My quest for the perfect eyeliner: Part Two

April 25, 2011 by

Despite my long-standing devotion to classic black eyeliner, I’ve recently become smitten with midnight blue. It still defines and opens the eye, but gives you a slightly softer, lighter look that’s perfect for summer. Yves Saint Laurent’s Eyeliner Moiré liquid liner in No. 8/Marine Reflections, $34, is a great color to try. Deep blue and tinged with purple, it’s flattering for any eye color.

YSL Eyeliner Moiré liquid liner is pretty for summer.

The small, squared-off brush lends itself to precision. It lets you grab a nice dollop of liquid or a just a little bit, depending on how thick you want your line to be. It’s also very easy to layer so that you can start with a gentle daub and add more to heighten intensity. The proportions of cap to tube, a seemingly minor point, make a difference in terms of holding and handling the brush and YSL has nailed this aspect.

YSL’s formula is long wearing and flake-resistant, though it seems to do a better job staying put on my top lash line than on the bottom. With hot weather approaching, I may skip the bottom line and just use a little waterproof mascara on the bottom lashes.

Product Source: From my own collection; I did not receive product or compensation from YSL.

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On the radar: TCM Classic Film Festival starts next Thursday in Hollywood; big cats on the big screen; crime does play

April 21, 2011 by

One week from tonight is the TCM Classic Film Festival, which runs from April 28 to May 1 in Hollywood. There will be more than 70 screenings, as well as special introductions, guest appearances, panel discussions and other events. The red-carpet gala screening on Thursday is “An American in Paris.”

Marlene Dietrich

But naturally I’m more excited to see the 10:15 p.m. screening of Josef von Sternberg’s “The Devil is a Woman” from 1935 with Marlene Dietrich. Katie Trainor, film collection manager for the Museum of Modern Art, will introduce the film.

TCM host and film historian Robert Osborne is the official host of the festival. Peter O’Toole, Kirk Douglas, Leslie Caron, Mickey Rooney, Debbie Reynolds, Jane Powell, Warren Beatty, Alec Baldwin, Angela Lansbury, Hayley Mills, Richard Roundtree and Roger Corman are just a few of the notables slated to appear. Can’t wait!

Big cats: The nature doc “African Cats” opens Friday (Earth Day). For the first week, a portion of every ticket sold will go to the African Wildlife Foundation. Disney and Jordin Sparks, who did the movie’s end-title song “The World I Knew,” are also donating to the foundation.

Score hard: The “L.A. Noire” video game, featuring “Mad Men” star Aaron Staton’s voice and vibe, launches May 17. “L.A. Noire” will screen Monday at the Tribeca Film Festival, the first video game to snag that honor. Brendan McNamara is the writer/director.

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TCM/Warner Home Video set highlights blonde bombshell Jean Harlow’s sharp, saucy screen persona

April 20, 2011 by

By Michael Wilmington

Jean Harlow may have been the first of the movie blonde bombshells, but her sharp, saucy screen persona was quite a ways removed from that of her sublime successor, Marilyn Monroe.
 

Marilyn Monroe often seemed like a girl in a woman's body.

Brassier and earthier than Monroe, Harlow was a bouncy sexpot who knew what she wanted and knew how to get it: a streetwise babe who lived in the real world and knew just how to manipulate it to her advantage. Harlow, like Monroe, had a baby-talk mode, but it was more clearly a put-on. Harlow’s juvenile antics, her “Daddy’s girl” banter with sugar daddies like beefy Wallace Beery let the audience firmly in on the joke.

Marilyn, or at least her screen persona, often seemed more like a little girl in a woman’s body, a blonde baby doll who never quite grew up, and often lived in a world all her own. Marilyn on screen, in some ways, is always a fantasy. Harlow on screen is usually real. Very real.

In the new TCM/Warner Home Video “Greatest Classics Legends: Jean Harlow” set, Harlow holds her own with the elite of MGM’s acting royalty — with the Barrymores (John and Lionel), and with Spencer Tracy, Clark Gable, William Powell, Myrna Loy, Rosalind Russell, and classy supporting players like Billie Burke, May Robson and C. Aubrey Smith, and even with the young James Stewart.

Holds her own? She’s a star, even in a roomful of stars. This Jean Harlow set includes the following four films.

Jean Harlow holds her own among Hollywood royalty.

“Dinner at Eight” (George Cukor, 1933) An MGM all-star special and in some ways, a better movie than the studio’s talent-studded “Grand Hotel” — wittier, more knowing, with a deeper, stronger cast, and more beautifully directed, by Cukor. David O. Selznick was the producer, and the source was the hit Broadway play by Edna Ferber and George S. Kaufman, with the screenplay and additional dialogue from Herman Mankiewicz, Donald Ogden Stewart and Frances Marion.
 
The play is classic. The script is brilliant. The direction and production are impeccable. The stellar cast, one of the all-time great Hollywood ensembles, includes Lionel Barrymore as the beleaguered shipbuilder Oliver Jordan and Billie Burke as his fluttery society wife, who’s holding a dinner (at eight) for British aristocrats Lord and Lady Ferncliffe.

On her guest list: Old-time diva actress Carlotta Vance (Marie Dressler); washed-up alcoholic Hollywood actor Larry Renault (John Barrymore, in an astounding piece of self-revelation and a classic of the actor‘s art), who’s romancing their twentyish daughter Paula (Madge Evans); voracious business shark Dan Packard (Wallace Beery) and his feisty platinum-blonde trophy wife Kitty (Harlow, in one of her best roles); smooth society doctor (and Kitty’s lover) Wayne Talbot (Edmund Lowe) and his tolerant wife (Karen Morley); and Paula’s hapless society beau (Phillips Holmes).

I’ve often thought that playwright Garson Kanin may have gotten the idea for “Born Yesterday” while watching Beery and Harlow in this film. In fact, she’s great with all her co-stars. A classic Harlow-Dressler moment is this exchange:

In the last scene, as they stroll in for dinner, Harlow muses, in a thoughtfully brassy way, “I was reading a book yesterday …”

Dressler: “Reading a book?”

Harlow: “Yes, it’s all about civilization or something, a nutty kind of a book. You know, the guy said that machinery is going to take the place of every profession! ”

Dressler, as she takes Harlow’s arm: “Oh, my dear, that’s something you need never worry about!”

It couldn’t be bettered. And neither could the movie, which, in some ways, is less another “Grand Hotel,” and more in the line of Jean Renoir’s great ensemble comedy-drama “The Rules of the Game.” Not as good, of course. Nothing is. [Read more…]

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‘Long Falling’ a strangely intense neo noir with superb acting

April 18, 2011 by

Friday night was the noir series at the 15th annual City of Lights, City of Angels (COL•COA) film festival in Los Angeles. My favorite: director Martin Provost’s “The Long Falling,” based on a Keith Ridgway novel, which follows a guilty woman in her fleeting days of freedom.

Actress Yolande Moreau had her work cut out for her in playing the woman, Rose, who has murdered her alcoholic and abusive husband of 30 years. That’s because what’s left of Rose is just a shell of a person.

"The Long Falling" poster

Nonetheless, Moreau deftly inhabits Rose. Her worn-down, resigned expression when she runs him over with her car is not much different than when she takes her nightly bath, immersing her perpetually bruised skin in the hot water and glancing warily over her shoulder, listening for his footsteps.

It is Moreau’s authenticity as an actress and Provost’s skillful direction that make this movie so compelling. The somber story starts with a mighty jolt, then takes its time unfolding. Agnes Godard’s atmospheric cinematography and Hugues Tabar-Nouval’s original score also draw you into this strangely intense neo noir.

After Rose commits the crime, she leaves her isolated farm town, telling no one, and heads to Brussels to be with her son (Pierre Moure). But their relationship is strained — he has also been abused by the same monstrous man and feels an undercurrent of resentment toward his mother for her inability to protect him as a child. Meanwhile, the police are investigating and there’s little chance that they won’t apprehend her.

Eventually, she leaves her son’s place, rents a room and then attempts to flee the country with the help of a woman who is essentially a stranger (a bit too wildly implausible). Once more, Rose does not or cannot challenge her fate.

We have sympathy and feel sadness for Rose, yet Provost (who also directed Moreau in 2008’s “Séraphine,” a winner of many prestigious awards) does not whitewash the moral choices Rose has made in her life. The film also reminds us that we never exist alone in the world, no matter how desperate or dire our circumstances.

“The Long Falling” image from uniFrance

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COL•COA welcomes Blier for ‘The Clink of Ice’ premiere

April 15, 2011 by

Guests mingle at a COL•COA reception before the film.

The Clink of Ice/2011/87 min.

In film noir, Fate bides its time and waits patiently for opportunity. In acclaimed writer/director Bertrand Blier’s new black comedy, Fate — in the form of cancer — barges in, bosses characters around and jumps into bed with them.

“The Clink of Ice” made its West Coast premiere on Thursday night at the Directors Guild of America in Los Angeles, as part of the COL•COA film festival.

“I have good news for you,” Blier told the audience before the film started. “My film is funny. It is about cancer.”

His deadpan preface was apt for this wry, contemplative movie.

FNB at the pre-film reception.

Dour, binge-drinking writer Charles Faulque (Jean Dujardin) has distanced himself from the people closest to him (his wife and son, for instance) and lives alone with his maid Louisa (Anne Alvaro). Her employer’s cranky demeanor is a draw and she fantasizes about sleeping with him.

Charles’ discontent morphs into full-on angst when a malignant doppelganger (Albert Dupontel) shows up and inserts himself into Charles’ life. Not long after, Louisa finds that she too has cancer that’s represented by a random interloper (Myriam Boyer). Nothing like evil twins to bring two people together, right?

But Blier’s upbeat, good-looking film, with its spare script and arresting mix of music, doesn’t dwell on prognoses or potential farewells. Instead, the disease takes a backseat to the characters’ inner lives and evolving relationships, before Charles and Louisa concoct a brilliant plan to banish it once and for all.

From left: Director Jon Amiel talks with Bertrand Blier and his interpreter Thursday at the DGA.

After the film, Blier was interviewed on stage by another director, Jon Amiel, who described Blier’s film as “a beautiful, profound, funny and ultimately deeply optimistic.” Blier revealed a bit about his process, explaining that there are no rehearsals before shooting in order to heighten spontaneity (he just asks actors to learn their lines). “I like to discover the story at the same time the actors do,” he said, also acknowledging that he wants them to hold precisely to the script.

The son of veteran French character actor Bernard Blier, auteur filmmaker Bertrand Blier has consistently elicited powerful performances from his actors, particularly in his 1974 box-office hit, “Going Places,” which helped launch the careers of Gérard Depardieu and Isabelle Huppert.

Guests sipped St-Germain cocktails.

Blier, who had the idea for “Clink of Ice” 25 years ago, said he still thinks of Depardieu when he’s writing any character, man, woman or animal. Blier also praised American actors, such as Robert DeNiro and Jack Nicholson, adding that Nicholson plays more like an Italian or French actor, with an air of, “I’m Jack Nicholson and you’re still going to believe what I’m telling you.”

Before seeing “Clink of Ice,” I attended a lovely reception in the DGA atrium. Guests sipped St-Germain cocktails and nibbled on delicious savory fare from caterer WCEP (West Coast Event Productions, 323-930-6785) and, for dessert, authentic French macarons, which were all-natural, handmade and gluten-free, from Les Macarons Duverger.

Authentic macarons for dessert.

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‘Strangers on a Train’ brings out the bad in the best of us

April 14, 2011 by

Farley Granger and Robert Walker

Strangers on a Train/1951/Warner Bros. Pictures/101 min.

A friend of mine once went on a second date with a guy who showed up wearing saddle shoes. Let’s just say there wasn’t a third date. If only he’d seen 1951’s “Strangers on a Train.”  Alfred Hitchcock understood the importance of footwear and it shows in this stellar film.

He starts the story by contrasting the shiny, two-toned spats of Bruno Anthony (Robert Walker) with the sensible black dress shoes of Guy Haines (Farley Granger) as each emerges from a Diamond cab. We follow these parallel footsteps as they board the same train, hence the title.

These brief shots contain the crux of the film: Model citizens often hide hard-core badness and the most unsavory renegades and reprobates can surprise you with a virtue or two (especially if we count charm and fashion sense as virtues).

Marion Lorne

Despite their differences, Bruno and Guy both have monkeys on their backs. Bruno is a spiffy playboy with psychopathic tendencies. Besides drinking and gambling, he spends his time hatching schemes for space travel and blowing up the White House. Even though Bruno has his wealthy and wacky mother (Marion Lorne) wrapped around his little finger, his father (Jonathan Hale) isn’t so flexible. In fact, he keeps threatening to have Bruno “taken care of, if necessary, put under restraint.”

Guy is a pro tennis player who wants to marry his dream girl Anne Morton (Ruth Roman), daughter of Senator Morton (Leo G. Carroll). Hitch’s daughter Patricia plays Anne’s little sister, Barbara. Unluckily for Guy, he’s already married to venal and unfaithful Miriam (Kasey Rogers, credited as Laura Elliott).

So, during their train trip, Bruno strikes up a conversation with Guy, telling him: “I certainly admire people who do things.” Over drinks, smokes and a lamb-chop lunch, Bruno proposes a daring, if absurd, solution to both of their glitches: If Bruno murders Miriam, that would leave Guy free to marry Anne. In exchange, Guy would bump off Mr. Anthony. Guy laughs it off, but Bruno takes it as mutual pledge and proceeds to carry out his part of the deal, trailing Miriam to a carnival and murdering her.

When he hears the news, Guy’s shocked, but if he tells the police, Bruno will claim that Guy was an accomplice. Besides, he had motive. As the police investigate, Bruno pressures Guy to fulfill his part of the plan.

Guy resists, but Bruno won’t back down and turns into a bit of a stalker. Bruno also has an ace in the hole: he nabbed Guy’s engraved cigarette lighter when Guy left it behind after their lunch on the train. Guy may lack Bruno’s warped brilliance but he pushes back when cornered and he’s determined to set things right.

If you don’t love “Strangers on the Train,” I’ll be shocked. It’s a gloriously suspenseful story, based on a Patricia Highsmith novel. Raymond Chandler wrote the screenplay, but most of that was trashed and rewritten by Czenzi Ormonde, with uncredited help from Ben Hecht. (Whitfield Cook adapted.) Hitch and Chandler apparently had a hate/hate relationship. [Read more…]

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Quick hit: ‘Strangers on a Train’

April 14, 2011 by

Strangers on a Train/1951/Warner Bros. Pictures/101 min.

Of the noir genre’s many chance meetings on trains, this is tops. Clean-cut tennis star Guy (Farley Granger) and loony playboy Bruno (Robert Walker) get to chatting. Turns out, they both have thorns in their sides, in the form of Guy’s wife and Bruno’s father. Bruno suggests each of them murder the other’s nemesis and shortly after follows through with his end of the bargain. One of Hitchcock’s best.

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My quest for the perfect eyeliner: Part One

April 13, 2011 by

Aah college … a taste of independence, man-packed parties, the luxury of spending an hour or more getting ready in the morning. Alas, the older I get, the less time it seems I have to pull myself together before rushing out the door. So to expedite the process, I thought I’d try a marker-tip eyeliner.

Chantecaille's Le Stylo is a breeze to apply.

My first experiment: Le Stylo Liquid Eyeliner, $26, from Chantecaille, a New York-based cosmetics company with an emphasis on botanicals. It is perhaps best known for its natural-looking, translucent foundations. The brand name comes from French-born Sylvie Chantecaille, a beauty industry veteran, who founded the firm with her daughter in 1997; another daughter and her husband are also involved.

Chantecaille’s web site describes Le Stylo as “a dramatic, long-lasting liquid liner [that] delivers a highly precise thin line of color. … A specially designed applicator tip ensures optimal control in application, while a high percentage of water ensures intense, extreme color.”

And indeed it is a breeze to apply. The light formula makes it easy to blend the line with little mess. It’s also great because it doesn’t flake off throughout the day the way heavier liquid liners tend to do. That said, I can’t give it high marks on staying power. When I use it on lower lashes, even with a dusting of powder first, it fades by midday. It’s easy enough to reapply but, at $26 a tube, that was a little disappointing. [Read more…]

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COL•COA Festival offers first-rate lineup, mais oui!

April 11, 2011 by
Tickets are going fast for the 15th annual City of Lights, City of Angels (COL•COA) Film Festival that runs today through April 18 in Los Angeles.
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In addition to 26 shorts, the festival will present 34 features, including several premieres. “The relationship between COL•COA and our audiences has evolved into a genuine love story over the last 15 years,” says Director and Programmer François Truffart. “We are thrilled that for this 15th anniversary year, we will bring an equally exclusive and high-profile lineup, keeping the passion for French cinema alive.”
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And Friday, April 15, is the film noir series featuring:
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At 5:45 p.m.: In “The Night Clerk” Vincent Rottiers plays Frédéric, a young man trying to return to society after his release from prison. He finds work in a mountain hotel owned by the bad-tempered Jacques (Jean-Pierre Bacri). Though Frédéric suspects Jacques may be involved in the mysterious disappearance of a hotel client, he remains silent to protect him. But police inspector Sylvie Poncet (Sylvie Testud) makes it harder and harder for Frédéric to keep quiet. Directed by Raphaël Jacoulot.

Romain Duris and Marina Foïs star in "The Big Picture."

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At 7:45 p.m.: “The Big Picture” stars Romain Duris as a successful lawyer who seems to lead an enviable life. When he learns his wife is having an affair, he accidentally kills her lover. His orderly life now in ruins, he assumes the dead man’s identity and flees to the former Yugoslavia. Supporting actors include Catherine Deneuve, Branka Katic and Niels Arestrup. Based on a novel by Douglas Kennedy; directed by Eric Lartigau.

At 10:15 p.m.: “The Long Falling” tells the story of a battered woman (Yolande Moreau) who kills her husband of 30 years, tries to reunite with her estranged son and ends up on the run. Based on a novel by Keith Ridgway; directed by Martin Provost.
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Other highlights include the following; see the site for details:
*CLASSIC REVIVAL: “Cold Cuts” (Bertrand Blier, 1977) With Gerard Depardieu, Bernard Blier, Jean Carmet. Classic black comedy about three inept murderers. Cast member Bernard Blier, a famous French actor, is director Bertrand Blier’s father.
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*CLASSIC REVIVAL: “Les Bonnes Femmes” (Claude Chabrol, 1960). With Bernadette Lafont, Stephane Audran and Claude Berri. Noir master Chabrol’s classic New Wave tale of four Parisian shopgirls and their lives and dreams.

Catherine Deneuve

*“His Mother’s Eyes,” a drama starring Catherine Deneuve as a celebrity news anchor and Nicolas Duvauchelle as a troubled young author who wants to write her unauthorized biography and seduces her estranged daughter (Géraldine Pailhas) as a means of gathering information. Directed by Thierry Klifa.
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*“The Clink of Ice,” Bertrand Blier’s new film; Blier will appear for discussion.
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*Also be sure to check out: New films by well-known French directors Claude Lelouch, Guillaume Cantet, Catherine Breillat, Cedric Klapisch, Nicole Garcia, Jean Becker and Benoit Jacquot.
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*To celebrate the announcement and recipients of the 2011 COL•COA awards, two of the winning films will be re-screened for free on Monday, April 18 at 7:30 p.m.
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All films are screened at the Directors Guild Theater Complex, 7920 Sunset Blvd., in Los Angeles (half a block west of Fairfax Avenue and two blocks east of Crescent Heights). Free parking is available at the Directors Guild. Enter on Hayworth Avenue.
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“The Big Picture” image from www.indiewire.com; Catherine Deneuve photo by Brigitte Lacombe, from www.altfg.com.
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A literate, exciting action movie that’s drop-dead gorgeous

April 9, 2011 by

Hanna/2011/Focus Features/111 min.

Michael Wilmington

By Michael Wilmington

“Hanna” is “Kick-Ass” and “The Bourne Identity” filtered through “Pride and Prejudice” and “Atonement.” And I don’t mean that as a knock.

Director Joe Wright, who made the 2005 Keira Knightley version of Jane Austen’s best-loved novel and the lauded film of Ian McEwan’s grim tale “Atonement,” is a director with a style both flashy and sumptuous.

And in “Hanna,” he’s demonstrating something we might not have expected from him: burn-down-the-house action-movie skills. The movie — starring Saoirse Ronan (the jealous little girl from “Atonement”) as the kick-ass title heroine Hanna, Eric Bana as her action-mentor dad Erik, and Cate Blanchett as Marissa, the vicious C.I.A. agent villainess — is such a departure from what Wright has done before that it’s hard not to be impressed.

Saoirse Ronan

Wright starts the film with a snowy deer hunt and kill in the wilds of Finland, where the gifted 16-year-old Hanna, trained in all manner of martial arts and assassin skills, brings down a stag and muses philosophically. The story moves with dizzying speed to the Moroccan desert, Hamburg and Berlin, escalating into spectacular brawls, subway battles and bloody showdowns.

It’s quite a ride. The whole movie is a long three-sided chase: Hanna is captured early on by Marissa when Erik leaves her on her own, after arranging to rendezvous with her later in Berlin. Then Hanna escapes and Marissa pursues both her and Erik. The fights are all set-pieces and Wright shoots one of them in a virtuosic unbroken Steadicam take, which reminds you of the spectacular tracking shot on Dunkirk Beach in “Atonement.”

The three lead actors — along with Tom Hollander as the perverse villain Isaacs, Olivia Williams, Jason Flemyng and Jessica Barden as the British family Hanna meets in the desert — have the kind of acting chops you don’t usually see in movies like this, and they display them as much as Seth Lochhead and David Farr’s script lets them.

All the characters, in fact, have more fullness and surprises than the action-movie norm. They’re reminiscent at times of the psychologically detailed or richly eccentric characters in an old-style British thriller by Alfred Hitchcock.

We haven’t had many really literate thrillers lately (The “Bourne” movies excepted), and it’s a pleasure to see one here, to see filmmakers who are trying to please us on a multitude of levels and not just trying to blow us out of our seats.

The results are drop-dead gorgeous and exciting, but not completely satisfying. What we’d expect from Wright — memorable characters and high-style high drama — are here, but not emphasized as much as the story sometimes needs in order to make total sense.

The action scenes are scorchers, and they’re shot beautifully by cinematographer Alwin Kuchler on stunning sites and sets by designer Sarah Greenwood. (Her interrogation chamber below the Moroccan desert is an homage to Ken Adam’s great War Room set in “Dr. Strangelove.”) But I thought they became a little too set-piecey at times, took over the show a little too much.

Ronan has a talent for bewitching the camera and for suggesting levels of thought, memory and passion beneath the surface. Ronan is kind of strong and silent here, which deepens the film’s mysteries, including any nagging questions we might have about the relationship among Hanna, Marissa and Erik. [Read more…]

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