An Amazing Cast Makes A Mess With Tallulah.

The Good: Decent performances
The Bad: Unlikable characters, Sheer volume of ridiculous plot conceits, Severe story and direction problems
The Basics: Tallulah has a wonderful cast led by Ellen Page and Allison Janney doing their usual great jobs, but is riddled with problems that make for a generally poor film.


There are very few actors or directors who can get me to change my viewing plans these days. As a reviewer and a Netflix subscriber, I have a pretty massive queue of things to watch, but there are a couple of people who pretty much instantly get my attention. When, rather suddenly, I discovered that there was a new film featuring Ellen Page and Allison Janney, that was enough to get me to completely change my reviewing plans for the day. The new film is Tallulah and it was released only a few days ago on Netflix. I was surprised to discover that Tallulah was the first Netflix-exclusive film I've actually watched and reviewed.

And it's unfortunate that Tallulah is such a mess outside the performances.

Tallulah and Nico are two young people, living out of their van, surviving off of dumpster food, stolen credit cards and shower tickets they get from truckers. Tallulah dreams of going to India, but Nico just wants to go home. So, the morning after Nico tells her he loves her, Tallulah awakens to discover Nico has abandoned her and she drives the van to Nico's mother's apartment. Margo Mooney is going through a divorce from Nico's father and has not seen her son in two years. While scavenging for food in a nearby hotel, Tallulah encounters Carolyn and asks Lu to watch her one year-old baby for a night. Despite Tallulah not exhibiting any special skills, Carolyn abandons her daughter Madison with Tallulah. After Carolyn returns and collapses, Tallulah takes Madison out to her van for the night.

The next morning, as Tallulah tries to bring the baby back into the apartment building when she finds the place swarming with police. After a disastrous day - including a lousy book signing and the death of her turtle - Margo is visited by Tallulah, who tries to pass Madison off as her and Nico's baby. While the police hunt for Madison, Margo and Tallulah begin to bond. As Carolyn struggles to find Madison, Margo and Tallulah start to rely upon one another . . . until a chance sighting and Nico's return to New York City results in everything falling apart for Tallulah.

Tallulah is plagued almost immediately by a problem with the direction. The film is one that involves, essentially, a child abduction. While Margo's apartment is a different building from Carolyn's hotel, the distance between the buildings or their relative locations (they are within Tallulah's walking distance of one another, at the very least) is not made clear and the transition between the buildings is fast and awkward. As a result, elements like Tallulah standing outside Margo's apartment selling lemonade and Tallulah's van getting ticketed and ultimately booted seem like things that the police - who are looking for her - would notice.

Similarly, there's a pretty ridiculous conceit in that Tallulah abandons Madison one night in the apartment, robs Margo blind and after they are reunited, Margo does not call out the young lady on being a thief . . . even after Margo goes shopping for baby supplies and, by necessity, goes into her purse. Unlike Carolyn, Margo seems both intelligent and connected to reality in most ways, so her failing to address this is either a huge character issue or a very poor directoral/editing problem with Tallulah.

Tallulah is unfortunately predictable in many ways. As I watched the film, my wife was nearby doing her own thing; she called the next plot event on three separate occasions.

The moment Uzo Aduba appears on screen, she steals focus and is more than enough to pull viewers who love her on Orange Is The New Black out of the narrative. Aduba does fine in her brief role as a Child Protective Services officer, but given her Orange Is The New Black character's awkward relationship with children, it is tough to watch her make the leap (considering both parts are on Netflix, it feels almost like stunt casting for Tallulah).

That said, the acting in Tallulah is the redeeming quality of the film. Aduba is professional and empathetic as the CPS Detective and Zachary Quinto makes the most out his bit role in a part that allows him to loosen up and just play a normal human, which is pretty delightful to see. Having met Quinto in person, albeit briefly, at a Star Trek convention, it's cool to see him play a character who is just kind and loving and in no way superhuman, where it is a performance clearly different from his off-screen persona. In other words, Tallulah illustrates that Quinto can act - and not simply by having him play insane superpowered villains or an emotionless half-Vulcan. Tammy Blanchard has a decent emotional transition as Carolyn, making the initially unlikable character even remotely empathetic.

The two leads, Ellen Page and Allison Janney, are good in Tallulah. They have excellent chemistry with one another and there was no point in Tallulah where the viewer feels like they are watching outtakes from scenes the pair shot for Juno (reviewed here!). But, on their own, neither Page, nor Janney shows us anything outside what we would expect of actors of their caliber - much like how David Zayas's role as Detective Richards is utterly unsurprising given viewers have seen him play essentially the same character on Dexter. All three of these actors are wonderful, but in Tallulah they play well within expectations.

Tallulah is a marginally likable protagonist - she does something horrible, but she tries to take care of the child after she lies her way into Margo's home. That is somewhat interesting as a premise and director Sian Heder enhances Tallulah's character by creating flashbacks and hallucinations for the protagonist that visually implies her mental illness. Even using the hallucinations becomes problematic from the direction when it comes to the film's final scene.

Ultimately, Tallulah asks viewers to hang in with watching a long con and be entertained or empathize with how it all falls apart and it fails to captivate.

For other Netflix exclusives, please check out my reviews of:
House Of Cards - Season 1
Orange Is The New Black - Season 3
Daredevil - Season 2
Jessica Jones - Season 1
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt - Season 2
Grace And Frankie - Season 1
Sense8 - Season 1
Arrested Development - Season 4
Stranger Things - Season 1

3/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Mediocrity Mires Minions

The Good: Generally good animation and voice performances
The Bad: Not funny, Light on character, Dull plot
The Basics: Minions is an unfortunately unnecessary film that begs the viewer to stick with it until its obvious resolution.


With Summer Blockbuster Season firmly upon us, it is the time of year when sequels reign. Perhaps the most risky sequel of the summer is Minions, which is a prequel to Despicable Me (reviewed here!) and attempts to grow on the momentum and franchise that Despicable Me 2 (reviewed here!) delivered for Universal two years ago. The strategy behind Minions is similar to that of Despicable Me 2, which is to hire impressive voice talents, as opposed to developing an impressive story or developing characters viewers will want to watch over and over again.

Minions follows the adventures of three of the small yellow creatures of the Minion race, leading up to their inevitable and obvious meeting with the villainous Gru. While the Minions have been background characters in the Despicable Me franchise, Minions tries to convince viewers that the little yellow assistants can carry their own film. Unfortunately, for all writer Brian Lynch's efforts, he fails. Instead of creating another Despicable Me sequel or a film that is truly about the Minions, Minions is a Despicable Me film where (save for the last few minutes), Gru is replaced by a different villain and the Minions (unwittingly) assist her in her plot for domination.

After a history of the evolution of the Minions, the Minions end up in Antarctica following the defeat of Napoleon (the last losing side they are on before they flee to try to be self-sufficient). After a brief period of prosperity, the Minions become bored and troubled. The Minion Kevin steps up to try to find a new home for the Minions and/or a new overlord to give the race purpose again. Reluctantly accompanied by Stuart and Bob, Kevin journeys out into the world, where he ends up in New York City in 1968. There, the trio sees a commercial for Scarlett Overkill and the Orlando villain convention. Determined to get to Orlando, the three Minions hitchhike with the Nelsons (who are bank robbers headed to the convention).

At the convention, Kevin, Stuart and Bob are recruited by Scarlett Overkill to join her criminal enterprise. After defeating all the other potential sidekicks, the minions convince Scarlett that they are the best and she takes the trio to the United Kingdom where she is planning her biggest crime. In England, the Minions help Scarlett steal the Queen's scepter, but before she can be made the new queen, Bob inadvertently pulls Excalibur out of the stone and is made king. Determined to take over England, Scarlett Overkill turns her attention to killing Bob and the other Minions so she can take the throne.

Minions is unfortunately bland, a fact I did not consciously acknowledge until halfway through the film when I realized I had not laughed once. Lacking both humor and charm, Minions utterly fails to entertain and my mantra while watching much of the film was "who is this intended for?" There are references for adults (not particularly funny) like Minions on the therapist's couch and reactions in England mirroring girls reacting to The Beatles, and the bright colors and slapstick gags might appeal to children, but it is hard to figure out who the film is geared for. The humor is not sophisticated enough to appeal to adults and it's not manic enough to actually entertain children.

The voice acting in Minions is acceptable, but given that half the lines are gibberish spoken by Pierre Coffin to embody the Minions, it is hardly one of the great voice acting events of all time. Instead, there is a moment of delight when viewers realize that Allison Janney is voicing Madge Nelson and the shrug one delivers when they realize Sandra Bullock's Scarlett Overkill sounds remarkably similar to Janney.

The characters in Minions are not horribly distinctive or compelling; it does not take long before viewers realize they cannot carry the film. That makes it easy to pass Minions by.

For other prequels, please check out my reviews of:
Star Wars: The Phantom Menace
Prometheus
Rogue One

2.5/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Matthew Perry And Allison Janney Prove (Briefly) They Have Talent Untapped In Mr. Sunshine!

The Good: Very funny, Interesting characters, Generally amazing acting
The Bad: SHORT! Lack of DVD bonus features/chapters
The Basics: Mr. Sunshine was a thirteen episode television series that gave Matthew Perry and Allison Janney the chance to show off their talents after Friends and The West Wing, respectively, which unfortunately got cancelled long before its time!


After a long-running series, it is hard for actors and actresses to find a role that can match their iconic role that made them a household name. Few casts have had trouble finding consistent work like the cast of Friends (reviewed here!) and The West Wing (reviewed here!). Of the six main cast members of Friends, Matthew Perry seems to have tried the most new network television projects and failed. While I might be one of the few people who loved Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip (reviewed here!) with Matthew Perry (and, ironically, The West Wing-alum Bradley Whitford), Perry’s terrible luck made me fall in love with a second prematurely cancelled television series, Mr. Sunshine.

The real story with Mr. Sunshine is Allison Janney. Janney followed Bradley Whitford and Rob Lowe back to regular series roles after the end of her seven years on The West Wing. While some of the other members of the cast returned to doing guest roles or films, Janney tried to stretch her performing wings on Mr. Sunshine and she proved to be exceptionally versatile in the role of the crazy, addled stadium owner, Crystal Cohen.

Ben Donnovan is the manager of the Sunshine Center, a 17,000 person stadium in San Diego. He is shocked one day when the stadium’s owner, Crystal, brings her adult son to him and orders him to give him a job. Roman is good at absolutely nothing and Ben struggles to find a place for Roman. At the same time, his girlfriend, the marketing manager Alice, decides that she is going to commit to Alonzo (a former NBA star who now works at the Sunshine Center), breaking things off with Ben. While Ben avoids his own assistant, the legitimately crazy Heather (who once set a man on fire), he takes pity on Roman and lets the adult child move in with him.

As the season progresses, Ben slowly becomes less self-centered. He handholds Crystal when she freaks out on the anniversary of the day she lost her true love (which inspires a guest appearance by James Taylor) and he has to learn the name of all of the people who work under him at the Sunshine Center when the air conditioning kicks out. Ben has to put up with a spoiled child rock star and has an uncomfortable date with Heather’s sister and manages to bag a beautiful woman who is reminiscent of him at the beginning of the season (a woman who is just looking for a completely casual relationship). While Ben evolves, it begins to make him realize all he lost with Alice and the changes in his life actually lead Alice to notice him again.

Mr. Sunshine derives most of its humor from phenomenally funny lines, as opposed to the situations. The plots to the episodes are often very tame – Ben gets waylaid by Crystal, so Roman has to entertain a lingerie football player Ben hooks up with whenever she is in town or Alice and Alonzo come to believe Crystal is a racist and try to change her perceptions on black people – but it is the lines that are audacious and laugh-out-loud funny. Matthew Perry delivers his lines with an anhedonic quality that is distinct and different from any other character I’ve seen him play. Allison Janney is absolutely loopy as Crystal Cohen and she delivers her lines with an earnestness that is hilarious (when she sings the song about all the different ethnicities of children with wide, eager eyes, it is impossible not to smile).

The thirteen episodes of Mr. Sunshine create a core of six memorable characters. In the sole season of Mr. Sunshine, the characters are:

Ben Donovan – Boyish and happy working for the Sunshine Center, he is entirely self-absorbed. He, for example, only refers to his past relationship with Alice as “the time we were sleeping together.” He lets Roman move in with him and he often has to remind Crystal of her son’s existence. He negotiates with multiple young women for sex through the course of the season and has to keep a teen heartthrob happy so he will actually perform at the Sunshine Center. He stops going only for casual sex and works to develop real relationships, which makes him look back in Alice’s direction,

Alice – A cheerful marketing manager, she decides she wants to commit to Alonzo. She becomes frustrated when Alonzo is so busy doing good things that she will never be first in his mind. She tries to one-up her high school rival when she visits the Sunshine Center and she briefly mentors under Crystal to learn how to be confident,

Alonzo – A former NBA player who failed to make a key basket in a game years prior, he now works community outreach at the Sunshine Center. He is perpetually happy and loves being in a relationship with Alice. Technically still married, he does things like give blood, organize charity events and coaches a team of at-risk young women (not quite realizing how bad “Alonzo’s Ladies” sounds!),

Roman – Something of an idiot, he is eager to try new things. He falls for Ben’s psychotic assistant, hard. He gets jealous when Heather and Ben spend time together, but covers for Ben when Ben needs favors. He works as Alice’s assistant, which leads Alice to stop trusting him because of the way he blabs to Ben,

Heather – One of Alonzo’s outreach projects, she came to work at the Sunshine Center on an internship. Having once set a man on fire, she keeps Ben continually on-edge. She is eager to please and falls for Roman’s earnestness,

and Crystal Cohen – The drug-addled owner of the Sunshine Center, she delegates to Ben on most things. When her adult son, Roman, pops back into her life, she has no idea how to be a mother. She resents the Smurfs, is thrilled by mysterious men and admits to being married six times, only five of which were consummated. She has an oddly close relationship with one of the cleaning women at the Sunshine Center and is devastated when Nadia dies abruptly. She briefly mentors Alice, but discovers Alice does not have her tolerance for drugs that she does.

Mr. Sunshine has an amazing cast led by Matthew Perry and Allison Janney. Andrea Anders makes a credible romantic interest for both Matthew Perry’s Ben and James Lesure’s Alonzo, though she often plays Alice like she played her character from Better Off Ted (season 1 is reviewed here!). Nate Torrence plays Roman with a familiar goofiness, but he brings an endearing quality to the role that sparks well with Portia Doubleday (who plays the wide-eyed crazy Heather).

Ultimately, though, Mr. Sunshine is thirteen delightful episodes that replay, like most outrageous comedies with diminishing humor. The DVD set is one of SONY’s “burn on demand” discs, so there are absolutely no frills (not even episode menus!) on the two-disc DVD set. Given how fast Mr. Sunshine was cancelled by ABC, it is unlikely that a better version of the show will ever make it to DVD. As a result, I make a strong recommendation for getting the set now; it’s worth it, even if it left Matthew Perry and Allison Janney looking for work and the show’s five fans pining for more episodes.

For other television series' that made their debut on ABC, please check out my reviews of:
”Turn, Turn, Turn” - Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Happy Endings - Season 1
V - Season 2
Lost
Pushing Daisies - Season 1
Invasion
Boston Legal
Alias
The Job
Once & Again - Season 2
Once & Again - Season 1
Sports Night
Spin City - Season 1
NYPD Blue - Season 4
Twin Peaks
V - The Complete Series
Battlestar Galactica - The Complete Epic Series

7/10

For other television and movie reviews, please check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Ugh, Indie! Brightest Star Fails To Shine.

The Good: Moments of performance, The middle
The Bad: Uninteresting characters, Dull story, Murky directing, Short, Overbearing soundtrack.
The Basics: Brightest Star is an unfortunately dull and listless indie romantic drama that lacks a sense of distinction.


I like independent movies, but I think I’m done with indie romantic dramas featuring twentysomethings for a while. On the heels of Lust For Love, I took in the indie romantic drama Brightest Star based only on the fact that Clark Gregg and Allison Janney were in the movie. Sadly, they are not in the movie nearly enough to save it from being one of the early disappointments of 2014.

At the heart of my issue with Brightest Star is that it lacks the individuality or spark of an indie movie or the originality, message, writing or cast to break out as a mainstream hit. Brightest Star falls into niche of indie film for the sake of being an indie film. It’s a small film that does not seem to try to be anything bigger or more important than a little film that managed to get made. So, it starts with a twentysomething guy pining over his abandonment at the hands of his girlfriend, a blonde of course, with whom he has nothing genuine in common (she can’t seem to fathom basic astronomy while he is a pretty solid, smart geek). The movie develops like oh so many indie romances with a predictable plot wherein a young man comes of age through a break-up, finds a new love and has to make a conscious choice about where his life is going to go. More than half an hour is wasted on the deadweight of the first relationship before Brightest Star shows any hint of potential by repairing the protagonist with the woman he is supposed to be with (based on film formula).

A young man wakes up on the floor of the apartment he shared with his college girlfriend, Charlotte Cates, to discover that she has abandoned him and leased the apartment to Lita Markovic and her boyfriend, Ray. Lita and Ray allow the young man to stay while he gets his life in order. As the young man reflects upon how he managed to snag Charlotte and how he lost her, he gets his life in order and gets serious about his post-college plans. Abandoning his food service work, he accepts a job at Lita’s father’s financing company, despite not truly understanding the management job he would be doing there.

When he gets some decent success at work and gets into a fight with Ray, the young man makes a move on Lita. While this earns him a promotion at work, the young man finds himself unwilling to truly commit to Lita. Feeling a tug from Charlotte, the young man tries to choose between Charlotte and Lita and the finance job he is good at (but hates) and the astronomy career that actually interests him. The choices climax for him in a night when both Charlotte and Lita want him for important events and he must actually choose which one’s event to attend. After completely screwing up his personal life, he decides to pursue his dreams of working at an observatory, which leaves him buffeting through life struggling to find direction.

Brightest Star suffers most not because of the lousy (though predictable) decisions the protagonist makes, but from the writing and directing of Maggie Kiley. Kiley co-wrote the script with Matthew Mullen, but directed Brightest Star on her own. Unfortunately, the writers seem caught up with the novelty of writing the script for Brightest Star in a way that Kiley is not able to execute clearly. As a result, the first third of the movie features frequent flashbacks that are not clear. Lacking a linear narrative, Brightest Star comes across as more sloppy than stylish. The problem with failing to make a clear sense of event progression early in the movie hampers the middle third as the young man struggles with the pull toward Charlotte again. When she comes back into his life, it’s not clear that he’s not flashing back again to his prior relationship until the defining night where he has to choose between staying with Lita or going back to Charlotte.

Last year, the film with twentysomethings in crisis that left me most impressed was The Lifeguard (reviewed here!), but Brightest Star only has magic or realism in its middle section. When the young man grows away from Charlotte, Brightest Star takes off, but it does so remarkably quickly and then it burns out equally quickly. Alison Janney’s character of Jessica is in the film too briefly and Clark Gregg is not used in an even remotely interesting way. Kiley’s film is one of those indie films that is about the journey, not the destination. There are plenty of fine films that pull off stories that meander and make the viewer glad for the process as opposed to the more recognizable sense of growth in the movie. Brightest Star is not one of those films. In fact, save a few stray lines in the middle and the rather obvious summing up at the movie’s climax, Brightest Star lacks brilliant writing, interesting characters or situations clever or compelling enough to hook the viewer.

Sadly, this carries through to the protagonist as well. Chris Lowell has an intensity to him that is good, but unconventional; he has a bearing that makes him the natural replacement for Boris Karloff in any modern production of Frankenstein, but he’s a tough sell as a leading man. Does he land the quirky twentysomething geek? Yes and no. He does, but he’s not written to be that; he plays the corporate stooge with complete credibility and he lacks the quirks, obvious intelligence or charisma of a geek, so his character fails to resonate. Moreover, despite being established as a shy geek, he immediately pursues the Hollywood goodlooking young woman with confidence and ability that is utterly uncharacteristic for the type and then leaps into the relationship with Lita with surprisingly little zeal.

Lowell and Jessica Szohr have no on-screen chemistry, even for the scenes where they are just playing friends hanging out. When Lita is required to leap to her housemate’s aid, Szohr instantly telegraphs the romantic direction the scene will be turning to and the lack of surprise in that robs the scene of its resonance. Lowell plays his character as oddly detached with Rose McIver’s Charlotte and he never quite makes the protagonist seem like he’s lusting after her the way his lines state that he is. That said, Lowell manages the loss very well. The only real on-screen chemistry Lowell has is opposite Janney, whose character of Jessica is little more than a cameo.

Ultimately, Brightest Star is a fail, but it is not painful to watch (2.5 is about the highest I can give a movie that bored me more than it physically hurt or annoyed me to watch); the script inexplicably won a contest that won it the funding to be produced and I find myself wondering what the judges saw in it. Brightest Star is such a straightlaced, frequently formulaic, generally predictable and passionless film that never quite shines.

For other works with Chris Lowell, please check out my reviews of:
Veronica Mars
The Help
Veronica Mars - Season 3

2.5/10

For other film reviews, please visit my Movie Review Index Page for a listing of films from best to worst!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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DVD Extras Knock Juno Up Into Close-Enough-To-Perfect Territory!

The Good: Great acting, Wonderful story, Interesting characters, Good DVD extras, Fun, Funny, Soundtrack.
The Bad: A little underdeveloped on the love story.
The Basics: Juno impresses the viewer as a romantic dramedy about a pregnant sixteen year-old who is carrying her baby to term for another family and the struggles that entails.


I have absolutely no problem with admitting when I have seen an actor or actress who intrigues me. Sure, I've been known to look up the works of Anna Paquin and after Get Smart (reviewed here!), I'm pretty much bound to catch some more movies with Anne Hathaway. Since seeing X-Men 3: The Last Stand I have been looking forward to seeing Ellen Page in more films. So, when I finally was able to catch Juno on DVD, I was excited. I was eager to see Juno and not just because of a potential very little crush on Ellen Page, the film's star.

In fact, the only thing that kept me from seeing Juno when it was in theaters (other than being poor) was I had read numerous reviews that compared Juno to Napoleon Dynamite (reviewed here!). I was not a fan of Napoleon Dynamite and, if anything, I went into that movie biased in favor of it. So, with Juno, I wanted to go into it and be happy and excited, but I had trepidation based on other reviews. For those who might share the same trepidations, the only things Napoleon Dynamite and Juno have in common are titles based on the lead character's name, limited budgets, similar layouts of the movie poster and the way young people seemed to have latched onto the films. The truth is, Juno is funny, witty and wonderful in all of the ways that Napoleon Dynamite failed to be.

And on DVD, Juno is even better.

Juno MacGuff is a sixteen year old who makes love with her boyfriend, Paulie Bleeker and finds herself pregnant. Intimidated by the prospect of getting an abortion, Juno decides to carry the child to term and she finds a couple who are looking to adopt a baby. As Juno and Paulie become estranged from one another, Juno finds herself visiting Mark and Vanessa Loring more often with updates on the baby that will be theirs. While Juno's parents are remarkably supportive and her best friend Leah sticks by her, Paulie drifts away from her.

But soon, Mark and Juno's friendship opens Mark up to the memories of the life he wanted and his trepidations about being a father begin to override his marital vows. As Juno's pregnancy progresses, she experiences the solitary life of being a teenage girl carrying a baby and works to figure out who she is.

Juno works on so very many levels that it seems best for me to start with what doesn't work. Juno quickly becomes a movie that is a subtle love story. It's all about discovering love after the sex and it is clever and smart in that regard. The problem with Juno is only in that it does not devote nearly enough time to the relationship between Juno and Paulie. In other words, while the movie works exceptionally well at defining Juno and exploring the nature and struggles of being an unwed teenage mother-to-be, it falls down when it comes to developing the relationship between Paulie and Juno. Their relationship is strained but what genuinely brings them back together is not clear or well-defined in the film.

Fortunately, we have DVD. In the deleted scenes, there are more scenes wherein Juno describes her feelings for Paulie and that works exceptionally well. Lacking that, I have to admit Juno is not a perfect movie. On DVD, it is close enough. As an avid cinephile who watches an obscene amount of television and movies for edification and review, it has been such a long, long time since I even had the pleasure of debating whether or not a movie was perfect or a near miss. Juno makes that a damn good debate.

What makes Juno work so well is that it is smart and unsimple. The plot is one that has not been overdone for theatrical films. Young woman gets pregnant might be a common soap opera conceit, but it is not one that has been translated to cinema with any frequency. So, it is fresh in that regard. But perhaps as important, the fact that the surrogate family and the pregnant girl develop a relationship is - to my knowledge - unique in films of the new millennium.

The realism with which the circumstances are presented is enhanced by the vivid and unique characters that populate the Minnesota town where Juno lives. Juno is a disaffected teenager who is brash and quite happy to do her own thing. She fearlessly calls up a clinic "to schedule a hasty abortion" and while it generates an easy laugh, it cleverly defines a girl who - despite being in transition - has a strong sense of self. Indeed, one of the hallmark concepts of Juno is that the title character admits to not knowing just what kind of person she actually is. What she is, though, largely, is actualized enough to not worry about others' perceptions of her and instead focus on figuring herself out. While that might seem dry and only worthy of small, independent films like Juno, it actually works in a very cinematic way.

Director Jason Reitman, who also directed the satirical and clever Thank You For Smoking (reviewed here!), presents Juno as a fearless character who parts the sea of students at her high school in scenes that work for more than just the movie trailer. Moreover, Reitman has a great eye for directing Diablo Cody's ideas from the most simple - like driving a toy car over her enlarged abdomen - to the fast and complex dialogue. Scenes like Juno getting an ultrasound with her stepmother and best friend are instantly memorable, as is a very simple scene wherein Juno's father Mac tells her his notions of love. Juno looks good and has a sense of movement to it that tells the story in a simple, straightforward and refreshingly romantic way.

The relationship between Vanessa and Mark is as well-defined as it can be given how few scenes take the camera off Juno. The thing is, it becomes instantly clear that Vanessa is the driving force in the young couple's desire to have a child. Mark - from his first scene - seems much more lukewarm about the concept. The reality of the strain having a child puts on a relationship is beautifully and entertainingly transposed for the viewers.

Moreover, the budding relationship between Juno and Mark keeps a sense of tension to the movie, which might otherwise seem slower than many would like. Cody's script infuses a sense of tension between the two characters that is vivid and is effortlessly brought out by Reitman and the cast.

On that subject, Juno is an easy winner for viewers. This is a movie that not only has an exceptional cast, but it knows how to use it very well. For example, Allison Janney, who established her dramatic presence on television's The West Wing (reviewed here!) with a sense of consistency appears in Juno is a role that is very different. She is allowed to be much more expressive and that range that she illustrates from her opening moments will please those who are fans. It's always refreshing to see actors and actresses we know do things in a way that they have not before.

Conversely, it becomes clear from his opening scenes that Jason Bateman was cast based on his work from Arrested Development (reviewed here!). Bateman does not so much wow us with anything he has not done before, as he impresses viewers once again with the notion that he is a master of the deadpan and portraying irony. Bateman is a cool, sly performer and his performance in Juno makes Mark memorable for a man who misses being part of the cool crowd. It is Bateman who defines that undertone to the character and it works beautifully, especially playing off Page's Juno.

The other noteworthy performance - outside the star - comes from Jennifer Garner. Garner reminds the viewer that she has range. Just as in Catch And Release (reviewed here!), Garner plays a woman who is struggling with complex emotions and Garner's ability to act, even without saying a word, defines her character beautifully. As Vanessa, there are scenes where Garner does such simple things as look into a wine glass while Mark is talking to her and it speaks volumes. Garner is impressive and Juno adds to her repertoire of memorable performances.

But it is, in fact, Ellen Page who is forced to carry much of Juno and Page is brilliant. As a young actress, there is often a push to be active and more sensual than anything else. Page devotes her time on screen to emoting with her eyes, delivering her lines with genuine wit and convincing the viewer that she is actually pregnant. She does all of these things magnificently. She makes the comedic aspects funny and she keeps the dramatic moments real. Despite my problem with the love story between Juno and Paulie being underdeveloped, the scenes where Page interacts with Michael Cera's Paulie are completely convincing. When Page delivers lines about her character's feelings she is absolutely real and she deserves every nomination and award she won for her performance as Juno.

On DVD, Juno appears packed with extras. The commentary track featuring Reitman and Cody is insightful, funny and worth listening to more than once. The deleted scenes are entertaining and the commentary that accompanies them to tell the reasons for their exclusion are engaging and worthwhile. There are enough bonuses on the DVD that make the viewer want to celebrate the movie and be satisfied with it as a work worth owning and rewatching over and over again.

Who could ask for more?

For once, it's easy to say I'm satisfied.

For other works with Ellen Page, please visit my reviews of:
Super
Inception
Whip It
An American Crime
X-Men III: The Last Stand
Hard Candy

9.5/10

For other film reviews, be sure to check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing of all the movies I have reviewed!

© 2012, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Reworked, But Still Pretty Much The Same, Strangers With Candy (The Movie) Disappoints!

The Good: Moments of humor, Guest stars
The Bad: Recast roles, Blase plot, No real character development, Repeats many jokes from the television show.
The Basics: At long last, I take in Strangers With Candy and find it to be an unenthusiastic retread of the television series.


It has been a weekend filled with me considering Strangers With Candy. The television show Strangers With Candy (reviewed here!) was a favorite of my ex-wife and when I was on the road with my wife last year, we caught a few minutes of the movie Strangers With Candy. Trying to cheer her up, I decided to get her out the film Strangers With Candy and we sat down to both watch it. She had forgotten about the film and I tried very hard to get enthusiastic about the movie when I was not wild about the show.

Ironically, she laughed less than I did and I actually enjoyed parts of it. Objectively, though, Strangers With Candy is in no way great. In fact, while I laughed quite a bit more at the movie than I expected to, I did not laugh all that much and if the movie was truly doing much different and/or better than the television series did, I would have laughed quite a bit more. While supposedly a prequel to the television series, Strangers With Candy is actually a reworking of the show that combines many of the best elements of the television series in order to make a movie that is barely above the ninety minute minimum threshold for feature films.

Jerri Blank spent thirty-two years on the streets and in prison before abruptly getting out. She returns to her father's house to discover a new stepmother she did not know about and her father in a coma. Jerri's half-brother, Derrick, like her stepmother, treats her terribly and when her father's doctor recommends she become something good to reinvigorate her dad, Jerri goes back to high school. Unfortunately for Jerri, Principal Blackman is under investigation by members of the school board. If he cannot illustrate anything extraordinary in his students, he will go to prison for misappropriating school funds.

The opportunity for Jerri and Blackman to become successful and exhibit a single extraordinary student comes with the regional science fair. Jerri, not scientifically inclined, is teamed up with both the smart Asian and outcast students, while Blackman hires a ringer teacher to get the good-looking students a project that will simply dazzle the judges. As the science fair approaches, Jerri struggles to fit in as an ex-con going to high school.

Strangers With Candy is an exceptionally simple premise and while the movie utilizes many of the most successful jokes from the television series, it frequently lacks the wit or successful ridiculous quality of the television series. In fact, it is rather early on in the movie - when Dr. Putney slides down the banister at the Blank home - that the truly original zany humor is exhausted. After that, most of the humor is simply characters - most notably Jerri's peers, her half-brother, stepmother and stepmother's meat man - insulting Jerri. This is a movie where "fag" and "fatty" and variations thereof are thrown around with alarming frequency.

Unfortunately, the result is not often humor. Instead, it's a series of cruel interpersonal interactions with no genuine character development and thus a rising action leading up to the science fair with no emotional investment for the viewer. As the science fair approaches, much of the best humor comes from Stephen Colbert's character, who loathes Jerri, is competing with the much more successful Roger Beekman and is breaking off his illicit homosexual affair with the art teacher, Geoffrey Jellineck. But even Colbert, in the role tailored to him, is unfortunately forced to reuse his jokes multiple times in the same movie, making them lose their punch and making it difficult to believe the film replays with any reasonable success.

What is astonishing about Strangers With Candy is the volume of truly amazing talent that comes out to participate in this troublingly weak parody of itself. The acting talents of Ian Holm, Allison Janney, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Matthew Broderick grace the screen for moments that are either incongruently funny given their celebrity or a waste of their exceptional abilities. Sarah Jessica Parker also appears in the film.

Oddly, in a film that claims to be a prequel, many of the roles are recast - most notably Jerri's father, Guy, and half-brother, Derrick. Moreover, given that Stew was introduced later in the series, his presence in the film robs this of being a true prequel.

As for the acting in Strangers With Candy, the big four - Amy Sedaris (Jerri), Gregory Holliman (Blackman), Paul Dinello (Jellineck) and Colbert (Noblet) - effortlessly fall into the roles they played for the thirty episodes of the series. None of them bring anything new to the characters or performances, so this is more of an homage to their own, earlier work than a truly new or different comedic experience. Their portrayals are simply a continuation of their troubling, melodramatic, effeminate and erratic (respectively) characters they became known for.

The result is a film that is actually less satisfying for those who liked the television series Strangers With Candy as it mashes some of the best jokes from the series into a movie that lacks the satire of the parody of after-school specials the series possessed. As for those approaching the movie before the series . . . the best I can say is that my wife, who loves outrageous comedies, has expressed no desire to see the series since we watched this.

For other works featuring Dan Hedaya, be sure to visit my reviews of:
Mulholland Drive
Alien Resurrection

2/10

For other movie reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.


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Oscar Pandering Season Comes Early With The Help, The First Serious Contender Of 2011!

The Good: Social message, The acting, Character development
The Bad: Slight pacing issues
The Basics: Emma Stone rocks out her final movie of the season, The Help, which tells the important story of exposing segregation in Mississippi.


Oscar Pandering Season is usually in December; it's the push when all the major studios and all the art studios release their contemplative pictures before the holidays and, coincidentally (?, no, it's by design!) the Oscar nominations process begins. They have, for the past several years, bet that the members of the Academy are too dim to recall any movies that came out a month before to nominate. Last year, with the Best Picture nominees being bumped up to ten, films like Inception (reviewed here!) had a chance at the big prize, though the first serious contender (for everyone but me, who was hoping Inception could pull it off) came out in October when The Social Network (reviewed here!) was released. This year, Oscar Pandering Season comes even earlier with it being hard to acknowledge that The Help has a serious chance at the Best Picture nomination and win.

What I found so interesting before going into see The Help tonight was the advertising. Unlike most movie previews of late, The Help did not try to cash in on the celebrity behind any of its stars. Instead, because it was based upon a wildly popular book (in the interest of full disclosure, I have not read the book, so this is a very pure review of the film), the advertising thrust for the movie was simply showing off who embodies which of the characters. Unfortunately, the advertising left me, a complete newbie to the phenomenon that is The Help with the idea that the film is populated by four character/archetypes: Skeeter the woman coming of age in the South who begins to challenge the mores and norms, Aibileen the long-suffering maid who is quiet and powerful, Minny the sassy black housekeeper and Hilly the stereotype of the Southern woman who embodies most of the problems with segregation.

Having now seen The Help it is easy to say that there is a serious contender for three of the big Oscars as well as a tough to whittle down Best Supporting Actress category (from just this one movie!). And the movie is near-perfect. My wife thought it was perfect, I think there were a few minor pacing issues that robbed it in the intangibles from reaching perfection (and, honestly, the more I think about Skeeter, the less I think there is actual character development going on there). I will say that I cannot recall the last time I watched a movie and found myself tearing up as much as tonight.

In the early 1960s in Jackson, Mississippi, Skeeter is stepping out into the workforce. She has landed a job at the newspaper writing the household column, but she is noticing that the status quo is upsetting her more and more. So, she pitches a New York publisher an idea; to write a book about the black maids in Jackson and get the inside story on how their lives are lived. Her first subject is Aibileen Clark, a maid she has known for years and now works for Jolene, one of Skeeter's bridge club friends.

Just as Aibileen is reticent to risk her job by telling Skeeter what she truly wants to know, Minny is uneasy about her employer, Hilly's, push to get separate bathrooms for the help so whites and blacks will not share toilets. When a rain storm makes it difficult for Minny to get to the bathroom Hilly has provided, she attempts to use one of the indoor bathrooms and Hilly fires her. As Aibileen warms up to Skeeter's project, Minny takes work at the only house in town where Hilly has not badmouthed her; the estate of Celia Foote, a social outcast who is trying to get pregnant. As the Civil Rights Movement takes violent turns with the deaths of Medgar Evers and JFK, Aibileen and Minny get up the courage to help Skeeter write her book and encourage others to stand up, too.

Thrown in there is a very brief subplot in which Skeeter has a go with one of Hilly's friends and it is very much a subplot. It works for the social message of the film, but not so much for Skeeter's character. She seems smart enough from the beginning to not truly need a man in her life and the point of the boyfriend seems mostly to nail home the sense of conflict going on after The Help is published. Moreover, Skeeter is comparatively liberal from the outset, so she doesn't so much develop as she simply learns new information.

That said, The Help is a powerful character study for Aibileen and Minny. Aibileen's arc takes her on a journey of self-discovery whereby she gets the courage to stand up and tell the truth about some of the horrors of the segregated lifestyle. Unfortunately, the climax for the character is ruined in the previews, but the film is so engaging that I enjoyed the build-up to her confrontation with Hilly. Minny's character arc is one whereby her fronts are pulled away until she develops actual self-worth through her chaotic employment situations. Sure, she is the sassy black archetype that the previews made her seem, but she works because the movie has so much more of her in terms of developing her character after the fall from Hilly's graces.

But the real story for The Help is going to be the amazing acting. Allison Janey gives a wonderful supporting performance that proves what Mr. Sunshine's viewers quickly learned; Janey has a remarkable knack for performing crazy. As Skeeter's mother Charlotte, Janey bears the secret to one of the film's recurring mysteries - what happened to Constantine, the maid who raised Skeeter? Janey plays the role as crazy enough to steal the attention in her scenes but not so overbearing as to distract from the main narrative flow. And she does it opposite her once-recurring-star from The West Wing Brian Kerwin!

Anna Camp, Jessica Chastain and Emma Stone all give wonderful supporting performances. And I lump Stone in on the supporting end because Skeeter is the facilitator, not so much the focus of the narrative. Besides, I'm pretty sick of writing how amazingly talented Stone is. She's wicked talented and while Janey slips out of her accent for a single line, Stone never does, giving a performance that continues her memorable ascent.

Bryce Dallas Howard is cold and vicious as Hilly. Hilly is the uber-bitch and Howard lands the role so effectively that there is truly nothing more that can be said. Her body language is wound so tight that it is amazing to think that she has ever played anyone more loose.

Octavia Spencer is more than just decent as Minny. Spencer is a tough one to write about; Minny is a pretty stereotypically sassy black woman and Spencer seems to dive right into that role. But when Minny has her epiphanies and is accepted by Celia's family in a loving way, Spencer lands the moment just right. She softens her eyes and there is a tenderness that she portrays that runs deep. She makes more out of the moment where her character does not speak than most of the moments when she is delivering the film's funniest lines.

But most of the film rests on the shoulders of Viola Davis. Davis is a master of the craft and at only 46, she has the task of convincing viewers she is quite a bit older. Her physical presence is impressive; she shakes slightly, she waddles a little bit, but mostly, she starts the film with a tired look in her eyes that embodies years of oppression. But when she interacts with her ward, she lights up and Aibileen comes alive as a truly viable and complicated character. And her journey works and captivates the audience for the full two hour seventeen minute runtime of the film.

The Help is emotionally complicated and it does not shy away from confronting the big horrors of segregation. It does, however, couch it to retain its loyal middle-aged female fanbase. So, for example, when a maid is arrested and becomes the subject of police brutality, we see the nightstick raised, but we are left to our imagination how terribly it falls. And complicated films tend to do well when the Oscars are considered. For a change, I feel like pushing for the obvious choice. So far, The Help is the best movie of 2011 and it deserves to be viewed, contemplated, and probably watched again.

For other works featuring Octavia Spencer, please check out my reviews of:
Peep World
The Soloist
Spider-Man

9.5/10

For other movie reviews, please be sure to visit my index page on the subject by clicking here!

© 2011 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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After A Long Rut, American Beauty Was A Worthy Winner Of The Best Picture Oscar!

The Good: Characters, Plot, Acting, Direction, Soundtrack, SCRIPT!
The Bad: None.
The Basics: American Beauty is a perfect film wherein one man's mid-life crisis spirals out of control. Visually impressive and populated by intriguing characters, perfectly acted, what more could you want from a film?


There was a long period before and after American Beauty won the Best Picture Oscar that I lived with disappointment. Until The Return Of The King won, there was a stretch of winners following American Beauty that both left me disappointed and poorer (yea, betting on the Oscars!). As well, following the disgrace of Gladiator winning and my annoyance that Shakespeare In Love (a fine film in its own right, but not at all superior to Magnolia or The Red Violin) won over my two favored films of that year, I felt quite pleased that when American Beauty won the best picture Oscar, I felt it deserved it. How rare is that?

American Beauty is the story of Lester Burnham, American Loser. He's a middle age man having pretty much the typical mid-life crisis. He and his real estate agent wife, Carolyn, have not made love in a long time and it's clear the love is long gone from their relationship. It's quite sad, truly. Lester is also feeling quite alienated from his daughter, Jane. Jane, for her part, has become the target of intrigue of the next door neighbor, Ricky Fitts. Ricky lives with his oppressive (and repressed) Colonel father. Lester attempts to relate to Jane, but instead finds himself attracted to her friend, Angela. And right now, it probably sounds like I'm describing a soap opera.

It's not.

It's not at all. Lester finds himself noticing Angela and as a result, he comes to understand just how much of himself he's lost. So, he extorts his boss at work for a generous severance package and starts work at a fast food restaurant so he can have fun with his life without real responsibility. Carolyn, reacting to Lester's sudden revival, takes a different turn. She begins an extramarital affair and target practice. Of all of them, Jane is probably the most pure, articulating her instantaneous desires, but understanding most of them well enough to know they are not necessarily healthy actions.

There are few films that so vividly capture the importance and vitality of individual characters and, in truth, the film is about the way one life may cause so many others to spiral out of control. Lester's mid life crisis has drastic consequences on Carolyn, Jane, and Ricky. The end is somewhat shocking and yet, understandable.

All of the characters have so much backstory they are bringing to the film and it comes out so well, with a genuine sense that each of the characters is vital and real. It's impressive. The thing is, none of them are particularly nice. And that's the magic of the film: it's an escape for us from the responsibilities of reality. Alan Ball writes a series of characters all of whom have character traits that most of us would find reprehensible in people in our own family and yet, here they appear perfectly accessible and almost normal. Lester is a loser and an extortionist, Jane expresses homicidal disrespect for her father, Carolyn is an adultress, Ricky is a drug dealer and Angela is a habitual liar.

But they work.

The story is woven together perfectly and directed wonderfully with a strong eye for color, movement and stylistic grace. Alan Ball's characters have depth, the story is narrated well with excellent pacing. I'm actually surprised the film is as long as it is; it feels much shorter than 121 minutes.

And the acting. Kevin Spacey deserved his Oscar for best actor, hands down. His portrayal of Lester Burnham is perfect. He plays Lester with a wonderful transformation of slouching and mumbling to upright and eyes perfectly visible. Lester's story is the understanding of appreciating that which is around us. Annette Bening is wonderfully over the top Carolyn. Thora Birch is mature and simplistically beautiful as Jane and Wes Bently was perfectly cast as Ricky. He has a face that makes a first impression as intense and creepy and yet he is able to soften it at critical moment. He's quite wonderful.

The film is a wonderful exploration of a man with a midlife crisis who wakes up to the idea that all around him there is a wonderful amount of beauty. And life. And we, watching it, we can appreciate that. We're not Lester.

As a winner of the Best Picture Oscar, this film is part of W.L.'s Best Picture Project, by clicking here!

For other works featuring Allison Janney, please check out my reviews of:
Lost – Season 6
Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip
The West Wing

10/10

For other film reviews, please be sure to visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2010, 2009, 2002 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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A Primarily Bad Movie: Primary Colors Fails

The Good: Adrian Lester's acting, Kathy Bates' character, Occasional line of dialogue
The Bad: John Travolta, Plot, Characters, Most everything
The Basics: A huge disappointment in the crappy impression of Bill Clinton that John Travolta does, Primary Colors left me wanting the two hours, twenty-four minutes of my life back!


When I was much much younger, I got an aquarium for my birthday and I had fish for many years. At that point in my life, I wanted to be a marine biologist and my parents liked that idea. When I was twelve, I went away to a sleepaway summer camp and my parents got rid of my fish because I, in their esteemed view, hadn't been taking adequate care of them. That was their right, I suppose. Earlier this year, I was visiting my father and I got my aquarium back from him. I've put together one model in my life and my idea with all of this was, I didn't want to have to dust the model because it has fragile parts. My thought was, I would get the aquarium, clean it up, get some glass for the top and enclose the model after making a little diorama base for it. It's a good idea, but my old aquarium still has scum from that time well over a decade and a half ago when it was put in the basement.

The point to this whole story? Since I returned the aquarium to my possession and my new house, I've not gotten around to cleaning it. Removing old calcium deposits from glass is an annoying, painstaking chore. It involves using a sharp razorblade as delicate tool to scrape off the deposits and streaks and grime.

What does this have to do with the film Primary Colors? After the first forty-five minutes of this awful, awful film, I looked around my room, saw the aquarium and got out a razorblade to clean it while watching the rest of the movie. You know what? The second half of the film was no better and my aquarium finally got cleaned; I have hopes the model will soon be enshrined.

So, what's so bad about Primary Colors? First, it has John Travolta. It has John Travolta upstaging everyone else who appears in the film whom I know to be competent in other works. A perfect example would be one of my favorites, Maura Tierney. She's always upstaged by Travolta, the camera always goes from her to him and it's sad.

Second, John Travolta's character and his acting. If you were an adult during the first Bush administration back in the late 1980s, early 1990s, you might recall Dana Carvey's wonderful impersonations of George Bush. If you were even halfway astute, you might have realized that soon after Carvey's impersonation became popularized, the VAST majority of Bush impersonations became impersonations of Carvey impersonating Bush rather than actually impersonating Bush. John Travolta's character is an impression of Bill Clinton. The problem is, while he has most of the mannerisms down, he has nowhere near the charisma. Both the character and the actor fail to portray anything nearly as genuine as Bill Clinton did. Worse still is the acting; during a crucial scene near the very end, Travolta loses his Clinton-esque accent and mannerisms and delivers a speech as John Travolta. The only thing worse than his Clinton style character impersonation is Travolta being himself.

Primary Colors is an example of a turn of the old phrase "What if we threw a party and nobody showed?"; What if you had a party filled with great guests and then tied and gagged them all? The film is filled with great actors and actresses: Maura Tierney, Kathy Bates, Billy Bob Thorton, Emma Thompson, and Adrian Lester (more on him later), but they are given horrid lines, usually bland characters (most of whom are caricatures of decent people from the Clinton administration), and stuck in a tired, predictable, plodding, depressingly simple plot.

The film, quite simply, is about Jack Stanton and his rise from Southern governor and political obscurity to Democratic presidential candidate. The film focuses quite a bit on the political machinations behind his campaign as well as his relationship with his wife. The real crux of the film is the character Henry, who is enlisted to run the grassroots campaign as the movie opens. The problem is, too often the story shifts away from him and the camera focuses on Jack.

Henry is the bright spot of the movie. The shining glimmer of hope in an otherwise murky film that feels like an un-funny Saturday Night Live sketch dragged out too long. So long it doesn't even know it's dead. Henry is played by Adrian Lester and his acting makes the character. His acting allows us to overlook the oversimplified idealism shattered story that is the essence of Henry's character arc. The closest hope the film has outside Lester's exceptional work interpreting an otherwise standard character, is in the character of Libby played by Kathy Bates. She's one of those people that was a hippie back in the day, filled with idealism and still has a glimmer in her eye about the political process and the goals of her politician. It's from her character that the film's few decent lines are delivered.

The problem is her character is also corrupted beyond believability. As one of the most important events in the film nears, she declares that Stanton's choice will be a test that will either make or break her faith in him. She declares this, he fails the test and she doesn't just leave. One might argue that the action she takes is more extreme and meaningful, but I would argue that the philosophy with which she speaks about the test before the verdict comes indicates her move would simply have been to throw her allegiance to another candidate. That is to say, she speaks of such principles and the focus and diction is on a desire to have an ideal that it's too hard to suspend the disbelief for what she ends up doing. It reads wrong. Whatever the "historical truth" beyond her character might have been, the specific lines she used indicate a different action that made sense for her character to take.

The simple truth about Primary Colors is is that it is a formulaic political film and it's populated by bad everything. It's poorly written, unimaginatively directed, filled with good actors delivering bland performances; it's not funny, it's not dramatic, it's not much of anything. The only plus side I can find in the film in the final analysis is that perhaps you'll get to that project you've been putting off while watching it. I know I'm happy my aquarium is ready to have its diorama built inside it.

For other political works, please check out my reviews of:
The West Wing
Charlie Wilson's War
The Hurt Locker

2.5/10

For other film reviews, please be sure to visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2010, 2001 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.




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As The Campaigns Heat Up, The Bartlet Administration Fades On The West Wing Season 7!

The Good: Excellent character work, Great plots, Nice series resolution, Some truly great acting
The Bad: Low on bonus features, "Missing" episode
The Basics: In the final boxed set of The West Wing DVDs, the series presents a long arc away from the White House as two candidates run for President.


For those who have not read many of my reviews, I have become quite the fan of The West Wing. So, when I start my review of The West Wing - The Complete Seventh Season with a little gripe, it must be taken with a grain of salt and the realization that I'm still sore the show is over. The West Wing - The Complete Seventh Season is, in fact, NOT the complete seventh season. Featuring twenty-two episodes on six discs, this appears to be a complete season, save to the true fan of The West Wing. As the scant bonus features in this boxed set both deal with the episode called "The Debate" and admit that the program was originally filmed live, for both East Coast and West Coast audiences. As a result, there are two versions of "The Debate" and in the liner notes for the boxed set, the one on the DVD is differentiated as "The Debate (West Coast)." I suppose this is nice for establishing which of the two is cannon, but it would have been real nice to have both available for viewers (I'm still scouring Disc 2 to see if there's an easter egg with the alternate version!). But I get ahead of myself.

It is, simply put, impossible to discuss The West Wing - The Complete Seventh Season without ruining the surprise of the final two episodes of The West Wing - The Complete Sixth Season (click here for that review!). This is because the final episodes in the sixth season involve the harrowing Democratic Caucus which struggles to pick the Democratic candidate for President. Following that resolution at the peak of the sixth season, the seventh season deals with the campaign trail, so if you're one who is quite vested in The West Wing but is just now getting it on DVD and wants to maintain the surprise, you must stop reading now.

The Santos-McGarry Campaign is heating up, dogging Arnold Vinick and putting Santos within striking distance of the Presidency. Opening with only a nine point deficit, the once-unbeatable Vinick begins to sweat what looked like an easy win for the Republicans. Josh adds a new spokesperson to the campaign, in the form of Lou, and the deficit begins to close quickly. While Santos and McGarry - accompanied by Josh, Anabeth, and eventually Donna - crisscross the nation campaigning, the White House begins to lose relevancy.

The remaining staff of the West Wing, however, do not go gently into the good night, as the shuttle leak investigation heats up and China and Russia begin a military takeover of Kazakhstan which Bartlet uses the U.S. military to intervene in. When the astronauts on the defective space station are rescued by repairs made from the secret military shuttle, the White House is descended upon by investigators. When their attentions turn to C.J., Toby confesses and is fired. It is soon thereafter that Bartlet takes a moral stand to intervene in Kazakhstan, leaving a mess for the next President of the United States of America.

The West Wing - The Complete Seventh Season does what the prior six seasons did best, with the sense of transition for the show. With both Santos and Vinick establishing themselves and their staffs as realistic elements that could reasonably take over the series. Indeed, one of the weakest elements to the boxed set is that final episodes - which realistically chronicle the transition for the winner of the presidential contest - are not followed up on by a continued series. Vinick's staff includes characters played by notables like Stephen Root and Patricia Richardson who seem poised to take over the West Wing. Similarly, Santos's staff comes to include characters portrayed by the likes of Janeane Garofalo. Who will win the presidential election is realistically drawn out as a nailbiter (in fact, in the two-part "Election" episodes, it's something of an Electoral College mystery how the victor actually won) and the suspense is very real.

But like all great television, most of the moves and plots are motivated by character actions, not by plot exposition. As a result, outside one fateful plot twist that is exploited by one of the campaigns, the series progresses as a result of the actions of the characters. And The West Wing has a memorable collection of characters. Here is how the seventh season finds the principles:

Abbey Bartlet - Announces that daughter Ellie is marrying the fruit fly guy and otherwise sits most of the season out,

Charlie - Working under C.J., he finds himself trying to move issues, but often neglected and missing the President,

Toby - Confesses to leaking the shuttle information to the press, which earns him a ticket to jail, the loss of his job and ostracization from all his friends. Eventually, Josh begins to get advice from him for the campaign over the phone as Toby prepares for prison,

Annabeth - Now working for Leo, she finds herself smitten with the Vice Presidential candidate and eager to improve his image,

Leo - Now a candidate for Vice President, he finds himself working to support a man he barely knows while maintaining his fragile health,

Kate Harper - Is given the unfortunate task of keeping the President briefed on the deteriorating situation in Kazakhstan while she develops a relationship with Will,

Will - Is transferred from the Vice President's office to work as the new White House Press Secretary following Toby's firing. There he connects with Kate and begins to think about the future,

Donna - After months on the outs with Josh for backing the Vice President's candidacy and almost keeping Santos from becoming the Democratic candidate, Santos hires her to work for the campaign, forcing her and Josh together again, though now with a very different power dynamic,

Josh - Finding running the Santos-McGarry Campaign to be stressful and harrowing, he finds himself in the crosshairs of the DNC for how he allocates the advertising budget. At risk of coming undone completely, Santos begins to question his ability to do the job,

C.J. - The sole remaining staffer of the West Wing left holding together the Bartlet Administration from the original team, she finds herself stressed out as the target of the leak investigation and later the tensions between China and Russia. She is given the opportunity to question her purpose and her future, which comes to a head when Danny returns,

Santos - Campaigning revitalizes the young candidate as he becomes more and more presidential,

Vinick - Campaigning takes its toll on the older man as he finds himself in a real race against Santos and must compromise his beliefs or risk the conservative base of the Republican party not coming out on election day,

and President Bartlet - As his relevancy in day-to-day operations fades, he finds himself distracted less by his M.S. and more by his sense of betrayal from Toby, his joy over Ellie's marriage and the shock that comes when one of his closest friends dies. Not one to sit by and let genocide occur, Bartlet feels compelled to stop China and Russia from going to war over Kazakhstan and - much to Vinick and Santos's dismay - commits U.S. troops to an intervention there without an exit strategy.

For the first time ever, it makes perfect sense that neither Richard Schiff (Toby) nor Martin Sheen (Bartlet) won awards for their roles for a season of The West Wing. Schiff, by this point, was long past being nominated and Sheen is not presented with enough material to be a real contender this season. Instead, as the plots focused with dramatic intensity on the campaigns of Arnold Vinick and Matthew Santos for the White House, actors Alan Alda and Jimmy Smits found themselves bearing much of the acting burden in the seventh season. Alan Alda won the Emmy for his performance in the seventh season and episodes like "Two Weeks Out" and "The Debate" illustrate perfectly how much he deserved it. This was not a sneaky lifetime achievement award; Alda's performances are truly wonderful.

And more than anything, The West Wing - The Complete Seventh Season illustrates perfectly what can be accomplished with an exceptional ensemble cast. More than any prior season of the series, there are no stars for the show. Instead, most of the characters and actors are given equal weight and work together to tell the stories the show seeks to explore. And this work is a masterpiece of electoral politics, telling stories that almost exclusively focus on the Presidency in twilight and the rise of the next wave of potential leaders. The result is something that looks and feels very different from The West Wing most viewers know and are comfortable with. Instead, this is a season about the campaign trail and the diminished powers of a president following the election of a successor.

The real frustration for the viewer is likely to be that after all of the emotional build-up, we do not get to actually see the presidency of . . .

. . . I'm not ruining it!

But what is more disappointing than that is that the DVD set is utterly lacking in commentary. Instead, there are two featurettes that focus on how "The Debate" was made and nothing else. Fans of the series are likely to be disappointed by that.

But as we enter election season in the United States, The West Wing - The Complete Seventh Season on DVD appears as a model for how fickle election cycles can be. In a year when the fields are (mostly) wide open, it's refreshing to watch something with high-minded people acting honorably in the hope of bettering the nation, even if it is a fictional incarnation of it. This set is ideal for fans of The West Wing who may have gotten tired of watching reruns of the earlier seasons for years and/or want a chance to catch up on reviewing the end of the series. But for real fans of the show, it's easier to recommend The West Wing - The Complete Series (click here for that review!), which is a better investment for those who love great drama.

For other television reviews, please check out my takes on:
Lost Season 6
Star Trek Season 3
V The First Season

9/10

For other television program reviews, please check out my index page!

© 2010, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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