Midnight in Paris

There are two kinds of people in this world: those who love Paris, and those who have never been. Woody Allen loves Paris, and Midnight in Paris is his song.

Owen Wilson plays Gil, a Hollywood writer who gets paid decent money to crank out stuff like Cheaper by The Dozen 2, but really wants to create serious literature. He's in Paris with his odious fiancée and her odious parents. He wants to move there, as any reasonable person would, and she's horrified by the idea.  {IMPORTANT NOTE: If your significant other can't see her/himself living in Paris, run.  Run as fast as you can.}  But here's the twist: he doesn't just want to live in Paris: he wants to live in the Paris of the imagination of a college-prep high schooler. This is a man who has read A Moveable Feast so many times that he wills himself a seat at the table. Literally. The Fitzgeralds are delightful. Hemingway introduces him to Stein, who likes his work. He's ecstatic, and that's even before Marion Cotillard shows up. Suddenly, Odious Fiancée seems very far away, indeed.

And now we're in the love letter to a city, a time, and the very idea of cities and times and possibilities that may, just may, lie within our grasp. It's capital R Romantic stuff, and Woody makes it sing. Though the film has a jarring propensity to name-check just about everyone in A Moveable Feast, we forgive it because it's so earnest, so Romantic, so in love with its time and its people and its possibilities, and so beautiful. Paris, past and present, looks absolutely charming.   It glimmers in the rain and it holds manifold and wonderful possibilities.  Its denizens look like just the sorts of a people an imaginative man would hope to meet.

Me - I love Paris. I love the way city lights look when reflected on wet cobblestones. I love possibilities. And I love my wife's dog-eared copy of A Moveable Feast.  Midnight in Paris hit me right between the eyes. If you love Paris, I bet it'll work for you, too.

The Amazing Spider-Man

The Amazing Spider-Man is a perfectly fine superhero film.  It's professional, it has no obvious flaws, and it rocks along along at a fast clip for a good two hours.  Would I have preferred a fourth installment Sam Raimi's version?  Sure: I loved all three (here, here, and here) and was ready for more.  Nevertheless, I credit Amazing for making me forget its predecessors and capably executing its own vision.

The Amazing Spider-Man offers an origin tale that parallels its antagonist's origin, exciting set-pieces, and seamless effects work.  While its web-swinging sequences lacked the smooth, "you are there" joy of Raimi's, this film offers a unique take on spider powers that surprised and delighted me (look for a spot where Peters binds up an opponent in a particularly creepy, spider-like way).  As far as origin stories go, this is a solid take.

The film's biggest surprise comes from its lead, Andrew Garfield, as Peter Parker / Spider-Man.  Andrew Garfield (of the brutal Red Riding: In The Year of Our Lord 1974 and the atrocious 'Daleks Take Manhattan') actually made me believe that he was an American high school student, albeit one who hit puberty perhaps a bit early.  This is an extraordinarily talented actor with significant range, and I look forward to following his career in the years to come.  Emma Stone (magnificent in Easy A), punches below her weight as love interest Gwen Stacy, but a woman's gotta pay the bills.  The rest of the supporting cast, including Sally Field, Martin Sheen, Denis Leary and Rhys Ifans are as good as you'd expect (which is pretty darn good).

So I was all ready to hate this movie, but I can't.  The Amazing Spider-Man does exactly what it's trying to do, and it does it well.  Will it find a place on my shelf beside my Raimi Blu-Rays?  Probably not, but we can't fall in love with everything.

Talk to Me

Don Cheadle is one of the great actors of our time.

In DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS, he did the impossible: he stole a movie from Denzel Washington. His character, Mouse Alexander, was so smart, so evil, so good, that I couldn't see the man's face for years without wondering whether he had murder on his mind. That film, made in 1995, brought Cheadle to my attention. But this has been his decade. From the cockney safecracker Bashar Tarr in the OCEAN'S movies to the one of the few things about CRASH to the understated, brave, and noble Paul Rusesabagina in HOTEL RWANDA, here's a guy who showed he can do almost anything. But nothing prepared me for Petey Greene.

If I hadn't known that was Don Cheadle under that costume, I never would have guessed it. Cheadle disappears into the role, thinking and talking faster than anyone else in the film or the audience, a man using his raw intelligence and amazing audacity to overcome nearly every obstacle put in his way. Cheadle as Greene is a force of nature, his performance nothing short of brilliant.

I came to this film through an interview with Chiwetel Ejiofor that I read on CHUD. Ejiofor was promoting RED BELT at the time, but he mentioned this as one film of which he was particularly proud. I can see why. Ejiofor plays the audience surrogate, real-life WOR program director Dewey Hughes, the man who gave the real-life Petey his job. I've already said that Ejiofor is an absolutely outstanding performer himself, and here he has the judgement and confidence to get out of Cheadle's way. Director Kasi Lemmons (who made the wonderful EVE'S BAYOU) knows what she's doing here, and she builds a film around this performance that puts us in its time and in its people's hearts in a way that few pictures manage to do.

I don't care if you don't like soul music. I don't care if you don't care about the black experience in the '60s. I don't even care if you aren't a fan of Cheadle, Ejiofor, or Lemmons. You're here because you like movies. And if you like movies, you have got to see Cheadle on fire in TALK TO ME. Queue this one up today.

The Departed

When THE DEPARTED’s final credit rolled, I looked at my watch and thought, “Where did the time go?” Scorsese’s film, which clocked in at over two hours, raced by and I enjoyed every single minute. And yet, much as I liked it (and I really, really liked it), I think INFERNAL AFFAIRS is a better picture.

INFERNAL AFFAIRS, the Hong Kong Thriller remade in THE DEPARTED, stars Andy Lau and Tony Leung in the Damon and DiCaprio roles, respectively. The movies are nearly identical, with one major exception: moral ambiguity. In THE DEPARTED, Matt Damon’s character is a gangster in his heart. His decisions come from a position of self-interest and cold analysis of his situation. In INFERNAL AFFAIRS, Lau’s character began as a gangster, but he’s spent so much time on the right side of the law that he’s no longer playacting: he has conditioned himself to goodness and there’s a very real part of him that genuinely wants to become good. In THE DEPARTED, Leonardo DiCaprio’s character is noble at heart. He’s so filled with horror at the demands of undercover work and sublimated fear of death that he turns to pills just to help him maintain his equilibrium. In INFERNAL AFFAIRS, Leung’s character kind of likes being a gangster: he’s grown used to it and, though he’d like to come in, we have a sense that he could continue to thrive in the underground world to which he’s become accustomed.

Don’t get me wrong: there’s a lot to like about THE DEPARTED. It’s a Scorsese picture, so of course it looks and sounds great. The cast is phenomenal, the story brisk, and situations involving. It’s a four-star movie, no doubt about it. But I like a little more moral ambiguity in my movies. INFERNAL AFFAIRS wins by a nose.