They All Laughed

Awesome technique. Non-verbal communication to top the real thing, in the real world, and it bests even some accomplished "silent" era masters.

Great to see Hepburn.  Sad to see her in a role that mimic-ed her real life at the time.

Some good laughs.  Ritter is in top physical comedy form.  If he wasn't trying to be such a stand in for Bogdanovich his verbal performance might have matched his physical performance.

But that's the problem, here.  A little too much of the real world got in and colors the whole thing:  The affairs surrounding the film, the murder of Stratten who would have otherwise been forgotten, and the director's eventual affair with both sisters.

Leave all that aside, however, and the laughs are fun.  Otherwise, there is very little that this movie has to say.  Dalliance palliates.   The end.

Movie Servers Could Have Been The Next Big Revenue Stream

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/technology/24dvd.html

Before this news report, I hadn't heard about Real's push to build the software into set top boxes and make a poor-person's Kaleidescape.  That would be very cool.

It's either ignorance or a bargaining chip that Hollywood doesn't like this software:  It cannot be used to make a copy of a movie, since the version is makes and puts on a server is encrypted in a way that is stronger than the original DVD encryption.  So either Hollywood really thinks people will buy giant hard drives and save everything they rent from NetFlix (unlikely those "backups" are lost sales) -- or Hollywood knows better but wants a big old licensing fee from Real before they green-light the software.

Frost/Nixon

The film feels like it was probably harder-hitting in the late 1970's. In the late 2000's it feels soft, like a "well, duh"-kind of foregone conclusion. And yet we still haven't really learned the lessons we should have, from the Nixon fiasco. Rather, we've almost grown to accept lawbreaking Presidents as appropriate and to be expected. And no one apologizes, anymore.

The film, like the interviews themselves, doesn't really get up to speed until the end, and then it's over. Of course, we saw the money shot (I mean, line) in the trailer. So that's a non-starter, dramatically. "If the President does it, it's not illegal."

In fact, the only things in that are in jeopardy are Frost's personal financial situation and his career. Assuming we, the audience, care about either -- which is a big assumption because there is little to get us emotionally invested in Frost -- it's hard to judge just how much jeopardy there is. Is he really going to be bankrupt if the project goes poorly? The film is as cagey with us about such details as Frost and his cohorts are with one another about the same topic. This means we don't quite know enough to even understand the gravity of what his accountants may have been telling him.

And from the views we have into his other television activities, one might surmise that the world would have been better off without those programs. Which is to say, we have so little reason to like Frost, that it actually makes Nixon look better than he should. Which may explain why the Nixon library, and everyone involved with the former President, supported the film with open arms.

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Reader Matt makes a good point about the drunk-dialing scene. He's right. That was by far the most interesting and revealing and meaningful and insightful scene in the film and arguably the only "fabrication" in the script. It's a clear case where making up a story conveys more truth than simply recounting what happened.

A Matter of Taste / Une affaire de goût

An intriguing premise, and good setup, that paid off nothing. For some reason, I was reminded of Secretary, which wrote the opposite story and result.  Which is to say Secretary was a great love story and Une Affaire de Gout wasn't great at all -- except for a chance to see childhood hero Leaud do a brief turn as a judge. He's still not quite a leading man, and for that, I commend him.

Film Music

It strikes me that classical music IN SUPPORT OF SOMETHING ELSE has always been the norm (church music, opera, dancing) and continues to be the norm (film, television) and when we talk of people who "don't like classical music" we really mean people people who don't like the music removed from what it accompanies.  Of course, Zander's talk is about liking it even removed from what it might otherwise accompany, which is a worthwhile pursuit (and a secret passion worth learning and sharing).

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/benjamin_zander_on_music_and_passion.html

So while he doesn't speak about music to accompany drama, he might help us to appreciate scores without the context of their drama.

Family Man

I am intrigued by movies that say "It's okay to not follow your dreams." 

They don't really feature anti-heroes, and yet they're not classic heroes, either.

Family Man follows in the footsteps of Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life" but does it backwards. Wonderful Life tells the "everyman" that his life wasn't wasted, and that if he hadn't settled for what fate dealt him, but had followed his dreams, his community would have suffered.  Family Man shows the man the followed his dreams that they were empty, and foolish, and that he would have been much more fulfilled if he had let them go.

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There is something interesting in Family Man, beyond the mirror-image-of-Wonderful-Life-but-saying-the-same-thing.

Cage's character awakes into a wholly new and different world -- and manages to struggle through it, and eventually survive, based on the environment in which he is placed.  That is, especially once he stops trying to get back to his "real life", he take queues and clues from the people and circumstances where he finds himself, and is able to "fake it" and fit in.

This suggests that for the passive person, without a dream or vision or plan or grand desire, it is possible to just let one's life lead one by one's nose.  Perhaps there's even a stronger message:  That as soon as he starts down such a path, he is "done".  He has made the key choice, and the rest follow and fall into place.

I suppose that is why one might classify Family Man as a horror film, and place a quotation from Thoreau at the beginning that says "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."  And such a life is what Family Man aspires to say is the kind of life one should be happy with.

Timecrimes, Let The Right One In, Twilight

Timecrimes: It's a Spanish reminder that slow learners should not time travel.

Let the Right One In: The best vampire movie of 2008.

Twilight: The worst.