DVD Clip: Whit Stillman

“Our generation is the worst since the Protestant Reformation” - Chris Eigeman, right, admonishes Edward Clements in Whit Stillman’s delightful comic-drama, “Metropolitan.”

The sort-of yuppie version of Wes Anderson, Whit Stillman has made just three pictures: “Metropolitan” (1990), “Barcelona” (1994) and “The Last Days of Disco” (1998), which, until it was re-released by Criterion yesterday, was out of print and available on DVD for upwards of $300. With my copy due to arrive in the mail any day, I will spend the next few days talking about Stillman and each movie in his trilogy, starting with “Metropolitan,” about a group of Manhattan rich kids, Upper East Siders experiencing their own fin de siecle, the traditional deb season and its balls, gowns, tuxedos, after-parties and smart conversation.

Movie Review: District 9

“District 9” is no shrimpy alien flick, it’s just a little tasteless.

by Wayne Melton

“District 9” opens with what can only be called an otherworldly pairing. There’s a giant alien spacecraft, hovering in midair over a teeming Johannesburg, South Africa like a sooty, upside-down mountain. And there’s Wikus Van De Merwe (Sharlto Copley), an entirely unprepossessing petty official hovering in front of the camera, describing what the thing is, what it’s doing there, and why an idiot like him is sort of in charge of it.

Other talking heads chime in during a quickly-edited montage, filmed in the mode of a television news special, a style stretched to the breaking point by the movie. But Wikus, rather surprisingly, turns out to be as central to the story as the aliens that issued from the bowels of the spacecraft: a sorry lot of bug-like creatures derogatorily called prawns — after the krill-like appearance of their snouts and carapaces.

I felt two things as a result of this setup, an emotional conflict that lasted throughout the movie. The first was intense curiosity at the intriguing sci-fi concept — what prawn really amounted to once they were properly investigated — and the other was impatience. This is how humanity handles its first close encounter? Like Barney Fife making an arrest? Wikus is our representative?

Movie Review: Adam

Personality Crisis

“Adam” looks at neurological disorder through a pleasant love story.
by Wayne Melton

In the spectrum of movies about people with behavioral disorders, “Adam,” about a young man (Hugh Dancy) with a type of high-functioning autism, is on the glamorized, entertainment-oriented end, kind of like an indie “Rain Man.”

Adam (Dancy) suffers from Asperger syndrome, which makes it difficult for him to modulate his behavior or understand the subtle behavior of others. He’s also intense about science, especially astronomy (people with AS tend to focus on specialized interests), but not so much that he doesn’t notice the fetching young Beth (Rose Byrne) when he bumps into his new neighbor in their apartment building’s laundry room.

As they get to know each other, Adam immediately explains what’s different about himself — partly because he can’t help it and partly because he doesn’t want to scare her off. Best to go ahead and blurt out why he blurts things out and be done with it.

Movie Review: O’Horten

Global Warning

“O’Horten” demonstrates the dangers of cultural comedy exchange.
by Wayne Melton

When it comes to movies, most genres cross borders relatively unscathed. But as societies, are we supposed to watch each other’s comedies?

The question nagged me during a recent viewing of “O’Horten,” a Norwegian film about the misadventures of a locomotive engineer, Odd Horten (Baard Owe), created by a guy named Bent Hamer. Is it a coincidence that both names would seem so, well, odd, to English-speaking ears? I can’t say for sure, except that this is a movie about odd coincidences. Horten can’t seem to turn a corner without running into trouble.

DVD Clip: Random Harvest

With “The Time Traveler’s Wife” looming on my theater-going horizon, I happened to feel like watching the mother of all outlandish romances, “Random Harvest,” Mervyn LeRoy’s 1942 weepy starring Ronald Coleman as a WWI vet suffering from amnesia and Greer Garson as the woman who loves him.

As a favorite professor of mine always likes to point out, amnesia only seems to happen to people in the movies. In “Random Harvest,” Coleman’s character escapes from an asylum in Liverpool not knowing who he is or how he got there, falling into the rescuing arms of Greer Garson’s Paula, a stage performer whose dancehall number in a kilt with Scottish brogue is the only truly regrettable part of the picture.

Paula dubs Coleman’s character Smithy, for John Smith, the name given him when he can’t remember his own. They fall in love, have a baby, and Smithy decides to interview for a job at a newspaper in Liverpool, where he’s injured by an automobile. I’ll leave the rest a mystery in case of anyone reading this who hasn’t seen it, my last comments on the story being that the only thing better than amnesia is reverse amnesia, and the only thing better than reverse amnesia is reverse-reverse amnesia.

DVD Clip: Some Came Running

I’ve seen Vincente Minnelli’s CinemaScope production “Some Came Running” (1958) before, not too many years ago in fact, but was surprised to find that besides the plot I’d mostly forgotten all the interesting little details that make it so enjoyable, a lapse not the fault of this wonderfully written and directed film.

Based on a novel by James Jones (“From Here to Eternity”), the movie stars Frank Sinatra as Dave Hirsh, a writer who returns to his hometown of Parkman, Indiana after an acrimonious 16 year absence. His return is a testament to how drunk he was when his army buddies put him on the bus, but Dave feels as long as he’s there he should stick it to his older brother, Frank (Arthur Kennedy) and tear up the town with newly acquired drinking and gambling buddy Bama (Dean Martin). In tow is a “floozy” he picked up along the way, Ginny (Shirley MacLaine), and an unfinished novel he eventually turns over to Gwen (Martha Hyer) a local high school English teacher, in a bid to woo her.

Movie Review: Julie & Julia

Easily Digestible

“Julie & Julia” whips up two well-known food lovers.

by Wayne Melton

“Julie & Julia” opens with famed cook Julia Child (Meryl Streep), but its heart is with its other protagonist, sort-of-famous foodie Julie Powell (Amy Adams), who took on every recipe in Child’s seminal book, “Mastering the Art of French Cooking,” while blogging about the experience.

In adapting the book the real Powell wrote about her impressive year (“Julie & Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen”) director Nora Ephron (“Sleepless in Seattle,” “You’ve Got Mail”), decided to knead in Child’s story. Her tale of transformation by the sights, smells and especially tastes of Paris, taken from her late-life memoir, “My Life in France,” is a sort of companion to Julie’s endeavor. There’s an inherent novelty factor about the film — two true stories for the price of one! — but it soon gives way to a less-agreeable reality: two intrepid women, who succeeded in reinventing themselves, both given rather ordinary presentation, with inconsistent ingredients.

DVD Clip: The Fallen Idol

“It’s a great life if you don’t weaken.”

The first time I saw Carol Reed’s “The Fallen Idol” (1948) was a few years ago at a theater in Los Angeles, which was probably showing a new print in conjunction with the release of the Criterion Collection edition, which I just picked up at a local used DVD store. What I most remembered when I thought of the movie was the point of view of the little kid, Phil (Bobby Henrey), through railings and half open windows and doors, looking out at the world from various perches in the great old house he lives in that also serves as headquarters for his ambassador-father. The film contains much of the same visual power as Reed’s “The Third Man,” but with a different purpose. Here we get to see the stately buildings and cobblestones streets of a European city, along with the maneuvers of a handful of adults, through the eyes of a child.

Movie Review: Funny People

Funny Ha-Ha?

“Funny People” puts comedians on the hook but lets them go.

by Wayne Melton

As Joe Pesci might ask, does the title mean the people are funny ha-ha, or just funny?

The answer is both, to a degree. Judd Apatow’s “Funny People,” his third comic-drama after “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” and “Knocked Up,” shows his sentimental streak growing wider, but it’s also his most meaningful examination of comedy and the people who make it, with characters both funny ha-ha and funny as in interestingly human, at least for a portion of its far too long 146 minutes.

DVD Clip: Hard Eight

“It’s just a rule with me, OK? I don’t use matches.”

It’s a good day when “Hard Eight” arrives in your mailbox. The movie is a reminder of the reason I first started to seek out obscure films on my own, a brief excursion into a charming and intriguing world — here, petty grifter-gamblers and their realm of late-night kino parlors and craps tables, an enjoyable sketch of figures the movie makes both realistic and enigmatic.

“Hard Eight” tells the story of a mysterious “old-timer” (Philip Baker Hall) who takes a down-and-out young man (John C. Reilly) under his wing when he finds him crumpled by the door of a Nevada diner, and shows him how to make a living grifting at casinos. Years later the two are best friends, still at their shady but carefree lifestyle when their friendship is threatened by the foolishness of a part-time prostitute (Gwyneth Paltrow) and a small-time operator (Samuel L. Jackson).