finemot

As a child of the '30s, I was immersed in Hollywood musicals I bit more than I appreciated. I loved [still do] good music, a clever lyric, a moving melody, with a good degree of tolerance for experimentation with the off-beat and planned discord of a Stan Kenton. Cole Porter always symbolized meticulous word-play wed to impeccable melodic phrasing.

From the opening scenes, the vehicle of "De-Lovely"'s presentation was both an annoyance and a distraction. Was this a bio trying to become a musical; or was it a musical trying to be a bio? While this last observation may be my own singular and subjective problem, I squirmed mentally as I tried to figure out whether the makeup artists wanted to make Kevin Kline look like an aging Jeff Daniels, or a real-time Carl Reiner?

It would be nearly impossible to destroy Porter's music; the quality is there regardless of the interpretation. However, the matching of score selection to fragments of Porter's life, professional development and composing venues is a tawdry hodge-podge, put together like a 1940s 7th grader who scores 37% on an American History matching-columns exam. Some of the costumes, stagings and vocals are ludicrous: the costuming and set design for the Venetian duet, two people who appear not to like each other or the fit of their costumes; and the feeble-voiced crooning of a "Mountie" [Nelson Eddy - sound alike]: NOT!

Then there is the presentation of Porter, the man [Kline] and his long-suffering wife [Ashley Judd, excellent with the role she's given]. We can accept the idiosyncratic behavior of genius; we can appreciate a reasonable degree of self-absorption; we can empathize with a free spirit, suddenly crippled and dependent on others. Mrs. Porter knew exactly what she was getting when she entered the marriage; and while we can empathize with her fraying patience, we might expect a bit more fire from a woman whose husband is presented as sexual and social gadabout concerned only with his own gratification, except when the deeper muse is upon him. Finally, there is the staged number with Louis B. Mayer, which itself, would make the MGM lion dyspeptic. Porter may have been an intellectual snob; and Mayer may have been a boorish bully, but Mayer wasn't stupid.

Even in its presentation of Cole's homosexuality, we are introduced to a trite parade of pretty boys; and, within this shallow presentation, we are expected to see deep, caring relationships. It's been years since I've read a Porter biography, but the viewer might better have been served by suggestion: a lone Porter, for example, headed for the city tenderloin, or a seedy bar down by the waterfront, with the camera fading without further graphic explanation. Porter's encounters weren't all that "pretty."

Ahhh, the music. For me there were three show-stoppers, among them Elvis Costello's "Let's Misbehave." My wife and I, both 21+ X 3 + a bunch. thoroughly enjoyed Sheryl Crowe's minor key and roving "Begin the Beguine." It was a refreshing treatment of a Porter standard, which, although cleverly composed and worded, had become cliché in its title and too rigidly fixed in its arrangements. Crowe tosses out her usually fragile vocalizing; shows her musicianship in her rendering, and best of all, sings and phrases as a mature woman, not a whining little girl. Whether the precise Porter would have approved, I can't say; but Crowe gives the song a well-deserved rebirth.

Best of all is the top-notch performance of "Let's Do It," by Alanis Morissette: her vibratto; her full-of-fun, carefree delivery; her meticulously clear enunciation of the fast-flowing words are superb. The lady nails it!

The movie is a terrible disappointment; but it's not the music that brings it down. It is the trivializing of a privileged, yet tragic life. Its sole salvation is the wedding of gifted contemporary vocalists, with priceless old standards; and it may bring about performance revitalization and longevity enhancement for both.

As a Minnie Driver fan, I couldn't believe the tawdry disaster unfolded in the telling of "Slow Burn." Produced in part by Two Drivers (Minnie and her sister, Kate), it gives the impression of two intelligent women based on self-destruction. For three generations, Minnie's forebears have been consumed with the search for her grandmother's remains, and with it, the diamonds with which she disappeared into the desert so many years ago. It has consumed all of Trina's (Driver's) life, from infancy into young womanhood. Now, only Trina and her older mentor (and Mom's former lover) are left. Trina has promised that this will be her final year of searching. After this season, she'll throw in the towel. Two bumbling escaped convicts, one a bit dim (but basically of good heart) - the other given to apparant glimpses of insight between fits of pique, literally stagger upon what three generations of desert veterans have been unable to find. One of the cons is played by James Spader, and I swear I didn't recognize him. (As Martha Stuart might say [as far as a career move is concerned], "This is a good thing." His agent would agree. In short, there are disabled trucks with runaway tendencies. Said trucks seem to appear meaningfully late in the movie, almost cluttering the set ... despite their mechanical devastations. With trucks like these, "OK! I'll take the kids!" There's a sterility in interpersonal relationships that makes evem Driver's character appear to be a cardboard cut out. Is this love in bloom, or heatstroke. There's even a touch of 'Marathon Man" here, for those with expensive "tastes." The premise should have been developed into a taut thriller. However, neither the viewer seeking justice nor the sophisticate in search of irony comes away satisfied. There's a lovely and colorful little bird to win your heart; but this is not the bird director Chrisyian Ford delivers to paying audiences. "Is it safe?" to see "Slow Burn?" Only if it's free and you're desperate for seeing Minnie Driver on the big screen.

"U-571," from writer-director Jonathan Mostow, takes on too much water, along with every submarine movie cliche. It's a great concept, gone under. Set in 1942, the film is intended as an homage to Allied sailors and their underground lookouts, seeking to end the stranglehold of German U-Boats on Atlantic shipping lanes. The Germans' trump card ins Enigma, a typewriter like encoding device, the solution to which has eluded the efforts of cryptanalysts. The secrecy of German coded "traffic" is thus preserved. Capture an Enigma device and you can change the face of the Battle of the Atlantic considerably. A German sub is crippled at sea and is attempting to rendezvous with another, loaded with replacement parts and mechanics. An American sub is enlisted to masquerade as this repair vessel, board the U-Boat and seize its Enigma machine. Lt. Commander Mike Dahlgren (Bill Paxton) commands the sub; and Lt. Andrew Tyler (Matthew McConaghey) is the exec officer. Tyler has just become an unhappy camper because he didn't get his own command. Dahlgren did not recommend him, basically because, although he's a great submariner, he lacks the hard edge to demand the ultimate sacrifice of his men. Chief Klough (Harvey Keitel) is an old World War I vet. Then there's Lt. Hirsch (Jake Weber), introduced by admiral as really being "The man in charge ... what he wants, he gets." Marine Major Coonan (David Keith), also answerable to Lt. Hirsch, will lead the "boarding party." Then there's Seaman Wentz, recruited by Hirsch because he's bi-lingual (German) ... educated at Brown no les Sounds okay, so far, even with the screwed up organization chart. Sadly, it's Dive! Dive1 Dive! from here on out. Seaman Wentz fears his crewmates will hate him if they learn he's part German; the obviously green American crew receives invisible commando training from Keith; we're expected to believe that German mechanics are incompetent (guess Director-writer Mostow never drove a Mercedes), and one German sailor is challenged by a black American sailor, "Guess you never saw a black man before? Get used to it!" (Nope, guess he missed the Berlin Olympics where Jesse Owens took Gold and twisted Hitler's shorts in a knot; also missed the two Joe Louis-Max Schmeling fights, too). We're not picking nits here. We know the film is a composite of many events surrounding Enigma; but give us a break! Give us a sense of the time. Realize that the subs and the effects of submarine life and warfare on human combatants provide all the drama one needs. Finally, is this a war tale or a coming of age movie? Submarines ... and the most patient audiences have their limitations.