Labor Day

Posted on January 30, 2014 at 6:00 pm

Labor Day film stillOn the surface, “Labor Day” feels like would-be Nicholas Sparks, a syrupy romance about two people with damaged hearts finding a healing love in a picturesque setting. But like a pretty chocolate candy with a filling that turns out to be surprisingly sour, this film based on the novel by Joyce Maynard is poisoned by Maynard’s trademark narcissism and her notion of love that never progressed beyond pulp-infused fantasies.  For Maynard, the only purpose of perfect love is to be endlessly worshiped by everyone, including a hunky guy who can literally and metaphorically clean her gutters and change her oil and also bake overripe peaches into a swoon-worthy pie, no measuring cup needed.

Youch.  Maynard, the empress of TMI, is a gifted writer who endlessly plumbs her favorite subject — herself.   The New York Times Magazine cover story in which she attempted to define her generation at age 18 led to a book contract (Looking Back: A Chronicle of Growing Up Old in the Sixties) and a series of fan letters from J.D. Salinger that invited her to drop out of college and move in with him.  And all of that led to a series of non-fiction and thinly disguised fictional stories and books about her dysfunctional parents, her marriage, her divorce, her children, her sister who is not as close to her as she would like, her beautiful homes and wonderful cooking, more more more on her children (the three she gave birth to and two more she adopted until the adoption did not work out and she found another home for them), more on her divorce, the first breast implants, the second breast implants, the removal of the implants, many splendid pies and many not so splendid relationships including a famously reclusive author and an intense correspondence with a prisoner that was one of the inspirations for this story.  The primary themes of her writing, lurking just under the surface tone of intimacy and comfort, are her fantasy of being utterly adored and the pain and never-ending sense of surprise and disappointment of discovering, over and over again, that she cannot seem to find it.

Those themes can be and have been turned into compelling stories, even literature.  But that requires a level of self-awareness that is utterly beyond Maynard, or, apparently director Jason Reitman, who wrote the screenplay based on her book.  Compare her novel, To Die For, based on the real-life case of the young wife who persuaded her 15-year-old lover and his friends to kill her husband, to the far superior movie starring Nicole Kidman and Joaquin Phoenix.  Thanks to screenwriter Buck Henry (“The Graduate”) and director Gus Van Sant, one key difference is that the film version slyly tweaks her story.  The film has some perspective on its clueless, narcissistic, chocolate spider of an anti-heroine (a sizzling portrayal by Kidman), while Maynard’s version seems to suggest that it sure would be nice to be so loved that you could talk someone into killing for you.

And that brings us to this story, in which Adele (a game but pasty-looking Kate Winslet), a depressed and fragile single mother, is unreservedly loved not just by her 13-year-old son Henry (Gattlin Griffith) and by Frank (Josh Brolin), the escaped prisoner who takes her hostage (but in the most gentlemanly way possible, performing all kinds of handyman chores, teaching her son manly throwing skills, being kind to a kid in a wheelchair, and making the gooey, luscious, no measuring cups allowed pie).  Even (spoiler alert) the ex-husband (Clark Gregg) has to chime in as well with the ultimate fantasy of the wife left for the babysitter — a confession that the ex-wife was just too beautiful and deep and all-around fine for him to handle.  The narrator is the now-adult son (Tobey Maguire), looking nostalgically back on end of the summer of 1987, when his efforts to cheer up his mother included a “Husband for a Day” coupon book.  Maynard has said this was inspired by a gift from her own son.  The film conveys no understanding that this might be evidence that she should be more careful about boundary issues (even worse is her sex talk) or that it is parents who should care for children, not the other way around.

Henry has outgrown his clothes, so he has to cajole Adele into a rare trip to the store.  There he is sized up by Frank, bleeding and wounded, who grabs a hat and sweatshirt from the rack and tells Adele that Henry has agreed she will give him a ride.  He tells her to drive him to her house, and then he tells her he will just stay until dark.  But pretty soon he is literally and metaphorically oiling her hinges.  Politely tying her up just to preserve her deniability in case he is found, he takes a few ingredients he finds in the kitchen and whips together a succulent chli, feeding her almost tenderly.  And then a neighbor comes over to drop off some ripe peaches, and they make every attempt to do to pastry what “Ghost” did for a potter’s wheel.  Unfortunately, it does to pastry what the many spoofs of the potter’s wheel scene have done instead.

Hunky as he is, we are never in thrall to Frank as Adele and Henry are.  His handyman perfection and meaningful glances are just too over the top and the backstory, when it finally comes, does not satisfy our need to understand and forgive him.  The entire last third of the film involves so many bad decisions — no, not just bad, catastrophically imbecilic — that we lose our sympathy for just about everyone involved.

Parents should know that there are some disturbing images of a bloody wound and a homicide and an off-camera very sad death of an infant.  There are sexual references and references to adultery and non-explicit situations.  Characters are in peril and there are some uncomfortable family interactions.

Family discussion:  What did Frank and Adele understand about each other?  What could Gerald have done to be a better father?  Why did Henry want to stay with his mother?

If you like this, try: the books and movies from Nicholas Sparks and “The Bridges of Madison County”

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Based on a book Family Issues Romance

That Awkward Moment

Posted on January 30, 2014 at 6:00 pm

that awkward moment

A cast of exceptionally appealing performers and some very funny lines are not enough to make this raunchy comedy overcome its essential charmlessness.  At its heart, it wants to be a romantic comedy, a chick flick from the perspective of the guys.  But even Zac Efron, Miles Teller, and Michael B. Jordan cannot make us wish these guys on anyone, and especially not on Ellie (Imogen Poots) and Chelsea (Mackenzie Davis).

Best bros/ladykillers Jason (Efron), Daniel (Teller), and Mikey (“Fruitvale Station” breakout Michael B. Jordan) make a pledge to avoid entanglements of the romantic kind and devote themselves to a “roster” of willing lovelies, kicking to the curb any woman who has the temerity to start a sentence with “So.”  “So,” it seems, never leads to anything good.  It is always the precursor to some version of “where do you think this is going?”  If it is supposed to be endearing that Jason’s response to a “So” conversation from a woman he has been having sex with for six weeks is an internal “I didn’t know we were dating” while he comforts her with a variation of “It’s not you, it’s me,” it fails to persuade us.  “I’m not even close to the guy you need, the guy you deserve,” he comforts her as he escorts her to the door.

Brief interruption for an important message: Guys, if you sleep with someone, it is likely that she thinks you’re in a relationship.  Ladies, unless you don’t care whether you’re in a relationship or not, don’t sleep with him until you have a relationship first.  And if you are looking for someone who has a bed frame and does not drink coffee from a cereal bowl, then check those things out before you go to bed with him.

Mikey gets dumped by his wife, who tells him she is having mind-blowing sex with her lawyer, who, according to Mikey, looks like Morris Chestnut.  A repeated joke that white people do not know who Morris Chestnut is will not make sense to those who are fans of the handsome actor or those who do not know his work.

Jason and Daniel, who work together illustrating book covers, decide that the best way to comfort the devastated Mikey is to make a promise that they will sleep with a lot of women and not get emotionally entangled.  As has been true ever since before Shakespeare, this pledge is always immediately followed by meeting an irresistible woman.

Daniel has been relying on his gal pal Chelsea to act as his wingwoman, though her role is limited to some mild banter interspersed  with the highly unoriginal tactic of complimenting pretty women’s shoes and then turning her over to Daniel with some outrageous lie intended to capture their interest and sympathy (“he’s a virgin”).

Jason meets a smart, pretty girl named Ellie at a bar, has sex with her, and then concludes, based on the flimsiest of evidence, that she is a hooker (his term), despite the fact that she didn’t make any effort to negotiate payment.  So, he dashes out while she is asleep, only to find, in a highly unoriginal “Top Gun”/”Grey’s Anatomy” twist, that she is a client of his firm and he is supposed to impress her.

And Mikey tells the guys he is pursuing a girl he met in the bar, but in reality he is pursuing the wife who asked him for a divorce.

The ups and downs of these relationships are thin at best and most often icky and crass.  Another plot development seems lifted from the vastly superior “High Fidelity.” And another asks us to find theft and deception endearing.  The female characters are underwritten male fantasies — easily seduced, easily placated, undemanding, and with mad Xbox skillz.  Even the big public apology that is the very hallmark of a chick flick is unimpressive.  What people seem to miss is that if a raunchy comedy is supposed to be romantic, the worst of the raunch has to be by proxy with the least sympathetic character, as in “American Pie.”  This movie is not even close to the one we need, the one we deserve.

Parents should know that this movie is extremely raunchy, with explicit sexual references and situations, some graphic images, and brief pharmaceutical abuse.

Family discussion: What scares Jason about the “so” sentences? Why were the guys afraid to tell each other the truth? Why did Chelsea spend so long acting as wing woman?

If you like this, try: “Going the Distance” with Drew Barrymore and Justin Long

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Comedy Romance

Trailer: The Fault In Our Stars

Posted on January 29, 2014 at 1:24 pm

Get out your handkerchiefs for one of the most eagerly anticipated films of the year, based on John Green’s book about the teenagers who meet in a cancer support group.

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The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Posted on December 24, 2013 at 6:00 pm

B+
Lowest Recommended Age: Middle School
MPAA Rating: Rated PG for some crude comments, language and action violence
Profanity: Some mild language
Alcohol/ Drugs: Drinking and drunkenness
Violence/ Scariness: Action-style peril, no one seriously hurt, references to sad parental death
Diversity Issues: None
Date Released to Theaters: December 25, 2013
Date Released to DVD: April 15, 2014
Amazon.com ASIN: B00H7KJTCG

Ben Stiller in a still from The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

We all know what it feels like to be Walter Mitty, imagining ourselves as achievers and darers far beyond our normal lives. The original short story by James Thurber is about a middle-aged, hen-pecked man who daydreams about dashing adventures as he is out running errands with his wife.  In this version, directed and starring Ben Stiller, Walter runs the photo library for LIFE Magazine.  (For you young people out there–this is not a metaphor.  There actually was a photojournalism magazine called LIFE.  From 1936-1972 it was kind of like a proto-version of Buzzfeed that came in the mail every week.  Before television and the internet, it was our first chance to see what the rest of the world looked like, with gorgeous, indelible, iconic images of movie stars and ordinary people, world leaders, athletes, and military battles.)

Every day, Walter walks to work past enormous, blown-up images of LIFE covers and the magazine’s motto: “To see the world, things dangerous to come to, to see behind walls, draw closer,to find each other and to feel. That is the purpose of life.”

Like George Bailey in “It’s a Wonderful Life,” Walter once planned to see the world but family obligations kept him at home.  Now, he spends his days as a “negative asset manager” cataloguing images taken by the dashing photojournalist Sean O’Connell (a rugged gem of a small performance from Sean Penn).  While one is risking his life, the other takes no risks at all.  He can barely bring himself to touch the computer key to “wink” at a woman on a dating website.  When asked to fill in the “been there, done that” space on his profile, he realizes he has not been anywhere or done anything.

She isn’t a stranger.  Cheryl (Kristin Wiig) has just come to work for LIFE.  If he cannot work up the nerve to cyber-wink at her, you can bet he does not know how to begin to talk to her in real life.  Walter might have stayed in his quiet, safe, lonely little world forever, living through his daydreams and half-living in reality.  But there comes a time when real life intrudes on dreams.

Things are coming apart at LIFE and in life.  The magazine has a new boss (nicely smarmy Tony Scott) who uses a lot of smug corporate-speak like “Some of you are non-vital.”  Walter’s mother (Shirley MacLaine!) is moving into assisted living.  And Sean sends in a roll of film with what he says is his best image ever, with a special note for Walter.  But that image is missing.  And to find it, Walter will have to discover how close he can get to being the daring, adventurous hero of his dreams.

As a director, Stiller is developing a more assured visual style and there are some bracingly robust images, befitting a story about LIFE photographs, the man who takes them and the man who sorts them, the man who goes places and the man who looks at the pictures of places.  The only way to find Sean’s photo is to find Sean. He takes pictures in places so remote and exotic they are not reachable by text messages or Skype.  That means a journey, physical and spiritual, through rocky, icy terrain and using every kind of transportation, including helicopter and boat.

The film is filled with lovely and surprising touches.  The story unfolds organically.  Like a video game hero, the items Walter gathers along the way turn out to be vital in keeping him on his journey.  Along the way, Walter keeps checking in by phone with the tech support guy who was supposed to fix his online dating “wink” function, as though he does not realize how his life is transforming around him.  I won’t give away the surprise by naming the actor on the other end of the phone; I’ll just say that he is ideal for the part. I liked  seeing Walter drew Cheryl into his search very naturally, and how Walter was able to be shy but still very capable around her and around her young son.  There are moments of true exhilaration and the end has an unexpected sweetness. If you’ve been daydreaming about a great film for the family to enjoy together over the holidays, take them on a journey to see this one at your local theater.

Parents should know that this film has some sexual humor, mild language, and action-style peril, reference to sad death of parent

Family discussion: Why was it hard for Walter to take risks? Which of his real-life adventures was the scariest?

If you like this, try: “Stranger than Fiction”

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Her

Posted on December 24, 2013 at 6:00 pm

B+
Lowest Recommended Age: Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating: Rated R for language, sexual content, and brief graphic nudity
Profanity: Very strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs: Drinking
Violence/ Scariness: Tense emotional confrontations and loss
Diversity Issues: None
Date Released to Theaters: December 25, 2013
Date Released to DVD: May 12, 2014
Amazon.com ASIN: B00HEKSZVK

her-joaquin-phoenix-spike-jonze

“Transition objects” are usually thought of as the stuffed toys toddlers hold onto so as a way of feeling more secure as they begin to separate from their parents and navigate the bigger world.  But we all have them.  We all carry real or virtual talismans to keep us from feeling adrift or abandoned.

And we all understand the bliss and torment of the Rorschach test stage of love, as what we project onto the objects of our physical and emotional desire has to give way to the reality of who they are.  If we’re lucky, it’s even better than we imagined and they feel that way about us, too.

Director Spike Jonze (“Being John Malcovich,” “Where the Wild Things Are”), working from his own screenplay, combines these two ideas in a wistful love story set slightly in the future simply called, in a reflection of its longing, “Her.”  Joaquin Phoenix plays Theodore and his job as a ghost writer of analog letters makes a kind of sense as the logical next step in a world where communication by text and Skype might make the idea of an old-school correspondence more valuable just as the ability to create them is barely vestigial.

Theodore spends his days writing letters of great tenderness and affection but there is none in his own life.  Recently divorced from Catherine (Rooney Mara) for reasons we never learn, he is withdrawn, isolated, alone.  When he is not working, he stays in his spare, generic apartment and plays a video game.  And then a new operating system comes on the market that is so responsive it virtually (in both senses of the word) achieves consciousness.  (Apparently, no one there has seen “Terminator,” because this sounds a lot like Skynet to me, but perhaps that is the weaponized version.)  Theodore decides to give it a try.

The new operating system calls herself “Samantha” and she has two enormously appealing qualities.  First, she has the throaty, intimate voice and delicious laugh of Scarlett Johansson (a performance of magnificent warmth and wit).  Second, she is utterly devoted to Theodore and utterly formed by him.  It is that most gratifying of relationships because he is everything to her and she is content for him to be so.  Plus, she is wonderfully competent, sorting through thousands of emails in a fraction of a second to organize them and, along the way, learn everything about him.

Theodore is not ready for a real relationship with a woman who might want something from him or be different from what he visualizes or idealizes.  But Samantha seems perfect, both in her innocence and in her progress.  He has the pleasure of explaining the world to her and his spirit opens up as he sees her curiosity, appreciation, and engagement.  He is reassured that the people around him (his boss, played by Chris Pratt, his neighbor and college friend, played by Amy Adams) seem to think it is perfectly normal to have a virtual girlfriend.  Samantha seems happy about it, too.

But as we have seen in “Lars and the Real Girl,” “Ruby Sparks,” George Bernard Shaw’s “Pygmalion” (which became the musical “My Fair Lady’), there’s no happily ever after in a relationship with a creation.  Samantha’s growth trajectory is astronomical.  No single human can really have her.  And the human qualities she lacks turn out to be important for a relationship, too.

Jonze’s story may be set in the future but it is an ancient one, going back to  the original Greek myth about the sculptor who fell in love with the statue he made and whose name became the title of Shaw’s play.  It is an eternal story because it is a more extreme version and thus a powerful metaphor about the risks and pleasures of intimacy.  Jonze tells that story here with great sensitivity and lyricism, the kind of artistry that machinery can never replace.

Parents should know that this movie includes strong language, sexual references and situations and nudity, and tense and sad experiences.

Family discussion:  Would you like to have an e-friend like Samantha?  What makes those relationships easier than interacting in real life?  What makes them harder?

If you like this, try: “Lars and the Real Girl,” “Ruby Sparks,” “Pygmalion,” “Catfish,” and “You’ve Got Mail”

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