Technically Magnicifent, Actually Miserable: Men, Women & Children Makes Us Want To Bail!

The Good: Amazing cast, Good direction
The Bad: Oppressive mood, Neglected character motivations
The Basics: Complicated and engaging, Men, Women & Children is enough to make any viewer absolutely miserable.


These days, it takes a lot to sell me on watching a movie by the preview. I've been busy and previews tend to either tell me not nearly enough or way too much (like, the entire film). When my wife was trying to choose a film for us to watch today, Men, Women & Children came up as an option and it suddenly reminded me that I had seen a preview for the film that made it look real good. It lived up to the previews - Men, Women & Children was awkward, insightful, and well-presented, though it was disturbing on a number of fronts.

Co-writer and director Jason Reitman does a decent job of capturing the way people are disconnected today by weaving together several thinly-related stories of people living in Austin, Texas in modern times. Reitman and Erin Cressida Wilson adapted the film from the book by the same name and it is worth noting that I've not read the book upon which it is based. This review is entirely of the film, not any sort of comparative analysis with the book.

Men, Women & Children is much like Magnolia (reviewed here!) or Cradle Will Rock (reviewed here!) in that it has a large cast of characters and explores relationships more than it tells a single, solid, cohesive story. Don Truby and his wife, Helen, have lost all passion for one another and both consider having affairs. Their son, Chris, has gotten so deep into online erotica that when he is faced with the potential of affection from one of his peers, he is utterly uninterested and unable to engage with her. Tim Mooney was a once-promising football player, but when his mother abandons him and his father, he quits the team and tries to find his own path. He becomes enamored with Brandy Beltmeyer, a girl whose mother is so incredibly overprotective of her that she oppressively monitors both her physical locations and her entire online presence.

Chris begins a relationship with Hannah Clint, a girl whose mother is actively trying to make her a celebrity (with a pretty skanky website). And there's Allison Doss, an anorexic who feels immense pressure to not eat and have sex. As Hannah's mother and Tim's father begin to explore a relationship, Don and Helen explore extramarital affairs and most of the teenagers become sexually active to varying degrees.

Men, Women & Children is a great example of a film that perfectly captures and characterizes the disconnect between people in the modern age of connective devices like smartphones and tablets. Virtually all of the characters are miserable and the performers do an excellent job of characterizing how fast societal and technological changes have come and families have not had the time or ability to respectfully adapt.

This is one of those films that is difficult to discuss in depth and I liked it for that. The performances are almost homogeneously raw. The brilliance of Jason Reitman as a director is that he captures some powerful and realistic performances out of both the young and seasoned castmembers and there is not a single moment of the film that felt like "first take theatre." The moments seem perfectly rendered and at times incredibly painful to watch, but the movie never feels like it was clumsily arrived at.

Arguably the best performances in Men, Women & Children come from Dean Norris, Jennifer Garner, and Adam Sandler. Sandler's best moment comes in a wordless moment late in the film that reminds viewers that the goofy former Saturday Night Live performer has evolved into a real dramatic powerhouse of an actor. Garner is cold and distant as Patricia and Dean Norris manages to make his role of Kent unlike his Breaking Bad part. Judy Greer delivers her usual wonderful performance as Donna Clint and is anything but goofy (as some of her talent often inspires her to be). Even the young cast is marvelous and well-utilized by Reitman.

But the film is far from perfect. Garner's Patricia is overbearing and controlling . . . for no stated reason. Similarly, Allison's storyline is unsatisfyingly unresolved and her relationship with her parents is underdeveloped. Men, Women & Children wastes the talents of J.K. Simmons in the role of Allison's father. Reitman managed to not be salacious with the teenagers who are having sex, but characters like Hannah are just troubling to watch.

Men, Women & Children did what great films ought to do; it inspired conversations in my household. My wife and I have been talking about it since we finished watching it (it unsettled both of us) and both of us remain delighted to be childfree by choice after watching the movie. But much of Men, Women & Children is plagued by characters who simply are not communicating and that is not a new problem at all, despite the filmmaker's attempts to blame that on the internet. The internet did not suddenly make people stop communicating or have affairs, though Men, Women & Children accurately explores how online porn has ruined the mystique and imagination people used to have for sex.

The other thing my wife and I realized was that despite the film's importance, Men, Women & Children is unlikely to reach the audience it needs to. Are overprotective parents going to watch Men, Women & Children and suddenly say, "Patricia is just crazy!"? No. They're likely to say, "if that mom was more lenient, their kid would end up like Allison." Men, Women & Children is like the interpersonal story analogous to Blood Diamond (reviewed here!). Is it going to make people feel terrible? Absolutely. Will it inspire conversations? Sure. Will it lead to profound change? Absolutely not.

Worth watching once, Men, Women & Children is difficult and unsettling in a way that makes one not want to ever watch it again.

For other works with Rosemarie DeWitt, please visit my reviews of:
The Odd Life Of Timothy Green
The Watch
Rachel Getting Married

7.5/10 (Not Recommended)

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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Child-free Jurassic World Might Not Have Sucked.

The Good: Moments of effect, Some of the performances
The Bad: Unlikable characters, Ridiculous and predictable plot, Thematically heavyhanded
The Basics: Jurassic World is another cheap re-do of Jurassic Park: this time with undertones of sexism and an overt "family values" message likely to disgust viewers more than the killer dinosaurs will!


Jurassic World is, as I write this, the third top-grossing film of all time and already has a sequel in development. I waited weeks to watch Jurassic World because I have not, traditionally, been a fan of the Jurassic Park film franchise. In fact, I only recently realized that I have only seen and reviewed the first Jurassic Park (reviewed here!) before taking in Jurassic World. While I was not super-impressed by Jurassic Park, I was actively bored and repulsed while watching Jurassic World.

Before watching Jurassic World, I had some inklings that it might not become my favorite film of all time. My wife asked me if I grade on a curve for "b" movies and I told her "no" - I review and rate Casablanca with the same criteria as Step-Brothers and Just Friends - and we had heard some rumblings that it had some distinctly anti-child-free elements to the film. What surprised me most about Jurassic World was how dramatically sexist the film was. And yes, for those who are deliberately child-free, there is something distinctly offensive about the death of Zara in the film (this is not a significant spoiler at all). Zara is the personal assistant to Claire, who is saddled with childcare duties that are nowhere near in her job description and as "punishment" for her failure to look out for the child protagonists of Jurassic World, she endures the longest on-screen human death sequence of any of the human characters (only one of the dinosaur characters is brutalized longer on-screen than Zara is!). For those of us who are deliberately child-free, the message from screenwriters Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, Colin Trevorrow (who also directed the film!) and Derek Connolly is pretty clear: everyone should want to have children in their life or die horribly for not protecting kids!

More than Twenty years after the planned Jurassic Park was scrapped, Isla Nublar is up and running as a successful theme park known as Jurassic World. Despite having more than twenty thousand visitors to Jurassic World a day, the park's director, Claire, is anxious about the bottomline and has had her team of scientists developing new human-engineered dinosaurs. Claire is meeting with the corporate director, Masrani, and sponsors who are funding the research for developing the new dinosaurs, when her sister sends her nephews - Gray and Zach - to the park. Unprepared for their visit, Claire fobs the kids off on her assistant, Zara, and tries to keep the park up and running.

But the new genetically-engineered dinosaur, Indominus Rex, decides now is the time to fake out its overseers and it pretends to escape its enclosure, which sets up for her actual escape. Claire is forced to rely upon the velociraptor trainer, Owen, to find her nephews who are lost in the park when Indominous Rex breaks out and the rides get shut down. While Owen and Claire are out trying to save the children, the military contractor Hoskins siezes the opportunity to fill the power vacuum by bringing the velociraptors into the field against the Indominus Rex. While trying to get the human visitors to safety, the dinosaurs are set against each other.

Every now and then, there is a movie that has a conflict that has such a stupidly complex story when the simple solution is the most sensible and Jurassic World is exactly that kind of movie. Jurassic World is populated by characters who learned absolutely nothing from Jurassic Park and live in a world where our technological achievements did not occur. In Jurassic Park, DNA from other animals was spliced with the dinosaur DNA to fill in, essentially, the introns, because computers of the day did not have the processing speed to analyze full DNA strands in a timely manner. That is not the case now. Computer speeds have become so very much faster that it would no longer take decades or even years to render a single dinosaur's DNA strand. In other words, all of the evolutionary benefits the Indominus Rex gets from its spliced DNA are entirely unnecessary.

But beyond that, Jurassic World suffers from being a victim to simple numbers. The Indominus Rex has $26,000,000 worth of research and development poured into it, which is why Claire is anxious to not kill it right away. But the potential lawsuits from deaths of visitors to Jurassic World with the utterly foreseeable event of a giant genetically-engineered dinosaur escaping and killing or maiming anyone is entirely forseeable to exceed $26,000,000. So, simple business insurance would have Jurassic World preparing for foreseeable disasters with a killswitch (i.e. it is more cost-effective to insure the research and development on a new dinosaur than it is to insure against the deaths of up to 20,000 visitors to Jurassic World). Jurassic World makes a piss-poor run-around the concept with "shock collars" and "trackers." The moment the threat of Indominus Rex was revealed in the film, I sat up and asked "Why didn't they install an explosive in the dinosaur so if it left the enclosure or they couldn't find it, they could just blow its head off?" The writers of Jurassic World are not so smart. They thought "we'll give it a tracker." But even there, why wouldn't they put a small load of Cesium in the tracker? Cesium explodes in oxygen and if the dinosaur was smart enough to remove the tracker, the process of removing it would kill the dinosaur. How is it that pretty much anyone watching Jurassic World will be smarter than the people who are supposed to exist in the world where engineering dinosaurs for fun and profit is real?!

So, back to the actual film Jurassic World. It's a lot of running around. It's a lot of computer-generated dinosaurs running around and attacking people. There are a lot of guns that shoot dinosaurs and don't seem to cut them down nearly as fast as one might expect. And there are a lot of surprisingly weak women. I love Judy Greer. Greer plays Karen in Jurassic World, the mother of Gray and Zach. In her professional workplace setting, Karen begins crying while on the phone with Claire for no particular reason other than the fact that Claire is not actually spending time with her children (nothing bad has yet happened to them to their knowledge). Zara is a nonentity who is not so vital that she cannot be fobbed off on babysitting duty (and fails horribly at that because she can't stay off her smartphone). Claire constantly defers to men in the film; she is the director of Jurassic World, though she gets a verbal spanking from Masrani for not understanding the philosophy behind the park (though this is not a new job for her!) and turns to Owen for in-field help at the first sign of trouble. The most competent female character in Jurassic World is Vivian, a control-room operator who is horrified when things go wrong at the park, but stands her ground against inappropriate inter-office contact when it comes time for her to evacuate.

The acting in Jurassic World is fine, save the preponderance of shots where child actors fail to get eyelines or emotional reactions right while working with virtual characters.

The dinosaurs are big, but hardly special in Jurassic World and there my analysis ends: Jurassic World is a long, painful, dull before is rushes into a derivative chase movie that viewers have already seen.

For other films currently in theaters, please check out my reviews of:
Dragon Blade
Fantastic 4
Jenny's Wedding
Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation
Ant-Man
Lila & Eve
Minions
No Way Jose
Terminator Genisys
Inside Out

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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The Overt Comedy Of The Marvel Cinematic Universe: Ant Man Is Enjoyable!

The Good: Funny, Good special effects, Decent performances, Moments of character
The Bad: Predictable plot and character arcs
The Basics: The Marvel Cinematic Universe highlights the sidekicks and
back bench characters in Ant Man, which is successful as a comedy film!


The strategy from the executives in charge of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has become fairly evident over the last few years of the franchise's Phase 2 films: Marvel/Disney releases (at least one) "safe" film (one with a well-established character or team) each year and one "risk" film. The "risk" film is one that is not "guaranteed" to blow away the box-office because it is either not a sequel or does not feature one of the a-list Marvel Comics superheroes. For example, last year, amid all of the sequels from Avengers-heroes, Marvel released Guardians Of The Galaxy (reviewed here!). This year, after the reliable-hit The Avengers Age Of Ultron (reviewed here!), Marvel's addition to Summer Blockbuster Season is Ant Man.

Ant Man represents the largest risk to the Marvel Cinematic Universe Marvel has taken since Iron Man (reviewed here!). Had Guardians Of The Galaxy not been a sleeper-hit, it could still have been written off by the studio as an attempt to offer backstory and insight into the villain of the forthcoming The Avengers: Infinity War and the consequences for the fans would not have been huge because virtually the entire story happened off-planet. But Ant Man is very much based on Earth and it is a risk, like Iron Man. Revisionists like to forget how much of a risk Iron Man was: Marvel tried to launch the Marvel Cinematic Universe five years prior with the (usually) reliable fan-favorite Incredible Hulk headlining a film that flopped, the protagonist of Iron Man was not even the highest-paid actor in the cast, and the comic book Iron Man was not even the most-popular (or even top five!) book Marvel Comics was producing at the time. Marvel took an interesting approach with Ant Man to mitigate the box office risk.

Perhaps the oddest choice - at least on the surface - that Marvel Studios made with Ant Man was to create a film that did not center around the original and widely popular incarnation of the title character. Instead of having Dr. Pym, the original Ant-Man, as the film's protagonist, Ant Man focuses on Pym handing the mantle of Ant-Man to Scott Lang. The jaded fan in me suspects that not having Pym as the film's lead is an excuse for lazy writing - Pym is one of the four smartest people in the Marvel Universe and having to write for a character who is that smart can be intimidating for writers and for the audience - and an attempt to make broader appeal for the film (with Tony Stark and Bruce Banner, adding Dr. Pym to the mix makes the Marvel Cinematic Universe very scientist-heavy, which appeals more to geeks - read "niche audience"). As a business move, passing the mantle in Ant Man makes sense: it allows Marvel to make an overt comedy film and it introduces a whole "secret history" element to the Marvel Cinematic Universe - there is a "lost era" in which Dr. Pym as Ant-Man would have been the dominant super-hero in the Marvel Universe!

Ant Man is the closest film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to overtly focus on the second-string characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (they haven't taken a risk like that outside Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.). Ant-Man is trained for a very specific mission and he only goes up against one adversary. As well, Ant-Man encounters only one Avenger . . . and it's The Falcon, who is presented almost as a parody of himself in the film. But, for all the hedging of bets, Ant Man works and it does exactly what it is supposed to: create a comedy film that still fits into the Marvel Cinematic Universe and add another hero who will have an integral part in saving the Earth from Thanos in The Avengers: Infinity War. And should Robert Downey Jr. decide to opt-out of any of the future Marvel Cinematic Universe films, it seems like Paul Rudd is being set up to fill the same niche for one-liners.

Opening in the late 1980s, Dr. Hank Pym confronts Peggy Carter, Howard Stark, and S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Mitchell Carson. Pym controls his revolutionary Pym Particle, which allows him to change size. Rather than let that technology fall into S.H.I.E.L.D.'s or Stark's hands, Pym resigns from their arrangement and becomes a recluse. Almost thirty years later, in the wake of Ultron's attack in Sokovia, Scott Lang is released from prison in San Francisco. Having served his sentence for burglary, for returning the ill-gotten gains of a company to its exploited customers, Lang is determined to fly right and get a legitimate job in order to get access to his daughter, Cassie. But, after getting fired by Baskin-Robbins, and with his friends pressuring him to do another heist, Lang succumbs and agrees to help break into a reclusive millionaire's safe. When he does, he becomes suspicious because the safe he cracks leads only to a strange suit.

Lang tries on the suit and discovers that it gives him the ability to shrink down to about 1/4" tall and the voice in his helmet tells him that the man from whom he stole the suit is impressed with him. Lang attempts to return the suit, but is arrested while leaving Dr. Pym's house. While in custody, Lang is visited by Pym, who is pretending to be his lawyer, and is broken out of jail by ants who bring him the shrinking suit. Escaping the police, Lang properly meets Dr. Pym, who explains why he is interested in Lang. Dr. Pym's corporation has been taken over by Darren Cross in Pym's absence and Cross has spent the intervening decades developing his equivalent to the Pym Particle. As Cross's work nears fruition, he is negotiating to sell his weaponized shrinking suit to the highest bidder. Seeing that Cross's perverted vision of his work is about to fundamentally change the world's landscape - Cross is selling an army of shrinking suits for defense, espionage, and the elimination of personal privacy - Pym begs Lang to break into his old laboratory and steal the prototype before Cross's work is finished. Trained by Pym's estranged daughter, Hope, Scott takes up the mantle of Ant-Man to save the world from Cross's twisted army.

In many ways, Ant-Man is a very typical super hero movie and an equally-obvious heist film. Were it not for Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. using a number of similar elements on almost a weekly basis, there would be a lot in Ant-Man that was new to fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. So, on the plot and character arcs, there is not a lot that is original.

That said, Scott Lang is an interesting protagonist and Michael Douglas brilliantly plays Pym as his straightman, even though he is forced to deliver an incredible amount of the film's exposition. The performances in Ant-Man are good, but play more to the performer's established wheelhouses, as opposed to expanding their range. Evangeline Lilly plays Hope Van Dyne in essentially the same way she played Kate on Lost (reviewed here!) and Paul Rudd plays Scott Lang with his usual knack for shtick. But, Rudd's performance is virtually interchangeable with his acting in Wanderlust (reviewed here!) and Anthony Mackie's appearance as The Falcon does not add anything truly substantive to the character's role (not Mackie's fault, it's just the part that was written for him!). Lilly and Rudd have virtually no on-screen chemistry, which makes their final scene seem like a cheap plot point, as opposed to something organic from the characters.

But more than the predictability, Ant-Man suffers from problems with the details. While there are fleeting moments where the special effects are erratic (it's tough to do the scale consistently properly and make miniaturized characters visible on screen!), the real issues come in the exposition and the tie-ins to the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe. Dr. Pym says that he cannot re-take the mantle of Ant-Man, which implies there are dire consequences from constantly using the Ant-Man suit. Lang doesn't question that adequately and Pym's lack of explanation makes him seem either dishonest or disingenuous. At the other end of the spectrum, the moment Cross's buyers are revealed to be HYDRA, the fact that Grant Ward does not appear on-screen feels like a real missed opportunity (especially considering where his character ended up at the end of the second season of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.).

Ant-Man is funny and all evidence points to the idea that it will hold up under multiple viewings better than some of the earlier works in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Pym is a great mentor and his dynamic with Hope is one of the most realistic relationships yet depicted in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Ultimately, Ant-Man is one of the better endeavors in Summer Blockbuster Season this year.

For other films currently in theaters, please check out my reviews of:
Dragon Blade
Fantastic 4
Jenny's Wedding
Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation
Lila & Eve
Minions
No Way Jose
Terminator Genisys
Inside Out
Jurassic World

7/10

For other elements of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, please check out my Marvel Cinematic Universe Review Index Page for a listing organized from best to worst!

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Saga Of Barney And Robin Is Encapsulated In How I Met Your Mother Season 5!

The Good: Moments of character, Moments of performance
The Bad: Plots and jokes are becoming ever-more familiar
The Basics: Despite what the title claims, Barney and Robin dominated the fifth season of How I Met Your Mother.


When a long-running television show has a winning formula, the writers and producers have a tough mandate to follow. They have to balance the balance the familiar and successful elements of a show against advancing a plot and the characters so that the show does not simply fall into a repetitive rut that bores the fan base. Friends (reviewed here!) did that fairly successfully by jerking viewers around with the on-again, off-again relationship between Ross and Rachel (only very seldom acknowledging how very infrequent the relationship was actually “on”) and Frasier (reviewed here!) very cleverly stretched out the demise of Niles’s marriage(s) to play out the long arc of his attraction to Daphne over many seasons. On How I Met Your Mother, Barney – played with consistent hilarity by Neil Patrick Harris – is one of the key winning elements and much of his appeal comes from the ridiculously uncomplicated way he pursues women for sex. But, to keep him from being disliked for the way he disposes of women whom he beds, the writers wrote a growing attraction for Barney. Barney has been somewhat hopelessly attracted to Robin by the time the fifth season begins. But at the climax of the fourth season (reviewed here!), Barney is outed as being in love with Robin and that forced the writers to actually figure out what direction the show would go in after that revelation.

Unlike Frasier, which committed to the Niles/Daphne relationship and brought viewers along for all the complexities that arose from their changing relationship (and characters!), How I Met Your Mother went with returning the show to the tried and true formula as soon as possible. As such, it is little surprise to those who pick up the fifth season, that after all the build-up and legwork done in Season Four of the show, How I Met Your Mother buries the Barney/Robin relationship remarkably quickly (eight episodes into the twenty-four episode season). In an act of particularly blatant cowardice on the part of the writers and producers, the effect of the relationship and its failure impacts Robin (who was oblivious to Barney’s feelings!) more than it does Barney. This allows Barney to return to form faster and the writers and producers of How I Met Your Mother highlight that with episodes like “The Playbook,” “Girls Vs. Suits,” and “Perfect Week.” Given how well Neil Patrick Harris performed the angst of Barney being so close to the woman he loved so much, the lack of genuine emotional ramifications to having and losing the love of his life rings false in the fifth season.

That said, the fifth season of How I Met Your Mother is watchable and generally enjoyable. Picking up where season four left off, Lily puts pressure on Barney and Robin to define their new relationship. When they agree to date for Lily’s sake, they soon find that is more complicated than they expected. Barney turns to Ted to teach him all about Robin’s likes and dislikes, which annoy Robin (especially when it turns out Ted is largely right about her!) and Marshall and Lily try to use Barney and Robin as their new “couples friend,” with disastrous results. It does not take long before Robin is annoyed by everything Barney says and does and Barney lets himself go to the point he is morbidly obese and the two call the relationship off.

In the wake of the break-up, Barney returns to his old womanizing ways and Robin struggles to deal with the emotional ramifications of losing Barney. As Robin builds an unexpected relationship with her failure of a co-anchor at Wake Up New York!, Don, Ted commits to being a college professor and even starts to have fun with his students. Throughout the season, Marshall and Lily begin to move closer to being comfortable with having children of their own and Ted has his least remarkable year of dating everyone but the mother of his (eventual) children.

The fifth season of How I Met Your Mother might well be the season that seems to have abandoned its premise more than any of the others. Ted Mosby, despite narrating the show, is much more of a supporting character in this season and no major steps are taken to get Ted closer to meeting the woman who will eventually mother his two children. Instead, the stronger plotlines in the fifth season involve Robin and Barney – together and then apart – and Marshall and Lily working on their own relationship. Ted Mosby becomes more of an observer in their lives and the only way this is at all refreshing for the viewers is that this is not a season that commits Ted to yet another obvious dead-end relationship with a woman who will not be “the mother.”

That is not to say that Ted Mosby does not have a few good moments in season five. The penultimate episode of the season, which has Ted dealing with a movie based upon his relationship with Stella in which the Ted Mosby character is the villain, is funny and painfully awkward to watch, but advances Ted’s character well. “The Wedding Bride” is presented as such a stupid romantic comedy (with an absolutely perfect stupid title!) that it gives Ted one of the few moments of real catharsis in the season and frees him up to truly move on in the next.

More than in the prior seasons, How I Met Your Mother Season Five falls into the familiar traps television shows get into when they have been on for a while: it relies upon guest stars to bring in viewers. In the fifth season of How I Met Your Mother, notable and prominent guest stars include Jennifer Lopez, who takes on Barney as a self-help relationship guru who refuses to put out, Amanda Peet, who provides temptation for Marshall, and Judy Greer, who is dating Ted when “The Wedding Bride” is released in theaters.

The fifth season of How I Met Your Mother is more familiar than funny, but it makes up for the middling humor by doing some decent character work on the important supporting characters in the narrative of Ted Mosby’s romantic life. Despite mortgaging the complicated relationship Barney and Robin could have had for a return to form, there is enough in How I Met Your Mother Season Five to recommend.

For other works with the amazing Amanda Peet, be sure to visit my reviews of:
Identity Thief
2012
The X-Files: I Want To Believe
Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip
A Lot Like Love
The Whole Ten Yards
Something’s Gotta Give
Changing Lanes
The Whole Nine Yards

6/10

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

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Where Is Grandma Dorothy To Say "27 Dresses Is Dumb?"

The Good: One great line, Industry average DVD bonus features.
The Bad: Not funny, Not clever, No great character moments, Not terribly well-acted
The Basics: A dismally predictable plot and no real characters sinks 27 Dresses, a romantic comedy with one good line and acting as good as the script will allow.

Every thousand reviews or so, I find occasion to trot out one of my fondest childhood memories, which involves my (step-)Grandma Dorothy. Dorothy is now in her late 90s, still spry and with-it and she has always been a vocal commentator on politics and culture. I almost wish my father had not divorced her daughter now just so I could hear what her opinions are on the fashion trends of lowriders and thong underwear. Sigh. Good times. Anyway, the Dorothy story goes like this: my step brother got to go with Grandma Dorothy out to the movies and he picked the film. They went and saw Ferris Bueller's Day Off and when they returned home, my stepbrother at the time was fuming and still blushing. He shut himself in his room in embarrassment and it didn't take me long to find out what happened: it seems about midway through the movie, Dorothy had very loudly declared, "This is a dumb movie!"

I only wish Dorothy were still in my life right now because sometimes such a simple declaration works coming from an elderly woman that does not work coming from a reviewer. But after seeing 27 Dresses, I am left with little else to say other than, "Dang, this was a dumb movie!"

Jane is absolutely in love with weddings, from the time she was a young child to now (twenty years later). She now works as a personal assistant to George, whom she is in love with. It seems at the same time she has a de facto career as a wedding planner and her favorite writer in the New York City newspapers is the one who writes about weddings, Malcolm. Malcolm, as it turns out, is actually Kevin, who meets Jane one night when she is bouncing between two different weddings and he ends up with her planner and eventually gets it back to her.

When Jane's sister, Tess comes to town, Tess and George hit it off. Tess learns from Jane what George is actually looking for and lies to him to appear to be exactly what he wants. As Jane is heartbroken about losing the love of her life to her sister, Kevin begins to draw her attention and encourage her to stand up for what she truly wants. The task seems impossible when George proposes to Tess and Jane is asked to plan their wedding.

Here's the thing, 27 Dresses is so formulaic and stupid that the moment James Marsden appeared on screen and smiled, the viewer who has seen pretty much any romantic comedy know that he is the one Jane will end up with. Marsden plays Kevin and that cocksure, badboy thing he has working as Kevin makes him the obvious choice for Jane over the whitebread guy she's been pining for for years. Not for a moment did I believe that Jane and George would end up together.

This, of course, is the death knell of this type of romantic comedy, which essentially has one of three possible outcomes: Woman ends up with man she originally loves, woman ends up with new, more intriguing guy, or woman learns a valuable lesson about herself and arrives at a point where she is strong enough to not rely on love for satisfaction and she ends up alone but content with that. If this were a romantic drama, there would be the added possibility of tragedy in the last act, forever separating her from whomever she most loved, but the big, ridiculous dance montages at the beginning of 27 Dresses as Jane bounces between weddings assures the viewer that this is a comedy and they need not worry about leaving so unfulfilled.

27 Dresses is so obvious and hackneyed that it is astonishing Aline Brosh McKenna put her name to the screenplay as it indicates either she is a middle or high school student who has made an incredible achievement or an adult who has a stifling inability to write anything at all original. To be fair to McKenna, there is one wonderful line in 27 Dresses, when Jane compares information she has just been given to learning that one's favorite love song was written about a sandwich. The rest of the movie, utter crap in the script department. McKenna, who also did the screenplay to The Devil Wears Prada (reviewed here!) continues her trend of insisting a woman get liquored up before she has any form of sex. At least in 27 Dresses, it's consensual, but one suspects that McKenna has had one too many nights waking up next to strangers with a hangover by the way she introduces her sex scenes.

Similarly, there is nothing stellar about the direction. Anne Fletcher does a fairly straightforward bit of direction for a romantic comedy and there is nothing surprising or visually interesting in her style. As mandated by the Big Playbook Of Predictable Romantic Comedies, there is an overbearing soundtrack loaded with trendy pop songs. As well, there is a dance montage, a karaoke scene and the inevitable multiple outfit photoshoot that allows the title to be incorporated into the movie.

This would not be so bad were it not for every cliche or conceit being used in the process. Kevin is shown as a loner with only a work associate. He works under a stern, efficient woman. Jane, on the other hand, pines for her male boss, has a pretty generic close friend who is everything she is not (promiscuous, interested in fun, etc.). Jane has close ties to family and is walked all over by her sister who as fate (and obvious writing) would have it, has always been secretly jealous of Jane's stability and success instead of having to rely on her looks.

27 Dresses is a dumb movie and all of the characters are types instead of actual characters with any sense of realism or pulse to them. None of the characters are memorable in a way that the day after seeing the movie do I have so much as a memory of their names.

Katherine Heigl continues her top-bill run in romantic comedies as an attempt to capitalize on her fame from Grey's Anatomy. Like her performance in Knocked Up, her comic abilities are presented mostly as an ability to stare blankly and slack-jawed at the screen in reaction to other people's lines. To her credit, there is not much that can be done with the part of Jane and at least she looks like she is having fun during the stupid montage sequences.

Sadly, the acting star goes once more to James Marsden. Marsden surprised me with his ability to play a character who was not at all white bread in Sex Drive (reviewed here!). There, Marsden is mean and convincingly bastardly. In 27 Dresses, he may be playing the archetypal bad boy, but he's doing it well enough to be convincing. Sure, it's mostly his smile that sells it, but he's not the boring guy who appeared in the X-Men movies or on Ally McBeal. Gold star for Marsden.

Still, it's not enough to come close to recommending this DVD. The DVD has the usual commentary and featurettes, but I'll be honest, I was so bored and uninterested in the movie I couldn't bring myself to watch any of the extras. It's not worth watching and the bonus features were not going to make it worth buying suddenly.

For other works with Krysten Ritter, be sure to visit my reviews of:
She’s Out Of My League
Confessions Of A Shopaholic
Gilmore Girls - Season 7
Veronica Mars - Season 2
Someone Like You

3/10

For other movie reviews, be sure to visit the Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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Cameron Crowe Can't Cut A Break From My Critiques With Elizabethtown

The Good: One or two random lines, Overall concept
The Bad: PACING, Execution of concept, acting, Characters
The Basics: Despite some moments of interesting concept, Elizabethtown is a wreck that oscillates between painfully obvious and dreadfully drawn out.


You know how when you hear a new word, you start to hear it everywhere? There's no word in English for that outside "coincidence" and that does not adequately describe the phenomenon. It's one of those quirks of random existence. Recently, I reviewed one of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' more obscure albums (Let Me Up (I've Had Enough)) and I found the superlative track to be a song I had not heard before called "It'll All Work Out." Wouldn't you know that when I sat down to watch the movie Elizabethtown the running theme throughout it was that song! It was the sole pleasant surprise of the movie.

Drew Baylor, having failed spectacularly with costing a gigantic shoe company almost a billion dollars with a product that was recalled, is about to kill himself when he receives a call from his sister. His father has died in Kentucky and Drew is charged with going to Elizabethtown, Kentucky to deal with the family there and get the body put in a blue suit and cremated. What follows is a chance meeting with a lonely airline attendant and Drew being dragged through his extended family which is pretty much a nightmarish stereotype of family reunions.

Much of the movie follows the quasi-relationship between Drew and Claire, the airline attendant. Claire is outgoing enough to get Drew's attention and while he is in Elizabethtown, the two begin a relationship over their cell phones. And the movie continues to dance around whether they are in a relationship or not and what the nature of that relationship is.

Elizabethtown is a painful movie to watch in that it is essentially decent at doing one thing; creating a realistic circumstance. The idea behind Elizabethtown, returning to a father's home town to bury him and thus learn about him and yourself, is not a bad one. The idea of a romance in such a circumstance is not a bad idea, either. The problem here is that Elizabethtown is too real on the former, too formulaic on the latter. When Elizabethtown drops Drew into the South two things happen. The first is there are long stretches where nothing happens. This is neither funny nor entertaining. This is the reason there aren't movies wherein a character balances their checkbook in real-time, a concept no one has broken to writer/director Cameron Crowe. So there are long stretches of Elizabethtown that plod along like watching mold grow on cheese.

The second problem is exacerbated by the first. Crowe wisely tries to pack a lot of information into the formation of the relationship between Drew and Claire. Their telephone conversation that is encapsulated over the course of a minute or two representing one very long night has a variety of topics and the exchanges "read" as very real. Unfortunately, it requires an insane amount of suspension of disbelief for the viewer to then believe - especially as Drew is drinking a lot over that night - that the tragic circumstance of his losing the shoe manufacturer a billion dollars does not come up before the almost end of the movie. Equally important is that the emphasis placed on trying to define their relationship pretty much telegraphs the direction the movie will go in.

Outside the poor execution of a generally decent idea, the movie is a terrible use of the lead actors. Orlando Bloom plays Drew and from the first moments he appeared on screen through the end of the movie, my thought was not that Orlando Bloom was Drew or even Orlando Bloom was playing Drew, but rather Orlando Bloom was playing Neil Patrick Harris as Drew. Bloom's mannerisms are easily identifiable as Neil Patrick Harris's and it's disturbing to watch, much the way Jim Carrey's portrayal of The Riddler in Batman Forever (reviewed here!) harkened to the style of Matthew Frewer. Bloom brings nothing to the role and instead, his performance falls flat.

Bloom might have chemistry with the Claire lead, Kirsten Dunst, but I didn't see it. Dunst is playing a character that is just too annoying to watch. And she plays Claire with a sickly sweet smile on her face throughout, which just makes the part even more difficult to stomach. I continued watching Elizabethtown and wondering, "What is her alleged talent?" I haven't seen it yet, to my memory.

To be fair, Claire is not the strongest character. Quirky for the sake of quirky doesn't work for me any more than funny mustaches for the purpose of funny mustaches. But even more problematic than Claire is Drew. The audience is meant to believe Drew is so distraught over his professional situation that he is willing to kill himself. If one buys that, which is hard given how lightly he seems to be taking it, it is almost impossible to believe that the sudden death of his father on that same day would not throw him over the edge, as opposed to pull him back from it. Because the movie so early mortgages the real jeopardy of the protagonist, the audience feels immediately cheated.

My final comment on Elizabethtown centers on the use of Susan Sarandon, who plays Drew's mother in a role I would classify more as a cameo than a supporting role. Sarandon is used to deliver some of the most obvious, ridiculous and insultingly stupid lines of the movie and my heart goes out to her for this. I'm assuming she took the role because Cameron Crowe had some sort of dirt on her. Or had one of her children locked in a basement. Otherwise, I can't fathom why she would subject herself or her career to this movie.

And I can think of no truly decent reason for you to subject yourself to it, either.

For other works with Judy Greer, be sure to visit my reviews of:
The Descendants
Love And Other Drugs
Peep World
Marmaduke
The Big Bang Theory - Season 3
Love Happens
American Dreamz
Arrested Development
Adaptation.
The Wedding Planner
What Women Want
Three Kings
Jawbreaker

3/10

For other film reviews, be sure to check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Understudy Parent Sells The Viewer Completely On The Descendants!

The Good: Funny, Interesting characters, Wonderful performances, Not oppressive in the mood
The Bad: Does not do much with the idea once it is established.
The Basics: The Descendants is funny and difficult without being miserable to watch, making for a solid character drama.


Usually, right after the Oscars, I have movies that competed for the Best Picture Oscar that I want to see, regardless of the fact that they lost for the big prize. It is also a time of year that it is especially difficult for me to get my wife to watch movies with me because she usually rails about how I am (largely) watching movies for the purpose of reviewing. I think, however, that I must have asked her out to see The Descendants enough times while it was still in theaters to convince her that I actually wanted to see the movie. So, last night, we sat together and took in the film The Descendants, which did not win the Best Picture, but I already add to my list of movies that should have beaten The Artist for the grand prize (I understand, I am going into The Artist biased against it!). And we enjoyed The Descendants.

The Descendants is a thematically gloomy movie that manages to deal with difficult issues that surround death without ever being oppressive. My wife, who has never quite forgiven me for having her watch Magnolia (reviewed here!) with her on our first weekend together, enjoyed the fact that while The Descendants wrestled with many of the same issues, it did not make her want to take her own life when the film was over. I like any movie that is smart and does not make my wife contemplate suicide just by watching it! In all seriousness, though, The Descendants deserves most of the accolades heaped upon it and is a solidly good movie. The Descendants is based upon a novel that I have not read, so (as always) this is a very pure review only of the cinematic rendition of The Descendants.

Matt King is a Hawaiian lawyer whose family owns the last virgin land on the islands, land that is in a trust that will be legally dissolved within seven years. Matt is the trustee of that land and he is working with the rest of the family to determine which bid for the land the family will accept, making everyone much, much richer in the process. But Matt’s focus is divided when his wife is in a boating accident and falls into a coma. As Matt struggles to pay attention to his ten year-old daughter, Scottie, who has begun trying to express her feelings regarding her comatose mother, he discovers how ill-suited he is to being a single parent. Matt and Scottie hop a plane to one of the other islands to recover Alex, Matt’s seventeen year-old daughter. Alex, who is in a boarding school for youth recovering from drug addition and behavioral problems, hardly comes willingly and when Matt reveals to her that Elizabeth’s living will is in effect, she reaches out to Sid.

Despite Sid tagging along, Alex’s revelation to Matt that Elizabeth was having an affair on him – which is quickly confirmed by some neighbor/friends of the family – sets Matt on a quest to find the man who his wife was in love with. After meeting with Elizabeth’s parents, Matt and the other three head to the island with the King family land to track down Brian Speer, a real estate agent who was the man Elizabeth was having the affair with.

The Descendants is a weird emotional journey where, once the pieces are on the board (in this case, the impending death, the affair, the children and the identity of the man with whom Elizabeth had the affair), the film has to figure out what to do with them all. The Descendants has a decent set-up and the truth is, it did not go in the most predictable or disappointing direction it could have. Instead, The Descendants works very hard to illustrate a profound and adult emotional journey and it succeeds as much as a movie can. One of the few serious detractions to The Descendants as a movie – which contains several memorable lines and a few very funny moments in between the hard-hitting emotional scenes – is that much of the focus is on an intangible emotional journey. As a result, portions of The Descendants come across as slow and moody as opposed to anything that uses the visual medium well.

This is not to say that The Descendants is a bad movie. It is not. But co-writer and director Alexander Payne has to let the camera linger on George Clooney’s Matt and the Hawaiian scenery several times throughout the film simply to let the movie breathe and give moments their proper weight. Payne succeeds, though and watching The Descendants is like watching someone else’s real life. The problematic aspect of that, of course, is that not every moment of real life is engaging and dramatic or even noteworthy. Especially when internal emotional processing is what one’s life has become, it is hardly cinematic and there are several moments in The Descendants where Matt is processing, making a decision (punch Sid or not, kick him out of the car or not, what to say to Brian Speer, etc.) where it is clear Payne is capturing the character mulling over his next move.

The Descendants is a character-driven piece that works, as much as it can, because the characters are generally interesting. Matt is appropriately shocked to learn his wife was having an affair and he balances his anger with his desire to give his family a chance to remember Elizabeth in a positive light. But Matt does not truly develop or change in the course of the film. Instead, he meanders through the land decision and once he learns of the affair, he becomes fixated on meeting Brian Speer, without a real plan about what he intends to say or do when he does. In fact, once he declares that he wants to meet Brian Speer to give him the opportunity to say goodbye to Elizabeth, he pretty much does just that (and not much more).

In some ways, The Descendants is really about Alexandra’s journey through her anger at both Elizabeth and her father. Rebellious and willful, Alex had a falling out with Elizabeth before the film began, over her knowledge of the affair. Over the course of The Descendants, Alex overcomes her raw anger to help empower Matt to live up to his desire to face Brian Speer. More than that, she comes to recognize that Matt is actually trying to parent now and she comes to respond to that effort in a way the girl at the beginning of the movie would not have. Even Sid is given a scene where he is able to illustrate he is more than just a dumb sidekick, so The Descendants takes a lot of time to develop memorable characters, both primary and peripheral.

On the acting front, The Descendants is very good. While early in the film, acting from child actors, like Amara Miller (Scottie) is shaky and Nick Krause as Sid seemed awfully derivative of Patrick Fugit’s performance in Saved! (reviewed here!), The Descendants has all of the emotional gravitas one expects from a film starring George Clooney. Clooney expertly slouches his way through the role of Matt King in order to more realistically portray a regular guy (albeit with a lot of money) who feels the weight of the world bearing down upon him. Judy Greer is her usual wonderful self as Julie Speer, but her performance is easily trumped by Matthew Lillard, who plays her character’s husband, Lillard deftly proves that he can play a dramatic part without even a hint of irony, humor or stupidity and he is the pleasant surprise on the acting front of The Descendants.

Much of the performance front for The Descendants is dominated by Shailene Woodley. The Descendants is the first work I have seen Woodley in, but she seems to fill the same essential niche as Emma Roberts. Woodley plays the role of Alex with an evolution from bratty to mature that works surprisingly well. She develops the character from one who is outwardly emotional to one who can show some restraint in the film’s later scenes. Even as Alex bites her tongue, Woodley infuses a sense that the character still has something to say, in the set of her jaw, the way her shoulders tighten, the determination in her gaze. Woodley is the one to watch in The Descendants.

Now on DVD, The Descendants comes with trailers, a commentary track (which we did not have a chance to listen to before we had to return the disc) and featurettes on the making of the film. The Descendants is a solid movie, even if it is not always the most interesting one or does not have much of a statement to make beyond “this is life.”

For other films with significant emotional journeys for the protagonist, be sure to check out my reviews of:
American Beauty
The Road Home
The Royal Tenenbaums

7/10

For other film reviews, please be sure to check out my Movie Review Index Page for other films and television shows I have reviewed!

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Royal Tenenbaums: The Next Generation - Peep World May Be Derivative, But It Is Solidly Funny And Interesting!

The Good: Funny, Wonderful performances, Interesting characters, Decent use of tone
The Bad: Derivative plot and performances, Light on DVD bonus features.
The Basics: Despite some performances that are strikingly familiar for fans of Michael C. Hall and Ron Rifkin, Peep World delivers a solid film with a family in decline.


About a week ago, I subjected my wife to The Other Woman (reviewed here!) without actually knowing what it was all about or whether or not it was truly worth getting out. Before the movie, virtually every other film IFC released was plugged including one that caught my eye. That movie was Peep World and I was very excited to get it in so quickly. I got out one of my favorite films, The Royal Tenenbaums (reviewed here!), the same day. I watched The Royal Tenenbaums before putting Peep World back up for a day. The reason for this was surprisingly simple; the trailer for Peep World made the film look a lot like The Royal Tenenbaums and I decided that I did not want my perceptions of Peep World to simply be based on how it compared to The Royal Tenenbaums. That and I was worried that after seeing The Royal Tenenbaums again, Peep World might just be a letdown.

Fortunately, Peep World delivered. With an impressive cast, Peep World is the story of a family falling down and how they struggle with their varied situations. There is an awkward, difficult quality to Peep World, but it does not mirror the level of discomfort that other, recent family tragedy films like Rachel Getting Married (reviewed here!) have had. Instead, Peep World is thoroughly entertaining, with a dark sense of humor and enough complexity in the various characters to keep even seasoned moviegoers guessing.

Following the publication of his best-selling book, Peep World, Nathan Meyerwitz is on the outs with his family, notably his three siblings who were portrayed poorly in his "novel." On the day the Meyerwitz family is coming together for Henry's seventieth birthday party, the family members find themselves on the verge of collapse. The eldest son, Jack, loses another architectural bid which effectively puts his company out of business. Loathed by his pregnant wife, he flees to the local strip club where Laura finds him. Cheri, Henry's only daughter, is struggling with suing Nathan for what he wrote in the book and tries to enlist other family members, like her mother, to join the lawsuit. Troubled by the filming of the movie version of Peep World outside her apartment, she tries to escape with thoughts of vengeance. Nathan himself is not having a great day as, prior to a reading, he gets an injection for his premature ejaculation problem and discovers himself in a whole new world of hurt as a result.

Arguably, no one in the family is having a worse day than Joel, the middle son. Dirt poor, his car breaks down on the way to court and the loan sharks he is deeply in debt to come looking for him to pay. As he works to process his girlfriend's divorce, he struggles with how Peep World utterly demoralized him and as the Meyerwitz family comes together, Joel fears for his very life.

Peep World culminates in one of the most deliciously difficult family gathering scenes ever to be put on the screen, but the movie soars because the pacing and humor in it - awkward as it frequently is - are audacious and clever. Moreover, it is in that scene that the characters one wants to root for are given their chances to articulate their grievances and it is entertaining, but not in a trashy - a la Desperate Housewives - type way. Instead, moments where Jack and Henry square off and Cheri and Nathan do more than just shout at one another read as very real and very true in a way that is easy to connect to.

Given the chance, Peep World more often than not takes a high road in its character development and that makes the movie feel very adult, even when characters like Cheri talk like spoiled brats who sound much younger than they are. But the truth is, even Cheri has a legitimate grievance and despite how she expresses it, she comes across as genuinely wounded in a realistic way. The entertainment value of Peep World is in how the characters stand back up and address their wounds. Fortunately, the film is not just about characters who are wounded, it is about a group of people who want to overcome their bad situations and go on to the better things they hoped for or were trained for.

Throughout this, there are spectacular performances. Kate Mara, Judy Greer, Stephen Tobolowsky, Taraji P. Henson, and (very late in the film) Alicia Witt give startlingly good supporting performances. Mara might trade on her cute smile and likable demeanor, but there are moments she delivers her lines with an underlying seriousness that makes the viewer believe she could credibly be Nathan's publicist for his book tour. Henson, more than in any other performance in recent memory, is vibrant as her Mary tries to boost Joel's self-esteem through an earnest sense of love. She has a firmness to her deliveries that infuses her character with a real force of will. Greer, one of my favorites, takes the bit role of Laura and makes it substantive when she must confront Jack on his passtimes outside work.

As much as one might expect Sarah Silverman to distract as Cheri, but she keeps the performance muted. Her body language is much more reserved than when she is simply playing herself and that was a relief for those of us dubious of her talents for anything outside stand up comedy. Ben Schwartz plays Nathan with a youthful exuberance, though most of his actual characterization comes from things Lewis Black, as the narrator, says about him.

One might expect, then, that Michael C. Hall and Ron Rifkin would blow Peep World out of the water with their performances, but that is not the case. Michael C. Hall's Jack is far too close to his performance of David in Six Feet Under (reviewed here!). When he starts yelling about not wanting to be a certain type son, it is impossible for those who have seen his breakout role to not hear that character instead of this one. Similarly, Ron Rifkin's Henry is Rifkin channeling Saul Holden from Brothers And Sisters with colder moments where he recalls viewers to his character from Alias.

It is Rainn Wilson who gives - and I am sure there have been many roles people have said this about for him with - the performance of a lifetime as Joel. Joel is especially damaged and Wilson brings the viewer into his plight with a universal problem - the flat tire - and then a more extreme variation. But throughout it, he is essentially human and Wilson's performance is subtly funny, uncomfortable to watch and emotionally tormented in a way that makes the viewer instantly empathize with both his plight and his inner strength. Wilson makes Joel from a potentially pathetic character on the page to a likable, must root-for character on the screen.

On DVD, Peep World comes with pathetically few bonus features, as it only has the trailer and a handful of deleted or extended scenes. But Peep World does not need much more to make it worth the buy and it is a surprisingly complex and entertaining movie that anyone who likes a good, dark comedy or drama with some truly quirky characters will enjoy.

For other stories of awkward families and relationships, please be sure to visit my reviews of:
Cyrus
Magnolia
Step Brothers

7/10

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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A Phenomenal Satire Exploding With Relevance: American Dreamz Delivers!

The Good: Excellent acting, FUNNY, Good characters, Universal jibes
The Bad: Pacing near the end, Slightly dated
The Basics: In a terrifically funny parody of our times, American Dreamz takes shots at the United States of America's president, obsession with reality television and overall attitude.


[Note: This review was originally written during the Bush Administration and I decided to keep the original opening because, like the film, captured a very clear sense of time and place. Enjoy! - W.L. Swarts]

American Dreamz, a comedy about politics and reality television written by Paul Weitz and my reaction afterwards was simple, "Why hadn't I heard more about this movie when it was out?!"

American Dreamz follows two parallel storylines as the President of the United States, a Bush-like buffoon named Stanton wins re-election, reads a newspaper and is shocked to discover the world is much bigger than the United States while at the same time, Martin Tweed, executive producer and judge of the wildly popular American Idol-type show American Dreamz hunts for talent to make the new season of the show even more popular than its previous ones. He finds his talent in the form of Sally Kendoo, a young woman who thirsts for stardom and has real talent. Also on the show is Omer Obeidi, an Arab who pretty much flunked out of terrorist school and who is activated for martyrdom only when he becomes a contestant on American Dreamz and the President is announced as a guest judge for the final episode.

What's worst about this movie is so closely tied to what is best about it that it's almost impossible to start my review with the low-point and make it clear I am discussing the film's weakness. American Dreamz is the satire of our time, right now, 2004-2006. This is it. Paul Weitz brilliantly pokes fun at every institution and popular culture/political individual of this time and place in the world. And he does it universally, so it's not just a poke at the American president, the American Idol contestants, the soldiers, the suicide bombers, the television executives, it's ALL of them. And it's brilliant and funny. And it will be forgotten as one of the best movies of the decade or such because in two years, it will be so dated as to be obsolete. Dust-covered copies of this DVD will be pulled off the shelf in sixty years and shown to grandchildren who will shake their heads and wonder why people would think it was funny to have an idiot for a president and that television would be ruled by tweens who rely on the American public for gratification and reinforcement.

In short, there is nothing so universal about American Dreamz and that is its weakness; it is destined to be forgotten as the United States works to regain its respectable status in the world and eliminate the black stains of warmongering and bullying of the past six years.

But right now, this is hilarious and it's what we need as American citizens who cannot stand the things being carried out in our name. This is the chance to laugh about the follies of our times. And it is all about our time. President Stanton is a clear George Bush parody, embodied by the stubborn refusal to read the news, to listen to others and to face reality. His Chief of Staff is a Cheney/Rove parody that plays like the MadTV Frankenstein-esque Cheney for the hour and a half of the movie - and I see that as a good thing. Sally Kendoo is a clear parody of Kelly Clarkson and the choice to parody Clarkson is actually a decent one; Clarkson is clearly the most talented individual to come out of the American Idol scene and as such parodying her is not simply picking on the novelty contestants, which are represented in the movie by Omer and an Israeli contestant.

American Dreamz works because all of the characters are types. Sally Kendoo is the archetypal will poke her eyes out for success, win at all costs, American youth who has talent and is ready to exploit herself and her talent to succeed. Martin Tweed is the embodiment of every negative stereotype of a Simon Cowell who has achieved success in a way that does not stimulate him and who must remain at the top of his game, lest he lose everything he has built. And even the minor characters work because they are simply "types" and parodies. Indeed, the name of Marcia Gay Harden's character is simply "First Lady Stanton."

And Harden's portrayal of First Lady Stanton is enviable and one of the few chinks in the otherwise tight armor of American Dreamz. First Lady Stanton is articulate, even if somewhat cowed, and her interactions with President Stanton make the viewer long for the days of strong First Ladies who would be an asset to the nation. Other than her, all the "types" fit our current circumstances and they work.

They work because the actors playing them are devoted to selling the jokes and the portrayals of our times. Sam Golzari is hilarious dancing to show tunes in a tent at the terrorist training camp. Hugh Grant, looking somewhat older than when previous seen, is morose and charming, flashy and deeply sarcastic and he makes us forget he is Hugh Grant. After the first few minutes on screen, Grant IS Martin Tweed.

Mandy Moore deserves a lot of credit for her role as Sally Kendoo. Moore is smart and turns her emotions on a dime to make a joke for the movie. Some of the best comic timing comes between her, Jennifer Coolidge (her character's mother) and the agent they've hired in figuring out Kendoo's story for the show. Moore whips out some of the funniest lines in succession with a deadpan delivery that is amazing.

Dennis Quaid, who I never would have guessed could do it, does the most amazing parody of George W. Bush throughout the film. He adopts a swaggering, frat-boy type attitude and has moments where he is able to disengage from all reality with a clueless look on his face that masterfully create a character who is a clear interpretation of the person he seeks to embody. Quaid is given some challenging lines to deliver without breaking that mold, most notably during the President's appearance on American Dreamz and he does it admirably. One suspects those lines that Quaid delivers are pure wish fulfillment on the part of writer/director Weitz, who no doubt desperately wishes to hear them spoken by Bush.

The person who steals the show is Willem Dafoe. Dafoe is brilliant as the sinister, manipulative, evil genius puppetmaster Chief of Staff. Dafoe does an extraordinary job creating a Rovian Cheney character who manipulates the President, down to telling him exactly what to say via a transmitter in the President's ear. And throughout, Dafoe laces the performance with subtle strokes from Weitz that are scathing, wherein the Chief of Staff shrinks away from all forms of acknowledgment or responsibility, even literally slinking out of a spotlight. Dafoe is instantly recognizable for the character he is meant to represent and he is utterly hilarious in the role. I would never have guess him for it, but he sells it flawlessly.

Writer and director Paul Weitz deserves a lot of credit for American Dreamz. It's a smart movie and it works on a number of levels. From the parody of the names, it's no coincidence that the lead contestant is named "Kendoo" (i.e. "can do") and the President's name is meant to sound so close to "Stalin," to the most subtle joke near the climax of the movie which I think is one of the funniest (when Liberty is thrown in his car and taken from American Dreamz, the window in front of where he is being protected is rolled down), Weitz creates a movie that is smart and funny and working on multiple levels. He deserves credit for that.

Ultimately, though, the movie ends and we wake up to a new, higher body count and politicians who continue to abrogate responsibility and our laughter turns to discomfort and we envy Weitz's created world, where things change in the significant things and the only things that stay the same are the ways people are exploited on reality television for their own perceived gain.

For other films featuring Hugh Grant, please be sure to visit my reviews of:
Did You Hear About The Morgans?
Love Actually
Bridget Jones's Diary

8/10

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

© 2011, 2006 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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