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| FRIENDS WITH MONEY |
Summer's just about over fellow cinephiles and we're all looking forward to this fall's coming pack of award-hopefuls -- like Robert Redford's
THE CONSPIRATOR, Clint Eastwood's
HEREAFTER, and the cinematic adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro's excellent novel
NEVER LET ME GO. But after seeing the the self-absorbed, narcissistic, no-guy-will-ever-understand-me torture that is the horrible
EAT PRAY LOVE (oh, that conceit of no commas), the MLB decided to look back, to the past hot months when he did something he's never done before: see every chick flick that came to area theaters.
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| JUST WRIGHT |
Romance movies, women's movies, the three-hankie weepie, rom-coms, whatever you call them, they're a relentlessly successful, timeless genre: a harmonious melding of love, beauty, happiness and charm. There's shopping and clothes, shoes and purses, travel and exquisite decor all wrapped in a mating ritual of longing and heartbreak, loss and tears. When they work (as in Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr in
AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER), they're touching fairy tales, opening our hearts to embrace those sweet and special pleasures of self-indulgent masochism. When they don't, well...
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| TWILIGHT SAGA:ECLIPSE |
You get what I saw this summer. And that was? There's, ah well, there's the latest from the
TWILIGHT SAGA (West Side Story in the woods) with teenage girls going weak-kneed over "newborns" werewolves and vampires. Then, as the audience demo jumps to twenty and thirty-somethings, there's the preening condescension of
SEX AND THE CITY 2, and the barely tolerable blandness of
JUST WRIGHT. The demo jumps a decade or two (or three) with geezer-love in
LETTERS TO JULIET. Then, back in February, there was the nothing to love in
VALENTINE'S DAY -- the movie that inspired Roger Ebert's wonderful guide to dating: "it's a first date movie; if your date likes it, do not date that person again ..."(the negative reviews of this movie reached such high levels of hilarious inspiration they're listed in the blog of "Valentine's Day Massacre" of Feb. 15). And I'll add on the hard-to-remember
DEAR JOHN, not really a movie as much as
THE NOTEBOOK retooled as a music video.
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| SEX AND THE CITY 2 |
What's a discerning moviegoer, male or female, to do?
I whole heartedly recommend you seek out the movies of Nicole Holofcener.
She makes "vagina movies"( as she calls them), a right-on description of her character and dialogue driven comedies that offer insights and awareness way beyond that stuff at the Cineplex. Think Eric Rohmer, not Nancy Myers or Nora Ephron.
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| PLEASE GIVE (2010) |
They're independent films, low budget with nothing fancy as to wardrobe or set design. But, since she writes some of the finest screenplays of the past decade, she attracts a bevy of high-end actresses such as Jennifer Aniston, Anne Heche, France McDormand, Joan Cusack, Rebecca Hall, and Amanda Peet. And all her movies star Catherine Keener.
Before you dismiss her with an "indy-arty" label, Holofcener does have commercial chick flick credentials -- episodes of "Sex and the City" and "Gilmore Girls" are on her resume. But her movies take us into a whole other realm, where women struggle with work and money, family and friends -- and themselves -- while trying to behave ethically, and conduct themselves like adults doing the best they can. Falling in love and getting the guy become just a part of everything else that's going on. Her characters are real and everyday -- definitely de-glam is the rule here. Couples fight in that knowingly cruel way that only couples can; children are decidedly uncute; and the dialogue about sex is as funny and straightforward as anything from the heyday of Woody Allen. One of the best things: each movie contains at least one simple but
telling scene, illustrating an insightful difference between the sexes.
WALKING AND TALKING (1996)
Holofcener's first feature is personal movie-making in the best sense. Neurotic Amelia (Catherine Keener) goes all angsty as her roommate and life long friend, Laura (Anne Heche), moves out to live with her fiance. Admittedly, not much of a plot, but then, like Rohmer, plot isn't what Holofcener is about. The funny dialogue gets into the struggle of how these characters handle life's changes. It's a movie that's more insightful than most of this genre, and so comes off as a refreshing change of pace.
The telling scene: where Bill (Kevin Corrigan), the guy Amelia is dating, confronts her about calling him the "Ugly Guy" behind his back. It's priceless.
LOVELY AND AMAZING (2001)
A film as variations on a theme of female body image, this is where Holofcener's style is most like Rohmer. The
telling scene comes early on: Elizabeth (Emily Mortimer) tells her boyfriend Paul (James LeGros) "I know you think my arms are flabby." he stares -- pushed to that no-win hell guys know so well. His non-answer is taken as agreement -- so he's out. Later, when Elizabeth is with another guy, she boldly stands full-frontal before him, asking his assessment of her entire body. That we can watch this full-on confrontation without hiding our eyes, that its funny, rueful tone hooks us, is what distinguishes this filmmaker. Every character dislikes their body: Elizabeth's mother (Brenda Blethyn) hates her gut, so is getting liposuction (we get a close up) and has a crush on her doctor; while Michelle
FRIENDS WITH MONEY (2006)
The movie that proved Jennifer Aniston can act. Along with an all-star cast of Frances McDormand, Joan Cusack, and, of course, Catherine Keener, Aniston plays Olivia, a doobie-loving ex-teacher who works as a maid. She may not have near the income of her three life-long pals, but they still hang out. They live LA- normal, without the glam clothes, make-up and big-time shopping: one of the group, Jane (McDormand) is making some sort of statement by refusing to wash her hair -- a smell so bad it makes her husband turn away in bed. As all but Olivia have husbands, the group keeps trying to hook her up even as they struggle their own relationships.
The telling scene: after a party, as each of the married couples are driving home, all the husbands tell their wives they were the best looking woman there. None of the wives says a word, not falling for such a line. But their expressions say something else -- how great it feels to hear it.
PLEASE GIVE (2010)
The opening sequence: a montage of bare breasts going through mammograms -- the old, the young, the flabby and firm, they fill the screen, non-erotic and de-sexualized. At first, it seems to be just a visual stunt. But its relevance and meaning come later in the film's
telling scene: the shy and withdrawn Rebecca (Rebecca Hall), the medical technician doing the mammograms ("you're not a doctor," her sister keeps telling her) is on a date. When he says her job of dealing with breasts all day is a guy's dream, her response is the honest, straightforward, "Well I see them as tubes of trouble." The gender gap, Rebecca's character, the budding relationship with this couple is summed up in one line.
Keener plays Kate, a well-off New Yorker who's liberal guilt about making money (I won't reveal why) has her dolling out twenties to every panhandler she passes on the street, while her teenage daughter Abby (a really clever and amusing Sarah Steele), and husband, Alex (Oliver Platt, a subdued scene- stealer here) feel she cares more for the poor than about them. Then there's Rebecca's grandmother, a hilarious Ann Guilbert, as the smart and mean old lady in the next apartment. And Mary, Rebecca's sister played by Amanda Peet, in perfect vulnerable-bitch mode, has what can only be called a "robotic" affair with Alex.
No doubt about it though, Keener is the center, holding our focus through all the machinations. But this is a cast where everyone gets into their characters, creating people you know and recognize. As with all of Holofcener, her people aren't totally likeable, but you can see sides of yourself in them, so they connect, staying in your mind long after seeing the movie.
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