A Word To The Wise… The Jackanory

Anna Wintour has taken some heavy fire over the years, not least the scathing attack presented by her former assistant Lauren Weisberger in Devil Wears Prada but also from those who question her very relevance and that of the magazine she represents.

The September Issue, covering the lead up and behind the scenes production that goes into the same coveted volume and presented as fashion’s absolute guide for the coming year through the eyes of its senior most staff. Granted significant access, the director seeks to address the magazine’s place within the echelons of modern society, cataloguing the creating and passion that goes into such a momentous project.

With such an interesting premise, it’s nothing less than disappointing when the piece collapses in upon itself.

Spending a great deal of time establishing the respect and power that Wintour wields in her role, the director R.J Cutler does nothing to illustrate how it is that she came to acquire such standing, all that anyone can agree upon is that she spearheaded the inclusion of celebrities as models, preempting the market that scorned the move yet later becoming dependent on it for sales. Never answering if it was she herself who led to such a celebrity driven fashion industry or if it was a minor feat of clairvoyance, this is one of many diminishing images of the polarizing figure. We learn it was her father who drove her to want the position she now holds, a position her siblings view with a great deal of bafflement; even her own daughter refuses to ever view fashion as being a career, merely a diversion that could never fulfill.
Andre Leoni simply reinforces these stereotypes, wearing one comical outfit after another, never visibly carrying out any work other than maintaining a personal image that he spends some time describing as essential to him.

On the other side of the equation is Grace Coddington, a woman who by her own admission is extremely passionate about her work having started off as a model and later working her way up the ladder within the critical wing of the industry. We see her create fairy tales, three dimensional worlds that these designer outfits inhibit if only for a short time. Coddington states her begrudging respect for Anna and yet, spends most of the film describing how her images exclusion from the end product would be done so without any explanation and the cost of doing so would be equally as incredulous, something neither the editor in chief or the director seem willing to address. She is running blind, her creativity ignored and criticized on whims.

Cutler struggles throughout the entire 90 minute running time to pin anything down, Anna is both God and charlatan in this world, with little or no warmth or intelligence shown. We are told that she refuses to deal with anyone she finds unimportant to her business, a business we can’t even be sure she knows unless we are to believe that Wintour has a vision she is unwilling to share with anyone else. The written content is also, of little obvious value to her, never being addressed once throughout. Likewise, the crew cannot decide whether they are observers or active participants, the film swapping from documentary to set piece with every minute; a scene in which they are actively incorporated into the magazine serves to highlight how little respect they hold for mere observing.

It is an irony with extreme poignance that in the end, that same book (and subsequent film) based on her less savoury aspects seem to show more depth and insight into Anna Wintour, than the documentary tailor made to inject some humanity into this iconic figure.

Sex sells. We all know it and have become so extremely desensitized to the entire exercise, that directors must go farther and farther afield to find the current taboo. So when you’re talking about a film with an overt theme like fetishism, it would be safe to assume, the writer and director of Secretary (Erin Cressida Wilson and Steven Shainberg respectively), would be more likely to repeat the theme of this successful first film into another.

Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Dealing with Diane Arbus (played by Nicole Kidman), the movie seeks to reinterpret how the famous photographer went from being a young housewife to the friend of all things “other”, cataloguing twins, dwarfs, nudists and everything in between. Born into a wealthy family, she met Alan Arbus (Ty Burrell) and they were married shortly after she became legal. Alan carved out a niche for himself in fashion photography and later for his father-in-law’s department store, Russeks, with Diane as his assistant.
Sadly, from this point on, namely more than five minutes into the movie, Diane reveals her central conceit – she is a fetishist, beginning with fur and ending with anything that a child of wealthy parents would logically consider untenable. This repressed sexuality becomes inextricably linked with Lionel (Robert Downey Jr, who looks like he stepped out of The Wiz), the Arbus’ newest neighbour who becomes for all intensive purposes, the walking, talking embodiment of them.

Both Kidman and Downey Jr are extremely miscast, Kidman more so, her ethereal beauty being too incorporeal, when she opens her dress on the balcony of the family apartment, it seems more like she herself is trying to release some of the kinetic ability we know she has. She stares wide eyed at every new human discovery so intently that it’s impossible to believe Diane could ever gain their trust in order to photograph them. Downey Jr is incapable of illustrating the nuance between sexuality and love, it appears to be Stockholm Syndrome more than actual love that Diane has for Lionel.

The theme is such a bad fit, that we learn nothing about Diane as a person, at both the beginning and end she doesn’t seem to have developed, merely moved from one masculine infatuation to another, without any strength of character. She is singular in both perspective and drive.

For a woman so tied to the earth that she felt the need to show us humanity in all its forms, this film keeps the titular character’s head so far in the clouds that in the end, nothing was gained from this neurotic Alice’s journey down the rabbit hole.

There has been a large proliferation of films recently that have dealt with the loss and subject trauma resulting in a lost child, a subject both rife with potential but executed to varying and rather extreme degrees; in Rachel Getting Married, the death of a brother haunts all involved and overshadows the characters but never detracts from the overall pathos of the film, whereas The Changeling, despite it’s promising nature (Clint Eastwood as director and Angelina Jolie starring) degenerates quickly into the farcical, abandoning any pretense of subtlety.
I’ve Loved You So Long, the first directorial and written outing of Frenchman Phillipe Claudel, deals with the murder of a six year old boy roughly 15 years before the beginning of the film.

The interesting part about this however, is that the murderer in question is Juliette (Kristin Scott Thomas), his mother and central protagonist of the piece. After serving her sentence, she returns to stay with her younger sister Lea (Elsa Zylberstein), her doting husband Luc (Serge Hazanavicius) and their two adoptive daughters.
Juliette floats through their house and circle of friends in a semi-catatonic state, rarely speaking and unnerving all around her. Just like the audience, all in her wake find themselves asking how has it affected her, is she a loving mother, a madwoman or worse completely separate from reality?

The tone of the film, supported by the music would suggest something rather misleading, creating an atmosphere of extremely foreboding that never seems truly warranted. What serves to only complicate matters further, is the large degree of sentimentality injected into the film, something that could easily lead to needless melodrama but Claudel juggles both moments of sheer sincerity and ominous fadings to black screens between a vigour rarely seen.

Acting is perhaps the main source of balance here, with Scott Thomas’ Juliette maintaining a poise that is equal parts terrifying and heartfelt. Throughout we sympathize with her sister’s worry for bringing her into her home and children’s lives but also maintain an interest in Juliette that would otherwise be lost as she has an elicit encounter with a bar patron and yet recoil from the most well meaning of gestures from those close to her. This is a story of redemption but for whatever reason, neither the cast or director want it to be easy, again avoiding unnecessary impiety and melodrama.
Juliette is alive, she is here but it is only through each conversation and each day that she can come to terms with her actions, never visibly forgiving herself but learning that things must progress. Such subtlety could prove to be its own downfall in so far as it could prove alienating to an audience often kept at arms length from the truth but in moments like where Lea releases her anger upon a class of students who she believes to be taking books far too literally, we are able to vent any frustrations we ourselves have at the methodical progress of the action.
Sadly however, this is also a disappointment, as Claudel goes to great lengths to show that it was literature that kept Juliette at some degree of peace in prison and the arts play a part in her subsequent recovery, it damages any substantive argument for its transformative power. Perhaps he meant it in such a way, but to me it seemed only to serve as a contradiction.

Unfortunately, the ending of the piece is one of its weakest points, after waiting and building up to a revelation thematically for so long, the actual facts seem nothing if not lost, but Scott Thomas regains control somewhat, delivering an emotional conclusion stronger than the facts gleamed. Inevitably, the most important message in all of this is that the subjective human experience is often greater in significance than the details.

In recent years it has become more and more prevalent for studios to produce ensemble movies, focusing on microcosms of some alternative reality where vast swathes of celebrities are subjected to the same romantic trials as the rest of us and yet always seem to end up with the right person when their vignette is done with less explanation than their ordinary ninety minute romantic comedies. Some work well, using their own absurdity, general lack of any real conclusion and palpable chemistry to their full advantage but others, especially those that give the art set another excuse to try and one up themselves against the surrounding pieces (I’m talking to you, New York I Love You) crash and burn like a direct to DVD sequel to Weekend at Bernies.

Paris, an endeavour by director Cedric Klapsich (perhaps better known for the overlooked The Russian Dolls) resides in the no mans land somewhere in between.

Pierre (Romain Duris) has discovered that he is facing a heart transplant due to a recently discovered heart defect that has left him somewhat isolated in his Parisian apartment, watching the lives of others pass him by. His sister Elise (Juliette Binoche) upon discovering his illness puts his life or lack thereof on hold and moves in with her three children, forcing Pierre to reevaluate his outlook on life and morality.
Several other subplots including an awkward professor (Farbice Luchini) hoping for one significant romance that might bring him out of his academic shell, pass through on a transitory basis, always orbiting the central idea whilst trying not to hamper its development.

Perhaps the largest issue with the film as a whole are the divides between the actors and director and between the director and himself; the cast fights against an otherwise cold portrayal of the city itself, caused by the director trying to reconcile the relationship between the supposed old and new Paris as described by the professor during one of his lectures, never trying to significantly build upon the foundations he gives the argument. The acting is subtle but aloof, perhaps created by the sometimes awkward writing that can feel too poetic for its own good, making it hard to connect and sympathize fully with the cast in certain instances. Thankfully, overall the cast manage for the most part to inject a likability and tenderness where the script itself seems to force it and fall flat on dialogue alone. The lack of cohesion between threads invariably work to the film’s advantage as their relationships to one another feel laboured, enhancing the emotion of each without the need for absolute conclusions.
It falls somewhat flat again however, when the director tries to regain some control, managing only to confuse the premise further. Having abandoned his earlier lofty assertion (or trying to reconcile it to the specific incidents presented), Pierre asserts that “we are never happy” but “that is Paris”, a brittle and awkward argument to make so late in the game.

But despite the uneven portrayal of the city and often characters, there is a warmth and tenderness in everything they do, an unexpected perfection told through imperfections where Paris is what they make of it. As a result, the piece has a poigniancy in spite of it’s flaws.

Vampires and the undead are increasingly taking over most forms of creative media and with farces in style since Spinal Tap, it would make perfect sense to combine them into a beautiful blend of comedy and horror wouldn’t it? That would be true if you were discussing Shaun of the Dead but sadly Zombieland never fully succeeds on either account.

Set in a post apocalyptic America, the writers are never able to fully commit to whether it is simple a national or global crisis when a new virus has begun to transform everyone into the shambling undead with a craving for live flesh. Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg), the pseudo-narrator is heading from his college dorm in Austin, Texas to Columbus, Ohio to see if his parents (of whom he goes to great pains to point out he has no relationship with) have survived. His shut-in tendencies and big bag of neurosis allow for a set of rules including limber up and never be a hero, are credited with keeping him alive thus far but that’s not saying much considering the small distance he has actually travelled. After losing his car, he joins forces with Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), a man running from a convenient familial loss but needs only a baked good to recover and later the emotionally-indifferent Little Rock (Abigail Breslin) and Wichita (Emma Stone) who are on their way to an amusement park outside Hollywood to relive their childhood momentarily.

Despite every effort to make the film into something with any degree of nuance, the piece essentially boils down to a shoot ‘em up with characters who don’t look like they should be in such a role (other than Harrelson who perhaps seems too comfortable with the violence required of him). It aims to be unadulterated violence at its best but just like the comedic element which never gains significant momentum (despite a guest appearance by Bill Murray), it never gets entirely off the ground. Both are only further hindered by romantic and sentimental subplots that feel so rushed at times that saccharin is how best to describe their delivery.

Overall, the movie is enjoyable if nothing much is expected of it, but because of the remit it tries to cover, it inevitably ends up doing itself a disservice.

Starbucks over the years have diversified from just coffee into the relaxed, non-committal hipster music they play in all their coffee shops; and if they wanted to move into movie production, My Blueberry Nights would have been the ideal first candidate.

Hell, it even has Norah Jones in it.

But, I get ahead of myself. The piece is the first english language film by Wong Kar-wai, a man well known in his native China and seems to specialize in highly stylized productions, so much that despite each scene being filmed on location, everything looks far too pretty for the dose of Americana it hopes to portray. In furtherance, Kar-wai populates the world with beauties such as Norah Jones, Natalie Portman, Rachel Weisz and Jude Law.
Law is David, who runs and operates a small cafe in New York where Jones’ Elizabeth happens to walk into looking for her never-seen boyfriend who seems to have left her for another woman; considering how highly-strung she is, it’s more than understandable. She returns on a nightly basis in the hopes of her now ex picking up his keys and so that she may confront him as he seems content to ignore her very existence otherwise and just as it seems they are about to strike up a tentative relationship, she ups and leaves on a road-trip of self discovery. Sadly, the trip seems preempted more by the director’s need to film new locations and characters in a less than organic manner.
Along the way, Elizabeth meets a lush of a Southern Belle (Weisz) and a habitual liar and gambler (Portman), who act with the same grit and determination as if this were a viable project.

Ideas and questions are posed constantly but the awkwardness of the dialogue and lack of any overall vision, blunt them so severely that the best analogy for the whole experience would be trying to open a door with a fish. Nothing is concrete, whenever the action seems to develop, what it tends to lead to is a lot of people staring uncomfortably at each other, everyone waiting for someone else to do something, anything to move the piece along. Jones and Law do their best to be charming but Jones seems to so strongly refute the need for any actual acting, Law comes off as a man hitting on a pleasant corpse.

The music, in part provided by Jones herself, is so leaden and repetitive that Kar-wai betrays the little bit of story that’s about to happen and illustrates how little he connected with the same material that a handful of songs can cover the myriad of emotions he tries to inject into the proceedings.

What’s the point of this exercise? from three repeat watchings, it would appear more similar to the shallow idea that by bringing a less attractive friend to an event, that you yourself will look better by comparison, because for everything Elizabeth seemed to learn, she came back with the idea that there was nothing wrong with her. In fact, it seems she is simply content in the knowledge that the women she meets are less stable and less superior to her, something encouraged by the director and cinematographer’s collusion to make it nothing more than that.

In the interest of full disclosure, I’ve never seen Footloose. I got half way through Dirty Dancing before I wanted to trap Baby under something heavy. I don’t watch reality TV shows involving singing or dancing because despite it being their dream, I think they’re muppets for crying.

Because of my colourful relationship with people “dreaming to be the next big star”, it was with some trepidation that I went to see the new remake of Fame, the 80s classic so camp and self-conceited, it’s on a scale of awfulness akin to Elizabeth Berkley in Showgirls.

In an era that continues to produce movies such as Step It Up, Make it Happen and worse, three separate Highschool Musicals, it was inevitable that Fame would get a facelift of sorts, considering in its day it spawned a tour and TV series of its own.
Little has changed in the original formula, again centering itself on a young class of dexterous and hopeful students in a New York school for the performing arts; Marco (Asher Brook) does his best singer-songwriter, John Mayer impression whilst his girlfriend Jenny (Kay Panabaker), an aspiring actress who’s so tightly wound that she could turn coal into diamonds, are joined by Neil (Paul Iacono), a director of no measurable talent other than a delusional sense of self-belief, and Alice (Kherington Payne), a toff with no acting ability but will probably be a girl in a music video someday. The faculty made up of generally well respected members of their craft (and Debbie Allen returns as the principal) includes Bebe Neuwirth, Megan Mullally and Kelsey Grammar proving that everyone’s hayday is fleeting and bills have to be paid.

Whereas the original tried to add grit and clever editing together with important social themes not dealt with elsewhere at the time such as coming out, stage mothers and the murkier side of the industry, this new interpretation desexualizes and sacrifices realism and character development for style. Everything is one dimensional and thought through badly, such as the stereotypical angry black man whose mother works three jobs to keep a roof over their head yet never wears anything less than Lacoste to school.

Perhaps the most important thing to remember in this desaturated palette is that no matter how much you can attempt to dress it up, fame is exploitative, something evident when Mullally explains to her class why she left the business they call show; just ask the original cast about their successes.

Oh and if you can’t do, teach.