MAESTRO*** - BFI London Film Festival 2023 - Day 7

MAESTRO was the first of two films I watched today that were well directed and acted, but where the chosen subject matter was not worthy of the efforts taken. Basically this film can be summarised as "wife is cool with her husband's bisexuality until she isn't, but stays married anyways".  I mean, okay. Domestic drama is okay I guess.  And there's a lot of great dramatic acting showing this. But oh my god, with these performers, and this direction, it could've done so much more.

The film is written by, directed by, and stars Bradley Cooper of THE HANGOVER fame.  He is making a very deliberate career handbrake-turn into wannabe auteur status by telling the story of Leonard Bernstein - acclaimed composer, conductor, educator, performer.  What's interesting, and ultimately frustrating, is that he chooses to do so solely through the lens of Bernstein's marriage to the actress Felicia Montealegre (Carey Mulligan - SHE SAID). 

In a sense, this is a really interesting thing to do. Montealegre was apparently a significant artist in her own right. She was apparently drawn to Bernstein's genius and was progressive enough to accept him as bisexual and to tolerate his affairs as long as he was discreet. Until she wasn't. She stays, but explains it as a kind of sick joke of not knowing herself enough. She thought she was modern enough to not mind, but was actually more in need of Bernstein's attention than she had anticipated. 

As for Bernstein, in Cooper's conception, his promiscuous bisexuality was merely another aspect of his greed for life in general. He wanted more of everything. He rejected people's expectations that he would focus on becoming "just" the first great American conductor, or another great American composer. He wanted it all. He wanted to compose a film score, or a broadway musical, or teach at Tanglewood, as much as he wanted to write a great orchestral work or conduct a great orchestra. And in this life of having it all, those around him were just squeezed out for time. 

The tragedy of this film is that in this beautifully-acted, rendered domestic drama, we never see the wider social or political ramifications.  Because for Leonard Bernstein his identity WAS political.  Being Jewish, not anglicising one's name, playing in Palestine and then Israel, was indeed a political act.  Being bisexual, indiscreetly so, was and arguably remains a political act. But Cooper isn't interested in that. Until he is.  In a tonally jarring near-final scene we find an old, widowed, fat, sweaty Bernstein dancing in a 1980s nightclub with a far younger male student. Had I been watching a film about consensual bisexual affairs or a version of TAR?  I felt blind-sided by this scene.  I wished the film had been dealing in this stuff all along. But it hadn't, so why the left-turn now?

Still, there's a lot to like in this film, and I will for sure watch Cooper's next directorial venture. The first hour in particular is kinetic and assured, with real visual flair.  Matthew Libatique's cinematography is as good as anything he's done since BLACK SWAN.  And kudos to Cooper for getting Bernstein's physicality, voice and conducting style, not least thanks to some absolutely superb make-up and prosthetic work. As for Mulligan, there's a single dramatic confrontation in the marital apartment that is a tour de force for both, but especially her. She is always excellent and especially so here. In smaller parts, I really liked Maya Hawke as their eldest child. 

But if you're coming for Bernstein the musician you are going to be disappointed, as I was. We only truly see about seven minutes of him conducting near the end of the film. It's the finale of Mahler 2 and it's stunning to behold. Like Bernstein, I wanted more. 

MAESTRO has a running time of 129 minutes and is rated R. It played Venice and London 2023 and will be released on December 20th on Netflix.

BATTLE OF THE SEXES - Day 4 - BFI London Film Festival 2017

Co-directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris (LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE) and screenwriter Simon Beaufoy (SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE) have created an immensely likeable and uplifting movie in BATTLE OF THE SEXES. It's the story of an infamous exhibition tennis match played in the mid-70s between one of the all time greats of women's tennis - Billie Jean King (Emma Stone) and an ageing former Grand Slam winner Bobby Riggs (Steve Carell).  Both are absolutely fascinating characters.  Riggs is a paunchy fifty year old on a second marriage to a rich woman (Elisabeth Shue).  He has a gambling habit and a love of the limelight, and while earning a pittance on the seniors tour become irked that the women are demanding more money.  Those women are led by Billie Jean King - who in a no-nonsense straightforward way asks why, if the women sell as many tickets as the men, they don't get paid as much? What's more, King is willing to back herself - setting up a rival women's tour with tennis promoter Gladys Heldman (Sarah Silverman). In doing so, she goes head to head with the misogynistic head of the USLTA Jack Kramer (Bill Pullman). The set up of the film is thus an exhibition match between Riggs and King where she has to win to rescue the reputation of women's tennis and indeed make a point about equality to the millions of people watching on TV.  But as she rightly points out, the real point to be made is against Kramer and his ilk rather than the buffoon-like Riggs. 

Behind the scenes we also have intense emotional battles. As the world now knows, King, though married to the deeply supportive and remarkably accommodating Larry, is equally gay. In the course of the film she begins a passionate affair with the tour hairdresser Marilyn (Andrea Riseborough), something that Larry tacitly condones, but that is hidden from the press and King's parents.  The more fascinating reaction is that of King's rival Margaret Court, who is a wife, mother and apparent homophobe. Having done a quick bit of internet research about her, I can't help but think that it let Court off very lightly.  Arguably the more fascinating relationship, because it's less well-known, is that of Riggs and his wife.  She is evidently a strong woman, and analyses their relationship very clearly.  She loves his humour and large personality, but hates his gambling and general unreliability.  Although one of the smaller roles in the film, Elisabeth Shue imbues it with such humanity and compassion that it really was the stand out part of the film.  

As for the rest, well it's all very well done. And Stone absolutely gets some of the physical mannerisms of King and Carell is almost spookily similar to the real-life Riggs. Is the direction pioneering or meaningfully interesting? No not really. But that's what this film is.  To quote Meester Phil, this is the two hour and one minute version of the one minute forty second trailer. This is a movie that really just tells a good story well - it doesn't over-complicate it, and it's a good time. 

BATTLE OF THE SEXES has a running time of 121 minutes and is rated PG-13.  BATTLE OF THE SEXES played London and Toronto 2017 and is already on release in the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. It opens in Brazil on October 19th, in Hong Kong on November 2nd, in Spain on November 10th, in Germany on November 16th, in France, the Netherlands, Singapore and the UK on November 24th, in Argentina on November 30th, in Colombia on December 7th and in Poland on December 8th.

A MILLION WAYS TO DIE IN THE WEST

I'm not exactly sure why critics seem to pissing on a great height over Seth MacFarlane's new comedy, A MILLION WAYS TO DIE IN THE WEST.  The only legitimate criticism is that his highly concentrated humour, with visual and verbal hits coming at you at a rapid-fire pace, is hard to take for over two hours.  But other than that, what's not to like?  This film is funny, wry and has genuine heart and I honestly don't see what there is to criticise in the performances either.  

The movie works in the same way as MacFarlane's smash hit comedy, TED.  Take some outlandish premise and apply that extreme harsh MacFarlane humour. In this case, we're put in the Wild West, complete with shoot-em-outs, warehouses and corrupt oligarchs and asked to laugh at how absurd it is.  Hence the title of the film. The West isn't a place to romanticise but a filthy, disease-ridden misogynistic and racist era in which nature and man conspired to kill you.  So if you get the one person in the film, played by Seth MacFarlane, bitching about how absurd life is within the context of a spoofily all-happy Western, then that, to me, is really funny.

The plot is as follows. MacFarlane plays Albert Stark - a hapless sheep farmer who has been rejected by his sweetheart Louise (Amanda Seyfried) in favour of the rich moustache-bearing merchant Foy (Neil Patrick Harris). Albert then forms a friendship with Anna (Charlize Theron) who teaches him how to shoot properly so he can survive a duel with Foy. Little does he know that Anna is really the wife of an outlaw called Clinch (Liam Neeson.)

So what we have is the classic rom-com set-up where a guy tries to impress the one girl while really falling in love with the other.  We even have a song and dance number that is absolutely brilliant and probably the best thing Neil Patrick Harris has done since Dr Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog.   We also get a side plot that pokes a lot of fun at an earnest guy (Giovanni Ribisi) dating a whore (Sarah Silverman) who refuses to sleep with him until they are married.

Like I said, I loved TED and I loved this film. It was half an hour too long, for sure, but I found its analysis of the absurdity of the Western myth spot on and its casting superb.  

A MILLION WAYS TO DIE IN THE WEST has a running time of 116 minutes and is rated R. The movie is on global release.

TAKE THIS WALTZ

This movie made me angry from the opening credits' sepia-tinted focus on Michelle Williams' blue-laquered toenails.  Poor Margot, it seems to say, so quirky, so right-thinking, making muffins with her face scrubbed clean.  It's like a Williamsburg dream. Except it's not.  It's a part of hipster-heaven-imagined Toronto where a young boho-wannabe couple who never seem to do much work can afford to live in a ramshackle-beautiful house interior designed just-so.  The couple are desperately irritating, right up until you realise that they are really really creepy.  They seem to have a kind of asexual buddy relationship where flirtation consists of speaking in infantile voices and drinking milk and poking fingers in your husband's mouth.  Plus the wife is clearly depressed and the husband so engrossed in making chicken cacciatore that he doesn't notice. So she starts flirting with the neighbour who is, of course!, a rickshaw driver who hangs out at the beach each morning to think.  I couldn't make this stuff up. Except he's clearly not as groovy and right-on and at peace with nature as all that because he's soon stalking her at the Y and then she's stalking him, and it all ends in the unsexiest sex-talk over martinis and a confession about nothing.  Still, as unappealing as I found the cocktease wife Margot and her stalkerish fancyman Daniel (Luke Kirby), at least there's a kind of raw honesty and commitment in their performances.  You realise that the first time you see Seth Rogen (the chicken-chef) react to his wife's confession.  Director Sarah Polley decides to do something that should showcase real acting talent - smashcut close-ups of his different reactions. Except, we learn, Rogen can't act - or at least not that kind of raw drama - he seems to be acting "at" it - and does that annoying Brad Pitt thing where you keep groping your face because that looks natural, right?  I mean, let's be clear, we have to blame Sarah Polley for this self-indulgent, risible mess, just as we lauded her for the Alzheimers drama AWAY FROM HER.  She wrote these absurdly incredible characters and their unsexy sexy language.  She exposed Rogen's inadequacies.  And in a montage designed to show Margot tiring of her new man, she reduces her film to an Ikea advert with a teenage-naive-embarrassing cut to what racy sex might actually look like.  Of course, this movie isn't as radical or subversive or raw or authentic as it thinks it is.   Chicken-man's sister turns out to be that movie cliché - the wise alcoholic.  Basically, the meaning is that we always take the weather with us.  And that very few movies live up to the Leonard Cohen song they're using.  Go home.  Go home. There's nothing to see here.    

TAKE THIS WALTZ played Toronto 2011 and Tribeca 2012. It was released earlier this year in Taiwan, the USA (Video on demand), Australia, Canada, Turkey and Sweden. It was released earlier this month in New Zealand, Japan, Denmark, Ireland, the UK, Greece, the Netherlands and Spain. It will be released in Belgium on September 19th; in France on October 31st; and in Brazil on November 9th.

THE MUPPETS

The new muppet movie is, in the manner of THE BLUES BROTHERS, all about putting the band back together to play a benefit concert for a worthy cause - in this case, saving the old theatre from which the old beloved TV show used to be broadcast.  The movie drips with an earnest nostalgia for the days when kids TV was about gentle humour, song-and-dance acts, with a healthy dollop of liberal "rainbow" politics thrown in.  The Muppets was all about trying your best; accepting yourself for what you are; pulling together; and putting your friends first.  

It's obvious from the goofy smile on his face, that Jason Segel - the star and key instigator of the movie - totally buys into the Muppet ethos.  In a sense, he really is Walter, his character's muppet kid brother.  How sad then, that instead of trusting to that earnest charm, Segel and screenwriter Nick Stoller (GULLIVER'S TRAVELS) decided NOT to play it straight.  Rather, THE MUPPETS is a movie that constantly winks at the audience - it drips with post-modern ironic commentary on its core story and characters - knowingly pointing out through sight-gags and one-liners the hokiness of the genre.   

The result is a movie that wants us to believe that the world hasn't changed so much - that kids would still fall in love with the plain vanilla muppets franchise.  On the other hand, it clearly doesn't believe this to be the case, and feels it has to go for a post-modern snarky "SHREK" style of children's movie-making.  It rather smacks of trying to have it both ways. 

For all that, I still had a good time watching the flick. For sure, the first half is far too knowing - far too slow to build - far too reliant on commenting on its own montages and Chris Cooper saying "maniacal laugh" rather than actually laughing.  But by the time you get to the telethon and we focus on the old fashioned muppet vaudeville show, the movie settles down.  It's hard for anyone who grew up with the muppets not to enjoy seeing that famous intro, hearing the "rainbow connection" or just seeing Animal play the drums!  And yes, you do leave the cinema singing "Am I am man or a muppet".

That brings me to another point - the use of Brett McKenzie of FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS fame to write the songs.  I'm a huge fan of CONCHORDS but I found the use of McKenzie distracting.   Because as fun as it was to see Chris Cooper doing a rap pastiche; or Amy Adams doing a 70s disco pastiche; I just couldn't help but feel that it wasn't as fun as seeing McKenzie or Jermaine Clement doing the numbers. In particular, Clement should definitely have played the Cooper part. 

Anyway, all this griping is definitely not in the spirit of the muppets.  Problem is, neither was this film half the time.  Still, happy to see the old gang back on our screens. Let's hope the franchise gets reinvigorated - but hopefully on TV - it's proper and fitting format.

THE MUPPETS was released last year in the USA, Canada, India, Mexico, Brazil, Israel, Singapore, Kuwait, Chile and Estonia. It was released earlier this year in New Zealand, Slovenia, Panama, Argentina, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Germany, Hong Kong, Bulgaria and Poland.  IT goes on release on February 3rd in Italy, Spain and Portugal; on February 10th in the Netherlands, Denmark, Ireland and the UK; on February 17th in Belgium, Lithuania and Turkey; on March 16th in Sweden; on March 29th in Ukraine and on April 11th in France. 

SARAH SILVERMAN: JESUS IS MAGIC: why is this on at the cinema?

SARAH SILVERMAN: JESUS IS MAGIC is a concert film from the eponymous American comedienne. Silverman has made a name for herself in the USA for looking sweet and innocent and vapid but saying the most unutterably heinous things about sex and race. Some people think she's racist. This is to miss the point. She's not racist (although she does have a bizarre beef about Jews driving German cars, which could almost be considered racist against Germans). What she's trying to do is satirise racists and show us all how stupid, ignorant and vapid they are. My problem with Sarah Silverman is, therefore, not that I think she's racist, but that I don't need her to tell me racists are stupid and wrong. Of course, you can take the piss out of racists and make people laugh. That requires actually fashioning a series of skits full of funny characters and situations. Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy and Chris Rock are all devestatingly funny and clever, on the topic of race. But Sarah Silverman doesn't bother with the craft of writing a proper sketch. She just utters racist or sexually provocative comments and then skips to another one. It's as though she has ADD - her material spews forth like so many non sequiturs.

On top of the material which I don't think is particularly funny or intelligent, this movie has godawful production values. Lousy lighting, shoddy camera-work and a terrible DV transfer. The editing is crude and the musical interludes simply don't work.

The key question is this: why, three years after its release in the USA, is this movie being shown on UK cinema screens when it's fit for a heavily edited TV special at best? (The side question is why I still went to see it having read Ebert's review.)

SARAH SILVERMAN: JESUS IS MAGIC was released in US cinemas in 2005 and was released on Region 1 DVD in 2006. It is currently on release in the UK.

SCHOOL FOR SCOUNDRELS - weaker than Vanilla Ice

SCHOOL FOR SCOUNDRELS is a weak romantic-comedy remake of the classic 1960s Brit flick. (Younger viewers might see a little of ANGER MANAGEMENT in the setup.) It stars Jon Heder (NAPOLEON DYNAMITE) as a doofus loser called Roger who signs up for an empowerment class with swindler, sleazebag and all-round geezer, Doctor P, played by Billy Bob Thornton. When Roger starts to do too well in class, Doctor P steals his girlfriend just because he can, challenging Roger to step up to the plate and take her back. So follows some lame-ass plot resolutions involving a cameo from Ben Stiller - whose plot line is left hanging in mid-air. Shorn of his afro, Jon Heder raises no laughs in this under-written comedy. The few laugh-out-loud moments largely consist of Billy Bob Thornton calling someone or other a "dumbass". There's another smart line about Moby. But call me an old stick in the mud - I just don't find jokes about rape that funny.

Maybe, just maybe, if you are a big enough fan of Thornton you could check this out on DVD, but frankly, the hundred and twelfth viewing of BAD SANTA is going to be a lot more worthwhile. I am astounded that this film is directed by the same director who brought us OLD SCHOOL.

P.S. Sarah Silverman fans should not be fooled by the posters - her part is small and her talent utterly wasted here.

SCHOOL FOR SCOUNDRELS was released in the US, the Philippines, Thailand, Greece and Russia last year. It opened in Singapore, Latvia, Turkey and Estonia earlier this year. It is currently playing in the UK and opens in Iceland on March 2nd, Australia on March 22nd and in France on July 4th. SCHOOL FOR SCOUNDRELS was released on Region 1 DVD last week.

THE ARISTOCRATS - I get it. In fact, I got it all too soon.

THE ARISTOCRATS is a documentary about a joke. The joke is a shaggy dog story designed to shock people into laughter. As comedian Paul Reiser says, "It's all set-up". So we see 100 comedians (apparently, I didn't count) tell the joke. It goes like this: A wife, husband, kids, dog (variations thereupon) go into a talent agent's office. They say, "You gotta hire us. We have this great act!" So the talent agent says, "So what is the act?" They then recount the act. It is the nastiest, crudest, most vicious stuff you ever heard of. There needs to be sex (incest, besti*lity, whatever), excrement, the most gross things you can think of. Each comedian goes gross in their own particular way, spins the story wild and large - two minutes, twenty minutes - manic, deadpan - the most disgusting stuff you can think of. The family come to the end of describing the act. The talent agent sits back and says, "Wow. That's some act! So what do you call that?" The family responds in chorus, "The Aristocrats!"

At this point you might be thinking, "I don't get it." And that begs the question whether it is a valid criticism of this documentary that despite the fact that it features many comedians all telling a supposedly hysterical joke, the film is only sporadically funny. In fact, the only two times I really laughed, the humour did not derive from the Aristocrats joke itself, but from the fact that the comediens were doing impressions of famous people telling the joke. Kevin Pollack tells the joke as Christopher Walken and Mario Cantone tells the joke as Liza Minelli. Pure Comedy Genius.

I think it is fine if we don't find the re-telling of the joke that funny. We can still take three things from the movie. First, the movie is a masterclass for wannabe comedians, because from the way in which the different comedians approach the joke you can see something of their technique and talent. Not only that, but you discover some really great comedians that haven't done a lot of TV or film before. Second, you can enjoy this movie in the same way as you get a perverse kick out of a car crash: it's horrible, you feel gross for being interested, and yet there is something compelling about watching Carrie Fisher a.k.a. Princess Leia saying "my mother was a golden showers queen" when we know that in real life her mum is the peaches-and-cream cutie from Singin' In the Rain, Debbie Reynolds.

Third, there is a social point to be understood about how society has changed and what is funny has changed with it. Back in the day when female stand-up comedians couldn't wear sleeveless dresses on network television for fear of immodesty , telling a joke about rim-jobs would have been daring and provocative - almost political. In today's world, sexual acts really aren't taboo. I mean, we have golden showers, rim-j*bs and f*ltching on South Park and a young girl pleasuring herself with a champagne bottle live on British network TV. This is our new "reality". The new taboos are jokes about 9/11 and racism. So unless, you recast the joke, it is devalued.

The comedy masterclass, the bizarro-Carrie Fisher moment and the point about how taboos have changed are all valid subjects for a movie and interesting up to a point. My real criticism of this movie is therefore not that I didn't find it that funny, but that it is just too long. We get all the messages of the film after about 45 minutes and the remainder is just a bit repetitive.

THE ARISTOCRATS premiered at Sundance 2005 and went on limited release in the US and UK in autumn 2005. (The fact that the movie was Unrated by the MPAA meant that some exhibitors would not show it.) It goes on cinematic release in the Netherlands on the 9th February 2006 but was released on Region 2 DVD last week.