comedy

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July 4, 2009

Zack and Miri Make a Porno

Posted by Jordan Richardson under 2008, comedy, entertainment, movies, romance, trailers | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |
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Kevin Smith’s second film to leave the View Askewniverse is 2008’s Zack and Miri Make a Porno, a bland and stupid romantic comedy with little going for it. The movie, allegedly greenlit by The Weinstein Company on the basis of its title alone, features much of what Smith fans find entertaining. There’s plenty of profanity, sex discussion, and “witty” pop culture references to pepper the dialogue ad nauseam.

For the most part, however, it simply seems like Smith is trying too hard. The writing never comes across as natural and the characters, for all of their supposed working-class charm, never seem believable or the least bit likeable. The title characters had overstayed their welcome by about the ten-minute mark, while the supporting characters offer little beyond Smith’s normal menagerie of stereotypes and cardboard cut-outs.

Seth Rogen stars as Zack and Elizabeth Banks is Miri. The two are roommates, having been friends since first grade, and they’re facing stacks of unpaid bills and rough times. With a high school reunion upcoming, the pair agrees to go on the basis of getting drunk and/or getting laid. While at the reunion, Miri meets a former schoolmate named Bobby Long (Brandon Routh) while Zack subsequently meets Bobby’s boyfriend, gay porn star Brandon St. Randy (Justin Long).

After a pair of interesting conversations, Zack and Miri head home to find out that the power has been cut. Frustrated, they go to a bar where they come up with an idea to make an adult film to generate some cash to pay their bills. They gather a group of acquaintances, including Zack’s co-worker Delaney (Craig Robinson), Deacon (Jeff Anderson), and a few actors and actresses game for making a porno. The film outlines the ups and downs of putting together the movie until a romantic plot is woven in and further complicates matters between Zack and Miri. Jason Mewes, Traci Lords, and Katie Morgan co-star.

Smith’s movie attempts to be a working-class comedy, using filth as a sort of rationale to prop up the loose, rushed love story towards the conclusion of the picture. Unfortunately the build is cheesy and Smith’s use of one particular song by the band Live comes across as one of the most ridiculous and lame moments on film in 2008. The entire structure of the picture and the supposed romance feels off for a number of reasons.

For starters, it’s tough to care about the characters. They are foul-mouthed, rude, obnoxious jerks. There is no reason to feel bad about their economic situation, as we’re made well aware that they blow all of their available funds on sex toys. They consistently whine and mumble haphazardly about how lame they are, only to come back with this veiled sense of superiority that becomes really annoying to take. Smith’s dialogue sounds pretentious and ultimately hollow, leaving room only for a slew of F-words and raunchy sex jokes that seem designed exclusively for offense and have nothing to do with character, plot, or anything else.

The performances are average, too. I’ve yet to become a fan of Rogen and haven’t found him all that great as a lead actor. He’s perfectly acceptable in a supporting role, as he was funny in Superbad, but I don’t feel he can carry a picture. Banks is only slightly better and her ability to go toe-to-toe in raunch with Rogen is admirable, but she simply fails to make her character believable or likeable in any fashion. As such, it’s hard to care much about the pair when they’re forced together by Smith’s heavy-handed writing.

Zack and Miri Make a Porno is a disappointing romantic comedy that relies far too much on the same repetitious “adult” humour and raunch. It sneaks the love story in the back door (ha!) and attempts to pull a fast one in elongating the plot by developing a “problem” for the “couple” to go through at the last minute that could have been easily solved with another two seconds of conversation. If Smith isn’t willing to put in the effort to make his filmic relationship work, why should anyone else?

2.1/10

Trailer (Red Band Trailer):

 

June 27, 2009

Sanjuro

Posted by Jordan Richardson under 1962, action, adventure, comedy, entertainment, foreign, historical, movies, trailers | Tags: , , , , , , , , , |
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Akira Kurosawa’s 1962 film Sanjuro is a tremendously enjoyable action-comedy led by a terrific performance (as usual) by Toshirō Mifune and a whole lot of clever fun. The movie is the sequel to 1961’s Yojimbo, a Kurosawa classic that starred Mifune as a wandering nameless ronin. Yojimbo was reflective of the early “Man with No Name” storylines, offering up a sort of antihero without a clear identity to step into a problem situation, solve it, and head on his merry way.

Sanjuro picks up our nomadic ronin (Mifune) in interesting fashion. In essence, Mifune’s character simply appears out of a side room during a critical opening scene in which a group of samurai discuss corruption in their clan. Kurosawa’s tale is based on Shūgorō Yamamoto’s short story Peaceful Days and deals with concepts of youthful exuberance as relates to patience and cleverness.

As the story unfolds, we start to learn that these nine young samurai misunderstand who the real mastermind behind the corruption is. They act hastily and are often saved by this mysterious ronin who has arrived to help them. The young samurai are divided as to what they think of this character, often electing to go about their own plans to discover the source of corruption and rescue the chamberlain (Yûnosuke Itô).

Along the way, there is a rescue of the chamberlain’s cheerfully unaware wife (Takako Irie) and daughter (Reiko Dan) that changes the entire dynamic of the crew thanks to their feminine influences. The two women take issue with the ronin’s use of violence to solve problems, for instance, and suggest an alternative to the traditional “burning down the house” signal that results in one of the movie’s funniest conversations.

Sanjuro is one of Kurosawa’s escapist films. It brims with vigour, clocks in at slightly over 90 minutes, and races with a brisk, oft-hilarious pace. Mifune makes everything work accordingly thanks to his captivating portrayal of the nameless ronin. His expressions are timeless, his energy is contagious, and his knack for napping while the nine samurai race around makes for some seriously funny sequences.

Kurosawa shoots his film flawlessly, as expected, and is effortlessly captures the geometry and beauty of various segments with glee. Kurosawa seems to take divine pleasure in shooting the formation of young samurai as they sit in a straight row and juxtaposing that with Mifune’s ronin as he slumps, snoozes, and slurs through the picture. It’s a compelling portrait of social order meeting, well, a guy who does whatever the hell he wants.

The music is especially noteworthy, too. Provided by Masaru Satô, there are some truly interesting and unique moments throughout the film’s score. When the nine samurai celebrate a certain breakthrough along with a captured enemy, for instance, the Satô offers bright horns playing a jaunty tune that certainly doesn’t belong in such a period piece. Other places feature extravagant, rolling strings while more understated pieces punctuate the film’s important moments.

Sanjuro is interesting not only because of its accessibility but because of its forceful juxtaposition and extravagance. When the ronin takes on the film’s final battle against Hanbei (Tatsuya Nakadai), there is an explosion of sudden bloodshed and violence that the rest of the movie lacked. Is this a symbol of some sort? What is Kurosawa illustrating about the violence at this point and time? Mifune’s ronin is not celebratory. Instead he suggests that he and his adversary are alike, telling the samurai that “the best sword stays in its sheath.” Indeed.

9.8/10

Trailer:

 

June 22, 2009

Fight Back to School

Posted by Jordan Richardson under 1991, action, comedy, crime, entertainment, foreign, movies, trailers | Tags: , , , , , , , , , |
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As a superstar of Hong Kong entertainment, Stephen Chow is the master of mo-lei-tau comedy. Mo-lei-tau can be translated to mean “with no source” or “makes no sense.” Chow, typical for mo-lei-tau comedy, uses a lot of double entendres, puns, and nonsensical parodies and contrasts in his films. If you’ve seen Kung Fu Hustle or Shaolin Soccer, you have a rough idea as to what mo lei tau can be.

But for a real sense of Chow using mo-lei-tau to a more understanding target audience, you need to dig back further in Chow’s career. That’s where 1991’s Fight Back to School comes in. A nonsense comedy in just about every sense of the word, Fight Back to School can be a little tricky at first. In Hong Kong, however, it was extremely popular and spawned two sequels and a spin-off.

Directed by Gordon Chan, Fight Back to School is one of Chow’s more successful films. He stars as Star Chow, a cop about to be kicked off the force. Luckily the police commissioner (Barry Wong) gives him one last chance after he loses his gun. The clues to the gun’s whereabouts lead to the Edinburgh High School in Hong Kong, so it’s up to Star Chow to go undercover as a student to find the thing.

Star is partnered with Uncle Tat (Ng Man-Tat), an aging police detective already stationed at the school. The mission is further complicated by the usual trappings of high school, but luckily Star Chow makes a friend in Turtle Wong (Gabriel Wong) and falls in love with the school’s guidance counsellor Miss Ho (Sharla Cheung). Once a gang involved in arms-dealing is discovered in the school, it’s up to Star Chow and Uncle Tat to spring into action.

The slapstick is really the top selling point for Fight Back to School. There’s not much point in ruminating about the plot or its details, nor is there any real character development or great script to speak of. Fight Back to School is simply a very zany comedy, done up Hong Kong-style with a little touch of action and gunplay to help wrap up the plot’s loose ends (somewhat) during the final frames.

Chow is entertaining as Star Chow, as you’d probably expect. His command of slapstick is very amusing, from battling with flying chalk erasers to attempting to play hero during the movie’s final action sequence. Chow as Chow is convincing, too, and his facial expressions help give us a sense of who he is without unnecessary monologues or “why me?” speeches. Instead, Chow’s proof is in the pudding and his interactions with the other characters tell us all we need to know.

Fans of Hong Kong cinema, especially some of Jackie Chan’s stuff, will catch a lot of the parodies in Fight Back to School. The opening sequence is lifted from Chan’s bizarre Sammo Hung-directed Heart of Dragon, while another scene owes a lot to Police Story. The entire premise of the picture is based somewhat on 1987’s Hiding Out, a comedy about a stock broker hiding out in a high school.

For a real sense of mo-lei-tau and a great look at the master of the nonsense comedy genre in Hong Kong, Fight Back to School is the best place to start. It is fast-paced, hilarious, oft-perplexing, and out-and-out silly like a Looney Tunes cartoon. It’s a great precursor to the hilariously awesome Kung Fu Hustle, too, and demonstrates why Stephen Chow is so popular in Hong Kong.

7.6/10

Trailer: (sorry, no subtitles):

 

June 17, 2009

Husbands and Wives

Posted by Jordan Richardson under 1992, comedy, drama, entertainment, movies, trailers | Tags: , , , , , , , , |
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Husbands and Wives is one of Woody Allen’s most fascinating pieces of work. A deeply engrossing documentary-style motion picture that examines marriage via two couples, this is a film as much about the process of keeping a marriage going as it is about the process of finding love in the first place. Allen dissects marriage brutally at times, offering a very cynical point of view that later floats on wings of hope.

Allen’s personal life hit the rocks as soon as Husbands and Wives was released in 1992, so there’s a lot of interesting subtext to look for here. Allen seems to make some discoveries along the way that might have helped him out, but part of the tragic lining of the movie is reflected in the director’s own choices. It doesn’t help matters that Allen also stars.

Our story revolves around two couples, both of which have been married for a long time. The first couple is Jack (Sydney Pollack) and Sally (Judy Davis). Jack is a businessman and is often out of town. They consider themselves to be very intellectual and very reasonable, although events throughout the movie reveal different sides to this perception. They are friends with the other couple in the story, Gabe (Allen) and his wife Judy (Mia Farrow). Gabe is an English professor at college and Judy works at a magazine with Sally.

Husbands and Wives opens with an event shot in frantic documentary style that sets the whole ball of wax rolling straight down hill and over everything in sight. Jack and Sally are splitting up and they approach the issue with such matter-of-factness that it disturbs Judy. She begins to question her relationship with Gabe, who in turn is drawn to a young student (Juliette Lewis). Judy becomes infatuated with a co-worker (Liam Neeson), but sets him up with the newly-available Sally anyways.

The magic to this film comes with watching the couples surround each other and weave in and out of each other’s lives. The combinations are endless, with each character meeting new love or finding love to be ultimately fleeting due to a variety of circumstances. While such a description might seem vague, Husbands and Wives is the sort of broad picture that teems with infinite possibilities.

Allen’s point about the durability of the featured “rational” relationships is not subtle. He removes certainty with consistency, telling us that the most “sensible” couples can often be the most fragile. If Jack and Sally can break up and face disaster, who’s really safe? The way the relationship disaster threatens Judy and takes her down with the ship is fascinating stuff to watch.

In the ultimate deconstruction, Husbands and Wives becomes more about self and less about relationships. It is about why we pursue what we pursue and the belief that relationships, especially those of the characters in the movie, are based on the desire to have the needs of the self met before meeting the needs of, well, the other. The failure comes not as the result of miscommunication or elemental disaster, but as the result of natural human selfishness.

The performances are terrific, especially that of Sydney Pollack. His ability to convey that sense of selfishness and absorption in the meeting of his desires is compelling, especially when his new relationship comes apart at the seams and undoes his limitations. Neeson does a nice turn here too, playing perhaps the only decent guy in the whole film.

Allen’s Husbands and Wives is one of his most fascinating character studies. His analysis of relationships as compartments of needs and conceptions of self might ring true to many viewers. Luckily, Allen doesn’t leave us wanting in terms of hope. The final frames of the picture are beautiful, with a sense of hope lining the screen with elegance.

9.1/10

Trailer:

 

June 16, 2009

Manhattan Murder Mystery

Posted by Jordan Richardson under 1993, comedy, crime, entertainment, movies, mystery | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |
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Woody Allen’s 1993 film Manhattan Murder Mystery is a fun sort of gumshoe detective movie with a nice twist about marital bliss and showing interest in your significant other’s, well, interests. The screenplay for Manhattan Murder Mystery started out as the screenplay to Annie Hall. Woody felt the piece was a little too lightweight, however, and wound up shelving it for a few years.

Allen’s life was in turmoil during this period, as he was engaged in the stuff of tabloids on an almost daily basis. This comedic mystery was a way for him to unwind and concentrate on something less serious. It is a light comedy, for certain, with plenty of laughs and quick-witted lines and even a touch of physical comedy. It is also very sweet, especially towards the conclusion of the film, as the characters begin to find their places in life again.

Diane Keaton stars as Carol Lipton and Allen is her husband Larry. They meet their neighbours, Paul (Jerry Adler) and Lillian (Lynn Cohen) House. Paul bores Larry with his stamp collection, while Carol is happy to meet some new people in the building. After a night out on the town, Larry and Carol come back to find that Lillian has suffered a heart attack and died.

Through a series of prompts and pushes thanks to their friend Ted (Alan Alda), Carol becomes obsessed with the idea that Paul killed his wife. She soon drags Larry into it as well and they take to solving the mystery themselves. This leads them into some interesting situations and sheds light on the reality of their relationship, especially illuminating Ted’s interest in Carol and Larry’s interest in Marcia Fox (Anjelica Huston).

Keaton and Allen are essentially reprising their roles from Annie Hall, which works to an extent. Allen is still neurotic and paranoid, while Keaton is still holding it down in the balance and brimming with energy and pluck. They work well off of one another, thanks in large part due to their natural chemistry, and the movie soon becomes a game of egging one another on to seek out the eerie results of this murder mystery.

Manhattan Murder Mystery works as a nice return to comedy for Allen after doing a string of dramatic pieces. Allen’s work shooting Manhattan is impeccable, as usual, and the city streets become characters of their own. It is interesting how he utilizes the concept of space and proximity to drive the story, as the Lipton’s propinquity to their neighbours sets up a sort of “window to the soul” that makes Carol all the more curious as to what happens.

Along with being a film about neighbours and late night suspicions, this is a movie about marriage. Allen’s Larry joins with Carol in her suspicion only after he determines he is losing her to Ted. He loves her and she loves him, but they haven’t done anything exciting in years and Carol fears that they are drifting apart and into a pair of “old shoes.” This turns out to be the driving force behind Larry’s involvement with her in solving the mystery.

Manhattan Murder Mystery is fun stuff, that’s for sure. It’s an enjoyable romp and, while it seems to escape Allen’s grasp during some sequences and bends a little too much to solve the “mystery,” it’s still a great time and far better than most modern comedies. The performances are top-notch, the chemistry between Allen and Keaton can’t be beat, and the shots of Manhattan are beautiful.

7.9/10

 

June 13, 2009

Me You Them

Posted by Jordan Richardson under 2000, comedy, drama, entertainment, foreign, movies, romance | Tags: , , , , , , , , |
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Andrucha Waddington’s 2000 Brazilian film, Me You Them, is a careful piece of sex comedy that works because of the obvious compassion Waddington has for the characters. In Hollywood’s hands, the project would look completely different and, I daresay, completely unnatural. As it is, there’s something to the flow of Me You Them that is utterly intoxicating.

Instead of simply placing characters into a situation and letting them pantomime their way through it, Waddington’s picture develops the situation slowly and with care. It is set in a poor, arid village in Brazil with a shrinking water supply and lots of red dirt. Poverty is the norm, yet the people get by on their passions and on hitting up the local bar for dancing, drinking, and more drinking.

Regina Casé is Darlene. She is average-looking, which is comforting and accessible, and endlessly determined. As Roger Ebert puts it, “She has big teeth, she wipes her hands on her dress, she can work in the fields all day, and if she takes you to her bed, you’ll have your work cut out for you.” Establishing her character is vital, as Darlene really has everything to do with how and why this little story happens in the first place.

We first meet Darlene when she’s expecting a child and set to marry the father. In her wedding dress, she’s left at the “altar” with no husband. Darlene returns and finds her grandmother dead. She also discovers Osias (Lima Duarte) offering her a proposition. If she marries him, she can move in with him. Darlene has nowhere else to stay and is with child, so she takes him up on it and our story begins.

Now, Osias is a bit of a lazy ass. He lays in his hammock all day long, fiddling and fussing with his radio. He assigns Darlene to care for the goats and to go to work in the fields, so she does. A second child arrives, darker than expected, and there is some unspoken suspicion about paternity. Nevermind. Soon another man drifts into the picture. He is Zezinho (Stenio Garcia) and he is Osias’ cousin. He is kind, so Darlene takes to him instantly and they have an affair.

Zezinho moves in and cooks for Osias and sleeps with Darlene. Osias may or may not be aware of this, but nothing seems to disturb his hammock’d existence. Another baby arrives and it’s Zezinho’s and again there is some unspoken suspicion about paternity. Nevermind. Soon enough another man (Luiz Carlos Vasconcelos) drifts into the picture, moves in, and so forth.

Apparently this weird sex romp is based on a true story. It could be based on a thousand true stories. The beauty in it comes as Darlene is fully in control of these three men in her own way, owing in part to the subtle attractiveness she possesses and in part to her natural mothering instincts. She is a mother and a lover and a worker and a drinker and even a fighter to these three men. She owns them.

There are swirling complexities to the relationships here, but Waddington keeps things remarkably pure and simple. There are currents of polyamorous living and even a thread of positivity towards polygamy, but who the hell really cares? The end result is ultimate happiness and, without spoiling the picture totally, these characters reach it on their own terms with their own desires for control, sex, and food met entirely.

The movie is marvellously acted, beautifully shot, and tenderly paced. It isn’t a typical farce; it isn’t guided by music or whirling camera shots to evoke emotion. The purity comes from the characters and the situation, as it should. Me You Them is a nice surprise and Casé, a television presenter akin to Oprah in Brazil, is fun to watch as the dominant female.

7.4/10

 

June 1, 2009

Marley & Me

Posted by Jordan Richardson under 2008, comedy, drama, entertainment, family, movies, trailers | Tags: , , , , , , , , |
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Setting a record for the largest Christmas Day opening ever, 2008’s Marley & Me milks every ounce of sentimentality from the predictable formula and turns out a bland, largely uninteresting effort. The film, directed by David Frankel (The Devil Wears Prada), is based on the memoir of the same name by John Grogan. The book became a bestseller due to its portrayal of Marley, the mischievous but lovable dog.

Frankel’s picture takes the book and folds it into a basic dramedy for the whole family, although there really isn’t a lot here that will be of interest for younger children. I was surprised at just how much Marley & Me resembled a drama procedural, much like Terms of Endearment, and focused more on scenes of conversation and figuring things out and less on scenes of action and comic situations. It is difficult to establish a purpose to the narrative after a while.

Owen Wilson stars as Grogan and Jennifer Aniston stars as his wife Jenny. We are introduced to the young couple as they move from Michigan to Florida. They’re journalists and Jenny possesses more talent, so she gets the plum job right out of the gate. John has to slog away writing obits and mundane two-paragraph articles. Jenny wants to be a mother, so John suggests the next best thing and they get a dog. They pick out a yellow lab and name it Marley.

The dog is, of course, incorrigible. We know that it is incorrigible because it, well, acts like a dog without much training. There is an attempt to train the dog c/o Katherine Hepburn’s embarrassing dog trainer, but Marley is expelled from class and is subsequently dubbed the World’s Worst Dog. John is dissatisfied at work but is soon offered a twice-weekly column by his boss (Alan Arkin). He takes it and begins to write about his adventures with Marley and about life.

We join the Grogans as they go through everything with Marley. They eventually have kids, too, and the family moves to a larger home where Marley can swim in the pool. There is nothing particularly unique about the Grogans, other than their propensity to lead a particularly good life with swimming pools, big houses, and lots of space for their dog to run around. John and Jenny have spats over the kids and career moves, adding even more normalcy to what could essentially have carried out on the small screen without much of a fuss.

Much has been made of the final frames of Marley & Me. It is true that most stories about dogs and people end in similar ways, but Frankel tacks on an ending so ripe with manipulative drivel and extended weepiness that it becomes hard to watch with a straight face. The film’s misdirection prevents any actual real emotion from pouring out in the end, save from those who’ve been there before with a family pet.

For a movie based on the concept of a rambunctious and lovable dog, Marley & Me lacks both rambunctiousness and heart. There is simply no energy to this project and the formulaic approach sucks any potential for life right out of it. The musical manipulation is in full gear, with light pitter-patter telling us when we should laugh and long string intakes telling us when something sad/bad is going to happen. It’s all very heavy-handed.

The actors do nothing to lend interest to the story. There’s little here beyond a sort of dramatic sitcom, with Aniston and Wilson carrying out featherweight confrontations with over-rehearsed flaccidity. The movie just hangs there, waiting to be snipped, and there’s nothing of consequence to provide any remembrance of the whole procedure after the end credits roll. It is overlong, dreary, and dry.

1.6/10

Trailer:

 

May 30, 2009

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Posted by Jordan Richardson under 1987, comedy, drama, entertainment, movies, trailers | Tags: , , , , , , , , |
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John Hughes marked a shift away from the teen comedy genre that had been his bread and butter with films like Sixteen Candles and Pretty in Pink when he sat in the director’s chair on 1984’s Planes, Trains and Automobiles. The great thing about Hughes’ pictures is that he always insists on casting human characters. There are no stereotypes, no bland “good-looking” role players to chew the scenery, and no character that remains out of reach. With Planes, Trains and Automobiles, the audience can relate to every single irritating and heart-warming moment.

The match-up looks fantastic in terms of comic excellence: John Candy and Steve Martin. Martin was just coming off of Roxanne, a charming but average romantic comedy that the comedian actually wrote. Candy, meanwhile, was in Mel Brooks’ Spaceballs and was developing a reputation as a bumbling but lovable film idiot. The pairing was genius, with Martin’s wry and witty humour going toe-to-toe against Candy’s softer nature.

Martin is Neal, a sharp and sophisticated Chicago ad man with everything together. He has a lovely home, a great family, and a well-paying job. He wears suits and probably plays golf on weekends, sharply applying the greater interests of his bosses while tossing a chuckle and a wink here and there. Neal is self-confident, too, and knows how he wants to live. One gets the sense that he doesn’t like surprises.

Candy is Del, a travelling salesperson. To say he is a polar opposite of Neal wouldn’t be giving him enough credit. Del is talkative and large. He gleefully imposes his presence on others, saddling up with a laugh or a smile. Del is a treat, but he can be an annoying treat with no awareness of other people’s limits. He is the chatty, portly gentleman that you find saying “Hi!” in the men’s room or talking your ear off on the plane. He is genuine.

Del and Neal happen to be in Manhattan for a few days on business prior to Thanksgiving and both want to get home for the holidays. The trouble begins they find their destinies joined over an innocent mistake involving a taxi in the city (watch for a young Kevin Bacon racing Martin’s character for the cab). Del and Neal wind up in the same airport and miss the same flight, so Del decides that he must make it his personal mission to help Neal get home.

This mission leads down a windy road, to say the least, as Del’s efforts to help Neal wind up hurting him and Thanksgiving at home in Chicago with the family begins to look like it’s not going to happen. Flights are cancelled, cars don’t quite work out as viable transportation, and the train doesn’t do the trick either. Every mode of transportation the title suggests winds up failing these two men, but not as much as they fail one another.

Hughes’ movie could’ve easily taken the lethargic slapstick route and formulated a production about odd couple shenanigans. He could have developed a deep disdain for the two characters, pitting one against the other in the ultimate Thanksgiving battle royal. The beauty is that Hughes didn’t take that path, instead choosing to tell a story about compassion. Neal and Del never give up on one another and they learn what it is like to be in another man’s shoes. Their efforts come from the best of intentions and the film becomes more about what can go wrong, even with those intentions, and less about what these two can do to one another. It is not an antagonistic picture in the least.

Built on this lovable core of empathy is a riotous comedy picture. Planes, Trains and Automobiles features countless moments of pure comedic bliss, including Neal’s symphonic use of the “f-word” and Edie McClurg’s classic response, and a stirring moment of heading the wrong way on the highway in the middle of the night. As a comedy, it still eclipses most modern comedies. But when one considers the core of compassion and character within, too, Planes, Trains and Automobiles becomes a true classic.

9.1/10

Trailer:

 

May 29, 2009

Sex and the City

Posted by Jordan Richardson under 2008, comedy, drama, entertainment, movies, romance, trailers | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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The feature film version of HBO’s Sex and the City certainly knows its target audience. Those obsessed with designer labels, catty conversations about sex and relationships, and musically cued “romantic” sequences will probably enjoy most of this 145 minute comedy. The rest of us, however, are better served watching something else entirely.

The HBO show ran for six seasons, concluding in 2004. Based on Candice Bushnell’s book, Sex and the City followed four women around New York City and examined their relationships with one another and with men. Interestingly, the show was created by Beverly Hills, 90210 creator Darren Star. Sex and the City served as a sort of examination of how the big city impacted the lives of aging professional women, presenting their lives as couched in obsession with fashion and sexuality.

The show largely contributed to the basic trend on television today: representing affluent main characters dealing with life’s issues while enjoying the finer things. The movie picks up with similar themes and often feels like one enormous commercial, with countless designer product shots tucked between the constant whining and moping.

Sarah Jessica Parker stars as Carrie Bradshaw. She’s generally considered the leader of the pack and she’s also the narrator of the film. She writes a column for the newspaper and is also selling books about relationships, all the while as a member of New York’s elite crowd due to her fashion sense. I’m not exactly a fashion conscious guy, but I found it hard to believe that Carrie’s outfits were at all intended to be taken seriously.

We meet Carrie three years after the show’s finale. She’s with Big (Chris Noth) and they’re moving in together. They decide to get married, too, and Carrie rushes off to tell her friends. Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) is trying to balance her life with a family like most normal women do day after day, but she’s finding it difficult because it’s hard to schedule lunches in top-notch restaurants and see the kid or have sex with the husband (David Eigenberg). Life is hard, dudes and dudettes.

Samantha (Kim Cattrall) lives in Los Angeles with an actor (Jason Lewis), visiting her friends in New York every chance she gets. She is discovering that she is not having her needs met and realizes that there is no greater love in life than to love one’s self. Charlotte (Kristin Davis) lives with her husband (Evan Handler) and generally has a good life until she must come to Carrie’s rescue after Big has second thoughts just before the wedding. The remainder of the movie finds the four women coming to terms with what has happened and with their unsatisfying lives.

Sex and the City effectively and efficiently strips all humanity out of who women are supposed to be, replacing them instead with clichéd emotions and strange, selfish obsessions. It is compelling to have characters with flaws because they make life interesting, but SATC delivers characters with such precision that even the attempts at darker moments are entrenched in this blatant materialism. It’s hard to find a single relatable character, save for Jennifer Hudson as a completely unnecessary “assistant.”

These are simple caricatures and this is a simple film. There is no substance, no feeling, no sensitivity, no darkness, no depth. The Sex and the City quartet exists not to empower women or embolden a frank discussion of sex amongst females; these women exist to be stereotypes. They are abrasive, monotonous, and ultimately dreadful. The movie, however, makes no attempts at doing anything beyond celebrating the insipid archetypes created by an overrated, indulgent HBO trend.

1.1/10

Trailer:

 

May 23, 2009

The Princess Diaries

Posted by Jordan Richardson under 2001, comedy, entertainment, family, movies, trailers | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , |
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princess diaries

Without Anne Hathaway, The Princess Diaries is not worth seeing. There, I said it. Regular readers of this blog will know full well of my adoration for Hathaway, with her glowing charisma and dazzling looks proving simply hypnotic on the big screen. That she will be playing Judy Garland in an upcoming motion picture is no accident of casting. It is destiny.

2001’s The Princess Diaries, however, is formulaic Disney drivel. It is the screen adaptation of Meg Cabot’s 2000 novel of the same name, but the Disneyfied approach to the source material is confusing, muddled, and shockingly outdated. While there’s no question that most Disney projects are years behind the culture curve, The Princess Diaries proves to be outmoded before it even gets out of the gate. While Cabot’s novel offered depth and complexity, Disney’s Garry Marshall directed project fails on just about every front.

Hathaway stars as Mia Thermopolis. She’s an ugly, awkward, shy 15-year-old living in San Francisco. We know she’s a dork because she wears glasses and has bushy eyebrows, but it’s as hard to buy Hathaway as the social outcast as it is to buy Scarlett Johansson as the “ugly sister” in The Other Boleyn Girl. Mia lives with her mother (Caroline Goodall) and cat. The cat, for whatever reason, is given varying amounts of screen time by virtue of it being, well, a cat.

Mia’s life has all the trappings of the stereotypical awkward teenager. She is unpopular, of course, but has a couple of truly close friends in Lilly (Heather Matarazzo) and Lilly’s brother Michael (Robert Schwartzman). Incidentally, Michael has a crush on Mia. Mia is also teased by school bullies, with Lana (Mandy Moore) usually leading the charge.

One day everything changes for Mia when she learns that her grandmother (Julie Andrews) is coming to visit her for tea. Grandma is visiting from the fictional country of Genovia and she drops a bomb on Mia. It turns out that Mia’s recently deceased father was the crown prince of Genovia and that Mia is in line to be princess. Mia is taken aback, naturally, but her grandmother assures her that she’ll turn her into a princess in no time so that she can accept the tiara. Events follow that highlight Mia’s physical transformation into someone more “princess-like” and everything is wrapped up in true Disney fashion.

The Princess Diaries continues to perpetuate the awful Disney philosophy as pertains to looks. Mia must transform her appearance in order to become the princess, of course, and due to the transformation she becomes an entirely different person. Cabot’s novel, conversely, tells it a different way: Mia becomes more uneasy with herself after the makeover.

The way Mia’s character approaches her friends is perplexing. There is very little romantic connection between her and Michael, for instance, and it is hard to buy them as a reasonable “couple” once it pieces together in the end. Schwartzman has the charisma of a fly stuck in Jell-O. Lilly is transformed quite far from the context of the novel, too, and this creates some problems that could have been solved with a stricter editing hand on the film. Mia and Lilly have a few arguments, with one of them based around Mia’s sudden makeover. Lilly is very upset about this when she first sees it, but we aren’t quite sure why.

Those are but logical points, of course, and this is a Garry Marshall film. He’s the guy that glamorized prostitution in Pretty Woman, after all, so anything’s possible when you have the right look. The Princess Diaries could have been done well and provided a solid adaptation of Cabot’s book had it gone with a little more character complexity. Hathaway’s character is hard to follow, for instance, as she simply reacts differently to each situation. She is shy to the point of vomiting in school, but upon seeing her grandmother she becomes a clumsy, slightly obnoxious teenager complete with “shut up” catchphrase.

With a paint-by-numbers flick like this, however, it’s difficult to get hung up on the logistics. This is, after all, a cued, choreographed nightmare of Disney’s epic proportions. It’s hard to believe Disney is capable of producing truly groundbreaking cinema anymore, in point of fact, when 99% of their output seems dedicated to offerings like this and the shockingly superior Hannah Montana franchise. Disney, with a once-stellar record of storytelling and animation, used to be reliable. Now, if not for Pixar, it’s just a dead mouse.

2.6/10

Trailer:

 

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