This week's releases of interest - October 10

Jeremy Renner in "Kill the Messenger"

Kill the Messenger
http://www.focusfeatures.com/kill_the_messenger 

I’m anxious to see this one just because this guy’s story fascinates me. The film is based on the crusade of a real reporter, Gary Webb of the San Jose Mercury News, to reveal a connection between the crack/cocaine epidemic and the CIA. Somehow I missed all this in the mid- to late 1990s, but apparently the point of the movie is to show why many of us missed it: a government and media campaign to discredit the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. As Entertainment Weekly writer Joe McGovern suggested in his review, someone should get to work on a documentary about this guy, but the fictionalized account will have to do for now.
DIRECTOR: Michael Cuesta | HEADLINERS: Jeremy Renner and Rosemarie DeWitt

The Blue Room
http://www.ifcfilms.com/films/blue-room

Mathieu Amalric has been busy. Last year, he appeared in Roman Polanski’s “Venus in Fur,” he is the narrator of a the recent French release “Bird People” (which I am also looking forward to seeing), and now he turns up in this French thriller as a man accused of what appears to be a very bloody crime. One minute he’s enjoying a passionate, illicit tryst with a beautiful woman (they are both married to other people), and the next he’s facing some harsh questioning in a police station. It all sounds very Hitchcockian, which is why it is on this list. Amalric also took on directing and co-writing duties on this one.
DIRECTOR: Mathieu Amalric | HEADLINERS: Mathieu Amalric, Léa Drucker & Stéphanie Cleau

The Supreme Price
http://www.joannalipper.com/filmmaker/supreme-price

This documentary reveals the story of Hafsat Abiola, the daughter of two democracy and human rights political activists in Nigeria. Her father, M.K.O. Abiola, was elected president of Nigeria in 1993, but the election was nullified by the country’s military dictatorship; her mother, Kudirat Abiola, took over the cause and rose in the political ranks only to be assassinated. The fact that these individuals were fighting for human rights, and women’s rights in particular, in a polygamist society (M.K.O. had four wives and several mistresses) adds an interesting dynamic.
DIRECTOR: Joanna Lipper 

Keep On Keepin’ On
http://keeponkeepinon.com/

This documentary produced by Quincy Jones and Paula Dupre’ Pesmen is about the bond that developed between a blind piano prodigy named Justin Kauflin and the legendary jazz musician Clark Terry.
DIRECTOR: Al Hicks

Nas: Time Is Illmatic
http://timeisillmatic.com/

Here’s another documentary based in the music industry. This one from director One9 is all about the making of Nas’ 1994 hip-hop classic, “Illmatic.” I can’t say that I was in on the ground level with “Illmatic” when it was released 20 years ago, but I love hip hop and love learning more about its history and its history-makers, like Nas.
DIRECTOR: One9

St. Vincent
http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/weinstein/stvincent/

Who doesn’t love Bill Murray? But I suspect this comedy about a grumpy old ne’er-do-well’s redeeming qualities being brought out by an adorable kid will not be a huge feather in the actor’s well-worn, sarcastic player hat. But it might not be a small feather, either. I mean, who doesn’t love Bill Murray? Even though he plays one often and seemingly effortlessly, he's no slouch. That Melissa McCarthy, who plays the adorable kid's mom, isn't so bad either.
DIRECTOR: Theodore Melfi | HEADLINERS: Bill Murray, Melissa McCarthy, Naomi Watts & Jaeden Lieberher

Haider
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3390572/

As a huge Shakespeare buff, I’m always excited to see new adaptations of the Bard’s work. This one from director Vishal Bhardwaj puts an Indian spin on “Hamlet,” but with a special emphasis on the Gertrude character, named Ghazala in the film. Bhardwaj also has directed adaptations of “Macbeth” and “Othello” – “Maqbool” and “Omkara” – which were received pretty well by critics.
DIRECTOR: Vishal Bhardwaj | HEADLINERS: Tabu and Shahid Kapoor

This week's releases of interest - October 3

Ben Affleck as a husband implicated in his wife's disappearance in "Gone Girl"

Gone Girl
www.gonegirlmovie.com 

Highly anticipated release, especially for those of us who read the book. With a screenplay by the book’s author, Gillian Flynn, and direction from a man who knows his way around a thriller, David Fincher, the movie promises so much that I am a little worried it won’t deliver. Still, I remain hopeful that Ben Affleck’s luck continues to hold.
DIRECTOR: David Fincher | HEADLINERS: Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike, Tyler Perry & Neil Patrick Harris

The Two Faces of January
http://www.magpictures.com/twofacesofjanuary/

Speaking of promising thrillers, this movie is based on a Patricia Highsmith novel and brings one of my favorite actors, Viggo Mortensen, into the spotlight again with a leading role. He and Kirsten Dunst play a mysterious husband and wife vacationing in Greece. They soon meet an opportunistic tour guide who offers to lend his assistance when things take a deadly turn. 
DIRECTOR: Hossein Amini | HEADLINERS: Viggo Mortensen, Kirsten Dunst & Oscar Isaac

Jimi: All Is By My Side
http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/independent/jimiallisbymyside/

I love Jimi Hendrix’s music, and the documentaries I’ve seen about him have depicted a fascinating life. So naturally I want to see what this biopic from director John Ridley. I was disappointed to learn they couldn’t get the rights to his music, which forced the filmmaker to focus on one period in Hendrix’s life in London. But that could mean they worked harder on the story, which could be a good thing. It's also a chance for Andre 3000 to spread his acting wings, so we'll see if he can do the legendary rocker justice. 
DIRECTOR: John Ridley | HEADLINERS: Andre Benjamin, Imogen Poots & Hayley Atwell

Other options of interest –

Harlem Street Singer
www.harlemstreetsinger.com

A documentary about influential blind singer and guitarist Rev. Gary Davis
DIRECTORS: Simeon Hutner and Trevor Laurence

Two Night Stand
http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/independent/twonightstand/

A romantic comedy about exactly what the title implies – a one-night stand that turns into a two-night stand. Sounds like a funny take on the 1969 Dustin Hoffman and Mia Farrow indie “John and Mary.”
DIRECTOR: Max Nichols (son of Mike Nichols) | HEADLINERS: Analeigh Tipton and Miles Teller

In and out of time

Poster for Kenneth Branagh's 1991 romantic thriller "Dead Again"

I recently read Kate Atkinson’s 2013 best-selling novel, Life After Life, about a young woman who is reborn every time she dies into the same family and on the same date. With each life she lives, she is able to retain some knowledge – mostly subconsciously – of her previous lives and therefore take actions to avoid things that caused her pain or death before. Atkinson references various philosophers and religions that espouse some notion of reincarnation or time as a circle. And of course it all led me to think of some of the movies I enjoy that have embraced and provoked the same ideas.

The setup of the book is a cross between reincarnation and parallel, alternate lives. Unlike most reincarnation stories, the main character, Ursula, always comes back as the exact same person in the exact same time period – not as the same person born years later as in “Dead Again” or as the same person in spirit who looks completely different as in “Heaven Can Wait.”

And because Ursula keeps coming back as the same person in the same circumstances, she also is getting to see how her life turns out when she makes different choices based on her knowledge of previous lives. So in that way it is like the movies that give characters (or at least the audience) a chance to see their lives from different vantage points like “Sliding Doors,” “Run Lola Run” and “The Family Man.”

Here are some of my favorite movies that feature the reincarnations, the glimpses or dreams, or some other mysterious state of being through time.

“Dead Again” (1991)

Roman and Margaret Strauss seemed like the perfect married couple until Margaret was murdered and Roman was arrested, tried and executed for the crime. Fast forward 40 years or so to the 1990s and a young woman who looks remarkably like Margaret keeps having terrible nightmares of someone trying to kill her. She has lost her memory and her voice, and the only person willing to help her is a private detective who looks like Roman. With the help of a hypnotist – the wonderful Derek Jacobi, they begin to discover that their ties to the past are putting them in very present danger. Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson play the past and present couple, and Andy Garcia plays a reporter trying to come between Roman and Margaret. The movie also features one of my favorite Robin Williams performances – the late actor plays a disgraced former psychiatrist who shares his insights on past lives.  
Director: Kenneth Branagh

“Birth” (2004)

Nicole Kidman stars in this strange but elegantly haunting tale of a widowed woman who, after 10 years of grieving, is trying to move on with her life with a new fiancé. But as she and her fiancé prepare for the wedding, she meets a 10-year-old boy who insists he is her dead husband reincarnated. As outlandish as it sounds, the boy’s knowledge of the couple’s history and his almost feverish sincerity lead her to believe it could be true. He wants her to call off her wedding and wait for him to become a man so they can be together again. And in her fragile state, she's almost prepared to do so. The cast includes Cameron Bright as the young boy, Danny Huston as her fiancé, Lauren Bacall as her mother and Anne Heche as a friend with a secret.
Director: Jonathan Glazer

“Sliding Doors” (1998)

Instead of reincarnation, this refreshing comedy is operating on the parallel life track. The audience gets to see how a young woman’s life would’ve played out if she hadn’t missed the subway train she was trying to catch to get home after being fired from her job. In the actual scenario, she maneuvers the land mines of a doting but unfaithful live-in boyfriend and a couple of part-time jobs to make ends meet for both of them (he’s a struggling novelist). She is aided in her quest to endure in this scenario by her best friend, played by Zara Turner. The what-if scenario, while it begins with the tough blow of catching her boyfriend in the act of cheating, leads to her facing her fears and making some bold choices to take charge of her life. She is aided in her quest to prevail in this scenario by her best friend and a promising new suitor played charmingly by John Hannah. The movie also features John Lynch as the spineless boyfriend and Jeanne Tripplehorn as “the other woman.”
Director: Peter Howitt

“The Family Man” (2000)

Here’s another one with an alternate life storyline – an inverted remake of the James Stewart Christmas classic, “It’s A Wonderful Life.” Instead of the leading man, in this case Nicolas Cage, pining away for the adventurous life he lost, he is living that life with no regrets as a powerful investment banker. But then he gets a glimpse, courtesy of Don Cheadle in the “angelic Clarence” role, into what it would have been like if he had chosen love and domesticity over his career-driven bachelorhood. Of course, he ends up pining for the path he didn’t realize he wanted right down to the perfectly precocious little girl he could father. You could argue that it is a mediocre comedy, but there's something about it - maybe because it employs that tried-and-true Hollywood formula - that gets to you. Tea Leoni stars as his would-be wife, and the cast is rounded out by Jeremy Piven, Saul Rubinek and Josef Sommer.
Director: Brett Ratner

Other similarly themed recommendations

“Orlando” (1992)
Starring Tilda Swinton, Billy Zane and Quentin Crisp | Directed by Sally Potter

“Dracula” (1992)
Starring Winona Ryder, Anthony Hopkins, Keanu Reeves and Gary Oldman | Directed by Francis Ford Coppola

"Angel Heart" (1987)
Starring Mickey Rourke, Robert DeNiro, Lisa Bonet and Charlotte Rampling | Directed by Alan Parker

"Made in Heaven" (1987)
Starring Timothy Hutton, Kelly McGillis and Maureen Stapleton | Directed by Alan Rudolph

Lit from within

Katherine Hepburn and James Stewart in "The Philadelphia Story"

A SCENIC VIEW

I’ve never thought of Jimmy Stewart as much of a seducer. I guess that’s because he was never a sex symbol, and I don’t suspect he ever wanted to be. He was an actor who wanted to be good at conveying whatever the character called for. And in one of my favorite scenes in one of my top 10 favorite movies, Stewart pulls off a seduction the only way a real seduction takes place – with the help of a woman who wants to be seduced. In this case, it’s Katharine Hepburn, and the movie is “The Philadelphia Story.”

The words “sex symbol” never really fit Hepburn’s image either. But just like Stewart, Hepburn was terrific at her chosen profession, and when it came time to seduce or be seduced on camera, she could make you believe it. One of the things I love about this scene is how well-matched the characters are and how the seduction is born more out of mutual admiration than lust. It’s also born out of knowing what’s at the core of the other person even though they’ve only known each other for a day.

Hepburn plays Tracy Lord, a wealthy Philadelphia socialite on the weekend of her wedding to a nouveau riche entrepreneur named George Kittredge (played by John Howard).  The blessed occasion has been crashed by Tracy’s ex-husband, C.K. Dexter Haven – played by a never-more-charming or calculating Cary Grant. In a valiant yet self-serving effort to save Tracy’s family from a blackmail scheme, Dexter has made a deal with the publisher he works for that he will secure a big story about Tracy’s wedding for Spy magazine. Keep in mind that this was in the olden times when people – even celebrities – valued their privacy and thought the idea of any aspect of their personal lives being splashed all over a magazine was the height of poor taste and low class.

So Dexter has agreed to do the story only because the publisher threatens to run a story about the separation of Tracy’s parents. It seems her father has run off to have an affair with a younger woman. Dexter is also hoping his presence at the Lord home on Tracy’s wedding weekend will gum up the works for Tracy’s impending nuptials.

Jimmy Stewart plays Macaulay “Mike” Connor, the reporter writing the story under the guise of being an old friend of Tracy’s brother, who can’t make it to the wedding because he’s in South America or some such far and away place. He’s joined by photographer Liz Embry, played with sharp wit by Ruth Hussey. Well, thanks to how well Tracy knows her ex-husband, she’s able to figure out before she’s even met Mike and Liz that they’ve never met her brother and are simply there to get the dirt on her wedding. But once Dexter explains the reason for his attempted deception, she backs down and allows them to stay for the festivities.    

At first, Mike assumes Tracy is a spoiled little rich girl with mush for brains, and Tracy assumes Mike is a smug, elitist journalist with nothing but rudeness running through his veins. But they are quickly forced to come to terms with one another when they actually have a conversation. Mike discovers Tracy is in fact spoiled and rich, but she’s also very insightful and discerning. Tracy realizes that underneath Mike’s toughness he’s an eloquent novelist and not such a bad judge of character. More importantly, they discover that they are a lot alike. And after having one too many drinks at the festivities on the night before the wedding, they engage in highly entertaining banter in the backyard of the Lord estate.

I was delighted from the very start of the scene – Mike and Tracy shifting leisurely to the music atop a narrow rock wall. I marveled that they could balance considering how much alcohol they had consumed at the party. But they do and make it look effortless, and you can almost feel their champagne buzz through the screen. But the banter is the thing with this scene – as it is with the whole movie. They go at each other with sometimes playful but always-truthful jabs about class and culture. They reveal the best and worst about each other, while realizing their faults aren’t the end of the world, and they have some rather redeeming characteristics to make up for them. Their repartee is charming, funny and full of the romance that can only come from two people really seeing each other and admiring what they see. Sure, booze and flattery always have a way of ramping up romance as well, but having watched their relationship evolve, you know there is much more at work than just baser instincts between these two cerebral creatures. Director George Cukor was a man who knew how to bring out the best in his actors, but with actors like Hepburn and Stewart, he didn’t have to work that hard.

Unfortunately, I could not locate the entire scene online, but this excerpt from it captures the gist of it. It is only one of many great scenes in the film. I hope this glimpse will encourage you to check out the entire film, easily one of the best and funniest ever made.