the DVD,” I know…and if I were paying to see movies, that’s how I’d process this reaction.

But thumbs sideways is better than thumbs down, and any honest critic will tell you that many, many films (roughly 15% or 20%) are not profound works of art or deliriously entertaining, but a long way from being pieces of shit.
Recent shruggers include North Country, Lord of War, Junebug, The War Within, Dreamer: Based on a True Story, Proof, Thumbsucker, Everything is Illiminated, New York Doll, The Libertine, Ellie Parker, The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till, 2046 and Kings and Queen.
They’re not bad, they don’t stink, I didn’t hate them and I didn’t walk out in a bad mood. What do you want from a film…perfection and purity?

Tuesday Grabs

Dying Gaul costars Patricia Clarkson, Peter Sarsgaard at Kanvas (9th Avenue and 23rd Steet), site of the post-premiere party — Tuesday, 11.3.05, 10:15 pm.

Billboard at corner of 42nd and 7th Ave. — Tuesday, 11.3.05, 10:40 pm.

Wednesday, 11.4.05, 7:05 am.

Approaching Times Square from 40th Street — Tuesday, 11.3.05, 10:40 pm.

Cop cars assembled to handle some sort of security issue regarding New York City visit of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles…I think.

Peeking at Diane Sawyer through the big window outside Good Morning America studios at B’way and 44th — Wednesday, 11.4.05, 6:55 am.

Spiritual Sell

Gotta love that Bob Berney marketing audacity. Lay it on the line, sell the movie you have and damn the torpedoes.
I’m referring to Berney’s decision to call a certain heart-warming, Israeli-produced film, which his company, Picturehouse Films, picked up for U.S. distribution a few months ago…a movie that, let’s be honest, very few people other than Orthodox Jews in New York and Florida will want to see no matter what it’s called…a movie that Berney, in his admirably mule-stubborn way, has decided to sell with its orig- inal title, which is…ready?…Ushpizin.

Shuli Rand, star and screenwriter of Ushpizin, enduring a moment of anti-rapture

I would have called it Holy Guests or Bad Company or something like that. Partly because the movie’s about a Jewish Orthodox couple playing host to a couple of ne’er-do-wells during a holiday, but mainly because these titles are more…goy- friendly?
But then I’m not Bob Berney. I’m just this guy typing away inside a modest Brooklyn apartment while Berney sits in regal poobah splendor inside his $17 million Park Avenue triplex, tabulating profits from his offshore investments and making and breaking careers with a slight raising or lowering of his eyebrows…a much-feared and much-envied “big op” renowned for great wisdom and shrewd business judgment.
Okay, I’m kidding about the triplex and the eyebrows and the offshore investments, but Berney is a smart distributor so maybe he made the right call.
Let’s start with the Ushpizin basics, beginning with the correct pronunciation, which is oosh-peh-zeen.
Directed by Giddi Dar and written by the film’s star, Shuli Rand, Ushizpizin is about a poor Orthodox Jew named Moshe who lives in Jerusalem with his wife Malli and is trying to live by the spirit of the festival of Sukkot…I’m sorry, is this sounding too exotic already?

Moshe’s a nice pudgy middle-aged guy with a long squiggly beard, but he and his chubby wife Malli have no kids and he’s feeling a little bit blue about this and other matters.
And then these two jerky oddballs show up — Eliyahu, an old pal of Moishe’s from his pre-Orthodox, running-around days, and a pal called Yossef. They’re prison convicts on the run from the law, which eventually becomes known by Moshe and Malli, and from this complications ensue.
As with all spiritual fables, the visit by this unruly pair turns out to be a kind of blessing in disguise.
There’s a totally valid analogy between Ushpizin and David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence. You could also say it parallels Michael Mann’s Collateral, which is also about redemption arriving in the form of criminal behavior.
L.A. Daily News critic Bob Strauss, who doesn’t roll over for just anything, has called Ushpizin “one of the best character-based comedies of the year.”
Ushpizin has already played successfully in Israel for about a year. It just opened limited on Friday, 10.28, and is expanding on 11.4 to Philadelphia, Boston, Los Angeles and (I think I have this right) Florida. Basically anywhere there’s a heavy Jewish Orthodox population,okay?

Dar said that even in Israel he was told by distributors to change the title because “a lot of [Israelis] don’t know what it means.” (It means “guests” or “holy guests.”) But when he spoke to Berney about selling the film in the U.S., Berney said “let’s trust in God and keep it…let audiences break their teeth.”
Berney decided to stick with Ushpizin precisely “because it’s exotic. I just thought it made more sense to go with the original Hebrew name.”
Berney acknowledges that the interest in “small outside of New York City, but inside New York City it’s huge. We’re going to take it slowly, obviously playing to the core audience first….evangelicals, other faiths…it’s a film, after all, about belief and a test of faith. And there’s also the arthouse crowd.”
Berney and his wife Jeannie went to a screening of Ushpizin last week at a Brooklyn neighborhood called Borough Park.
“It’s a Hassidic, ultra-Orthodox neighborhood near Coney Island, and it’s really it’s own world. A very concentrated, ultra-Orthodox Hassidic community. It was at a high school auditorium and there were hundreds of people and many of them were coming up to me and telling me they were really pleased…it was mainly a 35 or 40 year-old crowd.”
Gadar agrees that the word “exotic” applies to the title of Ushpizin as well as the film itself, “but the interesting part is that when you cross the line and look at the world from Moshe and Malli’s point of view…you end up finding they’re very much like you.

Official Ushpizin T-shirt, available through official website.

Gadar says he’s “not religious at all” but says, “I think what this movie offers is that it’s a completely authentic movie about faith…teling a story which all faiths and cultures can identify with.”
When Ushpizin played in Isarel last year “everybody …secular, liberals, left- wing…saw it.” America is the first country outside of Israel to have theatrical playdates,he tells me.
“I showed the film to some Muslim people, but I don’t think Muslim countires will allow it to be played in their territories. I would like to show it in Iran…but it’s not that simple to put an Israeli film in Ian or even Egypt. It’s very hard. But the best thing about this movie is that it overcomes politics.”
And the best thing for Berney and Picturehouse Films, obviously, would be for Ushpizin to catch on with the goyim.
Honestly? I might not have gone to see this film if I hadn’t been given a screener. The title seems to be a statement that it isn’t for someone like me. But having seen it, I can say that it’s a film I respect for its heart and spiritual values, and that I feel a certain allegiance because of this.

Jarhead Support

“I haven’t seen Jarhead, but I read Anthony Swofford’s book while on my year-long tour in Iraq last year. And now that I’ve just read your commentary on the film, it appears that the filmmakers have actually tried to make a film that is honest about modern war, if not battle.
“I don’t yet know if that’s necessarily a problem, but an issue that I have with most war movies (now that I’m a ‘war’ veteran), is that they aren’t war films. Battles are exciting but war is boring. You also have to realize that except for the first wave of fighting in Faluha, there haven’t been pitched conflicts during the Iraqi occupation.

Jarhead costars Jake Gyllenhaal, Peter Sarsgaard

“Even those soldiers unlucky enough to have been under direct fire will tell you that 99% of their time is spent being bored out of their minds. So if you want to tap into the reality of a soldier (most of whom are not traditional triggermen, but support soldiers) you have to address the boredom and personal demons that soldiers focus on in the absence of anything to do. I mean, I too went batty about a girl back home.
“I was trained for three years and then I spent 10 months with a higher headquarters staff, where I stared at a computer screen for 12 hours a night, 7 nights a week, so I can really relate to the frustration that comes with not doing the job that you volunteered for and trained to do. It makes that time feel like it’s been stolen from you.
“I guess my point is that what Jarhead is about is what those who experience it feel about the boredom factor that is part of the totality of fighting a war. Non-veterans, it seems, don’t want to tap into that truth, and seem to prefer ideas of being entertained by their concepts of what war (or war movies) ought to be like.” — Andre Rember, formerly a Captain in the U.S. Army Artillery.
“I haven’t seen Jarhead, but your piece said there’s no story or plot and that’s upsetting (a little), but the waiting and many of your other descriptions sound exactly what life is like in the military.
“What your wrote actually makes it more intriguing to me now. How you described the movie is our reality. That is exactly what it is like. Train, train train…get ready, get ready…wait…okay, something happened so you’re not going now. (A constant emotion and adrenaline roller-coaster)

“That is enlisted life. I am wrapping up my fifth year in the military and although I haven’t been to the desert, your descriptions are dead on as to what it is like most of the time.
“Does that make Jarhead a good movie? Maybe not, especially for those outside of the military. But at least it sounds real. It could do well with military, depending on ‘if they get it.’ (Most of my military counterparts are more interested in Saw II) Many could come out saying, ‘Yep that is what it’s like.’ And tell their friends. But that won’t create a huge box office or push any awards.” — A senior Airman who asked for anonymity
“I disagree that Jarhead fails ‘to stir any primal chords about anything …to make anyone feel anything about what happened 14 years ag,’ as you said. It must be that I served my time in the Army and had those same feelings of anticipation, anxiety, fear, and regret.
“And I really didn’t see those things in Gunner Palace (which isn’t to say I didn’t like it and it didn’t hit close to home). Hell, Nick Moncrief (the Sgt. who raps in that movie) was in my Basic Training platoon at Ft Sill. To this day I have several family and friends over there and it’s a damn crime.
“That said, Jarhead does something that no other war’ film has done — it paints the portrait of what it is to be a soldier in a way that spooked me.
“When Peter Sarsgaard’s character announces to his buddies after seeing a newscast that ‘we are going to war,’ almost made me throw up with memories of the morning of Sept 11th and when the same reaction happened from my line NCO.

“Everything that follows is a pitch-perfect portrayal of the hurry-up-and-wait mentality of the U.S. armed forces. Jarhead is what it is to be a modern soldier. What you infer is that all of the little things about Jodie and other common military horror stories, is they are simply cliches. Well, they are real — this is what happens. Every soldier knows them and every soldier has expierenced them or knows someone who has.
“As far as the message of the film is concerned, Mendes & Co. simply were showing how dissapointing the whole ordeal was. Every thing from the tagline to the looks on the Marine’s faces when the Vietnam Vet enters their bus…it was all a disappointment.
“That scene is another (of many) that hit home way to well. As soon as an older vet finds out that I served in the Army, they immediately become freindly with me and share all of their sad tales of war and hardship, and just like the Marines on that bus all you can do is stare, because the life of a soldier is merely a disappointment, and not honorable…because what is honor in a pointless war?
“Because this movie spooked me, I think it is the best film of the year so far. For me.” — Michael Walsh, www.blackcarmediaworks.com

Meetings in Paris

“I was in Paris last week and saw Woody Allen’s Match Point on the day it opened (on a Wednesday), and I was astounded by how much I enjoyed it.
“Some of this reaction, I suppose, is about having having had low expectations despite yourself and other journalists running raves after seeing it last May at the Cannes Film Festival.
“Is it just me or shouldn’t Dreamworks be making some noise right now about how good it is? Maybe some whispers about Allen’s screenplay, at least?

Match Point star Scarlett Johansson.

“Maybe I’m delusional but I really quite enjoyed it. I re-watched Crimes and Misde- meanors when I got home and, all right, maybe Match Point isn’t quite up to that standard, but it just might be enough to renew some interest in Allen’s films after his last five abysmal outings.
“Speaking of Paris, I also ran into Wes Anderson there a few days ago. He was sitting with a woman at a sidewalk table in front of a small cafe on Blvd St. Ger- main between Rue De Seine and Rue Danton. And I was walking along with my friend Michael.
“Unnhh…Mr. Anderson.”
“Yes.”
“I thought it was you. I’m sorry to interrupt, but my friend and I were just discuss- ing you and your films about a block away and how you were living in Paris. Then I saw you and had to say something.”
“No problem,” he said. “What’s your name?”
“I’m Grant. This is Michael.”
“Hey, Michael…I’m Wes. This is Deborah.” And we all shook hands.
Sitting on Wes’s table was a large script that had drawings in red marker along the margins, with a small notebook on top of it.

Grant Peterson (l.) and Paris resident Wes Anderson on the occasion of a chance meeting on Blvd. St. Germain — Wednesday, 10.26, 3:45 pm

“About two weeks ago I read that Noah Baumbach mentioned you were living in Paris,” I said to him, “and I’m only here for the day before I head back to the States and I was thinking it would be really awesome to run into to you…and then it happens!”
He asked if I’d seen Noah’s film, The Squid and the Whale.
“No, I haven’t. Unfortunately it’s not out in Portland where I live. I think it’s opening this week.”
Then I asked Wes if Michael could take our picture together.
“Not a problem,” he said. He stood up and gestured for us to move over to an empty space next to the cafe. Wes put his arm around me and I smiled. We shook hands again and I thanked him profusely. He said it was no trouble.” — Grant Peterson

Mondo Kongo

“When I saw Heavenly Creatures six or seven years ago it not only became my favourite Peter Jackson movie, but led to increased interest in the then-upcoming Lord of the Rings trilogy that he would be directing.
“Heavenly Creatures is still my favourite Peter Jackson movie, mainly because it’s my only favourite Peter Jackson movie. I really became pissed off with the LOTR films as they contained leading characters I hated (fucking Hobbits), multiple endings (especially Return of the King) and a director obviously going up his own rear.

“With all the internet correspondents writing about the Rings films like they were the second coming and that we have to see them, etc. I really did not like this overwhelming favouritism as I found it really hard to judge the films on their own merits, which I managed to do when I got them on DVD. I certainly didn’t like them as much as AICN fellowship had implored me to do.
“When I heard that King Kong is going to be three hours long, all interest in this film died on the spot. You know at least an hour is going to be useless filler. What audiences want, which has been lacking from a lot of blockbusters this year, is an element that keeps them glued to the screen. Maybe King Kong will be a masterpiece…who knows?
“I’llstart taking Jackson seriously when he makes a low-budget indie film without all his usual toys. A low-budget indie film, say, about a disintegrating family, written by Harold Pinter, But right now I seriously doubt a director who is a) so obviously full of himself, and b) is being told he’s the greatest thing since sliced bread. He’s like the film world’s equivalent of Bono.” — Ben Colegate, London
“Your observation about Jackson being at a place professionally where he can throw money (and extra scenes and CG and effects) at his film just because he can is very true. But I think you missed the main point, blinded are you are by reflexive Jackson-loathing.

“The point is more about Jackson having lost his way artistically. The textbook example is John Landis. After the success of Animal House and the Blues Brothers (blecch), he makes his horror-comedy An American WereWolf in London. Funny bits, decent cast (go Griffin Dunne!)…but it was fat and digressive with pointless (for me) spooky dream sequences involving Nazi pig monsters and too many squibs and too much blood.
“It seems that when the artists are starting out and have less money, they have to be more creative, and are forced to generate more innovate material. Once they’re established…well, money can’t buy love, but it can buy a lot of CG. Many artists fall prey to the temptation to take those kinds of shortcuts, not just Jackson or Cameron.
“The question is, can Jackson rise above his demonstrated tendencies to self-indulge? I guess we’ll have a clue about this soon enough.” — Roy “Griff” Griffis

Sunday Evening

Schiller’s Liquor Bar on Rivington, a couple blocks north of Delancey on Manhattan’s Lower East Side — Sunday, 10.30.05, 8:50 pm.

Ditto, exterior — 9:15 pm

Fuck Yoga, an attitude T-shirt boutique on Ludlow Street — Sunday, 10.30.05, 8:20 pm

Pseudo-hip discount Manhattan hotel…”only” $169 per night.

Walking back to good old ratty Brooklyn across Williamsburg bridge — Sunday, 10.30.05, 10:05 pm

Schiller’s again

The failure of Jarhead to stir any primal chords about anything …to make anyone feel anything about what happened 14 years ago in Kuwait, or sound any echoes about what’s going on in Iraq today…I think this absence of content is going to build respect for a film that dealt very precisely with young soldiers coping with an often boring war situation in a very real way. I’m speaking of Michael Tucker’s Gunner Palace, a credible contender for a Best Feature Documentary Oscar. It isn’t easy to go out and film an unpopular war, and the conflict in Iraq is something that’s happening right now…even though it’s a war that few people want to pay attention to. The funny thing about Jarhead is that it appears to wrap itself in “clever” postmodernism. Everybody is writing about the grunts watching the Vietnamese-village-attack scene in Apocalypse Now and the similarites to Full Metal Jacket. Like…surprise!…soldiers watch war movies, look at porn and masturbate. All of this stuff is part of Gunner Palace — Kubrick, Apocalypse and porn…but because Gunner Palace‘s soldiers are real, it’s being absorbed in a diffferent context.

Steven Spielberg is rushing to get Munich finished in due time …well, of course…yeah. John Williams is only just starting to get his musical score into shape, but pic will be done and screenable by early December. It has to be. Universal will be putting the Israeli Mossad eye-for-an-eye revenge drama in theatres on 12.23. Eric Bana, Daniel Craig and Geoffrey Rush costar.