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the station agent

Sep 21 2011
Love0

Review: Reel Brazil festival, Win Win, Shark Night 3D, The Help, The Holy Roller, Friends With Benefits & Upside Down- the Creation Records Story

By Cinema and Reviews

To really under­stand a coun­try you have to go and live there – embed your­self with the people, soak up the cul­ture. If you don’t have the time or inclin­a­tion for that then the next best thing to is to get stuck in to their com­mer­cial cinema. Not the stuff that makes it into major inter­na­tion­al film fest­ivals like Berlin and Venice, not the stuff that gets nom­in­ated for for­eign lan­guage Academy Awards, but the films that are made to excite and please a loc­al audi­ence. That’s what fest­ivals like Reel Brazil are all about – a week-long por­trait of a coun­try via its cinema.

In the late 60s Brazil had a kind of Brazilian Idol tele­vi­sion pop com­pet­i­tion where brave young artists per­formed their top song in front of a live audi­ence bay­ing for blood as if they were watch­ing Christians versus lions. But in A Night in 67 we see that year’s com­pet­i­tion rise above the boos and jeers to open a new chapter in Brazilian pop music – legendary names like Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso com­pete to win over the tough crowd and in the pro­cess launch massive inter­na­tion­al careers.

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Nov 24 2009
Love0

Review: 2012, The Vintner’s Luck, Away We Go and [REC]2

By Cinema and Reviews

After nearly three and a half years of pro­du­cing this cinem­a­goers’ con­sumer guide, per­haps its time for a state­ment of intent. A mani­festo, if you will. Something to place these mus­ings in per­spect­ive as you skim through them over Morning Tea.

I try and find some­thing good and inter­est­ing in everything I see, and I see pretty much everything. Most films have an audi­ence of some descrip­tion wait­ing for them some­where, and that audi­ence may be you, so I try and out­line what might appeal (along with what might not) so that you can make an informed choice.

Plus, I have some sym­pathy for the little bat­tler and will often try and draw your atten­tion in that dir­ec­tion (Don’t for­get Two Lovers, folks) and I try and watch films not meant for me (kids flicks, etc) with half an eye on how the rest of the audi­ence is reacting.

It is extremely rare, as reg­u­lar read­ers will know, for me to warn you off a film entirely, or indeed (in the case of our first film this week) sug­gest that its cre­at­ors should be harshly pun­ished for its per­pet­ra­tion. The films that are really sand under my fore­skin are those that only exist to pad a resumé and a bank bal­ance, cyn­ic­al attempts to sep­ar­ate us from our money, mar­ket­ing cam­paigns crudely dis­guised as art.

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Dec 05 2008
Love0

Interview: Richard Jenkins

By Cinema and Interview

It isn’t online at the Cap Times, so I thought I would archive my inter­view with The Visitor star, Richard Jenkins here. I spoke with Richard by phone last Sunday morning.

***

"My drumming sucks!" - Richard Jenkins in The Visitor

“My drum­ming sucks” – Richard Jenkins in The Visitor

Best known to New Zealand audi­ences as the deceased pat­ri­arch of the Fisher fam­ily in television’s “Six Feet Under”, Richard Jenkins has had a steady career in movies over the last 25 years, often in unsung sup­port­ing roles, but this year he has really left a mark.

Speaking to the Capital Times from his home in Rhode Island, Jenkins gave thanks to Thomas McCarthy, cre­at­or of 2004’s sleep­er hit The Station Agent, for hav­ing faith in him des­pite his lack of mar­quee pres­ence. “He asked me to read the script and I hadn’t read any­thing I liked more. But I told him, nobody’s going to give you the money with me in it!” But McCarthy per­severed, even when one exec­ut­ive pro­du­cer sug­ges­ted just weeks before shoot­ing that Morgan Freeman might be a more com­mer­cial choice.

2008 has been a great year for Jenkins.  In the sopho­mor­ic buddy com­edy Step Brothers he got to impro­vise scenes about dino­saurs with Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly; he was reunited with The Coen Brothers for Burn After Reading (in a part that was writ­ten for him); and in the sens­it­ive indie he shines as a wid­owed aca­dem­ic brought back from a bound­less depres­sion by a chance New York con­nec­tion with two illeg­al immigrants.

But car­ry­ing a film on his shoulders was a new exper­i­ence.  “I always wondered what it would be like, you know? Could I do it? But most of all, I didn’t want to let Tom down.” He needn’t have wor­ried, as his per­form­ance anchors a typ­ic­ally humane McCarthy film about strangers thrown togeth­er and learn­ing to appre­ci­ate and then love each other.

Jenkins con­tin­ues to live in tiny Rhode Island where he moved after suc­cess­fully audi­tion­ing for the Trinity Rep theatre com­pany in Providence in 1970. He hap­pily per­formed and dir­ec­ted there for 14 years, even spend­ing four years as act­ing Artistic Director just as his film career was tak­ing off.

The movie work has been so reg­u­lar he hasn’t been on a stage since 1985 but he nev­er anti­cip­ated a film career. ”I’d always loved film but frankly, it was easi­er to go the the moon,” he laughs. “A career is some­thing you look back on rather than some­thing you plan”.

Now he says he enjoys watch­ing theatre more than he ever did (when he was act­ing in it) and tries to catch whatever he can, wherever he may be filming.

At the rate that Jenkins makes films (there are anoth­er four in the can for release next year), the law of aver­ages sug­gests he will be shoot­ing in Wellington before too long and he knows the tal­ent we have to offer, describ­ing work­ing with Niki (Whale Rider) Caro on North Country as his best movie-making exper­i­ence ever.

Printed in Wellington’s Capital Times on Wednesday 3 December, 2008.

Dec 04 2008
Love0

Review: The Visitor and American Teen

By Cinema and Reviews

While the Bond 22 jug­ger­naut threatens to crush everything in it’s path, a couple of plucky little indies try and offer a whole­some altern­at­ive (and stay out of harm’s way in the pro­cess). Thomas McCarthy’s The Visitor occu­pies sim­il­ar them­at­ic ground to his debut The Station Agent in 2004, but unfurls in alto­geth­er less whim­sic­al fashion.

Richard Jenkins plays Walter Vale, a depressed eco­nom­ics pro­fess­or, fum­bling around for some remain­ing con­nec­tion to his recently deceased wife (he’s learn­ing to play her piano which is a strik­ingly futile pur­suit for a man in his 50s). Against his wishes he is sent to New York to present a paper he hasn’t writ­ten to a con­fer­ence he has no interest in and he reluct­antly has to return to the old apart­ment he and his wife used to share. Only now it’s occu­pied by a young illeg­al immig­rant couple who are as sur­prised to see him as he is to see them – they’ve been conned into think­ing it was vacant.

With much apo­logy they pack up and leave but when Vale real­ises they have nowhere else to go he calls them back to let them stay. And so begins a lovely rela­tion­ship and a hugely reward­ing film, a film that nev­er settles for cliché when (with just a little bit of extra dig­ging) it can find some truth. When laid back drum­mer Tarek (win­ningly played by Haaz Sleiman) is arres­ted and slapped in deten­tion pending deport­a­tion, The Visitor effort­lessly changes tone and Vale finds someone to care for (and about) once again. One of the films of the year.

American Teen is nom­in­ally a doc­u­ment­ary but could just as eas­ily be filed in the hor­ror sec­tion. An insin­cere little film about a cross-section of mid-Western American youth in the town of Warsaw, Indiana (a town which appears to have a value sys­tem as shal­low as the gene pool that’s pro­duced its next gen­er­a­tion) American Teen ini­tially pro­vokes noth­ing so much as des­pair but even­tu­ally wrestles you into submission.

The five cent­ral char­ac­ters are arche­types (the Geek, the Prom Queen, the Jock, the Heartthrob and the Rebel) that slowly emerge as real people des­pite endur­ing some tack­ily manip­u­lat­ive storytelling (not to men­tion some colossally bad parenting).

Of course, the pres­sures on these kids are all real – the pres­sure to be pop­u­lar or suc­cess­ful, rather than simply be happy – but life wouldn’t have been nearly so com­plic­ated if they weren’t all wan­der­ing around with radio mics shar­ing every whispered secret with the world. Someone should have had a word with these kids about boundaries.

Printed in Wellington’s Capital Times on Wednesday 3 December, 2008.

Notes on screen­ing con­di­tions: American Teen was screened at the Paramount, in the big aud­it­or­i­um, and was pin sharp at the cor­rect aspect ratio of 1.85:1. It looks like the Paramount’s prob­lems with focus and bright­ness relate to ‘scope only (and pos­sibly only one of the two projectors).

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