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   The story about the tension between radical avant-garde art and commercially accepted art (and other things) doesn’t really break new ground, but the script (by director Jonathan Parker and Catherine di Napoli) is witty and fast-paced,  and the acting is exceptionally winning—especially Adam Goldberg as a self-absorbed musician, Marley Shelton as a gallery owner with such craving for the extreme that she refused to let her best-selling artist hang his paintings in the gallery and Ptolemy Slocum in a show-stopping turn as a neurotic conceptual artist who feeds Shelton’s lust for the for the novel.

 

THE INVENTION OF LYING

Woeful

 

    How can a movie that has three such reliable comedy figures as Ricky Gravais, Tina Fey and Jeffrey Tambor in the opening scenes end up so humorless?  It’s just one of the mysteries of this disappointing clunker.  Enough said.

MICHAEL JACKSON’S THIS IS IT

Has some warm, wonderful moments.

     This is a much more valuable documentary than you may have feared.  As director, Kenny Ortega, who was also the musical director of Michael’s London comeback production, demonstrates excellent restraint in keeping the film from being an overly sentimental love fest. (Given his tendency toward self-aggrandizement, Michael, by contrast, might have pushed for that love fest approach if he were involved in putting the film together.)  Ortega, though, wisely keeps the focus on Michael the performing wonder. The result is frequently warm and illuminating. We see Michael the perfectionist, casting an eye and ear on seemingly every detail during the extensive rehearsals of the gala production. Most surprising, he seems more open and comfortable on stage than I remember him from the 1980s. While many of the production touches are dazzling, Michael is most touching and convincing in the film’s more intimate moments, especially “Billie Jean” and “Earth Song.” Perhaps the most endearing moment is during his stylish duet with singer Judith Hill on “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You.” As they sing the title line for the final time, Michael turns to face the audience when he gets to the word “you” so that he’s speaking directly to his fans rather than his vocal partner. Seeing that his co-singer is still facing him, Michael motions for her, too, to turn and address the line to the audience. It felt like more than just a clever stage move. After years of humiliation and despair, Michael was thankful for the chance to step back into the spotlight and the ticket demand in London must have been immensely comforting to him. So, he wanted to thank the fans for their loyalty—their continuing love.  Sadly, he was reaching out at the rehearsal to a mostly empty arena. He never got the chance to thank the hundreds of thousands of loving fans waiting for him in England.

 

A SERIOUS MAN

Hilarious at times.

 

    The latest from the Coen Brothers is presented (in previews and elsewhere) as so deeply buried in Jewish angst that I thought it required a Bar Mitzvah to appreciate it. But, as a first communion kid, I found it quite easy to enjoy—if that word can be applied to a tale so bleak. A physics professor at a Midwestern university can whiz write the most complicated physics formulas on the blackboard, but he has a difficult time trying to figure out God’s will—and the movie is the funniest when he turns to rabbis for help. They speak in what are, to him, riddles that underscore the difficulty of trying to substitute reason for faith. If you want a rock ‘n’ roll equivalent, check out Bruce Springsteen’s stirring “Reason to Believe,” the closing song on his stark, classic “Nebraska” album. It’s a song about people going through all kinds of disappointment and heartbreak, but still finding a reason to believe. For another, more light-hearted take on the subject, try the White Stripes’ exquisite “I’m Lonely (But I Ain’t That Lonely Yet).”   

AN EDUCATION
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      This is a deceptively complex film about youthful awakening that changes directions frequently but never at the risk of mood or believability.  Peter Sarsgaard is so charming as a seemingly sophisticated man in his early 30s that you’re alarm only barely triggers when he offers a 16-year-old school girl (Casey Mulligan) a ride after he sees her standing on a street corner in the rain.  She’s bored with school and resists her parents’ hopes of her going to Oxford because she sees formal education as a path to dullness—something she sees in her teachers, school administrators and her parents. So this man offers another kind of education: a step into the glamour of the arts (he takes her to a recital) and the magical Paris (which triggers her dreams far more than drab England).  Things start to feel a bit creepy when he asks her to go to a late supper after the recital and then to spend the weekend with him and some friends in Oxford, and you can’t imagine Casey’s parents granting permission. But her folks succumb, also, to the man’s charm and see him as a way to help get their daughter into Oxford. Well after some clear sailing things do go wrong, and you are left with many intriguing questions about values, the role of parents and just how much a young girl—even a smart one—can trust her instincts. Excellent performances by Sarsgaard and Mulligan. The screenplay is by Nick Hornby.  A low-key gem. 

Music:  

     KRIS KRISTOFFERSON’S “Closer to the Bone.”
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     Even if you didn’t know anything about “Me and Bobby McGee,” “Help It Make It through the Night” and the other great songs Kristofferson has written over the years, this new album would convince you that you were in the hands of a wonderful songwriter—someone able to capture intimate emotions with remarkable openness and truth. “From Here to Forever” may be the best expression of a parent’s love since Bob Dylan’s “Forever Young” and “The Wonder” is an endearing tale of devotion and faith. “Love Don’t Live Here Anymore” and “Tell Me One More Time” are songs of tension and loss, but the primary feeling of the music is love, friendship and need. “Good Morning, John” is a salute to his hero (written before Johnny Cash’s death) and “Sister Sinead” is a tip of the hat to a singer-songwriter whose courage he greatly admires (Sinead O’Connor). An album filled with heart. (New West)

Movies:

     THE INFORMANT!
√ Bob Certified 
     There is so much sly, perverse humor and plot twists in this (mostly) true tale of a corporate whistleblower that it feels like something you’d expect from the Coen Brothers at their best. Instead, it’s by director Steven Soderbergh and he shows terrific discipline in making Matt Damon seem so much like a nerdish good guy who wants to do the right thing that we are constantly surprised when Damon’s character keeps confounding us with his admissions. Damon is excellent in the role, right down to way he walks—which suggests someone constantly out of step with the rest of the world. Ultimately, everyone in the film—the high-priced lawyers, corporate titans, the FBI , the Justice Department and Damon—contributes to a sense of absurdity that makes you wonder how the legal system ever gets anything right when it comes to corporate America.