TIMMY'S RANT OF THE DAY

If people put as much time, effort, and care into their MARRIAGES as they put into their gaudy, extravagant, drunken, wasteful WEDDINGS--divorce would be virtually nonexistent.

Idiots--what are you celebrating? You haven't accomplished ANYTHING. Stay together for a couple of years and THEN have a celebration...you've earned it.

And wouldn't it be nice to have that money you blew on a ONE day celebration when it comes time to send your kids to college?

Duh...gee...WE NEVER THOUGHT OF DAT!

DUM DE DUM DE DUM...dat's why were getting divorced now...cuz we never thought dat deeply about ANYTHING!

RACHEL GETTING MARRIED (now playing at home where you may be wishing you HADN'T gotten married)

Rachel Getting Married marks the coming of age of Anne Hathaway as a serious actress, in this down and dirty examination of dysfunctional family dynamics that got her an Oscar nomination for Best Actress. Her cursing is reminiscent of an uncensored George Carlin routine, and she appears topless in a bathtub scene (view partially obscured by arm placement--but hey, I'm just sayin'). Anyway, it's a far cry from The Princess Diaries and all that other G-rated crapola she was in early on.

Hathaway is Kym Buchman--outwardly a spoiled, acid-tongued attention whore (she's from Connecticut, though, so we'll have to give her a pass). Inwardly, she's a young woman dealing with tremendous guilt over a tragic incident she precipitated when she was sixteen. She's the black sheep of the family, on furlough from her latest stint in drug rehab to attend the wedding of her sister, Rachel. And since Kym is clearly the one we're supposed to regard as being screwed-up, it's tempting to marginalize the rest of the family's problems. But mom (Debra Winger) and Rachel (Rosemarie Dewitt) are both in need of some kind of therapy--they're both harboring long-standing, unresolved grief issues--the source of their thinly disguised contempt for Kym. Rachel-- going for her PHD to become a psychologist--ironically reveals herself to be an unrelenting, unforgiving shrew towards Kym for most of the movie. Dad(Bill Irwin) is a well-meaning but inept kind of guy--also crippled emotionally--and the only one who tries to defend Kym.

Upon arrival at the family home, Kim finds that Kieran, (Mather Zickel) a guy she just met at a 12-step meeting, is there to act as best man for the groom. Kym and Kieran immediately slip away to make it with each other, and nothing surprises us about her behavior--given her track record. The film proceeds through an overly long wedding rehearsal dinner, and all the preparations for Rachel's big moment. As the multi-racial assemblage at the dinner (Rachel's betrothed is African-American) is toasting and yukking it up--many trying a bit too hard to come off as hip and clever--Kym delivers a self-deprecating speech, an attempt at humor that falls flat with the group. Despite their pretense of cool, they're a pretty uncharitable bunch.

If you enjoy the banter of childish sibling rivalry, punctuated by lots of F-bombs, as Kym and Rachel try to heap blame and guilt upon each other for past failures and misdeeds--you'll love Rachel Getting Married. (As I've learned from personal observation, this is the way sisters often demonstrate their affection for one another.)

Kym is desperately trying to come to terms with, and to make some sense of her life--and when she draws her mother into the blame game, the cat fur really flies. As tensions mount for her, Kym gets behind the wheel and becomes Lindsay Lohan on acid.

Who's to blame for a young life gone out of control? Bill Irwin gives a stellar performance as the dad, who dotes on Kym too much. Debra Winger--already a legend--doeesn't disappoint as Abby, the estranged mom who is present for the occasion, but not really there.

Bottom line, Rachel Getting Married is about forgiveness, and how pitifully few of us in this world are willing to embrace it.

GRADE: B +

TERMINATOR SALVATION

Going in, I figured this to be a film with plenty of potential to insult my intelligence, (what's left of it) but I'm delighted as duck doo doo to report that IT DIDN'T! I'll explain why in a moment.

Terminator Salvation is the fourth in the Terminator series. I saw the original 1984 film with "Ahnuld," but missed the next two, so I had some catching up to do. Fortunately, the blanks were pretty well filled in so that someone totally unfamiliar with this series could get his bearings early on.

The year is 2018, and the war between the humans and Skynet (the machines) has been raging, with the machines having decimated most of humanity. The likely here-I-come-to-save-the-day hero is John Connor, (Christian Bale) leader of The Resistance. The UNLIKELY co-hero is Marcus Wright, (Sam Worthington) a criminal who is executed in the beginning of the film, but gets resurrected (didn't insult my intelligence) to become Connor's ally in the fight--but not until Connor overcomes serious doubts about the guy. Wright has received an "extreme makeover" courtesy of Skynet, and is now a cyborg--part human and part machine (didn't insult my intelligence). Connor is thinking: Whose side is this dude on? Luckily, though, Wright's heart is still human--which is not lost on Blair Williams, (the exotic Moon Bloodgood) Resistance fighter pilot who recognizes the good in Wright from the get-go. This is where the film makes the case for reverence for ALL life--even if you don't know what category to fit it into.

Skynet has a crapload of human prisoners--they plan to develop a new kind of Terminator using live tissue. It's up to Connor to lead the resistance into a climactic attack on Skyynet's headquarters without killing the captives in the process--even though his orders from headquarters (which he rejects) are to bomb the place to smithereens, no questions asked. I like a movie--no matter what the genre--that deals with philosophical issues, and some of them in Terminator Salvation seem to reflect on the Bush-Cheney regime's handling of the Iraq war. There's the issue of "collateral damage,'' innocent civilians being killed as a result of a war strategy that assumes the end justifies the means. And there's a clear poke at the Bush-Cheney policy of torturing prisoners, when Connor balks at some of the tactics he's asked to use by emphatically stating that if we become just like THEM, what's the point of winning?

Now, here's the part where Terminator Salvation COULD have insulted my intelligence, but didn't. Blair Williams, the fighter pilot, is accosted by a number of men. She's a tough cookie--she gets her licks and her kicks in and puts up a good fight, but the men eventually overpower her. Not like that stupid character Jennifer Garner played in that stupid espionage TV series she was in, where she would routinely kick the crap out of half a dozen men all at once without breaking a sweat. That's cartoon stuff--and I can only think that the writers who try to patronize women in this silly kind of way must be hoping that once their wives or girlfriends see it onscreen they'll be extra nice to them in the bedroom.

Terminator Salvation is like the sensory overload of Christmas morning. The clanking bogeymen on the Skynet side--whether on foot, on wheels, or in the air--are such imaginative creations that you can only sit there with your mouth hanging open. It's a thrill ride of immense creative genius, and if there were ever a prudent reason for strapping moviegoers into their seats--this is it.

The only "huh?" kind of thing I can point out is that the movie is set in the year 2018. That's only nine years from now, and I highly doubt that the machines will be ready to challenge man for dominion over the planet by then. Then again, we've already come out with the "Smart Car," so you never know.

GRADE: A-

SYNECDOCHE NEW YORK (now playing at home where you can watch somebody else's bummer life and be thankful for your own)

In Synecdoche New York (pronounced "sin-ECT-do-kee," it's word play on Schenectady, where some of it's filmed) stage director Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is a man so self-obsessed that he builds a replica of New York City inside a gigantic warehouse in Manhattan, populates it with a multitude of actors, and creates an ongoing and all-consuming performance piece about his own life.

The first thing we learn about Cotard is that he and his family have a morbid fascination with their own feces. And since I'm the one interpreting the metaphors here, I'd say that sets the stage for what follows--his life slowly turning to sh*t. Cotard's artist wife, Adele, (Catherine Keener) absconds to Germany with their young daughter, Olive. Finding his child becomes his initial obsession going forward. He develops bizarre psychosomatic symptoms and his health slowly deteriorates. Through another marriage that produces another daughter, Caden's unrequited love for Hazel, (Samantha Morton) the box office girl, never wanes. Reality mixes with magic realism, as at one point Hazel moves into a house that is literally on fire--smoldering slowly throughout the movie--stating that she hopes the house doesn't do her in.

Caden receives a MacArthur grant and suddenly possesses the means to create his self-indulgent "play," which never opens--it just drones on in endless rehearsal. At one point, one of the actors inquires as to when they might get an audience, noting that it's been seventeen years already. His life becomes the theatre piece...the theatre piece is his life. The serpentine plot continually folds in on itself until finally you give up trying to keep track of where Caden's real life ends and the play begins. Screenwriter/director Charlie Kaufman intimates that since we're all the stars of our own stories in real life, (all the world's a stage) there's really no difference between the two.

The real tragedy of Caden Cotard's life is had he thought about anything but his OWN pain--perhaps empathized with someone else's--the whole thing could have turned around for him. (See "Mother Teresa.")

No synopsis can capture the intangibles that must all hang together to make a film a great work of art: soundtrack, dialogue, and cinematography. But most of all, the ability to connect with the audience at the core emotional level of our common humanity.

Despite its heartbreakingly sad tenor, Synecdoche New York is undeniably a DARK COMEDY. Kaufman (who wrote the screenplay for the quirky Being John Malkovich) understands that comedy stems from pain. That's why so many comics have had really screwed-up childhoods. Kaufman once wrote for TV sitcoms, and going for the laugh (bizarre though it may be) is where his instincts lie. Here, he has assembled an accomplished cast to deliver the goods-- including: Jennifer Jason Leigh, Michelle Williams, Hope Davis, Emily Watson, and Dianne Wiest. Hoffman delivers the bravura performance.

Synecdoche New York is a comedy in the way that the human drama is a comedy--one day we will wake up and comprehend the cosmic joke. It seems that Charlie Kaufman already gets it. And while Caden Cotard may have ultimately failed at creating the masterpiece he intended...Kaufman did not.

GRADE: A

BULLETIN: TOM JONES NO LONGER SPLITTING PANTS ONSTAGE!

Tom Jones, at age 68, says he's no longer going to attempt the same gyrations that used to drive the ladies wild at his live shows. Thinks it would make him look silly. Well, it hasn't "dampened" the enthuiasm of his female fans (who've grown a little older themselves).

Instead of tossing their panties onstage...they're now throwing adult diapers.

ANGELS and DEMONS

The Illuminati (originally called the "Bavarian Illuminati") was a secret society that first appeared in 1776. It was an aggregation of free-thinkers, at odds with the Catholic church and its dogma. They were accused of, among other things, plotting to overthrow the pope and being bent upon world domination (you couldn't fault them for setting their sights too low!) Many believe the Illuminati--in one form or another--exists today, and is the guiding hand behind numerous conspiracies.

In Angels and Demons, the screenplay adapted from Dan Brown's bestselling novel, the Illuminati has apparently resurfaced--in the wake of the current pope's death--and plans to wreak havoc in the Vatican by executing four prominent cardinals--and, for an encore, blow the whole area to kingdom come with some stolen anti-matter. (Look up how anti-matter works...I ain't explaining all that physics razmatazz here!)

Tom Hanks reprises his role (from The Da Vinci Code) as symbologist Robert Langdon, who's summoned by the Vatican to intrepret what the evil-doers next moves are in hopes of preventing a calamity of monumental proportions. Vittoria Vetra, (Ayelet Zurer) a physicist who was experimenting with the anti-matter before it was hijacked, serves as a sidekick--of sorts--to Langdon as he furiously tries to keep pace in a battle of wits with the dastardly dude who is carrying out some decidedly dirty deeds.

Angels and Demons is totally plot driven--nonstop balls-to-the-wall with no real character development, save for that of Langdon. We get some insight into his ambivalence about faith and religion--reflecting the film's ethos as well, as it tries to be even-handed in pointing out the shortcomings of both science and organized religion. But the mystery/thriller genre IS typically plot centered, which isn't all bad as it keeps you on your toes trying to comprehend the significance and meaning of each new development and how it fits into the puzzle, which is an intricate one indeed.

Having said that, I was disappointed that there wasn't ONE scene where Langdon and the comely Vittoria take a breather, reflect on what's happening, and maybe do some subtle flirting with each other. But it ain't happening. She's just window dressing for the plot--a totally wasted and undeveloped character, (in the FILM, at least) inserted only because they had to have a female presence SOMEWHERE in this movie (other than crowd shots, she's the only woman who even APPEARS in this two hour and then some production...and steel yourselves, you lechers, cuz she ain't showing any skin ).

Oft-times the true villain is the one you least suspect. But then, when it's not the one you NOW suspect--formerly the one you DIDN'T suspect--and turns out to be ANOTHER one you didn't suspect, it gives you a giddy feeling of having been ticklishly hoodwinked--even though you realize you're not that smart because you didn't figure it out on your own.

Angels and Demons stretches taut the bounds of believability, but so what else is new? I think the only flick I've seen in recent months that didn't was Last Chance Harvey (see review under the March archive).

GRADE: B

GREETINGS, EARTHLING!

And welcome to my abode. If you're new to The Noodle, may I suggest you begin with "Introduction To Timmy's Noodle," which you'll find in the archive for the month of March. It won't take long to read, and it will give you an idea of how I got from there (little kid in small body) to here (big kid in larger body).

Then, check out "Timmy's Top Ten Of All Time," a list of films that will always be near and dear to my heart. You'll find them in the archive for April. If there's a common thread running through these cinematic gems, (many of which you may not be familiar with) it answers to the word "ROMANTIC." Webster's definition #1: Heroic, adventurous, or mysterious. Definition #2: Marked by expressions of love or affection. You'll find some element of either or both definitions in each of these films. Check them out and discover something new (to you) and wonderful.

And, of course, you'll find passionate reviews of the top movies playing in theatres right now (often part review, part rant--at no extra charge!)

If you leave a comment, I'll check out your site and likely leave a comment there in response...maybe link to your blog...MAYBE put you on my blogroll. Well, let's not get ahead of ourselves...one thing at a time! Become one of my FOLLOWERS and discover that we may not always know where we're going, but we'll have a fun time getting there.

And so, with that...I give you TIMMY'S NOODLE.