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taxib
Reviews
Cyrus (2010)
Constantly defrayed expectations lead to ultimate disappointment
I went into this film expecting an edgy, funny film of one-upsmanship between a man who's fallen in love and the far-too-attached son of his intended. I mean face it, the premise is filled with possibilities, and the trailers suggested we should go in ready to laugh. Not so. What I witnessed was a film that tossed aside every comic opportunity and settled instead for a kind of after school special about coming to terms with your mom's boyfriend. Hugely disappointing to see such good actors wasted on what could have been a sharp and insightful story, rife with opportunities for humor.
I heard John C. Reilly give an interview where he said there was a great deal of improv in the film and he was grateful for the opportunity to create his own vision. Nice for him, but boring for the audience -- the dialog was clichéd and unfocused, the story rambled along with no dramatic or comedic tension, and all that improv forced some very clumsy editing. Not saying the acting wasn't good, it was. Marisa Tomei did the best she could with a character who had no back story, no convincing explanation for why she's fallen in love with the drunken lout peeing in the bushes at a party, no exploration of why she's created this hugely dependent son or why she's had no one in her life since her son was born 21 year ago! It was enough for the film makers that she was hot, and they pretty must left her to figure out the rest. John C. Reilly is a good actor but I'm really tired of seeing ugly losers score the great looking girl, it's doesn't happen in life unless you're rich and this guy is not only not rich he seems almost unemployable. Catherine Keener plays his ex-wife, and there was an opportunity to draw a parallel between his dependence on her and Jonah Hill's dependence on his mother. They dropped it like a hot potato. Too interesting, I suppose.
The cinematography drove me nuts. Restless cameras with overused snap-zooms irritate the hell out of me, and this DP never missed an opportunity to snap-zoom. It was like watching a commercial. Ms. Tomei was also lit very unfortunately a number of times, which I suppose is forgivable in a low budget film but regrettable all the same.
I am bewildered by the praise that's been heaped on this film. I suspect people are so happy to see something that isn't 3D or nonstop violence or gross-out humor that they are taking pains to be kind. I too want to encourage thoughtful films with clever plots and unexpected humor. This isn't one of them.
Babes on Broadway (1941)
just fine until that minstrel show
My husband coerced my 12 year old daughter to sit through this film which she felt mildly entertaining... until they rolled out that minstrel show finale, and then she was just amazed and appalled. I hadn't seen the film and was actually rather shocked, but it led to a very interesting discussion with our daughter about the accepted social conventions of the times, so off-putting to us now but the performers at the time seemed quite oblivious to the possibility is causing offense. I think my daughter, for the first time, 'got' the importance of Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement in a way that no text book could explain. To that extent, the film was a valuable time capsule. The rest of it was rather blah "let's do a show stuff," although my daughter said Andy Rooney reminded her of Leonardo Dicaprio and after awhile I saw what she meant.
We speculated that the sleaziness of movies these days would present a time capsule of its own for future audiences, who will probably be amazed at how crass and sex-obsessed our current culture is. At least I hope that's the case. I'm so maxed out on sleaze and the effect it's having on my daughter, I seriously consider moving to another country sometimes. Anway, this movie is harmless fluff with good hearted values on the one hand and mindlessly offensive racism on the other.
Raise Your Voice (2004)
laughably bad
It's just incredible to me that a girl who can barely sing would be allowed to make a film where she's supposed to be some kind of singing virtuoso. My daughter just watched this film, which was made four years ago, and in this post-American Idol world it seems particularly ridiculous. I blame the star's mother, who should have known better, and her handlers, who obviously didn't know how to say no. I'm sure the poor actress was the victim of much criticism when it first came out. One sees this happen a great deal with actresses -- remember Jennifer Love Hewitt's singing career? They should all be forced to go before Simon Cowell before they attempt a project like this.
We Don't Live Here Anymore (2004)
Humorless and Grim
When I learned that the screenplay for this movie had been written 25 years ago, it all started to make sense. It watches like an Updike novel reads; everybody's miserable and horny, the women are cardboard figures with no careers, the guys are unlikable but you're supposed to cheer for them anyway. Didn't read the Dubus stories but I believe they come from the same era (and I'll bet they're better than the film.) A reviewer described Laura Dern's mouth as being "a rictus of pain" and that was a good description, but frankly I didn't want to watch so much rictus all the time. Her close-ups were excruciating, especially back to back with the flawless Naomi Watts; it seemed highly improbable that Peter Krause would be attracted to her with Naomi in the house. But the worst part was that it was utterly humorless. At the screening I went to the laughs were strictly uncomfortable ones. Then I got bogged down in a few improbabilities. If Naomi Watts is that much of a clean freak, what's she doing having sex out in the woods? How come Peter Krause's character has money and Mark Ruffalo's doesn't, when they basically have the same job? And is there some rule that all English professors have to wear beards? Couldn't one of them have been clean shaven? Why don't the women seem to have jobs?
I came away feeling that the whole thing was a grim enterprise, lacking poetry or coherence.
Under the Tuscan Sun (2003)
Exasperating failure
The movie starts off promisingly, with the Diane Lane character discovering the infidelity of her husband and the ensuing heartbreak of divorce. Almost nothing works after that. The problem is the logic of the thing -- her two gay friends exchange their tickets to Italy for one first class for her. Okay I can maybe buy that. She goes on a gay tour and is sad, sad, sad. She runs into a flamboyant Blanche Dubois type and is instantly fascinated with her -- not my reaction, I found her cliché and unbelievable, but each to her own. Then she sees "the house" and her whole life changes. My b.s. detector went up big time when she jumped off the bus, left the tour, and managed to finesse the house away from the couple who had already made an accepted offer. (The bird crap on the head as a sign from God was particularly annoying.) Then there are the men in her life -- a married Italian hottie, a fickle Italian hottie, and the age-appropriate Italian not-so hottie with whom you'd like to see her end up but he's married and faithful, how boring of him. By the time she gets to the last-minute young American guy, you really don't care.
The subplot characters also didn't work. Poor Lindsay Duncan obviously wasn't told whether she was totally insane or just quirky. The Polish workers were beyond cliché, the romance between the young Polish guy and the young Italian girl felt like a studio note, and Sandra Oh... oh, never mind.
But the worst part is, it's supposed to be a story about a woman who buys a house in Tuscany and the renovation of it gives her new purpose in life -- and you really don't see the house. You kind of get a glimpse in the first shot. You see a couple of rooms get painted and a wall get knocked down. But you don't get the satisfaction of watching the transformation of a house from falling apart mess to enchanting villa. That, for me, was the biggest disappointment. I could have sat through all the 'I'm so sad and I hope I have sex soon' stuff, if I could have watched an exciting home renovation. But that's me.
As for Diane Lane, she worked very, very hard but the material was so thin it looked like a lot of exertion for nothing. And the cutesy stuff she was forced to do was hard to watch, as I think of her as a more serious actress than that.
As a final insult to our intelligent, there's a faucet sticking out of a wall that runs dry in the beginning, starts to drip as Diane Lane gets ... what? Juicier, I suppose. And by the end it is positively gushing, my friends! Get it? Gushing!
Which this review is not.