Village Voice June 6, 2012 : Page 38
villagevoice.com Tracking Shots Dark Horse Written and directed by Todd Solondz Brainstorm Media and Double Hope Film Opens June 8 ‘ eople always end up the way they started out. No one ever changes,” one character says in Todd Solondz’s significantly titled 2004 film Palindromes —an observation put to the test in Dark Horse , Solondz’s latest tale of genetic-lotto losers in the New Jersey suburbs. Abe (an excellent Jordan Gelber) is a schlubby, Diet Coke–pound-ing, action-figure-collecting, tantrum-prone 35-year-old living at home with a mollycoddling mother (Mia Farrow) and a father (Christopher Walken) who unfavorably compares Abe to his physician brother (Justin Bartha, who, like all of Abe’s male nemeses, is curi-ously effeminate). Piloting his yellow SUV through a wasteland of Multiplex Cinemas and Toys ’R’ Us’s, spurred on by vapidly optimistic radio pop holding out the promise of reinvention (“Reach out for more/And make it better than it’s been before”), Abe attempts to defy a lonely fate by courting a woebegone, medicated-to-numbness woman, Mi-randa (Selma Blair), who passively allows herself to be swept along with Abe’s domestic fantasies while responding to him Comfortably with obliviously cruel numb: comments in a shudder-Selma Blair ing, hurts-to-breathe tone. Whether Abe’s eventual Pyrrhic victory is a joke or a tragedy is a moot point, like the argu-ment, dating from 1995’s Welcome to the Dollhouse , as to whether Solondz is a caricaturist or humanist. With Solondz’s old-hat funeral deadpan and his efforts to pass off Abe’s adolescent rage as el-evated insight, Dark Horse is neither incisively black-comic nor particularly attuned to human behavior—proof that some directors, at least, do end up the way they started out. NICK PINKERTON Bel Ami Directed by Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod Magnolia Pictures Opens June 8 P | Bars | Eats | Books | art | thEatEr | DancE | VoicE choicEs | is less about sex than class conquest, a truth that filmmakers Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod honor all too much, giving short shrift to the libidinous magnetism that makes Duroy’s ascent possible—carnivorous glances are appar-ently all it takes. Not helping matters is the vacant Pattinson, who seems hidden behind a mask of his own face, uncer-tain of what to do with the blessings of his hyperbolic brows and aqua eyes. There’s something off and inorganic about the Twilight star’s expressions, as if that pretty mug were programmati-cally hitting marks rather than moving, reacting, emoting. Still, the camera dotes his albums, and I discovered something amazing.” What he discovered was that the man he assumed must be the “late” Paul Williams was actually alive and well and 16 years sober. The older Williams gleefully messes with the film’s ending. By screening some humiliating, cocaine-fueled T.V. moments to his subject, Kes-sler seeks a moment of high emotion, a note of regret for kingdoms lost or what-ever. Instead, Williams just stands up and walks away from the table. This is where the arc of Still Alive becomes malformed. By refusing to give Kessler what he needs at that moment, Williams opens a door to something more satisfying. CHRIS PACKHAM Double Hope Films boyhood-village crucifix slides over a cliff en route to its new home), but her understated characterizations, cinematographer Hélène Louvart’s rap-turous range, and especially Vianello’s eerie grace combine to make Corpo Celeste the ideal cinematic antidote to the summer doldrums. MARK HOLCOMB Tahrir: Liberation Square Directed by Stefano Savona Picofilms Opens June 11 Maysles Institute A | Music | on him, but its the ladies who are worth tracking here, from Ricci’s understated sensuality to Thomas’s fragile angu-larity. They’ve supplemented beauty with good old-fashioned acting chops, something their cover-boy co-star would be wise to emulate. ERIC HYNES Paul Williams Still Alive Directed by Stephen Kessler 3W Films June 8, Angelika Film Center Corpo Celeste Directed by Alice Rohrwacher Film Movement Opens June 8 Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center F Village Voice P W 38 hat could be hotter than a bed-hopping bodice-ripper in which the movie hunk of the moment plows through three of the sexiest ac-tresses of the 1990s? Most everything, it turns out. This tepid adaptation of Guy de Maupassant’s novel tells the story of Georges Duroy (Robert Pattinson), an ex-military commoner who becomes a millionaire by bedding and manipulat-ing some of the most influential women of Paris. After making a mistress of Clotilde de Marelle (Christina Ricci), Duroy schemes his way into marry-ing power broker widower Madeleine Forestier (Uma Thurman) and turn-ing the churchgoing Virginie Walters (Kirstin Scott Thomas) into a writhe-on-the-floor love slave. But his drive aul Williams, the Still Alive sub-ject of director Stephen Kessler’s documentary, was a man of his leisure-besuited age: an extraordinary songwriter, a soulful—albeit modestly talented—singer, a gifted comic actor, and an epic raconteur. He is also, size-wise, a little man and an unlikely on-camera celebrity. But in the same way that self-deprecation is best worn by high-status, pretty people, grandiosity befits the small-statured, particularly if they’re funny. Johnny Carson loved him, and Williams had the credits to back himself up: As with Jimmy Webb, you could probably sing many of his songs without knowing that he’s the author. He wrote Three Dog Night’s “Old Fashioned Love Song,” the Carpenters’ “We’ve Only Just Begun,” and Kermit the Frog’s “Rainbow Connection.” Anne Murray, the Monkees, and even Daft Punk recorded Williams compositions. Over Williams’s “Rainy Days and Mondays,” Kessler admits, “One night, I went online to buy one of irst-time writer-director Alice Rohrwacher’s minutely observed, emotionally complex Corpo Ce-leste would be a treat in any season, but it’s particularly refreshing amid the summer-movie bombast. An anti-spectacle in every way, the film focuses on 13-year-old Marta (Yle Vianello, a nonpro), who, with her mother (Anita Caprioli) and sisters, has returned to Southern Italy after spending most of her life in Switzerland. Marta, a shy, dreamy, but fiercely observant inno-cent, is shuffled into Catholic confirma-tion class as a means of integrating into her new surroundings. The experience does little to cushion her social awaken-ing, let alone encourage a spiritual one: The local priest (Salvatore Cantalupo), a cynical careerist, pours all his effort into finagling a transfer, while the dry dogma of the church itself—no matter how popified for the kids—is cruelly oblivious to Marta’s inquisitiveness. As her uncle says and the adult parish-ioners’ rote faith attests, confirmation is “something you go through and forget.” The loss is theirs—by Corpo Celeste ’s ambiguous climax, it seems possible that Marta is bonafide saint material. Rohrwacher almost overplays her metaphors (as when the father’s s documented in Stefano Savona’s vital, chaotic Tahrir: Liberation Square , there’s no soundtrack to the Egyptian revolution, at least not one pro-vided by careworn ’60s anthems or rous-ing string arrangements. There is rhythm to the revolt, though, and it’s established early on, as even a young child chants the refrain emanating from Cairo’s Tahrir Square. The variations are many, but the theme is as consistent as the crowd that grows and strengthens throughout Sa-vona’s inside, traditional, vérité portrait of the uprising: Egypt wants democracy! We won’t go ’til he goes! Freedom! Most of us watched the occupation of Tah-rir Square from up high and far away; Tahrir loosely follows several dedicated protesters on the ground as they orga-nize, rally, and debate their cause. Like his subjects, Savona never leaves the square, so that indelible moments—like a stranger planting a kiss on a wounded protester as he passes—are stitched to long stretches of “Is it the revolution yet?” confusion, which flow to and from riveting personal testimonials always exchanged between Egyptians, never to camera. Days and nights pass, faces recur, and vows are renewed—never more vehemently than after it appears the people have “won,” and a new and uncertain fate awaits them. MICHELLE ORANGE Double Trouble Directed by Wen Jiang China Lion Opens June 8 AMC Empire 25 and AMC Loews 19th Street 6 Film J ackie Chan’s son Jaycee Chan co-stars in this madcap buddy comedy about two security guards—one from Bei-jing, one from Taipei—thrown together by fate to track down a priceless Chinese painting that has been stolen and then lost by art thieves. Honoring the high-octane vibe and employing something of the sleek (but now-dated, or would that be retro?) look of the elder Chan’s ’80s films, Double ’s two guards natu-rally have polar-opposite personalities and—naturally—clash at every turn. No brain cells need be expended to process anything that happens on-screen, but director Wen Jiang ( Let the Bullets Fly ) keeps the action moving at a hectic pace, and the fight sequences are tightly cho-reographed for maximum jaw-dropping effect. Young Chan does his father proud with his fighting prowess, but also on a much more superficial level, he fits right in with all the eye candy, male and female, that fills the screen. ERNEST HARDY J une 6–J une 12 , 2012
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