Austin Pendleton finally gets top billing in short documentary about his unique career
STARRING AUSTIN PENDLETON (Gene Gallerano & David H. Holmes, 2016)
Thursday, April 21, SVA Theater 2 Beatrice, 2:30
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Starring Austin Pendleton is a charming little tribute to director, teacher, and film, television, and theater character actor Austin Pendleton, who finally gets top billing. Directors Gene Gallerano and David H. Holmes — the latter an actor who has studied with and acted in plays directed by Pendleton — have assembled quite an all-star lineup to sing Pendleton’s praises, including Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Olympia Dukakis, Wallace Shawn, Natalie Portman, Peter Sarsgaard, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and John Simon. “If this guy didn’t look the way he looks — he’s got a stutter, he’s five-whatever-he-is, he’s a funny-looking guy, and his hair’s all screwy — he’d be Marlon Brando,” Ethan Hawke points out. You might not know the name, but as the clips roll by, you will certainly recognize the face as Pendleton is shown in such movies and television series as The Front Page, Good Times, The Muppet Movie, The Ballad of the Sad Café, Seinfeld, Catch-22, and the film he will likely most be remembered for, My Cousin Vinny, in which he played stuttering lawyer John Gibbons, a role that showcased an affliction he has suffered from his entire life. Starring Austin Pendleton is worth seeing just for the clips of Pendleton and Hoffman in 1995’s The Fifteen Minute Hamlet, in which the former portrays the title character and the latter plays Bernardo, Horatio, and Laertes. It is supremely enjoyable watching Pendleton discuss his craft and share some very funny anecdotes; my only complaint is that the documentary is way too short at only nineteen minutes, but it is about a character actor, after all, who is used to getting limited screen time. And how could it fail to mention that Pendleton originated the role of the tailor Motel Komzoil in the Broadway production of Fiddler on the Roof? On April 21, the film will be shown at the Tribeca Film Festival, followed by a conversation with Pendleton, directors Holmes and Gallerano, and Olympia Dukakis, Peter Sarsgaard, Denis O’Hare, and George Morfogen, moderated by Gordon Cox. You can also catch it as part of shorts programs at Tribeca on April 19, 21, and 23.
Adam Sandler and Emily Watson are outstanding in Paul Thomas Anderson’s stream-of-consciousness acid trip of a movie about a childlike man with an inner demon. Barry Egan is a marvelous character, filled with complexity and lots of surprises, and Sandler embodies the role with a surprising maturity and grace. Barry is an obsessive man who watches the world pass him by as he turns inward, collecting Healthy Choice pudding (for the airline miles) and wearing a bright blue suit. When he meets Lena Leonard (Watson), his life veers off its nowhere course. Anderson’s offbeat narrative style and his own obsession with Technicolor (especially bright blues and reds, all splendidly photographed by Robert Elswit) combine for a fresh, fabulously told story that will make you as uncomfortable as it makes you thrilled and fulfilled; the rather unique film earned Anderson (There Will Be Blood, The Master) the Best Director award at Cannes. The cast also features Mary Lynn Rajskub, the great Luis Guzmán, and Philip Seymour Hoffman as a crazy supervisor. Punch-Drunk Love is screening August 23 & 24 at 12 noon as part of Nitehawk Cinema’s brunch series “A Reasonable Length,” a quartet of expertly made films that each clock in at ninety minutes or less (Punch-Drunk Love is exactly an hour and a half); the series concludes August 30-31 with Edgar G. Ulmer’s sixty-seven-minute gem, Detour.
In November 1959, Richard Hickock (Mark Pellegrino) and Perry Smith (Clifton Collins Jr.) brutally murdered a Kansas family. After reading a small piece about the killings in the New York Times, New Yorker writer Truman Capote (Philip Seymour Hoffman) sets out with his research assistant, Harper “Nell” Lee (Catherine Keener), to cover the story from a unique angle, which soon becomes the workings of the classic nonfiction novel In Cold Blood. Capote tells police chief Alvin Dewey (Chris Cooper) right off the bat that he cares only about the story, not what happens to the killers, which does not endear him to the local force. But when the murderers are captured, Capote begins a dangerous relationship with Smith, who comes to think of the writer as a true friend, while Capote gets caught up deeper than he ever thought possible. Based on the exhaustive biography by Gerald Clarke, Capote is a slow-moving character study featuring excellent acting and some interesting surprises, even for those who thought they knew a lot about the party-loving chronicler of high society and high living. Hoffman, who just died from a drug overdose, earned an Oscar for portraying the socialite author, who was played the following year by Toby Jones in Douglas McGrath’s Infamous, which was based on a book by George Plimpton. Capote, which was also nominated for Best Picture, Best Director (Bennett Miller), Best Supporting Actress (Keener), and Best Adapted Screenplay (Dan Futterman), is screening for free on March 8 at 2:00 at the NYPL’s recently renovated St. Agnes branch on the Upper West Side in a special tribute to Hoffman, a native New Yorker who left us well before his time, playing a longtime New Yorker who also died too young.
One of America’s most daring and adventurous filmmakers, California native Paul Thomas Anderson, who has dazzled, amazed, challenged, and confused audiences with such previous gems as Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Punch-Drunk Love, and There Will Be Blood, has done it again with his latest, The Master. The film is built around the fascinating relationship between Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix), a WWII vet struggling to fit into the real world after seeing so much violence and death overseas, and the Master (Philip Seymour Hoffman), the leader of a cultlike organization known as the Cause that believes in past-life regression and invasive questioning known as Processing to help people deal with personal trauma. The Master essentially adopts Quell, intrigued by his distorted outlook on life, making him a member of the family, which also includes his wife, Peggy (Amy Adams), his son, Val (Jesse Plemons), and his daughter, Elizabeth (Ambyr Childers). Inspired by the real-life tale of L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology — and incorporating war stories he was told by Jason Robards on the set of Magnolia, elements from the life of John Steinbeck, and discarded scenes from the script for There Will Be Blood — Anderson crafts a, dare we say, masterful cinematic experience built around a pair of extraordinary performances. Phoenix absolutely inhabits the role of Quell, staggering about with an awkward gait, with impossibly deep lines on his face and eyes that seem to be able to look through lead. Hoffman is his equal as the much cooler and calmer spiritual leader, until he is faced with sudden turmoil. The scenes in which the two men sit across from each other, going through a Processing session, are mesmerizing, the most powerful moments to be found onscreen last year. (Both Phoenix and Hoffman received Oscar nods, along with Adams.) But despite the title, the focus remains on Quell, a lost soul searching for somewhere to belong in a changing postwar America. Anderson’s first film in four years, The Master is a bold, audacious work that is as unsettling as it is exhilarating. The Master is screening May 24 at 7:00 and May 25 at 2:00 as part of the Museum of the Moving Image series “See It Big!,” which continues into June with such other great films as Akira Kurosawa’s Ran, Roberto Rossellini’s Journey to Italy, and Nicholas Ray’s Bigger Than Life.
One of the ultimate cult classics and the best bowling movie ever, the Coen brothers’ The Big Lebowski has built up such a following since its 1998 release that fans now gather every year for Lebowski Fest, where they honor all things Dude, and with good reason. The Big Lebowski is an intricately weaved gem that is made up of set pieces that come together in magically insane ways. Jeff Bridges is awesome as the Dude, a laid-back cool cat who gets sucked into a noirish plot of jealousy, murder, money, mistaken identity, and messy carpets. Julianne Moore is excellent as free spirit Maude, Tara Reid struts her stuff as Bunny, and Peter Stormare, Flea, and Torsten Voges are a riot as a trio of nihilists. Also on hand are Philip Seymour Hoffman, David Huddleston, Aimee Mann, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, David Thewlis, Sam Elliott, Ben Gazzara, Jon Polito, and other crazy characters, but the film really belongs to the Dude and his fellow bowlers Jesus Quintana (John Turturro, who is so dirty he is completely cut out of the television version), Donny (Steve Buscemi), and Walter (John Goodman), who refuses to roll on Shabbos. And through it all, one thing always holds true: The Dude abides. The Big Lebowski is screening Thursday night in Tompkins Square Park as part of Two Boots’ twenty-fifth anniversary celebration, so there will be free pizza as well as a live performance by the Luddites and the East Village All-Stars. (And just for the record, the Two Boots specialty pie known as the Dude consists of tasso, ground beef, and cheddar and mozzarella cheeses, a Cajun bacon cheeseburger delight.)