Rio (Rhoades)

“Rio” Takes You On A Brazilian Odyssey

Reviewed by Shirrel Rhoades

Sometimes moviegoing blurs into a kaleidoscope of sights, sounds, and memories. Seeing the remake of “Arthur” reminded me of its Oscar-winning theme song (remember that line: “When you get caught between the moon and New York City”?) … which in turn reminded me of the song’s co-writer Peter Allen, a former hubby of Liza Minnelli … and Peter Allen used to sing a rousing version of “I Go to Rio.”

Free association, as the shrinks call it.

I went to Rio. That is, I caught the 3D animated movie “Rio,” which is now playing at Tropic Cinema.

This delightful odyssey gives us a blue macaw who lives in a bookstore in Moose Lake, Minnesota. Blu (voiced by Social Networker Jesse Eisenberg) is a rare bird, the last male of his species. Alas.

But when a female Spix macaw is spotted in South America, scientists decide to fly Blu down for a meet-and-greet (if you know what I mean).

Jewel (voice by Anne Hathaway) is the object of Blu’s affections, but first he must win her heart. This quest includes overcoming his fear of flying, escaping from game poachers, and surviving in the wild.

The “wild” (of course) is Rio de Janeiro, that party city in Brazil.
Along the way they meet a colorful cast of animated characters – a yellow canary (Oscar-winner Jamie Foxx) who wears a bottle cap as a hat, a red-crested cardinal (Black Eyed Peas singer Will.i.am), a toucan (comedian George Lopez), and a pudgy bulldog (funnyman Tracy Morgan). You also have a couple of Canadian geese (voiced by sardonic Wanda Sykes and droll Jane Lynch).
Blu and Jewel are being chased by the poachers and their sulphur-crested cockatoo (Jermaine Clement).

A group of thieving marmosets are led by King Mauro (Brian Baumgartner), who wears bracelets on each arm and a man’s gold watch as a belt. Administering to them is Doc Mauro (witty Neil Patrick Harris).

Toss in Blu’s human owner Linda (Leslie Mann), add a bird scientist she admires (Rodrigo Santoro), and stir in a helpful Brazilian teenager (Jake T. Austin) to complete the stew.
Brazilian-born director Carlos Saldanha (he gave us those animated “Ice Age” movies) considers “Rio” his dream project.

While Saldanha grew up in Rio de Janeiro, actor Jamie Foxx carped that he’d never actually been there (although he admits to “exploring websites that feature bevies of barely-clad Brazilian girls”).

Pays to complain: Along with co-stars Jesse Eisenberg, Anne Hathaway, and Will.i.am, director Carlos Saldanha took Foxx to Rio de Janeiro for the movie’s Brazilian premiere. Apparently enjoying all those girls from Ipanema, Foxx jokingly tweeted that he’s canceling his life and not leaving Brazil.

Anne Hathaway is a bit more demure about it. She told Brazilian reporters she loves the film’s “message that you can learn how to spread your wings and fly.”
She has done that.

My friend Elaine’s son went to the same New Jersey high school as Anne Hathaway. “Anne came over to the house a lot. She was such a nice girl, always in a play. She sang well too.”
Her high-school performance as Winnifred in “Once Upon a Mattress” gained her a Paper Mill Playhouse Rising Star Award nomination for Best Performance by a High School Actress.
At 16 she performed with the All-Eastern U.S. High School Honors Chorus at Carnegie Hall. Three days later she was cast in the Fox television series “Get Real,” sending her off on an acting career.

You’ve seen her in “The Princess Diaries,” “Brokeback Mountain,” “The Devil Wears Prada,” and “Rachel Gets Married” (which won her a Best Actress Oscar nod).

In 2008 Hathaway’s then-boyfriend Raffaello Follieri came under investigation for fraud, accused of misappropriating $50 million earmarked to buy up various Roman Catholic churches – a scandal that came to be known as Vati-Con. Breaking off her relationship with Follieri, she’s now dating actor Adam Shulman, who attended the Brazilian premiere with her.

Anne Hathaway admits she’s nothing like the playing-hard-to-get bird in “Rio.” She says, “For me, I’m a wear-my-heart-on-my-sleeve, fall in love-at-first-sight and go with it sort of girl. If you’re with someone who enjoys having people play hard to get, maybe that’s the way you’re supposed to do it then. I don’t know.”

So what happens when a domesticated macaw from a small-town in Minnesota meets up with a fiercely independent mate in Rio de Janeiro? Well, feathers fly.

srhoades@aol.com
[from Solares Hill]

Thor (Rhoades)

“Thor” Wields His
Mighty Hammer

Reviewed by Shirrel Rhoades

Another Marvel Comics superhero gets his couple of hours on the screen this week in “Thor.” The title character is based on Norse mythology.

In Norse polytheism, Thor is a hammer-wielding god associated with thunder, lightning, storms, oak trees, strength, destruction, fertility, healing, and the protection of mankind. And now blockbuster summer movies.

May is the official beginning of the summer movie season, always peppered with blockbusters based on comic books. This year is no different, other than the dominance of Marvel superheroes.

“Thor” leads the pack, soon to be followed by “Captain America” and “The Avengers.” The first two leading to the third. The Avenger’s is a superheroes gang in which Thor (Chris Helmsworth) and Cap (Chris Evans) are members. So are Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr.). Even the Hulk (this time around, Mark Ruffalo).

The new Thor is Chris Helmsworth, a 27-year-old Aussie who towers 6’ 3” in stocking feet. He is blonde and muscled and, well, god-like.

Chris studied American Dialect at Screenwise Film & TV School for Actors in Sydney Australia. This, so he could wind up playing a Norwegian God of Thunder.

You haven’t seen much of him on the silver screen, although he did play Capt. James Kirk’s dad in the “Star Trek” reboot. He’s mostly done TV, but that’s about to change.

The “Thor” movie recounts how the young god’s dad Odin (Anthony Hopkins) kicks him out of the house, uh, I mean out of Asgard. Exiled to Earth, with little more baggage than his mighty hammer Mjolnir, he is captured by a team of scientists led by Jane Foster (recent Oscar-winner Natalie Portman). When he tries to wield his hammer – the source of his power – he finds that he’s unworthy. But, yes, he proves himself by facing off with the Destroyer to save Jane.
When I was publisher of Marvel Comics back in the mid-90s, Thor’s hammer (okay, a movie prop) sat atop a bookcase in my Number 2’s office. Now the COO of Marvel, Jim “Ski” Sokolowski still has the hammer.

“Thor” is playing this week at the Tropic Cinema.

Marvel is betting big time that we’ll pay to see both “Thor” and the upcoming “Captain America,” just to be prepared for “The Avengers” (that upcoming summer blockbuster where a gaggle of your favorite superheroes get together in one movie). And they’re right – I swear by Odin’s beard.

srhoades@aol.com
[from Solares Hill]

Week of June 3 to June 9 (Mann)

What’s on at the Tropic
by Phil Mann

     You know Will Ferrell, of course, from a decade of shows on Saturday Night Live and films like Talledega Nights. And if you’re at all literate, you know Raymond Carver, the quintessential short story writer. Director Dan Rush has joined these disparate talents in EVERYTHING MUST GO, the story of Nick Halsey, a man who has hit bottom.

     There’s not much to Carver’s brief story, Why Don’t You Dance (http://bit.ly/m7VFaN), but writer/director Rush has fleshed it out in a script that seems made for a dissolute demeanor that comes easily to Ferrell -- not comic, but not exactly sad. Nick has lost his job, his wife, his car, even his cell phone. All he has is a couple of six packs of Pabst; a lawn full of furniture to sell; a sympathetic, and pretty, pregnant neighbor (Rebecca Hall – Please Give, Vicky Cristina Barcelona); and a local kid who wants to help out -- and learn to play baseball.

     Sounds like a bad situation, but one could do worse. And Nick seems to sense that, as bad as things are, he’s got nowhere to go but up. “Quiet, acutely observed, based in everyday events and ordinary moments… Rush's script and direction are exemplary” and Ferrell is “dazzling.” Salon.com

     

     What is HENRY’S CRIME? Well, there’s the bank robbery that Henry Torne (Keanu Reeves) was jailed for, even though he wasn’t guilty. And there’s the bank robbery, of the same bank, that he decides to commit just to even the score. Don’t take it too seriously. This isn’t a heist movie like Inside Man or Topkapi, but a tongue-in-cheek romantic-heist comedy. Reeve’s usual passive style – he’s working as a toll-taker -- is countered by an antic James Caan – as his prison buddy and eventual robbery accomplice – and Vera Farmiga – as a two-bit, overacting stage actress. You see, there’s an old tunnel that goes from the theater, where Farmiga is rehearsing The Cherry Orchard, to the bank. And Reeves gets a part in the play to gain access to the tunnel, and maybe to Farmiga’s heart. As I say, don’t take it too seriously. “With a terrific cast… this is a fun comedy with irresistible heist and heart.” (Box Office Magazine)     

     Meanwhile, it’s going to be Gay Pride Week here in Key West (June 8-12), and the Tropic is doing its best to go with the theme. Most interesting to me is BEAUTIFUL DARLING, a documentary about the Warhol transgendered star Candy Darling. Drawing on footage of Candy performing on screen and off-Broadway, interviews with the likes of Fran Lebowitz, and readings from Candy’s letters and diaries by Chloë Sevigny, documentarian James Rasin has crafted a sympathetic portrait of this late Sixties icon who died tragically at age 29. It’s “a sad, lyrical reflection on the foolish worship of movie stars.” (New York Times)

     Or, if you’re looking for fun, KABOOM might be more your thing. Set on an unnamed Southern California campus, where the lead character Smith (Thomas Dekker) is of “undecided” sexuality, and avidly pursuing it, Kaboom is the latest from New Queer director Gregg Araki. It’s “an erotic blast of sinful flesh, fun and fantasy that you don't want to stop.” (Rolling Stone)

     On the Special Events calendar, AIDS Help is sponsoring a free mini festival of three films. On Wednesday it’s THE BOYS IN THE BAND – the classic play and then movie about AIDS in the 1970’s; on Thursday it’s MAKING THE BOYS – about the roots of the play and movie; and next Friday (June 10) it’s AND THE BAND PLAYED ON – carrying the story into the 1990’s.

Comments, please, to pmann99@gmail.com

Beautiful Darling (Rhoades)

“Beautiful Darling”

Is Sweet As Candy

Reviewed by Shirrel Rhoades

My old friend Paul Morrissey – Andy Warhol’s manager and filmmaker – likes to tell the story of actress Holly Woodlawn going out to the Woodlawn Cemetery on the edge of New York and telling visitors that it’s the site of her family estate.

It’s not. And Woodlawn wasn’t even the real name of transvestite underground star Haroldo Santiago Franceschi Rodriguez Danhakl.

Woodlawn starred in Morrissey’s “Women In Revolt,” along with another Warhol Superstar, Candy Darling. A gender-bender performer like Woodlawn, Candy was born as James Lawrence Slattery.

Paul Morrissey gets angry that his old compatriot Andy Warhol gets credit for the films that Morrissey wrote and directed – titles like “Trash,” “Flesh,” “Heat,” and the aforementioned “Women In Revolt.” He often rants, “Andy was an idiot, he never had an original idea. He just did what people told him. I directed those movies, I discovered Holly and Candy and Joe Dallesandro.”

I remind him that he’s victim of his own genius. He attached Warhol’s names to those films back on the ’70s. Now he has to live with the results of his marketing ploy, sharing credit with the white-fright-wig pop artist Andy Warhol.

These so-called Warhol Superstars were a clique of New York personalities that Warhol (and Morrissey) promoted during the 1960s and early 1970s. After using them in movies and art, Warhol would declare them to be superstars and give them their “fifteen minutes of fame.”

“Beautiful Darling: The Life and Times of Candy Darling, Andy Warhol Superstar” is a 2010 feature-length documentary about one of Warhol’s more popular peeps. Playing this week at the Tropic Cinema – as part of Key West’s Gay Pride celebration – it’s pulling back the curtains of Warhol’s Factory, telling all.

Jimmy Slattery grew up on Long Island where he watched old Hollywood movies and pretended to be his favorite stars, Joan Bennett and Kim Novak. After attending the DeVern School of Cosmetology, Candy emerged as he gave into his fascination with cross-dressing. Taking the train into Manhattan, Candy broke into the underground scene and started appearing in small plays. In one, she performed opposite a young unknown actor named Robert DeNiro.

The name went through several variations before sticking as Candy Darling. Holly Woodlawn recalled that the “name evolved from Hope Dahl to Candy Dahl and then to Candy Cane.” According to Woodlawn, “Darling adopted the name because a friend of hers affectionately called her ‘darling’ so often that it finally stuck.”

Warhol (along with Paul Morrissey) cast Candy Darling in “Women In Revolt.” The film was at first titled “Warhol’s Women,” but that would have been an affront to Morrissey’s ego. When Morrissey organized a band for Warhol called The Velvet Underground, one of its hits was the song “Candy Says.” Former band member Lou Reed featured Candy in his hit “Walk on the Wild Side.” And she’s mentioned in the Rolling Stones song “Citadel.”

Always dreaming of a Hollywood career, Candy went on to appear in “Klute” with Jane Fonda, “Lady Liberty” with Sophia Loren, and “Silent Night, Bloody Night.”

Written and directed by James Rasin, “Beautiful Darling” pays tribute to the blonde actress, tracing her career from off-off Broadway to the Warhol movies to being selected by Tennessee Williams to appear in his play “Small Craft Warnings.” Darling died of lymphoma at 29.

Actress Chloe Sevigny (TV’s “Big Love,” “The Brown Bunny”) provides the voice of Candy Darling in the documentary, reading from her letters and private diary. Vocal talent Patton Oswalt (“Ratatouille,” “Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa”) does the voices of Warhol and Truman Capote.

Sevigny is a good choice to lend her voice to this film. After appearing in “The Brown Bunny,” where she performed fellatio on screen, she defended her controversial performance, saying, “It’s a shame people write so many things when they haven’t seen it. When you see the film, it makes more sense. It’s an art film. It should be playing in museums. It’s like an Andy Warhol movie.”

Candy Darling would have approved.

srhoades@aol.com

[from Solares Hill]

Everything Must Go (Rhoades)

“Everything Must Go”

Settles In to Stay

Reviewed by Shirrel Rhoades

I’m confused. The other day I saw a sign advertising an “Indoor Yard Sale.” What next? A patio sale in the living room? A tag sale with stickers?

The new Will Farrell film playing at the Tropic Cinema is called “Everything Must Go.” It’s the story of a man going through a bad divorce who decides to sell everything he owns. So he drags everything he owns into the front yard of his suburban home and holds a sale, lounging there on a lawn chair, reflecting on where his wife went wrong. His wife left him when he started drinking again, a relapsed alcoholic. As he meets people in his neighborhood, curious folk who come to browse over the remnants of his life, he’s inspired to start over … with the help of a new neighbor.

“Everything Must Go” is what we critics like to call a dramedy – a serious comedy. Sounds like a contradiction of terms, sort of like an “indoor yard sale.”

Will Farrell is one of those comedic actors (e.g. Bill Murray, Jim Carrey, et al.) who wants to demonstrate his range, to show people there’s more to him than just a few laughs. Farrell does a good job of proving that here. His performance is matched by Christopher Jordan Wallace, the 15-year-old son of the late rapper The Notorious B.I.G. and R&B singer Faith Evans. He plays a kid who helps with the yard sale.

Rebecca Hall and Laura Dern and Stephen Root and Michael Piña also populate this neighborhood, filmed mainly in Phoenix, Arizona.

Not much happens as Ferrell sleeps in his yard and wakes now and then to swap sad stories with the woman who lives next door.

The film is based on a short story called “Why Don’t You Dance” by the late Raymond Carver, a writer who knew the penalties of being a raging alcoholic. In the fall of 1973 he ran an Iowa Writers’ Workshop with noted author John Cheever, but admitted they did “more drinking than writing.” He finally turned his life around a few years later, thanks to AA. Lung cancer got him a decade later – the same year he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

His second wife, poet Tess Gallagher, whom he married six weeks before his death, was named as executor of his literary estate. She did not sell off his stuff in a yard sale.

srhoades@aol.com

[from Solares Hill] 

Beautiful Darling (Brockway)

Tropic Sprockets by Ian Brockway

Beautiful Darling

James Slattery was Candy Darling or Candy Darling was James Slattery. Either way you look at it, "Beautiful Darling" is a welcome addition to the abundance of documentaries on Andy Warhol subjects and his vamping or vampirish ilk, known as "Factory People."

Candy Darling was a Warhol Superstar who starred in many films along with Hollywoodlawn and Viva. In his pre-Candy days he was a pretty boy known as Jimmie, but he wrote in his journal and studied Hollywood films. Jimmie sketched flowing drawings of Hollywood starlets. He studied the way women walked and moved and became a scientist in feminine illusion. Then seemingly in a flash, Jimmie transformed himself into Candy Darling, a lifelong ritual and a silver star who never interrupted her spaced out vamp.

The film goes into quite a bit of depth about the friendship between Candy and Jeremiah Newton, a young Edward Scissorhands-like kid with sad eyes. An arresting part of the film is the sight of Jeremiah, now corpulent instead of slender and the painstaking lengths he takes to makes sure Candy's ashes will not be disturbed: he types the cremation notice and produces the headstone. He digs the plot. Mr. Newton was deeply in love with Candy and its easy to see why. Candy was Mega-Monroe, more feminine than feminine.

There are the usual cast of characters here: Jackie Curtis, Hollywoodlawn, and stills of Capote. Andy himself comes across once again as a tinsel eyed Pinnochio, just watching and looking. Once the party was over, Andy couldn't care less about friendships. "No more chicks with dicks" is what he was reported to have said. 

The color of silver, or of Warhol himself has never seemed so hurtful. Candy, once a darling, was now never invited to Warhol's premieres.

Candy was never one to sit still, however, she starred in Tennessee Williams' Small Craft Warnings to rave reviews. If that wasn't enough she had glamour shots of herself taken in the hospital.

In the 70's, Candy made the word daring shy.

Jeremiah is the real star of the documentary. By his traveling through memory and parental discontent, he is fearless and undaunted. Even walking is hard for him and he stops at nothing in preserving his friend and giving her the proper silver shade.

Jeremiah sleeps and breathes with Candy. This documentary is as much a testament to an intimate friendship between a humble man and his best friend, as it is a story of a Warholian wonder.

Write Ian at redtv_2005@yahoo.com

Kaboom (Brockway)

Tropic Sprockets by Ian Brockway

Kaboom

Director Greg Araki (The Mysterious Skin) usually doesn't pull any punches. He has a sharp visual style, a supercharged pace and an ear for how young kids talk to each other. When he's at his best, he's right up there with Larry Clark (Kids), Quentin Tarrantino or even John Waters. When he's bad, he is a mess--a cinematic Nam June Paik with an attention disorder. At times, Araki treats his films like iPhones with too many apps.

Sadly this is the case with "Kaboom".

The film stars Thomas Dekker as Smith, a Keanu Reeves version of a college student who has a crush on his roommate Thor, played by Chris Zylka. Smith has strange apocalyptic dreams featuring a red dumpster and a long hallway or having sex with Thor. Even the dreams are not that interesting. Smith gets strange cards and messages like something out of "The Matrix" and a cult foretelling of Doom but it's not that important. At least it doesn't seem so. It becomes difficult to care. I even had an urge to write this review with text abbreviations, that is how trivial and tedious it seemed.

The film does do a good job of showing the hypermania of our sexual culture, of how students talk and relate in a purely sexual way. John Waters did the same thing in "A Dirty Shame" and I did enjoy parts of that film. In "Kaboom" though, there is no irreverence, just convention. But can a film that includes parts of  "Un Chien Andalou" be all bad? Almost. 

The best of the movie is its cinematography. Sizzling color. Big bold images. Soft porn popcorn! If only the film offered a little more, either in style or Sin. If Araki had just dropped the Cult aspect of the story and focused on the science fiction of sex in today's digitally distracted world this film could have been daring. There are moments of tone and dialogue that almost echo the quirky 1982 indie,  "Liquid Sky". But here, there is no salacious snicker or off-beat science fiction to go with the sex.  

Araki's latest Truth or Dare, is a Truth or Dud

Write Ian at redtv_2005@yahoo.com