An American in Paris

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer back in Hollywood's Golden Age was basically synonymous with big musicals. (You can thank Arthur Freed for that distinction.) Nine times out of ten, MGM was the studio responsible for the most famous musicals of the 40s and 50s.

Vincente Minnelli's An American in Paris is no exception. Being one of the few musicals to win Best Picture, it provided 1951 audiences with an escape to a romance in post-World War II Paris. (Come to think of it, Moulin Rouge! perhaps borrowed a few cues from this.)

Minnelli himself was no stranger to the musical genre, By this point in his career, he had done the likes of Meet Me in St. Louis and The Pirate but he still had yet to prove to Hollywood what he could. With An American in Paris, it firmly cemented Minnelli's status in the film world.

As seen with later musicals The Band Wagon and Gigi, Minnelli captures the lush details of An American in Paris within the various musical numbers. Whether it's the choreography or the costumes, he uses his keen eye for those moments. (And maybe the occasional shot of Gene Kelly's backside...)

Now you may be wondering how a George Gershwin-based musical managed to win Best Picture over A Streetcar Named Desire and A Place in the Sun. The answer is a simple one, really. Just watch that climactic ballet, and that should answer that nagging question.

My Rating: ****

Frida

Sometimes there are those real-life people whose lives are full of colorful details . A list of numerous romantic trysts, scandals of a grand scale, and personal achievements only they can claim. It's almost to the point where if their life story gets turned into a film, it takes a hell of a lot of luck to make it work from beginning to end.

This is why Julie Taymor's Frida works as well as it does. With its subject being artist Frida Kahlo, it requires the right people to make her story come to life all these years after her death. And Taymor is one such person.

But what happened throughout Kahlo's life that would require a keen eye to re-capture it all? A stormy marriage to muralist Diego Rivera, her many affairs with men and women, her independent thinking...there was so much more to Kahlo than her artwork. She was truly one of a kind.

Starring as Kahlo is Salma Hayek, who prior to (and annoyingly several times since) Frida was frequently cast as the sultry Mexican bombshell. Here, with the aid of some makeup, she proves her viability as a serious actress. Hopefully she'll get another solid part sometime in the near future.

Frida effortlessly brings Kahlo's paintings to life, something only a select few art-based biopics can do well. With solid work from Hayek and Alfred Molina, it shows that only the right people can make certain projects. (Mental note: see Taymor's other films.)

My Rating: ****1/2

Rambling Rose

There are many coming of age stories set in the South. The most famous is To Kill a Mockingbird which has provided inspiration to works of a similar nature. That said, not many have measured up to either Harper Lee's novel or Robert Mulligan's adaptation.

So where does Martha Coolidge's Rambling Rose rank? It does share a few traits with To Kill a Mockingbird but Rambling Rose is a work of its own merit. How so though?

Both To Kill a Mockingbird and Rambling Rose are set in the South during the Great Depression, and are told from a child's perspective. (Not to mention both films feature Robert Duvall among their casts.) But it's that perspective that gives these titles gravitas.

While To Kill a Mockingbird focused on racial discrimination, Rambling Rose hones in on sexuality within women. As history has regularly proven, society didn't exactly smile upon those of the fair sex expressing themselves physically. Suffice to say that Rose (Laura Dern) gets her share of leers and sneers from the townsfolk.

Rambling Rose, as with other women-directed films, finds no shame in depicting how women view sex. The performances from Dern and Diane Ladd further prove that belief. (But on a somewhat different note, what is with fiction's fascination with Southern women and the physical act?)

My Rating: ****

Eve's Bayou

"Memory is a selection of images, some elusive, others printed indelibly on the brain." These are the words that open Kasi Lemmons' Eve's Bayou and set the film's mood. What unfolds during its 109-minute running time is a story of sordid secrets.

Set during a hot Louisiana summer, Eve's Bayou shows there's more simmering within the Batiste household than the sweltering Southern heat. The facade of affluence is enforced by patriarch Louis (Samuel L. Jackson) but the effects of his serial philandering are beginning to seep through. When will the family dynamic unravel?

Eve's Bayou depicts the high pedestal we put our parents on when we're young. But as we get older and become more aware of the world around us, we start to realize that our parents have flaws like everyone else we know. This is the hard truth that Eve (Jurnee Smollett) learns over the course of the film.

There's something interesting in the way Eve's Bayou is shot. It has a sort of muted palette to it, even in scenes shot in the bright outdoors. It's this detail from cinematographer Amy Vincent that adds to the film's dark nature.

Eve's Bayou is rich story that Lemmons captures effortlessly. It lingers on the ambiance of a Tennessee Williams play but it focuses more on the mood of an Ingmar Bergman film (and perhaps even John Cassavetes). Also, more roles of this nature for Jackson, yes?

My Rating: ****1/2

The Decoy Bride

We all know the usual yarn when it comes to fiction of a romantic nature. Boy and girl meet, hijinks ensue, and they're still together by the end. Admittedly it's one that seldom changes (the rare exception being one of a same-sex variety) but if it's one done right, who's complaining?

So how does Sheree Folkson's The Decoy Bride fare? It does follow that familiar formula but it has a certain charm to it that's usually a rarity in films of this nature. (Then again, a majority of films that hail from the British Isles have that tendency.)

In some ways, The Decoy Bride bears resemblance to Local Hero (not just because both feature a leading man of Doctor Who). They share several elements: small (albeit fictional) Scottish town on the edge of the world, outsiders being charmed by the town's quirks. (The most telling detail is the lone red phone booth in some shots.) It's the simple things sometimes.

And as if The Decoy Bride wasn't Scottish enough, it stars the likes of Kelly Macdonald and David Tennant, two of the more prominent names to hail from the country in recent years. Both recognizable faces to British and American TV viewers, they provide a chemistry that's essential to films of this nature.

It's nothing too extraordinary but The Decoy Bride is very sweet in spots. Thanks to the work from Macdonald and Tennant, it's proof that sometimes the best form of temporary escape is through a light romantic comedy. (Well, it's true, you know.)

My Rating: ****

Bound

Recently works featuring lesbian and female bisexual characters have been getting a lot of heat. The reason being is that writers deploy the "bury your gays" trope, strictly for the sake of shock value. Hey, newsflash, various straight writers: body counts aren't representation. And it's not that hard to write such characters with killing them off.

At least the Wachowskis knew what they were doing with their directing debut Bound. They knew that lesbians and bisexual women were more than means of sexualization. (Getting really old, by the way, talentless comedy writers.) They knew that theses could be women as complex as any part written for a man.

Of course, there's more to Bound than just decent representation. It's a film that dabbles in various genres. sometimes within the same scene. It goes from gangster movie to crime caper to lust-filled thriller. Think of it as a contemporary Double Indemnity.

As we all know by now, the Wachowskis went on to do bigger projects like The Matrix, Cloud Atlas and Jupiter Ascending. These were films decidedly more reliant on the visual aspect than anything else. Hopefully in the near future the Wachowskis will go back to their directing roots.

Bound provided Hollywood with two promising visionaries, ones that know the fine workings of a taut thriller. But as stated above, the Wachowskis definitely need to make another film of this nature. (One can only go so far with films that are almost entirely CGI.) After all, the proof is in the script.

My Rating: ****1/2

Thirteen Conversations About One Thing

We all strive for a sense of contentment in our lives. We yearn for some sort of purpose. Some find it with ease, others achieve it with some difficulty. And there are those who envy the people that are happy with their lives.

Jill Sprecher's Thirteen Conversations About One Thing follows the day-to-day lives of five people. Walker (John Turturro) is going through a midlife crisis. After an accident, Troy (Matthew McConaughey) becomes wracked with guilt. Gene (Alan Arkin) grows increasingly irritated with a cheerful co-worker. Beatrice (Clea DuVall) keeps a positive outlook on life despite it being far from perfect. And Patricia (Amy Irving) discovers her husband's infidelity.

What Sprecher shows with her film is simple human behavior. We don't know how to achieve the happiness we feel we deserve. We don't know if we'll find it in something superficial or long-lasting. All we know is that we want to be happy, no matter how long it takes to find it.

Sprecher also shows that life can play cruel tricks on certain people. Fate can be a fickle thing to some people. Bad things happen to good people, and vice versa. Nothing about life makes sense, even if we try to understand it. In other words, sometimes you have to accept what life throws at you.

Thirteen Conversations About One Thing is a quiet film in its execution of everyday life and the hurdles one has to jump. Fate may be a cruel thing but one thing's definitive: we know how to dust ourselves off and march on.

My Rating: ****

The Favourite TV Show Episode Blogathon

Terry over at A Shroud of Thoughts has brought back a successful blogathon, and this time around I decided to chip in. The goal is to write about, well, your favorite TV show episode. But there's a catch: you can only write about episodes that "must be from shows that are at least 25 years old." So most of the shows that I watch (Sherlock, the revival series of Doctor Who) were basically ruled out.

Thankfully I had an ace up my sleeve. There's one show that I've recently finished that will be celebrating its 50th anniversary later this year. That show in question?

Of its 79 episodes, there are several that I can claim are favorites: "The Naked Time", "Tomorrow is Yesterday", "The City on the Edge of Forever", "Amok Time", "I, Mudd", "Journey to Babel", "A Piece of the Action", and "Patterns of Force". But what's the one I'll be covering? Perhaps the most iconic episode of the series' brief run:

(1967, dir. Joseph Pevney)

Any Day Now

We all seek out peace and harmony at some point in our lives. We want the world we're a part of to be accepting to all those around us. But sometimes that can be an uphill battle to some.

Travis Fine's Any Day Now looks like at first glance to be about the budding relationship between performer Rudy (Alan Cumming) and attorney Paul (Garret Dillahunt). But as the film unfolds, there's much more in store for these two men. And what follows is just heartbreaking.

Any Day Now is set in a time where homosexuals were just starting to be viewed as more than the pariahs of society. But the film shows that it's still an unjust world they're a part of. Things may have changed considerably since that time (including same-sex marriage being legalized in various parts of the world) but we still have a long way to go before we reach total equality.

Both Cumming and Dillahunt are fine actors who've yet to get their moment in the spotlight. (At least with film; they already got it on the small screen from The Good Wife and Deadwood respectively.) Thankfully Any Day Now gives them that spotlight. Their performances are a foil to one another, their contrasting personalities melding together as they get to know each other more. Hopefully it won't be much longer before they get more roles in films.

Any Day Now is one of the more underrated titles in recent years. It's not just a story of romantic love; it's also a story of familial love, and Fine depicts its heartbreak to the fullest. Be sure to see it.

My Rating: *****

Lola

With the French New Wave, there was an emergence in promising directors. Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, Claude Chabrol, Eric Rohmer, Jacques Rivette...they were the key figures in making the movement come to be. But there are a few other names from that time in cinema that tend to get overlooked.

One such name was Jacques Demy. Now his films like The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and The Young Girls of Rochefort are well-known to the film community (as well as his marriage to Agnès Varda) but his smaller, non-musical films tend to get overlooked. Such is the case with his debut Lola.

Much like Varda's Cleo from 5 to 7 the following year, there's more to Lola than it lets on. It's not just about the titular cabaret singer (Anouk Aimée); it's about a small group of in Nantes, their lives intersecting for only a fleeting moment.

Interestingly, Demy had intended for Lola to be a musical but didn't have a budget for it. (It leaves one wondering what this would've been like as a full-fledged musical.) But does this detail hinder the film's quality? Of course not.

Lola was one of several examples to prove that a new film movement was underway but all these years later, it seems to have gotten lost amid the mix of The 400 Blows and Breathless. Demy also showed that he was a promising director for the world of cinema to keep an eye on. (Also expect more reviews of his films here.)

My Rating: *****