If I could have one piece of anatomy from another person rather than my own, I might well choose Cyd Charisse’s legs. I mean, dang.

(This clip from The Band Wagon‘s “Girl Hunt Ballet” brought to you by my being unable to stop watching incredible 1950s musical numbers once I start.)

I went to hear John Williams and the LA Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl tonight, and while of course John Williams’ music is awesome and it was great seeing all the clips of Indy and Star Wars and Close Encounters along with the live orchestra, the highlight for me was when Stanley Donen turned up to introduce selections from his films with Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly. Fred’s dancing-on-the-ceiling number from Royal Wedding, the barn dance from Seven Brides (the travesty of the night, though, was that they showed this in the pan-and-scanned version – with the director sitting right there!), Gene on roller skates and with Jerry the Mouse and in the rain. But even though I knew they’d do “Singin’ in the Rain,” I secretly hoped they’d do some part of “The Broadway Ballet” instead. They didn’t. So I must do it instead, with the aid of lovely YouTubers. I love the whole thing, but obviously the parts with Cyd Charisse stand out. (It’s fourteen minutes long, and thus won’t fit in one YouTube video; part two, with the romantic flowy veil part, is here).

The Savages
Estranged siblings Jon and Wendy Savage (Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney) are forced to care for their aging and increasingly senile father when the woman he lives with dies, leaving him without a home. This is not a particularly exciting proposition to anyone involved – both siblings are playwrights (Jon much more successfully than Wendy, who has yet to get one of her plays produced), and both have based plays around their traumatic (or at least neglected) childhood. Neither has seen their father for years. But they make an effort, settling Dad into a nursing home. Writer/directer Tamara Jenkins treats Dad with a great deal of nuance despite his decidedly supporting role – he’s too far gone into dementia to be able to respond to Wendy’s attempts to pretend everything’s fine, but not so far gone that the hurt doesn’t creep into his face when Jon treats him as though he’s not even there. In addition to the parent-child issues, Wendy’s also dealing with her inability to get produced, to get out of a relationship with a married man, and to overcome her sense of inferiority in comparison with Jon – who is, meanwhile, figuring out what to do about his girlfriend returning Eastern Europe due to visa issues. So many strands of story and so many levels of (broken) relationships could easily lead to a sloppy and depressing film, especially since Jon and Wendy spend so much time angry at each other. But Jenkins holds everything together very well, with a smart screenplay and steady directorial hand bringing out the best that Linney and Hoffman have to offer. Which is quite a lot.
Well Above Average
USA 2007; dir: Tamara Jenkins; starring: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Laura Linney, Philip Bosco
Screened 27 June 2008 on DVD
IMDb | The Frame

Be Kind, Rewind
In a struggling New York-area city stands a dying building. It has been condemned, ready to be taken over by fancy apartment developers unless its owner Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover) can turn a profit on his VHS rental store to make the necessary repairs. When he takes a research trip to find out how to improve business (leading to some nice jabs at Blockbuster-style megastores), he leaves his adopted son Mike (Mos Def) in charge, warning him to keep his hapless friend Jerry (Jack Black) out of the store. Of course, Jerry doesn’t stay out of the store, and having been temporarily magnetized in an accident (don’t ask), he erases all the tapes. Rather than admit defeat, the pair grab a camera and film short versions of the movies – Ghostbusters, RoboCop, even Driving Miss Daisy – which, incredibly, become more popular than the actual films among patrons soon willing to line up and pay $20 to have their favorite movies “sweded.” Anyone who’s ever made films in their backyard or known people who did will likely be charmed by the town coming together over the process of making and exhibiting homemade films. I was, though I do feel that Gondry’s ideas aren’t quite as good in execution as they are in his head. Thankfully, he does realize his concept much more fully and satisfactorily here than he did in The Science of Sleep. However, once home moviemaking rallies the town, the film just stops abruptly, a move likely to annoy any viewers who aren’t convinced by Gondry’s belief in the power of cinema – any cinema.
Above Average
USA 2008; dir: Michel Gondry; starring: Jack Black, Mos Def, Danny Glover, Melonie Diaz, Mia Farrow
Screened 10 July 2008 on DVD
IMDb | The Frame

David Bordwell is always worth reading, but he put up a post a couple of weeks ago that’s highly entertaining as well as informative, about the way cinephiles interact with each other. He starts off separating cinephiles from cinemaniacs – based on his definitions, I’m not sure which category I fit into. I’m going to claim cinephilia, though, because I like this:

Cinephiles by contrast [to cinemaniacs, who he says have very specific areas they like] tend to be ecumenical. Indeed, many take pride in the intergalactic breadth of their tastes. Look at any smart critic’s ten-best lists. You’ll usually see an eclectic mix of arthouse, pop, and experimental, including one or two titles you have never heard of. Obscurity is important; a cinephile is a connoisseur.

The real crux, I think, is this. The cinephile loves the idea of film.

That means loving not only its accomplishments but its potential, its promise and prospects. It’s as if individual films, delectable and overpowering as they can be, are but glimpses of something far grander.

He goes on to give examples of the ways cinephiles one-up each other by claiming great breadth or depth of knowledge, and that’s where the humorous part is. I’ve engaged in my small way in most of the forms of cinephile oneupsmanship he highlights, though not anywhere near the level Bordwell can. I think, though, that while there’s usually an element of competition in it, there’s also simply a need to know where you stand with the other cinephile. Everyone can’t be an expert on everything, even in film’s short history, and in any conversation, one person is going to win in some areas, but not in others, and it’s useful to know what those areas are. I struck up a conversation with my couch-mate at Shirley Clarke’s The Cool World a few weeks ago (yep, LA’s Silent Movie Theatre has couches, if you get there early enough to snag one), and she easily beat me out on 1960s American indie film, like The Cool World, but I had her on New Wave films, which came up as we discussed the previous week’s film, Agnes Varda’s Cleo from 5 to 7. The game was played, we won and lost, but we knew where we stood, and we started to get an idea of what could be reasonably asked or discussed with the other person.

At least in such circumstances (a screening of a rare film at a repertory theatre), one knows where to start. I have much more difficulty trying to figure out what to answer the general populace when someone finds out I’m into movies and asks me what my favorite movie is. I used to have rote answers, but that was ten years ago, and they’re hopelessly out of date. I think I need to pick a few favorites with differing levels of obscurity. My worst moment was at a church function a few weeks ago, when I went as mainstream and as current as I could and still be honest, and said No Country for Old Men. She hadn’t heard of it. Best Picture Oscar winner, hadn’t heard of it. I couldn’t speak for several minutes. I get that not everyone is into film, and that’s fine, but why ask me about it, then? I can talk about other things, I swear.

Note for non-cinephile readers: the stills and names Bordwell uses in his examples are from François Truffaut’s Jules et Jim; the “Catherine” he mentions at the end is the woman who comes between the eponymous best friends.

Jenny Lewis’ second album, titled Acid Tongue, is due to drop from Warner Bros. on September 20th, and NPR is streaming the title track: click here and scroll down a little. Pitchfork also has the track listing and some tour dates in a post from a month ago, which I missed due to not having internet at the time.

I’m not sure I’m a huge fan of all the guest performers due to show up on the album (this song has Johnathan Rice and The Black Crowes’ Chris Robinson on it, and honestly I find them more distracting than useful, but maybe on subsequent listens I’ll change my mind), but I’m pretty much just ecstatic to have something new from Jenny, whether it’s with Rilo Kiley or not. Let’s hope she can navigate the big label tendency toward over-production a little better than the band did with Under the Blacklight.

I just signed up to pay my gas bill online, and, like many other sites that have monetary transactions going on, they have a security-question-and-answer in case you forget your password. No problem – I usually choose “first pet’s name” because that’s not particularly easy to track down by someone wanting to impersonate me, like “mother’s maiden name” or “hospital where you were born.” I’m not particularly paranoid about using those, though, if they don’t have “first pet’s name.” The ones I never choose? The “what’s your favorite ______” ones. Because, really? Are there people who have favorite movies or books that NEVER CHANGE?

The gas bill site had the following questions available (note: when I went back to look, they gave some different ones, so this is an amalgamation of all the ones I’ve seen – some are better than the original set):

• What’s your favorite movie?
• What’s your favorite song? (seriously? that changes EVERY WEEK, if not more often)
• What’s your best friend’s last name? (I ultimately went with this one, but it was still somewhat arbitrary; might not be for everyone, though)
• What’s the title of your favorite book?
• What is the name of your favorite fictional character?
• What is your favorite teacher’s name? (elementary school? high school? college? grad school? I have five or six teachers I’ve loved…how do I remember which one I felt most enthusiastic about when I chose the question?)
• What was your favorite vacation place to visit as a child? (sounds promising, but I’d prefer a more objective “where did your family most often vacation when you were a child”)
• What is your pet’s name? (not an option when I was choosing; but if you have more than one pet? Or if you change pets before you need to reset your password?)
• Where did you first meet your spouse/partner/etc. (not an option when I was choosing, but finally an objective one! But, being single, I can’t answer it, so I’m still looking…)
• And that’s all there are

Folks, DO NOT DO THIS. The point of a security question is so that you can recover your password using a question that you can easily answer, but other people either wouldn’t know, or would have to work really hard to find out. I can see why that makes the “favorite” thing attractive, because it could be very difficult to guess, but it basically becomes a second password to have to remember. I had to write down the answer to the question I chose, because who knows in two years, three, whenever, if I’ll remember my subjective response at this moment? Questions can be objective without being public record.

Troll 2 is widely considered one of the worst movies of all time. Also, one of the awesomest. That’s how these things work sometimes. And this is it. In its entirety. I’d click through to watch it fullscreen, if I were you.

Leaving New York for London with Match Point revitalized Woody Allen‘s career in 2005; now he picks up shop again, this time seeking inspiration in Spain. And again, the move does him good, as Vicky Cristina Barcelona evokes, though perhaps does not quite equal, his greatest triumphs. Best friends Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Scarlett Johansson) head to Barcelona for a couple of months of study and adventure. Vicky, solidly sure of herself and preparing to marry stably but not imaginatively, plans to finish her thesis on Catalan Identity while Cristina, intense and impulsive, seeks new experiences and passions without really knowing what, if anything, would satisfy her.

All this is revealed in the first five minutes via voice-over narration, a device you’ll probably have a love-hate relationship with. In the beginning, I wished Woody would show more and tell less, but as the film progressed, the narration took on a very dry, ironic tone that I found delightful. Anyway, when painter Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem) turns up and invites both girls for a weekend in his home town, the setup is fairly obvious – stability vs. passion. Complicating his attraction to Vicky and Cristina is the fact that he’s still completely in love with his ex-wife Maria Elena (Penélope Cruz), even though their relationship ended by her stabbing him. Or did it?

Let me get my few negatives out of the way first. Juan Antonio is a dog – he propositions everybody within five minutes of talking to them. Once he’s in a steady relationship, he’s a great guy, but I wish Allen had come up with a better way to say “hey, this guy is passionate” than having him try to get everyone into bed immediately. Patricia Clarkson is wasted in her role of an older woman unsatisfied in her stable marriage whose job basically is to try to get Vicky to leave her fiance Doug (Chris Messina) to pursue Juan Antonio. And the ending leaves us not very much different from the beginning, unsure how the Barcelona experience has changed our characters. I’m not wholly inclined to see the last thing as a negative, though. Often such experiences don’t immediately make their effects known, and leaving it to each audience member to decide how Vicky, Cristina, Juan Antonio, Maria Elena, and Doug will ultimately be affected may be a shrewd move on Woody’s part. And nitpicky thing – hold the dang camera still! There’s barely a shot that isn’t panning or pushing or pulling or tracking. This complaint was perhaps intensified by my recent reading of David Bordwell‘s The Way Hollywood Tells It, which talks a lot about the growing use of the “roving camera,” which made me notice it a lot more than I probably otherwise would’ve.

Okay, back to the good parts. Woody’s most solid script in years balances drama and comedy very well, keeping away from extremes of silliness (cf. Scoop or Broadway Danny Rose) and seriousness (cf. Match Point or Interiors). That’s not to say he doesn’t do the extremes well, but I tend to find him most enjoyable and memorable when he does dramatic stories tinged with wit throughout, as in my favorites, Manhattan and Hannah and Her Sisters. While I wouldn’t raise Vicky Cristina Barcelona to those dizzying heights, it’s back on track.

In addition, the cast handles the script with perfect timing, both verbally and physically. When Rebecca Hall appeared in The Prestige as Christian Bale’s long-suffering wife, I found her far more compelling than Scarlett Johansson, who had the larger role of mistress to both Bale and Hugh Jackman. Reteamed here, Hall again outshines her flashier costar. She’s one to watch for in the future; I’ve yet to be unimpressed with her. Johansson can be uneven, but here she matches her performance to the ensemble nicely. You’ll forget all about Bardem’s menacing Anton Chigurh as he infuses Juan Antonio with warmth and humor. And Penélope Cruz owns the screen every second she’s on it (and many that she’s not). The many explosions of laughter from the audience were all deserved equally by the script, the actors, and even the editing at one particular point.

Finally, a word about the relationships, which all end up better in threes than twos – couples needing a third person to balance out. This goes to extremes with Cristina, Juan Antonio and Maria Elena, but the same concept appears with Juan Antonio-Cristina-Vicky, Cristina-Vicky-Doug, abortively with Maria Elena-Juan Antonio-Vicky, and even perhaps with the titular Vicky-Cristina-Barcelona. At one level, the threesome activity seems like Woody’s own fantasies playing out (admittedly, in a rather tame fashion – there’s a lot of sex going on in this PG-13 film, but it’s pretty much all offscreen and termed “going to bed together”). But the shifting relationship triangle is not an uncommon literary device, particularly noticable in Alice Walker’s The Color Purple, in which virtually all the relationships form shifting triangles. I’m not sure how far to take Allen’s use of the theme, but the idea seems to be that each person needs two people in their lives – one more passionate/emotional and one more stable/rational than themselves. But the film expounds no such obvious message, which is a plus for me.

Juan Antonio’s father is a poet who refuses to publish his work as a way of getting back at a world he doesn’t like – denying the world the things of beauty he creates. It’s impossible to apply that maxim to Allen, who has compulsively shared his work, beautiful and not, with the world nearly every year since 1972. The good is well worth putting up with the less-good, and hopefully Vicky Cristina Barcelona is a sign of more future beautifully-made films from him. Also, Barcelona? Gorgeous. I want to go now.

USA 2008; dir: Woody Allen; starring: Scarlett Johnasson, Rebecca Hall, Javier Bardem, Penélope Cruz, Chris Messina, Patricia Clarkson
Screened 13 August 2008 with a sneak preview audience; Aero Theatre, Los Angeles
Well Above Average
Opens 15 August 2008