Month: June 2013

At the beginning of The Heat, Melissa McCarthy, in the middle of busting a prostitution transaction, grabs a john’s cellphone and brusquely calls his wife with the news of his shameful activity. Later, her trashy Boston cop character will play Russian Roulette with her gun pointed at a drug dealer’s crotch, take FBI agent Sandra Bullock into a nightclub restroom to cut away some of her clothes and make her sexy so she can get close to a suspect and plant a bug in his phone, harass and insult every supervisor without any apparent repercussions, and generally keep stretching the Melissa McCarthy persona. That persona–the perceptive slob–has already deteriorated into caricature (the terrible Identity Thief earlier this year) so you could say there was no where to go with it but upward.

Directed by Paul Feig, The Heat survives mostly on the back of the considerable chemistry between its leads. Less effectively, it introduces the novel concept of the female buddy-cop concept. Problem is, substitute lesser comedic actors in these roles and The Heat would be a pitiful followup to Feig’s and McCarthy’s earlier film, Bridesmaids, whose screenplay went the extra mile toward female empowerment. Here the broad strokes and formulaic trifling bar any loftier ideas from emerging. A likable summer comedy that goes gross but holds back just enough to let you know it’s really only kidding, it reaches out for action film components that merely further dull the clowning.

So it comes down to what you make of McCarthy. Her schtick certainly amuses but two hours feels at least a half-hour too long for its own good. Feig felt the need to give McCarthy a large Boston family that seems like nothing more than a crammed-in, exaggerated version of the one in The Fighter. Jane Curtin (of Saturday Night Live fame) plays McCarthy’s wickedly funny mom, who is still pissed McCarthy arrested and jailed her own brother (Michael Rappaport). For all the screen time this family hogs, the brilliant Curtin is in maybe two scenes…Then there’s a totally superfluous scene involving a tracheotomy (don’t ask).

Bullock’s a perfect foil–buttoned-down and in need of a liberating partner, she’s often as good a “straight man” as Art Carney’s Ed Norton. Maybe I’m reminded of the Honeymooners because the heavy-set McCarthy bullying a smaller partner conjured up something in my subconscious. It certainly wasn’t because this film in any way bears a qualitative resemblance to that classic of early TV. And while McCarthy’s no Jackie Gleason, she’s a surefire talent with a knack for timing. The dam may have burst in setting her up with credible screen roles, however. Once you start franchising rudeness even it runs the risk of going dull.

3 There Are Worse Films Out There (out of 5)

Hardly a calculated stunt, Joss Whedon’s home-movie take on Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing wisely casts a sparkling Amy Acker as Beatrice. Whedon’s ensemble cast, familiar to fans of his TV work (Angel, Firefly, Buffy Te Vampire Slayer) rollick their way to a giddy yet formidable modern-dress re-imagining of the bard’s comedy. Long on commentary regarding the battle of the sexes, the play’s durability is on display in vivid black-and-white (the seond quality film in b & w this month, following Frances Ha).

Whedon adds on a good dash of slapstick, mostly effective, and a present day L. A. setting, albeit one where the men incongruously wear conservative suits. The shifting allegiances, double crosses, misadventures and general shrewd mayhem come across light and fluffy but wholly charming. The film’s tone is consistent with Whedon’s actors’ countervailing nerdiness, presumably an antidote to the dustiness some present-day audiences might wrongly come to expect from a filmed Shakespeare. (For a fine straight version of the play, see Kenneth Branagh’s 1993 version.)

If it all seems a little too pleasant, that’s precisely the point. Despite the requisite happy endings, these Elizabethan comedies were anything but soulless. In stark relief to the funny stuff, Much Ado About Nothing’s depiction of the humiliation of Hero at her wedding altar reaches a pinnacle of important feminist issues regarding women’s subservient role in society. Her own father, Leonato (Clark Gregg) at first takes the side of bumbling, duped Claudio (Franz Kranz) for no apparent reason other than he’s a man. Beatrice provides the perfect “Oh, God, that I were a man” soliliquy as a further exploration of the topic.

As Benedick, Alexis Denisof takes some getting used to. Overshadowed by Acker, he plays the role cute and pronounced, somewhat exaggerated. Saving the day is Whedon regular Nathan Fillion, dead-pan hilarious as Constable Dogberry. Whedon shot the film in his own house on a paper-thin budget in 12 days while on a break from working on The Avengers. All in all, a hearfelt good time.

3 1/2 Love Gods (out of 5)

Reacting to the occasionally interesting knuckleheads in The Bling Ring an odd weariness sets in. These four teenage girls and one guy who break into Hollywood celebrity homes to steal, but mainly to gloat at, an enormous display of glitzy possessions, aren’t exactly supposed to break our hearts. More like give us the creeps while we (and director Sophia Coppola) keep a safe distance. If it all gets a little too eerie, well, the thinking goes, Coppola is striving to take us out of our comfort zone. Meanwhile look for no directorial editorializing, thank you. Paris Hilton’s inner sanctum as a sick sight of consumerism overkill? Or just normal for a star of her magnitude? Aren’t these kids (including Emma Watson of Harry Potter fame) demented–no wait–heroic…just sad…maybe a lot like the rest of us? Coppola might as well be shooting through a pair of binoculars for all she’ll tell us about her perspective. Her non-manipulation is itself a peculiar sort of manipulation

An effective filmmaker, Coppola’s craftsmanship keeps it interesting, and Watson top-shelf performance as Nicki is not only good, it’s extra jarring that this Harry Potter kid has not only grown up but finds herself caught in this unsavory mess. Not that she and the rest of her crew aren’t enjoying themselves. They hop over security fences, find open sliding doors by the omnipresent swimming pool or keys left under doormats for heaven’s sake, after internet research by Marc (Israel Broussard) tells them the celebrity is not home on a particular evening. They pick the most vacuous and therefore ostentatious stars and never seem to get caught (more on this later). Hanging out in the same nightclubs as their prey, our merry band squander most of the profits derived from their bling loot. Cocaine and nightclub bottle service seem to be the best they can dream up for the cash they also steal. They even set up a lemonade-stand- style table at their Calabasas high school to sell off a little of the excess brand-name bags and shoes and scarves Mostly, though, they just get off on wearing the stuff, including Marc.

Based on real events depicted in a Vanity Fair article (at the film’s conclusion Coppola films the interviews), The Bling Ring is a weird mix of docudrama and sheer fantasy. Exaggerated in its depiction of the scope of these crimes, the film would have you believe security alarms haven’t been invented yet and none of these stars so much as leave a maid at home when they go out (doubly bothersome since even Watson’s middle-class home contains a house servant–conveniently the only one in the film).

Despite strong performances from everyone, the film far too often feels as empty as its subjects. Look for no mythopoetic construct here; The Bling Ring is not exactly Frank Perry’s The Swimmer. Had Burt Lancaster encountered this bunch of crazy kids, in fact, he would have been even more puzzled by Hollywood’s barren culture than he was in the 1968 film where he roamed in swim trunks from Southern California pool to pool looking for
a sliver of humanity. Here he would find a lot of shiny objects in search of a clue of meaning.

3 Harry Potters Meet Paris Hiltons (out of 5)

An Oversimplification of Her Beauty, on first impression often too busy being busy, endeavors to bowl you over with its postmodern scope. A carefree amalgam of narrative, documentary, and several styles of animation, it can be mistaken for an undisciplined tour-de-force. With its stentorian second-person narration (Reg E. Cathey from The Wire), self referential film-within-a-film, stop-action, inner monologues, asides, collages, freeze frames, subtitles and intertitles, is this a student film ready to go over the edge any moment?

Yet for the most part it reins in its excesses admirably. A soulful street-wise tone emerges, antithetical to all the intellectual semi-hogwash that goes down. What we have is not so much a braggart epistle to a lost love (Nimik Mintor who’s prominently in the film) as an endearing tribute to the same that is paradoxically heightened by all the jibber-jabber.

In what often still feels like a way-too-brainy exercise, kudos must be given to the film’s technical marvels, which are plentiful, and to its heart, which shines through the density. Director Terence Nance juggles his genres with an ambition that’s scarily impressive for a first film. He almost bowls you over.

3 1/2 Wacky Art Films (out of 5)

Comedy may be in the eye of the beholder but chances are unless you’re a bonafide fuddy-duddy you should find This Is The End hilarious and audacious, if crude and low-brow. What saves it is the running joke of filmstar comedic actors playing themselves. Celebrity culture may never have been lambasted this believably. Throw in a well-timed horror motif as a credible backdrop and there’s a fine balance of “real’ horror and what looks like a lot of improvised fun from six talented leads. Seth Rogen (who also co-directed with Evan Goldberg), James Franco, Danny McBride, Jonah Hill, Jay Baruchel, and Craig Robinson all fearlessly out-indulge one another. (It’s hard to pick a favorite but McBride really kills.)

Baruchel visits pal and fellow Canadian Rogen for a little relaxation only to find himself dragged to a party at the house of Franco. Emma Watson, Rihanna, Channing Tatum, Paul Rudd, Jason Segel, Kevin Hart, Mindy Kaling and a hilarious Michael Cera (who’s a real lothario here) are hopping around the party. A supercilious Hill, who rubs Baruchel the wrong way, trys to ingratiate himself to him. Time for a stroll to grab some munchies, Baruchel tells Rogen and the two embark on an innocuous-seeming jaunt interrupted by what turns out to be a, er, natural disaster?

Not so fast. We’ve got sinkholes leading to fiery pits of lava and blue beams leading to the heavens, Rapture-style. Destruction reigns. Skedadalling back to Franco’s crib, the duo meet their four brethren, watch Cera endure a cringe-worthy fate, and before you know it everyone else has either split or vanished. Then the four begin a survival odyssey, using their rationed household stuff like so many props of hanging fruit and their innate cameraderie like so much of a twisted guilty pleasure. Before long a horned devil with flailing genitalia will be menacing poor Hill, who’ll subsequently be in need of an exorcism. Book of Revelation metaphors galore will meet this mock-documentary square on, while Rogen and Goldberg (co-writers of Superbad) explore the vagaries of male bonding gone apeshit.

Hysterical trashiness prevails. The audience mostly roars; a few walk out. Sloppy, juvenile lunacy–what more do you want? I doubt there’ll be a comedy as uproarious the rest of the year.

4 Tastelessly Insane Stars (out of 5)

Both the funniest and darkest of the films in the Before trilogy, Richard Linklater’s Before Midnight is a stunning portrait of a relationship enduring a serious rough patch. Starring the incredible leads Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke, both who also co-wrote with Linklater, the film takes place another nine years down the road traveled by an American man and French woman, now on vacation in Greece, their twin daughters in tow.

Jesse (Hawke) is now an acclaimed novelist, who apparently borrowed from Celine (Delpy) for his lead female character in both books. Hank, his teenage son from a previous relationship is, at the movie’s outset, just leaving Greece to return to Chicago, where he lives with his mom. We learn she’s unsympathetic to her ex-husband’s new life and she and Hank will come up during the film as a source of resentment and unfulfilled dreams for Hawke. Celine, at the brink of starting a promising new job in Paris, faces the question of throwing it all away to uproot herself for a move to America, so Jesse who feels he has no shot at custody, can be close enough to see Hank on alternate weekends.

As in the previous two films, which perceptively depicted their meeting and subsequent reunification after nearly a decade of being apart, Before Midnight glides through long takes with even longer, unforced and discerning conversations between the couple. A scene with their Greek hosts, an extended family led by an elderly wise man of letters, breaks up the talks between the couple. Their arrival at a Greek hotel later in the film ratchets up the mostly light conversation from earlier. Unbelaboredly yet as risky as can be imagined, the film culminates in a combative orgy of acrimony. Never losing its humor, it goes from enthralling to hypnotic. A deepened sensibility provides a flawlessly executed window to Celine and Jesse proudly protecting their individual identities while sharply yet sophisticatedly arguing up a storm. Sex, used as a catharsis in the previous films, is interrupted here for a different sort of intimacy. Role playing and the “time-machine” device also used in the previous films, help bring the couple to a by-no-means final truce. The realization, paradoxically, sets in that “romantic” has actually taken on a new meaning.

Before Midnight will stand on its own in case you haven’t seen the first two go-rounds. Taken as a whole, though, the films are a major achievement in cinema–a ground-breaking collaboration between three artists of the highest magnitude. As astute as any film about relationships you will see, Before Midnight is a date movie for the bold. Unlike the majority of films these days, it breathtakingly treats the viewer like an adult.

5 Highly Entertaining, Daringly Incisive Stars (out of 5)

If satire is intended in the screenplay of The Internship, it’s largely washed out by the film’s incessant mounting of a worshipful tribute to the gods of Google. Using deliberately drab color schemes in the film’s early scenes, director Shawn Levy ups the ante to only the brightest colors once his characters reach their destination of the company’s headquarters to begin serving internships. His film, sporadically amusing and regularly corny, makes no bones about spinning the tech giants in the best possible figurative light as well.

We first witness our heroes, Vince Vaughn (he also co-wrote) and Owen Wilson, attempting to make a big sale of, um, wristwatches. (Rumor has it hula-hoops and beepers were first floated as possible ideas.) If you have trouble buying the wristwatch thing, you’ll soon be asked to also swallow that neither of these guys has a laptop at home. Check out the Wedding Crasher dudes doing their cyber interview with Google not only at a public library but in the children’s room no less. This just after their wristwatch company boss John Goodman fails to let them know the company has gone out of business. Also el foldo are these dudes’ female relationships once they become unemployed. This frees up Wilson to strike up a fling with one of the Google managers (Rose Byrne) since every formulaic movie needs a romantic interest. And villains:

The perennially annoying Aasif Mandvi plays a didactic, showboating group leader, eager to insult our middle-aged Google Crashers. Max Minghella plays a young, mean and smarmy rival, also eager to insult the old guys. Then there’s a mixture of racially, ethnically and tempermentally diverse young interns who actually know something about technology. When it comes to Vaughan and Wilson imparting life lessons as a substitute for their paucity of any digitally impactful skills, the film shortchanges the viewer. We’re asked to take a leap of faith that these kids would actually be in any way enthralled by this dumb duo. Also, that Vaughan would be able to do a one-night tutorial with a mysterious character called “Headphones” and go from basics nincompoop to studied tech swami.

Now 17 years after the delightful Swingers, Vaughn at least has made a better film than last year’s dismal The Watch. The Internship, while not quite jelling, actually stabilizes during its second half. Since its first half is rather consistently flat, this helps harbor the illusion that it has actually recovered and saved itself from being lumped into that outsized pool of mediocre multiplex comedies. Which would be wrong.

2 1/2 Fledgling Google Crashers (out of 5)