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dplante2002
Reviews
The Mentalist: Ruby Slippers (2012)
Beyond a doubt - the best episode of the series
The standard for The Mentalist is always high in every season - well-written story and characters, clever, surprising, and consistently so. This episode had heart in a way that police procedurals don't typically have. The crime story is excellent, but that's not the entire story. It brings you into the lives of people - and people not everyone might know or take entirely seriously and provokes emotions one doesn't expect to have in the police genre. This one was truly exceptional.
Empire Falls (2005)
Deft translation to the screen - beautifully done
Although everyone should read the book - it will pull you in and you'll know the real Maine and the people who live there - this film is the next best thing. The script is amazingly deft, the acting is brilliant, and the production design and values are beautiful and true to the source. Paul Newman completely embodies Miles'incorrigible father and never fails to light up the screen while completely exasperating you - like he must do to everyone who comes in contact with him. Ed Harris portrays Miles as the complex and very subtle person with a thoughtful quietness that lets you know both why people are drawn to him as well as gives you clues why he keeps these same people at a perceptible distance. The rest of the cast members are just as distinguished in their roles. (The talent quotient is unbelievably high!) As amazing as this production is on just about every level (except for the music, which is irredeemably cheesy but fortunately mostly unobtrusive) credit must be given first and foremost to Richard Russo for writing characters so real and so complex and nuanced, and dialogue that is realistically elliptical that the real pull of the movie is not waiting to see what happens, but in getting to know the characters better. These are all ordinary people and what makes them interesting is not what they do, but those subtle things that make them who they are. This is why the mini-series format was perfect. It gives the viewer the opportunity to get to know Empire Falls. My only wish is that at some point one could see this on the big screen. Certainly the mythical town of Empire Falls (and the real town that it represents) is an important character and IT'S crowded on the small screen.
Dan Plante
Boys Briefs 2 (2002)
Serious Work
Not all of the films on this disc may be for everyone but each has something to say and says it well. The most disturbing and difficult film is Touch, which is about a boy, abducted and abused for eight years who returns home to find that the experience remains an indelible part of him. The brilliant Jeremy Podeswa, making no compromises, puts you into the situation and Brendan Fletcher gives 100% to the role. It's a gruesome but unforgettable experience. By comparison, Take-Out is a light and more conventional tale about two people in transition in their lives. The acting is just right in catching two people in different places in their lives tentatively crossing paths leaving important things unspoken. Chicken, though very short, is another exercise in the unsaid, although too, we know the script. Doors cut down is a short and humorous tribute to the indomitable spirit of adolescent sexual adventure.
Blue Citrus Hearts (2003)
A familiar story but told with honesty
One can't watch this film without the gut feeling that it's a story the writer had to tell. Absent any melodramatic flourishes and self-consciously arty touches or sub-plots, it tells a familiar story with such honesty and immediacy that it's as if you are living among Sam, Julien, their families, and friends. Through the poetry of their inarticulateness and the lack of any artifice both Sam and Julian are iconic: Sam, the popular high school kid who only appears to fit in with his crowd and Julian, the outsider who comes along to light up his life. The beauty of this film is its artistic economy. Unlike the long and embellished Hollywood novel, this is a poem in which every spare word and action communicates much more than pages of explanatory chat.
The Buried Secret of M. Night Shyamalan (2004)
Great Fun!
It is beyond me that anyone would have been taken in by it who didn't want to be taken in. Or, that people could be upset that it wasn't what it purported to be. For me, it simply was a very good spoof for anyone prepared merely to have a good time. One can argue forever about the "sloppy" editing, the "acting," or the endlessly annoying PR lady, but it seems that is to spend too much energy finding fault with what was, after all, just a bit of adolescent fun. No more, no less.
If it DID seem a tad long, perhaps the hour of commercials played a part. In any case, it's nice to see directors not taking themselves too seriously, even if to do so, they have to put themselves in a not very attractive light until you get the joke.
Food of Love (2002)
Better the Second Time Around
While "Food of Love" may not become the classic gay coming-of-age movie that many have felt about "Beautiful Thing," the interest in Pon's adaptation of Leavitt's novel "The Page Turner" is its complex and ambivilant main character, an altogether different sort of person than one will find in similar films.
While some have criticized Bishop's approach to the role, I think he gets Paul's character just right, expressing a kid who has grown up almost entirely within himself. Bishop refuses to give a false surface to a character who has no idea how to fit in. You really have the sense of watching a real person in discomfort and indecision, only vaguely understanding his own motivations.
As for Stevenson, anyone who thinks she's over the top has obviously never met a mother like that. They exist, and not only do they not know when they are crossing the line, they have no conception that such a line exists. Paul's periodic explosions imply a lifetime of having to push mom back, but probably with little luck.
The major criticism is that it seems that the writers' notions about classical musicians and their world seems to come from old movies and TV shows rather than reality. (SPOILER AHEAD) Mme. Novotna, for example, becomes a charicature when she utters her hilariously incomprehensible pronouncement to Paul that he will never have a career after he has played, what is, in effect, a young children's piece. (Two months before he was her star virtuoso.) At another moment, Paul is seen flapping his arms helplessly as he "plays" Beethoven. And then, all of the music folks are portrayed as being impossibly snobbish and pretentious with affected accents. This telegraphs to the audience that they are "artistic-types," I suppose.
Disregarding that, it's still a good story well told and beautifully photographed.