dramatic comedy

Lovers, Losers, and Divas

Chet Kozlowski — Sun, 22 Sep 2024 22:50:52 +0000

Lovers, Losers, and Divas Chet Kozlowski September 22, 2024 - 18:50

Topics

Film Review

Tags

dramatic comedy

Notice to Quit

Directed by Simon Hacker

Notice to Quit is the sort of breezy comedy George Segal used to make, reminiscent of Blume in Love or Bye Bye Braverman. In fact, Michael Zegen, who plays the protagonist of this one, resembles Mr. Segal. He has a similar affable Everyman quality about him.

Andy Singer (Mr. Zegen) is an aspiring actor making ends meet—barely—as an apartment broker in Manhattan. His picture is displayed around the city as the model in an often-defaced subway poster for toothpaste. He's divorced and has visitation with but not custody of his precocious 10-year-old daughter Anna, played winningly by Kasey Bella Suarez. Andy's got Anna for the day, as he hustles apartment hunters while stripping AC units from units and selling them to junkman/gangster played by Michael Angelo Covino.

Andy and Anna traverse the city on foot and by subway. Schemes are hatched (one involves a cockroach in a hamburger), quirky characters appear and disappear, and Andy ends up pretty much as he began. His wife, played by Isabel Arraiza, loves him but has moved on; while covertly sizing up his ex's new squeeze, Andy muses to Anna, "Your mother's impressed too easily. I told her that when we got together." And Andy's still left lugging around a discarded AC unit like an albatross.

That's about as much of an arc as Notice to Quit manages. It's engaging but thin. It plays more like a TV pilot than a freestanding movie, devoid of conflict other than Andy's ongoing struggles with himself. The script is sharp and witty, full of bon mots. Michael Zegen played the husband in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and this is his first lead role. Robert Klein as Andy's artist dad is a welcome surprise. Simon Hacker's direction is loose, and most of the camerawork is handheld. Notice to Quit has that obligatory scene of its protagonist running through New York's city streets to an ecstatic score supplied here by music maestro Jack Antonoff.

Another Happy Day

Directed by Nora Fiffer

Actor/comedian Lauren Lapkus is tall and thin, with big eyes and deep dimples when she smiles. Her demeanor is made for comedy, and she's known for her work in Netflix's Orange is the New Black and HBO's Crashing. She's often relegated to the role of sidekick, but in Another Happy Day, she gets to stretch out and show her drama chops.

Ms. Lapkus plays Joanna, a new mother who is post-partum-y. She rarely sleeps, and when she does, she has night terrors. She cries. She hallucinates, even asking the Amazon delivery guy if he's real. Her nipples bleed from breastfeeding. Babies are harder work than she imagined, and her work as an artist is suffering. Her partner Lucien is supportive but busy as the breadwinner.

Joanna is stressed and lonely, far from family. Except, as her mother points out on the phone, for Miriam, her "dad's brother Leonard's ex-wife." Miriam's in the same city; why not visit her if you need a dose of family?

Miriam lives alone in an apartment cluttered with books and art. She's a diva, an actress á la Norma Desmond, ready for her close-up. She's acerbic and nasty to Joanna. "You came across town for me to hold your baby?" she asks, incredulous. "No," replies Joanna, "I came across town for you to hold me." "What?" "I'm kidding. Sort of."

Another Happy Day is written and directed by Nora Fiffer, whose approach is schematic: her shots are carefully composed, and many are held long, making the most of interesting characters in the frame. It takes its time, and the patience pays off. Ms. Fiffer appears in the film as Wendy, Joanna's friend, who wants a baby but is having difficulty conceiving.

Another Happy Day is poignant and engrossing. The oil-and-water dynamic of Ms. Lapkus and Marilyn Dodds Frank as Miriam is the foundation of the film. Carrie Coon makes a too-brief appearance as Joanna's employer and is an executive producer. Jean Elie plays husband Lucien as a firm but personable presence: he has great expectations of Joanna, even if she doesn't. Their relationship is knowingly passive-aggressive: a playful game of name-calling turns caustic and wounding.

Scenes like Joanna's cynicism at a baby shower and her bonding with Miriam, breaking down walls, are witty and authentic. Ms. Fiffer is going for realism, but Another Happy Day's catharsis is abrupt and not satisfying as the lead-up: its Goodbye Girl premise goes soggy as gnarly old Miriam bends too quickly.

Still, Another Happy Day is touching. Lucien's belief in marriage is challenged by the realities of tending to a baby. Miriam gets to shine in a spirited audition. But poor Joanna, when asked, "What did you expect?" about motherhood, replies, "That we'd be happier."

Add new comment

Don't Be Cruel

Chet Kozlowski — Mon, 05 Feb 2024 23:17:10 +0000

Don't Be Cruel Chet Kozlowski February 5, 2024 - 18:17

Topics

Film Review

Tags

dramatic comedy

A young German girl named Greta has a thing for Willie Nelson.

Raised by an alcoholic mother and trapped in a stagnant marriage, she turns to Willie's songs because they give her "hope." Plucky but naïve, and hearing news of Willie's final concert in Las Vegas (a fiction; Willie still performs), Greta sells her husband's Porsche for peanuts, sets fire to the house, and leaves Germany for Glitter Gulch. There, she meets an Elvis impersonator named Nick, who takes her under his sequined wing. A road trip ensues, love blooms, Greta is done wrong and wakes up. This is Thelma and Louise without the Louise.

Eva Hassmann, the writer/producer/director, seems uncertain about the kind of movie she's making or the image she's projecting. She stars as Greta and situates herself as the center of every scene. Is Greta meant to be a hayseed or a minx? She's sexy in a steely way but prone to pratfalls and jokes that are hackneyed and predictable. Think Diane Kruger by way of Lucille Ball. She's hoodwinked by hustlers, threatened with rape and a rattlesnake, and is loaded unconscious into the back of a truck with her skirt hiked up to her waist. All while clutching an (empty) album cover of Willie's Always on My Mind to her chest.

Ms. Hassmann's filmmaking is uneven. She clearly wants to be considered an auteur but doesn’t show a point of view. The flashbacks to Greta's childhood are meant to be poignant, simply cut around the stilted expressions of inexperienced child actors (Ms. Hassmann is listed as editor, too). Scenes of the mature Greta wreaking dangerous havoc in her marriage are downright cruel, as are cutaways to Greta's harried husband complaining to the police and conferring with Nick, the impersonator. What would Elvis do? Nick should know better than to get too close to this one.

More to the point: how old is this movie? Its style of humor and mise en scene are pretty dated. For example, Willie and Me claims this is Peter Bogdanovich's final film role. Mr. Bogdanovich is the esteemed director of Paper Moon and The Last Picture Show and has acted in The Sopranos. Here, he plays a seedy hotel manager and doesn't look so good. This film's release date is 2024. Peter Bogdanovich died in 2022. So, doing the math and allowing for a period of decline, we can guess Willie and Me might well have been filmed four years ago.

The supporting cast supports. As Nick, the Elvis impersonator, Blaine Gray has a square-jawed charm. Dressed as Elvis, he sings Willie songs to soothe Greta (a dissection of Celebrity—Willie crossing paths with Elvis—might've been an interesting subplot if the script was more self-aware). Darby Stanchfield, late of Shonda Rhimes's Scandal, has fun as a fundamentalist mom with a brood of precocious urchins. Thure Riefenstein plays Great's harried husband. The most thankless role goes to Peter Bogdanovich. His character slugs back shots of whiskey on the sly. Is this meant to be comic? Devices like this add nothing to the character and reflect oddly on Greta's strife with her drunken mom. Are we meant to laugh or commiserate?

Willie puts in an appearance as a mysterious man in black living off the land. And he appears as "himself" in concert footage and a scene backstage with Greta. The soundtrack is mostly Willie's greatest hits (which in my screener had no publishing credits), yet Ms. Hassmann cites herself discreetly as supplying the "film score."

Perhaps the film grew out of an opportunity to sing onstage with Willie, a video of which is embedded in the closing credits. Ms. Hassmann shares the mic and the crowd seems excited to see her. Maybe she's popular in Germany, but Willie and Me is an illogical mix of genres and an uneasy mix of ambition and vanity without an original vision.

Willie and Me. Directed by Eva Hassmann. 2024. Produced by Skyvalley Productions. 87 minutes.

Add new comment

Stanley!

Mark Weston — Sun, 01 Mar 2020 03:09:05 +0000

Stanley! Mark Weston February 29, 2020 - 22:09

Topics

Film Review

Tags

dramatic comedy

Sometimes one gets away from you. When Stan and Ollie was first was released I knew I wanted to see it, but for some reason didn't. Maybe it was my impression that the reviews were lackluster. And, in reading back through them, they feel that way. In the Times, Jason Zinoman (who for my money often misses the mark), was assigned to review, though he rarely if ever reviews films. For some reason they have designated him their "comedy" critic, and I guess that's why they threw this film his way. It's not that his review is a pan, it's that he writes about it with utter disinterest and any praise is grudging. His review is disdainful.

I was flying back from Europe recently and looking for a film or two to while away the hours when I came across Stan and Ollie. It is wonderful, from start to finish, wonderful. That it gained no traction in awards season, that both Steve Coogan and John C. Reilly weren't nominated, that the film was not a Best Picture nominee (in an era where it seems that anything released in a movie theater garners a Best Picture nod), is a terrible shame.

When I say that this is a gentle comedy about two gentle comedians I mean it as the highest praise. Here we get a glimpse into the chemistry and grace that made Laurel and Hardy the most beloved and revered comedic duo in the world. More than that we get a beautiful rendering of a relationship and friendship between two men who are bound together, who love each other and how complicated that can be.

But what really sets this film several cuts above virtually any of the over-hyped juggernauts of 2019 (I do not include Parasite or Pain & Glory in the foregoing) are the brilliantly and deceptively off-hand performances of Coogan and Reilly. Virtually any other actor would have flirted with if not succumbed to caricature. That these performances succeed so completely -- that they embody Stan and Ollie from the inside and on the outside without a shred of "acting" -- is almost a virtual impossibility and even now, reflecting back on these performances, I am in awe of what Coogan and Reilly achieved. And they just make it look so easy.

The result is that we get to see Stan and Ollie doing their most famous comedy routines with perfect timing and effortless charm. I found myself laughing out loud on the airplane -- the comedy was so fresh and true. And we get to see the strains on their personal friendship, portrayed without histrionics or melodrama. I found myself crying on the plane -- the emotional moments were so poignant and subtle.

Load this one up, folks, and watch it. I fear for too many of us, this is one that got away.

Add new comment

Not Everybody Wants Some

Dusty Wright — Sun, 03 Apr 2016 20:45:22 +0000

Not Everybody Wants Some Dusty Wright April 3, 2016 - 16:45

Topics

Film Review

Tags

dramatic comedy

Everybody Wants Some directed and written by the Texas-based Richard Linklater, and billed as "the spiritual sequel to Dazed and Confused," is not great. First and foremost it lacks any real narrative. It's more of a tone poem on a place and time in history. In this case, the year is 1980 and the campus is an East Texas college and horn-dogs of that college's baseball team -- a collection of predictable cliches that we've seen better served in better period piece comedies. It's not nearly as funny as Animal House or insightful or enlightening. Look, I was in my senior year of college in 1980 and in a fraternity much hornier and crazier than this fictitious baseball team.

While there are a few sweet and amusing scenes, it's really cinema lite. Moreover, I really didn't care for any of the characters and most of the actors playing them appeared to be older than the characters they were hired to play. Thankfully, the music was authentic, but many of the music scenes seemed hopelessly staged for a low budget movie. The cars and stereo equipment were authentic, but that hardly warrants the praise that some critics have heaped on this feature.

Given the worthy accolades of Linklater's groundbreaking Boyhood, save your money and buy or stream the soundtrack. That's authentic and something you may actual want.

Who's Got the Ring, the Minister, and the Methadone?

Brandon Judell — Sun, 03 Jun 2012 13:24:30 +0000

Who's Got the Ring, the Minister, and the Methadone? Brandon Judell June 3, 2012 - 09:24

Topics

Film Review

Tags

dramatic comedy

You haven't heard of Richard's Wedding? Don't feel too uninformed. There's been absolutely no advance buzz on writer/director/actor Onur Tukel's deliriously droll walk in the park -- Central Park, that is. With no stars in it, no major studio behind it, and no budget to promote it, this at times combustibly funny look at New York's aging children (mostly in the 30-to-40-year-old range) will be screening at Brooklyn's pioneering reRun Gastropub Theater until June 7. After that, who knows?

"This is a shande!" my Yiddish grandmother would have kvetched. "A great shame!"

Being one of the few films of the summer to rely totally on wit while not starring Taylor Kitsch, Richard's Wedding overwhelms at first, possibly because we're expecting so little. After all, this is an eensy-weensy American indie. But minute by minute, the jokes get funnier, the neuroses more elaborate, and the penetration into modern man's inability to make sense of his existence more spectacular.

Like a gentile Alvy Singer, Tukel plays Tuna, a left-wing, slightly misogynist, faintly racist, Turkish Woody Allen-type with too much plaque on his lower teeth. He's on his way from Brooklyn to the titular Manhattan wedding with his best friend, Alex (Jennifer Prediger), and for the first twenty minutes, the duo's back-and-forth banter is all we get. And you'll be more than satisfied.

For example, chatting about the young Asian woman who picked him up the night before, Tuna notes why he doesn't have to worry about HIV: "I just wear three condoms because it makes my penis bigger."

When the conversation turns for some reason to the Fuhrer being Time Magazine's Man of the Year in the 1930s, he swears, "If Hitler had masturbated five times a day, he would never have murdered six million Jews." After which he riffs into, "I think there should be a law that Republicans jerk off once a day."

Alex responds with "do you want a Xanax? ... I really can't believe I'm friends with you, because you're kind of an asshole. How do you live with yourself?"

Of course, Alex is far from flawless. Her relationship with her beau is on the brittle side. She even once punched him in the face. Her father was an alcoholic, her uncle committed suicide, and her cousin Louis (Randy Gambill) owes her $8,000 for a new set of teeth, his originals no doubt lost due to his days as a thieving, overweight heroin addict. Now he's just an overweight bus driver turned Internet minister.

Well, the duo finally arrives at the West Village apartment of the illiberal Russell (the superb Darrill Rosen), who's just made his fortune with an iPhone app that is physically "shocking." Here they join the rest of the guests, while waiting for the groom and bride to show their faces. Passing the time, the conversation turns to Viktor Frankl, Ayn Rand, Robert Mapplethorpe, and selfishness as a motivation. Were Mother Teresa and Albert Schweitzer doing good deeds just to make themselves happy? And what were the inducements behind Martin Luther King's sacrifices? A fight against injustice or possibly something slightly more lascivious?

But more important, will the wedding ever take place?

With dialog that's insanely quotable and with a cast that's seldom less than exceptional, Richard's Wedding might just be the nuptials of the year. But more important, this little film that could signals the arrival of Onur Tukel, a comic triple threat who has his finger on the pulse of contemporary, horny, lovesick, dysfunctional urban America.

Shorties: Brassieres on Strike, Uncle Boonmee, and Primroses

Brandon Judell — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 16:29:26 +0000

Shorties: Brassieres on Strike, Uncle Boonmee, and Primroses Brandon Judell October 23, 2010 - 12:29

Topics

Film Review

Tags

dramatic comedy

Made in Dagenham

Norma Rae goes Brit in this fact-based tale of exploited women working for the Ford Motor Company in Dagenham, England, in the Sixties.

Ford already has one of the more dreadful histories in American business. Henry Ford helped spread anti-Semitism around the world, and thanks to the recycling of his original publications today, these very same writings are continuing to advocate hatred of the Jews to newbie neo-Nazis. If this weren't enough, according to one source, "Ford sent Hitler 50,000 Deutsche Marks every year on the Führer's birthday."

Well, it seems the Fords were not only hostile to Jews, but also out to exploit women as well, paying them barely half of what men were making for the same type of work.

Rita O'Grady (Sally Hawkins), a sewer of the company's seat covers and mother of two, finds herself suddenly the leader of the rebellion against corporate greed. At first just fighting for higher wages for her peers, Rita soon sees herself catapulted into being the national spokesperson for women's rights and an "Equal Pay for Equal Work" bill.

Of course, she wins, and according to the film's end credits, this victory caused nations around the world to follow suit and pass their own parity laws.

Hawkins, who first sprung into the public's attention with Happy-Go-Lucky, perfectly captures Rita's angst as she treads the path from pre-feminist inarticulateness to being the moving mouthpiece of outraged female workers everywhere. She's endearing in the best sense of the word.

Director Nigel Cole, who might just be the George Cukor of his age with Calendar Girls and Saving Grace under his belt, mostly avoids clichés here. And by spicing up the film with numerous bra shots for nonpolitical viewers, filling the cast with attractive souls, and stitching a subtle humor throughout thanks to William Ivory's adroit screenplay, Made in Dagenham will be a delightful, eye-opening history lesson for anyone who can get past the title.

(Please note that "Wooly Bully" and other Sixties rock faves are played throughout.)

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives

There's crap, and there's pseudo-intellectual crap. Uncle Boonmee apparently falls into the latter category. Showcased at the recent New York Film Festival and a prize-winner at Cannes, this offering from Thailand, directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, focuses upon the dear uncle who's dying of kidney problems. At one of his final meals, Boonmee's dead wife shows up along with his long-lost son who's dressed up in a bad gorilla outfit and has red lights for eyes. Apparently, the lad has fornicated with a Ghost Monkey or something like that which causes one to become totally hirsute. By the end of the film, Uncle has died, and his sister-in-law along with her daughter and her son, a monk, are in a hotel room. Shortly after the monk showers, he and Mom split into separate beings so one half of them can watch TV and the other can go out to eat. If I made any of this sound charming, I hang my head in shame. And if I got any of the facts wrong, please forgive me. I burnt my notes previously to cleanse my soul.

Robinson in Ruins

One often hears of actors who can read the phone book and exalt their fans in doing so. Here the superb Vanessa Redgrave achieves this narrative feat, except the phone numbers are replaced by historical facts united by a journey of a make-believe character, the titular Robinson, who's gone missing. He apparently has also been talked about in two previous films helmed by the British director/writer/editor Patrick Keiller.

On screen for 101 minutes, Robinson in Ruins robustly showcases images of military bases, battered disco posters, opium fields, tractors, a spider building his web, bees buzzing about flowers, and countless shots of lichen growing on a traffic sign. Only one human is ever spotted and just for a few seconds. The action spans several centuries and boasts numerous comments on the likes of Goethe, primroses, meteors, horse chestnut trees, and Edmund Burke ("The laws of commerce are the laws of Nature, and therefore the laws of God.") There is also a refreshing leftist antiwar element spouted here plus a wit that pops up now and then, although sparingly.

Yet for all of these cerebral allusions and Nature Channel footage, plus the addition of Redgrave's glorious intonations, numerous critics could not hinder themselves from taking a nap during the 9 AM New York Film Festival preview screening. I, for one, almost enjoying myself, was able to partake in the whole venture with wide-open lids.

Shorties: Assassins and Diaper Changing

Brandon Judell — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 23:10:51 +0000

Shorties: Assassins and Diaper Changing Brandon Judell October 5, 2010 - 19:10

Topics

Film Review

Tags

dramatic comedy

The Ghost Writer

Now on DVD, Roman Polanski's clever adaptation of Robert Harris' thiller bows down to Alfred Hitchcock, especially with its superb Bernard Herrmann-like score by Alexandre Desplat (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button; Fantastic Mr. Fox).

The plot starts off simply enough. A nameless writer (Ewan McGregor), unambiguously known as "The Ghost" in the production notes, is hired to rewrite the memoirs of Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan), a former British Prime Minister (based upon Tony Blair). The previous ghost who had penned the rather boring first draft had recently fallen off a local ferry dead drunk and drowned. Or did he? Could it have been murder and if so, why?

Isolated on a rich man's island estate in the States with Lang, Lang's wife Ruth (Olivia Williams), his secretary/mistress Amelia (Kim Cattrall), and a slew of bodyguards and servants, The Ghost at first believes this job will be a simple yet vexing chore, but for $250,000, who said it would be easy?

However, as the days tick by, he realizes he's caught up in a spider's web of deceit. Lang has just been accused of being a war criminal, Ruth is distressed and horny, and The Ghost's deceased predecessor has left some papers and photos around that seem to reveal a sort of conspiracy that could create a worldwide scandal.

With a first-rate cast and Polanski at near the top of his form, plus Pawel Edelman's award-worthy cinematography, The Ghost Writer clearly deserves a Netflix downstreaming.

Life As We Know It

Only intermittently irritating (especially the opening ten minutes), this star vehicle for Katherine Heigl eventually, with some solid emotional battering, warmed up the cockles of my heart. In fact, having not teared up since the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby, I was surprised to find myself sniffling and aching for love by the end of this nearly by-the-numbers dramedy.

Predictable from the get-go, Life as We Know It has restauranteur-on-the-make Holly Berenson (Heigl) being set up on a horror date with an up-and-coming TV sports director Eric Messer (Josh Duhamel). Of course, he's an hour late, hasn't made restaurant reservations, and has picked her up on his motorcycle. Holly's little black dress is not made for such an outing. What's worse, while the duo are sorting matters out, Eric gets a booty call for later that night--and he accepts it. Consider this rendezvous over.

However, it seems Fate wants to keep this pair together, or at least their dating best friends, Alison and Peter, do.

You see, after the failed matchmakers Alison and Peter get engaged, wed, have a child (Sophie), and then die in a car crash, Holly and Eric discover they are the kid's guardians and now have to live together.

Forced into the American dream against their wills, Eric keeps screwing around and Holly continues to make gourmet cupcakes, yet they both fall in love in with Sophie. But what about with each other? What are the obstacles? Well, Holly has her hunky dreamboat pediatrician Sam (Josh Lucas) to fool around with, and Eric has been bedding every gal in every grocery store who get the hots for an attractive "dad" wheeling around a child in a shopping cart.

Where will it all end? With baby poop on Holly's face and more poop in Eric's favorite baseball cap.

Pleasantly acted and adequately directed by Greg Berlanti (The Broken Hearts Club), Life As We Know It is the perfect date film, and if you are over 18, it might just lead to more than a kiss.

Shorties: Finnish Machos and Persian Cats

Brandon Judell — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 09:34:48 +0000

Shorties: Finnish Machos and Persian Cats Brandon Judell April 25, 2010 - 05:34

Topics

Film Review

Tags

dramatic comedy

Freetime Machos

If you're not offended by blond, Finnish, amateur rugby players who have a penchant for blowup dolls, homosexual allusions, the frequent use of "pussy," and a fear of being fired by their employer, Nokia, Mika Ronkainen's affable documentary might just be up your alley. This oddball look at the Oulos, the third lousiest rugby team from their area, clearly argues that men will be men no matter the latitude: "In Finland, you rather get stabbed in the back than complain of female trouble."

Then when exploring a member's exposed behind on a bus ride back from a losing game, one macho asks, "Guy, is that a pimple or a mole?" Another opines, unasked, "Internet porn is better than [the aforementioned] pussy." "Scoring is the biggest problem for us," avows a fourth. The latter surprisingly nonsexual announcement is referring to the team's rugby playing. In fact, the Oulos' first win occurs when the other team doesn't show up. Otherwise, the boys usually realize a zero. A bit too provincial to drum up much interest outside of its home country, this fast-moving offering from the Tribeca Film Festival will, however, strike a chord with anyone involved in Women's Studies with a focus on Scandinavia.

No One Knows About Persian Cats (image above)

"You're not worried about getting busted?"

"We're doing nothing but making music. We're hurting no one."

"Get busted, and you'll go to jail for at least two months."

"No, it's safe here. No need to worry."

Well, it apparently isn't that safe in Tehran for underground musicians who keep finding themselves on the verge of being arrested within this quasi-documentary. And they have it better than the actual filmmakers, several of whom were imprisoned or forced to choose exile after finishing the picture.

Winner of the Un Certain Regard Special Jury Prize at last year's Cannes Film Festival, Bahman Ghobadi's film pursues two young musicians, Negar (Negar Shaghaghi) and Askan (Ashkan Koshanejad), as the pair, after being released from prison, try to form a band, raise money, and get passports to perform at a music festival outside of Iraq. While on their quest, they are taken up by a loud-mouthed wheeler-dealer, Nadar (Hamed Behdad), who promises the duo the world and delivers much less.

But before the dispiriting reality of their situation is revealed, this threesome darts about the city, interacting with the police, black-market forgers, and other musicians who are letting loose in song in a wide array of genres. Intercut between performances are fascinating scenes of life in Tehran, showcasing a buoyant people stifling under an intense cultural censorship and numerous curtailed freedoms.

Not as lyrically overwhelming as Ghobadi's previous works, A Time for Drunken Horses (2000) and Turtles Can Fly (2004), the politics of this offering more than make up for that lack.

The title, by the way, refers to the ruling that Iranis can have cats and dogs as pets, but they are not allowed to take the animals outside of their homes -- or else!

Shorties: Tarantino's Jews, Giamatti's Soul-Searching, & Two Hitlers

Brandon Judell — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 10:16:32 +0000

Shorties: Tarantino's Jews, Giamatti's Soul-Searching, & Two Hitlers Brandon Judell September 9, 2009 - 06:16

Topics

Film Review

Tags

dramatic comedy

A quick look at what's in the theaters:

1) Cold Souls

In the most deliciously off-beat comedy of the year, Paul Giamatti plays an actor named Paul Giamatti who has his soul removed to feel less pain when portraying Uncle Vanya. But by the time he learns that a little angst in life is necessary to be an above-average thespian and an affable human being, his essence has been lost. It's either been shipped by mistake to a New Jersey storage center or stolen for a Russian daytime soap actress who wanted Al Pacino's soul. Writer/helmer Sophie Barthes, with directorial finesse and a fine supporting cast (e.g. Dina Korzun, Emily Watson), exposes a global society that has a price for everything.

2) District 9

We'll know if District 9 has become an instant cult classic if this Halloween, children start dressing up as prawns. But whatever the verdict, it certainly deserves to be. With an original vision, a cogent screenplay, Oscar-worthy editing by Julian Clarke, and a star-making performance by Sharlto Copley, director/co-writer Neill Blomkamp has fashioned a sci-fi nightmare that belongs side by side with Blade Runner, Gattaca, and Dark City. His is a metaphor for apartheid and any society that chooses to have a underdog minority to exploit. Employing a documentary film style, District 9 makes you believe the unbelievable.

3) Inglourious Basterds

Inspired by Italian action genre films of the '70s -- and no doubt every other movie he's ever seen -- Quentin Tarantino has a created a more moving tale about the Jews and the Nazis during World War II than, for example, last year's much more reverent Defiance, which was actually based on a true story yet came off as shtick. Utilizing every trick in his stable of cinema magic, Tarantino tells of an army brigade of Ultra-Jews, led by Brad Pitt, that are out to scare the Nazis, and they succeed with excessive violence that includes carving swastikas into foreheads and clubbing German soldiers' heads with baseball bats. This story is intercut with one of Shosanna (Melanie Laurent), a Jewish girl running a movie theater in Paris who's out to revenge the death of her family. Even though most scenes are overly long, you're never bored, and there are a few great moments. Note the image of Shosanna being screened on smoke during a fire. 4) World's Greatest Dad With a title like that and a star like Robin Williams, one's first reaction is to run for the hills. But please note the director: Bob Goldthwait. Yes, this is a loud, at times obnoxious, often perceptive black comedy about a single pop raising the universe's worst son. There is no limit to this pic's tastelessness, but there's a heart here, too. And Williams, when he's not a goody-goody (Patch Adams), can turn in quite a fine performance. (He had been up to play Harvey Milk, and he would have been great.) Try it on DVD, which will no doubt be coming out quite soon.

5) The Other Man

If you are one of those who could watch Liam Neeson read a phonebook, you'll definitely be much more than satisfied with Richard (Notes on a Scandal) Eyre's adaptation of a Bernhard Schlink short story. Lisa (Laura Linney), a top-fashion shoe designer, has apparently "left" her spouse Peter (Neeson). In the midst of his mourning the loss of his great love, an abandonment he can't fathom, Peter discovers email from another man on Lisa's computer. And explicit photos. Who is this interloper? Antonio Banderas, that's who! Let the games begin. If you like being manipulated by top-notch actors, you'll have a blast here. Otherwise you might lose your patience. I didn't.

6) My Fuhrer

The second Hitler film of the month is also a black comedy, the first from Germany to deal with its most prominent personality. This Adolf (Helge Schneider) is having major problems with his voice and stage fright. What to do? Who wants a leader with no oomph? Why not drag the renowned Jewish acting teacher, Prof. Adolf Israel Grünbaum (Ulrich Mühe), from a concentration camp and have him get the Fuhrer back in shape? Here scenes of absurdity are intercut with moments reflecting the reality of Jews trying to survive another day. It works on both levels, deriding the infamous while asking the unpardonable question, "Who comes first, your people or your family?"

Let the Sun Shine In

Dusty Wright — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 16:46:17 +0000

Let the Sun Shine In Dusty Wright March 17, 2009 - 12:46

Topics

Film Review

Tags

dramatic comedy

Amy Adams continues to dazzle in small, dignified movies, as she did in the indie features Junebug (2005) and again last year in Doubt (2008). Her characters barely registered with the masses, but certainly did with the critics and her peers. Add her latest character Rose Lorkowski in the delightful Sunshine Cleaning, which ranks up there with both of the above-mentioned Oscar-nominated performances.

Everyone is a little quirky in this quirky little film that borrows not only the producers, but part of the title, a beat-up old van, and everyone's current favorite grandpa, Alan Arkin, from their last quirky indie hit -- Little Miss Sunshine. (Could this be the latest marketing trend utilized by filmmakers to attract brain-dead consumers? Reuse bits of a popular title to connect the movie dots. Could Don't Forget Your Little Sunshine Pills be next?)

Ms. Adams does naive really, really well. Wears it on her sleeve like heaven. This time Miss Naivety, a former high school cheerleading captain, who as a single mom and maid, opens up a crime scene cleaning biz with her slacker sister. She tries real hard to do right by everyone, yet in doing so she neglects her own well-being.

Messiah complex? Perhaps. But everyone around her is either loopy or goofy or sometimes both: her well-meaning but married police detective boyfriend Mac (Steve Zahn), her goofy but precocious son Oscar (Jason Spevack), her goofball father Joe (Alan Arkin), and her goofier sister Norah (Emily Blunt). (FYI, both Amy and Emily appeared in the most excellent Charlie Wilson's War.)

Everyone around her needs her strength and resolve to keep them hurtling forward in their dulled lives. Only problem is, on whom can she lean when things get tough? Especially since they're all one big happy but economically challenged lower-middle-class family struggling to make ends meet in Albuquerque, NM.

About the only grounded character is the one-armed but charismatic Winston (Clifton Collins Jr.), owner of the local cleaning supply company. He's quirky, too, but endearingly charming. When not suggesting the correct cleaning supplies or building model airplanes with her son, he offers Rose a strong shoulder to lean on, especially when all looks lost after her sis clumsily burns down one of the homes that an insurance company hires them to get gussied up.

The one faux pas is the feel-good ending with Norman Greebaum's overused "Spirit in the Sky." It's doubtful a French director would have succumbed to these sentiments. But overall, this is a picture deserving of a much larger audience. Either way, Ms. Adams, as many will say after this film, has arrived.