Saturday, January 8, 2011
Sunday, January 2, 2011
The Hollywood Arclight Puts a Nasty Lump in Your Holiday Stocking
The Arclight
Smearing Lipstick On A Greedy Holiday Pig
And speaking of things turning to ash, when did the Arclight become an even more obvious money grubbing whore? This year Arclight offers special seasonal prices. Increased prices. Arclight's always been overly lauded and overpriced, but this holiday season the Grinchy greed for greenbacks by parent company The Decurion Corporation shines brighter than that little star over Bethlehem. The Arclight wants you to think it's a classy call girl with a pretty face, nice clothes and worldly charms; A lovely lass (albeit one you're paying for) working her way through film school who'll offer you a drink before she fucks you. But once you get inside her you discover she's nothing spectacular, she goes through the motions like all the rest. She's a back alley wallet stealin' crack whore disguised as a $2000 a night "escort". And the thing is you could have had the one on the opposite corner for a few bucks less. Sure, maybe corner girl has a few teeth missing and the knees are worn out on her fishnet stockings, but she's grateful for the business and she knows how to treat a customer. You can put lipstick on a pig but it's still a pig. Arclight is a carnivorous pig that feeds on your hard earned dollars.
I went to the Arclight on Wednesday to see Blue Valentine on opening day. I hadn't been to a film at the Arclight Hollywood in over a year, but Blue Valentine was playing in limited theaters and the alternative was The Landmark across town. Slightly less, but ah, that west side traffic. I'll stay in Hollywood and save the aggravation. I have amazing powers in finding street parking, even in Hollywood, so I paralleled parked my way into two bucks of savings. But once inside The Arclight Deathstar, after I'd made my way through the holiday crush line, I came upon a little xeroxed sign (classy all the way) that explained that all movies all the time during the holiday period were $16. No matinee prices ( $14.50), no Monday through Thursday prices ($14.50), sixteen bucks all the time till January 3, 2011. Happy Holidays to you and yours. Here's a buck fifty Christmas turd in your stocking. Thank you and on your way out, be sure to buy a gift card. I pay. I want to write a review and don't want to wait for Blue Valentine's general release. I ask the pleasant cashier "What's up with that?" and he responds "I know. The corporate machine doesn't care about us".
My distaste for all things Arclight began 3 years ago with the theater's screening of The Bourne Ultimatum in the Dome in August 2007. The Arclight mission statement posits that it won't seat after 5 minutes into the screening. Bullshit. During Ultimatum, late arrivals were ushered into the theater as late as 35 minutes into the film, a steady continual stream, and ushers made little effort to keep their voices down as tardy talky patrons waddled and shoved their way to assigned seats, many finding that their seats had been taken already. Conversation of whose seat was whose echoed through the dome that even "Ultimatum's" considerable action decibels couldn't drown out. If Arclight stuck to their guns, these folks would have been refunded their money and asked to try a later showing. But the almighty buck wins again, and all those refunds and reissuing of tickets, isn't financially efficient. Let's go back on our word is the secret motto. It's easier and more cost effective.
Again a few months later ( still 2007) during a weekday matinee, I go to concessions to get a drink, but the staff of two are seated on the counter chatting and oblivious to my presence. I dare interrupt the convo and there's a palpable irritation with my neediness. In the months between August and December there are problems with understaffed concessions and finally a repeat of the Bourne Ultimatum scenario at a Christmas evening showing of Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. I want to take Todd's straight razor and slash the throats of every load mouthed movie-goer in my radius and dump their bodies in the parking garage dumpster. But the Arclight might see an opportunity here and serve "special" meat pies in the their mediocre cafe. "Times is hard" you know. Since Sweeney Todd I've seen only a handful of films at Hollywood Arclight and one at the Pasadena Arclight. Again lipstick on a pig; they barely bother to hide the fact that this is a former AMC (and the day I was there none of the ticket kiosks were functioning), and now this holiday slap in the face. $1.50 may seem like a pittance, but it's underhanded avarice. Nothing on Arclight's website mentions this price bump until you get to the purchase ticket page, maybe no one will notice.
I sit in the Arclight courtyard and watch the mob of Holiday movie-goers ebb and flow. Cool people, hip, urbane, lots of pork pie hats and sunglasses on a cloudy day(the pork pie hat as of late has become a symbol of things I despise). Hey there goes Ted Shackelford, of Knotts Landing fame. He still looks good, and that dark blue coat is spiffy. There's at least one truth on the Arclight Wiki page, it is a celebrity destination (after the movie I see actor Stephen Nichols, former "Patch" of Days Of Our Lives in the lobby). ApparentlyDecurion filled in their own Wiki page. And speaking of Decurion, parent company of Arclight Cinemas, the bottom line Scrooge; just thought I would post the corporation's philosophy below:
Through our practices, we are pursuing what we call the dual bottom line: superior economic or financial return on the one hand and individual and collective development on the other. Far too often, business is a world where mediocrity and meaninglessness are the norm. Indeed, this is what the consensus culture tells us to expect. But we have come to see that business can be a place to express excellence and purpose. We have found ways to enhance business effectiveness and to realize our individual commitments.
Our approach is to do our way into knowing. Taking the business issues we face, we lead with practices, tailored to the community in which they are introduced, and then we attempt to codify the knowledge that emerges. We begin with a hypothesis (for example, that work is meaningful, or that people are not only means but also ends in themselves, or that individuals and communities naturally develop); we then act as if the hypothesis is true; and finally we check the results of our actions. We tend to find that the results not only confirm the hypothesis, but that our actions actually cause it to be true.
Is that a load of mumbo jumbo or what? Apparently the Arclight is tailored to the community in which it exists: A community willing to pay more for mediocrity to a company thats word vacillates based on their current financial needs and how much the market is willing to bear. Count me out. I'm going to The Vista and revisiting an era gone by where the experience of movie-going is based on the film goer in a real way, not in the plastic bells and whistles way the Arclight offers up. Oh, and Happy New Year. Thanks for reading.
Smearing Lipstick On A Greedy Holiday Pig
I went to the Arclight on Wednesday to see Blue Valentine on opening day. I hadn't been to a film at the Arclight Hollywood in over a year, but Blue Valentine was playing in limited theaters and the alternative was The Landmark across town. Slightly less, but ah, that west side traffic. I'll stay in Hollywood and save the aggravation. I have amazing powers in finding street parking, even in Hollywood, so I paralleled parked my way into two bucks of savings. But once inside The Arclight Deathstar, after I'd made my way through the holiday crush line, I came upon a little xeroxed sign (classy all the way) that explained that all movies all the time during the holiday period were $16. No matinee prices ( $14.50), no Monday through Thursday prices ($14.50), sixteen bucks all the time till January 3, 2011. Happy Holidays to you and yours. Here's a buck fifty Christmas turd in your stocking. Thank you and on your way out, be sure to buy a gift card. I pay. I want to write a review and don't want to wait for Blue Valentine's general release. I ask the pleasant cashier "What's up with that?" and he responds "I know. The corporate machine doesn't care about us".
I sit in the Arclight courtyard and watch the mob of Holiday movie-goers ebb and flow. Cool people, hip, urbane, lots of pork pie hats and sunglasses on a cloudy day(the pork pie hat as of late has become a symbol of things I despise). Hey there goes Ted Shackelford, of Knotts Landing fame. He still looks good, and that dark blue coat is spiffy. There's at least one truth on the Arclight Wiki page, it is a celebrity destination (after the movie I see actor Stephen Nichols, former "Patch" of Days Of Our Lives in the lobby). ApparentlyDecurion filled in their own Wiki page. And speaking of Decurion, parent company of Arclight Cinemas, the bottom line Scrooge; just thought I would post the corporation's philosophy below:
Through our practices, we are pursuing what we call the dual bottom line: superior economic or financial return on the one hand and individual and collective development on the other. Far too often, business is a world where mediocrity and meaninglessness are the norm. Indeed, this is what the consensus culture tells us to expect. But we have come to see that business can be a place to express excellence and purpose. We have found ways to enhance business effectiveness and to realize our individual commitments.
Our approach is to do our way into knowing. Taking the business issues we face, we lead with practices, tailored to the community in which they are introduced, and then we attempt to codify the knowledge that emerges. We begin with a hypothesis (for example, that work is meaningful, or that people are not only means but also ends in themselves, or that individuals and communities naturally develop); we then act as if the hypothesis is true; and finally we check the results of our actions. We tend to find that the results not only confirm the hypothesis, but that our actions actually cause it to be true.
Is that a load of mumbo jumbo or what? Apparently the Arclight is tailored to the community in which it exists: A community willing to pay more for mediocrity to a company thats word vacillates based on their current financial needs and how much the market is willing to bear. Count me out. I'm going to The Vista and revisiting an era gone by where the experience of movie-going is based on the film goer in a real way, not in the plastic bells and whistles way the Arclight offers up. Oh, and Happy New Year. Thanks for reading.
Blue Valentine... Artful Porn or A Marriage Worn?
Blue Valentine - Love's Inferno Turns To Ash
review by Tony Freitas
What is the thing that ignites the flame of desire? Is it a ukulele played in the alcove of a closed storefront? Is it a dark joke about a child going into the woods with a pedophile? And is time an inevitable killer that douses that fire?
Blue Valentine is constructed like an episode of HGTV's "Spice Up My Kitchen" in reverse. An ugly dysfunctional kitchen is remodeled into a contemporary thing of beauty. In Blue Valentine a thing of beauty becomes ugly and dysfunctional. And the movie plays out much the way I prefer to watch "Spice"; I watch the 5 minute Before and the 5 minute After, but fast forward through the fifteen minutes in the middle when all the sweat and hard work takes place. Blue Valentine is the figurative last minutes in the marriage of Dean (Ryan Gossling) and Cindy (Michelle Williams). Six years has taken it's toll and husband and wife sleepwalk through the machinations of coupledom with daughter Frankie, the only relief from themselves and each other.
Then it's on to the first 5 minutes, 6 years prior, and the lovely seeds of blossoming love. Dean is sweet natured, artistic and funny (he sings and plays a ukulele for god's sake) if a little wayward. Cindy is coy and vulnerable and focused on career. Dean's attraction to Cindy is instant and consuming. His pursuit of her is the stuff that romance is made of. There's is not just a sexual fire (because much has been made of the films graphic portrayal of sexuality), but a fire of possibility, and renewal and emotional rescue. All those things that love can be in the beginning. The attraction between Cindy and Dean is powerful and dangerous. Things like logic and consequence fall aside when love is this blinding. Cindy has dreams of medical school, but she just can't keep her legs together. And we all know promiscuous young women are to be punished for being as sexual and desirous as their male counterparts. In a horror film it's an axe to the head, in Blue Valentine it's an unwanted pregnancy followed by the slow death of dashed dreams and deflated expectations. Otherwise known as marriage.
Back to the future, six years down the line.
The things you loved become the things you hate. Potential has become lack of ambition, coy has become remote and indifferent and passion has become apathy. Settling.
For Cindy this is unbearable. She might have been a doctor - rather than a nurse - Dean might have been something, anything other than what he actually is: a house painter. That Dean is content to be unremarkable is unforgivable. When the two meet, Cindy is dazzled by Dean's promise, now all she sees is his squandered potential. And what does Dean see? He sees the woman he met and fell in love with. But he doesn't see himself. It's not that they have grown apart, rather, neither seems to have grown at all. But the fog of love has lifted for Cindy.
Back and forth in time we go, the beginning and what seems to be the end. The courtship, the rush of new young love is tender and sweet and believable. Blue Valentine will bring you back to that first encompassing love. The one where you had your own song, and your own shorthand language. You might also have had blinders on. Then back to the ruins that is Cindy and Dean's marriage, beautiful in it's own quiet way; what is unsaid is sometimes more important that what is spoken, and a dim hopeful flicker of this husband and wife's past occasionally shines through. That they've become so dreary and faded in such a short stretch of time seems implausible. The sharp decline of Dean's hairline in 6 years is in direct proportion to the relationship. They can't be more than thirty years or so, yet one would think that decades have passed.
My one minor complaint with Blue Valentine is that all the marital erosion has occurred off-screen and the audience is left with the aftermath. There's a missing link. We've gone from 60 to 0, but an important chunk in the middle - full of blood sweat and tears no doubt - is unaccounted for. Cindy's present day detachment seems unwarranted, and Dean is such a lovable lug and attentive father, surely Cindy's the one with the problem. It creates a sort of villain of Cindy. In the lobby after the film I hear two variations of the same theme. "I don't get it? He (Dean) is like perfect... well accept for that he drinks. What's wrong with her?" And this comment is made independently by both a man and a woman. It's unfortunate and unfair but understandable.
Film maker Derek Cianfrance has an eye for the remarkable in the mundane. His credits as a documentary film maker have served him well here. Blue Valentine has an intimacy and integrity that made me uncomfortable at times. There's a tension that continually casts a pall over Cindy and Dean. Whether it's who's to blame for the family's lost dog, the way daughter Frankie eats her oatmeal, or a refusal of a sexual interaction, the recriminations are rarely spoken but deeply felt by them and us. It's just like real life. No one breaks out in monologue to fill in the subtext, but the film is heavy and rich with it.
Cindy and Dean are dimensional and sympathetic due to the soul-bearing performances of the leads. Williams and Gossling are compelling actors. They disappear into Dean and Cindy's marriage completely; any vanity these actors may have been holding on to is left behind. The appeal of Williams and Gossling is so much more than physical. This couple has been through the emotional wringer and it shows. I've read that the film is a combination of script and improvisation; it's a supremely successful pairing. And that's not an easy admission as a believer in the power and sanctity of the writer's words as written.
Near film's end I find myself wanting a mindless rom-com ending. I care about these people. They deserve a little more happiness. But it's not that kind of a film. That's not to say that Blue Valentine is a downer. It's surprisingly funny in a real world way, and if there's no happy ending, at least there's a pearl of hope. Next time I watch "Spice Up My Kitchen" I think I'll see what happens in the middle. Magical transformations good or bad, don't exist without the in between.
review by Tony Freitas
Blue Valentine is constructed like an episode of HGTV's "Spice Up My Kitchen" in reverse. An ugly dysfunctional kitchen is remodeled into a contemporary thing of beauty. In Blue Valentine a thing of beauty becomes ugly and dysfunctional. And the movie plays out much the way I prefer to watch "Spice"; I watch the 5 minute Before and the 5 minute After, but fast forward through the fifteen minutes in the middle when all the sweat and hard work takes place. Blue Valentine is the figurative last minutes in the marriage of Dean (Ryan Gossling) and Cindy (Michelle Williams). Six years has taken it's toll and husband and wife sleepwalk through the machinations of coupledom with daughter Frankie, the only relief from themselves and each other.
 |
| Ryan Gossling's reaction to the film's NC17 rating. The decision was reversed and Blue Valentine released with an R rating. |
The things you loved become the things you hate. Potential has become lack of ambition, coy has become remote and indifferent and passion has become apathy. Settling.
For Cindy this is unbearable. She might have been a doctor - rather than a nurse - Dean might have been something, anything other than what he actually is: a house painter. That Dean is content to be unremarkable is unforgivable. When the two meet, Cindy is dazzled by Dean's promise, now all she sees is his squandered potential. And what does Dean see? He sees the woman he met and fell in love with. But he doesn't see himself. It's not that they have grown apart, rather, neither seems to have grown at all. But the fog of love has lifted for Cindy.
Back and forth in time we go, the beginning and what seems to be the end. The courtship, the rush of new young love is tender and sweet and believable. Blue Valentine will bring you back to that first encompassing love. The one where you had your own song, and your own shorthand language. You might also have had blinders on. Then back to the ruins that is Cindy and Dean's marriage, beautiful in it's own quiet way; what is unsaid is sometimes more important that what is spoken, and a dim hopeful flicker of this husband and wife's past occasionally shines through. That they've become so dreary and faded in such a short stretch of time seems implausible. The sharp decline of Dean's hairline in 6 years is in direct proportion to the relationship. They can't be more than thirty years or so, yet one would think that decades have passed.
My one minor complaint with Blue Valentine is that all the marital erosion has occurred off-screen and the audience is left with the aftermath. There's a missing link. We've gone from 60 to 0, but an important chunk in the middle - full of blood sweat and tears no doubt - is unaccounted for. Cindy's present day detachment seems unwarranted, and Dean is such a lovable lug and attentive father, surely Cindy's the one with the problem. It creates a sort of villain of Cindy. In the lobby after the film I hear two variations of the same theme. "I don't get it? He (Dean) is like perfect... well accept for that he drinks. What's wrong with her?" And this comment is made independently by both a man and a woman. It's unfortunate and unfair but understandable.
Film maker Derek Cianfrance has an eye for the remarkable in the mundane. His credits as a documentary film maker have served him well here. Blue Valentine has an intimacy and integrity that made me uncomfortable at times. There's a tension that continually casts a pall over Cindy and Dean. Whether it's who's to blame for the family's lost dog, the way daughter Frankie eats her oatmeal, or a refusal of a sexual interaction, the recriminations are rarely spoken but deeply felt by them and us. It's just like real life. No one breaks out in monologue to fill in the subtext, but the film is heavy and rich with it.
Near film's end I find myself wanting a mindless rom-com ending. I care about these people. They deserve a little more happiness. But it's not that kind of a film. That's not to say that Blue Valentine is a downer. It's surprisingly funny in a real world way, and if there's no happy ending, at least there's a pearl of hope. Next time I watch "Spice Up My Kitchen" I think I'll see what happens in the middle. Magical transformations good or bad, don't exist without the in between.
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
The Fighter reviewed by Tony Freitas
The Fighter -
In Boxing & Hollywood Timing Is Everything
While August is the dumping ground for delayed films and low expectations, December in Los Angeles is the onslaught of awards contenders and critical darlings. After months of constipation, movie studios and distributers are finally shitting diamonds. Oscar hopefuls are dropping from the ether like manna from heaven to appease awards voters with short memories. This year's Golden Globe nominations in the Best Film Comedy or musical Category reads like the line-up at your local $2 discount theater - The Tourist, Alice in Wonderland, Red, Burlesque - and with the exception of "The Kids Are Alright" nary a one seem to involve any other thought than what uber celebrities the Hollywood Foreign Press would like to see drink too much in the Beverly Hilton ballroom on January 16th. In the Bizarro World universe of the HFP, celebrity trumps taste once more.
I'm getting to it here, in a round about way. That movie The Fighter. Speaking of The Golden Globes, last week a friend asked me if Mark Wahlberg is the new Pia Zadora. At first I was totally lost. Then a dawning; it's the day, that day. Golden Globe nods. (Back in 1982 virtual unknown Pia Zadora was voted New Star of The Year by The Hollywood Foreign Press for the stateside unseen film Butterfly. Kathleen Turner and Elizabeth McGovern were nominees in the same category. Critis everywhere were up in arms. That was pretty much the extent of Zadora's film career. A blank stare and sheer nightgowns can only get you so far.) Mark Wahlberg, I am informed, has been Golden Globe nominated for Best Actor in A Drama. I recall an earlier conversation with the same friend, months ago regarding Peter Jackson's adaptation of The Lovely Bones and the blank stare on Mark Wahlberg's face as he gazes out a window lost in thoughts of his missing, murdered daughter. He's suppose to be conveying something with that empty gaze, but there's nothing there, nothing in the eyes, nothing below the surface. Peter Jackson replaced Ryan Gosling for this? So the question is, is Mark Wahlberg the heir apparent to the Pia Zadora torch? Read on.
The Fighter is the "based on a true story" story of welter weight boxer Micky Ward (Wahlberg). His older brother Dickie Eklund (Christian Bale) also a former welter weight contender (with a disputed knock down of Sugar Ray Leonard years earlier), is a full blown drug addict. Despite his crack house blues, residents of Lowell MA. see Dickie as a local hero. If Dickie is "The Pride Of Lowell" then Micky is "The Silent Sufferer". Struggling as a junior welter weight boxer, a divorced weekend dad, Micky is trained by parasite brother Dickie while mother Alice (Melissa Leo) acts as Micky's booking manager. It's a family act all 'round. Or maybe more precisely a family circus. There's also the grotesque chorus line of Micky's sisters and half sisters, laying about, offering their unwanted two cents worth. With all that sturm und drang Micky's a bit of a cellophane man. He's a meal ticket and little else. Micky needs to find a way to cut the family loose if he's ever going to be a contender. And then along comes college drop-out bartender Charlene (Amy Adams), into Mickey's bed and head, filling him with notions and stuff. Maybe there's another way. Micky develops a voice. But does he have the balls to back it up, and cut the familial cord?
Director David O' Russell turns in a very workmanlike product. The script credited to writers Scott Silver, Paul Tamsay and Eric Johnson is an uneven mix of family melodrama and traditional sports drama expectations. The film is divided in two; The first two acts dealing with family crisis and the final act a rousing Rocky-esque crowd pleaser. There's nothing wrong with either, but here they seem glued together with the final third barely paying notice to what has transpired in the previous hour and twenty.
Bale is the standout performer. His Dickie Ward is a funny, frightening, pathetic mess, his wheels spinning in the glorious mire of his boxing days. He is the chaos that the other characters satellite around. And Bale's transformation is not just physical. His Dickie wears his heart on his sleeve and carries his pain around in a glass crack pipe. Oscar chances 100%.
Amy Adams fits nicely as potty mouthed bartender Charlene. Playing romantic second fiddle to the lead can be a thankless task, but Adams creates a memorable character from what could have been a by-the-numbers add-girlfriend-here role.
Melissa Leo, so terrific in 2008's Frozen River, is solid as well. Her co-dependent relationship with son Dickie feels authentic and pained. Once you get past the external - hair, nails, tight clothes - of Leo's Lowell Massachusetts matriarch, what lies beneath is motherly guilt and regret.
And then there's Mark Wahlberg, he of the thousand yard blank stare. Wahlberg is well suited to the role of Micky Ward. When he has the right vehicle and support (Boogie Nights, The Departed) he's just fine. That out-of-his-element quality serves him well sometimes. He doesn't reinvent the acting wheel here, but his constant low key demeanor, and soft spoken ways are a welcome contrast to the brash, loud and often cartoonish tumult swirling around him. Anymore histrionics and the film might implode. I rememeber Pia Zadora, and Mr. Wahlberg, you are no Pia Zadora.
Had The Fighter been released earlier in the year, before the "Oscar Season" I question whether it would have received as much attention and accolades. It's a gem in some ways, but not a diamond. Like Wahlberg, The Fighter is a prime example of well-timed Hollywood product placement. Just in time for Christmas. Just in time for academy voters.
In Boxing & Hollywood Timing Is Everything
Director David O' Russell turns in a very workmanlike product. The script credited to writers Scott Silver, Paul Tamsay and Eric Johnson is an uneven mix of family melodrama and traditional sports drama expectations. The film is divided in two; The first two acts dealing with family crisis and the final act a rousing Rocky-esque crowd pleaser. There's nothing wrong with either, but here they seem glued together with the final third barely paying notice to what has transpired in the previous hour and twenty.
Amy Adams fits nicely as potty mouthed bartender Charlene. Playing romantic second fiddle to the lead can be a thankless task, but Adams creates a memorable character from what could have been a by-the-numbers add-girlfriend-here role.
And then there's Mark Wahlberg, he of the thousand yard blank stare. Wahlberg is well suited to the role of Micky Ward. When he has the right vehicle and support (Boogie Nights, The Departed) he's just fine. That out-of-his-element quality serves him well sometimes. He doesn't reinvent the acting wheel here, but his constant low key demeanor, and soft spoken ways are a welcome contrast to the brash, loud and often cartoonish tumult swirling around him. Anymore histrionics and the film might implode. I rememeber Pia Zadora, and Mr. Wahlberg, you are no Pia Zadora.
Had The Fighter been released earlier in the year, before the "Oscar Season" I question whether it would have received as much attention and accolades. It's a gem in some ways, but not a diamond. Like Wahlberg, The Fighter is a prime example of well-timed Hollywood product placement. Just in time for Christmas. Just in time for academy voters.
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