Lise (Leslie Caron) and Jerry (Gene Kelly) fall in love in the City of Lights in Vincente Minnelli’s AN AMERICAN IN PARIS
CABARET CINEMA: AN AMERICAN IN PARIS (Vincente Minnelli, 1954)
Rubin Museum of Art
150 West 17th St. at Seventh Ave.
Friday, December 21, free with $7 bar minimum, 9:30
212-620-5000
www.rmanyc.org
To borrow a phrase from the Gershwins, Vincente Minnelli’s An American in Paris “’s wonderful, ’s marvelous.” In the 1951 MGM musical, which won six Academy Awards — including Best Picture, Best Color Cinematography, and Best Musical Score — it’s love at first sight for ex-pat artist Jerry Mulligan (a delightful Gene Kelly) upon seeing squirrely parfumerie girl Lise Bouvier (ballerina Leslie Caron, making her film debut after having been discovered by Kelly dancing with Les Ballets de Paris de Roland Petit). While Mulligan pursues Lise, he is pursued by wealthy socialite Milo Roberts (Nina Foch), who lures him in by buying one of his paintings and promising him a show. Complicating matters is French singer Henri Baurel (Georges Guétary), who has taken Lise under his wing. An American in Paris is a charmer from start to finish, with Kelly leading the way singing in the streets, tapping atop a piano, and romancing Caron on cheesy Hollywood sets doubling for the City of Lights.
The fanciful film features a classic collection of songs by George and Ira Gershwin, including “Embraceable You,” “Nice Work If You Can Get It,” “I Got Rhythm,” “Our Love Is Here to Stay,” and “’S Wonderful,” all choreographed by Kelly, who won an honorary Oscar in 1952 for “his versatility as an actor, singer, director, and dancer, and specifically for his brilliant achievements in the art of choreography on film.” Adding to the fun is Oscar Levant as Jerry’s irritable neighbor Adam Cook, a cynical concert pianist who gets a terrific dream sequence in which he plays an entire orchestra by himself. The film culminates in the dazzling sixteen-minute “An American in Paris Ballet,” a glorious Technicolor production number shot by cinematographer John Alton. An American in Paris is screening December 21 as part of the Rubin Museum Cabaret Cinema series “Happiness is . . .,” held in conjunction with the larger Rubin Museum program “Happy Talk.” “I’m glad somebody around here’s happy,” Jerry says to Henri at one point. There should be some very happy people indeed at the Rubin on December 21.
In such unique films as Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, and The Darjeeling Limited, black-comedy master Wes Anderson has created a bizarre collection of characters who seem to live in their own alternate realities. In his latest, Moonrise Kingdom, Anderson has once again assembled an oddball assortment of men, women, and children in a terrifically clever and entertaining fairy tale all its own. Tired of being abused by his fellow Khaki Scouts and dismissed by his foster parents, twelve-year-old orphan Sam Shakusky (Jared Gilman) runs away from Camp Ivanhoe on the island of New Penzance, much to the chagrin of dedicated scout master Randy Ward (Edward Norton). Meanwhile, twelve-year-old loner Suzy Bishop (Kara Hayward) is fed up with her life as well, which she mostly spends listening to Benjamin Britten, reading fairy tales (fictitious stories made up by Anderson), watching the world through a pair of ever-present binoculars, and despising her parents (Bill Murray and Frances McDormand). Afraid of what might have happened to the children, the local police officer, Captain Sharp (Bruce Willis), gets involved, as does a stern woman from social services (Tilda Swinton) and, eventually, a very different kind of scout, Cousin Ben (Jason Schwartzman). The proceedings are overseen by a narrator (Bob Balaban) who ends up being more than just an omniscient presence. Moonrise Kingdom is an absolute gem of a film, an exciting, original tale about growing up told in a fabulously funny deadpan manner that combines slapstick humor with wildly ironic elements, filled with the endless wonders of childhood, although it is most definitely not for children. Newcomers Gilman and Hayward appear wise beyond their years in the lead roles, with outstanding support from an all-star cast, most prominently Norton as the by-the-book scout master on a mission. Written by Anderson with Roman Coppola and featuring a lovely score by Alexandre Desplat, Moonrise Kingdom is one of the best films of the year, by a director whose imagination never ceases to amaze. Moonrise Kingdom is screening December 22 at 8:00 as part of MoMA’s annual series “The Contenders,” consisting of exemplary films they believe will stand the test of time; upcoming entries include Tom Hooper’s Les Misérables, Sally Potter’s Ginger and Rosa, and Raoul Ruiz’s Night Across the Street.
The guys who gave the world Thirtysomething (director Edward Zwick and producer Marshall Herskovitz) head to the hills of Japan for this ridiculously sappy and melodramatic piece of tripe starring Tom Cruise as a wayward Civil War hero who rediscovers himself and learns the way of the samurai as modernity threatens to bury the past in a battle of guns versus swords, power versus honor, the government versus the individual. Cruise dances with warriors through this pathetic excuse for an American samurai epic that reduces everything to annoying clichés. It’s an embarrassment from start to finish; at least a sequel is pretty much out of the question. And it’s painful how the film misuses the talent of Hiroyuki Sanada, who was so good in Yoji Yamada’s The Twilight Samurai, his previous film. This mess was written by John Logan, who is responsible for such other duds as Martin Scorsese’s vastly overrated The Aviator and Nemesis, perhaps the worst of all the Star Trek films. The Last Samurai is screening on December 20 at 3:30 as part of the Film Society of Lincoln Center series “All the Right Moves: The Films of Tom Cruise,” comprising seven Cruise favorites, including Risky Business, Rain Man, Jerry Maguire, Mission: Impossible, Born on the Fourth of July, and Top Gun.
Sixth Generation Chinese film director Jia Zhangke won the Golden Lion for Best Film at the Venice Film Festival for Still Life, his beautiful, elegiac, documentary-like examination of displaced family. Jia sets his film around the ongoing, controversial Three Gorges Dam project, which has forced millions of residents from their homes. Han Sanming, a miner from Shanxi, arrives in the former town of Fengjie, looking for the daughter he hasn’t seen in sixteen years, since she was a baby. Meanwhile, a young nurse, Shen Hong, is seeking out her husband, a construction executive whom she hasn’t heard from in two years. Using nonprofessional actors, Jia (Platform, The World) tells their heartbreaking stories virtually in slow motion, with many scenes driven by Han’s tired eyes, featuring little or no dialogue. He gets a job helping tear down buildings, in direct contrast to his desire to rebuild his relationship with his long-lost family. Jia’s gentle camera reveals how China, in its quest for modernization and financial power, has left behind so many of its people, the heart and soul of the land that has literally been torn out from under them. A small gem, Still Life is screening December 20 at 9:00 in a new 35mm print as part of the IFC Center series “Road Movies: Directed and Selected by Walter Salles,” in conjunction with the December 21 theatrical release of Salles’s adaptation of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road.