FIVE MOVIE REVIEWS

ART SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL
L’INTRUS (THE INTRUDER)
C.S.A: THE CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA
FRIENDS WITH MONEY
THANK YOU FOR SMOKING


By Joel Johnson

ART SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL
Directed by Terry Zwigoff; written by Daniel Clowes, based on his short comic story; director of photography, Jamie Anderson; edited by Robert Hoffman; music by David Kitay
With: Max Minghella, Sophia Myles, John Malkovich, Jim Broadbent, Matt Keeslar, Ethan Suplee, Joel David Moore, Nick Swardson, and Anjelica Huston. Rated R. Running time: 102 minutes



Director Terry Zwigoff burst onto the cinema scene with Crumb (1994) establishing himself as a unique voice with the story of eccentric cartoonist Robert Crumb. He has since turned from documentary to fictional films but has continued to focus on unconventional characters. In Art School Confidential, Zwigoff and his screenwriting collaborator Daniel Clowes decide to mine the comic potential of an entire art school with its assorted oddball students and faculty. They start with Max Minghella (Yes, Anthony’s son) as the freshman Jerome who aspires to be the best artist in the world and then add a serial murder subplot, a beautiful model (Sophia Myles) with whom Jerome has fallen in love, a super clean-cut rival Jonah (Matt Keeslar), and a quartet of established major stars (John Malkovich, Jim Broadbent, Anjelica Huston, and an uncredited Steve Buscemi). The result is a highly anticipated arthouse film with potential to burst out of this niche market to appeal to a broader audience. Alas, this film is better on paper than it is onscreen. Not that it is bad. It will sustain audience interest throughout and will intermittently be extremely funny. The film, however, lacks the kind of narrative flow that makes each scene feels like an integral part of a complete story. Art School Confidential plays like a series of improvised sketches that have been strung together. Some of the sketches work exceedingly well and others less well, but the narrative thread ends up quite frayed in the process. It doesn’t help that the film not only relies on caricatures of art school student stereotypes but then has perennial student Bardo (Joel David Moore) point these out to Jerome and to us. This is telling the audience about the story and not showing the audience the story. Telling—as opposed to showing—usually fails to connect with the audience (audiences for The Intruder [see following review] may belie that). All in all, you could spend 102 minutes with much worse films.

L’INTRUS (THE INTRUDER)
Written and directed by Claire Denis; director of photography, Agnès Godard; edited by Nelly Quettier; music by Stuart Staples
With: Michel Subor, Béatrice Dalle, Grégoire Colin, Florence Loiret-Caille, Katia Golubeva, and Bambou. This movie is unrated. Running time: 130 minutes

½

This Claire Denis film lends itself to one of my pet expressions because “it puts the foreign back in foreign films.” This is not because it is bad or should be avoided, but audiences will need a high level of patience in dealing with its ambiguity and its dark themes. L’intrus is a quintessential “critics’ film” that enthralls critics while filmgoers who prefer linear narratives will be left bewildered and ill tempered. The film owes its genesis to Jean-Luc Nancy’s novel of his own heart transplant, but this just provides a jumping-off point. Although a foreign-language film, audiences should not feel overwhelmed by subtitles and may, in fact, yearn for more verbal exposition. L’intrus almost exclusively relies on visual imagery to convey its story. Cinematographer Agnès Godard’s imagery is by turns beautiful, poignant, intriguing, banal, and shocking.

Early on we are introduced to Louis Trebor (Michel Subor), a mysterious recluse with only a pair of dogs as companions living in the Jura Mountains on the border between France and Switzerland. Louis is a rugged athletic man in his sixties or early seventies, and we quickly learn that he has a bad heart. Yet this isn’t simply a matter of its deficiency in maintaining the body’s lifeblood. It is as if this were only a physical manifestation of a deeper ill. Yet he desperately wants to live and tells a shadowy young Russian woman (Katia Golubeva) that he wants a vigorous young man’s heart, not one from an old man or a woman. Louis hastily leaves his sylvan paradise, abandoning his dogs and the strained relationship with his son (Grégoire Colin) that has withered from neglect. The mountain man dons a coat and tie, retrieves a huge stash of unexplained money from a safe deposit box, and shops for a watch. He exchanges his natural environment for one totally man-made with concrete and steel. He then gets on a plane. Yet the film returns to the Jura with even more suddenness. Though the pristine images betray no altered reality, there is something dreamlike about these segments—perhaps because they become nightmares. Louis is being dragged over the snow on a sled by two riders mounted on horses when they decide to leave him in the middle of nowhere. The beautiful “wild woman” (Lolita Chammah) breaks into Louis’s abandoned cabin only to have her sensuous, stolen idyll come to a gruesome end. Louis finally has his transplant. The film’s press kit says this happened in Korea, but the film does little to make this clear to the audience. It is, however, much clearer about Louis’s post-surgery destination—Tahiti. Louis has visited here before—and Denis intersplices grainy clips of a young Michel Subor from the 1965 film Le Reflux—to show that. He seeks a Tahitian woman asking her about their son. She says she doesn’t know where he is, and Louis tells her if the son shows up, she knows where Louis can be found. This leads to a rare comedic scene as a “casting call” is held for young men to play Louis’s mixed-race son.

Somehow life for which Louis had such an appetite has lost its flavor in this tropical paradise. There is a shocking scene—or perhaps merely a very unsettling one that I had somehow anticipated—near the film’s end. The film will definitely frustrate viewers used to straight-forward cinematic storytelling, but the film is powerful and will keep churning inside filmgoers’ heads long after the closing credits. If you are up for a challenging film, The Intruder will deliver a rich and flavorful experience.

C.S.A: THE CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA
Written and directed by Kevin Willmott; director of photography, Matthew Jacobson
With: Evamarii Johnson, Rupert Pate, Larry J. Peterson, and Charles Frank. This movie is unrated. Running time: 89 minutes

½

This film envisions a world that might have been had something else happened in history instead of what actually did happen. These are called alternative histories and can result in very interesting reimaginings of the world. C.S.A envisions what might have emerged had the South, the Confederate States of America, prevailed over the North in our own War Between the States. Kevin Willmott’s film portrays a world where the Confederacy not only establishes its independence and sovereignty from the Union but also where the Confederacy conquers the Union. Whereas the United States leading up to the War Between the States needed to maintain a fragile balance between slave states and free states, slavery becomes the way of life throughout the country.

The vehicle for telling this story is a television documentary made for the BBS (British Broadcasting System, a fictionalized version of the BBC). Those desiring a serious look at an alternative history will be disappointed. The film clearly has its tongue deeply embedded in its cheek. There is recreated film footage showing a buffoonish Abraham Lincoln being apprehended by Confederates. There are segments that show an older Abraham and a fugitive Harriet Tubman. Just as Canada became the refuge of Revolutionary War’s Tories, so too does Canada serve as the refuge for Northerners fleeing the Confederacy. We are introduced to the Confederacy’s dynastic first family, the Fauntroys. There are reenvisionings of how a Confederate States of America may have developed differently and responded to historical events differently. None of these are really particularly creative or thought provoking though they may be quite amusing. To that end, the film does spend some time on a fictitious romanticization of the North’s “Lost Cause,” just as America has spent much of the last 140 years romanticizing the Confederacy’s “Lost Cause.” It is from this part of the film that my personal highlight for the entire film comes. It is the alternative Gone with the Wind entitled Northern Wind. This was simply so bad, it was terrific.

However, the real kick in this film comes from the ads placed in the documentary’s television broadcast. Much of this is cringe-inducing as we see ads for a home-shopping network selling slaves, a slave restraint gadget called “The Shackle,” a promo for a police reality show devoted to rounding up runaway slaves, and, finally, products with openly racist names like “Coon Chicken Restaurants” and “Niggerhair.” Though these ads break up the flow of the faux documentary’s narrative, the film’s credits will reveal that these product names come directly from our own history—where the supposedly enlightened free states won. Ultimately, this film is a somewhat crude and amateurish endeavor that despite its complete lack of polish does manage to be intermittently amusing and thought provoking.

FRIENDS WITH MONEY
Written and directed by Nicole Holofcener; director of photography, Terry Stacey; edited by Robert Frazen; music by Craig Richey and Rickie Lee Jones
With: Catherine Keener, Jennifer Aniston, Frances McDormand, Joan Cusack, Simon McBurney, Jason Isaacs, Scott Caan, Greg Germann, Ty Burrell, and Bob Stephenson. Rated R. Running time: 90 minutes



Although I go to a lot of films, I—unlike many professional film critics—get to choose which films I see. This means that I generally see films that I have some expectation of being interested in and liking. This means that I generally don’t see many films that serve as fodder for a “10 Worst Films List.” Then sometimes there’s a Friends With Money. This film features four talented actresses. Jennifer Aniston is Olivia, a one-time teacher who now runs her own business cleaning other people’s homes. She doesn’t have much money but does have friends who do. They are Jane (Frances McDormand), Christine (Catherine Keener), and Franny (Joan Cusack). They also have husbands Aaron (Simon McBurney), David (Jason Isaacs), and Matt (Greg Germann), respectively. There’s no explanation for why hand-to-mouth Olivia ever became friends with her very wealthy and self-indulgent friends. These folks embody most of the least attractive words that begin with “self”—like self-centered, self-deluded, self-involved, selfish. Olivia seems to be a basically a decent young woman if you can overlook that she has a serious marijuana habit, allows herself to be shamelessly exploited by her customer Marty (Bob Stephenson), and then even more egregiously by her boyfriend Mike (Scott Caan), and then obsessively stalks her married ex-lover. In this odious ensemble, Simon McBurney’s Aaron is the most decent and sensitive character. He, naturally, is constantly suspected of being gay. His hetero cred is done no favors by sex-averse wife Jane and then his new friendship with the like-minded, same-named Aaron (Ty Burrell). As if forcing us to spend time with loathsome companions were not bad enough, the film unfolds in ways that are very predictable. So there is a happy ending of sorts, but by then one has experienced eighty plus minutes of the cinematic equivalent of fingernails scraping on a chalkboard. I would strongly recommend checking out director Nicole Holofcener’s Walking and Talking (1996) and Lovely & Amazing (2001), instead.

THANK YOU FOR SMOKING
Directed by Jason Reitman; written by Mr. Reitman, based on the novel by Christopher Buckley; director of photography, James Whitaker; edited by Dana E. Glauberman; music by Rolfe Kent
With: Aaron Eckhart, Maria Bello, Cameron Bright, Adam Brody, Sam Elliott, Katie Holmes, David Koechner, Rob Lowe, William H. Macy, J. K. Simmons, and Robert Duvall. Rated R. Running time: 92 minutes

½

I wasn’t sure I wanted to see this film. As a nonsmoker and a small cog in the apparatus for providing health care services, I certainly do not encourage smoking. Aaron Eckhart’s shameless shill for Big Tobacco—the poster boys for corporate bad citizenship—was hardly a character—as portrayed in the film’s trailer—with whom I looked forward to spending ninety-two minutes. The film, however, is thoroughly engaging and very funny. Eckhart’s Nick Naylor isn’t quite as shameless as he first seems. He dances the rhetorical fine line trying to never be on the wrong side of an argument. Although used to confronting hostile audiences, he is daunted by an audience of one—his son Joey (Cameron Bright). The film has colorful characters like the tobacco warlord The Captain (Robert Duvall), the head of the Tobacco Institute Budd Rohrabacher (J. K. Simmons), the dying cigarette advertising icon Lorne Lutch (Sam Elliott), and the savvy product-promoting film producer Jeff Megall (Rob Lowe). There are also Naylor’s fellow MOD (merchants of death) Squad members Polly Bailey (Maria Bello) and Bobby Jay Bliss (David Koechner). Their arguments about which of their clients’ products (alcohol, tobacco, or firearms) are most dangerous to society are quite sardonic. The film works as it shows how this man maintains his integrity and in the process teaches some interesting lessons. It is entertaining satire and thought provoking. Acknowledging that many products have assorted pluses and minuses, it raises lots of questions. Is there a moral aspect to what we do to earn a living? How much influence is wielded by lobbyists? How much should government do to protect us? Should it protect us from ourselves? How should personal, corporate, and government responsibility be balanced? Are their implications for other types of goods and services? Gambling? Drugs? Prostitution? Is a prostitute an entrepreneur, a cynical sex merchant, or a victim? These may not immediately spring to mind, but Jason Reitman’s film of Christopher Buckley’s book has a way of burrowing into one’s mind and making one think long after the laughter has fallen silent.  

 

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