comedy

Cinequest – Come As You Are: two wheelchairs, a white cane and some condoms

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The road trip comedy Come As You Are is about three disabled young Belgian men who yearn to discard their virginity.  Two are in wheelchairs and one is blind.  After hearing about a brothel that caters to guys with special needs, they plot a road trip to Spain’s Costa del Sol.  They need their parents to send them with a male nurse, but not to come along or know the true destination.  All goes well, until the parents withdraw their permission and our heroes sneak off under the care of a necessary evil, a no-nonsense female nurse.  Their getaway is expedited by a very funny 11 year-old kid sister.

Along the way, their individual personalities are exposed (for better and for worse) and they experience real unsheltered freedom for the first time (with its pluses and minuses).  It’s a little movie with some poignant moments among the laughs.

The film, titled Hasta La Vista in Europe, is mostly in Flemish, with some French and English.

Young Adult: a game changer of a comedy

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With Young Adult, screenwriter Diablo Cody (Juno) and director Jason Reitman (Thank You for Smoking, Juno, Up in the Air) are challenging the current mode of comedy itself.  They turn many comic conventions on their heads in this nastily dark comedy.

Played by Charlize Theron, the main character is stunningly non-empathetic,  utterly self-absorbed and thoroughly unpleasant.  She was the prom goddess in her small town high school, and has moved to the city for a job with a hint of prestige.  With a failed marriage, a looming career crisis and no friends, she’s drinking too much and is in a bad place.  So she decides to return to her hometown and get her old boyfriend (Patrick Wilson) back – despite the fact that he’s gloriously contented with his wife and newborn infant.

Naturally, social disasters ensue.  Along the way, the story probes the issues of happiness and self-appraisal.

Patton Oswalt is wonderful as someone the protagonist regarded as a lower form of life in high school, but who becomes her only companion and truth teller.

Young Adult is inventive and very funny.  Its cynicism reminds me of a Ben Hecht or Billy Wilder screenplay (high praise).  Note:  This is NOT a film for someone expecting a light comedy.

DVD of the Week: Midnight in Paris

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With Midnight in Paris, Woody Allen has made his best movie since 1986’s Hannah and Her Sisters. It’s a funny and wistful exploration of the nostalgia for living in another time and place – all set in the most sumptuously photographed contemporary Paris.

Successful but disenchanted screenwriter and would be novelist Owen Wilson accompanies his mismatched fiancée Rachel McAdams to Paris, where he fantasizes about living in the artistically fertile Paris of the 1920s. Indeed, at midnight, he happens upon a portal to that era, and finds himself hanging out with the likes of Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Stein. He meets Marion Cotillard, a 1920s gal who is herself nostalgic for the 1890s.

Midnight in Paris shines because of the perfectly crafted dialogue. McAdams’ every instinct is cringingly wrong for Wilson. She is enraptured by the pretentious blowhard Michael Sheen, who couldn’t be more insufferable.

As usual, Allen has attracted an excellent cast. Owen Wilson rises to the material and gives one of his best performances. Corey Stoll is hilarious as Hemingway and Adrien Brody even funnier as Salvador Dali. Cotillard is luminous.

It makes my list of Best Movies of 2011 – So Far.

A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas: light up and lighten up for the Holidays

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Come on, you’re yearning to see our irresistible stoners in a Christmas movie.  There’s not much of a story here – just the two appealing characters and lots and lots of jokes.  The light hearted but very raunchy humor targets recreational drugs, racial stereotypes, the 3D movie fad, and lots more.

Neil Patrick Harris returns in another hilarious cameo.  And the reliably frightening Danny Trejo shows up as Harold’s menacing new father-in-law.  See my Danny Trejo and his scary friends.

You don’t need to see this movie in 3D.  I saw it in 2D and enjoyed the 3D jokes, which are apparent in 2D.

DVD of the Week: Beginners

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Ewan McGregor’s dad (Christopher Plummer) has just died, shortly after coming out of the closet.  As if this weren’t enough to deal with, McGregor is a depressive anyway, with a rich history of sabotaging his relationships.  But then he meets Melanie Laurent (Inglorious Basterds)(and they meet cute).

This is a winning comedy – one of the year’s best movies.  It’s smart, sweet and original.  All of the performances are excellent, especially Plummer’s, which should garner him an Oscar nomination.  All in all, Beginners is a notable achievement by director Mike Mills (Thumbsucker).

Coming up on TV: An Anti-war Masterpiece

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James Coburn and James Garner in THE AMERICANIZATION OF EMILY

Turner Classic Movies is broadcasting the 1964 The Americanization of Emily on November 11.    Set in England just before the D-Day invasion, The Americanization of Emily is a biting satire and one of the great anti-war movies. James Garner plays an admiral’s staff officer charged with locating luxury goods and willing English women for the brass.  Julie Andrews plays an English driver who has lost her husband and other male family members in the War.  She resists emotional entanglements with other servicemen whose lives may be put at risk, but falls for Garner’s “practicing coward”, a man who is under no illusions about the glory of war and is determined to stay as far from combat as possible.

Unfortunately, Garner’s boss (Melvyn Douglas) has fits of derangement and becomes obsessed with the hope that the first American killed on the beach at D-Day be from the Navy.   Accordingly, he orders Garner to lead a suicide mission to land ahead of the D-Day landing, ostensibly to film it.  Fellow officer James Coburn must guarantee Garner’s martyrdom.

It’s a brilliant screenplay from Paddy Chayefsky, who won screenwriting Oscars for Marty, The Hospital and Network.

Today, Americanization holds up as least as well as its contemporary Dr. Strangelove and much better than Failsafe.

Reportedly, both Andrews and Garner have tagged this as their favorite film.

One of the “Three Nameless Broads” bedded by the Coburn character is played by Judy Carne, later of Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In.

DVD of the Week: Crazy Stupid Love

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Crazy Stupid Love is an altogether very satisfying romantic comedy starring Steve Carell as the middle-aged sad sack who has been dumped by his longtime wife (Julianne Moore) and comes under the tutelage of uber lounge lizard Ryan Gosling, who in turn is falling for Emma Stone.   Lots of laughs ensue, leading up to a madcap climax in Moore’s back yard, before the film slows down for the last 20 minutes.  But, it’s plenty funny (and not many romcoms are these days).

Gosling, who earned indie favorite status playing tortured/damaged characters,  is great here as the guy who can melt any gal in a bar with stunning ease and speed.  Emma Stone is always good in comedies.  Lisa Lapira shines as Stone’s wingman, and Analeigh Tipton is excellent as Carrel’s babysitter.

DVD of the Week: A Little Help

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A Little Help is a Jenna Fischer vehicle that illustrates the depth that Fischer can bring to even a shallow character.  In this dramedy, Fischer is suddenly widowed and must reassemble her life and support her quirky 12-year-old son despite the intrusions of her shrill, micro-controlling sister (Brooke Smith) and their chilly mother (Leslie Anne Warren).  Fischer’s biggest challenge is helping her son navigate social life at his new school, where he has told a preposterous lie on his first day.

Kim Coates steals every scene as a medical malpractice attorney.  Ron Liebman sparkles as the blowhard father.

Writer/Director Michael J. Weithorn made the very smart decision to hold Fischer’s character accountable for the bad choices she has made in her life.  If she were instead written as a completely innocent victim, the story would have lapsed into cliche.  Instead, it’s a pretty good movie and a fine showcase for Jenna Fischer.

Dirty Girl: actors good, story not in teen road trip movie

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Dirty Girl, which arrived with some measure of indie buzz, is a pleasing trifle, nothing more.   Two teenagers, whose parents don’t get them,  run away on a transformative road trip. One is played by Juno Temple, whose smart, quirky sexiness pretty much took over this year’s Kaboom.  The overweight gay kid is played by Jeremy Dozier.  Both are good, Temple is special and Dozier might be.  I’m looking forward to seeing them in better movies.

Against type, Milla Jovovich plays a trailer trash single mom.  Dwight Yoakam plays yet another dirtbag, this one without a lot of depth.

But it’s Mary Steenburgen who really reminds us how good she is.  Steenburgen plays what is written as a fairly cardboard role – the bullied wife, the prude wearing high-necked blouses, the devoted but helpless mom.  But Steenburgen brings so much texture and intensity to the performance and creates a character that transcends the one on the page.

50/50: what’s funnier than cancer?

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Joseph Gordon-Levitt (who has reliably excellent taste in his choice of movie scripts) stars in this cancer comedy.  Yes, cancer comedy.  Seth Rogen plays his buddy.  And it’s funny.  Pretty damn funny.

Writer Will Reiser takes the story from his own bout with the Big C.   Reiser’s real life friend Seth Rogen helped him through the ordeal.

As usual, Gordon-Levitt is excellent.  And, if you’re out chasing skirts while bald and weak from chemotherapy, who could be a better wing man than Seth Rogen?

Anna Kendrick (so good in Up in the Air) plays the cringingly green psychologist assigned to help the patient face his 50/50 chance of survival.   Bryce Dallas Howard (excellent as the achingly fragile survivor in Hereafter) plays the girlfriend with the best intentions but neither aptitude for care giving or unlimited loyalty.  Angelica Huston plays not just another smothering mom.  They’re all very good – good enough to play against Gordon-Levitt and Rogen.  So are Philip Baker Hall and Matt Frewer (Max Headroom) as fellow cancer patients.