Thumbs-up / thumbs-down in 2009

JUNE 11, 2009 --

Too lazy to write full reviews, so here are thumbnail reviews of the following movies:

SUMMER HOURS (France) -- I really disliked this movie! Great cast; talented director (Olivier Assayas). But I was turned off from the beginning: a confusing rush of exposition -- told to us in rapid French dialogue -- concerning family members who bear no physical or emotional resemblance to each other. (I have to blame the director for not taking the time to establish a familial rapport with the audience). Critics who like this movie use terms like 'languid' to describe the pace. (They must think languid is French for 'boring.') You want languid? Rent "A Sunday in the Country" from 1984 (Bertrand Tavernier's exquisite meditation on time, memory, and family). In Summer Hours, by the time the matriarch dies, you just don't CARE how the kids divide up the estate! Yet it goes on and on...(have a garage sale, already!)

ADORATION (Canada: Atom Egoyan) -- this film will no doubt exit the theaters in short order (if it hasn't already). In this case, it is with good reason (I was the only person in attendance at the Thursday, 5:45 screening in downtown Houston). I've been a fan of director Atom Egoyan since my time in Austin, where I saw, and was blown away by, "Speaking Parts" (1989). I still think about Mia Kirschner doing lap dances to a Leonard Cohen tune in "Exotica" (1994) ... my favorite of his films, for obvious reasons. Unfortunately, his latest movie plays like a polemic on race, terrorism, tolerance...not a second of which is authentic or believable (cf. Lemon Tree, below). Egoyan is stuck in the same voyeuristic, video-obsessed navel-gazing he displayed in 1989 (you know, back when that was 'in')...only now, he mixes it with a post-9/11 zeitgeist. Yes, that is as painful to sit through as it was to read (it was painful to write, too!)

LEMON TREE (Israel) -- Finally, a movie I like!! This film is well-worth seeing, if for nothing else than Hiam Abbass's ("The Visitor") compelling performance. Its metaphors for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict might be a bit heavy-handed at times, but it gets its message across. And it doesn't shy away from humor, either. The Jewish woman who lives across from the titular orchard, and who becomes the lead's unlikely ally, is an Israeli Naomi Watts! (I higher compliment I cannot give).

WENDY & LUCY (starring Michele Williams): contrary to expectations, this movie is NOT an indie-Lesbian love story (Lucy is a dog, for starters). MW strips herself of all movie-star trappings for this role. The problem with the movie is ... nothing happens! Not even to the dog!! Very frustrating.