The Past (2013)
Iranian Ahmad travels to Paris to complete his divorce from Marie (Berenice Bejo) who’s already in a new relationship with the married Samir, whose wife is comatose after a failed suicide attempt.
This is a melancholy film about the difficulties in multicultural relationships and the importance of honesty to the success of a marriage.
Berenice Bejo is best known to American audiences for her exaggerated comic performance as Peppy Miller in The Artist (2011), but she shows a great deal of dramatic range here.
This quiet film about family life continues in the same spirit as Iranian director Asghar Farhadi’s breakthrough film, A Separation (2011), but focusing on a scandalous, adulterous relationship keeps it from achieving the universality of the earlier film.
The Contender (2000)
When the Vice President of the United States dies, Democratic President Jackson Evans (Jeff Bridges) nominates Senator Laine Hanson (Joan Allen) to become the first female Vice President.
Her nomination is almost derailed because Laine refuses to defend herself when Republican Representative Sheldon Runyon (Gary Oldman) asks about a sexual escapade from her college days.
She has nothing to hide, but is willing to allow her name to be vilified, her family put through hell, and her opportunity to affect change in government vanish out of principle.
Despite the controversy, Laine is confirmed because Runyon’s choice for the office, the charismatic Governor Hathaway (William Petersen), is exposed as a criminal in a telegraphed twist.
The script functions as propaganda for the Democratic Party, gratuitously belittling any Republican in its way. In a particularly cringe worthy sequence, we learn Runyon’s wife had an abortion, but kept it secret because of his pro-life stance.
This is easily Joan Allen’s worst performance. She’s so smarmy and self-righteous it strips the character of what little personality the script had given her. The great cameo by Phillip Baker Hall as her father, Oscar Billings, is the only part of the film which comes close to humanizing her.
Gary Oldman is a consistently inventive and creative performer, but he can’t make Rep. Runyon anything more than a second-rate villain.
I like Jeff Bridges and President Evans is one of the film’s few highlights, but this is political propaganda masquerading as art, and it’s not particularly good at either.
Byzantium (2012)
During the Napoleonic Wars, Clara (Gemma Arterton) is forced into prostitution by Ruthven. Years later, dying of tuberculosis, she overhears him discussing how to become a vampire and achieve immortality.
After she follows the instructions and transforms, she meets The Brotherhood, the ruling vampire body. They’re upset a female prostitute has joined their ranks, but spare her life on the condition she strictly observe their rules.
Upset Clara stole his chance for immortality, Ruthven rapes her sixteen year old daughter, Eleanor (Saoirse Ronan), purposefully giving her syphilis. Despondent, Clara violates her promise by turning her daughter into a vampire and the pair become fugitives.
This is not Irish director Neil Jordan’s first foray into the vampire genre, but this is more creative than his earlier effort.
Fortunately, the immortality of the primary characters allowed Jordan to cast twenty-six year old Gemma Aterton, best known as Bond Girl Strawberry Fields, as the mother of eighteen year old Saoirse Ronan. Their chemistry humanizes this film’s vampires in a way Twilight did not. There’s just as much angst, but this film balances it with realistic human emotion.
The Pawnbroker (1964)
Holocaust survivor Sol Nazerman (Rod Steiger) owns a pawnshop in New York City. A young Puerto Rican, Jesus Ortiz, tries to befriend him, but, still shell-shocked from his experience, Sol has little desire for friendship and pushes him away. Despite his coldness, Jesus takes a bullet intended for Sol during an altercation with a pimp.
Rod Steiger was good in On the Waterfront (1954) and Oklahoma! (1955), but this film propelled him to new heights. He would defeat Spencer Tracy for the Best Actor Oscar three years later, but the win was a reward for his work here.
The prolific Sidney Lumet created a grim realism now routinely associated with New York in the classic films 12 Angry Men (1957), and Dog Day Afternoon (1975).
Condemned by the Catholic League for its brief depiction of female nudity, this film’s success helped end the Production Code and established a template for future Hollywood films about the Holocaust: focus on the triumphs, however small.
Slaying the Badger (2014)
This documentary focusing on the friendship / rivalry between American cyclist Greg Lemond and French cyclist Bernard Hinault (known as The Badger) reminds me of Senna (2010), which covered similar ground in the rivalry between racecar drivers Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost.
Films like this illuminate non mainstream sports in the United States, where team sports like football have long dominated.