Summer Lovin

Like most guys I don’t live in the romcom genre much. There have been great ones because of their innovative scripts and performances:
“Moonstruck”, “The Philadelphia Story”, “When Harry Met Sally”, “Some Like it Hot”, “Groundhog Day”, “It Happened One Night” and of course the wonderfully contrived “Sleepless in Seattle”. “City Lights” may have been the genres’ great silent classic and proof that these films have been a staple of the film industry since its inception. After all movies are the perfect dates right? Yet the way Hollywood mass produces things, quality always wears thin and we have all been subjected to some outrageously bad romcoms. I don’t know why but “What Happens in Vegas” sticks in my mind but there are hundreds maybe thousands. (You hear that “Pretty Woman”?) Date movies or chick flicks have become the scourge of man’s existence.

Yet I still have a soft spot for “Annie Hall”. The fun way it dissected the relationship, its bits of absurdity and its unexpected conclusion. This was Woody Allens’ greatest moment, and as I’ve said on this blog before, it’s been a sad thing watching his films decline with each passing year. That classic came to my mind again as I watched “(500) Days of Summer”, the “Annie Hall” of Gen Y.

This generation so easily falls into a hipster pose but with this film we have none of the forced irony or ‘too cool for school” posing that makes older folks cranky. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Tom who wears old timey suits and ties rather than skinny jeans and a souvenir T-shirt. His love interest is Summer (Zooey Deschane) who also leans towards the classic, wearing vintage dresses. This is just one clever way that director Marc Webb (who also co wrote the script with Scott Neustadter) frames this story as timeless rather than as a bland modern romance. He also has filmed the story in older buildings, so although it’s set in LA which is so often cold and soulless on film, here it shows the character of a New York or Chicago backdrop.

Tom was an architecture student who now works as a greeting card writer. So, sure the movie doesn’t completely avoid being hokey. In fact his work attitude and rant at a meeting when he’s having love life troubles is a little overdone, but the movie is charming enough to forgive this. When Summer enters the workplace he is smitten and the countdown of the 500 days begins. The fun part is that since this is told from Tom’s point of view, the days are not in any order. Good days and bad days intermingle as we see their relationship without clear linearity. Opening narration even announces that “this is not a love story” so we watch the relationship knowing that it is short-term just like “Annie Hall”. I think in this day and age this makes the film more realistic and meaningful despite its flights of fancy. Zooey Deschanel is a bit cold but she does well in the role where she has to be a bit of a heavy. (Although I think Ellen Page would have rocked it) Her character is one who remains mysterious and is only revealed through Tom’s eyes, so she is always elusive and distant as crushes often are. Along the way we see two versions of a night (imagined versus actual) that I thought was brilliant. Tom even breaks out into song showing how we all live our lives and especially our romances through the filter of Hollywood expectations. In short this film is clever, well-performed, fun and defies hipster detachment with its sincerity. Isn’t that what romcoms are supposed to be? I also think the last line put a great bow on it. It’s like a brief romance itself, don’t over think it and you’ll have a lot of fun.

Happy, Sad, Spooky, Bland and Overdone- These ain’t no dwarfs

So many interesting flicks out this month! First in “Happy-Go-Lucky!” director Mike Leigh leaves behind the gritty realism that he obviously enjoys for a fresh look at life. Initially I was annoyed by the painfully chipper Poppy (Oscar nom Sally Hawkins), however over the course of this film you see her cheery optimism as a shield and a tactic. She will use her calculated optimism in an attempt to bring people out: a pretentious bookstore clerk, a troubled child who bullies, a homeless man. She directly challenges people’s anger and depression as a sport but also with much empathy. Poppy will enjoy her life regardless of the many reasons not to. In other films she would be a minor character, a friend in a group. By making her the hero Mike Leigh is giving us a life lesson in these trying times. The core of this film is the relationship between Poppy and her angry, bigoted driving instructor (a brilliant, intense Eddie Marsan). Seeing these two interact is so organic and interesting that it’s reminiscent of early Martin Scorsese. This is a great little film, a new “Amelie” for our times.


On the opposite side of the spectrum is a thoroughly depressing “Synecdoche, New York” This would have made a great short film, maybe 20 minutes or so. However it weighs in at over two hours and that’s just too much time to spend in a surreal dream world- thanks! Charlie Kaufman who wrote the great “Being John Malkovich” and “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” makes his directorial debut and like his main character here, he’s too locked in his own creation. After a promising start where we see the breakup of Caden Cotard’s (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) marriage, the film gets progressively absurd. In this dream world, he spends 20 years making a play about his life that continues to intersect with his real life (or does it?) If nothing is real and the characters playing characters playing characters are neither really living nor really acting; why does anything matter? In “Brazil” Terry Gilliam gave us a truly brilliant parallel universe that had fun with its own dark view. Kaufman’s film is just confusing and morose. Stay out of Synecdoche, it’s a dark place.


I thought “Let the Right One In” was original and creepy. However, it seems a lot of people really liked this far more than I did. The setting of a cold, dark, depressing Swedish town is spot on. The little girl vampire concept is truly original. So although I am a bit sick of the vampire flick this still seemed much more interesting than the over-hyped “Twilight”. I think I may be a little jaded though since I am myself, a vampire.


The film “The Rocker” has Rainn Wilson breaking out of his Office cube to play an ex-hair band drummer who gets a second chance. The veteran, dream team supporting cast and the fun newcomers rally around our hero, but it’s too bad this film is way too predictable and not as funny as it should be. If it wasn’t so tame and eager to please this may have been something. As it stands, it’s as if “Spinal Tap” met a Lifetime TV movie and that doesn’t rock mate.

Finally we arrive back in Seattle. I was a lad working in a luxury hotel and condo-sitting during the WTO conference. So I had to work and live in the streets during the infamous 1999 riots. I was a spectator, but I felt correctly that it was a foreboding sign of things to come. I saw quirky, passionate and fun loving protestors as well as the masked and easily identifiable teenage ‘anarchists’ who were a very small minority. Then I watched the jack-booted riot police showing that they obviously didn’t care to tell the difference. It was bizarre to see rush hour commuters having to deal with a rowdy police force who were gassing downtown streets and pepper-spraying 16 year old girls. In short it was outrageous. Then you would switch on the TV and see the clueless reporting that repeatedly showed the smashing of a Starbucks window, and characterized all the protestors as vandals while totally ignoring the police brutality. Fractionized, angry protestors, biased media, corporate control issues, and strong arm police tactics- it was like a crash course in political awareness.


It is this defining incident that is the basis for Stuart Townsend’s “Battle in Seattle” a film that uses the “Crash” model of multiple storylines. The characters here feel more like designated representatives: the angry cop, the pregnant wife, the reporter who (laughably) grows a conscience, the lovebird protestors plus Andre 3000, the guy who sings the “Hey Ya” song. Like 2006s’ “Bobby” this film has its’ heart in the right place but just lays it on too thick. Although the recreations are nicely edited into the actual footage, the story is way too contrived and the actors struggle vainly in their one dimensional roles. A documentary on these events would be more impactful than this well-meaning but hollow film. The one thing that felt dead on was the portrayal of the mayor and police chief who are truly confused and dumbfounded by the events that they themselves were responsible for. It was a small justice to see them both lose their jobs.

To have and to hold: Coupling probs and my Woodman diss

Since February gave us that cursed Valentines Day, it is timely that three recent DVD releases deal with finding and keeping love. (Eat baguette now, smoke and adjust beret) Since my last post was a diatribe against the loud, kitchen sink approach in todays’ films, I’m happy to report that some seemed to have agreed with my screams to create, understate and find emotional reality.

In “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, RP McMurphy told the mental hospital administrator that his problem was he that he liked to “fight and fuck too much”. There was the very definition of the modern man raging against the machine of conformist society. Author Chuck Palahniuk has given us stories on these two modes of expression, with the film versions of both books now released. In the big budget “Fight Club” Brad Pitt gave us one of his best performances as the idealized alpha male to Edward Nortons’ beleaguered everyman. It also had Meat Loaf with tits. Great flick with a lot to say.

The film version of the second 'f' is “Choke” and it is a smaller film with a first time director but just as absurd. Sam Rockwell bounces back from the overacted angst of “Snow Angels” (on my worst of 08 list) to play a more playful but equally confused main character. Working in a recreated colonial village ala Williamsburg, he moonlights as a low level con man. By fake choking on food in restaurants and allowing rich diners to ‘save’ him, he somehow hits them up for cash down the road. He’s also a sex addict who gave up medical school to put his mentally disturbed mother in a home where she doesn’t even recognize him. Now here’s a guy who would have trouble finding real love! A catalyst in the form of a new female doctor appears and forces him to question his very confusing life, despite having her own issues. A sacred foreskin, flashbacks of his insane youth, chapel sex, a hilarious staged rape and foul mouthed old ladies all come into play. This could have been a god awful film but I did love the absurdity and creativity of it all. The first time director Clark Gregg clearly botches up the staging several times but he gains points for bravery. The supporting cast: beautiful Kelly Macdonald as the bizarre doctor, the excellent Anjelica Houston as the crazy mother and Brad William Henke as the obligatory best friend, who outgrows our main character, all give great quirky performances. Sam Rockwell is also sympathetic in a very difficult role. This reminded me a bit of the superior “The World according to Garp” which also taught us that we all need love despite lifes’ insanity and our own non-traditional upbringings. This could have been a great film but it passes as a pleasant distraction, much like the meaningless sex it portrays.

With over forty films under his belt, writer-director Woody Allen in his prime has given us some great stories on the difficulties of love; “Annie Hall”, “Manhattan” and “Hannah and her Sisters” being his best. However I have to admit that he seems to have really become mediocre and repetitious to me. Pretentious and top-heavy with literary and academic references, his films always feature the well-monied, elites that Allen seems to worship despite the fact that he feigns disapproval of their homogenized WASP values. His characters tend to ramble about the meaning of life while behaving selfishly but never seem to need to work for a living. His obsession with these Upper East Side neurotics became downright claustrophobic, so Allen began to drop in more old school, broad comedies and has gone on a European filming jag in recent years. To fanatical devotees these seem to be a new direction, but to me they seem to be the same characters with new accents.

“Vicky Cristina Barcelona” is a good case in point. The title itself (taken from two of the characters names plus its’ setting) seems to demonstrate its’ generic, formulaic approach. Lazy writing then puts in unnecessary narration as Allen tells a tale of two good friends on a summer in Barcelona and their dealing with an attractive bohemian painter. Javier Bardem loses the soup bowl haircut and limp from “No Country for Old Men” and proves he can be a romantic lead. Vicky the sensible, engaged one (charismatic Rebecca Hall) and Cristina the free spirit (Scarlett Johansson looking sexy but bored) go through their paces like happy lap horses. Vicky’s businessman fiancé Doug (Chris Messina) is so stereotypically superficial that you wonder why anyone would find this safe relationship appealing, but I guess that’s the point. Allen flies his freak flag a little higher giving us a ménage à trios scenario, and (gasp) a lesbian scene. Infidelity and madness seem intertwined, again demonstrating to us that love seems to be at odds with our animalistic impulses in his view. Barcelona helped fund this film which is why the settings look more tourism less realism. Would Vicky be the bird in her yuppie husbands’ gilded cage? Allen shows us her husband literally wanting a bird in a cage to bang us over the head here. The older host couple of the women also act as a too convenient foil for Vicky’s dilemma. Penelope Cruz shows up after an hour as the clichéd, hot blooded Spanish ex-wife, but gives a strong (and now Oscar winning) performance. This is a welcome relief to the self-absorbed, over-analytical conundrums of our cast despite their equally strong acting. To Allens’ credit he doesn’t try to wrap all the loose ends up nicely. Yet just because a film leaves off a happy ending doesn’t make it less forgettable. These are the same well-off, New York City characters he’s given us for decades, the fact that they are eating tapas and touring landmarks doesn’t make their sexual peccadilloes more interesting. For a Twilight Zone version of Spanish love woes, I prefer the creativity of “Abre los ojos’ and no worries, both this and the American remake feature the beauty of Penelope Cruz.

So we’ve seen the elusiveness of finding love, but how does one keep it? “Eden” shows us an Irish couple struggling with just that. With two children and approaching their 10th wedding anniversary, their relationship has grown stale. The husband, a telephone worker; would rather spend his nights at the pub then with his family. This film, like last years’ “Once” (which had the same producers) again shows us a small slice of life but manages to say a lot in that framework. Eileen Walsh is excellent as the under-appreciated wife who tries to woo her husbands’ affections back through understanding, dieting and new hairstyles. Aidan Kelly as the disturbed lonely husband recalls his heroism of the past while obsessing on a minor flirtation. There is more truth in five minutes of this film than of the two previous films combined and it recalls the suburban loneliness of John Cheever. Life is tough, love is hard but we have to keep trying.