Films Opening January 8, 2010

The Reel Music Festival at the Northwest Film Center

One of the great annual events here in Portland.  Films about rock, jazz, blues, classical, world music, etc.  Always a mixed bag, but you can’t really go wrong.
I have seen Cool, an English doc about the birth of cool jazz from the 40s.  The doc itself is a bit dry and respectful, but the performance footage of Miles Davis, the Modern Jazz Quartet, Dave Brubeck, et al., is priceless.
I have also seen In Search of Mozart and In Search of Beethoven.  If you have to pick one, go to the Beethoven.  But, both are worth seeing, even if the Mozart is less interesting as a film.
I’ll try to see more, and report my views.
The phone for info is 503-221-1156, and the website is http://www.nwfilm.org/.

Youth in Revolt (Opening everywhere)
Director: Miguel Arteta
With: Michael Cera, Portia Doubleday, Jean Smart, Zach Galifianakis, Ray Liotta, Steve Buscemi

Michael Cera has made a career of playing the soulful naif, the good boy with faint heart.  And thus it is here.  His Nick Twisp is a victim of his own fears, his parents’ divorce, his mother’s (Smart) penchant for bad boyfriends, and his father’s (Buscemi) fixated adolescence.
He meets a girl (Doubleday) who he sees as the height of sophistication and fearlessness, despite her uptight Christian parents.  She sees him as a nice, but silly boy.
Nick vows to get dangerous, and thereby enters Francois Dillinger, an alter ego who is bad to the bone.  He goads Nick into doing things.  Insanity ensues, much of which is funny, and some of it (he nearly burns down Berkeley) truly anarchic and dangerous.  The problem is that Nick will always be Nick, and these adventures (including dressing in drag to elude capture by police) may not make any real changes.
Still, this movie made me laugh.  Not too bad, as these things go.  Don’t expect Rebel Without a Cause, and you’ll enjoy it.  Cera will be 22 in June, and needs to think about the rest of his life before he wears out his welcome.
B


We Live in Public (Documentary, Hollywood Theater)
Director: Ondi Timoner

When I saw this, I kept wondering whether this was a mockumentary, a la Spinal Tap.  But, no.  Truth really can be stranger than fiction.
Josh Harris was a dot-com millionaire in the 90s.  As it has done with so many, money liberated his inner lunatic.  He became a cross between Big Brother and Bill Gates.  Spending vast amounts of money, he constructed an underground bunker in New York, and called for volunteers to move in and sign over all rights to their privacy.  They would literally live in public, sleeping in little boxes, and performing all of their sanitary and sexual functions on camera.  The footage was viewable online, and anywhere in the bunker.
People had to be turned away.  Sheesh.
The TV show Big Brother was happening about the same time, and I don’t know what influenced which.  But, the weirdness became overwhelming, and the experiment ceased.  So, Harris tried this again, using his own life with his girl friend as camera fodder.
That, of course, went south, too.  So, Harris bought an apple farm with what money he had left, and that ain’t the end of it.
This is so fascinating, and chilling, to watch.  Timoner, the director, was one of the people in the bunker, so she knows what she’s doing here.  Amazing glimpse into the swamp of the human mind.
B+

The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus (Opening at several locations)
Director: Terry Gilliam
With: Heath Ledger, Christopher Plummer, Verne Troyer, Lily Cole, Andrew Garfield, Tom Waits, Jude Law, Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell

Terry Gilliam’s greatest strengths, and greatest weaknesses, are his creativity and audacity.  He takes amazing chances with material and presentation which sometimes pay off.
Brazil, for example, is a masterpiece that has been known to drive audiences out of the theater.  Twelve Monkeys is brilliant and died at the box office.
Even his merely entertaining films, like The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, show flashes of real genius, as well as enormous self-indulgence and head-scratching artistic choices.  And then there is his work with Monty Python.
Imaginarium is one of his entertainments, with all the flaws and wonders of the Gilliam mind, including Pythonesque illustrations.
A group of traveling performers (Plummer, Troyer, Cole, Garfield) meet a shady character named Tony (Ledger), and he inadvertently puts their precarious existence in jeopardy, and attracts the notice of the devil (Waits).  It seems that Dr. Parnassus (Plummer) has a previous relationship with the devil, and the devil insists that Parnassus bring him five new souls in one day, or he will collect on the debt.
Because of Ledger’s untimely death, Gilliam has a long history of snake-bit productions, three other actors (Depp, Law, Farrell) portray the character, which works, sort of.  They all hit their marks, but the idea is strange even for Gilliam.
So, we have an entertaining, if not great, Gilliam movie, which is enough for people like me.  It is already separating the audiences wherever it plays, so be warned.
C+