Irreviews

Zoe Kazan has a brilliant solution to the complete lack of dignified, quality roles for women in films: write your own movie with a quality female role for yourself to star in. And while you’re at it, line up awesome directors skilled enough to shoot the film in a way that makes you look off-the-charts adorable. All I can say is, Brava Zoe! Just keep doing what you’re doing, and please don’t ever appear in a teen vampire movie or in any film with a title resembling “Spider-Man Reboot Part 15.”

Ruby Sparks is a nice little film, and Zoe Kazan is really effective in the title role. I enjoyed it, but felt that its charms were a tad shallow, and in the last analysis the film failed to make any significant impression on me. It struck me as a somewhat clever idea, but its execution was a little flat and rather unfocused. Even among films in current release, it totally pales in comparison to something emotionally similar like Safety Not Guaranteed, for example.

Part of the problem was casting Paul Dano, who is a flat, cold fish, with far too little presence to inhabit this kind of role effectively. He reminded me of Finch (a.k.a. “Shit-Break”) in American Pie, definitely not a good thing. I didn’t even believe that he was a writer, let alone a world-famous genius writer. But the screenplay is at fault as well. The failure to connect emotionally with Dano’s character stems primarily from his poor development in the script – indeed, his character never grows or changes, and his psychology is murky and uncompelling. This in turn hamstrings the film’s rather limited attempts to explore the relationship between psychology and creativity. In addition, there are all these supporting characters floating around – the mother, the step-father, the brother, the therapist, the ex-wife, Steve Coogan – but none of them contribute substantively to the actual story. They are like physical props, around which the two leads act out the one and only story line: Will Dano let her go, or won’t he? The cumulative effect of this is the story seems a bit empty in the end.

I also found the denouement to be kind of disappointing; without giving anything away, I’ll just say that with an idea like this there is a huge range of possible resolutions, ranging from banal to sublimely real to utterly fantastical. I’m afraid that for me it fell squarely on the banal side of the spectrum. And the ending relied (as my wife pointed out to me) on a Hollywood cliché that is currently crossing a line into serious overuse.

I feel somewhat bad about my reaction to this film, because I think there are far too few earnest, dignified, and good-natured films like this being made, regardless of their shortcomings. Any attempt is a good thing, and I’m not saying the film is not a pleasant diversion, it definitely is.  So I would say go see Ruby Sparks for some light fun, and do not burden it with any expectation that its tantalizing deeper themes will be explored or developed concurrently.

The Way is a nice little movie about a father whose son dies on the El camino de Santiago, and who spontaneously decides to walk it himself when he goes over to pick up his son’s body.

I would not call this a deep and interesting movie. The dialog is pretty light for a film about 4 people walking together for hundreds of miles with nothing to do but talk to each other (or not talk to each other!) But it’s not an inconsequential film either. Rather, I would call it a light, soothing, somewhat meditative film, good for chilling on a Sunday night before a stressful week at work. The characters are fairly interesting, and they look pretty real (this isn’t Matt Damon and ScarJo on the trail, these people are pretty grubby and unattractive, which is a plus.) The relationships between the four central characters develop in a fairly interesting way, despite the lack of dialog; they come to like aspects of each other while never really truly liking each other – it feels refreshing. The camera work is good, and the score is decent, if kind of unoriginal and monotonous.

The most interesting thing about the film is its multifaceted depiction of the culture of the modern pilgrims: the decidedly mixed comradory, the issue of the pilgrims being a blight on the land and wrecking each other’s experience by their sheer numbers, and the intimate personal reasons someone might choose to undertake this trek. It has nothing deep to say about any of this, and I must say I was rather underwhelmed by the film’s ending, but it was still a pleasant film experience on a subject I knew nothing about.

I recommend The Way, but just like characters walking the trail in this movie, don’t expect miracles.

I feel bad ripping this thing, because it is a good idea for a movie and they clearly had the best of intentions. But my wife and I only lasted 15 minutes into this abomination, and we were cringing the entire time. The dialog is absolutely painful to listen to – when lines (and their deliveries) are so bad you are laughing out loud, that is not a good sign! The set-up is horrible. The planes look completely and utterly fake, the CGI approaching “worst-ever” status. And the central characters are just run-of-the-mill caricatures of typical action-film types – the solid good-guy leader, the crazy “brilliant” guy, the lazy wise-cracking guy. It was all so God-awful we couldn’t even make it to Terrence Howard, to see what ignominy that fine actor has been lowered to in a quest to find work.

I mean, couldn’t they have tried just a little bit to make this film worth watching?

I walked into Your Sister’s Sister in the 6th Avenue IFC theater knowing full well that its preview basically contained the entire movie, which is usually indicative of impending disappointment. But it was Emily Blunt and Mark Duplass, and the preview was really good, so I could not resist. Well: worst fears realized.

If you read my review of Safety Not Guaranteed, I talk about how that film is very different from “modern indie crap.” Well, Your Sister’s Sister is a perfect example of the “crap” I’m comparing it to. The opening scene is pretty good, where Duplass goes off on his dead brother at the memorial party. Then he quickly heads to the cabin and meets the sister, and the scene leading up to the sex is decent, not great, rather poorly written, but kind of fun, mostly because of Duplass’s remarkable warmth on-screen. At this point we’re maybe a little less than a quarter of the way into the film.

And there the film turns to shit. They couldn’t be bothered to write any dialog for any of these people, except the stupid, incoherent stammering of average people in real life (why do modern indie filmmakers think this is interesting to listen to?) Character development is virtually non-existent. The laughs disappear very quickly. The central plot twist (which I will not give away) actually made the film weaker, although I should note that it did make it easier for the filmmakers to avoid writing dialog. The score absolutely sucks. And the ending!! The fucking non-ending!!! I consider it the height of laziness and artistic arrogance to purposely not end a movie, to just cut it off, almost as if to say “we are too good to bother showing you the ending, so thanks for your money and fuck you.” It is a cheap shot, and it basically ruined what little there was to enjoy in this film. What drives me crazy is that purposely not ending films is becoming a bit of a fad in the indie movement. To paraphrase Stephen Sondheim, it’s one of the last bastions of the artistically destitute.

I think Mark Duplass is a wonderful new actor, but I just hope in the future he picks more films like Safety Not Guaranteed to star in, because he is completely wasted in a piece of crap like this! What is he suppose to do with no lines to say?! Emily Blunt is an actress I also really like, and I am happy that she is taking such a wide variety of roles in light romantic drama, but I am starting to have to face the fact that she is not the kind of actress that is going to carry a film herself; you can’t plunk her down in the middle of a turd and expect her to elevate it (like you can with Diane Lane, for example.) In fact, in turds like this film or like The Five Year Engagement, her limitations as an actress start to really become apparent. She shines much better as a supporting actress in strong material – just my personal opinion, mind you.

If you think you might want to see this film, just go watch the preview. Everything good from the movie is in the preview, even including all the best nuances in each actor’s performance. Since the film has no ending, the preview isn’t even missing that! And unlike the movie, the preview has really good music!

My wife and I both really liked Safety Not Guaranteed. It is a delightful and understated little indie film, one which departs from standard indie fare in important and surprising ways.

In its first third, this film feels a bit like a lot of other indie films. There’s some funny dialog, the characters are quirky, it’s all a touch cold, and the central idea of the story (some weirdo is advertising in the newspaper for a partner to travel with him back in time) grabs your attention. Most modern indie films can get to this point, and then they fall flat on their face into a pool of mostly unresolved existential angst or wacky absurdity. What makes Safety Not Guaranteed stand out is the way the film evolves emotionally. In the middle of the film, suddenly the characters start warming up! Their inner humanity begins to shine forth, they start evolving away from who they were, they start behaving in surprising ways. And I must say, it’s all done in a very pleasing, low-key fashion – it creeps up on you. In the beginning, I really didn’t like any of the characters; by the end I liked all of them – when was the last time that happened in an indie film?

As the film is warming up, it reaches a point where the warmth starts accelerating rapidly; this occurs at the scene where the guy plays the song he wrote for his girlfriend. It’s a magic moment, when he performs that song, because it so beautifully captures the way those characters feel about life (As my wife put it, “It’s perfect! It’s about how we’re all a bunch of pod people!”) The song, the performance, the girl’s reaction to the performance: it’s just spot-on wonderful, and from that point on the film is totally in another place from where it started. As for the film’s ending, I don’t want to give anything away, but let me just say this: The modern indie movement does not place a lot of value on non-ambiguous endings; in this way it is very different from its progenitor, the Indie Renaissance of the 1990’s. But Safety Not Guaranteed defies modern norms: the emotional warmth of the film soars in its final minutes, almost to the level of top-flight romantic comedy, and it works marvelously!

The performances are solid across the board. I think Mark Duplass is excellent; he’s a really exciting new star, combining the charisma of George Clooney, the comic presence of Jason Segal, and the warmth and earnestness of maybe Jude Law; I hope he keeps pulling good leading roles like this.  His co-lead Aubrey Plaza left me a little cold sometimes, but she more than made up for that with her realism, and as the film warms up she comes across better and better (as does Jake M. Johnson.) Kristen Bell is great in a bit part – I’m not sure why she isn’t playing the lead role in this film, but let me not even go there. She’s great in a tiny part, playing a shallow, superficial blonde.

Although its quality does not run super-deep, and I would not call this film great, it is very well-made and really enjoyable from start to finish. I might even watch Safety Not Guaranteed again at some point. I highly recommend it!

I thought Brave would be about a young girl that has to go to battle and display extreme bravery. My wife thought she would fight a dragon to protect her people. Boy were we wrong. Brave is a re-heated version of Disney’s Freaky Friday, minus the humor, the crisp dialog, the well-drawn characters, and the detailed portrait of the mother/daughter relationship. It contains an extremely boorish depiction of Scottish people (though my largely Scottish wife was not offended,) and a good dose of really obvious, simple-minded humor. I’m not even sure why the title is “Brave,” as bravery is clearly a secondary consideration in the story.

Despite all this, I think Brave is not a bad little film. The animation is gorgeous; as my wife pointed out, it makes you realize just how far animation has come. Kelly Macdonald has the kind of voice that you can listen to all day. And there are some nice little moments strewn about the story. I thought the score was pretty decent as well, even if it seemed a little “canned.”

The children in the Union Square Theater seemed to like it, for what it’s worth.

The moral of this story: If your wife has a good-for-nothing little brother who is running drugs for a lunatic gangster, fucks it up, and as a result is about to get his head cut off and stuck up his ass . . . . . just let him die.

Ever since reading, about ten years ago, the case for Edward De Vere as the true identity of Shakespeare, I have had no trouble believing that this privileged, well-traveled, and highly educated nobleman with time on his hands might have produced the voluminous and exquisite output that we currently attribute to the son of an illiterate glove maker, who was a grain merchant with limited education, and who never set foot outside of England. Now, I don’t know if the true story surrounding De Vere was anything like portrayed in this movie, and frankly I don’t give a shit. This film is a blast from start to finish. My wife and I never imagined we would enjoy it as much as we did.

We feared this film would be schlock, like The Tudors, but it’s definitely a step above. The writing is actually quite decent throughout. The court politics are explained clearly and in a way that is neither manipulative nor overly simplistic. Character development is not bad, especially De Vere. The pacing and quality of the film is even; it doesn’t fall apart at the end, but rather maintains well its dramatic tension. And last but not least, the depictions of the stage performances of Shakespeare’s plays – something which when attempted in other films I usually find to range from completely flat and boring to downright insipid – are kind of beautiful, with lovely acting and very confident and skillful editing. I’ve seen so much damn Shakespeare living in New York City that I’m kind of sick of him at this point, but these scenes actually made me appreciate him again, that’s how good they are.

The performances in Anonymous are solid across the board. Rhys Ifans is superb, just as he is in every role he takes; the guy has to be one of the most overlooked and underrated actors out there. He always manages to impress me. Vanessa Redgrave and her daughter Joely Richardson are both excellent and understated as the old and young Queen Elizabeth. David Thewlis (another actor that never seems to disappoint me) is good as William Cecil, and the complete unknown Edward Hogg is just as good as his son. And the casting of Shakespeare himself is absolutely brilliant – Rafe Spall, the guy who played one of “the Andys” in Hot Fuzz! He’s outstanding playing the insufferable, empty-headed hack actor who winds up fronting for the Earl of Oxford.

So, if one can just suspend judgement of this alternative authorship hypothesis and simply go with the flow, Anonymous is very interesting and enjoyable. And why shouldn’t we suspend judgement? It’s not our fault that Shakespeare could barely write his own name; that his parents and children were illiterate; that the extant legal record concerning him is limited to his grain business, his buying of land and houses, and his occasionally getting paid for an acting gig; that not one single scrap of writing from him – not one letter or off-hand note, let alone a draft of a play – exists anywhere despite his years of retirement in affluent leisure (what the fuck was he doing all that time?) It’s not our fault that his copiously detailed last will and testament does not mention any manuscripts of his plays, including the 18 that were yet to be published, nor does it mention any books. It’s not our fault that there was no recorded reaction to his death in London. Let’s face it, the historical record on this guy is really weird, no matter how you cut it. Considering how fucked up the royal families of England have always been, whose to say what could or couldn’t have happened?

Which brings us to the extreme condemnation in academic and critical circles that this film suffered. Here’s my thinking on why this happened. The idea that anyone can achieve anything currently runs very deep in the American psyche. It wasn’t always this way, of course: poor people used to distrust the rich and powerful, and they understood the limitations of their own lives, inherent in their socioeconomic position. But with the insidious notions of positive thinking and self-actualization gathering steam over the last three-quarters of a century and achieving epidemic status in the last decade or two, suddenly it is no longer acceptable to be a realist or to seek truth. So the downtrodden poor-person working three shit jobs and with no health insurance, looks at Andre Agassi with 75 Ferraris and his reaction is “that’s okay, because it means I too have the opportunity to have 75 Ferraris!” Whence the accelerating decay of the (average) American way of life.

The tale of Shakespeare – the basically uneducated commoner that sprung forth fully formed from the head of Jove to become the greatest poet in the history of humanity, writing with unprecedented eloquence on a vast array of super-sophisticated topics he had no experience with whatsoever – is one that must surely resonate in American culture, so much so that it must seem deeply offensive to suddenly think that maybe some horrible member of privileged elite, the kind of person that would be fluent in ancient Greek at age 15, cranked off these plays as an idle amusement.

Add to this the very real phenomenon that academics cling like ticks on a hound to the beliefs and ideas that made their careers. You have a massive industry within academia of people cranking out research papers and building reputations based on or assuming the traditional attribution of authorship, and since these people occupy the high ground on the battlefield there’s no reason why they should admit any other possibilities. As for the movie critics, they are, at their core, afraid of looking stupid. They’re not going to have anything to do with this movie because they are afraid some Ph.D. will make fun of them.

Look, I’m not one to accept circumstantial evidence as proof. It’s a definite leap to attribute authorship to De Vere, no matter how well his life fits the most obvious set of life experiences for an individual producing such works.  After all, it’s pretty hard to get past the fact that all the damn plays have Shakespeare’s name on them! Maybe the fucking country bumpkin did churn out these magnificent and almost wonkishly scholarly plays in all his copious spare time, when he wasn’t running his thriving grain business, ignoring his children’s education, or pursuing his concurrent acting career. Maybe he really did write beautifully, and it’s just his signature that looks like the work of a retarded first grader. Maybe scholars are right, and he really did read Thesaurus Linguae Romanae et Britannicae in the Stratford Grammar School and then was able to just wing it from there on out, on pure God-given talent. All I’m saying is, there’s enough of a grey area for you to temporarily set aside the moralistic condemnation of egg-headed English professors, and enjoy two hours of fun watching this movie and speculating on the most likely course of history given the facts, or lack of them! I certainly recommend doing just that!

This movie is a bizarre hodgepodge of classic Allen topics and the ancient slapstick comedies of Allen’s youth, all refracted through the lens of Allen’s old-age dementia. He’s got the absurdist story of the average guy who is suddenly famous for no reason; he has the guy who is a world-class opera singer, but only when he is in the shower, and how he becomes famous against the odds; he has the story of the newly-weds who are separated in Rome and  subjected to various silly moral tests, each involving fame or famous people; and then just for good measure he has a standard Allen tale of a normal (read: not famous) young couple, living the hippest part of Rome in a spectacular apartment, of course, who threaten to be torn apart when the girl’s best friend – a sultry, neurotic, head-case brunette who longs to be a famous actress (been a while since we’ve seen this old chestnut from Woody) – seduces the rather plain young man just by being her provocative self. The stories are told concurrently, and none are related to the others in any way.

So why is this film called To Rome with Love? Seems to me more like: To Rome with (or without) Fame! Still, my wife and I enjoyed this movie, maybe more than Midnight in Paris. Allen captured the beauty of Rome much better than he captured Paris, the worst of Allen’s artistic predilections as a filmmaker are absent (except that he obviously still thinks the idea of two women sleeping together is “edgy,”) and the four little stories are just plain unpretentious fun, and at the very least a refreshing change from the Rogen/Smith/Apatow comedy Juggernaut.

To Rome with Love is like wine that is slightly turned – still enjoyable, but clearly a decayed version of its former glory. I didn’t really laugh out loud in the film, so much as chuckle and grin a lot. Allen is still fun to watch as an actor, but this was his first film in which it was painfully clear that he’s lost a step, and the stories can at times feel a bit stilted. The writing is typical late-Woody Allen, but as with Midnight and Vicky, Christina, his mediocre and predictable dialog is partly redeemed by externally imposed affectation – in this case, listening to it rendered in semi-hysterical Italian. Still, whatever works, right?

This film did nothing to alter my opinion of Jesse Eisenberg or Ellen Page. Page is her usual self: great voice, great “porcelain waif” look, and acting so flat and lifeless it’s almost like she is reading cue cards. She is also as far from a femme fatale as is humanly possible. Greta Gerwig could have pulled off the role, however. In fact, Allen should have switched Page and Gerwig, and let Ellen play the boring, lifeless girlfriend of the geeky, singularly unattractive Eisenberg, while Greta played the sultry but neurotic temptress; that would have been a bit more believable.

Eisenberg also remains true to form as a one-trick pony: nervous twitching coupled with rapid-fire monotone delivery. Before I saw the film I thought he might be good playing the character Woody would have played 40 years ago, but unfortunately he’s nowhere near a young Woody Allen as an actor, lacking all of the latter’s comic flexibility, spontaneity, physical comic skill, expressive voice, and depth of presence. The only thing that saves their portion of the movie is Greta Gerwig (just because she is so fucking cool,) and Alec Baldwin, who it seems is doomed to be the greatest wise-cracking supporting actor in the history of cinema.

But what I walked out of the theater talking about was Alison Pill, and how she has somehow in this film stepped into the vacant, hollow shell of what should have been Kristen Bell’s career. Seriously, in To Rome with Love, Pill looks just like Bell, sounds just like Bell, acts just like Bell, and even has one slightly crooked eye just like Bell. Moreover, she exudes a charm and presence similar to Kristen Bell, the kind that could eventually lock down the interesting lead roles that Kristen Bell should be getting. Because I am a huge Alison Pill fan, I’m happy that Woody Allen is single-handedly resurrecting her career, which was heading no-where good after her brilliant turn in the all-time classic Dan and Real Life. But this latest trick – turning her into what Kristen Bell might have been – is shocking and unexpected; I’ll go further: she’s awesome as Kristen Bell! I sincerely hope that she uses this as a spring-board to have the brilliant career Kristen Bell should have had. I just feel sorry for poor Kristen Bell – why is she stuck playing dumb blondes in horrible movies after being so brilliant in Veronica Mars?

To Rome with Love is nice, puff pastry fun. I recommend it!