Philosophy in life and art: Tim Blake Nelson's ANESTHESIA makes its Blu-ray/DVDebut

One of the films I most wanted to see this past winter I managed to miss, so catching up with ANESTHESIA, releasing tomorrow on Blu-ray and DVD, was a must. I am happy to say that the film in no way disappoints. As written, directed and acted in by Tim Blake Nelson -- one of Hollywood's hugely under-appreciated triple threats, who has already written and directed three fine movies: Eye of God, Leaves of Grass and The Grey Zone, as well as giving a raft of outstanding performances (from Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou? to one of my all-time favorites, the woefully underseen Cherish) -- the movie is as good an ensemble piece as has been produced in a long while.

Mr. Nelson, shown at right, has crafted a tale of human connection both grounded and buoyed by philosophy. The character we see first, and who commands a bit more attention that the others we'll soon meet, is a aging and honored philosophy professor played by Sam Waterston (below), and the ideas shown us via his words and deeds will connect to all the other characters we meet in this relatively short movie (it's just 90 minutes long). The connections here are major and minor but they are all important, as are the ideas that pepper the movie. People live by them, for better and worse, and also die by them.

Yet these connections are handled remarkably well -- never ham-handedly, as in some of the "we're all connected" movies you might recall -- and they are brought to rather spectacular life by the performances, every one of them, of the talented cast, beginning with Waterston and Kristen Stewart, below, who plays his troubled student in yet another small role that this actress nails beautifully. (Every role Ms Stewart tackles seems to take her further light years from that silly Twilight franchise.)

What Nelson has done is to create specific and resonant roles for every cast member and has then given these roles to actors who know how to bring them to immediate and pulsating life -- in what turns out to be a remarkably small amount of screen time. He has also chosen very well the scenes and moments we need to see to understand and appreciate these many characters. (Shown below are Nelson, at right, as Waterston's son, along with Jessica Hecht (far left) as his wife and Hannah Marks (center, left) and Ben Konigsberg (center, right) as their children -- playing two generations suddenly involved in activities as diverse as a cancer prognosis and virginity-losing.

The lovely Gretchen Moll (below, left, with Gloria Reuben) plays an unhappy suburban housewife with a philandering husband and a couple of children to whom she need to be paying better attention. Ms Moll is, as ever, a pleasure to watch.

Pride of place, however, goes to an actor named K. Todd Freeman, whom I've seen a number of times but not paid that much attention to. My mistake. Here he plays a junkie named Joe, trying (but not too hard) to kick his habit. I've seen countless actors play junkies at this point in my long life, but Mr. Freeman's performance is the one I'm most likely to remember. He just about steals the movie, bringing to the role such anger, sadness, power and depth that "memorable" doesn't begin to describe it. Freeman takes this character and turns him into the most honest yet awful and unnecessary waste of potential that you'll have seen.

The movie, without undue pushing or obviousness, takes in the good and the bad while quietly and clearly separating the wheat from the chaff. In the latter category would be Junkie Joe's best friend/lawyer (Michael K. Williams, below, left) who abandons his buddy to spend some very unprofessional time with another lawyer (Annie Parisse, below, right).

Corey Stoll (below) is excellent as always in a role that connects to two of our cast members and results in what looks like the most character change to be experienced by any of these people.

I am leaving out a lot of terrific small-but-smart performances; listing them all would take us into tomorrow, at least. For fans of fine ensemble pieces, Anesthesia is a must, but I think it should also be placed at the top of your list if you appreciate movies that use philosophy as an important and genuine tool for living.

From IFC Films, the movie hits the street -- on DVD and Blu-ray (the transfer is a good one, but nothing like that of the recent Every Thing Will Be Fine) -- Tuesday, June 21. for rental or purchase.

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American independent cinema, ANESTHESIA, connections, ensemble movies, great ensemble acting, life, New York City films, Philosophy, Tim Blake Nelson,

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Michael Patrick Kelly & Kathleen Kiley's ISN'T IT DELICIOUS boasts a star-studded New York cast

Wow. Kathleen Chalfant, Alice Ripley, Mia Dillon, Robert Lupone, and Malachy McCourt. How's that for a sturdy line-up of New York legitimate theater actors? Plus Keir Dullea (whom we don't get to see in that many new movie roles) and a handful of younger talent. Their vehicle is the new film, ISN'T IT DELICIOUS, directed by Michael Patrick Kelly from a screenplay by Kathleen Kiley. The venue here in New York City is the Quad Cinema, a theater I bring up only because it also hosted the premiere of another movie quite reminiscent of this one: The Abduction of Zack Butterfield. Though never reaching the hilarious level of unintentional camp achieved by the Butterfield abduction (except perhaps in its final WTF moments), Isn't It Delicious may be the most embarrassing film I've seen since that earlier "classic." (And that was in the spring of 2011.)

If you follow my reviews much at all, you already know that I don't enjoy ripping apart a new film, into which has usually gone the heart and soul of the filmmaker and/or screenwriter. So, as much fun as it might be to tear into this one, I am really going to try to hold back a bit -- and just explain semi-rationally what went wrong. Director and co-writer Kelly (shown at right) appears to have had a real fondness for the screenplay submitted to him by Ms Kiley. Since I can only go by what emerged from this collaboration onto the screen, I must say that the Kiley/Kelly combo offers up way too much of a not-very-good thing.

Isn't It Delicious (and, yes, no question mark adheres to this title) is a film about death and dying and family and fighting. And if you already suspect that the family here is dysfunctional to the max, you'd be right on the mark. Pay attention to what's on screen and to the dialog you hear for even a few minutes, and you will want to shriek at the cancerous character played by Ms Chalfant (shown above and below, with Mr. Dullea as her hubby), as my spouse did at one fraught point, "So, die already!"

This is because the storied Ms Chalfant, who possesses bona fides aplenty, takes the dialog given her -- often obvious and overdone to begin with -- and tears into it like a rabid mastiff. But, then, this whole family is so constantly annoying and overwrought that watching them awhile could make willing bachelors and old maids out of any audience. This is a truly dreadful screenplay: underscoring, repeating, and saying the obvious in any case (live life while you can). If the dialog were written with more of an eye for humor (there's some, but it surfaces far too seldom), this might have helped.

But, no, Delicious -- beginning with one funeral (above) and ending with another (at bottom) -- is chock-a-block with life lessons that we damn well better learn. If only Kelly/Kiley had given us more scenes like that in the automobile in which Chalfant notices a stop sign with a line of graffiti scrawled across it. This makes for a very funny, astute moment, one of the few not batted home with a shovel.

Characters seems to exist mostly to teach us, and while certain scenes work better than others (the one featuring a limo driver played by the excellent Ger Duany is among the best), they're all there to educate.
The actors playing Chalfant's children -- Ms Ripley (above), Nick Stevenson (as the older son, below), and Jonah Young (two photos below) as the younger male fare little better than the oldsters because they, too, are asked to constantly bicker and fight till they bore us silly.

I lost count, but I know that we hear the line "I want you to be happy" far too many times. And when the title line is finally spoken, it comes -- oy! -- with a resounding thud.

I suspect that someone here -- writer, director, maybe both -- subscribes to the Buddhist religion. Certainly this figures heavily into the story, and it may account for the final scene, which ends the movie on a high or low note, depending on your idea of what constitutes unintentional camp. Woody Allen once created a scene like this (in Everyone Says I Love You), which worked because it was playful, silly and very funny, as well as making its obvious point. Here, it is embarrassing, almost beyond belief.

Isn't It Delicious opens in Los Angeles this Thursday, December 11, at the NoHo 7; in New York City (at the Quad) and in Chicago (at the Logan Theatre) on Friday, December 12. In addition, the film will have a one-night-only screening on Friday, Dec. 12, at the Palace Theater in Syracuse, New York.

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dysfunctional family films, ensemble movies, ISN'T IT DELICIOUS, Kathleen Kiley, Michael Patrick Kelly, unintentional camp,

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John Herzfeld is back with the ensemble piece REACH ME -- his best work in nearly 20 years

It was the fall of 1996 when a small ensemble film called Two Days in the Valley burst upon the world of us inveterate movie-lovers. This very-unusual-at-the-time movie conflated crime and love, work and play in smart, funny, sometimes shocking ways that proved sublimely entertaining. Within the movie's second-tier but hugely talented cast was a young woman named Charlize Theron, in her first credited film role, and she's a knock-out. (You can rent the movie, which finally came out on DVD a year or two back and will be available on Netflix streaming come December 1. If you've never seen it, do.) At the time of its release, I hadn't heard of its writer/director John Herzfeld, but after seeing this little gem of the we're-all-connected-but-in-pretty-bizarre-ways variety, I knew we'd be hearing from him again.

Then we didn't much -- except for a good cable movie, Don King: Only in America and the not-so-hot 15 Minutes. All of which goes toward delighting me no end that I can now report that Mr. Herzfeld, shown at right, is back again -- and, hallelujah! -- he's in the mode of his earlier 2 Days/Valley success. His new film, REACH ME, is all about the reclusive author (Tom Berenger) of a suddenly mega-popular self-help book and the search to find this man. Like his earlier ensemble piece, this one connects a bunch of disparate people in ways that are funny and entertaining. Although there is some crime involved here, what happens is not nearly as dark and shocking as some of the occurrences in 2 Days/Valley. Herzfeld keeps things on a lighter, more buoyant note this time around, and if his new one doesn't quite come up to the earlier level, it's a very enjoyable and beautifully acted romp nonetheless.

In the ensemble cast are a lot of "names," none perhaps quite as surprising as that of Sylvester Stallone, one of my least favorite actors, playing the role of a big-deal gossip blogger (think maybe a male version of Nikki Finke?). And damned if Stallone isn't first-rate. Who knew?

The rest of the estimable cast includes the likes of Thomas Jane (above), Ryan Kwanten, Kyra Sedgwick (below),

Lauren Cohan (below), a terrific Kevin Connolly, (two photos below), Omari Hardwick, Danny Aiello, Tom Sizemore, Nelly (shown at bottom), Kelsey Grammer (in the penultimate photo) and a whole bunch more -- even the filmmaker himself does a cameo here.

Reach Me (the title of both the movie and the motivational book around which it circles) moves like a house afire and has incredible energy all the way along. Herzfeld's secret, considering how many characters are involved here and how fast the plot unfurls, would seem to be an ability, via his dialog and crack cast, to make every moment strong and true.

This carries us along beautifully, and the movie's subject -- something special and dynamic tossed into today's world of tweets and online immediacy -- makes what's happening seem important enough for us to tag along, and most of the characters are needy and sweet enough, if a bit deranged, to gain our sympathy.

There's a lot of funny dialog that initially adds to the mystery of who's who and what's what but that also seems believable and true. If we lingered longer over events, they might fall apart, but the filmmaker gives us little time for that.

In the end, we've spent 95 fast-paced minutes of crazy, joyous connection that leaves us a bit out of breath, but absolutely grinning with satisfaction.

Reach Me, from Millennium Entertainment and running a sleek 95 minutes, opens this Friday, November 21, in New York City at the AMC Village VII, and via On Demand and digital download.

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American independent cinema, ensemble movies, great ensemble acting, John Herzfeld, REACH ME, romantic dramedies, self-help and motivation,

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