THINGS TO WATCH
At the Movies

In what is a naturally busy time, post-Oscar nominations, viewers have much to catch up with, such that they will feel "in the know" when the Oscar telecast rolls around at the end of February. While this blog has only been existence a short while, it's scorecard is mixed: LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE deservedly made it all the way to the Best Picture race (and is now available on home video), while THE ILLUSIONIST, also just released on DVD, went largely ignored. (THE ILLUSIONIST features marvellous performances by Edward Norton and Paul Giamatti, some truly stunning cinematography and editing, great costumes, and a gripping story that will keep you on the edge of your seat--ah, well, I guess it will be one of the cherished quiet treasures one talks about with friends versus a well-worn classic that everyone knows.)

At any rate, one film that fortunately will benefit from Oscar nods is NOTES ON A SCANDAL, directed by Richard Eyre (head of the National Theater), with a sharp, downward-spiraling screenplay by Patrick Marber (CLOSER) and spot-on performances by Cate Blanchett as a teacher involved with a 15-year-old student, the ubiquitous Bill Nighy (currently on Broadway in THE VERTICAL HOUR) as her stymied husband, and the redoubtable Dame Judi Dench, giving a tough, unglamourous and wonderfully vile performance as a aging school teacher who sees a self-serving opportunity and uses it to the fullest. The dialogue is sharp, the scoring (by Phillip Glass) is appropriately vortex-like (what would you expect from Phillip Glass?), the cinematography rightly claustrophobia-inducing and the editing jagged and furtive, it is a brilliantly-done drama of small lives shattered by needs that can't be controlled or denied. As
gripping a 90-minutes as you'll find anywhere these days, it is not the most important film of the season but it is surely one of the most involving and, with Dench, Blanchett and Nighy in tow, one of the best acted. (And young Andrew Simpson deserves special notice as the young student callously acting as the catalyst of this nightmarish descent.)