Film review: Life Lessons (1989)

Scorsese sets the scene with a rocking soundtrack lead by ‘Whiter Shade of Pale’ and puts us in the mood to stay up late, drink lots of whisky and smoke until our fingers turn yellow. Welcome to the paint-splattered world of Life Lessons.

One of three short stories told in the 1989 film ‘New York Stories’, Life Lessons immerses us in the world of an artist riding high on the adrenalin of the eleventh hour with just three weeks to go until his exhibition opens. 

Nick Nolte is superbly cast as Lionel Dobie, a tortured if successful, middle-aged painter. Rosanna Arquette plays Paulette – a precocious, 22 year old, aspiring artist who looks for her future in Lionel’s bed and his warehouse loft. The two fight to lead the sexual agenda against a backdrop of 1980’s New York, a landscape of shoulder pads, cocktails in martini glasses and performance art spaces in disused railway tunnels.

Fans of Steve Buscemi will find it a treat to see the bug-eyed, buck-toothed actor playing a floppy-haired cad who makes a game of Paulette’s affections and enrages Dobie.

The drama centres around a power play. Lionel tells Paulette “I indulge in love and I indulge in my stuff and they feed off each other”. He unapologetically uses his angst-ridden and frustrated relationship with her as fuel for his messy and Pollock-inspired masterpieces. She uses him for free rent and, hopefully, lessons in art. She begs for his advice, mewling ‘Am I any good? Will I ever be any good?’ but she never picks up a paintbrush in the time this drama plays out. Paulette wallows in self-doubt while Lionel ploughs through it.

Lionel persists with equal vigour in both his quest for Paulette and his creative work. At one point Scorsese focuses on Nolte looking up at an object, a potent, unwavering gaze, filled with lust and a calm, formidable energy. We don’t know whether he’s looking at his artwork or his muse. 

In one of his ‘life lesson’ lectures, Lionel tells Paulette that he is a lion – a metaphor also suggested by his rough, greying beard and mane of silvering blonde hair. His behaviour echoes that of the savannah cat – capable of gentleness, or cunning and in equal turns fiercely territorial and utterly vicious. He holds his prey in his gaze and the future of the frolicking, long-legged Paulette is as unclear to the audience as it is to her.

Scorsese captures the panic and confusion of the young Paulette as she tries to make sense of her situation and Lionel's life lessons. We feel empathy for her search for truth, but also frustration that she can’t see what the audience can.

The story is loosely based on Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Gambler. The femme fatales in both stories challenge their heroes to childish and potentially dangerous dares in order to prove their love. The Gambler story also extends into the plot of Life Lessons – both pieces follow a hero’s quest to secure the object of his affections. Both stories unfold amongst the upper class of society – the New York art scene no less depraved than the Russian aristocracy.

The influence of The Gambler in Life Lessons is not only evident in the driving themes of sex and compulsive gambling, but also in key scenes which serve to drive the narrative forward. Paulette dares Lionel to kiss a policeman, Dostoyevsky’s Polina asks Alexei to insult a baroness. The Russian protagonist fixates inappropriately on his lover’s foot, Lionel fetishises the gold-chained ankle of his modern-day muse – tilting the power balance even further out of his control. Screenwriter Richard Price drew inspiration not only from the 1972 translation of the original Dostoyevsky text, but also from the accompanying diary of Dostoyevsky’s lover, Polina Suslova that included a short story ‘The Stranger and her Lover’. It was this edition of the Russian classic that compelled Scorsese to interpret the friction between the lovers.

In signature Scorsese-style the music soundtrack is another character within the film. Bob Dylan’s ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ accompanies Dobie’s energetic painting sessions. Procol Harum’s ‘Whiter Shade of Pale’ opens, closes and plays at intervals in Life Lessons, while ‘Conquistador’ is the hidden narrator to pivotal scenes of sexual conquest and macho showdowns. The choice of songs by artists who were at their most popular in the year that Paulette was born places the ownership of the narrative unequivocally in Dobie’s court.

It’s not clear until the closing scene whether Lionel is the teacher or the student, but in telling his story Scorsese reminds the audience that the game of love and passion are always a gamble.

Film Review : Now You See Me (2013)

 

A magician’s audience can choose between two options. Either suspend your disbelief and enjoy the ride. Or try to outwit the smartest guy in the room. My money is on the first option that requires you not to think too much – and it seems that’s what the makers of Now You See Me are banking on.

Now You See Me is an elaborate chase caper spanning New York, Las Vegas and New Orleans. Four magicians (Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher, Dave Franco and Jesse Eisenberg) lead an FBI Agent (Mark Ruffalo) and his Interpol offsider (Mélanie Laurent) through a maze of stadium-scale magic tricks which involve Robin Hood-style theft from banks, giving to the needy and climaxing each time in a shower of paper currency. Their exploits are funded by an indulgent patron (Michael Caine) and followed by a TV exposé producer (Morgan Freeman).

The magicians are inappropriately titled ‘The Four Horseman’ – a name that might work well on promotional flyers but falls flat when no apocalypse is forthcoming. What is most disappointing about Now You See Me is that it promises magic, yet delivers none.

Stereotypes abound. Charming french Interpol agent, Alma Dray (Laurent), is bound up in her beige-coloured, spy-cliché trench coat for much of the action. She even wears Chanel-inspired stripes on her days off. Trés Chic.

The combined talents of Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine are assigned to small roles which amount to glorified cameo appearances. It feels very much that they were brought in to broaden the appeal of Now You See Me to an older audience at the box office.

It’s a visual pleasure to see the attractive ‘four horseman’ outwit their pursuers against the sequinned backdrop of stage-show magic. Unfortunately it’s all glitter and no substance.

Dialogue like ‘Time is a luxury I don’t have right now’ barked by Ruffalo, fills the script with clichéd cop-talk typical of any cat and mouse-type chase tale.

Overall Now You See Me has an arrogant street magician’s tone. The condescending catch-phrase ‘The closer you look, the less you see’, plastered over the promotional posters and sprinkled partonisingly into the dialogue, infers that the clues are obvious. When the twist is revealed it feels more like an unwanted Christmas gift than a bolt of enlightenment.

The story itself would be better suited to a graphic novel where the characters and themes could be more deeply explored. However, a graphic novel won’t help sell candy bar treats to packed movie-houses on a Friday night. The absence of gore, sex scenes or genuine intrigue make Now You See Me a perfectly inoffensive ‘date night’ film. I suspect that was the filmmaker’s intent all along.

Mejico, Sydney

I was lucky enough to be taken for a business lunch today to Mejico.

I knew next to nothing about Mejico before we arrived – other than that a fellow food reviewer had been earlier in the year and raved about the guacamole, which is made at the table, and that the restaurant is next to Jamie’s Italian.

We arrived at 12:15pm to an almost empty restaurant and were seated immediately.

Service was fast, friendly and unobtrusive. We were advised to that the house specialties were the guacamole and the blackened corn, so we ordered both. Unfortunately the corn order never seemed to have been placed, but the guacamole was worth the hype.

In particular the lime and sugar that was added cut through the fattiness of the avocado and the freshness was a sign of what to expect from the rest of the meal. The accompanying plantain chips had a colleague reminiscing about her days living in the Caribbean.

One of my dining companions had eaten at Mejico before and recommended the mocktails. Each mocktail includes chia seeds and I saw it as an opportunity to make friends with the protein-packed super food whose appeal, so far, had eluded me. When I’ve soaked chia seeds in coconut water in the past, the slimy membrane around each seed had put me off. Here, in the ‘white nectar’ cocktail a few of us ordered, the chia seeds had a consistency like the bubble teas that are popular in Chinatown. This white delight really did taste like nectar of the gods and my romance with the chia seed was reignited.

We ordered each of the tacos: pork belly, lamb shoulder and salmon. Palm-sized flour tortillas became serving vessels for the succulent meats. Only the lamb shoulder disappointed. The guacamole was a flavour medley, but in the lamb taco the seasonings struggled to sing out amongst the generous serving of meat. 

Ceviche reminds me of lazy days spent on Isle de Mujeres. Here mounds of fresh raw fish danced a happy tango amongst the chilli and lime seasonings in the salmon or kingfish served on tostadas.

For the main course we ordered the achiote chicken and the sirloin steak. I was keen to try quinoa in a restaurant as to date I’d only had the quinoa I’d made with great success at home. The quinoa served with the steak was no different to that which I have made at home, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The green chimichurri sauce lacked punch but the steak, served medium, had a texture I most certainly could not replicate at home.

The salt and pepper grinders on each table had me enthralled in an ADHD-like trance – a single press of the thumb producing a fine grind of seasoning. 

For dessert we chose from a menu of three, and went for the fudge served with walnuts and a citrus cream. A fellow diner commented that if someone only bought caramel slice for the caramel, they would be in heaven with this dessert. The servings were just the right size to finish off the meal.

At the end of our lunch we were full, but not bursting, testament to the mounds of protein and vegetable accompaniments.

The fit out at Mejico is industrial with splashes of neon pink. It felt like being in the hippest restaurant in Mexico City – a city filled with modern art, ancient pyramids and a new wave of reinterpreting traditional recipes. It was surprisingly not too loud – a key factor in an enjoyable lunch. 

We finished with coffees. A chai latte was ordered but we were told that chai was temporarily off the menu – last week a complaint had been received about the chai and until the Mejico team are happy again with what they offer, it would not be on offer. We all liked the idea that Mejico would not sell anything they didn’t drink themselves.

This same fair approach underpins Mejico’s philosophy. Dr Sam Prince is the owner, a medical doctor, humanitarian and a philanthropist. He’s currently working on a project called ‘One disease at a time’ in which he is looking to eliminate scabies from the Australian Aboriginal population. You can view his TEDx talk here.

The bill came to less than $50 per person – we all agreed it was very good value for money.

Mejico is a place I would take colleagues for a lunch, or the girls for a glass of wine and a few tacos. There were less kind reviews in SMH and the Telegraph earlier in the year, but we all thoroughly enjoyed our lunch. When it’s my turn to choose somewhere for a business lunch I’d include Mejico in my top five options at the moment.