At a time when most of 2010’s heavy hitters and Oscar bait are coming out on DVD, it’s rather nice to get a little breather with this rather charming British comedy. It’s airy, fun, and while there’s a good amount of seriousness to the proceedings, it never comes close to being as grim as, say, The Fighter or Buried, and for that I’m grateful.
The film opens at a writers’ retreat in the English countryside hosted by Beth (Tamsin Greig of Black Books fame) and Nicholas (Roger Allam). They are having some difficulties, such as when they get into an argument over his infidelity in front of their fellow writers (By the way, to all of my married readers out there: if you catch your spouse cheating on you, and they claim that they only did it once and will never do it again, they are lying to you and you should leave them). Still, things remain relatively tranquil in Ewedown until the fateful return of fellow writer Tamara Drewe (Gemma Arterton, doing much better here than she did in Prince of Persia). Tamara had been a bit of an ugly duckling when she had previously lived in town, but now that she’s gotten a nose job and looks all sexy suddenly all the men are desperate to sleep with her, all the women hate her, and neither group takes her seriously intellectually anymore.
There’s a bit more to things than that, but it’s a good deal more fun watching how everything unfolds, and seeing all of the various quirky personalities bouncing off of each other. It’s the type of film you rarely get to see in American cinema, where humor is allowed to flow naturally out of the various characters, without any clumsy setups or forced set pieces that are the bread and butter of American comedies, perhaps because it’s surprisingly hard to make interesting characters by way of executive committee.
Indeed, while the choice to keep things simple and charming may be part of what keeps it from really reaching any great heights, it’s pretty much clever and interesting all the way through. The contrasting styles of the various writers are pretty entertaining (and while this may make me a huge nerd, I did love all the discussion of Thomas Hardy and how he’s so inscrutable that the author writing about him is already two years past his book deadline -- apparently the film is based on a graphic novel that was inspired by a Thomas Hardy novel, but I‘m hardly enough of an expert to say which), and the endless mix of hatred and optimism of the two teen girls whose names I never wrote down is a constant delight. Also, this has nothing to do with comedy, but I would be amiss if I didn’t mention how incredibly attractive Gemma Arterton is. I know I didn’t really like her in Prince of Persia, but really, I didn’t like much of anything about that terrible movie. Here she’s much more lively and interesting, and proves to be much more attractive when everything’s not color adjusted to look varying shades of brown and tan.
I should say that it’s not entirely a comedy, despite how casually amusing the film tends to be. The film does delve into some serious issues, such as Nicholas’s infidelity, and a bit of a relationship wrecking crisis caused by the spiteful mass e-mail sent out by someone pretending to be someone else. Still, for the most part, the serious issues aren’t all that massively serious, and where I’ve seen films where a cheating husband drove the entire film’s plot, here it’s dealt with without dragging things out too much, as the film is far too intent on winning us over than on making us sad.
Director Stephen Frears is pretty much batting 1.000 with me, having made such great movies as High Fidelity, The Queen, and Hero (the best Dustin Hoffman movie nobody seems to have ever seen). This isn’t really one of his best efforts, but I suspect he wouldn’t be able to make a bad movie if he tried. This isn’t one of the most vital films of the year to see, but it’s certainly nicer and more fun than a great deal of those that actually acquired an Academy Award nod.
Rating: ***
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Tamara Drewe
Friday, September 3, 2010
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
So yes, as promised, here is my early choice for 2010’s Best Picture. Now admittedly, it is still pretty early in the year as these things go -- if nothing else, the various film companies don’t start tossing out their Oscar bait until November at the earliest -- but as this has been a remarkably piss-poor year for movies so far, and as I am never shy about championing silly cult movies over Serious Drama, I feel confident that it’s at least going to make my top three for the year. The fact it’s free falling out of theaters only proves my point further somehow. I think. Possibly.
The film stars Michael Cera as Scott Pilgrim, early 20s Canadian slacker and bassist, who has spent over a year in a terrible depression after a terrible break-up, and who now has finally gotten over it by dating a high school girl (Ellen Wong). While this certainly seems like a probable long-term solution, he soon finds himself obsessed with new girl in town Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and quickly moves on to her, only to discover that she has a bit of baggage coming along with her: namely, her seven evil exes that Scott must now defeat if he wishes to win her heart.
It seems like a fairly standard romance plot, yes, but what’s surprising is in how well it blurs the lines between film and comic book and video game. The film is based on the comic book series by Bryan Lee O’Malley (indeed, the film’s only real weakness comes from how rushed it gets at points trying to cram all six graphic novels into less than two hours) and takes quite a few visual clues from its source material. Additionally, since the comic had such a love affair with video games, the movie itself winds up structured like one, with each successive ex introduced like a boss fight, complete with a Street Fighter style Vs. image on screen. Indeed, it even opens up with the intro music for Zelda 3, something that has made me break out into a huge grin each time I’ve watched the movie.
Which is not to say that that’s really all the movie has going for it. Really, it excels in virtually every department. The music is quite well done, which is a plus since a large part of the film involves Scott’s band Sex Bob-Omb engaging in a series of Battle of the Bands. The soundtrack was designed by Beck, who also made all the music for Scott’s band, and roped in Canadian bands like Broken Social Scene and Metric to contribute songs for their competitors, making it, if nothing else, possibly the best movie about music in quite some time.
The cast is also spot on. Michael Cera does a great job adapting his normal nerdy persona into a more multi-functional character that’s nerdy, tough, heroic, and kind of a complete jerk to the girls he dates. His supporting cast also does fine work as well: Ellen Wong is completely heartbreaking at times as his seventeen year old girlfriend that he tosses aside when he finds someone new, and his gay roommate Wallace (Keiran Culkin) straight up steals every scene he’s in. Given how poorly the film did, I doubt co-writer/director Edgar Wright will ever get to make a sequel like he wanted to, but if the stars align enough to get a deal made, I can only hope Wallace is the lead. Winstead also does well enough in a fairly thankless role where she basically has to look adorable and find some way to frequently say bitchy things without actually coming off as unlikable. It’s a tough role, but I think she did pull it off pretty well.
Indeed, as I said before, the only area the film is lacking in is its story. That’s the story, mind you, not the script. The script is mostly wonderful, giving us a ton of great jokes, a fast pace, some nice character moments, and a lot of great action scenes (if you were wondering, yes, in addition to its other qualities this is a much better action movie than The Expendables). Unfortunately, due to its hyper-compressed nature the story largely winds up being outright tossed aside in the second half of the film to make way for all of the fights with the evil exes. This is hardly a crippling flaw, as the first half does such a great job of setting up the ground work, but it would have been nice to have had Scott and Ramona’s romance fleshed out a bit more, or really just more time for the rest of the supporting cast to show themselves off. Especially Wallace.
I suppose I can see how some people would have a problem figuring out how to handle the film, as it really is unlike any other movie ever made, though it may help if I point out that right now, after a couple decades of misfires and complete bombs, we finally have what is not only a good, but is an outright perfect video game movie. Both structurally and stylistically Wright manages to work in all the best parts of video gaming, creating a pretty seamless visual feast. Much like his previous films Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, he manages to simultaneously poke fun at and honor the genre he’s working with (unlike the much more popular film Vampires Suck, which does neither), giving us a movie that all video games fans (most particularly but not exclusively the 8-bit and 16-bit veterans) owe it to themselves to see. None of you will be disappointed, I guarantee you.
Rating: ****
P.S. Next week: Q & A time.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Notorious
Notorious is considered by many to be Hitchcock’s best film from the 40s, and while I can’t quite agree with that in a world where Shadow of a Doubt exists, it’s certainly in his Top 2 from the decade. It’s a bit out of the ordinary for him in that it’s as much a romance as it is a thriller, something I don’t think he really tried again until Marnie (no, Vertigo does not count, and you are wrong for thinking that it might).
The film stars Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant as a young lady whose father was just convicted for being a Nazi spy and the federal agent who brings her in to work undercover and expose further Nazi plots. She falls for him pretty much instantly, but he is unfortunately enough of a company man that when his superiors want her to seduce a Nazi operative in Brazil (Claude Rains, somewhat more visible here than in his most famous role) he all but pushes her into the Nazi’s arms.
It’s an interesting film, both visually and story-wise. Hitchcock shows here that he was ever-improving as a visual artist, almost blending the crazed visuals of Spellbound with the lavish grace of Rebecca (making me kind of want to retroactively knock a star off of my Spellbound review in the process). The acting, something that’s normally a bit touchy with Hitchcock, is in fine form here, with all three leads really going the extra mile to make the film work (indeed, Rains was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his role, losing to a double amputee). The plot feels like one of his 30s spy thrillers strained through the mentality of American brilliance. We’ve got everything you need for a classic movie, from uranium to poisonings to Cary Grant being his usual wonderful bastard self.
I think one of the main benefits of Hitchcock’s career is in how he just made so many, cranking out a movie pretty much every year, that people are able to completely forget about his underwhelming ones like Jamaica Inn or Topaz and just focus on all of his really good ones like this. Compare that with a director like, say, Paul Thomas Anderson, who brings out movies so infrequently that if he ever makes a lousy one it’ll be half a decade before he can try to fix any career damage. I’m not honestly sure where I’m going with this analogy, but I will say that, for however I may grumble about Hitchcock being a bit overrated (seriously, the best director EVER? Come on), I think most directors out there would love to have a movie as good as Notorious on their resume. Though I don’t know how many would be happy to have made such a good movie and then find out the entire thing’s on Youtube.
Rating: *** ½
Friday, July 9, 2010
Rebecca
This was an extremely important film in Hitchcock’s career. It was his first American production, his first nomination for Best Director (out of five, all of which he lost), it was the first and only film of his to be nominated for Best Picture (which won), and Stephen King felt the need to include the novel‘s opening line roughly five hundred times in his novel “Bag of Bones“ (No, King, that didn‘t get old fast at all). Needless to say, it was rather a big deal for him. But how well does it hold up today, you wonder? Well…
First, let’s get with the general story. Joan Fontaine stars as Mrs. de Winter (helpfully listed on IMDB as “The Second Mrs. de Winter” to further twist the knife), the new bride of Maxim de Winter (Laurence Olivier), whose previous wife had died a year before. After moving into his lavish estate Manderley, she finds herself isolated and alone, in a home far too big for her, a husband that’s very emotionally distant, and a staff that’s filled with fond memories of his first wife, Rebecca, that she seems to be trying to replace. The head of the staff in particular, one Mrs. Danvers (Judith Anderson), seems to alternately resent that she would ever want to replace her and want to actively transform Fontaine into the old wife.
I actually almost included ‘ghost’ as one of the tags, as despite there not being an actual literal ghost, the entire location still feels haunted by Rebecca. Not only is the film titled after her (and poor Fontaine, never getting a first name at any point), the whole creepy mansion and the staff seem to bathe in her memory throughout the film. Aside from some of the more light-hearted scenes Hitchcock always puts into his films (that seem a bit out of place here), it captures the gloom of an old gothic tragedy (which is the reason Hitch demanded it be filmed in black and white despite his studio pushing for color), leading inexorably to its tragic ending.
I won’t lie, I was not a big fan of this film when I first saw it back in college. I viewed it in a film class where we were given nothing but melodramas to watch, and it started aggravating me whenever I watched any of them. With a few years’ hindsight, however, and with me no longer needing to watch a new melodrama every damn week, it does work a good deal better, though it does still take quite a while to get going. It’s still far too infused with melodrama to be a truly great film, and I’d disagree strongly with it winning Best Picture (hell, just that very year Hitchcock also made Foreign Correspondent, which I thought was a more consistently good film). Of course, Rebecca is currently ranked as the 97th best film ever made on IMDB, so what do I know?
Rating: ***
P.S. Once again, in lieu of the trailer, someone has helpfully put the entire film up on Youtube. I must admit I’m a bit curious as to how recent I have to get with these films before that trend ceases.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
The Pleasure Garden
So yes, shortly after announcing my grand return to this blog, I wound up leaving for Mississippi for over a month to help clean up the oil spill, during which time I was without easy computer access or, more importantly, any of my movies. The timing could have been better. So, by way of apology to all of you dear readers, for the duration of July (barring any further unexpected road trips) you’ll be getting to enjoy a theme, as we’re rolling out Hitchcock Month for all of you! Every weekday you’ll be getting a new review of an old film by the Master of Suspense, so that we can both benefit: all of you by having twenty or so new reviews to read, and me by having a way of justifying owning so many of his films. While there’s not enough time in a month to review all of his movies, I’ll try to hit all the important ones.
Which brings us to The Pleasure Garden, his directorial debut (aside from a couple uncredited efforts where the studio had him take over for another director partway through filming). The first sign I had that something was awry with this film was in how it’s one of Hitchcock’s only films that has never been released on DVD (at least in the U.S.). Of course, such a problem isn’t enough to stop anyone with an Internet connection these days, and anyone hoping to play along shouldn’t have any real difficulty finding a copy for their computer. Regardless, when the man’s directed over sixty films, and all but a couple are easily purchasable, you get to wondering about the ones that aren’t, and this shows that such concerns are fully justified.
The main word one would describe this with would be “boring”. It plays like a typical silent melodrama, with all the overacting and lack of plot one expects to find in such films. It follows two women that are working at a theater as dancers, giving us the pleasure of seeing what appears to be the same dance routine over and over again throughout the film’s thankfully short running time (IMDB says 75 minutes, though the copy I got runs only an hour, which means it would be an ideal addition to a future Mill Creek collection). One is married, while the other has a boyfriend, and the men both head on out to a Caribbean island for work, leaving the women behind to dance some more. The film does get better at the climax, set on the island when it abruptly switches over into thriller territory by introducing a ghost, a sword, and a gun, but by then it’s too little, too late.
While I tend to not be the most forgiving person imaginable with movies, I do have to say that this is a perfectly forgivable debut effort from the man who would go on to be arguably the most popular director of all time. After all, not only was it his first movie, but the concept of a film being an hour or longer had only existed for a decade by then. Almost everybody was making regrettable early efforts like this, even the wildly popular directors, so I can hardly single Hitchcock out and sneer at him for making a boring movie in the mid-20s. Still, this is a film that only true die-hard fans will want to see, making it a tad awkward to start Hitchcock Month off with this. Ah well, such is life, no?
Rating: * ½
For those interested, by the way, the trailer can be found here.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
The Teacher
I’m somewhat at a loss as to what to categorize this film as. I’m sure as hell not about to create an exploitation tag for it, since that would cover roughly nine-tenths of the films I review. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have nearly enough nudity in it to qualify as porn, and the thriller sequences within it come way too few and far between to allow me to call it that. I guess it’s stuck as a romance then, by default, even if it’s a fairly lame one.
The plot, as one might guess from the title, concerns a hot young teacher that makes it her mission to spark up a romance with one of her muscular students. This is complicated by how irritatingly uncomfortable he gets around her, to the point where we start to assume that he’s holding out for the attentions of one of her male colleagues. There’s also the problem of how, at the start of the movie, he had accidentally killed his close friend (they were fighting for control of a pair of binoculars to spy on the teacher with, and his friend fell off of the factory they were standing on), and his friend’s insane brother now wants to kill him with a bayonet.
Does this all sound like it could have been a good, or at least amusing, movie? It does, honestly, at least to me, but the good bits come few and far between, and what we mostly deal with is a good hour of padding in a 90 minute long movie. What we pretty much get is a long scene of parents talking, then the teacher showing a breast briefly, then a long scene of people walking around and talking, then the crazy brother shows up pointing a bayonet and threatening to kill one character, then another long stretch where nothing happens… The filmmakers clearly had no idea how to make a full feature out of this story, or simply didn’t care enough so long as something interesting happened every ten minutes or so to keep people from leaving the theater or drive-in. It’s a definite letdown after the comparative entertainment that was Pick-Up (its double feature on the first disc), but I’m going to try to remain cautiously – some might say foolishly – optimistic that the rest of the set will yield somewhat better results. And if not, hey, it’s ten bucks for eight movies, can’t go too wrong with that, right?
Rating: *
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Enchanted
As the first ever film I was requested to review for this blog, I have to say that this is quite a charming little film. There is not a single surprise to be found within, and it never manages to reach the high points its betters (like Stardust, for instance) do, but taken for what it is, it doesn’t disappoint.
Even without the Disney logo at the start of the film, anyone could guess which company is at least stylistically responsible for the movie. Starting off in an animated world not unlike Cinderella’s or Sleeping Beauty’s, it focuses on a beautiful maiden named Giselle who, along with the help of her animal friends, is searching for a prince to call her own. Fortunately for her, there just so happens to be a nearby Prince Edward who is looking for a maiden to marry, but unfortunately for them both, his wicked stepmother wants him to remain unmarried forever so that she can retain the power of the throne. Banishing her to the farthest realm she can think of, she’s dumped out into the real world of Times Square, where she is helped by an attractive New Yorker named Robert, who awkwardly already has a girlfriend. Having told you this much, if you can’t figure out where the film ends up, and which character ends up with whom, you should really stop drinking. It’s clouding your mind too much.
There are quite a few clever moments, most notably on Giselle’s second day in New York, when she enlists the aid of the city’s animal population to help her do some housecleaning, and even the roaches pitch in to help. There’s also some good natural chemistry between Amy Adams and Patrick Dempsey, who play Giselle and Robert, and upon which most of the film rests. Unfortunately, Disney is not known for really taking risks with its films, and this attention to standardness keeps the film from achieving the heights that, say, Stardust (to use it as an example again) does. Still, it’s amusing enough, and you’re not likely to walk away from it feeling like you’ve wasted your time. I just wish it could have given me a bit more than it did.
Rating: ** ½
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Notting Hill
So yeah, this is a bit closer to my normal reaction to romantic comedies. This one I had been on the fence about pretty much since it first came out, as I normally like Hugh Grant, and normally don’t like Julia Roberts, and this had gotten generally good, but not stellar, reviews, so I was all afluster as to whether to get it or not. The deciding factor for me was the discovery that Irish comic Dylan Moran also appeared in it, so I felt I had to see it just for him.
Of course, Moran is in a grand one scene at the start of the film, and then is never mentioned again, but bless ‘im, he done good. The rest of the film is tragically taken up by Grant, playing a politely befuddled travel book store owner, and Roberts, playing “the most famous actress in the world”, as they meet, fall instantly in love, and then spend the next hour and a half actively looking for excuses not to be together, while the viewer is given the thankless job of waiting an eternity for them both to figure out they were meant for each other. It’s an exercise in tedium, as we’re expected to feel bad for the poor little rich girl, who, despite having made $15 million on her last film, is really just the saddest one of us all. This is a plot thought up by someone born into wealth, I have no doubt. Of course, we’re also expected to feel sympathetic to her even as she’s being a complete bitch to Grant left and right, and then is discovered to already have a boyfriend (played nicely by Alec Baldwin) when he flies out from America to surprise her. If the genders had been reversed here, it would have been a Lifetime original movie about how men are evil. Like this, it’s somehow expected to be a romance.
It’s not a completely terrible movie, of course, in large part due to the efforts of the supporting cast, whose job it is to keep the humor flowing so we’re not overburdened by the plot. In addition to the aforementioned Moran and Baldwin, we also get some great work by Rhys Ifans as Spike, Grant’s incredibly horrid flatmate, who can be relied upon to say the most inappropriate possible thing at any given moment. He’s a great deal of help, unlike the atrocious music in the film. While most movies tend to have music that fits the scenes, the songs chosen here are just ridiculous, basically acting as a Greek chorus explaining the plot to us while we’re watching. At one point, after getting dumped by her for the fiftieth time, he starts walking all sad-like, and a song starts playing that endlessly repeats the line “Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone”, which of course means it starts immediately raining so we can feel that much sadder for him. Come on now.
Sorry to all the Julia Roberts fans out there, but films like this, where she acts like an incredible bitch and everyone reacts like she’s completely in the right to do so (see also: Erin Brokovich), are not good movies. Sniping at everyone is not being sassy, it is not being all female empowerment, it is being an asshole. No amount of supporting characters can cover up this nonsense.
Rating: * ½
Thursday, December 13, 2007
My Big Fat Greek Wedding
You know, it seems like it was just earlier this week that I was mentioning how I generally dislike romances, and yet here I am giving another one a positive review, and one that also performs the added sin of focusing heavily on ethnic humor. I’m terrified at the thought that I may be turning into a softie in my advanced age. Clearly the only solution is for me to start plowing through some old Julia Roberts movies so I can get my hate on in full.
There’s two main reasons I like this movie. One is that, while it is a funny movie, its humor flows naturally out of the characters, and outside of a few moments here and there (mainly frontloaded into the first few minutes of the film), it doesn’t feel at all forced or awkward. Even all the attention paid to ethnic jokes, which I normally can’t stand, works out fairly well here, though the film still works best when the characters are just allowed to bounce off of each other rather than going out of its way to call attention to how wacky and different Greek people are.
The other reason is how, unlike in most romances, there’s no real major conflict to be had. It’s basically a story of two people meeting, falling in love, and aside from some minor clashes with parents, get married with no troubles. It’s a very refreshing change from most romances, where the characters have to awkwardly turn themselves into crazy people in the third act just to artificially create conflict where none goes naturally. For those of you who only watch horror movies, this is the equivalent of that guy that still refuses to believe anything supernatural is going on even after his girlfriend has started floating and zombies have eaten all the throwaway character. It’s just irritating, and I’m rather grateful this film doesn’t include that nonsense.
If you’re looking for a great film filled with dramatic tension and power, this film is absolutely going to let you down. If, however, you’re just looking for something that’s pleasant and sweet, that’s moderately funny and finishes things off with a happy ending, then by all means, check this out.
Rating: ***
Monday, December 10, 2007
Down With Love
I’m not generally a fan of romances. Part of it is the fact that they generally rely on idiotic plot contrivances without any occasional explosions or brutal murders to keep my interest up, and part of it is that I’m just so bad at keeping anything vaguely resembling a relationship going that I’m left incredibly embittered towards anyone that actually has romance in their lives. With that in mind, it’s really to this film’s credit that I wound up liking it quite a bit.
The film hearkens back to Hollywood’s old Doris Day-Rock Hudson battle of the sexes movies, and stars Renee Zellweger as a young woman in 1962 who’s just written a book on empowering women by rejecting love and behaving more like men, and Ewan McGregor as a famous womanizing journalist determined to bring her down. It exists in one of those delightfully elastic universes where someone can write a book and the entire nation is instantly turned on its head, and where everyone is constantly scheming and permanently ready to throw out a clever retort, and where it’s only natural for a magazine writer to be a major celebrity who rides a helicopter to work.
Of course, romances always have to turn up the contrivances and the false conflicts in the final act, and one of the great successes of this film is how it turns that genre convention on its ear. Zellweger’s big reveal is so divinely over the top insane that it would have done Cobra Commander proud. If anything, the film’s final third is stronger than the rest, an impressive feat for a romance. It manages to retain its hard edge right up to the end credits even when it does get to the more romantic moments. This is a worthy addition to the genre, and should not have been largely ignored as it has.
Rating: ***
Monday, October 22, 2007
City Lights
This is only the second Charlie Chaplin film I’ve seen (the first, by necessity, being The Great Dictator), and while I’ve rather enjoyed both, I’ve yet to see a reason why he’s thought of more fondly than Buster Keaton, who was easily the superior silent comic. That little bit of thoroughly unwarranted snottiness out of the way, let’s get on with this film.
For some reason, Chaplin was afraid to make the transition to sound (The Great Dictator, made in 1940, was his first talking picture), and so City Lights, released about 4 years after the rest of Hollywood have moved on from silent films, still had no dialogue, and only featured audio in the form of music and sound effects. The film’s plot was simplistic enough not to really need any dialogue, so it didn’t really matter (it does open with a politician giving a speech, but his speech is vocalized by a kazoo); instead, we are treated to an almost pastoral series of vignettes, as Chaplin’s famous Tramp character careens into the lives of his town’s various inhabitants, most notably a blind flower girl and an alcoholic millionaire. He plays these scenes alternatingly for light hearted comedic or sentimental value, as romance blooms between him and the flower girl and he undertakes a series of jobs to help her out.
It’s a pleasant enough film, with a nice air of whimsy about it, but the jokes never really build up enough to where it becomes truly hysterical. Still, even if it’s not a great comedy (or romance), it kept my interest and ensured I had a smile on my face the whole way through, and I guess there’s not too much more you can ask for than that.
Rating: ***
