After my Oscar push, I’m taking a break from the movie theater, but I’ve still been watching movies. Here are a few.
“Happy-Go-Lucky” This is the one film on my Oscar list that I didn’t get to see before the ceremony — it picked up a best original screenplay nomination — but it played at Proctor’s last week.
Directed by Mike Leigh, “Happy-Go-Lucky” depicts a brief period in the life of a cheerful British school teacher named Poppy, who has made a conscious decision to always look on the bright side of life. In real life, die-hard optimists get on my nerves, but Poppy (played by Sally Hawkins) is a lot of fun. In fact, she’s pretty much the polar opposite of Johnny, the angry nihilist depicted in Leigh's searing 1994 film “Naked.”
Leigh specializes in making class-conscious films about the struggles of ordinary Brits, and “Happy-Go-Lucky” initially seems like a departure for him, because it isn’t depressing and actually makes you laugh and feel sort of good. (Leigh’s first film, which I haven’t seen, is called “Bleak Moments.”) But “Happy-Go-Lucky” isn’t really all that different from Leigh’s other films. It’s rich and nuanced, gritty and well-acted. And Poppy’s lessons with her weirdo driving instructor had me flashing back to my contentious encounters with the mean football coach who taught me to drive. Why hasn’t somebody made a comedy about driver’s ed?
“Honeydripper” I caught up with Schenectady native John Sayles’ most recent film, released in 2007, a couple of weeks ago.
On paper, this film sounds great: Alabama juke joint owner Pine Top Purvis (Danny Glover) is deep in debt, and hires R&B artist Guitar Sam in the hopes of saving his club. But when Guitar Sam is a no show, he’s forced to turn to a young drifter named Sonny, who recently arrived in town with an electric guitar slung over his back.
I enjoyed this film, but I wanted it to be leaner. Sayles likes to make movies about communities, and in “Honeydripper” he sets his sights on the segregated Deep South of the early 1950s. He shows us the rivalry between two young cotton pickers, and Glover’s wife’s infatuation with a revival preacher. The film has a leisurely pace, and is perfectly enjoyable, but the final scenes are so electrifying that I wish Sayles had cut out some of the side plots and focused on the spare and simple story of Pine Top Purvis, Guitar Sam and Sonny.
“The Golden Compass” This movie was poorly reviewed but, having read the fantasy novel “The Golden Compass,” I wanted to see it anyway. And, you know, I don’t think it’s bad, although I question whether it would hold the interest of someone who wasn’t already familiar with the story.
It tells the story of a young girl, named Lyra, who discovers that dangerous experiments on children are taking place in the Artic and travels there with an armored bear and a band of Gypsies. The special effects are good, and the set pieces are exciting. The film doesn’t build to a very good climax, and at times it feels more like a series of loosely connected vignettes. But Dakota Blue Richards, the young actress who plays Lyra, is very good.
“The Memory of a Killer” This Belgian crime thriller has moments of wild implausibility, but it doesn’t matter, because “The Memory of a Killer” grabs you in its opening scenes and never lets go.
The premise, which involves an aging hitman in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, is reminiscent of “Memento,” the cult film about a man who can’t remember anything directed by Christopher Nolan (“The Dark Knight.) Like the protagonist in “Memento,” the hitman in “The Memory of a Killer” (memorably played by Jan Decleir) even writes things on his body in order to remember them. The film is stylish and dark, and tells us the story of what happens when the hitman refuses to carry out a hit on a 12-year-old girl at the center of a child prostitution ring. After the movie was over, I found some fault with it, but while it was running, I was pinned to my seat.
“Starting Out in the Evening” Frank Langella gives a great performance in the Oscar nominated “Frost/Nixon,” but he’s equally good here, in a quieter and less showy performance.
He plays an aging writer who has been working on a novel for 10 years, and is visited one day by a graduate student who wants to write her thesis about him. He does’t have much interest in being the subject of a thesis paper, but she’s young and pretty and he agrees to talk to her. One of my friends cynically called this film “Every Man’s Dream,” but I think there’s a little more going on.
“Starting Out in the Evening” is a character piece about the sometimes Sisyphean challenge of trying to write great literature, and I enjoyed its literary feel. And I also enjoyed seeing Lauren Ambrose (“Six Feet Under”), who plays the graduate student and really needs to be in more films.
“Lars and the Real Girl” This film could have gone wrong in so many ways. It has a salacious premise: A shy young man buys a life-size sex doll over the Internet, and treats her as if she’s really his girlfriend. But “Lars” is about as far from a smutty sex comedy as you can get. It’s a humane and compassionate film that really wants to understand Lars, a churchgoing and polite young man who insists that he and the doll sleep in separate bedrooms.
The movie is moving, but also very funny, and it’s centered around a terrific performance by Ryan Gosling and a slew of talented character actors, including Patricia Clarkson, Paul Schneider and Emily Mortimer. “Lars” also picked up a best original screenplay nomination in 2007.
Be quiet
My one quibble with the showing of “Happy-Go-Lucky” was the constant chatter throughout the film. At one point, I got up and told some teenagers to stop talking, but they weren’t the only problem, and I’m beginning to think that a growing number of people actually believe it’s acceptable to talk during movies. Well, it’s not. There’s a time to talk — it’s called After The Movie. Even if you’re at Proctor’s and you only paid $3, you shouldn’t talk during the movie.
Got a comment? Add one below or e-mail me at sfoss@dailygazette.net.
