Tag: Debra Winger

PUNCH DRUNK KAJILLIONAIRE

By Stephen Tronicek

Over the course of last year, I found myself consumed by the work of Paul Thomas Anderson. Early in the year, The Master, became my favorite film. Later, I did a rewatch of all of his films. I was a voracious consumer of Paul Thomas Anderson content. On my travels, I came across “Punch-Drunk Love: A Delegate Speaks,” a rather incredible essay written by Miranda July for the Criterion Collection copy of Anderson’s 2002 film. Not only was it extremely funny, but it brought a level of personal inspiration into the conversation. Here was a filmmaker who not only understood the film, but seemed inspired by it. Searching through July’s work, I looked for that inspiration…but couldn’t find it. The acidic nature of Me, You, and Everyone We Know and The Future both seemed to strangle their tenderness. Then I saw Kajillionaire. 

To get the easy part of this out of the way, Kajillionaire is the second best film of 2020 (only barely falling to Kelly Recheirdt’s astounding masterpiece First Cow). It follows Old Dolio (Evan Rachel Wood) as she navigates her slow separation from her con-man parents (Debra Winger and Richard Jenkins) and self-actualization, after spending much of her life in financial cahoots with them (2). It is a film that analyzes class, masculinity, femininity in the modern age, and our relationship with our parents. Much like First Cow (and the film I’ll be comparing it to today), Kajillionaire is a film of momentous heart. It loves its characters and expects you too. If you do not, you might as well be a cold bastard. 

But what deepened my appreciation for Kajillionaire further is the way it is informed by the 2002 work by Paul Thomas Anderson, Punch-Drunk Love. Please realize that I do not hope to minimize the achievements of Miranda July in writing this piece, but rather to expand the appreciation of her work through an exploration of techniques and ideas that she has adopted from the work of Paul Thomas Anderson. 

To start, I’d like to examine the thematic similarities of the films and then expand this exploration into the way filmic techniques are used to express these similarities. The first similarity is found in the way both films explore the concept of love as a changing force in their protagonist’s lives. Barry Eagan (Adam Sandler) starts Punch-Drunk Love as an irritated and self-hating man, who following the advent of his romance with Lena (Emily Watson) is able to take steps towards self-actualization (3). One could be critical of the way that Lena only exists to spur on Barry’s self-actualization, but the moral complexity of whether or not Barry changes or just takes a step towards changing (again explored by Anderson in The Master, Inherent Vice and most viciously sweet in Phantom Thread) irons out any tonal problems that this could present. “God, how I wish you could just leave the tyranny of worry and self-loathing at some shitty mattress store in Utah,” (1) July writes in her essay. Similarly, Old Dolio’s self-actualization is kicked off by her encounter with Melanie (Gina Rodriguez), a young woman who Old Dolio starts to fall in love with. Menlanie and Lena hold a level of similarity in that they actively assert themselves into their respective protagonist’s lives. “…Lena [stalks] Barry a little…” (1) inserting herself into his life at his lonely garage. Melanie decides to take part in one of Old Dolio’s family’s schemes and eventually, through a rather selfish but loving act, takes money to call Old Dolio, “hun,” (2).

This love needs to contrast with something and in both films it contrasts both family and the outside anxieties of the protagonists. Barry spends the entirety of Punch-Drunk Love being pestered by his seven sisters who refuse to leave him alone and do not respect his privacy. He also encounters a phone sex line worker and her boss (Philip Seymour Hoffman) who refuse to respect him. Old Dolio spends the entirety of Kajillionaire in conflict with parents that can only see her human value through the material value of both themselves and Old Dolio. 

Material value is a HUGE aspect of both films as well. Much of Punch-Drunk Love takes place at Barry’s job, a garage that he sells novelty items out of. Furthermore, Barry finds a loophole to exploit a frequent flyer miles program for all it is worth. The antagonists are also looking to exploit Barry. Similarly, the antagonists of Kajillionaire, Old Dolio’s parents, are looking to exploit her. Throughout Kajillionaire, Old Dolio’s parents are unable to show appreciation to her through any means other than the value of money, a factor that leads Old Dolio away from them. 

All of these thematic ideas need to be conveyed visually and audibly. It is through the different filmic techniques that the films truly start to resemble each other. The most obvious filmmaking similarity is both films use of the 2.39:1 Widescreen Anamorphic Format. The wider frame not only requires that the films be staged as ensemble pieces (the framing of a 2.39:1 frame often incentivises the framing of multiple interacting characters on screen), but also the vertical crampedness of the frame and the distortions that come with the use of the Anamorphic format better display the character’s internal life. In Punch-Drunk Love this Anamorphic framing allows for the evocation of the grounded, but loose, ensembles of Anderson’s mentor and inspiration, Robert Altman. In Kajillionaire, the Anamorphic framing allows for the evocation of Anderson. Punch-Drunk Love and Kajillionaire understand that the Anamorphic format, no matter how naturalistic the lighting may be, creates a dizziness. The stretched bocha and lens artifacts create a world that is not of our eyes and yet all the while the wider frame consumes our periphery. Through this wide frame, both filmmakers realize the broadness of their stories. This is not the tall, conquering ratio that Anderson utilizes for The Master or Inherent Vice, but rather the broad view of both Barry and Old Dolio’s newly awoken eyes. 

The hazy lens flares of both movies also suggest this. Also a product of the Anamorphic format, the lens flares in both films (though more specifically in Punch-Drunk Love) are used to represent the distorted (if for the better) view of the characters. When you are forced to self-actualize, the process does not feel concrete, but gleefully dissociated. Both films strive to capture that feeling. 

This gleeful dissociation reaches its pitch in the form of abstraction. Again, this is much more forward in Punch-Drunk Love, which explodes into the sugary spurts of Jeremy Blake’s digital artwork everytime the emotions of the film cannot be contained by the vibrant 35mm frame. The flurry of colors blinks over the mix of Jon Brion’s woozy score and Shelley Duval’s performance of “He Needs Me,” from Popeye, (3). In Kajillionaire, this abstraction is much more contained and pointed. While early images of the film, such as a pink foam trailing down a wall, hint towards surrealism, the film only specifically breaks into this once during an earthquake that Old Dolio experiences with Melanie. As they stand in a dark bathroom, the pitch black of the bathroom becomes the universe. It expands as Old Dolio’s world expands, becoming suddenly solid, as Old Dolio realizes that she too is solid (2). 

The similar thematic and filmic techniques on display circle back around and inform each other as I watch both of these films today. The focus on value that Kajillionaire foregrounds makes the disparity and sadness of the value in Punch-Drunk Love all the more effective. The feeling of elation and love represented in the utilization of Blake’s artwork and Brion’s score circles around to inform the great, dissociated, joy of the earthquake sequence in Kajillionaire. 

Miranda July writes of Anderson’s use of, “He Needs Me,” in Punch-Drunk Love, “An open theft is joyful; it implies that these two men, Altman and Anderson, were so confident that they could share a song,” (1). As the widescreen beauty and great tenderness of Kajillionaire played out on screen, I saw that same joy. Two filmmakers confident enough to share, just like Barry and Old Dolio desperately need to. 

  1. July, Miranda. “Punch-Drunk Love: A Delegate Speaks.” The Criterion Collection, 16 Nov. 2016, www.criterion.com/current/posts/4302-punch-drunk-love-a-delegate-speaks.
  2. July, Miranda, director. Kajillionaire. Plan B Entertainment, 2020.
  3. Anderson, Paul Thomas. Punch-Drunk Love. Columbia Pictures, 2002.

KAJILLIONAIRE – Review

As if this movie year wasn’t odd enough, here’s yet another film all about a family dealing with money, but aside from the “dinero” element, they couldn’t be more different. In last week’s THE NEST, it was about how economics become a wedge between a married couple while causing chaos for their uprooted kids. With this week’s family trio there’s no big dissent (at least for the first act), because they’re a united team, operating with their own synchronized actions and often speaking in a “shorthand” code. And there’s no estates, furs, and high-profile positions. There’s really no jobs at all as these folks get by on the margins of society by hook and (certainly) crook. This is a family of grifters, scammers, con-artists (insert your own “low-end” criminal term) who occupy most of their days plotting and cheating folks out of their hard-earned moola. Ah, but their “leader”, the Papa, does have his own twisted ethics. He states his disdain for the “norms’, although, like them, he secretly dreams of becoming a KAJILLIONAIRE.

When we first meet the “family unit”, they’ve started their “workday”. While dad Robert (Richard Jenkins) and mom Theresa (Debra Winger) play the “bystander lookouts”, twenty-something daughter Old Dolio (Evan Rachel Wood) deftly slithers (evading those security cameras) into a neighborhood post office. Using a key, she opens up a P.O. box, reaches through (making sure none of the staff is watching), and grabs a package from the adjoining box. They open their “gift” while bending down below the “fence”eye level to avoid their landlord. But their home is pretty “unrentable”. It’s the office space next to the landlord’s small factory. At a specific time each day, a wave of pink foam oozes from the back ceiling and down the wall as the trio uses bits of tile and wood to scoop the suds into plastic waste cans. They then settle into their “bedrooms” which are tight office cubicles (they sleep on the floor). However OD (named after a lottery in winner hopes he’d put her in his will) is using the phone (a forgotten landline) for the next big ‘con”. They’ve gotten a complimentary flight to NYC from LA (perhaps a “resort share” promo), which gives her a great plan. They will fly out as a family, then, ASAP, they’ll hop back on a return flight, but as a couple and a stranger. The duo will grab all the bags so OD can file a lost luggage claim from the airline and collect a $1500 settlement. Of course, things don’t go as smoothly as she plans. On the way back home Robert and Theresa befriend the young bubbly woman sharing their three-seat row, Melanie (Gina Rodriguez). Later, at a nearby saloon, OD is shocked that her folks have brought Melanie in on the scam (a big “no-no” to her). Melanie seems to get a “rush’ from the petty thievery. This change threatens the socially awkward OD, who sees no need for a “new sister”. Could these bust up the “family team”?

From the film’s opening moments it becomes clear that the story’s main focus is Old Dolio, played by Wood as the antithesis of so many of the glamorous characters she portrayed in film and TV over the last couple of decades. Earlier I mentioned that OD was socially awkward, a true understatement as she keeps her gaze pointed at the ground during most of her painful verbal exchanges. Dressed in form-less tracksuits, her Crystal Gayle-length hair leaving only a sliver of face, walking with a short-step shuffle while twitching and swaying, Wood sometimes goes a tad over the top with the physical “busyness” (and vocally as she sounds like a combo of napoleon Dynamite and Spongebob’s BFF Patrick) but eventually draws us into OD’s closed-off world, which includes the acrobatic skills of Keaton, Lloyd, and other “silent clowns”. What appears to be “on the spectrum” is really an incomplete young woman, denied the most basic nurturing as she was trained to join in on the “jobs” from near-infancy. When is finally able to connect, Wood conveys almost a new being breaking out of a smothering cocoon. She’s truly taking her talents into a new level. Plus she gets great support from two polished screen vets. Jenkins, who almost stole THE SHAPE OF WATER, makes Robert a stern taskmaster, a “mastermind” who likes to disparage humanity, but really wants to lord over the masses. And he almost has a gleeful smile as he contemplates pulling off a new scheme against “the man”. He saves his real passions for his partner Theresa, played by an almost unrecognizable Winger, peering under a grey Lady Godiva wig, who dutifully limps (could that be the result of a botched scam) while improvising in each new situation thrown at her, effortlessly “bobbing and weaving” like a boxer. The real “wild card’ tossed into this unit is the effervescent Melanie played by TV vet Rodriguez as a mix of wide-eyed schoolgirl and mercenary vamp. Initially we see how cheating the airline gives her an electric charge (walking, or really skipping, on the “wild side”), but as her new “crew” takes on the lonely old folks she’s targeted, we see her panic as their prey now has a face. She pleads to Robert to “call it off”, but there’s no abort switch on their greed. She can’t control this “pack”, though she has a break-through as she learns to really emotionally connect with another person. This film’s talented main quartet is its biggest asset.

They are certainly needed to move along the whimsical, often too precious original story from Miranda July, who also directed. Sometimes the quirks feel forced. The landlord says he has “no filter”, so he cries, rather than bellows with fury when threatening Robert over the rent. Ditto with the numerous shots of the “bubble waves” in the office/home. Scenes at a parenting class may be intended to awaken OD to her poor upbringing, but they slow down the film’s pacing. Plus the behavior of some characters switches with a near whiplash impact. Robert buys a hot tub which leads to the movie’s most disturbing sequence, really earning that “R” rating (real ugliness from an engaging duo). When the story slides into its confusing final act, the parents almost disappear as they do a “family catch-up” that feels as out of place as the intensifying friendship between OD and Melanie. This connection doesn’t feel authentic but rather a hasty attempt at a sentimental final fade-out. And despite my affection for the actors, I wanted at least one of the characters brought to justice for the two nauseating “daylight” home “invasions”. The cast’s skills are almost criminal, but the meandering quirky script makes KAJILLIONAIRE an unrewarding investment. Beware of scam artists’ movies, cause they all can’t be THE STING.

2 Out of 4

Evan Rachel Wood, Gina Rodriguez, Richard Jenkins, Debra Winger Star In Miranda July’s KAJILLIONAIRE, In Theaters September 18

Focus Features is planning to release the upcoming movie KAJILLIONAIRE in theaters on September 18, 2020.

From acclaimed writer/director Miranda July (her third feature film) comes a profoundly moving and wildly original comedy. Con-artists Theresa (Debra Winger) and Robert (Richard Jenkins) have spent 26 years training their only daughter, Old Dolio (Evan Rachel Wood), to swindle, scam, and steal at every opportunity.

(L to R) Richard Jenkins as “Robert Dyne”, Debra Winger as “Theresa Dyne” and Evan Rachel Wood as “Old Dolio Dyne” in director Miranda July’s KAJILLIONAIRE, a Focus Features release. Credit : Matt Kennedy / Focus Features

During a desperate, hastily conceived heist, they charm a stranger (Gina Rodriguez) into joining their next scam, only to have their entire world turned upside down.

Watch the trailer now, featuring the song “Mr. Lonely” performed by Angel Olsen & Emile Mosseri (the film’s composer).

Written and directed by Miranda July, the director of photography is Sebastian Winterø, edited by Jennifer Vecchiarello with music by Emile Mosseri; production design by Sam Lisenco; costumes by Jennifer Johnson; casting by Mark Bennett and produced by Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner and Youree Henley.

A Plan B / Annapurna Production. Distributed by Focus Features in the U.S. and Universal Pictures internationally.

Director Miranda July (left) and actor Evan Rachel Wood (right) on the set of KAJILLIONAIRE, a Focus Features release. Credit : Matt Kennedy / Focus Features

July is a filmmaker, artist, and writer. Her most recent book is The First Bad Man, a novel. July’s collection of stories, No One Belongs Here More Than You, won the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award and has been published in twenty-three countries. Her writing has appeared in The Paris Review, Harper’s, and The New Yorker; It Chooses You was her first book of non-fiction. She wrote, directed and starred in The Future and Me and You and Everyone We Know — winner of the Camera d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival and a Special Jury Prize at Sundance. July’s participatory art works include the website Learning to Love You More (with artist Harrell Fletcher), Eleven Heavy Things (a sculpture garden created for the 2009 Venice Biennale), New Society (a performance), and Somebody (a messaging app created with Miu Miu.) She made an interfaith charity shop in Selfridges department store in London, presented by Artangel.

Nick Nolte and Debra Winger in CANNERY ROW Available on Blu-ray From Warner Archive

Nick Nolte and Debra Winger in CANNERY ROW will be available on Blu-ray From Warner Archive. Ordering information can be found HERE

The canneries stand empty now that the sardines have abandoned the waters, but life continues on the Row. Here, you’ll find Doc (Nick Nolte), a marine biologist and community mentor; Suzy (Debra Winger), a good-hearted newcomer gone astray; and Mack, Hazel and all the boys working hard at not working. Here, you’ll also find the love of a man for a woman, of a writer for a place and of life for more life. Based on works by John Steinbeck and written for the screen and directed by The Sting’s David S. Ward, Cannery Row — from its lyrical John Huston narration and saggy blues to its top-drawer performances, waterfront sets and whimsical charm — is an atmospheric gem, one that has its world “spinning in greased grooves.”

John Steinbeck’s beloved pair of Monterey Bay novellas “Cannery Row” and “Sweet Thursday” get adapted for the big screen in this ahead-of-its-time sophisticated throwback to simple, sweeter days. Nick Nolte and Debra Winger star as tide-tossed lovers marine biologist Doc and bordello ingenue Suzy whose awkward and charming romance is aided and abetted by the plethora of eccentric oddballs who refuse to abandon the failed fishing village they call home. Written for the screen and directed by David S. Ward (The Sting), Cannery Row adapts Steinbeck with an American take on magical realism, thanks to Ward and the captivating camerawork of Sven Nykvist along with a superb production design team, that is revealed in all its quiet wonder thanks to this long overdue new HD presentation from a 4K scan of the original camera negatives. Theatrical Trailer (HD) 16×9 Widescreen

WAMG Giveaway – Win THE LOVERS Blu-ray – Stars Debra Winger


Written and directed by critically acclaimed filmmaker Azazel Jacobs, and starring three-time Academy Award® nominee Debra Winger (Best Actress, An Officer and a Gentleman, 1982), The Lovers arrives on Blu-ray™ (plus Digital HD) and DVD August 1 from Lionsgate. Theatrically released by A24, The Lovers is a refreshing, funny look at love, fidelity, and family. The critically acclaimed film features a standout ensemble cast, including Tony Award® winner Tracy Letts (The Big Short, Indignation), Aidan Gillen (Sing Street, “Game of Thrones”), Melora Walters (The Butterfly Effect), Tyler Ross (Zombieland), and Jessica Sula (Split), and is Rotten Tomatoes Certified Fresh.


Now you can own THE LOVERS on Blu-ray. We Are Movie Geeks has FOUR copies to give away. All you have to do is leave a comment answering this question: What is your favorite movie starring Debra Winger? (mine is URBAN COWBOY!). It’s so easy!

Good Luck!

OFFICIAL RULES:

1. YOU MUST BE A US RESIDENT. PRIZE WILL ONLY BE SHIPPED TO US ADDRESSES.  NO P.O. BOXES.  NO DUPLICATE ADDRESSES.

2. WINNERS WILL BE CHOSEN FROM ALL QUALIFYING ENTRIES.

A husband and wife (Tracy Letts and Debra Winger), each embroiled in a secret, extramarital affair, are sent reeling when they suddenly fall for the least likely person imaginable – one another – in this scalpel-sharp, deliciously grown-up comedy.


Featuring all-new bonus content, including audio commentary with writer and director Azazel Jacobs and two behind-the-scenes featurettes, The Lovers will be available on Blu-ray and DVD for $24.99 and $19.98, respectively.

BLU-RAY / DVD SPECIAL FEATURES
• Audio Commentary with Writer and Director Azazel Jacobs
• “The Music of Romance” Scoring The Lovers” Featurette
• “A Complicated Passion: Making The Lovers” Featurette

THE LOVERS – Review

Debra Winger as Mary and Tracy Letts as Michael in THE LOVERS. Photo by Robb Rosenfeld. Courtesy of A24 ©

THE LOVERS is a slyly funny comedy in which Debra Winger and Tracy Letts play a long-married couple who are both secretly cheating with a lover. But they find their secret love affairs are unexpectedly complicated by a new sexual attraction – to each other.

Debra Winger and Tracy Letts deliver delightful performances as the long-married, philandering couple. Mary and Michael are on the far side of middle-age and the marriage has been dull routine for sometime. Their current lovers are younger, but not by that much. Mary is wooed by romantic Irish writer Robert (Aidan Gillen, GAME OF THRONES’ Littlefinger) with a sweet tenderness but he wants her to commit to him. Michael has his hands full with Lucy (Melora Walters), a fiery dance teacher, who also is tired of waiting for him to leave his marriage. Both Mary and Michael have promised their lovers they will tell their spouse they are ending the marriage, right after their college-aged son Joel (Tyler Ross) and girlfriend Erin (Jessica Sula) comes home to visit.

The audience learns all this early in the film. Writer/director Azazel Jacobs shows masterful skill with this film. Jacobs gives us a clever twist on bedroom farce comedy, by trading the young lovers usually at the center of all the bed-hopping, misunderstandings and slamming doors, for a couple on the far side of middle-age, sneaking off for afternoon quickies before returning to the humdrum of their stale marriage, tame suburban life and the routine of their middle manager jobs. The director toys with our ideas of fidelity, when a renewed attraction between the couple threatens to throw a wrench in the relationships with their lovers. Both truths and hypocrisy are subtly revealed as the story plays out.

THE LOVERS’ sly romantic comedy brings to mind Ernst Lubitsch’s clever parlor comedies. In lesser hands, this film could have been either broad, noisy slapstick or a tear-jerking melodrama about broken hearts. Jacobs avoids both, steering a course between sly humor and insightful observations. Where we expect loud and crazy, it goes subtle and clever. Where we expect weepy drama, we get thoughtful human insights and twists.

But all this heated behavior is going on right in the middle of dull suburbia, adding another comic edge to it.

It is not just Mary and Michael’s marriage that has gone stale but their whole lives. Their lives in suburbia are comfortable but not lavish, their jobs are routine and in career paths far different from they expected. Only their philandering provides the spark of life and excitement. Mary and Michael do not fight as much as avoid each other, carrying out the routines of life, like remembering to pick up toothpaste, but hardly connecting otherwise.

Jacobs seems to delight in the twists, but also uses the film to offer sharp insight on marriage, love, suburban life and jobs that are not the ones you planned on. Even the couple’s cheating has become routine, even though they still keep their affairs secret. Jacobs is clear-eyed and pulls no punch, but not cynical.

The director is aided greatly in navigating these tricky waters by Winger and Letts. Both are simply wonderful in their roles, bringing out nuance of character and details of the couple’s lives in each scene. They go to work at their dull jobs, slink around to grab a quickie, roll their eyes behind the back of their spouse, and soothe ruffled feelings of their lovers. Debra Winger and Tracy Letts are terrific in scenes together. Winger is a special standout, sexy and knowing at 61 and showing her acting chops are in full force yet.

Aidan Gillen and Melora Walters are also good, as patient, sensitive Robert and emotionally explosive Lucy, both tiring of waiting for Mary and Michael to split up. The amorous passion that Gillen’s Robert feels for Winger’s sweetly sexy Mary is convincing and touching. The desire Walters’ flighty Lucy feels for Letts’ charming, seductive Michael is equally believable. As modest as Mary’s and Michael’s lives are, both Robert and Lucy are in more limited financial circumstances.

This is not the kind of love story commonly seen on the big screen, built around a couple of suburban office workers approaching retirement age. Jacobs does not play cute with the love scenes, with no gauzy soft focus, and we see enough skin to make clear their age, and enough of their lovers’ bodies to see their comparative youth. On the other hand, Jacobs does not mock their age or late life passion, and is sympathetic to his characters’ desires and lost dreams, treating them with understanding.

How all these romantic entanglements will work out give this film both humor and insights on suburban life and long marriages, beyond the familiar bedroom farce plot. One gets the feeling the affairs have gone on so long they are nearly as routine as the marriage. Still, both Mary and Michael assume that the other spouse does not know about their secret lover, which may be true, and each assumes their spouse is faithful, which is obviously not true. Both Mary and Michael make endless “working late at the office” excuses, which offer the other a chance to sneak out but ironically neither thinks about the reason.

Through the course of the film, the director explores nature of long marriages, not just the potential for boredom in routine and familiarity but the shared memories and history, and the way a chance occurrence can remind a couple of what initially drew them together. It is such a spark that threatens to upset the plans in place, by reigniting the attraction between the married couple.

It is all delicious fun, as well as a clever and unexpected view inside a marriage, one that upends all sorts of assumptions. But the main delights of THE LOVERS are Debra Winger and Tracy Letts, running around and sparking sly sexy fun while offering insights on life, love, and long marriages.

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars