Matinee with Snacks

What’s that noise you hear?  That’s Hollywood falling all over itself in surprise that vaguely raunchy, somewhat scatological female-relationship-driven R-rated comedy is a huge smash.  Hello! We poop and love and chortle — and see movies with stories that interest us -  just as much as men do.

I know this movie wouldn’t have been made if it hadn’t had Judd Apatow as producer.  With two of the leads being SNL alumni (even ones as big-screen reliable as these two), the movie could have been a disaster.  However, the Not Ready For Prime Time Players in question are Kristen Wiig as our relatable lead and Maya Rudolph as the bride.  The titular matching-dress ensemble is flled out by Reno 911′s Wendi McLendon-Covey, The Office’s Ellie Kemper, the unpredictable Rose Byrne, and Melissa McCarthy.  This is a fantastic ensemble thrown into a movie that goes beyond just the bachelorette Hangover.

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I am certain no two people in the theatre were more ignorant of the Marvel comic title Thor than my companion and I. We gamely let the film unfold before us with zero preconceptions and (to be honest) pretty low expectations. The fans around is seemed to feel pretty good about it as a whole, and we both found it entertaining and pretty well self-contained.

The story takes place in two worlds: ours, and the far-off realm of Asgard, where the personages of Thor (Chris Hemsworth(, Odin (Anthony Hopkins), Loki (Tom Hiddleston), Frigga (Rene Russo), and Heimdall (Idris Elba) live. The presence of these space gods in our Norse folklore is explained as long-ago visits to Earth where their advanced science seemed magical. Naturally, back in New Mexico, we have Stellan SkarsgÃ¥rd as a Swede who knows the stories, though a children’s book is still needed to explain the extra bits.

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I have often referenced “Everybody Loves Raymond” as the sort of tepid, mediocre sitcom that muscles out the hipper cool ones I love that get cancelled.  It’s not terrible, it’s inoffensive, but, in my mind, pedestrian.  I never watched it — I saw scenes here and there, even referenced in other movies, and just never took a shine to it.  This is not true for many millions of American TV viewers.  After seeing this film, my similarly-biased companion and I agreed that we had a newfound appreciation for what Raymond creator Phil Rosenthal was doing and what he achieved in the nine years that Everybody Loves Raymond was on the air.

Exporting Raymond is Rosenthal’s documentary about the culturally illuminating process of having the Raymond concept be remade as a Russian sitcom.  Many popular American sitcoms get picked up and made over in the native tongues of their new adoring fans.  ”The Nanny” was a hugely international phenomenon, with versions popping up all over the globe, East and West.  I don’t mean subtitled reruns, I mean full new productions with native cast, writers, crew, everything.  Unlike “The Office,” which only had to bridge minor comedic & attitude divides between its parent nation of England and its current host America, “Everybody Loves Raymond” ends up going through quite a transformation in order to play to Russian audiences.

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When I finished Sara Gruen’s novel, I hugged it before I put it down.  I just loved the feel of it, the story, the characters, and I was sorry when it was over.  When they announced the film, I was pleased — until they announced that Robert Pattinson would be playing Jacob, the lead.  The last time I did not want to punch Pattinson in the face was when Voldemort cut him down in a cemetery in Little Hangleton.  Even with Reese Witherspoon and the two-for-two Christoph Waltz, I was nervous that the main character would not be the lovely man I had loved on the page.  Then Hal Holbrook plays elderly him in the framing narrative, and all was well in the world.  Of course Waltz is as always a freaking genius.  Pattinson and Witherspoon do look strange together, but it’s no matter — the story flows smoothly around them; it’s less about any love among these people than love for the world of the circus, anyway.

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This review is going to piss some of you off.  It should be stated up front that I am a fan of the Scream franchise.  I love its blend of meta-fiction and real scares, its formula-bending obedience to and rejection of horror movie clichés.  I love that these movies have an increasingly Ourobouros-like tendency toward self-awareness while never abandoning an actual narrative.  I love that the women characters are actually strong people, unlike the objectified faux-strong gals in the Joss Whedon adventures.  Halloween scared the crap out of me because it was just a guy who went nuts and started killing people.  All the folks who have donned the Ghostface mask for the Scream adventures have been real — and smart — people who went bonkers.  Yikes!

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Matinee

Hanna is a bit of a mystery.  Played by the ethereal Saoirse Ronan, Hanna is introduced in no time as a cunning huntress, an over-educated killer polygot, and a total naïf.  If you ever wondered what Aliens’ Newt might have grown up to be, see Hanna.

Her father, Eric Bana, has them living off the grid, seemingly in a timeless bubble of held breath and unrelenting strictness.  They huddle together in a small house near the arctic circle, fending for themselves and training, always training, for the inevitable forces that will hunt them down and destroy them.  Until Hanna enters the real world, as you know she must, we have no idea who those forces might be — and through the end we’re not even sure why they would pursue with such lethal intent.  Ultimately, to enjoy the film, that unresolved point doesn’t even matter — what matters is eluding Hanna’s pursuers and showing her the world.

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When I first heard of it, I had initially rejected this film out of hand — it looked like Groundhog Day meets Unstoppable (what did we do before we had Groundhog Day to compare movies to?) — but with Jake Gyllenhaal, who sometimes just plain turns me off.  However, enough buzz and recommendations from friends turned my eyes to notice that Duncan Jones directed it, so I plopped into my seat.

I am so glad that I went.

First of all, Source Code is really more like Groundhog Day meets the video game Assassin’s Creed — and it’s this difference that gives Source Code its oomph.  If you don’t know Assassin’s Creed, don’t look it up — the surprise made the store more enjoyable to experience.  If you do know it, this is far better conceived.  What could have been an investigative game of countdown cat and mouse also became a really affecting story about letting go and acceptance and life…and quantum string theory. Read On

As many long-suffering high schoolers did, I read Jane Eyre in 9th grade and hated it.  Later, of course, I reread it and loved it!  Even as I warmed to Charlotte Bronte’s surprisingly astute judge of the psychological damage inflicted by the callous societal attitudes of the day, I never really got why Jane went for Mr. Rochester.  Simple as that.  In a culture of withholding and cruelty, his “charms” could best be described as “as expected” rather than alluring on any level.

In this adaptation, screenwriter Moira Buffini and director Cary Fukunaga finally helped me get it.  From Rochester’s hysterical secret to Jane’s default setting of undeservingness, Buffini takes them both to a place of mutual respect and understanding.  It may not necessarily be true to the text as such (it has been quite a while) but it’s true to the spirit of Jane.

Casting Michael Fassbender (Inglourious Basterds) as the glowering antihero was equally as inspired a choice as using Colin Firth in 1995′s Pride and Prejudice:  both of them are unconventionally handsome and gentle actors thrust into roles that radiate unpleasantness and are difficult to warm to.  Rochester’s irrational grumps and rages feel more human coming out of Fassbender, not unlike Firth’s cold and cutting remarks.  It’s the only way to insert humanity into them onscreen in the truncated time span of a film.

Mia Wasikowska’s Jane is stoic and unselfconsciously beautiful, frail-looking but strong as bamboo when tried.  We can see all her internal scars, feel the effects of her abusive upbringing, even as the movie is forced to rush through the extent of it.  From such a barren life grows a fierce weed, almost mannish her lack of guile or vanity — and from thence her appeal.  It’s funny how literary and contemporary men always decry women for leaving their feminine place, but are yet always drawn to the outspoken, independent, fearless women they decry.

This version of Jane Eyre is light on Rochester being cruel to her himself, and in that fails the story just a little — but I confess I enjoyed it more for that.  I also liked the sense of Rochester being in the world when Jane has not been.  Not only in terms of his bastard ward, but just his whole clearly grown-up-ness and jaded weariness — yet still he is weaker than this beaten down servant girl.

My one quibble is a sort of narrative device that confused me — and likely might have done for anyone who hadn’t read the book at all.  The whole episode with St. John Rivers (Jamie Bell) and his sisters, I had forgotten happened at all.  So when we’re shown the flight across the — moors? heath? — by Jane, twice, it’s not immediately evident where it falls in the timeline, both times.  It can be worked out and it’s not vital, but it rendered a scene a little contextually confusing, implying through editing that Rivers helped her find her job at Thornfield, the Rochester house.  It’s only a quibble.  I enjoyed this film very much.  I hope you will too.

MPAA Rating PG-13

Release date 3/11/11

Time in minutes 120

Director Cary Fukunaga

Studio Focus Features

Is 2011 too soon to try and tell a story that is sympathetic to the very greedmongers that were complicit in setting the depth charges on our economy in 2008?  Maybe — but I would argue its proximity to the events it depicts gives it some heft.  Writer/director John Wells explores the lives of four executives of differing levels of influence and depravity as they wend their way through the beginnings of the collapse.

 

It’s difficult to witness how unrepentantly rich and entitled these folks begin, and how long they cling to the illusion of the bubble that made their fortunes.  I cannot imagine being so bored and profligate that the only solution is a $2,000 end table for that little spot in the hallway.  Without too much spoilage, Ben Affleck is the lowest on the totem pole and so he’s of course the first to feel the axe.  Emotionally, his story is the real investment arc of the film, and his lot is the easiest to identify with, even the disposable income bits.  While privileged beyond anyone in my social circle, his wealth is still that sort of relatable, possible American dream wealth.  Affleck trades on his natural playboy movie star charm and his Regular Joe side as well to nail this role.

 

His higher ups (Craig T. Nelson, Chris Cooper, and Tommy Lee Jones) operate in a whole separate plane of reality.  It almost helps to see how removed they really are, though it does nothing to quell that sick feeling in your stomach when they continue to thrash ineffectually at the problems they misunderstand and propagate.  Hindsight may be 20/20 for those people but everyone at the bottom saw this coming from miles away.  Brace yourself for the expected sights of empty cubicles and boxes of personal possessions, but also watch the faces of the characters responsible, and how they respond.

 

Watching the different human weaknesses of the other executives, watching Affleck’s denial and lack of preparation despite the good sense of his wife (Rosemarie DeWitt) is sickly entertaining and deeply human.  The casting is terrific — the kids all look like their parents and the existing careers of each actor feed into our perceptions of their characters as well.  Kevin Costner appears unexpectedly to deliver a different side of the American dream and throw into sharp relief how different these investment people are from the regular working man.

 

Ultimately the story humanizes them, but it does not forgive them; it’s a brave tale to tell while the country still reels from the disastrous policies that allowed this unchecked greed to rot the entire economy from within.  I can’t say that it will help you feel better, but it’s an excellent story, well-executed and performed, and worth your attention.

MPAA Rating  R- language, nudity

Release date 1/21/11

Time in minutes 113

Director John Wells

Studio Weinstein Company

 

“The most important sequel of all time!” blares the cool opening Tronned-up Disney logo and trumpet report. My companions and I (the men of which were Huge TRON Fans) boned up on the original TRON a few days prior, and were primed to accept 127 minutes of eye candy and 3D wonders. I represented the distaff TRON veteran; we also had a first-timer gal who rightfully did not see what the retro-fuss was about. None of us was disappointed in the eye candy, which was ample and lush, and in most other ways (story, dialogue, design) TRON:Legacy is vastly superior to TRON. Obviously, the technological improvements are significant, the acting was all done by real actors, and the writing is mostly tolerable. Legacy is visually sumptuous while retaining a very tight, cold grip on its near-monochrome aesthetic. It tips its gleaming black hat to the design concept of the original, but makes it sexy and a little more practical, a logical extension of the 8-bit universe we visited in 1982. The costume pieces are all fitted with actual lighting elements for a great effect. Jeff Bridges’ character has an Obi-Wan robe late in the film that I cannot wait to see some Comic Con genius replicate. TRON: Legacy will get design nominations for sure.

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