Ask the Dust" has just been released locally so I took time out to drive over to the Shattuck in Berkeley and check it out this afternoon along with 3 other people in the auditorium.
Colin Farrell plays an Italian American from Colorado who goes to L.A. to make his mark as a writer. It's depression era southern California but you'd never know it except for the cheap lighting and an occasional scene showing people wearing hand me downs and slumping along Hope Street. The producers (Robert Towne wrote/directed) actually built a replica downtown L.A. on a sound stage in, get this, South Africa!! Complete with Angel's Flight.. the cable car that climbed up Bunker Hill. All the period dazzle, though, just confuses a story that down deep doesn't make much sense. Our hero is down to his last nickle (literally, Towne has the coin in blunt close up so we don't miss the point... and so we'll recognize an actual buffalo nickel), goes across the street from his shabby hotel for a cup of coffee and is waited on by (tah-dah) Selma Hayek, a Mexican hayseed who wears (snicker) sandals while pouring the coffee. The two of them snarl at each other. He says mean things about Mexicans. She says mean things about Italians. We just know the two of them are going to wind up making the two back enchilada before long... actually it takes an hour before they get it on in a beach house our writer has inexplicably gotten enough money to rent. If you know anything about L.A. you'll wonder how Robert Towne, who has made some pretty important L.A. pictures, like Chinatown, could have gotten the ambiance so screwy. The whole feel of the film is claustrophobic with a lot of the action either in the writer's hotel room, the bedroom at the beach, or the slickly designed street between the hotel and the restaurant. The one character who looks truly "L.A." is Justin Kirk (of "Angels in America") who plays a sleazy bartender. At least I think he's supposed to be sleazy. This guy is so good looking, has such a commanding screen presence that even Colin shrinks before our eyes. Justin comes and Justin goes... alas. So we're stuck with Colin Farrell, whose street swagger is a wee bit precious, and Selma, whose tits stick out like punctuation marks... there's a scene of the two of them frolicking nude in the surf. At one point he mentions that they're 10 minutes from downtown. Where the hell could that beach be in 1930s L.A. before freeways?
She starts coughing about midway through the movie and dies in his arms in the wind up at a shack in the desert. He finishes his book and drives out to where he's buried her body. Can't find the cross that marked the grave. Tosses the book into the air. It lands on its spine with the pages slowly turning to the dedication page. Guess whose name is on it!
I wanted so much to like this movie... no, I wanted to *love* this movie. 1930's L.A. Robert Towne. Based on a book by a guy who had a reputation like Nathaniel West, blistering prose, bravado writing. I guess I'll have to break down and buy the book. The movie sure didn't do it for me. (But Justin Kirk's eyes... omigod!)
Colin Farrell plays an Italian American from Colorado who goes to L.A. to make his mark as a writer. It's depression era southern California but you'd never know it except for the cheap lighting and an occasional scene showing people wearing hand me downs and slumping along Hope Street. The producers (Robert Towne wrote/directed) actually built a replica downtown L.A. on a sound stage in, get this, South Africa!! Complete with Angel's Flight.. the cable car that climbed up Bunker Hill. All the period dazzle, though, just confuses a story that down deep doesn't make much sense. Our hero is down to his last nickle (literally, Towne has the coin in blunt close up so we don't miss the point... and so we'll recognize an actual buffalo nickel), goes across the street from his shabby hotel for a cup of coffee and is waited on by (tah-dah) Selma Hayek, a Mexican hayseed who wears (snicker) sandals while pouring the coffee. The two of them snarl at each other. He says mean things about Mexicans. She says mean things about Italians. We just know the two of them are going to wind up making the two back enchilada before long... actually it takes an hour before they get it on in a beach house our writer has inexplicably gotten enough money to rent. If you know anything about L.A. you'll wonder how Robert Towne, who has made some pretty important L.A. pictures, like Chinatown, could have gotten the ambiance so screwy. The whole feel of the film is claustrophobic with a lot of the action either in the writer's hotel room, the bedroom at the beach, or the slickly designed street between the hotel and the restaurant. The one character who looks truly "L.A." is Justin Kirk (of "Angels in America") who plays a sleazy bartender. At least I think he's supposed to be sleazy. This guy is so good looking, has such a commanding screen presence that even Colin shrinks before our eyes. Justin comes and Justin goes... alas. So we're stuck with Colin Farrell, whose street swagger is a wee bit precious, and Selma, whose tits stick out like punctuation marks... there's a scene of the two of them frolicking nude in the surf. At one point he mentions that they're 10 minutes from downtown. Where the hell could that beach be in 1930s L.A. before freeways?
She starts coughing about midway through the movie and dies in his arms in the wind up at a shack in the desert. He finishes his book and drives out to where he's buried her body. Can't find the cross that marked the grave. Tosses the book into the air. It lands on its spine with the pages slowly turning to the dedication page. Guess whose name is on it!
I wanted so much to like this movie... no, I wanted to *love* this movie. 1930's L.A. Robert Towne. Based on a book by a guy who had a reputation like Nathaniel West, blistering prose, bravado writing. I guess I'll have to break down and buy the book. The movie sure didn't do it for me. (But Justin Kirk's eyes... omigod!)