Blog Archives
Sunshine Cleaning (2009)
This mordant family drama has an intriguing premise, sisters who start a business cleaning up after messy crime scenes, but the film suffers from a crippling passivity. It’s nicely acted all around, especially Emily Blunt as the more troubled, wild child sister. The dysfunctional characters are established with momentary glimpses to back-stories, mostly tragic, but the narrative just sort of nudges them along. Sunshine Cleaning is a little too removed and clinical for its own good. The working-class characters are rundown but that doesn’t mean the movie has to feel the same way. Subplots and characters will be abandoned or left with no resolution. Alan Arkin’s scheming grandfather character never seems related to the plot, and he feels like he was lifted from another movie with a wackier veneer. It also makes time for cute sentimental elements that don’t jibe with the film’s tone, like using a CB radio to talk to loved ones in heaven. Sunshine Cleaning is sweet and sincere drama with some dark humor mixed in and it comes across as affable entertainment. Still, this movie had much more promise, if only it was less reserved and afraid to get its hands dirty.
Nate’s Grade: B-
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Doubt (2008)
You know you’re in for some intellectual and moral ambiguity when the opening sermon covers the nature of doubt. Doubt follows a New York head nun (Meryl Streep) in 1964 that suspects one of the new parish priests (Philip Seymour Hoffman) of having an inappropriate relationship with a young male student. The acting by the four principal actors is phenomenal. This is a showcase of stellar acting. Streep is ferocious and unwavering, a one-woman wrecking ball, and yet she still manages to make an antagonistic character empathetic: she’s doing what she feels is right to protect her students. Are unethical deeds acceptable in a righteous pursuit? Does she truly believe her convictions, or is Streep striking back against an entrenched hierarchy that diminishes her value? There is a clear resentment between some of the nuns and the array of priests with all the power and all the say. Naturally, in a he-said she-said molestation case, the audience is more likely to side with the funny, caring, progressive priest than the scary nun who detests ballpoint pens and Frosty the Snowman. In the end, the accusations aren’t cleared up and the film lets the audience debate the results. Director/writer John Patrick Shanley adapts from his acclaimed stage play and does a mostly fine job bringing it alive on screen, though he has a penchant for relying on really simplistic visual metaphors. The supporting cast rises up to Streep’s level, notably Viola Davis as the mother of the boy accused of being mishandled. Note to future students of acting: study Davis’ 10 minutes of screen time to see how a truly talented thespian displays a range of conflicted emotions, none of them feeling inauthentic or cheap. Doubt isn’t just one of the best-acted films of the year but also one of the best, period, and I have little doubt to that.
Nate’s Grade: A
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Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (2008)
The movie seems to float on the effervescent air of 1930s screwball comedies, and in truth it does possess some of that snappy allure. Francis McDormand travels into the inner circle of the upper social classes in London and befriends a bubbly lounge singer, played by bubbly actress Amy Adams. The film moves at a ridiculously fast pace, sometimes too fast as it tries to pile on complications and setbacks. This day-in-the-life confection is sweet and well natured but rather too digestible. Once the movie is over I do not see myself ever dwelling upon it once again. It’s a pleasant and entertaining experience even if it dances right out of your memory.
Nate’s Grade: B
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Talladega Nights (2006)
When it comes to clowning around, no one does stupid more smartly than Will Ferrell, a man perpetually in a state of arrested development. Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby succeeds both as a satire on uplifting, redemptive sports movies and on the culture of NASCAR. The product placement is obscene in this movie, but then again, the same can be said with NASCAR racing. PowerAde had a contractual obligation to be cited at every family meal prayer, which itself turns into a competitive sport. Title buffoon Ricky Bobby (Ferrell) is so arrogant that he gets an ad for Fig Newtons on his windshield (“This ad is dangerous… but I do love Fig Newtons.”). Even the title is a perfect send-up. The redneck riffs are never very mean-spirited, but I like that the Southern bar keeps disco on the jukebox to “profile.” The sports clichés are picked apart, like the absentee father (Gary Cole) reappearing to learn the error of his ways. There’s a heavy reliance on slapstick and pretty much everyone in the movie is either a cad, a buffoon, or a jackass, so there are limits to that comedy.
True to 2004’s Anchorman, this movie hits its high points with the spontaneous moments of tangential weirdness, from sports announcers explaining how to put out invisible fire to Ricky Bobby learning to drive with a live cougar as a co-pilot. Talladega Nights doesn’t quite hit the absurdist highs of the infinitely quote-able Anchorman, and the movie spins its wheels all too often, but it’s got a greater number of solid belly laughs than most any movie out there today. Sacha Baron Cohen plays Jean Gerard, the gay, French Formula-One driver that upsets the stock car world. Cohen has great fun in an English language mangled performance Peter Sellers would have loved. When Ferrell and Cohen are face to face, you feel like anything can happen between these two quick-witted comedy titans. Ferrell has assembled another game cast of gifted improvisational artists and their blend of loony comedy feels like jazz. The downside with such a huge cast of very funny people is that not everyone gets the face-time they deserve (Oscar nominee Amy Adams comes to mind).
Talladega Nights is a big broad comedy with a great cast and some inspired chuckles. What other movie this summer could climax so perfectly with a man-on-man smooch and the observation, “You taste like… America”? Only one, baby, and it’s Ricky Bobby.
Nate’s Grade: B
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Catch Me If You Can (2002)
January at the theaters is a tale of two kinds of films. One type are the studio bombs (take Just Married and Darkness Falls, please take them far away). The other type are the prestige pictures expanding their releases in hopes of garnering some of that Oscar magic. A lot of prestige films were released around the holidays and though not every one could be a winner, they were all better than Kangaroo Jack. Well, except for The Hours.
Catch Me If You Can (2002)
Premise: Successful true-life con artist Frank Abagnale Jr. (Leo DiCaprio) zips across the world posing as a pilot, doctor and lawyer all before the age of 18. A mousy Tom Hanks provides the chasing.
Results: Breezy and light-hearted, Catch is an entertaining and fun romp that works with a charming Leo (unlike in Gangs), a jazzy score and a skillful recreation of the 1960s life and mood. Spielberg hasn’t made a film under two hours since 1989, so Catch is a tad long.
Nate’s Grade: B
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Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999)
Satire can be a tricky mistress. It’s like a flower, you have to water it just right. Too much and it dies, too little and it dies. So if you fail to do it just right it can become a catastrophe. Drop Dead Gorgeous flirts with disaster but comes out of nowhere to become one of the funniest and dead-on movies of the summer.
The mock documentary unspools its tale of a Midwestern beauty pageant and all the action behind the scenes of small town life. The story is rich in eccentric and hilarious characters that seem to be delved straight out of the Coen brothers’ twisted imagination. Much of the humor is subtle but still very funny. Some people have said it’s too mean spirited, but all they do is poke fun at mentally handicapped people, physically handicapped people, anorexic and bulimics, pedophiles, gun owners, religious fanatics, high school cheerleaders, dog lovers, lesbians, tomboys, stage mothers, trailer park families, farmers, the deaf, police officers, news reporters, beauty queens, Asian-American families with the American dream, the deceased, sexual harassment, swans, and a world of other lampooning I’ve failed to pen.
In the grand tradition of Fargo the Minnesota accent here is thicker than your grandmother’s jam. The movie does lose a little steam toward the end 10-15 minutes that could’ve been trimmed, but I still readily enjoyed the movie. A complete surprise for myself. If you like your comedies as black as your coffee then check this one out.
Nate’s Grade: B+
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