PUNCH-DRUNK MUSINGS - Finally, the Feedback Forum erupts...well, a little bit anyway. Margaret Mead rightfully takes me to task for so infrequently updating my blog -- as tempted as I am to explain that I'm really not a slacker, I'm sticking to my pledge to just talk about movies. She suggests that maybe her and other readers "can spur CinemaScoped to write about something if we post about it enough." Why yes, you can! I'm much more likely to find a few minutes to post if I am directly responding to a comment or point by someone else. The reason being that I'm hopelessly unoriginal and do not take well to criticism. So on that note, let's take a look at Margaret's post point by point. First, she's sick of 'Punch-Drunk Love' "because of the incessant marketing campaign, but also this 'revelation' critics seem to be having about Sandler, and how P.T. Anderson saw something in him that no one else did. What was that, a big name for the marquee?" OK, on this point, I think it's safe to say that whatever reason(s) P.T. had for casting Sandler were not related to box office. Sure, some people might waste $7-10 to see Sandler try to "act," but the fact is that none of Sandler's usual audience -- roughly 10-to-22-year old boys -- are going to waste their money on this movie, regardless of Sandler's name. Without having seen the movie yet myself -- going tonight! -- i think P.T. was just set on making a completely different kind of movie. He hints at this on the 'Magnolia' DVD, that after semi-epics like that movie and 'Boogie Nights', where you are directing countless talented, "serious" actors, making a 95-minute romantic comedy/drama with Adam Sandler is about as different as you can get. Margaret writes: "Hey, I believe guys can change their image, but this isn't the first time we've heard Anderson is a genius. And if Sandler ever showed me one shred of acting chops before this, maybe I wouldn't be ranting." The implication here, seems to me anyway, is that we've heard P.T. is a genius before and he hasn't proven worthy of the title. Well, I say he has. I don't have the time or energy to expound on why 'Hard Eight', 'Boogie Nights' and 'Magnolia' are three amazing films, but I will always give a P.T. Anderson movie the benefit of the doubt until he proves otherwise. And who knows, maybe 'Punch-Drunk' won't do it for me. You'll be the first to know. As for Sandler, he's never shown a shred of acting chops before because, well, his films only require him to act like a clown. Then again, acting like a clown is still acting. Hell, maybe Roger Ebert is right: "The film is exhilarating to watch because Sandler, liberated from the constraints of formula, reveals unexpected depths as an actor." 'Sick too' follows up Margaret's post by pointing out that the movie is getting ripped by critics on Rotten Tomatoes...except, it's not. In fact, they're fawning all over it. My guess is that at the time he/she checked, only a handful of reviews were posted with the rest being added today (the day of its release). As it turns out, 74 out of 91 reviews are positive, with the only heavyweight disapproval coming from J. Hoberman of the Village Voice: "As elegantly crafted as it often is, Anderson's movie is essentially a one-trick pony that, hampered by an undeveloped script, ultimately pulls up lame." Anyway, keep the feedback coming...

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FINAL THOUGHTS ON... - ...'All or Nothing' before moving to 'Roger Dodger'. Ultimately, Leigh's film is about dignity and love -- two feelings/qualities that can be felt, as the title suggests, completely or not at all. There is no halfway being in love, just as someone can't really be a little bit dignified; you either respect yourself or you don't. There are two effective sequences in particular where Leigh lays out his theme, the first occurring when we first see the Bassett family sit down to dinner. Phil, a cab driver, tells a story about an old man he gave a ride to that day who only needed to go a short ways, but insisted on paying the full fare anyway. Penny can't believe Phil would charge him, even though he says the man insisted. When Phil tries to explain why he was surprised at the man's request, but nevertheless understood, it takes Rachel to articulate the reason -- the man was trying to maintain his dignity. It's bad enough he's too old and weak to walk such a short distance; he's certainly not going to let a cab driver turn him into a charity case by only charging half the fare. After dinner, Phil gets a first-hand lesson in losing one's dignity when he has to go from person to person in his house to see if they can lone him some money to pay his cab rental the next day. The only person who helps without making Phil feel like a dog is Rachel. Phil is played by Timothy Spall, a frumpy, overweight actor who I recognized only as the road manager from the un-entertaining 'Rock Star'. His character is frustrating for much of the film because you know he has a lot to say, and sometimes tries to say it, but just can't seem to get it out. Sometimes you want to slap him and say, "Spit it out! What's on your mind?" But Phil's passivity ultimately pays off in the movie's penultimate scene, where he confronts Penny about their seemingly dead relationship. It's a methodical scene, made up of long takes that give the actors room to display the emotional ebb and flow. "You don't love me anymore," Phil finally exclaims, and the impact is heightened by the fact that you realize he has wanted to say these words throughout the whole movie and has only now found the courage. Without Penny there to nurture him -- to show all of her love -- Phil has nothing.

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CHICAGO FILM FEST ROUNDUP PART II - With 'All or Nothing' (opens Friday in NY/LA), writer/director Mike Leigh ('Naked', 'Secrets & Lies') has given us another celebration of the working class. But don't take my use of the word "celebration" too literally because this movie is so bleak it makes Ingmar Bergman look like he was popping Prozac. As with much of Leigh's previous work and in accordance with his usual method of filmmaking -- he rehearses extensively before filming with only the characters and some scenes in place and develops the final script through improvisational collaboration with his actors -- 'All or Nothing' is an ensemble piece that feels almost more like a cinema verite documentary than a fictional narrative. The "plot" -- or lack thereof -- centers around a group of desperate, depressed individuals living in a London housing estate (read "project"). The primary characters are Penny and Phil Bassett (Lesley Manville and Timothy Spall) and their two kids, Rory and Rachel. Each member of the family is the antithesis of his/her counterpart. Penny incessantly nags and unknowingly belittles her more quiet, introspective husband Phil. Rachel is also quiet, likes to read, and works at a home for elderly folks, while her loud, obese brother Rory is in his 20s but has the mentality of a 12-year-old. He doesn't have a job and spends his days lying on the couch eating, watching TV, and just generally being one of the most obnoxious people you can imagine. While Rory and various other characters who mingle in and out of the story at first provoke laughs with their pitiful behavior, a subtle transformation takes place as the movie progresses. Leigh manages to evoke genuine empathy for these characters by allowing us to witness their lives, the day-to-day struggle simply to get by. Situations or circumstances that might have been funny early on in the movie become less humorous as we start to respect the characters. We no longer laugh "at" them -- as in, "Boy, aren't I glad I have a such a blissful existence sitting in the theater at the Chicago Film Fest watching other people suffer" -- because we start to respect them. After the movie, my wife said she felt it was "directionless" -- referring to the story, not Leigh's actual direction -- and technically she's right. Characters meander through the story without any sort of conventional plot machinations until the last half-hour when a sudden life or death situation arises. But rather than compound the Bassett family's already troubled life, this situation becomes the catalyst for change, for a new life. And Leigh pulls it off without any Hollywood manipulations. The ending is "happy," but not what we would consider a "happy ending." I was genuinely moved by the movie's final cathartic scenes, and I credit Leigh for being able to end on a note of real hope without it seeming inconsistent with who these characters are. Life is never going to be easy for the Bassett family -- is it for anybody? -- but maybe they can make it a little less dreary.

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OUT OF 'FOCUS' - Thanks to CS (sometime) contributor Eric Baker for sending me the link to this article in Salon about Scotty Crane, who has launched a pretty massive media campaign (including graphic web site) against Sony Pictures Classics and director Paul Schrader for alleged inaccuracies in the movie 'Auto Focus' (opened in NY/LA on Oct. 18). The movie stars Greg Kinnear as Bob Crane, the TV star of Hogan's Heroes, and chronicles Crane's disintegration into sex addiction and his ultimate mysterious death in his Scottsdale, Ariz., apartment in 1978. The article presents a pretty interesting dilemma that almost always arises when movies are based on true events, which is the question of how much responsibility a filmmaker has to be 100% accurate in portraying certain events or individuals (assuming that is even possible, which I would argue it isn't). What complicates Crane's story -- both Scotty's and Bob's -- is the fact that Scotty's version of his father's life conflicts completely with that of his half-brother, Bob Jr., who served as a consultant on the movie and, apparently, loathes Scotty's mother, Patricia, who was Crane's second wife. Enough of the tabloid stuff though, I've been looking forward to this movie for awhile. Schrader is, of course, the legendary screenwriter who collaborated with Scorsese on 'Taxi Driver' and 'Raging Bull', and the director of a handful of movies including 'American Gigolo' and 'Affliction'. The subject matter is obviously fascinating -- or, at least, titillating, -- and I'm curious to see Kinnear, who vacillates between showing some real depth as an actor in certain movies and being totally shallow and smug in others. Once again, Slate's David Edelstein and Salon's Stephanie Zacharek are in complete disagreement. On Kinnear's performance, Zacharek writes: "In "Auto Focus" Kinnear pulls off the feat of making us feel something for Crane...And considering how sensitively calibrated Kinnear's performance is, you don't need him to. Crane knew that his big selling point, as a human being and as a commodity, was his likability. Kinnear riffs on that without milking it." While Edelstein says, "But in the last third, Kinnear has no depths as an actor to plumb; even in the movie's best scenes, with Ron Leibman (in top form) as his brusque but softhearted agent, he looks fatuously dazed." Overall, the reviews have been mostly positive. Edelstein starts his review with an interesting and, I think, mostly accurate assessment of Schrader as a director:

Almost every time I see a film by Paul Schrader, I think about what a sensational subject he has gotten hold of and how I wish that someone else had stepped in to bring it to life. As a screenwriter, he's drawn to volcanically conflicted protagonists, but the movies he builds around them are austere, even clinical. His script of Taxi Driver (1976) was a smashing success because Martin Scorsese, a voluptuous Expressionist, brought it to a boil: It entered your bloodstream like a drug. Scorsese cooks; Schrader freeze-dries. I think his asceticism is meant to seem classical and contemplative (he once dismissed Taxi Driver as juvenilia), but it feels more like a failure of sympathetic imagination. He won't—or can't—go all the way.

Schrader's 'Affliction' (1997), based on the novel by the brilliant Russell Banks, earned James Coburn a best supporting actor Oscar for playing a hellishly abusive father, but I can't think of any better description for the film as a whole than "austere" and "clinical." I felt throughout that Schrader was keeping the audience deliberately at a distance. As Edelstein says, "He won't—or can't—go all the way." With the exception of a few scenes, Schrader only hints at the real emotional explosiveness of the story and never seems to completely commit. I plan to see 'Auto Focus' this week and will have some comments posted soon.

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CHICAGO FILM FEST ROUNDUP PART I (A) - I've spent more time over the past month writing about why I haven't been able to get back to my normal daily blogging schedule than I have writing about movies...so I'm officially putting an end to all such discussions and just getting back to film. Punch-Drunk Love, Bowling for Columbine and a whole host of other promising movies are playing in Chicago and I will get to them all -- OK, most of them -- this week. But first, I need to finish up my take on the various movies I saw at the 38th Annual Chicago International Film Festival, which just wrapped up Friday. (Click here to see all of the winners. Alas, I didn't see any of them.) First, I wanted to finish up some thoughts on the opening night film 'Evelyn', starring Pierce Brosnan, which will play in New York and L.A. on December 13 and probably not make it to too many other cities after that. 1) Aidan Quinn, a usually strong actor, is so stiff and seemingly uncomfortable in this movie he literally ruins every scene he's in. Playing an Irish-born lawyer who moves to America, then returns to Ireland and ends up representing Brosnan's Desmond Doyle, I can entertain the argument that he's supposed to seem a bit out of place. But if that was director Bruce Beresford's intention, well, as with everything else in the movie, he overdid it. 2) I mentioned previously that Brosnan is somewhat hindered as an actor by his good looks. In 'Evelyn', we're supposed to believe that Brosnan is just your average, everyday, broke Irishman who drinks too much but loves his kids...which is fine, except that a perpetual five o'clock shadow and an old suit doesn't exactly make James Bond look "average" -- especially when you consider that his wife runs out on him for another man. Granted, wives/women cheat on good-looking men all the time. However, in the movie world there is only so much suspension of belief an audience can take. (A theory William Goldman convincingly espouses in his Adventures In The Screen Trade. I'd site the page number if I had the book in front of me.) Don't get me wrong, Brosnan delivers a capable performance. But would a less glamorous-looking actor have been better suited to play Desmond Doyle? Probably.

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