My DVDs: Drama

Robert Altman says that the setup of 3 Women came to him in a dream. This makes perfect sense as you watch the film which proceeds from the first frame in a very strange, dreamlike fashion.
Shelly Duvall and Sissy Spacek were, apparently, part of Altman's dream the night the film took shape and both of them are excellent. Duvall is funny and sad as the girl who is always saying how many people are interested in her when, as we see, almost nobody is. Spacek plays her innocent adrift once more. She's still brilliant at it and, crucially, still looks young enough to pull it off. Spacek takes the acting honours though with a third act twist that completely alters her character making her, at a stroke, more sexual and otherwise more adult. This could have undone the film had Alman not had an actress as capable as Spacek of carrying off the sudden shift.
At just over two hours it is a bit long and the third woman of the title (Janice Rule) is largely superfluous but when it focuses in on Spacek and Duvall this is Altman at his best.

A fine, slow paced, drama from Paul Schrader. It has fine central performances from Nick Nolte, James Coburn and, enlivening what could be a dull part, Sissy Spacek. Most of the support is solid as well, bar Holmes Osborne, whose accent is comically dreadful. The ending seems rushed, which is a shame given how good the unhurried bulk of the film is but it's well worth seeing, if only for Coburn and Nolte impressing as father and son.

I knew Almost Famous was special when I saw the theatrical release. I fell in love with both the movie and the music (this film was the catalyst for an ever expanding album collection) and I bought the dvd the second it came out in the US. Then six months later I bought the Bootleg cut dvd including Untitled, Cameron Crowe's director's cut of the film.
43 minutes longer than the original version the extensions aren't just the regular 'unrated dvd' style few extra frames of breasts or couple of extra F bombs. There are, of course, whole new scenes, plot points given far greater clarity but what really adds to the film are the small, subtle, extensions to almost every existing scene.
What remains constant in both versions is the quality of both Cameron Crowe's script and the performances.
The script is based on Crowe's own experiences as a 15 year old Rolling Stone journalist and apparently many of the events of the film are drawn directly from tours with bands like The Allman Brothers and Led Zeppelin.
It has that easy mix of funny and touching (often within a single line) which Crowe first really mastered on Say Anything and though, for obvious reasons, it feels like an incredibly personal film it also has wide appeal.
Patrick Fugit must have been a bit scared. A lead role in is first film, playing a version of his director. He pulls it off wonderfully with a performance of initially wide-eyed wonder which becomes shaded as the film goes on.
As much as I love Sarah Polley, who Crowe so wanted he thought of not making the film when he couldn't get her, I couldn't imagine anyone but Kate Hudson as Penny Lane. The character is one of Crowe's best; an amalgam of several 'band aids' he knew at the time and Hudson's bright, breezy, utterly charming performance should have just about any red blooded man in the audience falling head over heels for Penny.
All Cowe's films have benefitted from his interest in music, he uses it better than just about any other director and Untitled is packed with tunes. Led Zeppelin, famously unwilling to let their music be used for films, gave Crowe almost every track he wanted (except Stairway to Heaven) but it's Elton John's Tiny Dancer, with the whole cast singing along, which proves a cathartic moment in the film and one of the most memorable musical moments in cinema.
The other musical element is the band; Stillwater (THIS band may be fictional but there was a band called Stillwater about this time, i keep seeing their records around and meaning to pick one up, just to find out what they soundlike). The actors play their own instruments and do their own singing and the songs by Crowe and his wife Nancy Wilson (of the band Heart) work well, sounding like they could have stepped out of 1973 when the film is set.
There's so much quality to talk about; Jason Lee and Billy Crudup as Stillwater's singer and guitarist,Frances McDormand, hillarious as Crowe's mother and Phillip Seymour Hoffman's great little turn as Lester Bangs among them that I'd here all day if i went into detail.
As director Crowe has grown from his previous films which often seemed like filmed renditions of a screenplay rather than a complete visual piece. Here he's got many a memorable shot (Penny dancing to 'The Wind' after a show, Penny running through William's fingers as he flies home) and seems far more confident as a director than before.
Almost Famous was a great film. Untitled is one of the greats.

Made as the Hays code crumbled Anatomy of a Murder was controversial for its language, words like rape and panties were heard for the first time because they were essential to the plot.
The plot revolves around lawyer Paul Biegler (Stewart) defending Lt. Frederick Manion (Gazzara) against the charge of murder having shot a man he believes raped his wife (Remick). Beigler's defence strategy is to suggest that Manion was temporarily insane, under an 'irresistible impulse' to shoot his victim.
I like courtroom dramas and this is the pinnacle of the genre. That's down to a few things, first amongst them being the source. Anatomy of a Murder was based on the novel of the same name by Robert Traver, a pseudonym because Traver was in fact a serving justice in the US courts. It's this that gives both novel and film their ring of truth. It never allows the procedural detail to get in the way of the story but provides enough to keep you from getting lost.
James Stewart is the great everyman of American cinema and he takes us through the story with his familliar drawl and easy charisma, but to say that's all he does would be to take away from what is a magnificent performance, particularly when he gets a chance to get truly animated in the courtroom scenes. Even when he's not talking it's a pleasure to watch Stewart as you can always see Biegler's cogs turning as he listens to other characters.
Ben Gazzara makes an early mark as Manion managing to keep us guessing as to just how in control of himself he really was when comitting his crime. It's often a chilling performance and Gazarra is exceptional.
Even better is Lee Remick as Manion's wife, for somebody who'd only seen her in The Omen before her performance here is simply a revelation and, like Gazarra she walks a fine line with her character between the audience thinking she may just be scheming and that she's simply a victim and plays both sides expertly.
Director Otto Preminge also extracts fine performances from George C Scott as the state prosecutor and Joseph N Welch as a fair minded judge.
At close to three hours Anatomy of a Murder could easily have dragged but the case is riveting, the characters interesting and the performances stunning which means that the running time simply flies by.

Torturously poor, but pretty amusing with it.

Eddie Adams (Wahlberg) is discovered by porn director Jack Horner (Reynolds) while working in a night club. Jack puts Eddie, now renamed Dirk Diggler, and his "talent" on the top of the porn industry. But when the 80s arrive, Dirk and his colleagues; who include high-school dropout "Rollergirl" (Graham), experienced pornstar and "mother to all those who need her" Amber Waves (Moore) and black, country music loving, cowboy Buck Swope (Don Cheadle), in the porn industry have to cope with a new era, as well as the baggage they bring with them from the 70s.
Though it was not, as many think, Paul Thomas Anderson's debut film (that's the underseen, and rather good, Hard Eight) Boogie Nights is still a film that heralded the arrival of the most promising young American director (26 when he shot Boogie Nights) since Quentin Tarantino. It wasn't massive at the box office, most people discovered it on video, but it netted three academy award nominations, including a first nod (as Best Supporting Actress) for Julianne Moore.
The story of Boogie Nights is a familiar rise and fall one, the difference being that this time it is set in the thriving porn industry in California in the 70's and 80's. When the film begins porn was in its heyday, with stars like John Holmes and films like Deep Throat crossing over to the mainstream. We don't really see that side of things, the people Boogie Nights introduces us to are lower down the ladder, at least until Eddie makes an impression.
It is to Paul Thomas Anderson's credit that, even with such a huge cast, he gives each of the characters proper attention and a complex, compelling personality. This is perhaps best shown in his writing of Julianne Moore's character "Amber Waves" (I use quotation marks because that is her professional name, her real name is Maggie). She's a truly complex individual; on the one hand a prolific pornstar, hopelessly addicted to cocaine, on the other a devoted mother, both to her estranged son and to the extended family she works with. It is the motherly side of Amber that provides Moore her best moments in the film; a genuinely upsetting moment when she stands alone crying after losing the right to see her son, and telling "Rollergirl" that she will be her mother as they both do vast amounts of coke.
Moore is wonderful in the part, it remains her best performance (Though Far From Heaven comes close). You never feel that you are watching an actor giving a performance, just a person living her life.
The rest of the cast excel as well. Mark Wahlberg is better than he's been before or since, hitting all the right notes as Eddie, particularly in the first half of the movie as his star rises in the industry. John C Reilly is a gifted character actor (and actually looks a little like real pornstar Ron Jeremy) and puts in a funny turn as Dirks second banana "Reed Rothchild". The characters that Dirk and Reed play in their films, apparently parodies of John Holmes films, are screamingly funny and a real highlight, along with the documentary Amber makes about Dirk, of the first half of the film.
Heather Graham is hardly renowned for her range or even her acting ability but as "Rollergirl" she impresses. The rest of the ensemble cast are, without exception, brilliant. I think Paul Thomas Anderson may be the best actors director working today.
Boogie Nights is far more fun in its first half, after Eddie leaves the porn industry the film takes on a different tone, becoming incredibly dark as we enter the 1980's, fortunately it never stops being entertaining and some stunning set pieces (not least Alfred Molina's turn as the unhinged Rahad Jackson) come up in the latter half of the film.
I've made much of how good Anderson's script but he is not a Kevin Smith type figure; a writer who happens to direct his own work. Anderson is, potentially, the greatest technical and stylistic American director since Martin Scorsese. This is chiefly shown by two early shots. The first shot in the film is a two and a half minute steadicam tour of a disco that introduces us to all the main character, this is an impressive way for Anderson to start his film but he tops himself fast with a brilliant shot at a pool party which goes round the pool, into the water and back out again.
Some have denigrated Boogie Nights simply for its subject matter but the film is deceptive, its really more about family than it is pornography and to see it just as a film about porn is to do it a great disservice. I would urge anyone over 18 to discover this complex, brilliant piece of cinema (and PLEASE do so in its proper widescreen version, Anderson is a great visualist and this movie loses a vast amount in the pan and scan process) and Anderson's even better follow up; Magnolia.

The best film of 2005 by some considerable distance was this tremendous German telling of the story of the last week of Hitler's life.
The direction of Oliver Hirschbiegel is outstanding placing us in the claustrophobic atmosphere of Hitler's bunker while occasionally taking us up to the frontline of the battle for Berlin in some authentic feeling sequences. However it's the performances you'll remember. Bruno Ganz is now surely the definitive screen Hitler his portrayl going in seconds from oddly sympathetic to the ranting lunatic we expect Hitler to be. Every performance is stunning but it's Corrinna Harfouch as the loathsome Magda Goebbels who provides the film its true monster in an utterly shocking scene where she poisons six of her seven children.

Isa (Bouchez) is a stranger in Lille on her first day at a new job she meets Marie (Regnier) and, having nowhere else to go, ends up staying in the flat Marie is looking after while it's owner, a car crash victim, lies in a coma.
They form a close friendship which becomes strained when Isa begins visiting the teenager in whose room she lives in hospital and Marie begins a relationship with Chriss (Colin) which becomes, for her, an obsession.
That sounds like a lot of plot there. It's not. In fact The Dreamlife of Angels is that rare beast, a truly character and dialogue driven film. Essentially it just asks us to watch people live their lives.
The key is the performances and it's a joy to report that they are absolutely fantastic. Regnier and Bouchez shared the best actress prize at Cannes '98 and it was thoruoghly deserved. Bouchez has the less showy role and she brings to life an impressively shaded character who reveals more layers on each viewing and never really provides answers to some key questions you might have about her (for example we see Marie in two relationships while Isa never strikes one up, does she want more than friendship from Marie?) It's a quietly impressive piece of acting. By contrast Regnier is allowed to let herself off the leash more, particularly in the last act of the film. Regnier's performance is a tour de force from the shy, but explosive, character of the beginning to the heartbreakingly damaged girl at the end of the film she always feels completely natural, you'd have to look very hard indeed to catch her acting at all.
Gregorie Colin also impresses as the irredeemable git Regnier develops an obsession with.
Debuting director Erick Zonca, who also wrote the film, uses a spare, almost documentary, shooting style. Only the romantic scenes between Colin and Regnier are truly cinematic but this style works perfectly for the gritty down to earth story he is telling.
The Dreamlife of Angels is an exceptional film which deserves a much bigger audience than it gets. See it if only for two of the finest pieces of acting you'll ever see.