Gab is Hell

Wise: Hi there, Werth!

Werth: Hi, Wise! Don't you just love the smell of mustard gas in the morning?

Wise:I'd rather smell bacon and blueberry pancakes. 

Werth: Then bring your maple syrup to Film Forum today and watch the gripping Lewis Milestone WWI classic, All Quiet on the Western Front (1930). The film, based on the Erich Maria Remarque book, won the Best Picture and Best Director Oscar that year and was even the subject of a Dogville Short spoof, So Quiet on the Canine Front (1931).

Wise: You've really arrived when you get your own fido farce.  But when I think of movies depicting the horrors of war I immediately think of Cold Mountain (2003), Anthony Minghella's sweeping adaptation of Charles Frazier's novel.  Told mostly in flashback, the film follows wounded Confederate soldier W.P. Inman (Jude Law) as he struggles to return to the mountains of North Carolina and his sweetheart Ada Monroe (Nicole Kidman).  

Along the way he encounters heroes, helpers and blackguards, all while trying to avoid the Confederate Home Guard which is rounding up deserters and forcing them back to the front lines.  Back home, Ada loses her father and struggles to survive the wartime privations with help from Ruby Thewes (Renée Zellweger), a mountain girl with a sharp tongue and strong back.  

Werth: And an accent that could make the hillbillies from Deliverance blush.  

Wise: That accent won her a Best Supporting Actress Oscar.  

Werth: And inclusion in a group of cursed actresses.  

Wise: Still, she is one of the best things in a movie that occasionally loses its bearings.  Minghella's previous successes—The English Patient and The Talented Mr. Ripley—both are sweeping, highly romantic epics, but somehow Cold Mountain fails to take flight.  Part of that failure stems from its leads: Jude Law is too precise an actor to be much of a matinee idol; and Nicole Kidman is too ethereal to fulfill the hardscrabble duties of her role.  

Werth: Maybe her Chanel contract blocked her from digging up turnips. 

Wise: Despite its shortcomings, the film is ravishing, full of colorful supporting performances, John Seale's haunting cinematography, and beautifully scored by Gabriel Yared.  But it's also a meditation on horrors of war and how they bleed into the lives of those that remain at home.

Werth: In one of my favorite war movies, the horrors of war are practically celebrated. When Quentin Tarantino announced he was making a WWII film about a U.S. corps of Nazi-hunting Jews it came as no surprise that the film would be filled with the kind of action-based gore he was famous for. But what is surprising about Inglourious Basterds (2009) is how the director has matured in his filmmaking. 

Wise: What? No characters with color-based names?

Werth: Inglourious begins with Nazi extraordinaire Col. Hans Landa (Oscar-winner Christoph Waltz) questioning a French milk farmer (Denis Menochet) about some missing Jews. The scene relishes its own length, stretching the tension to an uncomfortable level—considering that the Jews Landa is searching for are hiding under the floor beneath him. 

In a typical Tarantino flick, this length would show how referential and precious the dialogue can be—but it is as if Tarantino has grown up. Now he uses his bag of stylish cinematic tricks not to be cute—but to aid the story.

Wise: All this from a man who started off as an Elvis impersonator on The Golden Girls.

Werth: The plot quickly splits into several different threads with Shoshanna Dreyfus (Melanie Laurent) plotting her revenge against the Nazi regime that murdered her family, a British agent (Michael Fassbinder) who is attempting to gain intelligence to assassinate Hitler, and 

Lt. Aldo Raine (a delightful, scenery-chewing Brad Pitt) whose team of Basterds is scalping its way across France. The stories converge on a French cinema where Tarantino literally re-makes history in a movie theater. 

It's something this renegade 
filmmaker has been doing ever since Reservoir Dogs first hit theaters in 1992, and with Inglourious and its eight Oscar nominations, Tarantino proves that he can do more than make "hip" films with eclectic soundtracks. So Wise, has all this talk about war movies made you want to bear arms?

Wise: Only if you were trying to steal my bacon and blueberry pancakes.

Werth: Check out next week's Film Gab for more Breakfast Armageddon!

Actors That Sing

Werth: Hey, Wise!

Wise: Howdy, Werth!

Werth: Wasn't the screening of Breakfast at Tiffany's on Monday at the A.M.P.A.S. screening room a hoot?

Wise: I loved everything about it—except Mickey Rooney.

Werth: Mr. Yunioshi notwithstanding, I was struck by a part of the film that I hadn't thought about before. There's this really sweet moment when Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly sits on her fire escape, strums a guitar and sings a no vocal-frills rendition of "Moon River."

Wise: She exudes melancholy and vulnerability, using the song to communicate the entire tortured history of the character more efficiently and tenderly than any dialogue could.

Werth: It made me think of how other actors who aren't popular singers wind up using song successfully. Take, for instance, Nicole Kidman in Baz Luhrmann's Belle Epoque, Camille-turned musical, Moulin Rouge! (2001). Before appearing as the red-eyed Satine, Kidman was known for her striking beauty in roles ranging from woman in danger (Dead Calm (1989)) to dangerous woman (To Die For (1995)), but she was not known as a singer. 

Wise: You wouldn't sing either if you were married to Tom Cruise.

Werth: But Moulin Rouge! was a musical, so once cast, she had to do more than look pretty—and she did. Kidman's singing voice, while far from powerful, was able to convey the disparate aspects of this lost showgirl who wants success and love but will ultimately be denied both. In "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend" she is cheeky, coy and sexy, but in more somber songs like "One Day I'll Fly Away" she emotes a tenderness and dread that help us understand this torn creature. Her voice at times tries too hard, much like this doomed courtesan who thinks she can go from "entertaining" rich men in a glorified whorehouse to treading the boards like Bernhardt.

Wise: Tuberculosis makes her do the wackiest things. 

Werth: And Kidman isn't alone. Her co-stars Ewan McGregor, John Leguizamo and Jim Broadbent do some actor-ly signing of their own. Broadbent gives us a charming surprise as the portly Harold Zidler who teaches a musical lesson in love to the tune of "Like a Virgin." 

McGregor's rock vocals had already been showcased in Velvet Goldmine (1998), so it is no surprise that he hits all the right notes as the lovestruck Christian (his name, not his religious affiliation) in numbers like the pop mash-up "Elephant Love Medley". Luhrmann, by casting actors instead of singers, seems to be saying you don't need a Judy Garland, Julie Andrews or a Barbra Streisand to make an affecting musical. You just need someone who can act through a tune.

Wise: Little Voice (1998) is another example of an actor using her singing to create a fully rounded character.  Jane Horrocks plays Laura Hoff, a young woman who retreats into silence after the untimely death of her father.  Her mother Mari (Brenda Blethyn) has no patience for Laura's sorrow, spending evenings with an unending string of rough trade lovers and mocking Laura's habit of listening to her father's record collection by calling her "Little Voice."  When Mari takes up with local man on the make Ray Say (Michael Caine), he recognizes that Laura's ability to mimic the great torch singers of the past is an opportunity to make some cash.  Little do Mari and Ray know that by pushing Little Voice out of her room and onto the stage provides her with the confidence to escape their abuse.

Werth: Much like I sing in the bathtub to escape the abuse of people who think Mommie Dearest is non-fiction.

Wise: Helping Little Voice along with generous good intentions is Billy (Ewan McGregor), a shy assistant TV repairman who sees Laura as a person and not just as a cash machine.


Werth: Ewan McGregor should appear twice in all our Film Gab postings.  

Wise: Based on the stage play by Jim Cartwright, Little Voice never really escapes its theatrical origins—the characters are broad, the plot overwrought—but Jane Horrocks' ability to channel the vocal styles of Shirley Bassey, Édith Piaf and Judy Garland makes this film an addictive entertainment.  She uses their performances as an escape hatch from the tawdry life her mother has forced upon her.  

The rest of the film is a little glum, with Blethyn and Caine camping up their barroom high-jinks and an oily turn from Jim Broadbent as a seedy nightclub owner.

Werth: I wish I could get a fantastic permed mullet like his. 

Wise: Despite the occasional misstep, Little Voice provides an excellent showcase for the transformative power of music, elevating what could have been a forgettably droll Brit-com into joyful entertainment.  

Werth: All this talk of singing makes me want to take a trip to Marie's Crisis.

Wise: I'll grab a barstool. The rest of you Film Gabbers grab us again next week!