Memorial Day 2009

MEMORIAL DAY, 2009

 

From a hill picnic with nameless purple flowers,

the dead appear to us in dreams, ours and theirs,

remembering what it was like, how we were together,

 

Wondering

how we are

how are the tomatoes this year

how about the Dodgers, the election.

 

In dreams, in memories, we catch them up,

tell them

we’re doing fine

or not,

depending.

 

We tell them we miss them

we wish they were here

Alive

this broad May morning,

these clouds,

this stillness,

the smells and sights of barely summer.

 

Grateful for all we have,

which includes the dead,

we name them:

mother, father, son, daughter,

brother, sister, cousin, aunt…

 

The unspooling of the soul takes time.

 

Gentle ghosts of our memories,

we are grateful for all you gave us.

We continue your uncompleted work.

THE HANGOVER, from writers Jon Lucas and Scott Moore and director Todd Phillips, is a buddy/road movie, full of the tangles guys can get into on legendary bachelor parties, especially in Las Vegas.  The groom (Justin Bartha) and his groomsmen (Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, and Zach Galifianakis) drive from LA to LV in the snazzy Mercedes of the groom's prospective father-in-law (Jeffrey Tambor).  Right away you know, if you've ever been to the movies, that that car will not survive intact.  

The groomsmen awake the next morning with amnesia, a tiger in the bathroom, and a missing groom.  As their search elongates, it includes Mike Tyson in a cameo and a very naked guy in the trunk.  (Not the only naked guy, and no, none of the naked guys are the groom.)  In addition to its intended audience of junior high boys, THE HANGOVER is supposed to be drawing large female audiences because they enjoy watching how stupid guys get when they've been drunk, and the movie is funny in a nightmarish kind of way.

What a waste: Rachel Weisz, Adrien Brody, Mark Ruffalo, Robbie Coltrane, Maximilian Schell, Ricky Jay--excellent actors all, but not in writer/director Rian Johnson's THE BROTHERS BLOOM. (Hint: Tom Cruise had a three-hour meeting with Johnson that improved the script.)  

It probably sounded like a good idea to fool around with the Odysseus story, retold by James Joyce as Ulysses (characters of Penelope, Stephen, and Bloom--get it?  Never mind.  Not important unless you were an English major).  But this movie is a true mess.  Nothing makes much sense;  the movie doesn't even follow its own logic.  And logic should be in quotes: here, "logic."  Gratuitous explosions every two seconds, the kind of cliff-hanging teasing that would embarrass even 24...Just don't bother.

If you want a good retelling of the Odysseus story, check out a DVD of the Coen brothers' O Brother Where Art Thou?  Fabulous.

In French with English subtitles is the lovely and complex SUMMER HOURS, written and directed by Olivier Assayas.  It's the story of an extended family facing what could be the last summer visit at their family ancestral home, now in fragile repair, as is their mother, the family matriarch (Edith Scoh).  Juliette Binoche, Charles Berling, and  Jeremie Renier are the adult siblings celebrating their mother's 75th birthday with assorted significant others and children.   During the visit, their mother has "the talk" with her oldest son, repeating what she has told him many times about her wishes regarding the house, the valuable pieces of art, and its furnishings.  When the family has left, their mother says to her housekeeper that she knows what is embedded in the house are "stories, memories, and secrets."  

Some of those stories, memories, and secrets are revealed, almost unpeeled, through the course of this poignant film about aging, family, and the inevitability of loss.  Don't miss it.

Tony Scott's remake of THE TAKING OF PELHAM 123 is a movie movie, sure to get some nominations at Oscar time.  It's really a fantastic production: appropriate pacing, exciting editing, excellent writing, and two bravura performances from Denzel Washington as the good guy and John Travolta as the bad guy.  It's really fun to compare this production with the original 1974 version, with Walter Matthau as the good guy and Robert Shaw as the bad guy.  What Scott and his team have done is to update the time period to today in all kinds of details: computers, cell phones, $10 million ransom versus the miniscule $1 mil in 1974, and some character qualities most specifically relevant to today's economy.  

Be sure to allow some cool-down time for your heart rate.  You'll need it.

AWAY WE GO is a charming indie film about a quirky young non-slacker couple--he sells insurance to insurance companies; she's a medical illustrator.  They've just become pregnant when his parents (hers are already dead) inform them that they're moving to Europe for the next two years.  So much for interested grandparents...The young couple decide to check out where might be a good place to have and raise this child: near his brother? her sister? former work buddies? etc.  Since both their jobs are so portable, they head out on a road trip to explore their possibilities.  

The writing is terrific, ditto the acting.  The quirkiness factor is subtle enough that it's barely noticeable, actually, once you get over the first few scenes.  I loved AWAY WE GO.  I hope you do too.  For production details, check imdb.com.

DIM SUM FUNERAL is mildly successful, with pretty good writing and some good acting.  The plot concerns the successful but distanced adult siblings of a wealthy Chinese family, whose mother, frequently known as a dragon lady, is a widow in Seattle.  The sibs have as little contact with her as they do with one another.  They are brought together, spitting and fuming,  by a phone call from their mother's longtime housekeeper/caregiver/confidante.  They arrive separately in Seattle to be told by the housekeeper that their mother wanted a traditional seven-day Chinese funeral, complete with chanting monks and blazing replicas of a house and a Mercedes.  The one complete misfire is Talia Shire as the housekeeper.  And there's a cheat-y plot device that's saved only marginally by the movie's good heart and good generational advice.  Details are available on imdb.com

THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE is a fascinating movie, which often appears unscripted and documentary-like, in a good way.  It follows a few days in the lives of an established professional escort and her boyfriend, a personal trainer, who knows about her professional life and--sort of--supports it.  The couple has been together for a year and a half, so you'd think--at least I would--that some of their more obvious issues would have been worked out.  But they're only twenty-somethings, so they each have a lot of maturing to do, apart from their work lives and their personal lives as a couple.  It's a sad and often disturbing movie, quite lonely in the way that being in your twenties can be, even after you're in your twenties.  For cast details, check out imdb.com

UP, the animated feature from Pixar, is a wonderfully touching film, probably best seen in 3-D, although it doesn't have missles flying at the screen.  It begins with the story of  Carl and the adventuresome Ellie, getting together in what looks like the 30's or 40's.  It then takes up when Carl is an old man, now alone except for the annoying (to him) Wilderness Explorer, Russell, who needs just one more badge, that of Helping the Elderly.  Just what Carl doesn't want, or need.  Carl decides on one more adventure, which will help him escape the encroaching skyscrapers bearing down on the house he and Ellie once renovated.  UP is an amazing movie, bringing together generational concerns as well as individual reflections on what it means to grow up after you've grown old.  There may be, indeed, late blooms, prolific and beautiful. (For movie ratings and cast lists, etc., check the web.)

DEPARTURES, an indie film from Japan, with subtitles, concerns a young cellist whose 2nd tier orchestra has to shut down.  He finds himself another job as a person who helps prepare bodies for burial, with loved ones in attendance, in what seems to be an ancient ritualized ceremony, one which I myself was completely unfamiliar.  DEPARTURES does have a really good, complex plot in addition to this fascinating look at a specific and beautiful cultural practice.  DEPARTURES is one of the best movies I've seen this year, and I recommend it highly.  (For details of cast list, director, writers, and where it might be playing near you, check the web.) 

I'm the last on my block to see The Soloist, starring Jamie Foxx as Nathaniel Ayers and Robert Downey Jr. as LATimes columnist Steve Lopez, who wrote the book the movie is based on.  Ayers is a solid musician with mental problems, probably schizophrenia that developed when he was under tremendous pressure in his late teens at Julliard, especially as the only African American in the high-powered, elite music academy.  Lopez first encounters him in the Second Street tunnel of  LA, homeless but connected to himself through--and often only through--music.  As usual, the book is "better" than the movie--more complete, more complex.  But the movie is excellent, especially the tension between Ayers and Lopez.  In their mid-fifties, both men are complicated and often not very nice.  But then, they mirror the streets of LA.