And In The End...

ER finally breathed its last on UK television screens last Thursday. As the summation of fifteen years it was a restrained finale, with little of the sentimentality that has marred the show in its later seasons.

The plot is reminiscent of an episode from season one or two; plenty of plot threads, long takes down the hospital corridors, the focus spread evenly between the characters, some screwball humour, tragic deaths and uplifting survival stories. There were even a few more definite nods to early seasons: the opening shot of Lydia (hooray - Lydia's back!) waking up Morris is stolen from the pilot episode, as is the clock counting down twenty-four hours. The one new character, medical intern Julia Wise (Alexis Bledel), was clearly meant to remind us of Carter's early days in the ER and her motivational talk with Brenner echoed a similar conversation Carter had with Greene back in the day. We also got the opening credits back, which was a lovely lovely touch.

Throughout Season 15, we've seen the return of several old characters. This has, for the most part, worked well. The focus has been, wisely, kept on current cast members, ensuring that Season 15 never felt like one long goodbye. The one exception to this was Alex Kingston's misjudged reappearance as a wise advisor to Neela and I was pleased to see her redeem herself here. Although it was great to see Kerry and Susan again, the brief sequence that Corday and Benton got to themselves was one the episode's highlights. THE CHEMISTRY'S STILL THERE. DUMP CLEO, BENTON! I NEVER LIKED HER ANYWAY.

I was thankful that there was at least one happy ending. Despite furiously hating Gates for quite some time now, the moment when Sam held his hands was perfect. We assume that they get back together but the point wasn't rammed home. The reappearance of Rachel Greene was also a real pleasure. Frank's face when she tells him that she's Mark's daughter made we well up. It also added a great deal to what was the main theme of the episode, that of rotation, of looking back whilst still looking forward. Mark may be dead but, as Carter says, there's another "Dr. Greene" at County General. The death of the pregnant woman but the survival of the twins she gave birth to, which may have been a reference to seminal Season 1 episode Love's Labours Lost. The appearance of Julia Wise, a character that we immediately identified and sympathised with, mostly due to Bledel's standout performance. The disaster that we never get to see. The final shot of County General as the familiar credits return...

As a longtime fan of the show, even during its later seasons, I really don't think I could fault And In The End... Sad without being sentimental, providing us with some closure but not so much as to feel like a frantic tying-up of loose ends. Excellent performances all round. It was pretty much everything I loved about the show giftwrapped into a single episode.

Lemony Snicket's A Series Of Unfortunate Events

In the tradition of all great children's films, Brad Silberling's adaptation of A Series of Unfortunate Events offers a dark, scary vision of adolescense.  No sooner do we meet Violet (Emily Browning), Klaus (Liam Aiken) and Sunny Baudelaire, then they are orphaned and packed off to their distant cousin, Count Olaf (Jim Carrey in a rubbery, OTT performance).  It soon becomes apparent that Olaf wants nothing more than to get rid of the children and claim the family fortune.  Pursued by Count Olaf in a variety of guises, the Baudelaires stay with their herpetologist Uncle Montgomery (Billy Connolly) and then with their paranoid Aunt Josephine (Meryl Streep).

Adapted from the first two Lemony Snicket novels, Silberling's film feels very episodic, and those who find Jim Carrey irritating will find nothing here to win them over.  However, the imaginative set design and some excellent performances from Browning and Aiken really make this stand out.  Both of these elements, plus a brilliantly macabre sense of whimsy, combine to give the film a real emotional weight that is lacking from the majority of children's movies.

Lantana

Ray Lawrence's movie, adapated from Andrew Bovell's play Speaking in Tongues, drew comparisons to Magnolia upon its release.  Both films have a set of disparate characters who are interlinked in a number of unusual ways, both films play with "big" themes such as love, loss, marriage, betrayal and fatherhood.  But whilst Magnolia never quite steps out of Robert Altman's shadow, Lantana quietly confirms itself as the superior film.

The story roughly revolves around four couples.  Married police detective Leon Zat (Anthony LaPaglia) is having an affair with Jane (Rachael Blake), who has recently separated from her husband Pete.  Whilst Leon is investigating the disappearance of psychiatrist Valerie (Barbara Hershey) he discovers that his wife Sonja (Kerry Armstrong) was one of her clients.  Valerie had recently published a book about the murder of her young daughter, an event that had crippled her marriage to John (Geoffrey Rush).  A high-heeled shoe thrown into the bushes across from Jane's house leads her to believe that her neighbour Nick, happily married to Paula, may be linked to Valerie's disappearance.

Lantana's greatest strength is in the way it misleads its audience at almost every turn.  Although all four couples are connected to Valerie somehow, things are much less complicated and more mundane than any of the characters at first believe.  Just as Valerie imagines her husband to be having an affair with a male client of hers, Leon believes John to be involved in his wife's disappearance and Jane believes her neighbour to be a murderer.  Each and every character deceives themselves, imagining complex answers to the questions they ask but more often than not faced with their own ordinary lives.  What at first seems like a labyrinthine murder mystery transpires to be a slow-burning, sophisticated drama about four suburban couples and the lies they tell themselves.

The performances are uniformally stunning.  Anthony LaPaglia has never been better and he's easily matched by Oscar winners Geoffrey Rush and Barbara Hershey.  The real stand-out though is Kerry Armstrong, in her feature film debut.  Everything about her seems perfect, from the slightly over-exaggerated embarassment when her salsa teacher dances with her, to her moving monologue about being middle-aged.  It's a beautiful, empathic, intelligent film which is, along with Japanese Story, possibly the best movie to come out of Australia in the last ten years.

Joshua Jackson

He's an awful lot hotter in Fringe...

...than he ever was in Dawson's Creek.

United States Of Tara

I rushed through the final four episodes of Toni Collette's new Showtime star vehicle, United States Of Tara this morning and I've got to say that in spite of its flaw, I've enjoyed all twelve episodes immensely.  Collette plays Tara, a 35 year-old wife and mother with dissociative identity dissorder and whom, at the most inconvenient of times, is prone to slip into one of several personalities: T, a rambunctious 16 year-old, Buck, a beer-guzzling homophobic male and Alice, a prim and proper housewife.

What makes the show more than just a gimmick is its strong supporting cast.  Tara is surrounded by a loving, suitably dysfunctional family: her husband Max (John Corbett), daughter Kate (Brie Larson), gay son Marshall (Keir Gilchrist) and sister (Rosemarie DeWitt).  Each has their own story, which helps this to feel more like an ensemble drama rather than a star vehicle for Collette.  Created by Juno's Oscar-winning scriptwriter Diablo Cody, some of the arch, affected dialogue of that film has filtered through.  Kate and Marshall especially often come out with expressions that seem too adult or unrealistic.  Thankfully, this is tempered by the writers' keen observations of the family unit and a hefty dose of heartfelt sentiment that gives the show the kind of genuine warmth that Juno was lacking.

Although Collette is impressive in the central role, once we've seen all of her alternative personalities (or "alters") she doesn't have much else to show.  She's not bad by a long stretch.  The way her body movement and facial expressions change whenever she transitions into one of the alters is fun, clever even.  But her performance doesn't have the same subtlety that, say, Michael C. Hall exhibits in Dexter, another Showtime series where the protagonist/antagonist (depending upon which way you look at it) is required to play more than one version of themselves.  The real breakout star is bound to be Keir Gilchrist, whose romancing of Jason, a bi-curious pastor's son is the series' sweetest, most finely-written and acted storyline.  The marvellous Rosemarie DeWitt, so fantastic in both Mad Men and Rachel Is Getting Married, also brings an enormous amount of depth to her discordant relationship with Tara.

Some of the dialogue may grate and the soundtrack might veer a little bit too close to whimsy for some people's tastes, but this is an adorable, occassionally very funny drama series that easily transgresses its gimmicky central concept.

Dollhouse Renewed

After being in Devon for a week, I didn't have a chance to watch the Dollhouse finale until yesterday and then I wake up this morning to find that the show, previously thought to be dead in the water, has been renewed by Fox for a second season.  The surprise move by the network that previously cancelled Firefly is supposed to have come because of the strong online viewing figures and the hoped-for strong DVD figures.  The series is set to return in the autumn with a thirteen episode run, each of which will be cut down to 42 minutes rather than the slightly longer episodes in series 1.  This is said to be one of the ways in which Joss Whedon will be reducing costs on the show, although there's whisperings that some of the cast might be axed.  Please not Sierra.  Or Victor.  Or Adelle.  Or Whisky.  Especially not Whisky because I don't think I can stomach TV without Amy Acker in it.

So Episode 12.  The final episode unless we're counting Epitaph One, the post-apocalyptic "coda" episode that will only be available on DVD.  Bloody good wasn't it?  I had a few minor quibbles.  Mainly Alan Tudyk, who I love and adore and was so good in the previous episode, didn't really shine here.  After all the build-up to Alpha, now we finally get to meet him he's not as fun to watch as I'd hoped he would be.  That final chase sequence, with Alpha dangling Caroline's identity "wedge" over a railing and her chasing up the stairs to catch him wasn't really dynamic enough and was poorly directed.

These two episode aside, this was a stellar episode and it does now feel that we're nearly there, that Dollhouse has almost fulfilled its early potential.  I've been championing Eliza throughout the show's run, although a lot of critics have pointed out what they believe to be her limited acting abilities.  What's thrown people is that the show's concept seems to offer an acting showcase for one actress when, as the past six episodes have shown, Dollhouse is much more of an ensemble piece.  There have also been precious few "actorish" moments, y'know, all the tears and drama stuff that you might expect from a show where the supposed lead plays a different character week in and week out.  She's been quietly convincing in every episode, particular as the blind woman in True Believer, Patton Oswald's dead wife in Man On The Street and as a middle-aged woman in Haunted.  One of the show's major story arcs has been the derailment of nearly all of Echo's assignment.  She doesn't get the fun Alias moments like Sierra, or the suave James Bond-ish moments like Victor in A Spy In The House Of Love.  I digress.  Anyway, Eliza's great.

The finale also did a good job of tying up loose ends whilst also creating new stories and rearranging its story elements to a sufficient degree to make us want to know what happens next, much like Angel did at the end of season 4 with Home.  One thing that I'm thankful for is that Paul Ballard seems assimilated into the Dollhouse.  His hunt for the Dollhouse was beginning to get tiresome and at least now he's inside, he can have relationships with characters other than November.  We've also got a sentient Doll, Whisky.  I was intrigued by her statement "I know who I am", her decision not to look at who she was before she entered the Dollhouse and her question to Topher, "Why was it important that I hate you?"

Other things that were generally awesome:

Composite Echo.  The moment when we witness all of Echo's previous personalities assimilating was a big pay-off to all of the procedural episode we had to slog through at the start of the season.

Sierra coming onto Paul Ballard.  Big lulz there.

Ballard's sacrifice for November.  This was perhaps the first moment in the entire run where I was genuinely moved and who else was expecting him to save Caroline?  The use of Beck's cover of Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometimes, was a nice touch.

"I'm not anyone because I am everyone."

Nine Trailer Now Up

The trailer for Rob Marshall's new musical Nine is now available and, boy, does it look exciting. I'm not familiar with the Broadway show, being British and all, but the 2003 revival starred Antonio Banderas (never really done it for me) and Jane Krakowski (who: LOVE). The trailer doesn't really tell you what the film's about, only that there's lots of glitter, singing, pretty ladies and Daniel Day Lewis being sprightly.



The ensemble cast include - hold your breath - Nicole Kidman, Daniel Day Lewis, Penelope Cruz, Judi Dench, Marion Cotillard, Fergie and Kate Hudson. Pretty amazing, huh? If you discount Fergie. Although I quite liked her in Planet Terror...maybe she'll surprise? She looks dog rough here though, that's for sure. From the look of the trailer, the emphasis will be on Day Lewis, but I hope Nicole gets a look-in. She badly needs a hit. I can't remember the last commercially successful movie she was in. Maybe The Golden Compass? Even that wasn't successful enough for a sequel (read: FAIL).

I'm not hugely enamoured by Rob Marshall though. Chicago always seemed very by-numbers to me and I'm still not entirely sure how he managed to turn Memoirs Of A Geisha into such a borefest. Regardless. There's singing, and actresses being all throaty, crying and shit. I'm in.

Jennifer Jason Leigh

I was reading a review of Charlie Kaufman's first film as writer/director, Synechdoche New York (which I'm glad is spelt phonetically on the posters because otherwise I'd be a wee bit unsure how to pronounce) and saw Jennifer Jason Leigh among the credited cast. Then I though, where has she gone to? Is she busy mothering her babies with Noah Baumbach in what one can only hope is a better environment than what we're led to believe Daddy Baumbach grew up with? Does Hollywood not want her anymore? Is it her age (47)?

After an eye-catching, body-ripping turn in road movie-cum-horror classic The Hitcher in 1985, Jennifer clocked up a string of critical and commercial successes in the early 90s. Roles as diverse as prostitute Tralala in Last Exit To Brooklyn, as writer and poet Dorothy Parker in Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle and psychotic roommate Hedy Carlson in Single White Female showed her range. She also got to work with some on the 90s most respected auteurs, Robert Altman in Short Cuts and Kansas City, the Coen brothers in The Hudsucker Proxy and David Cronenburg in eXistenZ. Possibly my favourite JJL performance, and one that seems to have passed a lot of people by, is the emotionally scarred Selena St. George in Dolores Claiborne, easily one of the best Stephen King adaptations and featuring a trio of fantastic female performances from Leigh, Kathy Bates and Judy Parfitt.

So what happened? She didn't exactly disappear off the face of the earth, but after The Anniversary Party (a film she wrote and directed with friend Alan Cumming) met to a mixed reception in 2001, JJL seems to have been offered smaller and smaller roles, despite the fact that she's a proven leading lady and a talented character actor. Her supporting roles in the 00s have been unfortunate, collaborations with good directors who pick Leigh to star in a not-terribly-good film. Small roles in Road To Perdition (I know there are plenty of admirers out there but Paul Newman and Conrad Hall's cinematography aside, I found this a particularly vacuous movie), In The Cut and Palindromes went largely unnoticed. Likewise, JJL's performances in independent films The Machinest and The Jacket were ignored, with most of the attention going to Christian Bale's emaciated lead and a confusing, twisty plot respectively. Both Brad Anderson, director of The Machinest, and John Maybury, director of The Jacket, has produced fine, interesting work previously, notably Love Is The Devil, so it's easy to see why Leigh chose to work with them. But something didn't click.

Likewise, her return to leading lady, alongside Nicole Kidman in Margot At The Wedding (directed by her husband Noah Baumbach), didn't quite meet expectations. Both Kidman and Leigh are on fine form, but Jack Black is hopelessly miscast as Leigh's dopish husband, and the dialogue feels too arch, the family dynamics too fucked and the characters even more unlikeable than in Baumbach's previous film The Squid And The Whale. Not that any of these things are necessarily indicative of a poor film, but they might go some way to explain its poor performance at the box office and the lack of award nominations.

According to Wikipedia, Leigh has turned down an impressive selection of roles, including sex, lies and videotape, Pretty Woman, Boogie Nights and LA Confidential. She was also considered for the role of Catwoman in Batman Returns, Ada McGrath in The Piano and Sarah Connor in The Terminator. Any one of these films could've consolidated her fame and given her the star quality that she clearly deserves but perhaps doesn't want or need.

The Night Listener

A turgid thriller based on a potentially fascinating story. Adapted from Amistead Maupin's autobiographical novel of the same name, The Night Listener tells of a gay radio broadcaster, Gabriel Noone (Robin Williams), who is sent a disturbing memoir. It tells of the extensive sexual abuse suffered by Peter Logand (Rory Culkin), a fourteen year-old boy with AIDS now living with a social worker, Donna (Toni Collette). Gabriel begins to talk to Peter over the phone and quickly becomes attached to the boy and to his tragic story, and the relationship takes on a creepy co-dependent air in the wake of Gabriel's long-term boyfriend Jess (HIV-positive and intent on living his life to the full) moving out of the house. When Jess notices the similarity between Peter's voice and Donna's, and when it transpires that nobody besides Donna has ever seen Peter, Gabriel becomes suspicious.

In spite of its interesting subject matter, Patrick Stettner's film is almost a complete failure. Anyone who is familiar with the real-life story upon which this is based or has simply seen the trailer will hardly be surprised by the "twist" in the story. This wouldn't be a problem if The Night Listener had anything else to say but any commentary on the nature of the relationship between Gabriel and Peter is lost in a half-baked thriller that doesn't go anywhere. Robin Williams delivers a restrained performance but the usually reliable Toni Collette hams it up something awful. Flat, dull and, in the end, rather pointless.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

Another funny, slightly overlong, sentimental-in-a-good-way film from the Judd Apatow stable.  Peter (Jason Segal) is dumped, whilst naked, by his TV star girlfriend Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell).  A vacation in Hawaii that is supposed to take his mind off the break-up starts badly when it transpires that Sarah is staying at the same hotel with her new boyfriend, rock star Aldous Snow (Russell Brand).

Although Judd Apatow only shares a producer's credit on Forgetting Sarah Marshall, his influence is palpable.  Like Knocked Up and Superbad, this is less of a comedy and more a drama about a slacker-type twentysomething growing up.  Writer and star Jason Segal has created a well-rounded, oddly likeable character in Peter, who may be self-pitying and unmotivated but at least he's a nice enough guy.  It's a pity then that the female parts are written in such broad strokes.  Unlike Alison in Knocked Up, we're not meant to see Sarah as a responsible, intelligent counterpoint to Peter.  Instead, we're encouraged to see her as the needy girlfriend who doesn't appreciate Peter's support when she has it but is ready to fall back into his arms when it all goes tits up with her next boyfriend.  The real object of Peter's affection turns out to be Rachel (Mila Kunis), the kind of free-thinking, sympathetic ideal girlfriend we've been seeing in movies ever since Natalie Portman listened to The Shins in Garden State.  Whilst both Bell and Kunis make the most of their material, the accusations of misogyny that have been levelled at Apatow's previous productions in the past are pretty hard to deny here.

That isn't to say there aren't any laughs, although these mostly come from the stellar supporting cast, particularly Paul Rudd as a dim-witted surf instructor.  Forgetting Sarah Marshall is an aimiable, ambling comedy that has plenty of big laughs in it.  It's just a shame that it doesn't have the emotional weight of its predecessors.

News and Linkage

Season 3  of Mad Men will be premiere on August 16th in the States, with production beginning yesterday.  Excitement.  Overload.

Fox has picked up JJ Abrams' Fringe for a second season.  This comes as no surprise since it was the second-highest rating new show in 2008-9 behind The Mentalist.

There's a really interesting interview with Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner in Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz.

No news yet on whether Dollhouse is going to picked up for a second season, although it seems unlikely at this point given its poor ratings.  Here's an interview with TV Guide's Matthew Roush that helps explain some of the reasons why the show might not have been successful.

Here's an early review for Sarah Michelle Gellar's new TV show, The Wonderful Maladys.  I'm officially excited now.

Rather belatedly, here's the trailer for Emma Caulfield's new romantic comedy TiMER:

The Ruins

A nasty little film, Carter Smith's The Ruins has several similarities to David Cronenburg's early body horror titles.  Two young American couples are taking a holiday in Mexico when, on their final day, they meet a German tourist, Mathius, who posseses a map that will lead them to a Mayan temple where his brother, an architect, is working.   When the group arrives at the temple they find it covered in vines and surrounded by Mayan villagers who won't let them leave.  It soon becomes apparent that the reason for this is that they are scared of the vines themselves, underneath which Mathius finds the remains of his brother.

The concept sounds silly but, wisely, it's played completely straight.  It's a deft mixture of survival and body horror, mostly playing on the fear of penetration (the vines enters mouths and open wounds, insiduating themselves into their hosts' bodies).  The first half of the movie is concerned with the group's dynamics, as they bicker amongst each other, trying to think up an escape plan.  Like most horror films, the eventual fate of the protagonists is as much decided by their own mistakes as by the more obvious threat.  A little bit more time spent focusing on the dynamics of the friendship group before they entered the ruins would've been welcome, as this would have created a better pay-off later on.  However, the performances (led by the willowy Jena Malone) are strong and the gorey bits are sufficiently stomach-churning.