Michelangelo Antonioni: 1912-2007

Jeez, it's not a good week to be a celebrated European auteur director. Bergman kicked the bucket yesterday, as did Italian maverick Michelangelo Antonioni. I've never been a huge fan, though the languid stylings of L'Avventura and The Passenger are unforgettable and by many accounts Blowup is as vital now as it was when released in 1966.

Bergman on the set of Wild Strawberries (1957)

Ingmar Bergman: 1918-2007

Famed Swedish director Ingmar Bergman spent his entire career (and probably his entire life) obsessing about death. Well now he's dead, leaving behind a legacy of brilliant and sometimes agonizingly depressing films ranging from his iconic The Seventh Seal (who could forget Max von Sydow's chess match against Death?) to his 2003 swan song, Saraband.

My top five Bergman movies, in chronological order:

The Seventh Seal (1957)

Through a Glass Darkly (1961)

Persona (1966)

Cries and Whispers (1973)

Fanny and Alexander (1982)

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

Grade: A

Scene: 1700s Paris.

Jean-Baptiste Grenouille deserves a PhD in the Hard Knocks of Life. Left to die by his mother after she gives birth to him in a fetid fish market, he's endowed with a superhuman sense of smell that compels him to persevere through a childhood in a derelict orphanage and teen years as a slave laborer in a tannery that resembles the hottest and grimiest vicious circle of Dante's Inferno. Eventually he discovers his passion for making perfume, working alongside an Italian (played with verve by Dustin Hoffman, though his accent changes every other sentence) until he journeys to Grasse, the perfume capital of France.

Jean-Baptiste has one little problem. He's a serial killer who murders women with a swift blow to the back of their heads. To enliven the party, he then smears animal fat all over them so he can capture their essential essences to create a scent that has the power to transform the world, potentially in wonderful ways.

I missed Perfume during its blink-and-you'll-miss-it theatrical run, though I wanted to catch it because it's directed by visionary Run Lola Run helmer Tom Tykwer. It just came out on DVD, and I recommend that you check it out even if the subject matter sounds too gruesome. With its charming narrator and its restrained approach to violence and sexuality, it plays like a fairy tale - albeit a truly sick and twisted one. Jean-Claude is an unloved and fundamentally innocent creature, and young British actor Ben Whishaw summons up truckloads of evocative and pained facial expressions to make this one of the most sympathetic psychopaths ever. His performance is award worthy, though the film's poor box office reception and mediocre reviews will undoubtedly shut him out of consideration.

Based on an acclaimed 1986 novel by German scribe Patrick Suskin, Perfume is so original and thought provoking that I'm inclined to overlook it's slightly overlong running time. Several major directors took a crack at this material over the past twenty years, including Stanley Kubrick and Martin Scorsese. They both concluded that the book was unfilmable. I haven't read the novel yet, but my bet is that Tykwer's film will go down in the record books as a true original whether or not it captures the true essence of Suskin's novel.

Dear J.K.

To Ms. Rowling,

Before you cast a Patronus Scrumdiddlyumptious spell on me to rid me of my buzz killing ways, let me say that the final leg of Harry Potter's magical journey through puberty is just fine. A step up from it's Half-Blood Prince predecessor, but nowhere near as inventive or fun as The Goblet of Fire or The Prisoner of Azkaban entries. And I applaud you for stretching your writing skills and your poetic sensibilities to the point where your prose seamlessly blends the no nonsense wisdom of a Weekly Reader and the tortured soul searching of Emily Bronte.

But here's what I don't get: Don't you have enough money by now to hire an editor? After finishing the book once I felt like I read it five times, owing to your habit of repeating every plot point zillions of times. Trust me, your obsessive fans will read this mother so many times that they won't need the built-in Cliff's Notes to sort out the story.

And why, after crafting seven increasingly ginormous books, haven't you figured out more ingenious ways to keep the plot moving than having Death Eaters show up EVERY time Harry, Ron and Hermione are on the very cusp of making a major discovery? The lameness of this clunker plot device is exacerbated by the fact that we know that these crazy kids will always dodge harm by disapparating to some far-off enchanted forest where they'll encounter mystical woodland creatures and hidden swords of infinite power.

And if you try your hand at another huge series, you might want to consider having less characters so that you don't have to scurry in the final stretch to mention every breathing organism that ever inhabited Hogwarts, Daigon Alley, Pivot Drive or any other Harry hot spots. I'd hate to sound pushy or whiny, but all the last minute name dropping gave me whiplash.

That's enough quibbling for now. I really, truly had a good time reading The Deathly Hallows, and - keeping in mind Daniel Radcliffe's recent au natural outing on the London stage- I'm dying to see if Harry's nude scene makes it into the final movie!! Can they show penises in PG-13 flicks, or just asses?

Please use the proceeds from my purchase to buy a butterbeer on me!

Stephen

Joni Does Java

The good news is that Joni Mitchell is coming out of retirement to release a new CD. The bad news is that she signed a 2-album contract with Hear Music, the label operated by the insatiably greedy Starbucks franchise (which, to be fair, does some admirable community service work even though they're just now starting to atone for their history of screwing over coffee farmers). Here's the buzz from jonimitchell.com:

It's official! Joni has signed a 2-album deal with Starbucks' "Hear Music" label. "Shine" is the first and has a release date of September 25. "Shine" includes nine new songs as well as a new version of Mitchell's evergreen, "Big Yellow Taxi." The album is part of a series of new work from her, including a ballet based on her music, "The Fiddle and the Drum," and a visual art exhibit that opens in the fall in New York. The full track listing is:
1. One Week Last Summer 2. This Place 3. If I Had a Heart 4. Hana 5. Bad Dreams are Good 6. Big Yellow Taxi 7. Night of the Iguana 8. Strong and Wrong 9. Shine 10. If

The Simpsons Movie
Grade: C-

D'oh! After firmly and hilariously establishing itself of the best TV shows ever in its first decade, The Simpsons fell into a downward spiral in the late 1990s, and has now stepped into even deeper quick sand pit with this ill-advised leap to the big screen. There are some terrific sight gags (my favorite one shows Springfield's crazy old recluse lady scrubbing all her cats on a washboard), but screenwriters James L. Brooks and Matt Groening are as miserly as Montgomery Burns when it comes to doling out zingy one-liners. The paper-thin plot finds Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie exiled in Alaska, having escaped a citywide quarantine enforced by the EPA after Homer dumps a silo full of pig shit into the river.

Hairspray

Grade: A-

Against all odds the film version of the Broadway smash Hairspray is a toe tapping pleasure of bouffant proportions, giving Ratatouille a run for its money for the Best Summer Film of 2007. Recent adaptations of Rent and The Producers were critical and commercial bombs, after all, and this reimagining of John Waters's 1988 cult classic was helmed by Adam Shankman, whose inauspicious previous outings include Cheaper By the Dozen 2 and The Pacifier (starring Vin Diesel...need I say more?).

From the infectious opening number - "Good Morning Baltimore"- to the explosive finale tune - "You Can't Stop the Beat" - few hairs fall out of place, though the somber Civil Rights protest sequence feels totally out of a place in a film that redlines the kitsch Richter scale.

John Travolta's transvestite portrayal of Edna Turnblad (a character previously incarnated by Divine and Harvey Fierstein) has drawn fire from gay rights groups that believe a Scientologist has no business playing a queer icon. I say forget Travolta. Not because of his politics, but because his portrayal of Tracy's fatty housewife mom is a drag in comparison to the absolutely stellar work from Michelle Pfeiffer (as the bitch-on-wheels mother of Tracy's rival), Christopher Walken (Tracy's dad) and Allison Janney (Christian Fundamentalist freak mom of Tracy's Jungle Fever-stricken friend Penny). Longtime fans of the original film will undoubtedly chuckle at John Waters's cameo as a flasher in an opening scene.

Stevie O'Hara

Drew and I recently picked up a copy of Crystal Visions, a greatest hits package from Stevie Nicks that includes a CD and a DVD. Without a doubt the jewel in the crown is the original video for "Stand Back," deemed so awful that the record execs shelved it and ordered her to make a new one. Here's a link to the notorious "Scarlett" version, complete with Stevie's hilarious commentary.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZerIleykmNo

Harry

Meets

The Mean Grrrrrslz

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Grade: B+

Eight days and counting until the seventh and final chapter of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter saga hits bookstores. Until then fans can take heart that the relatively unknown director David Yates has ushered a delicious adaptation of Book Five to the big screen. In their portrayals of Harry, Hermione and Ron, Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint are all getting worse with age, exuding less charisma than your average piece of yard debris. But it doesn't really matter since they're backed by the Who's Who of wizardly British actors.

Maggie Smith, David Thewlis and Gary Oldman are as terrific as ever, but the real tour de force performance comes from Imelda Staunton, an Oscar nominee for Vera Drake in 2004. Decked out in revolting prim and pink outfits, she brings Hogwarts inquisitor Dolores Umbridge to even greater heights of sadistic smarminess than Rowling did in the book. A damned impressive feat, considering that we're talking about a lady who forces Harry to write in his own blood. It's a hilarious and scary performance, rivaled only by Helena Bonham Carter's brief but glorious appearance as Bellatrix Lestrange, the deranged Azkaban escapee who gleefully murders a good guy during the climax.

Coming Soon:

Talk to Me
Grade: B

After playing Clarice Starling’s FBI buddy in The Silence of the Lambs, Kasi Lemmons directed the swamp saga Eve’s Bayou and the critically panned The Caveman’s Valentine. Her new film is an alternately gripping and trite docudrama about Petey Greene (Don Cheadle), an ex-con who became a popular and controversial Washington, D.C. radio DJ at the height of the Civil Rights movement. Cheadle’s delivers a virtuoso performance, and Chiwetel Ejiofor aces the less flashy but equally complex role of Green’s mentor, Dewey Hughes. Despite great casting and a terrific R&B soundtrack, the hokey ending and lapses into sitcom schlock prove that Lemmons still has plenty of room for improvement.

Ratatouille

Grade: A-

With his latest concoction, the delightful and witty Ratatouille, writer/director Brad Bird extends a winning streak that goes all the way back to his days as an executive consultant during the glory years of The Simpsons in the early 1990s. In 1999 he released The Iron Giant, easily one of the best animated films of all time. And in 2004 he took home an Oscar for the Pixar hit The Incredibles. His new feature spins the tale of Remy, a gourmet rat who follows his culinary dreams to Paris and helps save the sinking reputation of a snooty restaurant. From Remy's wild ride through a sewer to his near death experiences in the bustling kitchen, the action scenes are thrilling (though a bit repetitive after awhile). In his efforts to please kids and adults Bird inevitably stumbles on some hokey moments. But it's easy to forgive a few traces of cheap sentiment when Bird sics Anton Ego - a vitriolic food critic voiced by Peter O'Toole - onto the scene.

After Dark by Haruki Murakami

Alfred A. Knopf, $22.95

Call it the summer of the mini-novel. So far we've had terse offerings from Ian McEwan (On Chesil Beach) and Don DeLillo (Falling Man), and Knopf just published the English translation of Haruki Murakami's slim 2004 novel After Dark. People who love Murakami seem to really love Murakami. I've had mixed reactions in the past, loving Kafka on the Shore but tiring of the belabored postmodern trickery of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by the final chapters. After Dark ranks with his best work, mainly because he pushes the bizarre button far enough to tantalize us, but not too far to drown us in abstractions.

The story takes in Tokyo one night between midnight and dawn. A young woman, Mari, reads at Denny's, and ultimately winds up hanging out with the owner and former employee of a no tell motel (affectionately referred to by the staff as a "love hos"). Meanwhile her beautiful older sister, Eri, sleeps deeply in her bedroom while (and here's the bizarre part) events of unknown importance play out on the unplugged TV set by her bed. A business man who beats up a Chinese hooker at the love hos rounds out the dramatis personae.

After Dark is a very quick read, with lots of breezy dialogue and snappy prose that often reads like a screenplay. Eri's Mulholland Drive-esque predicament is trippy and, at times, hard to digest. By the novel's end, though,

the realism and the surrealism merge in a a satisfying and poetic fashion.