by Julia Bottles
From the opening frames, director Adrienne Shelly's film Waitress walks a fine line between light comedy and over-the-top camp. Jenna (Keri Russell) holds a home pregnancy test in her hands awaiting the result as her fellow waitresses Dawn and Becky throw out emotionally exaggerated lines at her. It shouldn't work, but somehow it does, setting the tone for the rest of the film.
The film continues to follow Jenna through the early stages of her pregnancy, a lens into an unhappy life lightened only by her pie-making genius. As Jenna plots her escape from her hated husband Earl (Jeremy Sisto), she finds passion in the arms of her neurotic obstetrician Dr. Pomatter (Nathan Fillion). Their affair grows into something more than mere physical attraction, and the miserable waitress gets a glimpse at happiness.
Waitress will be shown at the Forum this Thursday Feb. 14 for Valentine’s Day.
Showing posts with label Reviews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Reviews. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
The Apartment
by Joey Mandeville
It’s hard to find comedies like The Apartment anymore. While today what passes for comedy often offers up little more than sight gags and gross-out humor, The Apartment builds its laughs through genuine emotion and dilemma. That kind of comedy will always be funnier and more meaningful, because the story is involving and the laughs are real.
The story being told is of perennial nice-guy C.C. ‘Bud’ Baxter (Jack Lemmon), whose generosity at work leads him to loan out his apartment to bosses who are less than faithful to their wives. That is, until his boss J.D. Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray) decides to use said apartment to start courting Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine), Baxter’s secret office crush. This charming story, told in just over two hours, moves forward at a pleasant and engaging pace as we chart both characters’ eventual redemption.
One of the movie’s greatest assets is the combination of Lemmon’s naïve and bumbling Baxter with MacLaine’s cynical and impassioned Fran. This refreshing contrast switches the traditional gender roles of the day. Fran often seems so much older than Baxter, and her character is no worse for any lack of fidelity she displays. Often she sees truths in the world that Baxter could not fathom. “Some people take, and some people get took” she pessimistically states after being abandoned again by Sheldrake in the apartment.
Baxter’s frank and endearing innocence combats this outlook. Consider when, in reference to his love for Fran, he compares his life to that of Robinson Crusoe, “shipwrecked among 8 million people. And then one day I saw a footprint in the sand and there you were.”
The Apartment continues to be regarded as one of the greatest comedies, and indeed one of the greatest movies, of all time. The story is engaging, the characters fascinating, but describing them paints part of a picture that only seeing this classic movie can complete.
The Apartment is playing at the Forum this Wednesday, Feb. 13.
It’s hard to find comedies like The Apartment anymore. While today what passes for comedy often offers up little more than sight gags and gross-out humor, The Apartment builds its laughs through genuine emotion and dilemma. That kind of comedy will always be funnier and more meaningful, because the story is involving and the laughs are real.
The story being told is of perennial nice-guy C.C. ‘Bud’ Baxter (Jack Lemmon), whose generosity at work leads him to loan out his apartment to bosses who are less than faithful to their wives. That is, until his boss J.D. Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray) decides to use said apartment to start courting Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine), Baxter’s secret office crush. This charming story, told in just over two hours, moves forward at a pleasant and engaging pace as we chart both characters’ eventual redemption.
One of the movie’s greatest assets is the combination of Lemmon’s naïve and bumbling Baxter with MacLaine’s cynical and impassioned Fran. This refreshing contrast switches the traditional gender roles of the day. Fran often seems so much older than Baxter, and her character is no worse for any lack of fidelity she displays. Often she sees truths in the world that Baxter could not fathom. “Some people take, and some people get took” she pessimistically states after being abandoned again by Sheldrake in the apartment.
Baxter’s frank and endearing innocence combats this outlook. Consider when, in reference to his love for Fran, he compares his life to that of Robinson Crusoe, “shipwrecked among 8 million people. And then one day I saw a footprint in the sand and there you were.”
The Apartment continues to be regarded as one of the greatest comedies, and indeed one of the greatest movies, of all time. The story is engaging, the characters fascinating, but describing them paints part of a picture that only seeing this classic movie can complete.
The Apartment is playing at the Forum this Wednesday, Feb. 13.
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
Thin (playing at the Forum this Wednesday)
by Christine Grummon
Five million Americans currently suffer from an eating disorder.
One in seven anorexic women will die from their disease.
It is with these grim statistics that the documentary Thin opens. Directed by Lauren Greenfield, the movie chronicles the lives of four women as they undergo treatment at the Renfrew Center, a recovery facility for people with eating disorders. The film introduces us to Shelly, Polly, Brittany and Alisa, women ranging in age from 15 to 30 with extensive histories of eating disorders.
Shifting focus from each of the patients’ stories, the film follows their victories, setbacks and the relationships each develops between the staff and other patients. We watch as the women struggle through seemingly mundane tasks like eating a birthday cupcake or finishing a slice of pizza.
Aside from the opening statistics and brief background descriptions of the four women, Thin makes almost no commentary on the events of the film. Through its intimate study of the four women, the film offers insight into the complicated psychology surrounding eating disorders. Pressure from family, peers, and society are all portrayed as culprits in the women’s suffering along with the failure of insurance companies to provide adequate coverage for treatment. The movie ends with the departure of each woman from the center, though not all of them leave because they’re physically or emotionally ready.
Thin presents an interesting and relevant study of those suffering from eating disorders, but it does leave something to be desired. Juggling the stories of four very different women, transitions between segments sometimes seem abrupt and each story doesn’t get equally thorough treatment. Follow-up interviews with the women after they had left treatment would also have been a worthwhile addition. But, on the whole, Thin presents an interesting portrait of what it means to have an eating disorder in America.
Five million Americans currently suffer from an eating disorder.
One in seven anorexic women will die from their disease.
It is with these grim statistics that the documentary Thin opens. Directed by Lauren Greenfield, the movie chronicles the lives of four women as they undergo treatment at the Renfrew Center, a recovery facility for people with eating disorders. The film introduces us to Shelly, Polly, Brittany and Alisa, women ranging in age from 15 to 30 with extensive histories of eating disorders.
Shifting focus from each of the patients’ stories, the film follows their victories, setbacks and the relationships each develops between the staff and other patients. We watch as the women struggle through seemingly mundane tasks like eating a birthday cupcake or finishing a slice of pizza.
Aside from the opening statistics and brief background descriptions of the four women, Thin makes almost no commentary on the events of the film. Through its intimate study of the four women, the film offers insight into the complicated psychology surrounding eating disorders. Pressure from family, peers, and society are all portrayed as culprits in the women’s suffering along with the failure of insurance companies to provide adequate coverage for treatment. The movie ends with the departure of each woman from the center, though not all of them leave because they’re physically or emotionally ready.
Thin presents an interesting and relevant study of those suffering from eating disorders, but it does leave something to be desired. Juggling the stories of four very different women, transitions between segments sometimes seem abrupt and each story doesn’t get equally thorough treatment. Follow-up interviews with the women after they had left treatment would also have been a worthwhile addition. But, on the whole, Thin presents an interesting portrait of what it means to have an eating disorder in America.
Thursday, November 08, 2007
The Simpsons Movie
by Kevin Marcou
I’m about as big of a Simpsons fan as you can get without memorizing production codes for each episode, so when The Simpsons Movie was finally announced, I was fairly excited, to say the least. I imagined it to be the sort of opus longtime fans like myself were hoping for, a movie full of callbacks to previous episodes, popular one-shot characters like Hank Scorpio and Sherry Bobbins and generally the same quality as the acknowledged golden age of the series back between seasons five and eight.
Here we have Homer Simpson (voiced by Dan Castellaneta) creating a toxic nightmare out of Lake Springfield, spurring the head of the EPA Russ Cargill (Albert Brooks) to have the entire city of Springfield sealed in. Homer and his family escape to Alaska, but when they learn that Springfield has been slated to become the “new Grand Canyon” via high-powered explosives, the family rushes back to save their hometown.
The movie can be hilariously funny. Be it Homer rifling through a Bible while bemoaning the lack of answers it provides or a simple sight gag like a rat scurrying out of a donut shop, the jokes are great. And self-referential humor abounds, such as the location of Springfield in the U.S. (apparently it borders Maine, Kentucky, Ohio and Nevada). The first half hour of the movie finds the jokes coming in hot, heavy and funny. But then things start to get serious, and the humor—and the movie—begins to lag.
Now, any show that’s featured thousands of characters over its history is going to have a hard time fitting everyone in. That’s completely understandable, and it’s great fun to be on the lookout for past characters that don’t necessarily have a speaking role but are still hanging around in the background. But there was a lot of potential to bring back favorite one-shot-glory characters. Heck, the voice actor for Hank Scorpio (also Albert Brooks) was there, so why not at least give him some time on screen? It simply seems like a wasted opportunity.
On the plus side, the animation is gorgeous and a refreshing change of pace from the glut of CG cartoon movies we’ve been getting recently. The voice actors also have clearly stepped up in terms of the quality of their readings. One particular scene with Marge Simpson (Julie Kavner) elicits about as much emotion as you could conceivably get from a cartoon character with no chin and three-foot-tall blue hair.
It would be impossible to make a movie that fully and satisfactorily encompasses the universe that The Simpsons has created over the past 20 years, so I honestly can’t hold it against them for the things they didn’t include. The Simpsons Movie is not perfect, but it’s as good as you could ever get from the Simpsons. Woo-hoo!
I’m about as big of a Simpsons fan as you can get without memorizing production codes for each episode, so when The Simpsons Movie was finally announced, I was fairly excited, to say the least. I imagined it to be the sort of opus longtime fans like myself were hoping for, a movie full of callbacks to previous episodes, popular one-shot characters like Hank Scorpio and Sherry Bobbins and generally the same quality as the acknowledged golden age of the series back between seasons five and eight.
Here we have Homer Simpson (voiced by Dan Castellaneta) creating a toxic nightmare out of Lake Springfield, spurring the head of the EPA Russ Cargill (Albert Brooks) to have the entire city of Springfield sealed in. Homer and his family escape to Alaska, but when they learn that Springfield has been slated to become the “new Grand Canyon” via high-powered explosives, the family rushes back to save their hometown.
The movie can be hilariously funny. Be it Homer rifling through a Bible while bemoaning the lack of answers it provides or a simple sight gag like a rat scurrying out of a donut shop, the jokes are great. And self-referential humor abounds, such as the location of Springfield in the U.S. (apparently it borders Maine, Kentucky, Ohio and Nevada). The first half hour of the movie finds the jokes coming in hot, heavy and funny. But then things start to get serious, and the humor—and the movie—begins to lag.
Now, any show that’s featured thousands of characters over its history is going to have a hard time fitting everyone in. That’s completely understandable, and it’s great fun to be on the lookout for past characters that don’t necessarily have a speaking role but are still hanging around in the background. But there was a lot of potential to bring back favorite one-shot-glory characters. Heck, the voice actor for Hank Scorpio (also Albert Brooks) was there, so why not at least give him some time on screen? It simply seems like a wasted opportunity.
On the plus side, the animation is gorgeous and a refreshing change of pace from the glut of CG cartoon movies we’ve been getting recently. The voice actors also have clearly stepped up in terms of the quality of their readings. One particular scene with Marge Simpson (Julie Kavner) elicits about as much emotion as you could conceivably get from a cartoon character with no chin and three-foot-tall blue hair.
It would be impossible to make a movie that fully and satisfactorily encompasses the universe that The Simpsons has created over the past 20 years, so I honestly can’t hold it against them for the things they didn’t include. The Simpsons Movie is not perfect, but it’s as good as you could ever get from the Simpsons. Woo-hoo!
Thursday, October 04, 2007
Movie Review: The Namesake
by Aru Singh
Based on the best-selling novel by Jhumpa Lahiri, The Namesake is the story of the Ganguli family, who move from Calcutta to New York in the late 1970s. The touching story explores their inner turmoil in the U.S., especially as they try to raise their son with their own set of Indian traditions and run into conflicts between Eastern and Western mindsets.
The movie begins when Ashoke Ganguli (Irrfan Khan), an engineer in the U.S., goes back to his hometown Calcutta for an arranged marriage to his bride-to-be Ashima (Tabu). They return to the U.S., a new country of which they are very proud, but, like most first generation immigrants, at heart they still remain attached to their Bengali roots and culture. Ashima is slowly but surely falling in love with her “chosen” husband. It's in these scenes that the film shows it true charm—it's so beautifully and realistically handled.
But once they have children problems surface. They grow up full of New York attitude, and tend to have difficulty accepting Indian traditions and customs. The firstborn, rebellious son Gogol (Kal Penn) and his sister Sonia’s (Sahira Nair) dual identities cause them both conflict and even heartache. They endure racism, work and snobbery; meet potential partners; marry: the sad and joyful surprises of the 25-year life journey the movie encompasses.
The lead couple, noted Bollywood actors, give flawless performances. Kal Penn and Sahira Nair also put in decent performances, as does the remaining supporting cast. But what really stands out in the movie is the realism and dialogue. The movie, despite being poignant and serious, is not preachy.
But the movie is not without faults. The script drags at times, the camerawork is less than perfect and the characters of the two children are slightly under-developed.
Yet The Namesake remains a powerful and compelling drama. It is not as much about Indian culture (then and now) as it is about the power and pull of family—that one force that unites us all with love and misery in equal measure. In this era of globalization, immigration and free movement, The Namesake presents the often-ignored human perspective.
Based on the best-selling novel by Jhumpa Lahiri, The Namesake is the story of the Ganguli family, who move from Calcutta to New York in the late 1970s. The touching story explores their inner turmoil in the U.S., especially as they try to raise their son with their own set of Indian traditions and run into conflicts between Eastern and Western mindsets.
The movie begins when Ashoke Ganguli (Irrfan Khan), an engineer in the U.S., goes back to his hometown Calcutta for an arranged marriage to his bride-to-be Ashima (Tabu). They return to the U.S., a new country of which they are very proud, but, like most first generation immigrants, at heart they still remain attached to their Bengali roots and culture. Ashima is slowly but surely falling in love with her “chosen” husband. It's in these scenes that the film shows it true charm—it's so beautifully and realistically handled.
But once they have children problems surface. They grow up full of New York attitude, and tend to have difficulty accepting Indian traditions and customs. The firstborn, rebellious son Gogol (Kal Penn) and his sister Sonia’s (Sahira Nair) dual identities cause them both conflict and even heartache. They endure racism, work and snobbery; meet potential partners; marry: the sad and joyful surprises of the 25-year life journey the movie encompasses.
The lead couple, noted Bollywood actors, give flawless performances. Kal Penn and Sahira Nair also put in decent performances, as does the remaining supporting cast. But what really stands out in the movie is the realism and dialogue. The movie, despite being poignant and serious, is not preachy.
But the movie is not without faults. The script drags at times, the camerawork is less than perfect and the characters of the two children are slightly under-developed.
Yet The Namesake remains a powerful and compelling drama. It is not as much about Indian culture (then and now) as it is about the power and pull of family—that one force that unites us all with love and misery in equal measure. In this era of globalization, immigration and free movement, The Namesake presents the often-ignored human perspective.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)