GROWING OLD DISGRACEFULLY - AND "SIDEWAYS"

There are a few facts I need accept. I turned 30 last month – I am officially “no longer a young person”. Oh sure, 30 is the new 20, you are as old as you feel, it’s just a number and all that jazz, but let’s face it – to partially quote this very film – all things being equal, around about a third of my life is over. I think this is why at “benchmark” years in your life and at events you have a tendency to look back, take stock and in some cases make a desperate attempt to change the way things are headed. Or not. I can sympathize enormously with this feeling – although I am a tad bit too young for a midlife crisis as such yet – there has been a certain amount of looking back and taking stock going on. Which is why I HAD to tell you about this film. It speaks so eloquently of these feelings and their consequences, I felt we simply HAD to take some time out and talk about it. It comes to us all you know. Some may hide it better than others but it does come to us all…

Ok, so, like we said, it is these landmark events and turning points that make you stop and look back at your life and take stock. For Miles (Paul Giamatti), it is his best friend Jack’s (Thomas Haden Church) wedding. This is especially poignant for Miles because following the break-up of his marriage a few years back, he has been for all intents and purposes, an emotional wreck. The fact that his dreams of getting his novel finally published – the realisation of which seems constantly just on the horizon but out of reach – do not help either. In short, he has hit middle age and feels he has failed. Jack is in a similar predicament with Miles in many ways, an aspiring actor (though he is currently waiting for the right project and getting by with voiceovers) he has achieved less than he would have hoped. However their characters could not be more different; Jack is confident, outgoing and very much a ladies man. Still, this odd couple have been friends since university, and it is only natural that Miles is the best man at the wedding. As a wedding gift, Miles decides to treat Jack to a trip to wine country in California. Wine is Miles’ hobby and specialty. Jack is naturally very happy to be there, but he knows little and less about wine. And he has decidedly different plans about what their priorities should be on the trip…

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that what Jack wants more than anything out of this trip is “one last fling” before he ties the knot. And in so many ways this film is a gentle, loving comedy about reaching middle age, turning back and asking oneself “how has it gone so far?” Above all, it is about the very different ways we can react to the answer we get.

It is tempting to write off Thomas Haden Church’s Oscar® nominated performance as a rather typical take on a midlife crises  / pre-wedding nerves syndrome but the beauty of it is, you can never quite write him off as a slime ball. You kinda end  up feeling sorry for him too. You know, he’s the “goofy villain” in the film almost and yet you really want him to do alright. As for Miles, I defy anyone who has had some sort of brush with depression in their lifetimes (and that would be more of us than you would think I imagine) not to sympathise with him. Literally the only criticism I’d have of the film is that it felt the tiniest bit too long for me. But then again, there’s the difficulty of adapting a book – I guess especially if you’re the director you would be extremely hard pressed to cut out one section or another that you particularly liked…

I saw this film being referred to as a “surprise hit” somewhere. I can’t quite understand how people failed to see this one coming a mile away. True, it’s a road trip movie and lately these films have been more associated with young people and narratives about taking a step into adulthood. But that’s the thing about being a child or a teenager, right? I mean, how many of us weren’t sure that once we had “grown up” “everything” would come clear? Yeah, newsflash. Adulthood is not happily ever after. Luckily however, as Sideways lovingly reminds us, nor is it the end. There have been many films that remind us that reaching a certain milestone age (say 40 or 50) is not the end of it all. Sideways shows us an uncompromisingly realistic view of failure. And how it can potentially be turned around even if you think you are now, in Miles’s words not mine; “So old you aren’t even in the game anymore – a pasture animal waiting for the abattoir”.  And one thing we all do, no matter what, is grow old. I think this is why it’s important to step back from our sometimes overly competitive lives and remind ourselves that it really is never too late. That it is ok to fail – even fail big time – sometimes. You may occasionally “laugh outloud” at this film – I know I did - but you’ll more probably smile at it lovingly from beginning to end. Because these are things we all really worry about – even though we may talk about them little and less.

A colleague at work was mentioning a wedding she worked at ( I work in events these days, much like Jack I’m waiting for the right project to come along. Hah.) the other day. This particular colleague is a deal younger than me so I smiled when she said “The bride was old. Like, maybe 40.” How surprised do you reckon she will be when 40 creeps up on her and appears at her door? My 40^th is a mere 10 years away and knowing my life it’s going to rush up on me when my back’s turned. Not that I’m saying this is a bad thing… J

TIME TO HIT THE ROAD WITH STYLE: "THELMA AND LOUISE"

Well, as you guys know by now, I am not a major fan of going through the big classics here on this blog. I mean, especially if we’re talking about “those” films, you know, that we all agree are unequivocally brilliant. But still, I do get back to this category from time to time. Because well, you never know, I saw a lot of the “big” classics quite late in life, maybe you’re in the same boat. Maybe you just never got round to it. Better late than never and all that jazz. So here, for your delectation is Thelma and Louise. The road movie of road movies. At the very beginning of the story, Thelma and Louise could just as well have gone absolutely nowhere. Thelma (Geena Davis) is a stay-at home wife with a rather horrible husband who harasses her and probably cheats on her. Louise, her friend, (Susan Sarandon) works as a waitress in a diner, has a long-term boyfriend but is a more independent spirit than Thelma. All the two women want is to have a girl’s weekend at a cabin they have borrowed from a friend of Louise. And things would have gone a lot smoother if Thelma had actually found the courage to ask her husband – not that he would have agreed. The end result is that when the two women drive off, Thelma has left a note taped to the microwave and they are both feeling in a very “giddy” mood, up for having some fun. The trouble is – without giving too much away – that the fun turns nasty pretty quickly and their holiday risks turning into a nightmare. They have to look deep within themselves and find unplumbed depths to both themselves and their friendship if they can ever hope to turn things around. Ok, to be fair, the director Ridley Scott is known for a rather different kind of film. You know, he is the man of epic adventures; he brought us “raaaah” moments like in Gladiator or serious, though-provoking sci-fi with Blade Runner. This is also, in a sense, an epic adventure but on a completely different scale. I was flipping through the interview the director has in the leaflet of my version of the film and Scott points out that rarely are the scripts he works on so “character based”. It is true actually. Usually Scott’s characters are, in one way or another, part of the bigger whole. True, they may be standing up to it or something but I mean, take Russell Crowe in Gladiator – the “model” soldier, standing up to the Roman Empire. Or Robin Hood – the model archer standing up to a corrupt monarch. I am not implying that all Scott’s films are the same by the way – though some do argue this - but, case in point, Thelma and Louise is different. I mean, there is the action / western in there. Really. There are shootouts, car chases all that kinda thing, the ones who have watched it know what I mean. But there is character based comedy as well. Both Sarandon and Davis are SO brilliant. I mean I have to say, the characters are a bit “type” y – there are ALWAYS two very different characters on the road movie, they are very disparate and a lot of the time one is very down to earth and organized and one is a little more scaty and “funny” – as are Thelma and Louise. But as the film progresses we see them both change and develop. And since both actresses are brilliant we see it happen realistically. We get to know them, we get to understand their backstories, why exactly they were / became this way. And the depth of character works very well for the messages the film gives about women and their situation back in the day - and we can discuss how much it has improved. But that is the topic of a whole new paper all together. In short, Scott uses some familiar tropes to make a fun and very watchable movie that also gives us some serious stuff to think about buried not to deep in the film. A definite must watch I’d say.

FOR A LARGE, HAPPY SLICE OF LIFE, STEP ON BOARD THE "MYSTERY TRAIN"

If you had nothing but the DVD edition of this film that I own, and more specifically the blurb on the back to go on when researching this particular film, you might be a tad confused. The DVD cover explains that the film successfully combines a Japanese ghost story, an Italian romantic-comedy, a Brit that causes utter confusion and trouble (nothing new there then!) and Elvis Presly. And although this is, admittedly, a mighty confusing concoction, it is a very neat summary of what goes on in this film. See, this is the beauty of films like this. Life, real life, actually does successfully combine elements like this. It’s just that we are often so lost in our own strand of the story that we see nothing but what surrounds us personally and not the big picture. Mystery Train is not only one of the single funniest films I have ever had the pleasure of watching, it is also a rather stunning “slice of life” with a slightly deeper message hidden down below…
Our story takes place in Memphis, Tennessee. A young Japanese couple disembarks from a train; they are here to sightsee; the young man’s hair and dexterity with his Zippo lighter alone tells us what great fans they are of a certain lost age. Sun studios, Graceland and the excitement of actually being there engulfs them both; our young hero however is, as was anyone worth knowing back in The King’s day, ultra-cool. His girlfriend, like a lot of women I know, accuses him of being cold and unfeeling. After a day’s sightseeing they settle into a small hotel in the town center for the night before continuing. At just about the same moment, a young woman from Italy (Nicoletta Brasci) who is accompanying the body of a loved one back to Italy has found out, much to her distress, that she has to stay in Memphis overnight. She finds a small hotel in the center of town, where a young woman is in the middle of a fight with the hotel’s night clerk who only has double rooms left and refuses to have her stay in one at half price. The young Italian will agree to be her roommate and will then have to listen to endless stories about her English boyfriend, nicknamed Elvis, how they broke up and how she’s leaving him and leaving town… Before she has a strange brush with a ghost that is… Lastly, again at the same time Elvis (not the singer, the afore mentioned British boyfriend played by the ultra-mega charismatic lead singer of The Clash, Joe Strummer) is in a bar, getting very drunk and waving a gun around. It will be up to his colleague Will Robinson (played by Rick Aviles, who is not best-known for lead parts but who you will have seen in smaller parts in classics such as Carlito’s Way, The Godfather III and Ghost) and his “brother in law” Charlie (played by Steve Buscemi, another “staple” of Jarmusch’s – not that I am complaining) to calm him down and get him out of trouble… Well, that’s the plan, anyway. The night is preparing for many strange stories and adventures, and they will come together in the strangest, most unexpected way…
The first thing I noticed about this film is that the location was, in fact, the same as Down By Law. You may think that this would take away from the feel of the film but in fact it does not. Because the whole point of the film is a sort of permanence of locations. We wander round and around the streets of Memphis, crossing the same streets and sometimes even copying the same shots as a couple of minutes ago while the story changes and advances… This in, itself, is a rather beautiful thing: I sometimes stop to wonder at how many people in total must have walked on the same streets as I have… Mind-boggling thought, no? This is also the ultimate “strands of life” film, because the three stories do come together in the end, but ironically, neither of them are aware of it… Another funny little quirk of living on this planet; for all you know, the stranger next to you might be a potential best friend or the love of your life, you may actually never know…
Jarmusch makes no bones about the fact that this film is about music. Good music, from back in the day… The soundtrack will have the toes of viewers of a certain generation tapping, think Elvis, Roy Orbison, Charlie Parker… Yeah, you know what I am talking about… And lastly, but by no means on earth least, I must give a standing ovation to one of the best comic duos I have ever seen. See, Joe Strummer is not the only musician on board. The night clerk at the hotel (where, you will doubtless have guessed, all three “stories” end up) is played by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins (best known for his classic tune “I put a spell on you”) and the bellhop assisting him is played by Cinqué Lee. Apart from the obvious practical part they play in advancing the story, their various interactions and conversations are inserted into various places in the story (like small side dishes between main courses if you will) and constitute some of the categorically funniest dialogues I have witnessed in my 28 years on earth. I promise you, remembering them alone still has me giggling. They are so funny that sometimes we see the same dialogue twice (remember that all three stories are occurring at once, so sometimes as the information we gain about the “background” puts a whole new slant on a dialogue we thought was something completely different) but that doesn’t matter, it’s STILL funny…
In short, another touching and sensitive slice of life from Jarmusch; yes there is a lot to think deeply about, but at the same time there are plenty of instances to laugh, just like life itself… Watch this one if you watch none of the others… Mind you, I have a feeling you will be converted after watching this one anyway… =)

NOW IT'S TIME FOR A LITTLE JOURNEY: "IM JULI"

Ok, I got you with the German title, didn’t I? Well, the thing is, a Turkish film doesn’t necessarily mean a film in Turkish, right? It could also mean a Turkish director – in this case Fatih Akın. Mr. Akın is actually quite well known around Europe, but more so in his native Germany. Mr. Akın is the son of one of the many Turkish families immigrated to the country. He grew up there and was honored at the Berlin film festival with a Golden Bear, but his films are always somehow connected to Turkey – sometimes they even take place in Turkey – but they usually have more to do with the Turkish minority living in Germany. Im Juli is a wonderful, touching film about love, fate and adventure. It is one of his better known films – and for good reason.
Daniel is a teacher’s assistant who lives in Hamburg. He is shy and quiet, his students don’t take much notice of him, in fact adventure doesn’t even figure in the periphery of his life. But on the last day of term, things begin to change. A mysterious and beautiful stranger (Juli, who he actually passes every day on his way back from work without noticing) sells him a ring. The ring is, apparently, an ancient Mayan lucky charm, in the shape of the sun. She also gives him a flyer to a party and tells him that if he goes there, he will meet the love of his life, who he will recognize thanks to the sun motif. Daniel doesn’t believe in this but goes to the party anyway – and guess what, the charm works! Coincidence brings him face to face with Melek, a girl of Turkish origin on her way to Istanbul. She is looking for a place to stay, one beer leads to another and Melek ends up staying over at Daniel’s place (as in she sleeps there – literally not metaphorically)before heading off to Istanbul. All Daniel knows is that she will be meeting someone in Ortaköy – a neighborhood in Istanbul near the Bosphorus bridge in one week’s time. Daniel then makes a big decision. He is going to drive down to Istanbul, be there on Friday and see Melek again. This impromptu journey to follow his fate will prove more adventurous and will teach him more than he had ever, ever bargained for.
The thing I liked the most about Im Juli is how real all the characters are. None of them are perfect, dashing or overly moral. That is, I think, what makes the massive coincidences Akın has sprinkled along the film easier to stomach. It is, for all intents and purposes a road-movie. The two “things” of the movie are the characters and the road. The film is born out of their interaction. And some of the coincidences, I have to say, are a little… You know. I mean yes, the main idea of the film is fate, that some things were meant to be, that you have to travel a long way sometimes just to learn a simple lesson. And I am not averse to a few coincidences; I mean I love Jim Jarmusch and I also loved Slumdog Millonaire, the film that kinda became the reference point for such films in modern times, but still… Mind you, Akın chose the right place to place the coincidences, the route takes us largely through the Balkans, an unpredictable an exciting place, with a warm and unpredictable populace. So I mean OK, overall the background has sort of been prepared. They are not unbelievable in themselves; there are just rather a lot of them. But I mean, one sympathizes so much with poor Daniel, and get so into his quest to find his destiny and his true love, by the end you are ready to overlook all that and are just rooting for him to succeed. So yes. A good’un. It’s the kind of thing you watch with your girlfriends over a box of chocolates. And by the way, if nothing else it is relieved to see a (believable) bewildered man being taken advantage of by women for a change. Maybe not a typically Turkish movie in a lot of ways – but still Turkish enough to be able identified as part of the family. An interesting experience, I think you’ll like it.

SWEETEST ROAD MOVIE EVER : AWAY WE GO

Away we go is an absolute gem of a film by successful director Sam Mendez. It is the story of life, searching, looking for the next step, trying to find where one belongs. And it is told in a very human and approachable way, which makes it a joy to watch.
Burt and Verona are a rather non-conventional couple. They live almost completely by themselves in the middle of the forest in Madison and live their lives working online / on the phone and pretty much minding their own business in a rather New Age and Hippy-ish kind of way. This all changes when Verona realizes she is pregnant. And just as the couple is getting used to the imminent advent of their baby girl they receive another blow. The main reason the couple had moved to Madison in the first place was to be close to Burt’s rather tactless but well meaning parents. However, Burt and Verona find out that they are in fact moving to Belgium (a 15 year-old plan nobody ever believed would come true), leaving the new parents to fend for themselves. The couple is incensed but once their anger dies down they decide that they also must move homes. They have to have a more stable and grown-up life now the baby is on the way. Thus starts one of the funniest and most endearing road-trips (an endearing road-trip is a bizarre concept but you will know what I mean if you watch the film), where Burt and Verona look not only for a new city to live in but a new lifestyle to adapt to…
“Burt, are we fuck-ups ?” asks Verona at one point of the film. I feel this is exactly the human condition Mendez has tried to (and succeeded in) portray in his film. Burt and Verona’s road – trip is almost an allegory of couples everywhere, on the road of life itself, going down the road hand in hand, but not quite sure what the next turn will bring and sometimes rather worried about whether it will really work out in the end. On top of that, all the characters are very well studied so the film pokes fun at American national quirks without being crass or over-the-top. It is a more “home grown” feeling, a witty joke by someone who knows what he is talking about...
Away we go is, in short, a top notch film especially for all you fans of that “fuzzy feeling” inside. And for those of you who want a quiet contemplation on life. Enjoy.

LOST AND FOUND ON THE ROAD OF LIFE : “WENDY & LUCY”

Starring the Oscar® nominee Michelle Williams, Wendy and Lucy is a typically “indie” film telling the tale of a typically human condition.
Wendy (Michelle Williams) is on the road in search of a better life. In fact, she is heading for Alaska for a new, well-paid job. She is in her old battered car and beside her is her one true companion: Her dog Lucy. However, in a small town in what feels to Wendy like the middle of nowhere her beloved car breaks down. One mishap follows another and shortly afterwards Lucy also goes missing. Wendy has now effectively lost everything that means anything to her and has no money to set things right. To make matters worse, the town she is stuck in seems to be just as stuck in one place as she is…
As I said at the beginning, this is a prime example of an independent film but this, for you, could be a plus or a minus. The tone is definitely somber. The pace is undoubtedly slow. However, Michelle Williams glows in the lead role. And the feeling of desperation whether quiet or vociferous and the various ways the characters go about dealing with (or not as the case may be) the situation are quite thought-provoking.
Possibly not a Saturday-night entertainment classic but definitely worth your consideration