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Musicians, Monsters, Lovers, Waitresses, and Spies
This has been sitting in my "To Post" list for months, so a couple of these have been out for a while. Seen anything good lately?
THE HOST (B-)
The Host, a Korean monster movie/dysfunctional family comedy/cautionary tale, starts out with one of the most exciting creature attacks in film. The fact that it's set on a beach naturally lends itself to Jaws comparisons, and the sequence earns them. It's pretty much downhill from there. There are gripping moments scattered throughout but let me pull a Randy Jackson and say "A lot of that just didn't work for me, dawg." The movie is exceptionally well-directed, it gets some political critique in there, I liked that. But in pure story terms, I got bored. It's a seriously weird movie, and as much as I love films that borrow from all genres, this just doesn't quite mesh them in a satisfactory way. It's been extremely well-reviewed, so maybe I'm nuts, but if this had been an American movie, I bet it would have been trashed by the very same critics dishing out the love.
CRAZY LOVE (A-)
Crazy Love is one of the better documentaries I've ever seen. It is essentially a love story, but a very fucked-up and twisted one. I knew absolutely nothing about it going in past the synopsis, and that's the way to do it. There are two moments in this film where a subtle motion reveals some huge surprise and both of them made me gasp alone in my apartment. It'd be a pity to spoil these and other scenes for you, so please just seek it out and read about the movie afterwards. It really is excellent.
WAITRESS (B)
Waitress' writer/director/co-star Adrienne Shelly was murdered in her apartment last year , and thank God it's good, because who wants to give a bad review to a film made by a woman who just died? The movie and especially the cast are pretty delighful. Keri Russell is excellent in the lead, Nathan Fillion, Cheryl Hines and Shelly herself are all very funny, and Andy Griffith of all people steals the show. The movie is light on plot, but it knows its characters inside and out. Russell plays an unhappy waitress who gets knocked up by her abusive husband, Jeremy Sisto. (By the way, girls, haven't you learned anything from TV and movies? Never hook up with Jeremy Sisto!). She falls for her gynecologist and complications arise. That's pretty much it in the way of story, but this is a charming movie and a refreshingly offbeat and feminist spin on the romantic comedy.
FAY GRIM (C-)
This is a "sequel" to Hal Hartley's indie classic Henry Fool, a movie I saw in high school and loved. It takes the great characters from the first film and inserts them into a completely different genre: the spy thriller. Cool idea, but Fay Grim is an highly obnoxious movie. Every shot is done at an extreme angle, which becomes headache-inducing pretty fast. Jeff Goldblum is good, but Parker Posey -- who I usually love-- turns in a "What was she thinking?" performance for the ages. The plot is complex to the point of being ridiculous, and the director and cast never decide on a tone. Sometimes it doesn't take itself anywhere near seriously enough, sometimes it takes itself far too seriously. It's dull, condescending, and annoying.
MUSIC AND LYRICS (C)
Music and Lyrics opens with an absolutely hilarious spoof of 1980's music videos like A-Ha's "Take On Me." Hugh Grant and Friday Night Lights' Scott Porter do terrific Wham! impressions, and the song "Pop! Goes My Heart" is probably the catchiest movie tune since "That Thing You Do." This song and sequence are so pitch perfect in every way that I thought I was in for a comedy classic. I was not. From the look of things, they spent 85 days making the opening sequence perfect and 5 days throwing everything else into a big ol' shit blender and seeing what stuck. Music and Lyrics is a romantic comedy completely devoid of both romance and comedy. Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore don't belong together -- from the first moment they're onscreen they seem like nothing more than friends. That's great if they were doing a story about a male and female friend who make music together, but the forced romance angle doesn't work. Few are better at these types of movies than Grant, I just wish he'd insist on getting a script in order before signing on. This is some seriously lazy stuff. Just save yourself the money and time and watch the music video.
I am not interested in these movies. So, was your neighborhood shut down
due to the illegal immigrants marching in the streets?
Hey Pat,
Hope you're doing well... I just caught In the Land of Women and really
liked it, even with a few reservations. A lot of good stuff, and the kind
of movie that leaves you with a taste of wanting to go home and write that
screenplay that's burning a hole on your desktop.
Cheers,
Scribe
Rewatch <i>Henry Fool</i>, it's almost a guarantee that you
won't like it any more.