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GSC Films A-D 2 Days in Paris 2007 July Delpy (France) 3.5 Adam Goldberg as Jack, insecure, hypochondriacal New Yorker; July Delpy as pretty Parisian Marion manifesting the deficiencies in her love life; Albert Delpy as Marion's kooky father, an artist obsessed with sexual subjects; Marie Pillet as her equally eccentric mother who loves cats, enjoys doing laundry, and boasts about having had a “little” affair with Jim Morrison back in the day when people were “happy with their bodies” (both parent characters are played by Delpy’s actual parents). Amusing and insightful comedy on the foibles of romantic relationships and French and American culture. Goldberg and Delpy arrive in Paris from Venice on a trip in Europe to try to revive their flagging romantic relationship and to show the non- French-speaking Goldberg Paris and introduce him to Delpy’s family. In the course of the film, the food market with Delpy’s father (much to Goldberg’s dismay, flayed rabbits hanging all around). The film is extremely amusing largely because of Delpy’s quirky, aggressive yet cute and sexy personality: she gets into violent, profanity-laced arguments with a racist cab driver (Delpy is fanatically committed to left- wing causes); and she gets so obnoxious in her confrontation with an ex-lover in a café (he had dumped her several years before and gone to Thailand to “have sex with 12-year-olds”) that she is thrown by the management out on the street. She is also flirtatious and self-indulgent, at one point leading a good- looking Algerian taxi driver to offer to make a baby with her, if she wants one that looks like Brad Pitt. The couple constantly runs into her numerous ex-lovers; her flirtatious indulgence of their attentions causes disputes with Goldberg: every time they try to have sex, they get into an argument, e.g., over whether Delpy can be on top; at one point Goldberg discovers pornographic texts on Delpy’s telephone, and he has to resort to a dictionary to decode expressions like “lécher la chatte”. The interface between American and French culture gets entertaining treatment through Goldberg’s experiences: his staring blankly (or suspiciously) during conversations since he doesn’t speak French; his nonplussed reactions to the peculiar behavior of Julie’s parents; his incredulity when faced with Delpy’s outbursts; his disgusted reaction to eating rabbit and standing among animal cadavers in the street market; his totally justified but uncertain jealous reactions to Delpy’s continued flirtations with her ex-boyfriends. Although the ending is not clear about the future of the couple’s relationship (a long downer of a conversation is followed by a scene of the two dancing in the street), the overall trend of the relationship throughout the film is downhill – mainly through Goldberg’s jealousy and insecurity at Delpy’s self-indulgent behavior. A delightful film that unlike ‘Before Sunrise’ is not romantic but honest, real, affectionate (Delpy’s picture of her parents), observant, and sometimes very funny. (2012) 2 Days in New York 2012 Julie Delpy (France) 3.0 Julie Delpy as pretty, blond, a little scatter-brained New York artist trying to make domestic commitment work with her boyfriend; Chris Rock a bit subdued and wooden as her boyfriend who hosts a talk show in New York; Albert Delpy (Julie’s real father) as Julie’s good-humored, balmy charming French father; Alexia Landeau as Rose, Julie’s dark-haired, impulsively lecherous sister who walks mostly nude in Delpy’s crowded apartment (she says she is a learning specialist with an advanced degree!); Alexandre Nahon as Manu, Rose’s highly annoying supposed boyfriend who leeches off his guest and gets deported to France when “he rolls a joint” (the father) right in front of a police station. Amusing screwball-style sequel to ‘Two Days in Paris’ that reverses the original situation – instead of Julie introducing her boyfriend to her balmy French family, the father (the mom has died in the intervening five years) arrives with his daughter to get in the hair of Delpy and Rock. The film has many good jokes – cross-cultural and otherwise: the father is detained for four hours at the airport for trying to smuggle a large quantity of cheese and sausage into the USA, some of it taped to his body; Rock is disgusted by the sound of Rose and Manu having sex in the bathroom using Chris’s electric toothbrush (the hum clearly heard); Rose catches the eye of the neighbors by “montrant ses fesses” during their visit to the apartment; Rose shows a breast (over the objections of her sister) while working out in the local gym; Delpy pretends that she has incurable brain cancer (and shuffling to prove it!) when she is attacked by a neighbor for the noise caused by her French visitors; Delpy loses it during a showing of her (boring) life photographs, attacking a visiting art critic and telling him the whole city hates him. The movie excels in showing the charming, pretty Delpy trying desperately to maintain balance and order in the midst of chaos. The theme throughout is whether the principal 1 couple’s arrangement will prosper – no problems with their inter-racial relationship (no apparent racism in the film), but Delpy’s zaniness severely tries the patience of the low-key Rock, who however finally decides to stay with her after a “discussion” with a lifesize cutout of Obama he keeps in his home office. Another plot-spiritual issue intrudes at the end, whereby Delpy has to accept her mother’s death by rescuing a pigeon in distress in Central Park and transferring her mother’s memory to the animal (?); there is also an indecipherable issue about Delpy’s soul being sold at auction and then the considerable pains she takes to recuperate it. Entertaining, witty little film that perhaps lacks the spontaneity, freshness of the first one. 12 Angry Men 1957 Sidney Lumet 3.5 Very dramatic, one set movie (92 minutes) with dynamite (over-?) acting, produced and masterminded by Henry Fonda. Great cast of male actors including Ed Begley, Lee J. Cobb, E.G. Marshall, Jack Warden, Martin Balsam, Joseph Sweeney, Robert Webber, John Fiedler, and of course Fonda. Claustrophobic atmosphere: extremely hot with almost everyone sweating, but as we get near end, the weather breaks, the thunderstorm hits, and it cools off. Jury ready to convict poor Puerto Rican kid, but Fonda, the noble white liberal and voice of reason, gets the acquittal ball rolling. The nativist white middle class and blue collar people are prejudiced and are anxious, sometimes for personal reasons (Cobb and his son), to convict the kid. The humble people, the immigrant (watchmaker), the milquetoast, etc. are the ones most inclined to give the kid a break. Fonda and others rather improbably break down the evidence presented against the kid – the woman’s eyeglasses, whether the old man could walk all the way to his front door, “I’m gonna kill ya!” Lesson in civic virtue – you have to be fair, reasonable, and operate on the principle of the reasonable doubt. Very interesting characters – Marshall as voice of reasonable conviction, Warden just wants to get to his baseball game, the old man has his own wisdom, etc. Makes you wonder about the jury system! 12 Years a Slave (AA) 2013 Steve McQueen 4.0 Chiwetel Ejiofer (AA) as Solomon Northup, dignified, patient African-American from New York, who is kidnapped into slavery in Louisiana in 1841, where he is called Platt; Adepero Oduye as woman who wails endlessly when she is separated from her children; Paul Giamatti as heartless slave dealer, who however is a charming good salesman; Benedict Cumberbatch as relatively humanitarian first slave owner of Platt (he gives him a violin); Paul Dano as very cruel, unfeeling racist overseer working for Cumberbatch; Michael Fassbender as Platt’s second owner – he is scarily neurotic as Bible-thumping racist who exploits his slaves, rapes the Black women, and hates himself for it; Sarah Paulsen as Fassbender’s wife, vengeful and jealous woman that encourages her husband to mistreat his mistress Patsey; Lupita Nyong’o (AA) as very thin, emotive Black mistress of Fassbender; Alfre Woodard in curious role as a Black woman who is wife to a white plantation owner and mistress of the plantation; Brad Pitt with light perimeter beard convincing as Abolitionist carpenter, who is the instrument of Solomon’s liberation after 12 years. Riveting, highly disturbing film essentially about the inhumanity of slavery in the American South in the 1840s and 1850s. The film is divided into three parts: the story of Solomon’s passage to slavery by crooked entertainers who approach him in upstate New York and lure him to Washington, DC, where he is kidnapped; the long middle section that has little plot curve, but focuses on Platt’s epic mistreatment and suffering; Platt’s chance encounter with an abolitionist carpenter, who puts him into contact with authorities in New York, who have him freed (curious that the Louisiana authorities cooperate) and reunited with his family. The film stands out mainly for its unblinking visualization of the sufferings of slaves: instead of the ‘Gone With the Wind’ image of the happy Mammy, we have Platt having to pretend that he is illiterate and from Georgia, with a noose around his neck standing on his tiptoes to keep from being strangled (the white mistress of the plantation looks on impassively), Platt being forced by the insane Fassbinder to beat Patsey until the blood runs and the welts are gaping on her back.

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