Anomalisa

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Duke Johnson and Charlie Kaufman/Voices: David Thewlis, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Tom Noonan

Charlie Kaufman is one of film's great screenwriting talents. His screenplays for the films Being John Malkovich, The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Synecdoche, NY and Adaptation reflect the thoughts and emotions of an intellectually curious mind. His new film; Anomalisa, which is based on his radio play of the same name and for which he shares a directing credit with Duke Johnson, is an affecting drama told in an unconventional way. Rather than film in live action, Kaufman and Johnson employed stop motion animation puppetry and miniaturized sets to tell the story of a man who feels emotionally disconnected from a world populated by people whose voices appear to be all the same.

Though the use of stop motion puppetry wouldn't seem like the most ideal story-telling medium, it proves to be quite an effective on film. And in choosing an offbeat manner in which to tell their story, Kaufman and Johnson manage to create a cinematic experience that is both moving and profound.

Anomalisa tells the story of author Michael Stone (David Thewlis, voice); who has just arrived in Cincinnati to deliver a speech at a conference on customer service. We see Michael walking through the airport terminal; indifferent to the faces and bodies he brushes past.

Michael's encounter with a cabby is disconcerting. The driver refuses to make eye-contact but accepts the fare. Michael's weary patience with the cab driver's incessant chatter is sorely tried by the repetitive comments about the Zoo and Cincinnati's famed chile. Michael's mood hardly improves when the bellhop at the hotel continues the stream of seemingly endless prattle.
A phone call to his wife and child, which is mostly perfunctory, also ends disappointingly. All alone, Michael orders room service but decides to call a woman from his past; a former lover who happens to be living in Cincinnati. The phone conversation is naturally awkward but Michael asks her to the hotel for a drink; an offer she warily accepts.

At this point in the film, one will notice that all the voices not Michael's are the same; male and female. Actor Tom Noonan lends his non-threatening, flat, nasally voice to all the characters, even Michael's former lover. This eccentricity is at first puzzling, as the audience might wonder why the filmmakers would deliberately have everyone sound the same. And when Michael meets his former lover in the hotel bar; a woman he hasn't seen in ten years, her voice also bears the same lifeless tone we hear in everyone else.

Their conversation is naturally awkward at first as she asks what has prompted Michael to reach out to her after ten years. Michael talks about his problems, mainly his doubts about his mental health and his feelings of loneliness. Before long, the conversation turns to their failed relationship. Old wounds are reopened as his former lover asks why he walked away from their relationship. A conversation already fraught with tension escalates into anger when Michael invites her to his room. Her anger prompts a scene-making exit where Michael is left alone at the table, embarrassed and dejected. Michael returns to his room and looks out his window. He sees a man in a building across the street; sitting before a computer, preparing to masturbate; which does little to alleviate his feeling of isolation and loneliness.

Not long after, Michael hears a voice while in the shower. He steps out, dons pants and a shirt and hurries into the hallway to locate the person he believes he's heard. Finding no one, he knocks on several doors, only to come upon one room with two women who happen to recognize him from his book. The women mention they are also in town to attend the customer service conference and are keen to mention his speech, which they are eager to hear. Of the two women, Michael finds one has a distinctive voice unlike the others he's heard. He notices that the voice, which belongs to a woman named Lisa (Jennifer Jason Leigh, voice) is pleasing to his ear. Enchanted by her voice, Michael invites both women for drinks in the hotel bar. While the friend is eager and coquettish, Lisa is shy and tentative.
After drinks, the evening nearly comes to an end until Michael invites Lisa back to his room for a nightcap. Urged on by her friend, whose ego is somewhat bruised, Lisa agrees to his invitation.

Their conversation, fueled by Lisa's nervous volubility, exhilarates Michael, who encourages her to carry on. As they become more intimate, Michael notices a scar over one of Lisa's eyes. She preempts any questions about it with her firm refusal to discuss it further.

While she talks, we see that Lisa is self-deprecating; speaking disparagingly about her lack of smarts and how she needs a dictionary to understand many of the words in his book. In spite of her lack of self-confidence, Michael becomes rapturous as he listens to Lisa verbalize and at one point in their conversation, he asks her to sing a Cindy Lauper song when she mentions how much she likes her music. The scene where Lisa sings Lauper's Girls Just Want to Have Fun is one of the film's most touching moments; as is what follows after during an amorous joining.

The next morning, as the two enjoy breakfast in the hotel room, the euphoria both Michael and Lisa felt the night before is doused by harsh reality as their respective, annoying, behavioral tics begin to emerge. What is worse, the enchanting voice that excited him the night before begins to bear traces of the flat voice he hears everywhere else until it overlaps with Lisa's voice.

Michael's talk at the conference becomes surreal as his angry, agitated outbursts about the lack of human connection mingle with the more mundane aspects of the speech. What is actually said and what does the audience hear? Reality and madness begin to blur.

In returning home to his wife and son, Michael finds a surprise party in his honor but though his wife tells him that everyone present loves him, the idea holds little succor. The final, unsentimental shot of Michael sitting on his stairs; alienated from the people and the party, makes any happy resolution impossible. But in spite of Michael's tragic condition, the final shot in the film belongs to Lisa, whose irrepressible good nature allows her something less gloomy.

I'm not sure the film would have been as powerful had the story employed live action. One may notice that the puppets had deliberate seams in their faces, as if everyone were wearing masks. Earlier in the film, Michael's anxiety about his face becoming detached to reveal a robotic one underneath gives the audience the sense that everyone may be automatons beneath their epidermal veneer.

I don't know what vocal criteria Kaufman and Johnson had in mind for their characters but I must say the casting was exceptional. David Thewlis' voice has a plaintive quality, which is ideal for Michael's anxious disposition. Lisa's voice, which she uses to mask a psychic wound like the facial scar she tries to hide, often sounds like that of a little girl's; vulnerable and uncertain. Jennifer Jason Leigh's vocal performance captures all the nuance in Lisa's personality.

Unfortunately for Michael, no answers or comforting solutions to his existential suffering are forthcoming. One of the film's sad ironies is that a man whose success is predicated on customer relations--human relations--is desperate for meaningful, human connection.

It is interesting to consider that one of the most touching dramas in American film in 2015 relied on puppetry to tell its story. The puppetry might have only been a cute gimmick if the film lacked a poignant story. Though the faces we see on-screen remain artificial, the emotions, anxieties and thoughts communicated are wonderfully and tragically human.

The Hateful Eight

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Quentin Tarantino/Starring: Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Michael Madsen, Bruce Dern, Tim Roth, Walton Goggins, Demian Bichir and Zoe Bell

Happy New Year folks! And what a way to cross the threshold into another 365 with Quentin Tarantino's new film The Hateful Eight. The release of any Tarantino film is always a much-anticipated event. Tarantino's films guarantee a good time and his new western is anything but a snoozer.
It's axiomatic that westerns, particularly Sergio Leone's variety, occupy a prominent place in Tarantino's movie pantheon. Even his crime films contain allusions to Spaghetti westerns. Though his new film doesn't feel entirely like a Spaghetti, it nevertheless nods in that direction at times. The most conspicuous connection to the Italian westerns is in the soundtrack; an exceptional score by the man who helped make that western subgenre famous; Ennio Morricone.

Things we can expect from every Tarantino film are: colorful characters, colorful dialogue, violence; often times very graphic and his penchant for showing a sequence of events from different perspectives. And none of these indispensable Tarantino elements are crafted without his keen intelligence, which help mold these disparate features into something compellingly cohesive.

Subtitles tell us The Hateful Eight is Tarantino's eighth film, which is followed by a seque to a shot fit for the 70mm format proudly advertised in trailers: the white, wintry mountains of Wyoming (Colorado in actuality). In long shot, moving against the inert, silent surroundings is a stagecoach struggling through the deep snow.

Up close, we see the coach stop for a black man blocking the road who stands near several bodies, piled high. When the coachman stops the coach, the black man asks if he might ride along. The coachman tells him only the man who has hired the coach can decide. When the coachman turns to shout toward the interior of the coach, a heavily mustachioed man sticks his head out and inquires about the identity of the prospective rider. He makes the black man, who introduces himself as Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson), walk slowly to the side of the coach but not before asking him to lay his his pistols down on a rock. Warren explains to the man, who introduces himself as John Ruth (Kurt Russell), that he has bodies he intends to collect a bounty on and is in need of a ride. Ruth tells Warren, in a forceful manner, that he intends to take the woman sitting in the carriage; Daisy Domergue (an excellent Jennifer Jason Leigh) to Red Rock to hang and isn't partial to having company along. The sight of Daisy's face; ragged and black-eyed, isn't mitigated by her gruff manner, which she extends to Warren in the form of racist comments. After further cajoling, Warren convinces Ruth to allow he and his bounty bodies a ride to Red Rock.

Along the way, Ruth and Warren get better acquainted; having met casually once before in the past. In their conversation, which is tinged with mutual suspicion and distrust, Warren tells Daisy about Ruth's reputation for bringing captives to hang, thus earning him the nickname John "The Hangman" Ruth. Warren's past is also revealed when we learn about his role as officer for the Union in the Civil War. Their conversation moves along and is only disturbed periodically by Daisy's comments, which elicit Ruth's violent responses; one being a hard elbow to the nose. Though she is slated to hang, we don't learn of Daisy's crime until the latter part of the film though we know murder is involved; which seems likely, given her rough appearance and rougher tongue.

In their ride through the Wyoming snow, they see a man waving to them from a distance who is also in need of a ride. Ruth is immediately suspicious; believing the man to be a secret associate of Warren's but changes his mind when they make his acquaintance. The man, with whom Ruth is more than familiar, is Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins), who explains that he is en route to Red Rock where he is to become the sheriff. Ruth scoffs at the claim; explaining to Daisy and Warren that Mannix belonged to a Confederate guerrilla party whose airs of legitimacy were challenged by those who say the unit were no more than marauders. While Ruth eyes Mannix suspiciously, the would-be sheriff rankles Warren with his southern, racist comments.

After reluctantly taking on Mannix, the blizzard worsens until the group is forced to stop at a place called Minnie's Haberdashery; a lonely establishment serving as a kind of outpost.

Upon entering we see the name of the establishment is kind of a joke, as no haberdashery is anywhere to be seen; only what looks to be a crude version of a country inn. Seated in the establishment are a few men who are scattered about the place. The ferocious, cold winds makes it necessary for the occupants to nail small, wooden planks on the door to keep the door from bursting open. The fact that everyone entering the haberdashery must first bust open the door then nail planks to keep the door from opening becomes a running gag throughout the film.

As Warren, Ruth, Mannix and Daisy become situated, they (and we) meet the mysterious gathering who have also become thwarted by the storm:

• Bob (Demian Bichir); Minnie's Mexican employee, who informs the arrivals his boss has gone away on business; a statement Ruth finds more than a little suspect.
• Oswaldo Mobray (Tim Roth); an English executioner, who is to serve at Daisy's hanging.
• General Sandy Smithers (Bruce Dern); a former officer for the Confederacy, who looks upon Warren and his Union blue with disgust.
• Joe Gage (Michael Madsen); a cow puncher who is as dubious everyone else.

Held captive by the weather, animosities emerge, such as that between Warren and Smithers, which eventually escalates into violence. Smithers finds an ally in Mannix, whose esteem of the officer reaches obsequious proportions.

Unsure of the other lodgers, Ruth investigates the identities of those already in the Haberdashery. And not long after Ruth begins to suspect that one or more of the lodgers are in cahoots with Daisy, which only intensifies his distrust of all present.The film then becomes a mixed-genre of western and mystery as the riddle of who might be Daisy's collaborators becomes the narrative focus. A killer locked in a sealed room with other people is a well-worn plot device peculiar to mystery novels, but it works well here. Tarantino is a master at drawing tension and drama from such situations as he did in Reservoir Dogs, where a near-empty warehouse becomes a stage in which criminals try to identify the cop in their gang.

After Warren's showdown with Smithers, we learn the coffee has been poisoned, which claims the lives of two characters. Who the culprit might be becomes the mystery within the mystery and as we draw closer to learning the identities of those who might be Daisy's accomplices, the film becomes more violent and bloody. Later, another character emerges at which point all mysteries unravel and a savage climax is ushered into the narrative.

Very few directors can keep a 168 minute film enthralling. Tarantino seems to have few difficulties accomplishing this feat. How he manages this is yet another mystery, though the answer seems deceptively simple. Considering most of the film is dialogue and exposition, one might think the story would become monotonous but in Tarantino's hands I found my attention fully engaged.

The beautiful exterior shots of a pristine, white snowscape stand as a terrific contrast to the Haberdashery interior; particularly later, when blood seems to splash over all the characters and nearly every surface. Tarantino's long-time cinematographer; Robert Richardson, does his profession proud with the 70mm palette he is given to work with.

Ennio Morricone's scores are always memorable; his music here is no exception. At 87, his compositions show no sign of becoming stale.

Jennifer Jason Leigh doesn't have much dialogue but she manages to be a forceful presence, nevertheless. The sight of her bloodied, maniacal face is one of the more memorable images from the film. Samuel L. Jackson, the real scene stealer of Pulp Fiction (not Travolta), commands our attention early and holds it.

Tarantino says he will retire after his tenth film. After seeing The Hateful Eight, I felt his retirement target to be premature. I hope he reconsiders. His new film demonstrates his edginess is still intact and robust.
Tarantino would have been a great playwright. What is an essentially a chamber piece feels like a really exciting play.
His film is one of the last significant movie releases of 2015. It is a helluva way to end the year and an exceptional film to have as a first blog-post for 2016.

Welcome to Me

**Spoiler Alert**

Director Shira Piven/Starring: Kristen Wiig, Wes Bentley, Joan Cusack, Jennifer Jason Leigh, James Marsden, Tim Robbins, Linda Cardellini and Thomas Mann

Shira Piven's Welcome to Me is one of those films that is so self-consciously weird that its weirdness becomes a tiresome contrivance. It goes well out of its way to be strange but at times it can elicit a chuckle when it isn't trying too hard to be bizarre. Director Shira Piven's film makes a reasonably good entrance, only to stumble then drag itself to a whimsical end.

Kristen Wiig plays Alice Klieg, a manic-depressive living in the fictional southern Californian town of Palm Desert. She spends part of her days in therapy, where Dr. Daryl Moffet (Tim Robbins) administers psychiatric guidance and prescriptions. The other part are spent in front of the T.V., idolizing Oprah Winfrey; lip-syncing her on-screen patter and gleaning morsels of Oprah-wisdom dispensed on air.

Among Alice's possessions are small stacks of losing lottery tickets. In an early scene, Alice tunes in to a televised lottery drawing. As the numbers are called, we see that Alice has won the $86 million (actually a lesser amount for a lump sum) jackpot. Ecstatic and dumbfounded, she can barely breath the words "I'm a winner" into the phone to claim the prize. True to her eccentric nature, she makes a hotel casino her second home then gathers her family and friends for a celebratory meal.

Enthralled with Oprah and her inspirational words, Alice and her friend Gina (Linda Cardellini), visit a live taping of an infomercial at a local T.V. station. During the show, when the host Gabe Ruskin (Wes Bentley) asks for a volunteer to demonstrate a product's effectiveness, Alice is only too eager to walk on stage. The show producer and staff in the booth express dismay when the erratic Alice, commandeers the show with her off-the-wall volatility.

Afterwards, the two brothers who control the station's content; Gabe and Rich Ruskin (James Marsden) invite Alice into their conference room to meet with the production staff. In the course of discussion, Alice lets it be known she wants her own show and when asked what it would be about, she says, "me." Of course the staff, including producer Dawn Hurley (Joan Cusack) and Deb Moseley (Jennifer Jason Leigh) voice their objections, only to be silenced by Alice's $15 million dollar check, which covers the projected production cost of her show.

I don't know about other film-goers, but I always find it excruciating to watch a film about a lottery winner who is hell-bent on squandering his/her fortune on frivolous nonsense. At this point in the film, the total and imminent exhaustion of the fortune seems like a fait accompli.

The show, with its zeitgeist-appropriate title Welcome to Me is naturally a bizarre spectacle that could have been the brainchild of David Lynch and Luis Bunuel.

The show begins with Alice arriving on a swan followed by re-enactments of slights suffered by Alice during her life, which share air-time with cooking segments featuring outlandish and unpalatable culinary creations, like a frosting-topped meatloaf. The staff, looking on in the booth, watch incredulously. The show manages to draw viewers and even a few admirers.

Gabe begins to have qualms about his brother's willingness to exploit Alice. Before long, Gabe and Alice begin a romance, which catches a snag during one of her rage-filled, flights of mental instability. Her erratic behavior and emotional vulnerability begin to impair her judgement. Alice has a fling with a fawning fan named Rainer Ybarra (Thomas Mann) which doesn't escape Gabe's notice.

As the show continues on its weird course and Alice's un-medicated self holds the production staff captive, her self-involved antics begin to wear on her loved ones, particularly her best friend Gina.

I suppose Piven's film is commentary on the narcissism gripping the country and it makes a convincing case of its pandemic reach. Approaching the topic with absurdist humor is a good way to go but the film asphyxiates in its weirdness. Don't get me wrong; I like weird but when it's a film's selling point rather than an element of its storytelling, it becomes a tiresome affectation, as it is here. As the story progresses, Alice's condition becomes less funny and more tedious.

A film like Welcome to Me could only end happily, which it does. Alice comes to acknowledge her ego-centrism and makes an extraordinarily selfless gesture to her best friend Gina.

The supporting cast was quite terrific when given their time though most are consigned to straight-men roles. When you have actors like Robbins and Cusack; who wield considerable comedic ability, exiled to the margins, it becomes a liability.

As previously stated, the film generates a modicum of laughs but I mostly found the movie to be a one-note joke. If manic-depressive narcissists are your company of choice, then Piven's film is for you. I suppose there is a better comedy out there dealing with this small cross-section of American society but that's another film. At least this one makes a case for not skipping one's meds.