Film review: "Almost Famous"

“Almost Famous” opens a world so often forgotten while reading feature-length articles in Spin and Rolling Stone—the writer’s journey of getting the story. A collection of memories from director Cameron Crowe, the film tells the story of a young high school writer slated to write a story for Rolling Stone.

Set through the eyes of a 15-year-old surrounded by sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, the film illustrates a world shaking off the dust of the ’60s hippie revolution, yet still in a juxtaposition of profligacy and wholesomeness. A kid with a cover story assignment is bound to get lost in the mix.

Enter William Miller (Patrick Fugit), a fictional portrayal of Crowe. William, raised in a household that condemned Simon and Garfunkel yet embraced free thinking, leans on his family throughout childhood—his virtuous, coddling mother, Elaine (Francis McDormand) for moral guidance, and his insurgent sister Anita (Zooey Deschanel), for “being cool.” It’s easy to understand William’s motives for rebellion and his behavior of do-goodedness. With the Rolling Stone assignment, William is hurled into a world of compromised values and walks the tightrope of being friends and doing the right thing, all while writing an article that could make or break the people who are his family for two weeks.

Conflicting elements William encounters throughout the movie, when they aren’t of himself, are embodied by his protective mother, Elaine, and Russell (Billy Crudup), the self-proclaimed “guitarist with mystique.” His morals are especially shaken when “band-aide” (e.g. groupie) Penny Lane (Kate Hudson) is shuffled through the bands and her feelings for guitarist Russell Hammond (Billy Crudup) are valued as much as last night’s condoms.

Though Hudson’s character is a germane poster child of early ’70s rock star lifestyle, her predicaments and general charisma distract from the real story, which is William’s constant battles between pleasure and due diligence. There’s no doubt Crowe encountered and befriended groupies during his experiences, but the illusion of Penny is as stymieing as her contradicting tenet to never get hurt as a band aide.

Without Ms. Hudson, the film shows a facet of journalism often overlooked—where writers hang out backstage, get little—if any—sleep, hang out with rock stars and their ring of other celebrities, are offered drugs and sex. At the end of the day, they’re still working on deadline. Crowe evenly shows the glam side of rock journalism and the rough side of retelling secrets that stay on the road and in trashed hotel rooms, and the human conflict of getting along with sources and telling an unbiased, engrossing story.

Album review: "The Age of Adz"

For all his sonic landscape genius, Sufjan Stevens might as well be the smart kid in high school everyone loves to hate, and in turn hates to love. He’s mastered folk, multiple classical instruments, and has a feather-light voice known for emitting smart, heartfelt lyrics. But after lying low for five years, he’s probably lost his edge and could be beaten by such folk acts as Beirut and The Decemberists.

He’s known for pursuing projects that, when described on paper, sound like terrible ideas (read: “Illinois”), but ends up salvaging the disaster of folk and electronic dynamics into a gem. It probably sounds like crap, doesn’t it?

But Stevens makes it work. The sound is new, wise and edgy, and he’s taken folk psychedelia into new realms that ooze electronica. “The Age of Adz” blends Stevens’ signature sound of classical instruments and ethereal vocals with the latest taste in synth boops and beeps. This is the equivalent of Stevens joining the basketball team and pissing everyone off when he’s automatically made team captain because of his mad skillz.

“Futile Devices” opens the album in classic Sufjan candor: gentle whisper-singing, harp plucks, harmonic voice layering and ambling guitar. The second track, “Too Much,” catches seasoned fans off guard with the first two minutes containing synth drips and distorted explosions. By the bridge, Stevens gels both dynamics, including the drips and distortion with a string section and fluttering woodwinds.

It continues for almost 75 minutes.

While it’s a grand effort and great to hear this experiment of yin and yang packaged and polished, it seems like as Stevens progresses in his musical growth, so does his arrogance. Therein lies the frustration with this artist. Yes, his music is brilliant, but he believes “Impossible Soul” is so great it’s worth publishing the original cut—a whopping 25-minute long track to conclude the album.

Regardless, “Adz” is a far more personal record than its predecessors, and with his bolder words and how he delivers them, he’s bound to fall victim to his own ego. The lyrics follow a theme of maturity and reflection, as evident on songs such as “I Walked” and “Now That I’m Older.” But, it’s not to say Stevens doesn’t have fun with his newfound musicality (“Get Real Get Right,” “Age of Adz”), or doesn’t return to old-school poetic prose, such as in “Vesuvius.” Stevens breaks out of his soft singing, such as when yelling “I’m not fucking around” as “I Want to Be Well” bleeds into “Impossible Soul,” and briefly auto-tunes his voice during the closing opus, bound to make modern rappers blush.

Though Stevens may not have mastered psychedelic pop, like bands such as Yeasayer have, he’s certainly a force to be reckoned with. Though “The Age of Adz” is a reminder of how annoying Stevens can be with his talents, it’s proof he continues to pioneer unsought territories and set up camp in the most unpromising of environments, only to mine gold.

Film review: "Coffee and Cigarettes"

Two guesses what the film “Coffee and Cigarettes” is about. Coffee? Check. Cigarettes? Definitely. But, like many films whose titles reference mundane ideas, this film is more than caffeine and cancer sticks. Jim Jarmusch captures the art of the conversation in “Coffee and Cigarettes,” a collection of diner banter vignettes. The scenes’ characters, a barrage of celebrities and rock stars, discuss a series of things—trivial or serious—including family trees (“Cousins?”), Elvis (“Twins”) and science (“Jack Shows Meg His Tesla Coil”), but almost always looking at the encompassing theme of the guilty-pleasure combination.

Intending to show the universal appreciation of coffee and cigarettes, the film jumps from Memphis to “somewhere in California.” The concept seems too lame and flimsy to carry on for more than an hour and a half, but Jarmusch’s expansion of shorts from the late ’80s thrives on slack conversations and fluid acting.

“Coffee and Cigarettes” finds its players in posh cafes and grubby restaurants and captures interactions the characters have with each other and those who are not at the table, ergo those who are unwelcome in the action. Such is the case as the server in “Renée,” whose faults include filling Renée French’s cup once she’d “gotten it to the right color and temperature” and asking about her lunch, which includes—you guessed it, coffee and cigarettes. “It’s not a very healthy lunch,” the waiter says in a failed attempt at conversation.

In an attempt to give the film an art-house touch (because awkward pauses in dialogue and a black-and-white palette weren’t obvious enough), Jarmusch adds aerial views to the scenes and tells the story and characters’ personalities from a tabletop littered with porcelain mugs, cig packs, lighters and relaxed hands against pristine or roughed-up surfaces. This is meant to be a part of the conversation and a reminder of theme, but ultimately is a voice unwelcomed by the audience, who wants in on the conversation between Jack and Meg White, not Jack and Meg White, and “annoying theme cleverly known as coffee and cigarettes.”

But, don’t allow a few above-head shots to ruin the star-studded party. The winning element is undoubtedly the characters and how their personalities are mirrored in the dialogue. The film allowed the stars and those who wouldn’t normally act explore fictional versions of themselves. Such was the case in two different scenes when musician Tom Waits and Wu-Tang Clan member Rza told their friends, Iggy Pop and Gza, respectively, they were doctors alongside their successful music careers.

Actress Cate Blanchett explored a dynamic of herself and an illusory cousin, the unconventional Shelly, in meeting at a hotel lounge in which Shelly was first denied entry for her crude garb. The disconnected Cate and Shelly don’t always see eye-to-eye on things, and not just because Shelly slouches while Cate keeps posture. It’s apparent the two had a similar upbringing but now lead different lives, as made prevalent in Shelly’s line, “It’s just...funny, don’t yah think, that when you can’t afford something it’s like really expensive but then when you can afford it it’s like, free? It’s kinda backwards, don’t yah think?”

"Some Like It Hot" review revisited

From the opening one-liners intending to set the scene (e.g., “Suppose the stock market crashes”), to bachelor Tony Curtis and funnyman Jack Lemmon donning fake breasts and pantyhose, Billy Wilder’s “Some Like It Hot” revolves around irony. After the two Chicago musicians (Curtis, Lemmon) witness what appears to be the St. Valentine’s Day massacre, they flee to Florida disguised as well-studied female sax and bass players with a blonde, all-girl jazz band.

The nugget that seals the deal for this film isn’t Marilyn Monroe’s predictably intoxicating presence or the underlying love story the grows between Curtis’ character, Joe and Monroe’s character, Sugar “Kane” Kowaczyck—it’s how deliciously oblivious everyone except the audience is toward the guys’ protruding adam’s apples and broad shoulders.

There are plenty times Curtis and Lemmon—rather, “Josephine” and “Daphne”—have their slipups and are almost given away. Monroe unintentionally turns Lemmon on in the train car by rubbing his legs, and Curtis almost forgets to remove his costume earrings when racing to meet Monroe at the dock after the night’s show. And sure, there’s the part when love-struck millionaire Osgood Fielding III can’t figure out why Lemmon—er, “Daphne”—keeps taking the lead while dancing. Even then, both remain undetected by Fielding, the mob too focused on finding those two musician witnesses and bandleader, Sweet Sue, who is all too happy two female musicians showed up at the eleventh hour. What remains a treat for the audience are the transvestite connotations over airy comments that suggest polarization of the sexes, including jokes that represent conflicting gender roles obvious to the characters, which get played off by trivial laughter.

“Some Like It Hot” challenges the audience to keep up with such jokes in introducing the very fake character, Junior, who, created by Curtis’ character, Joe, and given a Cary Grant-like voice at Curtis’ behest, is a second-generation heir to the Shell gas company. Though the focus of the show is on trysts Monroe has with Junior—who miraculously embodies what she wants in a man, Lemmon steals the show with a gait all too girly and a voice hitting his higher registers—all a theatrical attempt to appear feminine. As the boisterous Daphne, Lemmon’s character Jerry channels his giddy paranoia of the mob through incessant giggling, suggestive jokes and perpetual thwarting Joe’s plan to lure Monroe as the nerdy, fictitious Junior.

While the men-on-the-run-dressed-as-women shtick of “Some Like It Hot” would work in today’s society as a B-movie plot, this film was witty and edgy for 1959. It captures the spirit of the Prohibition Era, gives a hat tip to the exiting touch of black and white in a world that was turning to color and a touch of gender-bending connotations risqué in both time periods.

Review of choice: Some Like It Hot

Before birth control and hot off the heels of the Red Scare, the late ’50s was a bizarre time to put out such a film as “Some Like It Hot,” which raises the stakes through cross-dressing and gender-bending exploration in a late ’20s setting. Yet, this film and its jokes are deliciously ironic in the ’20s Zeitgeist (e.g., “Suppose the stock market crashes,” “Suppose the Dodgers leave Brooklyn”).

Considered one of the best comedy films of all time, and deservedly so, Billy Wilder’s “Some Like It Hot” spits jokes of all types and delivers wicked humor in a prohibition-era setting; starring the late Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe, and recently deceased Tony Curtis. The Curtis is the reckless chauvinist, Joe, with Lemmon as his timid wingman, Jerry. After the two Chicago musicians witness what appears to be the St. Valentine’s Day massacre, they flee to Florida disguised as well-studied female sax and bass players with a blonde, all-girls jazz band.

Though the focus of the show is Joe’s trysts with Sugar “Kane” Kowaczyck while disguised as a phony heir to Shell Oil, Lemmon steals the show under the fake breasts and ill-fitted wig. As the boisterous Daphne, Lemmon’s character Jerry channels his giddy paranoia through incessant giggling, suggestive jokes and constantly calling his friend out on his intentions with Sugar while Joe flip-flops between aliases Josephine, the aloof saxophonist, and Junior, the unlovable, nerdy Shell heir. To hide is masculine qualities and get a laugh from the audience, Lemmon constantly prances around the Florida resort with a gait all too girly and voice hitting his higher registers—not to mention the affair “Daphne” has with millionaire, Osgood Fielding III.

Certain aesthetic aspects of “Some Like It Hot” fall behind in accurately portraying 1929, particularly in women’s hair and makeup. For example, Monroe’s hair is the same in this flick as in “The Seven Year Itch,” which was released in 1955 and set in present day New York City. And, the makeup of the blondes in Sweet Sue’s Society Syncopators are oddly juxtaposed to Lemmon’s and Curtis’; when under pseudonyms Daphne and Josephine, the latter adheres to jazz age minimal-but-bold style while the former conforms to ’50s vogue.

Regardless, this film captures the wit of the ’20s and gives a hat tip to noir film with a black and white touch, while Hollywood was turning to color for high budget films.