margot at the wedding (2007) and interiors (1978)

Every year I go on a Woody Allen bender. There is no warning of when it will show up, but suddenly I will be compelled to get my hands on four or five of his films and digest them with great vigor. I have some favorites (Zelig, Sweet and Lowdown, Stardust Memories, Match Point to name a few) but I generally find that I enjoy anything he does on some level. With his great proliferation comes some films of lesser quality, but I can't complain. I think his oeuvre unfolds like a sort of artist's sketchbook, a few failed ideas, some experiments and some real gems, all of them painting a complete picture of Allen's strengths and limitations as a writer and director.

So this summer's Woody Allen bender was triggered by watching Noah Baumbach's excellent Margot at the Wedding. Baumbach was a co-writer of one of my favorite films, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and also wrote and directed The Squid and the Whale. All of his work has a distinct heady New York intellectual feel that the seems to draw its structure and themes more from short works of fiction than from American filmmaking. I suppose this automatically makes him kin to Woody Allen. They also both share a dramatic predisposition toward the psychology of broken homes and families, but where children are largely absent in Allen films, Baumbach is acutely sensitive to the inner pain of adolescents.

In Margot at the Wedding, Baumbach explores the relationship of two 30-something sisters, both trying to manufacture the safety and security of family in their own ineffective ways. Margot's son Claude is the forgotten victim, caught in between the need to escape from his emotionally unstable mother and a responsibility to take care of her. As always, Baumbach's observations about human behavior are astute and sometimes shocking.

Margot at the Wedding reminded me a lot of Woody Allen's Interiors in that, unlike the empathetic Squid and the Whale, the characters suffer, are often fascinating, but are seldom the recipients of audience sympathy. They are just too far removed from emotional reality to be perceived as anything but calculated and cold. Geraldine Page as the needy, manipulative mother in Interiors is a perfect time capsule of Nicole Kidman's Margot.

Baumbach's direction is stunningly natural, using a late '70's earthy color pallet and long takes to highlight the performances of his actors. His camera work is less mannered than Allen's European influenced mise en scen, removing meaning from the film's constructs and relying on the strength of his script and actors. This is where the distinction between Baumbach and Allen is drawn. I always felt that Woody Allen often failed at directing Diane Keaton and a few other actors in highly dramatic roles. Maybe it was just the style of the time, but so much of her acting in the films of Allen's early career is so mannered, almost as if the director's idiosyncratic personality is manifesting itself in all but the strongest of his actors. That is when Geraldine Page, Sean Penn, Martin Landau and even Mia Farrow really become assets in Allen films, bringing another dimension to Allen's heady New York intellectualism.

The Value of Money

As excited as I was about going to see Tom Waits next month, I just couldn't stomach the $102/ticket before all the handling fees.

I just don't get it. Waits doesn't seem to be the type to gouge. He's never struck me as an inflated ego and certainly doesn't have a history of releasing garbage to make a quick buck. So what is going on?

There are very few performances that I'll shill out $25 for. Tom Waits is one that I would consider spending in the $60+ range for... but $102!? I could collect all of his works on vinyl for the cost of two tickets and still probably pick up a DVD of Coffee and Cigarettes.

Color me disappointed.

Here is a quick P.S. for you— Metrotix, not to be outdone by the notorious white collar criminal Ticketmaster, is charging a cool $15 per ticket handling charge. You read that correctly. $15 per ticket. So now we are nearing $250 for my wife and I to go see a show. Or I could turn up my $15 vinyl copy of Mule Variations and drink a $100 bottle of scotch, leaving me enough money to do it again the next night.

PEHDTSCKJMBA

Tom Waits in St. Louis?
PEHDTSCKJMBA indeed.