The Postman/Il Postino (1994) - Troisi's moving swan song performance

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A serene shoreline scene and a sympathetic-looking co-star Massimo Troisi in an old-fashioned postman's hat makes up this poster for Michael Radford's The Postman

On a small South-Italian island Chilean star poet and Communist Pablo Nerudo arrives some years after WWII and befriends a simple postman named Mario.

 

Il Postino: The Postman is written by Anna Pavignano (Elsa & Fred (2014)), Furio Scarpelli (La Cena (1998)), Giacomo Scarpelli (Opopomoz (2003)), co-writer/co-star Massimo Troisi (Hotel Colonial (1987)) and co-writer/director Michael Radford (Another Time, Another Place (1983)). It is an adaptation of Ardiente Paciencia (1985) by Antonio Skármeta (La Chica del Trombón (2001)). The title is a literal translation of the original Italian title.

Troisi plays the titular postman with moving sincerity: Mario may be of simple background, but his intellect is keen enough. Wonderful images (cinematography by Franco Di Giacomo (Un Altro Mondo è Possibile (2001, documentary))) of the rural, innocent-looking Procida island here clash some with many of the portrayals of growling, coarse, desire-ruled Italians, we have seen in films from Federico Fellini and others. 

The Postman resurrects the joy at beauty, pure infatuation as well as the marvelous force of poetry as an enhancer of love. Meaningful is also the reflection and postlude following the maestro's leaving the island, without even a letter. The rampantly romantically idyllic score (by Luis Bacalov (Hotel Meina (2007))) and the in hindsight somewhat exaggerated purity ultimately settles The Postman as 'just' a sweet little film.

 

 

Watch  a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 3 mil. $

Box office: In excess of 33 mil. $

= Mega-hit (returned at least 11 times its cost)

[The Postman premiered 1 September (Venice Film Festival) and runs 108 minutes. Shooting took place from March - June 1994 in Italy. Troisi postponed heart surgery for the film and reportedly could only work for about an hour a day, (a double was used extensively for every possible scene for this reason), and just 12 hours after wrapping production Troisi passed away from a heart attack. The film opened #13 to a 95k $ first weekend in 10 theaters in North America, where it grossed 21.8 mil. $ (66.1 % of the total gross). The film was nominated for 5 Oscars, winning for Best Score. It lost Best Actor to Nicolas Cage in Leaving Las Vegas, Director to Mel Gibson for Braveheart, Picture also to Braveheart and Adapted Screenplay to Emma Thompson for Sense and Sensibility. It also won 3/5 BAFTA nominations, 1/6 David di Donatello awards and a National Board of Review award, among other honors. Roger Ebert gave it a 3.5/4 star review, translating to a notch over this one. Radford returned with Homicide: Life on the Street (1996, TV-series) and theatrically with B. Monkey (1998). For Troisi The Postman was his last credit; Philippe Noiret (Soleil (1997)) returned in Le Roi de Paris (1995). The Postman is fresh at 94 % with an 8.00/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

 

 What do you think of The Postman? 

Paterson (2016) - Bus driver poetry drama a small gem

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+ Best New Jersey Movie of the Year

 

Lots of scribbles and a dramatic love-uttering tag-line lies around the sleeping couple on this poster for Jim Jarmusch's Paterson

 

Paterson is a bus driver and part-time poet in Paterson, New Jersey. His Iranian-American wife wants him to deliver his works in public, but he is more private about them.

 

Paterson is written and directed by Ohioan master filmmaker Jim Jarmusch (Permanent Vacation (1980)), with William Carlos Williams (The Term (2003, short)) and Ron Padgett contributing poems. It is Jarmusch's 13th feature.

Production-wise likely Jarmusch's smallest venture in years, Paterson is also his first good film since Broken Flowers (2005). In Paterson he seems to have created an alter ego following the line of thought; if I hadn't become X (a filmmaker), what else might I have ended up as? (A bus driver/poet apparently.) On the surface one might find it a bit grating that a bus driver in himself is not interesting enough, - that one of everyday life's heroes in this way only seems to 'exist' in Jarmusch's world, if they also produce art just as himself. But this is really more related to Jarmusch's own passion for everything creative than a statement of the real world and its inhabitants.

If you care for poetry, this will ramp up your enjoyment of Paterson, which may otherwise seem small and dull. Adam Driver (House of Gucci (2021)) is good but almost too handsome for the title role of the good and supportive husband, and Golshifteh Farahani (Extraction II (2023, VoD)) is sweet as his cupcake-baking love. Barry Shabaka Henley (A Star Is Born (2018)) is delightful in a supporting role as an honest bar owner. 

Paterson is undeniably smaller than the greatest of Jarmusch's heyday (Dead Man (1995) and others), but nevertheless a good one.

 

Related posts:

Jim Jarmusch: 2016 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]

2013 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED VI]

Only Lovers Left Alive (2013) - Jarmusch's drowsy vampires, an overrated bore

2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

The Limits of Control (2009) - Jarmusch hits career low with idea-bereft embarrassment 
Broken Flowers (2005) - Hip search for son and self with Jarmusch and Murray
Coffee and Cigarettes (2003) - Pleasant, precious vignette sit-down with some wonderful people    
Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999) - Whitaker serves ancient samurai justice in Jarmusch's cool treat   

1995 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess 
Dead Man (1995) - Jarmusch's bold, poetic, rich Americana masterpiece 
Top 10: The best B/W movies reviewed by Film Excess to date  
Down by Law (1986) - Jarmusch's jailbreak movie is an independent character gem 

 

 

Watch a trailer for the movie here

 

Cost: 5 mil. $

Box office: 10.7 mil. $

= Flop (returned 2.14 times its cost)

[Paterson premiered 16 May (Cannes Film Festival, main competition) and runs 118 minutes. Driver reportedly took a commercial bus driver's license for the part. Shooting took place in the Fall of 2015 for 30 days in New York and New Jersey. The film opened #36 to a 69k $ first weekend in 4 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #32 and in 70 theaters (different weeks), grossing 2.1 mil. $ (19.6 % of the total gross). North America was the film's 2nd biggest market. The biggest was France with 2.7 mil. $ (25.2 %) and 3rd biggest was Poland with 878k $ (8.2 %). The film lost the Palme d'Or to I, Daniel Blake. Jarmusch returned with Gimme Danger (2016, documentary) and theatrically with The Dead Don't Die (2019). Driver returned in Silence (2016); Farahani in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017). Paterson is certified fresh at 96 % with an 8.50/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Paterson?

Mary Shelley (2017) - Al-Mansour stumbles badly in inauspicious second work

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Title star Elle Fanning has a strangely green-colored eye on this otherwise almost uniformly grey poster for Haifaa Al-Mansour's Mary Shelley

Young Mary Godwin falls in love with young poet Percy Shelley as she mysteriously authors her masterpiece Frankenstein (1818).

 

Mary Shelley is written by Emma Jensen (I Am Woman (2019)) and great Saudi-Arabian co-writer/director Haifaa Al-Mansour's (Wadjda (2017)), based on the true conception of Frankenstein.

Though failed in almost every way, I still give this surely well-meant (and harmless) second feature from Al-Mansour a generous 2 hearts. We don't get any the wiser on the creation of Frankenstein, and the romance between the two youths, - which is poetical rather than carnal, - never becomes interesting. - For one thing they both seem too young for the dramatic observations that fall out of their mouths.

The actors do nicely and pull the film up, though it is a weak script handled by a director with no discernable independent direction for her film.

 

Related posts:

2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED V]
2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III] 

Wadjda/ وجدة‎ (2012) - Bold and powerful first Saudi-Arabian film 

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: Unknown

Box office: 2-2.7 mil. $ (different sources)

= Uncertain - but likely a huge flop

[Mary Shelley premiered 9 September (Toronto International Film Festival) and runs 121 minutes. 15 governmental support organs and production companies collaborated in the financing and making of the film. Shooting took place in France, Luxembourg and Dublin, Ireland. The film opened #58 to a 12k £ first weekend in 2 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #49 and in 30 theaters, grossing 108k $ (4 % of the total gross). The film's 3 biggest markets were France with 557k $ (20.6 %), Italy with 422k $ (15.6 %) and Spain with 360k $ (13.3 %). Apparently the film was not screened in Al-Mansour's own country Saudi-Arabia. If made on a likely 5 mil. $ budget, the film would rank as a huge flop or possibly even a mega-flop. Al-Mansour returned with The Wedding Singer's Daughter (2018, short) and theatrically with Nappily Ever After (2018). Elle Fanning (Super 8 (2011)) returned in I Think We're Alone Now (2018). Mary Shelley is rotten at 39 % with a 5.60/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Mary Shelley?

Spike (2008) - The singing, 'poetic' spike monster scrapes the bottom

[ZERO]

+ Worst Movie of the Year

A spiky beast presides over a dirtied redhead victim on this forest-set poster for Robert Beaucage's Spike

  
A car with 3 women and one man drives off a road, but instead of subsequently searching for help the group spread out in different directions; and a very romantic and pathetic spike monster soon turns out to be in love with one of the women.

Spike is written and directed by Robert Beaucage (Closer to Death (2003)).
It is a film that is hopelessly bad right from the start, as none of the 'characters' are given any meat, before we are meant to care exceedingly about them. Spike soon becomes insufferably dull. Worst is arguably its dialog and entire plot, which is conceived so grotesquely without talent that one almost doesn't believe it.
The film's monster poetizes line after line without the shadow of ability for the art form, - and then starts to sing its 'poetry'.
Timing, photography, - everything stinks about Spike.

 

Related posts:

 

2008 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III] 

The 2000s in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

2008 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II] 

Watch a 2-minute scene from the film here

Cost: Unknown
Box office: Unknown
= Uncertain - likely a mega-flop
[Spike premiered 20 June (Edinburgh International Film Festival, Scotland) and runs 80 minutes. Shooting took place in reportedly freezing temperatures in California in the Spring of 2007. Filming on 16 mm film rather than the much cheaper digital option, Beaucage has offered of his inspirations: "Cupid and Psyche, Hades and Persephone... Beauty and the Beast, as well as horror classics such as Frankenstein and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame". The film was also shown at minor festivals in Masachussets and Los Angeles. It was likely a mega-flop. Beaucage returned with 5 shorts and is announced to helm a project entitled Scream Queens, unaffiliated with the 2015-16 TV-series of the same title. Star Sarah Livingston Evans (who previously played 'Farting Girl' in Look (2007)) has not returned in a feature since. 387 IMDb users have given Spike a 3.2/10 average rating.]

What do you think of Spike?

Howl (2010) - Epstein & Friedman debut with great poetry-centered gem

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1 Film Excess nomination:

Best Lead Actor: James Franco (lost to Stephen Dorff for Somewhere) 

+ Best Art Film of the Year
+ Best Poster of the Year

A creative and very keen poster for Rob Epstein & Jeffrey Friedman's Howl

Allen Ginsberg was the son of an insane mother and became a groundbreaking gay poet in 1950s New York, who after travels, hospital admissions, loves, relationships and personal insight reads and publishes his poem Howl, which causes outrage in 1955.

Howl tells the true story of Ginsberg and his titular poem, written and directed by great documentary filmmakers Rob Epstein & Jeffrey Friedman (Lovelace (2013)), who make their fiction debut with it. It is an eclectic, attractive, stringent film, which both arranges the poem, lets Ginsberg speak, - through James Franco's (The Adderall Diaries (2015)) inspired performance, - and portrays the 1957 obscenity trial that the work underwent in San Francisco. This part of the film is adorned with such gifted actors as David Strathairn (Simon Birch (1998)), Jeff Daniels (Dumb & Dumber (1994)), Bob Balaban (Girl Most Likely (2012)) and Jon Hamm (Sucker Punch (2011)).
Without my awareness, the film got under my skin and made a big emotional impact. It is touching, strong and exhilarating as the poem itself, which it breathes cinematic life into in the most ideal way with a mix of a resplendent Franco and playful animation created by Eric Drooker, who also collaborated with Ginsberg while he was still alive. Anyone interested in literature, poetry, wordplay and/or art in general should find themselves surrendering to this splendid, surprising gem.

Related posts:

2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: Unknown
Box office: At least 1.6 mil. $
= Unknown (but likely a big to huge flop)
[Howl premiered January 21 (Sundance) and runs 85 minutes. It was shot in just 14 days in and around New York from March - April 2009. It opened #51 in just 6 theaters to a 51k $ first weekend, peaking in 29 theaters and grossing 617k $ (38.6 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Italy with 305k $ (19.1 %) and (surprisingly) Vietnam with 240k $ (15 %). Roger Ebert gave the film 3/4 stars, a grade lower than this review. An extensive interview with the directors by the A.V. Club's Keith Phipps can be read here. Howl is fresh at 62 % with a 6.4 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Howl?
Other poetry-centered films that you think are recommendable?