Aloha

Stone, Cooper, and McAdams in Aloha

Cameron Crowe's Aloha deserves most of the brickbats thrown its way, but I enjoyed tiny bits of it. The film had been beleaguered with rumors of a troubled shoot and disastrous test screenings. The critical and box office response was dreadful and has sunk Crowe's reputation into the mire. Also damaging was the charge of cultural appropriation, which has some merit. I certainly chuckled in derision when lily white Emma Stone intoned in the film that she is a quarter Hawaiian and whatever native mystical threads introduced disappear by the time Aloha limps to its conclusion. However, cultural appropriation has become a catch all pejorative phrase and not all artistic borrowings are theft. Some are tributes and homages. Elvis Presley might not mean shit to Chuck D, but I think the world would have been poorer had the King not loved Gospel and R&B. 

Crowe has no feel for the military culture here ( as opposed to sports or rock and roll) and despite stalwarts like Danny McBride and Alec Baldwin on hand as officers, this flaw delivers the film into the realm of ludicrous nonsense; as does the miscasting of Bill Murray as a tech tycoon. The film's MacGuffin is that Murray's character needs the military's help in sending a rocket into space. Murray can certainly play a dramatic character, but is at sea here amidst the film's ever shifting tone. A dance with Ms. Stone at a military ball would seem to provide Murray a chance to shine, but the sequence has little impact because Crowe has no gift for visualizing spectacle. A good point of reference for comparison would be the twist scene in Pulp Fiction. 

Where Crowe's talent lies is in his articulation of relationships, particularly those of the young and not so innocent seeking mentors and romantic ideals. The romantic triangle of Stone, Bradley Cooper and Rachel McAdams, all charming, is a good example of this. For this alone, I hope Aloha will one day be reappraised, like Elaine May's Ishtar and Michael Lehmann's Hudson Hawk, not as profound or even good art, but as underrated professional filmmaking. (4/23/18)

 

Siberia

Abel Ferrara's Siberia casts Willem Dafoe in the tundra of the titular region adrift in a sea of memories. Script and editing make clear that the action is occurring in the mind's eye of Clint, Dafoe's character. Self-indulgent and slightly batty, Siberia is well-paced, beautiful and incomprehensible. The glimpses we see of Clint's life are compelling, yet ephemeral because of their subjectivity. Ferrara and Dafoe's skills make the film visceral viewing, but the film's evocation of one man's unconscious will leave some feeling unmoored. Recommended to fans of Messrs. Dafoe and Ferrara. Others should be wary. 

 

The Best of Belmondo

                                                                 Jean-Paul Belmondo

                                                                       1933 - 2021

                       "Hell, everyone knows than an ugly guy with a good line gets the chicks."

1. Breathless                            Jean-Luc Godard                            1959
2. Pierrot le Fou                      Jean-Luc Godard                              1965
3. Stavisky                               Alain Resnais                                    1974
4. That Man From Rio           Philippe de Broca                               1964
5. Leon Morin, Priest             Jean-Pierre Melville                           1961
6. Mississippi Mermaid          Francois Truffaut                               1969
7. A Woman is a Woman        Jean-Luc Godard                              1961
8. A Double Tour                     Claude Chabrol                                1959
9. Le Doulos                             Jean-Pierre Melville                         1962
10. Classe tous risques             Claude Sautet                                 1960   

The paucity of good roles after 1975 suggests that Belmondo, even more than Jean-Pierre Leaud, epitomizes the rise and fall of the French New Wave.