MARGIN CALL

Written and Directed by J.C. Chandor

Starring Kevin Spacey, Paul Bettany and Zachary Quinto

With most of Wall Street and the world’s major financial sectors being occupied by protestors and ordinary citizens, who can no longer sit idly by while the global economy is destroyed from within, there could be no better timing for J.C. Chandor’s first feature film, MARGIN CALL, to hit theatres. An all-star cast, ranging from veterans like Kevin Spacey, Demi Moore and Jeremy Irons to relative newbies like Zachary Quinto and Penn Badgly, make this debut a memorable and effective contemplation on what seems more and more like the inevitable collapse of the financial system. If you’re feeling a little lost about the world’s financial woes at the moment, occupying Margin Call should clear up those last lingering questions for you.

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BURLESQUE

Written and Directed by Steve Antin

Starring Christina Aguilera, Cher, Cam Gigandet, Kristen Bell and Stanley Tucci

Ali: I've got to get out of this town

We open on a street so sparse, in a town so small, one expects tumbleweeds to float by the diner where two young ladies are wasting their lives away as waitresses. Pop princess / diva / star, Christina Aguilera, is sitting on the counter top, staring off into the distance, looking forlorn and pensive. She announces that she’s got to get out of this town and before long, she is buying a one-way ticket to Los Angeles to become a star! There you have it. This is BURLESQUE, a new musical that steals (sorry, borrows would have been too generous a word to use here) from great movie musicals of the past, like CABARET, MOULIN ROUGE and CHICAGO (which incidentally all did it better), to showcase the vocal prowess of its star and transition her to the next inevitable level of her fame as a Hollywood actress.

It has not been a good year for Aguilera. Her latest album tanked and barely registered at radio. Her summer tour was scrapped due to low ticket sales, or so it was rumoured. And as if her professional troubles weren’t bad enough, she separated from her husband of just five years in the fall. With an album, a tour and a movie coming out in one year, this was clearly meant to be a big one for her. While my heart goes out to her, BURLESQUE is not going to turn anything around. Perhaps if there were a stitch of originality in the film, it might have given Aguilera some desperately needed credibility at this stage in her career. Writer / Director (and I use those terms loosely) Steve Antin, keeps the clichés coming though and it is painfully obvious that the only reason the film was made was to showcase Aguilera’s impressive chops. With reasons like that, it won’t amount to anything but a forgotten blip in the increasingly chaotic pop spectrum.

Judging from the age bracket of the audience I caught BURLESQUE with, I’d say more people were curious to see Cher return to the screen than anything else about this movie. Cher plays Tess, a former burlesque dancer that now runs the club, fittingly called “Burlesque”, where Aguilera finds acceptance and success. Cher is the only character other than Aguilera to sing in the film but never does she sing with her co-star. In fact, when Cher does sing, I was afraid her intensely tight face might crack into tiny little pieces but alas no, and at least she sounded decent. It’s a shame the songs she was given were so boring though. Fortunately, she has everyone’s favorite gay sidekick, Stanley Tucci, at her side to liven things up when necessary, which is often.

BURLESQUE is simply too easy to be anything other than mediocre. About half way through the film, when Aguilera inevitably finds her voice after struggling to get noticed in L.A. and just after Cher finds out that if they don’t raise an obscene amount of money by a fast approaching date that the club will close, you are lulled into a state of complete familiarity. Your fate is accepted and BURLESQUE makes its way to its predictable ending without full-on disaster or wardrobe malfunction. Familiar means comfortable and while comfortable can be nice, it can also be easily forgotten. Simply put, BURLESQUE falls very flat when it was clearly aiming for busty.

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Black Sheep interviews Damien Chazelle

GUY AND MADELINE ON A PARK BENCH

Written and Directed by Damien Chazelle

Starring Jason Palmer, Desiree Garcia and Sandra Khin

I am reminded of Sheryl Crow lyric - “What ever happened to modern jazz?” - after watching first time filmmaker, Damien Chazelle’s GUY AND MADELINE ON A PARK BENCH. The answer is certainly not that simple but there are a number of possible theories to be found in the textured grain of this experimental musical that captured the hearts of the Tribeca Film Festival patrons when it premiered there in 2009. It has now captured the heart of actor, Stanley Tucci, who presents it to you in a limited theatrical release.

Now, there is no need to be frightened of the word, “experimental” – or “jazz” for that matter – in this case, as some tend to run when they hear these words. In fact, the reason the film has been so well received is because it captures the beauty of these sometimes intimidating concepts so naturally that you wonder why you were ever hesitant to begin with.


What began as an undergraduate thesis at Harvard, GUY AND MADELINE (as it is affectionately shortened to for convenience purposes), grew into what Chazelle describes as his personal take on the musicals of the 1930’s and 40’s, which he had been obsessing over at the time. Citing specific influences like THE BAND WAGON and MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS, Chazelle pitched his thesis as a real life musical; people would still break out into song and dance but it would be grounded in a context that could be universally understood. The classic Hollywood musical is not the only genre being played up here though; Chazelle was also fascinated with the French new wave cinema of the 1960’s and 70’s, from Jean-Luc Godard to Jean Eustace. The combination of the two drastically different approaches is what makes GUY AND MADELINE so distinctly unique and according to Chazelle, balancing between the two was certainly tricky.

“The new wave films don’t really follow strict plots and find themselves as they go along and I tried to find a way to reconcile that with the very strict code of these old musicals that I loved. They have very familiar plots and archetypal characters and follow a strict pacing of musical numbers. It was important to me to not cop out from making a musical, to make an actual musical, but in my own way.”


Guy and Madeline (fresh faces, Jason Palmer and Desiree Garcia) have it rough from the start. Heralding from Boston, these two lovers of both music and each other are introduced to the viewer as happy and then torn apart before we can even get a chance to be happy for them. Still, as they both proceed to stumble around somewhat aimlessly in the wake of their brief but powerful time together, your heart goes out to them and you can’t help but wonder what went wrong. And what better way to explore the complicated nature of emotional turmoil than through song? Without a Hollywood sized budget, the musical numbers in GUY AND MADELINE have to rely on plain old fashioned talent, which, after scouring Boston’s music scene, Chazelle found in Palmer in Garcia. Garcia was pursuing her PhD on musicals at the time and was already entrenched in the tap dance scene so she was a natural fit but Palmer doesn’t actually sing. His musical contribution is a beautiful and delicate trumpet.

“I have to admit that wasn’t the original conception. It was originally going to be a singing and dancing male. The movie just changed when I saw Jason play. He just hit us out of nowhere as I went to this club to see someone else play really. It wasn’t the film that I envisioned in my head but it was immediately the film that I wanted to make.”


The musical is inherently out of step with reality but yet it continues to be made and it continues to honour the same values it did when it was originally conceived. Back in the day, when a character needed to deal with a love that is lost, they would saunter through a park and lament to the moon; when that love is reaffirmed, the whole cast breaks out into dance. In GUY AND MADELINE ON A PARK BENCH, the aesthetic is decidedly different but the sentiment is the same. This is perhaps why the musical has survived all this time despite its detractors; perhaps beneath all of our meandering cynicism, we are all still romantics at heart.

“I believe the musical is so well suited to expressing romance because songs begin and end and are completely separate from the larger movie world. It is this kind of momentary perfection of existence that the characters are able to reach but they always know that it is inherently an illusion. So for me, there is something very beautiful but yet very sad about the great musicals but that’s part of the point.”

Damian Chazelle is already at work on his next screenplay and GUY AND MADELINE ON A PARK BENCH is playing in select cities right now. If it's playing in your city, treat yourself.

For your enjoyment, here is the trailer ...

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TIFF Review: EASY A

Written by Bert V. Royal

Directed by Will Gluck

Starring Emma Stone, Penn Badgley, Amanda Bynes and Thomas Haden Church

Olive: I used to be invisible. If Google Earth were a guy, he couldn’t find me if I were a ten-storey building.

What Ojai, California, high school student, Olive Penderghast, has to go through in director, Will Gluck’s EASY A to get her “A” cannot be described as anything remotely close to easy. That said, sitting back and watching everything she has to go through is one of the easiest things you’ll ever have to do. Not only does Glick make it easy for us to enjoy his second feature film, he makes sure we learn a thing or two while we’re in the midst of losing ourselves in hysterical laughter. Did I mention this is a teen comedy?

We are first introduced to Olive on her webcam. The lovely Emma Stone stares directly at us as Olive and tells us flat out that we are about to hear her side of a story, which she insists to us is in fact the right side of the story. She proceeds to tell us in incremental chapters about how one lie she told to her best friend in a bathroom about how she lost her virginity to a college boy over the weekend, spiraled out of control and ruined her life. She has a face you want to believe but we have no reason to trust her really. It is Stone’s conviction that ultimately sells it though; she is a sharp, young lady but her vulnerability is never disregarded and I can’t think of any reason why she would make any of this up.

EASY A is easily one of the funniest films I’ve seen all year. The entire ensemble, from Patricia Clarkson and Stanley Tucci as Olive’s ultra-open-minded parents to Thomas Haden Church as Olive’s favourite teacher, are hilarious and seem to be having the best of times in their roles. Essentially, the whole thing is infectious and leaves a lasting impression because it goes beyond the sharp, witty dialogue we’ve come to expect in any teen comedy effort to show us that intelligence and growth are not yet lost on the young.

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THE LOVELY BONES

THE LOVELY BONES
Written by Fran Walsh, Phillipa Boyens and Peter Jackson
Directed by Peter Jackson
Starring Mark Wahlberg, Rachel Weisz, Saoirse Ronan and Stanley Tucci


I would not have thought that Peter Jackson, the director of the infamous Lord of the Rings trilogy (in case you didn’t know), would ever be a horrible choice to adapt a cherished novel to the big screen. Going forward, I will not be so naïve. In it’s original form, The Lovely Bones, as delicately told by author, Alice Sebold, is a shockingly honest account of what one seemingly happy family endures after the death of their eldest daughter. Its scope reaches into the minds of everyone who is affected by her death and even goes so far as heaven itself for answers. On screen, it goes nowhere near any of this insight and just ends up a mangled mess.


The death of Suzie Salmon (Saoirse Ronan), a fourteen-year-old girl with her whole life ahead of her, was senseless violence in a time when people still thought such things never happened to them. No body is found and therefore no rest is had by those Suzie touched in life. To sit with the book is to sit with the Salmon family in their grief. It is a cathartic experience and one that I may need to go through again after having all my healing robbed from me by Jackson. His focus, if he had any at all, circles around Suzie’s personal transition from the land of the living to that of the dead. This allows Jackson to imagine grand imagery to bridge the gap between both worlds but, like Suzie, he too gets lost in the “in-between”.


The only things that keep The Lovely Bones from falling apart completely are the performances of Stanley Tucci and Ronan as the murderer and his prey. Their incredible grasp of the source material is the only reminder of its chilling emotional charge. As for Jackson, he should have stuck with the gold he had in hand from the start.

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