Margin Call

Margin Call takes place in 2008, on the night before the global financial system went into free fall. It begins with an analyst in a major financial firm's Risk Management department smelling a rat, snowballs into late-night and early-morning meetings of increasingly powerful and terrified members of the firm, and culminates in the run that was the next day's market activity. It's terrifying stuff, way more terrifying than any number of dudes in any number of masks chasing any number of college kids through the night.

It's also annoyingly writerly. Many of the characters get big speeches, and those speeches nearly always sound more like the finger-wagging of hippie writers than the misgivings of mathematicians. Whenever Margin Call pulled me into its world through its spot-on set design and world class performances, it pulled me right back out again when some character started moaning about how he could have been building bridges instead of getting rich.

Nevertheless, the film's sense of mounting dread giving way to panic was effective; and its snappy editing and kinetic (for a film that felt like a stage adaptation) photography kept things moving along. Margin Call caught me up in its narrative in spite of its preachiness. Further, even though I knew how it was going to end, I wanted to know how it was going to end. Overall, I call this one as a good film. But I'd rather see the play.

Appaloosa

I was all ready to like APPALOOSA. It starred Ed Harris, Viggo Mortensen, Renée Zellweger, and Jeremy Irons in a throwback Western that promised vistas, gunfights, and romance. But the opening voiceover sounded like it was written in a self-actualization seminar, clobbering the Western mood before it could even get rolling.

Once past the voiceover, APPALOOSA tries to be the Bollywood production of Westerns. It throws in everything it can think of, from scheming ranchers to jailhouse watches to raiding injuns to barfights to showdowns on Main Street. Hell, I'm surprised they didn't throw a production number in there. Thing is, there's so much going on that it detracts from the major throughline. Actually, now that I think about it, I'm not entirely sure what the major throughline is.

There's a good movie buried somewhere in APPALOOSA, but writer/director/star Ed Harris wasn't willing to kill his babies to find it. Too bad. We could have been spared the film's maddening "tell me, show me, then tell me again because I must be an idiot" narrative style in favor of "show me and let me figure it out." Here's one Western that could've used a man of few words.

Callas Forever

I'm not an opera guy. Yeah, I bought a few CDs in college, when I was trying to convince my (very musical) girlfriend that I was cultured (Hey, it worked: she married me.), but I've never been to a live performance. I knew that Maria Callas existed, but I'd never heard her sing: she was just another (of many) undiscovered countries. In other words, I came in to CALLAS FOREVER with a clean slate.

CALLAS FOREVER begins with Jeremy Irons handling the press at DeGaulle Airport. Now, I've seen creepy Irons, scary Irons, pathetic Irons, even silly Irons ("Throw me the rod," indeed.), but this is the first time I've seen supercool Irons. Stylishly dressed, with a pony tail that actually doesn't look silly, Irons is a music promoter who has it all together. He's worked with Hendrix, the Stones, and Callas herself, and he's in town to promote his current act, a punk bad named Bad Dream. This guy has it all together, from the way he handles a crowd to the way he prepares for a concert to the way he flirts with pretty much every attractive young man in sight. As the movie gathered steam, even adding the always reliable Joan Plowright to the mix, I kicked back and got ready to simply enjoy the man's performance.

Then Fanny Ardent enters the picture. At first, she's not much. She's a lost Callas, a ghost of her former self with a broken voice and a broken will. She's a recluse, confining herself to her (fabulous) Paris apartment and weeping over lost days. It takes Irons and Plowright to rouse her to life once again, involving her in a filmed production of Carmen with a challenging ethical twist that I'll leave for you to discover. Callas comes alive, and when we see her performing she is sizzling sex on a silver platter. It's magical to see her character transform before our eyes, to become fully alive after years of wandering in the wilderness. The sumptuous production numbers, and even Irons' extraordinary performance, almost fade into the background. This movie is all about Ardent, and the woman works magic.

Wow, did I enjoy this movie. I have got to go to the opera.

The Merchant of Venice

The toughest thing about staging 'The Merchant of Venice' is ending it on the right note. Our lovers have crushed the most compelling character in the piece, grinding him to dust until he's less then an afterthought. They then proceed to Portia's home, where they play cute romantic games, and the story wraps on a variation of "and they went off and had sex." It's as if Shakespeare set out to write a comedy, found himself in the middle of a tragedy, and felt compelled to wrestle the damn thing back onto comic territory, no matter what.

The Pacino 'Merchant of Venice' handles this ending better than any other production I've seen. It doesn't let the lovers (or Jessica, for that matter) off the hook. Rather, by juxtaposing their delight with Shylock's horror and Jessica's remorse, it convicts them of a heartlessness which we can only infer from the text.

The production values, as one would expect, are world-class, and the actors nail their roles. Fiennes and Irons are brilliant and, though the homoerotic implications of their relationship threaten to overwhelm the piece, said implications pay off wonderfully as we see Lynn Collins's Portia wondering just what she's gotten herself into. Then there's Pacino. Though we can never get past the fact that it's Pacino-as-Shylock, he brings profound sadness and humanity to his role. People love to hammer movie stars when they take on Shakespeare, but I think the man acquitted himself well. (Personally, I'd love to see his take on Richard III - I think he'd knock it out of the park!)

I had high hopes for 'The Merchant of Venice,' and I was not disappointed. It's well worth the rental.