… It Might Be Just Butt Cheeks
Reviews by Ken Burke
Woody Allen sets 4 separate stories in romantic Rome, each with its own focus of absurd and/or surreal comedy; not among his absolute tops but still very enjoyable.
For
most of my recent reviews I’ve been finding ways to link at least 2 films into
a stream of combined comments through either some actual conceptual
similarities or at least arbitrary linkage that still seemed plausibly
justifiable (to me, maybe some of the rest of you as well). However, trying to concoct any
marginally defendable connections between the latest offerings from 2 of our
most renowned directors, Woody Allen and Steven Soderbergh, isn’t worth your
time or mine or so this posting will just treat each one in a separate manner,
beginning with Allen’s multi-story, mega-cast exploration of the Eternal
City. As you can see from
the poster to your right, just the principal cast of To Rome With Love provides a lot of characters
to keep up with, hence I won’t be trying to illustrate all of them with photos
nor attempt to cite all of the plot details from 4 stories that share only this
Italian location (no grand finale where they interact with or pass each other
on the street). Allen has been
given to large casts in his recent films (well, OK, there are always a lot of
people in Allen’s work, even the early ones [very unlike his idol, Ingmar
Bergman, who mostly focused on the internal and interpersonal traumas of just a
few at a time], but most of them before this decade tend to concentrate on just
a few primary cast members with the others in fleeting roles) with a lot of
“name value” stars; however, this one keeps them all on screen in roughly equal
doses and separates them into the 4 parallel, intercut episodes so that they’re
all easy to identify and remember, even when the plot twists give you quite a
bit to concentrate on.
Just
for quick reference what we get here are 2 comedies of the truly absurd and 2 comic
structures with surreal and satirical overtones: (1) a young woman visiting
from New York becomes attracted, then engaged, to a Rome (Can I say Roman
without you thinking I’m talking about Julius Caesar? Or Polanski?
I’d better not risk it.) lawyer, but when her parents come to meet him
her father becomes obsessed with making an opera star of the boy’s father, even
though his voice is only successful when he’s singing in the shower; (2) young
Italian newlyweds arrive in Rome to start a more material life but through a
series of complications he ends up passing off a prostitute as the new wife to
his staid, business-connected relatives while she ends up in a hotel bed with a
huge Italian movie star (well, he’s a bit chubby but the “huge” is in fame
rather than girth); (3) a successful American architect visits the Rome
neighborhood of his youth, meets a guy that vaguely seems to be a younger
version of himself and then keeps trying to prevent the kid from screwing up
the situation with his girlfriend by obsessing over literally screwing her good
friend who’s come to visit; and (4) an ordinary middle-class office drone
suddenly becomes a celebrity simply by being treated by the soul-sucking media
as if he’s done something to command their constant attention. Fame, ego, love/lust are recurring
aspects in this narrative quartet, but I see no overriding theme, just a
seemingly random selection of the many larger-than-life stories to be found in
this centuries-old metropolis, just as these specific 4 are told to us by a
local traffic cop who bookends the film with direct-address narration not tied
together by him after our initial, brief introduction. The only other common denominator
(besides the marvelous scenery of the location, ranging from major monuments to
charming neighborhoods) is how out of control things spin before stability is restored for each of them at the end of their tales,
with impending disasters avoided for all concerned and a content sense of
collective satisfaction at their outcomes.
In
the final 1 of the 4 (although they are as actively intercut on screen as was
D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance [1916], a
remarkable film given its early place in cinema history, so like in Griffith’s
masterpiece we are constantly aware of the ongoing developments in each tale
rather than experiencing them as isolated statements, even though their contents
are separate from each other in To Rome With Love’s huge metropolis that easily contains their actions and
countless others that we could just as easily have seen, as our introductory
traffic-cop “guide” points out to us), we find successful architect, John (Alec
Baldwin), vacationing with wife and friends in Rome from his duties of
designing high-status shopping malls but wandering off alone to reconnect with
the neighborhood where he spent some earlier days. There he encounters a young man, Jack (Jesse Eisenberg, to
me the most uncomfortable of all of them in his role until about mid-film when
he finally warms up to it better and seems more like a character than an actor
reciting someone else’s script—and given that Allen allows his actors to
improvise as they see fit to find the center of a scene I’m not sure if it’s
just Eisenberg not yet at ease with his character or if there are times that
his improv is just flat), who not only reminds John of his own youth but seems to
possibly be John’s own youth
coexisting with his older version in the present. Oddly enough, that aspect of the story isn’t as emphasized
as is the magical ability of John to pop in on Jack and his new would-be love,
Monica (Ellen Page, in the above photo with Baldwin and Eisenberg, although in
typical male-centric media imagery you can’t even see her face; sorry, Ellen,
but this was the best shot available for this paragraph), without really being
there, except that they both can talk to him if they care to as John tries to
convince Jack to back off Monica so as preserve the more functional
relationship he has with live-in lover Sally (Greta Gerwig). John’s sarcastic summary of Monica’s
combination of allure, undependability, and neurosis (maybe it’s actually Woody
Allen finding a younger version of himself in Monica rather than the John-Jack
connection) is that she’s “like filling an inside straight” of toxic qualities
(some reviewers have complained that Page isn’t an appropriate choice for a
femme fatale, but even though she’s not the voluptuous Kathleen Turner-type she
still comes across as alluring in this role in her wounded come-hither mode
[although I’ll admit that maybe I see her that way because I’ve been a sucker for that sort in the past before my
current long-term marriage to the just-like-me-completely-non-neurotic Nina,
with just one of our cats as the only little-bit-out-of-sync one in the family, but
it’s hard to tell which one because, after all, they’re cats], much as
Charlotte Rampling did as the sexy-crazy
Dorrie in his 1980 Stardust Memories). Ultimately, Jack doesn’t listen but
Monica solves his dilemma by getting cast in a movie back in the States so she’s
off in a rush despite their romantic plans of 5 minutes ago. John ambles off back to his
self-contained present, and we find ourselves with another pleasant-enough
resolution of characters that have faced their challenges, made their mistakes,
and yet are no worse off for it.
Hey, it’s Roma, what could be so bad, eh, paisan? Relax, have a little
vino, whatta you say?
To Rome With Love is clearly what Allen
is saying to a city that he’s a comfortable stranger in before heading back home
to NYC for a return to his familiar surroundings. Note, the title is “To Rome” from him, not “From Rome” to
him (and us); in weaving these exaggerated tales of various people finding
different ways to come to terms with what they think life has planned for them
and then being confronted by the unexpected (and, in some cases, the delightfully unexplained), Woody Allen shows us a city that seems so magical that nothing
should be dismissed as impossible—undertakers can sing opera on stage while
standing in a shower, a nobody from the sticks can charm Italy’s greatest actor
with the gleam of her (not totally) innocent smile while her husband “sells” a
prostitute as his wife to his rigid Roman family, an urban nobody can suddenly
become “the king of the world,” (just like Leonardo DiCaprio’s Jack in Titanic [James Cameron, 1997]) at least
until the next prince is ready to be crowned, and just because the past is gone
doesn’t mean it can’t be relived and maybe be renovated by a couple of
once-and-future architects. This
isn’t 5-star Allen material (for that you’d need Annie Hall [1977], Manhattan
[1979], The Purple Rose of Cairo
[1985], Crimes and Misdemeanors [1989],
and, at least for me, the very Bergmanesque Interiors
[1978]) or even quite 4-star (such as Love
and Death [1975], Zelig [1983], Hannah and Her Sisters [1986], Match Point [2005], or Midnight in Paris [2011]), because
sometimes it just seems too familiar (hard not to be with a filmmaker now
offering us his 42nd feature opus since 1966), the laughs aren’t
always as consistent as they attempt to be, and the people collectively are a
bit too shallow compared to others this cinema artist has shown us over the
years (see the ones in the films noted above for starters), but it’s still a
Woody Allen film with a lot of creativity, great comic situations, and a love
of life that ends on an infectious note (and a passionate desire to get to [or get back to where you once belonged] romantic Rome).
Steven Soderbergh gives about as much male almost-nudity and simulated sex as you could stand, but the supposedly “significant” stories about love and career fall flat.
I
don’t think Horn adds much to the mix either, with her often-dour attitude,
pouty face (not in this photo but for much of the film) that gives Kristen
Stewart a run for her vampire-girl money, and accusations against Mike (until
he wins her over at the end) that he didn’t adequately protect her little
brother from the evils of the dance hall, as if Adam’s not capable of being
held accountable for his poorly-thought-out, ill-advised choices. I did add her photo here, though, for
the benefit for any guys in any audience of this movie who need Brooke’s
presence (and the other women who flow effortlessly in and out of the male
dancers’ lives) as something to reassure themselves that being exposed to all
of that well-rippled male skin isn’t a threat to their well-defined manhood
(just as all that butt-slapping in sports has nothing to do with any of the athletes or those who watch them devotedly being gay—except for the ones that
are and haven’t revealed it yet, and, as always, not that there’s anything wrong with that
for those who are, out or not). Horn
won’t be getting any future call-backs based on her acting skills here (But she may
not need that attribute for her career anyway, being the daughter of Warner
Bros. President and COO Alan F. Horn—could I be more snarky toward this young
woman? Let’s just say I didn’t
find her performance in this movie very compelling most of the time no matter what her skills may be.), nor are any of the
other women in the cast (primarily Olivia Munn as Joanna, the previous but just
occasional squeeze for eternally-busy Mike) called on to do much more than paw
the furniture that decorates the stage of the Xquisite. For that matter, one of the dancers
seems to be cast for body proportions and not much else also: semi-retired (except for the
occasional pay-per-view or short-term story line) professional wrestler Kevin
Nash (a massive guy also formerly known as Diesel, Big Daddy Cool, and Big Sexy)
plays Tarzan, one of the strippers, whose o.d.-ing on an energy boost drug before
showtime one night allows Adam to begin his stage career, but with some of the
most useless, stiff (and not in a way that the audience ladies would want)
stage presence I can imagine for someone in this job. He has one decent backstage dialogue exchange with Adam on
his first night at the strip (excuse me, Male Review Dance) club, but after
that it’s like he’s never spoken in front of a camera before nor had to perform
choreographed moves, both of which he’s done effectively for years in WCW/WWE
verbal and physical smackdowns.
Maybe that sledgehammer blow and “pedigree” smash to the canvas from Triple H last fall had
more impact than it was supposed to. But then, not a lot about Magic Mike had a lot of impact for me
either, although I’m giving it 3 stars rather than a lower rating because of
the consistency and audience-pleasing impact of the energetic, well-planned
dance routines (for the women, definitely; I’ll let the other guys speak for
themselves).
And maybe
Soderbergh’s accomplishing more than I’m giving him credit for; most other
critics think so if you explore the high numbers this film receives from the
sources I cite below (paralleled by me ranking To Rome With Love notably higher than what you’ll find in their
summaries). Maybe if I learn to
shake my booty better I’d appreciate Magic
Mike more—no, Nina says, I should leave the booty-shaking to Tatum (she
also found the early full-“backal” nude shot of his Herculean body to be an
effective means of stimulating audience interest [so to speak]) and get myself
into a room where I can really impress her with my talents: the kitchen. OK, DVD Godfather trilogy
and my special spaghetti coming up next week! (And with G3 we’re back where we started, in Rome,
so I guess I should go back and make this a combo review after all. Nah, too much work to retype the
opening statement; besides, I’ve got pasta to procure.)
If
you’d like to go To Rome With Love on
your own here are some suggested links (but you’ll need other links than these
if you need the love/sex connections emphasized in the film):
http://www.youtube.com/topic/GFeAU39uc-4/?feature=results_main
(a cluster of clips and featurettes)
If
you in need of more of Magic Mike
here are some suggested links (but if you need more of what this movie likely
inspires in you, whatever your gender orientation, you’ll have to check out
some steamier sites than these):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3l91MvL-VM
(Daily Grace “reviews” the above trailer at about the same level of insight as
the film itself, but if you want to see what a wacky young woman thinks about
Channing Tatum’s body then here you are … like, yeah, OK?)
We encourage you to look over our home page (ABOUT THE BLOG), found as
the first one in our December 2011 postings, to get more information on what
we’re doing and why we’re doing it.
You’ll also see our general Spoiler Alert warning that reminds you we’ll
be discussing whatever plot details are needed for our comments so please be
aware of this when reading any of our reviews and be aware of our formatting
forewarning about inconsistencies among web browser software which we do our
best to correct but may still cause some visual problems beyond our control.
Please note that to Post a Comment you need to either have a Google
account (which you can easily get at https://accounts.google.com/NewAccount if you need to
sign up) or other sign-in identification from the pull-down menu below before
you preview or post.
No comments:
Post a Comment