What, When, Where this Weekend: The Spirit, Valkyrie, Benjamin Button, Revolutionary Road, Secret of the Grain, Waltz with Bashir

What, When, Where is a weekly guide to select screenings, discussions and events in the NYC-area of interest to screenwriters.

Holiday edition!

Opening this weekend...

THE SPIRIT, written and directed by Frank Miller


Premise: A rookie cop returns from the dead to fight crime from the shadows of Central City. His main opposition is a former lab technician who has reinvented himself as The Octopus, an elusive criminal mastermind who knows the secrets behind his nemesis.

Playing: Everywhere.

Anyone remember when Frank Miller was a visionary comic book artist/writer? I miss that Frank Miller.


VALKYRIE, written by Christopher McQuarrie and Nathan Alexander, dir. by Bryan Singer


Premise: Near the end of WWII, Claus von Stauffenberg leads to group of fellow German army colonels in an attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler; the event would later be called the July 20 Plot of 1944.

Playing: All over.

All I can think about when I see the trailer for this one is that I already know how it's going to end. I love historical films, but even more so if I don't know the ultimate outcome right off the bat. And, eh, I'm sure I'll be netflixing this one once it's out. Until then I'm counting on Onyx to see this one and give us his review.



THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON, written by Eric Roth, dir. by David Fincher


Premise: Benjamin Button was born under unusual circumstances. As everyone around him grew older, he aged backwards, making the challenges of life such as creating friendships, finding a job and falling in love all the more difficult and heartbreaking.

Playing: All over.

Cake Man caught this movie a couple weeks ago - you can check out his review here.


REVOLUTIONARY ROAD, written by Justin Haythe, dir. by Sam Mendes


Premise: A young couple raising a family in a Connecticut suburb during the mid-1950s look to break free from their frustratingly mediocre lives.

Playing: All over.

Those Titanic kids are back at it again... but, really, could there be a less-interesting logline than the one they're giving us?


THE SECRET OF THE GRAIN, written and directed by Abdel Kechiche



Premise: At the port of Sète Mr. Slimani, a tired sixty year old, drags himself towards a shipyard job which has become more and more difficult to cope with as the years go by. He is a divorced father who forces himself to stay close to his family despite the scissions and tensions which are easily sparked off and which financial difficulties make even more intense. He is going through a delicate period in his life and recently, everything seems to make him feel useless; a failure. He wants to escape from it all and set up his own restaurant. However it appears to be an unreachable dream given his meagre, irregular salary which is not anywhere near enough to supply what he needs to realise his ambition. But he can still dream and talk about it with his family in particular. A family which gradually recompacts around this project which comes to symbolise the means to a better life. Thanks to their ingeniousness and hard work this dream soon becomes a reality... Or almost...

Playing: IFC Center

Can't really say I've read or heard much about this one at all - Time Out New York's rave review is the first I remember. I'm intrigued - if it's still playing when I get back to NYC I'll give it a shot.


WALTZ WITH BASHIR, written and directed by Ari Folman



Premise: By meeting and interviewing old friends from around the world, Ari, a former member of the Israeli Army, retraces his spotty personal history to a life-changing incident that occurred during his country's 1982 invasion of Lebanon.

Playing at: Lincoln Plaza, Landmark Sunshine

I usually avoid putting documentaries up here (y'know, trying to focus on the writers and all) but this one is too interesting to be missed. I didn't manage to catch it when it was part of the NYFF, so I'm glad I'll get a second chance to see it now.

What are you doing/seeing this weekend?

A Place for History?

When I went to the Curious Case of Benjamin Button Screening, the producers stuck around to do a Q&A with the audience after. One of the things that they spoke about was the place that historical movies, in particular "historical epics," which they called Button, have in Hollywood today. Onyx, as our resident historical drama writer, you might want to cover your ears now.

The outlook was grim, to say the least. There was general consensus that historical films are now one of the hardest to make. This is due to a number of things, probably, including the immense budgets they demand, the often limited ability to compete at the box office (hmm... Victorian era couples playing "who gets who" or Batman 7?), and their often limited audiences - you know, because who wants to hear people talking funny and wearing weird clothes? (all my speculation). On top of all of that, many historical films, dare I say more than half?, are also long. Really long. BRAVEHEART and GLADIATOR are both long, but they're filled with action and blow my mind every time I watch them. But there are a number of other, tamer, more subtle historical dramas that are nearly as long as those, yet much quieter and about people and not fighting.

While the producers of Button were hopeful that their film could remind Hollywood not to drop this genre from future slates, I think I might have to disagree slightly that historical pieces are completely disappearing. There have been a number of celebrity driven epics tat take place before, say, 1900 recently. (How many times have you seen Orlando Bloom not dressed in something that you could only get at a costume shop? Once?) Historical epics are crowd pleasers, especially if current times are less than stellar. Not only can you escape to see people whose lives are far more difficult, but they also whack at one another with swords, and how great is that? The key is to keep the language contemporary enough, the action (if it's there) big enough, and the film star-studded enough. Can you make the argument that those "requirements" taint the genre? Yeah, probably, and you're welcome to do it in the comments section below.

But I don't think either audiences or filmmakers want to see the genre disappear totally yet.

Screen Alert - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – Curious, Indeed

Screen Alert is a short, irregular segment highlighting noteworthy films that we saw during advanced screenings. Keep an eye out for these cinematic gems when they hit theaters.

After much thought, I decided to put Brad Pitt’s latest film on Screen Alert. THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON (in theatres December 25th), starring Pitt as the titular character, a man born as an 84 year old baby who ages in reverse, is as much a historical epic as it is a love story. Covering everything from love to life, death, birth, acceptance, death, age, death, and the progression of time, the film raises and attempts to answer a number of deeply thought provoking questions.

Probably the most interesting question, at least to me, is how a child who looks like an arthritic 80 year old when he’s celebrating his 7th birthday gains acceptance, first in boyhood, and then at every other stage in his oddly destined life. At nearly three hours long, BENJAMIN BUTTON has plenty of time to dissect not only the answer, but the question. With a sweeping biopic such as this, it’s inevitable that certain parts of the character’s life simply won’t be addressed or will be glazed over. Button is no exception, but I’m confident in saying that as an audience member, I felt as though the biggest points I wondered about were all touched on at some point or other. Life and death, as all of the characters openly recognize – Benjamin in fact grows up in an assisted living facility, which I thought was a brilliant choice – is an ever going cycle that cannot be fought. Benjamin, though unique in how he experiences those inevitabilities, openly acknowledges that he cannot compare it to a normal life, as he has only seen it through his own eyes. Life and death are accepted by everyone in this picture, as is Benjamin’s condition. Ultimately, the question in the film is love, not whether it’s real – for, ask anyone in Benjamin’s world, and they will tell you that it is unquestionably so – but how many times we are fortunate enough to experience it.

Arguably the most interesting element of the picture – one that the producers willingly recognize – is the logistics behind Button’s reverse aging. “He’s 30 years old now, but he should look… how old?” or “OK, he looks like a tween, but he’s showing signs of his true age (70) in what ways?” I found myself trying to work out the math a few times during the picture, and I can guarantee I wasn’t the only one doing that. Granted, with pretty-boy Brad Pitt playing the protagonist, the filmmakers are going to want to get as much mileage out of his face as possible. For the most part, I think they were pretty true to the logic of the film. I did wonder if he de-aged a bit too quickly at one point, but after a little math, was able to convince myself that the timing worked out. Furthermore, all the while Benjamin is aging down, everyone around him is aging up. As Cate Blanchett’s character recognizes at one point, she and Benjamin are aging from opposite ends and “meeting in the middle.” The middle, though, in Benjamin’s universe is nearly a lifetime long, as he finds acceptance and companionship the entire time.

Visually, the picture is quite beautiful. The make-up artists who worked on Pitt – he’s on-screen the entire time, not once substituted for an older or younger actor (except a baby) – brought a new level of effects to film makeup, and if they don’t earn an Oscar for their work, I don’t know who will. The digital shooting captures a warm, often sepia feel that’s quite inviting.

My primary gripe, and it’s not really a small one, is that Benjamin Button – as the producers also recognized – is the kind of character that writers will receive an endless bombardment of studio notes for. He’s completely passive. With few exceptions at all, he goes through life observing and reacting, and for that reason, the movie, especially in the beginning, dragged on a bit too long for me. The strength lies in the reversal of the age (at 16 he look 70, and at 70 he looks 16), but watching any other boy have his first drink, his first sexual encounter, his first wife would be nowhere near as engaging. BENJAMIN BUTTON gets away with a lot based on the ingenuity of the protagonist’s situation. Nevertheless, those of you looking to see a movie where the stakes continually raise, where the action and the character drive the plot forward, where the main character takes the horse by the reins and steers the picture will be disappointed.

I was also turned off by the fact that the story was set against the backdrop of Hurricane Katrina. While New Orleans was a perfect setting, the decision to end (not a spoiler at all) with the levees breaking did not add anything to the story for me, and actually grounded this otherwise gripping fantasy in something much more tangible and immediate, and that killed some of the magic for me.

THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON hopes to be a breath of fresh air, a reminder to Hollywood that the industry can and should support historical epics. It works visually and is interesting enough to sustain its running time (though a shorter version could have worked, too). Depending on your mood, this can be an overwhelmingly powerful film on love and life well lived despite what seem to be insurmountable obstacles, and the acting and make-up are top notch. A real head-scratcher, BENJAMIN BUTTON’s weak spot (to those who think it has one) will inevitably come from its meandering pace and observant, inactive protagonist. Ultimately, this is a Screen Alert (though I’ll forgive you this one time if you wait for DVD), because though it can be slow, THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON is an example of an epic biopic that all writers should study.