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Reviews
Austenland (2013)
Just Plain Awful
I saw this film this afternoon, prepared to be delighted by the concept of a young woman spending her life savings to immerse herself in an Austen experience, and found it to be so trite, stupid, and otherwise dreadful I would not have stayed to the end if I had been alone. The inconsistencies of the characterizations (except for Jane Seymour, who was exactly the same in every scene), the dopiness of the concept (the use of a huge, elegant manor is supposed to be supported by exactly three guests), the tiresomeness of the set pieces, and the utterly vulgar, dismal script left wide open an opportunity for someone else to actually do it again, only next time making it worth watching. I agree with an earlier reviewer who contrasted it to "Lost in Austen," a clever, funny, well-plotted production, and found "Austenland" to have none of those qualities.
Midnight in Paris (2011)
Not an "Annie Hall," but very much worth seeing.
I stopped going to Woody Allen movies several years ago, when they had started to become pedantic (and let's be honest here) pretentious and self-importantly "deep." Woody Allen is still a very funny man, and I especially like his humor pieces in "The New Yorker." A couple of months ago, for old time's sake, I watched "Sleeper," and found it still funny.
The reviews of "Midnight in Paris," both from the media and personal friends, made me hope that it was as good as his early stuff. Maybe the years have colored my delightful memories of gasping for air as I watched those hilarious situations and dialog, but M.in P. isn't at the level of an "Annie Hall." Allen's early movies were daring and sometimes outrageous in a way that this one isn't.
Nevertheless, "Midnight in Paris" is a charming movie, full of clever dialog and witty inside jokes — Gil's suggestion to Luis Bunuel for a movie plot, and "recognizing" Hemingway's portentous dialog (it was spot-on Papa). Allen makes only a passing effort to cast actors who look like historical figures, which is fine, but Adrien Brody's riff on Salvador Dali, both the way he talks and the way he looks, is brilliant (I'm grinning as I write this).
A quibble, both about Gil's reference to people seeing Paris from outer space, and also from the perception of other reviewers: Historically, Paris is not "The City of Lights," it is "The City of Light." The original reference was by painters, who were drawn to the beautiful changes of natural light in the city. Anyone who has visited Paris knows exactly what they meant, and to assume that the reference is to a man-made phenomenon misses one of the loveliest aspects of Paris.
The Return of the Native (1994)
Groan! What a waste of a brilliant cast!
Thomas Hardy is one of my favorite authors. Some truly wonderful movies have been made from his novels ("Far From the Madding Crowd," "Tess of the D'Urbervilles," "The Mayor of Casterbridge"), and I had high hopes for this one. The Hallmark-Hall-of-Fame-ification of "Return of the Native" totally wrecked it. The cast was terrific, the photography excellent, but the script was dismal and the direction positively ruinous. People walked up to people, said lines, walked away. A meager excitement developed when Clive Owen and Catherine Zeta Jones (very young, very beautiful) exchanged a bit of flesh-pressing, but even Clive, who is a superb actor, couldn't save it. It was awash with the usual Hallmark "romantic" strings background music and pretend bumpkins offering plot exposition, and what could have been dynamite turned out to be awful. The richness of the above three movies was commpletely absent.
The Interpreter (2005)
Great cast, dismal plot
With a terrific cast and an important subject, Pollack has made a message movie so full of unbelievable situations as to reduce it to silliness; e.g., the continuing stupidity of the Secret Service ops' efforts to protect Broome -- would they really have let her stay in her apartment by herself (with the lights on and the curtains open, while they played chess and chatted in an apartment across the street, occasionally glancing out the window) if they believed she was a possible perp or likely victim? -- and the muddled, badly focused, PLODDING plot set one's teeth on edge. How come Pollack didn't call in a script doctor who would have told him that the scenes were presented like raisins in a cake instead of as necessary, evolving elements in telling the story? Kidman and Penn, and almost everyone else in the movie, turned in amazing performances, especially considering what they had to work with, but they were wasted on a badly formed plot that seemed to be made up of scenes copied from a dozen different movies (alas, the definition of a potboiler). The subject matter was far too important to have been reduced to this frustrating effort.