Monthly Archives: September 2012

Jeff, Who Lives at Home (2012)

Written and Directed by Jay and Mark Duplass

Jeff, Who Lives at Home is a small, intimate film about a family floating in different directions in life, unhappy, insecure, indifferent. It’s like they are just waiting around for their lives to kick into gear. Susan Sarandon is the mother, and Jason Segel and Ed Helms are her two grown sons.

This type of movie is right up my alley. I was anticipating this for some time now.

And yet, it didn’t work for me at all.

Segel and Sarandon are perfectly pleasant and charming here, but whenever Helms shows up and does/says something stupid, the film grinds to a halt. Whenever the plot depends on sloppy coincidences to bring our family together, my heart just sinks. And don’t get me started with that maudlin climax. Those tears were not earned. Every emotion was forced, fake and false.

For a play on alliteration, this is the perfect opportunity to slap this film with an F, but I can’t bring myself to do it. Segel and Sarandon are just too good. Segel brings a sweet naïveté to his role as a simple man in need of some guidance. I’m a longtime fan of his, and he can clearly carry a film. And Sarandon, lovelier and graceful than ever, kind of feels like she’s in an entirely different movie. Her office romance felt as contrived as the rest of the film, but the camera simply loves her. She’s so easy on the eyes.

So thank Segel and Sarandon, breaths of fresh air, for keeping Jeff, Who Lives at Home from completely sinking to the bottom of the bay.

C-

The Future (2011)

Written and Directed by Miranda July

It’s been a long six years since Miranda July wowed me with her feature debut, Me and You and Everyone We Know. I had been greatly anticipating her next big-screen project. The Future arrived with lesser fanfare and mixed reviews. And having just viewed it, I can see exactly why.

The Future is far less accessible than her previous film. Complete with a scratchy, cutesy voice, July narrates some scenes from the perspective of a to-be-adopted cat. Also, her character is followed by her favorite yellow t-shirt. Hamish Linklater, who plays July’s boyfriend, stops time and has a conversation with the moon. Yes, Me and You and Everyone We Know wasn’t exactly conventional, but July goes much, much further off the reservation with The Future. I know July doesn’t do strange things for the sake of being strange. I believe she finds truth and meaning in the smallest, oddest things in life. She’s an artist; she makes bold choices, broad strokes and doesn’t fall victim to average or typical storytelling. In fact, I love this about her. She’s a brave, beautiful soul, and I’ll watch anything she does. There’s simply no one like her at all. Even if I don’t quite get what she’s doing, I know I’m getting something completely original and thoughtful with her.

I can’t recommend The Future to casual moviegoers, but die-hard fans of her first film will surely take away something positive from this viewing experience. They may even be charmed by it as I was.

B-

Safe House (2012)

Written by David Guggenheim
Directed by Daniel Espinosa

I don’t know why but I had high hopes for this one. Maybe it’s because I was fresh off the high of seeing Denzel Washington in the terrific thriller, Man on Fire, for the first time. Maybe because I really dig Ryan Reynolds as an actor. Maybe because I thought it looked like a solid, mindless action thriller.

So what happened? Why did this movie bore me to tears?

For one, seeing Brendan Gleeson and Vera Farmiga be completely wasted in such nondescript roles ticked me off. These are such enigmatic, fantastic actors and for them to be playing such one-dimensional characters whose actions make no sense whatsoever is an injustice to them and to us. It doesn’t help matters that the plot is more by-the-numbers than it makes out to be. And Washington and Reynolds — as good as they usually are — have done these performances before. They chose to bring nothing new to the table. So why should we care?

Safe House turned out to be as bland as its title. It’s a bummer, but whattaya gonna do?

C-

Game Change (2012)

Written by Danny Strong
Directed by Jay Roach

From the writer, director and network that brought us the great, biting political comedy Recount back in 2008, comes a new project cut from the same cloth. Game Change is a whip-smart and absorbing account of the meteoric rise of Sarah Palin and how she affected the 2008 presidential election.

Woody Harrelson (who is having a fabulous run these days, isn’t he?) is Steve Schmidt, the aide to Senator John McCain (played by an uncanny Ed Harris). McCain has a very small chance of winning the election unless his team starts thinking outside of the box. They needed to shake things up. So they recruit Sarah Palin, the popular governor from Alaska, to run alongside McCain for the Republican party. No one on earth expected Palin to take off the way she did.

Palin is played straight by Julianne Moore in a fantastic award-worthy performance. They were not aiming for laughs, a la Tina Fey’s hilarious impersonation from Saturday Night Live. Game Change wanted to get under Palin’s skin. Moore and writer Danny Strong wanted to show us what Palin believed in and how she handled her surprising fame. I empathized with Palin, a woman who adored her family and cherished her job as Alaska’s leader. She was good at what she did. She was in her comfort zone. Once she reached for the bigger prize, she stumbled. She couldn’t hack it and was publicly ridiculed. No one deserves that kind of public lashing, even if her ego took her a little too far.

Game Change is a smart, perceptive, well-cast drama. HBO proved yet again to be the venue for fantastic original films.

A-

Tiny Furniture (2010)

Written and Directed by Lena Dunham

Girls: Season 1 (2012)

Created by Lena Dunham

I just spent the week with Lena Dunham.

Before my marathon viewing of season 1 of Girls followed by her first feature Tiny Furniture, I had no idea who the hell Lena Dunham was. But now I can’t wait to see her again. I want this woman in my life.

In 2010, she wrote, produced, directed and starred in Tiny Furniture, a minuscule independent dramedy about a young woman, fresh out of college, who moves in with her mom and sister so she can figure what to do with her life. After the surprising success of the film, Dunham — and co-producer Judd Apatow – brought her new similarly themed dramedy series Girls to HBO, where the first season just completed earlier this summer. Girls has a completely new set of characters and plot lines, but these characters could have easily walked from the movie set onto the TV show and blend right in. Dunham has a posse that seems to follow her wherever she goes, including the delightful Jemima Kirke (Charlotte in Tiny Furniture, Jessa in Girls, and equally ravishing in both) and the dry, biting Alex Karpovsky (Jed in Furniture, Ray in Girls). Even Furniture‘s Aura is cut from same cloth as Dunham’s Girls‘ alter ego Hannah Horvath.

I got wind of Dunham’s popularity when Girls premiered to rave reviews. So for several days, I was immersed in Dunham’s remarkably engaging world of insecurity and quirkiness, and her two projects blended together almost seamlessly. What I find interesting about the TV show and her first film is not only how remarkably similar they are but how smart and insightful the writing is. Dunham is in such dynamic control of her tone; she shows remarkable restraint and assuredness for someone who is just a rookie in show business.

I also admire her courage. For Girls, especially, which features copious amounts of sex and nudity, and Dunham — who would not be featured on the cover of Marie Claire any time soon — has no issues baring all for the camera. She’s a gorgeous beauty, curves and all, and I just love how comfortable she is in her skin, parading around in her underwear and ratty t-shirts.

So yes. I’m smitten. Like Jemima Kirke and Alex Karpovsky before me, I’ll follow Lena Dunham whereever she goes.

Tiny Furniture: B+
Girls: Season 1: A-

The Dictator (2012)

Written by Sacha Baron Cohen, Alec Berg, David Mandel and Jeff Schaffer
Directed by Larry Charles

After the disappointment that was Bruno a few years ago, I went into this one with a little trepidation. The reviews seemed mixed, at best.

Thankfully, the brilliant artist that is Sacha Baron Cohen delivered the goods with The Dictator, an uproarious return to form from the team who brought us Borat, one of my favorite comedies of the last 10 years. This brisk 80-minute comedy does not hold anything back; Cohen hits all of the stereotypes, insults every race and taps into our fears and beliefs in this post-9/11 world we live in. He plays General Aladeen, the fascist leader of Wayida who orders the deaths of anyone who crosses him. He heads to the United States to address concerns involving his country’s nuclear weapons program and, needless to say, it doesn’t go very well. The Dictator wisely eschews the mockumentary/unscripted elements from his earlier films and keeps the narrative moving along on a more conventional path.

Anna Faris is a delight as the feminist who forms an unlikely bond with Aladeen, and Ben Kingsley plays it straight as his right-hand man with ulterior motives. Also popping up in funny cameos are John C. Reilly, Garry Shandling, Chris Elliott, Megan Fox, Edward Norton and Kathryn Hahn (“You two make a cute couple, but can you please do this later? When you’re not elbow deep in my vagina?”).

The ratio of successful laughs doesn’t match that of Borat, but The Dictator comes closer than I had anticipated. After all, Aladeen is a man of sparkling wisdom and insight.

“Give a man a vagina and he will shpichs for a day. Teach a man to use his hand as a vagina, and he will shpichs for a lifetime.”

How can I not love this guy?

B+