Navigation

Archive | Film Matters

February’s ‘Wild Tales’ & ‘Accidental Love’

February 20, 2015 in Film Matters, Reviews

February may be the weirdest time of the year for film. Sure, ’tis the season for the Hollywood romance; witness the box-office success of “Fifty Shades of Grey” and the terrific musical love story “The Last Five Years.” But this is also the season for movies that distributors have written off as unmarketable. And while “unmarketable” can be Hollywood speak for “innovative,” it also is a synonym for “unfathomably awful.”

Case in point: “Accidental Love.” Released this month on VOD, David O’Russell’s buried comedy about Alice (Jessica Biel), an uninsured waitress unhinged by a brain injury, is as bad as was rumored. O’Russell himself hated this film so much that he demanded his name be removed from the credits. (The pseudonym “Stephen Greene” was used.) Filmed in 2008 in the wake of the badly received “I Heart Huckabees,” the production was so riddled with financial problems that it was shut down at least eight times. Though he never finished it – he refused to shoot a key scene in order to block its release – post-production was eventually completed without O’Russell’s participation. (A pivotal moment is glaringly lacking.) Continue Reading →

Neil Gaiman & Daniel Handler: Of Magic and Racist Jokes

February 19, 2015 in Book Matters, City Matters, Film Matters

They promised swordfights in their conversation but what we got was almost as good. At Tuesday night’s “En Garde! Gaiman and Handler,” authors, screenwriters, and general bon vivants Neil Gaiman and Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket) convened at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Howard Gilman Opera House for a ninety-minute dialogue covering everything from the existence of magic to writing advice. Most notably, the friends and occasional collaborators also addressed Handler’s racist joke at last fall’s National Book Awards. It was a lively evening.

Perhaps to head off any unpleasant confrontations, the question-and-answer portion of the evening veered from BAM’s usual format: Audience members were encouraged to jot their questions on index cards upon their arrival rather than querying the authors from a microphone stand. Throughout the evening, the writers then answered the submissions of their choosing. Both men are terrific wits, and for a while it seemed Handler would circumvent the controversy entirely. Continue Reading →

‘The Last Five Years’ Hurts So Good

February 13, 2015 in Film Matters, Reviews

“The Last Five Years” may not be for people who don’t like musicals — it is almost entirely sung– but it does cover psychologically complex material that is a far cry from the typical Hollywood tuner. About the stormy relationship between Cathy (Anna Kendrick), a struggling stage actress, and Jamie (Jeremy Jordan), a successful young novelist, it grapples with a question rarely posed on screen or in polite company: Can romances work between two people who prize their artistic ambitions as much as each other?

It’s an uncomfortable question, especially because it calls on the carpet the reality that, even now, most marriages only can handle one alpha if they’re to succeed. The fact that the question is set to music makes it easier to absorb and also more immediate. There’s an emotional accessibility (naysayers might call it ‘sentimentality’) to musicals that, to date, is unparalleled. And aided by wonderful melodies, the unusual combination of material and medium in “The Last Five Years” did prove a great, if short-lived, success off-Broadway. Adapted to screen by director/screenwriter Richard LaGravenese, it is also startlingly good. Continue Reading →

"All, everything I understand, I understand only because I love."
― Leo Tolstoy