Joss Whedon continues FIREFLY series with feature film that reunites cast for one last adventure
SERENITY (Joss Whedon, 2005)
BAMcinématek, BAM Rose Cinemas
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
Thursday, May 30, 9:50 (preceded by Much Ado About Nothing at 7:00)
718-636-4100
www.bam.org
www.serenitymovie.com
We were huge fans of Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, so it was with much disappointment that we watched his 2002 TV show, Firefly, come and go so quickly. But the diehard fans, known as Browncoats, wanted more than the Fox network gave them, so Whedon delivered this exciting feature-length film for Universal, reuniting the cast, including Nathan Fillion as Mal, Gina Torres as Zoe, Alan Tudyk as Wash, Morena Baccarin as Inara, Adam Baldwin as Jayne, Jewel Staite as Kaylee, Sean Maher as Simon, Summer Glau as River, and Ron Glass (yes, the guy from Barney Miller) as Shepherd. The bad guy this time around is known simply as the Operative (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a cold-blooded killing machine out to destroy River, who has very dangerous special powers that the Alliance wants silenced. Also getting in the crew’s way are the Reavers, vile creatures who prefer to eat their prey alive. While the Browncoats should be thrilled with the film, so should newbies to this world, as Whedon has managed to make Serenity an involving stand-alone space Western that sci-fi fans can enjoy without knowing anything about Firefly. But after you see this thoroughly enjoyable flick, you’re likely to rush to catch up on everything you missed. Serenity is screening at BAM on May 30 at 9:50, preceded at 7:00 by Whedon’s new movie, a modern take on the Bard’s Much Ado About Nothing, as part of the BAMCinématek program “An Evening with Joss Whedon,” with Whedon taking part in a Q&A following the first film and introducing the second; although both events are sold out, there will be a standby line for any tickets that might become available.
Jean-Pierre Léaud gives a bravura performance in Jean Eustache’s New Wave classic about love and sex in Paris following the May 1968 cultural revolution. Léaud stars as Alexandre, a jobless, dour flaneur who rambles on endlessly about politics, cinema, music, literature, sex, women’s lib, and lemonade while living with current lover Marie (Bernadette Lafont), obsessing over former lover Gilberte (Isabelle Weingarten), and starting an affair with new lover Veronika (Françoise Lebrun), a quiet nurse with a rather open sexual nature. The film’s three-and-a-half-hour length will actually fly by as you become immersed in the complex characters, the fascinating dialogue, and the excellent acting. Much of the film consists of long takes in which Alexandre shares his warped view of life and art in small, enclosed spaces, the static camera focusing either on him or his companion. Someone at BAM has a wicked sense of humor, as The Mother and the Whore is screening on Mother’s Day at 2:30 & 7:00 as part of the BAMcinématek series “Booed at Cannes,” consisting of films that did not exactly thrill the Cannes glitterati but have gone on to gain their own unique reputations, including Maurice Pialat’s Under the Sun of Satan, Michelangelo Antonioni’s L’eclisse, David Lynch’s Wild at Heart, and David Cronenberg’s Crash.
Korean auteur Hong Sang-soo continues his fascinating exploration of cinematic narrative in In Another Country, although this one turns somewhat nasty and tiresome by the end. After being duped in a bad business deal by a family member, an older woman (Youn Yuh-jung) and her daughter, Wonju (Jung Yumi), move to the small seaside town of Mohjang, where the disenchanted Wonju decides to write a screenplay to deal with her frustration. Based on an actual experience she had, she writes three tales in which a French woman named Anne (each played by an English-speaking Isabelle Huppert) comes to the town for different reasons. In the first section, Anne is a prominent filmmaker invited by Korean director Jungsoo (Kwon Hye-hyo), who has a thing for her even though he is about to become a father with his very suspicious wife, Kumhee (Moon So-ri). In the second story, Anne, a woman married to a wealthy CEO, has come to Mohjang to continue her affair with a well-known director, Munsoo (Moon Sung-keun), who is careful that the two are not seen together in public. And in the final part, Anne, whose husband recently left her for a young Korean woman, has arrived in Mohjang with an older friend (Youn), seeking to rediscover herself. In all three stories, Anne searches for a lighthouse, as if that could shine a light on her future, and meets up with a goofy lifeguard (Yu Jun-sang) who offers the possibility of sex, but each Anne reacts in different ways to his advances. Dialogue and scenes repeat, with slight adjustments made based on the different versions of Anne, investigating character, identity, and desire both in film and in real life. Hong wrote the film specifically for Huppert, who is charming and delightful in the first two sections before turning ugly in the third as Anne suddenly becomes annoying, selfish, and irritating, the plot taking hard-to-believe twists that nearly undermine what has gone on before. As he has done in such previous films as 
Audrey Hepburn won an Oscar for her delightful performance in William Wyler’s romantic charmer about a foreign princess who gets to spend a day of anonymity in the city of Rome with a good-looking American newsman (Gregory Peck) who knows at least some of her secrets. The film was nominated for a total of seven Oscars, also capturing the prize for Dalton Trumbo’s script and Edith Head’s costume design. Roman Holiday is screening at 6:15 and 8:45 on Valentine’s Day at BAM, with an optional $67 prix-fixe menu that includes a glass of champagne, an amuse bouche of green-pea flan with poached shrimp, a choice of baby arugula salad, lobster bisque, or spaetzle with Brussels sprout leaves and duck confit for appetizers, and an entrée choice of red-wine braised short ribs, spice-crusted salmon, roasted French-cut chicken breast gnocchi, or crispy wild mushroom risotto cake, followed by a shared lovers dessert of warm chocolate cake with fresh raspberries and vanilla ice cream.