Cynical Cinema

I have already gone on at length about No Country For Old Men.  Without a doubt in my mind, it was the best movie of last year.  For the full review:  http://blog.rogersradiointernet.com/cynicalcinema/2008/05/10/no-country-for-old-men-best-movie-of-the-millenium-1010/  Now, Alliance Films is releasing it again, along with The Man Who Wasn’t There in a two-disc set.  A two-disc set everyone should buy.  Not only is No Country For Old Men the best film of the past ten years, The Man Who Wasn’t There is a very underrated classic.  Since I have already reviewed No Country, I’ll talk about that one here instead.

Billy Bob Thornton plays a barber who hates his life.  He tries to do something, anything, to relieve his boredom, and that something is blackmail.  He blackmails James Gandolfini, his wife’s boss, who is having an affair with his wife (Frances McDormand).  A fairly innocent, one-time plan at first, the whole thing, as with all film noir, spirals out of control, and before long, Thornton is involved with murder.  And then things get really weird.  The film is shot in black and white, set in the forties, and feels just like 1940s film noir.  It captures the tone, the feeling, and the pacing of great noir, and there are some great performances by Thornton, McDormand, Gandolfini, and Tony Shaloub as a high-priced lawyer.  Also terrific is Scarlett Johannson, who appears as a young ingenue piano player, and looks even hotter in black and white with a 40s hairdo.  And then there is the whole alien abduction thing.  Insane, but this movie is terrific.

The Coen Brothers have done some of the best movies of the past twenty years.  And two of them are packaged together today by Alliance Films.  Well worth picking them both up.

When I rented Romance and Cigarettes, I did so because of the cast and director. John Turturro directed this film, and it stars James Gandolfini, Kate Winslett, Susan Sarandon, Mary-Louise Parker, Mandy Moore, Eddie Izzard, and two of my favourites - Steve Buscemi and Christopher Walken. Based on that cast alone, I picked it up and watched it. So imagine my surprise when James Gandolfini, in the first scene, Tony Soprano, began to sing. Yes, Romance and Cigarettes is a musical! A bonkers, insane, weirdly entertaining musical. Everyone sings, and the musical numbers feel unnecessary, but they are the most entertaining part of the film. The basic premise is that Gandolfini is married to Sarandon, but cheating on her with the much-younger Kate Winslett, who has never looked sexier in a movie. Sarandon catches him, and effectively ends their relationship, which has an effect on the children (Mandy Moore, Mary-Louise Parker and Aida Turturro - who plays Ton’y sister on The Sopranos…weird).

Gandolfini’s character is named Nick Murder, a strange name, and he comes off as a modern, filthier Ralph Kramden. His buddy at work, Steve Buscemi, is a modern, much filthier Ed Norton. Every character is a bizarre weirdo, and they each have twisted and strange relationships with each other. And the movie is filthy. There is a weird but effective scene where Winslett talks to Gandolfini in an incredibly dirty phone call while Sarandon sings Janis Joplin’s Piece of My Heart. Christopher Walken, as “cousin Bo” (of course) has several of the best scenes, including a demented take on My Delilah, which ends with him using a knife to stab his wife, then singing into that knife as though it is a microphone. He is one of the strangest of the cast, in that he talks almost exclusively in movie lines and song titles. Mandy Moore’s creepy take on the song “I Want Candy” is mercifully cut short.

Overall, Romance And Cigarettes is fun and exuberant while still being tragic and sad. There are parts that are downright gloomy, which sort of takes away from the more entertaining moments. But watching these terrific actors, especially Walken, do their thing is more than enough reason to rent this film. It is not perfect, or even great, but it is more than enough fun for a Sunday afternoon.