Salon.com > Brian Libby

Scene stealer

Thu, 24 Mar 2005 21:00:00 +0000

Chiwetel Ejiofor had his first role in 1997's "Amistad," but his true breakout came five years later in "Dirty Pretty Things," when he starred alongside Audrey Tautou, fresh from her breakout in 2001's "Amélie." Director Stephen Frears ("High Fidelity," "Dangerous Liaisons") reportedly resisted pressure to consider better-known American actors in favor of the then little-known Ejiofor.

The actor's profile has risen steadily ever since; he was part of the ensemble cast in 2003's "Love Actually," followed last year with a role in Spike Lee's "She Hate Me," and this year in Woody Allen's latest, "Melinda and Melinda," where he has the largest role ever for a black actor in an Allen film. Though the film has received mixed reviews, he has not. As Stephanie Zacharek wrote in Salon last week, "The only actor who escapes unscathed is Chiwetel Ejiofor ... Ejiofor, whose face radiates intelligent guilelessness, makes us believe in him wholeheartedly."

Zombies, smack addicts and Starbucks

Wed, 02 Mar 2005 20:15:00 +0000

British director Danny Boyle first burst onto the scene with the acclaimed Hitchcockian thriller "Shallow Grave" in 1994, and quickly followed it up with a bona fide pop culture phenomenon, "Trainspotting." Then, Boyle promptly lost his way.

His next two films, "A Life Less Ordinary" and "The Beach," boasted bigger stars (Cameron Diaz, Leonardo DiCaprio) and fizzled with critics and ticket buyers alike. When he countered with the biggest hit of his career, the thrilling and intelligent zombie picture "28 Days Later," he had returned to an earlier formula of a lean budget, a cast of largely unknowns and an unapologetically grim story line.

That success has perhaps put Boyle, 48, more at ease, and in control, of his career. His new film, "Millions" (opening wide March 11), is about two young suburban British boys who find a bag of money on the eve of Britain's conversion to the euro -- meaning the money has to be spent right away. The plot might sound familiar, but Boyle turns it into a visually stunning film full of fantasy and dream sequences that question everything from material culture to the existence of God.

Are you talking to me — again??

Fri, 28 Jan 2005 21:01:00 +0000

Dear Mr. Scorsese,

On behalf of millions of film geeks and movie buffs who know all too well that the defining characteristic of the Academy Awards is their injustice, let me begin by saying that all of us Marty maniacs have our fingers crossed that this will finally be the year your movie wins the Oscar for best picture.

Is "The Aviator" your best film? No way. By my admittedly biased count, somewhere between four and 10 of your previous works are arguably superior. This movie is also not the kind of gritty, personal filmmaking associated with you in the past. Instead, it seems to represent a subtle shift in your career that some trace to Michael Ovitz signing on as your agent some years back: toward larger-scale, more often mainstream Hollywood fare. People don't say "fuck" nearly as much, and that's a shame. And watching "The Aviator," one also doesn't get the usual sense one associates with your films -- that nobody else could have conceivably done it.

“I’m still in shock”

Thu, 29 Jan 2004 21:00:00 +0000

Each year, the Academy Award nominations bring at least a few surprises: Maybe a certain superstar actor or actress doesn't get the nomination everybody expected, or a previously unheralded writer or director sneaks into the pool of nominees. But this year in particular a crop of truly fresh-faced contenders from foreign and independent cinema have gained entrance to Hollywood's premier bash. And some of the most interesting names gracing the Oscar ballot are ones most moviegoers don't even know at all.

Keisha Castle-Hughes of the art-house favorite "Whale Rider," for example, is at 13 the youngest best-actress nominee ever. And Castle-Hughes is joined in her category by Shohreh Aghdashloo, the heretofore all but unknown actress in "House of Sand and Fog," as well as by Patricia Clarkson, whose role in "Pieces of April" comes after she starred in seemingly every film to be entered last year at Sundance.

The Coppola clan’s best director?

Tue, 23 Sep 2003 20:00:00 +0000

When Sofia Coppola's directorial debut, "The Virgin Suicides," wowed critics and audiences in 2000, there was an unspoken sense of surprise. Before then, her only public involvement in film had been a much-maligned supporting role in her father's 1991 film "The Godfather Part III."

Now Francis Ford Coppola's daughter has bucked expectations again. The dreaded sophomore slump has been avoided with her acclaimed "Lost in Translation." For starters, the picture does the wonderful service of creating a great role for Bill Murray, allowing the actor to blend his genius for absurdist improvisation with an underrated, untapped ability as a serious lead, seen only in the disappointing "Razor's Edge" and for fleeting moments in two fantastic Wes Anderson pictures, "Rushmore" and "The Royal Tenenbaums." More than that, though, "Lost in Translation" shows a filmmaker of exceptional control, able to fuse the simple acts of photography and writing in a subtle and elusive manner. How many movies can you say resemble the poetic, contemplative work of Japan's midcentury master Yasujiro Ozu one moment and an irreverent Harold Ramis comedy the next?

A Python in the desert

Wed, 21 May 2003 20:00:00 +0000

The last time we saw Michael Palin in the African desert, he was nailed to a cross -- in a movie, that is: "Monty Python's Life of Brian." Some 24 years after crooning "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" while crucified alongside fellow Pythons John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Graham Chapman on a location shoot in Tunisia, Palin has returned to Africa for his latest in what's now a long line of televised travel series and books: "Sahara."

Although on previous journeys Palin has circumnavigated ("Around the World in 80 Days") and bisected ("Pole to Pole") the globe, ventured round the Pacific Rim ("Full Circle"), and retraced the multi-continental whereabouts of his favorite writer ("Hemingway Adventure"), "Michael Palin's Travels: Sahara" is in some ways his most ambitious effort yet. (The series airs on Bravo through June 1 -- check local listings -- and will soon be available on DVD. The accompanying book was published last month by St. Martin's Press.) After all, this is the most unforgiving natural environment on earth, and the journey comes at a time when Westerners (especially Britons and Americans) are not very popular in the Islamic world. And yet Palin still has time to cheerfully barter for yellow slippers in Morocco, watch a sheep sacrifice in Mali, play a marbles-like game using camel droppings in Mauritania, survey ancient Roman ruins in Libya, and trek for weeks without even a road to follow.

“Star Wars”

Tue, 28 May 2002 19:00:00 +0000

It's not often that our perception of a classic movie becomes transformed two decades after it was first released. Although today's film reissues often include new footage -- either to atone for studio hack jobs, like Orson Welles' "Touch of Evil," or indulge bloated director's cuts, like Francis Ford Coppola's "Apocalypse Now Redux" -- something altogether different has happened to George Lucas' original "Star Wars." And I'm not talking about the "Special Edition" released in 1996.

The movie's extensive back story, existing solely in our imagination for the first 22 years after its release (the revelation that Luke's father was once a gifted Jedi Knight, for example, or that the fascistic Empire was once a democratic republic) now has been packaged into cinema's biggest prequels. Now watching aged Ben Kenobi talk to Luke about his days as a young Jedi in "Star Wars" we flash in our minds to Ewan McGregor's young Obi-Wan dueling Darth Maul in "The Phantom Menace." When Princess Leia talks of her mother on the doomed planet Alderaan, we picture Natalie Portman's Padmi Amidala. And Darth Vader is no longer just the mysteriously evil half-man half-machine of the original trilogy, but flesh-and-blood young Anakin Skywalker of Episodes I-III. It's impossible to watch these characters in the same way.

Cesar Pelli

Wed, 01 May 2002 19:00:00 +0000

For the last seven months we've been living in an era born from the destruction of buildings; in a way, few professions have been more profoundly affected by Sept. 11 than that of the people who design buildings for a living. Few architects, in turn, have felt a more personal connection to the disasters in New York and Washington than Cesar Pelli.

Pelli designed the World Financial Center complex in downtown Manhattan, a collection of foothills intended to soften and humanize the monolithic World Trade Center nearby. The four buildings, nearly 15 years old now, make up what critics have called the best urban space created in New York since Rockefeller Center. Now that the Trade Center is gone, the World Financial Center faces a future in a way Pelli never intended: on its own.

And there are other buildings for Pelli to keep an eye on: Completed just four years ago, his Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, are now the world's tallest -- a title once held by the World Trade Center. He downplays any threats to their safety.

Masterpiece: “2001: A Space Odyssey”

Tue, 05 Mar 2002 20:00:00 +0000

"In the first year of the 21st century, there is strange and wondrous beauty, startling experiences that jolt and mystify, and the danger of complete obliteration." -- Original "2001" trailer

The painter Georges Braque once wrote that art is meant to disturb, while science reassures. When Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" arrived in April 1968, both fear and hope were in ample supply.

A few days before the film's premiere, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, and President Lyndon Johnson, burdened by the ongoing quagmire of Vietnam, had just announced he would not seek reelection. Robert Kennedy's assassination was just two months away, with the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia to follow. Youth across the world were burning bras and buildings.

At the same time, President Kennedy's dream of American astronauts reaching the moon was within our grasp. As Kubrick and co-screenwriter Arthur C. Clarke understood, excitement over the pending 1969 moon landing, and over space exploration in general, gave us license to consider a greater purpose and more enlightened future for humankind, even as the world seemed to be crashing down -- perhaps especially then.

Charlotte Rampling

Thu, 24 Jan 2002 20:00:00 +0000

When Academy Award nominations are announced in February, a familiar crop is expected to contend for the best actress prize: Judi Dench, Nicole Kidman, Sissy Spacek. Oscars rarely go to actors in foreign-language films (Roberto Benigni notwithstanding), but let's not forget Charlotte Rampling. Recently Entertainment Weekly made its case for her as a dark-horse Oscar candidate for the French film "Under the Sand," and deservedly so: Rampling's performance as a grieving widow who descends into madness is the culmination of a brilliant career spent mining the darker realms of the human psyche.

More beautiful than ever at 56, Rampling is also an exception to the standard fate of middle-aged actresses, who often go from headlining roles to the bottom of Hollywood's food chain before you can say "sexual double standard." For every Marlene Dietrich or Susan Sarandon who beats those odds, there are countless Norma Desmond types who fade away.

So why has Rampling endured? Her characters are bewitching and elusive, capable of great affection but always on their own terms. And no matter how icy they get, somehow they always leave you wanting more. "I always wanted to be your trampoline," the British rock band Kinky Machine sings in their song "Charlotte Rampling."

Michael Romano

Tue, 18 Dec 2001 20:00:00 +0000

It's a weekday afternoon just after the lunchtime rush at Union Square Café, and chef Michael Romano has settled down in his office to talk when his intercom buzzes. "There's seven women at Table 31 who saw you on the 'Today' show and would probably squeal if you came out to say hello," a voice from the dining room says. "They're a little old for you, but that's life."

"All right, I'll be right out," Romano answers, returning to our conversation with an embarrassed chuckle. "You see? That's the best part of the job." Romano has his poker face on: Arguably the best chef in New York, he's a relatively quiet guy who would rather be in the kitchen making your dinner than out in the dining room shaking your hand. But he knows the importance of happy customers -- on Sept. 11 he devoted himself to them -- and he's not entirely unwilling to soak up a little adulation from the occasional tourist. "I do prefer the cooking over the socializing," he says, "but those people are so full of enthusiasm it makes it fun."

David Lynch

Tue, 06 Nov 2001 20:00:00 +0000

There is a car wash on La Brea Avenue in Los Angeles not far from David Lynch's home in the Hollywood Hills. Its marquee is supposed to read "God Bless America," but the 'B' has fallen off. The message that's left -- "God Less America" -- is an accordingly odd mixture of eerie and comical. In other words, it makes for a perfect Lynchian moment.

Forget Oscars and Golden Globes, thumbs up and four stars: The greatest accolade for any filmmaker is immortality through the common adjective. There is no finer tribute to Alfred Hitchcock, for example, than the acceptance of "Hitchcockian" as a term denoting unease, suspense and intrigue. Likewise, "Felliniesque" elicits visions of chaotic, colorful, circuslike surroundings, and "Bergmanesque" can only mean oppressive melancholy and the absence of God.

But the list essentially stops there, save for the one contemporary filmmaker to conceive an entire world so unquestionably his own that you can only call it by name. "Lynchian" has seeped into our consciousness as a bizarre intersection of the macabre and the mundane, once described by novelist David Foster Wallace this way:

Bono

Tue, 02 Oct 2001 19:47:00 +0000

In June, Bono of U2 delivered the commencement address to graduating students at Harvard. Before sharing his thoughts about AIDS, Africa and Third World debt, the legendary singer began with an Alcoholics Anonymous-style confession: "My name is Bono, and I am a rock star."

At 41, Bono is at an age when many rock musicians start exploiting bygone successes to keep feeding at the trough of fame. But with Bono, it's more than a rock 'n' roll career. Behind the black leather togs and wraparound shades, there has always been an earnest social crusader. Embarrassingly earnest? Perhaps. But, oddly, that's part of his charm. In a business where people sell their souls for success, he has constantly risked celebrity-cause cliché -- and he knows it. "The only thing worse than a rock star," he told the starry-eyed Harvard grads, "is a rock star with a conscience. I've seen great minds and prolific imaginations disappear up their own ass, strung out on their own self-importance. I'm one of them."

Samuel Mockbee

Thu, 09 Aug 2001 19:00:00 +0000

In the last century of American homebuilding, there may no other time when architects were so irrelevant. Less than 10 percent of single-family residences are designed by architects now, and most of the rest come from mass-produced blueprints that make entire neighborhoods identical. The small percentage of homes architects actually do design go overwhelmingly to the wealthy. And while many charities such as Habitat for Humanity address low-income housing needs, the notion that poor people could ever inhabit unique pieces of architecture anymore is almost laughable.

Somebody forgot to tell this to Samuel Mockbee.

Born in Mississippi and educated in Alabama, Mockbee has spent much of his life surrounded by the extreme poverty of the Deep South. Driven to change this endless cycle, Mockbee and his partner Coleman Cocker designed a series of "charity houses" for low-income families. This was early in Mockbee's career, and the project won a 1987 Progressive Architecture Honor award. But the homes were never built. The funding simply didn't exist, and Mockbee vowed not to let this happen again.