[e-mail] Reviews

Dinner Rush (2000)

Food, Gohmbas and Guns - Fagettaboutit.

[22 September 2003]

Director Bob Giraldi had an unexplained thirteen year hiatus from filmmaking before he delivered this frentic look at the world of High Art food in a trendy Tribeca Italian eatery. From the look and feel of this film it looks like he might have spent his time either working in or owning a similar restaurant. Lensed from a script by first time screenwriters Rick Shaughnessy and Brian S. Kalata this is look inside the frantic, neurotic, `food as a Broadway Show' atmosphere of a restaurant which might be just one bad review away from ordinary.

Danny Aiello (Louis Cropa) is the old world patriarch reluctant to let go of the restaurant he opened for his wife, oh so many years ago. He looks around at the new restaurant his Chef son Udo has fashioned and does not recognize what has been his home and base of less than legitimate operation for decades. Aiello has made his reputation playing these sorts of Italian men of honor, perfecting the mannerisms so well he could well have phoned this role in, but surprises us with his ease and grace. He is the older Italian gentleman that you could believe learned his craft at the feet of the old Mustache Petes like Carlo Gambino, et al. Completely his opposite is his overbearing, perfectionist and general pain in the ass son Udo. In a performance which just pushes a little past insufferable Edoardo Bailerini is watchable, but only slightly likeable. He will live and die by the next food review and must constantly push the food envelope to be bigger, better and more flashy than he was yesterday. In a way, you know that this is a sucker's game that he will someday lose.

During one Dinner Rush in the Tribeca tratitoria we meet the chic set food and happening addicts who crave the next `thing' crawling from one new place to another. Epitomized in DINNER RUSH by the Art Critic played expertly by the veteran character actor Mark Margolis. As Fitzgerald he whines, cajoles, hisses insults and generally ends up making a monumental ass out of himself. He is so deliciously bitchy and so damn much fun. In a lesser role, Sandra Bernhard is the hip, slick Jennifer Freeley who's uncertain claim to fame allows her a table, but not the best table in the house. If you've seen Bernhard before you've seen this character. I only find her mildly amusing most times and less so now. She is what she is and not much more. Come on Sandra, I know that you can do better than rehash every other performance you've ever given, or maybe not.

Against the backdrop of the restaurant the film spins the usual gangster sub plot, except to Giraldi's credit he takes a very different spin on the finale. He caught me by complete surprise and I was extremely delighted. Bravo for playing it so close to the vest till the big payoff finale.

In total this is a hip, slick look inside the guts of that restaurant you can never get a table at. Once you get past the obligatory mob trash at the start this is an enjoyable watch, but I had a real problem with the cinematography. Though I realize that this was Tim Ives first project as a Director of Photography did Giraldi look at the dailies? What may have seen a great idea on location with the use of ultra focus out to portray a violent act just came off as amateur and lame. The kitchen sequences, shot under green cast flourescent did nothing to showcase a central character of this film, which is the food. Who wants to look at green food unless you're Dr. Suess? Although I applaud Ives's moving camera he really missed the mark more than he hit it. In some places, the lighting was too dark to set the tone effectively and in others it was just plain off and I'm not referring to the blackout shots which looked better than the rest of the film. Unless he's gotten much better in his later films he might consider going back to focus puller or camera operator under a master DP at least until he learns the basics.

Overall, save this one for those weekends when you've seen everything out and are looking for something a bit different.

American Splendor (2003)

American Splendor: Cinema Interruptus.

[18 September 2003]

Oh, to have been an invisible bystander at the pitch and pre-production meetings for American Splendor. I would have loved to hear and see the back flips the two (that's plural) directors did to get this picture funded. The two director/writers Springer Berman and Pulcini might have pitched it first as a documentary, changed their minds and decided that they'd like to do a feature; then changed their minds back again. Or one pitched a documentary while the other pitched a feature and they never did get their heads together. Like a bad divorce, it's the kids who always suffer. In a bad movie it's we who suffer and suffer again on DVD with loads of special features.

Going into this film I knew virtually nothing about the Comic Book creator Harvey Pekar. I was a totally blank slate which should not have detracted one moment of pleasure from this film, but it did. A good film will introduce you to the world they are populating and then explore that world. A great film will plunge you into that world, make you part of it and you will want to stay. You might be enchanted not wanting to leave, or disgusted and can't look away. However, you will still stay. With American Splendor, right from the opening credits I felt that I was not part of the 'in crowd' for the Harvey Pekar experience. These opening credits were not used as a device to introduce Pekar's alter ego, but used a page from the comic in a way that was messy, uninformative and just plain confusing. Auspicious beginnings.

One of my gauges of a good film/bad film is how many times I look at my watch during the showing and calculate just how much longer I'm going to have to sit through the current opus. For American Splendor, I quit counting at five watch looks and four elapsed time calculations. I would not have had to do this had the directors (plural again) decided before they shot an inch of film exactly what they wanted to do and stuck to that. As it was, they take us along on an initially fine narrative with Paul Giamatti as Harvey Pekar. Then somewhere in the first reel of the film they decide to break the narrative entirely by introducing us to the real Pekar destroying what they've worked so hard to build. Now we're into the documentary footage which was more or less uninteresting and completely unnecessary. In the hands of better directors they might have gotten away with this device, but Springer Berman and Pulcini just don't have the chops for it.

Jumping back to the narrative/feature portion they re-introducing Giamatti as Pekar, adding other characters in his life, only to break my concentration once again by returning to the documentary portion introducing the real life characters. This hyper-space jump serves no good purpose and only frustrates. It was as if the two directors were trying to tell us that they'd never directed a feature before and were more comfortable with what they'd done with a documentary. To be quite fair, the only place this worked was somewhere towards the end with the Letterman footage, but the pay-off was not worth the frustration getting there. And the final payoff with Pekar's outrage at Letterman was too sudden, poorly done and muddled. Couldn't they get the real footage?

To American Splendor's credit, Paul Giamatti as Pekar, Hope Davis as Pekar's wife Joyce Brabner and Judah Friedlander as his friend Toby Radloff give excellent performances; despite the horrid direction they've been given. This proves that the best actors will rise above a director's faulty concepts and deliver the goods. And as well as those mentioned another great performance was Earl Billings as Mr. Boats, who acts as a sort of Greek chorus to this tragedy. Rounding out the ensemble, James Urbaniak gives a workman like performance as the indomitable Robert Crumb of underground comics fame. Unfortunately, I know what R. Crumb looks and sounds like from two past documentaries on him. Urbaniak was close, but not close enough. He missed the mark entirely with his mannerisms and seemed to simply rely on the fact that he looked a lot like Crumb. Not good enough.

By the last reel, I found that I cared less about Pekar, not more. His trials and tribulations left me cold, not because I didn't empathize with his struggle, but because the directors didn't leave me anything to care about. Maybe they should go back to doing documentaries where they apparently feel more comfortable letting the subject matter tell the story, because clearly this is not the format for them.

If you wanted to tell Harvey Pekar's story then tell it without all the background footage. Use that footage to build your script from, but don't subject me to your research material. Leave it on your hard drive and give me a story I can follow from start to finish without all the other documentary nonsense. Just because you can show the real person does not necessarily mean you should. Imagine if Ron Howard had used this technique in A Beautiful Mind. How frustrating would that have been?

In the end, I'd say that if you are a Harvey Pekar fan then by all means see this opus and pay full price, but if you're just mildly curious wait a few months and catch it on DVD. I'm sure it will be loaded with tons of footage they didn't show us. Oh, Goody! On a scale of First Run, Second Run, New Release or Back Shelf Video, I say Back Shelf all the way. Save your money for something worth the time, money and energy and a helluva lot better.

Paper Moon (1973)

PAPER MOON refuses to cry.

[14 September 2003]

PAPER MOON is one of those films which refuses to age or become dated, because, as director Peter Bogdanovich claims, it was dated when it was released. It has the look and presence of a film from the Golden Thirties with the panache and style that could only come from the Golden Seventies. That extraordinary decade when the Old Hollywood Studio Machine was being rapidly replaced by the rise of the Artist Filmmaker, who were young, eager and just out of film school. A wonderful period of flux when anything could and did happen. A seminal period in filmmaking where new artists were making important new films, which would change Hollywood forever. PAPER MOON is outwardly a period road picture set in the mid 30s, about a traveling man named Moze Pray (Ryan O'Neil) who will play any angle if it means a couple of extra dollars in his pocket. As the story opens he agrees to escort the daughter of a now deceased lover to her Aunt in Missouri. Slick Moze quickly meets his match in the half pint tough little Addie Loggins (Ryan's real life daughter Tatum in her first role). No sentimental tear jerker here, this is a great story which refuses to go down the obvious road of a father reunited with his lost little girl; we aren't even sure it's really his daughter. Little Addie is tough as nails at every turn and a whole lot more savvy than Moze could ever be. At turn after turn she will outsmart and outmaneuver Moze in a way which is a sheer delight to watch. Tatum O'Neil gives an Oscar caliber performance as little Addie, but why she was given a Best Supporting Actress award and not nominated for the Best Actress category, one can only wonder. Madeline Kahn (What's Up Doc, Blazing Saddles), in her second film ever also delivers the goods as Miss Trixie Delight who meets up with the pair and sees her own angle. Everyone is playing some angle in this film and we get to enjoy every minute of it.

Shot completely on locations in Kansas and Missouri PAPER MOON sparkles with a richness only capable in black and white. Cinematographer Lazlo Kovacs is a great camera artist and never better than PAPER MOON where he uses black and white, deep focus and those great long takes to its best advantage. To the untrained eye it will just appear very sharp, but look closely at each frame and notice that everything is in tack sharp focus from the closest object to far in the distance. This deep focus is very difficult to achieve correctly, especially in the night shots, but Kovacs does it so well it is seamless. Watch for the train station sequence where even the children playing in the background are razor sharp. This is a look that can only be achieved using black and white to its fullest potential. New filmmakers take notice. This is how it's supposed to be done. All this cinematic brilliance would be wasted were it not for the wonderful direction of Bogdanovich. In this his third film, he proves that he is a consummate filmmaker who knows how to move the actors and camera in perfect concert. His craftsmanship of each scene is unmistakable as he brings a fresh and very new approach using Hollywood tricks which are decades old. A lesser director might have used process shots and sets to tell the story, but not Bogdanovich. He shot the entire film in real locations to give it the look and feel of a real thirties road picture. You can almost smell the wide plains and feel the dust as it comes up to slap you in the face. Notice too how he never resorts to sentimentality to move the story along, it is told razor sharp and without tears. This, never more apparent than the final sequence where he pays off the film in grand style.

There is only one thing about this film which still baffles me. Why in the night time hotel sequence toward the end of the film were electric lights everywhere but inside the hotel lobby, which was lit entirely with kerosine lamps? Was it to give the look and feel of the period, or did the real location use them? Small point, but interesting. If, like myself, the last time you saw PAPER MOON was when it was released in 1973, see it again on DVD and be delighted all over again. The DVD transfer is marvelous and only serves to heighten its visual appeal. If you have only seen PAPER MOON on broadcast TV, do yourself a favor and see the new DVD for a pleasant surprise. Without the obligatory broadcast TV commercials, pan and scan and dialogue cuts this will appear like a new film seen the way it was supposed to be seen. And if you have NEVER seen PAPER MOON and harbor some prejudice against black and white films, please see this film. Any preconceived notions against this format will quickly dissolve as it takes you along for a rich ride with Addie and Moze in the only format it could - glorious black and white.