P.S. I Love You: A Review

I like to go to romantic comedies with the mom that I know will be an absolute disaster. My mom will secretly agree with me only in her heart she truly loves and wants to see these movies only she likes to pretend she's as cynical as I am. I on the other hand have a cold back heart. Especially when it comes to films that go out of there way to make women cry. When I see this happen I clap that steel trap around my chest and cry, "Do Your Worst!" and by golly P.S I Love You tried its damnedest to do just that.

Granted, what I was expecting from this movie was bad, beyond bad, Because I Said So bad. The website RottenTomatoes.com (from which I get all movie stills, thank you) currently gives it a freshness rating of 20%. Not the worst of the year, but pretty damn nasty. And for good reason.

The story is simple if not achieving a new level of creepy. A young woman loses her husband to a brain tumor (before the credits role) and three weeks after his death on her 30th birthday she starts to receive packages and letters from said husband giving her instructions to help her move on with her life. Now this could almost be considered endearing if it weren't for the fact that one, Hillary Swank's performance as Holly Kennedy (old married widow) weren't ridiculous. Yes, she does grief pretty well, but the story frames her as a bit of a blithering idiot--the cold unfunny victim of the world's worst pratfall jokes and two, these letters create some eerie coincidences.

Gerard Butler is the hapless deceased and does a pretty amazing job at convincing the world of his love and devotion. I say amazing because this is a character that has to be both tender and have a small ability to sing. Keep in mind that this is the man that was King Leonidas, leader of the He-Man ab brigade of 300 and probably the weakest Phantom ever on the stage or screen in the latest film adaptation of The Phantom of the Opera. Here, he's funny in a ridiculous kind of way and this idea that centers the film is a sweet one.

P.S. I Love You isn't a total disaster because its funny. Honest to goodness funny because of Holly's two friends played by Lisa Kudrow and Gina Gershon. Keep in mind that you can barely tell that they would be friends, the amount of chemistry these three have with each other is equivalent to the amount of chemistry in my academic transcripts (zero), but the two, Kudrow in particular is excellent at confident goofiness.

The trouble is that the screenwriters could never find the proper balance of goofy female buddy movie and weepy mourning melodrama. The minute your up, Hillary Swank starts to cry and remember touching memories of her life with her sensitive, flirty dead husband. The audience is taken on this rollercoaster ride for over two hours and by the end even the characters around her are sick of her.

I can't in good faith recommend this movies unless you are incredibly drunk or are in a theatre where they encourage loud jeering. Ultimately, its worth a look on cable on a Sunday afternoon.

P.S. Thanks for the movie mom.

Juno: A Review

I loved this movie. Let me just start with that. Its funny, witty, honest, and is probably the first film that portrays the relationship between a teenager and her parents in a stable family with integrity and grace under pressure.

If you are annoyed with quirky dialogue, like really quirky dialogue, the first 15 minutes are bound to get on your nerves just a little. Take for instance a very brief interlude between the title character, Juno (Ellen Page), and an unusually personal drugstore clerk (played by Rainn Wilson) as Juno is awaiting the results of the third pregnancy test. The wittiest of witty banter ensues:

"What's the prognosis Fertile Myrtle? Minus or Plus?"

"There it is, a little pink plus sign. So unholy."

"That ain't no Etch-a-Sketch. This is one doodle that can't be un-did home skillet"

There is nothing realistic in this moment and the film does have a tendency to fall back on a series of oddities assigned to each character that are typical of indie movies that are trying to be hipper than the rest. Juno talks on a hamburger phone, the father and best friend played by Michael Cera is obsessed with orange flavored Tic Tacs, the girlfriend, Leah, has a thing for middle-aged overweight teachers who where knit cardigans, and a step mother (played brilliantly by Allison Janney) has a minor obsession with dogs. Why are all things necessary? There not really except maybe to prove that Juno is over her head more than she realizes. Imagine trying to book an appointment at a planned parenthood clinic on a crappy hamburger phone.

The movie succeeds because behind all the idiosyncrasy lies a sweet story of a girl who is simply trying to handle "situations beyond her maturity level" and a sincere amount of credit has to go to screenwriter Diablo Cody for handling the balancing act required of all those touched by this "garbage dump of a situation."

Janney in particular (an actress so amazing in The West Wing yet always playing the oddball mother with issues in movies) plays the role of the step mother beautifully. She gives shit when its necessary, supports her step-daughter in her decisions, and is ready to go to the mattresses for anyone who doesn't believe.


Ultimately this movie is about having hope regardless of the human tendency to drown ourselves in our own shortcomings. This could have easily been an after school special about the sorrows of teen pregnancy but what we got was a sweet story about hope and survival.

Sweeney Todd: A Review

To love Sondheim is to revel in the human ability to obsess. Indeed many of his darker protagonists are fueled by their obsessions, whether it be artistic expression (Sunday in the Park with George), their insistence on bachelorhood (Company), assassination (Assassins), or in the case of Sweeney Todd, the psychotic desire for vengeance.

In the hands of Tim Burton, Sondheim's Sweeney Todd is touched by the director's now (in)famous cartoony style but while Depp's physical appearance may be off-putting to some, (a friend of mine called this film Edward Scissorhands: The Revenge), the corpse-like visages of both Todd and his accomplice Mrs. Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter) are representative of their kind of death after reaching the end of their respective ropes. One having suffered in an Australian prison, losing his wife and daughter in the process, the other having to face the fact she makes the worse pies in London and is willing to cannibalize her fellow citizens in order change that fact.

Sweeney Todd is first and foremost a psychological examination of a man's insanity in which he cannot feel whole without a razor in his hand. One of the more beautiful and disturbing songs is "My Friends," a beautiful song to his razors that begins with the declaration by Todd, "At last, my arm is complete again!" And yes, this film is a musical and both Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter have the voices to carry a film without grating on your ear drums. Depp in particular plays Todd with more charm than cruelty, making his bloody acts all the more sinister.

What I love most about Sondheim is his complete and utter willingness to embrace ironic and dark humor. No more obvious is this talent present than in "A Little Priest" in which Todd and Lovett hatch their plan to grind up their victims for the downstairs pie shop and determine which types of men would be the most delicious. It is this kind of delectable that makes the bloody and horrific murders taking place in this film bearable to watch.

In the end, all those guilty are given their comeuppance but not without ruining their own lives in the process.

If you're not squeamish, by all means enjoy a little murder this holiday season but if you love Sondheim, check out this great pop-culture primer on Sondheim over at The AV Club.

Vote - It's the Least You Can Do

God bless you, Ed Helms! And God bless America!

Language Learning for the Torture Porn Set?

I spend far too much time on the internet so I've come across some pretty odd things in my time. But this has to be one of the most bizarre Internet ads I've seen in a while:

Why in the world does she look so happily distressed? This the way sado-masochists learn French?

Brace Yourselves: Primary Campain Season is Here

I love campaign season, especially during the thick of the fray because people start getting crazy. What? Obama wanted to be President in kindergarten, Hillary Clinton's brother is getting a divorce? Is Rudy Giuliani covering up some kind of medical condition Bartlet style?

Who cares. The best part are the ape-shit crazy ads that come out when candidates start hitting the skids. The newest of which is this doozy from Senator John McCain.


Is this up there with the "Daisy" ad by LBJ in '64? Probably not. But its up there. Not only does it suggest that because McCain was a former POW, he'd somehow be a better leader, but he's also a better Christian because he know what the "true spirit of Christmas" is. For Christ's sake John, as a man who was tortured (a fact you really enjoy telling the world about) shouldn't you be taking a tougher staff on torture at GitMo?

Still, my personal favorite thus far is Governor Mike Huckabee's desperate attempt to be both funny and youthful. How does he do it...Chuck Norris of course:


Huckabee is awesome! He knows about Chuck Norris facts! I'll totally vote for him! But...hold on a second. Why is Chuck Norris saying all the important stuff about immigration and gun rights? Shouldn't the potential leader of the free world be doing that? That's his job, right? RIGHT?!!?

Egregious Violations of Movie Marketing

My love for the movie Once remains unabated since its release and I have been waiting quite a long time for the DVD only to find this:

Doesn't seem like there's anything particularly odd right with this cover right?

Wrong.

Take a closer look at the original poster.....

That's right, we've got one nasty case of crappy photoshop-ing, digitally manipulating Glen Hansard's hand around that of his costar, making it look horribly cartoony and freakish.

Now I recognize the need for aggressive marketing strategy, especially with small independent movies like this one that are attempting to garner enough buzz before the peak of award season. But come on! The entire beauty of this movie lay it the longer of the boy and girl, the fact that they loved each other but couldn't be torn away from the others who were pulling at them.

This new cover turns a movie made brilliant by its subtlety into a sappy, googly-eyed romance.

Sure, it may sell more copies but at what expense when the audience will be duped by the sorrowful ending?

The Writers Strike: One Serious Pain in the Ass

I'm all for solidarity and supporting struggling creative minds, but this strike is really putting a hamper in my TV watching schedule.

All of the shows that I watch religiously have stopped production and has been replaced by the following:

Yesterday's Prime time Thursday line up:
- CBS: CSI Repeat
-NBC: Clash of the Choirs
-CW: Smallville Repeat
-ABC: Duel
-FOX: Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader?

This is what we are left with people! Its the end of good TV day, good TV season.

Granted, it was just announced that The Daily Show and The Colbert Report will be returning January 7th (without writers) but I can only imagine its gonna mean a lot of gaffs and screw-ups. Adlibbing can only last so long is all I'm saying. Its an unsustainable compound like plutonium or spam.

Bring TV back to America, we need free entertainment. Without it how will we raise our kids or know what's funny.

Game shows make us stupid and Clash of the Choirs puts Michael Bolton on TV. This needs to end quickly.

Atonement: A Review

I'll admit, I almost never cry in movies. It's only happened twice in my life and even then, we're not talking about out-right blubbering. Does this make me an unemotional sod? Potentially. But I do love a good soppy, sweeping romance and Atonement satisfied my itch during this holiday season.

Based on Ian McEwan's award winning, best selling novel of the same name, Atonement is all that a glamorous romantic tragedy ought to be: far too beautiful settings, broken love, heart-shattering betrayal and the unflinching hope of redemption and happiness that seems all too distant. The story itself is all most too simple to live up to such heavy but the plot's simplicity makes the final act all that more harrowing.

The film tells the story of the Tallis family, the kind of English aristocratic country dwellers who live the most splendiferous of lives that Americans have a hard time relating too. Everything is beautiful and the tragedies that befall them are largely that of broken vases and cloudy days. The only reason the audience would particularly care is this case is all to do with the spunk and precociousness of the youngest daughter of the clan, Briony, brilliantly played by new comer Saoirse Ronan, the possessor of a great imagination.

At 13, Briony is just dipping her toes in the waters of adulthood. She wants to know the things her older sister Cecilia (Keira Knightley) knows, to act as she does, to understand the world as she knows it--yet the romantic and naive notions that belong only to children still have hold of her mind. Everything she thinks she sees are filtered through through this naivete and the consequences are dire indeed.

What she sees is the slow burning, eventually engulfing passion play of Cecilia and Robbie Turner, the son of the house cook turned Cambridge graduate and the misunderstandings that begin the film's tragedy are easily solved but never amended. In the book, these miscalculations on Briony's part are easily written as internal monologues, but director Joe Wright stages these scenes by replaying them, first, through the eyes of Briony, all imagination and no education, and then to the reality. To her, the advances of Robbie are antagonist, violent and horrific. In reality they are simply the interplays of adults--sexually repressed by the class divisions of the age. A flirtatious moment by a fountain is transformed into a moment of antagonism, the impromptu love scene in a library--an act equivalent to murder.

Everything is turned upside down by a letter--an moment of honesty that spins the wheels in Briony's young head that land Robbie in prison and eventually to the war. The heartbreaking separation of Cecilia and Robbie is palpable on screen and James McAvoy as Robbie seethes with joy, trepidation, anxiety, passion, anger, and despair with a kind of blue-collar grace. He is just the right amount of awkward in a tuxedo--the help invited to dinner--but just as uncomfortable being called a roughneck among the enlisted lower class rabble of his company.

Atonement follows Cecilia, Robbie, and Briony in there attempts to make right the misdeeds of the past. Briony especially is plagued by her thirteen year old self and even in her old age, played by a brilliant Vanessa Redgrave, she struggles to find the contrition she seeks. But Atonement's brilliance lies not in its beauty but in its desperate insistence that perhaps we can make right the errors of our youth and if not, we should end our lives in the trying.