Eliot Spitzer Double Feature: Client 9 v. Inside Job

The erstwhile “Love Gov” has a new gig: movie star! Maybe that’s a bit of a stretch, but Spitzer has been featured prominently in two recent documentaries.

First up is Client 9, which briefly covers Spitzer’s meteoric rise in New York politics, then drones on an on about his fall. As attorney general, Spitzer earned the nickname "The Sheriff of Wall Street” as he actually managed to fine, imprison, and otherwise unsettle captains of industry for their misdeeds. His work earned him both popular support and powerful enemies; the former electing him governor in 2006 with nearly seventy per cent of the vote, and the latter--the film alleges--leading to his undoing. Spitzer is an incisive, candid interview subject, but he is used sparingly here. The film focuses on the tawdriest elements of the escort scandal and most ridiculous peripheral players instead. Why? I have no idea.

Next is Inside Job, which won the Academy Award for Best Documentary in February. Here, director Charles Ferguson’s surveys the logistics of the global financial near-collapse. The film has a definite, fire-breathing perspective, as Ferguson, Spitzer, and a coterie of others squarely pin the crisis on the shoulders of the world’s financial elite and their governmental enablers.

Inside Job admirably distills the mechanics of the derivatives market, and the revolving door between big banks, the plushest business schools, and government. Ferguson is a fearless interviewer, and most of his interactions end with disdainful glares, embarrassed laughter, or I-wish-I-were-kidding ingenuousness. The result is a suspenseful, darkly comic ride through a subject that people used to think was boring.

-Megan

Movie Review: HeartBreaker

Alex (Romain Duris) is a professional match-breaker in this frothy, giddily entertaining French film. His impeccable record is challenged when he’s enlisted to end the engagement of Juliette (Vanessa Paradis) and Jonathan (Andrew Lincoln). Jonathan’s a philanthropic billionaire (and British, ladies!), but still not nearly good enough according to Juliette’s father, who hired Alex.

So Alex and his suspiciously, ridiculously high-tech associates (his sister and brother-in-law) pull out a variety of amusing stunts to capture Juliette’s aloof heart, and absurd hijinks ensue. Alex uses every weapon in his arsenal, including but not limited to Juliette’s weakness for George Michael and Dirty Dancing.

Much of the movie’s charm can be credited to Duris, a remarkably agile and versatile performer who is something like a French Heath Ledger. It will be interesting to see who will be cast in the impending American remake. My money is on Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Alex and Amanda Seyfried as Juliette. (Kindly spare me your Jake Gyllenhaal and your Scarlett Johannson!) But I’ll savor this delightful original now and save the teeth gnashing for later.

-Megan

Movie Review: Exit Through the Gift Shop

The Oscar-nominated Exit Through the Gift Shop takes an unconventional, entertaining look at a bygone era of street art. Directed by Banksy, the enigmatic (e.g. shrouded in darkness and disguised by a voice decoder) superstar of the movement, the film follows the scene’s most inspired figures as they adorn unsuspecting buildings and billboards with wit and whimsy. Commercialization comes quickly, and with varying results. Banksy cashes in, Sotheby’s style; Shepard Fairey (of the ubiquitous Obama “Hope” image) is promptly sued by the Associated Press; and Thierry Guetta--a wannabe Andy Warhol for the porkpie hat set--goes about industrializing street art’s winking subversion with a team of workers and an Ikea-sized showroom.

Exit Through the Gift Shop effectively explores the wonders of artistry, inevitable commodification of youth culture, and the thin, stubborn line between clever and stupid. Spirited, slightly ridiculous fun.

-Megan

Movie Review: Cairo Time

Cairo Time is a beautiful film long on scenery but short on story and--sorry, news buffs--politics. Juliette (played by Patricia Clarkson of Vicky Cristina Barcelona and Good Night, and Good Luck) is a pampered American who travels to Cairo to meet up with her husband, a UN official who has been delayed by unrest in Gaza. In the meantime, she is entertained by the winning Tareq (Alexander Siddig of Syriana and Miral), her husband’s friend.

They tour about the teeming, majestic city, which is exquisitely captured here. She fawns at the Pyramids of Giza, drinks a great deal of coffee, attracts much male attention, and smokes copious amounts of hookah. Unfortunately, Juliette is a bit of bore, and much of the dialogue and character interactions are stilted and odd. Some kind of a thing heats up with Tareq, but Juliette turns him down, then gives him longing looks.

The film is practically apolitical, except for the mysterious and disregarded hijacking of a tour bus by the Egyptian military. I'm not sure if the director (Ruba Nadda) was trying to capture Juliette’s myopic mentality, or if she just wanted to create a fantasy for the Ann Taylor crowd; but the result is that Cairo Time is nothing but a pretty, messy trifle.

-Megan

Movie Review: Cyrus

This quietly surreal comedy provides a refreshing alternative to scatological grossfests.

The film’s story is contained to the disruption of an insular relationship between a single mom (Marisa Tomei) and her son (Jonah Hill) by Tomei’s new lover (John C. Reilly.) Social misfit Hill, unaccustomed to sharing his mother’s time with an outsider, attempts a variety of covert strategies to oust the clueless Reilly from their lives.

The movie’s tension and comedy derive from the disconcertingly awkward situations that its cast manages to foment. The story motors along well with its weird, elusive sort of discomfort—far more vague than The Office’s routine of bumbling social mix-ups, but still somehow familiar. It’s a spare enough premise that its success follows entirely from the talents of the cast. Reilly and Hill are veteran outcast character actors and their interplay is unsurprisingly very convincing. And Tomei, cast once again as the ageless beauty paired with a creep, somehow manages to effectively enter their bizarre little world.

Cyrus is a rare film that manages to be genuinely quirky without being cutesy. Recommended.

-Review by Megan

Shall We Kiss?

Like romantic comedies, but find most recent offerings neither romantic nor comedic? Then say chin-chin to this bonbon!

I don’t want to give too much away, but the movie explores love as it pertains to the tyrannical triumvirate that is timing, chemistry, and morality. Lest this sound a bit severe, the film's offbeat humor and gaggle of elegant Gauls make it go down nice and easy.

So don’t give up yet; the delectable Shall We Kiss? might be just the movie you were looking for.

-Review by Megan