Archive for the ‘Comedy’ Category

Up in the Air

December 29, 2009

Polished, neatly packaged, and wrapped tightly in a shiny bow, Up in the Air is Hollywood’s gift to Oscar voters in 2009. While being of perfectly adequate quality with professional grade writing, directing, and acting, Up in the Air is also a tedious chore of a movie to write up. Why? Because there’s nothing challenging here, no choice in storytelling, performance, or style that wavers outside the path of convention and normalcy.

As a movie, it’s…fine. If you like a slick drama with dashes of clever social commentary and human interest elements thrown in, this is the movie for you. Up in the Air has PRESTIGE MOVIE emblazoned across it in large, gold letters. It’s the movie with the full-page promotional ads in your local paper’s movie section trumpeting its selection in numerous categories in this season’s dizzying array of awards. It’ll be hard to miss.

Jason Reitman’s recession-era romantic dramedy is themed (among other things) on the existentialism of job loss but it seems to have been made by people who’ve never been fired or laid off. What they do know is that getting laid off can be really, really hard on a person. Scenes of employees reacting to the news that they’ve been let go drip with such heavy sentiment that, as a viewer, you can feel Reitman and Company working overtime to wring tears and heartache from you. It’s only one of the many disingenuous qualities about the movie.

Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) shunts around the country, reporting to company bosses who’ve hired his services as an ace corporate downsizer and charged him with the task of firing redundant employees. As unsavory as it is, Bingham enjoys the sense of transience his profession gives him. Afraid to put down roots, to commit to anything, Ryan thrives on his synthetic lifestyle of living in airplane cabins and hotel rooms, rental cars, and executive lounges.

Up in the Air finds Ryan faced with twin crises. The first is the imminent extinction of his here-today-gone-tomorrow lifestyle thanks to a go-getter who’s convinced Ryan’s boss, Craig (Jason Bateman), that firing people via an internet connection is far cheaper than the face-to-face method, which requires flying personnel all over the country. And the second is his sister’s wedding, an event that demands that he visit his family, from whom he’s long kept his distance.

These wrinkles in Ryan’s lone-wolf existence are, in turn, perpetrated and complicated by the arrival of two women: One is the aforementioned go-getter, Natalie (Anna Kendrick), the other is fellow professional transient, Alex (Vera Farmiga), the woman he falls for and whose carefree attitude to their relationship only draws him closer to her.

When Craig orders Bingham to take Natalie with her on his next run, it signals the movie’s second act in which Bingham tries to school his naive, precocious, high-strung companion on the finer points of firing people — not to mention, luggage selection. One of the movie’s butter knife-dull attempts at humor has Natalie arriving at the airport with a clunky, over-packed suitcase. It’s a device meant mainly to prompt a demonstration by ace traveler Bingham on flying light, never mind that a sharp, shrewd woman would know better in the first place. Yes, the comedy doesn’t aim much higher than that.

Of course, Natalie’s tough outer shell quickly begins to melt away after her boyfriend leaves her via text (a moment riddled in an over-the-top breakdown by Kendrick that would be better suited to a bargain-basement rom com), prompting her to mourn her romantic disillusionment (honestly, an ambitious, professional woman dreaming of marriage and kids in her mid-20s seems like a stretch in the 21st century but, okay, I’ll play along). Turns out, Natalie is an old-fashioned gal, a woman who places high value on love, loyalty, and relationships — the very things that Bingham reserves special contempt for. Much witty banter on the subject ensues.

Still, the theme of lasting companionship swirls in the film’s undercurrents and surfaces at every major plot point. When Bingham attends his sister’s wedding, for instance, he’s called upon to pep talk the dithering groom-to-be on the joys of marriage; a scene whose real function is irony since Bingham doesn’t know the first thing on the subject, and, in contemplating them, it’s the change stirring in his own heart that matters here. Bingham’s affection for Alex is what’s at stake in Up in the Air, and their relationship comprises the movie’s most organic quality. Reitman handles Bingham and Alex’s scenes together with a decidedly looser touch, and, truly, these characters share a genuine chemistry with a humor that feels natural. A major reason for this is that Clooney and Farmiga are two talented actors whose work transcends the limitations of the material. In their scenes together, we can enjoy the building dynamic of two talented actors working their craft, reaping as much from a stilted screenplay as possible.

However packaged and artificial Reitman’s concoction may feel, the star of the show, thankfully, is George Clooney. He is the film’s emotional center of gravity, due largely to the warm, natural appeal the actor exudes on screen. Clooney is the closest thing Hollywood’s got to an old-time movie star, namely to Cary Grant. Like Grant, Clooney has the sophisticated demeanor and easy, dapper charm that endear him to his audience, regardless of whatever cad, heel, or crook he happens to be playing. And, like Grant, time and again, Clooney is really playing variations on the same cool, elegant persona, whether it’s Danny Ocean or Michael Clayton or Ryan Bingham. Each role requires him to fine-tune his comic and dramatic temperatures, but, at the end of the day, all the above characters could easily sit together in some smoky club room, enjoy drinks, and understand one another.

Up in the Air is a well-intentioned Hollywood product with a message about the value of human connections. But it mistakes glibness for wit and charm for irreverence. What’s missing from the engine of his screenplay is a more razor-edged sensibility, in which things don’t feel so cute and tucked-in at every turn. It’s a movie of missed opportunities, wherein Reitman could have plumbed the dark depths of the betrayal, loneliness, and denial that make up the core of Bingham’s wounded self. He could, thereby, have made the moral payoff of his conclusion feel well-earned and satisfying. As it is, he’s got the right actor for the job, but his movie lacks the guts.

Grade: C+

Directed by: Jason Reitman
Written by: Jason Reitman, Sheldon Turner
Cast: George Clooney, Vera Farmiga, Anna Kendrick, Jason Bateman, Amy Morton, Melanie Lynskey, J.K. Simmons, Sam Elliott

Posted in All Reviews Archive, Comedy, Drama | 18 Comments »

Cool Hand Luke

November 18, 2009

It’s all true: fantastic one-liners, that excruciating but exultant egg-eating scene, the menacing brute of a chain-gang boss. This bizarre tale–an allegory about this rakish rebel’s resistance to the System and, by extension, his relationship with God–is a vintage Paul Newman vehicle. George Kennedy is a hoot too. For all its charms, Stuart Rosenberg’s depiction of chain gang life, at the end of the day, seems kind of fun, doesn’t it? All the poker playing, the fun ‘n’ games, the jokes, and the silly antics among the prisoners almost romanticize the milieu. Keep in mind that Cool Hand Luke isn’t a social-realist parable (à la I’m a Fugitive from a Chain Gang), and, like me, you’ll roll with it and enjoy yourselves. Legend Conrad Hall provides rightfully vivid, awesome cinematography, full of frosty bunkhouse light bulbs and the lonely pallor of the Southern twilight. Overall, gorgeous looking and terrifically acted.

Grade: A-

Directed by: Stuart Rosenberg
Written by: Donn Pearce, Frank Pierson
Cast: Paul Newman, George Kennedy, J.D. Cannon, Strother Martin, Jo Van Fleet

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City Lights

November 10, 2009

City Lights along with The Gold Rush, both by Chaplin, are easily two of the greatest screen comedies ever made. Chaplin invested so much emotional depth in his Little Tramp that the comedy arose from that character organically, like a flower, always natural, always earned, always stemming from the innermost yearnings of character and of how he relates to the situation at hand. And, while I’m on it, here it is: Chaplin was easily the greatest actor of silent cinema, hands down, no competition. He innate genius for characterization and for being emotionally present in every second of every frame gives any of our more “modern” actors a run for their money. Also, Chaplin is, without doubt, the most influential comedian in cinema history: You can see traces of his influence, most obviously, in Jerry Lewis and all the way to Jim Carrey, Michael Richards’ Kramer, and, even, in Matt Groening’s Homer Simpson. Chaplin was our first master, the comedian-filmmaker who demonstrated how to negotiate that delicate tightrope between comedy and sentiment to monumental effect.

In the past several decades, Chaplin’s reputation has been overshadowed by a re-awakening of Keaton appreciation. Keaton was awe-inspiring at setting up and executing comic set pieces. But I’ve never felt as emotionally connected to his characters as I do to Chaplin’s. The Tramp makes a bead for the soul, and, in his travails, you’re with him every step of the way. Chaplin was not primarily a filmmaker the way Keaton was–Keaton hooks us in with clever design and editing rhythms (but this can become wearisome, and it admittedly takes some stamina for me to make it through a Keaton movie). In contrast, Chaplin was a sentimental storyteller with a special, maybe unequaled, genius for character development. It’s where the germ of his comedy was cultured.

City Lights, with marvelous simplicity and narrative clarity, depicts a romance between the Tramp and a blind flower girl. The Tramp tries to keep her from getting evicted and then to raise money for a surgery that will restore her eyesight. His accidental catalyst is his bumbling, on-again, off-again friendship with a drunken millionaire, who the Tramp saves from suicide. Every scene of the movie is gorgeous, often hilarious (especially the scenes in the boxing hall where the Tramp bumbles and cajoles his way through a nasty face-off with the local brute). City Lights is a great gift to all of us by a filmmaker at a latter-day peak of his genius. To see anything by Chaplin is to nourish the soul. Chaplin is good for the world.

Grade: A+

Directed by: Charles Chaplin
Written by: Charles Chaplin
Cast: Charles Chaplin, Virginia Cherrill, Harry Myers, Charles Chaplin, Al Ernest Garcia

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(500) Days of Summer

September 20, 2009

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There’s nothing in Marc Webb’s (500) Days of Summerthat we didn’t get in more substantial form in better romantic, anti-romantic dramedies. It’s note of romantic pining bears echoes of Say Anything but it’s treatment of the therapeutic powers of love in an otherwise miserable, doubt-fraught existence was far more richly examined in Greg Mottola’s Adventureland. Granted Adventureland was a more serious-minded fare, and (500) Days is lighter and more fanciful venture, pepped up with tunes that comprise what could be the hipster-pop soundtrack of the year. Yet, for all its heart-on-its-sleeve good intentions, the script by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber simply doesn’t offer up a deep, searching treatment of sexual infatuation, the fickleness of romance, and the mysteries of love with anything like compelling, lasting impact.

Webb’s movie is a goofy send-up on said themes while meaning to be, off-handedly, something much more as it follows Tom Hansen (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), an aspiring architect who’s now slumming as a greeting-card writer, and his efforts to woo and win the love of his co-worker, the ethereally pretty Summer (Zooey Deschanel). Brooding, serious and sincere, Tom is the temperamental opposite to the easy-breezy Summer, who’s allergic to commitment and enamored of whimsy and the spontaneous romantic impulse. This makes Summer an easy person to get intrigued by, but a hard person to care about in the long run. As a character, she’s as light and wispy as, well, a summer breeze, and aptly fits Film Critic Nathan Rubin’s template of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl; Summer exists solely to light Tom’s fire, excite his soul, redeem his believe in love and himself, but, as someone independent of those functions, she’s a cipher, an exasperating blank — a woman who says she doesn’t care for commitment until the script requires her to do so.

Deschanel, with her dreamy eyes and lilting delivery, makes for the perfect MPDG muse for the lovelorn, tortured artist, enjoyably played by the hotly talented Gordon-Levitt, who’s now spent almost a decade developing impeccable cred in the American indie and non-mainstream circuit. Gordon-Levitt is the sole reason this sweet but feathery affair assumes any gravity at all — he lends a soulful credibility to a film generally populated by cut-outs and cliches. Among the latter are Tom’s two longtime sidekicks, McKenzie (Geoffrey Arend) and Paul (Matthew Gray Gubler) — who stand in, respectively, for the Sad Sack Who’s Never Had a Girlfriend and for The Lifer with the Same Girlfriend Since Forever. They stand at the polar ends of the “modern love” spectrum on which Tom slides tenuously back an d forth. But, like Summer, they’re simply functionaries in a story built like a music box: pretty and pleasing to listen to, but all cogs and gears within.

Another of (500) Days’ good intentions is to vindicate the aesthetic reputation of Los Angeles, a city that gets short-shrift as an eyesore too often in popular culture. By way of Tom’s love of downtown L.A. (where he lives, in a spacious loft), Webb wants to fashion a tender valentine to the architectural splendors of his city. For L.A. lovers like myself, this is a noble and much-needed gesture, and the scenes in which Tom fills Summer (and the rest of us) in on the history and design of the city’s heritage skyscrapers are genuinely sweet. But the city fails to become an organic part of this story; it rather remains an entity separate and apart from the central action, something characters have to remember to stare at, acknowledge and adore. As a result, Webb’s Los Angeles setting becomes simply the gilt framing for a lovely postcard picture of what is a nicely played but all-too-preciously eccentric romance.

Grade: C+

Directed by: Marc Webb
Written by: Scott Neustadter, Michael H. Weber
Cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Zooey Deschanel, Geoffrey Arend, Matthew Gray Gubler, Clark Gregg, Chloe Moretz

Posted in All Reviews Archive, Comedy, Drama, Romance | 2 Comments »

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan

August 14, 2009

In making his transition from the anarchic precincts of British TV’s Da Ali G Show to the more populist pastures of the big screen, something disturbing happened to Borat. He died. Performer Sacha Baron Cohen’s rendering of the clueless Kazakh journalist slowly began to implode under the pressures of imminent popularity. In his indulgent appearances on MTV Awards shows in Europe and the States (followed by what was on display in early Borat trailers), Cohen’s eyes looked perpetually glazed. The grin that once denoted Borat’s clueless amiability became frozen into a soulless rictus. The mock-journalistic, malaprop-addled sobriety with which Borat conducted himself lapsed into a tired shtick about his overbearing wife, his prostitute-sister, or what they do with Jews and gypsies back in his native Kazakhstan (depicted in Borat-world as a feudal, anti-Semitic backwater).

Due to overexposure, Cohen’s performance as Borat gradually became a parody within a parody — a danger sign for any comic persona (consider Peter Sellers latter-day turns as Clousseau for a classic cautionary example), tolling the beginning of the end of all that made Borat so exhilarating not so long ago. None of this is to say that Borat isn’t funny. Even on half-speed, it’s funnier and sharper than the vast majority of factory-assembled comedies out there. In spots, the movie can be hysterical. But, for the most part, its appeal is not unlike that of a veteran rock band putting on a greatest hits concert. Cohen, his co-writers Anthony Hines, Peter Baynham and Dan Mazer, and director Larry Charles revisit many of the tried-and-true set pieces from Borat’s TV incarnation in a bid to garner sure-thing laughs from an audience lured as much by the movie’s pre-release hype as by an adoration of Borat himself.

As for me, I belong to the second category; I’m a genuine fan, and do believe that Cohen is the most daring and brilliant comic performer to come along since Peter Sellers. Re-watching a Borat episode again and again, either on DVD or via the generous postings on Youtube, has picked up many a drab afternoon for me (Borat’s visit to a Southern plantation where he tries to enlighten his genteel, elderly hostess on what the words “Barbara” and “Bush” mean in the Kazakh language is a personal stand-out). So it was with a mixture of anticipation and mournfulness that I experienced Borat’s moment in the mainstream, and with a predictable shrug with which I left the screening.

Cohen and his team offer nothing new in Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, except to graft onto their premise a narrative arc that muddies up what are meant to be purely spontaneous high-wire comic pranks. They maintain their premise: Borat, a Kazakh TV journalist, travels to the U.S.A. (“U.S. and A”) on assignment from his government to produce a series of lifestyle pieces about American life and culture. In the movie, Borat chances on a viewing of Baywatch, falls madly in love with Pamela Anderson and determines to travel cross-country to meet Anderson and carry her off as his bride. Accompanying Borat is his grotesquely obese producer, Azamat (Ken Davitian), who’s new to the Borat universe and seems to have been installed for sake of the movie’s plot. Borat and Azamat quibble, fret, and bumble their way in an ice cream truck from New York City, down through the American South and across the plains towards Los Angeles.

Nearly everything on display here has already been done in cruder, fresher, far funnier form on Cohen’s Ali G Show. There are whole segments here rehashed from earlier TV forays: the bits in Borat’s village about his wife and sister, the Southern etiquette/banquet sequence, the interviews with right-wing politicos and left-wing feminists, the anthem-singing fiasco in front of a redneck audience, all these are retreads of scenarios attempted on Ali G, while a scene involving college boys road-partying in an RV was assayed with far greater bravado in one of Cohen’s Bruno — the flamboyant gay fashionista — segments.

The technique for getting laughs seems to have been simple: Don’t bother much with fresh scenarios and jokes. Instead, ratchet up recycled set-pieces in hopes that their amplified pitch will force a laugh from the audience. A case in point is an extended sequence in which Borat and Azamat wrestle nude down the corridors of a hotel and literally crash a well-heeled conference in one of the banquet rooms. The moment is more outrageous than funny, more noisy than inventive — and demonstrates the modus operandi for the movie at large. At other times, the recycling of a bit pays off because it manages to throw a new joke into the mix: I’m thinking of Borat’s disastrous, faux pas-ridden banquet in the company of some choice Southern citizens. After excusing himself to use the toilet, Borat re-appears moments later with a small surprise that offends the other guests into a state of dumb shock. That alone is worth the time it took to get us there.

Otherwise, Borat follows a series of up-and-down story beats mapped out by a committee of screenwriters (there are four credited), resulting in material that feels as contrived as any other plot-driven mediocrity out there. Even the potentially hilarious presence of a prostitute is infected with a feel-good aura totally out of place here. Will Borat get it together, reconcile with his estranged producer, and make it out to L.A.? Will he succeed in meeting the golden haired woman of his dreams? We find uninteresting and intrusive questions like these altering what could’ve been a blistering experiment in freeform comedy into a connect-the-dots hokum about a little Kazakh fish in a big American pond.

Grade: C+

Directed by: Larry Charles
Written by: Sacha Baron Cohen, Anthony Hines, Peter Baynham, Dan Mazer
Cast: Sacha Baron Cohen, Ken Davitian, Luenell, Pamela Anderson

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Amarcord

June 14, 2009

A vulgar, crassly funny, tender, always affectionate nostalgia trip, Fellini style. The director recalls his boyhood days growing up in small-town, Fascist-era Italy. Nino Rota’s score is lovely as are Giuseppe Rotunno’s precise, lyrical cinematography and the gracefully paced script by Fellini and Guerra. Funny, lively characterizations flavor the bawdy escapades of horny, mischievous school boys; their family lives are lovingly detailed as are the interrelationships in this community of delightfully unruly, irreverent school kids, harried mothers and fathers, aristocrats, beggars, and grandfathers wistful for life’s lustful prime. At first, this gathering of boorish characters with no redeeming qualities whatsoever may feel off-putting, but their evocation is so heartfelt that we grow to love each of them. Amarcord is an entrancing gem of an experience.

Grade: A

Directed by: Federico Fellini
Written by: Federico Fellini, Tonino Guerra
Cast: Bruno Zanin, Gianfilippo Carcano, Pupella Maggio, Armando Brancia, Magali Noël, Ciccio Ingrassia, Nando Orfei, Luigi Rossi, Josiane Tanzil

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Juno

June 14, 2009

Probably the quirkiest coming-of-age comedy to come along in recent memory, Jason Reitman’s follow-up to his savagely entertaining Thank You For Smoking (2005) tackles teen pregnancy — a subject heretofore relegated to weepie melodramas, after-school specials, and health science tutorials. But Juno is something unlike any of those august aforementioned genres, proving itself to be many things at once and a stellar success at each. Diablo Cody’s lovely debut screenplay is, for its pure and uncompromising sense of the offbeat, the work of an untainted newcomer. Cody’s dialogue not only bristles with the kind of sarcastic one-liners that would make a John Hughes’ era Molly Ringwald green with envy, but also glows in several passages deeply moving in their human honesty and feeling.

Ellen Page made a striking impression in her high-wattage turn in the molestation thriller Hard Candy (2005) and delivered, I think, an even gutsier performance in Mouth to Mouth, the teenage runaway drama from later that year. Page has a guilelessness about her rare in movie stars — in a single scene, even in the course of a single exchange, Page can turn from sweet and coy to droll and sarcastic without missing a beat. She plays each moment without ego and with total candor, and that’s ultimately the secret to Juno’s success.

Page plays the title teenager, Juno MacGuff, who gets pregnant after she and her not-quite-boyfriend Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera playing a somewhat sweeter and smarter version of the aw-shucks doofus he perfected in TV’s Arrested Development and this year’s generally super-good Superbad) seal the deal on Paulie’s chair one day. Juno decides to go through with the pregnancy, and, when it arrives, to give it up for adoption. She selects as prospective parents a yuppie couple, the Lorings, who live out in the upscale ‘burbs.

This may be the best thing Jennifer Garner has yet to date — as the nervous Vanessa Loring, anxious to adopt after being unable to conceive, Garner is a force of beautiful, radiant tragicomic energy, as she anxiously tries to support Juno through her pregnancy while trying to keep her marriage with frustrated musician Mark (Jason Bateman) together. The latter seems a rocky proposition from the moment we meet the Lorings: Vanessa seems fully committed to their decision to adopt, while Mark hems and haws. Indeed, Bateman, the star of Arrested Development, plays a character suffering from that very condition as Mark seems utterly incapable of growing out of his nostalgia for his own youth. Mark and the unwitting Juno develop an altogether strange bond over their mutual love of punk music, while Vanessa and Paulie seem both exiled into the outer orbit of their respective lives.

Mark and Juno’s relationship comes back to bite of them, and propels Juno into a closer and more meaningful bond with those she truly loves and needs — Paulie and Vanessa, of course, but her parents as well, played by the dynamite Allison Janney and J.K. Simmons. The reference earlier to John Hughes is apt again here as Simmons’ performance recalls Paul Dooley’s work opposite Ringwald as his heartsick daughter in Sixteen Candles. Like Dooley’s father, Simmons’ Mac MacGuff has a wry, bearish warmth and genuine compassion for his daughter that’s so rare in movies, a relationship without screaming matches and hissy fits, and exuding a pure paternal desire to understand his child. Ditto Janney’s stepmother Bren who’s as testy and dedicated a mom as they come in the movies.

Across the board, Juno boasts terrific work, from Reitman’s on-target direction and Cody’s bulls-eye script, to the performances, especially Page’s (who’s poised now for a legitimate shot at A-list stardom). What I came away admiring in Juno wasn’t necessarily the cleverness of its dialogue, or its silly, witty one-liners, but the heart beating througout, at the movie’s core. Ultimately, Juno is a movie about true love, acceptance, and doing right by the people who’ve stuck their necks out for you: those being family, your closest friends, and, in Juno’s case, your surrogate mother too. All in all, this is a heartfelt, tightly constructed piece of work that washes out the sour taste of another pregnancy themed comedy from earlier this year — the ubiquitous Judd Apatow’s overrated, overhyped, bloated-beyond-comprehension entitled…I’d rather not say.

Grade: A-

Directed by: Jason Reitman
Written by: Diablo Cody
Cast: Ellen Page, Michael Cera, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman, Allison Janney, J.K. Simmons, Olivia Thirlby

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Adventureland

May 8, 2009

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“It’s funny because it’s true” has always been a handy and accurate adage in describing perceptive observational comedy. The humor doesn’t have to try hard to land its punchlines because it’s all grounded in easily identifiable but no less painful truths about day to day life. It’s this infinitely rich, varied, and, yes, truthful terrain that writer-director Greg Mottola sets up shop to tell his semi-autobiographical tale, Adventureland, about college grad James Brennan (Jesse Eisenberg) slumming it as a games concessionaire at a chintzy Pittsburgh amusement park. The year: 1987, a time that Mottola handily evokes with a power pop soundtrack fueled by such era staples as The Cure, Crowded House, INXS and, of course, Falco, whose “Rock Me Amadeus” becomes the target of a recurring, affectionate gag.

It’s the summer between college and the rest of his life and, too broke to join his friends on a summer-long European jaunt, James is stuck at the titular park — a kind of metaphorical limbo as James struggles to sort out his future. He’s a brainy, idealistic and romantic kid, but full of artistic and intellectual ambition. He’s still a virgin by default because the opportunity to close the deal with the girls he’s dated never presented themselves — okay, this kid may be too neurotic for his own good.

But at Adventureland, James falls like he never has for Em (Kristen Stewart), a co-worker — a saturnine beauty, adrift romantically and nursing bitterness towards her father for his past callousness towards her late mother, and towards his tawdry new replacement wife. Both unsure and afraid of what the future holds, yet eagerly faithful to its possibilities, James and Em strike up a solid friendship that soon wavers into a tentative romance. It’s complicated, though — it always is, right? — because Em is carrying on a sad, hopeless affair with the park’s married handyman and would-be musician, Mike (Ryan Reynolds) — the kind of cad whose good looks spare him from complete loserdom. Torn with jealousy, James tries straying with the resident lust object, Lisa P. (Margarita Levieva), but, while Mike is clearly contemptible (he claims to have once jammed with Lou Reed, James’ idol, but is oblivious to the song “Satellite of Love”), he’s too pitiable for both James’ and us to level much scorn on him.

James’ journey is one of finding self-assurance through inner wisdom, not shows of bravado — a hard-won skill that the nerds among us perfect as we grow up. James develops a warm, charming rapport with his fellow young exile, Joel (Martin Starr), and it’s here, in the camaraderie among Adventureland’s underpaid, ennui-ridden employees — conversing through the haze of pot smoke, the blur of booze, and with a pop song on the radio or blaring through the park’s loudspeakers — that the movie mines its romantic and existential riches. Mottola’s cast is uniformly winning, especially Eisenberg, who’s maturing into an excellent and nuanced actor, and Stewart who gives Em equal parts sass and vulnerability. Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig provide the otherwise aching, wistful material a welcome off-kilter goofiness, and help counter less successful casting choices, like Reynolds, who’s got the swagger and the looks of the narcissistic Mike but none of the foxiness by which such characters prey and seduce.

What keeps Adventureland in the merely “very good,” rather than “excellent,” range is a combination of its unimaginative look and a second act that feel repetitious and earns its rewards with falsely amped up confrontations. On the latter score, James and Em’s on-again-off-again quasi-romance goes through the motions of jealousy and heartbreak once too often. Meanwhile, Mottola jumps the gun in portraying Em’s face-off with her parents — a long-awaited moment that still feels abrupt and melodramatic, full of fire, yet premature because their dynamics are underdeveloped.

While Adventureland may be among the year’s most pleasing comedies, it’s also among its ugliest looking films. It’s the same drawback that I found in the Mottola-directed Superbad — a sharp teen comedy with a saggy script and God-awful visual palette. The palette in both films is bleak, steeped in despondent browns, yellows, with washed-out reds and blues, with no attempts at visual experimentation that youth films — with their emotional and physical energy — demand (see Wong Kar Wai’s Happy Together as an exemplar).

I understand that adolescence is messy, grimy, frequently joyless and ugly, and perhaps Mottola tries for an aesthetic approximation in his cinema. But, in the end, a flatly composed, uninteresting look is just that, and there is no aesthetic defense to justify it. I hope that Motolla develops more creative, inventive uses for lighting and camera is his future portrayals of youthful angst. On balance, though, Adventureland is one of the most honest, tender and heartfelt coming-of-age comedies to come along since Noah Baumbach’s The Squid and the Whale (2005), which also starred Eisenberg. The movie’s rewards outpace its flaws by a mile and give us another reason to follow the career of a gifted young lead actor.

Grade: B+

Directed by: Greg Mottola
Written by: Greg Mottola
Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Bill Hader, Matt Bush, Martin Starr, Kristen Wiig, Ryan Reynolds, Paige Howard, Margarita Levieva

Posted in All Reviews Archive, Best of 2009, Comedy, Drama | 2 Comments »

Ghost Town

April 28, 2009

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As a result of a near-death experience while undergoing a routine colonoscopy, misanthropic New York City dentist Bertram Pincus gains the ability to see and communicate with the dead. Soon, he’s hounded by anxious ghosts in need of his help to put to rest matters that haunt their still-living families and friends. It’s the set-up to Ghost Town, an entertaining vehicle for comic actor Ricky Gervais whose performance is equal parts Ebeneezer Scrooge and Andy Millman, the sad-sack actor he played in the excellent BBC/HBO series Extras. Gervais makes for a wholly likable and unlikely hero in this romantic comedy with paranormal overtones, because he knows how to make an appealing hero out of the curmudgeonly Bertram. Gervais’ rapport with his equally enjoyable co-stars Greg Kinnear and Tea Leoni also keeps Ghost Town on solidly funny ground.

Kinnear plays Frank Herilhy, a philanderer who meets a swift death-by-bus in Ghost Town’s opening moments. Now a ghost, formerly lousy husband Frank wants to redeem himself vis-a-vis his now-former wife Gwen, an Egyptologist specializing in mummies, and played with frazzled comic grace by Leoni. So Frank chases down the lonely Bertram and convinces him to woo Gwen away from potential suitor Richard (Bill Campbell), a goody-goody social crusader who’s also strikingly handsome and, well, perfect. Bertram’s odds are slim but, slowly, his wry personality and slow-burn sarcasm win the sharp-witted Gwen’s attentions. His budding romance hits a road block, though, after Frank’s ulterior motive for wanting to drive a wedge between Gwen and Richard is revealed. Meanwhile, ghosts desperate for Bertram’s help continue to clamor for his attention, setting up several funny scenarios.

Writer-director David Koepp and co-writer John Kamps rightly develop their material along the lines of classic romantic screwball comedies. This is goofy, off-kilter fun, for the most part, but there’s a sentimental heart to it too as the closed-off Bertram opens up to the grief and pain that afflicts the ghosts around him, and prevents them from finding peace in the afterlife. Where Koepp and Kamps fumble are in the areas of tone and pacing: Given the spirited nature of this material, Ghost Town lacks the zip and energy of true romantic screwball — the kind of comedies that Cary Grant, Carole Lombard and Katherine Hepburn helped define. It’s a bit too somber for its own good, and further dampened by its flat, dour visual palette. What Ghost Town needed was the potential for irreverence and fun behind the camera so clearly evident in the talent in front of the camera. Still, this is warmhearted, wonderfully acted, cleverly written stuff — several degrees smarter and more appealing than most of the junk being peddled as comedy these days — and a great step forward in the career of Gervais, one of today’s comedic bright lights.
Grade: B

Directed by: David Koepp
Written by: David Koepp, John Kamps
Cast: Ricky Gervais, Greg Kinnear, Tea Leoni, Aasif Mandvi, Kristen Wiig, Dana Ivey, Jeff Hiller, Bill Campbell

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Sunshine Cleaning

March 20, 2009

Director Catherine Jeffs lucked out when she scored Amy Adams and Emily Blunt to co-star in her mildly pleasing dramedy Sunshine Cleaning. As sisters struggling to overcome their mother’s suicide, the actors’ appeal and chemistry provide Jeffs’s film its essential spark. Once the high school popularity queen, Rose (Adams) slogs along as a cleaning lady, and carries on an affair with her now-married high school boyfriend (Steve Zahn), meanwhile losing her grip on her sweet but emotionally neglected son, Oscar (Jason Spevack). Her younger sister, Norah (Blunt), is no better off: Directionless, she can’t hold down a job, and lives at home with their father, Joe (Alan Arkin). The ghost of their dead mother haunts Rose and Norah, weighing them down with guilt, anger, and wreaking havoc on their self-esteems.
Read it here…

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