Ruby Sparks

September 30, 2014 | Paul Wake Baker

Ruby Sparks is a brilliant 2012 romantic fantasy. Both a comedy and a drama, it never falls into the genre of romantic comedy, but blazes its own original, fantastic trail. Written by Zoe Kazan and directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, the film has a single, organic arc that shoots into the sky like a brilliant firework, ultimately exploding into fragments that all make perfect sense.

Young writer Calvin Weir-Fields (Paul Dano) has tasted success early. His first novel is now considered a modern classic. Since its publication, he has struggled to write a follow-up, instead publishing short stories and a novella. Worshiped by adoring fans, he has retreated into his house and placed himself under the care of a psychiatrist, Dr. Rosenthal (Elliott Gould) who advised him to get a dog (Scotty) to help with his loneliness. He takes Scotty for walks and works out with his brother Harry (Chris Messina), but he just can’t write that next novel.

After Calvin complains that Scotty is afraid of people and pees like a girl, Dr. Rosenthal gives him a writing assignment: to write something about someone who might like Scotty. Calvin dreams of meeting a beautiful, enchanting girl, Ruby Sparks (Kazan), and then begins to create her on the page. The more he writes her, the more he falls in love with her. While visiting Calvin, Harry and his wife, Susie (Toni Trucks), discover women’s underwear in his house, but Calvin thinks that Scotty must have dragged them in. He shows Harry his draft about Ruby, but Harry thinks that the character is too idealized, not realistic enough to be a real woman.

With a sizable manuscript in hand, Calvin is ready to bring it to his agent when suddenly Ruby appears in his kitchen. The underwear is hers and she believes she has been living with him for some time. Calvin freaks out and thinks he is going insane, but no matter what he does Ruby is still there and totally perplexed about his behavior. She follows him into public where he is meeting a young fan, Mabel (Alia Shawkat), who wants to bed him. Ruby sees them and gets terribly upset. When Mabel apologizes to Ruby, Calvin realizes that he is not the only one who can see and hear her.

Harry thinks that Calvin is having an episode until Calvin brings him home and he actually meets Ruby in person, but he still can’t believe that Calvin has written her into existence. They go up to his office and writes, “Ruby speaks French.” Immediately, of course, Ruby begins speaking French to them. Harry thinks that Calvin should use this to his advantage, say by giving her bigger boobs, but Calvin decides to stop writing Ruby and start living her. He gives up his control over her.

At first, they are very happy, but when Calvin’s mother invites them up for a weekend at Big Sur, he tries to get out of it. Ruby, worried that he doesn’t want her to meet his family, gets depressed and finally Calvin relents. His mother, Gertrude (Annette Bening) is a free spirit and her boyfriend Mort (Antonio Banderas) is a wood sculptor. Calvin is in rebellion against their free-wheeling lifestyle and spends most of the weekend reading while Ruby has fun and makes friends with his family. He is jealous and resentful.

Ruby begins to resist the way they live, the way he keeps her closeted away from others, and wants to have a life of her own, so he encourages her to take an art class, but he is jealous of her being in any part of the world but his. He has become dependent on her and is now powerless to control her. When she becomes deeply depressed, he finally returns to his typewriter and makes her more cheerful. This begins a series of edits where he tries over and over to make her into the perfect woman she was at the beginning and kicks the movie to a whole new level.

Kazan’s script is so original and creative that it alone carries the movie, but her performance as Ruby is at the heart of its comedy. Her Ruby is so lovable that one identifies with Calvin completely. His desires and frustrations seem so real that the film takes on a level of drama underneath the comedy that pushes it forward relentlessly. Dano gives a striking performance as Calvin and he keys the drama.

Part of the charm of this movie is the behind the scenes relationship. Dano and Kazan were a couple long before she wrote the script and she wrote it with him in mind to play Calvin, so the script was tailored to the two of them. Also, the directors, Dayton and Faris, are a couple and have been longtime friends with Dano and Kazan, ever since they did Little Miss Sunshine with Dano in 2006. Without the participation of these four, the film may not have been nearly as successful as it is.

Movies like this don’t come along very often. Creative, funny, dramatic, original, with great performances by an ideal cast, Ruby Sparks should be seen by everyone!

Penelope

September 30, 2014 | Paul Wake Baker

Penelope is a fun and well-made modern fairy tale.

The wealthy Wilhern family has a curse on it. Generations ago, a Wilhern son fell in love with a servant girl and wanted to marry her, but when the family found out, the engagement was broken. The poor girl then killed herself, but her mother, a witch created a spell so that the next Wilhern daughter would be born with the face of a pig. The only way to break the spell would be for her to marry “one of her own,” that is a man from a wealthy family with long bloodlines.

For generations, the family only had boys, but finally, poor Penelope (Christina Ricci) was born and there was the snout, right where her nose should have been. Her parents (Catherine O’Hara and Richard E. Grant) seek the advice of a plastic surgeon, who informs them that–amazingly–the girl’s carotid artery runs through the nose, making a fix impossible. In an attempt to hide her from the world, they fake her death and Penelope grows up living in her luxurious room reading, studying, and entertaining herself with plants and animals, with virtually no contact with the world outside. Indeed, she becomes a fascinating and charming young woman, quite beautiful… except for her nose, that is.

When Penelope becomes a young woman, her parents hire a “matchmaker to the rich and famous” to try to find someone to marry her, but alas, she always insists on showing herself to the prospective mate and they always run away. The latest in this line is Edward Humphrey Vanderman III (Simon Woods), a spoiled idiot of a man, who runs away screaming, claiming that Penelope has vicious fangs and is horrible looking, which is simply not true. He hooks up with Lemon (Peter Dinklage), a reporter who lost an eye to Mrs. Wilhern when he tried to get a picture of baby Penelope years ago. He is determined to get a picture of grown up Penelope and gets Vanderman to help him. What they need is some blueblood down on his luck that they can bribe to be a prospective husband who can surreptitiously take photos of her.

They find a man that they believe to be Max Campion (James McAvoy), a rich, handsome young man with a severe gambling problem and they hire him to join the list of prospective suitors. Penelope watches him behind a one-way mirror and as they talk, they begin to like each other. She decides not to show herself to him, but asks him to come back the next day. She sees him trying to steal one of their rare books and it piques her interest further.

Of course, they’re going to fall in love, but there is a reason he can’t marry her and break the curse and there are a great deal of hijinks between this circus of characters, especially when Penelope decides to run away from home, hiding her snout with a scarf. She makes friends with a bike messenger, Annie (Reese Witherspoon), who becomes her first real friend. Witherspoon also produced the movie!

The movie is great fun. Ricci is fantastic as Penelope, bringing just the right amount of wistfulness, charm, and intelligence to the role. O’Hara and Dinklage are always funny, McAvoy is very engaging as the love interest.

The make-up for the pig’s nose is really amazing, but it caused a problem for me, too. It really doesn’t make Ricci look ugly. Even with the pig nose, her own beauty shines through. I thought that was a good thing, but it didn’t make sense that all the suitors run away when she really didn’t look that bad. It’s a dilemma. I can understand why director Mark Palansky made the decision, but it does detract from an otherwise charming film.

The movie isn’t overly long and is truly entertaining. A fun evening!

Young Victoria

September 21, 2014December 31, 2014 | Paul Wake Baker

This review contains spoilers (as if history didn’t contain enough).

In 1836, when Princess Victoria of Kent (Emily Blunt), the heir apparent to the throne of England, first meets Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (Rupert Friend), she is in a very delicate situation, both politically and personally.

Her mother, the Duchess of Kent (Miranda Richardson) is heavily under the influence of her brother, King Leopold I of Belgium (Thomas Kretschmann), who devoutly wishes an alliance with Britain to keep Belgium safe from France, and Sir John Conroy (Mark Strong), the comptroller of her household, who wants King William IV (Jim Broadbent) to die while Victoria is still a minor so that the Duchess will be appointed Regent and he can rule England from behind the scenes.

Victoria herself is in rebellion against both of these constraints, siding instead with King William. She resents the control that Conroy exerts over her mother and she resents the domestic restraints that they both hold on her. While she is ill, Conroy even attempts to force her to sign an agreement for a Regency, but she bats the document away. Conroy treats her quite brutally, once grabbing her physically and throwing her on a sofa. When her mother stands by and allows this to happen, she warns her mother that she will never forget it.

King Leopold decides that the best way to keep England friendly is to have his nephew, Prince Albert, become very friendly with Victoria, perhaps even marry her, so he sends Albert to England for a visit. Trained to know all of her favorite music, reading, and opera, Albert tries to forge a friendship, but Victoria sees right away what he’s up to. Changing tacks, he decides to be honest and disagree with her when their opinions differ. Immediately, Victoria notices and decides to give him a little slack. The more they talk, the fonder they grow, gradually falling in love, until, at last, Albert must return to Germany.

When King William dies, Victoria has come of age and she makes a few quick decisions. Although she allows her mother separate apartments at Buckingham Palace (built by William, Victoria was the first regal tenant), but she banishes Conroy. Making friends with Lord Melbourne, she takes him as an advisor. Although she desires to improve the living conditions of the poor, Melbourne steers her away from that and arranges her household as he wants it. When Melbourne falls from power, Queen Victoria refuses to change her appointments to suit the new Prime Minister and the government falls. There is a huge reaction in the public against her, there are riots outside the palace, and in one instance, a window is broken by a flying object.

Confused and needing help from a friend, she calls on Prince Albert to come to her, not just as an advisor, but as a husband and they are finally able to consummate their simmering love. Just when things would appear to be quite well, Albert makes the mistake of making a decision without consulting her and Victoria reacts strongly, feeling that, like Conroy, he was attempting to rule England behind her back and they have a vicious quarrel. At a public appearance, a gunman appears and tries to assassinate Victoria, but Albert takes the bullet for her, thus proving his real love.

The two then form a true partnership and rule England successfully for another 20 years when typhoid takes Albert. Alone, Queen Victoria then ruled England alone until she was over 80 years old, supervising England’s management (not always successfully) of the Industrial Revolution and leaving a false impression of extreme prudishness.

This film is beautifully made. The art direction, photography, costumes, locations, acting, directing, music, and photography are all first rate. Much credit must be given to director Jean-Marc Vallée for imposing strict control over the length of the film and the editing. Some period dramas like this run amok by running two or three hours in length, but the timing of this film feels just right. The script by Julian Fellowes maintains as much historical accuracy as possible, while still bending reality to make it a pretty good movie. It is focussed, as it should be, on the love story, but the love story is underpinned everywhere by the politics and Fellowes did a fantastic job of merging the two worlds. Much credit should also go to Sandy Powell for her Academy Award winning costumes.

Emily Blunt is simply stunning as Victoria. She shows such a range of acting that I found myself completely won over within the first few minutes of the film. Rupert Friend was a wonderful casting decision as Albert because he brings both restraint and passion to the performance. The chemistry between these two is really terrific and one completely believes not just the love, but the political realities of both of them.

You don’t need a PhD in History to understand this moving love story that involves two kingdoms, ministers, lords and ladies. It is passionate, well-made, well-timed and beautiful to watch. I highly recommend the movie!

Adventureland

May 17, 2014January 29, 2015 | Paul Wake Baker

Adventureland is a funny and moving teen romance written and directed by Greg Mattola about a group of teens working at a summer carnival. The main character, James Brennan, is a student who has just graduated from a small college and is saving up his money to go to the Columbia School of Journalism so he can begin a career in travel writing. Played with both humor and angst by Jesse Eisenberg, James is trying to find romance, but his own geekiness stands in his way.

It doesn’t take long after meeting Em for him to start falling for her. Older and wiser, she is a student who lives and studies in New York (NYU) during the school year, but works as a carny in the summer. She’s also having an affair with Mike (Ryan Reynolds), a guitar player who also fills in there in the summer as a maintenance man. Married, his one claim to fame is that he is rumored to have jammed with Lou Reed, James’ hero.

The film is a period piece, set in the summer of 1987 and Mattola has gone to great lengths to make the film of its time. The park seems quite old by today’s standards and the costumes and hair styles all reflect the late 80’s very well. Although some of the humor is a bit juvenile, it generally works well. The supporting characters are sharply defined and quirky. Kristen Wiig as the park manager and Bill Hader as her husband and assistant are both quite funny and Martin Starr is quite good as James’ pal Joel.

Both Eisenberg and Stewart are very good and this is probably Stewart’s best performance. They are the only two characters in the movie who have serious scenes and they carry them off very well. It’s a fun movie and worth spending the time watching.

The Songs of Distant Earth by Arthur C. Clarke

May 14, 2014January 28, 2015 | Paul Wake Baker

The Songs of Distant Earth is a very thoughtful science fiction novel. It’s not chock full of chases and weird experiments or other derring-do, but it keeps the reader involved and more importantly it makes the reader think. It is a good example of what is known as “hard science fiction”. Written by Arthur C. Clarke, a man who is no stranger to science, the book deals more with real possibilities than with theories that have no apparent foundation in reality.

The main portion of the book occurs somewhere during the 39th century, around 200 years after the Earth’s sun has gone nova. With the benefit of a thousand years’ warning, mankind has developed and sent seed ships to the stars with the most hospitable planets orbiting them. The ships contain the seeds to rebuild mankind, from humans to domestic animals to bacteria necessary for human survival, to be shepherded into life by robots. The ships cannot travel very fast so the great distances take hundreds to thousands of years. But humans keep making the ships better and by the time the solar system is incinerated, they have developed a quantum drive, which allows them to travel at close to 20% of the speed of light.

One of these advanced starships, among the last to leave Earth, the Magellan, is travelling toward a system with a planet that has been named Sagan Two. The planet is presently inhospitable to life, but is covered in massive amounts of ice. The Magellan aims to terraform the planet by melting the ice and using their quantum starship to maneuver the planet into a more biofriendly orbit.

Along the way, they travel very close to the planet Thalassa, which had been the destination of an earlier seed ship, which reported in upon colonization, but then had lost contact with Earth. The Magellan decides to investigate and to look into using the water on the planet to re-ice their deflector, which has become worn out from constant collision with space dust.

Thalassa is a beautiful planet, mostly covered in oceans, but with three large islands that support a functioning human society. But it is a society that has become complacent and happy in their idyllic existence. The Magellan upsets this becalmed life when it appears and sets up its ice factory. The crew from the Magellan mingle with the population and become involved with the people who live there.

Of course, the inevitable happens and several crew members want to stay on Thalassa. Others want to end the mission and stay permanently on Thalassa, using the volcanism of the planet to create new land masses for the colonists sleeping on the ship.

Ultimately, the novel deals with the question of whether humanity can thrive without the existence of challenge. Our history has been the story of struggle against the elements, survival against the wild beasts and survival against each other. Our literature is full of strife and most people would say that any good story depends on it. What happens when that gets bred out of the species? If you remove challenge and aggression, will we stagnate?

It is a well-written story that I highly recommend.

Capote

May 10, 2014January 28, 2015 | Paul Wake Baker

Bennett Miller’s film Capote is a well-crafted, thoughtful look at the process by which Truman Capote sculpted his novel In Cold Blood. The restrained control of color, minimal sets and costumes, and stark cinematography make this film so good that it should be studied in film schools as a masterful use of time and funding.

At the heart of the film, though, is a great performance by Phillip Seymour Hoffman as the diminutive novelist who followed his instincts to a small Kansas town to investigate the murder of the Clutters, a family of four, execution style, in their own home. The way he insinuated himself into their landscape was nothing less than audacious, especially for a flamboyant New York homosexual. Hoffman won the Academy Award as Best Actor for this beautiful, studied performance. He portrays Truman Capote as the consummate artist searching for the heart of the story and finding it in the person of the primary killer, Perry Smith, portrayed with restrained power by Clifton Collins, Jr. The relationship that develops between this unlikely pair is pinned on the fact that both of them had difficult childhoods.

Capote lies repeatedly to Perry to get the answers he needs. The heart of In Cold Blood resides with Perry’s unpredictable rampage that turned a robbery gone wrong into a heartless mass killing. The novelist takes his time to slowly lead Perry to tell the story until time runs out and he must manipulate the killer into telling how everything went down that night at the farmhouse.

A number of subordinate performances are also of extremely high quality, including Catherine Keener as Capote’s research assistant and brilliant novelist in her own right Harper Lee (To Kill A Mockingbird) and Chris Cooper as the officer in charge of the investigation.

I urge anyone interested in either filmmaking or the art of the novel to see this movie. It is truly brilliant.

Steve McQueen by Marc Eliot

May 10, 2014January 28, 2015 | Paul Wake Baker

Steve McQueen by Marc Eliot is a spare and generalized biography that focuses on the films made by the iconic actor. While the films are examined in some detail, Eliot spends the rest of his time detailing McQueen’s life outside the set.

The actor was a troubled child who was moved around the country and dropped off with various relatives for extensive blocks of time. His father left them when he was still an infant and his mother could not maintain a steady relationship throughout his life. Steve spent a lot of time running with gangs on the streets of Los Angeles and spent stints in the boy’s reformatory in Chino, California and in the United States Marine Corps.

His last trip to New York City, saw him hooking with up an aspiring actress and following her into various acting studios. With his chiseled good looks, he was a natural to follow Marlon Brando and others into the Method school of acting.

From the time he was old enough, he went from one woman to another until he finally met Neile Adams, fell in love, and married her. He went quickly from off-Broadway plays into the live television scene that was hot in New York. When his wife got a job in Los Angeles, they relocated and he translated his career from television to film. Although they had two children, Neile had to put up with his constant infidelity. He also began using drugs, first pot, then coke and finally hallucinogenics. With his monster macho ego, he began spending his earnings on fast cars and motorcycles, even racing with professionals.

After sixteen years of marriage, he forced his wife to admit that she’d had an affair. Even though he had slept with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of women, he was enraged and beat her up. He practically isolated his second wife, Ali McGraw, in their home and he hit her once before she filed for divorce. And he was married a third time, very briefly before his death of mesothelioma, lung cancer caused by excessive exposure to asbestos. (He was exposed while in the Marines, where he worked in the engine room, cleaning and repairing asbestos covered pipes and he was also exposed throughout his adult life to asbestos coating inside race cars.)

His filmography includes such classic films as The Blob (1958), Never So Few (1959), The Magnificent Seven (1960), The Great Escape (1963), The Cincinnati Kid (1965), The Sand Pebbles (1966), The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), Bullitt (1968), The Getaway (1972), Papillon (1973), and The Towering Inferno (1974).

The book moves very quickly, an easy and engaging read. Even though Eliot presents a very unbiased narrative, I have to admit that I went into the book admiring McQueen’s acting and I left it absolutely hating him as a human being. Of course, he lived in a different era, but that is still no excuse for the way he treated other people. He was like a hurt child who never, ever grew up to take responsibility for his actions. And he died with no remorse at all for what he did to his first wife. In spite of the hefty list of good films and good performances he left behind, Steve McQueen was ultimately far less of a man than the “King of Cool” he presented

20 Feet From Stardom

May 8, 2014January 28, 2015 | Paul Wake Baker

20 Feet From Stardom is a documentary about all of the really great backup singers from the ’50’s, ’60’s and ’70’s, the people, especially black women, who broke the mold and changed the sound of pop music.

The movie focusses in especially on Darlene Love, who sang lead on the recordings, “He’s A Rebel,” “Da Doo Ron Ron”, and “Uptown,” Merry Clayton, who has backed up everyone and is known primarily for her kick-ass solo on the Rolling Stones’ Gimme Shelter, and Lisa Fischer, a remarkable singer who has now been with the Rolling Stones since 1980 singing a variety of stuff. She’s won a Grammy for her solo work and she has an amazing Jazz voice.

This movie also explores some of the more talented young singers working today, including Judith Hill, who started out with Michael Jackson. A wonderful film full of lots of really great music and interviews with Mick Jagger, Bette Midler, Sting, and a whole bunch of others. This is a must see for anybody even remotely involved in music!

Juno

May 8, 2014January 28, 2015 | Paul Wake Baker

I was really bowled away by Juno. What a great film! The story of a teenage girl named Juno MacGuff (Ellen Page) who gets pregnant and decides to carry the baby and give it up for adoption to a needy couple, this movie really delivers great comedy and great drama. Page is so natural and relaxed in her performance that she is completely believable and she literally carries the movie. The Academy Award-winning script by Diablo Cody is a wonder. The dialogue is quick, witty, full of pithy phrases that separate Juno and her friends from the run-of-the-mill teenagers at her high school (“Desperately seeking spawn” LOL). Directed by Jason Reitman, it hits every note spot-on and leaves you with just an amazingly good feeling.

It’s full of wonderful supporting performances, including: Michael Cera as Paulie Bleeker, Juno’s dorky boyfriend and father of the child, J. K. Simmons (the wonderful pitchman at Farmer’s Insurance University) as her dad, Allison Janney as her step-mother, Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner as the anticipated foster parents. They all work together brilliantly in an ensemble cast all clustered around the wonderful performance by Ellen Page at the center and heart of the movie.

So GOOD! I highly recommend this film to literally EVERYBODY!