MOVIES, MUSIC

Nashville: The Complete First Season

Television Series

Nashville is the ultimate in soapy, indulgent escapism. Connie Britton plays Rayna Jaymes, country music's longtime golden girl who is currently struggling to reinvent her sagging career and manage her strained marriage to a square-jawed cipher while keeping her powerful, manipulative family at bay. In the other corner, pop tart/money-making machine Juliette Barnes (Hayden Panettiere) tries to establish herself as a credible artist while living out a volatile post-adolescence that includes (but is not limited to) kleptomania, a quickie marriage, her mother's addiction, extortion, assorted PR disasters, and a whole lot of sequined mini-dresses. Not surprisingly, Rayna and Juliette immediately dislike each other, but the show has the discipline and class (that's right, discipline and class) to show the conflict as a methodical war of attrition as opposed to a series of catfights. It is also but one of the show's roughly 317,000 subplots.

Though the writing is remarkably fertile, the acting is what elevates the show from clandestine guilty pleasure to something I am willingly sharing here. Britton (formerly of TV's beloved Friday Night Lights and current host of the world's most coveted hair) gamely captures Rayna's coexistent warmth and egotism, but it is Juliette that gives Nashville its crazy, flashy heart. Panettiere takes on Juliette's many facets--charismatic performer, steely CEO, whiny Millennial, wily survivor, architect of her own destruction--with verve and eminently watchable chutzpah.

Days of Heaven

Terrence Malick / 1978

This 1978 movie is a singular tale of struggle and love, American style. Richard Gere plays Bill, a volatile steelworker who flees 1916 Chicago for the Texas Panhandle after a violent encounter with his boss. He brings his sister, Linda, (the excellent Linda Manz), as well as Abby (Brooke Adams), his girlfriend who poses as his other sister for the sake of propriety.

They begin working for a young farmer (Sam Shepard), a man in possession of a great fortune and a gloriously madcap Queen Anne mansion. He's also in want of a wife, and quickly falls in love with Abby. Tension, deception, and tragedy mythically unfold.

Though it was panned upon its release, it is now regarded as a masterpiece, as well as one of the most beautiful films ever made. Indeed, director Terrence Malick and his cinematographers turn everything they observe--trains, blast furnaces, horses, storms, artificial light, oceanic wheatfields, human frailty--into resolute poetry.

Le Boucher

Claude Chabrol / 1970

Le Boucher is a subtle then sudden psychological study of a mysterious teacher living in a picturesque town who is befriended by the local butcher. It sounds so quaint, but it isn’t! Plus, the film features an excursion to the Cougnac Caves, wherein we see beautiful animal drawings (the viral animal videos of 25,000 BC) and the most stunning collection of stalactites.

Tokyo Story

Yasujirô Ozu / 1953

This is an expertly unnerving, beautifully realized film about generation gaps, filial loyalty, and the various subtypes of selfishness found within families. It fascinates as both a period piece depicting ’50s Japan and a study of the variables that mar human connection.

Shame

Steve McQueen / 2011

Considering that even the staidest, most conventional cinematic love scenes make me squirm a little, I faced this one with trepidation. But Steve McQueen's removed any unctuousness likely be associated with this topic , and instead leaves us with an extraordinarily precise yet enigmatic film.

Michael Fassbender’s Brandon is withholding, cold, superficial, awkward, and fascinating. It’s a complex portrait of the American male psyche—a jumble of the laconic cowboy, the glib corporate-cipher, and the hopeless horndog.

Fassbender is a compelling leading man, and honorably odd in his complete unwillingness to endear himself to the camera. It will be interesting to watch this quality unfold throughout his career. Carey Mulligan gives another amazingly assured performance as Sissy, Brandon’s puckish, attachment-disordered wreck of a sister.

8 1/2

Federico Fellini / 1963

Wow--this is probably the most stylish film I’ve ever seen. One of the strangest, too. This movie, which is apparently Fellini’s autobiography (?!), manages to combine a rich dissection of human dynamics with an effortless psychedelia. Meanwhile, Marcello Mastroianni’s exquisite suits, chic alien sunglasses, and graceful ennui show George Clooney that he’s nothing but a hick from Kentucky.

Megan Mall