Had I not read the whole of Stieg Larsson’s fascinatingly intriguing Millenium trilogy, I probably would have given up on Niels Arden Oplev’s lackluster film adaptations back whenever “The Girl Who Played With Fire” stunk it up like a skunk. “The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest,” the final installment of the Swedish-produced trilogy, turns the series around in a positive direction but not nearly drastically or radically enough to make it all that worthwhile of a moviegoing experience. The faithful adage “read the book first” still rings true, although I won’t be as harsh to say it has never rang truer.
The series does a pretty intense tonal shift in the third segment, becoming less of an intensely violent thriller and more of an Aaron Sorkin-esque courtroom drama. (Hey, that’s actually a great idea – let’s start an Internet petition to bring together “The Social Network” dream team for the American version of this movie!) Because of this, it’s almost unfair to compare it to the previous two movies in the series. It has to rely on the Larsson’s plot for the suspense, which is actually a really good thing. As its predecessor showed us, the late author knows best.
Rapace’s performance is sharp again as her Lisbeth Salander, a unique cinematic creation, endures the crucible of a lifetime in her confrontation of the vast injustices that have plagued her life. She is, once again, the highlight of the movie and perhaps the only reason I can give to watch the movie instead of read the book. Larsson’s prose is infinitely more exciting on a page than watching Oplev’s attempt at translating its zing. If you really can’t keep from biting your nails until David Fincher gets his hands on the series, this will help you bide your time – but won’t really do much else. B- /
If you yearn for an alternative to the tired narrative structure of Hollywood films but want it without all the puzzling avant-garde vibes of a Terence Malick movie, perhaps “Howl” is a good pick for you. It’s experimental but stays largely within comfortable confines, shifting between various storylines tied together by Allen Ginsberg’s poem in a fairly standard non-linear format. The movie is overall not as provocative or engaging as it should be, but it does make give some interesting background on the discontent of the Beat Generation while also giving a portrait of a very interesting thinker.
Ginsberg is full of a cryptic intelligence and a paradoxically reserved openness thanks to a brilliant portrayal by the new millenium’s Renaissance man James Franco. Behind the cigarette smoke and tucked away behind the Ray-Ban lenses is a fully understood man, even if Franco doesn’t want to grant us full access to his mind. Call it the anti-“127 Hours” because rather than letting it all out in a furious display of emotion, he gets to do a slow reveal characterized by a careful restraint.
That doesn’t keep us from appreciating his portrait of Ginsberg. Much like he convinced us we were watching Aron Ralston and not James Franco, he gets lost in Allen Ginsberg, fully absorbing his strange vocal cadences while reading “Howl” and picking up his easy-going, laid-back mannerisms that also exhibit the pain he has experienced in the interview portion of the movie. It’s amazing what Franco can do when he sets his mind on acting because when he isn’t fully engaged in the movie, his boredom pulsates beyond the screen.
“Howl” is more than just the James Franco show, though, and it does more in 80 minutes than many movies do in two hours. The ambitious film, directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman (two documentarians instrumental to making Gus Van Sant’s “Milk” work), tackles not only Allen Ginsberg but his effect on literature and American culture by also showing the obscenity trial surrounding the controversial poem that is totally separate from Franco’s Ginsberg. This section asks us to challenge where obscenity overlaps with art, a question that still plagues us today. What the two produce in their first narrative film is hardly a groundbreaking or game-changing film, but the experiment is hardly a failed one. If you want an introduction to Ginsberg’s enigmatic poem that will provide you some valuable insight into what exactly he meant – and what his work meant for society as a whole. B /
Now that I actually got votes on the WTLFT poll, it’s time to bring back the “Shameless Advertisement” series from the grave! Dormant since February, it’s now time to give a shameless plug to a movie that looks the most promising to readers of the site.
While there was one voter (COUGH Steven Flores) who said there was nothing they wanted to see in August, four voters seemed to have no problem finding something to look forward to. Problem is, they were divided on what that movie is.
There was one vote for “Colombiana” and one for “Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark,” neither of which look terribly good to me. There was also one vote for “The Help” and one vote for “Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” both of which look very interesting to me. Since I get to break the tie, better make it…
“The Help!” If for no other reason than I’d take Emma Stone over just about anyone right now. Here’s what I wrote about the movie in the August preview post:
“Getting a head start on the weekend by opening on Wednesday is ‘The Help,’ which looks to be a late-summer sleeper, hoping to please the oft-neglected female crowd by adapting a best-selling book. But with this one looking to be less geared towards one gender and even a potential awards play, this could outgross ‘Green Lantern’ or other summer flops.”
Word of mouth is good, so hopefully this will be a great late summer surprise hit. Those are always nice. Who knows, maybe there will even be an awards play. But it will need the critical support to get it.
As for what you can expect from me…
Did you know I write reviews? I’ll hopefully start closing the gap between how many movies I’ve seen and how many reviews I’ve written. Three months of watching without writing makes for a pretty sizable list of reviews left to write. Seeing more movies on top of that makes it worse.
The return of the Oscar Moment! It’s time for talk about awards season to become slightly in vogue again, and I intend to get ahead of the curve again with analysis on last year and what it could mean for this year, along with some sizing up of the contenders for 2011. Fingers crossed for a cagematch between “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” and “The Girl with the Dragon Tatttoo.”
F.I.L.M. tie-ins. The “F.I.L.M. of the Week” column this month will largely be recommending alternate viewing for your favorite stars, leading you towards dependable and reliable movies from Jesse Eisenberg, Anne Hathaway, and Paul Rudd.
Comedy in the spotlight. Much discussion in Weekend Update and perhaps the “Classics Corner” column will center on the state of comedy in Hollywood in 2011. Be prepared to think!
And that’s pretty much August! I head off to college too so don’t be surprised if things dry up for days at a time, but I’ll do my best!
“Acting is not about being someone different. It’s finding the similarity in what is apparently different, then finding myself in there.”
– Meryl Streep
“You have to show violence the way it is. If you don’t show it realistically, then that’s immoral and harmful. If you don’t upset people, then that’s obscenity.”
– Roman Polanski
Out and About in the Community
As a sort of cop-out for not publishing this on time, I’m going to overpublicize two events I participated in recently over at the Large Association of Movie Blogs (The LAMB), a giant database of bloggers that get together and pool ideas and posts.
The first was the LAMB Acting School, a monthly series that gathers reviews and retrospectives centered around a single actor. This month, it was the legendary Meryl Streep, the woman who may well be the greatest actress of her generation. For those who get sick of her or claim that the Oscars are overly obsessed with her, just look at her filmography and tell me that the diversity of roles present and the dexterity with which she pulls them off isn’t flooring. Her emphasis is obviously on the drama, but she can pull off comedy just as easily. She is often lauded for her ability to change the accent of her voice to fit a character; however, it’s that incredible Streep pathos that she brings to every role that has made her a symbol of consistency and reliability in a volatile cinematic climate.
Not to mention I owe Meryl Streep a very special favor myself. If it hadn’t been for her and “Julie & Julia,” this blog probably wouldn’t exist. She has changed my life for better and for always, and I am eternally grateful.
Click on the graphic to go see all the posts, but here are links to what I have reviewed from her illustrious career:
Then, a week prior, I participated in the “LAMBs in the Director’s Chair” event, which celebrated the career of Roman Polanski. I haven’t seen too many of his movies and have reviewed even fewer, but I admire his skill behind the camera and don’t wish to comment on his legal status. I saw “Roman Polanski: Wanted & Desired,” which I found an interesting portrait of a haunted man, and it just made me even more torn.
Nonetheless, “The Pianist” may be one of my all-time favorite movies. It is so powerful and moving, perhaps the only intensely personal non-documentarian account of the Holocaust we will ever get. I’m really hoping “Carnage” is another big success – I always love a good play adaptation.
Again, click the link to be taken to the post with reviews and commentary. Here’s what I submitted:
This week, I reviewed the two non-Smurf new releases, “Cowboys & Aliens” and “Crazy Stupid Love.” My expectations were high for the former, low for the latter; the output was low for the former, high for the latter. Click the pictures to be transported to the reviews.
I also celebrated my two year birthday/anniversary, whichever it is – without the pomp and circumstance. And I’m totally OK with that.
This is a thought I had upon further thought on the sex friend movies of 2011, “No Strings Attached” and “Friends with Benefits.” (Believe it or not, it is possible to think on them.)
Isn’t in hypocritical that the MPAA has begun a crusade against cigarette smoking yet have done nothing about what I think is a much bigger issue in movies nowadays: the casual attitude towards unprotected sex. While I’m not going to dismiss smoking in movies as something that can influence kids and teenagers, I would argue that they are much more likely to imitate the sexual behavior of screen characters. Smoking is a social behavior, so kids see it out in public all the time. Movies just reinforce what they see in real life.
Sex, however, is a very private matter. Their education nowadays is abstinence or a very sanitized, conservative, condoms-on-bananas approach, like Coach Carr from “Mean Girls” (see the clip below). What they see in the movies defines how they perceive it in the real world.
While sex on film has evolved with the constantly changing societal norms, from “Carnal Knowledge” to “Brokeback Mountain” to the 2011 duo touting casual sex, I’m surprised that public awareness (and perhaps anger) of how sex is being portrayed on screen hasn’t caught up with the times. While the conservative definition of sex as an act between man and wife was thrown out quite a while ago, that isn’t an excuse not to care. Attitudes may have changed, but that doesn’t mean that we turn a blind eye and abandon all responsibility simply because we don’t fully agree with something.
The routine nowadays for sex is two people start passionately kissing, find a flat spot, disrobe each other, and begin thrusting. Is it really that hard to add the simple, responsible step somewhere before the thrusting begins of adding a condom? Would it really disrupt the scene that much to add in a shot of a Trojan wrapper on the ground? A hand reaching in the drawer for a rubber? We don’t actually have to see it slide on, but for kids who believe that movies reflect real life, there really needs to be some sense conveyed that these people have taken measures to be safe. Otherwise, there should be consequences.
Only two mainstream movies (to my knowledge) have really dared to have any major results from having unprotected sex, both coming in 2007: “Knocked Up” and “Juno,” both of which featured characters who had to deal with a life-changing pregnancy either willingly not using a condom (the latter) or accidentally not using one (the former). Both tackle the issue in a respectful manner but also serving as subtle cautionary tales. But other than those, the only other movie I can think of that shows safe sex being practiced are, ironically, “No Strings Attached.” (I should also credit 2005’s “Must Love Dogs,” a lame Diane Keaton rom-com that featured a scene where she and John Cusack choose not to have sex because they can’t find a condom.)
Does Hollywood really expect us to believe that 95% of the time, there are no consequences of having unprotected sex? Wouldn’t it be so refreshing to see Katherine Heigl get chlamydia in her next romantic comedy? Or after a drunken one-night stand, have Jessica Alba get pregnant? These are things that happen to real people when they don’t act responsibly, and by dwelling on the small percentage of times that unprotected sex has no ramifications, they are promoting an illusion that could damage lives.
In our immediate gratification culture which demands movies on DVD sooner, data quicker, and social information faster, I find it almost unfathomable that people have chosen to fixate on eradicating smoking from cinema with all of its LONG-TERM effects. Lung cancer takes a while to develop; you start to feel pregnancy within a month or so, a sexually transmitted disease sets in even sooner, and emotional scarring may be present the next morning. While the wages of sex are usually not life-threatening, that doesn’t mean we should just turn a blind eye to Hollywood’s dangerous condoning of an irresponsible practice.
Check back for more “Weekend Update” on August 7 … hopefully it will be published on time!
In need of a Western without any pesky aliens? Perhaps it’s time to revisit the good old faithful “Blazing Saddles,” Mel Brooks’ 1974 sendup of the genre as well as the racism that they, whether blatantly or inadvertently, often promoted. Comedy usually shares very little in common with wine – while the beverage gets better with age, the movies normally don’t – but here is one glorious exception. The humor is very fresh, rooted in a very rich cinematic source rather than in shallow contemporary waters.
Brooks deconstructs the mythologized West by pointing out the stereotypes that we have assumed to be factual, when in reality, they may amount to little more than a representation to the attitudes of the filmmakers or the time. He brings out hilarious, borderline self-aware, archetypes such as the down-and-out gunslinger (played here by Gene Wilder), the seductress (Madeline Kahn in a hysterical Oscar-nominated performance), and the power-crazy governor (Harvey Korman in all hilarity). But Brooks turns the tables and makes another hallmark character from western films, the sheriff, an African-American (Cleavon Little), thus exposing the true attitudes of the town which looked so perfect and ideal.
The classic scene showing the revelation of this fact is funny not only because of Brooks’ clever wordplay but also because it rings true of the post-Civil Rights America. While everything on the surface looked equal in 1974, there was still a ways to go, largely in terms of changing the racist attitudes that had been ingrained in people’s minds. Through his tenure as sheriff, comedy ensues from all sorts of presumptions of race.
But if you want to just enjoy it as a surface level comedy, there are plenty of chances for you to do that as well. Brooks’ unwillingness to subscribe to propriety or political correctness results in a ruckus of a movie which still produces belly laughs over 35 years later. Be it through anachronisms, crafty inversions of genre expectations, toying with the limits of cinema, or good old-fashioned actor-driven humor, it could almost have a seal guaranteeing laughs on its poster.
I’d give anything to see Mel Brooks make another movie; it would be so refreshing amidst a sea of forgettable and immature comedies. If only the sophomoric “Scary Movie” series hadn’t convinced everyone that genre spoofs have to be stupid, then the angels would herald his return. But for now, I think every comedy writer would do well to watch “Blazing Saddles” again before they send off their script because, quite frankly, no one is coming close to this standard blazed by Brooks.
Was “Midnight in Paris” not enough Woody Allen for you this summer? Was his latest film so dazzling that you are suddenly curious to delve deeper into his extensive filmography? If you answered yes to either of these questions, perhaps you ought to check out “Small Time Crooks,” Allen’s 2000 annual that bubbles with humor and excitement in a way that only he can deliver.
It’s a recipe for chaos when the blundering criminal Ray (Allen) asks his short-tempered manicurist wife Frenchy (Tracey Ullman) to be a front for his latest thieving operation. She runs a cookie shop aboveground while he and his dim-witted partners from prison work underground to tunnel into the vault of the adjacent bank. The success story, however, gets inverted when Frenchy’s cookies become a runaway sensation and Ray’s robbery totally fizzles.
All of a sudden, fast forward a year and Frenchy and Ray have incorporated their cookie company, coming into more money than they could ever dream of. How they react, however, is totally different. Ray wants to remain the same, humble to his low-brow roots, while Frenchy becomes obsessed with joining the elitist art crowd of New York City … which is less than happy to take in white trash with money like her.
Their divergent paths lead to inevitable humor as Ray becomes involved with Frenchy’s spacy cousin May (Elaine May) and Frenchy recruits a high-class aristocrat, David (Hugh Grant), to train her for entry into high society. It’s not incredibly deep, but it’s a fun examination nonetheless of class in America and how money can affect some parts of our lives but leave other aspects totally unaffected. And in that uniquely Woody Allen fashion, “Small Time Crooks” can make you laugh in spite of its mopiness and defeatism.
I sit through way too many romantic comedies each year hoping that one of them will wind up being something like “Crazy Stupid Love.” Coming at the tail end of summer 2011, this genre-pic manna tastes way too sweet. But it’s not worthy of exaltation just due to the sea of flops surrounding it or praise just because it wasn’t bad, it’s actually just a good movie, one with heart, humor, and insight.
Take away the Christmas setting and it’s actually reminiscent of a small-scale “Love Actually.” The movie provides perspectives on love from Generations X, Y, and Z, stories that are told with an uncanny sincerity that overpowers their slightly hackneyed development. Written by Dan Fogelman, who had previously only dabbled in light kiddie fare like “Tangled” and “Cars 2,” delivers a work full of maturity and scope, one that winds up being surprisingly clever. The movie has a few tricks up its sleeves, and it makes the movie a great deal more engaging than any other movie dealing with this subject matter.
Fogelman’s best maneuver, however, may be reminding us to expect the unexpected when it comes to something as complicated (or crazy and stupid) as love. While Hollywood may require a certain ending point, the journey to get there doesn’t have to be formulaic or predictable. The characters of “Crazy Stupid Love” make that voyage fun because they are hardly conventional romantic comedy archetypes, save perhaps Emma Stone’s insecure burgeoning career woman.
Well, I had almost entirely forgotten about my blogoversary. Unlike last year, when I celebrated it with fanfare and cake baking, this year the day just kind of came and went. Unspectacular, uncelebrated, really just like any other day.
But that doesn’t mean this day isn’t significant. I doubt that I thought I’d go this long when I started blogging back in 2009. Two years is big because it’s the first milestone that I can kind of let roll off my back, and now that I’m at that point, I realize that blogging is just a part of who I am now. It’s not just a fling or a half-baked idea; it’s actually a significant chunk of my life and my thoughts.
So in that case, I guess I have quite a few people to thank. I guess the first (and cliched) place to start is with my family and friends, who either read what I write or put up with the fact that I do it. I also have to thank all of you all who read this site, whether you are a blogger or normal moviegoer, blog surfer or Google surfer, and a commenter or just a regular reader. I may notice your contribution through a comment, written or verbal, or perhaps just as a number on my stats page. But both are equally crucial, and on those days when I’m feeling like I don’t want to write, they can really pick me up and keep me going.
I also have to thank everyone for not giving up on me after my three-month hiatus. I’m slowly gaining those readers back, and I certainly hope that I’m earning them as well. I know that taking a break like that means a loss of momentum, and I like to think I’m starting to pick it up again. I can’t promise smooth sailing in the future as I don’t really know what college will bring for me, but I love writing this blog and feel a certain obligation to keep providing reviews and commentary for you all.
That’s about all I have to say. I’m going to indulge myself in a little birthday fun now – watching a movie before I go to bed, that is.
P.S. – This trailer is awesome, happy birthday to me.
From the very beginning of Jon Favreau’s “Cowboys & Aliens,” a very uneasy unevenness settles on the screen. The movie feels torn between whether to be an alien invasion movie that happens to be set in 1870s New Mexico or a Western movie where the villains happen to be aliens. Rather than make an executive decision and splice the genres, Favreau settles for an unhappy medium, vacillating back and forth between which of the two he’d rather use for the particular scene. The resultant jumble is just that, a movie that haphazardly joins various elements from both genres to create a bitter hodgepodge that barely satisfies on basic entertainment levels.
The film basically glides by plotlessly for nearly two hours, floating on the very thin premise that feels like an infantile idea to begin. Combining cowboys and aliens sounds like a game played by a five-year-old when his mom throws the “Star Wars” toys in the Lincoln Logs bin. It might be fun for a little while as the two clash, but we eventually come to the realization that the novelty can’t sustain, much like that child probably would as well.
The kids-at-heart writing this story, otherwise known as the guys who gave you such wide-ranging projects as “Star Trek,” “Transformers,” the television show “Lost,” “Children of Men,” “Iron Man,” and the unforgettable classic “Kung Pow: Enter The Fist,” have the attention span of that five-year-old child. They fail to take the movie anywhere worthwhile past the original jolt of imagination that inspired them to combine the two worlds in the first place. Once they get the whole thing assembled and need to get the plot rolling, they abandon it to play with Legos and leave the movie going on autopilot.
“He adored New York City. He idolized it all out of proportion. Eh uh, no, make that he, he romanticized it all out of proportion. Better. To him, no matter what the season was, this was still a town that existed in black and white and pulsated to the great tunes of George Gershwin.
He was as tough and romantic as the city he loved … New York was his town, and it always would be.”
– Woody Allen as Isaac Davis, “Manhattan” (1979)
Empire State of Mind
In case you couldn’t tell from the epigraph, this post is going to have something to do with New York City. This post is so late because I just got back from a fantastic vacation there, a “graduation trip” of sorts. I chose this domestic locale rather than some European hotspot mainly for one reason: Broadway. I’ve been so busy being in shows for the past four years – 10, to be exact – that I haven’t had the flexibility to get up to see shows. So, as a celebration of my semi-retirement from theater, I chose to see four musicals in the hotbed of the business.
But before I get into the shows, I have to talk about the city. Just walking around, you feel the cinematic quality of the town. More than anywhere in the world, New York City has been a muse to countless filmmakers from Scorsese to Woody Allen, who might as well built a celluloid shrine to the place. It’s a city full of character and life, beauty and squalor, successes and failures, but above all a sense of passion in the air, a passion that can only be found in truly great cities.
First, it was off to “Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark.” Even those who don’t pay attention to musical theater HAD to have heard about this show, be it the cast members getting injured, the plot problems, the dreadful music, or the direction turmoil – all amplified by the biggest Broadway budget ever. With all the problems and publicity, they made a wise move to stop the show for a month to iron out the kinks, and about a month ago, they opened a “reimagined” version.
It could have been absolutely dreadful originally; however, what I saw was nothing short of incredible. The story wasn’t all that great, and some of the music didn’t really work for me. However, as I often say about cinema, theater is not only a written medium, but also a visual one. If a work can be truly stunning to the eye, showing innovation, creativity, and imagination, then it can still be successful. So in that regards, consider the musical version of “Spider-Man” the “Avatar” of musical theater. Both are breathtaking experiences that push the boundaries of what we consider possible from their respective artistic media. Say what you will about them being shallow works of art, but we need them just as we need movies like “The Social Network” and “Pulp Fiction.”
Then it was on to “The Book of Mormon,” this year’s Tony Winner for Best Musical. It was probably the main reason I wanted to come to New York this summer in the first place; I mean, who doesn’t want to see the guys from “South Park” and “Avenue Q” take on Mormonism in a musical? And to have it win 9 Tony Awards just increased the allure. It’s now the hottest ticket on Broadway, and we were very lucky to get seats as cheap and as early as we did. Try getting one now and you’ll probably be asked for $900 to $1,000. Unless you are a politician paying for love, that kind of money for that amount of time just isn’t reasonable for most people.
I don’t know if I could ever justifiably fork over that much for any one show, but I can tell you that I’d easily pay $500 to see “The Book of Mormon” again. It’s the musical you’ve been praying to see your whole life – smart, funny, electrifying, and a rocking good time. While musical theater has generally been considered an artistic medium solely for escapism, Matt Stone and Trey Parker turn the tables on the preconceived notions, delivering a shocking work that deserves to be deconstructed like any other piece of intelligent literature.
I may not personally agree with all that Stone and Parker have to say, but anyone who dares to tackle an issue as big as religion in this age of artistic repression amidst commercial domination deserves a listening ear. “The Book of Mormon” is not anti-religion, but it will ask of you to keep an open mind and ponder certain notions that you’d probably prefer to leave alone. It certainly weeds out the weak at heart by the fourth number, “Hasa Diga Eebowai” (if you want to know what it means/ruin the surprise, go ahead and listen). It’s bold but never brazen, mocking but never disrespectful, offensive but never off-putting, and challenging but never condemning. While art nowadays consists so much of staying far away from the fine lines of acceptability, “The Book of Mormon” takes joy in finding those lines and having a rollicking song and dance number on them.
I can’t recommend this show enough. Now that you’ve read this, I’ve officially dubbed every day that you spend in New York without seeing this show a wasted day. It’s a musical theater experience unlike any other I’ve ever seen, and if for nothing else, see it for a laugh. I laughed more in one scene of “The Book of Mormon” than I have at the movies ALL SUMMER. Yeah, it’s that good.
After “The Book of Mormon” blew my mind at the matinee, I moved onto the revival of “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” that evening. Yes, that IS the musical with Daniel Radcliffe. I’ve never had any reason not to admire him, but this was a very smart career choice. While I’m sure Emma Watson and Rupert Grint are fretting about how to break away from their Harry Potter personas, Radcliffe has already proven that he can do just about anything he can put his mind to. Here, he sings and dances like a trained professional Broadway star. He has charisma and charm totally independent from his world-famous character.
It takes time to get used to him speaking in an American accent, but after a while, the strangeness subsides and the fun reigns. He and John Larroquette are an awesome duo; neither are classical musical theater actors, yet it’s so evident that they are having so much fun on that stage that it reverberates through the whole theater. Call it the anti-“Spider-Man” with its top-notch satire on corporate ladder-climbing and its simple, resourceful set design.
And then, because I’m stupid, I tried waiting for him Daniel Radcliffe at the stage door for a picture/autograph. Big mistake. Huge. I even left the show before the bows on a tip that as long as you left a little early, you were all good. Well, all the “Harry Potter” fans were already lined up, so I was WAY in the back. Then everyone else came out, and I was caught in this claustrophobic clump of hot, sweaty fans all voraciously craving an autograph. I like to think I was most deserving since I made him a big sign for his birthday, which I couldn’t even raise above my head due to the crowd’s tightness restricting the motion of my arms. This picture is all I have to show for my hour of waiting. He’s the short, scrawny looking one in red – not the big one in orange.
My last stop on the musical theater tour was “Anything Goes,” the Cole Porter classic that was this year’s Tony winner for Best Revival. While everyone loves contemporary, there’s something to be said for the classics, and this one reminded me of why musicals keep getting revived. This production featured the incomparable Sutton Foster, a name you should start knowing. She’s the Bernadette Peters of a new generation, a fantastic performer abounding in skill and smiles. In the past decade, she has been nominated five Tony Awards and won twice – and she has only been in six shows! Those are stats that would make Meryl Streep blush.
So get on board the Sutton Foster train; you won’t be disappointed.
What Else …
Not much. I had a bunch of stuff planned, but I’ll save it for next week when I can do a better job. I’ll throw in a few links here so a few people will actually read this post. But until the next reel, hasta luego.
Sam of “Duke and the Movies” premiered his interesting new series, featuring capsule reviews by a variety of bloggers published each Sunday. I’ll throw my hat into the ring this week because I’m back home.
While I wished happy birthday to Daniel Radcliffe from afar on Saturday, Andrew at Encore Entertainment was wishing happy birthday to Philip Seymour Hoffman and did a picture retrospective of his roles. Gosh, that man can act.
Jim Turnbull at “Anomalous Material” counts down the best 10 actor-director combos. It makes me feel bad that A) I haven’t seen a Kurosawa movie and B) James Stewart and Alfred Hitchcock weren’t the chosen combo.
The LAMB Photoshops turning adult films into kiddie flicks are great for a laugh; I highly suggest you click on it.
That’s about it for me. In case you missed my reviews this week, I’ll save you the trouble of a scroll and link here.
When I had the chance to see “Attack the Block” back in May 2011, it had neither a release date in the United States nor a domestic trailer. Its strongest advocates were fanboy-type bloggers on sites like /Film, so I went in with fairly high expectations. Based on the only trailer I could find, which was for its recent release in the United Kingdom, I had the impression that the film was a comedy with some alien butt-kicking added in the mix.
However, when I walked out of the theater (at the end of the movie – it wasn’t THAT bad), none of my preconceived notions held up. It was more of an alien invasion horror movie that had some incidental humor, mainly from an easy and tired source – marijuana. If it was intended to be a comedy, it lost a lot of hilarity on the voyage across the pond. I’ve never been a big fan of British humor, but I’ve always managed to get a few good chuckles out of movies like “Shaun of the Dead” or “Hot Fuzz.” This, on the other hand, provided very little in the way of laughter.
But speaking of the films of Edgar Wright, “Attack the Block” feels like a very belated rip-off of the now famous director’s conventions and style, particularly “Shaun.” Wright isn’t my favorite director, but Joe Cornish’s imitation sure made me appreciate the original even more. His “Attack the Block,” while entertaining and amusing at times, doesn’t come close to replicating the creativity or fun of a Wright film at any point in its short duration.
American audiences in July, however, will see parallels between another film: “Super 8.” Both feature teenagers fighting strange extraterrestrials that threaten their homes and livelihoods. The difference, though, is that “Attack the Block” does not have a visionary director like J.J. Abrams at the helm. Even though Abrams was paying homage to an earlier innovator, a take on Spielberg is inevitably more entertaining than a take on Edgar Wright. To top it off, the teens of “Attack the Block” were just plain vulgar and unsympathetic (juvenile delinquents tend to be like that). Not to sound like a prejudiced American, but their practically unintelligible and profane vernacular just didn’t register with me at all either.
So by all means, in case you haven’t had enough retread this summer, spend your time and money on “Attack the Block.” It’s a redundant movie not only within its own genres, but within the season as well. B- /
It’s entirely possible to agree with a movie’s message but not like the movie itself. Case in point, “Life Above All.” A South African export, the film tells the story of a young girl’s struggle to keep her family together in the face of her young sister’s death and mother’s diagnosis of AIDS, knowing that the prejudices of her village would tear them apart if she fails. It’s a journey of courage, but director Oliver Schmitz find countless ways to devalue it for us by surrounding her journey with average, boring filmmaking.
Had it moved at a quicker pace, not spent so much time on expository details, introduced the characters in a more coherent manner, or put some emotion into the first two acts, the movie could have been a tour de force. Although the AIDS pandemic has begun to die down in the United States, it is still ravaging an Africa where myths about the medical condition still abound. The present day setting of “Life Above All” makes the community’s attitudes, which resemble ’80s televangelists who claimed AIDS was a plague from God, all the more frightening. However, Schmitz never gives the movie the searing universality it needs, instead concentrating too much on the minutiae of South African society.
But alas, I was given so little reason to care that I don’t think the movie deserves my speculation on its could have beens. The story is utterly lacking in the pathos it needs to convey the power of the narrative, and by the end, the worthiness of the effort to read the entire movie in subtitles was dubious. While I can see the value in the protagonist’s crusade for normalcy amidst crisis and the expose of misplaced South African views of AIDS, I sat through the duration of “Life Above All” feeling incredibly nonplussed – and I think impassioned and inspired was what Schmitz was aiming for. C+ /
It’s pretty unfair that “No Strings Attached” was the first sex friends movie of 2011. Simply by the calendar, it automatically made “Friends with Benefits” the other movie, the rip-off that people would avoid on principle. Too bad, as the Natalie Portman-Ashton Kutcher combination is inferior to Justin and Mila’s tryst in just about every way.
Not even judging it against its doppleganger, it still disappoints, falling at the low end of the already low romantic comedy spectrum. Kutcher and Portman have such an awkward chemistry that unfailingly feels fake and manufactured. Their two acting backgrounds – he from “Punk’d” and “Dude, Where’s My Car,” she from working with Luc Besson, Mike Nichols, and Darren Aronofsky (not to mention her Harvard education) – make them a mismatch from the get-go. Their incompatibility makes the inevitability of their relationship’s end just that much more unbearable.
Portman as doctor Emma and Kutcher as TV writer Adam make for strange bedfellows, quite literally. Their relationship hardly qualifies as friendly before having sex, and how they wind up starting their casual affair makes even less sense. Everyone surrounding them is just as brutal, including his father dating an old ex-girlfriend (Kevin Kline), his encouraging friends (Ludacris among others), and her flat and useless colleagues (Greta Gerwig and the very funny Mindy Kaling, undeservedly wasted here). It’s an unfortunate blemish on Portman’s otherwise very impressive résumé, and perhaps the film’s reception will give her more caution in her selection of comedy films from now on. As for Ivan Reitman, the family mojo has clearly shifted to Jason as this is clearly not the same filmmaker who made classic comedies like “Stripes” and “Ghostbusters.”
Turns out you can’t have sex without falling love in an American romantic comedy … who knew?! In case Hollywood hasn’t hammered this into your head enough over the past decade, the studio executives gave you TWO movies this year that literally say it to your face. So if you don’t want reruns of a rerun, choose “Friends with Benefits” because it will actually make you laugh on the way to its predictable conclusion. “No Strings Attached,” on the other hand, will bore you with its unconvincing romance and bland melodrama. C- /
Director Will Gluck has made two hilarious movies in “Easy A” and “Friends with Benefits.” The two share quite a few things in common, but one not-so-flattering similarity I noticed was a slightly unfavorable portrayal of homosexuals. In “Easy A,” Dan Byrd’s gay teen Carter participates in an elaborate subterfuge with Emma Stone’s Olive in order to convince the masses that he is heterosexual. In “Friends with Benefits,” Woody Harrelson’s Vogue editor plays a one-note gay character that is totally defined on screen by his homosexuality. (He does get a slight pass, however, because the character is supposedly based on the president of Screen Gems.)
While I certainly don’t consider Glick a hateful person who would deliberately reinforce negative stereotypes, cinema has seen better, more respectful portrayals. Dwelling on my observations, I couldn’t shake one movie from my mind that handles homosexuality with decency: “In & Out,” Frank Oz’s 1997 comedy. It’s a funny, touching movie that hits on some big issues without every feeling preachy or activist, and as such, it is my pick for the “F.I.LM. of the Week.”
A high concept comedy rooted in reality, namely in imagining the fallout of Tom Hanks’ Oscar acceptance speech for “Philadelphia,” the movie follows small-town professor Howard Brackett (Kevin Kline), unintentionally outed by his Academy Award-winning former pupil (Matt Dillon) … on the week before he is about to marry his longtime girlfriend Emily (Joan Cusack). He expects it all to blow over quickly since his marriage should be proof enough that he is straight. Yet his sexuality is relentlessly scrutinized everyone and is only amplified by the presence of press and the prejudices of the town. Howard is forced to confront the idea that the facade he projects to the world is just that, and Oz finds humor in his self-examination every step of the way.
When watching “In & Out,” you have to remember this came before “The Kids Are All Right,” before “Milk,” and even before “Brokeback Mountain” made gay issues a mainstream conversation topic. It was considered very bold at the time and still retains some of that power today. It’s relevance is due largely in part to its very level-headed perspective, most clearly articulated in its conclusion. Sexuality is not what defines our identities, and this is what I think “Easy A” and “Friends with Benefits” seemed to be missing. Our identity should be defined by our character, and “In & Out” glorifies this to the highest level.
It’s time for a movie to come along that changes the romantic comedy genre for better and for always (or at least reverses the way it’s heading at the present moment). A movie willing to avoid the sappiness and the cliched, predictable genre tropes. A movie willing to be a little bit sneaky and subversive in its delivery of what the audience wants from the genre. A movie that gets to the heart of what the genre is supposed to be – truthful, believable romance with some observations on the tricky thing that is love with some humor sprinkled on top.
“Friends with Benefits” is not that movie, although it desperately wants to be. It gets some points for trying, though. It takes some good pot shots at the genre through the very clever usage of a fake romantic comedy starring Rashida Jones and Jason Segel inside the movie, and levels some very accurate criticism of them that will no doubt have audiences nodding along with Timberlake and Kunis’ sex pals.
But like so many of the recent onslaught of meta movies, it winds up devolving into the very thing it scorns. It wants all the benefits of self-awareness but none of the responsibilities, which here would include being creative and providing an alternative to the laughable aspects of the genre that it constantly lampoons. To use a sports metaphor, it has the swing but not the followthrough. It boldly goes where few romantic comedies will go and then backs away when honesty and ingenuity is asked of it.
However, it’s nice (for once) to see the movies giving us some indication they realize how RIDICULOUS the romantic comedy has become. Even though “Friends with Benefits” eventually subscribes to the formulaic rules of the genre straight from the textbook, I’ll take a movie with squandered potential over one with no potential any day. Not that it makes it any less disappointing, but the movie sort of gives us a wink and a nudge when it crosses over to the dark side. It’s almost as if director Will Gluck (last year’s excellent “Easy A“) is so apologetic for selling out that he all but superimposes the text “I’M SORRY” over the closing scene.
“The Help!” If for no other reason than I’d take Emma Stone over just about anyone right now. Here’s what I wrote about the movie in the August preview post:
It’s entirely possible to agree with a movie’s message but not like the movie itself. Case in point, “
Marshall and the Movies 
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