The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) Directed by Wes Anderson

Nick:
Family disagreements, forced silences, different perspectives; nothing brings as much turmoil and discomfort as families at war. I have always seen myself as the black sheep in my family, I seemed to embrace my adopted nation's cultural values much more than the rest of my family (England, compared to my parents' Italy.) I also lacked any moral allegiance to religious guidance. It's still like that really. I love my family dearly, but one has to acknowledge the difference. The Royal Tenenbaums does not impact on my own family in any way. It is however, one of my favorite films of recent times.

After Rushmore, it's fair to say that The Royal Tenenbaums was the movie where Wes Anderson not only cemented his reputation as being a visually stylish director but also a distinctive one. Nowadays you can see the influence of this film everywhere. It's in the color co-ordination of the sets and characters, the bloody great use of soundtrack (Elliot Smith, Nico, The Velvet Underground) that gives hints it's an Anderson movie. But as well as embracing Bill Murray in his movies, it's the fact that Anderson knows how to use the goddess that is Angelica Huston. He remembers that Huston was the daughter of John and the lover of Jack and affords her the true presence and authority of character that Angelica should always demand in her roles. The Royal Tenenbaums also acknowledges that Gene Hackman, when on form, is the equal to any actor out there. His lovable scoundrel Royal is the beating heart here, Hackman brings this one to life.

So, we get tragedy and laughs in equal measure, but neither seems out of place or uncomfortable in this context. The big issues, life and love and death are dealt with. I love this film. Nothing in mainstream American cinema really compares. Anderson may never make a movie as great as this again (though he's come close). Gwyneth Paltrow, Ben Stiller and Luke Wilson certainly won't. If this has somehow alluded you, go find it now. The Royal Tenenbaums is masterful entertainment.

Astrid:
The Royal Tenenbaums was a movie Nick and I watched in 2002. It was one of the early cinema experiences we shared – we even found a huge poster for the film and hung it on our kitchen wall for some years. Therefore the aesthetic of all subsequent Wes Anderson movies and their continual dealing with love and dysfunction have felt directly personal to me – or to us – in my interpretation. The film meant so much to me on so many levels that when my parents were divorcing in 2005, I gave my dad a copy of the film thinking he would appreciate it. He hated The Royal Tenenbaums.

It is a movie about an estranged father trying to make it back to his family after years of neglect and wrong doing. Yet, it is not only about the dad and his often failing attempts to get back the love he is missing. There are the children and their mother. The three adult children (played by Gwyneth Paltrow, Ben Stiller, Luke Wilson) who one by one move back to the family home and suffer from various degrees of depression, are at the heart of the story. The mother (Angelica Houston), who is about to marry her longtime friend and accountant, is there too. The point is that they can all move on in their personal lives through the confrontation with the returning father/husband.

Wes Anderson knows how to make an intelligent and deeply-felt drama, while at the same time, showing the comic side of life. He wrote the script with Owen Wilson. The other thing that Anderson is a master at is the look of every frame in his pictures. Viewing his shots, as well as his moving scenes, as detailed portraits (almost like paintings) of characters is essential. There is thought to each detail, reason for each strayed hair. In a long relationship you sometimes question whether the partners involved have anything left from the selves they were at the beginning of things. It is hard to remember. The Royal Tenenbaums is our relationship ruler, by which we can measure how far then is from now.

Atonement (2007) Directed by Joe Wright

 Astrid:We watched Atonement one Christmas Eve some years ago and were left with a hesitation about whether the film was any good. It took us until last night to feel like reviewing the movie. This time around, I was quite convinced by it. Atonement fulfilled similar cinema needs as The English Patient used to – until I watched it one too many times. There is the romance that is all the more romantic because the lovers are doomed to never make it to the boring repetitive everyday life together. There is the period setting, the first half of the 20th century, which is a much more aesthetic time than the present. There is the epic scale of the picture, and actually and surprisingly, a good and complex enough story line to carry us through.

I'm still not a huge fan of Keira Knightly – like I don't get Audry Hepburn, I just don't get the anorexic gazelle look – and I find it difficult to peer through her looks into the acting. But hey, at least this time I sympathized with her hopeless love story and believed her passion. I got passed the superstar into the narrative.

Atonement is of course a very popular novel by Ian McEwan and I must credit most of the film's success with me to the writer of the original fiction. The juiciest and most thought-provoking aspect of the story is not the cross-class-border romance, it is the story of the writer woman, who as a young girl of ten destroys the love, and eventually the lives, of her sister and the sister's lover by accusing him wrongly of rape. Then she grows into a well-read fiction writer and she exploits the two lost people even more by writing their (and her) story. The tragedy is that the whole misunderstanding and loss could have been avoided by providing sex education to young children and by getting rid of the rigid class system.

Nick:
Toff. At one point in Atonement, Robbie (as played with Trevor Howard like intensity by James McAvoy) insists he is not a toff. Although his character, through association, aspires to move up the classes class distinction ultimately destroys his ambitions. So why does Atonement deserve to stand out from the overcrowded British upper class dwelling period drama? Do we need films with such plummy accented characters? I gave up reading Ian McEwan's celebrated book, bored by it. It's my second time watching Atonement and something struck me in a good way on the second viewing.

The faults of the picture are seemingly enough to give up on the whole exercise. Keira Knightley has yet to deliver in any significant way in any movie I've watched her in. Here she's on auto-pilot. McAvoy on the other hand, is bright. Unfortunately for me, he reminds me of a young David Cameron, so it's really difficult to initially feel any sympathy towards his character. The opening half an hour of the film flirts with tension and ultimately delivers us a sermon on coming-of-age sexual awakening mixed with tragedy, and the aforementioned class role playing. Director Wright's time framing of the film has a little of the art school project about it and can feel intrusive.

On the other hand, Wright's bravura French sea shore, one shot scene, which seems never ending, depicting the madness and sheer lunacy of the Second World War, is masterful. It lifts Atonement to a different level, that one piece of inspired film making.  It's still not enough to save Atonement from being pretentious. What improved the film so much this second viewing was my own mood. I was feeling sentimental, so I wanted to believe in the central love story between the McAvoy and Knightley characters. I survived Atonement this time, even it's twisted ending that seems zoomed in from a different picture. Yes, one has to admit, there are moments of brilliance here.

Forthcoming Attractions

Nick:

The Tree Of Life (released this week in Finland), directed by Hollywood's reclusive Terrence Malick interests me purely as it utilities the great Douglas Trumbull (of 2001 fame) in a tale that seems worryingly deeply religious. Brad Pitt stars which is enough to turn me off, but I'm interested in the creation of earth and the dinosaurs.

Dredd is due to open in 2012. It looks like this time round Judge Dredd will be treated with the respect that Danny Cannon's 1995 Sylvester Stallone starring vehicle obviously lacked. One of my all time favorite characters, I hope they get it right this time.

George Harrison: Living In The Material World sees Martin Scorsese back in documentary mode. Nowadays, it fair to say that this excites me more than his movies. After his Dylan masterclass, I wonder if Scorsese can shed any light on one of the most written about people ever? Out on DVD in October 2011.


Astrid:

Midnight In Paris continues Woody Allen's travels in Europe. I have been somewhat disappointed with the last couple of Allen films, almost getting tired of the things I used to love in his movies. Yet, this trailer has given me hope that Woody in Paris means Woody back in romantic and truly witty form. I'll report on this later.

Le Havre has fascinated me ever since I saw Aki Kaurismäki's interview in Cannes earlier this year. He spouts out in an unfashionable manner. He has the courage to do something ethically involved as well as light-hearted while dealing with a serious topic such as immigration and the EU's closed borders. At least that's how it seems, but I have not seen the film yet.

Larry Crowne is this summer's Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts movie. Despite not really enjoying Julia Roberts in Eat, Pray, Love last year, I feel strangely ready for Julia with Hank. I guess I'm hoping it'll be something like Sleepless in Seattle...why? Well, every now and again I need my movies predicable, stereotypical, Hollywood-faced and safe in an almost boring manner. Larry Crowne seems to promise to be all those things.

The Limits of Control (2009) Directed by Jim Jarmusch

Astrid:
Our household has a lot less time to watch movies these days and unfortunately, there will not be any change in the situation any time soon. Therefore it was especially annoying that when we finally had time and space to share a film together, we picked something like The Limits of Control. Our intention was to watch something entertaining and good. In the shop Jim Jarmusch seemed like a quite safe bet for the both of us – and the guitar case a suited man is holding on the cover of the DVD, seemed like a promise to me.

The Limits of Control is extremely slow. It is also abstract, only occasionally attached to plot development, certain time and space. After half an hour we are ready to fall asleep. Aesthetically things are pleasing, but I cannot be cheated into thinking that I could figure something out here. Everything just IS. But we persist because we cannot begin a new habit of starting films and then never finishing them (this has happened a little recently and it's not good for blogging).

Half way through the film we have started to argue about where in Spain the film is located after each train ride. It's become more interesting to look for location clues and talk over the film than to concentrate on the protagonist's repetition of routines. I have never been to Spain and Nick has only visited Valencia some 20 years ago, so this made for a passionately ignorant argument. In the end I felt I had witnessed something that passed me by because the timing of the film and my personal timing was totally off. I don't want to say the film was bad, although I cannot recommend it either. Hopefully next time, Jarmusch will revisit his sense of humor.

Nick:
We all want more from our culture. We want it to move us, make us think, transport us to new areas mentally and even physically. The need to experiment is essential in creating new experiences. But what happens when someone you admire, who's known for pushing the boundaries ends up losing the plot? Jim Jarmusch has taken risks before and come out on top or, at the very least, engaged us. The Limits Of Control however tests one's patience.

Where to start? Repetition when used to create a riff of images can be startling. In The Limits Of Control the repetitive use of image following the main protagonist, Lone Man ( Isaach De Bankolé) easily drifts into tedium. Sitting at a cafe drinking his espresso in two cups, the use of the matchbox with a secret message, his continual Tai Chi exercising in hotel rooms or the Lone Man's visit to the art gallery begin to grate when viewed with no context or meaning. Jarmusch would like to think he's deconstructing the gangster film, a post-modern hit movie with echoes of Jean-Pierre Melville. Unfortunately, the script brings a new level of pretension. When anyone does speak, it's Jarmusch's own thoughts rapping on movies or art or lame humor, usually delivered by the starry extras, who include Tilda Swinton, John Hurt, Gael Garcia Bernal and Bill Murray.

What almost saves the day is the look of the film (shot by the ever reliable Christopher Doyle), coupled with the musical atmospherics of Japanese band Boris. This, sadly is not enough to salvage The Limits of Control from being terrible. The Limits Of Control could easily have been the existential thriller Jarmusch obviously thought he was making. But you need to create on-screen tension, character, context and meaning for that to work. The Limits Of Control tested my limits to stay awake all the way through.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) Directed by George Roy Hill

Nick:
The concept of celebrity has been with us a long time. It may take different forms or shapes, some celebrities may be real or imagined. Celebrity goes hand in hand with myth making. Despite constant changes in fashion and thinking, celebrity still obsesses us. In Forbes' recent list of top earning film actors, the list displays that it's your fame/connection with the public that puts bums on seats more than your acting talent. But in many ways, it has always been like this. Hollywood has always worked on this type of demand quota. It's amazing that in 2011 we still buy into this shallow process. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid then, is a star vehicle from the old days. If they had cast the movie today (or remake it, though an improbable sequel is being made!), it would be Leonardo DiCaprio teaming up with the slightly older Johnny Depp, the love interest being supplied by Anne Hathaway (if she's not too tall for those guys!)

But then, similarities would cease. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was made in the climate of New Hollywood, so even in a commercial fair like this (despite being a Western), some risk taking has happened. The hazy, hippy photography of Conrad Hall, the wit and counter culture nodding of William Goldman's script (a Ménage à trois is heavily suggested throughout). Lets not forget the greatest thing about Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the Burt Bacharach soundtrack. Bacharach's soundtrack adds a depth and pathos to certain sections of the film that is often lacking. But what Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid lacks in grit and substance, it makes up for in chemistry. The superstar variety.

This brings us back to celebrity. The reason we entertain a picture like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in the first place is the pairing of Paul Newman and Robert Redford. The chemistry and play between the two 'sexy' superstars (this was a fledgling pairing of superstars for Hollywood) is so easy on the eye, so effortless, so witty yet honest, it's pure entertainment. It saves this endeavor and makes you want to return again and again to the film (as I have done over the years). Actually, in many ways I love this film, even though I'm also secretly repulsed by it. Far greater than the very contrite and contrived pairing of Newman and Redford in The Sting,  Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is some kind of classic. Yet the picture itself has a moralistic view towards robbery and outlaws, that ultimately, the picture is against its own heroes. This is a republican Western in many ways. One that lulls you in. It fooled its left-leaning stars of the day too.

Astrid:
As you may have guessed already, Paul Newman and Robert Redford are eye-candy for me. That's why I suggested we revisit this film. I like their suits and hats. 1969 was still a good year for suits and hats. Then there's the silly and quite unnecessary scene with Newman and Katherine Ross on a bicycle together, which was the other reason I wanted to see the film again. Somehow the innocent and ridiculous morning ride (accompanied by Bacharach's jolly song) had become very meaningful in my memory. On a second look the scene was so unrelated to the rest of the film that it was hardly the right reason to watch it again.

The rest of the film then: Well, there is a lot of horseback riding, getting away from the chasing parties and then running away some more. Oh yes, and robbing trains and banks (in a Hollywood way where everything is too easy and showman-like). Everything takes place in a great scenery and varying degrees of natural light and is filmed with gritty and often unfocused lens, which is refreshing after watching today's super clarity and CGI. The plot is just a bit boring for my hunger for intelligence, psychological complexity, or something else to throw me out of being sure of what's going to happen next.

Sundance Kid (Redford) has a girlfriend (Ross), but the relationship between the girlfriend and Butch Cassidy (Newman) seems almost hotter in the film. There is a feeling all along that she is being shared by both of them – just like the two buddies share everything else... I would have been interested in seeing a bit more than a suggestion to this direction. In fact there is a part in the middle of the film that describes the threesome's travels from the Wild West via New York to Bolivia and from the pretended home camera footage they could have made a whole different movie about the three-way love Butch, Sundance and the woman (whose name was not repeated enough for me to remember it) had. But somehow the director was more interested in gun fighting scenes and endless horse riding. That's where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid lost me.