I AM (2011)

Unrated

Stars: Tom Shadyac, Bishop Desmond Tutu, Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Coleman Barks

Director: Tom Shadyac

Genre: Documentary

Tom Shadyac was a successful director of mainstream films (The Nutty Professor, Bruce Almighty, Ace Ventura) who lived a successful person's typical lifestyle of having more than he needed: A mansion with more rooms than would ever be occupied, fancy cars, private jets, etc. Not so strangely enough, (to anyone rich or poor with a developed spiritual side) he came to the realization that he was no happier because of it. Then, after a bicycle accident that left his long- term health outlook in jeopardy, he had a shift in consciousness. The proverbial light bulb going off in his head. He stepped back and took an honest look at the futility of a consumerist society addicted to getting more, having more, and keeping up with and surpassing the Joneses--stoked by the planned obsolescence of accelerating advances in technology.

So he headed out with a camera crew of four --bent upon finding the answers to two questions:

What's wrong with our world?

What can we do about it?

The result is his film titled: I AM. In similar style to the 2004 documentary, What The Bleep Do We Know?, Shadyac's movie features interviews with scientists, philosophers, and spiritual leaders-- augmented by animation, and lots of clips of wild animals and wild people. But while both films have a metaphysical bent, I AM is ultimately more down to earth--looking at the practical side of life on our planet, espousing the ideology that human beings were designed to cooperate--for the resulting benefit of all--rather than be in constant competition with one another. We may live in the illusion that we are separate drops of salt spray crashing against the rocks for this briefest of moments, but it reality we belong to the ocean...we ARE the ocean. In other words, we are all connected at a fundamental level. Shadyac interviews the likes of Bishop Desmond Tutu, Dr. Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, and poet Coleman Barks to help illuminate his point.

Indigenous cultures view wanting and having more than we need as a sign of MENTAL ILLNESS. I can't disagree with that. Why would anyone want to have more than they NEED, unless they're planning to spread some of the wealth around? (Like Bill and Melinda Gates!) The answer is obvious. Those mansions on the hill are monuments to vanity and inflated ego.

I AM argues convincingly that if material gain is your primary motivation in life, you are heading down an ultimately disappointing dead end road.

If you resonate with a movie like I AM, then most of what is contained therein will come as no big revelation--so in that sense, Tom Shadyac is preaching to the choir. Nonetheless, this is a truly uplifting film. If you think of it as a steaming pile of woo-woo, you'll probably go right from the theater to purchase that latest Smart Phone on your already maxed-out credit card, honking and flipping off other drivers along the way.

Grade: B +

HORRIBLE BOSSES--2011

Rated: R

Stars: Kevin Spacey, Jason Bateman, Charlie Day, Jason Sudeikis, Jennifer Anniston, Jamie Foxx

Director: Seth Gordon

Genre; Dark Comedy

Jason Bateman, Charlie Day, and Jason Sudeikis are pure devilment together in Horrible Bosses-- a brilliant, snappy, outrageous, sexy, dirty, laugh-out-loud tour de force of a dark comedy that may just be the funniest thing of its kind ever to hit the theater screens! (Okay, so now you wanna know how I REALLY feel about it!)

Nick, (Jason Bateman) Dale, (Charlie Day) and Kurt (Jason Sudeikis) are three hapless wage slave buddies, each working for the boss from hell, and too dependent upon their jobs to quit, so they grin and bear it--just like most poor working schmucks in the real world. That is, until they hatch a plot to do away with all three of their nemeses.

Kevin Spacey is Dave Harken-- an anal, obnoxious, disingenuous authoritarian who jerks Nick around like a marionette. Across town, Kurt's boss bites the big one, and his cocaine addled son (Colin Farrel) is now calling the shots. And Dale is a dental assistant working for the sexually aggressive--okay, she's downright predatory--Dr. Julia Harris (Jennifer Anniston).

The fun begins when our three bumbling Musketeers start breaking into their boss's homes to gather incriminating information. A chain reaction of events is triggered, and somebody does end up dead, but it doesn't go down the way we're expecting.

The laughs in Horrible Bosses are rapid fire, and the other patrons at the showing I attended were cackling all the way through the un-politically correct hijinks--as most people will do in a darkened theatre where they can't be identified and pressured to make some silly public apology about something they said...or found amusing.

And while any sense of plausibility is thrown out the window early on, and you have to roll with that if you're going to get into the spirit of things--I did find it TOO RIDICULOUS to believe that Dale--as a red-blooded American male-- would staunchly resist the advances of a scantily clad, lewd and lascivious JENNIFER ANNISTON--even if he is engaged! The "dentist who wants to get drilled" represents a stunning departure for the former queen of PG-13 romantic comedy, but I think it's a good one for Anniston, who is finally showing us she's all grown up at age 41!

Kevin Spacey is utterly convincing as an over the top A-hole, and Jamie Foxx garners guffaws as a "hit man" named Motherfu**** Jones.

Everything came together for this one--the writing, the pacing, the acting--making Horrible Bosses one that will go down in the annals in the same class as The Hangover!

Grade: A

TIMMY'S OVERLOOKED GEMS AND CURIOSITIES # 2

BREEZY--1973

Rated: R

Stars: William Holden, Kay Lenz, Roger C. Carmel

Director: Clint Eastwood

Genre: Romantic Drama

ASSESSMENT: CURIOSITY

One of Clint Eastwood's largely forgotten directorial efforts, Breezy is a cultural time capsule--a sweet little May-December romance with undertones of Hollywood's dismissive attitude toward the hippie counterculture of the day.

Kay Lenz is the free-spirited "Breezy," and as the nickname would suggest, the opening scene finds her trying to tiptoe out the door on some dude she's just spent the night with, giving us the first of numerous T&A shots that she will benevolently bestow upon us throughout the film. (Reminding us poor silicone-bombarded lads of the twenty-first century how beautiful a woman's NATURAL breasts can be when they don't look like two identical over-inflated party balloons!)

While hitchhiking, Breezy gets picked up by this perv guy who broad brushes the whole counter culture movement of the sixties and early seventies as a bunch of "hippie-dippies,"

while simultaneously trying to put the moves on her. She has to bail on the guy, and ends up outside the Laurel Canyon digs of real estate agent Frank Harmon (William Holden). Frank is initially stand-offish to her--he's gone through a devastating divorce, and anyway, as he notes in one scene, he's twice her age. An understatement because Holden was 55 in 1973, (and actually looked over sixty) and Kay Lenz was 20, playing a character who is ostensibly 18 or 19.

Anyway, she keeps coming back, hanging around, and slipping in and out of her duds in front of him to take a shower and stuff-- in that cavalier manner that chicks had back then (oh, for the good old days) and before you know it--convention be damned-- they've got a thang goin' on.

But Breezy is not what she seems. What she really wants is romance, commitment... and hey, Frank's upscale lifestyle wouldn't hurt either. What Frank wants is to enjoy her favors for a time, and then remind himself of what a foolish old goat he is to think that this preposterous affair could last. And that, of course, leads to the bittersweet part of Breezy .

On the surface, Kay Lenz and William Holden may have been the oddest of Hollywood's odd-couple pairings, but there was a chemistry there that seemed to work, nonetheless--especially in their sweetly erotic candle-lit bedroom scene-- giving (false) hope to all the aging lechers who still maintained hopes they might snag a wayward young thing of easy virtue like Breezy, who would be just as arbitrary about her choice of rutting mates. (Not to be confused, amidst all the election talk, with running mates.)

The acting was nothing special--Kay Lenz was still honing her skills at this point--and Holden's performance is one-dimensional, but fitting in with the overall quality of what we were accustomed to in those days because most of the actors were "acting." No directors like Jim Jarmusch around at the time. (Remember how wooden the performances seemed in those movies from the forties and fifties? It got a little better in the sixties, but still pretty spotty until the likes of Dustin Hoffman came along.)

Breezy, which could best be described as an adult style fairy tale, gets the nod as a curiosity-- sort of an anti-Easy Rider of its era, where the free-spirited flower child stands out as an oddity because she's surrounded by some real squares. Nonetheless, it's an interesting film, if for nothing else than the jaundiced-eyed snapshot of an era it presents.

With some original music by Michele Legrand.

TIMMY'S OVERLOOKED GEMS AND CURIOSITIES

DON JUAN De MARCO--1994

Rated: PG-13

Stars: Marlon Brando, Johnny Depp, Faye Dunaway

Director: Jeremy Leven

Genre: Drama/romance

Assessment: GEM!

Any movie that can lift you out of the hypnotic, auto-pilot state of your everyday existence and show you a world where there is greater depth of living and loving, and do it in a thoroughly captivating manner, is one that I will rave about! Don Juan DeMarco is such a film.

A young man (Johnny Depp) wearing a cape and a mask is convinced that he is the legendary Don Juan, "the world's greatest lover." He has made love to over fifteen hundred women. But he ends up in a psychiatric hospital following an apparent suicide attempt because the only woman he has ever really love has rejected him. He is under the care of Dr. Jack Mickler, (Marlon Brando) who is under pressure to start medicating the guy because the dude is obviously delusional. But not so fast...the patient regales his psychiatrist with tales of growing up in Mexico, where he made love for the first time at age 16, avenged his father's death in a sword fight, and later ended up in an Arabian sultan's harem where he took on a "service" oriented role.

Fascinated by the young man's sincerity, (as he charms the pants off of the female employees of the facility) Mickler falls under his patient's spell, and comes to believe that he may actually be who he claims to be.

Don Juan tells his doctor that there are only four questions in life:

What is sacred?

Of what is the spirit made?

What is worth living for?

What is worth dying for?

The answer to each of these questions is: "ONLY LOVE."

The tail begins to wag the dog, and Dr. Mickler soon finds his spirit rejuvenated. He goes home to his wife, Marilyn, (Faye Dunaway) and says: "We've surrendered our lives to the momentum of mediocrity. What happened to the celestial fire that used to light our way?"

He also says: "GODDAMN, YOU'RE A GREAT BROAD, REALLY!" This is classic Brando, so reminiscent of his character in Last Tango In Paris that I wondered if there wasn't some subtle tongue-in-cheek parody of that role going on here, especially when he takes a piece of gum out of his mouth and disposes of it, another deja vu moment from the aforementioned film. (Am I the only one who notices these things?) Or maybe it's just that Marlon Brando, with all his idiosyncrasies, could never truly be anything other than himself. (Even in his blimped- out state of 300 pounds, or whatever he was for this movie.)

Don Juan DeMarco got a PG-13 rating when it came out, but there are as many bare naked ladies flitting about (and delightfully so) as there were in Eyes Wide Shut! Probably would have received an R by today's standards.

In the end, the fundamental question of Don Juan DeMarco isn't whether Depp's character really is who he thinks he is--but rather, are any of us really who WE think we are?

MIDNIGHT IN PARIS--2011

Rated: PG-13

Stars: Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams, Marion Cotillard, Michael Sheen, Kathy Bates

Written and directed by Woody Allen

Genre: Romantic comedy

It's all about finding one's place.

Gil, (Owen Wilson) a Hollywood "hack" screenwriter who aspires to be a novelist, has come to Paris with his fiancee and her parents. The parents are on a business trip. His material girl, Inez, (Rachel McAdams) is all about shopping. Gil--an incurable romantic--has a fantasy about living in the City of Light during the golden age of the twenties, where he could rub elbows with the legendary artists and writers of the Lost Generation. He talks about chucking Hollywood and moving to Paris. Neither Inez--who thinks he's gone off the deep end-- nor her stuffy parents, understand him.

Gil ends up walking the streets alone at night, and at the stroke of midnight, a vintage Peugeot pulls up and he is ushered into the vehicle to join a group of revelers inside. In short order it becomes apparent that he has entered a time warp, as he in turn meets F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Picasso, and a host of other literary and artistic figures. He even gets the opportunity to have his novel-in-progress critiqued by Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates). Then there is Adriana, (Marion Cotillard) an alluring flapper who may be stealing his heart.

Midnight In Paris is peppered with Woody Allen's trademark philosophical musings about life and death, as it meanders through the winding streets of the city and of time--arriving at a small, yet comforting epiphany (if you've spent most of your life wondering why life isn't very satisfying) about why it's imperative for us to BE HERE NOW.

A charmingly quirky movie, Midnight In Paris is much like the Parisians themselves. They won't wear white tennis sneakers on the city streets, as if that were some kind of major fashion gaffe, but then, they don't mind if you bring your dog into the cafe and let him sit at the table with you while you dine.

Sometimes finding one's place is as much about finding one's place in time as it is anything else. Midnight In Paris is time well spent with a bunch of fascinating characters who spring to life from the pages of history.

Grade: B +

BRIDESMAIDS--2011

Rated: R

Stars: Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Rose Byrne, Chris O'Dowd, Melissa McCarthy

Director: Paul Feig

Genre: Comedy

For Hollywood these days, gross-out translates to gross receipts at the box office. And every gross-out comedy appears to be trying to outdo the previous one. Even if the story line is halfway believable, the rules of this one-upmanship dictate that certain scenes have to be played over the top silly, outrageous, or cringe-worthy--because it's a contest, you see. What's remarkable about the Judd Apatow produced Bridesmaids is that it's a chick flick, written by women, but pulling no punches when it comes to raunch and bodily excretions emerging at inopportune times. Men have always secretly known (or probably hoped) that women were just as gutter-mouthed and sex minded as we are. Now we have Bridesmaids as exhibit "A."

There's no denying that the movie is bust-a-gut funny. The opening grabs you right off the bat, (think Kama-Sutra) and it's a wild ride from there on out. But some of the scenes play like over the top sketches from Saturday Night Live, where two of the film's stars-- Kristen Wiig (also the co-writer) and Maya Rudolph--cut their chops. The trouble with that is that from a believability standpoint, these movies are like musicals, where people are talking and going about their mundane lives--when suddenly an unseen orchestra starts playing and the characters break into song in the middle of some smelly garbage dump. Then everything reverts back to normal and we're not supposed to notice that something implausible has just occurred. Beneath it all, though, there's a sweet little story about feelings of inadequacy, jealousy, and the true nature of friendship.

Annie (Kristen Wiig) and Lillian (Maya Rudolph) are best friends from way back. Lillian announces that she's getting married and wants Annie to be her maid of honor. But subsequent events bring out the worst in Annie. She's in a superficial sex-buddy relationship with this superficial dude (Jon Hamm) who, as they're lying there in bed, says stuff like, "I want you to leave but I don't know how to say it without sounding like a dick."

So maybe, underneath her outward expression of joy for Lillian, Annie is jealous of what her friend has. That jealousy rears its head in a bigtime rivalry (and spoof on the stereotypical cattiness of women) with Helen, (Rose Bryne) the groom's wealthy sister who is financing the lavish wedding and all its preparations. Annie is incensed that Helen is trying to claim best friend status with Lillian, and each tries to one up the other in a scene where they are mouthing platitudes to the lucky couple into a microphone...on and on and on...because each of them wants to have the last word. This scene (unlike most of the movie, thankfully) leaves one cringing and feeling embarrassed for both of them.

Annie reveals herself as mentally unstable when she gets boozed up and goes berserk on a plane flight, and gets hauled in by the authorities after an unscheduled landing, in what is the funniest scene in the film. But the next shot shows her driving down the highway, apparently turned loose with just a slap on the wrist for behavior that, in the real world, would get anyone in BIG time trouble. Reminds me a little of Sandra Bullock's character in All About Steve, who is obsessed with this news reporter and stalks him all over the country...and in the end we're supposed to believe she's not a psychopath--just misunderstood.

I guess I'd be remiss if I didn't describe some of the gross-out stuff, so you can decide for yourself if Bridesmaids is for you: The entourage of gals who will be maids at the wedding get struck by some apparent food poisoning. While one of them hangs her head over the toilet, another hops butt first onto the sink to gain some relief. Another gal rushes in and barfs on the hair of the one who is stationed over the toilet. Lillian runs out of a shop, desperately trying to find an unoccupied rest room. She doesn't make it, and has to take a dump right in the middle of the street--in the expensive wedding gown she was trying on.

ALL THIS AND A MUSICAL CAMEO BY WILSON PHILLIPS TO BOOT!

Bridesmaids also disturbingly reminds a practical-minded guy like myself of how delusional people are--spending obscene amounts of money on an event which last for a few hours--as if they've accomplished something, when they haven't proven anything to the world yet about making it work over the long haul. Stay together for a couple years, THEN have a big celebration.

You've earned it.

GRADE : B (I'd be a traitor to my gender if I rated a chick flick any higher!)

BLUE VALENTINE--2010

Rated: R

Stars: Michelle Williams, Ryan Gosling

Director: Derek Cianfrance

Genre: drama/romance

When Dean (Ryan Gosling) and Cindy (Michelle Williams) first meet, they are a couple of rather likable young adults. Cute kids, as it were. She is playful, with a wicked sense of humor. He's the sensitive type, who has a soft spot in his heart for old people and children. What happens to them in Blue Valentine is an all too common tale (told in an uncommon manner) of relationships struggling to survive, in a world where the rules have changed since the days of 2.3 kids and a house with a white picket fence being the ideal. The film hops, skips, and jumps around in non-linear fashion, so we alternately see the hopeful beginnings of Dean and Cindy's relationship juxtaposed with what they have become today, which is akin to the last minutes of the Titanic treading water.

They have a young daughter who is Dean's pride and joy. And he's good with her. Perhaps he should use some of that charm on his wife, who, as each of them approaches middle-age, has gained weight and doesn't like sex anymore (at least not with him). When people tie the knot, they awaken to the stark reality of who the other person REALLY is...and things that they may have glossed over in their initial romantic haze begin to stick out like a sore bum. But give Dean credit for trying to rekindle the spark, when he sets up a "romantic" weekend at one of those cheesy love hotels. He tries to make it work with her in a steamy shower scene, which only serves to illustrate the depths of Cindy's sexual ennui.

The plot of Blue Valentine never points directly to the root cause of their marital discord, other than the old saw that familiarity breeds contempt. Dean is a high school dropout with a menial job. Cindy tells him that he has no ambition. Maybe because of this, he drinks and smokes too much. It's amazing how a sensitive man can seem just the opposite when he shows up at his wife's workplace, careening in a drunken daze and picking a fight with her boss. (A truly wild scene!)

Cindy was a tad promiscuous in her youth, and when she informs Dean that she's pregnant, he asks her if it's his. She doesn't know. She says probably not. He takes it in stride because he loves her. Years later. she runs into the truly unlikable guy who probably is the real dad, and she's uncomfortable talking with him. Is there something still there? Cindy's dad was a butthole, and they say girls grow up looking for their fathers, so maybe she's more attracted to the bad guys. Not an uncommon thing. Maybe you'll get a different impression. That's what's intriguing about Blue Valentine. It's open to interpretation.

Good, and often times raw performances from the two leads. Michelle Williams gives us a double whammy--she's a true talent AND she's willing to do about any kind of raunchy scene just short of hardcore in her movies. In the old days, it was just the up and coming actresses who would do that--trying to get noticed and make a name for themselves. But now, more and more established talents--like Marisa Tomei and Anne Hathaway--are willing to "give their all for their art." Whether it's for the sake of gritty realism--or, in Tomei's case--just to explore her exhibitionistic tendencies as she did in The Wrestler.

The growing number of celebrity sex tapes out there are laying (pardon the pun) the groundwork for established actors to someday do the real thing in a serious film. When that happens, the last vestiges of let's pretend will be stripped away, and films will be as real life as anything you can imagine. And we'll shrug our shoulders, because the envelope keeps getting pushed farther and farther in the name of the almighty dollar.

GRADE: B +