September 2005
Be Surprised
September’s releases are a sophisticated, quirky bunch
BROKEN FLOWERS ***
After all the blockbuster explosions of the summer film line-up, it’s refreshing to downshift to a more thoughtful and sophisticated level of film in the fall. In Jim Jarmusch’s
Broken Flowers, Bill Murray seems to be reprising his role from
Lost in Translation as an ageing, depressed man who has a thing for young women. However, when he receives an anonymous letter from one of his past lovers, claiming he has a 19-year-old son who is searching for his father, the over-the-hill Don Juan is forced to return to four women from decades past. Murray plays the independent and wealthy Don Johnston, who spends most of his time on his sofa. Spurred on by his next door neighbor Winston (beautifully played by Jeffrey Wright), Don reluctantly agrees to go on a cross-country search for the woman who may have written the letter. His first visit is to Mona (Sharon Stone) and her daughter Lolita (Alexis Dziena). From there he continues on to Dora (Frances Conroy), Carmen (Jessica Lange) and her over-protective assistant (Chloe Sevigny), and lastly to Penny (Tilda Swinton), with little more to show for his efforts than a broken face. But, like all good road movies, it is ultimately a journey to find oneself. Though the cast is littered with A-list talent, Jarmusch maintains his independent spirit in a slow and simple narrative. Murray seems to have perfected the “less is more” style of acting, yet still manages to bring emotion across. It’s a strangely touching and rewarding film.
German Release Date (subject to change) September 8
US rated R
www.brokenflowersmovie.com
STAGE BEAUTY ****
If you think we’re living in a man’s world now, you should take a look at what it was like being a woman in the 17th century.
Stage Beauty is set in England in the year 1660, a time when women were forbidden to set foot on the stage and all female roles in the theater were played by men. The film opens with a performance of Shakespeare’s
Othello, starring England’s most beloved leading lady, Mr. Ned Kynaston (Billy Crudup) as Desdemona. At the height of his popularity, Ned basks in the limelight and in his adoring fans, while his dresser, Maria (Claire Danes), stands offstage mouthing the words to the play with tears in her eyes. Although the word “actress” is not yet invented, Maria has enough ambition to become one that she pays a pub owner six pence to act in a performance of
Othello at the Cockpit Tavern. After the quiet scandal of “a woman on stage” dies down, King Charles II (Rupert Everett) issues a proclamation allowing women to be able to grace the stage legally, while forbidding men from ever playing female roles again. This does not bode well for Ned, who has spent half his life eliminating every male gesture in his body, and for whom the transition to playing male roles seems almost impossible. It is only when he reluctantly agrees to help Maria, who is secretly in love with him, to prepare for her role as Desdemona, that he finds the man inside himself resurface. Beautifully presented by Oscar-nominated director Richard Eyre (
Iris), the film couples two of the big screen’s most underrated young actors. Crudup (
Almost Famous) and Danes (
Romeo and Juliet) have a chemistry that nearly lights the screen on fire. And in their characters’ repressed desire and inflamed egos, a firework display of emotions races across the stage.
German Release Date (subject to change) September 29
US rated R
www.stagebeautymovie.com
New release on DVD
THE SINGING DETECTIVE **
Boasting a top-notch cast of Oscar-nominated actors, including Robert Downey, Jr. (
Chaplin), Mel Gibson (
Braveheart) and Adrien Brody (
The Pianist), this film was first released in the US in 2003. Two years later, it’s finally being released on DVD in Europe, and one might think that the marketing executives for Icon Pictures spent the past two years discussing whether it was even worth the effort. Grossing a mere 300,000 US dollars, this was the epitome of a box-office failure. But one could give it points for the bravery involved in bringing such a genre-bending picture to the screen in the first place. The film follows the pulp crime novelist Dan Dark (Downey, Jr.) as he attempts to rework his first book in his head while hospitalized with an extreme skin disease. Heavily medicated, the thin line between reality and fantasy blurs as his life becomes intertwined with that of the novel’s protagonist in 1950s Los Angeles. The barely recognizable Mel Gibson plays the chipper psychiatrist Dr. Gibbon who attempts to pull Dan gently out of his delirium. Spastically jumping between genres ranging from film noir, musical, comedy, mystery and drama, this uneven film leaves the viewer as confused as its main character. <<<
