25 Nov - "At first I did not know it was your diary. I thought it was a very sad handwritten book"

Bridesmaids (2011)

dir. Paul Feig

CAST
Kristin Wiig (Knocked Up, 2007)
Terry Crews (Middle Men, 2009)
Maya Rudolph (Gattaca, 1997)
Matt Lucas (Alice in Wonderland, 2010)
Wendi McLendon-Covey (Bewitched, 2005)
Jill Clayburgh (Love and Other Drugs, 2010)
Melissa McCarthy (Charlie's Angels, 2000)
Ellie Kemper
Michael Hitchcock (Serenity, 2005)
Joe Nunez (Rango (voice), 2011)
Steve Bannos (Pineapple Express, 2008)
Rose Byrne (X-Men: First Class, 2011)
Lynne Marie Stewart (Pee Wee's Big Adventure, 1985)

I watched Bridesmaids back around Thanksgiving time in the kitchen with my Aunt Dorothy. Apart from the very first scene and the very last scene, I didn't think that this was awkward to watch with my dear Auntie. It's possible though, that the circumstances detracted from the humorousness somewhat, because I thought this movie was supposed to be really funny, but I only thought it was sort of funny. Definitely not as funny as The Hangover.

Maybe part of the problem was in comprehension. I didn't understand all of the characters. Kristin Wiig was obviously the main character, but what's the deal with the antagonist? Did we decide she was just misunderstood or was she really conspiring against Kristin in pursuit of maid-of-honordom? Perhaps the movie would have been funnier if less emphasis had been placed on the developing relationships and more emphasis was on crazy antics unfolding, which is Apatow's usually recipe for success.

One of the things I like about Aunt Dorothy is that she makes me feel okay about watching a bawdy comedy with her. She's always been more fun than most of the other older folks in my family. When my brother and I were kids she let us watch Blackadder during family dinner parties. I didn't really understand a lot fo the jokes back then, but I think there were some pretty dodgy ones about turnips.

5 June - "You don't live with me. You live with the remains of dead people."

Heat (1995)
dir. Michael Mann (The Last of the Mohicans, 1992)

CAST

Al Pacino (Donnie Brasco, 1997)

Robert de Niro (Stone, 2010)

Kevin Gage (The 'burbs, 1989)

Diane Venora (Romeo + Juliet, 1996)

Natalie Portman (Black Swan, 2010)

Jon Voight (Holes, 2003)

Tom Sizemore (True Romance, 1993)

Mykelti Williamson (The Final Destination, 2009)

Ted Levine (Memoirs of a Geisha, 2005)

William Fichtner (Crash, 2004)

Val Kilmer (True Romance, 1993)

Ashley Judd (Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, 1992)

Hank Azaria (Love and Other Drugs, 2010)

Danny Trejo (From Dusk Till Dawn, 1996)

Martin Ferreo (Jurassic Park, 1993)

Jeremy Piven (Old School, 2003)

Wes Studi (Avatar, 2009)

Tone Loc (Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, 1994)

The only kind of movie I watch less often than crime drama is courtroom drama (With the exclusion of My Cousin Vinny, which I watch at every opportunity and enjoy EVERY TIME). That's a funny pattern, because I LIKE crime dramas, just not quite as much as my usual fare of adventure, science fiction, and period drama. This movie is mostly about Robert de Niro, who sets up his crew to take one last big score, and Al Pacino, a work-obsessed detective (aren't they all?) in hot pursuit. It's one of those movies in which the tracker and the tracked discover they have more in common with each other than they originally thought. That doesn't change the nature of their relationship, though.

I think Michael Mann is a wonderful director. I appreciated especially, in this case, the depth of understanding that I got from the relatively minor roles of the supporting actresses, the wives and girlfriends of the criminals, and the detective's wife and stepdaughter. I had trouble, at first, determining the purpose of Al Pacino's suicidal stepdaughter, played by Natalie Portman. Maybe it seemed a little superfluous. Upon reflection, I decided that the take home message was about the futility of life, whether you make it by crime or by retribution, without anyone to share it with.

That seems a bit chintzy for a movie with so many gunshots in it. But really it wasn't as corny as that. The point is that Al Pacino's character was totally submersed in crimes and victims and criminals, but for all that he sacrificed to try and do something right, he was unable to prevent the victimization of someone in his own family. He chose de Niro over his wife and stepdaughter.

de Niro makes the same sacrifice. He has the opportunity to escape with his girl, but he chooses to make one last revenge hit before the airport, and so he abandons her, choosing the endless cat and mouse game with Pacino instead.

Ashley Judd and Val Kilmer have the sweetest romance. Their marriage is failing and you think she's been flipped by the cops, but at the last moment she signals to him to keep going, to leave her behind. It's a final act of sacrifice, but it's for love, not pride.

There's a blog I like to read that focuses on horror movies, i'm into survival (which inspires me to think of a better name for my little movie blog here, with its handful of readers). The most recent entry was about the second sequel to The Exorcist and specifically about the difficulty of establishing friendship between characters. That was something they were trying to do in this movie, and not entirely successfully. De Niro and Pacino had coffee in one scene, they lamented about their love lives and respectively admitted that "This is what I am best at. It's the only thing I know how to do." Perhaps this rapport could have been better established. To myself, I was drawing comparisons to Tommy Lee Jones' detective character and his relationships with pursued criminals Ashley Judd and Harrison Ford in Double Jeopardy and The Fugitive. Of course, in those Judd and Ford's character were both innocent. Even so, I enjoyed the relationship much better.

1 March - "How do you kill a tofu?"

Dreamland (2006)
dir. Jason Matzner

CAST

Agnes Bruckner

Kelli Garner (Lars and the Real Girl, 2007)

Justin Long (He's Just Not That Into You, 2009)

John Corbett (My Big Fat Greek Wedding, 2002)

This movie is sort of like a girl-protagonist version of What's Eating Gilbert Grape. I mean, it has a lot of the same themes: altruistic teenager sacrifices ambition to serve family and friends in a small town until the arrival of a love interest sparks sudden dreams of an un-frustrated life.

I think I've mentioned before how I tend to be attracted to movies set in deserts. This movie was set in a trailer park in the desert and it was totally poetic. It reminds me of a painting in the art museum at Cornell. It was all pink and gold and the first one you saw when you got to the fifth floor. It also reminds me that I've always wanted to go to one of those places where everything is flat, and nothing's blocking your view of the horizon in all directions.

Objectively, I think Gilbert Grape is still a better movie, with better fleshed-out characters. But this movie is sweet in its simplicity, and refreshingly takes on the familiar theme of two friends in love with the same guy.

22 Jan- "You know, I bring out the best in the men who fuck me"

 Leaving Las Vegas (1995)
dir. Mike Figgis

CAST
Nicolas Cage (The Wicker Man, 2006)
Elizabeth Shue (Back to the Future II, 1989)
Julian Sands (Arachnophobia, 1990)
Richard Lewis (Robin Hood: Men in Tights, 1993)
French Stewart (Stargate, 1994)
Mariska Hartigay (Lake Placid, 1999)
Laurie Metcalf (Toy Story 3 (voice), 2010)

Danny Huston (Children of Men, 2006)

I'd like to recommend this movie as one NOT to watch when you're feeling a little blue. I tried to watch The Exorcist for the first time last night. But I couldn't even get past the title menu - too spooky. The funny thing is that I'll bet it's not even THAT scary. I mean, it was made in the 70s and I think I've got at least a lot of that jadedness towards cinematic horror that the old folks are always complaining about. So I started Leaving Las Vegas and I finished the last forty minutes or so this morning and, damn, I think it's going to be one of those days where I stay in my pajamas and don't wash any of the dishes. It was depressing.

If you're unfamiliar, it's about a man who travels to Las Vegas with the intention of drinking himself to death. He hires a prostitute to stay with him on his first night there, and they fall in love, but he makes her promise that she won't interfere with his agenda, which is to be drunk until he's dead.

It reminds me of a line by Kurt Vonnegut, from the preface of Welcome to the Monkey House, he says something to the effect that he smokes. and he thinks that may other people smoke for the same reason, because, "smoking is a fairly sure, fairly honorable form of suicide." Do you think that might count for drinking as well? Here's another line: "Death will be an awfully big adventure." That's Peter Pan. The whole time you're watching this movie it's like nothing matters. Because he's still going to die at the end, and nothing is going to change that and you sort of get mad at Elizabeth Shue's character for putting up with his ridiculousness, for not trying to stop him and not leaving him either, she just tolerates it and he's dying and she's not doing anything about it. And you know before it ends that the finale is going to be very sad.

Which makes me wonder if he really loved her all that much. Since he didn't love her enough to stop drinking. But I think I'm misinterpreting. I suppose the point is that two flawed individuals (she's engaged in her own willfully self-destructive profession) were able to accept each other for exactly what they were for a brief period of time. I guess the romance is that Elizabeth Shue was able to love Nicolas Cage even though she knew it was going to end in tragedy. Although the he was kind of a dick to her when she was heading out to work, and she kicks him out after he brings home another prostitute. They make up in the end though.

I always like movies about Las Vegas because they never fail to take advantage of that contrast between the falsity and opulence of the Strip and the beautiful starkness of the desert. A silly example I always think of Fools Rush In, with Matthew Perry and Salma Hayak. That movie could have been really good, but poor Matthew Perry always takes down the classiness a few notches. All the same: deserts. I should get out to one of those someday.