Gilliam Greets Doctor Parnassus

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Tuesday, 29 December 2009 11:23

Written by Kevin Filipski

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Directed by Terry Gilliam
Starring Heath Ledger, Colin Farrell, Johnny Depp, Jude Law, Christopher Plummer, Tom Waits
The first 15 minutes of The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus would make a fantastic short: crammed with director Terry Gilliam’s usual surfeit of dazzling imagery, the opening is so breathtaking in its casual sleight-of-hand—including references to Gilliam’s animation for Monty Python’s Flying Circus—that it can’t help but make the rest of Parnassus a let-down.

Gilliam’s latest jinxed production is the film Heath Ledger was working on when he died of an overdose. It was at first uncertain if Gilliam could go on with filming, since Ledger was playing a pivotal role as Tony, a cheating charity owner rescued from certain death by members of a traveling circus led by the immortal Dr. Parnassus, including his child-like 16-year-old daughter Valentina and two sidekicks, the lovestruck teenager Anton and the grumpy dwarf Percy.

Gilliam and co-writer Charles McKeown re-wrote sections of the script, plugging in actors Depp, Law and Farrell to play Ledger’s role without losing a beat. How? The contraption of the title serves as a gateway to the doctor’s vivid imagination, and whenever Tony enters it in each of three fantasy sequences, he “becomes” one of the other actors.

Gilliam plugs in amusing in-jokes as Tony sees himself in these scenes and notes unhappily that he looks different; but the poignancy over Ledger’s loss occurs more often when he is onscreen giving a racy, incisive and distinctly unmannered performance. (On the other hand, the trio of replacements labors hard to act like Ledger, and only Depp partially succeeds.)

Parnassus is truly a sight to behold: the eye-popping colors, sublimely silly juxtapositions of varied styles (similar to the stew that drove the Beatles’ animated feature Yellow Submarine) and witty visual jokes are typically Gilliam. What was once innovative and revelatory now seems stale, maybe because CGI effects can conjure anything, and the bluest sky and greenest grass that’s ever seen don’t make one shake one’s head in wonderment any more.

Unfortunately, Gilliam limits what his actors can do, since they are all at the service of his visual primacy. In addition to the frisky Ledger, Plummer nearly pulls off the miraculous feat of making us sympathize with the immortal Parnassus, and it’s only because Gilliam and McKeown’s script that he doesn’t register as a real human being. Still, Plummer’s immense charm comes through, especially during his deals with Mr. Nick (a k a Mephistopheles, whose Faustian bargain Parnassus accepted, played with little charisma by an unsinister Waits): you believe he could charm the devil himself, not the other way around. Plummer also looks the part of an elderly fool, like a regal King Lear turned into a mad Don Quixote.

I would also love to admire the camerawork of Nicola Pecorini, but when much of the movie is CGI, how does one figure out the cinematographer’s actual contribution?

Jeff Bridges Has a "Crazy Heart"

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Tuesday, 22 December 2009 23:52

Written by Maitland McDonagh / Miss FlickChick

Directed by Scott Cooper
Written by Scott Cooper, based on the novel by Thomas Cobb
With: Jeff Bridges, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Robert Duvall and Colin Farrell

"I used to be somebody," sings ruined country-western legend Bad Blake (Bridges, looking uncannily like Kris Kristofferson), "but I used to be somebody else." Like all great C&W lyrics, those dozen words sum up a lifetime's worth of missteps, complications and rueful perspective gained just a little too late. 

Blake used to be a star, a natural-born tunesmith who turned out perfectly crafted songs about heartbreak, hard times and the beckoning road, and sang them with a hit-making mix of grit, warmth and "been there, done that" weariness. Now he's a bitter, barely functioning alcoholic, reduced to living out of his car and playing murkily lit bowling alleys and hole-in-the-wall bars because no one else will have him. Having systematically torpedoed every relationship he ever had, Blake lives on bitter pride and stews in the knowledge that he could write rings around every fresh-faced Nashville star worth a good Goddamn, including his onetime protégé, crossover country-pop star Tommy Sweet (Farrell); he wouldn’t accept a helping hand if it were wrapped around a jeroboam of bourbon.

And then fate tosses him a life raft in the form of a potentially stable relationship with small-time journalist Jean Craddock (Gyllenhaal), a single mother half his age whose bright-eyed little boy is a stinging reminder that Blake abandoned his own son years ago. But he's an old dog who isn't interested in learning new tricks. He can't even be bothered to write new songs, despite a lucrative and thoroughly respectful offer from Sweet.

It’s glib, lazy, critics' shorthand to call Crazy Heart Bridges' The Wrestler. It’s not even particularly accurate: Unlike Mickey Rourke, Bridges is no human road wreck in desperate need of career rehab: He’s logged more than 40 years of steady work in a notoriously fickle business without a single detour into tabloid hell. But the comparison is irresistible, because Crazy Heart is a low-budget, end-of-year release that came out of nowhere and threw Oscar handicappers into a tizzy by introducing dark horse into the best actor race.

Like The Wrestler, Crazy Heart is a middling movie powered by a stunning performance: Bridges powers through the show-biz clichés and finds the sad, proud, cussed essence of Bad Blake — his soul, if you will. And even the tacked-on kinda/sorta happy ending can’t diminish his accomplishment; stunning though Rourke's performance as Randy "The Ram" Robinson is, Bridges' flawless evocation of the slick delusions and ragged charm of a self-destructive has-been is more impressive still. Rourke, after all, has been there. Bridges, a Hollywood kid (his father was '50s TV star Lloyd Bridges) who earned his first Oscar nomination at 22 and is, at the age of 60, doing consistently better work than Robert De Niro, Al Pacino or Dustin Hoffman, is faking it with such complete conviction that if you didn’t know who he was, you’d take him for the real thing.

Which is, of course, what acting is all about… oh, and did I mention that Bridges can sing? Not like a classically trained vocalist, but like the guy who could find the everyday poetry in those pitch-perfect pastiches by Stephen Bruton, T-Bone Burnett and alt-country rocker Ryan Bingham and sell it without breaking a sweat. The scene in which Bridges and Farrell effortlessly wrap an arena full of country-pop fans around their fingers with an "impromptu" duet on the Bad Blake standard "Seems Like Flying" stands on its own merits; it flawlessly captures the electric moment when an audience suddenly hears a song that was a hit before their mothers were born as though it were vividly, thrillingly new. When you know it was shot in less than 15 minutes before a pack of Toby Keith fans waiting for their idol to take the stage, well, you just about have to stand up and salute.

So, hell, put my name on the "Jeff Bridges deserves a damned Oscar" petition. Crazy Heart may not be a great movie, but without Bridges it would be a Hallmark Hall of Fame trifle.

For more by Maitland McDonagh: MissFlickChick.com

"Fascinating Aida" Is Clever Satire

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Tuesday, 22 December 2009 23:19

Written by Lucy Komisar

For over a quarter of a century, a trio of witty Brits has been amusing audiences with pointed political musical satire and a few jabs at social mores. The latest version, Fascinating Aïda – Absolutely Miraculous, in the Brits Off Broadway Festival includes some numbers that you won’t find even from hot American satirists.

Early '80s trio members Dillie Keane and Adèle Anderson are joined by new trooper Liza Pullman in a collection of clever skits that sometimes recall the classical American satirist Tom Lehrer, occasionally reach heights Lehrer never dreamed off, and sometimes, alas, descend to a vulgarity that belongs in Broadway comedy clubs.

The writers are Keane, the pianist with a dry demeanor and perpetual scowl, a founder of the group, and Anderson, who came a year later. The director is Frank Thompson, who turns the theater production into fast-paced cabaret.

At the best are satirical jabs at the financial crisis, "The Markets"; a sharp poke at celebrities, "I Just Want to Be Famous"; and a hysterically funny clever send-up of Marlene Dietrich, Lotte Lenya and German songstresses, "Lieder." These are so good, that it’s almost churlish to mention downsides.

The show starts with the delicious "I Just Want to Be Famous," including "I’m going out in a see-through dress and underwear by Prada; Got myself snapped at the latest club in a very provocative pose …And if I’m not in the papers tomorrow, next night I’ll try harder, dancing on the bar with Mickey Rourke wearing even fewer clothes. Oh, it isn’t too late, it isn’t too late, it isn’t too late to be famous."

Well, those are the slightly tacky wannabe’s. But what about the left-liberal good guys? Listen to "White’s Blues": "We vacation in Mauritius, yes, I know it’s a very long flight; But we pay our carbon offsets, so that makes it all right; Ooh, I ain’t got the blues, I’ve got those we’re helping local economies by supporting eco-tourism; Well-meaning Times-reading whites."

And "If they drill for oil in Alaska, it’s an ecological bummer; but it would be so inconvenient if I couldn’t drive my Hummer.  Ooh, I ain’t got the blues, I’ve got those actually, it balances out, ’cause the nanny’s car is tiny, socially sensitive whites."

"Lieder" is a brilliant parody, but it’s more than the words, it’s the actions of the singers who are a hoot as they perch on chairs with their legs aloft akimbo. "It doesn’t matter if you sing out of tune, so long as you’re German…. (off key) . …So if your voice sounds like it’s coming through a strainer, sing it out of sync, like Marlene, and soon you’ll be compared to Lotte Lenya… who was Austrian."

There’s a series of Elizabethan airs that lampoon politicians and other worthy targets. "Carla Bruni! Carla Bruni! She makes men feel swoony….nothing that she does could ever cause affront, even though she’s married to that Gallic runt." And "Tony Blair’s got a vital job, oh…In which to make his mark; Bringing peace to Israel oy…Just like he did in Iraq. Ululate."

Pulman has a very fine soprano, though my attention was distracted by the fact that both her costumes had necklines of the sort that threaten wardrobe malfunctions. Adèle and Dillie seemed content to direct attention to their voices and acting.

I didn’t like crude sexual numbers such as "Chastity (begins in public)"  and "Dogging,"which belong in comedy clubs or frat houses. Such audiences never heard of Carla Bruni or Tony Blair. Fascinating Aïda sometimes seems confused about who her/their audience is.

Let me end with "The Markets" because it is so right-on — I know because I’m writing about this now in my investigative journalist's life. To the tune of the Major General's Song from Gilbert and Sullivan's 1879 comic opera, The Pirates of Penzance:

"Derivatives are monetary instrument, to put it very neatly:
But unlike stocks and shares the actual value comes from something else completely;
The value of derivatives derive, you see, from value underlying
And are often used to lessen risk for speculators selling and/or buying;
Now value can be notional or market and those values never meet
In addition, only market value gets recorded on the balance sheet;
Oh, and a sell is not a sell, it’s called a put, just as a buy is called a call;
And thus anything you call, you’d better put before the prices start to fall."

And next there’s short selling and hedge funds and more. To get it, you have to be au courant enough to know what they are talking about, which admittedly is not most of the audience. But take it from me, Fascinating Aïda understands (and skewers) the financial system as well as any financial analyst.

Fascinating Aïda
59E59
59 East 59th Street
New York City
212-279-4200
Opened December 17, 2009; closes January 3, 2010

For more by Lucy Komisar: TheKomisarScoop.com

Photo credit: Andy Bradshaw