Struggling musician Peter, (Jason Segel) who's writing a Dracula musical for puppets, gets dumped by his TV star girlfriend, Sarah (Kristen Bell) as he stands there naked and just out of the shower (unfortunate because, in my experience, if at least one of you is naked, things are usually going pretty well) in this raunchy comedy that will have you--if not laughing--at least smirking most of the way through.
Trying to get Sarah off his mind, Peter beds down with a bevy of acceptably attractive substitutes, but to no avail. He follows Sarah and her new rock star beau, Aldous Snow (played by Russell Brand as an over-the-top parody of your typical chemically addled prima donna rocker) to Hawaii. Peter drinks, follows Sarah around, and feels crappy until he hooks up with the exotic looking Rachel (Mila Kunas) the one woman who has the potential to turn him around.
Forgetting Sarah Marshall is the kind of flick where the actors and crew must have been breaking up and laughing their asses off after each take, and the gag reel that's one of the extras on the DVD is at least as much fun as the film itself. The laughs here aren't the gross-out kind of belly laughs, as in Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle-- they're actually a bit more subtle and, dare we say, on a higher intelluctual plane. Still, there are plenty of F-bombs being tossed around, and there's some full frontal nudity...but it's MALE nudity, so out of disappointment I naturally had to deduct a few points for that.
GRADE: B-
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
THE NOTEBOOK (playing at home where you're ignoring the garbage that's up to the ceiling so you can watch this movie)
James Garner and Gena Rowlands portray the older couple we meet in the beginning for whom the story he reads to her from his notebook--shown in flashbacks to the forties--has some special meaning.
Noah (Ryan Gosling) is a cheeky teenager who courts the stunning Allie (Rachel McAdams) in a way that would be considered stalking by today's standards, but in pre-war America was thought of as the admirable trait of PERSERVERANCE. It's the oft-told poor boy-rich girl tale, and Allie's mom--the classic Mrs. Richbitch that we love to hate--does mean things to try to keep them apart.
The young lovers are separated, and when the war breaks out Allie falls for a wounded enlisted man she meets at the hospital where she's volunteering. He's good looking and, oh yeah, RICH-which makes Allie's material-mom jump for joy. But even as she accepts her new guy's proposal of marriage, Allie thinks fondly of Noah and wonders if she's doing the right thing. Will she take the money and run, or will first love conquer all? We don't find out until right near the end, and that keeps things interesting throughout.
An authentic sense of place--or in this case, era--scores points with me, and The Notebook captures the forties to a T, both visually and musically. From the novel by Nicholas Sparks, the movie contains a surprisingly passionate love scene for a PG-13 rated film (another plus).
However, there are several minutes of surperfluous and anti-climactic stuff at the end, which detracts from what could have been a perfectly poignant ending. Better to leave 'em at the most touching moment and let the audience infer the rest.
GRADE: B +
Noah (Ryan Gosling) is a cheeky teenager who courts the stunning Allie (Rachel McAdams) in a way that would be considered stalking by today's standards, but in pre-war America was thought of as the admirable trait of PERSERVERANCE. It's the oft-told poor boy-rich girl tale, and Allie's mom--the classic Mrs. Richbitch that we love to hate--does mean things to try to keep them apart.
The young lovers are separated, and when the war breaks out Allie falls for a wounded enlisted man she meets at the hospital where she's volunteering. He's good looking and, oh yeah, RICH-which makes Allie's material-mom jump for joy. But even as she accepts her new guy's proposal of marriage, Allie thinks fondly of Noah and wonders if she's doing the right thing. Will she take the money and run, or will first love conquer all? We don't find out until right near the end, and that keeps things interesting throughout.
An authentic sense of place--or in this case, era--scores points with me, and The Notebook captures the forties to a T, both visually and musically. From the novel by Nicholas Sparks, the movie contains a surprisingly passionate love scene for a PG-13 rated film (another plus).
However, there are several minutes of surperfluous and anti-climactic stuff at the end, which detracts from what could have been a perfectly poignant ending. Better to leave 'em at the most touching moment and let the audience infer the rest.
GRADE: B +
Saturday, March 14, 2009
VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA (now playing at home where you can lounge in your funky ripped underwear)
Vicky and Cristina are two sexy young Americans, on the loose in Barcelona for the summer in this Woody Allen offering that explores the "ins and outs" of seduction. Cristina (the lovely Scarlett Johansson) is a free and easy bohemian type, while Vicky (the equally lovely Rebecca Hall) exudes rationality, practicality, and common sense. At least at the beginning.
There are many ways to be seduced, not the least of which is the sound of Spanish guitars in the romantic milieu of Barcelona. Enter the ultra-persuasive Juan Antonio, (Javier Bardem) a smoldering artistic type who, upon meeting the two girls, unabashedly proposes that they join him for a threesome with the line: "Life is short, life is dull, life is full of pain." (Geez, I wish I'd thought of that when I was dating Barbara Jo Wilkerson!)
What ensues is an unpredictable love triangle. The heat is turned up further when Juan Antonio's spooky ex-wife, played convincingly by Penelope Cruz, re-enters the picture and turns the triangle into a quadrangle, with amusing complications.
Allen's dialogue is so distinctively "Woody" that one cannot totally avoid picturing the writer/director mouthing those words instead of his characters, which can really screw with your head when it's one of the beautiful women speaking!
One of the marks of a good movie is that you don't want it to end. I was thoroughly seduced by Vicky Cristina Barcelona, and I bet you will be too.
Cigarette?
Grade: B+
TIMMY'S TIDBITS: Scarlett Johansson had been cast in the 2005 film Thumbsucker --but dropped out before filming started. (Unfortunate...there would have been something quite sexy about watching Scarlett sucking her thumb!)
A Scarlett quote: "I don't think human beings are monogamous by nature."
Penelope Cruz dated Tom Cruise for about three years. (Had they married, she wouldn't have had to change her name.)
Penelope likes to have stray cats around. After filming All The Pretty Horses in 2000, she became a vegetarian.
A Penelope quote: "Sometimes I think I'm an Italian trapped in a Spanish woman's body."
There are many ways to be seduced, not the least of which is the sound of Spanish guitars in the romantic milieu of Barcelona. Enter the ultra-persuasive Juan Antonio, (Javier Bardem) a smoldering artistic type who, upon meeting the two girls, unabashedly proposes that they join him for a threesome with the line: "Life is short, life is dull, life is full of pain." (Geez, I wish I'd thought of that when I was dating Barbara Jo Wilkerson!)
What ensues is an unpredictable love triangle. The heat is turned up further when Juan Antonio's spooky ex-wife, played convincingly by Penelope Cruz, re-enters the picture and turns the triangle into a quadrangle, with amusing complications.
Allen's dialogue is so distinctively "Woody" that one cannot totally avoid picturing the writer/director mouthing those words instead of his characters, which can really screw with your head when it's one of the beautiful women speaking!
One of the marks of a good movie is that you don't want it to end. I was thoroughly seduced by Vicky Cristina Barcelona, and I bet you will be too.
Cigarette?
Grade: B+
TIMMY'S TIDBITS: Scarlett Johansson had been cast in the 2005 film Thumbsucker --but dropped out before filming started. (Unfortunate...there would have been something quite sexy about watching Scarlett sucking her thumb!)
A Scarlett quote: "I don't think human beings are monogamous by nature."
Penelope Cruz dated Tom Cruise for about three years. (Had they married, she wouldn't have had to change her name.)
Penelope likes to have stray cats around. After filming All The Pretty Horses in 2000, she became a vegetarian.
A Penelope quote: "Sometimes I think I'm an Italian trapped in a Spanish woman's body."
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
TAKEN
Liam Neeson, who's sort of an unassuming type in real life, stars as an ex-CIA badass who reluctantly allows his teenage daughter to go to Paris on a lark. She promptly gets abducted by some super sleazy Albanians who kidnap young girls and sell them into the sex-slave trade (and I thought most Albanians were sheep herders--what do I know?)
The daughter (Maggie Grace) is seventeen, but acts more like she's thirteen--just to get the point across to us that she's REALLY innocent.
Dad springs into action and becomes a one man wrecking crew, letting no one get in his way as he punches, kicks, karate chops, and shoots his way through a whole crapload of slimeballs in a feverish crusade to get his little darling back before her virtue is compromised.
It's all way over the top, almost to the point of being cartoonish--and the level of violence here should have earned this PG-13 film an R rating; however, our tolerance for that sort of thing is high. But take any genteel sort of flick, add a few images of the unclothed human body, and you've got an automatic R rating--which just goes to show how twisted our national sensitivities still are.
Having said all that, it's hard to resist rooting for "Super Dad," and this film is a non-stop adrenalin ride with lots of wild smash 'em up car chases, if that's your kind of thing. At the end of the movie I felt like a real badass myself, so I stuck my foot out and tripped an old guy who was shuffling toward the restroom with his walker.
GRADE: C +
The daughter (Maggie Grace) is seventeen, but acts more like she's thirteen--just to get the point across to us that she's REALLY innocent.
Dad springs into action and becomes a one man wrecking crew, letting no one get in his way as he punches, kicks, karate chops, and shoots his way through a whole crapload of slimeballs in a feverish crusade to get his little darling back before her virtue is compromised.
It's all way over the top, almost to the point of being cartoonish--and the level of violence here should have earned this PG-13 film an R rating; however, our tolerance for that sort of thing is high. But take any genteel sort of flick, add a few images of the unclothed human body, and you've got an automatic R rating--which just goes to show how twisted our national sensitivities still are.
Having said all that, it's hard to resist rooting for "Super Dad," and this film is a non-stop adrenalin ride with lots of wild smash 'em up car chases, if that's your kind of thing. At the end of the movie I felt like a real badass myself, so I stuck my foot out and tripped an old guy who was shuffling toward the restroom with his walker.
GRADE: C +
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE
"Slumdog," which swept the major categories at the Academy Awards, fascinates on a number of levels. Is it a drama? Is it a fantasy? Is it a musical?
Yes!
The editing, cinematography, and music (by M.I.A. and A.R. Rahman) all shine. Then there's the fresh-faced cast of unknowns from another land that seems to have captured America's fancy in true Beatle-esque fashion. Then we have the rags-to-riches plot.
Jamal Malik (Dev Patel) is an orphan who, through an improbable twist of fate, finds himself a contestant on India's version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? Through a series of amazing coincidences, he has LIVED the answers to the questions that are being posed to him on the show. (This is where your "willing suspension of disbelief" will come in handy.) The momentum builds as Malik embarks on a harrowing damsel-in-distress search for his childhood friend while running afoul of the smarmy game show host and the authorities who aren't convinced he's legitimately coming up with the correct answers.
The film builds to a fist pumping climax that gave me goose bumps and made me feel the same way I felt the first time I saw Rocky. And frankly, with the current state of the economy and Rush Limbaugh bellowing that he wants Barack Obama to fail, we could use more films like this one that connect us with the indomitable human spirit.
GRADE: A
Yes!
The editing, cinematography, and music (by M.I.A. and A.R. Rahman) all shine. Then there's the fresh-faced cast of unknowns from another land that seems to have captured America's fancy in true Beatle-esque fashion. Then we have the rags-to-riches plot.
Jamal Malik (Dev Patel) is an orphan who, through an improbable twist of fate, finds himself a contestant on India's version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? Through a series of amazing coincidences, he has LIVED the answers to the questions that are being posed to him on the show. (This is where your "willing suspension of disbelief" will come in handy.) The momentum builds as Malik embarks on a harrowing damsel-in-distress search for his childhood friend while running afoul of the smarmy game show host and the authorities who aren't convinced he's legitimately coming up with the correct answers.
The film builds to a fist pumping climax that gave me goose bumps and made me feel the same way I felt the first time I saw Rocky. And frankly, with the current state of the economy and Rush Limbaugh bellowing that he wants Barack Obama to fail, we could use more films like this one that connect us with the indomitable human spirit.
GRADE: A
THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON
Brad Pitt is Benjamin Button, a man who is born as an ugly 80 year old infant and then proceeds to grow younger and much better looking because, after all, it IS Brad Pitt. Trust me, seeing Brad Pitt's head on the body of a midget as Benjamin's metamorphosis unfolds is nearly worth the price of admission.
About two-thirds of the way through, it ocurred to me that this film was hauntingly reminiscent of Forrest Gump. Both Forrest and Benjamin travel around and have lots of unusual experiences; each has a love interest that involves an on again-off again relationship, and both films contain lots of homespun philosophy. I later learned that the screenplay for both films was written by the same guy, (Eric Roth) and high-fived myself for picking up on it before the fact.
The real sweetness of this film revolves around Benjamin's love interest (Cate Blanchett) who sarts the movie as a little girl, aging normally while Benjamin does his bass-ackwards thing, and it becomes evident that at some pivotal moment in time they are going to meet again and become lovers--which just goes to show that, as they say in comedy, timing is everything.
Perhaps what's MOST curious about Benjamin Button is that several people are aware of his reverse aging, but aren't taking great pains to hide it from anyone, so don't you think that sooner or later the feds would get word of it--grab him, and lock him up so they could study him for the rest of his life? But then, there would go your movie. (And if the dog hadn't stopped to pee, he'd have caught the rabbit.) Philosophically speaking, if we all aged backwards, what a world it would be. YOUNG people with all the knowledge and wisdom of a lifetime...actually showing some respect for their elders!
I do believe that had it been a year when "Slumdog Mania" did not exist, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, nominated for a slew of academy awards but only garnering a few relatively minor Oscars, would have scored many more.
Timing is everything.
GRADE: A
About two-thirds of the way through, it ocurred to me that this film was hauntingly reminiscent of Forrest Gump. Both Forrest and Benjamin travel around and have lots of unusual experiences; each has a love interest that involves an on again-off again relationship, and both films contain lots of homespun philosophy. I later learned that the screenplay for both films was written by the same guy, (Eric Roth) and high-fived myself for picking up on it before the fact.
The real sweetness of this film revolves around Benjamin's love interest (Cate Blanchett) who sarts the movie as a little girl, aging normally while Benjamin does his bass-ackwards thing, and it becomes evident that at some pivotal moment in time they are going to meet again and become lovers--which just goes to show that, as they say in comedy, timing is everything.
Perhaps what's MOST curious about Benjamin Button is that several people are aware of his reverse aging, but aren't taking great pains to hide it from anyone, so don't you think that sooner or later the feds would get word of it--grab him, and lock him up so they could study him for the rest of his life? But then, there would go your movie. (And if the dog hadn't stopped to pee, he'd have caught the rabbit.) Philosophically speaking, if we all aged backwards, what a world it would be. YOUNG people with all the knowledge and wisdom of a lifetime...actually showing some respect for their elders!
I do believe that had it been a year when "Slumdog Mania" did not exist, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, nominated for a slew of academy awards but only garnering a few relatively minor Oscars, would have scored many more.
Timing is everything.
GRADE: A
Monday, March 9, 2009
NIGHTS IN RODANTHE (Now playing in front of your filthy beer stained sofa)
Richard Gere and Diane Lane are together again in this romantic drama based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks. Gere is a surgeon who needs to face the family of a woman who died unexpectantly on his operating table. Lane is a mother of two who's trying to decide whether to reunite with her estranged husband.
They meet at a remote bed and breakfast on the North Carolina coast, where each has presumably come to do some soul searching. But they're the only two people in the place, so the get drunk together. What do YOU think is going to happen? (The same thing that's going to happen with ANY random couple in the same situation--even if they have to put bags over each others' heads!) Yet, this supposedly is the formula for the start of a once in a lifetime romance.
Before I saw it, I'd heard that the movie has a crappy ending. That's why I waited for the DVD. Who wants to pay full theatre prices for a crappy ending? But, with an overly melodramatic plot, and unconvincing performances from the two stars, (in the bedroom scene, Lane looks about as turned on as if she were kissing her dog) the disappointment had set in long before the ending. And oh yeah--see if you don't think Richard Gere is looking more and more like Donald Trump with better hair.
Nights in Rodanthe does convey one inspiring message: Don't settle for less when you can (or think you can) have it all.
GRADE: C-
They meet at a remote bed and breakfast on the North Carolina coast, where each has presumably come to do some soul searching. But they're the only two people in the place, so the get drunk together. What do YOU think is going to happen? (The same thing that's going to happen with ANY random couple in the same situation--even if they have to put bags over each others' heads!) Yet, this supposedly is the formula for the start of a once in a lifetime romance.
Before I saw it, I'd heard that the movie has a crappy ending. That's why I waited for the DVD. Who wants to pay full theatre prices for a crappy ending? But, with an overly melodramatic plot, and unconvincing performances from the two stars, (in the bedroom scene, Lane looks about as turned on as if she were kissing her dog) the disappointment had set in long before the ending. And oh yeah--see if you don't think Richard Gere is looking more and more like Donald Trump with better hair.
Nights in Rodanthe does convey one inspiring message: Don't settle for less when you can (or think you can) have it all.
GRADE: C-
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)