Capturing the Friedmans

08/01/03 “Capturing the Friedmans”

Starring:Arnold Friedman, Elaine Friedman, Jesse Friedman, David Friedman, Seth Friedman

Directed by:Andrew Jarecki

Rating: Slender Tampon

Plot Summary: This documentary “captures” the experience of a family in crisis, through the actual home video movies of the Friedmans, a seemingly average upper-middle-class Jewish family in Great Neck, NY whose world was changed disastrously when the father and son were charged with horrible crimes of child molestation in 1987.

Almost everyone I told that I was going to see this movie got that face. The “Oooh. That’s going to be a bummer.” face. And on the surface, any movie about a man and his son, convicted of heinous child abuse charges against children they taught in their home, is going to be, well, depressing. But strangely this film wasn’t. It was baffling, it was sad, it was funny in parts – but since the focus was on the dysfunction of this family and not the alleged sexual abuse of children, it managed to keep me fascinated rather than nauseated.

Like so many of these stories it starts out “They seemed like a normal family.” And on the surface they did. Mom, Dad, three healthy sons. But through nature, nurture or whatever means it takes, this Dad is a pedophile. Caught by the US Postal Service receiving magazines from the Netherlands containing child pornography, Arnold Friedman’s house is searched. The search turns up much more pornography and a computer lab in the basement. In the words of one of the investigating officers “We may have a problem here.”

Now admittedly, Arnold Friedman had a sexual interest in young boys. Admittedly, he liked some very sick pornographic material. Admittedly, he molested at least three young men in his life, the first being his 8 year old brother, when Arnold was only 13. But this is where things start to get a little murky.

Arnold and his son Jesse are arrested and charged with hundreds upon hundreds of sex abuse and sodomy crimes. Jesse, only 18 at the time of his arrest, served 13 years in prison after accepting a plea bargain. Arnold died in prison – committed suicide actually, with a major overdose of anti-depressants. And the film leaves the audience not at all convinced that these men were guilty of the charges against them, or if any crimes at all had occurred in the basement of that home.

But the Friedmans aren’t all innocence and piety by any stretch. As one of my friends commented on leaving the theater “There wasn’t a single sympathetic character in that whole movie.” Each one, from the lawyers to the police, to the prosecutor, to the family members and their alleged victims, was uniquely unlikable. Each seemed to live in a world of their own construction, believing what is convenient and discounting the rest.

David, Arnold’s oldest son, maintains that his father died suddenly “of a heart attack.” All the boys deny that their father molested them. Jesse denies ever molesting any of the children in his care. But there were hundreds of claims to the contrary. Some of them totally unbelievable, like the claims of “leap frog” where the young boys “sat with their bare butts in the air, as Arnold and Jesse jumped from child to child sticking their dicks in each one.” Obviously the person who came up with that one hasn’t ever experienced anal sex. Also completely lacking was ANY physical evidence. No blood, no semen, no bruises, no fibers. Nothing. Not from one single child.

So, was it all sexual hysteria? Were these memories invented by cops and therapists? Were they some sick form of one-upmanship among the housewives of Great Neck? (“My son was raped 7 times!” “Well MY son was raped 8 times, and orally sodomized!”) Did these events actually occur? Or were the Friedmans railroaded into plea bargains because they knew they could never win their cases with the publicity against them? Why did the family turn on itself and collapse, rather than coming together to fight these charges? What the hell was going on over at the goddamned Friedman place anyway?

What the film leaves you with is the certainty that you will never know. There is too much emotion, too much denial, too much dishonesty for the real truth to be known. But it’s a weird and wild story, and watching this family implode helps you realize that your family isn’t the worst one out there – maybe just the second worst. And that just isn’t the kind of bummer I was expecting.

28 Days Later

07/02/03 “28 Days Later”

Starring: Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Megan Burns, Christopher Eccleston, Brendan Gleeson

Directed By: Danny Boyle

Rating: Off the Rag

Plot Summary: A virus which locks those infected into a permanent state of killing rage, is accidentally released from a British research facility. Carried by animals and humans, the virus is impossible to contain, and spreads across the entire planet. Twenty-eight days later, a small group of survivors are trapped in London, caught in a desperate struggle to protect themselves from the infected. As they attempt to salvage a future from the apocalypse, they find that their most deadly enemy is not the virus, but other survivors.

All in all I spent $20.00*  watching this movie. It’s a good movie – but in retrospect I really could have owned the DVD. But then again, if I’d waited for the DVD I wouldn’t have reviewed the movie for you all, so I guess my loss is your incredible gain.

Anyway, like I said, it’s a good movie. It’s wonderfully successful in what it intends to do, which is to be a horrifying look at a post-apocalyptic world caused by man’s own ignorance and idiocy (no, the use of “man” was not an accident)

Jim, a bicycle courier, wakes up stark nekkid in a hospital to find all of London a ghost town (how the HELL did they film this I want to know?) and soon is set upon by crazed, red-eyed, blood vomiting creatures. These are “the infected.” People who have been exposed to “Rage,” a virus created by scientists and accidentally let out of the lab by well-meaning animal rights Nazi’s. This virus spreads faster than your white trash neighbors thighs, turning those tainted to raving beasts within 10-20 seconds of infection.

After a misadventure in a church with an infected priest**(best “quote” of the film is written on the wall there: Repent, for the end is very fucking nigh.) Jim quickly meets up with some saviors in the form of Selena and a guy who gets killed so quickly I forget his name. Kudos to the directors in making him too good looking to be killed so quickly, you assume that (Hollywood style) they’ll kill off the minority character Selena, so when forgot-his-name kicks it, it’s all the more shocking. Jim figures out that yes, his family is dead too, no The Government doesn’t have it all under control, and yes, he does need a haircut after his emergency brain surgery.

So, what do you do when you’re trapped on an island where mostly everyone is dead, the people that aren’t dead are blood-vomiting animals that want to rip you limb from limb, and you have no idea if the rest of the world is even there anymore? Well, Selena, Jim and a father-daughter duo of uninfected that they meet set off to find an army base which is transmitting radio signals that they have the “cure to infection.”

True to form, salvation promised easily by others is never what it seems, and the film’s moral (men are fucking pigs and deserve to be wiped off the planet, especially any men who have voluntarily joined the military) is quickly proved when the quartet find what they are looking for.

The film is quite gory, albeit in brief flashes so you don’t really know what you’re seeing. It was filmed digitally and the grainy appearance serves to enhance the dreamy/nightmarish aspect of the story. The characters, true to Brit style, are human looking enough to be believable. No capped teeth, siliconed breasts and liposuctioned thighs in this group. This is “reality” and in reality people don’t look good all the time, especially people with no access to running water.

For women, who know where the second half of the film is going as soon as they see these military guys, it’s a scarier film than for men I think. It’s support to the premise that men are animals, and in the films climax it’s really hard to tell the difference between the infected/uninfected, the human and the primate, the sane and the insane.

It’s a good film, it’s not the formulaic dross that’s normally out there (take note Legally Blonde II and The Italian Job!) and I can recommend it to anyone who doesn’t get upset at the sight of men with chains around their necks vomiting blood and what looks to be part of his stomach into a muddy courtyard.

Note: The much touted “alternate ending” is not worth paying to see the film again for. Wait for the DVD.

*$7.50 first showing

$5.00 second showing to see the “alternate ending”

$7.50 for chocolate and lemonade at second showing.

** Again, proving that men are pigs and one shouldn’t seek “salvation”

Owning Mahoney

06/19/03 “Owning Mahowny”

Starring:Philip Seymour Hoffman, Minnie Driver, John Hurt, Maury Chakin

Directed by:Richard Kwietniowski

Rating:Slender Tampon

Plot Summary: Based on a true story, Dan Mahowny (Hoffman) is a bank manager with two problems: he’s an obsessive gambler in Atlantic City, and his job gives him free control of a $20 million account. As his debts grow, so do the lengths to which he will go in order to camouflage his actions.

I am not one to talk to a movie screen, but this movie made me literally itch with wanting to scream at the celluloid. Watching this man self-destruct in painfully slow motion made me almost physically ill.

I have to give kudos to Philip Seymour Hoffman in his first lead roll. Usually playing bit-character parts such as the phone sex line operator cum shakedown artist (pun intended) in “Punch Drunk Love” or the tabloid reporter who comes to a very bad end in “Red Dragon,” this was Hoffman’s first chance to show that he could carry a feature film on his own, and he does it easily. Completely immersed in the character of Mahowny, a compulsive gambler with no passion for anything and no discernible emotion, Hoffman still can make you feel the pathos of a man caught in the grip of an obsession he can’t possibly control. Utterly contemptible, and yet utterly vulnerable at the same time, Mahowny is horrific and fascinating to watch.

It all starts rather innocuously. A $10,300 debt to a local bookie, who cuts him off until he pays up, has newly promoted bank manager Mahowny desperate. His solution is chillingly simple and the beginning of a slide down a steep and slippery slope. He opens an account for a fictitious client in the amount of $10,300. But then, why stop there? Mahowny, who dresses (as his bookie describes it) like a douche-bag, and drives a beat up piece of crap car, starts living the high roller life in Atlantic City, flying down on weekends with large sums of cash he’s taken from the bank. It’s clear that he thinks that one big weekend could make everything OK for him, but the rub for the compulsive gambler is that they can’t stop, even when they are winning. At several points in the film he has enough to clear him – but with a passionless precision he wastes away all his winnings.

The amounts of money he’s dropping soon catch the eye of casino manager Victor Foss, played by the voraciously sinister John Hurt. He is an easy mark, needing no special treatment to keep him contentedly gambling, and none of the usual high-roller amenities other than “ribs, no sauce, and a Coke.”

Mahowny graduates to the Vegas big leagues, and actually comes home up $1.4 million, even though the trip causes the implosion of his co-dependent relationship with the perennially mousy and scarily blonde Belinda. Belinda is played by Minnie Driver, who – God love her – couldn’t get a Canadian accent down, and thus wavers fitfully between Irish, American and Minnesotan inflections all through the film.

In the final, climactic sequence of the film, Mahowny is once again in Atlantic City, enjoying one of his few runs of good luck. He gets up $9 million, and this is the part where I wanted to scream “Walk Away for Christ’s sake!” at the screen, but loses it all, down to his last dollar, that same night. He returns home, unaware that the Canadian police are waiting for him at the airport, and arrest him upon his arrival, in one of the only comedic moments of the film, “On suspicion of theft over $200.00″

Mahowny’s life is ruined, and he takes out 9 other bank employees with him, people who weren’t involved, but are fired for allowing themselves to be tricked by this sociopathic gambler. I don’t know what the lesson is in the film – what I took away was the feeling that human beings have a limitless capacity for idiocy, self-destruction, deceit and greed. So, not the feel good movie of the summer, but captivating none the less.

See the official website at http://www.sonyclassics.com/owning/core/hasFlash.html the continuous sound loop will make you want to shoot yourself, but if you turn your speakers down this Flash site is pretty well done.

X-2: X-Men United

05/05/03 “X2: X-Men United”

Starring:Patrick Stewart, Hugh Jackman, Famke Janssen, Halle Berry, Brian Cox, Alan Cumming

Directed By:Bryan Singer

Rating:Slender Tampon

Plot Summary: The X-Men have opponents new and old to face this time around. Magneto is back, but there is also a threat to Professor Xavier’s school for mutants led by a human named Stryker, not to mention a vicious woman named Yuriko who has it in for Wolverine.

The wait is finally over – X2 has hit the theaters. I can’t say it was worth the wait, I hate waiting. But it was worth the $7.50, finding parking at the mall on a Saturday, and sitting in a packed theatre in one of the first ten rows listening to little kids rustle around.

We re-enter the world of X-men where the first story left off, with the somewhat dubiously evil Magneto locked in his plastic prison, and Logan off to investigate his forgotten past. I felt the transition to the second film was seamless. Although the budget was presumably much higher, the sets and characters have the same look and feel. You can slide yourself right into the illusion that this is only a few weeks later than the events of the first film. This is aided by the return of all of the actors playing the main characters, with a few additions like the absolutely delightful Alan Cumming as the Nightcrawler, and the wonderfully evil, if somewhat taciturn, Deathstrike.

Now, having said that the movie was excellent (it was) I am going to jump immediately to what I wish would have been different. Character development. Anyone remember that? While the main characters were true to form and hilarious (Wolverine’s lines, delivered in a savage deadpan, are the film’s top comic moments) the secondary characters like Deathstrike seemed to have fascinating stories that I would have loved to learn more of. Her history was hinted at yet never explored. Likewise, the transformation of Senator Kelly was almost completely ignored. I wanted to know more about his mutation in the first film at the hands of Magneto. Whose side is he on now? He shuffles around aimlessly in a few scenes and then disappears. Just a quick showing of his mutant abilities with a sly grin would have done it, and in trade you could have cut the whole useless scene where Logan first researches the abandoned facility that Professor Xavier has sent him to.

The effects were great, especially those related to Nightcrawler (can I love Alan Cumming any more?) and Mystique. The beautiful way that Mystique morphs from character to character is so well done that you don’t even appreciate it, you just accept it as reality. The characters were believable (well, comic book believable) and as I said before the sets were gorgeous and preserved the look and feel of the original X-men. I can’t wait to go see it again, and I suggest you get your bootie out to one of the batrillion screens it’s on this week and do the same.

The site is http://www.x2-movie.com/ and it has some fun downloadable goodies and trailers, it’s an example of Flash done correctly – check it out.

Blue Car

05/26/03 “Blue Car”

Starring: Agnes Bruckner, David Strathairn, Margaret Colin, Frances Fisher, AJ Buckley

Directed by: Karen Moncrieff

Rating:Off the Rag

Plot Summary:  The film takes us into the teenage psyche of Meg, a gifted but emotionally scarred 18-year-old. Haunted by her father’s abandonment of the family, she is neglected by her overworked mother and left to her own devices in dealing with her emotionally disturbed younger sister. Meg finds solace in writing poetry. Her English teacher steps into the role of mentor and father figure, encouraging her to enter a national poetry contest for which he is a judge. As tension at home escalates his role in her life becomes increasingly complex.

Wow – this was one hell of a movie. I know some will strenuously disagree with my top rating of this film, but I had to separate not liking how a movie makes me feel from not liking a movie. One must acknowledge that a celluloid image’s ability to make one feel anything is a mark of its success as a film.

This is a painful, at times very disturbing, look at what it’s like to be a teenage girl in a family that doesn’t work, in a world where no one cares what you’re feeling. It explores how uniquely vulnerable these creatures are to any display of affection or attention – even in the most manipulative, sleaziest of forms.

Meg’s father is gone and, as in life, why this is so is never made clear. What’s clear is the effect that this has had on her. Isolation, loss of self-esteem, lack of confidence, feeling unloved – she’s been affected by her father’s absence and her mother’s subsequent bitterness and emotional unavailability. Her younger sister is also deeply troubled, and Meg’s teenage rebellion (like telling her mother “You had her, you take care of her”) isn’t helping matters.

Seen in all her naked vulnerability by her AP English teacher, Meg seems for a time to blossom under his regard, his sharing of intimate details of his life, and his encouragement for her to “go deeper” with her poetry. But even when things are looking up for Meg, the film’s tone tells you that many more troubles are ahead for this bright, but still lost, girl.

Though you can’t approve of the choices Meg makes, you can understand how she comes to her decisions, the circumstances that force her hand – and you can empathize with her situation. The ending, though somewhat predictable, leaves you cautiously optimistic that this beautiful girl/child with her mother’s shirt and chipped nail polish can negotiate the minefield of her teenage years without being destroyed by them.

The performances by each cast member are exquisite. Each character so utterly believable, so painfully real that you want to look away but can’t. Agnes Bruckner is wonderful as Meg – and David Strathairn‘s Mr. Auster is so horrible that you want to punch him. Meg’s little sister shines as well.

Take a Xanax, and then go and see Blue Car. You’ll be glad you did, unless you kill yourself.

Check out the website at http://www.miramax.com/bluecar/

Identity

04/26/03 “Identity”

Starring:John Cusack, Jake Busey, Rebecca DeMornay, Clea DuVall, Ray Liotta

Directed by:James Mangold

Rating:Slender Tampon

Plot Summary: This is the story of ten complete strangers picked to live in a house and have their lives taped…whoops! sorry, wrong summary…This is the story of ten complete strangers who are stranded at a remote desert motel during a raging storm who soon find themselves being murdered… as their numbers thin out, they turn on each other, as each tries to figure out who is the killer.

Saw this movie on Saturday night – first movie date I have been on in years, I had forgotten what it was like to have someone’s hand to hold during the scary bits – it was even better than holding hip’s tit. Especially since I was pretty much guaranteed to be getting lucky after the movie too. I mean, it wouldn’t have made me sit through “Phone Booth” but the promise of post-viewing sex makes any movie seem better.

The premise of this movie looked like laughable B-movie fodder, strangers stuck in a hotel getting killed off one by one, but with a cast including John Cusack, Ray Liotta and Clea DuVall, I suspected it was going to be something special. I wasn’t disappointed.

John Cusack is great as Ed, the understated enigmatic cop-turned chauffeur. You trust him, you think, you want him to be the hero, but you don’t know if even he knows what he’s doing.

By 10 minutes into the movie, you think absolutely anyone might have done it, you have at least 4 plausible theories, and you’ve had one big adrenaline pumping scare. Clea DuVall, who I was dying to see (sooooooo sexy in “But I’m A Cheerleader” and so invisible in “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”) gave a great performance as a white trash newlywed, but looked 17 kinds of terrible.

Also looking very frightening, presumably without intending to, was Rebecca DeMornay, who I didn’t even recognize until after the movie, when I checked on the cast and credits info online. Rebecca, honey, put the scalpel DOWN. Put it down sweetie, aging happens to us all.

I don’t want to give too much away, it’s the twists and turns that make this movie worth seeing, but I would give it a chance, take someone with you to cuddle, and be prepared to see big-toothed Jake Busey with a wooden bat rammed down his throat (you won’t mind, trust me.)

Avoid the website at all costs, it’s all Flash, no substance.

The Hours

02/01/03 “The Hours”

Starring: Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, Nicole Kidman, Ed Harris, Toni Collette

Directed by:Stephen Daldry

Rating:Slender Tampon

Plot Summary: Based on Michael Cunningham’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, the film interweaves the stories of three women – a book editor in New York , a young mother in California and author Virginia Woolf.

I liked “The Hours.” And I didn’t find it depressing. And I didn’t cry. I actually thought it was quite beautiful, and the ending was somehow, if not uplifting, at least it brought a sense of peace, of things come full-circle.

I have to insert the disclaimer that I am not a Virginia Woolf fan – so I haven’t read “Mrs. Dalloway,” the book that is discussed through much of the film. But I think the themes, of women trapped by circumstances, by their own emotions, by society, are universally understood (at least by women) and don’t need the reading of that book to be appreciated and understood.

All three women, in different time periods, are caught up, trapped by things from which they both want and fear escape. All three women’s performances are exquisite, as are those by supporting characters Allison Janney and Miranda Richardson. Nicole Kidman’s performance was astonishing, if only because the courage to appear so unattractive on film is rarely seen in Hollywood. And Woolf’s desperate genius and pathos would not have been as believable coming from a radiant mega-star.

Of course, I can’t do a proper review without mentioning my physical experience, which was OK except for the women in front of me, one of whom must have BATHED in “Sunflowers” perfume, causing me to gag most of the way through the film. But when I leaned way back it was a bit better.

I give this film a Slender Tampon, because despite its beauty I didn’t really care what happened to these characters. I appreciated their stories but was ultimately unmoved by those stories endings. And that might just have been my mood. Go see it – you will at least want to know what they are talking about at the Oscars.

Darkness Falls

01/25/03 “Darkness Falls”

Starring:Chaney Kley, Emma Caulfield, Andrew Bayly, Emily Browning, Joshua Anderson

Directed by:Jonathan Liebesman

Rating:Super-absorbency tampon

Plot Summary: Kyle Walsh must return home to confront his troubled past and save his childhood sweetheart Caitlin and her younger brother Michael from an unrelenting evil that has plagued the town of Darkness Falls for over one hundred and fifty years.

So, we went to see “Darkness Falls” tonight. It started out badly, because I lost $10 somehow, which put me in a bad mood, and then I had bad food at the restaurant we went to, and then we were 30 minutes too early for a Saturday night movie that I soon came to realize was going to be populated exclusively with the 15-18 yr old set. It got worse when some jackass sat right next to me in the theater, clearly in violation of the American OSB (one space between) rule of theater going – and then he bogarted on my freaking armrest. Asshole. Luckily, I had left one space between me and hip and I ended up moving over there next to her. I had to get within easy grabbing distance, because when the first big scare of the movie came I grabbed her arm really hard, and when the second one came I grabbed out in the same direction, but since she had lifted her arm I inadvertently grabbed her tit. So you see how I had to get into a better position for friendly arm grabbing, rather than scary tit-grabbing.

Anyway, the movie was actually decent. Scary without being bloody, and pretty suspenseful. The lighting was great, the mood was intense and there was a surprising lack of tractor-trailer sized plot holes. I can’t remember the last time I saw a scary movie in a theater though, and I had forgotten how intense the experience can be. The scrabbling sounds made by the villain Matilda, as she stalks her prey, were reverberating in the theater, letting you know that someone was getting killed in the near future. The movie had it’s comedic bits as well, with one cop taunting our hero as he steps out of the light “Is she gonna get me?” and the hero’s irritated yet resigned reply “Yes.”

The movie’s only “name”, Emma Caulfield of 90210 and Buffy fame, was believable in the part of Caitlin, and was refreshingly strong and resilient, without the goofy tit-jouncing running sequences that horror movies usually have. There was one weird continuity break, where, on the run from Matilda she somehow finds time to take off her sweater and run around the rest of the movie in only a skimpy tank-top, but otherwise the gratuitous meat show was kept to a minimum

My biggest complaint is that getting scared that many times, and screaming and jumping around has left me with a big headache. It’s sad when you get too old to go the movies with all the young’uns isn’t it?

Check out the official web site at http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/darknessfalls/

About Schmidt

01/12/03 “About Schmidt”

Starring:Jack Nicholson, Hope Davis, Dermot Mulroney, Kathy Bates, Howard Hesseman

Directed by: Alexander Payne

Rating: Slender Tampon

Plot Summary: Jack Nicholson stars as Warren Schmidt, a man who is set adrift following retirement and the sudden death of his wife. Uncertain about his future as well as his past, Warren packs up his 30-foot Winnebago to set out on a journey across the Nebraska plains to attend his daughter’s wedding to a waterbed salesman.

I think my most compelling thought during the first ten minutes of this film was “Wonder how much it freaked Jack out to have to climb in bed next to a woman his own age, instead of toothpicky Lara Flynn Boyle?” Then the same-age wife died, and the rest of the time I spent obsessing over Schmidt’s comb-over. I thought I would enjoy this movie, and I did. Not least of all because there was no one sitting around me that was obnoxious.

Actually, I may have been the obnoxious one, since every three minutes something happened in the film to make me gasp “Oh no!” in a really irritating way unless you were me. Seriously, some fucked up things happen to this guy. Almost more fucked up for the fact that they were mundane fucked up things. Like getting felt up by his daughter’s fiancé’s mom (Kathy Bates), and making a profoundly unwanted advance on a woman in the neighboring caravan after a beef-stew dinner, a six-pack and a little conversation.

Poor Schmidt. He’s gotten to the point in life where he should be able to relax and enjoy the fruits of his labors, but alas – his wife of 43 years has died, he is estranged from his only child by a general inability to communicate, he’s pathologically cheap, and has nothing to live for and no reason to be remembered by anyone once he’s gone. A cautionary tale for the rest of us, the film does end on a slightly upbeat note, and we get to see Kathy Bates naked. In conclusion just for making me be happy I am me, this film gets a Slender Tampon. (http://www.aboutschmidtmovie.com)

Sordid Lives

11/15/02 “Sordid Lives”

Starring:Olivia Newton-John, Bonnie Bedelia, Beau Bridges, Delta Burke, Sarah Hunley, Leslie Jordan, Earl H. Bullock

Directed by: Del Shores

Rating: Off the Rag

Plot Summary: SORDID LIVES, the story of a wacky Texan family brought together by a death in the family, is a raucous comedy with a wild cast of characters. The film marks the directorial debut of Del Shores, the writer-producer of the television program TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL.

Loved this movie. For any of you raised Southern Baptist, or just plain Southern you will like it too – Northerners are going the think the characterization is over the top, but we’ll know it’s pretty much dead on. I was really reluctant to see any movie that was directed by the writer of “Touched by An Angel.” I wanted to see “Bowling for Columbine” but even a Princess like me has to compromise sometimes, right?

I am glad I did, because I had a rollicking good time. I felt like I knew each of these characters, like they were my own bizarre family relations. Delta Burke was great as the humiliated wife of a cheatin’ man (Beau Bridges). She is especially indignant that even the “poor white trash” of the town are poking fun at her.

I can’t explain too much of the movie, as it’s not the plot that’s funny, but the characters that you fall in love with. Wonderfully believable is Beth Grant’s “Sissy,” from the wacky Southern Lady hairdo to the rubber band she constantly snaps on her wrist to keep from smoking.

Really a great movie, but limited release, so try to pick it up as a rental! Web Site: www.sordidlives.com

Punch Drunk Love

11/02/02 – “Punch Drunk Love”

Starring:Adam Sandler, Emily Watson, Luis Guzman, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Mary Lynn Rajskub

Directed by: Paul Thomas AndersonRating:Slender Tampon

Plot Summary: A story about an odd, spastic man (Sandler) with seven abusive sisters who soon finds that three thugs are chasing him because of his one-time contact with a phone sex business made in a moment of quiet desperation. This threatens to derail his awkwardly blossoming relationship one of his sister’s co-workers (Watson) before it gets a chance to start.

Saw this movie a few weeks ago with friends. One of them was Hip, our resident literal thinker, and she hated this movie. Just a warning.

I actually quite enjoyed it. It’s NOT an “Adam Sandler” movie by any means, so the beer chugging few who go to hear fart jokes are going to be scratching their heads by the first 10 minutes. As I was to tell the truth. But once you let the movie’s odd rhythm take you, it’s actually a great ride. It’s the best representation I have seen on film of what it’s like to have a nervous or social anxiety disorder. The whirling camera angles, the clanging music – they show the rest of the world the sense of the universe crashing in on you that a panic attack can cause.

Adam Sandler is entirely believable as the terminally harangued man whose sisters just can’t let him live in peace. His search to connect with something in his crazy world is heart wrenching, and when he did find someone seemingly crazy enough to fit him, I sighed with relief on his behalf. As my movie-mate Todd quoted his grandmother “I think the theme of this movie is that there isn’t a pot so crooked you can’t find a lid to fit.” That’s about the truth. You can’t feel that the relationship Sandler and Watson have is a healthy one, but you are relieved that they have each other all the same.

The movie does slow dramatically in the last 1/3, forcing me to do the “squint of watch-checking” in a darkened theater. But all in all, a decent movie.

Website: www.punchdrunklove.com

About a Boy

06/03/02 – “About a Boy”

Starring:Hugh Grant, Rachel Weisz, Toni Collette, Nicholas Hoult, Isabel BrookDirected by:Chris Weitz, Paul Weitz

Rating:Slender Tampon

Plot Summary: Adapted from Nick Hornby’s popular British novel, ABOUT A BOY is a comedy-drama starring Hugh Grant as Will, a rich, child-free and irresponsible Londoner in his thirties who, in search of available women, invents an imaginary son and starts attending single parent meetings. As a result of one of his liaisons, he meets Marcus, an odd 12-year-old boy with problems at school. Gradually, Will and Marcus become friends, and as Will teaches Marcus how to be a cool kid, Marcus helps Will to finally grow up.

Saw this film yesterday at the mall. Liked it. Didn’t care too much for the loud and obnoxious grandparents sitting behind me and my friend. They must have been going through a seventh childhood or something, because they whispered through almost the entire film. So much that *I*, your mild-mannered reviewer, had to turn around and get snarky with them! Whew. Ok now that’s off my chest. Now let me just pry this cute girl off there too, and it will be easier to type *suction-y popping sound* OK that’s a relief. Now to the review part of this review.

I’d read this book a few years ago and really enjoyed it, and I think that Hugh Grant was a great choice to play the lead character  – a kind of uber-shallow, lay about, who lives off royalties generated by his father’s one-hit-wonder Christmas Carol. I have more sympathy than most for his lifestyle, since I am of the childless-by-choice crowd as well, so you won’t hear me disputing his theme that men (read: people, I suppose) can in fact be islands, “…and I want to be bloody Ibiza.”

The poor nerdy kid they found to play Marcus was an excellent choice as well, and if you can believe it, the film makers even carried off the semi-laughable pathos of Marcus’s mother’s attempted suicide.

The sets were wonderful… as a bona-fide Anglophile I loved all of the posh Brit restaurants, and as a registered technophile, I could have lived and died in Will’s apartment (can I just have the upright CD player then? Please?)

Costuming was equally effective, I almost wanted to bully Marcus myself due to his cable knit rainbow jumper and brown lace-ups. Not to mention the bowl haircut. Bleh.

Not so much else to say really. If you like Brit humor, you’ll think it’s good. If you’re my mother, you will only understand every third word, but laugh anyway. And if you’re the old fart couple who was sitting behind me…Well I am sure your great grandchildren have better manners than you.

Rating: Slender Tampon – cuz though it was funny, all the women were either mad suicidal hippie freaks, preachy mommy types with vomit on their clothing, fat single mothers, or vapid sex objects.

Try again Mr. Hornby…

Frailty

04/15/02 – “Frailty”

Starring:Matthew McConaughey, Bill Paxton, Luke Askew, Matthew O’Leary, Jeremy Sumpter

Directed by:Bill Paxton

Rating:I give this film a slender tampon

Plot summary: A man (Bill Paxton) believes that he has had a vision from God telling him he should destroy demons in his hometown in (where else?) Texas. Problem being: these “demons” look just like everyone else. Only he can tell who is who, based on a list that God sends him. He proceeds to begin lopping off “demon” heads left and right. While one of his sons embraces this new mission, the other, older, son thinks his dad’s gone loony.

An unexpected heat wave this week sent me seeking air conditioning that someone else was paying for, so I ended up seeing Frailty, without any particular desire to. That said, I have always liked Bill Paxton (even back in the Weird Science days when played the militaristic older brother from hell “Chet”, and got turned into a ball-less slimy monster by one very drool-worthy Kelly LeBrock) and I was really interested to see his directorial debut.

I was impressed. This film was creepy. The kind of creepy you are still thinking about a few hours, maybe even days, later. It gave me something to ponder, it didn’t lead where I expected it to go, and it accomplished the task of freaking me out without showing gratuitous blood and gore. There was certainly a lot of implied violence, made all the more eerie by the maniacal, passionless, precision with which it was carried out.

The lighting was gorgeous, which is particularly important when much of a film’s story takes place at night, as this one’s does. Pacing was good as well, the plot moved along quickly, and at 1 hour 40 minutes this film escaped the dreaded “film bloat” curse that has afflicted so many otherwise good movies in the last five years.

The most disturbing part of the plot for me was the plight of the two young boys when their father receives his “calling.” What can be more frightening than having a person you depend on utterly suddenly descend into seeming madness, when you have no support system, and no one to turn to? It’s a question that faces many kids whose fathers aren’t crazed killers: What do you do when no one believes you about how crazy things are at your house?

I know that this same type of drama unfolds in the homes of thousands of children in America each day. After all, what is the difference between a father who thinks he’s seen God, and one who is dead drunk? They are both scary, unpredictable and often violent. It’s striking how easy it is to carry on atrocities in the privacy of the home, with not even a questioning glance from the neighbors. Some of the later scenes between the older son and his father are particularly disturbing – so if you are sensitive to that type of situation, beware. (Though if you are that sensitive, get your ass out of this “R” rated horror flick and into “Ice Age.”)

The complete absence of women in any role other than murder victim is somewhat troubling as well, but I will be generous with my benefit of the doubt here, as the cast was quite small.

One interesting twist was the selection of Powers Boothe to play the FBI agent investigating the “Hand of God” murders. How long has it been since anyone has heard a peep out of him?

Overall, I thought this was an excellent film, and if you like a little creepiness and a little mind-fuck to go along with it, give Frailty a shot.