Here’s a look at the notable films opening this week that we’ve previously covered here on SpoutBlog:
I first saw Margot at the Wedding, Noah Baumbach’s follow-up to The Squid and the Whale, in September at Telluride. I generally disliked it, but I vowed to see it again at the New York Film Festival and, if my opinion had changed, update my original review. If anything, the second viewing solidified many of my initial, negative feelings about the movie, but I did gain deeper respect for the performances, particularly that of Nicole Kidman, who creates a magnificent villain with a vivid backstory, despite the fact that Baumbach gives her very little to work towards. I’ve updated my review to include some thoughts based on a second viewing; you’ll find the old version here, and the new version after the jump.
…Read more
The New York Film Festival opens to the public tonight with two screenings of Wes Anderson’s The Darjeeling Limited. Since today also marks the midpoint of the press screening schedule, here’s a recap of the films we’ve covered so far, with info on when they’re screening for the public at NYFF and when/where you’ll be able to catch them if you’re not in New York.
*The Darjeeling Limited
Screens 9/28 at 7:45 and 9pm; opens in New York tomorrow and expands next week.
“It’s this kind of style-as-substance that has earned [Wes] Anderson a lot of flack over the years, but I’ve come to the point where I don’t think it’s necessarily fair to fault the guy for pursuing his balls-out personal vision. And though the quirk factor of that vision can be grating, Darjeeling’s DNA is more in line with the sentimental glamour of Margot Tenenbaum’s furs, and less with the antiseptic affectation of Steve Zissou’s nautical suit. Watching the feature, for me, often felt like being welcomed back into the embrace of an old friend.”
*
Screens 9/29 at 10am and 9/30 at 9:15pm; no U.S. distribution
“For a film in which a hot-to-trot nymph princess imprisons a cross-dressing himbo, it offers a surprisingly touching celebration of the spiritual over the physical, and as a tale of a crisis of romantic faith, it could play comfortably alongside any of the 1930s marriage comedies.”
*4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
Screens 9/29 at 12:30 PM and 10/1 at 9:15 PM; opens in select theaters and on VOD later this year.
“It all adds up to a portrait of a political situation that transforms even the most mundane personal activities into a negotiation process, ranging from frustrating to humiliating, to downright horrifying.”
*The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Screens 10/29 at 6pm and 10/30 at 10am; opens in limited release on 12/19
“Julian Schnabel’s third feature is an almost excessively beautiful aestheticization of misery.”
…Read more
My first impression of Margot at the Wedding (which, admittedly, may change after I see it a second time at the New York Film Festival) is that Noah Baumbach’s follow-up to The Squid and the Whale is an intermittently fascinating exercise that barely holds together as a film. It plays as if Baumbach cut together a footage reel of master-class actors (plus Jack Black, who, perhaps emboldened by the company, somehow gives the finest performance of his career) rehearsing without a script. The characters are half-formed and/or disposed of unceremoniously, the themes are haphazardly integrated, the emotional arc is virtually non-existent.
And yet, some of the performances show flashes of magic, so much so that for all its faults, it’s not entirely dismissable.
It did look good on paper, didn’t it? Nicole Kidman plays Margot, a successful short story writer/prolific drinker who has developed a kind of perfect celebrity-literary scam: she projects her own self-loathing outward, and then drains the frustrations of her friends and family directly onto the pages of the New Yorker. It’s not entirely clear why Margot’s husband (John Turturro), son (Zane Pais) and sister (Jennifer Jason Leigh, who is married to the director) keep letting her get away with this, but in the film’s best scene, her sometime-lover very publicly dresses her down for the same.
…Read more
I rarely get excited about new trailers; I NEVER get excited about two trailers in the same week. But today, thanks to Variety’s Anne Thompson, I’ve had a glimpse at a second film on my list of Fall 07 Must-Sees, and I can tell you that it isn’t going anywhere.
Powered by AOL Video
Margot at the Wedding (embedded via MovieFone above), written and directed by Noah Baumbach, stars Baumbach’s wife Jennifer Jason Leigh as a lady preparing to marry the schlub who got her pregnant. That description might call to mind a certain recent comic smash, but this looks like very different territory. Within the context of Baumbach’s filmography, Margot looks more like the dark family dramedy The Squid and the Whale than something like clever-but-fluffy Mr. Jealousy. Nicole Kidman–brunette, and just de-glammed enough to resemble a real person–plays Leigh’s judgmental sister. Jack Black is once again cast as in the “unlikely love interest” role, after his turn in Nancy Meyers’ embarrassing The Holiday, although I’m sure he’ll benefit from Baumbach’s ability to write characters that might actually, like, live in the world.
Interest in Margot seems to be fairly high. Shortly after the trailer appeared on Thompson’s blog, a flurry of other blogs picked it up. I even virtually eavesdropped on a Twitter conversation about the soundtrack. Hopefully we’ll get to see the thing at one of the late-Summer festivals, either Telluride or Toronto.
UPDATE: Margot will screen at the New York Film Festival.
