Entertainment
Way late review: Young Adult
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Mavis writes young adult fiction. Throughout the film she struggles to write one last book in a series she is the ghost writer for. It becomes clear that Mavis is not so much writing about a teenage character set in a different world. She writes what she knows and what she knows, or at least thinks she knows, is herself. There is an interesting play of meta narrative going on whenever the author sits with her laptop and types some new prose.
After she receives an email from her old boyfriend Buddy Slade (Patrick Wilson) announcing the birth of his new baby, Mavis becomes obsessed with Buddy. She is so consumed with her self that she can only see one reason she received the email – to make her jealous. On a spur of the moment, after viewing the baby’s picture one too many times, the self-obsessed writer throws some clothes in a bag, shoves her dog in a small case and makes her way back to her small Minnesota town, leaving Minneapolis behind. Her mission is a simple one. She wants to have Buddy for herself once again. He’s not happy without her, at least that’s what Mavis would have everyone who will listen believe.
One of those Mavis confesses her twisted plot with is Matt (Patton Oswalt), who graduated in Mavis’ class. Matt uses a crutch to get around. In high school he was jumped by some fellow classmates and nearly beaten to death. He tells Mavis that he got a lot of attention and sympathy from all around the world when it was thought that he was gay. But once Matt made it clear that he wasn’t gay, the sympathy and attention dissipated almost overnight. He quips that the act was heinous when it was a hate crime but not quite so bad when it was some jocks beating a fat kid with a crow bar. Matt is honest, sometimes painfully so. He doesn’t attempt to elicit sympathy for his plight. He seems to cynically accept his position in life.
Matt’s penchant for telling the truth serves, at least at first, as Mavis’ missing conscience. He is vocal in his opposition to Mavis’ plan to steal Buddy away from a happy marriage with a new baby. He even goes out of his way to run interference when Buddy and Mavis meet for drinks at the bar Matt works at. Buddy seems naive in all of this. His happy-go-lucky attitude and clear devotion for his wife and child are juxtaposed up against his former high school girlfriend’s egocentricity.
The journey to destroy a marriage and fulfill the selfish desires of a despicable character does not sound fun but the way that the screenplay writer, Diablo Cody (most famous for writing Juno), positions her extremely narcissistic main character with a backdrop of decent human beings makes things fun. We can never cheer for our main character. Her plans and her ways are never worth cheering for. But we can laugh at the absurdity of her behavior, realizing that when we give into our own notions of self-importance, our vanity, we transform into creatures not unlike Mavis. And in the end, Young Adult serves as a warning for those of us who might think we’re far away from ever being like Mavis.
This post is part of my Way late reviews. Read more reviews here.
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Way late review: Nursery University
Monday, May 7, 2012
The documentary follows several families in New York City wading through the treacherous waters that are procuring a preschool for your soon to be toddler. Each family comes at it from a slightly different perspective and situation. By the end, it is clear – they’re all lost in the mire. The filmmaker (Marc H. Simon) does his best to maintain composure. While it would be easy to make the subject matter feel like a Christopher Guest mockumentary (think Best in Show), Simon refrains and lets the characters represent themselves on screen – warts and all.
The odds of getting into a nursery school of any standing are slim. For every open spot there can be over a hundred applicants. Making matters worse is the sticker shock. Numbers are thrown around early in the film that made me wonder if we were talking about college. It was not unusual to pay $20,000 and up for nursery school. Some were as high as $50,000 per year. Nursery school. This is the place where kids go to drool on one another and maybe learn to hold a crayon, right?
Even parents who did not grow up wealthy and in this hyper competitive setting of schooling for tikes have bought into the lie which says your child is ruined if she does not get into the right nursery school. In fact, one consultant (yes, they have consultants for getting into nursery schools in NYC!) made reference to a child getting into the right preschool, which leads to the right kindergarten, grade school, high school, university and eventually lands them a plush job at Goldman Sachs. Remove the first piece to that long chain of schooling and the child never achieves success as a prestigious mover of digits from one electronic account to the other. The documentary captures the insanity of this thinking quite well. Where it falls short is thinking this topic has 90 minutes of entertainment value. Because it aims to be fair and not mock the easily mockable, the second half of the film feels stretched thin. Some of the subjects are fairly likable, none are truly abhorrent, and therefore none are entertaining enough to hold interest for a feature length film. Their plight is not one we can empathize with. We’re left with watching the absurd attempt to turn into suspense about whether Johnny gets into the $30,000 per nursery or the $40,000 nursery.
Tackling a topic that seems surreal to everyone outside of it should be an easy win. It’s unfortunate that the narcissism on display never goes completely overboard to the point where it’s so sad it’s funny. And that is likely the result of a director who holds back on highlighting the truly ridiculous nature of his subject matter and the subjects themselves. Being fair to those who’ve let you film part of their lives is admirable, yet two rather famous documentarians Errol Morris and Werner Herzog prove it’s possible for directors to walk the line between fair and exploitative for great results. Nursery University walks too closely to the safe side and ends up giving an informative and somewhat entertaining film.
This post is part of my Way late reviews. Read more reviews here.
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Way late review: Days of Heaven
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Whether intentional or not, Days of Heaven borrows its main narrative straight from the Bible. Possibly a mix of stories between Moses and Abraham. Set in the early 1900′s, Bill is a steel-mill worker in Chicago who leaves abruptly after accidentally killing his supervisor. Bill heads south for Texas with his girlfriend Abby (Brooke Adams) and Abby’s younger sister. It’s the younger sister whose voice we hear narrating much of the movie with her distinctive Chicago accent. It’s a voice that contrasts with the beauty of the scenery on display – like a rusty spoon dragging across a chalkboard.
Bill does what any outstanding gentleman of his day would do which is pretend his girlfriend is his sister. He and his “sister” find work in a wheat field that belongs to a rich farmer (Sam Shepard). The farmer notices Bill’s fake sister and makes it known that he wouldn’t mind if she stayed on past the harvesting season. Around this same time Bill overhears the farmer’s doctor say that the farmer is dying. The setup is perfect for Bill, a man who has proven himself to be less than upright so far. He tells Abby that she should accept the farmer’s invite to stay. She’ll marry the farmer, Bill and the Abby’s little sis will get the run of the house as they wait for the farmer to keel over. Ah yes, the best laid plans.
Everything starts to fall apart when the farmer doesn’t die. A bit of conflict arises as a result and the whole thing ends rather practicably. In the midst of this simple story is sparse but generally solid acting. Malick will never be accused of letting his actors run rampant with dialogue. The tension that should result from the story and character conflict within never resonates. Instead, the film feels as though it’s never sure what is more interesting, the characters and their developing plot or the gorgeous scenery around them. As a result, the end is inevitable more than tragic. A beautiful film that is too distant from its emotional drive.
This post is part of my Way late reviews. Read more reviews here.
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Way late review: Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol
Thursday, May 3, 2012
Tom Cruise returns as the IMF super-agent, Ethan Hunt. The opening sequences of the movie set the tone immediately with an action packed Russian prison break. The lighthearted approach is made clear when Hunt’s IMF techno whiz Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) tries to guide Hunt through the prison’s labyrinth by opening all the right doors. Problem is Hunt wants to break someone else out of prison and stubbornly waits at a security camera Dunn has control over until Dunn relents and opens the door so Hunt can go through a massive group of bad guys who are ready to pounce on anyone for no particular reason than they are bad guys.
The plot is not all that important in the movie and that is a strength. It is only important in that it doesn’t make one question the plausibility of every decision made on screen, because the plausibility factor suffers greatly if one ponders for more than a second about the action that takes place. The action is key, with fantastic set pieces and inventive spy gadgets. Whether it’s the cool gimmick used to infiltrate the Kremlin, the breathtaking scaling of the Dubai hotel, or the use of a high tech parking garage for a showdown, it all works. The only missteps are in between the Dubai and India action and the lack of a compelling villain. The lulls in the action are noticeable and the attempts to build stronger characters fall flat. The lack of a villain with much life is forgivable, as the threat of nuclear war is sufficient in generating enough suspense.
Ghost Protocol never pretends to be what it isn’t. Those looking for thought provoking cinema or even character development are sure to be let down. This is an action film that has fun being that and nothing more.
This post is part of my Way late reviews. Read more reviews here.
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Way late review: Like Crazy
Saturday, April 21, 2012
Jacob (Anton Yelchin) and Anna (Felicity Jones) fall in love at college in LA. Anna is from London and has to return. She delays the inevitable and violates her visa in the process. On her attempt to make it back to Jacob she is denied access due to the violation. Apparently no one told Anna just how hard it is to travel in and out of the USA these days, no matter if you look as though your puppy dog eyes and quivering lips could melt even the coldest of border control’s hearts. The couple is left with a long distance relationship. Or are they? Why doesn’t Jacob, a recent college grad, chase after the girl who’s stolen his heart? Because he started a chair building business and that would be too hard to do in London. Right, I don’t get it either.
The two live their lives apart and attempt some semblance of a relationship separated by the Atlantic but it’s not working. Jacob seems to come to this conclusion before Anna and it’s not long before he finds someone new and she moves in with him. That someone just happens to be the star of another small film, The Hunger Games. Yep, somehow Jennifer Lawrence plays the smallest of roles as Jacob’s consolation prize, Sam.
The story continues of first loves never able to forget one another and reconnecting. The strength of the film is not plot or dialogue. It is more like an artistic feature film length music video. Emotion needs to be conveyed in every moment Jacob and Anna are on the screen. For the most part it works. It’s done well enough to make one forgive the contrived plot points and a sloppy editing job in the third act that had me questioning whether I was watching the same timeline or something from the past.
Like Crazy is appropriately titled. The obstacles our young love birds must overcome are absurdly small when put in any perspective. Jacob and Anna are driven by their feelings in some bizarre ways, but never driven enough to see things through to one conclusion or another. They chase feelings from one fleeting moment to another only to find that it leaves them feeling empty. An artful tale that falls short but serves a good study for all who feel in love but have little more than emotions to lean on.
This post is part of my Way late reviews. Read more reviews here.
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