'For The Love Of Movies' Review

On October 19th we took our last trip to Portsmouth NH for the year. It's difficult to plan going there during the winter and we don't want to get stuck paying for non-refundable hotel reservations and show tickets if we cancel out due to a snowstorm. The reason for this trip was to see a new documentary playing at downtown's Music Hall: http://www.fortheloveofmovies.net/
>>During the 70's & 80's we used to go to Boston to see plays and foreign & classic films. Before there was the internet to provide schedules, we subscribed to the Real Paper, a now defunct weekly Boston newspaper and we could plan trips according to the cultural info offered. Gerald Peary was a film critic who now writes for the Boston Phoenix and teaches film studies in a local college. You can read about him here: http://geraldpeary.com/
>>Peary's brother Danny also writes film books that I own. Gerald has written and directed a documentary about film critics called For the Love of Movies, something I would definitely be interested in seeing since I've been collecting film books for over 40 years and own about 400 books on film & theater (mostly film), many are out of print/rare.
>>After checking into the Sise Inn for our overnight stay, we shopped for a while. I traded in two bags of CDs and DVDs at Bull Moose Music for $74 of store credit which was quickly used for purchases for our son's 23rd birthday (DVD sets of TV's The Family Guy, volumes 5 & 6) and a few items for us: A CD of Phillip Glass's solo piano works (refer to April's blog entry about seeing him in concert at The Music Hall), Criterion DVD editions of The Life & Death of Colonel Blimp and The Royal Tenanbaums (future blog entries), and David Cronenberg's version of M Butterfly which we saw on Broadway (another future entry).
>>After dinner we proceeded to The Music Hall to see For The Love Of Movies. There was a small turnout followed by a Q & A session with Peary and his producer Amy Geller. The documentary covers the history of American film criticism from the silents to the present. Lots of interviews with well-known critics fill up eighty minutes. One important topic stressed was the current dismissal of film critics from publications perhaps due to the declining general readership and the preponderance of internet bloggers. Their film's DVD was being sold for $20 after the viewing and I bought a copy which has 40 worthwhile minutes of extras/interviews. We enjoyed the film and there were a few things I didn't know about. This project, definitely a labor of love and probably made without much money (no high tech visuals here) has been in the works for several years as Roger Ebert's interviews were recorded before his illnesses.
>>The Q & A session was followed by a meet & greet session with Peary and Geller and staff members of The Music Hall in the bar below the auditorium. Over a glass of wine I talked with Peary about how we used to read his reviews in The Real Paper. I asked when his brother is going to release Cult Movies IV, another entry in his encyclopedic series on cult movies and a must for film buffs. Alas I was told he stopped writing film books since they don't make enough money and he's switched to writing books on baseball. Bummer...
>>When I told Peary that I owned a book shown in his film, the collected reviews of Otis Ferguson who wrote for the New Republic magazine and was killed during WWII, he said, "Wow! That's a rare one!" I explained that I've been collecting film books for years. I'm sure I own some titles he doesn't have. I told him too bad he couldn't obtain a clip from a 1970 episode of Mike Douglas's TV show where I expected to see the critic John Simon get into a fistfight with Ross Hunter, the producer of Airport, when he trashed his film. I still have a vivid memory of that show. They both stormed off the stage at the end of their segment.
>>When I mentioned how in 1979 we went to the Orson Welles Cinema (no longer in existance) to see the German film, The Marriage of Maria Braun after reading a review in the The Real Paper, he said "You must have read my review." I replied with "You're probably right" since it's been too many years to remember who wrote it.
>>We also spoke with two of the theater's staff about how we plan our Portsmouth trips around their schedule. They were in shock and we assured them we weren't kidding as we listed the shows we've seen in their theater. I gave one of them my business card and a few days later he emailed me a nice note thanking us for coming from Connecticut and asked if I had any suggestions for movies worth showing. I also emailed Peary who chided me when I told him I was seeing 2012. Well I'm sorry, Mr. Critic, I'm not a film snob and enjoy most genres when they are done well. I see what interests me and so should you. Reviewers be damned... including me.
>>On the way home we shopped in Portsmouth's large Barnes & Noble where Criterions were on sale. I bought the German film, Wings of Desire, which was later remade as City of Angels with Nicholas Cage and Meg Ryan.

'An Education' Review

Carey Mulligan and Peter Sarsgaard in An Education. Watch the preview: http://www.moviefone.com/movie/an-education/33272/main

The reviews have been good for this provocative but tame English coming-of-age film that takes place in 1961. The preview here gives you a good idea what to expect. Sixteen year-old Jenny (Carey Mulligan) wants to graduate the British equivalent of high school and attend Oxford as an English major. When she meets David, an older man (Peter Sarsgaard) who puts her cello into his car on a rainy day, her goals change. He's charming and knows how to talk his way in and out of any situation, including winning over her overprotective father (Alfred Molina) who objects to them dating since David is about thirty. Jenny is warned by her teachers about how this relationship could ruin her life and her chances for college, but she wants more out of life than what classrooms can provide.
>>David satisfies and stimulates her intellectual curiosity by taking her to concerts, night clubs, auctions, and museums. He introduces her to his hedonist friends who accompany them on excursions. Soon he's fulfilling her dream of seeing Paris and she plans to lose her virginity with him on her seventeenth birthday. Jenny decides that being part of David's glamorous lifestyle is more exciting than studying and accepts his engagement ring. Her father prefers this marriage to spending money for college since she's no longer interested in Oxford. Heeding good advice she quits school and plans to enjoy the rest of her life with David.
>>The idea of older men dating teenagers makes this sound like an episode in Roman Polanski's life but those circumstances are different from this thoughtful and intelligent film. We slowly see the real David, a wolf in sheep's clothing armed with a way with words aided by a non-threatening facade, before Jenny does and we wait for her reaction. We're supposed to finally dislike him after we see how so many have been conned by him but he's too slyly charming and seemingly nice enough not to hate once the truth about him is revealed and this is the problem we face as viewers as well as Jenny and her parents. In his defense, he's not evil but just weak in succumbing to his vices without caring about the damage he does to others. The film's title is exactly that, 'an education' for Jenny in learning about life and its cruel lessons. Will she be able to break away from David's influence and continue her education is for you to learn.
>>Good performances in a small disarming film make this worth seeing. Carey Mulligan will remind you of a young Audrey Hepburn and Peter Sarsgaard is convincing enough not to hate his character, a difficult role, as we should. The '61 English period details seem dead on and I liked the less famous music of that era used for the soundtrack. Even Mom liked this movie considering she's not a fan of English films with what she calls their 'weird' accents, slang, and humor. She got the point of the story and so will you.