Posted on July 19, 2010 at 3:29 pm
Two things I can’t resist — Helen Mirren taking down bad guys and movies where someone says, “We’re getting the band back together.”
Posted on July 19, 2010 at 8:00 am
B+| Lowest Recommended Age: | Middle School |
| MPAA Rating: | Rated PG-13 for sexual content, some drug references, and language |
| Profanity: | Brief strong language |
| Alcohol/ Drugs: | Social drinking, drunk driving, smoking, drug humor |
| Violence/ Scariness: | Comic slap |
| Diversity Issues: | None |
| Date Released to Theaters: | 2004 |
| Date Released to DVD: | 2004 |
| Amazon.com ASIN: | B00005JMYL |
This week’s release of “Ramona and Beezus” made me think of the movie where I first noticed two of its stars, Josh Duhamel and Ginnifer Goodwin:
This cute romantic comedy is better than it needs to be, thanks to the talents of three up-and-coming stars, impeccable comic timing from the supporting actors, and a director (Robert Luketic of Legally Blonde) who knows how to make it all as shiny as a new copper penny.
The set-up is taken from Cinderella, with the part of the fairy godmother played by the internet.
Kate Bosworth plays Rosalee Futch, a sunny check-out girl at a Piggly Wiggly grocery store in a small West Virginia town. Her best friends are Cathy (the terrific Gennifer Goodwin of Mona Lisa Smile) and Pete (Topher Grace of “That Seventies Show”).
Rosalee wins an online charity contest for a date with movie superstar Tad Hamilton (Josh Duhamel). She is whisked away to Hollywood for a stay in a luxury hotel and a glamorous evening with the man of her dreams, or at least the man who plays the man of her dreams.
Tad is better at playing an all-American boy next door than being one. As his agent (or is it his manager — they’re both named Richard Levy) says of one tabloid photo: “Congratulations! You’re actually drinking, driving, smoking, leering, and groping at the same time!” They set up the charity contest in order to create a more wholesome image for Tad.
Tad is charmed by Rosalee’s unpretentious goodness, and he follows her back to West Virginia, interfering with Pete’s plans to declare his feelings for Rosalee.
It is impossible to believe that Pete and Rosalee could have existed for five minutes in the same town without its being clear to both of them and everyone in the county how they felt about each other. But this is a fairy tale, with Rosalee the kind of girl who is so innocent that she not only wears her retainer on her big date; she takes it out at the table when it is time to eat. And Bosworth and Grace almost make us believe that they are simply just too adorable to figure out that they should probably be dating. Pete has a tiny bit of ironic self-awareness (he threatens to tear Tad apart with his bare hands “…or with vicious rhetoric!”) that keeps things from getting too sugary. And Duhamel is simply terrific as Tad. He has all of the confidence, charisma, and screen power to make us believe that Tad is a movie star. But he also manages to show us Tad’s uncertainty, insecurity, and dim sense that Rosalee does have something worth wanting. The tough part is making that work in a romantic comedy without making it too broad or too deep. We want to care about Tad, but not too much. Duhamel gets it exactly right.
Nathan Lane and Sean Hayes as the two Richard Levys and Gary Cole as Rosalee’s starstruck dad (watch his t-shirts) lend additional snap to the story. Kathryn Hahn contributes a lovely performance as a bartender who is smitten with Pete and Ginnifer Goodwin is adorable as the best friend. It may be romantic fluff, but it is brightly done and all-but-irresistibly cute.
Parents should know that the movie includes some strong language, drinking and smoking (scenes in a bar, character drinks to drown his sorrows), drug humor, brief barf and toilet humor, and sexual references and situations. But the movie has a positive message about sexual values, as Rosalie’s decision not to have sex with Tad is an important part of his developing respect for her and wanting to get to know her better.
Families who see this movie should talk about the ways we think about celebrities. Why was it so easy for Rosalie and Cathy to think that they knew what Tad was like? What is Tad really like? Did some of Rosalie’s goodness “rub off” on him? What will be different for him? Why was it so hard for Pete to tell Rosalie how he felt?
Families who enjoy this movie should see the classic musical Bye Bye Birdie about the havoc brought to a small town when a rock star arrives to get “one last kiss” from a randomly chosen fan (played by Ann-Margret). Mature audiences will also David Mamet’s trenchantly funny State and Main about a movie company’s effect on a small New England town.
Posted on July 17, 2010 at 3:55 pm
One of the most inspiring films of the year is A Small Act. It is a documentary about Chris Mburu, a human rights advocate for the United Nations, whose life was transformed when a Swedish woman he never met decided to send $15 a month so that he could go to school.
Mburu is from Kenya. Hilda Back, now 85, survived the Holocaust but lost her family. She worked as a schoolteacher and never married. She hoped that the $15 a month she sent, her “small act,” would make a difference in the life of a child by making it possible for him to get an education. Mburu was so successful in school that he graduated from Harvard Law School and now spends his life fighting genocide and injustice.
In this film, Mburu, who has already set up a scholarship fund in Ms. Back’s name, meets her for the first time. She comes to his village, sees where he is from, celebrates with his people. And three students compete for a chance like the one Back gave Mburu. What small acts will they benefit from? What small acts will they make possible? What will you?
Posted on July 15, 2010 at 6:01 pm
B+| Lowest Recommended Age: | Mature High Schooler |
| MPAA Rating: | Rated R for strong sexual content, nudity, language and some teen drug and alcohol use |
| Profanity: | Very strong and explicit language |
| Alcohol/ Drugs: | Drinking, drug use, by adults and teens, adult abuses alcohol |
| Violence/ Scariness: | Tense family confrontations, scuffle |
| Diversity Issues: | A theme of the movie |
| Date Released to Theaters: | July 16, 2010 |
Life is messy, and one of the ways we try to make sense of it is through stories. With their selection of detail and events and resolution — whether a happy or a sad one — they give us a sense of structure and logic and catharsis. They help us sort through life’s ambiguities and complications, even if only for a couple of hours.
At least, that’s what stories do most of the time. Once in a while, they are content just to reflect back to us the very messiness and ambiguity we are experiencing. And when they do it well, they give us a sense of recognition that is in its own way cathartic. This film manages to do that and to be subtly subversive, lulling us across some of our own internal boundaries with its matter-of-fact portrayal of family life.
Nic (Annette Bening) and Jules (Julianne Moore) are a long-time couple who have each given birth to a child, biological half-siblings because both women used sperm from the same anonymous donor, selected as optimal on the basis of his profile. Now the children, Joni (Mia Wasikowska of “Alice in Wonderland”) and Laser (Josh Hutcherson of “Journey to the Center of the Earth”) are teenagers and curious about their biological father. So, without telling their moms, they contact him.
He is Paul (Mark Ruffalo), an organic farmer and restaurateur whose free-spirited approach to life is very appealing to two teenagers emerging from a home that is rather hot-housed by comparison. Nic and Jules have created a deeply nurturing, “Let’s talk about our feelings” environment that feels claustrophobic and intrusive to their children, especially Laser as the household’s only male. In a brief but beautifully filmed scene that opens the film, Laser looks on with a mixture of curiosity and longing as a friend casually roughhouses with his dad, captivated by this particularly male kind of communication. It may be in part this emotion that keeps Laser connected to a friend his moms correctly believe to be a bad influence.
Paul is an enticing figure for the teenagers, comfortable with his maleness and easy-going. And Paul himself is enticed by Joni and Laser, who surprise him with a sense of connection and stability he did not realize he was missing. Just as they are separating from overshare central in the house they grew up in as a normal part of adolescent search for identity, he is drawn to the road he did not quite realize he chose not to take. And this plays out in ways that threaten everything the family has built.
The title focuses on the kids, but the movie is really about the adults. The small miracle of this film is its portrayal of a long-term marriage, its perspective unadorned but sympathetic, satiric but tender. The dynamic of affection, distraction, familiarity, and frustration is deftly portrayed. The expectation of the movie is that audiences will take for granted that a same-sex relationship is just like every other relationship we have experienced and seen portrayed, and if there is any surprise at all it is how quickly we do.
And then, just as we get comfortable with the familiar discomforts of the relationship, it all gets turned upside down and we and the characters are asked to jettison yet another level of expectations and boundaries.
Bening and Moore are magnificent. It is a pure pleasure to see women with real faces on screen. They hold nothing back in allowing themselves to be seen fully in every sense of the term, opening themselves up with breathtaking generosity of spirit. The kids are all right in this film; the grown-ups are even better.
Posted on July 14, 2010 at 8:26 am
As wilted as last weekend’s bridesmaid bouquet, “Our Family Wedding” manages to be offensive to African-Americans, Latinos, women, men, and sentient life forms of any kind. There may be a fine line between perpetuating stereotypes and making fun of them, but it is a line, and one that this film never makes it across. The only real connection the audience will have is with the actors, not the characters, as we ask ourselves over and over how so many talented people got stuck in this mess.
Every wedding is a culture clash, and there are plays, movies, and endless favorite family anecdotes about unexpected encounters with traditions and cuisine and even prejudices. But this story about the collision of cultures when a young woman of Mexican heritage marries an African-American has no real sense of its characters or their cultures and deteriorates quickly into superficial signifiers. The Frito Bandito has more ethnic sensitivity than anyone in this movie. A typically undernourished exchange has the groom’s father (a slumming Forest Whitaker) insisting that black traditions must be reflected in the ceremony but unable to remember any. There is no humor, no warmth, and no chemistry whatsoever between any of the characters, including the young couple we are supposed to be rooting for. And there’s no story — just emotional and sometimes literal mayhem in a lot of different locations.
Things that are supposed to be funny but are not include two different incidents of accidental Viagra taking, one involving the bride’s father and one involving a goat, a bartender who insists on being called a “mixologist,” excitable old ladies of both ethnic groups, a destroyed wedding cake, initial antagonism between the fathers over a towing incident that deteriorates into racial insults and subsequent bonding over getting drunk in a club (you don’t want to know the name of the drink they order from the mixologist) and dancing with lots of pretty girls. Things that are supposed to be endearing but are not include a best friends-turning to romance between Whitaker and the criminally underused Regina King and a rekindling of romance between the bride’s parents (a bland Carlos Mencia and Diana-Maria Riva). And it is truly unforgivable when there is a credit sequence series of photos suggesting yet another round of low-jinks ahead.
