Jeff Lipsky has been a stalwart of independent cinema -- the co-founder of October Films and Lot 47 -- his contributions to the medium are immeasurable as he was able to get indie films like Stranger Than Paradise wide releases that were not common in the 60's or 70's. Once More With Feeling is Lipsky's third film as a director, and with it he shows a great command over material that is pretty familiar and formulaic, and he turn it into something fresh, charming, and gleefully refreshing.Lipsky's newest film is a charmer. A film about family, living your dreams, and all of the stupid mistakes we make in life; oh, and karaoke. Now, all of those elements sound like your basic ingredients for a pretty standard familial drama, but Lipsky's film exists in an alternate universe where the too-cutesy moments of films of this ilk are omitted, and in their stead are scenes of tremendously executed nuanced humor and warmth.
The plot concerns a psychiatrist named Frank Gregorio(Palminteri)and his family as they prepare for their daughters wedding. Frank once had a passion for singing, and his daughter has asked that he sing at the ceremony (we come to learn that Gregorio family has a history of crooning). As he prepares to sing a song for his daughter’s wedding, his fire is rekindled and the only appropriate outlet is through a karaoke bar located in the local bowling alley. He uses this location to practice, but soon the practice turn to an obsession -- an obsession not shared by his wife -- and he becomes engulfed in the world of karaoke.
This creates problems with the family as they wish they had more of their father around – he sees it as his family not taking an interest in what he’s doing and what he’s passionate about, and thus it inevitably leads to a romantic interest with Lydia (the always wonderful Linda Fiorentino), a quiet lurker in the bowling alley bar who sees talent in Palminteri. There are hidden secrets and truths and something else lurking behind the intentions of Fiorentino, but nothing overtly sexual; the film is too smart for that and doesn’t rely on Hollywood conventions.
The film parallels the relationship between Lydia and Frank (and the will they, won't they aura that surrounds them) with a story about his daughter Lana (the wonderful Drea de Matteo) who is also considering an affair with a local policeman. Lana feels invisible to her husband, so she tosses around the idea of plastic surgery, and in a hilarious scene asks the doctor if he can remove "everything".
There's also a hilarious scene where Lana takes her tow children to an amusement park. One of her kids refuses to come down a slide, so Lana must crawl up the slide to get him -- meanwhile Lana's husband is hitting on a 20-something employee of the park dressed in a mouse costume. As Lana retrieves their son from the slide she wonders where he husband was during this whole 'ordeal' (which probably seems normal for those who have kids), and the punchline to the scene is right on the money.
Also, the two child actors who play Lana's kids are cute without being too sugary sweet, and I am positive had this film been released by a major studio these actors would have been reduced to too-cutesy lines of dialogue. Lipsky does a good job of keeping a balance between how kids actually talk, and getting them to say lines of dialogue without them sounding too written (which is often the curse of having young children spout lines from a script). He reins them in just enough for them to be memorable without seeming phony, and the result is child actors who are actually cute instead of annoying.
The results of the formula are never really what's important in the film -- the karaoke, the affairs, the plastic surgery -- they're all backdrops for a film that has wonderful scene after wonderful scene, full of insight and warmth, and emit a glow from the screen that elates the audience. There's nothing that will blow you away about the aesthetics of this movie, but it's such a pleasant change of pace from the usual family dramas that clog up the cineplex that I didn't mind, and really, how often do we go to films like this expecting the film to be anything more than competently filmed?What makes the film stand out is that the characters act like real people instead of written characters and that the results of their actions always feel based in reality. There are buried feelings and truths in the film, and Lipsky is wise as he takes his time in explicating them, never rushing for a big dramatic moment. There are moments of misunderstanding and misinterpretation, but unlike most mainstream films that contain those basic dramatic tropes, Lipsky's film is real and adult in the sense that yes, stupid mistakes were made, but (gasp) these characters talk them out in scenes that contain a certain sense of authenticity, instead of melodrama that's forced on the audience.
Lipsky’s film is touching and warm and had me smiling from beginning to end. There are moments that come from real life situational humor, moments that evoke genuine laughter – a kind of been there, done that tone to the punch line; I appreciated Lipsky's tact. Once More With Feeling is a warm, infectious film that is sure to put a smile on your face, and definitely worth a look if it comes to your town.
Jeff Lipsky was in attendance at the showing of this film. He informed the audience that all of the actors do indeed sing themselves. This is impressive as Linda Fiorentino has a tremendous voice, and Palminteri aint bad, either.
Opening night I went and saw the film Once More with Feeling starring Chaz Palminteri and Linda Fiorentino. The film, directed by indie stalwart Jeff Lipski, is about a psychiatrist named Frank Gregorio(Palminteri) who once had a passion for singing. As he prepares to sing a song for his daughter’s wedding, his fire is rekindled and the only appropriate outlet is through a karaoke bar located in the local bowling alley. This creates problems with the family as they wish they had more of their father around – he sees it as his family not taking an interest in what he’s doing and what he’s passionate about, and thus it inevitably leads to a romantic interest with Fiorentino, a quiet lurker in the bowling alley bar who sees talent in Palminteri. There are hidden secrets and truths and something else lurking behind the intentions of Fiorentino, but nothing every overtly sexual; the film is too smart for that and doesn’t rely on Hollywood conventions. The film parallels the story of the father with a story about his daughter (the wonderful Drea de Matteo) who is also considering an affair with a local policeman. Lipsky’s film is touching and warm and had me smiling from beginning to end. There are moments that come from real life situational humor, moments that evoke genuine laughter – a kind of been there, done that tone to the punch line. The film also (wisely) sidesteps the siren song of sitcom humor or drama – there are no false moments of mistaken intentions, there are no wacky moments of sexual advances, and most importantly, the characters don’t act like their actions don’t have consequences. It’s irrelevant whether or not the main characters do or do not have affairs, but what is important is that Lipsky’s film actually shows them weighing the pros and cons of said affairs. Rarely do you get a film or a filmmaker that has the patience to show that. The only minus for the film was the way it was filmed; filmed in digital some of the film was a little murky and in some scenes I definitely noticed the digital photography more than the story, but those are nitpicks. Lipsky was in attendance for a Q and A afterwards and mentioned that filming on digital was something that he didn’t want to do, and it’s something he’ll never do again.
After the seminar I had a few minutes to prepare for the one film I was most looking forward to, Atom Egoyan’s Adoration. This is a powerful film about the thin line between truth and reality and how we remember things. Like any good Egoyan film, Adoration begins in flashback and then works its way towards a conclusion via more flash backs, until finally the major epiphany happens and Egoyan unravels the final layer. I admit I am a huge fan of his films and probably an apologetic one at that, but this is a film of tremendous power that ranks right up there with Egoyan’s own masterpiece The Sweet Hereafter. I felt lucky to see the movie as we were informed before the film began that it probably won’t be released until July or August.
Later that night I watched the Japanese film Kabei: Our Mother which is a deliberate and poignant WWII melodrama. There is a shot at the end of the film that shows post war Japan in a small rural village, it’s an unexpected punch to the gut as most of the film is quite tame aesthetically. This is your typical Japanese film, slow, methodical in its melodrama, and wonderfully acted. The director Yoji Yamada has apparently been around a long time as I researched him prior to seeing the film and found that this was the man’s 80th film (!). At certain points I felt the films length, but then to the films credit I was sucked right back in for another 45 or 50 minutes. A really nice film.
The final film of the night was the real surprise, and I think ultimate winner, of the festival. Jeffery Goodman: The Last Lullaby. Tom Sizemore stars as a “retired” and weary hitman who can’t sleep, stumbles upon an opportunity to make some money which dominoes into events that get him more and more involved with someone he is supposed to kill. The film is a highly affective small town neo-noir in the vein of Blood Simple, Red Rock West, and 2007’s The Lookout. There's also a nice homage to John Boorman's noir classic Point Blank. Sizemore still has the chops to act, and the look of the film is gorgeous as we were treated to a pristine 35mm print made solely for the Salem Film Festival. The film doesn’t rely on the clichés of the thriller; rather, it has fun with the conventions and motifs of noir: the weary protagonist, the man who gets in too deep, ambiguity, etc. There’s a great shootout scene that is intelligent and relies on silence and smarts, rather than guns blazing. It’s films like this that get me excited about the fact there are still filmmakers out there who realize that, when making a film like this, subdued and classical film techniques are always going to trump the “in-the-moment” action style found in most movies containing shootouts. The violence in The Last Lullaby is shocking, not because it’s ultra violent, but because the loudness of gun bursts always breaks the comforts of silence. It's an amazing film that succeeds in existing in that kind of no man's land found in sorta-commerical, sorta-indie films like In Bruges and the aforementioned The Lookout.
I wrapped my weekend by seeing a touching Chinese/American film called Children of Invention. The film was made before the market crashed and millions of people lost their jobs, but it has come at an appropriate time. The film concerns a mother who is trying to make ends meet after her husband has left her to go back to Hong Kong. Elaine Chang and her two young kids live just outside of Boston in an abandon new construction condo (the owner is out of town for five months, so their friend allows them to stay there). Elaine is constantly looking for the next “get rich quick” idea as she spends most of her day replying to ads in the newspaper. Eventually she is conned into a pyramid scheme and the bad goes to worse as events unfold that leave her kids vying for themselves. There are moments of real joy that are cut with moments of intense anxiety as Elaine struggles to figure out how she will get food on the table. The title comes into play at the end, something I dare not spoil, but I will say this: when the kids’ moment of reverie is interrupted by the harsh realities of the world they have to live it, well, it was one of the most poignant moments of any film I saw at the festival. The film is doubly remarkable by the fact that the two young young actors carry the film, and kudos to writer/director Tze Chun for not making the kids sugary-sweet and going the conventional route where the audience’s emotions are manipulated; which is usually the case with films concerning small children.
