Patrick McDonald

Director Guy Maddin Contemplates His Canadian Hometown in Dreamlike ‘My Winnipeg’

HollywoodChicago.com — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:50:09 -0700

Rating: 4.5/5.0

CHICAGO – The distinct, gauzy style of director Guy Maddin has created unique cinematic prisms to look through including his depression-era meditation in “The Saddest Music in the World”.

In his latest film, which is a documentary of sorts, Maddin explores his own life through his hometown of Winnipeg in western Canada. He contemplates the far-off sense of leaving the city and seeks a kind of renewal through an anti-nostalgic look back at it.

Kate Yacula as Citizen Girl in Guy Maddin’s “My Winnipeg”.
Photo credit: Jody Shapiro, copyright Everyday Pictures

Guy Maddin was born in Winnipeg in 1956. He speaks of his early life there while living in a ramshackle home that contained his mother and aunt’s beauty parlor.

His development is distilled through the sights, sounds and smells of the salon along with the memories of the icons serving Winnipeg.

The giant downtown department store, the hockey arena where his father worked and a strange amusement park called Happyland all figure into his conscious reminiscence. The loss of this signals both the end of the era and his youth.

To take the “My Winnipeg” film experiment in looking back to another level, Maddin rents the beauty parlor house where he once lived and hires actors to play his brothers, sister and mother from 1963.

He then recreates specific and sometimes uncomfortable moments from his family history and watches them again in the sense of a voyeur traveling through time. His Winnipeg always remains in the center of it all.

Ann Savage as Mother and Darcy Fehr as Ledge Man in “My Winnipeg,” which is directed by Guy Maddin.
Photo credit: Jody Shapiro, copyright Everyday Pictures

This is an achingly beautiful film that’s full of black-and-white images working as both stark reality and soft-focus dreams.

The historical footage from the actual Winnipeg is quite compelling as if all images of the past can be neatly summed up through chamber-of-commerce promotions.

The icons of his hometown produce a more wistful remembrance. The old and traditional hockey stadium (Winnipeg Arena) becomes an elegy for his dead father.

Maddin’s dad worked as a statistician for the various hockey events that took place in the arena.

Through Maddin’s lens, old hockey players play a final time in the crumbling edifice. The final tear down of the building represents a strong death of those impressions. The recreation of his family’s historical events, though, is desperately funny.

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The actress playing his mother (Ann Savage) overplays all the rather normal situations. An incident with Maddin’s sister where she runs over a deer with the family car becomes an odd morality play when filtered through Savage and the other actress attempting staged line readings about it.

The film overall plays like a feverish dream.

The overlapping images have the flow of subconsciousness that can’t be controlled or censored and unspool almost organically. This provides a narrative regarding a Winnipeg that is gone through time, space and old buildings but still exists as exposed through the memory and expression of Guy Maddin.

“My Winnipeg,” which features Darcy Fehr, Ann Savage, Amy Stewart, Brendan Cade and Wesley Cade, opened on June 27, 2008 at the Music Box Theatre in Chicago.

By PATRICK McDONALD
Staff Writer
HollywoodChicago.com
pat@hollywoodchicago.com

1960s-Era James Bond is Skewered in New Spoof ‘OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies’

HollywoodChicago.com — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 00:32:56 -0700

Rating: 3.0/5.0

CHICAGO – The heroic nature of the James Bond series of films begs several questions about his representation of western world power.

For one, just who did he act for and what was he fighting against? The new French film “OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies” attempts to answer this question through a subtle and sporadically funny satire, a skewering of the Bond image and geopolitics in the 1960s.

Jean Dujardin as OSS 117 in “OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies”.
Photo credit: Music Box Films

Jean Dujardin plays Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath (also known as agent OSS 117).

He’s assigned to Cairo in the late 1950s to investigate fellow agent Jack Jefferson’s murder and to quell a Muslim uprising against western interests.

With a cover as a chicken trader – complete with a factory and caged birds – he proceeds to infiltrate what he believes to be the perpetrators.

Despite his obviously cloistered sense of regional conflicts, OSS 117 blithely reigns superior against his Muslim girl Larmina El Akmar Betouche.

Throughout his adventures, he investigates the murder of the agent, monitors the Suez Canal, checks in on the Brits and the Soviets in Cairo and even brokers peace in the Mideast by inadvertently stopping a fundamentalist rebellion. This is an odd bird of a film.

Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Béjo in “OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies”.
Photo credit: Music Box Films

It flits between a Bond-like spy satire and a political editorial about the last days of western colonialism.

OSS 117 is portrayed as a clueless and somewhat spiteful dim bulb – the kind who postpones an investigation because he delights in making chickens cluck by turning on the factory lights.

The filmmakers take great care in showing the handsome spy to be an empty suit, which is a justifiable criticism of the James Bond legacy.

His blundering is broadly insensitive such as with his beating up of a Muslim prayer leader because the noise he makes in calling the faithful disturbs his sleep.

He’s oblivious to the native world around him, the cultures and the people. His success depends on that selfishness. This is highly symbolic of western manifest destiny and is communicated effectively through agent OSS 117.

While this is not a laugh-out-loud film, it does revel in the quirks of the Bond movies and makes fun of those conventions accordingly.

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Dujardin’s leading-man looks are the kicker to most of the bits. A slightly gay air is put around his flashbacks with his fellow agent at a beach and his silly turn as a singer at a hotel bar.

But with the schizophrenic nature of the proceedings, the part mindless spoof and the political barbs, the film never settles into a groove that feels comfortably paced.

In being content to offer Dujardin as a “doesn’t he look like James Bond?” character, the film just doesn’t offer enough good material to sustain itself for 99 minutes.

Considering the situation in the Middle East today, even a romantic, Bond-like reminder of the past doesn’t really make it all that funny.

“OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies,” which features Jean Dujardin, Bérénice Bejo, Philippe Lefebvre, Constantin Alexandrov and Aure Atika, opened in Chicago on June 27, 2008 at Landmark’s Century Centre Cinema.

By PATRICK McDONALD
Staff Writer
HollywoodChicago.com
pat@hollywoodchicago.com

The Poor in China on River Without a Paddle in Documentary ‘Up the Yangtze’

HollywoodChicago.com — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 20:48:52 -0700

Rating: 3.0/5.0

CHICAGO – China is on the world’s mind. The once-mysterious communist “enemy” is now the economic friend of all the essential profiteers.

There’s a defining joke told in the new documentary “Up the Yangtze” about American and Chinese businessmen going traveling on a river. They come to a fork in the journey with the signs “socialist” and “capitalist” illustrating the next turn.

Chen Bo Yu (Jerry) in Liberty Square in Chongqing City in “Up the Yangtze”.
Photo credit: Linix Fan

The American picks the capitalist right turn and the Chinese businessman wants the same route just make sure the turn signal indicates left to socialist. “Up the Yangtze” is a documentary that expounds upon China in transition.

Through a new dam project in the Three Gorges area of the Yangtze River, parts of former communities will be sacrificed to new, higher river levels. This film explores the poor people on the banks being forced out with no recompense and with nowhere else to go.

In one such family, a 16-year-old daughter is sent out to work on the cruise ships on the Yangtze.

She is to cater to the foreign visitors who must see China even though the China they see is about to be destroyed. What follows is her transition from pariah peasant to a modern girl courtesy of a paycheck and a couple of willing-to-educate peers. Two other levels of the class system developing in China are on view on the boat.

Tourists on sampans in the Lesser Three Gorges on the Yangtze in “Up the Yangtze”.
Photo credit: Jonathan Chang

A cocky, lower-middle-class player is using the tourist tips as a springboard into China’s emerging business system. Another rants that he can afford more in his life as his parents can cushion his losing employment.

It is the symbolic anticipation of the river rising swamping the old and anticipating the new. While the pacing in this documentary is slow, the information is telling.

China is moving forward and leaving the old behind despite its lip service to the notion of comradeship. The new money being made means nothing in the old China philosophy. What does it mean for China’s ordinary working class?

Another great symbolic aspect of the whole dam and flood circumstance is the out-of-towners who the tourist boat attendants so desperately want to impress.

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They want in their travels to see the old China or at least the China they think they deserve. They are floating on the river in a country on the make, though, and their tourist dollars are ironically contributing to the reason that traditional China is disappearing.

The Yangtze River is an ancient waterway that’s one of those lifeblood streams. It’s much like the Mississippi River in the U.S. The willingness of men and government to control it, dam it up and sacrifice the very humanity on its banks is indicative of the changing and evolving movement of China.

In the name of progress and profit, there are no comrades. There’s only the desired conclusion of dollars enriching the bottom line.

“Up the Yangtze,” which is directed and written by Yung Chang and features Jerry Bo Yu Chen, Campbell Ping He and Cindy Shui Yu, opened in Chicago on June 20, 2008 at the Music Box Theatre.

By PATRICK McDONALD
Staff Writer
HollywoodChicago.com
pat@hollywoodchicago.com

In ‘Get Smart’ Lifeless Retread, Steve Carell Can’t Fill Don Adams’ Shoe

HollywoodChicago.com — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 10:23:43 -0700

Rating: 2.0/5.0

CHICAGO – Observing the new “Get Smart” film, which is based on the 1960s TV sitcom of the same name, is to note how much has changed since the Cold War ended.

KAOS and CONTROL – the U.S. and Russian spy agencies that square off in the movie – seem like relics of another era. In this age of homeland security and unlimited government wiretapping, it’s difficult to create fictional comedy that can compete with real-life absurdity.

Anne Hathaway (left) stars as Agent 99 and Steve Carell stars as Maxwell Smart in “Get Smart”.
Photo credit: Tracy Bennett

The film version of “Get Smart” lives up to that truth. Combining dull action-movie elements, badly cast movie stars and an uncomfortable romance, the film has forgotten all about its TV roots and most of the humor.

Played by Steve Carell, Maxwell Smart is a Russian interpreter and communications administrator in the secret government spy agency CONTROL.

The chief (Alan Arkin) wants Smart to stay in the administration even though he longs to join spies like Agent 23 (Dwayne Johnson) and work in the field.

After KAOS – a rival Russian agency – infiltrates and wrecks the CONTROL offices, Smart is promoted to field agent and partnered with super-spy Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway). Their mission is to find out who’s behind KAOS and identify their evil plans.

Steve Carell stars as Maxwell Smart (left) and Anne Hathaway stars as Agent 99 in “Get Smart”.
Photo credit: Warner Bros.

This takes them to the heart of Moscow. Thinking a Russian bakery is a KAOS front for nuclear weapons, Smart and 99 plant explosives and barely escape.

Steve Carell stars as Maxwell Smart in “Get Smart”.
Photo credit: Tracy Bennett

When the wrecked building turns up nothing, the wily Russians then travel to Los Angeles. Following them there, Smart and 99 must confront their rivals one last time and save the world.

Steve Carell is clearly not up to the challenge of filling Don Adams’ phone shoe as Maxwell Smart. The comedy he delivers is mostly cruel and has none of the snap or silliness of Adams’ razor-sharp interpretation.

Hathaway – who was cooler and more subtly amusing in “The Devil Wears Prada” – is completely out of her element when handling weaponry and practicing martial arts. She and Carell have less chemistry than a baking-soda volcano and their age difference is awkwardly apparent when they attempt romance.

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It seemed the filmmakers never saw one episode of the TV series when formulating the plot.

The film version tries to shoehorn reminders of several action movies – the James Bond series, “Mission Impossible,” “True Lies,” “Silver Streak” and even “The Man Who Knew Too Much” (among others) – but oddly distances itself from its primary and funnier television source.

This film is just another based-on-a-TV-show miscue that wastes a decent comic opportunity on let’s-blow-things-up trivialities. The legacy of “Get Smart,” audiences everywhere and ultimately the great Don Adams all deserve better.

“Get Smart,” which stars Steve Carell, Anne Hathaway, Dwayne Johnson, Alan Arkin, Terence Stamp, Bill Murray and Ryan Seacrest, opened everywhere on June 20, 2008.

By PATRICK McDONALD
Staff Writer
HollywoodChicago.com
pat@hollywoodchicago.com

‘When Did You Last See Your Father?’ a Family Affair Between Colin Firth, Jim Broadbent

HollywoodChicago.com — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 01:41:30 -0700

Rating: 3.0/5.0

CHICAGO – With Father’s Day upon us, what better time to take in a film about a dysfunctional relationship between a father and a son?

The tongue-tying title “When Did You Last See Your Father?” is a true story exploring the secrets and lies over a lifetime of dealing with dad and a son’s bitterness when confronting everything during the time of a patriarch’s death.

Jim Broadbent in “When Did You Last See Your Father?”.
Photo credit goes to Giles Keyte, copyright goes to Father Features Limited and image is courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics

When we meet Arthur – portrayed by Jim Broadbent (he’s memorable in 2001’s “Moulin Rouge!”) – he’s driving his small British family to a horseracing event in the 1950s. As an illustration of his character, he’s shown cutting in front of a long line of cars by using his status as a physician.

In a voice-over, his now-older son, Blake (Colin Firth), speaks of his father’s need to always seek an advantage by any means necessary. Fast forward to 1991.

Arthur is now mortally sick with cancer and Blake attends to the sickbed while thinking about his life with his father. That focuses on flashbacks during his adolescent years and the main story coincides with the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.

Through Blake’s memories, there’s a series of incidents that define his father’s need for coming out on top in every instance even to the sacrifice of his mousy wife and weaker children. In his attempt to find closure, Blake uses these memories to seek answers to his father’s behaviors and find peace in his own soul regarding the relationship.

Colin Firth as Blake Morrison (left) and Gina McKee as Kathy Morrison in “When Did You Last See Your Father?”.
Photo credit goes to Giles Keyte, copyright goes to Father Features Limited and image is courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics

The acting is superior in a rather spotty story. Broadbent is a consummate actor who finds the pinpricks in a dry script and sharpens them to magnify Arthur’s negative characteristics.

Colin Firth – who’s called upon to play his typical sensitive-man persona – surprises with subtle quirks that make his deathbed meanderings a bit atypical. But the film at times felt like an embarrassing home movie that had been run through the projector too many times.

The portrayal of a father as a creepy rat seemed to have no opposing redeeming qualities (or at least not any that would require such intense introspection of his life). It just seemed sad for the survivors.

There was a bit of spice in the flashback scenes especially with Blake’s emerging hormonal adolescence.

His mistrust of relationships through the exposition of his father’s disparate example manifests into strange shyness around girls and a passive-aggressive affair with the family’s housekeeper. This is revisited awkwardly during the time of the father’s illness and death.

This is coupled with the teenage end-of-the-world nervousness of the missile crisis, which the father interestingly ignores. The whole family should have had some serious therapy together to prevent a lifelong couch trip for each separate member.

But that’s not how life flowed in a different era when men were men and screwed up their families accordingly. Still, on the deathbed and in the end – as the film informs – there is no place like dad.

“When Did You Last See Your Father?” opened on June 13, 2008 at AMC Loews Pipers Alley 4 in Chicago, CineArts 6 in Evanston, Ill. and Landmark’s Renaissance Place Cinema in Highland Park, Ill.

By PATRICK McDONALD
Staff Writer
HollywoodChicago.com
pat@hollywoodchicago.com

The Need For Each Other Transcends Politics, Resentment in Absorbing ‘The Edge of Heaven’

HollywoodChicago.com — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 23:50:03 -0700

Rating: 4.0/5.0

CHICAGO – As we sit here in the U.S. embroiled in the presidential elections and summertime, the rest of the world simmers within its own unique problems.

What about Germany and Turkey? Director and writer Fatih Akin answers this question in the film “The Edge of Heaven” through several distinct characters who symbolize relations between the countries.

Nurgül Yesilçay and Patrycia Ziolkowska in “The Edge of Heaven”.
Photo credit: Strand Releasing

Ali is a Turkish retiree living in Germany. Bored out of his mind, he takes up with a prostitute named Yeter and invites her to be his live-in girlfriend. His son, Nejat (a university professor) is touched by Yeter’s devotion to a daughter back in Turkey.

A tragedy occurs when Ali suffers a health setback and takes out his frustrations on the hapless Yeter.

Yeter’s daughter, Ayten, is aimlessly perplexed when she stops hearing from her mother. She has gotten in hot water in her homeland as part of a radical political group and is exiled to Germany to hide and search for her mother.

It is there where she meets Lotte: a female graduate student who falls deeply in love with her. When immigration catches up to Ayten, she’s deported and is put in prison back in Istanbul, Turkey. Defying her mother, Lotte follows Ayten there in hopes of obtaining freedom for her.

“The Edge of Heaven” director Fatih Akin.
Photo credit: Strand Releasing

Ali’s son, Nejat, also begins the search for Ayten to atone for his father’s sins.

The intersection of these characters in Istanbul will help create the solutions that can allow them all to move forward. Each character is heroic in his or her own way. Nejat is a stoic success story who’s embarrassed by his father but loyal to him.

Yeter earns money the only way she can while sacrificing for her daughter.

Ayten sticks to her radical convictions yet trusts the love of Lotte so much that she can finally allow some flexibility. Lotte’s mother has to find peace by understanding her daughter through herself.

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This film is about the search for love and connection. It’s not about the physical aspect of the person but the emotional.

The characters are constantly waiting for the signal that will draw them closer to who they are separated from while they’re frustrated by distances and misguided assumptions.

While Fatih Akin’s script and direction give his actors room to grow, they don’t necessarily give them the tools to do so. This is a film about being human that’s characterized by the final shot of yet another temporal period of anticipation.

In the plea for understanding between his fictional characters, the filmmaker is asking for more patience from all of us. He’s asking for patience to avoid jumping to selfish conclusions about that other person in our lives and to sometimes let the relationship play out on its own energy.

In Chicago, “The Edge of Heaven” opened on June 13, 2008 at the Music Box Theatre.

By PATRICK McDONALD
Staff Writer
HollywoodChicago.com
pat@hollywoodchicago.com

Julianne Moore Pushes Freudian Implications to Limit in True Story of ‘Savage Grace’

HollywoodChicago.com — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 08:56:55 -0700

Rating: 3.0/5.0

CHICAGO – The national acting treasure Julianne Moore never shies away from a performance challenge.

From her memorable exposure in Robert Altman’s “Short Cuts” to her willingness to go all the way in Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Boogie Nights,” Moore has proven that true vulnerability in a role requires the ability to bare – and bear with – all.

Julianne Moore in “Savage Grace”.
Photo credit: IFC Films

In “Savage Grace,” which is based on the true story of the eccentric Barbara Daly Baekeland, Moore once again puts the acting pedal to the metal.

Moore plays Barbara Baekeland: the socialite wife of Brooks Baekeland (Stephen Dillane). Brooks is the heir to the Bakelite plastics fortune. With the birth of their son, Anthony (Eddie Redmayne), her wealthy lifestyle seems complete.

But signs of her early eccentricities morph into a darker psychological unraveling especially in the relationship with her son.

Barbara begins to notice Anthony’s gay awakening and tries to introduce him to women. Anthony soon takes up with a local girl near their home in Majorca, Spain. His inability to connect in the relationship leads to his father moving in on the girl and soon his parents are divorced.

Eddie Redmayne (left) in “Savage Grace”.
Photo credit: IFC Films

The split puts Barbara into a tailspin that eventually leads to a suicide attempt. She now leans on her son, and when they move to London, a couple extreme confrontations end in tragedy.

Moore’s absorption into the role actually seems better than the thankless craziness written for the character. With each inappropriate outburst, Moore subtly holds onto Baekeland’s obsessive-compulsive nature even when it would be easier to just play one psychotic note.

The story, which spans the 1940s to the 1970s, unfolds with stops and starts in the locations where the Baekeland family lived (New York, Paris, Majorca and London) with barely a breath in between to take it all in.

As characters age quickly from stop to stop, the time line is somewhat confusing.

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The supporting players are underwritten next to Moore’s grandiose character. Her husband, Brooks, is never shown once as happy or satisfied with his marital choice. His leaving seems more elementary than suicide inducing.

Son Anthony – who’s eventually diagnosed as a schizophrenic in real life – is never shown to push the envelope of this madness. He seems more like a willing participant in his mother’s sphere.

Julianne Moore is prepared to take on anything the “mother of the year” is up against including humiliating sexuality and raw depression. Moore’s acting range – up to and including an act of unspeakable wrongness – allows her to dive into the deep end without making Barbara a cartoon. It is the highlight of this otherwise expendable film.

The Chicago engagement of “Savage Grace” began on June 13, 2008 at Landmark’s Century Centre Cinema.

By PATRICK McDONALD
Staff Writer
HollywoodChicago.com
pat@hollywoodchicago.com

M. Night Shyamalan’s ‘The Happening’ a Creepy, Paranoid Ride Through Today’s Environment

HollywoodChicago.com — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 01:41:28 -0700

Rating: 3.5/5.0

CHICAGO – Trying to understand the thought process of writer and director M. Night Shyamalan is akin to analyzing Jell-O. What keeps it wiggling and what binds it together?

“The Happening,” which is his latest creepy film, is a modern cautionary tale ripped from the collective sensibilities of life after Sept. 11, 2001 and the status of human beings in their interaction with today’s environment.

Episodes of strange, chilling deaths that defy reason and boggle the mind in their shocking destructiveness erupt in major American cities in “The Happening”.
Photo credit: Zade Rosenthal, 20th Century Fox

Mark Wahlberg stars as Elliot Moore: a sensitive high school science teacher in Philadelphia. When an incident occurs in New York City, the whole northeastern part of the United States is put on alert.

Another teacher, Julian (John Leguizamo), manages to get train tickets for himself and his daughter to a more rural area. He invites Elliot and his emotionally distant wife, Alma (Zooey Deschanel), to travel with them in hopes of staying clear of the impending trouble.

The train is forced to stop because of communication problems and a paranoia of “every man for himself” creeps into the evacuees. Groups split up and start off by car – and then by foot – hoping to hide deeply into rural Pennsylvania.

Elliot and Alma come upon a remote farmhouse of an old woman – played by Betty Buckley – who’s cut off from the world but might be able to help.

Elliot (Mark Wahlberg) and Alma (Zooey Deschanel) take a closer look at an encroaching and powerful threat in “The Happening”.
Photo credit: Zade Rosenthal, 20th Century Fox

After an early winning streak of films (including “The Sixth Sense” and “Unbreakable”), Shyamalan’s output since has been mostly perplexing to audiences and critics. He’s a genre unto himself with story characteristics that are manufactured uniquely through deliberate perspective.

This has resulted in hit-or-miss propositions. He continues that distinct stamp in “The Happening” by creating a situation of paranoia that’s very familiar in these times.

The detail of human beings finding it necessary to try and formulate answers from mysterious circumstances is well represented especially through Wahlberg’s “by the book” science teacher.

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The “event” also has to do with the environment around us. The question asked in the film is as follows: As humans are the most influential species on the planet, how will this dominance affect the finite resources of the planet? What force of nature will rise up against this dominance?

This particular circumstance also had an Alfred Hitchcock vibe. It used the unseen force as a pursuer much like his film “The Birds”. The master of suspense is even represented in the soundtrack, which would be at home in any of his films.

Suspending disbelief is important in the experience of “The Happening”. There are many unanswered improbabilities in the plot and some misconstrued elements that produced unintentional laughs. It’s best to go with the flow and realize that – in M. Night Shyamalan’s point of view – everything is out to get us.

“The Happening” opened everywhere on June 13, 2008.

By PATRICK McDONALD
Staff Writer
HollywoodChicago.com
pat@hollywoodchicago.com

Tepidly Paced ‘The Duchess of Langeais’ a Costume Drama Lacking the Dramatic

HollywoodChicago.com — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 19:30:21 -0700

Rating: 2.0/5.0

CHICAGO – Honoré de Balzac is a famous French writer from the post-Napoleonic age who focused on the societal mores with a sense of realism that hadn’t been seen in literature until that point. He reveled in the oblique moral ambiguity of the human condition.

In that sense, it may be better to pick one of his many books or plays because the film adaptation of his short story “The Duchess of Langeais” can’t match up to the essence of his prose.

Jeanne Balibar as Antoinette de Langeais and Guillaume Depardieu as Armand de Montriveau in “The Duchess of Langeais,” which is directed by Jacques Rivette.
Photo credit: Columbia Pictures

Shown in flashback, duchess Antoinette de Langeais (Jeanne Balibar) is a married and bored aristocrat who spends her time frequenting the extravagant balls of 1820s Paris.

At one such event, she meets general Armand de Montriveau (Guillaume Depardieu, who is Gerald Depardieu’s son).

Inflamed by the Antoinette’s many charms, Armand sets his cap on wooing the society maven. Entranced by the general’s attention, Antoinette begins a series of cat-and-mouse games to keep him attentive yet at arm’s length.

Despite his intent and perseverance, Armand can’t seduce the elusive duchess. When he decides to issue his revenge, in a strange plot twist he finally succeeds in gaining the affection he so long desired.

Jeanne Balibar as Antoinette de Langeais in “The Duchess of Langeais,” which is directed by Jacques Rivette.
Photo credit: Moune Jamet

As in all star-crossed affairs, though, it might be too late for the lovers. If you like multi-arced episodes of “Masterpiece” (formerly “Masterpiece Theatre”), the pacing might work in this padded and long film.

As it was, experiencing this in real time was akin to watching two snails race on a muddy track. It had a scenic scope that was impressive with bedroom parlors, ballrooms and cathedral catacombs.

The symbolic aspects of the religion, the military and class structure are well represented. Also, the mystery of all these important societal elements carries more weight when measured against a pre-technological, superstitious age.

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But this doesn’t necessarily make for a well-lubricated narrative. Balibar and Depardieu stay true to their ambiguous characters and joust nicely around the conventions of forbidden love.

Though there were long stretches with a temptation to scream “all right, already!,” scandalous love takes time to develop. It sometimes takes a village if not a shadowy secret fraternity.

While it was their intervention that gave the film some spice, it didn’t cure the attitude of “who cares?” in observing the back-and-forth attempts to co-mingle.

As well, this tale could have used some serious bodice ripping. Instead of just talking about soldiering, some old-fashioned horseback and swordplay might also have broken up the focus on the urge to merge between the duchess and the general.

In Chicago, “The Duchess of Langeais” opened on June 6, 2008 exclusively at Landmark’s Century Centre Cinema.

By PATRICK McDONALD
Staff Writer
HollywoodChicago.com
pat@hollywoodchicago.com

Relax, Float Upstream With Mike Judge Assemblage ‘The Animation Show 4’

HollywoodChicago.com — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 23:14:10 -0700

CHICAGO – With its passionate mix of creativity and computers, this modern golden age of animation proceeds to entertain and astound with each passing year. Mike Judge – the preeminent creator of cartoon legends “Beavis & Butt-Head” and “King of the Hill” – presents his latest compilation of the worldwide best in animated short films.

“The Animation Show 4” isn’t your daddy’s Bugs Bunny comfort food. It’s more like a banquet for sensory perception.

A scene from an animated short in “The Animation Show 4”.
Image credit: “The Animation Show 4”

In more than 20 unique world views that are disguised as animated shorts, a compendium of the absurd and the surreal nature of ourselves are exposed in hilarious and even touching ways.

Using stop-motion, line-drawing and computer-animation techniques, the creators of these shorts get inside the core of humanity’s foibles and often do more in seven minutes than many 120-minute, feature-length films can accomplish.

The following is a rundown of our 10 honorable mentions along with what not to miss among the short presentations within this 87-minute run. View our full slideshow from the film here.

What Not to Miss

“Forgetfulness”: I must be relating to this as it’s a meditation on how former memorizations in the long process of education slowly fade away.

“Raymond”: It’s a striking stop-action and computer-animation combination on the creation of a better psyche.

“This Way Up”: There are complications even in death.

“Angry Unpaid Hooker”: It’s part of a new series that’s about to debut on HBO. This hilarious send-up of the proper, middle-class life says it all in the title.

“Mr. Schwartz, Mr. Hazen & Mr. Horlocker”: It’s a brilliant composition that focuses on the minutiae that can add up to big events.

A scene from an animated short in “The Animation Show 4”.
Image credit: “The Animation Show 4”

Honorable Mentions

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“Key Lime Pie”: It’s a wild ride on the dark side involving Private Dick and an obsession for the titular dessert.

“Jeu”: It’s a crazy quilt surreality starting with a single word that morphs into various eye-catching scenes.

“Operator”: The soul can be vulnerable when talking to God.

“Yompi the Sloup”: The lovable yellow mascot who desires love also harbors a secret and sharp need.

“Hot Dog”: The legendary animation composer Bill Plympton scores another triumph with his determined “doggerel”.

“The Animation Show 4” opened in Chicago on May 23, 2008 at the Music Box Theatre.

By PATRICK McDONALD
Staff Writer
HollywoodChicago.com
pat@hollywoodchicago.com