Beavers & Ducks!

I just watched 'Bandits' twice in the last 48 hours... LOVED it! My 3rd or 4th favorite Cate performance ever (Streetcar, Golden Age, Bandits/Aviator). Definitely give it a 9 out of 10 for sure. A special 'thank you' to my friend Jen for sending me my copy!

I was warned that Cate didn't appear until about 35 minutes in but I turned out to be okay with that. Unlike some other reviews I've read that thought the beginning was a bit slow, I disagree. I like Bruce Willis and I thought Billy Bob Thornton was very entertaining in this. And I actually thought the beginning scenes moved pretty well. They introduced the characters perfectly right off the bat - Terry is a bit of a hypochondriac and not your usual prison inmate. Joe is a tough guy and together they are unlikely friends. The first bank robbery happens not too far in and Joe's personality as a ladies' man is nicely shown. It's also revealed that Terry is more of a thinker and Joe is more impulsive. We also see that they're not going to be your average 'bad guys' with the way they treat the teens in their first 'sleepover house.' And finally, the idea of how they will continue to rob banks is laid out. All in all, a truly great set up.

I also like what they did in the beginning by showing a glimpse of the final robbery that happens at the end of the film. I like the playing with time and also that it sets the stakes higher (as Barry Levinson mentioned in the extra features). This however is where I also find the first flaw in the film. Right away they mention this woman, Kate Wheeler, and she seems like a big deal to them. But she's not introduced to us as an audience until about 30 minutes later. Although I love the way she's introduced (more on that in a bit) I think she should have been brought into it a bit sooner. Like, maybe they could have shown her shopping for that night's dinner. Just a small glimpse.

I almost forgot to comment about our introduction to Harvey. The first scene with him is a very nice set-up to what happens later in the film, but of course we don't know that yet. Troy Garity did a really nice job with this oddball, sort of slow, but very endearing character. And who would have ever guessed he was Jane Fonda's son! (I found this tidbit extra interesting given Jane's recent comments about Cate in 'Streetcar.' I wonder if this film is the link that brought them together as friends?)

I liked the scenes with the first family they stay with, the Millers. The dinner scene was very well executed - and I think it's so cute that the two little girls are Bruce Willis' own daughters. I agree with the deleted scenes that were cut from this. They weren't necessary and would've made it too long. Nothing extra was revealed with them that we needed to see - and it made the bank manager's character more of a big deal than he needed to be. Definitely think this was a good edit.

The final image we see after the second bank robbery (first sleepover robbery) is a huge sign that says, 'the beauty of color.' This is right before Cate comes on. First the lightbulb refrigerator shot when she's bathed in the most gorgeous blue light. Next the dancing in the kitchen scene. Cate - and the character of Kate Wheeler - bring color to the film - and to Terry and Joe.

The blue light bulb? That color is my favorite color in all the world. It's just breathtakingly beautiful. I actually just screen grabbed it from YouTube and made it my desktop image. And then after that, there's the color of her hair and her dress. Her hair is this amazing reddish orange and her dress that gorgeous turquoise. That's also probably my favorite color combination - blue and orange, they're complimentary colors. And the dancing? From the moment I saw it on YouTube, I've watched it dozens of times! She is so hilarious and gorgeous all wrapped into one.

The great thing about Cate and her comedic ability that is so well-displayed in this film, is that she can do both over the top - the dancing - and subtle... The nuances that she can bring to her facial expressions make her excel at both drama and comedy.

I loved the driving and singing to "Total Eclipse of the Heart!" I've always loved that song and now I will never be able to hear it again without smiling and thinking of Cate in this movie! The whole scene when she hits Terry and is driving him like a maniac - shear perfection. So funny, so well played. And the re-quotability of one-liners from this movie are so numerous, probably beginning in this scene...

Kate: "I'm feeling very fragile at the moment and I don't think I should be alone."

Terry: "You're insane."

Kate: "I'm unhappy - it's not the same thing!"

Along with the part about her being "mentally unbalanced to a spectacular degree." Again the blue in the cabin windows during dinner is so beautiful. Someone commented in the extra features about the cinematographer "painting with light." He really did a gorgeous job with this film.

The nod to 'It Happened One Night' was nice - when Joe hangs the sheet and says he saw it in a movie and it ended with a wedding. It's so sweet how excited she gets when she's realizing he knows "Total Eclipse" and they're going back and forth with the lyrics (I love how she says "in the dark" during this part - something about it). The chemistry between herself and Bruce in this scene is very good - and it's made all the more lovely when you learn in the extra features on the DVD that it was partly improvised. When the sheet falls, they both seemed genuinely surprised - I wonder how much of that was the actual moment they improvised, or was re-takes using the improvisation? If that makes any sense... I thought it was funny when she's making an effort to pull down the shades as they start to go at one another and the first one just falls completely off - ha. And look at those legs!

In the first bank robbery that Kate is present for her face is so sweet and she shows such excitement when the cops leave and then again when they go to switch cars.

Again with the beautiful blue at the beach. The whole scene is beautiful - Kate and Joe dancing. So simple, so happy, so innocent. There are just so many sweet, lovely little moments in this film.

I don't think the film would have worked as well as it does if not for the 3 main actors. There was perfect chemistry between C/Kate and both guys. They made a great trio. The way the script was written, yes there was something quirky and unique about Kate - but something had to be really special about her for both guys to want her so desperately. Cate brought that unidentifiable/indescribable quality to Kate that made you understand why each guy had to have her. Same with Bruce and Billy Bob - both characters were written well but another actor may not have brought the same specialness to them. Especially Billy Bob - he's so funny with the quirky hypochondriac-ness - I especially loved him in the scene right after the car crash. The other thing about Kate is that you never feel she's a victim, and I like that. Yes, she's unhappy, yes she's fragile - and she even is like "an iceberg waiting for the Titanic." But the whole time she's making her own choices. She starts out looking for someone to save her - "holding out for a hero" - but in the end it's really she herself who does the saving.

Back to the chemistry between the three. I thought the film did a nice job showing how Kate falls for both of the guys. And how her love for each of them changes them. Like with Joe - it's so cute when she tries on her first disguise and he goes, "Hey! What happened to Kate?!" (I love all her disguises - the Marilyn Monroe look of her first one - and the short black one that is like a foreshadowing to her look in "Indiana Jones"). And when they're driving beside each other right before the accident and she says she was afraid they'd lost them and Joe says, "You are so cute. You are really cute." After the car crash incident, when he goes to the car-swap location and she's not there - you can tell he's a little heartbroken. Later, when he's alone and punching the punching bag - you feel sorry for him. You really get the feeling that Kate has changed his ladies' man ways.

I thought the scene with Terry and Kate when they fall for each other at the Flamingo Hotel (more color: pink) was especially perfect too. When Kate is talking about where Joe must be at the moment she makes such a sweet sad face when she decides, "He's not alone." I absolutely love the whole part when she's describing her husband's kisses - I think it's great how they incorporated Cate's actual popping jaw into the scene. (Another quirky speech thing in this scene - I love the way she says "I don't" after she says she must seem to know a lot about love. Cate does a tremendous job with the accent in the film but I do think it's really endearing that a few times throughout she almost slips back into Aussie a little...dinner at the cabin when she says, "so um," - when she asks Joe "how does it end?" about the movie with the hanging sheet, when she says "alone?" in the hotel scene with Terry).

Back to the "my husband's a terrible kisser" part - there's actually a running thing about kisses in the film that I didn't really notice the first time around. Joe tells Terry that the special thing about her is that she has lots of saliva and that he's never been kissed the way she kisses him before. At the Flamingo, the women there for the convention are singing "It's In Hiss Kiss." The whole description of Kate's husband's kisses. And then at the lighthouse when Joe asks Terry "I was right about Kate's kisses wasn't I?"

It's so hilarious when Terry starts sneezing and Kate asks "should I scare you?" And then when she goes at him with the pillow, ha. One of my favorite lines in the movie is when Terry is describing his fears and Kate says, "I think it's better to feel too much than feel too little."

In the scene at the lighthouse, again you have Cate's beautiful hair color against the blue, blue ocean. It's so sweet the way these two criminals have been reduced to being jealous and fighting over this woman. Again, I don't think any other actress could have made that believable. And as an audience, you love her with both of them. It's hard to chose and you understand why she can't. When they showed her husband on TV, I was afraid he was going to say something '"sweet" to make her second guess herself and want to go home. I was glad when he didn't, because even though he was an ass and hurt her, it was endearing the way both Joe and Terry stepped in immediately to tell her she'd found where she belonged - with them.

I love the fireworks on the beach scene both visually and with the simplicity of how happy they are. I think that's what the heart of this movie was about for me - about living a full life, letting go and being free and happy. Minus the illegal activity of course! Kate singing "Walk On By" - hilarious. I have a feeling that was some really good acting by Cate - I have a hard time believing she sings that badly in real life. She was trained in piano so she knows pitch and being on key - and hearing her sing briefly in Streetcar, I know she can sound better than that. But that makes the off-key rendition Kate gives us so much more impressive!

The failed robbery scene was very well done - both written and filmed. The way the whole thing almost goes terribly wrong but then ends up fine, even though they got out of it without any money. The whole thing about the burning feathers and brain tumor was very funny - I liked how the director or set designer - or a combination of people - made it so it looked like even the statue in the bank was looking at Terry like he was nuts.

(Another neat little stylistic nuance I noticed was the use of mirrors - an effect that's used a few times throughout. In the scene with the kid Phil and then shotgun as Joe sneaks up on him. The tri-effect of the 3 mirrors in the bathroom when Kate goes in to brush her teeth. The mirror reflection of her and Joe in bed right afterwards had me thinking I was seeing a mistake at first, that they'd swapped sides. Then I realized it had been a mirror. Another reflection, but not a mirror - the use of the binoculars painting/sign reflected into the glass of the drive-up at the bank so it framed Terry's head in a circle.)

The bar scene is another favorite. Back with that beautiful blue outside again. I loved finding out in the features that it was really daytime when the scene was filmed. Kate is very quirky and adorable here - first of all, she just randomly eats a sugar packet! I love how she is utterly thrown for a loop when Terry asks her to run away with him - the way she orders the drinks as she rushes off to the ladies' room was priceless. The irony of "Just the Two of Us" playing during the scene when Terry and Joe are fighting over Kate was a nice touch. The dancing was hilarious - Terry flopping around on the floor like a dying fish!

Then it all comes to a head when Kate clues Terry in to the fact that Joe has been playing him. And Kate decides that she's responsible for them being at each other's throats. "What if we only have one big love? I mean I know this one's a little bigger..." and "You know why I can't choose? Because together you make up the perfect man." It all goes back to them being the perfect trio. I think the reason why it wasn't working at that moment is because they hadn't figured out how to handle their unconventional relationship...Plus they had the added stress of the bank robbing. What brings the two friends back together is the fact that they realize they both love Kate and they have to get her back. They are so adorable on the phone trying to convince her.

The first time I watched the movie, when I saw Kate go to the police, I really thought she'd turned them in. I was going, "No, Kate what are you doing?!" I really had thought they were going to die in the final robbery. Her face when they started shooting was the first thing that clued me in that something was up. Then I remembered back to Harvey's first scene and thought, "Oh let them be squibs!" I was so relieved and delighted when they were revealed in the ambulance. I wonder a little about Kate's fainting... Was it to distract? Or was she really that unnerved by seeing such a bloody scene ever though she knew it was fake? All in all, I thought this whole last heist was very "Ocean's Eleven"esque. It definitely had me along for the ride and I thought it was a brilliant concept and twist, so well written.

The first time watching the ending/credits I thought it was going to be the three of them getting married... You never know! Of course the three together would be a complicated concept and not a relationship I could imagine myself in. But hey, never say never. I thought Cate's twist on the alternate ending in the special features was great - having Kate be pregnant. It would have left you wondering whose baby it was and how a child would have worked in their unique relationship. I can understand the taboo quality of that being the reason why it ultimately found it's way to the cutting room floor. But I wonder if that was the only reason it didn't make the cut.

All in all, a movie I know I will enjoy over and over - and I cannot wait to share it with people. I need to be able to quote it in everyday life and have people know what I am referring to!

is that jeff bridges or kris kristofferson?

It's been a couple weeks now since I've seen "Crazy Heart" - so this won't be the best of reviews.

First of all, the theater experience itself was horrible and I was concerned it would color the whole viewing itself - luckily it didn't. The theater was very small and it was packed. I found a seat in the very last row and as I was settling in, the idiot next to me said, "It's too hot in here for me to wear your coat honey, so why don't you put it behind you." I was not in the mood - so I told him not-so-politely that I would be happy to move to make him more comfortable. I grabbed all my belongings and moved down to the non-stadium seating that is way too close to the screen for my liking and picked a seat there. As I was getting settled, I knocked over my popcorn and half of it was lost to the floor. I also realized at this point that the temperature in there was boiling and an usher was explaining to us all to just relax for 10 or so minutes and it should cool down. As the theater continued to fill, it was finally near time for the movie to start and a gentleman took the seat next to the empty one next to me where I had all my things (it was probably the only empty seat left in the place). Being nice, I moved my stuff over to half of the seat and offered to him that he could put his coat there. Well, he took my invitation a bit too far and picked his bag up off of the floor and sat it on the seat practically on top of my coat. I have issues with things touching city floors and cleanliness. I was a bit peeved. After a while though I managed to shrug all of that off and settle in to enjoy the movie.

And enjoy it I did. It was a very simple, touching story that was more of a vehicle to showcase characters than really tell a linear story.

I think Jeff Bridges deserved the awards he has been winning lately for his portrayal of 'Bad' Blake. By the time we come into witness this window of his life, he's already lived a whole life - become a star, a legend...and now a drunk and a has-been. He has to relay all of this quickly and allow us as an audience to fall in love with him the same way that his fans did, even though he's in has-been stage. He has to come off gruff and jaded and annoyed at where his life has ended up - but still show glimmers of tenderness and likability. He does all of that very well.

I do however think that the relationship between himself and Maggie Gyllenhall - Jane - was missing something in the beginning. I didn't feel enough of a link between them to make him so appealing to her. It didn't feel like she had been a long-time fan and was awed by him. It also didn't feel like he did enough while she was around him to make her fall for him. That being said, after the initial leap of believing that she did fall for him, I really liked them together.

It was one of those tragic, never can work out relationships. The ones where the people need each other to learn some hard lesson in their lives but lose each other in the process. Jane needed to learn to trust a man, to love again - to allow herself to get hurt again so she realizes she'll be okay. Bad needed to get sober, try and heal past hurts and get his life together.

I loved the scene after his accident, when she's in the bedroom with him and he's singing a song to her and she starts crying. She says she's afraid he'll leave her and go off on the road and forget about her and all she'll have left is remembering the pretty song he sang in her bed. I'm sure I butchered the line but it was something like that. I thought it was a really sweet scene between them, and her emotion actually made me tear up a little.

I also thought the dynamic between the little boy and Bad was lovely. It wasn't hammered over our heads that he was like the son Bad had lost all ties to long ago. You just see it in his eyes, feel it while he is feeling it. I found myself wanting to yell at him through the screen at the scene in the bar when he loses him. It rips at you how much he cared for him, how much he screwed up, how you knew Jane was bound to react - and of course you wanted the dear little boy found.

In the end, both Bad and Jane learned what they needed to from each other and grew from it. The last scene, when Jane reveals that she's since gotten married, tears your heart out a little for both of them. Though I also think it kind of ties everything up a little too neatly with a bow. But that's okay because the rest of the movie was so good.

I also liked some of the music a lot and I know there was at least one song I wanted to download off of itunes but of course now can't remember which it was...

just saw "t bone streep's" latest flick

(In case you didn't see the Golden Globes, Meryl won for her portrayal of Julia Child in "Julie & Julia" and when she accepted the award she jokingly said she wanted to change her name to T Bone in reference to T Bone Burnett who won "Best Song" for "The Weary Kind," the theme from "Crazy Heart.")

Last night I saw "It's Complicated" - I really enjoyed it. Rating wise, I'd probably give it a solid 7 out of 10 - pretty much in line with the current 6.8 on IMDb right now.

And speaking of IMDb, someone there made this great comment that I think describes this kind of movie perfectly:

"Not everyone wants a three-star, six-course meal every time they sit down to eat. Sometimes a great burger-and-fries is what they crave. Not every chef wants to make a feast every time they cook; sometimes something 'simple' is their heart's desire."

And I took the analogy further:

"I think there's a big difference between a burger and fries from say, a nice diner or restaurant, and a burger and fries from McDonald's. Movies like 'It's Complicated' may be like a burger and fries - but it's sure better than 'Twilight.'"

Staying with the food talk, I think it's funny that in both of Meryl's big movies of the last year, she played someone who cooked - Julia Child and the pastry chef, Jane, in this movie.

I thought the film had really nice performances from its three stars; Meryl Streep, Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin. Alec Baldwin did a really good job making Jake a likable character. He made you sympathize with Jake even though he shouldn't be an all too sympathetic character - he made you root for him.

To that point, I thought this movie did a really nice job building chemistry between Jane/Jake and Jane/Adam. A lot of films with love triangles don't succeed at building that tug and pull between the characters - most either portray an obvious, clear-cut winner; or don't spend enough time on the one that wins out. In "It's Complicated," I found myself not sure which way I wanted it to go... Jake was so sweet with her in the bathtub scene. But then you felt so bad for Adam when he asks her to the film festival and she says 'no.' My whole theater went "aww" when they showed him standing there with the tickets he'd already bought. I thought Steve Martin was really nice in this - very sweet, understated.

Perhaps my favorite performance though was John Krasinski! He was the straight man to all the madness going on around him and his reactions were hilarious. I loved him at the lunch scene especially. The physical humor was also funny in the shot of him in the girl's PJs. And when he took the knife from Jane before she went to talk to Jake.

I like seeing Meryl in movies like this - you get the feeling if she weren't a famous actress, that might be the kind of place in her life where she'd be. She brings a really nice vulnerability to Jane. She's not only coping with getting older and everything that comes with that, but she's also looking for love. She's insecure about her age and her looks, increased by the fact that her husband left her for a much younger woman. I loved how she held her eyelid up in the elevator in the scene after the plastic surgeon's office. As the film goes on, you get to watch her grow more comfortable with who she is now.

She wonders why she would get herself in such a mess - sleeping with Jake and starting an affair. But Jake says the reason in his speech in the kitchen - about imagining having someone to hold you, someone who's known you since you were 23 and loved you most of your life. That's a very comforting feeling to anyone - let alone someone who just watched her last child walk out the door and is lonely, whether she wants to admit it or not.

A few things about the movie bugged me. First of all - the biggest one - the kids. Especially the two youngest ones. Their acting was marginal and the way they were written didn't help. At the end, they needed to suck it up - maybe they were damaged from their parents' divorce but when you reach their age you're supposed to have a level of maturity that they didn't display. I would have thought their actions to be more realistic if they were all maybe 5 years younger - high school aged and the oldest still in college. And back to the writing - when the youngest said, "How bonkers this sounds to us," I really just wanted to yell at her to shut up.

Another thing that bugged me - the sessions with the girl friends. I am sure there are women out there exactly like that, so it wasn't the women themselves or they way they acted that I found stereotypical, again it was the writing. The whole anecdote about the vagina story... It just didn't work.

The time frame was something else that didn't quite work, I thought. Ten years seemed a little long for what happens to be realistic. First of all - after ten years you would think Jake would have already strayed from Agness. I feel like the level of unhappiness he had with her would have happened much sooner.

The last thing that bugged me was the session with the therapist. His advice to her to "let go, it can't hurt" was awful for a therapist. It COULD hurt, it did. Whether or not having the affair was something Jane needed to snap her psyche into place and throw her life for the loop it needed - it still had repercussions to other people. Agness and Adam and even Pedro. I liked that those repercussions were shown. There's the nice little scene when Jake puts Pedro to bed and the previously obnoxious 5-year-old is preciously asleep and ends up holding Jake's hand. It's the first time you really have sympathy for the "other family" - and you can almost sense that in Jake too even though he would never admit it. And there's the dancing scene at the party. In the beginning, Agness comes across as a not-so-smart, annoying, younger other woman who stole someone's husband. But seeing her face as she watches Jane & Jake dancing - and then as she looks at her husband longing for his ex-wife - you feel for her. Jake brought any unhappiness he may have ended up with on himself, but you end up feeling bad for Agness.

And Adam. Sure the whole computer scene was funny but when the laughs are over, Adam ends up being really hurt. I was so glad at the end when he shows up to the groundbreaking at Jane's house and you're left with the feeling that things will work out between them.

Little things I liked... I loved loved loved the suede purple heels Meryl wore! And I noticed the butterfly wing pendant she wore - I wonder if it was purchased from the NYC jewelry store where Tim Robbins was shopping. And speaking of clothes, I liked that they had Jane wear a few things more than once. Shoes, necklace, glasses, purse. It gave her more of a "real" feel. I thought the kid who played Pedro was funny and that he and Alec Baldwin had a nice playing off of each other relationship. The sprinklers going off right as Jake and Jane go to have sex was a nice old-school metaphor. And I thought the pot scenes ("do you poke smot?") could have come off very stereotypical and un-funny - but I thought they came off in the perfect way and were actually very funny.

"the good german"

I watched “The Good German” for the first – and second – times. I have a lot to say about the film… I loved it. Definitely give it a 9 out of 10. The black & white, film noir, throwback style is probably one of the main reasons I really enjoyed it, because I love classic films and films of that genre. I love that time period too – on a superficial level; the look, the clothes, the shoes, the style (I even wore a dress and these cute new heels that I’ve been avoiding wearing to work because they’re kinda tall today because I was so inspired!). I also thought it was a well-crafted and well-told story. It kept me interested and curious the whole time watching it, at points on the edge of my seat, and it moved at a great pace. And I thought it was – for the most part – very well acted. After I watched the film the first time, I read all the user reviews here (I think), on IMDB and I re-read some critics’ reviews and interviews with Cate and watched a couple on YouTube also before I watched it again.

Cate called the film a “hybrid” and I think that’s the perfect word for it. I haven’t really read or heard Soderbergh’s intent but I got the feeling that he wasn’t really trying to make an homage but rather trying to make a film with the look, feel, style & technology of a 1940s film noir – but as if it could have been made today, without the restrictions of the Hayes code and 1940s mores. For that reason, I didn’t find the juxtaposition of the classic look/feel and the swearing/sex jarring. He took the romanticism of the style, took the filters off the lens (so to speak) and added the realistic grit. The first time Tully said “f**k,” it took me out of the story a little – but then I quickly got over that. Even though movies from that time period didn’t have these things, people obviously swore and had sex in real life (obviously – ha) but they weren’t allowed in film because of the Hayes code. Along those same lines, back then you couldn’t have told this story on film either, in America/Hollywood anyway. It’s too real and too raw. Take a film like “Casablanca” for example – since these two films have been so often compared. While it doesn’t have a happy ending, it still glosses over a lot of what it must have really been like to have gone through that time period and those situations. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen “Casablanca,” so forgive me if I’m being inaccurate – but even when they’re discussing the war and the Nazis & even the fact that Laszlo escaped from a concentration camp, there’s still little mention of the realism of all of that – the death, the horror. Not only would that level of realism not have made for a successful mainstream film in America at the time, but you also have to take into consideration that the war was still so fresh – I think it would take years before people would get the full effect of what actually went down. Especially in terms of looking through the eyes of the defeated as this film does. Imagine a 1940s, Hollywood film using Germans even remotely viewed as supportive to the Nazis as sympathetic characters. That never would have been allowed, and if it was, I’m sure they would have had to have been murdered in the end.

There are other foreign films from that time period that do deal more with the harsh realism. For example, many films in the Italian Neo-Realist genre - Rossellini films like Open City and Germany Year Zero and De Sica’s Umberto D and Two Women. Actually, “The Good German” reminded me a little of what I remember from seeing these films (which was years ago in college).

I loved the back and forth between new footage and actual archival footage – I found it seamless, sometimes you couldn’t tell the difference. The “wipe” transitions bothered me a bit at first (as someone in the film & video field, I hate wipes, much prefer dissolves) but it did fit the style and eventually I found them seamless too. Something else that worked really well – so well I didn’t even really notice it on my first viewing – was the change in narrative/point of view throughout the film. We started with Tully’s perspective, then switched to Jake’s right before Tully dies and at the end we switch to Lena’s before she reveals that Emil is alive. I think that was an extremely effective use of voice over.

The acting… Oh, Toby McGuire. I know a lot of people hate him in the role, and I’m not really the exception. He wasn’t completely altogether terrible – he did represent the All-American, apple-pie-eating kid turned Berlin-big-shot – but he stuck out like a sore thumb. Maybe it’s because he’s too familiar to us as an audience as Spiderman. I do think that his character has been misread by a lot of reviewers as someone who was supposed to be a tough guy. I think Tully was actually supposed to be a kid who wasn’t at all tough, but found he could play tough because of the way Berlin was and the circumstances of the war. He was a wannabe, and I thought Toby did okay with that. You could sense a little fear in his eyes when he was offering General Sikorsky the deal of Emil in exchange for 200,000 marks and the general came to the other side of the desk and pushed his feet down. Deep down he was a coward trying to play with the big boys. His treatment of Lena is one example. The way he talks about her to Jake and then casually offers, “Want an hour with her?” and the fact that he mispronounces her name goes with his disrespect for her. And then of course there’s the scene when he punches her. (His scenes with Cate are ones where Toby seems particularly out of place – probably because comparing Cate’s acting to his is like comparing apples to bicycles – not even close enough to say ‘bananas.’ This scene is a perfect example, Toby comes off as trying a bit too hard, whereas Cate – when she’s punched you can feel it in your own gut). I also didn’t find it egregious when Tully beat up Jake. Jake had been drinking, was thrown for a loop by seeing Lena – and Tully sucker punched him and then beat him up with a stick. That showed more of what a true coward Tully was – who beats up an unarmed person with a weapon like that? The amount of times Clooney got beat up as a whole didn’t bother me either. He was a journalist, not trained to fight. I actually found that more realistic than if he had won every fight. It also showed his perseverance to help Lena and solve what was happening, again all very journalistic. I really liked Clooney in this, I’ve liked him in every film I’ve seen him in that I can recall. He’s always seemed like sort of a throwback actor to me anyway. I think he’s the closest thing we have to a modern day Cary Grant – he has the charisma and the acting chops to back it up. And in this role as Jake he fit that character – an idealist who wants the good to win out, who wants to help Lena, save her from the horror she’s seen and whatever it is she’s done, solve the mystery and have all wrongs righted in the end. But despite that, he was still ‘George Clooney’ to me. Sometimes I talk to characters out loud if I’m watching a movie by myself at home… And I found myself saying “Watch out George!” not “Watch out Jake!”

But Cate WAS Lena. Unlike Clooney and especially McGuire, Cate just melted into the genre and the role. It was as if she was a contemporary of Marlene Dietrich and Ingrid Bergman – she was perfect. It’s that incredible innate talent she has to just become someone else so effortlessly. Watching her, she’s obviously Cate but you forget you’re watching Cate and instead you’re watching the character – she inhabits each role so completely. It’s not just the looks and the voice and the mannerisms – it’s the soul. Somehow she manages to make it so if you look in her eyes you believe you’re getting a glimpse at the character’s inner person, not her own. The first time we meet Lena (I don’t really consider that to be the sex scene – when I first watched it, I didn’t even think that was Cate, I had to rewind – and we don’t even see her face) that silhouette of her walking out of the darkness and into the pool of light – just gorgeous. I’ve read in a few places now people calling the photography of Cate to be unflattering in this film – I actually thought just the opposite. I thought she looked beautiful in the film, breathtakingly so at times. And that voice – like velvet over gravel.

The first time Lena and Jake see each other was another scene, similar to Lena’s introduction, that really stuck out in my mind. I thought there was a good chemistry between the two. It was very well conveyed that they had been involved in a passionate love affair once (in the silent looks and unspoken moments) but were now two different people (in the actual words they spoke). Jake hadn’t changed much, but unfortunately Lena had been forced to. After he finds her again in the place she’s living, she says to him something like, “I think if you'd stayed Jacob, nothing would be any different.” It’s a statement sort of like a double-edged sword. On one hand it’s almost an insult about the fact that he did leave – not just Berlin, but her. On the other hand, it’s almost like she’s trying to assuage any guilt he may have for leaving – that even if he had stayed he couldn’t have prevented what happened to her. He begs her to let him help her – he’s still such an idealist who wants to ‘fix’ everything – not just for Lena, he wants the mystery to be solved and for good to triumph evil. But as he’s learning, it’s not so black and white. As an audience member I must admit, I did want Lena to break down a little and let Jake in, let him try to take some of the burden of what she was trying to do with Emil – but that wouldn’t have been realistic and in line with her character.

There was one scene that confused me a bit though, even after two viewings – when Jake goes back to the apartment and demands Lena tell him the truth and mentions that Bernie is on his way. She does tell Jake the truth then – about Dora, not about Emil being alive. But I still don’t fully understand why she was so concerned about Bernie coming? Why didn’t she just tell them both everything right then and there? She was going to tell Bernie later anyway… The only thing I can think of is that she wanted to do it on her own terms – as she mentions later to Bernie, she wants to help her husband but she also wants to leave Berlin without him. Maybe she felt like if she revealed everything then, that she wouldn’t have been able to both help Emil and leave him.

Another shot that I found absolutely gorgeous was the one of the clouds in the sky through the roofless building after Jake confronts Lena and she pulls the gun on him. At this point it switches to her narrative and she asks, “Why didn't Jake follow me, why didn't he try” – that left me asking, did she want him to follow her? She then says, “I knew what I had become” and “The only way out of Berlin to me was to do one thing good, one thing noble - a wife should help her husband.” I thought this took a little bit of the enigma out of her character. Now we know why she’s gone to such lengths to protect and help a husband she doesn’t love. She thinks helping him at risk of sacrificing herself will be a bit towards her own redemption. One of my favorite shots of the whole film was the kiss between Jake and Lena. Their faces in silhouette, closing in and blocking out the light – it reminded me of one of my favorite on screen kisses – the one between Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman at the end of “Notorious.”

When Lena got shot, my hand covered my mouth and I sat on the edge of my seat after she tried to grab the soldier’s leg and he aimed again at her, right at her head. Lena is sort of supposed to be the “femme fatale” in this film noir – the woman who brings down the hero, Jake. However, a difference in this film to other film noirs – Lena doesn’t mislead Jake into helping her. In fact, she denies his help when he offers it. Instead it’s Jake who misleads himself about her and puts his own neck on the line to save hers. And Cate’s portrayal helps you understand why. Even though she’s such a hardened, icy character throughout the film, she gives you a glimpse of the woman she once was that Jake fell for in the first place. You can’t help but feel for her for all that she’s been through and want things to turn out alright for her.

I thought the chase scene through the crowd was very well done, and I really thought when Lena fell onto her dead husband that both had died and that was the end. I was glad it wasn’t.

When I finished watching the film the first time around I was left wondering – who was “The Good German?” The obvious answer would be Emil – Lena verbatim called him such. But I feel it’s more ambiguous than that. I think the whole film raised questions of morality and left many unanswered – just like in real life. Three times in the film, characters raise the question about the German people versus the Nazis. Tully asks Jake in the car about putting the whole country on trial and says, “Just because you’re a German doesn’t make you a Nazi.” A sentiment you get the feeling that Jake doesn’t necessarily believe at the time (he tells Tully that everyone knew what Hitler was doing but didn’t lift a finger), but he echoes it later to Bernie when he sees all the case files, asking if he’s putting the whole country on trial. And at another point, the congressman also says something about how if they prosecute a whole people because of a few bad apples, it becomes revenge. That’s, in effect, what happened after WWII though. Even if they weren’t put on trial and charged, every German citizen was punished for the actions of Hitler and the Nazis. Punished in terms of the fact that their country had been torn apart, literally and figuratively. And also, with stereotypes – if you were German, you must be a Nazi and Hitler supporter. Even Jake believes this to a degree at first – he also believes the Americans are the absolute “good guys.” But throughout the film, his whole idea of good and evil gets knocked on its side. In the beginning of the film he never would have helped Emil Brandt. He also never would have believed that Americans were hypocrites, protecting some Nazis and covering up their past so the United States could use their scientific knowledge to try to win the next big war.

And what about Lena? She tells Jake that the fact, “I survived,” is her criminal past. But we don’t understand what exactly that meant until the end, when she reveals that she turned twelve people over to the Gestapo to save herself. Is this horrifying? Yes, of course – but is it unforgivable? I’m not sure. Cate has mentioned on occasion that she doesn’t know how she herself would react if she was in a certain character’s shoes (I think she was talking about “Notes on a Scandal” perhaps?) and I feel this to be very true. We all like to think that we would never do something like that, that we would be more noble – but would we? And it isn’t revealed what kind of situation Lena was in when she turned the people over, was she in some sort of horrifying torturous scenario? She had obviously been made to witness some unimaginable things…Being raped, killing the rapist, watching her family be taken away to be murdered, knowing her husband was somehow involved in the murders of the slave laborers…and who knows what else. She tells Tully when talking about Emil in the beginning, “One more dead or undead.” And later, in her voiceover, she says that men always want you to cry in their arms, but she had no more tears – perhaps she had been so desensitized that it made it easier to turn the people over. I’m not saying any of that excuses the actions, but in my mind it makes it different than other crimes (I feel very similarly about Phillipa’s crime in “Heaven” which I’ve recently seen but want to watch again before I review!).

Lena also is obviously tortured by what she did. I got the feeling – after watching the whole film and going back over it in my mind – that she hated herself so much for what she had done that she couldn’t allow anyone else to love her either. That’s why she fights so hard at first to make Jake leave her alone. She tells him she’s a Nazi Jew and asks him what it feels like to know he’d made love to a Nazi. She describes her rape and the killing of the rapist with such a detached, cold way – even calling it a ‘joke’ of sorts. Even though she hasn’t been ‘in love’ with her husband for years, she has a love for him and truly believes that he is a “good German” who wants to try to somehow avenge the murder of thousands by telling the truth about their murderers. She has convinced herself that helping Emil with this endeavor is the only way she can get any kind of redemption and any sort of peace in her soul – the only way she can “leave Berlin” both literally and figuratively. It’s only towards the end, when she feels like this goal will be accomplished, that she finally lets herself feel a little bit of compassion from Jake. When she goes to his room thinking he’s just another “John” and it turns out to be him. At first, you get the feeling he almost did it to hurt her, because ever since they had found each other again all she had done was shut him out. But then he comes around and tells her she doesn’t have to go through with it – only she says she wants it. She allows Jake to kiss her and be with her again, if only for a moment rekindling a little of the lost past between them. She hopes again at the end, that maybe they can continue on like nothing ever happened, when they go to get on the plane. But then Jake confronts her and she finally reveals to him the terrible secret that she couldn’t say before. I felt bad at that moment that Jake just left her – was he supposed to go with her before she’d told him? However, I suppose realistically they couldn’t continue, they had changed too much. I sort of feel though that Lena finally admitting out loud to someone what she had done might be the first step in her coming to terms with it and working through her guilt. And she understood that Jake would leave her, she sort of gave him “permission” to with the kiss and taking the umbrella.

I know a lot of people have compared “The Good German” to “Casablanca” – I can definitely see moments where Soderbergh was paying tribute. The obvious final scene of course. But I also thought the scene with Jake at the bar, drinking and talking to Danny about Lena, remind me of the scene with Bogie and Sam – the “of all the gin joints in all the towns, in all the world, she walks in to mine” scene. But I think the world was much more black and white then. “Casablanca” and other films of the 40s were being made at just that moment when everything was turning so much more gray. “The Good German” really shows all those shades of gray and leaves so many open questions left unanswered.

"her name was lola..."

I enjoyed the film, although I wouldn't rank it as a favorite. Overall I liked the story and characters but I would have preferred a different way of telling it. The first 20 minutes or so of the film is "Susie" as a child. I understand the importance and significance of all of that to Susie's character as an adult, but I thought the time was wasted and could have been better spent fleshing out characters later in the film, namely Cate's Lola.

I think Lola was too one-dimensional with glimpses of depth that I so wish had been better developed and focused on. Obviously this was Susie's story and the focus was meant to be on her - but if the first 20 minutes had been cut down a bit like I said, more time could have been given to Lola. Here was my interpretation of her character... She was so concerned about beauty and relationships with men because she didn't know how else to protect herself. At one point I believe she mentioned "If it wasn't for looks I never would have gotten out of Russia" (actually, non-related, those lines right before made me laugh out loud - when she's telling Susie about the rules and she says the last one is beauty and then pauses, second guesses herself and says, "actually that's probably the first" ). She relied on men to take care of her and protect her because she didn't know any other way. That's why she went after Dante and later, the older man on the boat. She put up a false front about caring about the money and the superficial things, but in reality I think she was just scared of being alone and not being able to take care of herself. I think she realizes that Dante isn't a prince but he can provide for her - that's why she feels the need to justify him later when she's with Susie - I don't remember when exactly it is, but she says something like, "He's a kind man." I know it's at least after the scene where Dante humiliates Cesar on the stage. Lola knows he's not so kind but she doesn't have the strength to leave him. I would have liked to have known more about what happened to her in her past that made her feel that need to seduce wealthy men to provide for her.

Cate did a beautiful job portraying the hidden fragility of Lola in the scene when she's in the car and Dante tells the man that Susie is a Jew. The look of disguised horror on her face was perfect. Lola's previous actions that hurt Susie are redeemed when she warns Susie and tells her that she has to leave the country. I also like that Lola decides to leave and go to America with her. Of course part of it is self preservation but it was also her way of leaving Dante and rejecting him for what he did and his bigotry.

And then there are the two "flash" sort of scenes when Lola imagines the synchronized swimming. Obviously this was some part of her past that meant a lot to her. I would have liked to know more about it. I was shocked to the point of jumping in my seat when the boat was hit and Lola killed.

I loved hearing Cate put-on yet another accent and on a completely superficial level, she looked stunningly gorgeous in the film.

In terms of the other characters and portrayals...I though Depp's character was a bit too one dimensional and flat also. Susie was the only one really fleshed out at all. I think Christina Ricci is a decent actress and I thought she did a nice job. All in all, I thought all actors did a nice job with what they were given to work with.

I thought the ending was a bit too quick and contrived also. Susie so quickly and easily meeting her father, on his death bed, who had taken to directing Hollywood musicals after changing his name and never singing again when he thought his family and daughter had been killed. A little too tie-it-up-with-a-bow for me.

Despite it's flaws, I did enjoy it and will watch it again sometime in the future I'm sure. Even if just for Cate...

quest for all things cate

Ever since seeing "Streetcar" I've been ravenous for any and all things Cate. Especially her films. So, I purchased and watched the following:

"The Man Who Cried"

"Heaven"

"The Good German"

and

"Oscar & Lucinda"

I've written up my thoughts for "The Man Who Cried" and "The Good German" so those will be immediately posted. However, I want to watch "Heaven" and "Oscar & Lucinda" both again before I review them. So those reviews will be forthcoming.

a not-so-fantastic review

The first film I saw in the theatre this year was "Fantastic Mr. Fox." Unfortunately it was a few weeks ago and I don't feel I can adequately remember it in detail enough to describe my thoughts.

I will say that I really enjoyed it. I liked the old-school claymation/stop motion look and feel. But while that part of it was familiar, the rest of the film was so unlike almost any other animated films I've ever seen.

It had some very funny and hilariously random moments - my favorite was the scene with the wolf at the end.

Maybe someday I'll re-visit this movie and write a proper review.