Statement From The Stones – The Varsity Theater Owners That Is

Just a quick note that the Varsity theater owners (Bruce and Mary Jo Stone) have released a statement about the theater’s closing. Independent Weekly writer David Fellerath, who has diligently followed the story since the beginning, blogged about it with links to the written statements themselves:

Statement From Owners Of Varsity Theater (Yes, It’s Closing Tonight) – Indy Week Blogs Jun 25 2009, 1:20 PM

If you live in the Triangle area you just may consider heading out to pay your respects. Neither THE HANGOVER or THE BROTHERS BLOOM are masterpieces, but they would still constitute a fine evening at a grand old theater.

The Varsity is dead! Long live the Varsity! (Such a cliché I know, but I just couldn’t help it.)

At least there’s still the Chelsea Theater (Check their site for listings, directions, etc.). Sigh.

More later…

It’s Confirmed: The Varsity Theater Is Closing

“I love the smell of popcorn in the evening. It smells like…Varsity!” – Me from one of my first shifts ever at the theater in 2004

After weeks of speculation and much community commentary, the Varsity Theater, built in 1927, located in downtown Chapel Hill, N.C. is closing. The last night will be Thursday, June 25th with THE HANGOVER (7:15/9:30 PM) and THE BROTHERS BLOOM (7:00/9:20). As I’ve blogged before I’ve worked there since 2004, but I’ve gone to the theater since the ’70’s having seen many crucial films from my youth there (STAR WARS, THE JERK, AIRPLANE!, etc.) so this is very sad for me personally. For many folks in the area it will be a blow, maybe not a devastating one, but one that will grow as the idea of a Franklin Street without any movie screens has yet to sink in.

David Fellerath’s blog post (“Varsity Theater To Go Dark Friday, June 26” – Film Beat, June 23rd) that broke the story reported:

“Owner Bruce Stone wouldn’t directly confirm the theater’s closing, but when asked if the fact that the Indy had not been provided with movie listings for the Varsity meant there would be no movies there, he replied, ‘That would be a correct inference.'”

So there it is. Stone has still yet to make an official announcement but we all know the gig is up. Maybe, just maybe, with much hope a developer or future buyer will take on the place. Such a beautiful old iconic theater shouldn’t end up like so many others across the country – old boarded up shells of former glory. The Varsity Theater was so much more than an old art house – it was a beloved institution that really tied the town together, as The Dude might say.

Farewell, sweet Varsity.

More later…

My Last Night At The Varsity Theater & THE HANGOVER

As I reported before, The Varsity Theater in Chapel Hill, N.C. is in a period of transition. The owner, Bruce Stone, is still in negotiations and nobody knows whether it’ll remain open as it changes hands or if it will close unsold. This is all so timely as I will no longer be working at the theater. Since my move to Raleigh I’ve decided I no longer want to commute, so yesterday was my last night working my all-time favorite part-time job. We were opening 2 new movies – oddly enough both feature Mike Tyson – so I needed to change the marquee for the last time. Of course, it rained last evening (which seems to be a Thursday night tradition here) so I wasn’t feeling particularly sentimental as I climbed the ladder.

All evening I fielded questions about the fate of the theater. Stone joked last weekend that our official line to everybody was: “We’re confused.” So we’ve been saying that (or variations thereof). David Fellerath wrote this insightful article in this week’s Independent about not just the Varsity and its sister theater the Chelsea’s fate but about the bleak business and uncertain future of independent art houses these days:

The Unknown Futures Of Chapel Hill’s Varsity And Chelsea Theaters: The Moviegoer’s Lament (Independent Weekly June 3rd, 2009)

Another Thursday night tradition is to have a late showing (not open to the public unless you know somebody) of the new movie that is opening the next day. I definitely wasn’t going to miss the late show my last night at the Varsity:

THE HANGOVER (Dir. Todd Phillips, 2009)

“A bachelor party movie where you never see the bachelor party” is how director Phillips, responsible for the likes of OLD SCHOOL and STARSKY & HUTCH, described this Las Vegas-set silliness to The New York Times. Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis, and Ed Helms play the overgrown child protagonists who wake to find themselves in way over their heads after a night of stag party debauchery. In their trashed hotel suite they find that the groom (Justin Bartha) is missing, Helms has a tooth missing, a Bengal tiger is in the bathroom, and there’s a baby in the closet. They remember nothing of what happened so you might expect more than a little of DUDE, WHERE’S MY CAR? mixed with just a dash of THREE MEN AND A BABY and you wouldn’t be far off.

Galifianakis, in the Belushi/Jack Black role, has the funniest lines and frequently steals the movie from his co-stars. The one-liners come fast and furious but sadly there are a lot of stale comic stylizations like, for instance, a Tarentino slow-motion group walk towards the camera with “Who Let The Dogs Out” blaring on the soundtrack. As the events of the night before are revealed there are some tasty turns – Mike Tyson, playing himself, as the tiger’s owner and Heather Graham as a hooker that Helms finds he’s now married to have their charms but some other plot points and clichéd character bits fall flat.

As likable as the leads are, THE HANGOVER is only fitfully funny but I would still say it’s has enough genuine laughs in it to meet my comedy quota. It is a definite improvement over Phillips previous lowbrow fare as it shows he can handle natural feeling rhythms, timing, and tone. While another draft (or 2) on the screenplay probably wouldn’t have made this a comedy classic, it feels a tad undercooked so this is a pretty reserved recommendation. However, I suspect it may have a re-watchability factor and that some elements might rub me better sometime down the line. Maybe, like a real hangover, when the annoying pangs wear off I’ll be able to remember the best of the original buzz.

Okay! So that was my last night working at the Varsity. I’ll miss working on Franklin Street and downtown Chapel Hill in general. I would usually post recent pictures of the marquee on the sidebar on this blog and that’s something I’ll also miss. But don’t worry, this change won’t affect this blog much – I love movies and will continue to see as many movies as possible and tell you what I think. I’ll also keep you updated on the respective fates of the Varsity and Chelsea Theaters…so please – stay tuned.

More later…

The End Of The Varsity Theater? Well, not just yet.

If you follow this blog with any frequency you know that I work part-time at the Varsity Theater in my hometown of Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Earlier this month the theater’s owner, Bruce Stone, told his employees that he would not be renewing the lease come June 1st. Since then many rumors have circulated throughout the Triangle area about the fate of the theater. All that was certain, at that time, was that he was negotiating with potential buyers and the Varsity’s last day would be Thursday, May 28th. Now though it looks like he will keep the theater open 1-3 weeks more in hopes of making a smooth transition with a new owner. Whether this happens remains to be seen and I, as well as my co-workers, have been trying to deal with the notion that the Varsity may close – with hope just temporarily but very possibly for good. Here’s some links to some local articles about the up-in-the-air situation:

Lights May Dim At Varsity Theater (The Herald Sun – May 26th, 2009)

Owner May Sell Iconic Theater (The Chapel Hill News – May 27th, 2009)

Varsity Theatre Set To Be Sold But Not Closed (Daily Tar Heel – May 27th, 2009)

This is all frustrating and depressing for me and many folks as the theater has been a beloved institution since its birth in 1927. I grew up going to the Varsity. When I was seven years old I saw STAR WARS there in 1977 – a memory I’ve never forgotten and possibly why that movie keeps coming up on this blog. I attended many movies over the years as it changed hands from a one screen first run movie house to a bargain theater in the early 80’s then, after being closed for a bit, re-opened as a art house with 2 screens (the large theater was split in half in 1982). Stone, who founded the Chelsea Theater at Timberlyne Shopping Center roughly 20 years ago, bought the theater in 2000. I got a job at the Varsity in 2004 (the same year I started this blog) and have highly enjoyed working there – seeing many movies and forming many friendships.

Like I said before, I thought tomorrow night would be both my final night and the Varsity’s but it looks like we both will see a bit more of each other. I, of course, hope that the theater will continue but as so much on Franklin Street in downtown Chapel Hill has changed it may be time to adjust to this major change. I’ll keep you posted with what happens as I hear it. If you live in the area you may consider coming to seeing what just could be the last double bill (pictured at the top of this post). It’s such a great old school theater with a great atmospheric vibe I know I won’t be alone in missing.

More later…

Abortion & Torture At The Movies – Happy Easter Everybody!

As 2 of the most obscure titles my hometown movie-house has had in a long time the following films are hardly crowd pleasers. Varsity Theater owner Bruce Stone said on a sparsely attended opening night – “Neither is really THE SOUND OF MUSIC you know?” Still, I recall Roger Ebert’s proverb: “No good film is depressing, all bad films are”. With that in mind let’s take a look at the films I heard that a fellow co-worker referred to as “a downer double feature”:

4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS AND 2 DAYS (Dir. Cristian Mungiu, 2007)

Sadly ignored by American audiences despite being at winner at Cannes and the Golden Globes, this affecting Romanian film had an intense grip on me from the first shot. That first shot is a cluttered table next to a window in a shabby ass dorm room. The camera pulls back and we are introduced to Otilia (Anamaria Marinca) who appears to be taking care of the every need (buying cigarettes, arranging schedules, etc.) of her room mate Gabriela ‘Găbiţa’ (Laura Vasiliu). It is 1987 in Bucharest, Roma under the Ceauşescu regime – as a 1930’s stage narrator would tell us – and Găbiţa is pregnant so a shady meeting is set up with a stranger for an illegal abortion. Every required task for the plan gets botched – the hotel insisted upon is booked, Găbiţa lies about what month her term is (hence the title), and worst of all the man called upon to do the deed (Mr. Bebe played by Vlad Ivanov) is an asshole who bullies the women on every point. There are so many unpleasant draining circumstances that the stressed-out Otilia often has to sit down and regroup. I was right there with her catching my breath.

One certain lengthy dialogue-free sequence (don’t worry – no Spoilers) has an amazing display of body language entangled with tension. Grueling and degrading as the scene is it has a tone so much more human than in many recent movies. 4 MONTHS… is mostly constructed out of long unbroken shots – very little cutting – which enforces the air of being in the same room not just with these people but their worries and regrets. A family dinner, an obligation to Otilia’s boyfriend (Alex Potocean) that takes her away from the scene of the crime, is as cluttered with folks in the frame as it is crammed with everybody’s (some not in the shot but overheard) opinions. They pontificate about class relations, whether you’d be arrested if you didn’t go to church on Easter, and why young folk shouldn’t smoke in front of their elders. The scene by itself could be a great short film with Otilia squirming in a manner that doesn’t necessarily need our knowledge of the uneasy background. A dark tale told with natural rhythms and as one character remarked at the dinner scene “a sense of what’s real”, 4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS AND 2 WEEKS is a stirring portrait of mislaid agendas.

Speaking of mislaid agendas:

TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE (Dir. Alex Gibney, 2007)

Everybody gasped (me included) at the Oscar party I attended when this won Best Documentary over SiCKO and NO END IN SIGHT. At first glance one has to sigh and think “another anti-Bush administration talking heads piece of pop propaganda” and yes, that can be said but watching it such cynicism drops and the picture, as horrifying and disarming it is, becomes frighteningly necessary. In 2002 an Afghan taxi driver named Dilawar is taken into custody by American soldiers. He dies 5 days later after being chained to his cell’s ceiling getting his legs pummeled repeatedly by several guards and suffering numerous other forms of assaultive abuse. Later it is revealed from leaked documents and press inquiries that Dilawar was innocent and that he and his passengers were “no threat” to American forces. Angering interviews from a few of the soldiers involved as well as the architects of the invasion fit into the framework purposely especially the clip of Dick Cheney a week after 9/11 saying “We have to work the dark side, if you will. We’re going to spend time in the shadows.” Another such chilling moment is when one of the accused soldiers says he had never heard of the Geneva Convention before.

Rewriting the rules on what defines torture is the slipperiest of slopes as we see over and over what can happen on a ginormous generalized dehumanizing scale. We are shown countless disgusting photographs, hear excruciating first hand accounts, and see for the first time on film inside Bagram Air Base where the horrendous activity occurred. Of course none of this sounds like fun but it is one of the most startling and compelling documentaries this side of NO END IN SIGHT. It very much deserved to win the Oscar over that extraordinary film. Gibney’s work here has a passion and drive that with hope will gain a bigger audience. Since the film was bought by HBO and the Discovery Channel that is sure to happen.

TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE must be recognized as not just another damning governmental practices diatribe. It is a film about torture that is not tortuous to watch for it calmly and calculatingly lays out a tale that can not be dismissed. Familiar footage of Bush has him stating of terrorists: “wherever they are, we will hunt them down, one by one, until they are no longer a threat to the people who live in the United States of America.” One by one the offenses against America that Bush and his cronies have committed pile up into towers that will cast shadows on us all. Still thinking of Ebert’s proverb I have to write that it is not just depressing that we yet again need a documentary to shine a light on these horrors it makes me miserable that people ignore them when they come around. Wake up, open your eyes, and get out of bed America and pay attention or we’ll have nothing but films like this.

TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE only plays for 4 more days at the Varsity Theater so if you live in Chapel Hill try and make it out to see it.

More Later…

Toronto By Stone

<!– D(["mb","G.I. during WWII who had a one night stand with \nJude's mom in England back in the day. So Jude finds him, he's a janitor AT \nPRINCETON ( so, OK), where Jude befriends Max, a Princeton student, whose sister \nLucy (Evan Rachel Wood) becomes Jude's love. Jude becomes an artist, Max gets \ndrafted, Lucy becomes involved in anti-war protest and radical politics. They \nall end up in NYC sharing an apartment with hard rockin;' Janis Joplin type, and \na Jimi Hendrix type guitar type just in from the heartland. Of course it's hard \nto make a movie/musical that contains 33 Beatles songs, vietnam, civil rights, \nprotest, assassination of MLK, psychedelia, and rock and roll in one big \npackage. And sometimes these bits might seem a bit.. forced, a song or two might \nseem randomly inserted… BUT the music is honored and performed with energy and \nimagination, the cast is uniformly excellent, and many of the production numbers \nof the music are amazing….. for example, Joe Cocker as a bum, as a Wolfman \nJack style pimp performing Come Together… or Bono as a Ken Kesey/Tmothy Leary \ntype singing… or Eddie Izzard as Mr. Kite, or the remarkable number at the \ninducton center where all the young inductees in their briefs are poked and \nprodded and tested and measured by square jawed Army drill instructors .. \nuntil the inductees become g.i.'s tramping throught the jungles of Vietnam \ncarrying the Statue of Liberty on their shoulders, singing "She's So Heavy"– \n the audince at Toronto gave huge ovations, thunderous applause after each \nof these scenes. Jim Sturgess, who plays Jude, has bits of the Beatle look, the \naccent, real presence and and a terrifce voice. His performance of Revolution is \na showstopper. And Evan Rachel Wood holds her own, singing effectively and \nplaying the suburban ingenue who becomes radicalized and swept up in the world \nof a Weatherman-style Svengali. Overall, a wild ride, amazing eye candy , good \nmusic, and an effective if sometimes thI asked Bruce Stone – a local writer and former teacher of mine who with his wife Mary Jo owns and runs the Chelsea and Varsity Theaters here in Chapel Hill, NC to tell Film Babble about this year’s Toronto Film Fest (Sept. 6th-13th) which they regularly attend. So Stone has the floor :

The 32nd annual Toronto International Film Festival offered up over 350 feature films from around the world with the usual hits and misses and buzz busters, with something for almost every taste. The TIFF has become one of the two or three premiere film fests of the world, certainly the largest in North America, and probably the most comprehensive in that it offers up not only the biggest and juiciest of the Hollywood prestige titles, but also the best of the indie fare, exotica from around the world, documentaries, first time breakout directors, Canadian homegrown films (gurk!), edgy crazy midnight madness slasher fanboy fare and everything in between.

<!– D(["mb","\u003c/font\>\u003c/div\>\n\u003cdiv\>\u003cfont face\u003d\"Arial\" size\u003d\"2\"\>and everyone gets to trade movie gossip, compare \nnotes, eat tofu paninis, or just watch the bushy tailed black squirrels of \nCanada play tag on the grassy lawns and stately trees of the manicured urban \nwild spaces.\u003c/font\>\u003c/div\>\n\u003cdiv\>\u003cfont face\u003d\"Arial\" size\u003d\"2\"\>\u003c/font\> \u003c/div\>\n\u003cdiv\>\u003cfont face\u003d\"Arial\" size\u003d\"2\"\>Toronto is a large, cosmopolitan, welcoming city, \nswarming with… Canadians, of all things, and many others. I t also a favorite \nsite for Hollywood productions seeking out locales with a good urban feel, \nfriendly tax incentives and professional film production types who can get the \njob done. This year it was impossible not to notice the buzz of activity humming \nalong Yonge Street ( Toronto's Broadway??) as miles of power cables twisted up \nand down Yonge and snaked arount the side streets. Then the cherry pickers \nrolled in, transforming a modest storefront tatoo and nail parlor \ninto Harlem's Apollo Theater, hoisting up a huge APOLLO sign against three \nfloors of the building's facade, and then later wrapping the front of the \nbuilding in a marquee that later proclaimed the appearance of the "HARLEM \nGOSPEL CHOIR" . And suddenly a fleet of taxis , 30-40 taxis, parked in a lot \nacross from the Delta Chelsea Hotel, and two city bus "extras", one of them \ntwisted and mangled into a burned shell of a bus skeleton, clearly a before and \nafter slotted for a future role in some cataclysmic crash and burn vignette. And \ntrucks unloading lights, and huge property trunks on wheels, and more cables \nand……. one marveled at the days of preparation, the detail, the staggering \namounts of money all this STUFF must cost. And so one asks…. what the hay is \ngoing on here….. and one is told they are preparing to shoot ( get ready) THE \nHULK…. THE HULK? SON OF HULK? HULK REDUX? MR. HULK GOES TO \nWASHINTON?\u003c/font\>\u003c/div\>\n\u003cdiv\>\u003cfont face\u003d\"Arial\" size\u003d\"2\"\>\u003c/font\> \u003c/div\>\n\u003cdiv\>\u003cfont face\u003d\"Arial\" size\u003d\"2\"\>But enough… let's go to the \nmovies….",1] );

The TIFF serves many purposes: it is the fall launching pad for all the hopeful awards season Oscar bait titles, it is a market place for many small and independent films that come to town without distribution, but mostly it is a feast for film lovers from Toronto and around the world who converge on Toronto for a week and a half of gorging on films from morning to midnight for 10 straight days. Toronto is a great movie town and all screenings, even for the most marginal of films, are remarkably well attended. Ticketholders wait in one line, those without tickets queue up in a rush line hoping to snag tickets for the few remaining seats, and everyone gets to trade movie gossip, compare notes, eat tofu paninis, or just watch the bushy tailed black squirrels of Canada play tag on the grassy lawns and stately trees of the manicured urban wild spaces.

Toronto is a large, cosmopolitan, welcoming city, swarming with… Canadians, of all things, and many others. It also is a favorite site for Hollywood productions seeking out locales with a good urban feel, friendly tax incentives and professional film production types who can get the job done. This year it was impossible not to notice the buzz of activity humming along Yonge Street (Toronto’s Broadway??) as miles of power cables twisted up and down Yonge and snaked arount the side streets. Then the cherry pickers rolled in, transforming a modest storefront tatoo and nail parlor into Harlem’s Apollo Theater, hoisting up a huge APOLLO sign against three floors of the building’s facade, and then later wrapping the front of the building in a marquee that later proclaimed the appearance of the “HARLEM GOSPEL CHOIR” . And suddenly a fleet of taxis , 30-40 taxis, parked in a lot across from the Delta Chelsea Hotel, and two city bus “extras”, one of them twisted and mangled into a burned shell of a bus skeleton, clearly a before and after slotted for a future role in some cataclysmic crash and burn vignette. And trucks unloading lights, and huge property trunks on wheels, and more cables and…one marveled at the days of preparation, the detail, the staggering amounts of money all this STUFF must cost. And so one asks…. what the hay is going on here….. and one is told they are preparing to shoot (get ready) THE HULK…. THE HULK? SON OF HULK? HULK REDUX? MR. HULK GOES TO WASHINGTON?

But enough… let’s go to the movies….

THE SAVAGES (Dir. Tamara Jenkins, 2007)

Clearly a prestige title from Fox Searchlight for the holidays. Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney star as brother and sister suddenly burdened with a father slipping into dementia in Sun City, Arizona. Hoffman is a (typically) rumpled single English professor in the academic backwaters of Buffalo, NY, while sister is a writer from NYC. Together they travel to Arizona’s empty sterile sundrenched retirement hell and return their father to cold snowy dreary Buffalo, where they find him a nursing home and bicker about what is good enough and what isn’t. Hoffman’s character is cynical, hardbitten and grimly realistic, believing that any home is good enough for the dad, as he is so far into dementia he doesn’t know the difference, while the sister frets about the nursing homes, fusses about finding the father the best possible care, accusing her brother of indifference.

Questions unanswered… they haven’t seen or contacted their father in 10 or 11 years… why not? There seems to be some unsettled score.. but what is it? How can such a schlumpy father sire two such semi-accomplished literary children? And why do these indie movies always have artsy literati types without questioning anyone’s credentials? And notwithstanding all these questions – this is a very affecting film, warm, funny, bittersweet film, beautifully acted by the three principals with a wonderful script. And we got to see the director, Tamara Jenkins, and Laura Linney, for Q and A.

ACROSS THE UNIVERSE (Dir. Julie Taymor, 2007)

Eager to see this one, but approached with a certain trepidation, knowing the downside could be considerable, hokey, cheesy, a defilement of the Beatles and so on. Julie Taymor, the director was there to introduce the film, very open and informative and forthright about the film.. gracious and proud, and for good reason. A huge eager audience. And the movie…. a simple boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl again love story strung togther with 33 Beatles songs against the backdrop of the 60’s with all the attendant Sturm and Drang of the era, at least invoked through music and action. Jude is the boy, a Liverpudlian dockworker who comes to America to seek out his American father, a G.I. during WWII who had a one night stand with Jude’s mom in England back in the day. So Jude finds him, he’s a janitor at Princeton ( so, OK), where Jude befriends Max, a Princeton student, whose sister Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood) becomes Jude’s love. Jude becomes an artist, Max gets drafted, Lucy becomes involved in anti-war protest and radical politics. They all end up in NYC sharing an apartment with hard rockin’ Janis Joplin type, and a Jimi Hendrix type guitar type just in from the heartland.

Of course it’s hard to make a movie/musical that contains 33 Beatles songs, Vietnam, civil rights, protest, assassination of MLK, psychedelia, and rock and roll in one big package. And sometimes these bits might seem a bit.. forced, a song or two might seem randomly inserted… BUT the music is honored and performed with energy and imagination, the cast is uniformly excellent, and many of the production numbers of the music are amazing….. for example, Joe Cocker as a bum, as a Wolfman Jack style pimp performing “Come Together”… or Bono as a Ken Kesey/Timothy Leary type singing… or Eddie Izzard as Mr. Kite, or the remarkable number at the inducton center where all the young inductees in their briefs are poked and prodded and tested and measured by square jawed Army drill instructors .. until the inductees become GIs tramping throught the jungles of Vietnam carrying the Statue of Liberty on their shoulders, singing “She’s So Heavy”- the audience at Toronto gave huge ovations, thunderous applause after each of these scenes. Jim Sturgess, who plays Jude, has bits of the Beatle look – the accent, real presence and and a terrific voice. His performance of “Revolution” is a showstopper. Evan Rachel Wood holds her own, singing effectively and playing the suburban ingenue who becomes radicalized and swept up in the world of a Weatherman-style Svengali. Overall, a wild ride – amazing eye candy, good music, and an effective if sometimes thin love story. Check it out.

ATONEMENT (Dir. Joe Wright, 2007)

More bigtime Oscar bait, this is director Joe Wright’s ( Pride and Prejudice) adaptation of the Ian McEwan novel about a doomed love.Keira Knightly is Cecelia Tallis the daughter of a genteel British family, who falls in love with a son one of the family’s servants. As played by James McAvoy, Robbie had been sent to Oxford through the generosity of the Tallis family’s scion, with plans to go on to medical school in a year. One summer some years before WWII the couple fall in love, but a younger sister Briony sees the couple in moments of intimacy, moments of awkwardness, and sets on a campaign to destroy this relationship out of jealousy and young girl’s caprice. This younger sister Briony is precocious, literary, willful, and destructive. Her childish petulance sets of a sequence of hurtful events that changes lives and loves … and only as an adult, seeking atonement for her youthful actions, does she fully understand the consequences of her actions. A beautiful, lyrical, almost painterly film with real emotion and deeply fely performances across the board.

LARS AND THE REAL GIRL (Dir. Craig Gillespie, 2007)

One of the breakout hits of the festival, LARS AND THE REAL GIRL is a wry, droll human comedy about a small town Minnesota misfit , so withdrawn that his first real girl is a life sized love doll ordered over the internet. Yet Lars (played by Ryan Gosling) is a gentle courtier, escorting the wheelchair bound Bianca around town, introducing her to friends and relatives until she becomes….. accepted as, well, one of the community and Lars’ special friend. But when Bianca takes ill, Lars has to confront the realities of mortality and love and loneliness…. a sweet sad hopeful ending that takes a quirky conceit and builds to layers of meaning. Bound to be one the most-discussed films of the fall.

NAISSANCE DES PIEVRES ( or… WATER LILIES) (Dir. Celine Sciamma, 2007)

A little French film about 3 teenaged girls involved with synchronized swimming…. but a powerful artfully made film about the yearning of youth and a entree deep into the secret pains of being on girl on the cusp of adulthood, sexuality and all the rest. Floriane is the star, the blonde diva of the team, yet friendless because resented by her teammates for her beauty and her precocious sexuality. She takes as her “protege” the lanky, younger, tomboyish Marie, awestruck to be allowed into Floriane’s world.. unitl she learns part of her role is to serve as a “cover” for Floriane’s nightly assignations with a young stud form the men’s swimming team. Their relationship becomes a tortured dance of dependency, attachment and sexual attraction as an escape form the world of men. Anne is the other girl, Marie’s everyday friend, tall, heavy, doughy faced but edgy and perceptive, and filled herself with yearning for the boy of Floriane’s secret nights. The dynamics of jealousy, envy, desire, friendship and the pain of youthful longing fill every scene.. the three girls are a revelation, the dialogue is minimal, but the aching and emotion are real. A small special film, but one worth watching for if it ever sees the light of day.

NIGHTWATCHING (Dir. Peter Greenaway, 2007)

A Peter Greenaway film about Rembrandt’s creation of his masterpiece Nightwatch. Shoot on a soundstage, but with detailed costumes and props, but stagy, talky, full of clever but arch and brittle dialogue, more an intellectual exercise than a movie…. At over two hours, we ankled after 40 minutes. Love Rembrandt, hated the movie.

THE WALKER (Dir. Paul Scrader, 2007)

Another stinker form Paul Schrader, of all people. Woody Harrellson plays a gay, aristocratic Washington, D.C. “Walker”, that is, one who escort women of a certain age to society functions when their politician bigwig husbands are otherwise engaged. Harrelson affects a syrup thin Southern accent to suggest his patrician Virginia lineage, but it’s all too bogus and fey. Lauren Bacall, Krisitin Scott Thomas and Lily Tomlin (!) portray the society dames and politician wives with whom he consorts. But about a third of the way in Krisitin Scott Thomas’ secret lover is killed, Woody is suspected, and the whole movie turns into a dreary, slowpaced and talky murder mystery that makes sense, especially if you are falling asleep half the time. Something about the Vice President being blackmailed… or maybe not, who knows?

LA FILLE COUPEE EN DEUX (AKA – A GIRL CUT IN TWO) (Dir. Claude Chabrol, 2007)

French master Claude Chabrol brings us this overheated love triangle. A hot young TV weather girl becomes smitten by a lecherous writer, married and much praised for his art… and he “educates” the young girl in the ways of love… sort of. And professes his love, but walks away when she gets too clingy. At the same time, a petulant wealthy young horndog pursues the girl, out of attraction, and partly because he resents the older writer who has settled in the same provincial town. He cadges abnd cajoles, and pleads and whines until the girl marries him… and then rails at the older horndog writer for having corrupted her (when he wanted to corrupt her exclusively for himself!). So anyhow, the writer shows up in town to receive an award and do a public reading. And the younger guy shoots him at the lectern.. and of course, kills… for corrupting his young bride. Ans is sent to jail. And refuses to see his bride ever after. Coulda been a juicy farce, but sadly wasn’t… enough.
– Bruce Stone (9/2007)

Thanks for the Toronto report Stone! Don’t be a stranger.

More later…

–>