Weekly Wilson

Director Tomas Alfredson ("Let the Right One In") and actor Gary Oldman after the screening of "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" on November 17, 2011, in Chicago.

“I feel like I’m back in my old hometown—Gotham.  He abandoned you, didn’t he—Nolan?” said Gary Oldman with a laugh, as he kicked off a Q&A in Chicago following the showing of his new film with Swedish Director Tomas Alfredson (2008’s “Let the Right One In”).  The reference, of course, was to Oldman’s role as Lt. Jim Gordon in 2008’s “The Dark Knight.” The “Nolan” reference is to Christopher Nolan and that director’s choice of Pittsburgh as the setting for the newest Batman movie in the franchise, to be released in 2012.

Actor Gary Oldman.

Oldman’s presence in Chicago this night with Director Tomas Alfredson was to publicize “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy,” the movie version of John LeCarre’s novel of the same name. (LeCarre worked as a producer on the film).  Oldman said, “I’ve waited 30 years for a role like this. I had to rein in emotion for this one. It was a nice difference.” Referring to a scene in the film where George Smiley, Oldman’s character, lets a fly out of the car where it has been bothering the three occupants, he says, “The fly scene in the car encapsulated Smiley. He expends only enough energy, like a cat. Smiley is a real study in economy. That (fly scene) tells you more about his character than any dialogue.”

Gary Oldman, star of "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy."

Noting that John LeCarre was a producer on the film, Oldman said, “The shadow of Alec Guinness (who played the part previously) was large enough. And, of course, we had John LeCarre as a resource.  He had written the book and lived the life.  John could fill in the earlier days for me, as this book was more autobiographical for him than some others. One stop shopping, for me.” He added, “That’s the exciting thing, for me.  You go to work and the work happens in the moment.  Hopefully, the cloak of inspiration will fall.”

Director Tomas Alfredson said he wanted to make a period piece steeped in atmosphere. “I tried to create a voyeuristic perspective.  I wanted to recreate the feeling of London in those days.  Sort of a damp tweed and cabbage feeling. It’s a lot of fun to make period pieces and its easier if the period is further away.”  The director also commented on the atmospheric soundscape of the film, where the sound of toast being buttered or a tea cup is important. “It’s refreshing to see a movie that isn’t just cut, cut, cut and doesn’t assault you,” both agreed. Noting that, “The secret to playing this (George Smiley) was in the book,” Oldman agreed with Alfredson about the film’s emotional depth.  “I thought one of the great things about it is that we were not forced to kick it up a notch.  It was sort of like watching a lava lamp,” he joked.

Director Tomas Alfredson ("Let the Right One In")

What both men meant was that there are not gratuitous explosions or car chase scenes, but simply the story of a mole within “the Circus,” the London location of MI6’s headquarters at Cambridge Circus. Several times in the film this line occurs:  “There’s a rotten apple. We have to find it.”

On a humorous note, Director Alfredson told of a scene where Oldman is filmed frying an egg. It was a very quiet scene, with Oldman cooking the egg and then carefully cutting and eating it.  As he watched the daily rushes, Oldman smiled and said to Alfredson, “I used to be Sid Vicious, you know,” a reference to his portrayal of Sid Vicious in the 1986 film “Sid and Nancy.”

“Tinker, Tailer, Soldier, Spy” opens wide December 9^th.

Neal and Carolyn Cassady with their son John.

At one point in the documentary “Love Always, Carolyn” son John Cassady, [Neal Cassady’s son with the Carolyn of the title], says, “In a secret way, I dig the attention.” Someone should break it to John that his love of the spotlight is no secret; it comes through loud and clear in this documentary made by Swedish filmmakers Malin Korkeasalo and Maria Ramstrom. This underscored when Malin shared, after the film screened in Chicago at the Chicago Film Festival, that John, now in his sixties, drives around in something dubbed “the Beatmobile.”

Swedish filmmaker Malin Korkeasalo.

Asked how this documentary about Carolyn Cassady came to be made, how the filmmakers gained access to her, Malin said, “I did a short portrait of Carolyn for a magazine and, afterwards, she wanted help with her photographs.” Added Malin, “I was surprised at how eager she was to have her children involved (in the documentary).”

Carolyn Cassady was not the only woman in Neal Cassady’s life. He had a previous marriage (to LuAnne Henderson in 1947, which was annulled), became a bigamist with Dianne Hansen (he had another son named Curtis in 1950). When he died in Mexico at age 41, he had yet another woman (Anne Murphy) in his life. Said Carolyn, “Every woman fell in love with him.”

Swedish filmmaker Maria Ramstrom.

Apparently every man did, as well, since Neal and Alan Ginsberg had a well-documented homosexual relationship that spanned 20 years. I saw Alan Ginsberg come onstage to give a poetry reading at the University of California at Berkeley in the summer of 1965. A less attractive physical specimen would be difficult to find, “Howl” notwithstanding.
Neal Cassady, on the other hand, was physically handsome and very charming, but his upbringing with his alcoholic father in Denver, Colorado was far from normal—although Carolyn, in the documentary says, “There is no such thing as normal.” Carolyn also says, “I don’t regret knowing Neal, but I regret all the artificial self-promoting stuff that has come after it.  You just can’t get away from it.”

Maria Ramstrom and Malin Korkeasalo.

At this point in her life, nearing her 89^th birthday (April 28) Carolyn has begun divesting of various mementos of her life with Neal Cassady and Jack Kerouac, her lover from 1952 until 1960 at Neal’s urging. As Carolyn explains in the film, “It was Neal’s wish to share me with Jack.  I was against it, to begin with, but it was a survival for me to keep the man I loved.” Puffing on one of many small cigarillos, she says, “You have to go with the flow…There isn’t any hard and fast thing called love…Your heart is too big to just hold one sometimes.”

Going with the flow must have been difficult for Carolyn Cassady, who describes herself in the documentary as frigid ever since an older brother (she is one of 5 children) molested her in adolescence. Said Carolyn, “I was totally frigid from then on, but from then on I sold it for affection.” As she told the filmmakers, “You just do what you have to do. You get on with it and do it.”

Maria Ramstrom during the Q&A.

Carolyn’s early life in Lansing, Michigan and Nashville, Tennessee was fairly repressive. The youngest of 5 children, she describes a very solid Victorian upbringing, with a good home and a good education. “There was no touching or cuddling after infancy.  My nanny was the only hugging I ever got.  Almost anything you did, you never were quite good enough.” Carolyn left home at 16 to study drama and theater and became an accomplished painter and costumer of theatrical productions.

She met Neal and Jack in Denver at age 24 (1947) and says, “Some clog just clicked on a wheel.  That’s just how it felt and I knew this was the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.” Unfortunately, her parents strongly disapproved. Her mother wrote Carolyn a letter in which she told her “what a horrible horror I was” and her parents eventually disinherited her.

To this day, Carolyn has money issues. At the film’s outset, her son John says of her situation that she has only 200 pounds in her British bank. (John:  “She was down to 200 pounds in the bank last week, and I don’t know what we’re gonna’ do next month.”) (*Carolyn moved to Bracknell, England, outside London, at age 63 and lives there alone, as her 3 children with Neal Cassady all live in the United States. At one point in the film she jokes that the sheets she is folding have been around since 1954 and that “maybe I should sell them to Johnny Depp or somebody.”) There is also a line about “all those pictures that have been supporting me ever since” and Carolyn is heard verbally admonishing a representative of Penguin Books, who is selling a book that has a picture of Neal and Jack on the cover that Carolyn took. (“Well, shame on you! You used my photograph without permission or payment!”)

“I think we learn by our mistakes, by our wrong choices,” says the 89-year-old in the film. “The hardest part of my whole life is ending up alone.” She repeated the theme, “It’s a real drag that I ended up my life completely alone,” yet it was Carolyn who moved thousands of miles away from her children. She pronounced possible men in her age range after Neal to be “married or gay or impossible.”

When she looks back at Neal’s constant departures and irresponsible behavior as a husband and father she says, “You don’t do that (leave on a road trip) when you have a new wife and baby.” But, she adds, “He’d always talk himself back…Throwing them out never worked.” She says wryly, “He couldn’t quite get the marriage thing together.”

Cassady also “hated himself like that” when he would play the fool while high on drugs.  Neal told her, “They all just look at me and I get high and behave like an idiot.” Added Carolyn, “Which is so sad.  He hated himself for it. I asked him, ‘Then why do you do it?’ He responded, ‘I don’t know.  They just all expect it.’” Several times, Carolyn murmurs, “Such a brilliant mind.  Just horrible that he wasted it all on drugs.”

Carolyn has been quoted in Notes from the Underground as saying, “As far as I’m concerned, the Beat Generation was something made up by the media and Allen Ginsberg.” Her marriage to Cassady suffered tremendously when she refused to post his $5,000 bail after he was arrested for offering 3 marijuana cigarettes to an undercover policeman and he did 5 years in prison at San Quentin as a result. Said Carolyn, “We had some good times after that, but always in the background was resentment.  He never ever really forgave me.  I couldn’t risk the house, could I?”

The throngs of college students cheering for Carolyn and John Cassady at their appearances on campus seem to have bought into what Carolyn dubbed the myth of the Beat generation, without considering the consequences to the participants.  Sad is the biggest emotion that comes through.

Carolyn says, “I watched both of them destroy themselves.  It was hell.”  She quotes from a letter written to Neal discussing their young son John, who is acting out in adolescence, and says, “I don’t know how I can stand to watch him go the way you have, at what expense?”

Maria Ramstrom and Malin Korkeasalo.

Carolyn Cassady may have lived an interesting and memorable life that she has chronicled in her own book Off the Road, but this documentary takes a look at an almost 90-year-old woman who is living alone, trying to sell off memorabilia from her past with two of literature’s notorious Merry Pranksters in order to survive. What is even more distressing is that her three children seem to also have the idea that living off their always-absent father’s name is desirable. (One daughter wanted to market a wine with the pictures of Kerouac and Cassady on the jug.)

Far from leaving the film feeling envious of a woman who has experienced this history up close and personal, it just made me feel sad. Sad for Carolyn Cassady now, and sad that her life was spent in thrall to a man who had numerous women other than Carolyn in his life. (LuAnne Henderson, his first wife, in 1947; Diane Hansen, who gave birth to Curtis in 1950; Anne Murphy when he was in Mexico, where he was found dead alongside the railroad tracks just 4 days shy of his 42^nd birthday.)
As for Jack Kerouac, he drank himself to death at age 47.

Allen Ginsberg, bearded, disheveled and unkempt, in 1965 had to be physically carried offstage by the janitor at Berkeley, since squatting on the floor playing finger cymbals and mumbling incoherently didn’t really fall under the heading of “poetry reading.”

Adjectives like “ineffectual,” “powerless” and “desperate” are employed by the central figure in the film.  Carolyn says of herself, “I was overwhelmed,” but adds, “That’s what makes life interesting is all these complications.  Mine was pretty messed up.”

The documentary “Undefeated” (not to be confused with the documentary about Sarah Palin) played the Chicago Film Festival, depicting the Manassas High School Tigers football team’s 2009 season, as they attempt to win the first playoff game in the 110-year history of the school.

The filmmakers, T.J. Martin and Daniel Lindsay, spent 9 months living in Memphis and soon learned that “There’s a story under every helmet,” as Coach Bill Courtney told them. Courtney began volunteering in 2004 and is quoted throughout the documentary, reminding this Iowa Hawkeye fan of the antics of Coach Bob Commings (Massillon, Ohio), who was immortalized in a John Irving novel as “Iowa Bob.”  Commings called the Hawkeyes the “chosen children” and succeeded in winning some memorable games, but, ultimately, was unsuccessful in turning that program around and was fired. Coach Courtney, by contrast, announces he is quitting after the season to spend more time with his own family.

Daniel Lindsay (R) and T.J. Martin (L) at the Q&A for "Undefeated" in Chicago.

Before that, however, we learn a lot about the players on the Manassas Tigers team.  Most successful of the lot is probably O.C. Brown, 6’ 3”, 315 pounds and fast.  Mike Ray, volunteer coach, says, “That’s a big dude running that fast.” O.C. has some academic problems and, in a real-life plot that echoes “The Blind Side,” ends up moving in with an assistant coach and his family to make sure he remains eligible and is able to claim a college scholarship. After one report card period, the coach asks O.C., “How do you get a 90 in calculus and a 70 in keyboarding?” One memorable quote to the team, “If you will allow it, football will save your life.”

Another player highlighted in the film is troublemaker Chavis, who has one of the most emotional moments in the film as he turns his attitude around. Then there is “Money,” who suffers an injury to his ACL and must miss 8 to 12 weeks of playing time.  He begins to miss school after he can no longer play, and Coach Courtney says, “Money is on the cusp of being lost.”

Director Daniel Lindsay takes questions from the audience following the screening of his football documentary "Undefeated" in Chicago.

Really, most of the team is on the cusp of being lost and the filmmakers, in interviews after the game, revealed how many stories they had to ignore to highlight those that are included. There was Jaquim Collins, who had been in 18 different foster homes in 4 years, a defensive lineman. He became too old to remain in the 19^th home and was kicked out of the system.  Said Director Lindsay, “It was heartbreaking not to be able to tell his story. But ultimately the sum is greater than its parts.”

Money, in the film, is shown looking at an X-ray of his injured interior ACL ligament and asks the doctor, “Is that my brain?” The filmmakers reported that Money was not thrilled that that scene remained in the documentary.

Director Lindsay said, “We just filmed a ton of scenes and then laid them out. None of it was scripted…We were going for a very intimate film. Bill’s trusting us made the kids trust us, but it was really surprising to us how quickly they forgot we were there. The camera became an extension of us.” However, reported the filmmaking duo, “Even 2 to 3 months later, they (the players) still didn’t get what we were doing.  They’d ask, ‘So, who’s going to play me in the movie.’”

T.J. Martin, filmmaker, in Chicago.

The answer is that the Manassas Tigers played themselves, and the filmmakers did a very good job of being in the right place at the right time to capture moments in their 2009 season.  As Lindsay said of one particularly moving scene involving Chavis (the troublemaker), “Oh, my God! Did that really just happen?  We have a movie here!”

The film with plenty of exhortations like, “Please remember discipline. Please remember character, and let’s go kick their ass,” (Bill Courtney). As a former NFL player, invited to address the team by Coach Courtney, tells them, “It’s not where you start; it’s where you finish.”

The documentary, which earned great praise from one audience member, in particular, who called it “the best football film I’ve ever seen” will open in February with distribution from the Weinstein Brothers. Said Coach Courtney at one point, “If they don’t win the game, they’re gonna’ win the fight. You gotta’ believe in yourselves.  You can come back.”

Daniel Lindsay, T.J. Martin and Music Supervisor Sandy Wilson.

Sandy Wilson was Music Supervisor on the film, and should be singled out for praise, as well. All in all, with 70 young men on the team, there are some compelling and amazing stories of life in North Memphis and what it means to be resilient and never give up.

Kevin Spacey plays Wall Street trader in "Margin Call."

“The ground is shifting below our feet and apparently there’s no other way out,” say characters in the star-studded vehicle “Margin Call,” (playing now in Special Engagements). This film about the financial crisis of 2008 and how it brought Wall Street to its knees and created a ripple effect still being felt around the world is instantly reminiscent of “Too Big to Fail,” which was nominated for 11 prime-time Emmys.

“Margin Call” has Kevin Spacey as the 34-year-veteran of the financial world who sends traders onto the floor to do business each day.  Company head honcho Jeremy Irons needs Spacey to help facilitate a plan to sell off worthless securities, once Stanley Tucci and a young protégé, played by Zachary Quinto (Spock in 2009’s “Star Trek”) discover that the projected losses the formulas predict are greater than the financial worth of the company. Can the traders go forth and sell all this junk in fire sale fashion without the rest of Wall Street getting wise? Not easily, says Spacey to Irons, and, he adds, “You will never sell anything to any of those buyers ever again.” He adds, “This one is very ugly” and tries to quit, saying, “I think this will destroy this firm.  You’re knowingly putting people out of business.”  Irons needs Spacey standing by him for at least 24 months and Paul Bettany, next man down, does not seem willing to step into Spacey’s shoes and take part in what is described as “professional suicide” (A mercy killing, really,” says Spacey.)

It doesn’t help that, as this Lionsgate film opens, 80% of the staffers, including Tucci who found this imminent disaster scenario and is one of the few who totally understands what is already beginning to occur, is being shown the door. He seems anything but eager to return to help the firm out when the s*** hits the fan. Tucci had reported the discrepancies to his superior (a brittle, dour Demi Moore) earlier, but she and Simon Baker had soft-pedaled it to the big boss(es).

The firm tells its traders that, if they sell 93% of their assets, they get a $1.4 million personal bonus, and if the entire floor hits 93.1% sales, all will get another $1.3 million bonus and, as Irons says, “There’s always been fat cats and starving dogs and the percentage will stay exactly the same.” Irons, the big boss, also notes, “There’s gonna’ be a lot of money made coming out of this mess” and says, “it’s certainly no different today than it’s ever been. “ He notes of the fat cats, “We’ve got our fingers on the scales to help them.”

Written and directed by J.C. Chandor, the ads note that, to win, you need to either (1) Be first (2) Be smarter, or (3) Cheat. When Jeremy Irons’ character says to Spacey’s, “Where is this going to come back to us?” Spacey responds, “Everywhere.”

An all-star cast includes Kevin Spacey, Jeremy Irons, Paul Bettany, Simon Baker, Stanley Tucci, Demi Moore, Zachary Quinto, Penn Badgley and Mary McDonnell, plus Ella the chocolate brown Labrador retriever that humanizes Spacey as he knowingly helps dump $8 trillion of bad paper around the world before Armageddon.  Favorite line (re the explanation of the financial machinations):  “Speak as you would to a young child or a golden retriever.”)

A bit talky, but engrossing and your cynicism will rise by at least 93%.

“Jeff, Who Lives At Home,” a film by the Duplass brothers, was screened at the Chicago Film Festival on Tuesday, October 18, 2011 to an enthusiastic crowd anxious to see Ed Helms (“The Office,” “The Hangover”), Jason Segel (“Knocked Up,” “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” “I Love You, Man”) and Susan Sarandon (“Dead Man Walking,” “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” “Thelma and Louise”). Jay Duplass was present for the screening and answered questions afterwards.

The film follows two brothers, Jeff (Segel) and Pat (Helms) over one day, using the documentary-style shooting that Jay and Mark Duplass have become known for. “We just put people in a room and light the whole room and film it like a documentarian.  On a regular film, there is just one area lit and the actor has to come down and hit his or her mark and there might be 50 people standing there in a circle.  The actors outnumber the crew.

Jay Duplass, Director of "Jeff, Who Lives at Home'" at the Chicago Film Festival.

In our films, they (the actors) own the space.  Of course, I’ve gotta’ hustle to get the shots or there might be something epic going on and I’m standing behind a lamp.” This is the style the brothers Duplass have employed since 2001 and it has become standard on such TV sit-coms as “Parks & Recreation” and “The Office.” Many, seeing those shows on television, think the Brothers Duplass have been copying TV, when it is the other way around.  Said Jay Duplass in the Q&A after the film:  “We’ll never put anything secondary to what our actors are experiencing.”

Another hallmark of a Duplass film, aside from the fact that all of their protagonists seem to be desperate (“Cyrus” with John C. Reilly is an example) is that all actors are expected to improvise most of their lines.  With lines like, “What you just said sounded like Yoda took acid and stumbled into a business meeting,” or (Segal commenting on the size of Helms’ new Porsche), “The Porsche is normal-sized. You’re a Sasquatch,” make it clear that these actors are more than equal to the task.

Jeff Thompson (Segel) is shown dictating his thoughts into a tape recorder as the film opens. It isn’t until the camera pulls back that we realize he is sitting on the toilet at the time. Most of Jeff’s musings are about the meaning of life and the “signs” in the Universe that might help him to realize his potential, since, at this point in his life, he is 30 years old and living in his mom’s (Susan Sarandon) basement. (The M. Night Shymalan movie “Signs” is a recurring reference in the film.)

Jay Duplass and moderator during a Q&A that followed the screening of his film "Jay, Who Lives at Home" at the Chicago 47th International Film Festival.

Sharon Thompson (Sarandon) is at work and speaks to Jeff on the phone, telling him to take the bus to Highland Avenue to get wood glue to fix one of her broken shutters within the house.  Jeff (Segel) does get on the bus, but he is currently obsessed with the phone calls he keeps getting asking for “Kevin.” Jeff expresses the idea that everything in the universe is inter-related, that everyone and everything is interconnected and he thinks “there are no wrong numbers.”

When Jeff sees a young black man on the bus wearing a jersey that says “Kevin,” he gets off the bus and follows him, eventually ending up in a pick-up game of basketball and (also) being mugged. So far, no wood glue.

Enter brother Pat, who is married and works at Poplar Paint Company.  Pat and Linda (Judy Greer), his wife, have hit a rough spot in their childless marriage, some of it because Linda wants to buy a house, while Pat goes out and buys a Porsche, which Linda is not thrilled about. It is easy to see that both brothers are screw-ups, just in different ways.

After Pat’s impetuous purchase of the expensive Porsche (which he promptly wraps around a tree), Linda almost has an affair with a co-worker, Steve (Steve Zisses), even though all she is looking for is someone who will actually listen to what she says. (At one point, attempting to reconcile with her, Pat says, none too endearingly, “I’m going to try to understand your incoherent babble.”)

Another sub-plot involves a “secret admirer” at mother Sharon’s work, who keeps sending Sharon computer messages. At various points, characters say things like, “This is not the way I imagined my life was going to go.” Sharon muses on how she thought she’d join the Peace Corps, live in a hut, and end up kissing the love of her life under a waterfall. Instead, she is a widow (her husband Dan died in 1995 at the age of 44) and, as she tells co-worker Rae Dawn Chong, “I hate my kids right now.  When did that happen?  They were so cute when they were little.”

The universal human desire to love and be loved dominates the film.  After Pat discovers that Linda has been seeing another man, confronts her and she says that she thinks they should both “just walk away” from their marriage, Pat says to his brother, “I just want to feel like I love Linda and I want to feel like she loves me. I miss it.  I want it so bad.” Jeff, who is more the philosopher of the two, suggests that Pat must go to Linda and tell her. (“You need to say that to her right now.”)
That leads to a climactic scene on a bridge in traffic, where both brothers, their mother and Pat’s wife Linda end up in a destiny-shaping moment that makes them appreciate their lives.

“What happened?” asks Jeff as he recovers from a near drowning.

“Everything,” is the answer.

A truly entertaining film that is about much more than it sounds like it will be, when/if you read the plot synopsis.

See it for yourself. It’s worth doing.

Gayland Williams ("Sheila") and Michael Bricker of "Natural Selection."

The first feature-length outing by Director/Writer Robbie Pickering, “Natural Selection,” played Chicago’s 47^th International Film Festival on Sunday. It was a welcome change from the independent films and documentaries exploring suicide, murder and torture. I was delighted to find a movie about living life that had such a well-written script, such enjoyable humor and such good performances from all.

Everything in the film worked, from the cinematography (Steve Calitri, with editing by Michelle Tesoro) to the humor to the symbolism. Rachel Harris’ Linda White (Rachel played Melissa in 2009’s “The Hangover”) was one of the most skillful turns by an actress I’ve seen so far this year. Three actresses in the Chicago competition whose films screened could easily be  Best Actress nominees, with Tilda Swinton (“We Have to Talk About Kevin”), Michelle Williams (“My Week with Marilyn”) and Rachel Harris in “Natural Selection” leading the list. (And never count Meryl Streep out, as she takes on “The Iron Lady”).

The plot of “Natural Selection” focuses on a character named Linda White, who is modeled on Robbie Pickering’s own mother whose real name is Linda White. In fact, the puffy jacket used in the film belonged to Director Pickering’s Mom. Production designer Michael Bricker and cast member  Gayland Williams (Sheila) were present to answer questions after the movie screened and shared that detail, plus some behind-the-scenes about the motivation to make this particular film.

Bricker shared with the audience that Pickering wanted to make a film about how the weaker creatures in the forest survive. He was worried, at the time, about his mom’s being alone, as his stepfather, Bill (to whom the film is dedicated) had recently died. How do people who go through life trying to be “pleasers” and going along with the more dominant individuals among us fare?

The film opens with a Biblical quote: (Genesis 38: 9) “And God said to Onan, thou shalt not spill thy seed in vain.” Linda has been pronounced barren years earlier and is unable to give her husband, Abe, played by John Diehl (Detective Larry Zito on “Miami Vice” from 1984-1987) a child.  Abe is deeply religious. For their entire 25-year marriage he has withheld sex from Linda because “God says it’s a sin to act on these desires if you aren’t making babies.” Instead, Abe traveled to the Vista Care Fertility Clinic where he deposited his sperm weekly while watching pornographic movies.

It is while making one of the deposits at the “bank” that Abe has a stroke and Linda learns the truth about how Abe has coped with his own sexuality all these years.  In the opening scenes, however, Abe asks Linda to pray with him  and it is pretty clear that Linda, whose libido is proven to be undeniably healthy,  is just supposed to suck it up and do what Abe wants, once again seeking to please her man. Linda even says, “Whatever makes Abe happy makes me happy.” But does it, really? The film will examine that proposition; the viewer can judge for him or herself. One thing that Linda herself acknowledges is that she doesn’t like to be alone. She finds the presence of another person comforting, even if that other person is inflicting his will on her, like it or not. When on the road seeking Raymond Mansfield in Florida, Linda even attempts to call up the desk clerk at one of the motels she has checked in to, simply to talk to another human being. The lyrics of “Eleanor Rigby” would have sufficed for Linda’s plight, but, instead, we have Raymond saying of Linda, “The chick’s got so many holes, I guess it’s hard to keep them all shut.”

The next scene shows a man mowing grass. We learn a few moments later (in a scene derivative of “Raising Arizona”) that inside the grass bag is a prisoner escaping from Huntsville Prison. He forces his way out of the bag after the lawn mower is left untended and flees to an old colleague’s home: Raymond Mansfield’s ramshackle residence in Tampa, Florida. It is Raymond who is the biological son of Abe White (born of Abe’s sperm from the Vista Care Fertility Clinic) but Clyde Brisbee is the escapee guest in residence at Raymond’s pad when Linda arrives.

After Abe’s stroke, Linda discovered that Abe has a son somewhere in Florida, a son he has never met.  The doctors tell her Abe is not going to make it, so Linda sets off to find his child. As the film’s log-line notes, “God help her!” When she comes to Raymond’s door, the young man is quite adamant about not wanting any “Jesus crap” from his clean-cut visitor. In fact, he insists that Linda pay him $20 for 5 minutes of talk time. Unkempt. Drug-using. Living in a pit. Linda says, “This place could use a woman’s touch.” Raymond responds, “So could my pecker but that ain’t happening, either.”

I was interested in the respective ages of the two leads. After all, Linda White of the film says she has been married to Abe for 25 years. Rachel Harris, who plays Linda, in real life was born in 1968. Matt O’Leary, a Chicago-born actor who has been working since age 13, was born in 1987.  I have 2 children born those exact years, so Linda is supposed to be 19 years older than Abe’s “son,” (whom, we learn in the course of the movie, is not his son at all).

Raymond (Matt O’Leary) is not too keen on accompanying Linda on a cross-country trip to see Abe before he dies, but an unexpected visit from the police to his drug-riddled lair quickly changes his mind. Linda represents an opportunity to flee Tampa and avoid returning to Huntsville Prison. So, off the two-some go in the hatchback Linda has driven to Florida.

The car is symbolic of the relationship between Abe and Linda with lines like these:  “A man gets used to a good old car and he misses it when it’s gone…I’m starting to think it was a piece of shit to begin with.” Later, when the car has been stolen (thanks to Raymond’s unsuccessful attempt to ditch Linda and strike off on his own in it) and Linda has returned home, the miraculously recovered Abe asks Linda if it wasn’t just a mistake losing the car.

Linda responds, “It was a mistake. Yes, it was.  All of it.” Only, by then, seeing Abe through the eyes of pseudo-Raymond and others, she is realizing some hard truths about her marriage and Abe’s behavior throughout their 25 years together. She’s not really talking about the car at all.

Michael Bricker, Production Designer for "Natural Selection" awaits the screening of the film.

Linda has longed to make a trip to Morgan’s Key, where a person can be a universe of one. The snow globe representing it reminded me of the 1980 film “Resurrection” with Ellen Burstyn, Sam Shepard and Richard Farnsworth.  In that film, a postcard of Machu Pichu took on symbolic significance. It represented that destination we all strive to reach in life, just as the postcards from Cool Hand Luke (Paul Newman) to his fellow prison inmates held that distinction in the days when people actually sent postcards and letters. That mythic place will make us whole and happy.  In this movie, that place is Morgan’s Key, which Linda’s older sister Sheila (well-played with a flair for the bitchy and a broad Texas accent by Gayland Williams) has visited, but Linda has not.  (Reminds of another great line of dialogue, spoken by Raymond to Linda: “Maybe we’ll catch a unicorn takin’a shit of lullabies.’”)

The film was shot in Smithville, Texas, also the location for “Hope Floats” and “The Tree of Life.” The small town (population 4,000) has its own film committee and, according to Production Designer Michael Bricker, couldn’t have been more accommodating. (Every hotel room contained a DVD of Sandra Bullock’s “Hope Floats” film, and the huge tree in Terence Malick’s “Tree of Life” is a Smithville landmark.)

Although first-time director Robbie Pickering studied film in New York and California, he lived in Texas and knew Smithville, which is near Austin. The film not only won big at SXSW, but also won an Audience Award in Athens, won 2 awards in Indianapolis, another in Kansas, and Director/Writer Pickering has been given a Sundance Award to allow him to make more films. This is good news for those of us who have been suffering through films on suicide, grisly murder(s) and all manner of human suffering. Another bit of good news is that Cinema Guild is going to distribute the film. Writer/Director Pickering was not present in Chicago because he was accepting an award in New York from the New York Friars.

In his place, Production Designer Bricker explained that his path to the film and career started when he studied at the University of Texas in Austin (near Smithville), earning a Master’s in Architecture. He applied to be an intern on a film. He was hired and promoted rapidly to the point that he was, first time out, the Production Manager on a film with 4 sets being built for the movie’s use.  His plan for “Natural Selection” was to focus on decay and lifelessness, with “different versions of ‘not right,’ moving on to more colorful images later.”

Gayland Williams, who was also present at the Chicago screening, explained that she was the last Texas principal hired, as most of the actors and actresses were from Los Angeles.  As Gayland said, “Sheila was not a real sympathetically written character.” Indeed, she was not. She was the older sister who gave her sister bad medical advice (a recurring theme, intentional or unintentional, is truly horrible medical diagnosis of major characters verging on malpractice). That advice changed her sister’s life.

Meanwhile, Sheila seems quite selfish in flaunting her healthy children before a woman who cannot bear children. She also seems aware that her husband, Peter, a minister, seems quite attracted to her pretty younger sister and takes every opportunity to squelch that. Peter was well played by Jon Gries. His own road trip to rescue Linda after her car is stolen is comical.

The only person missing on October 16th who could have made a trip back home and appeared in support of the film was the film’s leading man, Matt O’Leary, who plays Raymond White/Clyde Brisbee. O’Leary, a Chicago native, has been acting since age 13. I remember him as “the Brain” in “Brick,” a 2005 independent film sensation.

One last bit of praise for Izler Curt Schneider, whose work as Music Supervisor was spot-on. The film won for Best Score/Music at SXSW and was nominated for a World Soundtrack Award. In addition to Schneider’s original scoring, many of the songs were performed by the group Futurebirds.

See this film if it comes to a theater or video store near you. It will amuse and entertain and watch out for Robbie Pickering and crew in the future.

Link to an Interview with John C. Reilly:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebwZQCc_PAM

Dennis Farina arriving at the 47th Chicago International Film Festival.

“The Last Rites of Joe May,” starring Dennis Farina opened the 47^th Chicago International Film Festival, with most stars walking the red carpet for the accolades they and the film justly deserve. “The Last Days of Joe May” chronicles the final days of an aging con man, clinging to the perennial belief that he’s just one scam away from the big score. Gary Cole plays Lenny, his fence, a man Joe asks to hook him up in jump-starting his life of petty crime, talking to Lenny about “the old days,” when he was best friends with Lenny’s dad. (Cole’s characteristic cool serves his role well.)

It Came from the ‘70s

Of significance to me is the concept that the film reflects a yearning on the part of audiences for a return to character-driven films like those excellent films of the seventies, something I articulated in an entire book (It Came from the 70s: From The Godfather to Apocalypse Now). “Moneyball’s” movers and shakers (Brad Pitt, et. al.) recently echoed that thought (Sports Illustrated, Sept. 26, 2011).

Seventies films often depicted a man clinging to a code of conduct, but facing a world that had changed around him. The anti-hero arose then:  one man defying the establishment.  [Writer/Director Joe Maggio admits to being a fan of the films of Vittorio DeSica (“The Bicycle Thief,” “Two Women”) and of “The Friends of Eddie Coyle,” a Robert Mitchum movie.] The films of the seventies, when compared to CG-dominated fare of today, make you long for a return to telling a human story that touches the audience’s heart and doesn’t have to depend on an encroaching ice age, toys come to life, or asteroids destroying the earth (not to mention the “end of days” scenario of “2012.”)

Todd Brown of www.Twitchfilm.com reviewed “The Last Rites of Joe May” this way: “I’m just happy that someone out there still wants to make movies like this while there are still stars like Farina to feature within them.  This man is a true American icon who deserves far more recognition than he gets, and this is the sort of role that fits him like a glove.” That opinion was shared by the enthusiastic Chicago audience Thursday night, who gave a round of applause to a controversial line in the film (Farino and Writer/Director Maggio debated it). Joe May calls the police station to give Jenny’s abusive policeman boyfriend, Stan Butchkowski (Steppenwolf Theater regular Ian Barford), this message after he puts Jenny in the hospital :  “If I ever see his ugly, greasy, wife-beating face, I’m gonna’ rip his balls right out of their sacs and stuff them down his c********** throat.” The audience openly cheered, much as they cheered Eastwood in 1971’s “Dirty Harry” (“Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya’, punk?”).

The Plot

As the story of Joe May opens, he is being released from the hospital after several weeks of treatment for pneumonia. He’s still not really a well man. Everyone thinks Joe’s dead. The apartment he lived in for 40 years has been rented to a young mother (Jamie Anne Allman) with a 7-year-old daughter; his belongings have been thrown out or given away, with the exception of his collection of vinyl opera records (Verdi, in particular); and his 1989 Cutlass has been sold for $75. (When Joe protests the sale of his car, the civil servant on duty says, “I’d say you got off easy. You had $250 of unpaid tickets and a $1,000 storage fee,” noting that the car was officially declared “abandoned” when Joe lingered in the hospital for weeks.)  Joe’s net worth is exactly $443.56. He is irrevocably estranged from his only child, a son (Scotty) who screams at him to get out of his house saying, “There’s nothing to talk about. We don’t even know each other.”

When the young mother (Jenny, well played by Jamie Anne Allman), who works as a nurse, sees Joe homeless in the streets outside his old apartment and sleeping on a city bus and a public bench, she asks him if he would like to rent his old room for $100 a week. He agrees and moves back into his old place, but in a platonic fashion. His relationship with Jenny in the film is that of a father figure, not a lover. Farina said, “I think, for him, not becoming involved with Jenny represented a noble gesture.” Farina described discussions with Writer/Director Joe Maggio where they agreed that Farina’s old-world code wouldn’t find it acceptable for him to sleep with the young woman while her 7-year-old daughter was under the same roof.

Joe May’s Pigeons

Joe’s relationship with Jenny’s daughter, young Angelina (Meredith Droeger) develops around the pigeons Joe houses on the roof (a throwback to Marlon Brando in “On the Waterfront.”) The pigeons are symbolic of many things and their fate is pivotal in the movie’s plot. (Joe tells Angelina, “I’ll always come back,” much as the pigeons do.) The pigeons were also one of the sticking points in relocating the film from Maggio’s original New York setting to Chicago. Said Farina, “My biggest concern, believe it or not, it’s a small thing, but I wasn’t aware of how many pigeon coops were in Chicago, because pigeon coops are normally associated with the East coast.  That the only thing I’m concerned about…do we have pigeon coops?  Though it’s illegal to have pigeon coops in Chicago, there are, indeed, a lot of them.” As a resident of Chicago, Farino said, “It’s the best big city in the world.  Of course, I’m a little prejudiced, but I love it.”

Farina is the perfect choice to play Joe May.  This film—after a lengthy career as a reliable character actor—fits him like “Rocky” fit Sylvester Stallone. As Farina admitted in an interview, “I can tell you, I’m 68, yeah—there are a lot of things going on that I just don’t understand.  And it’s funny, I think maybe when you’re Joe May, your world just gets smaller and smaller and you keep gravitating to people who think like you, or are like you, because you don’t understand or can’t accept what else is going on in the world.” It’s the universal truth: “It’s hell to get old.” Or, as Bette Davis once put it, “Old age is not for sissies.” [Farino’s scenes with old friend Bill (Chelcie Ross) are great, especially one where he drops Angelina off with Bill at the assisted living facility and Bill gets the line, “Hurry up and say good-bye. Uncle Billy is freezing his nuts off.”]

Writer/Director Joe Maggio based Joe May’s character on his maternal grandfather, a short money hustler, and said, “Joe’s trouble isn’t that he fails to live up to his code; it’s that the world has changed to such a degree that, in obeying these rules, Joe is, in a sense, holding devalued currency.”

What code would that be?

Writer/Director Maggio:  “You always pay your debts. You never let anyone know when you’re down and out and no matter how bad things get, you keep your shoes shined, your pants pressed and your hair trimmed.  If you can’t afford to leave a tip, don’t go into the bar.  You wait your turn, with patience and fortitude, because better days will come, eventually.”  Joe’s character, in the film, tells his estranged son, who scoffs, “I just always felt there was something great waiting for me.”

At this point in his life, despite being down and out (“One day you’re on top of the world, and the next day you’re floating in the crapper.”) Joe is not ready to go gently into that good night. He plans to rage against the dying of the light, saying, “I still feel I have something to offer.” This is a universal theme that anyone over 50 can relate to.

After an altercation between Jenny and her violent boyfriend frightens Angelina, Joe reassures Angelina telling Angelina if her mother’s abusive cop boyfriend returns, “I’ve still got a few good moves left in me.” A scene on a city bus where Joe gets up to give his seat to a woman and is soon pushed into the senior seats by a young woman is telling.

The Verdict

Any number of Hollywood icons would have been good in this role in their day. Paul Newman comes to mind. Clint Eastwood a few roles back. But there are no actors working today who would have done the part more justice than Dennis Farina, and certainly none who could locate it as well in authentic Chicago neighborhoods in the dead of winter.

Farina’s convincing portrait of a man whose best friend Billy (excellently played by veteran character actor Chelcie Ross, co-star of “Hoosiers” with Gene Hackman) has hung it up and retired to an assisted living facility, is tinged with the sense of doom that Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman brought to their roles in “Midnight Cowboy.” Joe’s sense of being out-of-the-loop reminded me of the “Wall Street” sequel (“Money Never Sleeps”), when Michael Douglas’ character has lost touch with the present-day while in prison.  The sub-plot where Angelina is temporarily MIA reminded me of Jeff Bridges’ Oscar-winning role as Otis “Bad” Blake in 2009’s “Crazy Heart,” when he (temporarily) lost girlfriend Maggie Gyllenhaal’s child.

“The Last Rites of Joe May” opens on video-on-demand on October 28, 2011 and will open November 4, 2011 at Quad Cinema in New York City and at the Gene Siskel Film Center November 24, 2011. It’s a heart-warming, satisfying film experience with a message that resonates.

“Moneyball” is a movie about baseball that Brad Pitt wanted to make. But to say that “Moneyball is a movie about baseball is like saying that The Sopranos was a series about the waste-management business,” as Austin Murphy put it in “Brad Pitt Deals.” (September 26, 2011 Sports Illustrated).

It’s a wonder the film got made at all, since Pitt was really not a baseball player back in his high school days at Springfield (Mo.) Kickapoo High School. Wrestling. Diving. Football. But no baseball for Brad Pitt in his sports-playing days.

When Pitt read Michael Lewis’ (The Blind Side) book about baseball, he realized it was not really a book about baseball as much as it was a movie about believing in yourself and having the courage to buck the system to prove that you can do it…whatever “it” is. There’s even a scripted line from the scouts, who are critiquing the prospects for next year’s team:  “He’s gotta’ be successful to be confident, and that’s when you’ve got something.” Years ago, Steven Tyler described his own success as lead singer of Aerosmith as “Fake it till you make it.”

The concept of success breeding success is something I promoted for 20 years as the CEO of a Sylvan Learning Center (#3301) I founded in the small town of Bettendorf, Iowa.  I could relate instantly to the gamble that Oakland “A’s” team manager Billy Beane has made in deciding to revolutionize the game of baseball by  integrating statistics to determine whom to draft. The team is looking for bargain basement deals that will unexpectedly turn out to be winners, giving it the appearance, at some times, of “an island of lost toys.” Their roster has just been raided of their 3 best players, and the cupboard is bare.

Beane de-emphasized the role of dugout managers such as the character played by Philip Seymour Hoffman (Art Howe) and, instead, plucked “Google Boy,” as the plot dubs him, a young whipper-snapper dubbed Peter Brent in the movie (real character name: Paul Podesta, Beane’s fresh-out-of-Harvard assistant) who, in the movie, is a recent graduate of Yale. Brent (Jonah Hill in a nicely understated serious turn) tells Beane “Baseball thinking is medieval.”

Beane buys in to the premise that statistics can help make his struggling team (“We’re the last runt at the bowl.”) into a winner. The Oakland “A’s” at the time  had a budget of approximately $38 million to compete with the $121 million of teams like the New York Yankees. In Jonah Hill’s character of Peter Brent, Beane sees a way to even the playing field. This is not popular with the old-timers on staff. As Beane, using Texas Hold ‘Em terminology says says to his young assistant, “Just you and me, Pete. We’re all in.”

When Brad Pitt read the book Moneyball, he recognized the universal themes underlying the story of a team that, from a dismal start, went on to set the American League record for most consecutive wins in a season (20  games). In 103 years, the record had never been broken, but the Oakland “A’s broke it in 2002, using what the grizzled veteran scouts termed “statistical gimmicks.” Not unlike “Road to Perdition,” where the universal father/son theme resonated with  the Zanucks and helped propel the film based on a graphic novel written by Muscatine, Iowa native Max Collins, Brad Pitt wanted to play Billy Beane, a man he sees as someone tilting against windmills and fighting the good fight against odds that often seem overwhelming. Risking it all. Standing up for what he believes in. Being loyal to his principles and his team. The onscreen Beane says, “I made one decision based on money, and I said I’d never do it again,” alluding to his earlier player days, [when he turned down a full-ride scholarship to Stanford to turn pro right out of high school.] Although Beane’s success with the “A’s” earns him the offer of a $12 and 1/2 million-dollar contract with the Boston Red Sox, after wavering a bit he turns it down to stay with Oakland.

As the script puts it, “We are card counters at the blackjack table.  We’re going to turn the tables on the casino.” With “adapt or die” as the motto, Beane locks horns with virtually everyone, including his dugout manager, his scouts, his players, his family, his bosses and himself.

The script by award-winning writer Aaron Sorkin (“The Social Network”) and Steven Zallion (“Schindler’s List”) is clever, funny and meaningful. Much of it wrote itself when genuine baseball scouts gathered to share their wisdom. Some of the people in the room when Pitt holds a scouting meeting are real baseball scouts, but you’ll also recognize Aaron Pierce from “24″ (Glenn Morshower, 49 episodes) or Chief Jerry Reilly from “Rescue Me” (Jack McGee, 44 episodes, 2004-2007).  You may also notice that the actor playing Scott Hatteberg, Chris Pratt, is from “Parks & Recreation” where he plays Andy Dwyer (48 episodes, 2009-2011).

The most substantial role for a former TV series regular went to Kerris Dorsey (“Brothers & Sisters,” Paige Whedon, 91 episodes 2006-2011), who plays Billy Beane’s daughter Casey. She was Paige Whedon on “Brothers & Sisters” until the show was canceled recently. It is Casey’s singing of a song about being “a little girl lost in the middle,” which she performs for her dad, that frames the movie. Singing about “a little girl lost in the middle” (a la Jimmy Eat World’s “The Middle”), Casey’s pure voice speaks to her dad, who encourages Casey to share her talent and perform for others. One of Billy Beane’s scouts (Grady, played by Ken Medlock) whom he ultimately must fire for insubordination has told Beane (Pitt), “You’re going to have to explain to your kid why you’re working at Dick’s Sporting Goods,” when Beane keeps pushing his statistically-driven agenda in the face of opposition. But Beane has bought into Bill James’ book on baseball statistics, 1977 Baseball Abstract:  Featuring 18 Categories of Statistical Information That You Just Can’t Find Anywhere Else. Even before that 1977 book, there was Earnshaw Cook’s Percentage Baseball, a 1964 Johns Hopkins engineering professor’s treatise on sabermetrics.

Brad Pitt saw Billy Beane as “the voice of reason speaking against the establishment.” We all know that speaking truth to power is not popular, but it made for some great 70s films, which I chronicled in “It Came from the ’70s,” a book with 50 representative films of the era. Pitt also appreciates movies of the seventies. He explained the difference between today’s films and the films of that great movie-making era this way:  “In scripts today, someone has a big epiphany, learns a lesson, then comes out the other side different.  In these older films I’m talking about, the beast at the end of the movie was the same beast in the beginning of the movie.  What changed was the world around them, by just a couple of degrees. Nothing monumental.  I think that’s true about us.  We fine-tune ourselves, but big change is not real.” (Austin Murphy’s Sports Illustrated article “Brad Pitt Deals”, September 26, 2011). Director Bennett Miller shared Pitt’s enthusiasm for 70s movies, as do I.

As the third director on the film, Bennett Miller said, “It (“Moneyball”) seemed like a shoot-the-moon project because it was complex and messed up in 1,000 different ways.” Stephen Soderbergh had parted ways with the project when his idea for a more documentary-style approach was rejected as too expensive.  The film languished in development hell for 8 years. Pitt, who has given 2 Oscar-worthy performances this year (the other  as the father in Terence Malick’s “The Tree of Life”) says, “What we were trying to do is tell an unconventional story in the Trojan horse of a conventional baseball movie.”

Michael Lewis, in the 2003 best-selling book on which the film is based wrote, “At the bottom of the Oakland experiment was a willingness to rethink baseball: how it is managed, how it is played, who is best suited to play it, and why.” Lewis has said, “I always thought of it (Moneyball) as the biography of an idea, and I wrote it as a biography of an idea.  And you can’t make a movie of an idea.”

But you can if you’re Brad Pitt, the 800-lb. gorilla of leading men.

Pitt saw the same themes that Rachael Horovitz recognized after 12 years working for Hollywood studios:  Taking a new path.  Having belief in one’s self to risk and move forward. Loyalty to one’s principles in the face of the temptation to abandon them. Horovitz picked up “Moneyball” in 2003 as a free-lance producer and, fortunately for her,  “As long as Brad Pitt wanted to make this movie, it was going to get made.”

When Pitt talks about the film, he references 70s anti-heroes like R.P. McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Gene Hackman as Popeye Doyle in The French Connection and Steve McQueen, in pretty much every movie he ever made. That was the premise of an entire book I wrote (It Came from the’70s: From The Godfather to Apocalypse Now): that 70s movies were the best era for film since the 30s, precisely because of those themes and those performances. The contrast with today’s computer-generated blow-up-more-cars approach to movie-making is stark. What appealed to me as I spent 8 years of my life compiling a retrospective of  70s movies, culled from  15 scrapbooks of reviews of that decade saved in my basement for 43 years, also  spoke to Brad Pitt. (www.ItCamefromtheSeventies.com).

The result is a movie with a heart, a brain, a spine and a funny-bone. Some of the funny was provided by the scouts. A sample:  “This is the kind of guy who, when he walks into the room, his dick has already been there for 2 minutes.” Beane on the “A’s” standing amongst other teams: “There’s rich teams, poor teams, 50 feet of crap, and then there’s us.” Beane to a scout who mentions that one player “has a good face,” “It’s not like we’re looking for Fabio.”  “He’s freaky—and not in a good way,” And—one truism articulated by Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) that explains why Beane was prepared to risk it all to find a way to make his team competitive—”If we try to play like the Yankees in here (i.e., while selecting new players to draft), we’re going to lose to the Yankees out there.” And that’s what led to Beane’s radical move to using statistics to give the “A’s” a competitive advantage…something that every major league team does now, but few did then.

The Mickey Mantle quote with which the film open is apropos:  “It’s unbelievable how much you don’t know about the game you’ve been playing all your life.” (Oct. 15, 2001). Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” is used in one opening day montage, a particularly good choice,  and the entire film worked, for me, because, as Director Bennett Miller said about his sensibilities and those of his star, “Both of us were drawn to some of the same films from the ’70s where you don’t have to have a character that stops the asteroid from hitting the Earth.”

Pitt is excellent in the lead role. Jonah Hill turns in a nicely-restrained supporting performance as Google Boy (Will Hill be as funny now that he’s creepily cadaverous?), and Philip Seymour Hoffman is also good as bullpen manager Art Howe, a man at odds with the boss. Stephen Bishop also does justice to David Justice, (to savor the pun).

A fine film about heart and risk and life…and baseball.

Seth Rogen (“Knocked Up”), Joseph Gordon-Levitt (“Inception,” “500 Days of Summer”), Anna Kendrick (“Up in the Air”) and Blythe Dallas-Howard (“The Village,” “The Help”) set out to make a dramedy (a combination of drama and comedy) about cancer in “50/50.”  The balancing act between humor and pathos is a delicate balancing act, but the film, written by writer Will Reiser and directed by Jonathan Levine works in telling the true story of a young man (Adam) who is unexpectedly diagnosed with cancer at the age of 27.  Reiser, who has a bit part in the film as “Greg,” was diagnosed with cancer in real life at age 25.

Seth Rogen, a Canadian native, enjoyed the standing ovation the film received at its Toronto Film Festival World Premiere. There is much to enjoy and appreciate in the bittersweet story of a life hanging in the balance and a good friend who stands by his buddy. The performances from all are spot-on and the cinematography and music are similarly skillful.

Rogen explained the film’s origins this way:  “We worked with Will (Reiser) on Da Ali G Show, and it was shortly afterwards that we learned he was sick.  As shocking, sad, confusing and generally screwed up as that was, we couldn’t ignore that, because we were so ill-equipped to deal with the situation, funny things kept happening.” (Facebook page for “50/50”). Or, as Director Levine told the Los Angeles “Times,” “Little Will got sick.  Now he’s fine. And we made a movie about it.  That’s crazy.”

It was crazy, in fact, that Jonathan Levine ended up directing the film at all. Levine had originally passed on the project (although he sent a complimentary note regarding the script) and a different director was set to helm, but dropped out.  It was only in the interim, when two of Levine’s family members were diagnosed with cancer, that he stepped in to direct.  As Levine said, “That (his relatives’ cancer diagnoses) made the script resonate that much more for me.  I went through those experiences where things are just so ridiculous and so intense that you have to laugh and I went through those experiences where things are so ridiculous sometimes that you have to cry.”

However, it’s a tough sell to get people into a theater to see a movie with the working title “I’m with Cancer.” Director Jonathan Levine realized that when the movie, ultimately titled “50/50,” was filming. [The second title “Live With It” didn’t take, either.]

It’s just as tough when your lead drops out a week before shooting is supposed to start. Originally, the part played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt was to have been played by James McAvoy (“Atonement”), but his wife went into labor and McAvoy went home. Joseph Gordon-Levitt had only 7 to 10 days to prepare for the part of Adam Lerner.

With the insertion of comic material in such serious subject matter, Director Levine says, “You never want to be too manipulative.  You never want to stretch for a joke.  You just want it to sort of unfold, the way life unfolds.” While the comedy works, some may criticize the serious parts of the film, saying Adam, the film’s central character, remains much too calm for much too long when in such dire straits. In only one memorable scene (while driving Rogen’s car) does Adam really lose it, emotionally. Adam is portrayed as an obsessive-compulsive neat freak who chews his fingernails and believes in the adage, “a place for everything and everything in its place.” Calm is an understatement for his demeanor after his diagnosis, considering that the rare hereditary form of spinal cancer he incurs has only a 50/50 survival rate before it metastasizes and a 10% survival rate after it spreads.

In the film, Seth Rogen’s character Kyle, after hearing the news of his friend’s illness, tries to cheer Adam up by citing other cancer patients who have beaten the odds. “F***** Lance Armstrong. He keeps getting it… Patrick Swayze.” Adam interrupts Kyle to mildly remind him that Patrick Swayze died. This seems to come as a news flash to Kyle (Rogen).

Seth Rogen’s reactions are priceless at all points. Although he will soon be too mature to play the part of a walking hormone constantly trying to get laid using any excuse possible, the Rogen vamping on this theme has been wildly successful in several previous films (“Knocked Up,” “The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” “Zack and Miri Make a Porno”). In this film, Rogen is “funny, sad and honest” (the announced goal of the film) at all points, whether he is helping shave Adam’s head, verbally nailing Adam’s cheating girlfriend, or helping his good friend change the bandages on his spinal incision.  Rogen reminded Gordon-Levitt of that scene, saying, “That was exactly how I reacted (to the large incision down Adam’s back—which he describes in the film as “Saw material”). I almost threw up on you.” For fans of “Falling Skies” with Noah Wylie this past summer television season, Adam ends up looking like he has had one of the infamous creatures removed from his backbone in much the same way as the hapless victims of the aliens of that TV show.

Perhaps the most amazing behind-the-scenes story about the film involves the head-shaving scene, which is featured on posters and trailers. As Director Levine described that day, “Will wrote the scene and then, within that, the specifics of the dialogue were totally improvised and the rest was improvised. It was the last thing we shot on the first day.  As I said, Joe (Gordon-Levitt) pretty much had 10 days, we barely knew the guy, and he had to shave his f****** head at the end of the first day.  And it was his first scene with Seth, as well.”

Other actors who excel in their parts are the Oscar-nominated Anna Kendrick (for “Up in the Air”) as Katie McRay, a compassionate 24-year-old therapist-in-training, who has only had 2 previous patients; Blythe Dallas-Howard as Rachael, Adam’s cheating girlfriend; and two elderly patients with cancer, played by Philip Baker Hall and Matt Frewer  (“Max Headroom”). When Frewer’s character of Mitch dies unexpectedly, the reality of Adam’s 50/50 odds sink in more seriously and the reality of life and death comes home to one and all.

(Dr.) Katie McRay (Anna Kendrick) is all about earnest attempts at touchy-feely closeness (“It’s like being slapped by a sea otter,” Adam says of her robot-like grabbing of his wrist in her office.  He calls it “creepy.”) Katie is all sympathetic smiles and clichéd book learned wisdom. You get the feeling that Katie has read all the books but is still feeling her way along in implementing these techniques in the real world. Another fine supporting performance from Kendrick. Upon learning that Adam considers his mother Diane (Anjelica Huston) to be “an irrational loon,” Katie tells Adam, “You can’t change who your parents are.  All you can change is how you react to it.” (Psych 101).  Kendrick continues her spacey, Diane Keaton-esque comic vamping. You only have to go back to “Up in the Air” where Kendrick shone, to realize that she will play many sensitive/comedic parts in future films.  George Clooney commented (at the time of “Up in the Air”) that Kendrick blew all the other actors (including himself) off the screen with her spot-on performance.

Bryce Dallas-Howard is equally good as Rachael, Adam’s girlfriend. She plays the villain of the piece. This is apropos, since Dallas-Howard is fresh off playing villainess “Hilly” in “The Help.”  Actor-director Ron Howard’s little girl is caught by Seth Rogen’s character making out with an artist at a gallery opening (an artist who, says Rogen, “looks like Jesus”). Adam is back home, zonked out from his illness and waiting for his girlfriend to get home. There is another instance when Rachael shows up very late to pick Adam up after his chemotherapy. She also refuses to enter the hospital to be with him during his chemo treatment. In other words, we see her exit from his life coming from several miles away and “good riddance to bad rubbish” is Kyle’s reaction.

Good friend Kyle (Rogen), playing amateur detective, takes a picture of the cheating couple with his cell phone. Rogen then confronts Rachael at Adam’s house immediately after the gallery showing, saying to Rachael, “You are reprehensible. You’re disgusting…I’ve hated you for months.” The two friends will later creatively unleash their hostility on an oil painting Rachael made for Adam.

The music in the film is outstanding, ranging from the Bee Gees to Pearl Jam, with Michael Giacchino scoring the film, Jim Block and Gabe Helfers music supervisors and Music Editor Stephen M. Davis. Still, Director Levinson, who used hip-hop in his 2007 Sundance film “The Wackness” had much input and was delighted to obtain an Oscar-winning composer (for “Up” in 2010) for this film saying, “So, yes, him (Giacchino) scoring was a major coup for us.” (Giacchino was also nominated for Best Original Score in 2008 for “Ratatouille”).

Up next for Director-on-the-way-up Jonathan Levine is a zombie movie with John Malkovich entitled “Warm Bodies.” Joseph Gordon-Levitt is filming “The Dark Knight Rises” in Pittsburgh. And audiences nationwide will get the opportunity on September 20th to enjoy “50/50’s” message of life’s fragility and the enduring and sustaining nature of true friendship.