Black comedy. Starring Casey Affleck, Liv Tyler, Mary Kay Place and
Seymour Cassel. Directed by Steve Buscemi. (R. 91 minutes. At Bay Area
theaters.)
On his lonesome in the rural Indiana town he deserted for the bright
lights of New York and has returned to depressed and broke, the title character
in “Lonesome Jim” hits a local bar called Riki’s. Finding it full of nosy
former high school classmates, he heads down the street to Riki’s II, where a
sole customer eyes him salaciously. So it’s off to another watering hole.
A neon sign flashing Riki’s III is sure to elicit chuckles, as are other
moments sprinkled through “Lonesome Jim.” The mere idea that someone as pretty
as Liv Tyler would be hanging out at the bar and be immediately attracted to a
sad sack like Jim (Casey Affleck) is mildly amusing.
But nothing in this well-intentioned but lifeless indie draws the hard
laughter that comes from creating characters that somehow get to you. Despite
Jim’s superficial similarities to Miles in “Sideways” — both are failures at
writing and almost everything else who are reduced to stealing money from their
mothers — they’re miles apart in terms of being able to empathize with.
Finding anyone to identify with in Jim’s family is a challenge. His
terminally cheerful mom (Mary Kay Place, going through her matronly phase)
responds to both her sons’ depressions as if they’ve scrapped their knees.
Meanwhile, Dad (Seymour Cassel, who’s been around long enough to have been a
regular in John Cassavetes films) is perpetually angry. In an ironic touch, the
brothers work in the family business making ladders while they’re stuck on the
bottom rung.
It’s easy to understand why Steve Buscemi chose to direct this first
script by James C. Strouse. As an actor, Buscemi frequently has been cast as a
loser and probably felt he could coax a convincing performance from his star.
But Affleck shares with older brother Ben a certain slickness that’s distinctly
urban, and he’s not a strong enough actor to make a convincing hick.
His age notwithstanding, Buscemi would have been better playing the role
himself. His bug-eyed innocence would have been absolutely right, a counterpart
to Amy Adams in “Junebug.” Buscemi could only have improved “Lonesome Jim” by
co-writing it as well.
Strouse, who set it in his hometown of Goshen, Ind., and cast family
members in small roles, needed someone who had some distance from the heavily
autobiographical story and could make it feel less like a home movie. And
Buscemi can write, as he showed in the first film he directed, the charmingly
offbeat “Trees Lounge.” As it is, he does his best to enliven a pretty inert
story. The funniest scenes are of Jim coaching a hapless young girls’
basketball team. A shot of their first score of the season is immediately
followed by them behind 90 or so points, as if Buscemi has fast-forwarded
through the bulk of the game.
Buscemi, who directed some of the best “Sopranos” episodes, proves to have
a light touch with romance in the exchanges between Jim and his unlikely
girlfriend Anika (Tyler). When he shows her his wall of famous writers, many of
them dead by their own hand, she responds by making a smiling mouth to paste
over Hemingway’s brooding one.
Whether this romance can last is the big question, for to buy into Anika’s
optimism requires a personality transplant on Jim’s part. What she sees in him
is hard to fathom. Tyler plays the role with such sweetness that you’re left to
assume she’s taking him on as a charity case.
“Lonesome Jim” played at Sundance not this year, but last. It’s been in
the can so long that when Jim tells people he’s thinking about moving on to New
Orleans, their response is, “Oh, fun.” That there was no money to edit out that
line gives you a sense of the film’s budget.
– Advisory: This film contains disturbing images and language, and mild
sexuality.
– Ruthe Stein
‘Awesome: I … Shot That!’
Documentary. Featuring Mike Diamond, Adam Horovitz, Adam Yauch
and Mix Master Mike. Directed by Nathanial Hornblower.
(Not rated. 90 minutes. At the Bridge Theatre.)
The Beastie Boys have always been a fan-friendly bunch. Back during the
Napster hoopla, they pointedly made free MP3s of their music available for
download, and they’ve always enjoyed crashing the fourth wall between band and
audience. For “Awesome: I … Shot That!” (insert a popular expletive in the
ellipses), they created an “official bootleg” of their October 2004 Madison
Square Garden performance by supplying 50 fans with video cameras and setting
them loose. The intention was to capture the show from a grassroots
perspective. Unfortunately, the result, although a great idea, doesn’t
translate into a great movie.
To its credit, the film’s collage of rookie shooters counterbalan-ces an
increasingly sleek approach to music documentaries, in which the euphoria of
live performance is filtered through directorial method. Still, if DIY
spontaneity is the greatest strength of “I … Shot That!” it’s also its main
shortcoming. Bootlegs are all about collecting artifacts, not making art; they
capture the immediacy of the moment at the price of technique. And for theater
audiences one step removed from the action, a little technique can be a good
thing.
“I … Shot That!” captures a great concert and, one suspects, a great
concert experience. But although Beastie Boys Adam Yauch (a.k.a. MCA), Michael
Diamond (Mike D) and Adam Horovitz (Adrock) are a joy to watch and Mix Master
Mike’s turntable skills dazzle, it’s hard to see beyond the lovingly poor
quality of the footage. Camera angles skew toward the desperate and framing is
flat, a predictable outcome when the filmmakers are either bobbing in a sea of
dancing bodies or stumbling through the Garden’s upper tiers. Yauch, who
“directed” the film under his nom de cinema Nathanial Hornblower, only adds to
the confusion with vertigo-inducing cuts and eye-melting ’70s effects.
The movie’s most entertaining segments — aside from simply watching the
Beasties do their thing — are those in which the amateur documentarians
simply act like typical concertgoers: One drags his camera into the restroom;
another ogles Ben Stiller a few rows over; a few sneak backstage. As a fannish
document, “I … Shot That” is indeed awesome. As a bootleg, it’s fine. As a
work of film, well, at least it has heart.
– Advisory: Contains foul language aplenty and one urination sequence.
– Neva Chonin
‘Through the Fire’
Documentary. Starring Sebastian Telfair, Jamel Thomas, Dwayne Tiny
Morton and Rick Pitino. Directed by Jonathan Hock. (Not rated. 103 minutes.
At the Landmark Opera Plaza in San Francisco.)
Three years ago, basketball fans watched from afar as LeBron James
became the most hyped high school athlete in history — treated like a king
even before he was old enough to vote.
The next year, when New York prep phenomenon Sebastian Telfair took his
place on the cover of Sports Illustrated, director Jonathan Hock got a whole
lot closer — following the electric point guard around as he set records,
faced stardom and eventually decided whether to go to college or jump straight
to the pros.
“Through the Fire” is an entertaining and compelling account of that year,
even though most basketball fans will already know the ending. While Hock’s
documentary doesn’t have the weight or the completeness of “Hoop Dreams,” it
shows what might have happened if Arthur Agee or William Gates had a little
more talent and a few more breaks.
Telfair is a fairly interesting profile, with plenty to like (he has a
nice smile, loves his mama and seems willing to work hard) and a few annoying
habits. When he plays in a national all-star game, he calls his teammates
“country boys” and talks in the middle of the game about his statistics; he’s
obsessed with breaking an assist record.
Hock doesn’t seem interested in judging the star, who signs a shoe deal
with Adidas on camera even though agents and handlers are nowhere in sight
throughout the movie. “Through the Fire” was produced by ESPN Original
Programming, the same outfit behind the upcoming Barry Bonds reality show —
and if they treat Bonds with the same reverence that Telfair receives, a lot of
tough questions will be left unanswered.
Thankfully, the most interesting parts of Telfair’s story don’t involve
Victor Conte, flaxseed oil or California Unfair Competition Law, Business and
Professions Code section 17200. His brother Jamel is a particularly dramatic
character — he thought he was going to get drafted to the NBA in 1999 but
ended up shuttling around the European leagues.
When it appears that the same thing might happen to Telfair, “Through the
Fire” becomes as tense as a 10-point deficit with five minutes left to play.
It’s hard to beat March Madness for drama, but this documentary makes a good
effort.
– Advisory: This film contains profanity, adult themes and some wicked
basketball moves. Middle-aged white guys who try to replicate Telfair’s dribble
drives on a garage basketball hoop run the risk of slipped discs, broken ankles
and small children pointing and laughing.
– Peter Hartlaub
‘The Intruder’
Drama. Starring
Michel Subor, Katia Golubeva, Beatrice Dalle. Written
and directed by Claire Denis. In French with English subtitles.
(Not rated. 130 minutes. At the Castro.)
The title character in Claire Denis’ “The Intruder” is really a
transplanted heart. It is placed in the body of a 68-year-old loner, Louis
Trebor (Michel Subor), a man whose world consists of a cabin in a vast
wilderness along the border of France and Switzerland, two dogs, his pharmacist
(Bambou), who provides his heart medication and meaningless sex, and a neighbor
(Beatrice Dalle), who breeds dogs.
The movie is about Louis’ determination to restart his life by going back
to Tahiti, where he lived when his old heart was about the same age as his new
heart. It is, of course, a man’s journey to find himself. It is also likely to
be one of the most visually sumptuous movies you will see this year — an
interior epic with epic exteriors, a film with very little dialogue, where the
pictures (photographed by the great Agnès Godard), actors and the juxtaposition
of both tell the story.
Part of the reason Louis wants to start over far, far away is his
nonexistent relationship with his son (Gregoire Colin), who lives nearby with
his wife and two young children. Their life appears loving, happy and normal
– probably something the son did not get from dad growing up.
For reasons never explained, Louis has to buy his heart on the black
market, arranged through a Russian woman (Katia Golubeva) of shady character,
and also for reasons never explained, she pops up at odd moments throughout his
travels (although, like other strange images in the film, they could be the
result of Louis’ imagination).
Immediately after his heart operation, he goes to Pusan, South Korea, and
buys a boat that he sails to Tahiti. The boat and a sizable fortune is to be a
gift for the son he sired long ago. His former lover informs Louis that her
son, who is away at sea on a schooner, has no interest in connecting with a
father he never knew.
Louis doesn’t give up, occupying his former beach hut and hoping to win
over his one-time family, but his body begins to reject his alien heart, just
as an alien culture begins to reject him.
Denis spent the first 14 years of her life in Africa, and her films often
feature a Westerner caught in an emotionally bankrupt quagmire in an foreign
land. Her first film, “Chocolat” (1988), was an autobiographical tale of
colonial upbringing in Cameroon. Her masterpiece, “Beau Travail,” (1999) was a
reworking of Herman Melville’s “Billy Budd,” with foreign legionnaires
stationed in Djibouti.
“The Intruder” fits nicely into this filmography, with Louis lost in a
heart of darkness.
– Advisory: This film contains nudity, mild sex scenes and some gore.
– G. Allen Johnson
‘Evil’
Drama. Starring Andreas
Wilson. Directed by Mikael Hafstrom. In Swedish,
with subtitles. (Not rated. 113 minutes. At the Lumiere.)
It’s a well-kept secret that the English economy is sustained not by
the sale of Burberry products to colorblind tourists, but by the export of
dramas set in boarding schools.
Will Britain therefore impose sanctions against Sweden for having the
audacity to encroach on its market? The boarding-school film “Evil,” with its
cruel peerage system and ascot-wearing prigs, could easily be mistaken for a
Masterpiece Theatre production — were it not for all the blond heads of hair
and singsongy Swedish.
Despite its blunt title, “Evil” — or if you prefer the catchy Swedish
“Ondskan” — is a gripping story of one teen’s rebellion against his peers’
sadistic abuse. Erik is a 16-year-old who is sent away to a top-notch boarding
school because he gets into fights. (It doesn’t take a licensed therapist to
see that the problem can be traced to regular beatings administered by an ogre
of a stepfather.)
Because Erik is new to the school, he is paid due respect by older
students. When he is overheard swearing in a dining hall, for example, he is
politely asked to come to the end of the table so that he can be struck on the
head with a knife.
But Erik is not like the other students: He’s strong enough to refuse such
treatment and rejects friendly advice to take his blows, just like everyone
else. Erik’s dilemma, however, is that he doesn’t want to get tossed out of
school, so he must accept other forms of punishment, including digging huge
holes in the ground that he then has to fill.
At the heart of this tension-filled film is whether Erik can maintain the
nonviolent stance counseled by his unlikely best friend, his bookish and nerdy
roommate Pierre. Deep down, you know that Erik, who is a brutal and efficient
fighter, can turn anyone around him into something resembling a bloody Swedish
meatball.
Andreas Wilson, who plays Erik, had never been in a film before “Evil” —
which was nominated for a best foreign-language Oscar in 2004 — and there’s
no reason that he can’t make many more of them. As the rebellious Erik, in a
white T-shirt and leather jacket, he is just as brooding and easy on the eyes
as James Dean. (In case viewers don’t make the connection, Erik at one point
says he’s a fan of the American actor.)
Director David Lynch was so taken with Wilson that he chose him for his
Christian Dior ad campaign. Now if only Lynch would cast the actor for one of
his films.
– Advisory: This film contains scenes of bloody fistfights and unsanitary
pranks that would repulse even the frat brothers in “Animal House.”
– John McMurtrie
‘Battle in Heaven’
Drama. In
Spanish with English subtitles. Written and directed by Carlos
Reygadas. (Nat Rated. 94 minutes. At the Roxie.)
Mexican cinema has undergone a revolution in recent years, with bright
talents such as Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (”Amoros Perros”) and Alfonso
Cuaron (”Y tu Mama También”) breaking into the international scene.
In the eye of international festivals and critics, none of the new Mexican
auteurs has made the splash that Carlos Reygadas made at the age of 31 with
“Japon,” a challenging and original film.
Well, the higher you reach, the greater you fall — Reygadas’ sophomore
effort, “Battle in Heaven,” is a spectacular failure, despite further evidence
of the director’s keen eye and bold cinematic ideas.
Set in a decaying Mexico City, it is about a chauffeur in love with the
teenage daughter of a general. Marcos (Marcos Hernandez) has been her driver
for 15 years, and is the only person who knows about her double life: She is a
prostitute in a high-end brothel. Ana (Anapola Mushkadiz) apparently does it
for kicks — she needs the thrill, not the money.
Marcos must turn himself into the police after a kidnapping has gone wrong
– the child dies while in the care of Marcos and his wife (Bertha Ruiz).
That plot strand happens offscreen; it’s only referred to in conversation.
The film unfolds over a weekend, as Marcos has sex with Ana, with his
corpulent wife (a bravado scene) and contemplates his bleak future.
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Like “Japon,” “Battle in Heaven” is achingly slow, but without the
richness of the earlier film. Reygadas here seems to be in love with his own
technique; he claims to be an artistic descendant of Andrei Tarkovsky and
Robert Bresson, but this time it seems alarmingly pretentious.
The plain fact is, he doesn’t have much of a story to tell, and what there
is of it is thuddingly obvious. The constant zombielike behavior (and awkward
movements obviously timed for Reygadas’ several slow tracking shots) of Marcos
is a cop-out — this has been an art-house director’s crutch for years, but
there are better, more complex ways to convey emotional numbness.
Also tiring is Ana’s job as a prostitute: Is there no other way a male
director can explore a female’s sexuality than tagging her as a member of the
World’s Most Cliched Profession?
Reygadas intends to shock with his graphic sex scenes and, eventually,
bloodletting violence. But it’s all shock and no awe, and it leads to a wholly
misguided climax, which undercuts his message of redemption amid the dying
Mexican dream.
– Advisory: Contains several graphic sex acts and some bloody violence.
– G. Allen Johnson