Cynical Cinema

There is an absolutely phenomenal box set being released on August 26th. Woody Allen has been one of the greatest American directors for many years, and while he is mostly remembered for his all-time classics, Manhattan and Annie Hall, every one of his films is worth watching for one reason or another. With his latest, Vicky Cristina Barcelona in theatres, Alliance Films decided to release Woody Allen: The Collection today, August 26th. Every movie in this box is good, some are great. And while six of the discs have been readily available before this on DVD, the seventh is the bonus.

Wild Man Blues, a 1997 documentary film about Woody Allen, has been a hard-to-find item for some time. Not a film about Allen the film maker, but a film about Woody Allen the jazz musician. Allen, when not making films, plays jazz clarinet at a New York club. This film, directed by Barbara Kopple, follows Allen around as he takes the jazz ensemble on the road. The documentary was made right around the time when the public image of Allen was at it’s lowest. He had just left Mia Farrow for their stepdaughter Soon Yi Previn, and people were beginning to look on him as some kind of sexual predator. This film was accused of apple-polishing by some critics upon it’s release. As though it were some kind of brown-nosing attempt by Kopple to repair Allen’s tarnished image, and the movie was quickly forgotten. But in watching it now, it is merely a window into the man’s private life, his relationship with Soon-Yi, which really does appear to be pretty normal, and his relationship with his parents, which is eye-opening.

The other films in the set are all second-rate Woody Allen films, which would be first-rate films by almost anyone else. Mighty Aphrodite, the film for which Mira Sorvino won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar, is a pretty fluffy film that works best as a reminder that Mira Sorvino CAN actually act. Bullets Over Broadway is a brilliantly funny comedy about gangsterism and the roaring twenties, featuring terrific performances by Chazz Palminteri and Dianne Wiest. Everyone Says I Love You is a musical comedy that is absolutely jammed with star power, and as such is one of the only Julia Roberts movies, AND one of the only Drew Barrymore movies, that I actually enjoy. Deconstructing Harry is a very dark comedy that is equally star-studded, with Robin Williams, Demi Moore, Billy Crystal and dozens of others in perhaps Woody Allen’s most under-rated movie. Celebrity is also jammed with big names, but isn’t one of Allen’s best efforts. And Scoop is likely the low point of the box set, with Scarlett Johanssen turning in a surprisingly mediocre performance and Hugh Jackman being a little more irritating than necessary. Not a horrible movie, but weak by Woody Allen standards.

Woody Allen: The Collection is a must for fans of his work, with Wild Man Blues being the icing on the cake. Get this box set, then pick up Annie Hall, Manhattan and Crimes And Misdemeanors, and you have all the Woody Allen you’ll ever need.

I like Dustin Hoffman. We all do. Dustin Hoffman is likeable, and one of the greatest actors of the past 50 years. However, late in his career he has had some trouble choosing good movies. Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium is one of them. Visually, this movie is very impressive. Hoffman plays Mr. Magorium, the proprietor of a magical toy store where kids congregate every day to experience wonder. And there certainly is wonder aplenty in the ol’ Emporium. Dinosaur skeletons that play fetch with frisbees, slinkies that are too nervous to come off the table, magical balls that never stop bouncing, and dozens of other really neat toys. The store itself appears to be alive, some kind of entity unto itself, and it is a very impressive beginning to the movie. But then, when the movie needs to rely on characters and a plot to move things forward, it stalls. In fact, it pretty much comes to a dead stop.

It isn’t Hoffman’s fault. He is obviously having a lot of fun playing the titular character, and he enjoys himself thoroughly in a role that’s more reminiscent of watered-down Marx Brothers schtick than Willy Wonka. The dialogue in his scenes is delightfully inane and whimsical, and the kids loved it. It isn’t Natalie Portman’s fault either - she is perfectly cast as the girl who works at the counter of the store, who has magic in her heart…and Zach Mills is terrific as a young boy named Eric, who appears to be some kind of child genius with no friends, who serves on the de facto board of governors for the Emporium. Mills is a great surprise. His face is so expressive, and he handles his adult lines with great dexterity and real charm. But all of this fills up ten minutes of screen time. Then Jason Bateman shows up. He is stiff as a board and very unconvincing as an accountant brought into the store to put the store’s papers in order. This leads to a few great scenes with Hoffman, but it also leads to that most-obnoxious of movie questions - will he learn to loosen up and take life less seriously? All that would take would be one game of checkers…

And therein lies the biggest problem with Mr. Magorium. All it takes for Bateman to see the light and embrace the magic and lose the suit-attitude is to put on a hat with the kid. Natalie Portman yearns for something more than her job as a clerk in a toy store. An amazing toy store, to be sure, but she is still in retail when she dreams of being a concert pianist. And the prevailing thought here is that this sadness she feels can be resolved if she takes over the store from Magorium and becomes the owner. Umm…sure. So, she wants to be a concert pianist, and not work at the toy store any more, so the way to make her pleased with her life is to - tie her to that same store for the rest of her life? This is the sort of idea the movie is quite pleased to trot out at the right moment in the plot. None of it is cohesive, none of it rings true, and in the end the “wonder” of the story is dulled by the predictability of the characters and their actions. Even the kids, who just wanted to watch the cool toys do cool things, got pretty bored toward the end. I don’t blame them. Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium was done at the fifteen minute mark.

There is a short film before The Darjeeling Limited called Hotel Chevalier. It is a wonderful addition to a wonderful film. Natalie Portman stars with Jason Schwartzman in the short flim, and she gets very naked. Not that it’s worth it just for that, but it sets up the movie beautifully. Portman is in The Darjeeling Limited for a total of one eighth of one second, so the only time we get to understand what she’s doing there is in Hotel Chevalier. The first shot of the short film is unmistakably Wes Anderson. The giddily coloured hotel lobby is in perfect keeping with his other work - Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou. Anderson is about the quirkiest and maybe the best director working within the studio system. There are many things that connect his films. First of all, the actors in his movies spend a lot of time sitting perfectly still. There is little movement in the films, and even when there is a scene with action, it seems very understated and the colour of the scene is more engaging than the action itself. Another fixture of a Wes Anderson movie is dysfunctional families, bizarre relationships and aberrant behaviour within those families. The Darjeeling Limited is no exception.

And the third common thread - the actors. Bill Murray has starred in the last three Anderson movies, and he appears here as the first actor we see, running to catch a train. He misses the train, and we never see him again. But at least he shows up. Adrien Brody sprints past Murray to catch that same train (the Darjeeling Limited), and joins Jason Schwartzman (Rushmore) and Owen Wilson (Rushmore, Bottle Rocket, Royal Tenenbaums, Life Aquatic), who are his brothers. They are on this train because Owen Wilson, who appears to be amazingly rich, has decided to bring all three of them together on some kind of bonkers, misguided “spiritual quest”, following the death of their father. Anjelica Huston (Royal Tenenbaums, Life Aquatic) plays their mom, who eventually figures into the story. This journey is totally directionless - to the point that the train, although it is on a track, actually gets lost. None of the brothers truly trust each other, and there is a lot of back-stabbing and gossip going on between them.

There is something extremely childish about Wes Anderson films. Not in subject matter, certainly, but in visual presentation. Every character seems, at the same time, both larger than life and totally insignificant. And so too does the decor on the train, the countryside outside the train, and the layout of the rooms. But the one thing that is consistent about his movies is that they are excellent. Every one of them. There is nothing in Darjeeling Limited that is what DVD boxes would call “laugh-out-loud funny”. But then, the entire thing IS funny. It’s hilariously funny. And it’s the underacting and the overacting, the big reactions to small things and the small reactions to big things, it’s the tone and the setting and the minimal dialogue and the ideas that are in the heads of the characters. Ideas that are rarely spoken but that we know about, and that we find very amusing. Scenes that should be massively dramatic are treated with a certain impassiveness by Anderson - there is a scene toward the end, where the brothers are confronting their mother over some wrongs, and Owen Wilson admits that the bandages that have been around his head the entire movie are the result of a suicide attempt, it’s all passed over so quickly and so astutely that we are still amused, maybe even more so. The Darjeeling Limited won’t appeal to everyone, just like Rushmore and Life Aquatic and Royal Tenenbaums, but it certainly stands with them in terms of excellence.