Review: Greenberg

Roger Greenberg, as written by Noah Baumbach and played by Ben Stiller, is a shambles of a man. Mentally stalled at the age of 25 when he was at the peak of his success, he now finds himself turning 41 with nothing to show for the intervening sixteen years. His personality has curdled into a toxic combination of hostility, arrogance, and thoughtless cruelty, and he views himself as under constant siege from a world that assaults him at every turn with its bad taste and offensive mainstream values. The film regards Roger Greenberg from a variety of angles, and ponders whether there is any hope for him to glean some degree of happiness from life or to form some semblance of a functioning relationship with another human being. It's hard to be optimistic on either count. Imagine As Good As It Gets if it dropped the winks about how clever and cuddly Jack is and instead focused on how appalling his behavior was, and you'll get a good idea of what Greenberg is like.

Like This - Minus the Bullshit

Ah, but I can hear the cries of moviegoers across the country already. "Why should I care about Greenberg, let alone give over 107 minutes of my time to spend with him? I go to the movies to be entertained not to be forced into the company of the kind of guy I spend my life avoiding." I suppose it's a fair point. I am tempted to mention that most moviegoers have no qualms whatsoever about films featuring murderers, rapists, torturers, and Nazis, but I don't want to be snide, and in those cases audiences can be reasonably certain that those characters will be blown to bits by the time the credits roll.

I guess it comes down to why you go to the movies in the first place. If you are not afraid of being provoked by a film, and you see the worth in humanity portrayed truthfully on screen, no matter how sharply it veers into unpleasantness, then Greenberg is well worth your time. To put it another way: If Greenberg is the type of film you like, then you will like Greenberg. I sure did.

The movie begins with Greenberg arriving in LA from New York after agreeing to babysit his brother's dog while his brother's family are vacationing in Asia. Ostensibly, his brother has hired him to build a doghouse, but we sense that is merely an excuse to nudge Greenberg towards reentering society, an idea he violently resists. He spends his first day in town staring warily out at the world through the venetian blinds and hand writing angry missives detailing his contempt for such targets as Starbucks and Mayor Bloomberg.

Stiller is fantastic in the role. I'd say it was a surprise, but anyone familiar his work in Permanent Midnight or Your Friends and Neighbors knew that he had this depth in him, if only he could stop goofing around with CGI dinosaur bones long enough to use it. I don't think it's a stretch to call it his best work to date, and his first full-bodied, head-to-toes performance since The Royal Tenenbaums. He and writer/director Baumbach deserve enormous credit for never softening the character or begging for the audience's sympathy. Yet without excusing Greenberg's often monstrous behavior, Stiller manages to show how clearly it all stems from his overwhelming vulnerability. Greenberg is so obviously one big open wound that we hesitate to condemn him completely.

We learn more about him. It is mentioned that Greenberg had a recent stint in a mental hospital and there are some vague references to a nervous breakdown. When he was in his twenties he was in a band that had its shot at the big time blown entirely because of his pig-headed behavior. Since his band went belly-up he moved to New York City and found work as a carpenter. To be back in LA surrounded by success and people from his past is non-stop torture for him and the mere act of making small talk at a children's birthday party seems enough to destroy whatever fragile grip on reality he's managed.

Into Greenberg's life come two people who represent an opportunity for normal social interaction, opportunities he will blow repeatedly and thoroughly. Rhys Ifans plays the last friend from his glory days who will tolerate him and Greta Gerwig plays the brother's young assistant, who Greenberg finds himself attracted to. Stiller's character wastes no time sabotaging both relationships.

Gerwig gives a breakout performance as a girl who is sweet and pretty, but who could kindly be described as having a self-esteem problem, but would more accurately be described as a doormat. She is directionless save for a half-hearted attempt at a singing career - her singing sounds as if she's apologizing for imposing on the listener. Greenberg is the last person she needs in her life because if she is too willing to let people walk all over her, Greenberg is too willing to do the walking. If anyone is ever going to get her to stand up for herself it's this guy. Ifans is also quite good in a subdued performance as a man with a deep well of understanding for his friend, but whose patience is not bottomless and does not equal forgiveness.

I fear I'm making Greenberg sound like an endurance test for the audience. It's not. What it is, is a delicate and often very funny look at certain types of people. Baumbach doesn't force them into a standard plot but is content to follow them where they lead him, never pushing for laughs. He clearly loves his characters otherwise he would not go out of his way to be so brutally honest with them. If we're being truthful I think a lot of us will recognize the behavior on screen, the difference being that most of us only behave that way in our worst moments and these characters make it a full time job.

There is a scene between Stiller and Jennifer Jason Leigh playing Greenberg's old flame from his glory days. Stiller clearly imagines it to be a date, hopefully the first of many and he is totally oblivious to the fact that Leigh considers it a duty to be endured for the sake of politeness and would like nothing more than to never see Stiller again. The timing and the choice of what is and isn't said is as beautifully observed as any scene you're likely to see this year at the movies. I find myself grateful to everyone involved for putting a scene like that on the screen. To do so is so much more challenging to do than to go for the easy marks, something this film never does.

Verdict: I'm a sucker for films like this - films that want only to document their characters as truthfully and with as much attention to detail as possible. I should also mention that Baumbach has developed substantially as a stylist from his previous films. He and his cinematographer Harris Savides capture Los Angeles vividly as a place and as a woozy state of mind. Greenberg should feature prominently in any discussion of the city on film from now on. It might not add up to a masterpieces but what Greenberg does it does very well and it deserves a wide audience. 8 out of 10

Most Anticipated : Update

Both Green Zone and Greenberg have come and gone and still no masterpieces yet from 2010 (although I did greatly enjoy Greenberg). So that's two slots to be filled on the most anticipated charts, so let's go with...

It's Kind of a Funny Story - Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden might be the most underappreciated up and coming filmmakers out there seeing as they've come off two unqualified successes in Half Nelson and Sugar and may have a third on their hands with this adaptation of Ned Vizzini's novel. Add to the equation that it stars the skyrocketing Zach Galifianakis and it seems like the stars could be aligning for everyone involved.

Cyrus: Ask me to name four people who I am interested in seeing in almost any material and the first four names I come up with could very well be John C Reilly, Catherine Keener, Marisa Tomei, and Jonah Hill. Throw in the Duplass brothers whose previous low budget hit was the very funny and perceptive Humpday and this film about a lonely man dealing with his ideal woman's weird adult son is looking like a must see.

Replacing Citizen Kane

Before long it will be time again for Britain's Sight & Sound magazine to conduct their decennial poll on the greatest film of all time, and I for one think it's time for a change.

For those who don't know, beginning in 1952 Sight & Sound has conducted a poll of the world's leading film scholars every ten years. It is the only such poll that carries real weight, and for devoted cinephiles it is an event akin to choosing a new pope. The poll is a invaluable record of the shifting schools of critical thought and a fascinating look at how the test of time can build up some works of art and tear down others.

So - Big deal, yes?

In the first poll, when the talking picture was still just a quarter century old, the first winner was Bicycle Thieves. Citizen Kane didn't even make the top ten. In between '52 and the second poll in '62 Kane's reputation as a masterwork was cemented and Orson Welles' film has topped the list ever since, including the most recent poll in 2002. Sight & Sound is likely the main reason that Kane, more than any other film, is synonymous with "Greatest Movie Ever Made."

And Kane's reputation shows no signs of diminishing. It just topped the less prestigious American Film Institute poll on the same topic for the second time, and exactly no one would be surprised if it repeated its win in the next poll, bringing its reign to a very distinguished fifty years.

But I protest. (That sound you just heard is the elite critical establishment being shaken to its very core) I am not going to commit cinematic blasphemy by suggesting Citizen Kane is anything but completely worthy of the title, but it's not the only film worthy of the title. So I suggest in the interest of keeping the discussion of cinematic history lively and relevant this time out voters attempt to rally a different candidate to the top spot.

But what film could possibly wear the heavy crown besides Kane? Let's examine the options.

Vertigo

Why: If people are serious about a change then Vertigo is the pony to bet on. Vertigo's critical reputation has been growing steadily since its rediscovery in the early Eighties, and in the 2002 poll Hitchcock's masterpiece came closest to knocking Kane of its perch, missing the top spot by six votes. Vertigo comes with the Hitchcock name attached, which is one of the few in film history equal in stature to Welles.

Why Not: The film does have its noisy detractors, and it is not as beloved with the general public as it is inside the world of film lovers, not that Sight & Sound voters particularly care.

The Godfather

Why: It's the obvious choice. Besides Citizen Kane, this is the film people think of most as "best ever". Nobody would question it for the top spot. It did very well in the '02 poll landing in the fourth spot.

Why Not: It got the fourth spot because the poll combined votes for Parts I and II, which, excuse me, is total nonsense. They are two separate films. Why not include Part III while you're at it? The vote combining debate could lead to a questionable winner if they did combine votes, or vote splitting if they didn't combine votes. I would suggest throwing all the support behind the first Godfather, the more complete, more memorable film. (You heard me right, Part II lovers)

The Shawshank Redemption

Why: It's the populist choice. Shawshank has held steadily the top spot on the IMDB Top 250 for years, a brief coup by The Dark Knight notwithstanding. Few who have seen it don't love it.

Why Not: Those few are probably Sight & Sound voters, who don't care a whit for popular opinion, and appear unconvinced of Shawshank's greatness. They gave Shawshank a grand total of zero votes in the 2002 poll. And good for them I might add. Nothing at all against Shawshank, but I admire a group that will stick to its guns and vote Murnau's Sunrise into the top 10 even if 999 out of 1000 people will greet the choice with a blank stare.

Casablanca

Why: What kind of soulless Gorgon doesn't love Casablanca? It has a wealth of famous scenes and lines embedded in the public consciousness and is a much more accessible film than Citizen Kane.

Why Not: Voters tend to favor personal visions by powerful directors. Triumphs of the studio system, even ones as beloved as Casablanca, do poorly. Casablanca scraped together a measly three votes in '02 compared to Kane's winning 46 vote tally. Blade Runner got more votes.

There Will Be Blood

Why: Because the discussion of great cinema should not be stuck in the distant past. On the '02 list the most recent pick was the 28 year old The Godfather Part II. Three years after its release PT Anderson's Blood it is clearly a film that it is going to be discussed for decades to come. Why wait?

Why Not: The voters have nothing against voting for new films. It just takes decades for consensus to build. In the '02 poll such modern classics as Fargo, Pulp Fiction, and Do the Right Thing all received a smattering a votes, but none came close to breaking onto the list. Even when Sight & Sound tried to address this by doing a separate poll limited to the last 25 years, the oldest eligible choices (Apocalypse Now, Raging Bull) dominated the list.

Singin' in the Rain

Why: Because lighten up, that's why. Films don't have to be dark and tragic to be great. There's something to be said for creating images that have become a cultural shorthand for unadulterated joy. This was the only film to make the ten last time not weighted down by life's struggles (although you could argue 8 1/2).

Why Not: The title of Best Movie Ever Made is a burdensome one, and voters seem reluctant to vote to bestow it on light, fluffy movies. In the history of the poll the only other comedic works to garner significant votes were the works of Keaton and Chaplin, but over time they've slid down the list while the weightier fare has moved up.

2001: A Space Odyssey

Why: It's an undisputed masterwork by a giant of the cinema. 2001 has been a staple of the poll over the decades and is a completely worthy title to top the poll.

Why Not: The same could be said for 8 1/2, The Searchers, Lawrence of Arabia, The Rules of the Game and The Passion of Joan of Arc. One could make an convincing argument for any one of dozens of films to take the top spot. The film that unseats Citizen Kane film is going to have to stand out, even among this illustrious company, as the clear choice.

Seven Samurai

Why: It is a masterpiece by Akira Kurosawa who occupies the same upper echelon of cinematic genius as Welles. It's a previous choice of the Sight & Sound voters placing as high as third in the '72 poll. It's universally acknowledged as an unimpeachably brilliant film - a grand epic while being a intimate human drama. It has action and romance - comedy and tragedy. I have never heard tale of anyone seeing it who didn't consider it one of the greatest of cinematic achievements.

Why Not: I can't think of a thing. Here is your new winner Sight & Sound voters! Please mark your ballots accordingly.

Review: Alice in Wonderland

It's time to start worrying about Tim Burton.

I don't want to think the worst of him. I have a lot of fond memories of his films. Even his less than successful efforts like Batman Returns used to be good for a handful of indelible moments, and I found his previous film, Sweeney Todd, to be one of his finest moments as a director. Now it's clear that film was a fluke - an exception to a clear downward trajectory that started with the sloppy Mars Attacks, limped to the beautiful but convoluted Sleepy Hollow and then took a sharp nose dive with the twin stink bombs of Planet of the Apes and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Now he has hit rock bottom with Alice in Wonderland, bar none the worst movie he has ever made. It's enough to make you question whether he has any work of value left in him. Not only is Alice a staggering mess on its own terms, but it also manages to do violence to the whimsical spirit of Lewis Carroll on the way down.

I normally make it a point not to judge a film by fidelity to the source material - a film succeeds or fails on its own terms - but in this case it is impossible not to comment on how stunningly wrong is Burton's take on the books. There is no joy in this film, no wit, no cheer. Gone is the playful word games and logical conundrums of the books. In their place is a sad procession of miserable and unpleasant characters in dull, pointless, and occasionally creepy situations. On that point, someone really should have explained to Burton the difference between amusingly eccentric and off-puttingly insane. The March Hare in particular seems like he could up and cut Alice at any moment and The Mad Hatter as nonsense spouting goofball has been replaced with a dangerous schizophrenic desperately clinging to sanity after going off his meds against doctor's orders. All the guests at the tea party seem less like they belong in a film for the whole family and more like they belong a few cells down from Hannibal Lecter shouting obscenities at Clarice Starling.

Won't You Join My Tea Party?

This is usually this point in most Tim Burton reviews that the critic begins rhapsodizing about the visuals - oh, the visuals! - and forgives Burton his faults as a storyteller. But this time out Burton's vaunted style fails him as well. There are visual flourishes to be sure, but they are applied haphazardly and to ill-effect. I distinctly remember in previous versions of Alice from my childhood the feeling that some new curiosity waited around every bush and tree. Not so in Burton's Wonderland, which resembles a bombed out wasteland, all gray skies and empty brown vistas. Excluding the army of playing cards, the entire population of Wonderland barely seems to break double digits. And please don't inform me that the Queen's oppressive rule has driven the life from Wonderland, like the Pride Lands with Scar in charge. Bullshit. It's Wonderland. It doesn't have socio-political situations.

Even if the visuals were as wondrous as one could hope the film would still be a failure because of the atrocious screenplay, for which Burton shares blame with screenwriter Linda Woolverton. Everyone knows by now that this version of Alice doesn't retell the classic story but updates it with a grown up Alice on the cusp of adulthood. After a clunky opening where Alice faces adult complexities (including a woefully inappropriate interlude involving her adulterous brother-in-law) she flees down the rabbit hole where the movie bungles the story immediately and never recovers.

Aside from the fairly serious problem of being no fun at all, the script commits the unforgivable sin of attempting to have Wonderland make sense, hijacking all the beloved characters and plugging them into a third-rate Lord of the Rings knock off where Alice is "the chosen one" returned to save Wonderland - or Underland as the characters call it for no discernible reason (unless the filmmakers decided, quite rightly, that it would be flagrant false advertising to promise "wonder" in this drab slog of a movie). This story would require a rewrite to qualify for the tie-in video game, sputtering from scene to scene while generating zero energy, and occasionally shoehorning in big chunks of the original Lewis Carroll with painful awkwardness.

What there is of a story often degenerates into complete incoherence. In one scene, when retrieving a special sword from the clutches of the fearsome Bandersnatch - a scene that is supposed to be bursting with suspense - Alice inexplicably stops to take a nap. It's as if the filmmakers threw up their hands and said, "Screw it. It's Wonderland. It doesn't have to make sense," which isn't fair to the audience - If you're going to vandalize the spirit of Carroll with a derivative Narnia-lite storyline, the least you could do is bother to have it proceed logically from one moment to the next.

I haven't even mentioned the scene where the Knave, played by Crispin Glover, blatantly sexually harasses Alice, but the less said about that the better. The same goes for the Mad Hatter's jaw-dropping break dancing routine.

It is worth noting that the lone bright spot in the film is Helena Bonham Carter's performance as the Queen of Hearts. She is out there all by herself with nothing to work with, but at least she approaches her role with gusto and playfulness. Only in her performance do you catch a glimmer of what the film could had been were the rest not so far off the mark. Anne Hathaway tries her best as the White Queen but barely registers. Depp goes down with the ship here with a confused, cluttered performance as The Mad Hatter. He does a fey, lispy version of his gentle Finding Neverland brogue that occasionally drops down into a growling demon voice at odd moments. Like the movie around it, his performance is busy and showy and probably took a lot of effort but pays little dividends by way of entertainment.

The whole thing culminates in a CGI battle scene that precisely nobody asked for with Alice decked out in armor fighting the Jabberwocky, here imagined as some boring run-of-the-mill dragon. I admit I got excited when I heard that Christopher Lee was cast as the voice of the Jabberwocky - surely you cast Lee in order to give him some juicy dialogue, perhaps a battle of wits with Alice. Nope. Wrong again. He barely gets out a complete sentence before Alice is chopping his tongue out with a sword. Man is it ever a depressing spectacle. I think I could happily live to be a hundred without ever seeing another CGI battle scene, much less one that tramples on a beloved children's classic. Although, hey, if you ever read Alice in Wonderland and said to yourself, "This is good and all, but I wish the Mad Hatter would stop talking and just wail on characters with a sword like he was Viggo Mortenson," then I guess this is the film for you.

One wonders why Tim Burton bothered with Alice in Wonderland at all if he was just going to make an empty blockbuster out of it. There is some vague lip-service paid to the power of make-believe but that message would be more effective were Burton not constantly poking us in the ribs to make it clear that it was all definitely, literally happening. It's hard not to conclude that Burton and his Disney executives just wanted a pre-sold commodity, one that could launch a franchise and fit in with the Disney Princess line of merchandise. Making sure they had a story worth telling was clearly not a priority. Verdict: 1 out of 10

Great Shots: The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp

Powell and Pressburger The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp is England's answer to Citizen Kane. Like Kane, it captures the whole scope of a man's life, from youthful exuberance to stubborn old age. And like Welle's masterpiece, Colonel Blimp shows how a whole lifetime can hinge on seemingly insignificant moments, and a man's most defining moments don't become apparent until long after the fact. The great difference between the two films is that, whereas Kane is a dark journey into the heart and soul of a true bastard, Colonel Blimp is a jolly optimistic film - you would be hard pressed to find a more lovable character than General Clive Candy, the "Colonel Blimp" of the title. General Candy's great loss, the seeds of which are being planted in the shot above, is all the more affecting for it.

If Colonel Blimp is like Citizen Kane then this scene shows his rosebud, the event that would leave an emptiness in his soul he would labor fruitlessly his whole life to fill. As a young soldier abroad at the turn of the last century Clive Candy escorts an English governess, played by Deborah Kerr, to lunch and ends up in an altercation with a German spy over a slight to English honor. The altercation leads to the duel seen above. Candy is on the left in white, only the man in white on the right is not the spy, but a German soldier (the great Anton Walbrook) chosen at random to stand for German honor. What neither man could possibly guess is that this series of circumstances would lead them to become lifelong friends and the English Governess would become the love of both their lives. To prevent an international incident the duel is said to be fought over the Kerr character and it does ironically lead to the men into being in competition for her. Sadly, Candy doesn't realize his love until he has already lost her.

Deborah Kerr's governess recalls Bernstein's famous girl in the white dress from Citizen Kane. She lives in General Candy's mind his whole life as an ideal, a representation of the perfect happiness he could have had. Candy goes so far as to marry a girl because she reminds him so strongly of his lost love (both actresses are played by Kerr). There is a quietly devastating scene late in the film where the German and Candy are reunited as old men and Candy shows him a painting of his wife, expecting him to be shocked at the resemblance. The German gently informs him he sees no resemblance. He has been living with a real person all that time, not an ideal.

What makes Blimp such an amazing film, and this shot so brilliant in particular, is that it doesn't just cover the romantic story but it also encapsulates the other great thread of Candy's life - his military career and his ideas about honor and fairness. The duel depicted above is shown as taking fairness to nearly absurd levels. The spend minutes going through the minutiae of the rules. There are the "seconds" with their swords drawn scuttling alongside the duelers like crabs keeping everything on the up and up. The framing of the shot itself suggests rigid fairplay with its symmetry.

The character of Colonel Blimp started in British papers as a cartoon, a caricature of pig-headed, oblivious attention to rules over common sense. Indeed he starts the movie as an old man, every bit the caricature with his walrus mustache and his expansive belly. What the film does is look past that to find the man whose idealism became obsolete when the Nazi marched in. There is a wonderful moment right before the duel begins where Candy looks into the eyes of the stranger he is about to fight and baffles the poor German by smiling of all things, as if to say, "Terribly sorry about all this, old man. No hard feelings."

The shot above doesn't linger on the fighting once it starts, instead slowly rising up to the ceiling and out through and snow covered window. Candy's ideas of honorable warfare are coming to an end. At the end of his life, Candy is shocked to find that the world has changed around him. And although he now looks like the bloated caricature of the cartoons he still feels like the cocky young soldier in the duel. Unlike Kane the film ends on a beautiful bittersweet note that never fails to move me, as Candy surveys his life and all he's lost and determines that there is still reason to face the day with hope.

I think The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp may be the most underseen great film out there. You scarcely here it mentioned outside of hardcore film lovers, but it belongs on lists next to The Godfather and Lawrence of Arabia, and like Citizen Kane it has aged beautifully and is still hugely entertaining to watch. No film lover's life is complete without it.

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp is available for instant viewing on Netflix.