- Issue Archive for
- Dec 3-9, 2009
- Vol. 19, No. 48
News+Features
A Hell of a Flight
Pegasus gay bar closing after 29 years on Liberty Avenue
Complaints Surfacing
Women arrested during G-20 speaking out about poor police treatment
Replanting Cranberry
The Pittsburgh region's poster child for sprawl is putting down new roots
Food+Drink
Plum Pan-Asian Kitchen
A broader menu and lower prices herald the rebirth of this fine-dining Asian venue
Bella Sera
A new restaurant goes green: saving energy and reducing waste
Music
University club Pittsburgh Electronic Musicians offers concerts and camaraderie
"We're trying to throw in as many diverse artists as possible, to show people different genres and ways to produce music."
Holly Golightly & The Brokeoffs hit town with the new EP Devil Do
"The singer is perceived to be doing the most, even though that's usually bollocks."
British dance-punks Arctic Monkeys sell out Mr. Small's
"Assuming that all things are equal, who'd want to be men of the people when there's people like you?"
East Liberty native Steve Nelson among jazz's top vibraphonists
If Nelson isn't widely known as a performer, it's because his work as a sideman greatly outweighs his output as a leader and composer.
On Screen
Brothers
It takes a little imagination and a lot of courage to make a war movie that doesn't simply remind us of the things we already know. What new stories are there to tell, and who out there in movie land really wants to see them? Brothers takes place in 2004 and revolves around the Cahill family: Sam (Tobey Maguire), the disciplined older brother, fighting in Afghanistan; Tommy (Jake Gyllenhaal), the prodigal younger one; and Sam's wife, Grace (Natalie Portman). After being declared dead in combat, Sam returns home, where Tommy has sort of filled in for him. Director Jim Sheridan and the screenwriter, David Benioff are adapting a Danish movie of the same name, plot and limitations, and they walk through the moments we expect to see with sobriety and seriousness. But what else would you expect from a movie that can't even come up with a title? It's Deer Hunter lite, except that older movie had a strong central metaphor about the suicide of fighting a war in Vietnam. There's no such dramatic possibility with Afghanistan. Fortunately, the acting and the actors are compelling enough to hold our attention, especially Portman who breaks out here. (HK) [2.5 out of 4 stars]
A preteen Jewish secret agent, and a local filmmaker's unlikely first effort, highlight Film Kitchen.
Cohen sells copies mostly in Judaica stores in and around New York City, where the devout buyers typically don't even have televisions.
Everybody's Fine
Some folks like these easy-on-the-brain, family-drama-lite movies, especially around the holidays when we're supposedly filled with fellow-feeling for our relatives. For me, Kirk Jones' remake of the 1990 Italian film Stanno Tutti Bene, was like opening a 100-minute greeting card: It expressed nice but wholly expected sentiments in a non-threatening manner, and was equally disposable. Robert DeNiro portrays a recently widowed man who realizes that he's lost touch with his adult children, now scattered across the country. So he embarks on a journey to surprise-visit them, traveling by train and bus to maximize the earnest, old-fashioned nature of his quest. (This also gives him more opportunity to talk to random strangers, thus filling us in on the family's background.) You'll likely guess that the visits don't go exactly as planned; the kids and us know something bad that Pops doesn't know. But you'll likely also guess that it's the messy stuff that ultimately glues everybody back together. The cast isn't bad -- Drew Barrymore, Kate Beckinsale and Sam Rockwell play the offspring -- but everybody, including DeNiro, acts and talks like they're in a movie. As somebody said appreciatively leaving the screening: "They had to end it happy, because they couldn't end it sad." Exactly. Starts Fri., Dec. 4. (AH) [2 out of 4 stars]
Paris
A relatively young man (Romain Duris) receives the news that he may be dying, and he retreats to his Paris apartment, gazing out the window at the lives scurrying below. This is the loose set-up for Cédric Klapisch's (The Spanish Apartment) ensemble dramedy that for the next two hours intercuts between the lives of a dozen or so Parisians (and one man in Cameroon).
This cross-section includes a group of working-class street vendors; a modernist architect and his history-professor brother; a middle-aged single mom and social-worker (Juliette Binoche); bakery employees; fashion models; college students; an immigrant family; and so on.
Some lives just barely cross paths, while other meet-ups become catalysts. Klapisch forefronts these more dynamic stories, while ably shifting between drama, irony, humor and romance. Snippets from one story inform on others. For instance, Binoche's character complains that men aren't interested in strong-willed women over 40, while two other storylines both support and refute her claim.
Naturally, major themes run through everybody's plotline -- embracing death (or its corollary, life), moving forward, and living in Paris, lovingly depicted by Klapisch's camera.
Like any major city, Paris is made up of lots of moving pieces -- old and new, in harmony and in conflict, strangers and intimates. While Klapisch makes tracing these lines simple enough, his touch is relatively light. (He has some fun depicting the history professor selling out by making a cheesy TV program that rolls up the city's sacred history with the profane new medium. Plus ça change ...)
As similar works have noted, even the millions of anonymous souls in one sprawling city at least share humanity -- and in this particular case, as noted by the always-sage taxi driver, the propensity for complaining. Yet Klapisch's film suggests that perhaps all the grumblers should, like his protagonist, just take a moment and more thoughtfully assess their lives. In French, with subtitles. Starts Fri., Dec. 4. Manor (AH) [3 out of 4 stars]
