this week in film and television

THE INTERVIEW

James Franco and Seth Rogen share intimate moments throughout THE INTERVIEW

THE INTERVIEW (Seth Rogen & Evan Goldberg, 2014)
December 26-28, Film Society of Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater and Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, 144/165 West 65th St. between Eighth Ave. & Broadway, 212-875-5050
December 25-31, Cinema Village, 22 East 12th St. between University Pl. & Fifth Ave., 212-924-3363
www.theinterview-movie.com

The most infamous film of 2014 was released in theaters on Christmas after all, following the embarrassing hacking of Sony’s servers and George Clooney and the president sharing their opinions about violent threats from North Korea over a movie — and a stupid movie, at that. But as it turns out, The Interview is stupid fun, even if it does lose its way amid the bizarre absurdity of its final scenes. James Franco — we’re sorry, but we still can’t get enough of him — stars as superbly sycophantic celebrity talk show host Dave Skylark, who just happens to be one of reclusive North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un’s (Randall Park) personal favorites. So Skylark’s best friend and producer, Aaron Rapoport (Rogen), sets up a live interview with Kim, agreeing to the leader’s rigidly controlled set of conditions delivered by his gorgeous security chief, Sook (Diana Bang). When the CIA hears about the interview, they send agent Lacey (Lizzy Caplan) to convince Skylark and Rapoport that they must assassinate Kim for the good of the world. But their best-laid plans go awry when Kim charms Skylark as they embark on a brief bromance that threatens the bromance that already exists between Dave and Aaron. Codirected by Rogen and Goldberg, whose collaborations have also included Superbad, Pineapple Express, This Is the End, and other hits and misses, and written by first-time screenwriter Dan Sterling (The Office, King of the Hill), The Interview is, for the most part, a very funny, extremely juvenile comedy that never misses a chance to make a butt joke. With a little bit of Stripes here, a splash of Spies Like Us there, it follows in the tradition of crazy lowbrow military comedies that eventually go off the deep end but contain more than their fair share of laugh-out-loud silliness. Franco and Rogen, who have been working together since the days of the great Freaks and Geeks, are so much fun to watch as a duo that things don’t completely fall apart even when the script lets them down. Oh, and meanwhile, Eminem comes out of the closet, Rob Lowe reveals a frightening secret, and other celebrities show up as themselves in this bromantic comedy that nearly started WWIII.

SEE IT BIG! ANIMATION: PAPRIKA

Satoshi Kon’s imaginative PAPRIKA is filled with fascinating, unusual characters

PAPRIKA (Satoshi Kon, 2006)
Museum of the Moving Image
35th Ave. at 36th St., Astoria
Saturday, December 27, and Sunday, December 28, free with museum admission, 6:00
718-777-6800
www.movingimage.us
www.sonyclassics.com/paprika

Based on the novel by Yasutaka Tsutsui, Paprika is an animated, futuristic sci-fi thriller in which reality and dreams merge in clever and confusing ways. The title character is a superhero psychotherapist who can enter people’s dreams by using cutting-edge technology known as the DC MINI, which was invented by Dr. Tokita, a huge man with a baby face and a tremendous appetite. When one of the prototypes is stolen, Paprika, whose alter ego is Dr. Atsuko Chiba of the Foundation for Psychiatric Research, sets out to find the thief, who is using the invaluable — and not fully tested and approved — equipment for seemingly evil purposes. Other central characters include Torataro Shima, the adorable old chief of the lab; the ruthless, wheelchair-bound foundation chairman, Seijiro Inui; Detective Konakawa, who develops a liking for Paprika; Dr. Osanai, a hunky researcher; and lab assistant Himuro, who has gone missing but can be seen in dreams. Adapted by Satoshi Kon, the director of Millennium Actress and Tokyo Godfathers who sadly died of cancer in 2010 at the age of forty-six, and featuring the voices of Megumi Hayashibara, Toru Emori, Katsunosuke Hori, Toru Furuya, and Akio Ohtsuka, Paprika is an entertaining, if at times hard to follow, anime with lots of cute characters and some very beautiful scenes. The film is screening December 27-28 at 6:00 as part of the Museum of the Moving Image’s “See It Big! Animation” series, which also includes Brad Bird’s Ratatouille December 26-28.

UNBROKEN

Louie Zamperini (Jack O’Connell) gets ready to run for his life in UNBROKEN

UNBROKEN (Angelina Jolie, 2014)
Opens Thursday, December 25
www.unbrokenfilm.com

Unbroken, Angelina Jolie’s second film as director (following In the Land of Blood and Honey), attempts to set itself apart from other real-life dramas right from the start; while other movies claim to be “based on a true story” or “inspired by actual events,” Unbroken boldly, and very clearly, declares itself to be “a true story.” The old-fashioned WWII movie tells the story of Louis “Louie” Zamperini, a troubled kid (first C. J. Valleroy, then Jack O’Connell) who drinks, smokes, and gets in trouble with the law until his life turns around when his brother, Pete (first John D’Leo, then Alex Russell), helps train him to become an Olympic runner. But duty calls, and Louie enlists in the air force. His plane is shot down over the Pacific Ocean, leaving him, Russell “Phil” Phillips (Anna Karenina’s Domhnall Gleeson), and Francis “Mac” McNamara (American Horror Story’s Finn Wittrock) adrift on a pair of life rafts, surrounded by sharks. Later, Zamperini is captured and taken to a POW camp run by the sadistic Mutsuhiro “the Bird” Watanabe (Japanese rock star Miyavi), who decides to make the Olympian his personal punching bag, brutalizing him every chance he gets, daring him to give up, but Zamperini isn’t about to give him the satisfaction.

Louie Zamperini (Jack O’Connell) goes through hell and back in Angelina Jolie’s WWII drama

A gripping, if overly straightforward, good vs. evil story, Unbroken is based on Laura Hillenbrand’s 2010 book, Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, and both Hillenbrand and Zamperini, who died earlier this year at the age of ninety-seven, served as consultants on the film. The screenplay, which leaves little room for nuance, was written by Joel and Ethan Coen, along with William Nicholson (Shadowlands, Sarafina!) and Richard LaGravenese (The Fisher King, Beautiful Creatures). English actor O’Connell (Starred Up, This Is England) gives a courageous, physically harrowing performance as Zamperini, while the baby-faced Miyavi is frightening in his movie debut. Their relationship recalls elements of such films as The Hill, Papillon, The Deer Hunter, and even The Bridge on the River Kwai, although Jolie ultimately relies too much on the hero vs. villain black-and-white aspects of the story. There also might be unintended reactions to Unbroken, especially coming on the heels of the Senate’s recent release of the CIA Torture Report; while the film is a distinctly American tale of the indomitability of the human spirit and the sheer will to survive against all odds, it deals with the controversial issue of wartime torture, and near the end of the film, the man sitting next to us muttered that what the Bird did to Zamperini was much worse than anything the U.S. has ever done to any of its enemies.

CHUCK JONES MATINEES: FOR SCENT-MENTAL REASONS AND OTHER CARTOONS

Love, among other things, is in the air in Chuck Jones classic FOR SCENT-IMENTAL REASONS

Museum of the Moving Image
35th Ave. at 36th St., Astoria
Friday, December 26, and December 29 – January 2, free with museum admission, 1:00
718-777-6800
www.movingimage.us

The Museum of the Moving Image’s celebration of all things Chuck Jones continues with a matinee of eight more of his classic Warner Bros. cartoons, held in conjunction with the endlessly fun exhibit “What’s Up, Doc? The Animation Art of Chuck Jones.” The festivities begin with 1946’s Hair-Raising Hare, in which Bugs Bunny thinks that monsters must lead such interesting lives. In 1949’s For Scent-imental Reasons, Pepè Le Pew thinks he has found true love. Daffy heads into the future and battles Marvin the Martian in 1953’s Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2th Century. Daydreaming eight-year-old Ralph Phillips is introduced in 1954’s From A to Z-Z-Z-Z. Witch Hazel has some dastardly plans for Halloween trick-or-treaters in 1956’s Broom-Stick Bunny. Daffy and Bugs fight over a vast treasure in 1957’s Ali Baba Bunny. Daffy attempts to steal from the poor and give to the rich in 1958’s Robin Hood Daffy. And Wile E. Coyote (as Batman!) and the Delicius-Delicius Road Runner go at it yet again in 1956’s Gee Whiz-z-z. The exhibit runs through January 19; the matinees continue with “Baton Bunny and Other Cartoons” on January 4, “The Rabbit of Seville and Other Cartoons” January 10-11, and “Duck Amuck and Other Cartoons” January 17-18.

THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER

Klara Novak (Margaret Sullavan) and Alfred Kralik (James Stewart) have little time for each other in Ernst Lubitsch’s THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER

THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER (Ernst Lubitsch, 1940)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
December 25-31
212-727-8110
www.filmforum.org

Jimmy Stewart’s most famous Christmas movie might be It’s a Wonderful Life, but that doesn’t mean it’s his best. That distinction belongs to the 1940 Ernst Lubitsch black-and-white romantic comedy The Shop Around the Corner, which is having a special holiday run December 25-31 at Film Forum. Stewart stars as Alfred Kralik, a serious-minded longtime clerk at the Budapest gift shop Matuschek & Co., serving as the right-hand man to owner Hugo Matuschek (The Wizard of Oz’s Frank Morgan), who relies on his star employee’s honesty and expertise. Also working at the store is Pirovitch (Felix Bressart), a timid family man who hides every time Mr. Matuschek asks for an opinion; the shy Flora Kaczek (Sara Haden); the brash, ambitious delivery boy Pepi Katona (William Tracy); and the self-involved would-be bon vivant Ferencz Vadas (Joseph Schildkraut). When Klara Novak (Margaret Sullavan) shows up looking for a job, Kralik tries to quickly dismiss her, but she ends up charming Mr. Matuschek and getting hired. She and Kralik, her direct superior, bicker constantly, each one hoping that a romantic pen pal will make their dreary lives much brighter, especially as Christmas approaches. But little do they know the love letters that they are so carefully crafting are actually to each other, their secretive literary relationship a far cry from their actual daily one.

Mr. Matuschek (Frank Morgan) and Pirovitch (Felix Bressart) prepare for Christmas in THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER

The Shop Around the Corner is based on Miklós László’s 1937 play, Parfumerie, and it very much has a claustrophobic feel, as events occur primarily in the small store. Stewart and Sullavan channel some of that Cary Grant / Irene Dunne magic as they go about their private and professional business, even if they don’t even make attempts at Hungarian accents. (Neither does Morgan, who gives one of his finest performances.) “There might be a lot we don’t know about each other. You know, people seldom go to the trouble of scratching the surface of things to find the inner truth,” Mr. Kralik says to Miss Novak, who replies, “Well, I really wouldn’t care to scratch your surface, Mr. Kralik, because I know exactly what I’d find. Instead of a heart, a handbag. Instead of a soul, a suitcase. And instead of an intellect, a cigarette lighter . . . which doesn’t work.” The central object in the shop is a cigarette box that plays the Eastern European folk song “Ochi Tchornya” every time it is opened; while Mr. Kralik thinks that smokers will tire of hearing the same tune over and over, Miss Novak convinces a customer that it is a candy box and that the repetition of the song will turn her away from opening the box again and again to eat more; meanwhile, Mr. Matuschek just wants to sell the darn things, delineating the three characters’ approach to life in general. Written by Samson Raphaelson, who adapted other plays and novels for Lubitsch, including The Smiling Lieutenant, Trouble in Paradise, and Heaven Can Wait, The Shop Around the Corner is a sweetly innocent film with just the right amount of edginess, a fun frolic through human nature and love, a fanciful confection set in the rococo interior of a shop selling little luxuries in a now-lost Hungary between the world wars. The story was also turned into the 1949 musical In the Good Old Summertime with Van Johnson and Judy Garland (Johnson also appeared in a 1945 radio version with Phyllis Thaxter) and Nora Ephron’s popular 1998 romantic comedy You’ve Got Mail, starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, the latter playing a woman who runs a New York City bookstore called the Shop Around the Corner. (On New Year’s Eve, Film Forum will be pouring free champagne for the 7:00 and 9:15 shows.)

LET THERE BE LIGHT — THE FILMS OF JOHN HUSTON: THERE WILL BE BLOOD

A desperate man (Daniel Day-Lewis) goes on a dark journey in Paul Thomas Anderson’s epic THERE WILL BE BLOOD

THERE WILL BE BLOOD (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2007)
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater
165 West 65th St. between Eighth Ave. & Broadway
Saturday, December 27, 5:45
Festival runs December 19 – January 11
212-875-5050
www.filmlinc.com
www.miramax.com

In the fall of 2007, Paul Thomas Anderson talked to Directors Guild of America Quarterly about his latest film, There Will Be Blood, explaining how it was influenced by John Huston’s classic Western The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. “I was trying to find something that was one-hundred percent straightforward, old-fashioned storytelling. I definitely tried to mimic that approach. My natural instincts as a writer may be more scattered, so in an effort to be more traditional I used a book, just like they did. Sierra Madre is as direct as you can get — nothing clever, nothing structurally new or different — and I mean that as a high compliment. It’s harder than anything else to be completely straightforward.” There Will Be Blood has been called a lot of things since its release, but “traditional” and “completely straightforward” are probably not among them. But it does explain why Anderson’s film is one of only a handful of works not directed by Huston in the Film Society of Lincoln Center series “Let There Be Light: The Films of John Huston.” In There Will Be Blood, Daniel Day-Lewis, in remarkable voice (“I drink your milkshake!”), gives a spectacular, Oscar-winning performance as an independent oil man, absolutely embodying Daniel Plainview, a determined, desperate man digging for black gold in turn-of-the-century California. His first strike comes at a heavy price as he loses one of his men in a tragic accident, so he adopts the worker’s infant son, raising H.W. (Dillon Freasier) as his own. The growth of his company leads him to Little Boston, a small town that has oil just seeping out of its pores. But after not allowing Paul Sunday (Paul Dano), the charismatic preacher who runs the local Church of the Third Revelation, to say a prayer over the community’s first derrick, Plainview begins his descent into hell.

Paul Dano and Daniel Day-Lewis in THERE WILL BE BLOOD

Paul Sunday (Paul Dano) and Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) face off in THERE WILL BE BLOOD

Using Upton Sinclair’s 1927 novel Oil! as a starting point (and employing echoes of Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons in addition to the obvious reference, George Stevens’s classic 1956 oil flick, Giant), writer-director Anderson (Boogie Nights, The Master) has created a thrilling epic about greed, power, and corruption as well as jealousy, murder, and, above all, family, where oil gushes out of the ground with fire and brimstone. Robert Elswit’s beautiful, Oscar-winning cinematography is so gritty and realistic, audiences will be reaching for their faces to wipe the oil and blood off. The piercing, classically based score, composed by Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood, builds to a mind-blowing crescendo by the end of the film — a finale that is likely to be much talked about and widely criticized. Filmed in the same location — Marfa, Texas — where Giant was set, There Will Be Blood is an unforgettable journey into the dark heart of one man’s soul. The film is screening December 27 at 5:45 at the Walter Reade Theater; “Let There Be Light: The Films of John Huston,” which continues through January 11, consists of forty films directed by the master, from The African Queen and Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison to The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean and The List of Adrian Messenger, from The Red Badge of Courage and Victory to A Walk with Love and Death and The Kremlin Letter, in addition to a few movies Huston either appeared in (Chinatown, Tentacles!) or that demonstrate his lasting influence, as is the case with There Will Be Blood. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre will be shown December 23, 25, and 27.

SAGRADA: THE MYSTERY OF CREATION

The glory, passion, and mystery of La Sagrada Familia is explored in documentary

SAGRADA: THE MYSTERY OF CREATION (Stefan Haupt, 2012)
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center
Francesca Beale Theater
144 West 65th St. between Eighth Ave. & Broadway
December 19 – January 1
212-875-5050
www.filmlinc.com
www.sagrada-film.ch

Barcelona’s La Sagrada Familia is perhaps the most spectacular long-running architectural work-in-progress in the world, and arguably the most beautiful and inspiring. Construction began on the cathedral, which sits in the center of the cosmopolitan city, in March 1882, under diocesan architect Francisco del Paula del Villar, but a young man named Antoni Gaudí took over at the end of 1883 and spent the next forty-three years designing and building the expiatory church, incorporating a unique mix of styles as well as a whole new architectural philosophy. Swiss filmmaker Stefan Haupt (Elisabeth Kübler-Ross: Facing Death, The Circle) takes viewers behind the scenes of this ongoing project in the dry but elegant documentary Sagrada: The Mystery of Creation. Haupt delves into the history of the grand building and looks into its future as he speaks with chief architect Jordi Bonet, sculptors Etsuro Sotoo and Josep Subirachs, stained-glass artist Joan Vila-Grau, priest Lluís Bonet, religious studies professor Raimon Panikkar, and others about the house of worship, most of them singing the praises of the proud Catalan Gaudí, who also built such dazzling structures in his home region as Casa Batlló, Park Güell, and La Pedrera. “We owe it to him to finish this temple and show the world his genius,” foreman Jaume Torreguitart says. The film features extended sections in which cinematographer Patrick Lindenmaier lovingly shoots the inside and outside of the basilica, lingering over the intricate beauty of the myriad details, from the Nativity and Passion Facades to the spires, nave, apse, transept vaults, and Gaudí’s own crypt. La Sagrada occasionally feels like a clever way to raise money to continue work on the project, as it was made with the full support of the Sagrada Família Foundation, which needs funds to finally finish the ornate structure, and the narration (spoken by Hanspeter Müller-Drossaart) lacks the poetry of the visuals. But even as beautiful as the visuals are, it’s still difficult to capture, in words and pictures, the captivating essence of La Sagrada Familia, which overwhelmed me when I visited it a few years ago. The Film Society of Lincoln Center is screening Sagrada: The Mystery of Creation from December 19 to January 1; as a bonus, they are also showing Hiroshi Teshigahara’s 1984 documentary, Antoni Gaudí, December 19-25.