Steve Carell proves endlessly perplexing to Paul Rudd.

For a country that routinely mocks all things French, it’s ironic that the U.S. can’t seem to get its fill of recycled French comedies. Dinner for Schmucks, which stars Steve Carell and Paul Rudd, supplies us with another instance in which Hollywood has sought inspiration from the country of liberty, equality and fraternity. This Americanized remake of Francis Veber’s 1998′s Dinner Game — or Le Diner de Cons, if you must — has its share of laughs, although it doesn’t always serve them up by the forkful.

One way to judge a movie such as Dinner for Schmucks is by assessing how well it turns a crisp – though overrated — French farce into an American comedy. How well does Dinner For Schmucks mix imagination, humor and slapstick before arriving at its inevitably sentimental conclusion?

As directed by Jay Roach (Meet the Parents and the Austin Powers movies), Dinner For Schmucks works well enough to deem the enterprise a modest success.

Rudd plays an aspiring executive who can land a much-desired promotion only by indulging his boss’ wishes. The boss (Bruce Greenwood) hosts a monthly dinner to which his closest associates must bring a “schmuck,” a hopelessly dorky and inept person whom the assembled execs can ridicule.

Carell plays the schmuck who holds the key to Rudd’s success. Carell’s Barry is an IRS worker and amateur taxidermist who, among other things, reconstructs great scenes from art using stuffed dead mice. One of his masterpieces: A precise replica of Da Vinci’s The Last Supper.

The script contrives to have Barry meet Rudd’s Tim in a way that sets up a dynamic of guilt. Tim runs Barry over with his car. Poor Barry. He’s both hopeless and hapless, but a total lack of self-awareness makes him a good foil for Tim. Barry has no idea what an idiot he is.

The movie adds a variety of minor characters. Zach Galifianakis plays Barry’s boss at the IRS, an eerily intense fellow who believes he can control the minds of others. Jermaine Clement has a truly funny turn as a self-involved artist and unashamed sex machine. Stephanie Szostak signs on as Tim’s fiancee and conscience. Lucy Punch plays a libidinous woman who dated Tim once, but won’t let go.

Carell’s comic chops already have been established: He does as well as he can with a character who tends to be as annoying as he is funny. Rudd has the more difficult job of playing straight man; he handles it with reasonable aplomb.

The big dinner scene boasts bits that may be not be quite as funny in the execution as they were in the planning, but the characters we meet at this bizarre repast qualify as abundantly strange. Witness the ventriloquist who introduces his dummy (a blonde doll with exposed cleavage) as his wife.

I could have done without much of the slapstick, but I suppose that’s a matter of taste. Considering that Dinner for Schmucks is a remake, I arrived at a preview screening with low expectations. I was pleased to find a few laughs and some strangely imaginative bits, and I suppose it takes a certain amount of admirable gall to include dead mice jokes in a comedy that’s aiming at big-time summer success.

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For 27 years, Bob was the film critic at The Rocky Mountain News, a Denver daily that has now vanished from the publishing scene. The paper's only round of buyouts made it possible for him to do something he's been wanting to do for some time: seek out new challenges. Since leaving the News, he's made a short film (with a partner), and have done some teaching. Of course, he still love movies and writing about them. So hang out, browse around and feel free to chime in, as well.
Visit Robert Denerstein's Denerstein Unleashed

The documentary alerts us to a variety of potential triggers for nuclear destruction: Terrorists commandeer a nuclear weapon; a nuclear power mistakenly begin a nuclear encounter; an accident sets off a nuclear holocaust. And we thought the end of Cold War hostilities had put some distance between us and the nuclear threat. Not so, says Countdown, taking great pains to show us why danger persists.

Written and directed by Lucy Walker and produced by Lawrence Bender – who also produced Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth — Countdown to Zero points to two possible paths, both suggested by its title: Either we countdown to a moment of unparalleled catastrophe or to the moment when we inhabit a nuke-free planet.

Let it be said: The filmmakers do a fine job of scaring us into attention with news footage and interviews (Tony Blair, Mikhail Gorbachev, Robert McNamara and more), as well as with the reactions of ordinary people. It’s hardly surprising that most of us would prefer that humanity does not go out with a nuclear-driven bang, but it doesn’t hurt to hear the position affirmed.

The most gripping part of a generally gripping movie centers on its most devastating sequence; the filmmakers show us what could happen if nuclear bombs were dropped on major cities in a sequence that’s beyond sobering.

Clearly, we’re a long way from Randy Newman’s satirical suggestion — “Let’s drop the big one and see what happens,” but Countdown to Zero has a problem that’s suggested by the response of that audience member I cited at the outset.
As is the case with many advocacy documentaries, Countdown may wind up preaching to the choir. Beyond that, there’s the problem of … well … problems. We’re so flooded with issues — from the ruptured economy to steady global warming to a failing education system — that we run the risk of being beaten into helpless and hopeless passivity. That’s probably not the response the filmmakers are seeking. Odd isn’t it. Documentaries that encourage us to engage sometimes have precisely the opposite effect.

88, AND STILL BEHIND THE CAMERA

Andre Dussollier stars in Resnais‘ Wild Grass.
That headline is enough to justify a visit to Wild Grass, director Alain Resnais‘ latest movie, which fills out dance cards for those who still harbor fond memories of movies such as Mon oncle d’Amérique, Last Year at Marienbad and Hiroshima mon amour. Wild Grass finds Resnais in a somewhat playful mood as he makes a movie that wants to celebrate the ways in which cinema has changed our ideas about what’s possible. Movies, to take the simplest of examples, can move us from one location to another with no need to explain exactly how the transition occurred. If that kind of magic is possible, perhaps a whole new set of human relationships could follow? Resnais’ story centers on a strange man (Andre Dussollier) who finds the wallet of a dentist (Sabine Azema) in the parking lot of a shopping center. Dussollier’s character brings the wallet to a local police station, but still agonizes over whether to contact the woman. When he does, he acts as if this encounter might be the most significant of his life. Resnais’ use of techniques that call attention to the fact that we’re watching a movie — from irises to shifting narrations to a title card that seems to pop out of nowhere — can seem overly quaint, but the movie passes pleasantly, if at times incomprehensibly.

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For 27 years, Bob was the film critic at The Rocky Mountain News, a Denver daily that has now vanished from the publishing scene. The paper's only round of buyouts made it possible for him to do something he's been wanting to do for some time: seek out new challenges. Since leaving the News, he's made a short film (with a partner), and have done some teaching. Of course, he still love movies and writing about them. So hang out, browse around and feel free to chime in, as well.
Visit Robert Denerstein's Denerstein Unleashed

The concert opened with Richard Strauss’ Serenade for Winds, Opus 7. This work is the first truly important composition by Strauss and it is the first work of his to find a stable position in woodwind ensemble repertoire. It was written when Strauss was seventeen years old, and the writing for the horns certainly reflects the influence of good horn performance he grew up with listening to as his father, Franz Strauss, was one of Europe’s notable French horn virtuosos. It also attracted the attention of the conductor Hans von Bülow, who proceeded to encourage Richard Strauss and help him become established as a composer. While the structure of this Serenade is in the classical style, i.e., the sonata allegro form, it is not a mere imitation of Mozart, let us say. It has the delicacy of Mendelssohn, but the harmonies that Strauss uses, even at the age of seventeen, began pushing the envelope. It contains some absolutely wonderful, rich sound, especially at the beginning of the recapitulation section (the sonata form has three sections; exposition, development, and recapitulation) where the French horns (a wind ensemble always has French horns) are at their most mellifluous.

The performance of this piece was quite excellent. The entire group was very precise in their entrances, and the phrases were well shaped with dynamics and truly flowed. I was again struck by Devin Hughes’ conducting in that it is not necessarily demonstrative as one usually thinks when considering other conductors. His movements are very economical, but when the music demands it, he can shape the phrases with large sweeping motions. I have always been in the audience when Mr. Hughes conducts – as opposed to being in the ensemble he is conducting – so I do not know what facial expressions he uses to emphasize the movements he makes. Most conductors do rely on facial expressions to help communicate the composer’s requirements to the orchestra. You must understand that the conductor’s job is to be the intermediary between the composer and the orchestra. Devin Hughes does the job well.

Next on the program came the wonderful Serenade for Winds, K. 361, by Mozart. Nowadays, there is very little doubt that this work was inspired by his friendship with Anton Stadler, a fine clarinet player who Mozart met shortly after arriving in Vienna in 1781. Stadler was also the inspiration and recipient of Mozart’s immortal Clarinet Concerto, K. 622. I stated above that there is no longer any doubt as to why this work was written, but there are still those who state that it was written for Mozart’s wedding to Constanze Weber, to be played at their wedding reception. To make a very long story short, this idea was promulgated by the mistranslation (I am being polite, here, in using that word) of a letter by Mozart in which he supposedly explains the origin of K. 361. Thorough scholarship has proven otherwise, but some individuals with less meticulous motives still say that it was for Constanze.

No matter what its origins, the performance Saturday night was truly excellent. The work is in seven sections and begins with a slow introduction to the opening fast movement. The precision of this group was readily noticeable. Their attacks and releases were excellent as was their tune. And certainly, in this particular work, Hughes’ conducting style fit perfectly. Always expressive, but very controlled. There is no question that this ensemble is accustomed to Hughes conducting and that they respect it. It would be interesting to see one of their rehearsals; I suspect they are quite rigorous. Certainly, woodwinds players need to be capable of extremely good breath control, but I was quite dazzled by the very long phrases and held notes performed by the oboist, Alexis Junker. And I might point out, that her tone control was quite remarkable as well. Everyone in this ensemble, and it needs to be stated again, was really at the top of their form, especially in the Theme and Variation movement which is the sixth out of the seven. The only noticeable irregularity occurred at the opening of the fifth movement, Romance, where the entrance was ragged. But truly, that was the only fuzzy spot in the first half of the program.

After the intermission, the Boulder Symphony winds performed one of the great 20th century compositions: Igor Stravinsky’s “The Soldiers Tale.” I first heard this piece when I purchased a recording of it way back in 1955 or 1956. I cannot remember which ensemble performed it, but as I recall – and I could be wrong here – it was narrated by Sir John Gielgud. I do know that Gielgud, who died in the year 2000, did make recordings of this as the narrator. This remarkable piece is for violin, contrabass, clarinet, bassoon, trumpet, trombone, and percussion. Though it was originally written for these seven instruments, it also features four speaking parts; the devil, the soldier, a princess, and unseen narrator. In the original version, the devil and the princess are also required to dance. However, the most common concert performance is as a suite without narration. I must say that I did miss the narration. The Soldiers Tale is a fable about a soldier whose soul is eventually captured by the devil after the devil challenges him to playing his violin. Make no mistake about it: this is a very difficult piece. It involves all of Stravinsky’s many gifts of rhythm complexity and instrumental virtuosity. For example, the sixth movement is named Three Dances: Tango, Waltz & Ragtime. The violin begins the tango with just a short snippet and the percussion finishes the rhythm. There is no question that as a member of the ensemble, if one listens to the other instruments, rather than watches the conductor and count, all will be lost in a mass of confusion. This is another example of its difficulty, for trained musicians find it difficult not to listen, but all reliable musicians must count.

The musicians that participated in the Stravinsky were Rebekah Durham, violin; Dale Day, contrabass; Katie Vedder, clarinet; Brian Jack, bassoon; Dan Smathers, trumpet; Mike Roper, trombone; and Tracy Fielder, percussion. I wish that the program had contained biographical information on these musicians. They were all quite excellent. I do know that the violinist, Rebekah Durham, has a very impressive background – she has the coveted Artist Diploma, as well as her Bachelor’s degree Magna Cum Laude from the Lamont School of Music, and she has performed with this orchestra previously in the Brahms Violin Concerto. She has won many competitions and awards and is now a graduate student at the Juilliard School. After this performance, she is headed to Korea where she will perform Glazunov’s Violin Concerto. Her performance in the Stravinsky was, as usual, exceptional from every point of view. She is a very exciting violinist. The other members of the ensemble were truly fine, as well.

In 1966, I had the marvelous opportunity to speak with Igor Stravinsky for about two hours. I asked him about this piece and told him how much I admired it. He said that he was always a little surprised by its great reception, and that it had been written in 1918 when times were hard. You must remember that 1918 was post-World War I, and many composers were deprived of royalties because of the revolution. So many lost so much. I, for one, will never forget that early recording that I owned, and the narrator’s opening soliloquy, “Down the hot and dusty road tramps a soldier with his load…” This performance brought back many memories.

If this performance was any indication of what lies ahead for conductor Devin Hughes and the newly named Boulder Symphony Orchestra, then their future is bright indeed. This is a community orchestra, and its woodwind section and horn section and contrabass section have proved to be exceptional. In many ways, it is not like the old days.

OpusColorado

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Robin McNeil lives with his wife in Littleton where he teaches piano privately and continues to do research on the French composer Théodore Gouvy and the Medieval Mass. McNeil is an honorary member of the Institut Théodore Gouvy of Hombourg-Haut, France; president of the Piano Arts Association; and a member of the Henry Bradshaw Society (for the preservation and publication of rare liturgical documents).
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It’s not easy trying to survive in a world of dreams.

A supremely talented thief gathers a crew and readies himself for one last job, the caper that finally will allow him to abandon life on the run.

Sure you’ve heard it before, but Christopher Nolan, who directed the mega-hit The Dark Knight and who made a splash on the filmmaking scene in 2000 with Memento, energizes familiar cinematic ploys by putting them in a fresh context: Almost all of his new movie, Inception, takes place in dreams.

Already hailed as a masterpiece in some quarters, Inception arrives in theaters with high expectations in tow, and it would be dishonest of me not to begin by saying that the movie – which boasts some of the more impressive visuals of the year – does not require us to hoist flags and proclaim a national holiday.

Inception, which stars Leonardo DiCaprio, provokes plenty of thought, but operating in the world of dreams seems to have given Nolan license to confound, as well as to illuminate. He does equal amounts of both in a movie that contains a fair measure of visual wit and lots of ferocious energy.

Nolan employs a terrific cast as he develops the ideas in Inception – and, yes, we’re talking about the ideas in the movie, not the ideas behind it. Tricky as it tries to be, Inception hardly misses a chance to tell us what it’s up to, not that you’ll get it all.

Because Nolan, who also wrote the script, is creating an entire universe, he needs to supply lots of rules-of-the-game dialog. In speedy fashion that virtually dares you to keep up, Nolan has DiCaprio’s Dom Cobb explaining the ground rules. What happens if someone dies in a dream? Is it possible to get lost in dreams and never re-emerge? Where in the hell do all those projections inside our dreams originate? Is time in a dream the same as time in an awakened state?

Cobb, we soon learn, is an extractor by trade and training. He’s able to invade dreams and come away with secrets buried in a dreamer’s subconscious, a skill that he’s evidently employed mostly to conduct industrial espionage. (And, no, that wouldn’t be my first choice if I had a similar ability.)

Contacted by a Japanese entrepreneur (Ken Watanabe), Cobb is asked to conduct a perilous mission. He must invade the subconscious of the son (Cillian Murphy) of a recently deceased industrialist and plant an idea in the young man’s head. It’s an idea that will change the course of the future.

Nolan definitely is attuned to something intriguing, notably a view of dreaming as one of the strangest of human activities, the state in which we escape the rules that bind us throughout our waking moments. Working with his usual cinematographer, the gifted Wally Pfister, Nolan pulls out all the stops, and if you’re able to give yourself over to the imagery, you’ll definitely find yourself tripping right along with the filmmakers.

As is the case with more conventional “caper” movies, characterization is kept to a minimum. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, sporting a slicked back, bullet-head look, signs on as one of Cobb’s assistants. Ellen Page, the gifted young actress who wowed the world in Juno, plays an architect who’s engaged by Cobb to design dreamscapes.

Oops, I forgot to mention, the movie also introduces us to the concept of shared dreaming, the possibility that a variety of skilled folks can enter the same dream, each assuming responsibility for a different task.

Every dream needs to feel a little haunted. In this case, the talented Marion Cotillard adds spectral presence. She plays Cobb’s wife, a woman from whom he has become estranged for reasons that can’t be revealed in a review.

It’s just here that Nolan should be credited for his most inspired casting. There’s something ethereal, dreamy and dangerous about Cotillard’s Mai, and she contrasts nicely with Page’s Ariadne, a down-to-earth, practical woman who always seems to have one foot in reality.

And, yes, the images can be mind bending. At one point, Ariadne learns to manipulate dream realities, bending a cityscape in an effect that you may have seen in the movie’s trailer, but which still manages to be breathtaking in the context of the movie. How long has it been since you’ve said, “Oh, wow?”

So what’s Nolan up to, really? On one level, he’s making a thriller. On another, he’s trying to knock us off our moorings, and because movies often are compared to dreams – they can have the same sort of reality-defying fluidity – he may be commenting on the way we allow ourselves to be sucked in by filmmakers.

Novel as Inception can seem, it does evoke memories of other films. You may find yourself thinking about The Matrix, for example. I wouldn’t have been at all surprised if Laurence Fishburne had wandered in for a quick scene. It would have made as much sense as anything else in Inception.

DiCaprio holds the screen throughout all of this planned chaos. He’s playing a man who makes his living entering other people’s subconscious minds, but who can’t entirely control his own. That’s another issue with which the movie toys: The idea of control. Who’s the author of our dreams anyway? And on and on and on – for a not-quite-justifiable two and a half hours.

Now, it’s my belief that Nolan could have accomplished all this with a little more narrative clarity. At various times, I found myself talking to myself, “OK, this is a dream. Now, we’re in the dream within the dream. This seems to be the waking state.”Am I watching a movie or am I experiencing short-term memory loss?”

A little such disorientation goes a long way, and Hans Zimmer‘s ubiquitous score doesn’t provide a moment’s respite, either. (Last time I checked, my dreams didn’t have musical scores. Maybe that’s just me.)

For my money, David Lynch is far better at showing the elasticity of reality and at luring us into worlds where we’re never sure what’s real and what’s imagined. But Nolan has bigger commercial fish to fry than Lynch. With a major summer release, he must fuse art and action. Imagine if someone had told Fellini, a director who know something about dreamy imagery, that he had to add a few car chases to 8 1/2.

Should you go? Sure. See Inception, and get into your own dialog with the movie. Know this, though: My dreams – and I hope yours — never have included noisy car chases, exploding fireballs or automatic weapons fire, a claim I’m not sure Nolan can make. But then again, I don’t sell tickets to my dreams or expect them to reach blockbuster proportions. I’m just happy if I wake up.

More Entertainment News from Denerstein Unleashed

For 27 years, Bob was the film critic at The Rocky Mountain News, a Denver daily that has now vanished from the publishing scene. The paper's only round of buyouts made it possible for him to do something he's been wanting to do for some time: seek out new challenges. Since leaving the News, he's made a short film (with a partner), and have done some teaching. Of course, he still love movies and writing about them. So hang out, browse around and feel free to chime in, as well.
Visit Robert Denerstein's Denerstein Unleashed

Angelina Jolie is armed and dangerous in Salt.

Angelina Jolie kicks much butt in Salt, a thriller about a CIA agent who’s accused of being a Russian spy, and, as a result, spends most of the movie on the run. If you like improbable action — no, make that impossible – action, you’ll get your fill and then some from a movie that moves with Road Runner speed.

At one point, Jolie’s Evelyn Salt leaps off an overpass onto a speeding semi-truck, and that’s just the beginning of the sequence. The movie features feats no mortal could accomplish without either winding up in a coffin or a full body cast.

Salt? She takes a licking and — as an old Timex slogan put it — keeps right on ticking.

You can’t believe a minute of this action, but the exaggeration can be fun, and – for the most part – director Phillip Noyce handles the mayhem with the kind of old-pro efficiency you’d expect from the man who directed Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger, but who most recently has taken a sabbatical from Hollywood with small movies such as Catch a Fire, The Quiet American and Rabbit-Proof Fence.This time, Noyce abandons the logic that rules the physical world, and allows the action to rip as Salt tries to evade capture by two CIA colleagues (Liev Schreiber and (Chiwetel Ejiofor), fine actors who do what’s required of them; i.e., they add seriousness and tension to a script that’s not afraid to go over the top.

The screenplay puts Salt in jeopardy when a Russian defector (Daniel Olbrychski) turns up in Washington, and names her as a sleeper agent, timely stuff given recent news stories about Russian spies in our suburban midst. Salt denies any involvement with the Russians, and takes off in hopes that she can clear her name and save her scientist husband, who has been snatched by the very same Russians.

For a while, it looks as if Noyce has pulled off a nearly impossible feat, dropping mega-tons of fantasy action into a realistically presented environment. Cinematographer Robert Elswit has decided to keep the images on the dark side, and the movie has a brooding quality that suggests more importance than the story ever really earns.

I read somewhere that Salt resembles a Bond movie. Maybe a little, but the best Bond movies had winking humor, something that’s lacking in Salt, a thriller with conspiratorial flavor that includes a new theory about the assassination of President Kennedy.

The dour mood probably is understandable. Much of the Bond humor involved 007′s taste for high living, martinis and women. Evelyn Salt has no time for pleasure. She’s interesting because she’s not like Bond. She operates in a universe that’s morally ambiguous. She’s also motivated by personal concerns the likes of which seldom troubled Bond.

For most of the movie’s fast-paced 100 minutes, Jolie looks deadly and dangerous, and some of the action is exceptionally well done. I had a white-knuckle moment when the script called for Salt to climb from window ledge to window ledge as she tries to flee her pursuers.

I happened to see Salt at a preview screening at which the film broke. During the time it took to get the screening up and running again, I asked my wife where she thought the plot was headed. She guessed right, which suggests that some of the key developments are not rife with surprise.

If you’re a stickler for credibility, you’ll want to steer clear of Salt, which is geared for a season in which we’re asked to suspend disbelief as freely as we sometimes offer gratuitous advice. And given its pedal-to-the-metal approach, it’s hardly surprising that Salt leaves the door open for a sequel. The way Jolie handles the action, it’s likely we’ll see one.

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For 27 years, Bob was the film critic at The Rocky Mountain News, a Denver daily that has now vanished from the publishing scene. The paper's only round of buyouts made it possible for him to do something he's been wanting to do for some time: seek out new challenges. Since leaving the News, he's made a short film (with a partner), and have done some teaching. Of course, he still love movies and writing about them. So hang out, browse around and feel free to chime in, as well.
Visit Robert Denerstein's Denerstein Unleashed

She is the best because she is loving, caring, and supportive. She is sweet but sophisticated, fun but has depth, and has a vivacious appetite for living life. She makes me want to be the man she needs.

She is the worst because I can’t pull anything past her.

Since we have been friends for so long, she already knew all of my tricks and schemes when we started dating. At first, this was comforting because I could finally relax in a relationship. There were a few times early on that I tried running from the commitment but she didn’t freak out and just wouldn’t let me go.

Being with someone more stubborn than me was pretty much my only hope of ever getting married.

But now that we have been married for almost a year, she knows how to handle me a little too well for my tastes. For example: whenever I didn’t want to participate in an event or activity in a previous relationship, I just whined and moaned about it enough until the other person didn’t want to listen to me anymore and finally gave up on my involvement.

This plane doesn’t even get off the ground with my Wife.

It all became obvious last week while I was watching the Major League baseball All-Star game and then I noticed her standing at the front door with a plate of cookies.

MY WIFE: Are you ready?

ME: For what?

MY WIFE: To take these cookies to Abby and her husband. I told you about this.

ME: WHO IS ABBY?

MY WIFE: The girl that we met at church a couple of weeks ago. They just got married and live in our apartment complex.

ME: We have to go now?

MY WIFE: Yes. She is not feeling well and I told her I would drop off some cookies and say congratulations on getting married, and oh, I don’t know, maybe be a good neighbor.

ME: But during the All-Star game?

MY WIFE: They live right next door. It will take all of two minutes.

(Two minutes later when we are still walking through our complex)

ME: You said they live right next door. We have already passed 20 “next” doors.

MY WIFE: They live at the other end of the complex.

ME: You said they live “next door”! The other end is like a mile away! We should have taken the car.

MY WIFE: We are not going to drive the car to another building within our own complex. Besides, the walk is good for us.

ME: I will walk with you anytime, just not during the All-Star game! You said it would only take two minutes so I didn’t record it or pause it. I just better not miss anything.

(Two minutes later when we are still walking and my cell phone is blowing up after the National League has taken a 3-1 lead on a dramatic bases loaded triple)

ME: UGGGGGGGH!!! WHERE ARE WE GOING???

(Two minutes later when we FINALLY get to their front door)

ME: Can you promise that you will just hand them the cookies so we can go?

MY WIFE: Of course, this is not going to take long. She’s not feeling well anyway.

(The husband answers and invites us in)

ME: Oh, we were just dropping off the cookies, we really don’t want to bother you.

MY WIFE: Well, we don’t want to be rude!

(She walks in)

ME: Unbelievable.

The next 10 minutes were spent talking about their wedding, my Wife asking the other wife about planning a kitchen accessories party, and the other wife showing my Wife some of their wedding presents while me and the other guy stood there in the inevitable husband silence.

It was in that moment that I realized that my Wife is a genius criminal mastermind. She knew all along how far away their house was, she knew that it was going to take longer than two minutes and she still somehow got me to go with her.

I may have been kicking and screaming the whole time, but she still got me to go with her.

Her real brilliance is that she is smart enough not to fight with me because she knows that’s what I want. If I can get someone bickering with me, I know that I can eventually wear them down. But somehow she maintains a positive demeanor throughout and doesn’t show any vulnerability to my attacks.

Do I really not get to her? That’s what I can’t figure out. Or is she just sweeping it under the rug for now and one day it’s going to explode in the form of her tell-all memoirs titled, “That Guy Was Such a Pain in My Face”.

I honestly can’t tell yet but I’m enjoying the process of getting to know someone better as we navigate through this existence together.

Even though she’s already got me pegged.

Follow Josh on Twitter @Just_Being_Josh

One big, not-always happy family.

Lisa Cholodenko‘s The Kids Are All Right has been widely hailed as an important, absorbing and entertaining work. I mention the positive buzz — complete with a fawning Charlie Rose love-in that lasted nearly an hour — not to cavil and carp, but to clue you in. Lots of substantial voices rank Cholondenko’s movie as one of the year’s best.

I wish I could add mine to the rising chorus of acclaim, but I found the movie to be only mildly amusing, a work that lacks the richness that we expect from movies that approach any sort of greatness. If I had to classify Cholendenko’s movie, I’d call it a reasonably typical indie effort built around a subject that deserves more attention, long-term gay relationships and the establishment of new kinds of families.

The movie focuses on a lesbian relationship in which each of the partners has had a child thanks to sperm from the same donor. When the movie opens, the kids are mired in adolescence, and one of them — a 15-year-old boy — decides that he’d like to meet his biological father. The other, an 18-year-old girl who’s college bound, goes along with her brother’s wishes.

The idea of exploring what might happen if a man suddenly emerged as an important figure in the lives of these kids is intriguing, but the resultant film doesn’t live up to the promise, perhaps because it’s a little too content to swim in the mainstream. Cholendko’s humor isn’t overly broad, but it’s not full of subtlety or resonance, either.

I wish the movie had been more about the kids than the adults. I say this because the performances by Mia Wasikowska, familiar from The Lovely Bones, and Josh Hutcherson, who has less prominent big-screen exposure, perfectly capture the anger and confusion of adolescents who are on the brink of leaving home. Both Hutcherson’s Laser (I’m not kidding about the name) and Wasikowska’s Joan seem to have adopted patronizing but entirely credible attitudes toward their parents. When the women — whom they call “the moms” — tell the story of how they met for the gazillionth time, the kids react with eye-rolling disapproval.

The two main adult roles are played by Annette Bening and Julianne Moore. Bening’s Nic, a physician by trade, is the alpha partner in a 20-year relationship that’s lost some of its spark. Moore’s Jules has focused on raising the kids, and is just beginning to think about returning to a career as a landscape designer, a task made more difficult by her lack of self-esteem.

Mark Ruffalo does some of his best work yet, as Paul, the sperm donor who suddenly finds himself involved in the lives of Nic, Jules and their two kids. Paul runs a restaurant that specializes in locally grown food; he’s casually self-absorbed, which is more than you can say for either Jules or Nic; their self-asbsorption is pretty intense.

But here’s the thing: Paul is an appealing and amusing character until the movie tries to turn the tables on him as the result of a plot twist that can’t be revealed here. For the record, I didn’t find that twist entirely credible.

Some critics have commented that The Kids Are All Right makes an important and timely point: Gay and straight marriages aren’t all that different. Same problems. Same annoyances. Same possibilities for betrayal. Same opportunities for forgiveness. Fair enough, and Choldenko wisely refrains from pushing any agenda.

The movie’s major lesbian sex scene is played for laughs, which — or so it seems to me — lets mainstream audiences off the hook. I’m not arguing for explicit sex, and I wouldn’t even mention any of this if the movie didn’t include heterosexual sex scenes that are more explicit, although they, too, have comic intentions.

So I leave it to you. Know that the positive reviews outweigh the negative and make your own judgments. I’ll hang back here with the less enthusiastic crowd, continuing to wait for a movie that had a little more to say about a subject that deserves its own movie, hopefully more than one.

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For 27 years, Bob was the film critic at The Rocky Mountain News, a Denver daily that has now vanished from the publishing scene. The paper's only round of buyouts made it possible for him to do something he's been wanting to do for some time: seek out new challenges. Since leaving the News, he's made a short film (with a partner), and have done some teaching. Of course, he still love movies and writing about them. So hang out, browse around and feel free to chime in, as well.
Visit Robert Denerstein's Denerstein Unleashed

Jean Seberg and Jean-Paul Belmondo in Breathless.

Jean Seburg and Jean-Paul Belmondo made cinema history in Breathless, the 1960 film that’s associated with the early days of the French New Wave. Directed by Jean-Luc Godard, Breathless remains a must-see for every would-be cinephile. If you’ve seen Breathless only on DVD, you now have a chance to catch it on the big screen with a 50th anniversary edition that opens in Denver Friday (July 16). A beautifully restored 35 mm print is reason enough to become reacquainted with Breathless, which the late Pauline Kael called “a witty, romantic, innovative chase picture.” The calendar for the Mayan — where the picture plays for a week — quotes Martin Scorsese thusly, “As fresh and startling as it was 50 years ago.” For once, a quote you can take to the bank. Without Breathless, so much about the subsequent evolution of cinema would have been impossible. So revisit a time when directors and audiences were seized by movie madness, and cinema seemed to be reinventing itself before our eyes.

More Entertainment News from Denerstein Unleashed

For 27 years, Bob was the film critic at The Rocky Mountain News, a Denver daily that has now vanished from the publishing scene. The paper's only round of buyouts made it possible for him to do something he's been wanting to do for some time: seek out new challenges. Since leaving the News, he's made a short film (with a partner), and have done some teaching. Of course, he still love movies and writing about them. So hang out, browse around and feel free to chime in, as well.
Visit Robert Denerstein's Denerstein Unleashed

Preceding the concert was a reception that included many dignitaries and persons of note. University of Denver Chancellor Robert Coombe was the host of the concert, and the esteemed guests included the former president of Argentina, Fernando de la Rúa, Amb. Adam Blackwell from the Organization of American States, and Jim Polsfut, president of the Americas Roundtable, Biennial of the Americas.

You must understand that the Youth Orchestra of the Americas is comprised of 24 members between the ages of 18 and 30 and they represent some of the finest young musicians in this hemisphere from nineteen different nations. The auditions for this string orchestra are rigorous, and it seems to me that virtually every member of the orchestra could easily be a soloist. And by the way, one of the members of this orchestra is DU’s own Sarah Johnson. This orchestra brought with them two conductors, Felipe Humberto Hidalgo Harris of Chile, and Eddy Marcano of Venezuela.

Harris’ career as a conductor began with the founding of the Youth Orchestra of Santiago (1996). In 1998 he conducted the Symphonic Bows and Youth Orchestras of Falcon in Venezuela. In 2000 he was appointed resident conductor of the Philharmonic Orchestra of the Fifth Region. He has created numerous children’s orchestras in various parts of Chile. He is director of the Metropolitan Student  Orchestra (OSEM) which is a major Symphony Orchestra of the Foundation for Youth and Children Orchestras of Chile. He has led in the OSEM orchestra since 2003. He has also toured with the National Youth Chamber Orchestra to Cuba.

As a violinist, he was the first concertmaster of the National Youth Symphony Orchestra of Chile since its inception, concertmaster of the Chamber Orchestra of the Teatro Municipal, and Principal Second Violin with the Philharmonic Orchestra at Carnegie Melon (Pittsburgh). Hidalgo has performed as soloist with various orchestras and groups throughout Chile (Concepción Symphony, Orchestra USACH, and UC Chamber Orchestra among others). He was also one of the founders the Ensemble Quidrivium, and has conducted and performed numerous premieres of contemporary Chilean, Latin American, and American works, such as the South American premiere of George Crumb’s Black Angels. He has recorded five CDs of Chilean contemporary music.

Eddy Marcano is one of the great violinists and conductors of Venezuela and is recognized as one of the leading exponents of the instrument throughout Latin America. As an orchestra member, he is first violinist of the renowned Simón Bolívar Symphony  Orchestra, a position for which he has received the highest decorations. As a soloist, he has performed with leading orchestras in Venezuela and around the world, receiving the highest accolades. He has participated in national and international festivals throughout Latin America and in Germany, Spain, the United States and England.

Marcano  is professor of violin at the Simon Bolivar Conservatory of Music and the Emil Friedman School. He also served as President of the Nueva Esparta Symphony Orchestra Foundation and director of the Junior Orchestra af the Mantalban Academic Center. He has been engaged by UNESCO and the Organization of American States (OAS) in establishing youth and infant orchestras in Honduras, Mexico, Uruguay, Paraguay and Guatemala, for which orchestras he has also served as conductor and violin professor. He is a member of the UNESCO Music of Venezuela Council.

The program opened with a work by Philip Glass, entitled “Company.” Glass is an American composer – he was born in 1937 – and is considered one of the most influential composers of this century. He is known as a minimalist composer who uses music with repetitive structures, but recently, he has been avoiding that particular label. This work, “Company”, certainly fills the description minimalist. It is a brief work which has driving rhythms and a sense of urgency, even though the first movement is relatively slow. The second movement ends rather suddenly leading to a flowing third movement. The final movement is fast, and recalls many of the ideas of the previous movements, but it also ends rather suddenly. This is a difficult work and it was immediately apparent that this is, in spite of its youth, a very professional orchestra. Their playing is exciting, very precise while being extremely passionate. Glass arranged this work for string quartet. This is the first time I have heard the string orchestra version and I think that I prefer it, especially when it is performed with such remarkable musicianship.

Following the Glass, the YOA performed the Sinfonia Nr. 5 by the great Mexican composer, Carlos Chávez (1899-1978). Chávez had a very wide range of abilities; he was a conductor, a composer, pianist, a musical scholar of great ability, and the executive director of the National Bureau of Fine Arts. His first published compositions come from his early twenties, and if one looks hard enough, one can still find some of his songs in print, which have always reminded me of Henri Duparc. His fifth symphony is a neoclassical work that contains some very imaginative writing in its elaboration of themes and instrumental technique. In the first movement, the themes are very closely related, in fact they seem almost like different rhythmic variations of the same theme. There are groups of 16th notes that seem to unify the entire structure. It is very different from the second movement which seems almost improvisational and ends very quietly. The third movement contains some contrapuntal rising which makes it very easy to assign the label “neoclassical.” This is also a very difficult piece and the Maestro Eddy Marcano seemed more comfortable in this work than he did in the Glass. His conducting was very expressive and also very expansive. The orchestra had absolutely no problem with the difficult rhythms and dynamics that changed with great suddenness. It was also obvious that the orchestra enjoyed playing this piece, as well as being a member of a group that was able to perform well in public.

At the beginning of this performance it was announced there would be some changes in the program. However, the addition was announced so quickly that I simply did not catch it, so my apologies must go to those who performed and those who read this article. The piece that they did perform displayed the amazing ability of the concertmaster and the principal cellist. Both had remarkable technique and remarkable tone production. The work was conducted by Felipe Hidalgo, and it was very interesting to have such a fine orchestra conducted by two fine conductors. At the outset, it seemed one could classify Maestro Hidalgo’s conducting as a little more emotional than Marcano’s, but I must say that both conductors received what they asked for in the way of emotion and musicianship. And, again, the orchestra played with noticeable enthusiasm as they had for Maestro Marcano.

Hidalgo also conducted the next work on the program, “Sikuris Atacameño,” by Carlos Zamora, who was in the audience. Zamora was born in Chile in 1968 and is a conductor, as well as a fine composer who has written concertos, opera, chamber works and orchestral pieces. This work, and it may seem a strange thing to say in a review, was simply beautiful, however, there is no other way to describe it. A sikuri is a folk dance, and the Atacama is a region of high desert close to the Andes. This was conducted with great sensitivity and the audience responded with great enthusiasm in greeting not only the performance, but the composer as well. This was another 20th century composition that, like all the rest on this program, was tonal centered. It is interesting that so many South American composers seem to be returning to a tonal center. It seems to me that they far outnumber American composers in that respect, even though I can think of one American composer, albeit born in Argentina, who writes with a tonal center, and that is Luis Gonzalez. An argument can certainly be made that there are many composers all around the world who have returned to tonal centered compositions, but, as noted, that direction seems to have been spearheaded in South America.

Next on the program came Muerte del Angel by Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992). Piazzolla was influenced a great deal by jazz, particularly the Gerry Mulligan octet. But it was his composition teacher, Nadia Boulanger, who convinced him to return to his roots and concentrate on the tango. La Muerte del Angel belongs to an after-the-fact cycle of five Angel pieces that use the duple meter that is quite syncopated called a “milonga” and is generally thought to be the predecessor to the tango. This work, written for solo violin and string orchestra, was performed by Eddy Marcano, and is a fugue that uses tango rhythms. It is an incredibly expressive piece. I hope that one of these days I can see the score, because it seemed to call for “scooped” pitches from the solo violin which were very reminiscent of the way Fritz Kreisler played. In any case, it added much to the ambience of the work. Marcano is an excellent violinist, and not only did the audience enjoy his playing, but it was clear that the members of the orchestra did, as well.

The YOA next performed the “Fuga con Pajarillo” from the Suite for Strings by Aldemaro Romero (1928-2007). Romero, like Piazzolla, was influenced by jazz, and this composition is a compilation of flavors – jazz and Baroque. The parajillo is a dance in triple meter, and waltz like, but the accent must be placed on the second beat rather than the first. The fugue can best be described as riveting and exciting. This was so well done, that as an encore, the orchestra repeated it. It was clear that both Marcano and the orchestra enjoyed performing the work, and the audience certainly enjoyed hearing it twice. It was absolutely spellbinding.

Deservedly, the Youth Orchestra of America received a standing ovation, and it was interesting that after the applause subsided, and the members of the orchestra were leaving the stage, spontaneous applause broke out again from the audience and everybody on stage acknowledged it. In the face of such wildly extravagant comments that serious music is dying – and there are those in Denver who say that it is – it is refreshing to see young people so very talented and working so hard. This is a fine orchestra and the musicians in it worked very hard. I also hasten to point out that nearly every state in the United States has a youth orchestra that is just as good. So where do the rumors of the death of serious music come from? My strong suspicion is that it comes from individuals who do not know or appreciate serious music and therefore dismiss it out of hand. And since when did ignorance become a point of view?

OpusColorado

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Robin McNeil lives with his wife in Littleton where he teaches piano privately and continues to do research on the French composer Théodore Gouvy and the Medieval Mass. McNeil is an honorary member of the Institut Théodore Gouvy of Hombourg-Haut, France; president of the Piano Arts Association; and a member of the Henry Bradshaw Society (for the preservation and publication of rare liturgical documents).
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Gru works hard at dreaming up new pathways to evil.

Despicable Me doesn’t quite have the courage of its nastiest convictions, but at times, it comes admirably close. This often funny and nicely executed helping of animation (available in 3D at many locations) mixes action, character and humor in an appealingly silly way. The story focuses on two villains, each of whom wants the title of world’s baddest bad guy. Gru (Steve Carell) — the former top-ranked villain — is being challenged by Vector (Jason Segel), a youthful newcomer. The plot contrives to have Gru adopt three orphans so that they can penetrate Vector’s lair under the guise of selling cookies. The girls are cute and funny, and although the movie ultimately yields to its sentimental impulses, much of it (quite happily) employs humor with a slightly dark edge. Additional characters abound: Julie Andrews, for example, gives voice to Gru’s mom, a sour puss who has spent a lifetime belittling her ambitious son. The backdrops are cleverly conceived and brightly drawn under the guidance of directors Chris Renaud and Pierre Coffin, and Despicable Me turns out to be a pleasant seasonal surprise, an animated movie that’s just different enough to make it feel fresh. (I saw the movie in restful 2D and was happy to forgo 3D pleasures so that I could concentrate on the characters and the story.)

LOTS OF EXCITEMENT, NOT QUITE ENOUGH SMARTS

Predators makes no mystery of how its aliens look.
Director Nimrod Antal (Armored and Kontroll) assumes directing chores in Predators, a mid-summer helping of alien-planet grit. With Robert Rodriguez backing him up as producer, Antal — who has a demonstrated flair for unpretentious action and B-movie tough talk — adds a variety of special effects to the expected butt-kickings and mangled flesh. The story: A group of earthly miscreants finds itself facing off against aliens on a jungle planet where the humans are prey. Led by Adrien Brody, who proves he can play tough, the cast includes support from Alice Braga, Topher Grace, Danny Trejo and others. Forget character development: These are types. We’re talking a doctor, a drug runner, a Yakuza gangster, a rapist and more. The jungle settings on this distant planet are convincingly created, and Antal wastes no time leaping into action, eventually making room for Laurence Fishburne in a small role. Antal displays little interest in background, opting instead to deal with what it’s like to wake up in the middle of a nightmarish situation and have no other goal but escape. The movie’s pulp dialog is nothing special, but Antal keeps things moving as his group of misanthropic earthlings tries to work together to fight aliens who are capable of appearing out of nowhere. More fun at the outset than the end, Predators has some liabilities: The creature design — reptilian with hints of anthropomorphism — is not the most imaginative, some of the action is confusingly presented and the movie tends to be hampered by a lack of smarts at crucial points. Call Predators a better-than-average B-movie; a touch more inspiration have turned it into a bona fide down-and-dirty delight. And by the way, after being dropped into an alien world, our heroes don’t hesitate to open fire at anything that moves. Somehow, though, they never run out of ammunition. Hmmm.*

*Won’t replace Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 1987 Predator, which was a far better “B.”.

More Entertainment News from Denerstein Unleashed

For 27 years, Bob was the film critic at The Rocky Mountain News, a Denver daily that has now vanished from the publishing scene. The paper's only round of buyouts made it possible for him to do something he's been wanting to do for some time: seek out new challenges. Since leaving the News, he's made a short film (with a partner), and have done some teaching. Of course, he still love movies and writing about them. So hang out, browse around and feel free to chime in, as well.
Visit Robert Denerstein's Denerstein Unleashed