Doodad Kind of Town

The Last Word on 2011: The Best and the Brightest

noreply@blogger.com (Patricia Perry) — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 20:10:00 +0000

Here (at last!) is my tribute to the best of film in 2011, skating in just a mere 30 hours or so before the Oscar nominees are announced. I can only say that I like to take my time (at least the first couple weeks of January) to see as many of the previous year's films as I can before pronouncing judgments.

Even so, there are a few qualifications with regard to what you're about to read.
For 2011 honors, I only considered films that were first released in the Chicago area from 1/1/11 to 12/31/11. This means that many of the films popping on other reviewers' "Ten Best" lists and awards slates weren't available for me to see, and so weren't in the running. These include: A Separation, Corialanus, Pina, Pariah, The Iron Lady, Albert Nobbs and We Need to Talk About Kevin. Conversely, some of the films you see below were actually honored by awards givers last year, but weren't available to me till 2011.

And then there are the ones that got away. Despite my best efforts, I manage to miss some highly acclaimed films every year, and sometimes don't see them till months - or years - after their initial release. Sometimes my attention is focused elsewhere while they're in theatres, sometimes their availability in this area is so brief and limited that I just can't get to them. (Or sometimes, no matter how many breathless raves they receive, I can't muster any desire to see them - and I'll let you guess what film(s) that applies to in the following list.) Anyway, 2011's unseen films include: Drive, Mysteries of Lisbon, Shame, Incendies, War Horse, The Mill and the Cross, Margaret, Take Shelter, Cave of Forgotten Dreams.

But here's the good news. I had a very difficult time winnowing down the2011 honor roll to a "Ten Best" list, so much so that I've published a "Ten Second-Best" list as well. It was an exceptionally rich and rewarding year for cinema, although most of my favorites here have been ignored by the awards givers almost entirely. And most aren't likely to show up on this week's list of Oscar nominees either.

Here are my Ten Best Films of 2011, in ascending order:

10. Bridesmaids

Not just raucously funny, it also got the tricky dynamics of female friendship and the details of class differences among its central characters exactly right. If they'd just left out the food-poisoning-at-the-bridal-salon scene, it'd be ranked even higher.

9. Jane Eyre

Here's a little secret: I've never been a a fan of the Bronte sisters, their books or the film adaptations of them. (Go ahead, lecture me sternly on this; my high school English teacher certainly did.) But Cary Fukanaga's film blew the dust off a too-often filmed English lit chestnut and made me understand- for the first time - why Jane and Mr. Rochester really belonged together.

8. Certified Copy

Abbas Kiarostami's enigmatic, shape-shifting film is a fascinating fugue on the nature of authenticity in art and relationships. And if that sounds intimidating, be assured the film is not. An engrossing brain teaser with a lovely, emotionally supple performance by Juliette Binoche.

7. The Tree of Life
Terrence's Malick's impressionistic and unspeakably beautiful meditation on creation, families and parenthood. A little screwy in places (the dinosaurs, the not-quite-satisfying coda), but the eccentric moments are easily forgivable in light of how powerfully Malick captures life in mid-20th-century Texas family, remembered in moments and images.

6. A Dangerous Method

A film that dares to be "talky" and to trust its audience to be intelligent and sophisticated, A Dangerous Method delineates the ideas that (in the memorable words of a friend) led to "the birth to the twentieth century." David Cronenberg's drama of the interconnecting relationships between Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and Jung's patient,Sabina Spielrein - brilliant in her own right and an underappreciated influence on both men's work - was a film of ideas, driven by superlative performances. It's thrilling even when it's doing no more than reconstructing actual correspondence between the doctors; Cronenberg finds a visual rhythm that keeps these frequent epistolary passages from stopping the film dead. the And yes, there are spanking scenes, but please - Cronenberg's film is anything but dirty-minded.

5. Poetry
Leisurely and lyrical, Poetry takes us into the life of an aging South Korean woman who, in the midst of caring for her surly teenage grandson and experiencing the first signs of dementia, takes a poetry class. And in the process of learning to see the world through a poet's eyes, she finds a moral courage within herself she may not have previously possessed. Director Lee Chang-dong works in an indulgent manner reminiscent of Mike Leigh, lingering over mundane details of the characters' lives but without ever once being dull. Poetry moves slowly, but is unexpectedly transfixing as it moves towards a quiet but emotionally devastating denouement. And actress Yun Jung-hee is unforgettable.

4. Of Gods and Men
A group of French monks in North Africa are caught between peaceful friendship with their Muslim neighbors, the violent activities of an encroaching Islamic terrorist group and a corrupt government. Should they stay in their monastery and face whatever fate awaits them, or should they flee? This is the question at the heart of this film, and it is not approached in any traditionally suspenseful way, but rather through a respectful and detailed depiction of the rituals of monastic life and the ways they shape and strengthen the men's faith. Even if you already know the outcome (the film is based on a true story of French Cistercian monks taken hostage by terrorists in 1996 Algeria), the quietly building emotional power of this film is likely to haunt you long after the closing credits roll.

3. Hugo

Martin Scorsese adapts a Caldecott Medal-winning children's book in 3-D and manages to make it feel intensely personal, even autobiographical. No mean feat, that. Not only charming and imaginative, but a multi-layered tribute to the early pioneers and familiar tropes of early silent cinema - to my mind, a better informed and far more fitting tribute to silent films that the year's much more ballyhooed entry, The Artist.

2. Another Year

At first glance, not much seems to be happening in Mike Leigh's portrayal of a year in the life of a happy marriage. But, as is the case in Leigh's best work, there's a lot going on beneath the surfaces of things, and the brilliance of the ensemble cast brings them sharply to light. Tom and Gerry, long and happily wed, have the kind of cozy, companionable relationship their single friends envy and wish to be around. But Leigh and his actors gradually peel away the couple's apparent beneficence to reveal the smugness and condescension behind their dinner invitations and glib tolerance of the lonely, unattached people who gravitate towards them. A just barely detectable undercurrent of class tension simmers throughout. Another Year is the kind of film that richly rewards repeat viewings, and shows Leigh's reliable repertory of players (Jim Broadbent, Ruth Sheen, Lesley Manville) doing some of their finest work yet.

1. Melancholia

While I don't wish clinical depression on anyone, I can't deny that it's done something valuable for Lars Von Trier's work. Since emerging from a serious bout of depression, Von Trier seems to have stopped creating masochistic constructs for his actresses to play and started to write full-bodied, recognizable female characters. If those characters are usually in great psychic pain, at least Von Trier appears to empathise with them now; post-depression his films seem far more compassionate and thematically rich than ever before.

Having said all that, Melancholia offers us not only two indelible female leads, but a film filled with stunning visual imagery both beautiful and terrible to behold. Two sisters (Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg) face the end of the world, waiting out the approach of huge, deadly planet that will slam into and obliterate the Earth from the illusory comfort of a rambling estate house. And as they do, they appear to exchange personalities, with Dunst's severely depressed sister becoming calm and nurturing as her controlling hausfrau sister falls apart.

No other film this year has dazzled, bothered, obsessed and fascinated me so much as Melancholia. And in a year of cinema like 2011, that's saying a powerful lot.

The Ten "Second Best" films of 2011 (in no particular order): Hanna, Barney's Version, 50/50, Win Win, The Descendants, Moneyball, Margin Call, The Trip, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, The Artist

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role: Michael Fassbender (A Dangerous Method, Jane Eyre)

He'll likely get an Oscar nomination for the film I didn't see (Shame), but Fassbender was everywhere this year, and in both these films, delivered phenomenal performances. I might go so far as to say that his Mr. Rochester is the best one on film - but I'd need to see a few more versions of Jane Eyre in order to say that definitively and I'm just not willing.

Honorable Mention: Jean DuJardin (The Artist), George Clooney (The Descendants), Michael Parks (Red State), Jim Broadbent (Another Year), Paul Giamatti (Win Win, Barney's Version), Lambert Wilson (Of Gods and Men), Brad Pitt (The Tree of Life, Moneyball)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role: Lesley Manville (Another Year)

In a year of many strong leading actress performances, it was damn hard to choose just one favorite. But Manville, playing a woman in denial of almost every aspect of her life (her age, her drinking, her loneliness) unravelled onscreen with a startling emotional nakedness. On first glance, the performance seemed over the top, but repeat viewings of Another Year only underline how courageous Manville's work really was, not to mention honestly heartbreaking.

Honorable Mention: Michelle Williams (My Week with Marilyn), Juliette Binoche (Certified Copy), Mia Wasakowski (Jane Eyre), Kirsten Dunst (Melancholia), Charlotte Gainsbourg (Melancholia), Yoon Jeong-Hee (Poetry), Saoirse Ronan (Hanna), Viola Davis (The Help)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role: Viggo Mortensen (A Dangerous Method)

Another tough category to call (and Mortenson just barely edged out Christopher Plummer for me). But Mortenson's canny, understated portrayal of Sigmund Freud was the perfect counterpoint to Michael Fassbender's Jung, exuding a kind of relaxed confidence perfectly befitting the "master" in a master/student relationship. You truly forgot you were watching Mortenson at work.

Honorable Mention: Patton Oswalt (Young Adult), Andy Serkis (Rise of the Planet of the Apes), Hunter McCracken (The Tree of Life), Christopher Plummer (Beginners), Matthew Lillard (The Descendants)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role: Eva Green (Cracks)

Cracks, a moody, atmospheric thriller set in a secluded Scottish boarding school, was too little seen, as was Green's electrifying turn as the charismatic teacher who becomes obsessed with a beautiful student. Green was definitely in Prime of Miss Jean Brodie territory (with a soupcon of Heavenly Creatures thrown in), but she made the role her own, creating a character both haunted and haunting.

Honorable Mention: Rosamund Pike (Barney's Version),Shailene Woodley (The Descendants), Melissa McCarthy (Bridesmaids), Jessica Chastain (The Help, The Tree of Life), Berenice Bejo (The Artist)

The Best Performances You Didn't See in 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Patricia Perry) — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 02:37:00 +0000

Awards season is upon us again. And everywhere you look - from the Golden Globes to the SAG awards, from the BAFTAs to this coming Tuesday's announcement of the Oscar nominees - you're likely to see the same faces: Streep, Clooney, Pitt, Williams, Fassbender. No surprises anywhere.

In that respect, 2011is no different from any other year. Great performances are overlooked during awards season, and in the case of the following actors, it's likely because hardly anyone saw their week.

May I present, for your consideration:

Michael Parks in Red State

Kevin Smith's religious satire/horror/thriller was genuinely nervy and chilling - for about 25 minutes. Then, as the focus shifted from the secret ceremonies of a violently homophobic religious cult to the Waco-style siege on their headquarters, Smith's sloppiness and limitations as an action director were embarrassingly exposed. But Michael Parks' charismatic and deceptively Grandpa-like cult leader was never less than mesmerizing, right up through the final shot. I don't know if Smith's straight-to-video-and-OnDemand distribution scheme eliminated his film and its actors from awards consideration, but Parks deserves to be on the Best Actor slate somewhere.

Eva Green in Cracks

Cracks, the directorial debut of Jordan Scott (daughter of Ridley) was unjustly neglected - a unnerving, atmospheric thriller of sorts, combining elements of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Lord of the Flies, Heavenly Creatures and even a bit of Shutter Island. At a girl's school on a secluded Scottish Island, Green's charismatic teacher and diving team coach develops a Sapphic obsession with a beautiful Spanish student, causing jealousy and division among her other pet pupils. There are many good performances, notably that of Juno Temple as the ringleader of Green's acolytes. But Green herself is especially electrifying - scary, but never gratuitously histrionic.

Lambert Wilson in Of Gods and Men

Wilson's Brother Christian, the leader of the doomed French monks in this exquisitely measured and moving film, is a graceful, nuanced portrayal of a genuinely holy man. It's a tricky to play saintliness without lapsing into hokiness or cliche. But Wilson's monk emanates an authentic humility and purity of spirit, not only in moments of heightened drama (when he extends a hand of friendship to an Islamic terrorist, for example), but even in the way he gingerly carries a tray of honey jars to a market stall. The actors who play the other monks are exemplary ensemble in their own right, but Wilson's quiet light shines brightest.

Rosamund Pike in Barney's Version

For award purposes, Barney's Version is actually considered a 2010 film. But even last year, with the exception of a Canadian Genie nomination, Pike's bravura turn was largely ignored. This adaptation of Mordecai Richler's novel spans three decades and three marriages; Pike plays the third and best-loved of Barney's/Giamatti's wives, a brainy, velvet-voiced radio interviewer who's the steady, even-tempered counterpoint to her husband's mercurial spirit. Pike herself has often seemed to me much like the character she played in Made in Dagenham - too often treated as a decorative object, holding back intellect and a subversive spirit behind a facade of beauty and good manners. In Barney's Version, she has a role worthy of her talents and makes the most of it. She and Giamatti capture - beautifully - the rhythms and nuances of a relationship between two people who spend many years together and know each other too well.

On the Home Screen: I Don't Know How She Does It

noreply@blogger.com (Patricia Perry) — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 11:00:00 +0000

I was far more receptive to the charms of I Don't Know How She Does It than have been most critics, but perhaps that's due to the circumstances in which I watched it: on a business trip, in a hotel room, over a tray of room service soup and salad, mere hours after being reunited with a suitcase containing all my clothes and makeup that the airline didn't bother to put on a plane to Houston until 24 hours after I had arrived there, and only moments after drafting a three-page list of "Things to Do before Christmas."

In other words, I was very much of a mind to empathize with the film's harried heroine, Kate Reddy (played by Sarah Jessica Parker - we'll get to her a bit later), a businesswoman who is forever juggling home responsibilities, parental duties and urgent business trips.

The charges of 'elitism' that I've heard from other reviewers towards this film - Kate is affluent with a architect husband, a nanny for her two kids and a secure job - seem like knee-jerk crankiness from writers who either haven't read the novel on which it is based or aren't much in touch with how middle-class corporate employees actually live. Like Allison Pearson's bestselling novel on which it is based, I Don't Know... is concerned with how a high-achieving woman finds a balance between her professional and home lives. And its depiction of the challenges that long hours and frequent work travel pose to family life rings pretty true to my experience and observations of friends', co-workers' and family members' struggles. More to the point, there's never a suggestion here (as there was in the novel) that either Kate or her husband (Greg Kinnear) could afford to quit their job and stay home to take care of their two young children.

Having said all that, however, let's not get out the confetti and sound the trumpets just yet. Despite its good intentions and moments of admirable authenticity, I Don't Know... isn't nearly as good as it should have been.

That screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna has transported the story's setting from England to Boston does no harm. But where Pearson showed sly wit, McKenna gives us cheap laughs. And where Pearson offered genuine insights into the differences between how men and women approach the myriad details of domestic life, McKenna files the sharp edges off those insights to give us the requisite number of feel-good moments. She's kept one of the novel's great lines - that "women used to bake pies and fake orgasms, now they have the orgasms and fake the pies," the punchline to a scene in which Kate distresses a store-bought pie in order to make it look like a home-baked donation to her daughter's school bake sale. But Pearson's all-too-true observations about the relative level of attention that men and women give to the details of the children's lives. (Hint: the women are the ones who sweat the small stuff) are glossed over or gone entirely here.

Instead we get a parade of supporting characters addressing the camera directly to express their admiration of Kate and their inability to figure out "how she does it," sometimes genuinely and sometimes with heavy irony. (Am I the only one who feels this whole "characters commenting 'documentary style' to the camera" thing has become a lazy storytelling device, best left to the sitcoms that have already milked it for all it's worth?) Of those characters, we see far too little of Kate's single mom gal pal (Christina Hendricks, who unapologetically brings a Tupperware bowl of Jello to the aforementioned bake sale), and far too much of her creepily emotionless assistant (Olivia Munn), smarmy male co-worker (Seth Myers), and sanctimonious stay-at-home moms who are really little more than lascivious gym rats. Those last characters are especially specious cartoons with no conceivable connection to reality. One wishes that I Don't Know... had managed to give them a moment-of-truth confession in which their own insecurities were admitted and contrasted to those of the working mothers, much like the moment in Bridesmaids where Rose Byrne's trophy wife suddenly, tearfully confessed her deep loneliness to the sad sack Kristen Wiig character.

Director Douglas McGrath (Emma, Infamous) gives the material the best shaping and honing we could hope for, reliably and realistically capturing the rhythms of a stressed-out working parent's life. The scene in which Kate struggles to enjoy a family Thanksgiving while ignoring her ringing cell phone is genuinely agonizing. And when Kate and a colleague (Pierce Brosnan) manage to set aside one night of their business trip to shut down their laptops and go bowling, the relaxation and simple pleasure they find in that bowling alley is palpable.

And as for Parker ....

I'm very much of the belief that the universally nasty reviews for I Don't Know... have been at least as much about the the continuing Sarah Jessica Parker backlash as about the film itself. Parker certainly deserves some criticism for the way she devolved her Carrie Bradshaw character over the many years of Sex and the City: from the smart-and-edgy-but-lovably-flawed Carrie of the early seasons to the appallingly giggly-girlish compulsive punster of the Seasons 5 and 6 to the shrill, materialistic harpy in what I sincerely hope was the last SATC film.

But, contrary to popular belief, not every character Parker's played in the last six years has been a Carrie Bradshaw retread. Kate Reddy certainly isn't. Nor was the emotionally shut-down doctor she played in the flawed but admirable 2008 film Smart People. Nor was her touchingly awkward character in the otherwise insufferable ensemble dramedy The Family Stone. Parker is a gifted comedienne (don't roll your eyes, rent LA Story or State and Main if you don't believe me), and although the Carrie Bradshaw years may not have ultimately been the best evidence of it, her comic instincts remain sound and strong. In I Don't Know... , she warms up the role of Kate with an innate likability and dead-on physical comedy timing. If it accomplishes nothing else, this film offers compelling reasons to stop hatin' on SJP - and for someone to PLEASE give her a script worthy of her talents. (No, not you, Michael Patrick King - someone else!)

The Best of What I Read This Week - Janurary 7

noreply@blogger.com (Patricia Perry) — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 14:35:00 +0000

The best of what's on other sites this week:

At Slate, the annual Movie Club was in full swing this week, with Slate critic Dana Stevens, Movieline's Stephanie Zacharek, the Chicago Tribune's Michael Phillips and Slate's Dan Kois discussing and debating the best and worst films of 2011. Yes that'd be the same Dan Kois whose boneheaded New York Times Magazine essay on "Eating Your Cultural Vegetables" drew so much ire earlier this year; here he restates some of his points in a far less irritating way. Some lively and thought-provoking commentary from all participants - no two writers seem to be in agreement on The Artist or Melancholia. Read all 12 entries (so far) here.

Living the Romantic Comedy recently published its annual "Asta" awards for achievement in the rom com genre. Despite the fact that it's been a thin year for romantic comedy, Billy Mernit finds some performances and moments that definitely deserved praise. See the list here.

At The House Next Door, Jason Bellamy and Ed Howard delved deeply into the films of Alexander Payne in the latest of their "Conversations" series. An exhaustive, in-depth discussion that covers Payne's entire career to date, it goes right to the heart of Payne's flaws (e.g. his condescension towards unsophisticated characters) and strengths (directing actors). Read it here.

At Ferdy on Films, Marilyn Ferdinand and Rod Heath have both written their end-of-year reflections. Rod and Marilyn, two of the smartest and most discerning writers in the film blogosphere, have a enviably broad and deep knowledge of cinema. Their posts are never less than a fascinating and provocative read. Read Rod's "Confessions" here, while Marilyn's reflections can be found here.

Finally, Manohla Darghis has provided a detailed analysis of Melancholia's prologue that wrings every last bit of meaning and subtext out of that haunting, slow-motion eight minutes of film. Read "This is How the End Begins" here.

Looking Forward, Looking Back

noreply@blogger.com (Patricia Perry) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 18:14:00 +0000

Welcome to 2012!

As this blog moves into its sixth year of existence, I can't help but reflect on what my blogging journey has been - and where I'd like it to go next.

Doodad Kind of Town has been a 'feast or famine' experience over most its existence, with the frequency and depth of the posts strongly affected by my work schedule or other circumstances in my life which either facilitated or prevented me from seeing films and having time to write about them. The readership has gone from non-existent to sparse to respectable and back to sparse again. Still I've never given up.

This past year, in an effort to give my writing a sharper focus, I decided to dedicate the blog to romantic comedies, "chick flicks" and musicals - genres that I believe are often unfairly denigrated in a film blogosphere seemingly dominated by young men.

I can't tell you how many times I've second-guessed that decision, if not outright regretted it.

Writing exclusively about rom coms and female-centric films has become a bit of a chore, mainly because 2011 was not an especially good year for either of those categories. Films like Crazy Stupid Love and Friends with Benefits tried to breathe new life into the romantic comedy genre, in both cases with wildly mixed and ultimately unsatisfying results. The year's biggest, all-star women's film, The Help was well-acted and made with care, yet somehow didn't move me very much.

I did quite love Bridesmaids, which I watched yesterday for the third time, and which still made me laugh out loud. It isn't without its flaws (I so wish they'd have ignored producer Judd Apatow's suggestion to include that food-poisoning-at-the-bridal-salon scene), but it's a very successful blend of looney-tunes humor and authentic insights into the tricky, competitive dynamics of women's friendships.It also gets the details of economic class differences between the characters exactly right. If there's a Doodad Kind of Town "Movie of the Year", then Bridesmaids is definitely it.

As for musicals, the highlight of my year was participating in the Top 75 Musical Films Countdown at Wonders in the Dark, writing the entries on The Court Jester, All That Jazz, Mary Poppins and The Music Man.

But in 2012, you can expect some expanded film coverage. When current releases disappoint, I'll revisit generic examples from the past, hopefully delving into some romantic comedies and women's films from the golden age of Hollywood. Several more entries are planned for the Academy of the Underrated, and I'll go "off topic" on occasion to review foreign or independent films in a new feature, The Occasional Cinephile.

And this year, for the first time ever, I'll be publishing a Ten Best List for 2011. (I've done an "Honor Roll" in the past, but never constrained myself to name exactly ten films - what can I say? I'm gettin' all conventional in my old age.) Look for 2011 retrospective posts to come over the next couple of weeks, with the Ten Best List coming around mid-January.

I look forward to hearing from more readers in 2012. May it be a great year for cinema!

Instead of This..... Watch This!

noreply@blogger.com (Patricia Perry) — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 23:50:00 +0000

Over the last couple of days, I've seen three movies I would call "pretty good" - but every one of them brought to mind an even better film on the same theme. If you have a limited amount of time to invest in movies this week, here are my suggestions:

Instead of seeing Young Adult.... watch Greenberg

The performances are terrific, Diablo Cody's script is mostly solid and Jason Reitman's direction seamless and assured. But for all that, Young Adult is still a deeply unpleasant film. Much like this year's earlier and equally disturbing Mel Gibson movie, The Beaver, it plays a mentally ill protagonist for dark laughs before allowing her to hit rock bottom in spectacularly humiliating fashion.

Charlize Theron plays the former small-town golden girl who's bottomed out at the ugly intersection of alcoholism and narcissistic personality disorder. Rousing herself from a life of convenience store meals and nightly post-drinking blackouts in her dishevelled Minneapolis apartment, she heads for her hometown intent on reuniting with her high school sweetheart (Patrick Wilson), the happily married father of a baby girl. Theron's disconnection from reality is both chilling and sad, and Patton Oswalt provides a perfect counterpoint as the former classmate who becomes her unlikely drinking buddy. But there is a simmering undercurrent of snarky mean-spiritedness towards the townspeople (and towards Oswalt's bucktoothed sister in particular) which comes rushing to the fore in a disappointing coda. I suppose we could be thankful that Young Adult doesn't succumb to a hackneyed, "everyone learns and grows" kind of story arc. But frankly its cynical conclusion feels every bit as false and forced as a feel-good final act would have.

A much wiser, more compassionate portrait of a damaged, unlikable character is found in Noah Baumbach's underappreciated 2010 film Greenberg. Ben Stiller turns in a remarkably nuanced performance as an angry, unhappy man, newly released from a mental hospital and unable to cope with the world he finds outside, let alone re-establish old friendships that were pretty strained to begin with. Stiller's Greenberg can be viciously cruel and cold - and yet, also oddly touching in his desperate attempts to put a together a normal life. And the film is honest enough to show how some friends and family members can be startlingly insensitive to Greenberg in return. That's he's granted some measure of hard-earned redemption is testament to Baumbach's quiet generosity to the character, an attitude which would have benefitted Young Adult as well.

Instead of seeing My Week with Marilyn..... watch Me and Orson Welles

Michelle Williams' performance as the legendary actress is every bit as wonderful as you've heard. She doesn't merely impersonate Marilyn, but gets to her emotional core and sheds new light on the crippling insecurities and wild mood swings that made her such a challenge to work with. Unfortunately there's little else of consequence here, save for the mild, fleeting pleasures of watching Kenneth Branagh play Laurence Olivier. Based on the memoir by Colin Clark, a production assistant on The Prince and the Showgirl who was briefly Marilyn's confidante (and possibly lover - the film is quite coy about this), My Week... succumbs to every other cliche of the "young man seduced by showbiz/has brush with greatness/gets heart broken" genre, including Clark's unlikely propensity for lurking in doorways while various famous people have emotionally heated, revelatory conversations. It put me in a mind of a far better film I'd like to see again....

In Me and Orson Welles, a teenager stumbles into a role in Orson Welles' modern-dress production of Julius Ceasar, and proceeds to fall in love with both the theater and Welles' comely production assistant, played by Claire Danes. Director Richard Linklater creates a seductively hectic world of make-believe, presided over by the blustering ego and boundless charisma of Welles (brilliantly played by Christian McKay in a performance that, like Williams' performance as Marilyn Monroe, gets the trademark voice absolutely right and transcends mere impersonation.) And yes, that's Zac Efron as the starry-eyed aspiring actor, but don't be hatin' - he's exactly right, too. Although it's part of a fairly hackneyed genre, Me and Orson Welles resonates more lastingly than its counterparts because the Efron character isn't merely focused on getting the girl or impressing the big shot actor/director - the film is really more about the joys of discovering one's own artistic and creative abilities and figuring out how to make a life using them.

Instead of The Artist.... watch the movies it references!

All the unbridled critical acclaim for The Artist has me a bit puzzled. It's certainly not without its charms, chiefly in the charismatic performances of Jean Dujuardin as a fading silent film star and his loyal Jack Russell terrier, Uggi. But it amounts to little more than a loving, competently constructed pastiche of Hollywood's Golden Era classics. If there were a cookbook entry for The Artist, it'd read: "Mix one part Singin' in the Rain with three parts A Star is Born, add a heaping handful of Sunset Boulevard and a dash of Citizen Kane. Just before serving, sprinkle with Broadway Melody of 1940.") Which begs the question, why spend $10 to see this at the multiplex when the original, much better films are easily and cheaply available? You can get all of these at your local library, or see them on Turner Classic Movies several times a year. Do that, and wait for The Artist - a mildly enjoyable diversion at best - to come out on DVD.

Merry Christmas from Doodad Kind of Town!

noreply@blogger.com (Patricia Perry) — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 20:26:00 +0000

We'll back after Christmas with new reviews and reflections on 2011.

Season's greetings to all my readers!

On the Home Screen: Friends With Benefits

noreply@blogger.com (Patricia Perry) — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 02:37:00 +0000

It probably wasn't a good idea to watch Friends with Benefits just hours after seeing Ken Russell's The Devils, and I'm sure the weirdness of that pairing had something to do with my reduced enjoyment of the former film. Although I tried hard, I could manage little more than an occasional, wan smile in response to it.

It certainly doesn't lack for talent in the areas of acting, writing or directing. And it starts out feeling not just fresh and inspired, but even a little subversive. But ultimately Friends With Benefits falls apart from a sheer lack of nerve, sidestepping anxiously away from its promising beginnings towards the requisite beats of the conventional "feel good" movie, with emotional growing and learning required of all participants.

For its first 30 minutes or so, the film feels like a welcome send-up of 21st century romantic comedy cliches. Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake play young professionals who've grown cynical about dating and romance. Thankfully, they wear their cynicism lightly and likably. (In fact, when Kunis screams at a movie poster,: "Shut up, Katherine Heigl! You're such a liar!" I kind of felt like cheering.) They hang out together on Kunis' couch, drinking beers and making fun of lame-ass rom coms on TV, and it's clear there's not one tired generic convention they haven't figured out and become immune to. And then, like the optimistic cynics they are, they decide to have sex without the trappings of romance. "Like a tennis match. Shake hands after, no involvement required."

In the short term, this leads to some bawdy and very funny sequences of bedroom shenanigans between two attractive, forthright and uninhibited characters, laced with smart, quickfire comic dialogue. And just when you think you might be seeing this generation's reincarnation of the classic screwball comedy, along comes Kunis' self-involved, sexpot mother (Patricia Clarkson), and it's clear we're going right back to Cliche Land.

Because that's the first clue that, gosh darn it, these kids aren't so sophisticated after all. They're just terrified of intimacy because of their experiences with seriously screwed up parents! Clarkson's character is too inappropriate and blissfully irresponsible to get laughs; she's a nightmare, not a lovable screw-up. Later on, we see Timberlake's dad (played by the reliably great Richard Jenkins), a man in the throes of advancing Alzheimer's years after a bitter divorce. It's not that the story isn't handled sensitively, but it's another strange, sobering monkey wrench thrown into what ought to be a farce.

Worse yet, from this point on, Friends with Benefits becomes the very kind of movie it's been gleefully making fun of, hitting every familiar beat of the "boy (almost) gets girl/boy loses girl/boy stages big, last-minute romantic gesture and wins girl back"rom-com story arc. And of course, that's the point telegraphed to us early on when Kunis moans that she wishes life were like a romantic comedy. Myself, I wished that this movie were a bit more like one of its early screwball antecedents, The Awful Truth, in which two people who were obviously meant for each other screw around, get divorced and then spend the rest of the movie undermining each other's wildly inappropriate couplings before reuniting for good - a comedy blissfully free or life lessons or sentiment, but delivering all the satisfaction of seeing two smart, naughty people wind up together. (Did I mention that The Awful Truth was made in 1938? Friends with Benefits, meanwhile, is a fresh reminder that sexual frankness in a movie does not necessarily equal sophistication.)

But if it's reality, not sophistication, that you're after, that's been done much better on television - twenty years ago and in under 30 minutes. Back in the early years of Seinfeld, Jerry and Elaine negotiated a "sex with no strings" arrangement that lasted all of about a week and nearly ended their friendship. It played in a single crisp, uncomfortably funny episode and felt a whole lot more honest than this calculated crowd pleaser. And, for me, infinitely preferable to this soggily soft-centered date movie.

Frankly, I expected more from writer-director Will Gluck, whose previous film Easy A (which he, significantly, did not write), was unflaggingly sharp, clever and original. At the very least, if Gluck had to stage flash mobs in Grand Central Station at two crucial points in the story, he could have at least made them fun, not to mention coherent. Sadly, most flash mob clips on YouTube are infinitely easier to follow and enjoy than the visually garbled sequences here.

Academy of the Underrated: You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger

noreply@blogger.com (Patricia Perry) — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 11:00:00 +0000

(This post is one of a recurring series in which I attempt to make a case for undervalued films. )

An Open Letter to Woody Allen:

Dear Woody,

Happy Birthday! On this December 1, you have reached the age of 76. Hard to believe that you've surpassed the three-quarters-of-a-century mark, and yet remain one of the most prolific filmmakers at work today, cranking out a new film and a new screenplay every year. As Robert Weide's recent PBS documentary clearly showed us, you're anything but a doddering septuagenarian. Your energy and self-deprecating wit are still very much intact.

Although we've never met, I feel almost as if I've known you my whole life. I've been a fan since 1972 when, as a movie-crazy 12-year-old, I first encountered you in "Play it Again, Sam." Since then, I've followed your career with great enthusiasm (for almost 40 years! I guess that means both of us are getting old.) I never miss one of your annual releases. (Even the name of this recurring series plays off a line from Manhattan, where Diane Keaton and Michael Murphy tell you about their "Academy of the Overrated" which inlcudes F. Scott Fitzgerald and Gustav Mahler.)

So, be assured, what I'm about to say .... I say with love.

Perhaps having total creative control is not really in your best interest anymore. Over the last decade or so, your films have come to be marred with jarring inconsistencies, loose ends and niggling little anachronisms that would never have survived the final cuts of your earlier work. I'm thinking another pair of eyes looking over your screenplay - a collaborator even (what's Marshall Brickman up to these days, anyway?) - might benefit you greatly.

Take for example, last year's You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger. You start out with a narrator who tells us that "Shakespeare wrote that life was filled sound and fury, and in the end, signified nothing." Well, Woody, that's not exactly right. What Shakespeare actually wrote was a soliloquy for a despairing Macbeth to deliver after learning of his wife's death, culminating in the memorably nihilistic observation that life was "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." Yes, it's a subtle difference, but it belies a certain sloppiness that's been creeping into a lot of your recent films. (Maybe that "tale told by an idiot" part was a bitter pill for a screenwriter to swallow?)

And what are we to make of a character (played by Gemma Jones) who tells her friends, without a trace of irony, that she has a flair for fashion and gave up a very promising career as a theatrical costumer ... yet consistently dresses herself in dowdy, colorless dresses and cardigans that look they've gone through the wash a few too many times?

A little irony or nuance would have also been welcomed in an early scene between Josh Brolin and Frida Pinto. He's a married writer, she's the mysterious beauty who's given to wearing a red silk chemise while strumming a classical guitar by the open window opposite Brolin's. He flirts wildly with her, while she giggles bashfully, yet appreciatively. Through it all, Brolin gesticulates wildly with his left hand - his wedding band plainly and obviously on view. Pinto doesn't seem to take note of it at all; there's no indication that it either entices her or gives her pause. Is she blind, or just an idiot?

Here's where the love comes in.

These things bother me mostly because they detract from an otherwise very fine film, one of your most engrossing meditations on mortality and the way we foolish mortals try to outrun it. We all eventually meet, as Brolin's character bitterly points out, the "tall dark stranger" of death. But, God help us (or not), we all look for ways to opt out of the Grim Reaper's visit, or at least, delay it. And the results are sometimes catastrophic.

The characters you've created in You Will Meet... are a fascinating little group of fools. Take Helena, the character played by Jones. She's both heartbreaking and insufferable, sometimes at the same moment. You let us feel for her after she's abandoned by her husband, while subtly showing us that she never quite gets as strong as she thinks she does. (Her ladylike requests for "something to sip on" - always something considerably stronger than tea - is a nice, gentle nod to her hazy mental state.) I love that you don't make easy fun of her, or of the obviously bogus psychic she repeatedly visits for hope and guidance. Casting Pauline Collins as the shady fortune teller was a particular stroke of genius - she has a warm, beneficent, almost luminous screen presence that dispels any cynicism we might have about her charlatan-like tactics. We can see right away why Helena so quickly comes to trust and depend on her. Hell, I even wanted to pull up a chair and tell her all my problems, just to bask in that sweet maternal glow.

(Might you be developing a soft spot for psychics, Woody? I mean you let Larry David's Boris fall for a lovely one in the final scenes of Whatever Works, and now this....)

Then there's the whole subplot with Helena's daughter, Sally (Naomi Watts). The first time I saw it, I wondered why you were repeating yourself. I mean, Sally has a crush on her boss (Antonio Banderas) who - get this! - has a mentally ill wife and season tickets to the opera. He takes Sally to see Lucia Di Lammermoor, which only makes her fall deeper... but then he gets involved with her friend (Anna Friel), to Sally's great despair. Where I have heard this story before? Oh, I remember - it was a subplot in Hannah and Her Sisters!

My first reaction was to roll in my eyes in disgust - why would you recycle a minor storyline from a movie you made 25 years ago? But then, I watched that PBS documentary and heard you admit that you had really intended Hannah... to be a melancholy kind of film and how you felt disappointed in yourself for ultimately producing an optimistic, upbeat story. Well, Woody you nailed it this time. Just as Match Point was essentially a bleak, laugh-free retread of Crimes and Misdemeanors, this plot point in YMATDS was a honestly painful reworking of the Hannah love triangle.

And let me stress, I mean 'painful' in the artistically successful sense of the word. I know that you are an aspiring tragedian with the inability to pass up a good punchline. You've said as much yourself. I don't begrudge you the need to do 'serious' work, but it's not always been your strong suit. (May I be really, really blunt? My personal idea of hell is to spend eternity trapped in a screening room with Interiors, Another Woman and Cassandra's Dream playing on a endlessly repeating loop.) But here, you tap into the authentic pain of a woman trapped in a bad marriage whose last chance for happiness has just evaporated. After finding out about Banderas and Friel, Watts storms home and just rips into Brolin in a raw, real, unravelling-end-of-her-rope way. Both Watts and Brolin are electrifying in that scene, and when Jones enters, prattling on and on with her psychic's reassurance that they all will live again in another lifetime - well, she's a brilliantly tin-eared counterpoint to their marital despair.

And that's what I love about YWMATDS, that unflinching honesty about the consequences of the characters' behavior. Take, for example, Brolin's conquest of Pinto. She's actually engaged, and she keeps Brolin at arm's length for awhile. But when she finally breaks off her engagement, it doesn't happen offscreen; instead, you throw us right into the confrontation between her family and her fiance's, and it's ugly.

You sure are hard on your male characters in this one. Brolin's bid for immortality (in the form of a successful second novel that he can't quite write himself) is especially desperate. This being an open letter, I won't give away the details to those who have yet to see the film, but I really like that his story ends on ambiguous note, with the full weight of the consequences yet to come. But poor old Alfie, Helena's wayward ex-husband - could you have doomed him to anything more pathetic than marrying a call girl who blatantly cuckolds him? He's a bit of a male midlife crisis caricature, isn't he? I mean, come on now. At least your gave us the modest pleasures of Lucy Punch as his avaricious dingbat wife. The airheaded bimbo has long been one of your stock characters, and Punch's Charmaine is really nothing new, just reliably - if familiarly - funny. Before seeing her here, I'd always found Punch to be rather gawky and plain; that she pulls off a sexpot role like this is as much a tribute to the efficacy of voluminzing hair products and heavy black eyeliner as it is to her comic skills.

What really kills me though, is that in YMATDS, the characters who are the most foolishly deluded (i.e. the ones whose fear of death has been supplanted with a passionate belief in reincarnation) are the happiest and, in many ways, the most sympathetic, while the realists wind up bitter and in desperate straits. That's quite a change in perspective from the days of Hannah and Her Sisters - or even Whatever Works. (These occult believers, after all, aren't too many steps away from the Catholics, Hare Krishnas or Southern Baptists of those earlier films in their all-encompassing belief in unseen entities) It shows that, even at this late stage of your career, you are a flexible, thoughtful artist who can approach a story from a new and fresh perspective. Not too shabby, Mr. Allen. Even if you can't keep your Shakespeare quotes straight.

I Recall... Central Park in Fall: A Thanksgiving Post

noreply@blogger.com (Patricia Perry) — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 23:16:00 +0000

In truth, I've never had the pleasure of wandering through Central Park in the fall, when the leaves have turned to blazing reds and golds. The closest I've come is being there on September 19; the trees were still completely green and my only vivid memory of the day is of brushing just past Yoko Ono on a crowded Central Park South sidewalk.

But through the magic of the movies, I've been there many times, first and most memorably in Woody Allen's "Hannah and Her Sisters," from which this still is taken. Sadly, it doesn't quite capture the rapturous beauty of the autumn colors surrounding Woody and Dianne Wiest as they take one of his trademark strolls through the park. In fact, it looks a bit melancholy.

The same magic of fall color in New York was captured again a few years later in "When Harry Met Sally" (see below) and again, many more years later in "Ghost Town." (And probably in at least few other movies I've forgotten - or never seen.)

All of those are good films, but it's Woody's funny, touching family drama-cum-romantic-comedy that I love best. And around this time every year - when the last of the leaves are falling, turkeys are roasting and pumpkin pies are baking - I get a mighty hankering to watch it again. After all, it does start and end on Thanksgiving Day, with one intermediate Thanksgiving taking place around the midway point. I'd say more, but I've said it all already in this 2007 post.

Still Woody Allen is much on my mind this week, particularly after watching Robert Weide's superb, essential 3 1/2 hour PBS documentary on Allen this week. I'll have more to say on that in the next few days as I revisit one of his recent, underrated films and the ways that it echoes and reimagines some of "Hannah."

For now, I will just wish my readers the happiest of Thanksgivings.

Melancholia: Two Sisters, A Wedding and the End of the World

noreply@blogger.com (Patricia Perry) — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 03:33:00 +0000

"Melancholia" may be Lars Von Trier's most beautiful, coherent and accessible film. Or so I thought after seeing it the first time. And it was my intention to write a straight-up review telling you why.

But that was when I'd only seen "Melancholia" in the comfort of my own living room, just me alone in the dark with Von Trier's epic showing OnDemand, and no one else's reactions to influence me.

After experiencing it with a cranky, restless opening night audience, sitting next to my boyfriend who sighed heavily with irritation about every ten minutes.... After hearing the entire row of moviegoers behind me snort derisively as the closing credits started to roll... After walking out of the auditorium with a large group of vociferous complainers, one of whom stopped to sarcastically read aloud the critical hosannas quoted on the lobby poster while his friends hooted with laughter .... well, let's just say I'm still convinced that "Melancholia" is an uncharacteristically gorgeous offering from Von Trier. But as to its coherence and accessibility, I'm having serious second thoughts.

It's not that Von Trier doesn't usually provoke strong reactions and disagreement among even serious viewers. (If you doubt that, check out the comments thread from my 2009 post on "Dancer in the Dark.") And I like to believe I was surrounded by serious viewers on Friday night. We were, after all, in an arthouse theater where (in my experience anyway) the audiences are smart, sophisticated and well acquainted with the directors whose work they come to see. So, honestly, what were these people expecting from Mr. Provocateur Shaky-Cam? Listening to their rants as I walked to the car, I found myself thinking something I had NEVER thought about audiences in that particularly theatre: "What rock did these people climb out from under?"

And then it was my boyfriend's turn to weigh in. As we discussed "Melancholia" on our drive home, it was clear we had vastly different takes on what we'd just seen. He took down Von Trier, scene-by-scene on logic and plausibility alone. We debated the notion of "willing suspension of disbelief." The conversation got heated. I actually found myself getting testy and defensive on Lars Von Trier's behalf. Only later did it occur to me that the one person on earth who would most have delighted in that audience's revulsion was the Danish bad boy of cinema himself. No other director I can think of is less interested in being liked than Von Trier; on his terms, that suburban Chicago opening night would have been a great success.

Yet here I am, three days later, still baffled by the prevailing mood in that theater. It's not that I've never walked away from one of Von Trier's films feeling repulsed or pissed off myself. (In fact, I've felt that way more often than not). But every way I look at it, "Melancholia" is his most compassionate, least deliberately provocative work yet. He's not taking half-baked potshots at America, he's not setting up a fragile or naive woman to be brutalized and degraded. Instead he's made a beautiful, haunting film about depression, family dysfunction and (metaphorically, at least) the end of the world. And the focal characters, sisters played by Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg, are the most sympathetic and fully drawn characters he's yet created.

By now, you may know that Dunst plays the depressed sister, Justine, the one who slowly unravels throughout her first-act wedding reception (a darkly funny sequence which introduces us to the sisters' deeply dysfunctional family). Gainsbourg is the apparently stable sister, Claire, who walks a fine line between nurturing and controlling. In the film's second half, a severely depressed Justine comes to live with Claire and her family. Justine can barely function (and probably would be better off hospitalized, as my eminently logical boyfriend pointed out), but Claire fusses over her in ways that veer from touching to ridiculous. She sets up her bedroom with fresh flowers and a chocolate on the pillow, well-intentioned amenities that couldn't possibly matter to a woman who can only sleep and cry. In a misguided attempt to cheer Justine up, she serves a meat loaf dinner, a treat that Justine spits out, sobbing "It tastes like ashes!" Claire wants and strives for normalcy - Justine know that such things are meaningless.

To my mind, there are actually four characters at the focal point of this film. The third is a huge planet named Melancholia which has been hiding behind the sun, but is now on a collision course with the Earth (Or a 'fly by" if you believe Claire's husband played by Kiefer Sutherland. "Melancholia will pass in front of us, and it will the most beautiful sight ever," he assures his terrified wife, and the metaphorical irony of that statement isn't lost on us.) Melancholia first appears in the distant night sky as a red star which Justine spots as she enters her wedding party. By the film's second act, it's become clearly visible, a milky blue-white orb hanging ominously in the sky, its appearances heralded by the melancholy strains of Wagner's Overture to "Tristan und Isolde" on the soundtrack.

The allegory, of course, cannot be missed. Melancholia isn't going to fly by us, it's coming for us all. Claire knows this, and the terror of what's coming overwhelms her and bring her close to hysteria, while Justine seems to only grow stronger and more lucid. By the film's devastating conclusion, it's Justine who is the nurturer while Claire is the despondent one.

The fourth character? It's the rambling estate on which the entire film takes place - a sprawling mansion with spacious, sparsely furnished rooms sitting atop an 18-hole golf course ("Augusta National transported to Versailles" as critic Stephanie Zacharek memorably described it.) The estate sits atop a hill, at the end of a road so winding and unwieldy that Justine's wedding limo nearly doesn't make it to the reception. Remote and imposing, it's the perfect place in which to sequester onself from the rest of humanity and harbor illusions about one's own invulnerability. At the same moment, it's a perfect, unobstructed vista from which to see the apocalypse hurtling towards us with terrifying clarity. And as such, it's the perfect setting to underscore the themes of duality, of interchangeable opposing natures and the futility of hiding from unstoppable forces outside of ourselves that Von Trier examines and explores here.

There's a lot more going in "Melancholia" in terms of plot and characters, but here's all you need to know: it's beautiful, it's powerfully and richly meaningful, and it's accessible if you open your mind a bit and allow it to be. My opening night experience may have been unexpected, but it hasn't changed my mind. "Melancholia" is Lars Von Trier's most mature work and his finest film to date. And if someone wants to put my words on a poster so some jackass can read them sarcastically to his friends, they have my permission.

On the Home Screen: Beginners

noreply@blogger.com (Patricia Perry) — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 22:38:00 +0000

"Beginners" has a great story to tell, although the manner of the telling defies any conventional expectations you may be tempted to bring to it.

It centers on Oliver, a somewhat lonely artist approaching 40 and unable to sustain any of the romantic relationships he's bounced between for years. His parents were married for forty-four years, not quite happily as was obvious to him from childhood on. After his mother's death, his father comes out of the closet - at age 75 - moving in with a younger man and embracing a wide-range of gay-identified activities from pride parades to movie nights. He also, finally, becomes the loving and demonstrative father he wasn't able to be when Oliver was young. "I wanted to hold your hand when you were little, but I was afraid it would look funny," he tells his son, and that simple admission speaks volumes about the kind of fearful, furtive years he spent straining to be a "normal" family man.

Just four years later, Oliver's father is dead, leaving him emotionally bereft and longing for the kind of intimacy and joy his father was able to find at the end of his own life. And then, he meets a woman.....

If "Beginners" feels emotionally authentic and acutely observed, it's because the story is true. The character of Oliver stands in for writer/director Mike Mills whose own father came out a week after his mother's death in 1999, and spent his few final years finally embracing an identity he had long ago tried to bury. Mills, an artist and graphic designer with only one previous film to his credit ("Thumbsucker") doesn't lay out their story according to the kind of predictable beats that tell an audience how to feel at any given moment. (Dad comes out - big laughs! Deathbed scene - grab the Kleenex.) He's too subtle and too eccentric for such an approach. Instead, he's crafted a muted, impressionistic, non-linear film with a sustained, featherlight touch of melancholy. It's difficult and distancing sometimes, although its back-and-forth, flashback/flash forward structure is remarkably seamless, and its emotional power accumulates almost imperceptibly as it moves along.

Like other visual-artists-turned-filmmakers before him (Julian Schnabel, Steve McQueen), Mills knows how to distill backstory and exposition into a series of evocative visual images. Oliver is a man of few words: pictures and drawings not only speak more powerfully to him, but work more vividly than his dialogue or narration in putting across the difficult truths of his parents' lives. Thus we get recurring montages of photos and images from nature and pop culture at particular points in time with Oliver telling us that "This is how the stars looked. This was nature. This was how kissing looked. This was happiness" and so on." It's a device that seems a bit twee early on, but it grows on you as it's repeated. You come to realize that we all, like Oliver and his parents, carry these images with us of what our lives looked like - or should have looked like - at various points in time, and both the influence and the tyranny of those images becomes more and more apparent.

Where "Beginners" hews to Mills' experiences with his dad, it's very good indeed. Christopher Plummer plays the out-and-proud dad to Ewan MacGregor's wistful Oliver in flashback scenes. I have a tendency to take Plummer for granted because he's so damn good in everything he does, but I was freshly astonished at his talent here. He finds a delicate balance between his character's age-weary ill health and his unquenchable delight in the smallest joys of living. Even when bedridden, he takes a moment to express admiration of his hospice worker's stylishly moussed hair and presses the young man to style his hair too. "How do I look?" he asks Oliver, and although he's weak and the mousse does nothing for his thinning locks, his enjoyment of that moment is infectious.

Mary Page Keller, as Oliver's brittle, self-absorbed mother also makes an indelible impression in just a handful of scenes; she's more like a conspiratorial playmate to Oliver than a mother, and you can tell she's an unhappy handful. It's the most acute, efficient portrait of dysfunctional mother/son relationship that I've ever seen.

As for MacGregor, he's got the toughest job, playing a man who doesn't talk much or betray much emotion, but who must engage our sympathies at all times. It's no easy thing to make a character interesting to watch when most of what he does is watch other characters - wistfully or admiringly or sadly, it's still just watching. MacGregor pulls it off beautifully. In his eyes, his posture, his hesitancy, his gentleness, he gives a fully realized portrait of a man carrying his grief lightly but unyieldingly.

If only the love story sections of "Beginners" were so graceful.

Oliver meets a French actress named Anna (Melanie Laurent) at a costume party where he's dressed as Sigmund Freud and she communicates via notepad and pencil due to a bad case of laryngitis. Anna, it turns out, has a long history of bailing on lovers once things get too close for comfort. So does Oliver. Mills makes the cogent point that, living in the 21st century as they do, he and Anna have far more choices about how to live and whom to live with then did his unhappy parents - including the freedom to defer making any choice at all.

Unfortunately, watching these two emotionally stunted, inarticulate people dancing all around - but never quite making - the choice of whether to be together is often excruciating, although there are moments when Mills' keen visual sense gives dimension to their suffering. The most telling scene involves Anna refusing to answer a phone call from her father. Oliver asks why and instead of just telling him, she insists they 'role-play' the phone conversation with Oliver playing her and she playing her father. They sit on opposite sides of a very wide hotel bed with their backs turned to one another as they do so, and it's a startling image of how they each keep their pain close to themselves and how it isolates them.

But all the angst gets a bit wearying. Once the lovers decide to live together, they spend a inordinate amount of time crying or staring anxiously into space, instead of, say, having heated arguments about whose job it is to put the toilet seat down. It feel false and not a little annoying, and matters are not helped by Laurent's performance, which verges precariously on the edge of the "quirky/wounded girl who needs love but runs from it" cliche. (She's a manic-depressive pixie dream girl, if you will). I certainly wanted Oliver to find some happiness, but kept thinking: "not with her!"

No, the true love story is between father and son, the older man teaching the younger how to live, not by lecturing him but just by allowing Oliver to see him savor every second. The indelible image you're left with is that of Plummer dancing happily with his younger lover while MacGregor looks on in ... what? Envy? Wonder? Longing? Maybe a bit of all those emotions, and even more. Such moments in "Beginners" tend to be enigmatic But nearly always compelling.

"Beginners" is available via OnDemand and on DVD.

"50/50" and "The Help": Diary of a Friday Afternoon Double Feature

noreply@blogger.com (Patricia Perry) — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 16:06:00 +0000

After weeks of business trips and stacked-up personal commitments, the time had come to catch up on recently missed new releases.

Taking a personal day off from work and a pledge to spend the entire afternoon in the multiplex, I kick off with an early matinee of "50/50," approaching it with some trepidation. Sure, the reviews have been glowing, but the gloomy subject matter (a young man's battle with spinal cancer) threatens to start the afternoon on a depressing note from which it may not recover. Plus, I've just about reached my threshold of tolerance for Seth Rogen, particularly in the recurring role of the foul-mouthed chatterbox looking to get a shyer buddy laid, stoned and/or drunk. Yet here he is again - helping his ailing pal, Adam (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) to turn his cancer diagnosis into a pickup strategy, while freely helping himself to Adam's medical marijuana.

But my skepticism doesn't last for long, as "50/50" quietly evolves into something approaching miraculous. It strikes me that the film's title - meant to indicate Adam's chances of survival - also hints at the delicate emotional balance it strikes. "50/50" is equal parts raunchy gallows humor and genuinely sad or awful moments in the shadow of mortality. The tonal shifts are mild and seamless, the sad moments are - well, I'd normally say "tearjerking," but when tears are "jerked," it's through clever manipulation. Here I find my tears flowing suddenly and unexpectedly, without any discernible effort on the film makers' part to prime the pump.

The characters, particularly those trying to cope with or help Adam (his mother, his girlfriend, his inexperienced therapist) are portrayed with understated honesty. All are well-intentioned but awkward and initially grating; some eventually grope their way towards giving Adam the support he needs, and some fail entirely, but none are played off as clueless or villainous. (Not even the girlfriend who abandons Adam. Bryce Dallas Howard plays her with welcome undertones of decency and authentic inner turmoil, especially at moments when it would be all too convenient to confine her to the "heartless bitch" role.)

If there's any character here who could have used a little more complexity, it's Adam himself. Gordon-Levitt is so contained and controlled that we nearly lose the sense of how high the stakes really are. Adam is so afraid of life that he has never told a woman he loves her - or even learned to drive - but his terror of dying before he has begun to live is pretty much limited to a brief outburst of primal screaming inside Rogen's locked car. Even when he's pissed off or being a jerk, Gordon-Levitt rarely gives off any vibe but that of the quietly decent guy. I actually came to love Rogen more and more as the film progressed; without his buoyant vulgarity to balance Gordon-Levitt's barely detectable angst, "50/50" might have been unbearably sad, or worse yet, a snooze.

If "50/50" brings a refreshing, measured authenticity to a potentially maudlin story, you can chalk that up mainly to screenwriter Will Reiser, himself a survivor of spinal cancer in his twenties. (That Rogen is Reiser's offscreen friend, and stood by him during his illness, only makes his performance that much more enjoyable.) Props must also be given to director Joseph Levine. It's no mean trick to pull off a clear-eyed, non-melodramatic, and sometimes very funny cancer film, but Levine steers "50/50" through a host of potential "cancer film" minefields without ever once delivering a big, glorified "Oscar moment". Like I said before, that falls just short of miraculous.

As the closing credits of "50/50" roll, I dash to an auditorium down the hall to snag a seat for "The Help," a film I've studiously avoided for months. Last year, I attempted to read Katheryn Sockett's best-selling novel, but tossed it away before I'd finished the first chapter. It's my belief that no one - but especially no Southern white woman born in 1969 - should ever write in first-person as an Afican-American character using lines like this : "You'd never know it livin here, but Jackson, Missippi be filled with two hundred thousand peoples."

Despite the fact that this kind of speech occasionally makes it into the screen adaptation, I resolved to approach "The Help" with the most open mind I could manage. As such, I will concede that it is beautifully shot and consistently engaging. It hits all the right emotional beats, if a tad too neatly and safely, and is well-acted by most of its stellar cast after an Oscar-grovelling fashion. I might quibble a bit with the almost-over-the-topness of Jessica Chastain's well-married white trash Celia Foote, and seeing Bryce Dallas Howard in her second villianess role of the afternoon, this time with lots of hairspray and very little nuance, was not a high point. Viola Davis was great, because, well.. she always is, and Octavia Spencer made something more enduring out of her role than the 'sassy black friend' turn it was apparently intended to be.

My biggest disappointment was Emma Stone. With her husky voice, abundant smarts and crack comic timing, she's this generation's Barbara Stanwyck. Here she's Skeeter Phelan, aspiring journalist and fearless crusader, chafing at the bonds of her Junior League membership and ready to help African-American maids publish their stories of mistreatment and humiliation at the hands of white employers. The role ought to be a natural fit for Stone, but as written, Skeeter is a flawlessly good-hearted truth teller, free of naivete or complexity (or a sense of humor, for that matter), making no missteps in her quest. This simple-minded characterization gives Stone nothing interesting to play beyond outrage or earnestness. Her iconoclasm is communicated primarily by the long, untamed tendrils into which she allows her curly hair to fall (only about five years aways from becoming hippie-chic) and her flat shoes (huaraches that her snooty mother decries as "Mexican man shoes!")

Probably the greatest joy I had while watching "The Help" was getting a few brief glimpses of the magnificent Cicely Tyson as the maid who essentially raised Skeeter, but is cruelly turned out in her dotage. Tyson was one of my favorite actresses when I was a teenager in the 1970s - where the hell has she been? Her Wikipedia entry lists only a handful of recent films, most of them from the Tyler Perry franchise. I remember her most fondly from "Sounder" and the made-for-TV film "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman." I wish there had been a lot more of her in "The Help."

On the Home Screen: Something Borrowed

noreply@blogger.com (Patricia Perry) — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 22:10:00 +0000

(Warning: there is a bit of a spoiler in the final paragraph.)

At first glance, "Something Borrowed" appears to be just one more airheaded "chick flick" of the type that regularly fly in and out of theatres and on to the DVD/On Demand market in rapid succession . So I came to it with a slight sense of dread. Would it be yet another vacuous exercise in the "Lifestyles of the Young and Fabulous" genre? (You know, the movies where every character has a well-paying job, a beautiful apartment, expensive clothes, and a social life that revolves around trendy restaurants and watering holes - but few, if any, have recognizably human personalities or problems.)

The answer was yes - and no. Certainly the shiny, attractive denizens of the "Something Borrowed" landscape have all the aforementioned accoutrements of improbably early material success, and showplace real estate plays a major supporting role. But the characters themselves are neither vapid nor cartoonish. Their struggles - with love, friendship and turning 30 - are recognizable and surprisingly nuanced. And though the film too frequently lacks focus and momentum (a fact I'm chalking up to Luke Greenfield's going-through-the motions directorial style), it's nonetheless refreshing that "Something Borrowed" feels familiar for all the right reasons: those being along the lines of "I remember feeling that way when I turned 30" as opposed to "I've seen this same plot twist in five other movies so far this year."

That's not to say that the plot is particularly innovative. "Something Borrowed" is adapted from a novel by popular "chick lit" author Emily Giffin. "Chick lit," admittedly, is a loaded term, both dismissive and reductive in so many ways. But it also efficiently connotes a set of generic conventions that are ticked off here like items on a checklist: heroine with a good but unfulfilling job in a glamorous city (Rachel, an attorney in NYC - check!); is secretly in love with a man just out of reach (Dexter, her old law school buddy who's engaged to her best friend -check!); has wacky, witty gal pal (Darcy, who is also Dexter's fiancee - check!); has loyal, truth-telling, platonic guy friend (Ethan - who, in contrast to the others, is a struggling writer in cheap clothes and a backpack - check!); is intermittently pursued by an unsuitable horndog (skateboarder Marcus - check!); and struggles to figure it all out against a landscape of well-known locations in and around glamorous home city (lunches with Ethan at Shake Shack; weekends in the Hamptons - check! check!).

But formulaic plot templates aren't necessarily bad things if they're fleshed out with writing and performances that underscore the genuine emotional truths lurking behind the plot-point checklist. On that count "Something Borrowed" sometimes manages to transcend its by-the-number framework . I especially liked the exaggerated drama that Rachel (Ginnifer Goodwin) attaches to turning 30, moaning to Ethan (John Krasinski) "My peak child-bearing years are behind me!" I wasted my twenties!" To which Ethan responds with crap-cutting honesty, "You didn't waste your twenties. You were growing up." She goes on to have a heart-to-heart over longneck beers with Dexter (Colin Egglesfield) about all the things they'd rather be doing with their lives. These scenes struck a chord with me, bringing back vivid memories of own 30th birthday and self-inflicted trauma over my (foolish and erroneous, I now realize) sense that I'd squandered my life and needed to make changes.

Where things get immediately murkier is when Rachel winds up sleeping with Dexter after that beery truth-telling tete a' tete; the two of them spend the rest of the film struggling with their obvious feelings for one another and whether to tell Darcy (Kate Hudson), who's knee-deep in wedding plans. We also get flashback scenes (to which we are transitioned with appallingly amateurish black-and-white freeze frame shots of Goodwin in deep thought) showing how Rachel secretly loved Dexter in law school, but virtually handed him over to Darcy out of her own lack of self-confidence.

The Rachel-Darcy friendship is the most intriguing aspect of "Something Borrowed" as it's the one aspect of the story that isn't usually explored in these kinds of films, and it's played neither predictably nor in broad strokes. Hudson's Darcy is magnificently self-absorbed with a compulsive need to be the center of attention at all times, even during the surprise 30th birthday party she throws for Rachel in the opening scenes. But she has a natural vivaciousness - and, in a few unguarded moments, an equally natural vulnerability - that Rachel clearly lacks in herself but admires and protects in her friend. Conversely Rachel has the kind of grounded good sense that Darcy recognizes and needs, if at times too desperately. As the story progresses, Rachel is forced to come to terms with how much time she's spent attending to Darcy's enormous needs at the expense of her own, and the realization comes to her in authentic fits and starts. Ethan's entreaties to Rachel that she cut ties with her long-time friend fall on deaf ears - Rachel is both generous and smart enough to know that, however unbalanced it may seem, she's been getting something out of the relationship over all those years, too.

Hudson's performance is big, broad and take-no-prisoners funny - and would have been much more enjoyable if anyone else in the film had been allowed to match her comic energy. Director Greenfield, unfortunately isn't very skilled at shaping his talented cast into a cohesive ensemble. Goodwin succeeds in bringing sympathetic, good-girl conviction to Rachel, despite the fact that she's much too often relegated to sitting on the sidelines, forlornly sipping cocktails or soft drinks through long straws. (Seriously, just count how many times she's shown sucking on a straw. Phallic symbolism? I hardly think so - the film's not that clever. ) And miraculously, she brings a long-suffering but affectionate presence to her scenes with Hudson that just manages to keep the balance between the two of them intact.

Krasinski is a high point in the film, despite the fact that he's essentially channelling his character from "The Office" as played during the seasons where Pam was still engaged to that lunkhead from the warehouse. And Egglesfield is handsome and nice enough, but his "strong, silent type" characterization of Dexter gets a bit dull as the film goes on.

It struck me as I watched "Something Borrowed" that stories in which the hard-working good girl gets her true love in the end, after many trials and setbacks at the hands of less virtuous characters, are hardly an invention of 21st century "chick lit." They go back as far as Jane Austen, maybe further. I'm not suggesting we put this film into the ranks of "Emma" or "Pride and Prejudice." But maybe we could stop dismissing these so-called "chick flicks" out-of-hand and start looking closer at them for what they really are: stories that distill young women's' life experiences into recognizable tropes. "Something Borrowed" may not be the best of the lot, but it's a very long way from being the worst.

Academy of the Underrated: One Day

noreply@blogger.com (Patricia Perry) — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 22:08:00 +0000

(This post launches a new, recurring feature: the Academy of the Underrated, in which I attempt to make a case for undervalued films. )

(Warning: there is a major spoiler lurking near the end of this review.)

"One Day" is built around the conceit of introducing its two main characters on the day they first meet and revisiting them every year on that same day - July 15 - for the next twenty years. You may call this "gimmicky" if you wish; you'll be in the uncharitable company of the many, many film critics who gave this film its 26% score at Rotten Tomatoes. I, however, prefer to think of it as a perfectly appropriate framework in which to trace the evolution of friendship and love between two seemingly mismatched people

Not that "One Day" is without its flaws. Its greatest weakness lies in what's been trimmed away from the wise, funny, ultimately heartbreaking novel on which it is based. Screenwriter David Nicholls has adapted his own book with an eye to brisk economy - at the expense of illuminating the complexity and inner lives of his main characters, something he did to near-perfection on the page. The film does contain deeper clues to who these characters are and what they're about, but they're perfunctory and likely to be missed by viewers unfamiliar with the source material.

Take the opening, for example, in which Emma (Anne Hathaway) and Dexter (Tom Sturgess) meet cute following their university graduation ceremony in 1988. Emma is a bit nerdy/dowdy in her oversize specs, faded cotton dress and Doc Martens; Dexter is a boyishly handsome charmer with a floppy forelock. Nevertheless their friendly flirtation soon leads them back to Emma's room, where the fun is foreshortened by her choice of make-out music (Tracy Chapman's "Talkin' Bout a Revolution"). What started as an impassioned embrace thus devolves quickly into friendly cuddling between Dex in his boxers and Emma in her "no nukes" t-shirt. The Tracy Chapman record and the t-shirt are the only evidence we get of Emma's politically-based do-gooder spirit, a trait that was far more evident in her literary incarnation. The class distinctions between upper-middle-class, suburban Dexter and working-class Yorkshire native Emma are soft-pedaled as well.

But as the film moves forward from July to July, Hathaway and Sturgess settle into the nuances of their characters, and a nice, teasing chemistry grows between them. Underachiever Emma trudges through two years of waitressing in a Mexican restaurant, a loveless live-in relationship with an aspiring stand-up comic (Rafe Spall), and a teaching job before writing a best-selling young adult novel that brings her fame and affluence. Dexter, meanwhile, blows through shallow relationships with busty blondes, mountains of coke, oceans of scotch and a series of increasingly ridiculous TV hosting gigs before hitting bottom and settling into a shotgun marriage with the frosty, humorless Romola Garai.

Along the way, the two friends connect occasionally - sometimes flirtatiously, sometimes contentiously. A shared vacation trip to France is loaded with delicate sexual tension even as Emma resolutely sets down "no cuddling, no nudity" rules. Later, as Dexter reaches the heights (or perhaps we should say depths) of his boozing and carousing days, Emma calls him out for the nasty little shit he's become, and the friends fall out of touch for years after.

It's tough to sustain a "will they or won't they?" tension throughout a narrative that covers 20 years, and there are patches here and there where "One Day" slogs a bit. Rafe Spall's character, in particular, is like a great black hole that sucks all the energy out of the movie whenever he shows up, and it's hard to tell whether the director or the actor himself is to blame for that.

But Nicholls' economy in adapting his story generally serves the film's pacing well. Dexter's dissolute downfall, for example, is nicely distilled into a few strong images. Likewise, the recurring image of Emma swimming laps in a pool, then riding her bike home (albeit with increasingly stylish hairdos as the years pass) is a tidy little way to communicate that Emma is a creature of well-worn habit , sometimes to her detriment.

The director, Lone Scherfig, has a handful of previous films to her credit, of which I've only seen the most recent, "An Education" - the much-lauded 2009 film that launched Carey Mulligan to stardom. I've been re-watching "An Education" lately on cable, struggling to discern Scherfig's directorial style, and here's what I've come up with: she trusts her audience to grasp central themes and conflicts without having them spelled out and concentrates instead on the telling emotional details at the perimeter of a story. In "An Education," a 17-year-old girl dates a man who looks to be in his mid-thirties, but the impropriety of that situation is barely acknowledged by anyone on screen (save for the uptight headmistress played by Emma Thompson). His criminal tendencies are revealed in quiet layers without any telegraphing of where the story is headed. You can't watch it without a growing sick feeling for the consequences to Mulligan's character, but it isn't in any way a conventional cautionary tale. (And Mulligan's performance seems almost miraculous in that there isn't a shred of cutesiness in it, neither the innocence nor the angst you find in conventional teenage roles. The character is preternaturally intelligent (if not wise), and Mulligan gives a measured performance with bracing, entirely unexpected line readings. I think we can give Scherfig a soupcon of credit for shaping that performance without taking anything away from Mulligan.)

"One Day" is a lighter and softer film, to be sure, but I think some that same refusal on Scherfig's part to dwell on the obvious has confounded the film's sharpest critics. Time and time again, I read the complaint that the film doesn't show us why Emma and Dexter are attracted to each other. On that count, I emphatically call bullshit. Emma is clearly shown to be unsure of herself and a bit of a stick in the mud who only, belatedly comes into her own. Is it really so mysterious that she would be attracted to charmer like Dexter who teases and cajoles her into letting her hair down and having a little fun? (Yet she's smart enough not to let him into her pants.) Conversely, Dexter's easy charm hides a inner emptiness and lack of direction that he's obviously aware of, even if he tamps it down with drink, drugs and casual sex for the better part of a decade. Why wouldn't he be drawn to Emma's disciplined goal-setting and sense of moral duty? (Yet sufficiently afraid of those qualities to stop just sort of actually starting a relationship with her.) Scherfig and her lead actors get the details of this yin/yang exactly right in scene after scene.

"One Day" is as much a story about two people growing up and into themselves as it is a love story. Emma's journey is the less surprising (one might even say less interesting) of the two, while Dexter's twisty, stumbling path to maturity is the more complex. And sadly for him, he isn't able to fully embrace genuine adulthood until he loses the two women he most loves. His mother dies of cancer early in the film, an occurrence that probably won't surprise anyone who's seen the trailer with its cut from the scene where Sturgess carries a head-scarfed Patricia Clarkson up some stairs.

No, the spoiler is in the next paragraph. Stop reading now if I've convinced you to see the film.

Probably the most controversial aspect of "One Day"(apart from Hathaway's now-you-hear-it-now-you-don't Yorkshire accent) is the eleventh hour plot twist in which Emma is hit by a truck and killed while making that familiar bike ride home. This incident knocked the wind out of me when I read it in the book, and it was equally devastating to watch on film. Reviewers are nearly unanimous in decrying this as a contrivance meant to turn the film into a weepy, latter-day "Love Story," but I think they are missing the point. Make no mistake, it is a plot contrivance. But it's there to force Dexter, finally, to become an adult in his own right.

In the respect, "One Day" may not give audiences what they wanted or expected to find, but I don't think we can fault the film itself for not living up to the viewer's preconceived notions. My advice is take "One Day" for what it is and be open to where it takes you. You may be pleasantly surprised by the wise and generous heart beating quietly beneath its deceptively conventional rom-com surface.

On the Home Screen: Suburban Girl

noreply@blogger.com (Patricia Perry) — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 14:23:00 +0000

Just days before "Suburban Girl" debuted at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival, its co-star, Alec Baldwin took a spectacular fall from grace. A voice mail left for his daughter - in which her called her "a rude little pig," among other charming epithets - was leaked to the news media, and Baldwin was universally excoriated.

At a time when Baldwin was about two rungs up the popularity ladder from, say, Casey Anthony, the festival audience apparently found it more than uncomfortable to watch his character play out a strained, volatile relationship with an offscreen daughter. In a particularly tense scene, the character's girlfriend catches him making a surreptitious phone call. When confronted, Baldwin admits he was calling his daughter, even though the two aren't speaking. "I left her a voice mail," he says - a line that reportedly brought down the house.

Maybe that's why "Suburban Girl" failed to find a theatrical distributor and went straight to DVD. Maybe not. But with the passage of four years, the resurgence of Baldwin's career (he's supposedly setting his sights on the NYC mayor's office these days) and the the film's recent availability on the Encore pay cable channels, we can finally judge "Suburban Girl" on its own merits.

Sadly, the news ain't good.

Based on two of the short stories in Melissa Bank's popular collection "The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing," "Suburban Girl" feels like an assemblage of cut-and-pasted-together plot points with the subtext and thematic development all trimmed and tossed away. It's the Reader's Digest Condensed Version of the emotionally richer film it should have been. The lead actors - Baldwin and Sarah Michelle Gellar - are good, both individually and together, but Marc Klein's script and direction don't serve their efforts terribly well.

Gellar plays Brett Eisenberg, a young editorial associate at a small Manhattan publishing house, who's struggling to find her footing, both professionally and personally. Baldwin is Archie Knox, a middle-aged publishing executive with stellar literary connections, who sweeps Brett into an affair. Wealthy and worldly wise, but loaded with personal and health issues (he's a recovering alcoholic and a diabetic, in additon to the problems with his daughter), Archie is both challenging and alluring to Brett, and she's an eager and willing recipient of the guidance he doles out to her.

There's an obvious and compelling story to tell here, but Klein has little apparent interest in telling it. As Brett grows a bit stronger and more confident, she not only chafes at playing "student" to Archie's "teacher," but also finds herself struggling to be seen as an adult by her overprotective father (James Naughton). That's a classic struggle and this material could easily have been shaped so that we could identify with Brett and feel some investment in watching her come into her own. But the tone and focus of "Suburban Girl" are all over the place and it veers widly from coming-of-age fable to a stateside version of the "Bridget Jones" movies," with quirky friends, caricatured bosses from hell and oddball publishing types thrown in for mild laughs. (Two scenes are, in fact, blatantly ripped off from "Bridget Jones's Diary" - a getting-ready-for-the-big date montage and the final title card.) Her brother's also kind a douchebag and her mother's a smiling, insipid Stepford-wife type - for no discernible reason, in both cases.

Gellar is mostly bright and likable, and occasionally very touching. (We'll just gloss over her drunk scene, which is embarrassing for every reason but the intended one.) I wish this film had been more successful if only because it might have brought her some decent film roles. Baldwin, truth to be told, is slightly miscast. In his late forties when this film was made, he's a tad too young and robust to credibly play an aging father figure, but he brings a perfect combination of condescension and tenderness to the role of Archie. The two of them create a few genuine moments of longing and connection, sadly those moments are overwhelmed in a mess of movie that can't quite decide what it wants to be.
"Suburban Girl" is showing on the Encore Love Stories Channel.

On the Home Screen: "Arthur"

noreply@blogger.com (Patricia Perry) — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 23:03:00 +0000

Let me be clear from the start: I am NOT categorically opposed to remakes of well-remembered movies. Nor am I opposed to remakes of Dudley Moore classics (God knows there weren't that many), even when a major character gets gender-swapped somewhere between the original and the knock-off. Give me ten minutes, and I'll give you at least ten reasons why Harold Ramis' reimagining of "Bedazzled" is just about the equal of its source material, even with Elizabeth Hurley taking on a role unforgettably created by Peter Cook.

So I did not come to "Arthur" with my expectations lowered or my poison pen sharpened and ready for attack. The original 1981 film is often referred to as a classic, and and although it holds a cherished place in my heart, I think "classic" is overstating the case. Certainly Dudley Moore was magical in the title role. No funnier, happier drunk ever graced the screen , yet somewhere amid the slurred one-liners and the tipsy attempts to balance a cocktail on the fender of his Rolls, he tapped into the character's frustration and loneliness in a wholly sympathetic way. And he generated memorable comic chemistry with co-stars, a delightfully droll John Gielgud (who won an Oscar) and sparky, energetic Liza Minelli. But "Arthur" had a curiously static visual style and occasionally slack and draggy comic pacing that became more and more apparent on repeat viewings. You could just about drive a truck through some scenes without seriously disrupting the action.

In the 2011 version, Russell Brand takes on the role of cheerfully sozzled billionaire, Arthur Bach, who falls in love with "a nobody from Queens" and ultimately defies his family to be with her. And, frankly, if you have to recast an iconic Dudley Moore role, you could do worse than Brand. He's about twice as tall and half as gifted at physical comedy as was Moore, but he has an appealingly manic spirit and a dizzying facility with comic wordplay. Roughly half of the original film's dialogue has been doled out word-for-word to the other actors, but Brand's free-flowing witticisms are all new and often breathtakingly funny.

Helen Mirren steps into the role of Hobson, transforming Gielgud's stiff-backed, acid-tongued valet into Arthur's slightly less stiff, but equally acid nanny. Mirren and Brand have a fine, playful chemistry, and there's a genuine mutual fondness behind their verbal sparring. But Mirren's presence here begs the question: Why does a 35 year-old man need a nanny to tuck him in at night? (Even one as blissfully infantile as Arthur ?)

And that's the first sign that things are seriously amiss here. Gielgud's Hobson was a father figure to Moore's Arthur, but in the 2011 reboot, Arthur is looking for a Mommy - not only in Hobson, but apparently in a girlfriend as well. Thus instead of a fiesty firecracker like the Minnelli character, we get a love interest (played by mumblecore darling Greta Gerwig) who's dreamy-eyed and soft-spoken, but holds Arthur to a higher standard of behavior than he's usually capable of. Gerwig excels at playing young women who haven't quite come into themselves - even physically she seems a little fuzzy around the edges, as if her features haven't quite settled into an adult face. She used all that to good advantage in "Greenberg," making her exactly the kind of girl who could take on Ben Stiller's angsty misanthrope, but she's woefully miscast here.

Minelli's Linda Morolla, the "nobody from Queens," never judged or pitied Arthur; she didn't tolerate his drunken bad behavior and wasn't impressed by his money, but neither did she try to to extinguish his zaniness. (In fact, she shared in it.) Arthur was even more fun when she was around. Gerwig's Naomi, by contrast, plays hard-to-get in a way that feels more like prissy disapproval of Arthur than any loving nudge to get him to shape up, and where her predecessor caught Arthur's eye by stealing a necktie, Naomi is capable of nothing more controversial than leading unlicensed tours of Grand Central station. And Brand's Arthur loses a considerable amount of his spark when he in her numbing presence. It's almost as if '2011 Arthur' fell in love with the fiancee who was forced on his 1981 incarnation, a simpering fool who wept quietly into her hankie at how "alone" Arthur was and insisted that "a real woman could stop your drinking." (Arthur's memorable rejoinder: "She'd have to be a real big woman.")

This time out the dreaded fiancee is a hard-driving career woman (Jennifer Garner) who secreatly wants a piece of the Bach family business. Garner is everything that Gerwig is not, unabashedly naughty and high-spirited. She has wicked comedy chops, and even in an improbable, ill-advised scene (where she shows up drunk at Arthur's apartment intent on seducing him)manages to shoot a much-needed bolt of comic energy into a story that's starting to noticeably sag. I couldn't help but wish that she and Gerwig had exchanged roles - I have no doubt that Garner and Brand would play off each other beautifully.

Ultimately, though, the "Arthur" remake collapses under the weight of its laborious good intentions. In 1981, Moore and Minelli rode off in the two-tone Rolls together, leaving us all with the happy illusion that Arthur would henceforth be sober and happy in love (an illusion cruelly shattered by the dreadful 1988 sequel "Arthur 2: On the Rocks," which faces the ugly side of Arthur's alcoholism a bit more squarely). In 2011, we're collectively less naive about the toll of addictions - and Brand himself is a famously recovering alcoholic and addict - and so the Arthur of this film must take himself to AA and atone for his sins before finally winning the girl of his dreams. (And it's worth mentioning that Brand's Arthur rarely seems to be inebriated except in scenes that are very sad.) I get it, but it's dreary, not inspiring, to watch. When Arthur's forced to put his toys away, we all have to stop living vicariously through his antics and get back to work ourselves. And I guarantee that no one comes to a film like "Arthur" to feel that way.
"Arthur" is now available on DVD and through OnDemand.

"Larry Crowne"

noreply@blogger.com (Patricia Perry) — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 13:58:00 +0000

Watching "Larry Crowne" is a pleasant enough way to knock off 99 minutes of your life, provided you don't think about it too hard. There's just enough reliable starglow in the performances of Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts to keep you mildly entertained, but otherwise it won't hold up to much scrutiny, let alone repeat viewings.

There's a kernel of a decent story here regarding the titular character (Hanks), a big box store manager who is fired because his lack of a college degree renders him unpromotable. God knows it's a situation to which many of members of this film's likely audience (i.e. middle-aged people) will likely relate. Unfortunately, Larry's story takes place in a strange alternate universe (Planet of the Badly Written Rom Coms perhaps?) where a familiar, relatable premise is soon overwhelmed by crazy characters and ridiculous plot twists that violate all principles of logic and common sense.

Here are a few things you shouldn't ponder too long if you'd like to enjoy "Larry Crowne":

Would a community college (like the one Larry enrolls in) offer a speech class called "Introduction to Informal Remarks"? And, if so, would it be taught by a spectacularly burnt out woman named Mercy Tainot who looks like Julia Roberts, glowers through classes with barely concealed contempt for her students, and lives only for the blender drinks she whips up at the end of the day? At least one of those things is highly unlikely, although it must be said that Roberts plays the pissed-off aspects of her character with enjoyable gusto.

Does Larry have any friends his own age? Apparently not, which must be why he readily accepts an invitation from much younger students to join their "scooter gang" (in a corny, finger-snapping ritual that seems to have been lifted from someone's high school production of "West Side Story.") In the interest of keeping the improbability level of this subplot up to maximum levels, the leader of the gang (a bubbly Gugu Mbatha-Raw) also volunteers to cut his hair, makeover his wardrobe and lead the gang in an HGTV-worthy redo of Larry's living room. And conveniently, there are no middle-aged cronies around to comment on these developments, lasciviously or otherwise. (Larry's garage-saling neighbors - played by Cedric the Entertainer and Taraji P. Henson - don't count, because pretty much the only reason they're in the movie is to sell Larry his scooter, and Mbatha-Raw some used clothes for the vintage store she eventually opens.)

Why is George Takei in this movie? His scary/funny economics professor is ultimately a memorable character, but mostly unnecessary. There's a half-baked reason for us to see Larry in an economics class, but I would emphasize the incompleteness of the baking process on that particular plot point.

Why do Larry and Mercy wind up together? Oops, did I ruin it for you? I can't imagine I did. These two have to end up together because they're Julia Roberts and Tom Hanks and the audience expects it. And beyond that, there is absolutely NO reason why these two should be attracted to each other. Yes, Larry is a fundamentally nice guy who fixes Mercy's GPS (while he's riding a scooter next her car, another scene that doesn't hold up to scrutiny). And, yes, Mercy leaves her jerky, porn-surfing husband (Bryan Cranston, criminally underused) gives up her afternoon blender drink, and decides to care - really care! - about her ragtag bunch of students. But neither of those facts constitute a basis for a shared live of love and happiness for these two.

There's also that pesky little thing called chemistry, which Roberts and Hanks had in spades in "Charlie Wilson's War," but is curiously lacking here. When Hanks kisses a merrily inebriated Roberts goodnight in a pivotal scene, it feels as if he has no motivation whatsoever beyond the fact that the script says Larry and Mercy kiss here.

Who wrote this movie? Tom Hanks and Nia Vardalos - which may be your first clue as to the imponderability of all previous questions. "Larry Crowne" reportedly developed out of a story idea that Hanks (who also directed) carried around for years. But if we could break down the contributions of each screenwriter, I bet we'd see a whole lot of the Vardalos imprint on this one. She's been cruising for quite a long time on the lingering goodwill towards her sweet, sentimental monster hit ("My Big Fat Greek Wedding," which Hanks and his wife, Rita Wilson, co-produced), but her subsequent efforts have been mostly dreadful. "Larry Crowne" has all the earmarks of a Vardalos script, namely a repeated straining after feel-good moments that wind up feeling nothing but contrived and a surly, uptight heroine who needs to loved into happiness. And I'm willing to bet that Vardalos wrote that role with the idea of playing it herself. On that point, at least, cooler and wiser heads prevailed.

My Love Affair with Musicals

noreply@blogger.com (Patricia Perry) — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 19:00:00 +0000

My obsession, like that of so many others before and after, began in a darkened movie theatre.

It was a Sunday afternoon, and I was four years old. My mother had taken me and my little brother to a matinee of "Mary Poppins." (It was a first-run movie then, by the way, which should give you an idea of my advanced age.) It wasn't the first movie I'd ever seen, but it was the first time I'd seen people who not only did fantastical, amazing things - leaping into chalk pictures, having tea parties on the ceiling, shooting out of London chimneys like bottle rockets - but sang and danced while doing so. And not only then. Sometimes Mary Poppins sang in perfectly ordinary situations, too - using a song to cheer her charges through through the arduous task of putting away their toys ("A Spoonful of Sugar") or to lull them to sleep ("Stay Awake").

It is not an exaggeration to say that "Mary Poppins" changed my life; certainly, no one who knew me a child and observed my intense devotion to Julie Andrews, or the hours I spent with my little portable record player singing along to the "Mary Poppins" soundtrack would disagree. But it wasn't just "Poppins" itself that I had discovered. It was a whole new world, a new way of looking at that world and expressing what I saw through music and dance that opened itself up to me that afternoon in the popcorn-redolent darkness of the Kent Theatre.

When it comes to musicals, the world is split into two distinct camps, I believe. There are those people who can never quite surrender to the unreality of worlds in which characters sing and dance, not only to express their emotions, but sometimes just for the pure joy of doing so. And then there are those who don't want to live a world where that spontaneous singing and dancing isn't possible. God bless those in the first group; I can understand them only by correlating their dislike of musicals to my equally intense aversion to the unreality of hyped-up car chases, explosions and cartoonish violence.

No, on that afternoon in 1964, a member of the second camp was born. From that day forward, I logged many, many hours watching musicals, listening and singing along to soundtrack albums in my room. My devotion to Julie Andrews waned, but was supplanted by an ardent fan worship of Barbra Streisand. During the awkward phases of early adolescence, I soothed my emotional pain by immersing myself in classic films: among them the best of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, Busby Berkeley, and Rogers and Hammerstein.

But I didn't just want to watch. I wanted to be in on the act, too. I can remember, as a youngster, taking Girl Scout trips to Lafayette (the nearest city of any size) to see amateur productions of "Puss and Boots" or "The Princess and the Pea" and thinking "If I were playing that character, I wouldn't say the line the way she did, I'd say it like this." Or watching a Rogers and Hammerstein adaptation and figuring out which character I would like to play (Ado Annie was a role I coveted, if only to have the fun of performing "I'm Just the Girl Who Cain't Say No"). In junior high school, I became a bit fixated on "Godspell" largely because the actors in the film version looked like they were having so much fun that I wanted to do what they were doing.

A natural shyness, coupled with adherence to my family's credo that "showing off" and "calling attention to yourself" were cardinal social sins, kept me from taking that desire public until far later in life than most musical comedy obsessives would be able to stand. Although I started singing in choirs at age 11 and played Mrs. Paroo in my high school production of "The Music Man" to great acclaim, my performing was mainly limited to the safe confines of my room, where I continued to sing along with soundtrack albums and dream up elaborate musical numbers in my head. For years after college, I mistakenly believed that adulthood meant setting aside all these frivolous interests and concentrating on my career and finding a mate; I was in my late twenties before I acknowledged that my secret performing ambitions were legitimate and should be honored. First came acting classes and voice lessons, then a few roles in straight plays. At 31, I made my musical theatre debut as the timid, jittery Aunt Trina in "I Remember Mama," a dreadful adaptation of the beloved Katrin Forbes tale featuring some of the worst songs Richard Rodgers ever wrote. Over the next 12 years, I graduated to roles in better shows such as "Nine," "Sweeney Todd," "Cabaret," "Oliver," "The Sound of Music," "My Fair Lady," "Finian's Rainbow" and two more productions of "The Music Man," with the occasional "straight" role in between.

Since 2003, I've "retired from the stage," too old now for the burning-the-candle-at-both-ends act required to juggle a communty theatre habit and the demands of my 'real' job. (Not to mention blogging on top of that.) But my devotion to musical performing endures, as I sing in both a church and a community choir and am once again preparing to sing with the chorale in the final concert of the Green Lake Festival in Ripon, WI later this month. And my love of musical theatre and film will never fade.

All this is by way of explaining the enthusiasm and dedication I hope to bring to the "50 Greatest Musicals of All Time" series at Wonders in the Dark next month, where I'll be a voter and a contributor. I've spent my summer so far preparing for this most delightful of duties by revisiting long-unseen classics and seeking out some films that are new to me. (Next up: the Chinese film-within-a-film musical "Perhaps Love.")

The research to date has been an indescribable joy, and even if all the films I'm seeing don't make the final cut, it's been more than worth the time. I'd like to periodically share clips of my favorite musical moments, and here's one I've been dying to post. Ray Bolger is , of course, primarily known to audiences as the beloved Scarecrow of "The Wizard of Oz." But I've been enjoying his featured performances in a number of other films lately, from the Nelson Eddy/Jeanette MacDonald sparkler "Sweethearts" to "The Harvey Girls," from which this clip is taken. Watch Bolger's joyously comic moves, his athleticism and loose-limbed ease, and tell me this man wasn't every bit the dancing equal of Kelly and Astaire. Just try.

Taking a "Sore Thumb" Break

noreply@blogger.com (Patricia Perry) — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 15:36:00 +0000

No, "Doodad Kind of Town" is not shutting down again. We're on a brief hiatus here, recovering from thumb surgery and limiting our typing to hasten the recovery. Should be back in about a week. (Watching TONS of movies in the meantime - please stay tuned!)

"Midnight in Paris"

noreply@blogger.com (Patricia Perry) — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 00:18:00 +0000

Nostalgia is unreliable. It distracts us from appreciating our present reality by casting a deceptively golden glow over a past that was probably no better than the time we now live in - and possibly worse.

That's the lesson at the heart of Woody Allen's latest film, "Midnight in Paris," a postcard-pretty, intermittently hilarious valentine to the City of Lights and the many golden ages (the Belle Epoque, the Roaring Twenties) through which it has passed.

After an protracted opening montage of Parisian landmarks, we're introduced to Gil Pender (Owen Wilson), a successful screenwriter who's struggling to become a serious novelist and nursing an all-consuming obsession with the Lost Generation and their experiences in 1920's Paris. His travelling companions are his shrill, materialistic fiancee (Rachel McAdams) and her uptight Republican parents (Mimi Kennedy and Kurt Fuller), all of whom treat his ambitions with an eye-rolling dismissal that falls somewhere between exasperation and contempt.

Gil decides to talk a walk alone one night, and as the midnight chimes ring, he's summoned into a passing cab by Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald and whisked off to a series of parties where Cole Porter plays the piano, Josephine Baker dances and Ernest Hemingway dispenses literary advice. (Has he walked through a time warp? Who knows - Allen doesn't bother himself to explain the fantastical means by which Gil is able to hobnob with everyone from Alice B. Toklas to Luis Bunuel.) It's not long before Gil is excusing himself from whatever shopping trip or other tourist adventure his fiancee has planned and heading off to drink with Salvador Dali (a very funny Adrian Brody) or show his novel to Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates).

It's in Stein's salon that Gil meets the luminous Adriana (Marion Cotillard) who has been mistress and muse to the likes of Braque and Picasso. He falls for her, but is dumbfounded when she expresses a fervent nostalgia for the turn-of-the-2oth-century Belle Epoque. "That's Paris' real golden age!" she proclaims, causing Gil to realize that in every age, some people will always look back with longing to the era that preceded theirs.

That "Midnight in Paris" is one of the Allen's best films in recent years is not saying all that much. (These last few years have given us "Whatever Works" and "Cassandra's Dream," let's not forget.) There's certainly no shortage of great lines, although many of them belong to Michael Sheen, playing an insufferably pompous academic in a small but delicious role. Leading the couple around Versailles, he explains that the palace was built on the site of a former swamp and, "If I'm not mistaken, the word 'Versailles' comes from the old French for 'reign where the weeds have been pulled.'" Other jokes have a tendency to fly over the heads of your average multiplex audience; I'm pretty sure I was the only one in the theatre to know who Luis Bunuel was, let alone get the joke when Gil supplies him with the premise for "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie." (Correction: Gil actually supplies Bunuel with the premise of "The Exterminating Angel," not "Discreet Charm..." I clearly got my Bunuel 'dinner party' movies mixed up in my initial post.)

But for all its surface glamour and silliness, there's a curiously inert quality to "Midnight in Paris." It never quite seems to find its comic rhythm, always on the verge of exploding into something manic and dazzling but never quite making the leap. I attribute this largely to the casting of Owen Wilson as this film's Woody stand-in. The role of Gil is clearly written in the kind of Allen-speak that demands a prickly, sharp-witted delivery, but Wilson is an unhurried, unruffled kind of actor who specializes in delayed reactions and going with the flow. (As written, Gil is exactly the kind of guy who would delight, as Alvy Singer did, in pulling Marshall McLuhan out of thin air to take the starch out of a preening pseudointellectual - can you, in your wildest dreams, imagine Wilson doing that?)

If "Midnight in Paris" does, finally succeed in winning us over, it's an ironic demonstration of Allen's points about the unreliability of nostalgia. Much of the ballyhoo over this film, I suspect, has much to do with the way it evokes earlier, better films ("The Purple Rose of Cairo") or Allen's early, very funny prose works ("The Kugelmass Episode," in which a magician transports Emma Bovary to modern-day Manhattan or his riff on the Lost Generation, "A Twenties Memory," with its recurring punch line, "And then we put on boxing gloves, and (Hemingway) broke my nose.") - less to do with the fleeting satisfactions of the new film itself. I know I am guilty of coming back to Woody's new films, year after year, in search of the magic I once found in his work, particularly in the late 70s when I was a college student with my entire life ahead of me. And it's probably not helpful that I kept wondering what "Midnight in Paris" might have been had it been made 30 years ago with Allen himself in the lead and maybe Isabelle Adjani as Adriana. Perhaps I've got a touch of whatever's afflicting Gil.

Judging a Flick by its Trailer: "One Day"

noreply@blogger.com (Patricia Perry) — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 01:50:00 +0000

I know what you're thinking - what a lazy-assed idea for a post! Didn't she just do this last week?

Yes, I am putting this up, in part, to look productive while I continue to mull over my deeper thoughts about "Midnight in Paris." (Review coming soon - I promise!!)

But honestly, it's a bit more inspired than that.

Over the past week, I read - and fell a little bit in love with - David Nicholl's wise, funny, heartbreaking novel, "One Day." It's central conceit (as this trailer for the film adaptation makes clear) is to chart the twenty-year friendship between two young Brits - working class Northerner Emma Morley and rich, charming wastrel Dexter Mayhew - by depicting them on each successive anniversary of their graduation day hookup. It's a deceptively light and breezy read that quietly evolves into a touching, knowing meditation of the nature of friendship and love. It is frequently very funny, and sometimes unbearably sad. And, in the right hands, it could be one hell of a movie.

Well, it seems that "One Day" has, in fact, fallen into the hands of director Lone Scherfig, the woman who last brought us "An Education," and that, in itself, is cause for cheer. If this trailer is any indication, the film is extraordinarily faithful to the source material, not surprising since David Nicholls himself penned the screenplay. (Even that blue silk cheongsam shown fleetingly on Anne Hathaway is a perfect realization of the dress Nicholls had Emma wearing throughout a pivotal chapter in the book.)

Hathaway is an inspired choice to play the kind-hearted, self-deprecating late bloomer that is Emma Morley, so much so that I'm willing to forgive what appears to be a rather inconsistent north-of-England accent. Jim Sturgiss certainly has the looks for the sexy, shallow Dexter; we'll see if he also has the requisite acting chops to make us root for Dexter throughout his long, dissolute path to genuine adulthood. That Patricia Clarkson is along as Dexter's mother is just the icing on the cake.

"One Day" opens in theaters on August 19.

Judging a Flick by its Trailer: "I Don't Know How She Does It"

noreply@blogger.com (Patricia Perry) — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 01:51:00 +0000

Actually, I'm not a believer in judging a film by its trailer. Too often, in the case of comedies, all the funny stuff is in the trailer (I certainly hope that isn't the case here). Or, if the trailer is for "Bridesmaids," we'll be treated to brief interludes of toilet humor and close-ups of tennis balls being lobbed into women's breasts, when - in fact - these are fleeting vulgarities in a film of genuine wit and heart. And there those are those rare trailers, like the one for Rob Marshall's "Nine" that set you up for crushing disappointment, giving the illusion that a truly terrible film will be absolutely magical.

In the case of "I Don't Know How She Does It," I'm not sure what to expect. This trailer gives the impression that it's yet another slickly manufactured piece of Hollywood pap, with maybe a few mild laughs. I very much liked the Alison Pearson novel on which it is based, but I'm not sure it's been done full justice here.

That the screenplay is by Aline Brosh McKenna does not inspire confidence. I won't quibble (much) about the fact that McKenna has taken Pearson's novel - about a British executive and her troubles balancing the international travel demands of her job and the details of running her household in England - and moved it to the U.S. It appears that she's kept most of the key plot points in place in spite of a significant story relocation. But given that her other prominent screenwriting credits include "27 Dresses," (ugh!) "The Devil Wears Prada" (which I liked far less than most reviewers) and "Morning Glory" (see unenthusiastic review below), I will not be coming to the multiplex with high hopes.

I only hope that Sarah Jessica Parker brings the goods this time. Once upon a time, Parker was a skilled and often deliriously funny comic actress - particularly in "LA Story" and David Mamet's "State and Main." But then came "Sex and the City," and over the years, her portrayal of Carrie Bradshaw steadily devolved from smart and edgy to self-indulgently girlish and giggly and finally (in the ill-advised second film) into an unsympathetic shrillness. She's got some good supporting actors (I've never not liked Greg Kinnear in anything), so we can only hope.

On the Home Screen: "Morning Glory"

noreply@blogger.com (Patricia Perry) — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 02:09:00 +0000

About halfway into the vapid, would-be-comedic mess that is "Morning Glory," I realized I'd seen Rachel McAdams' character before.

And no, I wasn't thinking of Jane Craig, the go-getting, no-nonsense news producer so brilliantly brought to life by Holly Hunter in the 1987 classic "Broadcast News."

Instead I flashed back on Gus Van Sant's "To Die For," and the monomaniacal aspiring newswoman played by Nicole Kidman, bursting into the tiny, rundown local cable station with her breathless list of ideas for "hard hitting" documentaries. Her weary co-workers referred to her as "Gangbusters."

Well McAdams' Becky Fuller is "Gangbusters" all over again - this time without the irony.

What's fortunate is that McAdams has such an agreeable screen presence, such innate likability, that she makes Becky Fuller an almost enjoyable character to be around. "Almost" being the operative term there; as written, Ms. Fuller is a walking nightmare: a hyper-caffienated, super-ambitious, insufferably perky morning news show producer on a quest to bring her show up from its woeful, last-place ratings. Becky doesn't so much talk to people as browbeat them, cajole them or just bombard them with her inexhaustible enthusiasm.

And, because "Morning Glory" is "Broadcast News" as it would be played in the Bizarro World, Fuller has none of Jane Craig's hangups about journalistic integrity; rather, she will push her cast to do anything for ratings. Even it means strapping the mild-mannered weatherman into a new and terrifying roller coaster and videotaping his screams. ("Eighty thousand hits on You Tube!" she exults.) Or having her veteran anchorwoman (a delightfully flinty Diane Keaton) handle a skunk while interviewing a Jim Fowler-style zoologist (oh yes, she will get sprayed.) Battling with the gruff news veteran (Harrison Ford) who refuses to get into the "happy talk" groove of morning news, she screams,"The battle between news and entertainment has been going on for years, and guess what? YOUR SIDE LOST!"

Because Becky never stands still or shuts up long enough to make a real, human connection with anyone in her path, it's a bit of a surprise when a romance falls into place for her. But that doesn't save her - or the film. In fact, it's one of the oddest and most dispiriting couplings I've ever seen.

Patrick Wilson plays the fellow producer who apparently falls for Becky, although nothing in his expression changes when she enters a scene. Wilson looks good and projects an unruffled calm that provides a nice respite from McAdams' perpetual overdrive, but I've never seen a romantic lead project so little emotion for his leading lady. I can't recall him (even once!) cracking so much as a smile in her presence. But he does toss her ringing Blackberry into his freezer, throw her over his shoulder and take her off to his bedroom - an action that pretty much sums up the attitude that every recent rom com takes against Women Who Take Their Jobs Too Seriously. (Or as they aptly put it on "Family Guy," Busy Business Ladies Who Don't Realize Their Lives are Empty Because They're Too Busy Doing Business.) When she gets up a few hours later to take notes on the late night news, he tells her to go, "just go" - and he sounds pissed off about it, too - but because this is the Bizarro World, she interprets this as an expression of love and beams ecstatically all the way home.

Director Roger Michell captures the rhythms and energy of a crazy-busy workplace, and the ways that it can be as stimulating and fun as it is exhausting. (The downside of that, however, is that Becky's interactions with supposedly supportive, loving co-workers feel perfunctory, lacking resonance). And he establishes the interrelationships between the three stars - the low-key competitiveness between Keaton and Ford's anchor characters, the delicate dance between the cantankerous Ford and the uber perky McAdams - with a minimum of fuss.

And finally, there's a nice, recurring bit with Jeff Goldblum as the harried network executive who's always one step away from cancelling the morning show. Goldblum (along with a small handful of actors like Holland Taylor and Robert Klein) is rapidly becoming to lame-ass rom coms what Edward Everett Horton, Helen Broderick and Eric Blore were to the Astaire-Rogers musicals: the reliably funny character actors who are as much fun to watch as the leads. The difference is that Goldblum and his contemporaries are often better than the dreck that surrounds them.

"Morning Glory" is available on DVD and through OnDemand.

Why I'm Back ... and Why You Should See "Bridesmaids"

noreply@blogger.com (Patricia Perry) — Mon, 30 May 2011 14:38:00 +0000

Despite occasional postings here and there, a few short-lived comebacks, I've essentially been on a blogging hiatus for the last year and a half.

There are many reasons for that. I won't bore you with the list of overwhelming personal and professional stresses that took time away from my formerly favorite pastime. But I will tell you that the film blogosphere itself started to seem too big for me to participate. I struggled to find a reason to keep this up, a niche in which I felt my voice would make any difference.

When I joined the Large Association of Movie Blogs in January 2007, I believe I was its 24th member. Today, there are 943 blogs in the association and more are joining every week. Everyone has a computer and everyone has an opinion about movies, and they're all sharing.

And while the amateur film blogosphere is by no means limited to males under 35, it certainly seemed to be dominated by them. That's not a problem in and of itself: many of my favorite bloggers fall into that demographic - thoughtful, erudite writers of whom I'd never wish to speak ill. But from a 'big picture' perspective, the blogosphere was beginning to feel like a place where the latest action flick was widely celebrated but any film marketed primarily to women was dismissed out of hand. Ditto for musicals - I can't count the number of vicious attacks I've seen on "Chicago," for example, mostly by people who clearly don't like musicals.

Which is fine. No one's required to become a musical comedy fan, but I wish reviewers would own that taste limitation and admit it that it limits their appreciation of the genre. I'm not a fan of sci-fi or action/adventure flicks and I'm pretty upfront about that. I won't be able to give you a fair review of say, "Kick Ass" or "Pirates of the Caribbean 4" because, frankly, I don't give a rat's ass.

But when I look through the blog posts of the last couple years, I see that I write with the most passion when I write about "chick flicks" and "rom coms."

Make no mistake - I'm not a pushover for that particular genre. I've been a pretty tough critic (see here and here if you don't believe me.) I have no tolerance for lazy, manufactured-by-formula rom coms, even less for pageants of product placement that disguise themselves as love stories. But I'm not ready to give up on romantic comedy, and I won't accept that so-called "chick flicks" are inconsequential or without merit. From here on, I'll be using this blog to encourage readers to seek out the hidden gems or deceptively-marketed-but-worthwhile films,

Which brings us to "Bridesmaids"

If my Facebook news feed is any indication, a lot of women I respect are avoiding "Bridesmaids" like the plague because of its perceived toilet humor quotient. And I'll admit that the now-infamous "food poisoning at the bridal salon" scene which has been widely featured in the film's marketing is my least favorite. It was reportedly added by producer Judd Apatow as an added incentive to get men into theater. But how sad is it that Apatow was all too willing to offend a large percentage of potential female viewers in order to get men's bums in the seats? (Do we really have to have something for the guys in order to fill a theatre? Has Apatow not studied the box office receipts for films like "Mamma Mia" and "Sex and the City"?)

There are too many other reasons for smart women to see "Bridesmaids"- here are five:

1. It's very, very funny - and it's not all raunch and innuendo.

Yes, characters will have funny awkward (but, be assured, non-explicit) sex. Yes, tennis-playing women will lob balls into each other's boobs in slow motion. But for every silly scene like this, there are at least three funnier scenes that tap into the underlying emotional truths of wedding anxiety and the stresses on women's friendships when one marries and one remains single. Witness the amazing play of mixed emotions on Kristen Wiig's face when her longtime friend (Maya Rudolph) announces that she's engaged - painful, funny and relatable all at once. Even when the stakes are cranked up to ridiculous heights for bigger laughs - as in the escalating competition between Wiig and Rose Byrne to make the most eloquent, heart-wrenching toast to the bride at her engagement party - the connection to reality is never lost.

2. There's a plus-size actress, but she's not playing a Fat Girl role. Hallelujah!

Melissa McCarthy (star of TV's "Mike and Molly" and a Groundlings alum) plays the groom's sister with a lunatic gleam in her eye, an unhinged appetite for hijinks (she suggests "Fight Club" as a bridal shower theme with perfectly deadpan conviction) and a brilliant way with a tossed-off non sequitur. But in no other sense is her "appetite" the focus of her gags. Her role could conceivably be played by a very thin actress and be just as funny, but I'm glad they gave it to McCarthy. She's not just side-splitting; she also manages to find the genuine good heart beating within a scary/funny character.

3. Chris O'Dowd makes you believe he's the good man our heroine needs.

I don't know about you, but I'm kinda tired of rom coms where the leads have about as much chemistry as a couple of damp dishcloths. No such problem exists in "Bridesmaids." Chris O'Dowd plays a cop who pulls Wiig over for driving with broken taillights, recognizes her as the former owner of his favorite bakery, and falls quickly for her. Like Rudolph, he instinctively understands how to play off Wiig, exuding a warmth and gentle strength that complements, rather than competes with, her manic spark. He and Wiig make an entirely believable couple, adorable without straining to be so, and you breathe a genuine sigh of relief for Wiig whenever he shows up.

4. Jill Clayburgh plays Wiig's mother.

In her final role, Clayburgh looks frail, but she brings unexpected depth to what otherwise would have been a throwaway part. And her nonchalant delivery of some pretty outrageous lines is funny in a way that takes you entirely by surprise.

5. Kristen Wiig may be the best actress ever to come out of SNL.

A bold claim, I know. But Wiig, here playing the single and struggling Annie, is far more subtle and vulnerable onscreen than, say, the otherwise glorious Tina Fey has ever managed to be. No other actress I can name plays the subtle layers of mixed emotions with as much hilarious conviction as does Wiig, and her Annie is plucky, subversively angry and completely sympathetic all at once. I've never been impressed with her SNL characters - the Target Lady, Jilly, the pretentious actress on the "Secret Word" gameshow all seem to exist in some universe I've never inhabited. But her onscreen character work has always been spot-on funny, and here she shows that she's got the goods to carry leading roles as well.

And, by the way, Wiig's fellow SNL alum Maya Rudolph is no slouch either. There is a lovely warmth to her character that nicely complements Wiig's lunatic streak. Many of their scenes - particularly a diner scene where they put cake crumbs on their teeth to amuse one another and the lip-synching-to-Wilson-Phillips scene that plays over the closing credits - have a loopy, improvised quality that captures the relaxed chemistry of a long-held friendship to perfection.