FILM REVIEW: AN HONEST LIAR

A scene from An Honest Liar.

The hoaxest with moxiest

By John Esther

Last year writer-director Woody Allen released the feature film, Magic in the Moonlight. The film tells the story of Stanley (Colin Firth), a master illusionist who sets out to debunk the psychic powers of Sophie (Emma Stone), only to become duped himself in the process -- yet fall in love with the considerably younger woman (typical), and presumably live happily ever after.

While the film has its moments, Magic in the Moonlight is ultimately predictable, reactionary and incredulous. And, like every single Allen film since his 1992 Husbands and Wives (one of his five masterpieces -- along with Annie Hall, Manhattan, Zelig, and Crimes and Misdemeanors), does not merit a second viewing. (Some of the recent films by Allen -- once one of America's greatest "auteurs" -- did not even merit a first viewing.)

Considerably more liberating, engaging, entertaining and less predictable (unless you already know the film's subject well), yet similar in content, comes Tyler Measom and Justin Weinstein's documentary, An Honest Liar.

A story begging to be purchased by a Hollywood studio and "fictionalized" for some future awards season, An Honest Liar chronicles the life of James Randi. AKA "The Amazing Randi," Randi is one of the greatest magicians of all time who later went on to debunk many various forms of crackpot science and spiritual chicanery -- even when some skeptics (a la Magic in the Moonlight's Stanley, eventually) had a change of mind/heart and wanted to believe in paranormal phenomena.

Born August 7, 1928, as Randall James Hamilton Zwinge, Randi knew from a very young age he was different and, like most very smart LGBTQ people growing up during the 1930s and 1940s, felt very uncomfortable with his difference(s). His father sensed his son's difference, too.

"I only had two conversations with my father," Randi recalls in the documentary while discussing his awareness as a child and the effects it had on his childhood life.

Basically exiled to do his own thing, Randi grew up alienated and self-educated.  Looking for a purpose, one day Randi witnessed a magic show by Harry Blackstone, Sr. He was monumentally impressed. Suddenly, he was filled with purpose. Randi read everything on the subject he could find. At the age of 17 he dropped out of high school and joined the circus as a conjurer.

Randi rose quickly to the echelons of magic, quickly drawing comparisons to his hero, Harry Houdini (who died two years before Randi was born). For Randi, Houdini had set the records to be broken.

Randi was not only a great magician, he also had a wonderful, charming personality. Together they earned him a guest spot on major television shows. In particular, Randi appeared numerous times on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.

As Randi rose to fame, he always made it clear, in practice and in theory, that magic/illusions/trickery should only be used to entertain folks. It should not be used to depart fools from his or her money by deceptive means.

After a near-death experience Randi retired at the age of 60. Henceforth, he would use his own power of perceptions and deceptions to expose the charlatans.

His retirement coincided with the rise of such showmen as New Age psychic Uri Geller and "faith healer" Peter Popoff and company. These two men pretended to possess supernatural powers. They were effective. Thousands of people were only too willing to be duped out of his or her money. Fortunately, Randi had an ally in Carson, whose show gave national exposure to a few of Randi's exposes on these deceivers.

How Randi, with the help of others, exposes psychics, televangelists, and the media makes for riveting investigative drama. These guys (basically, it is only guys in this documentary) go deep undercover to expose some of the greater mental deceptions ever created. As a result, a few of them sometimes got lost in the process themselves. As An Honest Liar reiterates numerously, "There are layers and layers of deception."

If this were not enough to make for a riveting documentary,  toward the end of the film An Honest Liar adds another dimension to Randi's life on a personal level. Thanks to his own need for deception, Randi may lose the love of his life.

Bold, beautiful and exceptionally blistering in its critique of human cowardice in the form of duplicity, An Honest Liar illustrates a rare phenomenon in documentary: what it means to think, to believe and to challenge what our very own eyes see, and more to the point, do not see. The illusion is out there...and inside here. Hear.  

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FILM REVIEW: TO ROME WITH LOVE



Antonio (Alessandro Tiberi) and Anna (Penelope Cruz) in To Rome with Love.

Woody Allen, Italian Style

By Ed Rampell

Woody Allen is the motion picture poet laureate of New York Jews and one of the most successful independent filmmakers in history. With his 43^rdfeature length film, the 77-year-old legendary director-writer-actor returns to the screen in his familiar persona and with his recurring obsessions: The neurotic kvetching about death; shifting romantic entanglements; the lampooning of psychoanalysis; cultural commentary with pseudo-lefty politics; etc. Of course, there are the usual Allen-esque quips and sight gags, as well as a golden cast only a maestro of indies could conjure up.

However, Woody’s newest movie once again finds the quintessential New Yorker far afield from his beloved Manhattan. Since 2005’s U.K.-set Match Point, the Woodman has ventured forth to and been shooting on location in Europe. Vicky Cristina Barcelona and the Oscar-winning Midnight in Paris (Woody’s last -- and most financially lucrative -- film) were lensed in Spain and France, respectively. His latest work, To Rome With Love, is his third with a major European city in the title, and it is no less informed by a sense of place than his 1979 classic, Manhattan.

The latter opened with a glorious black and white montage of the town that never sleeps’ scenic sights set to George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, and was this Manhattanite’s morale booster for beleaguered urbanites and riposte to the Daily News’ famous front page headline about the then-President’s response on New York’s fiscal crisis: “Ford to City: Drop Dead.” Darius Khondji’s cinematography in To Rome With Love is no less a visual love letter to the Eternal City, with sweeping panoramic shots of the Roman Forum, the Spanish Steps, etc.

Since all roads, of course, lead to Rome, it was only a matter of time before this world renowned filmmaker found his way there. This Nero of neuroses’ all too human comedy has four totally separate storylines that may or may not be tangentially thematically related, something which has disconcerted some viewers and reviewers. Roberto Benigni -- who skyrocketed to fame in America with his thrice-Oscar winning 1997 concentration camp comedy Life is Beautiful, then promptly precipitously plummeted out of sight -- is, happily, back on the silver screen in a film intended for U.S. audiences. As Leopoldo Pisanello, Benigni plays a pissant paisano who complains about being ignored, only to then be mysteriously thrust into the limelight and besieged by  paparazzi. As the leaning tower of Pisanello experiences the perks and downside of fame, Allen concocts a clever commentary not only on the fickle nature of celebrity, but on Benigni’s audience-losing predicament offscreen. It’s all the more in the know because the word “paparazzi” is derived from Walter Santesso’s character “Paparazzo” in Federico Fellini’s 1960 Roma-set masterpiece, La Dolce Vita.

In the film’s subplot featuring Allen himself, he plays Jerry, a retired avante garde opera director yearning to make a comeback who is married to a shrink who is no shrinking violet, Phyllis (Judy Davis in her fifth collaboration with Woody). Their daughter Hayley (Alison Pill) is being wooed by a Roman attorney for the oppressed, Michelangelo (Flavio Parenti), whom Jerry considers to be a “Communist.” Jerry muses that in his youth, he too had been “left” -- but never a Communist per se, mainly because that would have meant sharing bathrooms. He’s also concerned that his pro bono pro-proletarian socialist son-in-law-to-be won’t be able to provide for his daughter.

In any case, Michelangelo’s father, Giancarlo (tenor Fabio Armiliato), has a voice to die for, which galvanizes Jerry’s operatic aspirations. There’s only one problem: Giancarlo can only sing under specific circumstances, and the resolution of this complication leads to what may be Allen's wildest sight gag since that gigantic breast ran amok in 1972’s Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex, But Were Afraid to Ask. Phyllis’ Freudian profession also provides Woody with what is arguably his wittiest one liner ever -- and that’s saying a lot.

Ellen Page’s Monica is the latest incarnation of the Allen-esque neurotic girlfriend, previously played on- and offscreen by his exes Louise Lasser and Diane Keaton (who perfected the bit). Page’s angsty actress entices an architectural student studying abroad, Jack (Jesse Eisenberg), into her antisocial network, as Alec Baldwin cracks wry world weary Woody-esque observations.  

In the fourth Italian-only storyline, Penelope Cruz’s voluptuous hooker Anna is anything but sexually inhibited. In another critique of fame, newlywed Milly (Alessandra Mastronadri) is led astray by movie star Luca Salta (Antonio Albanese), while Milly’s husband Antonio (Alessandro Tiberi) cavorts with micro-skirted Anna. To Rome With Love has dialogue in English and Italian; the Italian-speaking actors are subtitled.

Quo vadis, Allen? This film finds Allen true to and in top form, at the peak of his creative powers, still making the world laugh while imparting a whimsical, rollicking, romantic sensibility, as the eternal Allen meets the Eternal City.

Long may this emperor of humor and the human condition reign!     

 

  

  

 

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