When my friends expressed an interest in seeing “United 93” I said, “No way!” I agreed with my cousin, Shirley, that the movies are the place to go to enjoy, to escape the real world and your own troubles. However, frequently my second reactions are more valid than my initial ones. I finally agreed to see the emotion-wringing film.As soon as the movie started, a queasiness took over. There are days in our lives we will never forget. On 9/11, I was rehearsing the Bayonne Senior Orchestra at the Office on Aging when the office staff came running in to tell us about the tragic events. All those emotions – shock, horror, grief – returned witnessing “United 93.”
It’s a factual recounting – a riveting, emotion-wringing film. It is exceptional moviemaking, totally absorbing, despite an absence of great dialogue, great acting, stars, laughs, charm. I was captured by the tension that builds through to the inevitable, and impressed by the skillful reserve used to craft this hard and still raw story.
The documentary-like “United 93” recounts the dreadful day without injecting notes of false heroism. The movie is a pure tribute to the victims and their surviving family and friends. “United 93” is tough to sit through – I kept hoping for a different ending – but it definitely isn’t time wasted.
My initial reaction was to think that since HBO had more than a few winners it was trying to add another to its roster. Actually, “Big Love” is about just another suburban dad. What makes Bill Henrickson (Bill Paxton) different is that he rotates among three wives and seven children in separate but contiguous households around a single swimming pool (which really should be fenced).
This dramatic series about middle-class polygamists takes place in the Salt Lake City suburbs. It opened with a disclaimer that the Mormon Church “officially banned the practice of polygamy in 1890.” However, in Utah, many still follow “the principle.” What is “the principle”? It’s what the early church leaders called the taking of multiple wives.
This fictional series is kind if closed and creepy. The husband (the “good polygamist”) enjoys the plural-wife sex as he bounces (and he can still bounce?) from one house to the next one and on to the third. Whew! The oldest of these wives is the one he lusts after unequally. She is the most intelligent and knows how to keep the neighbors from suspecting her of polygamy. Wife No. 2 is the most glamorous, neurotic, conniving and exasperating. She’s a shopaholic with a daddy problem (and daddy is the “bad polygamist”). Wife No. 3 is the youngest and most hysterical, a baby with babies of her own.
Actually, in “Big Love” there is all the domestic drama involved in any marriage except it’s times three. Surprisingly, it’s not thrilling. It’s more soapy than salacious.
By the time I got through “Anglo Mania” I needed a nap. It was exhausting. I felt as if I had entered a bizarre Halloween costume party – too garish, too inclusive, too lavish, too crowded, too annoying, too much of everything. Picture this: 65 mannequins crammed into the Met’s English Period rooms – plus sound effects.
There’s a series of theatrical tableaux. In each room there’s mix of tradition and transgression. One room devoted to the hunt is filled – and I do mean filled – with life-size fiberglass horses and dogs. Traditional riding garb is exaggerated with droopy coats and breeches and ridiculously elongated shoes.
One display includes an evening dress once worn by the Duke of Windsor. Oh, and the extravagant evening gowns: billowing garments dizzying with hoops, bustles, crinoline, lace, tulle, silk.
If you’ve been to the Costume Institute in the Met, you’ll recall that it is usually in the basement. Not this exhibition. “Anglo Mania” is upstairs. It focuses on British fashion from 1976 to 2006, a period of astounding creativity and experimentation. I was told that the exhibition was set in the Met’s English Period rooms to create a potent dialogue between the past and the present.
The full title of the offering at the museum is “Anglo Mania: Tradition and Transgression in British Fashion.” Transgression indeed: lavish, helter-skelter, noisy, confusing, hurried. However, if you have a craze for all things English, put on your sneakers, go rested and perhaps you’ll enjoy it.
As for Betty Woodman, the artist who makes exuberantly painted clay vessels, she’ll have to wait. Her vases are in the Museum of Modern Art, and the Met’s retrospective will be on view through July 30. If I get there you’ll read about it.
First of all, it was playing in only one movie house in all of New York City. It took some sleuthing to find the place. When we questioned passersby no one knew where it was. Finally we came upon Cinema Village, 22 E. 12th Street. It’s the kind of small screen movie house I went to as a kid.
As for “Nathalie,” I had mixed reactions. I think it’s for a very mature audience. It’s about adult sexual life. Don’t get me wrong. There are no nude or sex scenes. The cast included Fanny Ardant, Emmanuelle Béart and Gerard Depardieu. The three make up the romantic triangle.
My friend thought it was a typical French film: attractively furnished homes, inviting restaurants and cafés and unshockable, moral views. The story itself was hard to believe: A wife hires an upper-level hooker to have an affair with her husband and to report back, which Nathalie does in flagrant detail. The three principals smoke heavily throughout the story without giving a second thought to the risk (am I too realistic?!). The two females are beautiful, but what is Gerard Depardieu doing as the supposedly handsome (!) male lead?
That aside, I thought I was seeing pornography. My friend, who is more sophisticated, saw it as a subtle criticism of pornography. Guess it’s all in the eyes of the beholder.
June can be reached at intunejune@optonline.net