Simply put Far From Heaven is the best movie of the year so far. Director Todd Haynes’ tribute to the “women’s films” of the 1950s shines, bringing forth issues that outraged America in 1957 when the film is set, and continue to rub people the wrong way 45 years later. Cathy (Julianne Moore) and Frank (Dennis Quaid) have the picture perfect life. He’s an executive for the (fictional) television giant Magnatech, she’s the perfectly coiffed housewife. Imagine Ozzie and Harriett. Everything is perfect until one day she finds him, shirtless, in the arms of another man. She takes solace in the company of her handsome African-American gardener Raymond (Dennis Haysbert), which sends shock waves through her snooty and prejudiced Connecticut community. Now picture Ozzie and Harriett as imagined by Norman Rockwell after a three day drinking binge. Haynes maintains a feeling of melodrama throughout the film, but never becomes campy. His even handed approach lends an air of hyper-reality to the movie, as if we are watching real life through a looking glass. It’s a stunning achievement – emotional but not ironic, simple but very effective. A beautiful score by veteran Elmer Bernstein and Mark Friedberg’s amazing production design enhance an already wonderful movie experience. Julianne Moore gives the performance of her career as a housewife who watches her idyllic world crumble around her, while Dennis Quaid lets go of the macho posturing that has informed so many of his recent roles, and plays Frank as a tortured soul who doesn’t really understand why his life turned out the way it did. Dennis Haysbert (best known as presidential candidate David Palmer on 24) gives a smart, dignified performance as Raymond the gardener. Highly recommended.
If the idea of a show-tune singing suicide bomber doesn’t make you laugh, then perhaps the new satire American Dreamz might be a bit too heavy handed for you. It takes on the things that we are all reading about in the newspaper everyday, depending on which section of the paper you look at—the war in Iraq, terrorism, American Idol worship and the nasty talent scout Simon Cowell. Each are American obsessions and each are skewered.
The movie is actually made up of four stories that are tied together by the televised talent show American Dreamz. Under the guidance of its producer and host, a smarmy Hugh Grant, it has become the number one show in the world. It’s so popular that in story number two the President of the United States has to beg to secure a spot as a guest judge, a move bound to raise his popularity a few points in the polls. Plotline number three sees a young singer who will stop at nothing to win the competition, and the fourth and final piece of the puzzle involves the aforementioned show-tune singing suicide bomber.
The movie is a good-natured send-up of current American pop culture, skewering everyone from the President on down, and while there are laughs, none of them have the same edgy bite as those on an average episode of The Daily Show.
Generally good performances from the cast, including Dennis Quaid as the President who doesn’t know what the word placebo means to Willem DaFoe as his right hand man—a hybrid of Dick Cheney and Karl Rove—and Hugh Grant as the pompous television host really sell what humor there is in the script.
American Dreamz is bound to be controversial, but I think it would have been a better film if they had pulled out all the stops and really gone for it. A director like Mel Brooks in his prime would not have ridden the fence with a film like this. Think of the comic anarchy of Blazing Saddles or the original Producers. Those were movies that delighted in offending the audience to make them think. By not mining the full potential of the material American Dreamz filmmaker Paul Weitz makes us giggle but doesn’t make us think.
Who knew there was so much intrigue in the seed business? “At Any Price,” the new film starring Dennis Quaid and Zac Efron as father and son, features infidelity, shady dealings and even murder, all set against a bucolic Iowa background.
Henry Whipple (Quaid) is a second-generation farmer and seed salesman. His father built up the land and the business, and now Henry is trying to take it into the next level by buying more land and selling genetically modified seeds. His youngest son Dean (Efron) is more interested in racing cars than growing corn, but when the family business is threatened the clan reluctantly pulls together despite their personal differences and a dark secret.
As the title suggests, this is a story about the price of winning at any cost. To drive the point home director Ramin Bahrani clutters the story with unnecessary story shards that don’t add much to the movie except for length. At just an hour and forty-five minutes it still feels long, as though the core idea—a powerful tale of fathers and sons and the pressure to succeed—is stretched to fill the time, rather than serving the story.
Quaid and Efron rise above the contrived story elements to hand in good, if sometimes melodramatic, performances and it’s so full of atmosphere you can almost taste the corn—it’s just too bad that the corny stuff in this movie isn’t limited to the fields
Simply put Far From Heaven is the best movie of the year so far. Director Todd Haynes’ tribute to the “women’s films” of the 1950s shines, bringing forth issues that outraged America in 1957 when the film is set, and continue to rub people the wrong way 45 years later. Cathy (Julianne Moore) and Frank (Dennis Quaid) have the picture perfect life. He’s an executive for the (fictional) television giant Magnatech, she’s the perfectly coiffed housewife. Imagine Ozzie and Harriett. Everything is perfect until one day she finds him, shirtless, in the arms of another man. She takes solace in the company of her handsome African-American gardener Raymond (Dennis Haysbert), which sends shock waves through her snooty and prejudiced Connecticut community. Now picture Ozzie and Harriett as imagined by Norman Rockwell after a three day drinking binge. Haynes maintains a feeling of melodrama throughout the film, but never becomes campy. His even handed approach lends an air of hyper-reality to the movie, as if we are watching real life through a looking glass. It’s a stunning achievement – emotional but not ironic, simple but very effective. A beautiful score by veteran Elmer Bernstein and Mark Friedberg’s amazing production design enhance an already wonderful movie experience. Julianne Moore gives the performance of her career as a housewife who watches her idyllic world crumble around her, while Dennis Quaid lets go of the macho posturing that has informed so many of his recent roles, and plays Frank as a tortured soul who doesn’t really understand why his life turned out the way it did. Dennis Haysbert (best known as presidential candidate David Palmer on 24) gives a smart, dignified performance as Raymond the gardener. Highly recommended.
