Rachel Getting Married

There seem to be two kinds of Jonathan Demme films: the Hollywood Oscar sweepers, and the much smaller films that allow him to focus on his love of people and music.  His recent 'Rachel Getting Married' finds him returning to the later as he takes us into the week surrounding a home wedding in the Connecticut countryside.  Though the general setting, shaky hand-held camerawork, and tense dynamic between the bride and her unstable sister HEAVILY recall Noah Baumbach's 'Margot At The Wedding'; 'Rachel...' puts us in a very crowded house filled with family, best friends, and musicians who never seem to stop playing.  There are extended scenes of toasts, musical performances, and a cutthroat dishwasher-loading competition.  Demme puts the camera right on the faces of the guests and family members during these moments when everyone comes together.  We feel every bit of their joy when the celebration is in full swing, and the tension when the potential for disaster is more imminent. 

Much of this potential comes in the form of Kim, Rachel's sister.  She's fresh out of rehab and still nursing the guilt of being at the helm of a family tragedy some years ago.  For the first time in a while, she comes home to find herself not the center of attention.  It's not long before Rachel feels this and begins to resent Kim's presence.  For all the casual, home-movie feel; Demme masterfully builds the tension.  Will Kim find a way to ruin the day?  Will she relapse?  Even in the thick of the fun and joy, it all feels like it could be headed in some awful direction.  There is much about the steps of rehab and the nature of family to take away from here, but Demme favors ambience over answers.  In other words, he'd rather put us in the chaos of those rooms and let us try to see how it feels.  Sometimes just being there says enough.  The film's climax is explosive, but mercifully quick.  The wedding, however, doesn't spare us from the relentless partying that seems to go on...and on...and on; getting more wonderfully chaotic with each sequence.  

All this joy and pain is aided by the across the board-wonderful performances.  Especially notable is the eccentric Bill Irwin as the girls' father.  It's a peculiar performance that teeters between solid father of the bride and emotionally over the top.  A generally ageless Debra Winger returns from the dead as the girls' distant mother and proves she's lost little of what made her one of the great actresses of the 80's.  Enough greatness has been bestowed upon Anne Hathaway's Kim.  Suffice it to say that it's all true.  

'Rachel Getting Married' ends with a wonderful shot of Rachel reclining on a porch chair as the musicians quietly play in the background.  It's a rare moment of calm in Rosemarie DeWitt's elegant performance, and it again succeeds at putting us right there with her.  For all of the fun and drama, we're relieved to finally come out on the other side.

Let The Right One In

I guess there's little more romantic than vampires. It's classic forbidden love between the undead and someone who quietly knows that they'll inevitably outgrow their beloved. I didn't see the second-base eroticism of 'Twilight', but Sweden's 'Let The Right One In' also takes this forbidden love-story into the little world of a socially dejected 12 year old and his undead new neighbor.
Our pubescent hero is Oskar, and he's so blond and pure-looking its as if he were genetically designed for a film that takes place in the snow of a Stockholm winter:Oskar spends his alone time in Travis Bickle-mode acting out a revenge fantasy against the kids who bully him at school. He's caught in one of these by a mysterious young girl, Eli, who says little more than "I can't be friends with you" before walking away. Of course, its not many more random encounters at their apartment complex's jungle gym later that they develop a unique bond; and it's not much longer before that bond grows into a love affair. Eli lives next door to Oskar in a sparse apartment with a middle-aged man who most would assume could be her father. He seems to do most of the killing in order to protect Eli. He may even be a lover that Eli has had since he was twelve. There are hints to this, and it puts an even greater sense of how hopeless it is to fall in love with her.
All this is set against a small-town murder mystery, with those closet to the most recent victim suspecting a teenage girl. Like '30 Days Of Night', 'Let The Right One In' puts a vampire story in the snow to make the blood run a lot redder. 'Let The Right...' is far more successful though at achieving it's goals. This is done by pacing the story and using the violence sparingly; therefore, building the tension to wonderful levels instead of bombarding the audience with a barrage of killings like '30 Days...' (which often comes off like the 'Thriller' video). Probably the most engaging part of 'Let The Right...' is it's two leads, Kare Hedebrant and Lina Leandersson, who manage to be both totally awkward and completely comfortable in their scenes together. Tomas Alfredson's style recalls the recent work of Gus Van Sant at times. Maybe it's just the teenaged lead with the hipster hair, but many scenes seem to share Van Sant's vignette-style pacing and his love of peoples' faces.
Like all movies about vampires, 'Let The Right...' addresses the violence inherent to their nature. Both Oskar's and Eli's relationship with violence feel like two sides to the same coin. His is a sense of retribution for being bullied at school. Hers is essential to her survival. The way the two meet at the end doesn't feel right, but I guess it was inevitable - this is more a love story than a movie about vampires.

10 Personal Touchstones in Cinema

Inspired by this guy, I felt compelled to give my imaginary readers a few reasons why I do what I do...sometimes.

Risky Business
One of many films I watched repeatedly while growing up with HBO. Like 'Adventures in Babysitting', it was fantastic to see a movie about an ordinary teenager in the middle of a seemingly endless suburban sprawl as a protagonist. Unlike 'Adventures...', this one is still funny, sexy, and gives off that same darkly hypnotic magic. My favorite of all time...?

Donnie Darko
Again, a teenager in the midst of suburbia. And like 'Risky Business', the bro-talk stands the test of time:
And much like my beloved 'Twin Peaks', '...Darko' goes somewhere within the wonderfully captured exterior and lets us look at something much more interesting. One of my top 2 favorite scenes of all time:

Mulholland Drive
I guess 2001 was just a great year for movies. Here Lynch took his most beloved protagonist, a woman in trouble, and put her in a phenomenal satire of the inner workings of Hollywood and a very intelligent statement on the nature of dreams.

Psycho
Hitchcock's best? That's for you to decide. But I think its his most influential ( by FAR) and his least dated-seeming. The house on the hill, the zoom-in on Perkins while he hears John Gavin calling out, the conversation about us all being in our private traps; it's got to be his best!

Sex, Lies, and Videotape
A perfect example of what you can do when you have little money, great actors, and someone who knows how to make wonderful ambient music.

Heat
I could go on. And on. And on... This is the one that sent me to film school. There's nothing like films that take you into the lives of multiple characters, all interlinked, then compress it all down to the two leads for a terrific ending (no matter how derivative). Great score too!

All The President's Men
Sometimes the best movies are the ones that take conversations between everyday people and make them into something you can't take your eyes off of. Make sure you've seen 'Zodiac'. The meetings with Hal Holbrook's 'Deep Throat' are masterfully done.

Last Tango In Paris
Marlon Brando is maybe the greatest of all time for many reasons. This film suggests that it's maybe because he is truly complex, hilariously funny, and deeply tortured. Otherwise, how could he do THAT! Bertolucci makes Francis Bacon come alive and gold feel very sad.

2046
Heavily flawed, this film is one I never-the-less felt I had to pick over In The Mood For Love here (if for no other reason, than the fact that my reverence for that film has been well documented already. This was one of my all-time favorite theater-going experiences. The 10:05 show on a sunday night. Empty, beautiful theater. HUGE screen. Quite baked. 'Casablanca' meets 'Brief Encounter' meets 'Blade Runner'.

Badlands
Just about as perfect as cinema can get, in my opinion. Every shot looks as if it could be a framed picture; the score is in a weird, wonderful world of its own; and the humor is that marvelous "when cool meets stupid" that would go on to have a big influence on David Lynch.