MARVIN HAMLISCH: THE WAY HE WAS - LFF 2013 - Day Four

Dori Berinstein's documentary about the legendary musical theatre and cinema composer Marvin Hamlisch is an absolute joy to watch, thanks to the wonderful, exuberant personality of its subject, and the access to so many of his collaborators sharing what are evidently authentic feelings of warmth and tenderness for him.  You leave the cinema feeling like you really knew the man, and that his musical achievements were really secondary to his humour, passion, and empathy.

But of course, we wouldn't be here if it weren't for his talent, and it's worth taking a moment to recap just how amazing he was.  A musical prodigy born to a Viennese Jewish family who'd escaped the Holocaust for New York, he entered Juilliard at seven, won three Oscars in a single year in his mid twenties, and had a smash hit musical and Pulitzer Prize by his thirties.   He scored Woody Allen flicks like Bananas, as well as The Way We Were, The Spy Who Loved Me and Sophie's Choice. He left Hollywood for a little off-Broadway production that became A Chorus Line.

If there's any sadness to the story it's that his key collaborators on A Chorus Line died so young.  One wonders just what other smash hit musicals he might have written had he been able to find a stable long running collaboration along the lines of Rodgers and Hammerstein or Lerner and Lowe.  Not that I want to sound like I'm calling him an underachiever.  It's just that - and the movie tackles this in some detail, when you've one three Oscars in your early twenties, where do you go from there?

Dori Berinstein's movie pays full tribute to the man and his music.  Her long track record on board way has given her access to all the key people, most movingly Hamlisch's family and his early home videos.  Her organisation is impeccable and the movie a joy to watch.  I also think it's not going too far to say that this movie has something to teach, and laughter to give, whether or not you care about musical theatre.  And that's testament to the greatness of the man at its heart.

MARVIN HAMLISCH: THE WAY HE WAS has a running time of 82 minutes. 

Random DVD Round-Up 2 - SEX AND THE CITY 2

I didn't hate SEX AND THE CITY 2 as much as I thought I would, but then again, my expectations were very low indeed. I'd never been a fan of the series. I didn't relate to a bunch of women defined by their conspicuous consumption of luxury goods or the apparent contradiction of wanting to be both sexually liberated AND pining for a rich husband. The show, and indeed the first movie, wanted to both have its cake and eat it, and was expressed with a vulgarity of tone, and shameless excess that seemed to undercut its wannabe-serious political agenda.

Fast forward to 2010 and the release of SEX AND THE CITY 2, and the franchise's crass vulgarity has been amped up even more than I thought possible, simply by transferring the four most egregiously consumerist girls in the US to the most egregiously consumerist nation on earth, the UAE. The resulting film feels like a 2 hour info-mercial advertising Abu Dhabi as a vacation resort just so long as you don't want kiss in public, and of course, conditional on you having $22,000 a night for a suite. The plot is the same-old bullshit we got on the TV show: privileged women whining about how tough life is. Miranda (Cynthia Nixon), the lawyer, is angry because her male boss dismisses her. Rather than deal with it maturely, she just quits. This is meant to be seen as a victory. Charlotte (Kristin Davis), having sweated spinal fluid to catch a rich husband and have two children, is tired and pissed off with being a mother, despite the fact that she has full-time help. Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) is angry her husband is, well, old, and wants to stay in, and when her book gets a bad review, kisses an ex- in a fit of pique. Her husband's reaction to this is just plain unbelievable. And finally, Kim Cattrall is eating hormones to stave off the menopause, and angry she can't fuck anyone she wants in public in a Muslim country.

Now, there are some moments when the movie feels vaguely interesting. I mean, it's nice to see women actually speaking openly about menopause and hot flashes. And yes, being a mother to small kids is hard. But the movie consistently fails to make itself relatable beyond this. There are few casual sentences referring to the awful economy, or congratulating mothers who survive without help, but when uttered by women in a $22,000 a night suite, it just feels condescending - as condescending as Carrie tipping her Indian butler so that he can fly home and visit his wife.

I guess it must sound like I'm criticising the movie less than criticising the lifestyle of the characters, but in a franchise that sells a lifestyle choice, I think that's fair game. But even if I bought into its lifestyle, would I like the movie? Nope. Because even on its own terms, it fails. The fashion is not fabulous but looks horrid. The women don't look wonderful in their middle age, but haggard and trying to hard. The shooting style is pedestrian and the direction workmanlike at best. And just what was that Liza Minelli song and dance number? Did they take her face and morph it onto a different body? It just looked plain weird.

SEX AND THE CITY 2 opened in summer 2010 and is now available to rent and buy.