I just barely know what the FX network is, but I know The Americans is on it, and now because it’s come out on DVD I can contentedly watch Season 3. Last night I saw the first two episodes, and learned how to stuff a naked corpse into a suitcase. (Ugh!) Further, it was surprising to see Richard Thomas—the Field Agent (?)—get whacked in the face by the well-trained Commie, Elizabeth.
Re The Insider (1999):
First, it is too long. Second, a large number of closeups in a movie lasting 158 minutes gets enervating. Third, it is somewhat pretentious. Fourth, Lowell Bergman, the Al Pacino character, is two-dimensional. Fifth . . . oh, never mind. Despite all its problems I’m glad this turkey was made owing to a few choice items, such as the acting of Russell Crowe, Pacino, Diane Venora, et al.
Michael Mann‘s film is a ho-hum journalistic chronicle regarding the 60 Minutes TV series and the cigarette industry. What satisfies is the way it exposes the ability of a powerful business to devastate an individual, and although here the business is Big Tobacco, Big Media can be just as culpable for such a thing. Add to this some of Mann’s directorial choices and the sublime cinematography of Dante Spinotti, “one of those rare cinematographers who know how to highlight with shadows” (Stanley Kauffmann), and you have a couple of other Insider assets. You have a movie which is artistically inviting in spite of itself.
Cover of The Insider
To a child, a favorite toy acquires a life of its own, with the child as its master. In the 34-minute French movie, Albert Lamorisse‘s The Red Balloon (1956), it is for a child (Pascal Lamorisse) that a balloon acquires a life of its own, magically.
This simple short became famous, and has endured, because it is beautifully and enticingly put together, inevitably in color and with several excellent set pieces. Alas, it is not very moving, but it has the kind of unfailing charm of which a director like Truffaut in his films made such a contribution. Lamorisse proved the worth of his instincts.
(In French with English subtitles)
The Red Balloon (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
With multiple plot strands working in its favor, the most recent Jane the Virgin (last night) was thoroughly palatable.
The cops/criminals strand was intense and surprising, and the not-very-Catholic Jane now wants to have sex. Temporarily. She understandably thinks it’s weird to be “a virgin mom,” but this droll sex comedy ends exactly as expected.
There was a lot of romanticizing, though—of various things—done by Jane, Xiomara, Luisa. We knew it was there because every instance of it made the screen a rosy color. (You had to be there.) You should have been there, if you weren’t, to witness the conceited actor Rogelio (Jaime Camil) playing the First Male Feminist and regularly kissing a young and pretty Susan B. Anthony. A riot. Also, Petra’s gotten bitchy again.
Thomas Vinterberg‘s film of the Hardy novel, Far from the Madding Crowd (2015), is about the occurrence of discovery—discovery of another’s romantic interest, of responsibility, of sexual pleasure, of heartache. The first hour and the last few moments, the coda, of the film are compelling; the rest of it is too hurried, with short shrift given where it should not be given. In addition, main character Bathsheba Everdeen doesn’t seem entirely human because of course she is a nineteenth century proto-feminist.
Carey Mulligan, who plays her, never does anything surprising but is interesting in the role nonetheless. Even stronger are Michael Sheen and Matthias Schoenaerts. There is no greatness in Madding Crowd, as there is in a period piece like 1973’s The Emigrants. I believe it to be a failure, but a very watchable failure—a near-success, in fact.
