Random DVD Round-Up 4 - THE PRIVATE LIVES OF PIPPA LEE

THE PRIVATE LIVES OF PIPPA LEE is a movie that is utterly, wretchedly disappointing. Despite an all-star cast, and handsome production values, the resulting film is uneven in tone, superficial where it wants to be profound, and undeserving of the big emotional punches it tries to pull.

The film was written and directed by Rebecca Miller(THE BALLAD OF JACK AND ROSE), based on her own play. It features the eponymous Pippa Lee (Robin Wright Penn) as a middle-aged woman, questioning her life choices through a series of flashbacks. Despite her picture perfect middle-aged existence, we learn that, as a young girl, Pippa was damaged by her exposure to her mother's addiction to speed and resulting psychological problems. The young Pippa (Blake Lively) thus high-tails it to New York where she almost falls into become a soft-porn model for her aunt's girlfriend (Julianne Moore) out of sheer boredom, develops a drug habit of her own, but then is rescued by an older man (Alan Arkin.) Fast forward to her present day crisis, and Pippa is living with her aged husband in a retirement community. She is insulted by his affair with a damaged even younger woman (Winona Ryder) and so trips into an affair of her own with an equally damaged young man (Keanu Reeves).

As I said, this is a well-cast film, and handsomely photographed. I have no doubt that Miller is trying to earnestly explore middle-aged feminine angst and to say something profound about self-esteem and addiction. The problem is that none of it seems real. It all seems like a very stage-y very contrived set of scenes, clumsily shuffled into a movie. At times it almost seems like a caricature of one of those Woody Allen films, except without the wry humour, where old men seem to be able to attract ever younger more attractive women and everyone spends the whole time discussing their neuroses and committing suicide.

Enough already.

THE PRIVATE LIVES OF PIPPA LEE was released last autumn and is available on DVD and on iTunes.

PRIDE AND GLORY - tragically uninvolving dirty cop thriller

PRIDE AND GLORY is a dirty-cop thriller that brings nothing new to the genre at all. This is a great disappointment, given that it's written by Joe Carnahan - who wrote NARC - and it stars two great actors - Colin Farrell and Ed Norton. Norton plays a New York cop investigating the death of four rozzers at the hands of a missing drug-dealer. Unsurprisingly, the trail leads to his brother-in-law (Farrell), who's been shooting gangsters for pay. The whole thing is bone dry, over-wrought, boring and entirely uninvolving - and culminates in an entirely under-powered denouement in a bar. All this for a bout of fisticuffs. Do yourself a favour and chuck LA CONFIDENTIAL on the DVD player instead. 

PRIDE AND GLORY played Toronto 2008 and is currently on release in the US, GReece, Israel, Italy, Panama, Peru and the UK. It goes on release in Iceland on November 21st; in Belgium, France and the Netherlands on December 3rd; in Argentina on December 18th; in Germany on January 22nd; and in Norway on January 30th.

Random DVD round-up 5 - JIMMY CARTER MAN FROM THE PLAINS

Jimmy Carter is a man of faith, integrity, and experience in negotiating peace in the Middle East. It has been decades since he was President, and he could easily retire, but he remains passionately engaged in the political debate. This documentary from Jonathan Demme follows Carter on his recent book tour to promote "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid", a book that provoked controversy simply for drawing a parallel between South Africa and Israel. The documentary is on one level a portrait of Jimmy Carter, but it's a lot more than that too. It's telling to see a man making a sophisticated argument confront a media machine used to glib sound-bites and Manichean positions. It's also telling to see the sort of ire he attracts for daring to criticise Israel. It's pretty tragic to seen fine minds spend their hours crawling through transcripts to find any hint of prejudice rather than engaging with the macro arguments.

JIMMY CARTER MAN FROM THE PLAINS played Toronto and Venice 2007, where it won the Biografilm award, the EIUC award and the FIPRESCI prize. It went on limited release in the US in October 2007. It went on limited release in the UK in August 2008 and is now available on DVD.

London Film Festival Day 16 - RACHEL GETTING MARRIED

RACHEL GETTING MARRIED is in that sub-genre of indie movies that does family dysfunction. Think THE SQUID AND THE WHALE or MARGOT AT THE WEDDING. Think of a middle-class American family gathering for a big occasion, being truly horrific to each other until, hey, they all realise that they are family and they love each other, thus making the first hour's histrionics seem a bit pointless. All this in played out against the background of perhaps the most forced politically correct wedding in cinema history - moreover, in a movie where director Jonathan Demme seems far more interested in the outstanding score that in the narrative arc. He's more wedding planner than engaged director in this film. Nonetheless, the movie is worth seeing for Anne Hathaway's raw performance as recovering junkie, Kym, who is reinserted into family life for her sister Rachel's wedding. Rachel (Rosemarie DeWitt) resents the fact that Kym is the centre of attention - Kym resents everyone judging her. The arguments between Kym and Rachel build to an almost unbearable crescendo. It's a shame that it all disintegrates into an extended world music video.

RACHEL GETTING MARRIED played Venice, Toronto and London 2008. It is currently on release in the US. It opens in Germany on March 26th, in Belgium on April 22nd, and in the Netherlands on April 30th.

IN AMERICA - witty, earnest biopic undone by cheap sentiment

Ariel: What are transvestites?
Christy: A man who dresses up as a woman.
Ariel: For Halloween?
Christy: No, all the time. All the time.
Ariel: Why?
Christy: It's just what they do here, OK?

It's this sort of dialogue that makes Jim Sheridan's 2002 film IN AMERICA a delight to watch. Much like BLAME IT ON FIDEL, it takes the point of view of a young girl living through family disruption in the near past. This time, instead of late 60s revolutionary Paris, we're in early 80s New York. Two young sisters are brought to America by their Irish parents. Mum is a waitress, dad is an out of work actor, and they live in a manky apartment building full of drug addicts and a threatening neighbour who screams a lot.

Paddy Considine and Samantha Morton are tremendous as the parents. I tend to think that Considine is rather overlooked compared to Morton. I've seen him do pathetic and sleazy in MY SUMMER OF LOVE and sinister and threatening in DEAD MAN'S SHOES. In this picture he shows the frustrations and insecurities of the father who can't provide for his children with a devestating passion in a pivotal scene with Djimon Hounsou.

Sadly, the movie is completely undercut by a rather simplistic, sentimental plot thread in which the scary African neighbour is, in fact, a pussycat, and everyone just gets on swimmingly. I can't say I'm sorry that IN AMERICA lost any of its three nominations at the Academy Awards.

IN AMERICA played Toronto 2002 and Sundance 2003. It is available on DVD and on iTunes. Samantha Morton was nominated for Best Actress but lost to Charlize Theron for her role in MONSTER. Djimon Hounsou was nominated for Best Supporting Actor but lost to Tim Robbins in MYSTIC RIVER. Jim, Naomi and Kirsten Sheridan were nominated for Best Original Screenplay but lost to Sofia Coppola for LOST IN TRANSLATION.

GET RICH OR DIE TRYIN sucks ass

GET RICH OR DIE TRYIN sucks ass more than any rap movie ever made. In the Internet Movie Database poll it has already been voted as the 24th worst movie OF ALL TIME. To put this into perspective, even Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo isn't in the Bottom 25, and that flick is a stain on the face of cinema. GET RICH is a rehash of every dumbass rap cliche compiled into 2 hours of hagiography. Worse still, 50 CENT cannot act. Heck, Fiddy can hardly rap. Can we really believe he is ROCK HARD when he comes up with craziness like "I melt in your mouth girl, not in your hand"? I just can't wait till the Chris Rock HBO special when he punishes Fiddy for this piece of embarassment. The only good thing about this movie is that it also features Terrence Howard - a truly awesome actor who stars in a far better, and indeed award-winning, movie about rap music - Hustle and Flow. As for GET RICH, to quote that poet, philosopher and man of the people, Flavor Flav, "Don't, don't, don't, don't, don't believe the hype".

I refuse to use this blog to publicise release dates for this piece of rancid celluloid.