The Invisible

Hollywood Pictures
JUSTIN CHATWIN in "The Invisible."

Eerie ‘The Invisible’ needs better lead
It’s sort of a cross between an episode of “The Twilight Zone” and the movie “The Sixth Sense.”
“The Invisible” is the story of Nick Powell, played by Justin Chatwin.
Nick goes to a particularly violent high school. But he’s smarter than most of the kids and seems to have their respect.
Also at the school is Annie Newton, played by Margartia Levieva, a psychopathic gang leader who has no trouble beating up guys in the boys restroom.
Nick has had it with school. He’s had it with his mother, played by Marcia Gay Harden. She seems cold and aloof. Nick first got that impression when his father died when he was 13 and his mother’s response was, “Don’t worry, Nick. This won’t change anything.”
When Annie has a fight with a boyfriend, he (played by Alex O’Loughlin), turns her in to the cops.
But Annie thinks a student she beat up earlier, played by Chris Marquette, turned him in.
Ah, meanwhile Nick has purchased a ticket for London, where he plans to live and write poetry. When Annie starts beating on the Marquette character, he says it was Nick who turned her in. Why not, he figures, Nick is on a plane to London and they can’t touch him.
Ah, but for plot’s sake he doesn’t get on the plane and when Annie and her gang see him, they beat him nearly to death. In fact, they think he is dead. They dump him down a storm drain.
Suddenly, Nick is on his way to school, but nobody sees him. Nobody acknowledges him. When he knocks books over, they scatter to the floor. But the next moment, they are back on a desk in the same order.
Nick thinks he’s dead, but a special scene involving a dying bird helps him realize he is alive and authorities must get to his body before he does die.
Nick follows his inconsolable mother and learns more about her. He learns Annie has lost a parent, too.
The movie is about finding Nick’s body but also about finding Annie’s soul and determining if she can be redeemed. There is something invisible about her, too.
The premise is interesting and well executed. Chatwin as Nick plays the whole thing just too subdued. He should be the most interesting character in the film and he is not.
Still, “The Invisible” is an intelligent fantasy thriller worth making visible in your home.

The Invisible • Directed by David S. Goyer • Rating: Rated PG-13 for violence, criminality, sensuality and language - all involving teens • Runtime: 97 minutes • 3 stars out of 4
This was published in the Star Beacon May 30, 2008.

Drole de Drame

LOUIS JOUVET (left) is the stern bishop who doesn't know his cousin, played by Michael Simon, is actually a dreaded mystery writer in the French farce "Drole de Drame."
Life gets crazy in ‘Drole de Drame’

“Drole de Drame” is a film where everyone jumps to conclusions, all situations are exaggerated and nobody thinks logically.
It’s all one giant cartoon.
But that’s OK. It’s still a lot of fun.
The fact the film takes place in London in 1937, but is filmed in French makes it all the more bizarre.
You’re a bit taken back when one character gets on the phone and says “Get me Scotland Yard,” but in French.
“Drole de Drame” opens with a lecture by a serious and stern bishop of Bedford, played sanctimoniously by Louis Jouvet. He preaches the evils of one Felix Chapel, an example of all that is evil.
What did this Chapel guy do? Why write mystery novels in which people are dispatched from this world in violent ways.
The bishop even makes his hapless cousin, the scholarly yet befuddled botanist, Irwin Molyneux, played by Michael Simon, an example. He stands him up and asks what should happen to this Chapel. Irwin doesn’t know, he’s a botanist.
His life centers around the study of mimosa.
Also in the audience is a mass murderer, played by Jean-Louis Barrault, who decides he must kill the despicable Mr. Chapel.
Turns out Chapel is a pen name for the learned Mr. Molyneux, who has discovered his income as a botanist isn’t enough to satisfy his status-seeking wife, played by Francoise Rosay.
To make matters worse, Irwin steals story ideas from the fetching young maid Eva, played by Nadine Vogel.
Yes, this is a convoluted plot. It will remind you a little of the Marx Brothers.
Everybody jumps to conclusions. Nobody makes any sense.
The bishop has a passion for duck in orange sauce, which is the specialty of Irwin’s cook, so he invites himself to dinner.
Meanwhile, the cook quits so wife has to prepare the dinner. Cooking is below her status so Irwin tells the bishop his wife is away visiting relatives to cover for the fact she is actually in the kitchen cooking.
The bishop, who we learn frequents dance halls and loose women, gets the idea cousin has murdered his wife.
No body, no clues, but the cartoonish police chief, who looks like Chief Wiggum of “Simpsons” fame, agrees there must be a murder.
Beside the mass murderer, we have a milkman who is head-over-heals in love with Eva, the crime-writing maid. You can tell he is in love because the entire kitchen of the Molyneux home is covered with milk bottles.
So you have Molyneux and wife as fugitives, you have the stern bishop sneaking back in Molyneux’s house (which is crawling with cops), trying to find an autographed photo he left behind of a chorus girl, not to mention the mass murderer, not to mention the love-sick milkman.
There are other bizarre characters, like the journalist who gathers information by sleeping on the Molyneux couch. There’s also the elderly aunts, one of whom keeps looking for her dog, Canada, who died five years before. (At one point the hapless Molyneux is accused of poisoning the long-gone pooch.)
This is one of the movies where when the citizenry learn there might be a murder, they stand outside with nooses in their hands, shouting at those coming and going.
For all of its confusion, the film is a lot of fun. There are many nice touches, too. The bishop has a dozen kids. They all sit uniformly at the breakfast table. When it is time to go to school, he has a clicker. The kids move in their chairs at 45-degree angles with each click until they are facing opposite the table and can get up and head for the door.
It really is funny.
The director, Marcel Carne, went on to do the romantic melodrama “Enfants du Paradis” (Children of Paradise) seven years later, described as the French “Gone With the Wind.”
At more than three hours, I found “Enfants” overly long and overly distraught. “Drole de Drame,” also known as “Drole de Drame ou L’etrange aventure de Docteur Molyneux” is a lot sillier and a lot more fun.
Drole de Drame ou Le’
etrange
Aventure
• Directed by Marcel Carne
• Runtime: 94 minutes
• Not rated, but there is brief nudity
• 3 stars out of 4
This appeared in the Star Beacon WEEKENDER May 23, 2008.

Big Hand for the Little Lady

HENRY FONDA (left) and Joanne Woodward (center) enter town with their son, played by Gerald Michenaud, in "A Big Hand for the Little Lady." The saloon keep er is played by James Kenny.

If you pick cards right, you'll like this film

If you grew up in the 1960s, it’s always fun to watch an old TV show or movie with familiar faces from the era.
Even if you weren’t born until 30 years later, you can enjoy the strange twists, funny situations and subtle drama of “A Big Hand for the Little Lady.”
Released in 1966, it includes such big stars as Henry Fonda, a younger Joanne Woodward, Jason Robards and Kevin McCarthy.
It’s a 1960s type of western where the streets are clean and nobody says a discouraging word. They all look like the 60s, too.
It opens with the richest men in Texas dropping everything they are doing to participate in a no-holds, high-stakes series of games of poker.
Players are portrayed by Robards, McCarthy, long-time character actor Chester Conklin, Robert Middleton and John Qualen.
Burgless Meredith is the town physician who likes to listen to wind-up records on the fancy Victrola.
Everybody in town wants to know who is winning and who is losing. This is high drama.
In the midst of it all, a couple, played by Fonda and Woodward, arrive with their son, played by Gerald Michenaud. Their buggy has broken down and the blacksmith must repair it. In the meantime, they need a place to spend the night.
That turns out to the the saloon where the game is taking place. (The rooms aren’t fancy and the boy must sleep in the woodbin.)
They are traveling through to get to a new ranch they are buying with money they have saved.
Trouble is, Daddy Fonda is also a compulsive gambler. But this time, he just wants to sit in and watch.
Well, for maybe 20 minutes. Then he wants to participate. When wife leaves to check the status of the buggy with the blacksmith, the Fonda character gets $10,000 of the family nestegg to buy a stake in the game.
And promptly loses it. Remember, this is when $10,000 was worth $10,000. So, much to the protest of this son, he gets more money. And loses it.
His wife finds out what he has done and it is all too much. Right there during the game, Henry has a heart attack.
But his final hand hasn’t been played. If he walks away (or is hauled away), the family loses the last of its nestegg.
As it is, the money left isn’t enough to stake the hand. So not only does Woodward have to play the hand, she must borrow and be assured of winning.
The film has a wonderful twist I won’t even hint at. Let’s just say it changes the tone of the film.
This was originally supposed to be an hour-long episode of a TV series, directed by Fielder Cook, who worked mostly in television.
Fonda was truly a great actor and has a lot of fun in this little, mostly forgotten film.
If you are looking for a “Deadwood” clone, this isn’t it. But it is a film you can enjoy with the entirel family, if you play your cards right.
This appeared in the Star Beacon WEEKENDER May 16, 2008.

A Big Hand for the Little Lady
• Directed by Fielder Cook
• Runtime: 95 minutes
• 3 stars out of 5

Sweet Lorraine

THE HOTEL that became the "Sweet Lorraine."

At right, Maureen Stapleton, hotel owner.


'Sweet Lorraine’ sweet but uneven movie

“Sweet Lorraine” is one of those quiet little movies.
It didn’t get a lot of fanfare when it was released way back in 1987.
And the critics weren’t enamored with it.
Personally, I wouldn’t spend $10 to see it on a big screen.
But if you have an extra space on your Netflix list, “Sweet Lorraine” is more than a diversion.
The Lorraine is an aging resort hotel in the Catskill Mountains. It is a throwback to the days when rich Jewish families would spend the warm summer months being pampered by the staff.
On nice days they would swim and do other excercising and fun activities. On rainy days, they played board games.
At the end of the season, there was a huge Labor Day party. It would then close until the next season.
Unfortunately, younger families seek more lively vacations.
As the film opens, the hotel has seen better days. The massive roof needs repairs. The occupancy is down. A death in one family causes a cancellation and the hotel owner, played by Maureen Stapleton, is visibly shaken by the prospect of losing just one customer.
Stapleton is Lillian Garber. She owns the hotel and runs it with an iron fist. Her staff, mostly wild college students, love and respect her, as do her patrons.
In one almost biblical scene, former customers pull in and ask Lillian to be taken back for the summer. The customer admits his family wanted to try something different and vacationed elsewhere. But the new establishment didn’t know them, didn’t care if they were there or not.
The Stapleton character greets each vacationer, asks about the family, and is there to bid each family adieu at season’s end.
This year her granddaughter, Molly, played by Trini Alvarado, comes to work for the summer. The worker accommodations are less than luxurius for workers.
Molly’s parents are breaking up and she needs the stability her grandmother can bring.
By the way, Molly’s roommate is played by a young Edie Falco, who later marries Tony Soprano.
The film is fun to watch and Stapleton, Alvarado and Lee Richardson as Sam, who runs the kitchen and is Lillian’s bed partner, are very fleshed out characters.
There is an uneveness about it. Nobody in the staff has a distinct character and their hijinks clash with the overall theme of the film, the possible loss of the Lorraine to new developers who would demolish the building for another cold, impersonal, modern hotel.
It’s like the producers wanted to attract the “Animal House” and “Room With A View” crowd all in one film.
Molly has a love interest, but that too is glossed over.
It’s almost as if director Steve Gomer had a checklist of points he wanted to get into the film, even if only in passing.
Granddaughter Molly seems lost at first, but finally gets the hang of the hotel and its personalities, so much so she wants Grandma to hold on one more year and they would run The Lorraine together.
Whether to sell or stay open seems to be the biggest conflict in the film and that decision is quickly made with little drama or fanfare.
Flawed or not, “Sweet Lorraine” is a sweet trip into nostalgia, a fun film to begin the summer vacationing season.
SWEET LORRAINE • Directed by Steve Gomer • Runtime: 91 minutes • Rated PG-13 • 3 stars out of 5