In films as varied as The 40-Year Old Virgin, Rent, and Four Weddings and a Funeral has my faith been restored in filmmaking. With the former, it was in the giddy delight of a great low-down joke done right; in the latter, the sparkling joy to be gleaned when one is successfully fooled into feeling as though they are listening in on the wittiest Group of Friends ever. Well, and I say this in no uncertain, hands-shaky-with-relief, terms: Michael Clayton has restored my belief in the very sizzle of a film that pivots not on bullets or bravado, but on pure bravura technique; something remarkable that transforms the story of one New York City fixer (George Clooney) into a truly thrilling work - the thrills derived therein from the art to be viewed on screen, and the adrenaline to be sampled in your blood stream nearly every minute of the running time.
Tony Gilroy, the writer of the Bourne franchise, amazes. Here is a filmmaker who I was pretty sure could serve up a tasty cocktail of escapism, but when it came to his talents at crafting a crackling drama, I was less certain. After all, how could the tricky plotting of a super-spy (replete with obligatory, every-10-minute showdowns,) translate into a reputable movie, unfettered by popcorn junkies or Michael Bay trailers? The answer it seems, is very well. Gilroy, writing with a simmering, hard-boiled ear, threads Michael Clayton out over 120 minutes worth of shattered nerve endings and splintered timelines (a trick he no doubt picked up from his Matt Damon days). His camera moves with silky subtlely, doubling back on itself at critical plot junctures to give the audience a healthy wrench of surprise. And his narrative instincts create such a vivid world of suited-up, nuerotic corporate dealings that it's as if John Grisham were made flesh...and finally given a Brain and a Heart.
Of course, John Grisham could only ever hope to imagine a story as intriguing as this one - a plot spinning about the monumental, and monumentally important, class-action suit against UNorth, a pesticide company that's knocking off its customers with carcinogenic product. Litigating for the company is Arthur Edens (Tom Wilkinson), a brilliant attorney who spontaneously goes nuts (his most rapturous-insane monologue opens the film). To prevent the loss of millions (not to mention a reputation and the thought of more billable hours), Edens firm brings in their resident "janitor" - Clayton - to settle things down, reign in Edens, and prevent the client from bolting. The client itself isn't all that happy with the firm's plan, so their in-house counsel (Tilda Swinton) hires two deeply unsettling thugs to keep tabs on Clayton's operation, all the while ready to press the Big Red Button should she feel out of control (which her character does frequently, a paragon of coiled insecurity). And Clayton himself? Well, he's just a weary, working scrooge whose got a kid (Austin Williams) and a mortage to pay (or sell-off, should he need to fend off his addict-brother's loan sharks).
If, all-in-all, Michael Clayton really does sound like the greatest thing Grisham never wrote, then you have yet to witness one milisecond of Tony Gilroy's spiky, disturbing, entertaining, cynical, and edgily articulate film; heck, even those opening scenes don't do it justice, since the true trick of the director's skills doesn't emerge until much later in the game. But it is a blossoming worth sticking around for and Clooney (together with his admirably classy, seedy, co-stars) will make your viewing experience worth while. He is, remember, everything about Clayton that Clayton despises - gussied up, "fickle", truly charming - and yet the actor is also everything about the film that is great: razor-sharp and unforgettable.
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Friday Night Lights: The Complete First Season: A
What if they made a great television drama and nobody watched? What if said drama was bolstered throughout its premiere year by rabid praise and die-hard fans and still nobody watched? What if said drama was renewed, along other lesser-known yet more-beloved shows, for another promising year on the air and still no one appeared to view it? Such is the predicament of Friday Night Lights - the profoud, exquisite expose of small-town life that was spun from Peter Berg's 2004 film of the same name (Berg himself brought the concept to the silver screen and he sticks around to exec-produce, as well as write-direct the pilot). But what, ultimately, is the failing of Lights? By all accounts it struggles to find a hearty, a steady, audience; so how can it be that a program with such a negligible fan base be such a critic-winner? Simple: FNL is brilliant. Period.
The series begins much as the film did. It sets up the standard players (though perhaps in a far more crisp, interesting fashion) and then unrolls the standard plot devices: we've got Matt Saracen (Zach Gilford) as struggling QB2 under Jason Street (Scott Porter) - the golden boy of high school football - and their coach Eric Taylor (Kyle Chandler), not to mention "Smash" Williams (Gaius Charles) - the cocky runningback - and Tim Riggins (Taylor Kitsch) - the half-drunk fullback. It's a team primed for victory (and not without a healthy dose of pathos)- but also one destined for collapse. Street incurs a tragic accident and whoosh the cards all fall down. With that loose thread, it all begins to unravel and re-thread; the eventual emerging picture? A story told over a multitude of perspectives, refracted through a dozen different townspeople, over a seaons worth of episodes, about one town with one hope, dying slowly.
Yet in that death, rebirth? The quick-change early episodes launch off from the pilot's obvious mechanisms and briskly build a head of steam. Saracen nervously takes the plate as the new QB1; Lyla Garrity (Minka Kelly) and Tim manuever around a wounded Street; Coach Taylor manuevers around a wounded constituency (not the least of which includes the resident honcho-car-dealer and the mayor); his family takes slow root in a new town; Tyra Collette (Adrianne Palicki) takes slow root in an old town; Smash takes a fast route to a new world; and we as an audience are taken along for the ride - one filled to bursting point with pin-point honesty, as true and delicate as all real life and as just as hard to resist.
But, of course, (and as I mentioned to start with) people have. Why? It isn't as though the soap-tropes that would seem to thrive here do, quite the opposite. Or that the cast of Texan men and women are strangled by their own "cliches", because they aren't. No, it is none of these. Could it be instead though that FNL, a football drama that wielded a razor-edge of catharsis for the everyday, simply was too much for its viewers? That is a tough idea to swallow, and one I'm inclined to not particularly trust, but what alternatives are there? Becuase I'm certainly not going to stand around believing the people simply will not view such excellence.
Still worried about that "excellence" bit I've gone on about though? Then look no further to the multi-episode arcs on racism, or sexual abuse, or steroid use, or the War in Iraq for confirmation that Lights, among its more theatrical breathen, is a vision of savy logic and character development - as curious as a wandering documentarian (a notion aided by the shaky camera work - a crafy trick) with twice as much perception and cunning intellect. It helps though that the show is gifted with such a team of writers, foremost of whom is Jason Katims and David Hudgins. Also worth mentioning? The series' phenomenal, phenomenal, cast - old and young actors, veterans and newcomers, who create marvelous, aching performances.
Now close your eyes for a minute and imagine what would happen if such perfectly realized creations all lived together in one town. What do you see - because I know what I see: it's an epiphany, a miracle about one small town struggling, hoping, praying, and living for those bright game nights. Its name is Friday Night Lights and there is nothing like it anywhere else on television today. Savor it.
Dirty Sexy Money: B+
The crazy, fascinating family at the center of Dirty Sexy Money is quite the small-scale economy of disfunction: they have bags, and bags, and bags, and bags, and bags of money yet hardly seem to work - together or apart; each member fighting against the other, each fighting against themselves. Such is the compelling, and most prominent feature, of ABC's new Wednesday night soap-opera. But look past the flat summations scattered throughout print ads and reviews - Dirty Sexy Money sends-up its own roots by embracing them, and manages to be way more purely entertaining than that other adult drama of the night (though, to be fair, Bionic Woman doesn't have the bolster of such a sparkling, joyously shallow cast). Concieved in an age of arch reverse irony in a visual arena too often cluttered with high concept, low delivery creations, here is something to be lauded, and failing that, at least enjoyed a whole heck of a lot; a show about a large family of eccentric, ridiculously wealthy people who never once manage to make you want to be them (and they even have yachts!) but also never once make you want to stop watching them.
Created by Craig Wright, a veteran of both Six Feet Under and Brothers & Sisters, his final product gets a rare, and rather astonishing, blessing: it is gifted with some of the salacious wit of the former without losing a bit of the hair-pin plot turns of the former. On a scale of critical respectability, there's a sort of lucky pre-destiny in this match-up between a man who trafficked in both the moral, dramatic, absurdities of death as well as the plain ol' absurdities of a drunken Sally Fields and this great big messy production. The end result? A world where lawyer Nick George (Peter Krause) gets sucked back into the world of the Darlings when his father, their long-time family lawyer, dies mysteriously.
Except, he doesn't actually voluntarily re-enter the orbit of a clan that, in his eyes, destroyed his father - he's sort of bribed by the sort of brilliant Donald Sutherland, as familial patriarch Tripp Darling. The scene in which this occurs is pulled off with nothing less than oodles of sly pinache by both actors facing off at opposite ends of a desk - one armed with a rascally, "naieve", smile of benevolence; the other, two exasperated eyebrows and a polished, high-caliber style. This miniature delight (one of several in the pilot episode) doesn't quite encaptulate all that there is to love about Money (as that would take perhaps several, long, slightly shoddy Lifetime films) but it jolts the viewer, entertains them, intrigues them; and in a world where one is either shocked, awed, stimulated, or cajoled by all manner of reality-sweatshop-medical-drama-comedy-musical-casino-mocku-detective-mentaries, to witness a show that promises only what it can deliver - a heap of campy wit and triumphant performances with just a hint of mystery (for spice) - is a true delight.
What perhaps isn't a delight? That cynical idea that nips about the show - the idea that it may start to repeat itself. Now, one may wonder: how can a show, complete with now less than eight main characters, run out of story? The same way it can provide such pleasure: by constantly throwing new stuff, no matter how implausible, in the way of New York's craziest group of relatives. Still, I have hope. This is a show exec-produced by Greg Berlanti, after all - the man that steered Everwood past all manner of schmaltzy potholes. Let's hope he does the same here. Because I'd hate to see what a boozed up Jill Clayburgh, or a cheating William Baldwin, or a sexy Natalia Zea, or a clueless Samaire Armstrong, or a strung-out Seth Gabel, or a wound-up Glenn Fitzgerald, or - heaven forbid - warm and calculating Donald Sutherland would do if their city-wide party were to get bumpy...er.
Created by Craig Wright, a veteran of both Six Feet Under and Brothers & Sisters, his final product gets a rare, and rather astonishing, blessing: it is gifted with some of the salacious wit of the former without losing a bit of the hair-pin plot turns of the former. On a scale of critical respectability, there's a sort of lucky pre-destiny in this match-up between a man who trafficked in both the moral, dramatic, absurdities of death as well as the plain ol' absurdities of a drunken Sally Fields and this great big messy production. The end result? A world where lawyer Nick George (Peter Krause) gets sucked back into the world of the Darlings when his father, their long-time family lawyer, dies mysteriously.
Except, he doesn't actually voluntarily re-enter the orbit of a clan that, in his eyes, destroyed his father - he's sort of bribed by the sort of brilliant Donald Sutherland, as familial patriarch Tripp Darling. The scene in which this occurs is pulled off with nothing less than oodles of sly pinache by both actors facing off at opposite ends of a desk - one armed with a rascally, "naieve", smile of benevolence; the other, two exasperated eyebrows and a polished, high-caliber style. This miniature delight (one of several in the pilot episode) doesn't quite encaptulate all that there is to love about Money (as that would take perhaps several, long, slightly shoddy Lifetime films) but it jolts the viewer, entertains them, intrigues them; and in a world where one is either shocked, awed, stimulated, or cajoled by all manner of reality-sweatshop-medical-drama-comedy-musical-casino-mocku-detective-mentaries, to witness a show that promises only what it can deliver - a heap of campy wit and triumphant performances with just a hint of mystery (for spice) - is a true delight.
What perhaps isn't a delight? That cynical idea that nips about the show - the idea that it may start to repeat itself. Now, one may wonder: how can a show, complete with now less than eight main characters, run out of story? The same way it can provide such pleasure: by constantly throwing new stuff, no matter how implausible, in the way of New York's craziest group of relatives. Still, I have hope. This is a show exec-produced by Greg Berlanti, after all - the man that steered Everwood past all manner of schmaltzy potholes. Let's hope he does the same here. Because I'd hate to see what a boozed up Jill Clayburgh, or a cheating William Baldwin, or a sexy Natalia Zea, or a clueless Samaire Armstrong, or a strung-out Seth Gabel, or a wound-up Glenn Fitzgerald, or - heaven forbid - warm and calculating Donald Sutherland would do if their city-wide party were to get bumpy...er.
Gossip Girl: B
"You're nobody until you're talked about."
One wonders whether or not Josh Schwartz, that whiz-kid maestro behind the best years of The O.C., realized the inherent irony involved when he - a witty television scribe famous for his one-man magic trick: turning "teenage life" into teenage life - took on the job of adapting a young adult book series concerned with the very last thing those Cally kids would have been: gossip, and lots of it. Yet the end result doesn't have a split personality - there are no Seth Cohens struggling to burst the fabric of cloistered, gritty Upper East Side gossip-queens and rich-kid cricles; if anything Schwartz and co-creator Stephanie Savage (another O.C. alum) give Gossip Girl a breezy irreverence otherwise lacking in the ubiquitous viral ad campaigns - replete with air-brushed faces and an implicit malevolence wrapped around the show's tag-line (with which I started this review). But more wisely, they also give the series premiere (and, a viewer hopes, the subsequent episodes) a fast-pace - all the better with which to deliver their throwaway lines and surprisingly good performances.
The titular "Gossip Girl" (Kristen Bell) serves as both narrator of the show and magnate for all of its many secrets, strained tensions, and storylines past, future, and present. Who cares? More importantly, and all the more courageously given the sheer burden of back-story needing to be expounded on, Ms. Ex-Veronica Mars gives our guide to the cliques and pariahs of Manhattan a delightful snarl; she delivers her observations and updates ("Melanie91 reports that...") with pin-point blase glee - all the better to keep a show not exactly founded on new ideas pumping with hot blood, and viewer interest (and joy, since Bell has managed to find such enjoyable work so quickly after her untimely demise on Mars).
This isn't to suggest that viewer interest won't be kept by the trials of one miss Serena van der Woodsen (Blake Lively) when she returns from a year of mysterious exile (a grand entrance our Girl relishes, obviously). Sure her "struggles" are watchable, and more than once fun (the pilot script, by Schwartz & Savage, has a bite of entitled wit), but far more interesting to me are what will happen to those rocked by the waves she creates by her re-entry: Blair Waldorf (Leighton Meester), her "BFF", and Co. Already in this first hour there is substantial material, and juice-packed at that: Blair's desparate, wire-thin veneer of vanity and security; the frog-to-princes(or princess) tales of siblings Dan and Jenny Humphrey (Penn Badgley and Taylor Momsen); the back story on Serena's departure.
With such a wad of story though there comes a certain, heavy, commitment in viewing. And though the thought of pursuing such "frivolity" for an entire season can occasionally weigh on a person's soul (you can only take so much of Chuck Bass, trust me) the viewing experience is counter-balanced nicely with cast's alert, lively work and the promise of more carb-lite nothing (and by "nothing" I do mean solid quality t.v.) on Wednesday nights. If this all sounds alittle iffy - the thought of watching more rich kids struggle through their "issues" while listening to but more smarm, sass, and Justin Timberlake-via-soundtrack - while paradoxically being slightly addictive - I'd come back just to here more of Blake Lively's repartee (a clear-eyed alcoholic problem-child on the networks is, after all, so hard to find these days) - I'm sure that our anonymous, eponymous mistress of the blogosphere wouldn't have it any other way..and come around in a few more episodes, and I just might have to agree.
One wonders whether or not Josh Schwartz, that whiz-kid maestro behind the best years of The O.C., realized the inherent irony involved when he - a witty television scribe famous for his one-man magic trick: turning "teenage life" into teenage life - took on the job of adapting a young adult book series concerned with the very last thing those Cally kids would have been: gossip, and lots of it. Yet the end result doesn't have a split personality - there are no Seth Cohens struggling to burst the fabric of cloistered, gritty Upper East Side gossip-queens and rich-kid cricles; if anything Schwartz and co-creator Stephanie Savage (another O.C. alum) give Gossip Girl a breezy irreverence otherwise lacking in the ubiquitous viral ad campaigns - replete with air-brushed faces and an implicit malevolence wrapped around the show's tag-line (with which I started this review). But more wisely, they also give the series premiere (and, a viewer hopes, the subsequent episodes) a fast-pace - all the better with which to deliver their throwaway lines and surprisingly good performances.
The titular "Gossip Girl" (Kristen Bell) serves as both narrator of the show and magnate for all of its many secrets, strained tensions, and storylines past, future, and present. Who cares? More importantly, and all the more courageously given the sheer burden of back-story needing to be expounded on, Ms. Ex-Veronica Mars gives our guide to the cliques and pariahs of Manhattan a delightful snarl; she delivers her observations and updates ("Melanie91 reports that...") with pin-point blase glee - all the better to keep a show not exactly founded on new ideas pumping with hot blood, and viewer interest (and joy, since Bell has managed to find such enjoyable work so quickly after her untimely demise on Mars).
This isn't to suggest that viewer interest won't be kept by the trials of one miss Serena van der Woodsen (Blake Lively) when she returns from a year of mysterious exile (a grand entrance our Girl relishes, obviously). Sure her "struggles" are watchable, and more than once fun (the pilot script, by Schwartz & Savage, has a bite of entitled wit), but far more interesting to me are what will happen to those rocked by the waves she creates by her re-entry: Blair Waldorf (Leighton Meester), her "BFF", and Co. Already in this first hour there is substantial material, and juice-packed at that: Blair's desparate, wire-thin veneer of vanity and security; the frog-to-princes(or princess) tales of siblings Dan and Jenny Humphrey (Penn Badgley and Taylor Momsen); the back story on Serena's departure.
With such a wad of story though there comes a certain, heavy, commitment in viewing. And though the thought of pursuing such "frivolity" for an entire season can occasionally weigh on a person's soul (you can only take so much of Chuck Bass, trust me) the viewing experience is counter-balanced nicely with cast's alert, lively work and the promise of more carb-lite nothing (and by "nothing" I do mean solid quality t.v.) on Wednesday nights. If this all sounds alittle iffy - the thought of watching more rich kids struggle through their "issues" while listening to but more smarm, sass, and Justin Timberlake-via-soundtrack - while paradoxically being slightly addictive - I'd come back just to here more of Blake Lively's repartee (a clear-eyed alcoholic problem-child on the networks is, after all, so hard to find these days) - I'm sure that our anonymous, eponymous mistress of the blogosphere wouldn't have it any other way..and come around in a few more episodes, and I just might have to agree.
Angel: The Complete First Season: B
Most people travel to Los Angeles in search of fame, fortune, and a really great tan. Angel (David Boreanaz), that tormented vampire-with-a-soul from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, came to L.A. looking for redemption. Ironic considering that the city he seeks sanctuary in isn't exactly a mecca of epiphany? Not in the hands of Joss Whedon & David Greenwalt - two pop impresarios working in (mostly) entertaining, witty form. No, in the hands of these two Buffy alums (the former was its creator, the latter was a staff writer) Angel is a moody, moldy, jocular supernatural noir with our heroic vampire himself moonlighting as stoic detective and Cordelia Chase (Charisma Carpenter), Doyle (Glenn Quinn), and Wesley Wyndham-Pryce (Alexis Denisof) flitting around as his wise-cracking sidekicks. Sound a little strained, a little too top-heavy with "atmosphere"? The answer is: Angel works...if only by the skin of its barred teeth, err, fangs.
The series begins with Angel alone and doing his Batman thing against every evil in the metro area; needless to say, it takes a toll - both physically (though he is like immortal, duh) and mentally; see, our tall, dark, and brooding protagonist only remains as such as long as he remains attached to the world he is so guiltily saving. How? In steps Doyle, a half-demon who receives visions from those in need. Also comes along Ms. Chase, a wannabe actress from Sunnydale armed with a stinging tongue(her perfectly manicured person only masks a soul of the utmost superficiality...which is part of her charm). Together the three start Angel Investigations (they "help the helpless")...albeit somewhat reluctantly and so the show is born and so it runs as such for the first half a dozen or so episodes (Monster of the Week, every week - rinse, repeat); plus, it runs well - considering the level of slapstick verbal theatrics at work and the enjoyable talents of the actors.
But wait, the season is 22 episodes long and I mentioned only the first six or so; so what happens? Well, to phrase it lightly, the whole premise is all shook up. A new character pops up (coincidentally also from Buffy): Wesley Wyndham Pryce, a former Watcher now cavorting about as a "rogue demon hunter" (aka, a baffoon); speaking bluntly, I didn't much like Wesley's character and by the end of the season I couldn't muster nearly as much affection for him as I could for Cordelia (buoyed by Carpenters delicious performance) or Angel (held down my Boreanaz skilled, if rough, sullen essence). And overall the middle portion of the first season is bogged down in tedium and mediocre writing; but have hope! Just as I felt the promising potential of that first act gave way to the grating chatter of the second (ushered forth by the emotionally poignant "Hero") there came a cool wind - "Sanctuary".
Written by Tim Minear & Joss Whedon (only the second episode Mr. Whedon dained to write for the show in it's entire first iteration, bleh), "Sanctuary" has every good element in Angel - a razor's edge of suspense, high drama, and wit - and amped it up into a snazzy cocktail with bark and bite. In the pantheon of the show's writers and their first season achievements, "Sanctuary" definitely ranks high up, and the little Whedon contributes pushes him to the front of the ranks (barely past David Greenwalt, talented in only a slightly less capacity). To say it was a great episode would be a disservice; it was Angel's greatest episode in those rocky first months.
But from that struggle, eventually and not without the sweat stains to prove it, came a true contender; a lithe fighter capable of quick jabs at the funny bone (in that way it rips through pop culture, wordplay, and the withering retort), the heart (in its earnesty concering Angel's "family"), and the blood (in the way it makes it run cold). Watching through the early hours one may have doubts - I sure did - but preserve on: Angel may just be the type of show to get all hot and bothered about.
The series begins with Angel alone and doing his Batman thing against every evil in the metro area; needless to say, it takes a toll - both physically (though he is like immortal, duh) and mentally; see, our tall, dark, and brooding protagonist only remains as such as long as he remains attached to the world he is so guiltily saving. How? In steps Doyle, a half-demon who receives visions from those in need. Also comes along Ms. Chase, a wannabe actress from Sunnydale armed with a stinging tongue(her perfectly manicured person only masks a soul of the utmost superficiality...which is part of her charm). Together the three start Angel Investigations (they "help the helpless")...albeit somewhat reluctantly and so the show is born and so it runs as such for the first half a dozen or so episodes (Monster of the Week, every week - rinse, repeat); plus, it runs well - considering the level of slapstick verbal theatrics at work and the enjoyable talents of the actors.
But wait, the season is 22 episodes long and I mentioned only the first six or so; so what happens? Well, to phrase it lightly, the whole premise is all shook up. A new character pops up (coincidentally also from Buffy): Wesley Wyndham Pryce, a former Watcher now cavorting about as a "rogue demon hunter" (aka, a baffoon); speaking bluntly, I didn't much like Wesley's character and by the end of the season I couldn't muster nearly as much affection for him as I could for Cordelia (buoyed by Carpenters delicious performance) or Angel (held down my Boreanaz skilled, if rough, sullen essence). And overall the middle portion of the first season is bogged down in tedium and mediocre writing; but have hope! Just as I felt the promising potential of that first act gave way to the grating chatter of the second (ushered forth by the emotionally poignant "Hero") there came a cool wind - "Sanctuary".
Written by Tim Minear & Joss Whedon (only the second episode Mr. Whedon dained to write for the show in it's entire first iteration, bleh), "Sanctuary" has every good element in Angel - a razor's edge of suspense, high drama, and wit - and amped it up into a snazzy cocktail with bark and bite. In the pantheon of the show's writers and their first season achievements, "Sanctuary" definitely ranks high up, and the little Whedon contributes pushes him to the front of the ranks (barely past David Greenwalt, talented in only a slightly less capacity). To say it was a great episode would be a disservice; it was Angel's greatest episode in those rocky first months.
But from that struggle, eventually and not without the sweat stains to prove it, came a true contender; a lithe fighter capable of quick jabs at the funny bone (in that way it rips through pop culture, wordplay, and the withering retort), the heart (in its earnesty concering Angel's "family"), and the blood (in the way it makes it run cold). Watching through the early hours one may have doubts - I sure did - but preserve on: Angel may just be the type of show to get all hot and bothered about.
The Nanny Diaries: C+
The style of writing-directing team Shari Springer Berman & Robert Pulcini seems to adapt to the literary properties they re-work to the screen like a mirror: reflecting that work's strengths - usually in the form of a clever visual aesthetic - and occasionally, also the work's weaknesses. In American Splendor, the rough-cut and enjoyable interpretation of Harvey Pekar's work, the pair turned his ordinary-is-extraordinary philosophy into an extended visual gimmick that worked, due mostly to its long-lasting cleverness. But more than that they took his squalid, earthy aura to heart and produced a movie that, while not great, triumphed and payed tribute with dexterity. In The Nanny Diaries the most obvious thing Berman and Pulcini have taken from Emma McLaughlin & Nicola Kraus' novel is this: that Upper East Side mommies and daddies are bad; the comedic satire contained therein seems almost an after thought - or so the filmmakers apparently thought. Because though watching Scarlett Johansson traips about the city with a small child for 105 minutes certainly seems ripe for the plucking, the script fumbles and the direction falls flat. So much for dodging that sophmore slump in this, their second film.
It isn't all bad though. Laura Linney, hiking about in monstrous heels as Mrs. X, gives a lush performance: vivid, viciously funny with just a roll of the eye, and unnecesarily sympathetic. Because sympathy is quite the last thing needed in the cinematic Manhattan landscape envisioned in this translation - a place where red umbrellas fall from skies and digital recordings meld with the real world. Also too there seem a large supply of wackos and caricatures, something only mildly notable in the book. As it is, the carnival world our heroine - voluntarily hired on a lark as a nanny for a summer of "field observation" (she wants to be an anthropologist with a degree in business, heh) - finds herself in seems all together alittle too synthetic, absurd. Sure one could claim so too was the book, and they would be (mostly) right but Diaries slices out just what could have saved it: atmosphere; while in turn saving just what it needed least: Hollywood.
Let us look at the timeline of the plot, both in the book and film, hmm? In the book, stressed out Nanny (as everyone refers to her, even as she refers to herself) takes the child-rearing gig as part of a job program she's set up for herself to get through college. While engaged as such, she gets lost in a mad-cap world of subtle Sex and the City style soiries, scandals, and sobs late at night with a bottle of wine. But however does she make it through? With a veritable army of acquaintances both work-related and personal (gotta love her grandma and best friend). Oh and she bags a guy; he's sort of flat, a little too earnest, but he's more real than she probably see's all day. And before we forget: Nanny playing "nanny" ends badly. All in all, not a bad little misadventure and pretty funny at times.
Not so much in the movie. In The Nanny Diaries, Superstar A schlubs it as a totally well-intentioned, empowered woman in a world of world-weary "empowered" women as she tries to weave her way through the minefield that is a rather limp imagining; sadly, she doesn't give it much effort (though kudos for having a husky voice), though who could blame her? Her friends have all deserted her - save Lynette (Alicia Keyes); her boyfriend (Chris Evans) now drags heavily on her person with his bright eyes and so waaay too earnest persona; and her grandma - so lovable and caring on the page? Dead, replaced with lined-face "Ma" (Donna Murphy). All in all, I'd have to say taking this chick in this world - now turned gratingly 2-D amidst such obvious targets - over spunky, sensible Nanny would have to be crazy.
It isn't that I demand alot from a chick-flick adapted from chick-lit; I expect a solid translation, a chuckle, and to leave smiling; though I will admit that having heard our venerable, aformentioned Berman and Pulcini would be helming, I came also expecting some sparkle, something nifty. And yeah, I got most of that at times; Johansson has the working-woman-in-the-movies frazzle down, the source material keeps it's outline, and Linney stacks up well with her biggest competetion in recent Diva history, Meryl Streep. And who couldn't help but smiling at the film's end (especially knowing what could have happened)? But what, ultimatel, our we left with as an audience? The answer, in perspective, doesn't really live up to expectations; because for all of the narrative possibilities in the book, we get the easiest one, the cheapest. For all of the chances presented at satire, we are shown the most obvious, the broadest. And for all of subtlety available pre-translation (which wasn't a whole lot, but still) we hear nothing but speechifying. One would have expected more from a bag of acting/directing/writing talent that have proven to be gifted with spark but, yet again, what do we get? Not much folks, not much.
It isn't all bad though. Laura Linney, hiking about in monstrous heels as Mrs. X, gives a lush performance: vivid, viciously funny with just a roll of the eye, and unnecesarily sympathetic. Because sympathy is quite the last thing needed in the cinematic Manhattan landscape envisioned in this translation - a place where red umbrellas fall from skies and digital recordings meld with the real world. Also too there seem a large supply of wackos and caricatures, something only mildly notable in the book. As it is, the carnival world our heroine - voluntarily hired on a lark as a nanny for a summer of "field observation" (she wants to be an anthropologist with a degree in business, heh) - finds herself in seems all together alittle too synthetic, absurd. Sure one could claim so too was the book, and they would be (mostly) right but Diaries slices out just what could have saved it: atmosphere; while in turn saving just what it needed least: Hollywood.
Let us look at the timeline of the plot, both in the book and film, hmm? In the book, stressed out Nanny (as everyone refers to her, even as she refers to herself) takes the child-rearing gig as part of a job program she's set up for herself to get through college. While engaged as such, she gets lost in a mad-cap world of subtle Sex and the City style soiries, scandals, and sobs late at night with a bottle of wine. But however does she make it through? With a veritable army of acquaintances both work-related and personal (gotta love her grandma and best friend). Oh and she bags a guy; he's sort of flat, a little too earnest, but he's more real than she probably see's all day. And before we forget: Nanny playing "nanny" ends badly. All in all, not a bad little misadventure and pretty funny at times.
Not so much in the movie. In The Nanny Diaries, Superstar A schlubs it as a totally well-intentioned, empowered woman in a world of world-weary "empowered" women as she tries to weave her way through the minefield that is a rather limp imagining; sadly, she doesn't give it much effort (though kudos for having a husky voice), though who could blame her? Her friends have all deserted her - save Lynette (Alicia Keyes); her boyfriend (Chris Evans) now drags heavily on her person with his bright eyes and so waaay too earnest persona; and her grandma - so lovable and caring on the page? Dead, replaced with lined-face "Ma" (Donna Murphy). All in all, I'd have to say taking this chick in this world - now turned gratingly 2-D amidst such obvious targets - over spunky, sensible Nanny would have to be crazy.
It isn't that I demand alot from a chick-flick adapted from chick-lit; I expect a solid translation, a chuckle, and to leave smiling; though I will admit that having heard our venerable, aformentioned Berman and Pulcini would be helming, I came also expecting some sparkle, something nifty. And yeah, I got most of that at times; Johansson has the working-woman-in-the-movies frazzle down, the source material keeps it's outline, and Linney stacks up well with her biggest competetion in recent Diva history, Meryl Streep. And who couldn't help but smiling at the film's end (especially knowing what could have happened)? But what, ultimatel, our we left with as an audience? The answer, in perspective, doesn't really live up to expectations; because for all of the narrative possibilities in the book, we get the easiest one, the cheapest. For all of the chances presented at satire, we are shown the most obvious, the broadest. And for all of subtlety available pre-translation (which wasn't a whole lot, but still) we hear nothing but speechifying. One would have expected more from a bag of acting/directing/writing talent that have proven to be gifted with spark but, yet again, what do we get? Not much folks, not much.
Borat: A-
Intolerance is defined by Random House's Unabridged Dictionary as "unwillingness or refusal to tolerate or respect contrary opinions or beliefs, persons of different races or backgrounds, etc." yet in Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan not only is that word redefined to encompass a whole new generation of the American People - it's also turned into the funniest punchline of the year. Masquerading as lanky, mustached Kazakhstan reporter Borat Sagdiyev, writer-actor Sacha Baron Cohen creates a manic-delirious social experiment; a hidden-camera gotcha! that is so uber-sly in its topicality that it reaches a magnificent level of comedy: the kind that stabs your funny bone, your heart, and your mind. If only Adam Sandler should be so lucky.
The loose narrative encompasses both Borat's attempts to glean something productive from our country (with which to help raise up his own) as well as his personal quest to "bag" Pamela Anderson (he falls in love after one surprise viewing of Baywatch - one of many priceless moments). Along the way he is accompanied by his "producer" Azamat Bagatov (Ken Davitian) and for much of the film they haplessly bicker back in forth in some mangled Eurasian dialect, a moment made shockingly funny by the situations about which they are bickering...and the people around who they fight. Take for example a brief foray into Atlanta as the pair get lost and end up on MLK Dr. - the "ghetto"; or a brilliant encounter with some bed bugs at a Bed & Breakfast; or the now infamous naked wrestling - a bit of physical absurdity delivered with unbridled glee for the rudely raunchy as well as the riotous. Together the two comprise perhaps a barely flickering bulb, but they have great energy and comedic timing to die for - which you will after you see their act.
Because an act is surely what it is. Now I know that most of Borat is filmed unbeknownst to the participants but the style of madman-star Cohen winks just as knowingly at the sheer fact of the films inane encounters and coincidences, and there in lies the genius. The best example of this occurs when Borat takes center-stage to sing the National Anthem at a rodeo in the Deep South. Before doing so - and after one very bizzarre, very troubling, horribly earnest, and deadly funny conversation with the rodeo manager - he prattles on about his support of America's "war of terror" and how our beloved President should drink the blood of every man, woman, and child. Surprisingly enough, these two remarks win copious applause which only cements the sociopolitical implications of the film: that we're far more ignorant, stubbornly prejudicial, than we would have ourselves believe. The beauty of Borat? It dissects, skewers, and satirizes these downfalls with unparalelled grace.
Yet grace is sorely lacking in the fumblings of Borat himself. Blinkered and dumb, he struggles through the culture and the language, revealing almost as he passes others' stupidity. Yet the pure, zesty garrishness of his exploits serve as weighty counter-point to the jagged sword turned on our very present sense of "tolerance" - and its diminishing capacity. So now that you've read this far, you must be wondering: what is Borat: Very Funny Movie or Grandly Enlightening Documentary? At times as a viewer I wavered between the two, struggling for an answer, but it turns out the final joke is on all of us, the audience; turns out Borat is both.
The loose narrative encompasses both Borat's attempts to glean something productive from our country (with which to help raise up his own) as well as his personal quest to "bag" Pamela Anderson (he falls in love after one surprise viewing of Baywatch - one of many priceless moments). Along the way he is accompanied by his "producer" Azamat Bagatov (Ken Davitian) and for much of the film they haplessly bicker back in forth in some mangled Eurasian dialect, a moment made shockingly funny by the situations about which they are bickering...and the people around who they fight. Take for example a brief foray into Atlanta as the pair get lost and end up on MLK Dr. - the "ghetto"; or a brilliant encounter with some bed bugs at a Bed & Breakfast; or the now infamous naked wrestling - a bit of physical absurdity delivered with unbridled glee for the rudely raunchy as well as the riotous. Together the two comprise perhaps a barely flickering bulb, but they have great energy and comedic timing to die for - which you will after you see their act.
Because an act is surely what it is. Now I know that most of Borat is filmed unbeknownst to the participants but the style of madman-star Cohen winks just as knowingly at the sheer fact of the films inane encounters and coincidences, and there in lies the genius. The best example of this occurs when Borat takes center-stage to sing the National Anthem at a rodeo in the Deep South. Before doing so - and after one very bizzarre, very troubling, horribly earnest, and deadly funny conversation with the rodeo manager - he prattles on about his support of America's "war of terror" and how our beloved President should drink the blood of every man, woman, and child. Surprisingly enough, these two remarks win copious applause which only cements the sociopolitical implications of the film: that we're far more ignorant, stubbornly prejudicial, than we would have ourselves believe. The beauty of Borat? It dissects, skewers, and satirizes these downfalls with unparalelled grace.
Yet grace is sorely lacking in the fumblings of Borat himself. Blinkered and dumb, he struggles through the culture and the language, revealing almost as he passes others' stupidity. Yet the pure, zesty garrishness of his exploits serve as weighty counter-point to the jagged sword turned on our very present sense of "tolerance" - and its diminishing capacity. So now that you've read this far, you must be wondering: what is Borat: Very Funny Movie or Grandly Enlightening Documentary? At times as a viewer I wavered between the two, struggling for an answer, but it turns out the final joke is on all of us, the audience; turns out Borat is both.
The Talented Mr. Ripley: A-
Meet Tom Ripley (Matt Damon). He's handsome, smiles alot, has a great laugh, and is charming as hell. He enjoys Italian vistas and the company of other men (both fraternally...and, well, not). He's got a great ear for music (he professes to a jazz addiction) and an eye for decoration (though once, famously, one of his room designs ended in a bit of a fiasco). Plus, his social mannerisms are to die for!
Who wouldn't love to meet/befriend/lust after the looking-for-love Mr. Ripley I've just described above? Anyone missing their brain and a pair of peepers, that's who - or so says writer-director Anthony Minghella in his classically sun-dappled The Talented Mr. Ripley. The rich subtext to his answer also provides his film with its subversive charge: that in wanting to know the shiny, all surfaces "man" above, you fall directly into that man's trap; that in falling for a nobody with a gleaming smile and a twinkle in his dimples, you make him a somebody. Such is polished, sly thesis of Minghella's film: that deception, lying, and identity are all intrinsically linked into how you use the first two to perverse how peopele connect you with the latter.
But I jump ahead of myself. The tale of Tom Ripley, New York University piano tuner and all-around good guy, has been famous for more than 50 years since Patricia Highsmith, that cooly amoral creator of amoral men, first published the first of five Ripley novels (collectively known as "Ripliad"). What makes this latest adaptation of Ms. Highsmith's literary work such a fascinating one - certainly a picture with which one can take lessons in genial banter and split-second timing - is that the famed English Patient auteur strips away most of the early malice from the source material and builds from the ground up; crafting an origin story with a heady sense of knowing irony (the joke being that Mr. Ripley's origins are the very seeds of his murderous adventures: to find one). This may be that rare film whose curiousity is a doomed trait - since to discover the answer is to banish the demon - yet is played off with such well-structured effectiveness that such a weakness is lost in the shining light of Jude Law's bronzed skin or the glimmering Meditterranean.
The Talented Mr. Ripley begins with our as yet not quite evil hero tickling his ivory keys for a bunch o' rich folk. Two of these folk are the parents of Dickie Greenleaf (Jude Law), a playboy heir lost to the "depravity" of Southern Europe. Dickie's parents would love to see him brought home but have yet to find a willing emissary. Enter our piano player, decked out in a borrowed Princeton jacket, and soon the worried parents have assumed several things at once - that Tom knew their son at school, that Tom is a perfectly responsible young lad - and sent Mr. Ripley off to Italy to recover the errant young jazz-fancier. Skip ahead and Tom has insinuated himself into the rich Park Avenue-transplants that Dickie surrounds himself with. Among these are Marge (Gwenyth Paltrow), Dickie's girlfriend (though he cheats mercilessly), Meredith (Cate Blanchett), a rather startlingly pleasing young textile heiress, and Freddie Miles (Phillip Seymour Hoffman). All together these wealthy guardians of society have quite the time together - with Ripley included - but events are stirring in the horizon to capsize their decadent, metaphorical, boat of sin and glamor.
If I sound abstract, it's intentional - because the split-second, teetering dominoes-effect catastrophes that occur are best left to one's imagination and sudden revelation. Anthony Minghella spins a taunt, paradoxically revolting and ravishing story from plain old class-envy but his more admirable accomplishments are in the details (since that is where the devil, our Tom, resides). The script charges the air between Dickie and Tom with eroticism and mis-begotten lust while skewering the pockets between this class intruder and everyone else with suspicion and jealousy (Hoffman's beady eyes are twin jewels of disgust and barely contained, barely understood one would think, hate). With such hardly mentioned, healthily registered contempt between him and the world he so desires, why wouldn't Mr. Tom Ripley end up the way he is: "trapped in the basement" of his own demons, locked, without a key. As films go, Minghella parlays such an obvious idea (pander to audience sympathies) into a movie where we despise the serial-killing, identity-theiving protagonist every moment until we don't; where Matt Damon's enlivened performance turns a remorseless psychopath into a fallen angel of sorts.
Ultimately the clever, entrapping machinations of The Talented Mr. Ripley are enough to keep the audience hooked. And the cast's work is like icing on the cake. Law and Paltrow, as two naieve brats playing house, plaster on their characters' necessary emotional hollowness until their very existence seems futile - a fact the director exploits with subtle skill. Blanchett turns in flawless work, her note-for-note debutante made into a perfectly realized creation. And Damon, his face working overtime to get at what makes Mr. Ripley tick, reaches an applause-worthy high (even if he, no thanks to an occasionally too shallow conception, can't quite express the driving vanity of his character's bloody escapades). Brought together then strung apart over continents and 138 minutes, these waifish personalities serve as fodder and tender (and sadly, even once or twice as love interest) to the burning-bright flame of Anthony Minghella's fascinating subject; a fire stoked and managed with cutting undercurrents of sexuality and empathy that makes it all the more searing and memorable.
Who wouldn't love to meet/befriend/lust after the looking-for-love Mr. Ripley I've just described above? Anyone missing their brain and a pair of peepers, that's who - or so says writer-director Anthony Minghella in his classically sun-dappled The Talented Mr. Ripley. The rich subtext to his answer also provides his film with its subversive charge: that in wanting to know the shiny, all surfaces "man" above, you fall directly into that man's trap; that in falling for a nobody with a gleaming smile and a twinkle in his dimples, you make him a somebody. Such is polished, sly thesis of Minghella's film: that deception, lying, and identity are all intrinsically linked into how you use the first two to perverse how peopele connect you with the latter.
But I jump ahead of myself. The tale of Tom Ripley, New York University piano tuner and all-around good guy, has been famous for more than 50 years since Patricia Highsmith, that cooly amoral creator of amoral men, first published the first of five Ripley novels (collectively known as "Ripliad"). What makes this latest adaptation of Ms. Highsmith's literary work such a fascinating one - certainly a picture with which one can take lessons in genial banter and split-second timing - is that the famed English Patient auteur strips away most of the early malice from the source material and builds from the ground up; crafting an origin story with a heady sense of knowing irony (the joke being that Mr. Ripley's origins are the very seeds of his murderous adventures: to find one). This may be that rare film whose curiousity is a doomed trait - since to discover the answer is to banish the demon - yet is played off with such well-structured effectiveness that such a weakness is lost in the shining light of Jude Law's bronzed skin or the glimmering Meditterranean.
The Talented Mr. Ripley begins with our as yet not quite evil hero tickling his ivory keys for a bunch o' rich folk. Two of these folk are the parents of Dickie Greenleaf (Jude Law), a playboy heir lost to the "depravity" of Southern Europe. Dickie's parents would love to see him brought home but have yet to find a willing emissary. Enter our piano player, decked out in a borrowed Princeton jacket, and soon the worried parents have assumed several things at once - that Tom knew their son at school, that Tom is a perfectly responsible young lad - and sent Mr. Ripley off to Italy to recover the errant young jazz-fancier. Skip ahead and Tom has insinuated himself into the rich Park Avenue-transplants that Dickie surrounds himself with. Among these are Marge (Gwenyth Paltrow), Dickie's girlfriend (though he cheats mercilessly), Meredith (Cate Blanchett), a rather startlingly pleasing young textile heiress, and Freddie Miles (Phillip Seymour Hoffman). All together these wealthy guardians of society have quite the time together - with Ripley included - but events are stirring in the horizon to capsize their decadent, metaphorical, boat of sin and glamor.
If I sound abstract, it's intentional - because the split-second, teetering dominoes-effect catastrophes that occur are best left to one's imagination and sudden revelation. Anthony Minghella spins a taunt, paradoxically revolting and ravishing story from plain old class-envy but his more admirable accomplishments are in the details (since that is where the devil, our Tom, resides). The script charges the air between Dickie and Tom with eroticism and mis-begotten lust while skewering the pockets between this class intruder and everyone else with suspicion and jealousy (Hoffman's beady eyes are twin jewels of disgust and barely contained, barely understood one would think, hate). With such hardly mentioned, healthily registered contempt between him and the world he so desires, why wouldn't Mr. Tom Ripley end up the way he is: "trapped in the basement" of his own demons, locked, without a key. As films go, Minghella parlays such an obvious idea (pander to audience sympathies) into a movie where we despise the serial-killing, identity-theiving protagonist every moment until we don't; where Matt Damon's enlivened performance turns a remorseless psychopath into a fallen angel of sorts.
Ultimately the clever, entrapping machinations of The Talented Mr. Ripley are enough to keep the audience hooked. And the cast's work is like icing on the cake. Law and Paltrow, as two naieve brats playing house, plaster on their characters' necessary emotional hollowness until their very existence seems futile - a fact the director exploits with subtle skill. Blanchett turns in flawless work, her note-for-note debutante made into a perfectly realized creation. And Damon, his face working overtime to get at what makes Mr. Ripley tick, reaches an applause-worthy high (even if he, no thanks to an occasionally too shallow conception, can't quite express the driving vanity of his character's bloody escapades). Brought together then strung apart over continents and 138 minutes, these waifish personalities serve as fodder and tender (and sadly, even once or twice as love interest) to the burning-bright flame of Anthony Minghella's fascinating subject; a fire stoked and managed with cutting undercurrents of sexuality and empathy that makes it all the more searing and memorable.
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