“Synecdoche, New York” Magnificent Failure
Nov 27th
Magnificent Failure
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK was written and directed by the extremely “different” Charlie Kaufman, and so you know you are in for something, well, “different” if you see this three-hour film.
Kaufman, of course, previously wrote the 1999 BEING JOHN MALKOVICH, the 2002 ADAPTATION, and the 2004 ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND, to give you an idea of what you are in for: quirky, more quirky, and quirkiness to the max.
First of all, the title is a play on Schenectady, New York, where the story opens, but then it gets serious, because “synecdoche” is a figure of speech by which a part is put for the whole, the whole is put for a part, and so on in the dictionary definition until you come to “or the name of the material for the thing made (as ‘boards’ for ‘stage’).”
I can imagine that Kaufman read this definition once and came up with the idea for the film, because it is about one man’s attempt to put his whole life into a stage play. Wink wink. Nudge nudge. Know what I mean? Get it?
Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Caden Cotard, whose first name means “warrior” and whose last name signifies the psychological disorder whose sufferers imagine themselves to be dead. Get it?
In case you don’t, at one point he says, “It’s a play about death. Birth. Life. Family. It’s about everything.”
Caden is a small-town theater director with quirky ideas of his own.
When
the film opens, he is directing a production of DEATH OF A SALESMAN, a play about one man’s failure at the end of his life, and Caden casts young people to play Willy Loman and everyone else.
Then Caden wins the MacArthur Award “genius” grant, which gives him enough money he can do anything he wants with, and he starts working on his play “about everything.”
Meanwhile, his wife leaves him and takes their daughter to Berlin with her.
Caden is always having accidents, seeing doctors, and going to the hospital, and there are many funerals he attends.
He gets involved with other women, one of whom owns a house that is always burning–literally.
Years pass, he hires actors to play the actors playing himself and other people in his life. The End.
SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK shows that a magnificent failure is still a failure.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
Milk – Movie Trailer
Nov 26th
Academy Award winner Sean Penn takes the title role in Gus Van Sant’s biopic tracing the last eight years in the life of Harvey Milk, the ill-fated politician and gay activist whose life changed history, and whose courage still inspires people. When Milk was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977, he made history for being the first openly gay man in American history to be voted into public office. But the rights of homosexuals weren’t Milk’s primary concern, as tellingly evidenced by the wide array of political coalitions he formed over the course of his tragically brief career. He fought for everyone from union workers to senior citizens, a true hero of human rights who possessed nothing but compassion for his fellow man. The story begins in New York City, where a 40-year-old Milk ponders what steps he can take to make his life more meaningful. Eventually, Milk makes the decision to relocate to the West Coast, where he and his lover, Scott Smith (James Franco), found a small business in the heart of a working-class neighborhood. Empowered by his love for the Castro neighborhood and the success of his business, Castro Camera, Milk somewhat unexpectedly begins to emerge as an outspoken agent for change. With a growing support system that includes both Scott and a like-minded young activist named Cleve Jones (Emile Hirsch), the charismatic Milk decides to take a fateful leap into politics, eventually developing a reputation as a leader who isn’t afraid to follow up his words with actions. In short order, he is elected supervisor for the newly zoned District 5, though this seeming triumph is in fact the catalyst for a tragedy that starts to unfold as Milk does his best to forge a political partnership with Dan White (Josh Brolin), another newly elected supervisor. Over time it becomes apparent that Milk and White’s political agendas are directly at odds, a revelation that puts their personal destinies on a catastrophic collision course.
Four Christmases – Movie Trailer
Nov 25th
A crafty couple run the Christmas Day gauntlet by racing to visit their divorced parents’ four separate households in this Vince Vaughn/Reese Witherspoon comedy that proves the holidays are no time for relaxing. Brad (Vaughn) and Kate (Witherspoon) have made something of an art form out of avoiding their families during the holidays, but this year their foolproof plan is about go bust — big time. Stuck at the city airport after all departing flights are canceled, the couple is embarrassed to see their ruse exposed to the world by an overzealous television reporter. Now, Brad and Kate are left with precious little choice other than to swallow their pride and suffer the rounds. Along the way, they perform in a church nativity play at the behest of Kate’s mother’s (Mary Steenburgen) pushy pastor Phil (Dwight Yoakam), contend with Brad’s gruff father, Howard (Robert Duvall), and bullying brothers, Dallas (Jon Favreau) and Denver (Tim McGraw) — a pair of trained UFC fighters — and pay a visit to Brad’s spacy, New Age mother, Paula (Sissy Spacek), who recently made waves in the family circle by marrying her son’s childhood friend.
