Then we went over to the movie theaters (Landmark) where Virgin Records used to be. They're renovating and boy does it need it. Our theater was one of those one screen fits all affairs, no matter what the ratio - happily, our movie was in 1.85, which is what the screen size was. There were around twelve of us to see the new Todd Haynes film, May December. I'm a big fan of his and true to form the film is really well directed by a classicist who doesn't care about being trendy. Shot on film, for starters. And after the relentless Mission Impossible movie, how nice to watch a movie that has actual characters and depth. It's a fiction film, very loosely based on the teacher who had an affair with a twelve-year-old and went to jail, had his baby in jail, and when she got out, married him.
I think that's why some people don't like it, because that's not what it's really about - it's really about Natalie Portman playing an actress who's going to be playing the role of the thirty-six-year-old woman. That part is played by Julianne Moore and both give award-worthy performances of great subtlety. Portman, especially, captures the manipulative qualities that many actors have - Marshall and I both felt it was almost like watching Bergman's Persona. I found it engrossing and terrific - maybe ten minutes too long, but that's minor stuff. It's on the Flix of Net if you have that service and I'd recommend it. It's slow, but never SLOW. Also, they obviously temp-tracked the movie with Michel Legrand's score to The Go-Between and they ended up using that music, rearranged by another composer. It works really well, I thought.
