favorite movie #91 - halloween edition: only lovers left alive

Favorite movies that have had an impact on me - #91 - Only Lovers Left Alive (2013) - I love this beautiful movie. I have written about it at length before. Here is a snippet from that earlier article:

Jim Jarmusch's Only Lovers Left Alive is an extremely romantic film. It has been dubbed his "vampire movie." but it is less a horror film and more a romance that concerns two vampires. Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton are Adam and Eve, a (really) old married couple. They live a world away from each other, he in Detroit, and she in Tangier, Morocco, but are inextricably linked. ...

The film is gorgeous to look at, with cinematography by Yorick Le Saux. The world of the film only exists as night, naturally, and Jarmusch (Night on Earth) is an excellent director to highlight the shadows and mysteries of sunless streets, cities at night. Vampires don't need to do housekeeping or even comb their hair, and the set and costume design renders their dusty and cluttered surfaces and persons in loving detail. The film moves slowly and elegantly, much like its protagonists — that is, until chaos, in the form of Eve's younger "sister" Ava (Mia Wasikowska) turns up. ...

You can read the whole review here.

Happy Halloween!

tilda swinton and we need to talk about kevin

Tilda Swinton is a wonderful actress. In We Need to Talk About Kevin she is amazing. A harrowing film, as much a horror movie as an emotional study, it follows Swinton as Eva, as she tries to rebuild her life after a tragedy. Director Lynne Ramsay (Ratcatcher, Morvern Callar) uses flashbacks and tells the story out of order to increase the level of dread and anxiety as the audience gets closer to the truth of what happened.

Eva meets Franklin (John C. Reilly) and they seem to have a free-wheeling adventurous romance until the birth of their child, Kevin. Difficult from birth, Kevin behaves differently with each parent and Eva has trouble bonding with him. Is she a bad mother? Is there something wrong with him?

We see Eva in a luxurious but sterile home that she shares with Franklin and Kevin. Who are these people? The walls are practically blank and devoid of personality. What do they do all day? We also see her in a broken-down house and neighborhood, desperate to get a crummy job, but we are unclear of the timeframe.

Kevin is played by three wonderful actors: Rocky Duer as a toddler, Jasper Newell as a young boy, and Ezra Miller as a teenager. Who Kevin is and why he does the things he does is never clear, which may be the most terrifying aspect of the film. Especially as children like Kevin keep showing up on the local news stations every day.

favorite films this year

It's December, so it's a good time for some summing up and list-making, right? I watch a fair share of movies, but the very best that I've seen this year were not necessarily first-run in theaters. I also caught up with some titles on cable, streaming, or Blu-rays from the library.

Here is my list of the movies I liked the best, would love to see again (and again). There are links to longer reviews. The list is in the order that I saw them. Looking at it I see that there are a few trends. There are quite a few two-person movies. The fantasy films all feature a central, larger-than-life character, with a sense of humor. The comedies are all pretty quirky, and on the quiet side, as opposed to the current gross-out trend. Three of my favorite actors, who are no longer with us, all turn up on the list - Robin Williams, James Gandolfini, Philip Seymour Hoffman. They will be missed.


The Secret Life of Walter Mitty - Ben Stiller takes a thoughtful, beautifully filmed journey to find himself.

Pirate Radio - Philip Seymour Hoffman is wonderful as a renegade DJ on a floating radio station in the '60s.

Philip Seymour Hoffman in Pirate Radio

James Gandolfini and Julia Louis-Dreyfuss in Enough Said

Enough Said - James Gandolfini and Julia-Louis Dreyfuss are a wonderful pair of would-be lovers in this clever, quiet film about second chances.

The Way Way Back - Sam Rockwell is an irreverent but kind boss and quasi spirit guide to young Duncan (Liam James) during a summer on the Cape.

The Lego Movie - Everything is awesome, really, in this wonderfully clever animated adventure.

Rear Window - Hitchcock's classic about love and what really happens behind our neighbors drawn curtains.

Annie Hall - Diane Keaton is the subject of this comic love story, both a tribute and a spoof, from Woody Allen.

Lovers Madame D. (Tilda Swinton) and Monsieur Gustave H. (Ralph Fiennes) in The Grand Budapest Hotel

The Grand Budapest Hotel - Another stylish (and hilarious) film from Wes Anderson, starring Ralph Fiennes and Tilda Swinton.

The Humphrey Bogart Film Festival - I was lucky enough to attend this annual festival, where I was treated to screenings of Bogie classics like Casablanca, To Have and Have Not, The Big Sleep and Key Largo.

Maleficent - Angelina Jolie, her beauty chiseled and CGI-ed to perfection, has a blast with her role as Sleeping Beauty's nemesis.

The Birdcage - One of my all-time favorite films. Robin Williams and Nathan Lane are adorable and funny as hell, and just manage to stop Hank Azaria from stealing the picture from them.

Hercules - Dwayne Johnson leads a merry crew in this fun, raucous take on the Hercules legend. Ian McShane steals every scene he's in and then some.

Guardians of the Galaxy - I am Groot. We all are Groot. And Guardians of the Galaxy is the best comic book movie of them all.

Our Idiot Brother - The movie is as laid back as its main character, played by Paul Rudd, and that is a good, and very funny, thing.

Gone Girl - Rosamund Pike is picture-perfect as Amy, in this cold-as-ice chiller-thriller.

Big Hero 6 - A very sweet animated film, with a layer of sadness that never quite goes away. Beautifully animated, too.

Philippe (François Cluzet) and Driss (Omar Sy) go to the opera

The Intouchables - A twist on the buddy picture, this French hit features the beautiful friendship of odd couple Philippe (François Cluzet) and Driss (Omar Sy).

Only Lovers Left Alive - A mesmerizing, beautiful love story from director Jim Jarmusch. About vampires. With Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston. And John Hurt. I could just watch this over and over and over ...

only lovers left alive

Jim Jarmusch's Only Lovers Left Alive is an extremely romantic film. It has been dubbed his "vampire movie." but it is less a horror film and more a romance that concerns two vampires. Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton are Adam and Eve, a (really) old married couple. They live a world away from each other, he in Detroit, and she in Tangier, Morocco, but are inextricably linked.

Hungry, in Tangier

Eve, "Tell me now about entanglement. Einstein's spooky action at a distance. Is it related to quantum theory?" 

Adam, "No. I mean, it's not a theory, it's proven." 

Eve, "How's it go again?" 

Adam, "When you separate an entwined particle and you move both parts away from the other, even at opposite ends of the universe, if you alter or affect one, the other will be identically altered or affected." 

Eve, "Spooky. Even at opposite ends of the universe?" 

Adam, "Yeah."

Neither has preyed directly on humans for ages — they explain that most of the human blood supply is tainted, diseased; but one gets the idea that they have removed themselves from such direct contact, preferring to indulge instead in their favorite pastimes — for Adam music, for Eve, literature. Eve gets her pure supply of blood from another vampire, her old friend Christopher Marlowe (John Hurt). And he is that Marlowe, for fans of Elizabethan drama. Adam has an arrangement with a local doctor (Jeffrey Wright) to keep his pantry stocked. When these vampires do take a sip, it is in gorgeous stemware, and the results are blissful, heady, akin to a drug high.

A photo from the couple's third wedding

The film is gorgeous to look at, with cinematography by Yorick Le Saux. The world of the film only exists as night, naturally, and Jarmusch (Night on Earth) is an excellent director to highlight the shadows and mysteries of sunless streets, cities at night. Vampires don't need to do housekeeping or even comb their hair, and the set and costume design renders their dusty and cluttered surfaces and persons in loving detail. The film moves slowly and elegantly, much like its protagonists — that is, until chaos, in the form of Eve's younger "sister" Ava (Mia Wasikowska) turns up. Ava doesn't exactly subscribe to her older sibling's ideas of the proper way to acquire their sustenance, and she also takes a liking to Adam's quasi- yet unsuspecting Renfield, the dim but likable Ian (Anton Yelchin).

There are so many great details in Only Lovers Left Alive. Adam's love of classic guitars and other instruments, and an ability to construct retro-inspired gadgets, like a view-phone to see Eve when she calls him. The more practical Eve has mastered the iPhone and night flights, in order to get to Detroit and buoy up her lover, who is flirting with ending it all with a wooden-tipped bullet. Jarmusch, with his band Sqürl teaming with Jozef Van Wissem, constructs a moody soundtrack which perfectly captures the essence of Adam and Eve's existence. Also appearing near the end of the film is Lebanese singer Yasmine Hamdan, who enchants the lovers with her song "Hal."

The ever-practical Eve introduces Adam to the blood popsicle

Jarmusch films Adam and Eve like beautiful sculptures. His artistic sensibility carries through the film. Viewers get a glimpse of just how his eye works and his crew and actors help realize his vision in a nice short included on the Blu-ray, "Traveling at Night with Jim Jarmusch," a documentary by Lea Rinaldi, where the director compares the set-up of one actor in a scene to a painting by Mantegna. Besides the beauty, and the at-times unsuspected humor, what really enchants in Only Lovers Left Alive are Swinton and Hiddleston. Their chemistry is palpable and believable, and they manage to invest us in their world and their quest for survival. While everyone else is signing up for a zombie apocalypse, I would be hoping more for Adam and Eve's way, a most stylish and arty way to enjoy eternity.

just when you thought this obsession with vampires was completely played out ...

You had me at Hiddleston. And Swinton. And Jarmusch. And then you threw in the big gun. John Hurt. Only Lovers Left Alive. Let's get a U.S. release date already.

i don't know what to think about this

The Gothamist recently reported about a new performance piece at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), "The Maybe," featuring actress Tilda Swinton sleeping in a glass box. Not so much a glass coffin a la Snow White (although the comparisons are inevitable), than a glass vitrine or display case.

From The Gothamist

I'm not sure what to think about this. I am no stranger to performance art. Or putting a live person on display as art. I dabbled in performance while a student at Parsons School of Design in the eighties. I was a Fine Arts panting major, and the dean told me that he wouldn't "grade" performance (he didn't know how), so my portfolio senior year consisted mainly of performance-related drawings. It's many years later and people still don't know how to react to performance art. I have to admit that I even have some hesitations about this piece, because:

• Tilda Swinton is a celebrity. It is undeniable that there is a gawk factor — the opportunity to see a famous person doing something in public — that is a huge component of this piece. But does that make it theater or art? 
• Sleeping in a box presents Swinton more as object than person. So is it performance, which might engage the audience, or is it a more passive object-related art?

Tilda Swinton, "The Maybe," Serpentine Gallery, 1995

"The Maybe" sounded like a stronger piece when Swinton did it in 1995 at the Serpentine Gallery in London. There she was part of a larger show, on exhibit with other objects that had connections to famous folks, from Winston Churchill's cigar to The Duchess of Windsor's ice skates to a pen owned by Charles Dickens. The Independent published some interesting viewer observations:

"It's very funny and very moving, with a very strong feminist subtext. People have said Tilda Swinton is exploiting her celebrity to show off in a glass case — she is indeed using it, but this is definitely not hype. Every object in the show is the property of a celebrity, but they're dead and she's living: the whole idea is the potentiality contained in the objects and the potentiality contained in the living body of Tilda Swinton. This show is part of a continuing trend exploring the very nature of museums and displays; I find that very interesting. — Robert Hewison, Sunday Times critic"

At MoMa "The Maybe" sounds watered down. MoMA has stated:

"Tilda Swinton will be doing unannounced, random performance art pieces sleeping in a glass box in the museum ... the box may be in different locations at other performances. ... There is no published schedule for its appearance, no artist's statement released, no no museum statement beyond this brief context, no public profile or image issued. Those who find it chance upon it for themselves, live and in real—shared—time: now we see it, now we don't."

The fact that Swinton is not part of a larger exhibition at MoMA undercuts the potential power of this piece. Swinton's appearing at the museum is less art and more of a happening. People shouldn't be scolded for asking, "But is it art?" In this incarnation, that seems to be a very valid question indeed.