A Very Literary New York Film Festival
This weekend, the New York Film Festival kicks off its 52 year with a characteristic mix of big-deal premieres and artistically challenging fare from around world. Included in what looks to be one of its finest programs yet is a host of literary-minded films – book adaptations, biopics about writers, and films written by celebrated authors (think Bruce Wagner and Marguerite Duras). Here are the selections that pique our interest most.
“The Blue Room”
Stateside, Mathieu Amalric is best known as the puckish star of such films as “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” and the Bond film “Quantum of Solace.” But the French actor is also an accomplished director in his own right, and his latest offering is an adaptation of Georges Simenon’s slim mystery novel about a misbegotten affair between a married man (Amalric) and an increasingly unhinged woman (Stéphanie Cléau, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Amalric). With shades of Patricia Highsmith and Almaric’s sure, classical style, this noir promises to be neurotica at its most compelling. Continue Reading →
Kitchen Communion
There’s some debate about whether the first day of fall was yesterday or today but my internal clock already knows what time it is. It’s time to start cooking, and with the rich, rewarding flavors that arrive in the greenmarket right about now. Over the weekend I carmelized those figs. Yesterday I made a wild rice dish with roasted squash and sage and apples. Today a lamb stew with potatoes and carrots and thyme and a healthy splash of beer is whispering my name. I know the weather is gorgeous; I know everyone’s running around like a happy chicken with their head cut off. But for me, this season is always about communing with my kitchen. As the nights grow cool, this is where I’ll be–puttering about in slippers, tying on an apron, and stirring my witch’s cauldron while old R&B soars through my speakers and the rest of the world glitters outside my window. Blessed Mabon!
As Seen on TV: ‘This Is Where I Leave You’
“This Is Where I Leave You” is such a rare bird nowadays — a mid-budget, big-studio ensemble dramedy — that the only real basis for comparison is the television drama. That’s hardly an insult. As the critic David Thomson recently wrote, “Long-form television is the narrative form that has transcended movies as the novel once surpassed cave paintings.” Even if that weren’t so, the setup of Shawn Levy’s new film might seem like an offering from some (utopian) NBC lineup: It’s based in an American suburb. It blends humor, romance, and bathos. And it features an endearingly dysfunctional family with Jason Bateman and Tina Fey at its center, both of whom wisecrack aplenty as they keep their wackier clan members in check.
Adapted by Jonathan Tropper from his best-selling novel, it begins as Judd Altman (Bateman) discovers his wife (Abigail Spencer) is sleeping with his radio schlock jock boss (Dax Shepard). While Judd’s still reeling, his father dies, and his mother Hillary (Jane Fonda) declares their whole family must honor the Jewish custom of sitting shivah together for seven days. This leads to an excellent sight gag: the four grown Altman children — Judd, Wendy (Fey), Paul (Corey Stoll) and Phillip (Adam Driver) — lined up with Hillary on improbably tiny chairs as their friends and neighbors ply them with carbohydrates galore. (Noodle kugel is a favorite.) Continue Reading →