Yes, that’s our guy George and he is good with that gun, too good.  We get to watch him, step by step for almost every minute of the two hour flick, The American.  He is usually on his own, walking down lovely Italian streets, sleeping, eating in small bistros, looking over his shoulder, always.  He looks good, he lives in great places and we get to journey with him but his journey is that of a hit man.

In the opening scene, in a lovely cabin in the woods of Sweden, as the snow falls he shares a cabin with a gorgeous woman-friend, but their walk the next morning forces them back into the world and we are off balance with the George Clooney we usually love.  We can still love him but this is not our George.  This is George Clooney taking advantage of his star power to take on a role that will challenge him as an actor.  I appreciated his work but will others?  Hmmmm…. Maybe the Indie, foreign film audience- the audience who has patience to watch a character in his silence: walking the streets, eating, living on his own looking over his shoulder.

I am still thinking about this unglamorous picture of a hitman.

Great work George!  Thumbs up from me for your Mr. Butterfly.

What a big weekend for movies even with great August weather

Saturday morning, 11:45:

We sat outside the main theater at the Burns Film Center in Pleasantville, New York,  patiently waiting to claim our usual seats (row F, Left A and B)  for an early performance of Cairo Time staring  Patricia Clarkson and a bonus for holding Film Buff memberships: a session with  the director, Rubba Nadda and PC,  interviewed by New York TImes reviewer,Janet Maslin.

Okay, the lights dim, no ads, just one or two interesting trailers of coming attractions and then we begin, transported to Cairo and that’s where we remain for the next hour and 28 minutes.

I can’t say that I’m ready to jump on a plane and explore Cairo for myself but Tuvia’s ready.  I was satisfied to walk with Juliet(Patricia Clarkson) as she takes us with her on an adventure.  I have seen many of Clarkson’s movies but this one marks her  debut as the movie’s main star( she carries the movie) and as we watch I can’t help but pull away a bit, anticipating our rare opportunity to listen to her talk about the experience.

Juliet, a lovely woman arrives ahead of her husband, Mark, anticipating a wonderful 3 week vacation in Cairo as he finishes up his  official UN work in nearby Gaza, but at the airport she is met with a change in  plans. Mark’s former colleague, Tareq (Alexander Siddig), meets her with news that her husband is delayed and that  he will escort her to her hotel.

She is thrown off and we begin to get to know Juliet in her silences. We watch her for a good part of the movie dealing with this  news as a single, older woman in a very foreign city. She is without stable internet access and that further isolates her from her work and her kids back home. Her hotel is luxurious but it pales to the excitement of the street, but as a woman on her own she is unused to walking in the crowded streets followed by flocks of men and she logically reaches out to Tareq for help.  We are ready to meet Tareq in the comfort of his male cafe, dressed in traditional garb  now that we have been given the precious time necesassary  to get to know Juliet in all her uncomfortable silence.

Tareq is as unique and as interesting as Juliet and as they get to know each other, we are walking right behind them, sharing their moments in Cairo.

As the movie concludes with Mark’s inevitable but abrupt arrival Juliet is forced to change her direction. We are with her and even as the credits start to roll we don’t want to leave her.  We want to know more!

The lights rise and we get to know more….

Janet Maslin introduces Rubba Nadda, writer-director of Cairo Time and lead, Patricia Clarkson. Rubba is a bubbly, 37 year old Arab-Canadian woman born of  Syrian-Palestinian parents and we now understand why this piece feels so authentic. We have a gifted young writer-director who is passionate about her words and about making them come alive on the screen.  She has taken a 5 year journey with her characters and understands them first-hand.  She and her sister have been able to  navigate their cast and crew around a city of 20 million people on a bare-bones budget and showcase great actors who signed on to a film without promise of big bucks but rather for a labor of love.

We leave the theater feeling fully treated to a meal and dessert with our greatest unspoken expectations met.

Sunday 4:30 Palisades Mall

We are ready for Eat, Pray, Love. Actually, I am more ready for it.  I’ve read the book and liked it a lot.  Not love, but strong like.  It’s a bit too bit too preachy in some places, but but I took  a walk with Elizabeth Gilbert  on her path to self-awareness and it felt authentic.  I’m curious as to whether or not Julia Roberts and  her big budget Hollywood team led by Ryan Murphy director/screenwriter will  do with her work justice.  Gilbert  was not  a part of  screenwriting team and I always wonder why that doesn’t automatically happen.  Oh well, it’s hard to move away from Cairo Time and its total authenticity, but we do. I do.  Tuvia is just along for the ride, to keep me company, I’m sure.

The movie begins like the book. Liz (Julia) is moving away from her marriage and ends it to the surprise and disappointment of her husband. Further,after a brief affair  she decides to take off for a year for her life in New York to find her true self, deciding on three countries to explore.

She eats, really eats her way through Italy, with total abandon piling on the pounds as she learns Italian and develops  a great circle of friends to share her life and meals with.   I can’t tell if Julia really gained any weight but she is wearing looser clothes. I am with her during this first part of movie as I was with Gilbert as I read the book but now we move to India for part 2 of the travel odyssey.

Liz arrives at her guru’s ashram. So far, so good. The filming is on location and it’s a powerful shift from the lushness of Italy.  She meets up with Richard, a Texan yoga  played wonderfully by Richard Jenkins who calls her Groceries and uses his screen time to hit his character out of the park  and honestly,I’m believing Julia  too.  Richard takes her up to his favorite spot at the ashram and shares his ghosts with her, challenging her to deal with her own and she begins to leave behind her guilt at having walked out her marriage…

but she doesn’t go all the way. We don’t see her struggle.  I have the book’s narrative in my head to fill in the blanks, but for Tuvia the movie begins to feel superficial and inauthentic. Choices have been made and we move abruptly on to location #3, Bali and as much as  I’m ready to see Liz get to the love part it’s too soon.

The real Liz  takes her time to get to know the real women of Bali as she moves beyond the tourist stage into a deeper connection with the natives and finds her own rhythm as well.  She gets comfortable with  her Bali wiseman and her healer and  friend, Lani.  But there’s no time allowed during the  Hollywood filming for her personal exploration.  We need to get to the LOVE and sadly, as much as love watching Javier Barden on the screen, his arrival is too abrupt and we don’t really get to see Liz come to her own epiphany.

So as I come to my last paragraph, I’m thinking about Juliet and her adventure with Tareq and wondering when we can get back to Cairo Time. And as for Eat, Pray, Love, I’m glad I have Gilbert’s version to fill in the movie blanks.

Last weekend we hit the theaters Friday, Saturday and Sunday and came away with three winners.  Well I did.  Tuvia would probably not stick his thumb up as high for all three, but he did like them.

Friday: Opening Day for  Michael Moore’s latest lens focus on our  economy’s recent melt down.

Capitalism: A Love Story, taken from Woody Guthrie’s  protest song  as a call to action.

Michael Moore calls us to action!

Anyone who enters the movie theater, knows what they will get from Michael Moore.  He is a passionate activist proudly standing left of left.  I applaud  his activism and even though this one started slowly for me, by the middle, the core of the piece, it was humming and yes, by the end, bringing us back to the popularism of FDR and I was cheering with the rest of a very full audience.

Michael Moore knows how to use the camera as his own personal mouthpiece.  With his baseball cap and jeans jacket and bulging belly, he places himself right in the face of his real-life bad guys.  For this film it’s the banks,the CEO’s, the experts, the government. Chris Dodd can’t escape.

He is easy on Obama.  Even though Michael is a muckracker, he wants to believe “Yes, we can!”   He is willing to wait and see and give Obama the benefit of the doubt for now.

It’s a movie to see and to think about, to talk about.

On a very  dreary Saturday  we needed  a pick-me-up and Whip It! , DID IT!

I knew nothing about the roller derby craze and it took some getting used to, but it was nothing  like the violence of professional wrestling in the recent Wrestler.

It was easy to take a leap of faith with this one,  Ellen Page(Juno) took on the lead role and Drew Barrymore, acting and making her directing debut collaborated well with a great supporting cast of women and some cool men.  Jimmy Fallon plays the derby mc.

Perfect for a rainy day and then some.

Bliss(Ellen) is under the thumb of her very domineering mother, Marcia Gay Harden, who is reliving her own moments of glory as a beauty pageant winner.  Bliss is accepting, but not really living her own life, yet…

One night she sneaks away  from her small Texas town to the nearby city of Austin for a night at the roller derby and she falls in love and she transforms into BABE RUTHLESS!

Her team, the Hurl Scouts, embrace her with sisterly love. Drew does double duty, supporting Bliss on the team with her great brand of  zany comedy and her passion for the piece, for this coming of age  story through a girl power vehicle.

I loved the circle of women even with a bit of pushing and shoving on skates. That would never be my reality or fantasy.

And last one on Sunday- Amreeka

This is a story, that’s close to home. A Palestinian divorcee living on the West Bank, has a sister living in America.  She is raising a bright son who wants the education he can get in America.  She takes up the challenge and arrives  in March 2003, just as we began bombing Baghdad when it was not easy for any immigrant with any connection to the Arab world.

In this small Illinois town,  Muna Faour, is resilient in a very authentic way.  Everyone is faced with immigrant issues Muna leads a powerful cast.

Director-writer Cherien Dabis drew the story from life — she was a Palestinian, born in Nebraska, raised in Jordan and living in Ohio when the first Iraq War began and her story informs the story she shares on film.

The best film of this trio came last.

Yesterday was a perfect day for a movie.  All morning we watched  Teddy Kennedy’s funeral and with the rain coming and going, we needed a lift.  For Tuvia,  Taking Woodstock did not seem to be the answer. So I bought one ticket and his alternative plan was to spend the same two hours plunging into a book at the nearby Borders.

I entered the massive cineplex, moved right to the concession stand and indulged in a medium bag of popcorn to begin the experience.  I know, it’s filled with fat, even when you refuse the extra butter, but it’s a rare treat. No guilt.

I found our usual seats and watched the theater fill quickly.  I dozed through the string of previews and on cue woke up as the screen went dark and moved into feature movie mode.

Directed by Ang Lee, I was expecting an interesting perspective.  I had skimmed the New York Times review and it was not a great endorsement, but I put it aside.  I would make my own decision and give Ang the benefit of the doubt. My personal connection to Woodstock was a bit of an embarrassment, a missed opportunity.  Woodstock, not located in the real town of Woodstock happened very close to where I grew up and where I was spending that particular summer.  Just a few towns over, I was home that summer,  working at a resort hotel  and I could have gotten one of the days off, but not all three.  My friend Susan was psyched to go but I wondered if it was worth the money. Imagine.  What a consideration!  I thought about it too much and never got there.  I continue to wonder what it would have been like to have been there.

Okay, Taking Woodstock- Ang Lee opted to tell a small story within the fabric of the large event of Woodstock, the Concert. Lee seized on a true  story  based on the memoirs of Elliot Tiber, the young man who offered the Woodstock promoters a home in Bethel, New York.  All good with me.  I didn’t need to see Woodstock the Concert again. Lee included  a bit of music and the use of split screens(a la Woodstock, the Concert documentary) as the young professional techies arrived with equipment to transform the pastureland into a concert setting.

The main character, Elliot, (Demetri Martin) looks a bit like a young and gawky Dustin Hoffman, who puts his own life on hold, for the good of his parents, supporting them with his savings to spend his weekends with them as their motel sinks deeper and deeper into debt.  But unlike Dustin Hoffman, Martin does not create an interesting character and yes, Woodstock, the event, does change his life but we don’t really see much of the change, and what we do see doesn’t feel authentic.

His parents, Russian Jewish immigrants are caricatures.  The father is passive, completely passive and his mother is nasty and greedy, really greedy. Elliot walks around a lot feeling important, inspecting the scene, waving hi.  He smokes pot with the festival’s hippie organizers, takes an LSD trip with a couple he meets on the concert site and frolics in the mud with old friend Billy(Emile Hirsch), home from Nam  Only Leiv Schreiber, an ex-Marine drag queen offers us humor with sincerity.

I was hoping for more from a Ang Lee, director of Brokeback Mountain.  To take on Woodstock, an event with so much heart, you need something that feels equally  authentic.

Ang, you let me down, but I will return to see your next effort, of course.

I've been dying to see this movie for the last few weeks and it's not up in our area so today we traveled back to the city to see it at one of two theaters. We could have seen it downtown or uptown, we went uptown. Tomorrow we will be downtown for music.
The winner of the Oscar for Best Foreign Film, it's the story of a young Japanese musician who plays cello for a small Toyko orchestra. When it closes and Daigo is left unemployed, he and his wife return to his hometown in the middle of Japan and he gets a job supporting the deceased Depart.

I haven’t been reviewing movies lately, that’s right Matt.  I dont’ know why really.  I have been focused on my Photo a Day challenge over at my other blog: http://blkdrama.wordpress.com

and for the last few weeks we haven’t been at the movies, but yesterday we were home again.

Angels and Demons opened and we were there for a 3:45 performance. With dinner plans at 6:30 this time seemed just right for us and we weren’t alone, maybe a preview of things to come.  Even with terrible reviews ( a 37% on Rotten Tomatoes) the theater was almost full.

And now to the movie:

I didn’t love it, but that was fine, it’s just for fun.  It was a bit long: 2 hours, 2o minutes and the plot is a bit ridiculous, but I do love Tom Hanks and the direction of Ron Howard and the location, Rome.

I was more than happy to race along, following Tom’s every step.  I  always believe the characters he creates and here, as a passionate professor of religious symbols, I was in “heaven” and it was good to be back at the movies.

On to Star Trek.