Palo Alto Weekly 01.11.13 - Section 1

CITY OF PALO ALTO NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that the Palo Alto City Council will hold a public hearing at a special Council meeting on Tuesday, January 22, 2013 at 7:00 p.m. or as near thereafter as possible, in the Council Chambers, 250 Hamilton Avenue, Palo Alto, to Consider the Adoption of a Resolution Amending the Transportation Element of the Comprehensive Plan To Incorporate Certain Findings of the Palo Alto Rail Corridor Study and Approval of a Negative Declaration.

DONNA J. GRIDER, MMC City Clerk

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G OLDEN G LOBE NOM I N ATIONS ÂŽ

DRAMA

Best screenplay

DRAMA

BEST Picture Best director Best actress kathRyn bigelow m a r k b o a l jessica chastain

“

YOU’RE IN FOR A HELL OF A RIDE.

JESSICA CHASTAIN IS A MARVEL.�

-PETER TRAVERS,

“

THE BEST PICTURE OF THE YEAR .�

ANN HORNADAY

NEW YORK FILM CRITICS CIRCLE

LISA SCHWARZBAUM

NATIONAL BOARD OF REVIEW

Movies OPENINGS

Amour ----

(Guild) Michael Haneke makes films that no one really wants to see. Whether he’s crafting “Funny Games,� “Time of the Wolf� or “The White Ribbon,� the Austrian writer-director deals with provocative subject matter in a very cooltoned way, asking the viewer to think critically rather than being entertained in a conventionally passive manner. “Amour,� the recipient of the Palme d’Or at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival, may be his most masterful — and most difficult yet rewarding — film to watch. “Amour� is a love story. But the drama opens in silence with firemen battering open the door to a locked Parisian apartment. They cover their noses. A neighbor utters, “They had a nurse.� And the men open a tapedshut door to discover a woman’s corpse, lying amidst flower petals, on the bed. On a black background, as though the film is already in mourning, the title “Amour� appears on screen.

We know this love story will not end well. With an economy of expression, Haneke has introduced the subject in a handful of carefully selected shots that makes us wonder what happened.

The film flashes back to an elderly, cultured Parisian couple attending a piano concert (Alexandre Tharaud as himself). Seeing French icons Emmanuelle Riva and JeanLouis Trintignant in their 80s is shocking in itself. The chiseled facial beauty of Riva in “Hiroshima, mon amour� (1959) and Trintignant in “A Man and a Woman� (1966) or “Z� (1969) is frozen in cinematic time. To watch their delicate performances as Anne and Georges — studying their aged faces and deliberate movements — is like running unexpectedly into someone you knew years and years ago and searching for the younger person in the mature one before you.

Almost the entire movie takes place in the well-appointed apartment of the long-married pair. Details of their life together slowly unspool. A tender touch on the shoulder reveals just as much about their relationship as when Anne lingers over a photograph in an album,

Century Theatres at Palo Alto Square COLUMBIA PICTURES PRESENTS A KATHRYN BIGELOW FILM “ZERO DARK THIRTY� JESSICA CHASTAIN JASON CLARKE EXECUTIVE MUSIC JOEL EDGERTON

BY ALEXANDRE DESPLAT PRODUCERS COLIN WILSON TED SCHIPPER GREG SHAPIRO PRODUCED WRITTEN DIRECTED

BY MARK BOAL KATHRYN BIGELOW MEGAN ELLISON

BY MARK BOAL

BY KATHRYN BIGELOW

Fri & Sat 1/11-1/12 Sun & Mon 1/13 - 1/14 Tues 1/15

Weds 1/16 Thurs 1/17

CHECK LOCAL LISTINGS FOR THEATERS AND SHOWTIMES

Life of Pi 3D - 4:00, 7:00, 10:00 Life of Pi 2D - 1:00 Hyde Park on Hudson - 1:30, 4:30, 7:25, 9:45 Life of Pi 3D - 4:00, 7:00 Life of 2D - 1:00 Hyde Park on Hudson - 1:30, 4:30, 7:25 Life of Pi 3D - 4:00 Life of Pi 2D - 1:00 Hyde Park on Hudson - 1:30, 7:25 Life of Pi 3D - 1:00 Hyde Park on Hudson - 1:30, 4:30, 7:25 Life of Pi 3D - 4:00, 7:00 Life of Pi 2D - 1:00 Hyde Park on Hudson - 1:30, 4:30, 7:25

Tickets and Showtimes available at cinemark.com

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feature film is 24 lies per second.�

With “Amour,� the auteur seems to achieve the impossible. Haneke unblinkingly and compassionately presents universal truths, while revealing the illusion of filmmaking and our role as spectators.

Rated PG-13 for mature thematic material including a disturbing act, and brief language. In French with English subtitles. 2 hours, 7 minutes. — Susan Tavernetti

Gangster Squad -1/2

Josh Brolin, right, as the stereotypical good cop. quietly whispering, “It’s beautiful, life.�

Unfortunately, life can change in a heartbeat. Anne has a stroke.

And then a second one. Her declining health and Georges’ gallant efforts to care for her make for heartbreaking drama. Cinematographer Darius Khondji’s camera captures the painfully slow rhythms of the actors in long master shots. During one of the rare visits of their only child, Eva (the superb Isabelle Huppert), Khondji photographs the awkwardness of the exchange. Eva’s self-centered blathering and critical comments contrast with Georges’ measured calm and awareness that their daughter and her family are like strangers to them. Such is the modern condition. Eventually the camera lingers over the increasingly difficult daily tasks of caretaking, like a vulture awaiting death. The film becomes a profound meditation about dying and living, about respect and love tested to the limit.

On one level, “Amour� offers a completely accessible story. On other levels, Haneke’s signature style lies in wait. He plants subtle hints of impending violence, whether someone is teasingly called “a monster� or when the couple talks about a friend’s funeral. Haneke also revisits his concerns of encouraging the spectator to question the act of consuming entertainment.

When Anne and Georges attend the piano concert, the camera watches the audience and its reaction, never showing the pianist perform. The director alludes to his film “The Piano Teacher� multiple times, as well as providing a verbal reference to “Funny Games.� Most importantly, a key plot point turns on the power of narrative as Georges calms Anne with a story about his childhood.

Conventional narratives appeal to the emotions and can function as an opiate. “Amour� is not one of those.

Refuting Jean-Luc Godard’s quote that “Film is truth at 24 frames per second,� Haneke once retorted, “A

(Century 16, Century 20) I’d say “Gangster Squad� was so hardboiled it’s overcooked, but that wouldn’t quite capture the problem with this 1940s-set would-be gangster-flick throwback. Out of his depth, director Ruben Fleischer (“Zombieland�) hasn’t so much cooked something up as microwaved it.

There’s a distinctly synthetic feel to this period picture, which recreates such Hollywood iconography as the then-�Hollywoodland� sign and nightclub Slapsy Maxie’s, complete with Carmen Miranda. For all of Fleischer’s flashy flourishes (and the production design is, indeed, colorful), “Gangster Squad� plays like nothing so much as a cut-rate “Untouchables.�

In 1949, the Los Angeles Police Department has been greased by mob payoffs, necessitating an offthe-books response. Chief Parker (Nick Nolte) recruits “honest cop�

Sgt. John O’Mara (Josh Brolin) to head up a special unit of stouthearted men to take down the likes of gangster Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn).

Every character can be summed up pithily. Cohen? Psychopath.

O’Mara? Grimly determined. Ryan Gosling’s Sgt. Jerry Wooters? Playboy with a heart of gold. Robert Patrick’s Officer Kennard? Deadeye.

Giovanni Ribisi’s Officer Keeler?

Tech support. Michael Pe˜a’s Officer Ramirez? Um, token MexicanAmerican?

The crime of wasting PeĂąa (so good in last year’s LAPD drama “End of Watchâ€?) demonstrates the film’s chronic inability to elevate its stock characters through dialogue or performance. The stellar cast — and more familiar faces seem to parade in every three minutes — drifts through the picture, and the sheer bulk of talent involved (top-tier technicians and designers included) turns out to be a case of water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink.

The clunky script by former cop Will Beall relies heavily on formula and thus has a tendency to telegraph; you’ll know which characters will bite it within minutes of meeting them. While “inspired by a true story� (and based on the book by Paul Lieberman) about transplanted