Five Better Movies With Paul Rudd

Posted on August 26, 2011 at 12:18 pm

Our Idiot Brother is a disappointment, but Paul Rudd is always a pleasure. Here are some better choices for those who miss that Rudd-alicious feeling:

1. How Do You Know This was a massive box office flop, but it is now on cable and definitely worth a look for some very choice moments, especially Rudd’s performance as a good guy caught up in securities fraud and an even deeper moral dilemma. Watch him as he recognizes the baseball player he shared an awful date with on an elevator, a social smile on his mouth and anguish in his eyes.

2. I Could Never Be Your Woman This is a terrific movie that got caught in the unrelated vortex of a financial collapse and never got the attention it deserves. Michelle Pfeiffer is a single mom who produces a silly but popular sitcom and Rudd is the young actor who makes her fall in love in spite of herself.

3. The Object Of My Affection Rudd plays Paul, a gay teacher who moves in with a single woman he has just met (Jennifer Aniston) after a bad break-up. The two of them quickly become close friends and then realize that they cannot hide out with each other forever. Both Rudd and Aniston deliver their best in this bittersweet love story.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_lNnxTPB9A

4. Clueless This bubbly delight, inspired by Jane Austen’s “Emma,” has Rudd as the (brief) former step-brother and love interest for Alicia Silverstone’s Cher.

5. I Love You, Man In the midst of a raunchy bro-mance, Rudd is sensational as a guy who is a wonderful, devoted boyfriend but hasn’t quite figured out the trick of guy friendships until he meets Sydney (Jason Segal). Just watch Rudd try to come up with some guy-talk and end up stumbling with “totes magotes.”

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The Worst Movie Bosses

Posted on July 6, 2011 at 9:00 am

This week’s release of “Horrible Bosses” made me think of some of the other terrible bosses in movies. Here are some of the bosses we love to hate on screen. Who am I leaving out? And which movie boss is most like your all-time worst boss?

The all-time bad movie boss champ has to be Kevin Spacey, who adds to his list by appearing in “Horrible Bosses” as a cruel, manipulative, and paranoid company president. I’m going to limit him to two on this list, but could choose others as well.

1. Kevin Spacey in Glengarry Glen Ross There’s no meaner workplace in cinema history than this brutal and back-stabbing real estate company. Spacey’s electrifying performance shows that his self-loathing is only exceeded by his contempt for everyone around him. (Special credit to Alec Baldwin for a stunning turn as a guy from the home office brought in to give a pep talk: “Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is you’re fired.”)

2. Kevin Spacey in Swimming With Sharks Reportedly, this screenplay was inspired by the author’s own experience. The assistant in the story gets his revenge on his sadistic bully of boss by torturing him, but in real life he just put his most appalling behavior up on screen.

3. Gary Cole in Office Space He doesn’t yell. He does not insult his staff. He is just massively inconsiderate, making inane and dehumanizing and agonizingly insincere “requests.” I don’t know which is worse — the cover on the TPS reports or Hawaiian Shirt Day. (Special credit to screenwriter Mike Judge, the movie’s screenwriter, as Jennifer Aniston’s boss at Chotchkie’s, who tells her she should have more than the minimum flair.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IwzZYRejZQ

4. Sandra Bullock in The Proposal Everyone is terrified of this greyhound-slim and rattlesnake-mean editor, who can make the slightest error into a career-killer.

5. Fred MacMurray in The Apartment Jack Lemmon discovers that the only way to get ahead in this enormous insurance company is to let the boss use your apartment for his assignations.

6. Sigourney Weaver in Working Girl She pretends to support her assistant’s dreams for advancement, but instead, she steals her ideas. I love her line about why she is sure her boyfriend (Harrison Ford in a magnificent performance) will propose: “We’re in the same city now, I’ve indicated that I’m receptive to an offer, I’ve cleared the month of June… and I am, after all, me.”

7. Dabney Coleman in 9 to 5 Based on interviews with many working women, Coleman’s character was designed to exemplify just about every awful characteristic: lazy, sexist, dishonest, incompetent, and predatory.

8. Alistair Sim in A Christmas Carol Until he learns a lesson from the three Christmas ghosts, Scrooge is a demanding, nasty, and of course very cheap boss who keeps poor Bob Cratchit underpaid and shivering in the cold.

9. Charles Laughton in Mutiny on the Bounty Based on a real-life story, Laughton plays Captain Bligh, whose cruel treatment of his men led to a mutiny, putting him off the ship in a launch. (The real-life Bligh was exonerated after making it back to England in what is still an un-matched feat of navigational skill.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtmV2tpbnjA

10. Denzel Washington in Training Day Ethan Hawke plays a young police officer assigned to work with Washington’s character, a corrupt narcotics detective who manipulates and blackmails him, drawing him into a quagmire of corruption. Washington won an Oscar for his dazzling performance of a man who loves control but is losing his capacity to maintain it.

Dishonorable mention: Paul Giamatti as Howard Stern’s boss in “Private Parts,” Meryl Streep in “The Devil Wears Prada,” Laura Linney in “The Nanny Diaries,” and Tom Cruise in “Tropic Thunder”

Many thanks to David Apatoff and Christopher Orr for sharing their suggestions.

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Happy Birthday, Marilyn Monroe!

Posted on June 4, 2011 at 5:09 pm

Happy birthday to Marilyn Monroe, that star of stars. She continues to bewitch us nearly a half century after her death. Yet another movie about her is currently in the works, with Michelle Williams as the former Norma Jean Baker.

I hope you have all seen “Some Like It Hot, ” the American Film Institute’s number one funniest American movie of all time. And everyone should watch “The Seven Year Itch” and “Bus Stop,” both classics. I’d also suggest:

Let’s Make Love Marilyn does a sizzling performance of “My Heart Belongs to Daddy” in this charming story of a zillionaire who tries to stop a satiric off-Broadway revue because it makes fun of him and then ends up trying out to play himself because he wants to get to know the beautiful star of the show.

There’s No Business Like Show Business This often-forgotten film is a sudsy excuse for using a lot of Irving Berlin songs, but it has a knock-out cast, including Ethel Merman and Donald O’Connor, and Monroe is sensational in “We’re Having a Heat Wave.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Krl_pXXfKEI&feature=related

How to Marry a Millionaire Lauren Bacall, Betty Grable, and Monroe are three models with a plan to marry rich. As the nearsighted girl with a warm heart, and in one of two performances opposite David Wayne (the other is “We’re Not Married”), she is pure delight.

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes Madonna based her “Material Girl” video on “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” from this movie about two free-wheeling showgirls. I also love her song, “Bye Bye Baby.”

Happy Mother’s Day!

Posted on May 8, 2011 at 11:08 am

I’ve written about my favorite moms on television and my favorite movie moms. But the best movie to share on Mother’s Day is the one your mother picks because she loves it. My best to all the mothers out there and all who love them.

Happy Birthday, William Shakespeare!

Posted on April 23, 2011 at 12:29 pm

Don’t start with me about who wrote Shakespeare. Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare and today is his birthday. Celebrate with some of the many, many movie versions of, about, or inspired by his plays. Here are some of my favorites:

1. The Taming of the Shrew Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton bring their legendary combustible chemistry to this rambunctious version of Shakespeare’s most famous battle of the sexes. For an extra treat, pair it with the Cole Porter musical it inspired, Kiss Me Kate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9Cm6CU5Kc4

2. Romeo + Juliet Baz Lurhmann’s dazzling version of one of the world’s great tragic love stories is a treat for the eyes, ears, and soul. For an extra treat, pair it with the more traditional version directed by Franco Zeffirelli.

3. Shakespeare In Love This best-picture and best-actress Oscar winner is a highly fictionalized account of the writing of “Romeo and Juliet,” with the magnificent Judi Dench as Queen Elizabeth and a brilliantly witty script by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard. For an extra treat, try to catch a performance of A Cry of Players, a play about the young Shakespeare by the author of “The Miracle Worker.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUIemfeB_uI

4. Henry V There is the thrill of the St. Crispian’s Day speech. There is the heart-wrenching parting with the old friends who cannot be a part of the young king’s new life. But for me, the greatness of this play is that in the midst of all of the drama, Shakespeare inserts a scene of a young French princess trying to learn English so she can understand the man who is walloping her countrymen — and makes it work. For an extra treat, compare it to the Laurence Olivier version, very much the product of its WWII era.

5. The Tempest My own favorite of Shakespeare’s plays is thrilling with Helen Mirren as Prospera, a wizard who calls on all her powers of enchantment to provide a happy ending for her daughter and justice for herself. For an extra treat, try the space-age adaptation, Forbidden Planet.