TNMC

This is day two of the 2010 FilmColumbia film festival and I bring you a photo that has nothing to do with the festival at all, apart from being taken just down the street from the theater.  Truth be told, there wasn't an exciting photo op at the festival today, so I did some street photography instead.

As for the festival I saw five, yes five, films today.  Up first was White Material, by director Claire Denis, starring Isabelle Huppert.  It's about a white coffee plantation owner in Cameroon during a revolution.  She's desperately trying to get the crop in before somebody kills them all.  If you like glacially paced films with little dialog and lots of arty shots, this is the movie for you.  Personally I was bored.

Next was The Princess of Montpensier by director Bertrand Tavernier.  When the film was introduced they said the director wanted to make the quintessential French film.  And it certainly is French.  It's a period piece, set in the 1500s during war between Protestants and Catholics.  The title character is married off for political reasons despite being deep in heat with some other guy of some nobility.  So you have a love triangle, except then her husband's mentor falls for her too, making it a love rectangle.  Until of course, yet another noble guy falls for her, turning it into a love pentagon.  The movie has a cool score and some battle scenes, keeping it from being a complete kleenex factory.  But the love stuff falls pretty flat, at least for me, for the simple reason that I didn't actually like any of these characters.

It was starting to seem like a rocky day until Mike Leigh came to the rescue with his latest movie, Another Year.  It's a tad long but spectacularly acted and very sharply observant.  There is no story to speak of.  It revolves around an older couple who are deeply in love and severely charming.  Their odd friends and family drift in and out and use the couple as their anchor in life.  I'm really not kidding about the no story part, so you might find the structure a bit jarring.  But if that isn't a concern, this is a wonderful film.

After that was The Debt, a thriller starring Helen Mirren, Sam Worthington and Tom Wilkinson.  John Madden (Shakespeare in Love) directs.  This is a top notch film about a trio of Mossad agents sent to hunt down a Nazi war criminal.  Years later, things come to light that cast great doubt on that mission.  I don't want to go into much detail on this one, so just trust me, this is a great thriller and worth your time.

Finally, rounding out the day was Stone.  This stars Edward Norton, Robert DeNiro and Mila Jovovich.  This was a frustrating film.  DeNiro plays a prison counselor who gets Norton as a client.  This starts out really well.  Norton sports corn rows and a weird voice with hundred mile an hour wise cracking delivery.  I was delighted.  Clearly two hours of verbal jousting between two great actors was about to occur.  Settle back, grab the popcorn and get ready to be wowed.  Sadly that didn't really happen.  Part way through the movie suddenly went all new age and Norton settled down and steadily decreased the verbal fireworks.  By the end, Jovovich was stealing scenes from both of them.  She was great as a seductress.  She slid easily between sexy, playful, devious and feigned innocence.  There's a whole faith and redemption theme going  here but it took me an hour after the movie to sort it all out.  They just didn't seem to know what they wanted this movie to be so it lurched around trying to do too many things.  This one felt like a real missed opportunity.

That's all for today.  Another report tomorrow.