I’ve never been the biggest fan of Quentin Tarantino, finding his movies excessively and repulsively violent, with his heavy-handed directing always hogging the consciousness of the viewer. But I enjoyed his latest, Inglourious Basterds, if “enjoy” is proper for a film wherein human beings are scalped. Of course when they’re wearing the uniform of the Third Reich, then their inherent humanity is debatable.
Brad Pitt assumes a convincing backwoods Tennessee accent as the Army lieutenant leading a notorious band of Jewish soldiers. The young GI vigilantes have taken on the sole mission of killing, then mutilating any Nazi soldier they encounter. Since this is a Tarantino movie, several scenes are gruesome, and there’s a parallel plot involving a Jewish theater owner. Concealing her identity, she’s determined to kill Hitler, Goebbels, and Goering at the premiere of a propaganda movie in her theater. Look for Rod Taylor, the ‘60s matinee idol, in a cameo as Sir Winston Churchill.
In Fifty Dead Men Walking, Sir Ben Kingsley portrays an MI-5 agent monitoring the Irish Republican Army in Belfast in the 1980s. Jim Sturgess, who starred in Across the Universe, is a Catholic hustler recruited by the British as an undercover source. This true story, based on Martin McGartland’s memoir, is a violent, engrossing film. I saw it without subtitles, however, which made understanding the deep brogue with which characters spoke difficult if not impossible. But in some theaters, it may contain subtitles. Either way, ‘tis a powerful story of a bleak time of “the Troubles.”
My One and Only is another true story about a divorced mother of two in New York back in the 1950s. But the familiar screenplay is so poignant that even Renee Zellweger’s now-cartoonish squinty smile can’t ruin it. Her husband, played by Kevin Bacon, is a popular band leader and womanizer with little use for the constraints of married life and fatherhood. He prefers to be on the road performing with his band. The narrator and focus of the film is their younger son George, portrayed by Logan Lerman. With his gay half-brother Robbie, portrayed by Mark Rendall, the trio heads West, hoping the mother can latch onto a rich new husband. Chris Noth co-stars as a short-tempered Army officer and potential suitor, as does Eric McCormack, another potential catch.
The film has a whimsical mood and look to it, evoking a more innocent time, and a tenderness as it depicts a family close to desperation. I won’t reveal and will urge you not to look up George’s last name, lest you ruin the surprise ending. But here’s a hint: he became Hollywood’s biggest customer, no doubt, of Coppertone sun tan lotion.
According to a fascinating movie called Art & Copy, every urban dweller in America gets bombarded by an incessant daily average of 5,000 ads. This documentary features interviews with pioneers in the modern advertising age. These are the people who’ve coined phrases like “Where’s the beef?,” “I want my MTV” (at the dawn of the cable era), and “Got Milk?”—all now part of our pop culture. One advertising executive recalls how he devised a slogan for the Crocker Bank in San Francisco, and hired songwriter Paul Williams to write a catchy tune for it. It wasn’t targeted at the bank’s aging clientele, but newlyweds and young professionals. Hence We’ve Only Just Begun came to become an American music standard, one of the few ad jingles to escape the syndrome of what another executive refers to as “ingrown mediocrity.” These are the real Mad Men behind America’s 450,000 billboards in this 7 billion dollar industry.
Spread is a combination in some ways of American Gigolo and What Makes Sammy Run? It’s a sometimes graphic story about a homeless hustler, played by Ashton Kutcher, who lives an aimless life in Los Angeles. He goes from woman to woman, looking for a meal ticket. We join him as he picks up a well-to-do lawyer with a fabulous apartment and pool. She’s played with a cool detachment by Anne Heche, who’s wise to his ways but initially can’t resist the lure of a likable, handsome live-in boy toy. It’s her best performance. Margarita Levieva plays a waitress whose innocence intrigues the young stud, but he’s too smitten to know she could be playing the same game as he. The film has a slick veneer to it, like a glossy, thick magazine. But there’s little between the covers here, so to speak; no irony, no edge. Telling us that Los Angeles is filled with superficial people on the make is not shocking news.
No Impact Man is a fascinating documentary about writer Colin Beavan, who began his project of leaving no carbon footprint in November 2006. With his wife’s slightly reluctant consent, they and their daughter spent a year making as little environmental impact as possible. They bike to work, use no electricity, eat organic foods, devise an ancient African method to keep their food cold, wire their apartment for solar power and live off the land. It is a bit extreme, but I’m glad at least one family’s tried it.
I’d thought The September Issue would be a documentary about Anna Wintour, the autocratic Editor-in-Chief of Vogue, with temper tantrums, instant firings of subordinates, and the kind of nasty behavior which inspired The Devil Wears Prada. But instead, it’s just a long commercial for the iconic magazine, with occasional moments when she talks about herself briefly. The movie has lots of shots of her and other editors peering at photographs, making chit chat, and getting the big issue ready to go to press. Not the stuff of fascinating viewing. I learned nothing about what drives the most important woman in fashion, nor why she’s feared.
Jeffrey Lyons has been a film critic since 1970 and has reviewed nearly 15,000 movies and 3,000 plays. He is the son of Leonard Lyons, whose Broadway column, The Lyons Den, was the most respected of its day (1934–1974). Lyons, formerly with NBC, is now host of Movies and More Radio. His radio reports are heard on more than 100 stations nationwide.
