Funny People

Posted on November 25, 2009 at 6:10 pm

“Funny People” combines two very different movies. The first is a typically crass, shallow Judd Apatow production, saturated with childish sexual antics and slapstick humor. The second is a dark, self-aware examination of a painful and ultimately meaningless life. What starts out as an intriguing dance between these two different themes ends up as a brawl in which crass and shallow wins by a TKO in the 23rd round.
In the first few minutes, we witness the transition of George Simmons (Adam Sandler) from a happy kid clowning around with prank phone calls and practical jokes to a wildly successful comedian and movie star, standing alone like an emperor on the balcony of his huge mansion by the sea. His crude instincts have become the foundation of a vast entertainment empire. The transition from Sandler’s grainy amateur videotapes with friends to his isolation above manicured lawns and swimming pools won’t exactly compete with Citizen Kane, but it is not unmoving. There even appears to be a glimmer of irony at the way society rewards childish behavior.
We witness Sandler through a day in the life: he wades through crowds of adoring fans who gather whenever he walks down the street. He has obviously become experienced at shaking hands and wisecracking while keeping his distance. He wades through stacks of proposed scripts and lucrative offers that have been submitted for his consideration. He wades through piles of possessions that now weigh him down and no longer give him pleasure. It becomes clear to us that his glitzy life is hollow at the core, and Sandler is forced to confront that fact as well when his doctor tells him that he has AML, a form of leukemia, and is likely to die.
Sandler first flails around in response to this news, sometimes in persuasive ways. After a particularly bitter and unsettling performance at a comedy club, Sandler meets Seth Rogen as Ira Wright, a young and aspiring comedian who works in a delicatessen and wants nothing more than to become a comedy star like Sandler. Sandler is reminded of his younger, purer days and takes Rogen under his wing as a joke writer and valet. Their adventures together take up most of the story. We see Sandler’s lavish lifestyle as well as his dark vices through the wide eyes of Rogen and occasionally we even care about which one of them will transform the other first.
At Rogen’s instigation, Sandler revisits his past, talks with his estranged family and friends, and even reaches out to the one true love of his life, the girlfriend who left him years before because he cheated on her. The former girlfriend, Laura (Apatow’s wife Leslie Mann) is now married to an Australian businessman (Eric Bana) and has a family life with two delightful daughters (played by the children of Apatow and Mann).
This movie is more interesting than typical Apatow fare and even has some good moments, but it cries out for an editor. It becomes less satisfying as it progresses (and it progresses for a long, loooonnnnng time).
Apparently, Apatow is only able to go so deep before resorting to his former self. At one point, Rogen yells at Sandler, “you didn’t learn anything from a near death experience! You are worse than you were before!” Words for Apatow to ponder.

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Comedy Drama

The Box

Posted on November 8, 2009 at 8:06 pm

I loved “Donnie Darko” and was eager to listen to the DVD commentary by writer/director Richard Kelly. But I had to turn it off after the first ten minutes. Kelly explained too much, and his explanations were so mundane they detracted from the film’s intriguing ambiguities. After the fascinating but incoherent “Southland Tales,” Kelly shifts back toward explaining too much in “The Box, based on a short story by Richard Matheson and its adaptation as an episode of “The Twilight Zone.”

Amid the meticulously re-created details of the 1976 Richmond, Virginia setting (harvest gold, maxi coats), a loving couple feeling some financial pressure are presented with a moral dilemma. Early one morning just before Christmas, a plain brown package is left on their doorstep with an elegant note informing them that Mr. Steward (Frank Langella) will be there at 5. Inside the package is a box with a red button covered by a locked glass dome.

Norma (Cameron Diaz) and Arthur (James Marsden) go to work, where each receives bad news. Norma teaches English at a private school. Just after her class on Sartre’s “No Exit,” she is informed that the school will no longer be able to subsidize her son’s tuition, a severe financial blow. And Arthur, who (like Kelly’s father) designs lenses for a Mars explorer, learns that his application to the astronaut program has been turned down.

Norma is home alone when Mr. Steward arrives. His appearance is shocking. The lower left quarter of his face has been sheered off by some massive trauma, so devastating we can see not only sinew but teeth through what once was his cheek. His message is shocking, too. He gives Norma a key to open the glass dome and tells her that if she pushes the red button within 24 hours someone she does not know will die and she will receive one million dollars in cash, tax-free.

“Maybe it’s a baby,” says Arthur. “Maybe it’s a man on death row,” says Norma. Arthur, the engineer, takes the box apart. There’s nothing inside. Rationally, it seems impossible that the offer could be real. They go back and forth. And then, as much to end the agony of uncertainty as anything else, one of them impulsively hits it. And then things really go haywire in the lives of Arthur and Norma and pretty much in the movie, too.

Kelly knows how to create a mood of claustrophobic dread and how to create stunning images. Back in those pre-Google days, people had to do research in the stacks of a library, and Kelly makes those scenes look both retro and chilling. But there is nothing to approach the best moments in “Donnie Darko,” the Sparkle Motion dance number to “Notorious,” the motivational speaker, the controversy over the story taught in school, the riff on the Smurfs. Like the box with the button, it is enticing on the surface but inside it is empty.

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Fame

Posted on September 14, 2009 at 8:00 am

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	R
Profanity:	Very strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking
Violence/ Scariness:	Tense confrontations, brief peril
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	1980
Date Released to DVD:	2009
Amazon.com ASIN:	B002D0L0QS

Less a movie than a mosaic, this remake of the 1980 classic with the Oscar-winning title anthem about the high school for the performing arts has been re-imagined for the hyper-linked and just plain hyper 21st century. As in the original, we follow the stories of aspiring performers from their first audition through four years of high school. But this time, so many characters are thrown at us that we never connect with any of them. This film is as much an artifact of its era as the dancing-in-the-streets first one, perhaps in ways it did not intend. It is a revealing reflection of its target audience: kids used to keeping up to date via tweets and Facebook status lines, the generation that cannot see the line between access to information and understanding the information’s context and import.

It indicates more than it shows, not because it is subtle, but because it is frantic, trying to follow the lives of ten students over four years in less than two hours. Narrative is pushed to one side. Even the too-brief but excellent musical numbers are chopped up and intercut not so much as an artistic statement as a recognition that society as a whole now meets the clinical definition of ADD.

The talented cast passes by so quickly it is like watching a 107-minute trailer. Naturi Naughton makes a strong impression in vocal numbers that include “Out Here on My Own” from the 1980 film. Kay Panabaker has a sweet honesty that comes across well on screen and more than any of the others she shows us the difference in her character as she grows up and gains confidence. An exceptionally strong cast of adults adds some depth to the faculty roles, including “Will and Grace’s” Megan Mullally and “Frasier’s” Bebe Neuwirth and Kelsey Grammer along with movie and theater veteran Charles S. Dutton. If only they had been able to sit down writer Alison Burnett and director Kevin Tancharoen to give them the kind of stern pep talk about craft and discipline that they give to their students, this would have been a better movie.

Wiseguy

Posted on August 27, 2009 at 8:00 am

“Wiseguy” was a tough, smart 1980’s television series about a cop (Ken Wahl) who goes deep undercover, starting with 18 months in prison to establish his criminal credentials. In this first season, just out on DVD, he infiltrates the organization of a volatile crime boss played by Ray Sharkey. The second season co-starred a very young Kevin Spacey. Warning: the producers of the DVD set did not secure the original music rights, so the soundtrack does not include “Knights in White Satin” and some of the other striking songs that gave extra power to the original broadcast. But it is still a sharp crime drama with excellent performances. I hope the second season is released. It featured a mesmerizing performance from a very young Kevin Spacey.

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Crime Drama Television

Duplicity

Posted on August 26, 2009 at 8:01 am

What do Egyptian launch codes and a new frozen pizza topping have in common?

They’re both secrets that are of value to both those who know it and those who want to know it. Where there are secrets, there must be spies. Where there are spies, there must be counter-spies. And where there is conflict, there must be some sparks.

Writer-director Tony Gilroy (Michael Clayton) has produced another sharp, twisty, and very stylish thriller, this time with romance and a bit of stardust. The result is a top-notch date movie for grown-ups.

Julia Roberts plays Claire and her Closer co-star Clive Owens is Ray. They meet at an American embassy 4th of July party in Dubai and it is not clear whether their opening exchange is flirtation or something a little more professional. The same can be said of the subsequent encounter, leaving one of them triumphant and the other feeling used and embarrassed. As we go back and forth in time, pieces of the puzzle come together. Once spies for the CIA and MI6, Claire and Ray move on to the more-lucrative career of corporate espionage and perhaps the even-more lucrative career of working for themselves.

Gilroy gives the film a bit of a retro gloss, with a soundtrack that has a 70’s flavor and sleek camera effects with sliding boxes reminiscent of the original “Thomas Crown Affair.” Roberts makes a welcome return to the screen, looking less willowy and more curvy. Owen, most often seen in movies glowering or cynical, is more natural trying out a Tennessee accent than he is trying out a smile, but he has a sure sense of timing that makes the best of Gilroy’s clever banter. This movie sparkles with witty exchanges, and the back-and-forth time shifts in story-telling reveals just how much every word of that dialog matters. The stakes are not as dire as in “Michael Clayton,” but that is part of the fun, watching former top spies use all of the resources available to track down information about items sold in a grocery store. More fun is seeing how two people whose careers depend on not trusting and not being trustworthy test each other and themselves to see if they can build a lasting connection. “Duplicity” may refer to a double-cross, but this movie is double-entertaining.

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Drama Romance Spies