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Michael Giltz
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Inspiring Funny Hot Scary Outrageous Amazing Weird CrazyCannes 2011: Woody Loves Paris;
Sleeping Beauty Gets Dark
Critics were in a forgiving mood on the first day of the
Cannes Film Festival. They treated Woody Allen's latesttrifle with a generous spirit ("I enjoyed it!" some said, atad defensively), though none would claim it ranks withhis great works, just insisting that Midnight In Pariswas pleasant enough. And the emotionally inert featuredebut Sleeping Beauty by director Julia Leigh prompted
discussions of the director's obvious intelligence andpotential to deliver down the road, rather than catcallsfor its opaque storytelling and purposeless affect. Maybeit's another sign of our permanent recession: critics can'tafford to toss out brickbats left and right. They're goingto save them for the movies that really deserve it.
MIDNIGHT IN PARIS ** out of ****
Woody Allen's latest bauble is neither a hit a la Match Point nor a miss like Whatever Works or
Cassandra's Dream or Scoop . It's just... another Woody Allen movie. If you're a fan, it will prove
diverting. If you're not a fan, it certainly won't convert you. Owen Wilson proves an affable lead and slipseasily into the familiar Woody role of a wildly successful and wealthy person who is also dissatisfied with
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their lot. In Wilson's case, he's an in-demand Hollywood screenwriter who really wants to be a serious
novelist. His girlfriend/fiance is Rachel McAdams, a pill of a person who derides every single aspect of
Wilson's personality and likes. He enjoys wandering the streets of Paris in the rain; she can't wait to get
home. It doesn't help that they're on vacation with her Tea Party parents who can't stand Wilson and
even have him spied on in hopes of discouraging their romance. McAdams meanwhile is clearly more
attracted to a pompous old flame played amusingly by Michael Sheen.
So they're clearly not made for each other and it's merely a question of which Parisian woman will catch
Wilson's eye and show him the love and respect and zest for real life he desires. Will it be the tour guide,played nicely in by Carla Bruni, the wife of French President Nicolas Sarkozy? Or the young girl who runsa very casual knick knack stand of antiques and old Cole Porter 78s?
STOP READING HERE IF YOU DON'T WANT A SPOILER AND AVOID ALL OTHER REVIEWS AS
WELL!
Perhaps the one person you wouldn't suspect is Zelda Fitzgerald. In a whimsical and never particularly
convincing manner, Wilson is whisked back to the 1920s Paris of his dreams and is soon rubbingshoulders with Zelda and F. Scott, not to mention Ernest Hemingway, Salvador Dali, Gertrude Stein,Pablo Picasso... and Marion Cotillard as the beguiling muse for so many of these artists. Hmm. Theobvious comparison is the fantastical romantic comedy The Purple Rose Of Cairo , but if you haven't seen
that gem starring Jeff Daniels by all means stop everything and do so right away.
You can map out the rest of this film quite easily, though you may not expect Allen to repeat ad nauseam
the very simple idea that people are nostalgic for the past but life can be hard no matter when you'realive. (We got it the first three times.) Virtually all the historic figures come across as no deeper than aSaturday Night Live sketch approximation of them. The jokes rarely extend beyond Wilson wanting topick up some paintings by these masters for mere pennies or giving Bunuel an idea for his most famousfilm. The lone exception is Kathy Bates as Gertrude Stein; she somehow manages to create an honest togoodness flesh and blood character you actually believe exists.
Everything else is a piffle, though it's always pleasant to stroll the streets of Paris and listen to Sidney
Bichet. There are worse ways of spending 90 minutes though none but the diehards should bother.
SLEEPING BEAUTY * 1/2 out of **** (but *** out of **** for potential talent)
Australian novelist Julia Leigh shows intelligence and a genuine command of cinema with her theatrical
debut. Unfortunately, it's also a classic festival film -- the sort of opaque movie-making that a generalaudience will never sit still for. You spend half the movie figuring out who is who and how they're relatedto each other and what exactly is going on and the second half wondering if you should care. It remindedme of Paolo Sorrentino's The Consequences Of Love. It too left me cold emotionally, but I admired the
artistry behind it and hoped for better things from him down the road. The same is true for Leigh, whocould also be facilely compared to Andrea Arnold. (In a nice sign, four female directors are InCompetition this year, perhaps a record.)
Our heroine -- played with subtlety by Emily Browning -- is an odd duck. She seems to be a college
student and we first spot her on campus taking part in an experiment, presumably for modest amountsof money. It involves sliding a tube down her throat and into her lungs, showing in one easy image howher body can be invaded, how she can use it to make cash and how it feels outside of her, distant andsomething to be used. The rest of the film proves this masterful, unnerving scene wasn't a fluke, but the
promise of it is never fulfilled.
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Slowly we learn more about this woman. She has a string of jobs like waitress and running a copier in an
office. (And apparently hasn't learned how to make copies and sort them at the same time since she
repeatedly does it by hand.) She also seems to be a prostitute or perhaps just enjoys exceptionally blunt
businessmen in high-priced bars. (We never quite see money exchange hands in these scenes.)
So it's no surprise when Browning's character responds to an ad and stumbles into very kinky territory
indeed. In the sort of goofily debauched scene only the movies can imagine (think Kubrick's Eyes WideShut) , she wears lingerie to pour drinks while mostly nude women serve dinner to a group of very elderly,
very wealthy people. Even more ludicrous are the two completely nude women contorting themselves onthe floor like the naughtiest coffee tables in history. There's more -- including a relatively positiverelationship with an ailing male friend and perhaps former almost-lover (the road not taken?) who is
riddled with cancer (it seems) and drinks like a fish.
This is topped by her final debasement or exploration of how objectified she can make her own body.
Our heroine becomes a sleeping beauty, that is, very well paid to consume a substance a la Rohipnol thatwill completely knocks her out and allows extremely wealthy men to observe and lay with her in amanner that would please the Marquis de Sade but which does not include penetration. That wouldpresumably be far too banal for these epicures of ecstasy.
Leigh throughout gets excellent support from her actors and her technical crew. The movie looks
marvelous and is clearly driven by a probing intelligence. A few bold touches don't pay off. Most of thefilm has no score so when it suddenly appears in a driving scene, you perk up immediately. True, she ison her way to play a sleeping beauty, but the emotional payoff of finally hearing a swelling, ominous
score doesn't follow through with any sense of discovery. Similarly, one of the debauched elderly men is
suddenly speaking directly into the camera while repeating a long anecdote about turning 30 andreceiving a book he found very meaningful. Again, the technical aspect is striking but the monologue is someandering and unsatisfying that it leads you nowhere. Other characters come and go; we don't evenreally learn their names much less care about their attitudes towards themselves or our heroine. Shefinally has a truly cathartic show of emotion at the finale but why exactly and what is she feeling and isthis what it takes for her to scratch the surface of her heart?
*****
Thanks for reading. Michael Giltz is the cohost of Showbiz Sandbox, a weekly pop culture podcast that
reveals the industry take on entertainment news of the day and features top journalists and opinionmakers as guests. It's available free on iTunes. Visit Michael Giltz at his website and his daily blog.
Download his podcast of celebrity interviews and his radio show, also called Popsurfing and alsoavailable for free on iTunes. Link to him on Netflix and gain access to thousands of ratings and
reviews .
Follow Michael Giltz on Twitter: www.twitter.com/michaelgiltz
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regardezlamusik @ginaLopera Il faut voir le dernier Woody Allen pour
comprendre :-)
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_d_lozcel_k #youwillmeetatalldarkstranger yine sahane bir woody allen filmi.londra
sokaklari,iliskilere dair muazzam bi samimiyet..Ve antonio banderas!
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