J-Lo is back, leading us to wonder: Oh, was she gone?
Her latest romantic comedy is, alas, altogether too much like her earlier romantic comedies. My review is here: http://www.theboomermagazine.com/component/content/article/74-movie-reviews/478-the-backup-plan.html
Monday, April 26, 2010
Thursday, April 22, 2010
I don't hate to see 'That Evening Sun' at all
“That Evening Sun” thrives on the unexpected.
Anton Chekhov, who knew something about drama, famously wrote that if we see a gun early in a play, it has to be used later. We see a gun several times early in “That Evening Sun” -- it’s lovingly cleaned and loaded -- and although it does indeed show up later it is not used remotely in the way we think it will be used.
More to the point, the two central characters establish their personalities early but then evolve in ways that surprise and even shock us.
Hal Holbrook justly deserves all the rave reviews he has been receiving for his performance as Abner Meechum, an 80-year-old who tires of life in a stultifying nursing home and decides to go back to his old farm. But when he gets there, he learns it is being rented -- and not just rented, but rented to the drunken no-account redneck Lonzo Choat, played by Ray McKinnon. The two don’t like each other to begin with, and when Meechum takes up squatter’s residence in his own sharecropper’s cabin, their argument only begins to escalate.
Meechum is kind of lovably cantankerous, his face affixed in a permanent frown. He feels he has the right to live on his own property, and frankly, he has a point. Working from a short story by William Gay, writer-director Scott Teems explains the central conflict by saying that Meechum’s lawyer son has the right to rent out the property because he is the trustee of his father’s estate. Someone really ought to take Gay and Teems aside and gently explain just what that means.
McKinnon, who actually has an Oscar (for live-action short), isn’t in Holbrook’s league as an actor, and he doesn’t quite put across the sense of menace his role requires. But we certainly get the idea. More natural in their roles are Carrie Preston (of “True Blood”) as his sympathetic wife and -- despite forcing her Southern accent -- Mia Wasikowska (of “Alice in Wonderland”) as their coltish and kind daughter.
In a cameo, Holbrook’s late wife Dixie Carter plays his character’s late wife.
Behind the camera, Teems has chosen to take a languorous pace, which works both to the film’s benefit and detriment. When it works, it works well -- the little, finely observed details add a sense of place and character. But when it doesn’t work, those same details become an irritating waste of time. They remind us of that recent study showing that in an average football game, only 11 minutes are actually spent playing football. At times, “That Evening Sun” feels like it has the same ratio.
In a similar manner, Teems’ script also both soars and drops with a thud. At its best, the script has Meechum scolding his prevaricating son by saying “I would think not being able to lie convincingly to a jury would be a considerable handicap in your profession.” On the other hand, the same script requires Meechum to give vital exposition to a dog. Twice. And once the dog isn’t even alive.
“That Evening Son” is a small picture with a small budget, big performances and an intriguing story arc. It may drag at times and lack the polish associated with more money, but it certainly won’t be expected.
Incidentally, the title comes from “St. Louis Blues” by the great W.C. Handy. Readers of the review in the Richmond Times-Dispatch may have been surprised to read that it comes from an old song by Jimmie Rodgers. Rodgers was also great, but not genius enough to write “St. Louis Blues”
Anton Chekhov, who knew something about drama, famously wrote that if we see a gun early in a play, it has to be used later. We see a gun several times early in “That Evening Sun” -- it’s lovingly cleaned and loaded -- and although it does indeed show up later it is not used remotely in the way we think it will be used.
More to the point, the two central characters establish their personalities early but then evolve in ways that surprise and even shock us.
Hal Holbrook justly deserves all the rave reviews he has been receiving for his performance as Abner Meechum, an 80-year-old who tires of life in a stultifying nursing home and decides to go back to his old farm. But when he gets there, he learns it is being rented -- and not just rented, but rented to the drunken no-account redneck Lonzo Choat, played by Ray McKinnon. The two don’t like each other to begin with, and when Meechum takes up squatter’s residence in his own sharecropper’s cabin, their argument only begins to escalate.
Meechum is kind of lovably cantankerous, his face affixed in a permanent frown. He feels he has the right to live on his own property, and frankly, he has a point. Working from a short story by William Gay, writer-director Scott Teems explains the central conflict by saying that Meechum’s lawyer son has the right to rent out the property because he is the trustee of his father’s estate. Someone really ought to take Gay and Teems aside and gently explain just what that means.
McKinnon, who actually has an Oscar (for live-action short), isn’t in Holbrook’s league as an actor, and he doesn’t quite put across the sense of menace his role requires. But we certainly get the idea. More natural in their roles are Carrie Preston (of “True Blood”) as his sympathetic wife and -- despite forcing her Southern accent -- Mia Wasikowska (of “Alice in Wonderland”) as their coltish and kind daughter.
In a cameo, Holbrook’s late wife Dixie Carter plays his character’s late wife.
Behind the camera, Teems has chosen to take a languorous pace, which works both to the film’s benefit and detriment. When it works, it works well -- the little, finely observed details add a sense of place and character. But when it doesn’t work, those same details become an irritating waste of time. They remind us of that recent study showing that in an average football game, only 11 minutes are actually spent playing football. At times, “That Evening Sun” feels like it has the same ratio.
In a similar manner, Teems’ script also both soars and drops with a thud. At its best, the script has Meechum scolding his prevaricating son by saying “I would think not being able to lie convincingly to a jury would be a considerable handicap in your profession.” On the other hand, the same script requires Meechum to give vital exposition to a dog. Twice. And once the dog isn’t even alive.
“That Evening Son” is a small picture with a small budget, big performances and an intriguing story arc. It may drag at times and lack the polish associated with more money, but it certainly won’t be expected.
Incidentally, the title comes from “St. Louis Blues” by the great W.C. Handy. Readers of the review in the Richmond Times-Dispatch may have been surprised to read that it comes from an old song by Jimmie Rodgers. Rodgers was also great, but not genius enough to write “St. Louis Blues”
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Geeks rule!
If you don't mind the oh-so-familiar gratuitous use of violence for laughs (and you aren't turned off by a filth-talking 11-year-old girl), "Kick-Ass" is a lot of fun. My review is here: www.theboomermagazine.com/component/content/article/74-movie-reviews/473-kick-ass.html
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Rigor mortis has set in
As a rule, the idea of Hollywood remaking movies from other countries is to make a worthy but obscure film available to a wider audience.
But some films deserve to be obscure.
Exhibit A is “Death at a Funeral,” an ill-conceived farce with a lot of English people in it that has now been turned into an ill-conceived farce with a lot of black Americans in it. Not that race plays a part in this picture’s failure. It is essentially a word-for-word remake of the quickly forgotten original, with maybe a couple of R. Kelly and MC Hammer references thrown in for flavor.
As before -- the original only came out in 2007 -- the idea is to turn what should be a somber funeral into a wild, anything-goes farce. On paper, it might seem like a good idea. But actually showing it on the screen reminds of us the sarcastic old cliché “as funny as a funeral.” And if that isn’t a genuine sarcastic old cliché, it ought to be.
What we get is an hour and a half of lovers bickering, siblings squabbling and parents broadly hinting -- at every conceivable opportunity -- that they would like to see a grandchild or two. And what we especially get is a man (James Marsden in this case) who accidentally ingests a powerful hallucinogen and embarks on a prolonged and defiantly unfunny acid trip.
Chris Rock stars and shares the blame as one of the executive producers. He plays Aaron, perhaps the most normal member of a family that is grieving over the recent death of his father. Aaron tries to hold onto some dignity while everything around him is falling apart in ways that begin as tiresome and then become repetitious.
The problem is not with the cast, which includes such comedy forces as Martin Lawrence, Danny Glover, Loretta Devine, Tracy Morgan, Keith David and Luke Wilson. None can overcome the daunting deficiencies of the script, although Peter Dinklage (the only holdover from the original) manages a couple of amusing reaction shots to an extended humiliation.
That is what we are reduced to here, praising a couple of simple reaction shots. Along with writer Dean Craig, blame director Neil LaBute, whose forte is dialogue-driven, nuanced stories filled with realistic and emotionally brutal interplay between characters, particularly between men and women. In other words, what he is best at is the opposite of “Death at a Funeral.”
This movie is all physical comedy, or the verbal equivalent of it. It lazily looks for the cheapest joke and then uses that as a platform from which to search for an even cheaper joke. Or grosser.
I spent much of the film cringing.
But some films deserve to be obscure.
Exhibit A is “Death at a Funeral,” an ill-conceived farce with a lot of English people in it that has now been turned into an ill-conceived farce with a lot of black Americans in it. Not that race plays a part in this picture’s failure. It is essentially a word-for-word remake of the quickly forgotten original, with maybe a couple of R. Kelly and MC Hammer references thrown in for flavor.
As before -- the original only came out in 2007 -- the idea is to turn what should be a somber funeral into a wild, anything-goes farce. On paper, it might seem like a good idea. But actually showing it on the screen reminds of us the sarcastic old cliché “as funny as a funeral.” And if that isn’t a genuine sarcastic old cliché, it ought to be.
What we get is an hour and a half of lovers bickering, siblings squabbling and parents broadly hinting -- at every conceivable opportunity -- that they would like to see a grandchild or two. And what we especially get is a man (James Marsden in this case) who accidentally ingests a powerful hallucinogen and embarks on a prolonged and defiantly unfunny acid trip.
Chris Rock stars and shares the blame as one of the executive producers. He plays Aaron, perhaps the most normal member of a family that is grieving over the recent death of his father. Aaron tries to hold onto some dignity while everything around him is falling apart in ways that begin as tiresome and then become repetitious.
The problem is not with the cast, which includes such comedy forces as Martin Lawrence, Danny Glover, Loretta Devine, Tracy Morgan, Keith David and Luke Wilson. None can overcome the daunting deficiencies of the script, although Peter Dinklage (the only holdover from the original) manages a couple of amusing reaction shots to an extended humiliation.
That is what we are reduced to here, praising a couple of simple reaction shots. Along with writer Dean Craig, blame director Neil LaBute, whose forte is dialogue-driven, nuanced stories filled with realistic and emotionally brutal interplay between characters, particularly between men and women. In other words, what he is best at is the opposite of “Death at a Funeral.”
This movie is all physical comedy, or the verbal equivalent of it. It lazily looks for the cheapest joke and then uses that as a platform from which to search for an even cheaper joke. Or grosser.
I spent much of the film cringing.
Long Night's Journey Into Date
Note: This review originally appeared at www.theboomermagazine.com
Watching “Date Night” is not dissimilar to being a relatively proficient prospector. You have to sift through a lot of silt, but you find more than a few nuggets of gold.
Of course, with Tina Fey and Steve Carell, you might reasonably be expecting a mother lode. Of all the people in America who learned their craft at The Second City in Chicago and have back-to-back sitcoms Thursday nights on NBC, Fey and Carell are currently two of the funniest.
So it isn’t a surprise that “Date Night” is funny. But it is a little surprising that it isn’t funnier.
Fey and Carell play the Fosters, a couple with kids in the suburbs whose marriage is mired in the mud. They decide to break the routine by going to a tragically chic restaurant where, faced with the prospect of never getting a table, they claim to be another couple who didn’t show for their reservations. A couple of bad guys who apparently haven’t seen “North By Northwest” assume the Fosters are the other couple, shake them down for a MacGuffin and chase them through the streets of New York. Meanwhile, the Fosters have to prove they are who they say they are, find out the identity of the bad guys and bring everyone to justice.
There’s a whole lot of Hitchcock going on here, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it does tend to make the story seem formulaic. That puts the movie’s ultimate success or failure in the hands of the writer (uneven), the director (uneven) and the stars (less even than you might expect).
For a movie with such masters of verbal wit, many of the better jokes are visual. A scene with a sputtering motorboat is a highlight, Fey’s removing her mouth guard is hilariously unsexy (although she looks good in her U.Va. T-shirt) and a running gag about unclosed cabinets sort of works, too.
But writer Josh Klausner doesn’t know when to stop. Too often, he looks for the easiest gag — usually just the name of an intimate body part spoken for no particular reason. And the movie’s big strip-club set piece only makes us cringe in embarrassment; instead of being funny, it just comes across as a cheap and sleazy way to show Fey in a bustier, fishnet stockings and a strip pole.
Director Shawn Levy does little here to improve on his record of mediocrity (including both “Night at the Museum” movies), so the large number of cameos must be due to the attractive wattage of the stars. It’s a good thing, too, because some of the cameos are among the film’s best moments. James Franco and Mila Kunis are particularly fun as the couple who made the original reservations, Mark Wahlberg is humorous but overused as a beefcake deus ex machina and William Fichtner makes the most out of his small part as a D.A.
As is often the case, the ending is solid and provides more of a sense of having been entertained than the rest of the movie warrants. But don’t worry. There are plenty of flakes of gold to be found.
Watching “Date Night” is not dissimilar to being a relatively proficient prospector. You have to sift through a lot of silt, but you find more than a few nuggets of gold.
Of course, with Tina Fey and Steve Carell, you might reasonably be expecting a mother lode. Of all the people in America who learned their craft at The Second City in Chicago and have back-to-back sitcoms Thursday nights on NBC, Fey and Carell are currently two of the funniest.
So it isn’t a surprise that “Date Night” is funny. But it is a little surprising that it isn’t funnier.
Fey and Carell play the Fosters, a couple with kids in the suburbs whose marriage is mired in the mud. They decide to break the routine by going to a tragically chic restaurant where, faced with the prospect of never getting a table, they claim to be another couple who didn’t show for their reservations. A couple of bad guys who apparently haven’t seen “North By Northwest” assume the Fosters are the other couple, shake them down for a MacGuffin and chase them through the streets of New York. Meanwhile, the Fosters have to prove they are who they say they are, find out the identity of the bad guys and bring everyone to justice.
There’s a whole lot of Hitchcock going on here, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it does tend to make the story seem formulaic. That puts the movie’s ultimate success or failure in the hands of the writer (uneven), the director (uneven) and the stars (less even than you might expect).
For a movie with such masters of verbal wit, many of the better jokes are visual. A scene with a sputtering motorboat is a highlight, Fey’s removing her mouth guard is hilariously unsexy (although she looks good in her U.Va. T-shirt) and a running gag about unclosed cabinets sort of works, too.
But writer Josh Klausner doesn’t know when to stop. Too often, he looks for the easiest gag — usually just the name of an intimate body part spoken for no particular reason. And the movie’s big strip-club set piece only makes us cringe in embarrassment; instead of being funny, it just comes across as a cheap and sleazy way to show Fey in a bustier, fishnet stockings and a strip pole.
Director Shawn Levy does little here to improve on his record of mediocrity (including both “Night at the Museum” movies), so the large number of cameos must be due to the attractive wattage of the stars. It’s a good thing, too, because some of the cameos are among the film’s best moments. James Franco and Mila Kunis are particularly fun as the couple who made the original reservations, Mark Wahlberg is humorous but overused as a beefcake deus ex machina and William Fichtner makes the most out of his small part as a D.A.
As is often the case, the ending is solid and provides more of a sense of having been entertained than the rest of the movie warrants. But don’t worry. There are plenty of flakes of gold to be found.
Friday, April 2, 2010
Clash of the "Titanic" -- all hands lost
If the new "Clash of the Titans" is meant to be a guilty pleasure, the filmmakers forgot the pleasure part. Also the guilt. It may be stupid, but at least it is never boring. Although it IS remarkably stupid...
My review is at: http://www.theboomermagazine.com/component/content/article/74-movie-reviews/441-clash-of-the-titans.html
My review is at: http://www.theboomermagazine.com/component/content/article/74-movie-reviews/441-clash-of-the-titans.html
Better than it looks, somewhat
Given a comedy about old friends who get in a hot tub and go back to the ’80s to relive a formative weekend, you could have two possible outcomes — it could be hilarious or it could be terrible.
Meet option No. 3: “Hot Tub Time Machine” is a little of both.
The disparity grows from the screenwriters working from conflicting impulses. Part of the time, they want to contemplate how human potential can go unfulfilled and how our choices determine our fate. The rest of the time, they want to show us bouncing breasts and multiple scenes of urination and projectile vomiting.
The filmmakers often go too far in their efforts to be naughty little R-rated boys. But the scattered funny bits are usually worth the wait.
John Cusack, Craig Robinson and Rob Corddry star as middle-aged men unhappy with their wasted lives; Clark Duke co-stars as Cusack’s nephew, the sort of young man who lives in his uncle’s basement and plays on the computer all day. As a way to cheer up the most depressed of them, the four go to a ski resort where the older men spent some of the happiest days of their youthful lives. But the resort, too, has fallen on hard times. Dispirited, they pile into the hot tub, and suddenly they're back in 1986 again.
At first, the movie aims for the most obvious jokes about the ’80s — the big hair, the bright clothes, the leg warmers and a joke about Michael Jackson that was undoubtedly a whole lot funnier when it was written. But then the story kicks in and the characters realize they have to relive the past exactly as it happened or risk changing everything in the future. The problem is, that particular weekend wasn’t great for any of them.
This scenario has a good deal of promise, particularly if you have seen “Back to the Future” and are willing to appropriate one of the best scenes and one of the major actors (Crispin Glover, mistreated here but weirdly amusing). The problem is, the filmmakers filter their ideas through the modern sieve of gross-out, sex-talk, post-Judd Apatow humor.
Director Steve Pink is the worst offender. Pink, who wrote the superior “Grosse Pointe Blank” (also starring Cusack), doesn’t know which tone to pick. So he picks them all. He allows Corddry to act as if he were in a different movie from the rest of the cast and slams home the physical humor while almost ignoring the funnier character-related verbal jokes.
Usually, the people who make trailers for comedies choose all the best parts, implying that it is the most hilarious film of all time. The trailer for “Hot Tub Time Machine” has no funny parts at all, making you think that it is screechingly awful. As is so often the case with this particular movie, the truth lies somewhere in between.
Meet option No. 3: “Hot Tub Time Machine” is a little of both.
The disparity grows from the screenwriters working from conflicting impulses. Part of the time, they want to contemplate how human potential can go unfulfilled and how our choices determine our fate. The rest of the time, they want to show us bouncing breasts and multiple scenes of urination and projectile vomiting.
The filmmakers often go too far in their efforts to be naughty little R-rated boys. But the scattered funny bits are usually worth the wait.
John Cusack, Craig Robinson and Rob Corddry star as middle-aged men unhappy with their wasted lives; Clark Duke co-stars as Cusack’s nephew, the sort of young man who lives in his uncle’s basement and plays on the computer all day. As a way to cheer up the most depressed of them, the four go to a ski resort where the older men spent some of the happiest days of their youthful lives. But the resort, too, has fallen on hard times. Dispirited, they pile into the hot tub, and suddenly they're back in 1986 again.
At first, the movie aims for the most obvious jokes about the ’80s — the big hair, the bright clothes, the leg warmers and a joke about Michael Jackson that was undoubtedly a whole lot funnier when it was written. But then the story kicks in and the characters realize they have to relive the past exactly as it happened or risk changing everything in the future. The problem is, that particular weekend wasn’t great for any of them.
This scenario has a good deal of promise, particularly if you have seen “Back to the Future” and are willing to appropriate one of the best scenes and one of the major actors (Crispin Glover, mistreated here but weirdly amusing). The problem is, the filmmakers filter their ideas through the modern sieve of gross-out, sex-talk, post-Judd Apatow humor.
Director Steve Pink is the worst offender. Pink, who wrote the superior “Grosse Pointe Blank” (also starring Cusack), doesn’t know which tone to pick. So he picks them all. He allows Corddry to act as if he were in a different movie from the rest of the cast and slams home the physical humor while almost ignoring the funnier character-related verbal jokes.
Usually, the people who make trailers for comedies choose all the best parts, implying that it is the most hilarious film of all time. The trailer for “Hot Tub Time Machine” has no funny parts at all, making you think that it is screechingly awful. As is so often the case with this particular movie, the truth lies somewhere in between.
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