Frost/Nixon (2008) Review

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(More customer reviews)"Frost/Nixon is a riveting historical drama, based on the play by Peter Morgan. Morgan wrote the movie's screenplay, as well as screenplays for "The Queen," and "The Last King of Scotland." The controversial 1977 Frost/Nixon interviews are dramatized here, and Frank Langella's superb performance as the disgraced former president, Richard M. Nixon, is worth the price of a movie rental alone.
Richard Nixon resigned from the office of the presidency on August 9, 1974, rather than face impeachment by Congress for his role in the Watergate scandal, and subsequent events. He was the only US president ever to do so. The film shows real footage of the Nixon family, leaving the White House and boarding a helicopter - the first step in a journey which will take Mr. Nixon into exile.
David Frost, (Michael Sheen), a British celebrity talk show host, watches this event on television and decides that an interview with Nixon would be just the thing to relaunch his waning career. He pursues the project for some time and winds up financing it out of his own pocket, while searching desperately for backers. Creepy literary agent Irving "Swifty" Lazar, (Toby Jones), negotiates the deal. Nixon agrees to do more than 20 hours of on-camera interviews with Frost, and will receive $1 million or more in fees and profits for the sessions. He is in serious debt. He has huge legal bills and back taxes to pay and needs the money. Under the terms of the contract, Nixon will have no control over content of questions or editing, and will not see any of the questions in advance. Of course, he can always refuse to answer questions, but he will have to do so in front of a huge audience.
Frost is a most incongruous choice for interviewer, as he has no journalistic experience and is known for being an entertainer and playboy. Yet he manages to upstage major TV networks with their top-notch interviewers, like Mike Wallace, Walter Cronkite, and David Brinkley, and get the gig. Nixon, after almost three years of silence, out of the public eye at his home in California, looks to the series of interviews as an opportunity to vindicate himself and resurrect his very tarnished image. He believes that Frost, a lightweight, will not ask the tough questions, and allow him to forward his own version of his time in office and Watergate.
Frost brings British John Birt, (Matthew Macfadyen), with him to California, to direct the production. They hire radical researcher James Reston, Jr., (Sam Rockwell), who wants Frost to play hardball and try Nixon in the public eye. TV producer Bob Zelnick, (Oliver Platt), signs onto the project also. Caroline Cushing, (Rebecca Hall), Frost's gorgeous girlfriend, accompanies the team. Nixon takes note of her beauty on several occasions. He rattles Frost, before the beginning of one session, by asking if "he had done any fornicating" the night before. I have never known anyone else who is capable of using such terrible language, frequently, and remain in a formal stance while doing so. However you look at him, RMN is a very formal man...he never looks relaxed - in real life or as played by Mr. Langella.
Nixon has his own team. US Marine officer Jack Brennan (Kevin Bacon), a Vietnam veteran, is Nixon's most loyal fan, and Diane Sawyer, (Kate Jennings Grant), is a consultant and assistant. Nixon tells Frost at the get-go, "I shall be your fiercest adversary. I shall come at you with everything I've got. Because the limelight can only shine on one of us."
Ultimately, forty-four million viewers turned-out to watch Richard Nixon go head-to-head with David Frost, about a third of the U.S. viewing public at the time. Director Ron Howard brings the tension and drama of this event to the screen...and then some. He focuses more on the psychological aspects of the characters rather than on the politics involved - to great effect. Howard explores each man's insecurities and the enormity of their egos. He really captures the intensity of the interview sessions, including shots of Nixon mopping perspiration from his upper lip with a handkerchief.
I was somewhat disturbed by one scene, a contrived midnight telephone call that Nixon, who had been drinking, makes to Frost. As so much of this film is accurate, or mostly accurate, the insert of a purely fictional event, is powerful but misleading. Mr. Howard took dramatic license too far in this instance.
Again, Mr. Langella's portrayal of Richard Nixon is stellar. Two monologues, in particular, stand out as exceptional. The final interview scenes, with close-ups of Mr. Nixon's/Langella's face, of his thoughtful, almost poignant expressions are phenomenal as he admits that he, "let the American people down."
This is a film which brings much depth to the event which it portrays, and to the characters involved. As a baby boomer, who clearly remembers Watergate, and the events surrounding it, I was riveted to the screen. Highly recommended.
Jana Perskie

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From Academy Award-winning director Ron Howard comes the electrifying, untold story behind one of the most unforgettable moments in history.When disgraced President Richard Nixon agreed to an interview with jet-setting television personality, David Frost, he thought he\'d found the key to saving his tarnished legacy.But, with a name to make and a reputation to overcome, Frost became one of Nixon\'s most formidable adversaries and engaged the leader in a charged battle of wits that changed the face of politics forever.Featuring brilliant portrayals by Frank Langella and Michael Sheen, Frost/Nixon is the fascinating and suspenseful story of truth, accountability, secrets and lies.

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Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008) Review

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(More customer reviews)In "Vicky Cristina Barcelona," Woody Allen begs to contradict another pundit of his age, Mick Jagger. Woody demonstrates in his latest movie that you can't EVER get what you want, and you also can't get what you need. He demonstrates this in the story of how Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Scarlett Johansson), two lovely young Americans staying in Barcelona for a few months, react to the romantic overtures of the dashing, primally sexy artist Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem). Vicky--a master's candidate in "Catalan identity," although she is not Catalan and barely speaks Catalan or even Spanish--finds that sex with Juan Antonio shakes up her previously solid feelings for her dullish American fiance, Doug (Chris Messina). Cristina--a dilettantish photographer/filmmaker who is defined by the fact that she only knows what she DOESN'T want in a relationship with a man--finds greater satisfaction with Juan Antonio, at least until Maria Elena (Penelope Cruz), Juan Antonio's volatile, insanely jealous ex-wife, shows up.
Some critics have opined that "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" is a hackneyed blast at naive Americans left at sea by European sexual sophistication. However, I think it's more a delineation of Woody's basic belief that happiness in love is transitory at best. How can you possibly hold up Juan Antonio and Maria Elena--who are constantly at each other's throats, to the point that Maria Elena brandishes knives and guns--as an example of sexual sophistication? They can't live with each other, they can't live without each other, but she may end up killing him, herself, and a few innocent bystanders. As enacted in a scintillating performance by Cruz, Maria Elena embodies the eternal irrationality of love, a blind craziness that--at least in Woody's view--stamps an irrevocable expiration date on even the tenderest, most ardent love.
Not quite a comedy but certainly not a tragedy, "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" is a rueful commentary on the constant dissatisfactions of love and life, made all the more bittersweet by the heartbreakingly beautiful scenes of Barcelona and Catalunya wrapped in golden light by photographer Javier Aguirresarobe. The film offers us multiple pleasures--not least the excellent performances--yet, in the end, it feels slight. There are too many of Woody's familiar tropes for us to take the film at face value, especially the overly familiar characters; personally, I'm tired of the gorgeous, nubile young "Woody women" who are drawn vaguely toward a career in the arts yet are completely confused about everything except their need for hot sex. And, yes, Woody, we got the point decades ago that you consider life and the Universe meaningless; why do you always have to have one character in every movie (in this case, Juan Antonio) declare that belief baldly? "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" is worth seeing, but it falls short of being one of Woody's masterpieces.

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Oscar winner Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men), Oscar nominee Penelope Cruz (Volver) and Golden Globe nominee Scarlett Johansson (The Nanny Diaries) light up the stunning city of Barcelona in this sexy romantic comedy. Vicky and Cristina are two young Americans spending a summer in Spain, who meet a charming Casanova and his beautiful but volatile ex-wife. When they all become romantically entangled, the smoldering sparks begin to fly in hilarious fashion. Critics rave, Vicky Cristina Barcelona is one of Woody Allen s finest films, with bravura performances from its incredible cast (Jeffrey Lyons, Reel Talk/NBC).

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Wide Sargasso Sea (2006) Review

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(More customer reviews)"Wide Sargasso Sea," a new television production by BBC Wales, based on the esteemed novel of the same title Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, has been broadcast in the United Kingdom, but has not been broadcast here. Nevertheless, lucky us, this sexy, tragic tale is now available for the first time for purchase on these shores. The film, as the novel on which it's based, functions as a prequel to famed British 19th century novelist Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre (Penguin Classics). And oddly enough, though "Jane Eyre" has been filmed many times, for big screen and small, this is only the second take of "Wide Sargasso Sea;" another, Australian-made version,Wide Sargasso Sea, intended for the big screen, came and went without notice in 1993, though it featured several big-name stars.
This TV version is filmed, like its predecessor, in the fantastically beautiful green island of Jamaica, and it's certainly beautiful to watch. It stars several lesser-known young performers; as the young Englishman Edward Rochester, Rafe Spall( Masterpiece Theatre: Room With a View; Shaun of the Dead,); as beautiful Creole heiress Antoinette Cosway, Rebecca Hall ( The Prestige); and as obeah woman/servant Christophine, Nina Sosanya, (Peter O'Toole's recent TV film Casanova (Masterpiece Theater)). All inhabit their roles fully, giving us a well-balanced cast. The film script follows Rhys's book in shifting the action of Bronte's from the 1810s to the 1830s, shortly after slave emancipation. It was adapted for the screen by Stephen Greenhorn; directed by award-winning Brendan Maher ("The Road from Coorain"). It tells the unhappy backstory of West Indian heiress Bertha Mason, as she was to be known in her later life, the first Mrs. Rochester; the madwoman in the attic whom Jane Eyre must defeat in order to become the second Mrs. Rochester.
Surely, in the history of Western literature, there can have been few more inspired ideas than that of Rhys's; to develop the tragic kernel at the heart of "Jane Eyre," and few writers better equipped to do it. Rhys, a twentieth century novelist, was herself born in Domenica, a British colony in the West Indies; she was the daughter of a Welsh doctor, and a third-generation Creole woman of Scottish descent. She knew the snobbish, repressive, patriarchal culture very well; and also the uneasy social position of the Creole woman - generally understood to be not necessarily entirely of white ancestry, but accepted as such for necessary social reasons. (At one point in the story, a servant calls Mason a "white cockroach," a slur that I understand was frequently directed at Rhys in her own early life.) This dichotomy, of course, creates a tension that will be very difficult for such a woman to handle, and can be seen as a major cause of Mason's madness; in addition to the fact that she fails to understand England, or the English, properly: she just cannot see that Rochester is a typical proper Englishman of his time.
Rhys, born in 1890, led a wandering, alcoholic, bohemian life all over 20th century Europe. She is widely esteemed as a feminist author these days, as are all her works, but most particularly "Sargasso," and its heartbreaking tale of a woman at sea in an alien culture. She had an affair with noted novelist Ford Madox Ford, reputedly had a threesome with him and his Australian wife, published a novel Quartet (Norton Paperback Fiction) about it all, and certainly benefited from his literary advice. She also had a relationship with omnisexual British jazz singer/author George Melly; she and his bandleader John Chilton wrote a sardonic song about it: "Living with You." Most of her books utilized modernist techniques and West Indian sensibilities, to deal with wandering penniless women, no longer as young and pretty as once they were, seeking one more generous man. As a writer, Rhys fell silent for many years mid-career, until she published "Sargasso" in 1966. The novel won the prestigious W.H. Smith Literary Award, also the Royal Society Literary Award. She said about it, "It has come too late." She was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1966, and a Commander of the British Empire in 1978, a year before her death.
Mind you, this is not to take anything away from Bronte, herself, also a deservedly feminist icon these days, as is her Jane. Both remind us that it was possible for women to snatch achievement from even the most patriarchal culture. Furthermore, Bronte may have written a great romance; but she was realist enough to recognize that it was built on the misery and misfortune of the shadowy madwoman in the attic.
We have here a great, fresh story, well-told, that was filmed alongside a new version of "Jane Eyre;" and adds a lot to it. You should see them together if you can manage (and, thank goodness, it's got subtitles).


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"Beautifully acted" -- The Independent (U.K.) As imagined by Jean Rhys, the villainous madwoman in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre becomes an innocent, born into two cultures but belonging to none. The exotic Caribbean confounds young Englishman Edward Rochester when he arrives in 1830s Jamaica to pursue his fortune. Nevertheless, he finds nothing to fear in beautiful Creole heiress Antoinette Cosway. She eagerly succumbs to his courtship, entrusting him with her dowry and her destiny. In the intoxicating surroundings of their honeymoon house, ecstatic lust turns to suspicion and betrayal as her world and his disastrously collide. In this passionate and heartbreaking love story, the shadowy character created by one brilliant novelist becomes fully realized in the hands of another. Rafe Spall (The Chatterley Affair) and Rebecca Hall (The Prestige) star in a fresh adaptation that captures all the sensuality, suspense, and nuance of Rhys’s masterpiece. DVD SPECIAL FEATURES INCLUDE biography of Jean Rhys, SDH subtitles, and cast filmographies.

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