Hanging on in the late twenties
I've been working to stay on top of the fall movie situation to the tune of four consecutive two-movie Fridays, which probably doesn't sound that unusual in the scheme of how often I go to the movies, but since I'm officially old now, is probably not always a good idea. I may try to save the Toy Story double feature (oh, it's on) for Saturday afternoon and give myself a break on the next Friday. But this past Friday, it was full speed ahead, so Katie and Maggie and Kyle and Sara and Marisa and I saw Zombieland, the first horror comedy to actually produce financial success in who knows how long. It's a ridiculously fun movie, over and out in 80 minutes, and although there's some ragged stuff at the beginning with too much voiceover and a few jokes that don't really land (or at least aren't quite as funny as the screenwriters seem to think), it pretty much does exactly what it sets out to do, with great gusto. The casting helps immensely: Jesse Eisenberg does his Woody Allen Junior routine, Woody Harrelson reminds me that he used to be a weird, equally unlikely combination of movie star and impressive actor, Emma Stone does her adorable-bangs husky-voice slightly-underwritten-but-quite-funny thing. I actually think I prefer it to Shaun of the Dead, which does a better job of spoofing zombie movies with its amazing first thirty or forty minutes, but doesn't have a strong, rollicking finish like this movie, and doesn't have an awesome star cameo that I won't spoil although Michael Phillips on At the Movies did, and doesn't have Emma Stone, and just isn't as laugh-out-loud funny overall.
Then Sara and Marisa and I stuck around and met up with Jon for The Invention of Lying. Curious, after this movie and Ghost Town, how Gervais is developing a tone apart from his TV or stand-up work -- he brings a bit of wit and edge to relatively sweet-tempered movies, rather than creating or starring in dead-aim satires. There are some really smart ideas in Lying (which he co-wrote, co-directed, and leads) but they're not ignored so much as not pushed to their limits. Nothing in the movie is, though it's enjoyable on its terms. Jon pointed out, correctly I think, that because the movie's premise -- giving us a world in which lying has never been discovered, and everyone pretty much says what they think -- requires the actors to perform in sort of an intentionally awkward, stilted, deliberate manner, it also slows them and the movie down; for a high-concept, especially for one that's actually quite funny, the movie itself is surprisingly poky. It doesn't have the energy of Groundhog Day, which virtually no one can keep from mentioning in relation to this movie because it pretty much sets the speculative-comedy standard. But it's consistently amusing and has at least one sequence -- bring up some of those smart ideas I mentioned earlier -- that can stand with similar scenes from Monty Python or Woody Allen. In fact, the movie's lack of verve makes it feel a bit like something Woody Allen would contribute to an anthology of thirty-minute movies, rather than a fully polished feature (also, they totally use the Woody Allen credit font, which I've never seen anywhere else). All of this makes it sound like I didn't care for the movie, but it really is worth a look, if not urgently.
I did sort of a birthday thing on Saturday, but first, for warm-up, Marisa and Sara and I reconvened, this time with Amanda, to catch Whip It, Drew Barrymore's rollerderby-centric directorial debut. Whip It has certain qualities that are by no means indicative of a good movie: it embraces a formulaic story, and the actors look like they had a great time making it. But Barrymore is doing something right, because the formula and the good vibes work well together, and Whip It is unpretentious, sometimes infectious fun, rather than lazy or tedious or smug. It works because the relationships in it feel real; the element I most feared, Marcia Gay Harden playing a disapproving Texas mother, turns out to be really nicely acted and affecting, as is the Ellen Page character's unforced relationship with her dad (Daniel Stern, hey, totally didn't recognize you in the trailers, welcome back). Page also shows friend-chemistry with Alia Shawkat from Arrested Development, and the whole cast succeeds in creating characters who are more or less like real people, but a little funnier and cuter. This movie does not deserve to bomb! The list of female-centered movies that will have outgrossed Whip It at the end of this year will be mild depression in waiting.
Then we went down to Dojo and had dinner with a bunch of awesome people; I don't know why I still get a little surprised when a bunch of awesome people come out to dinner with me when I tend to hang out with awesome people, but I do sometimes get surprised, and it's a nice one. In related news, I have a bunch of mix CDs to listen to and a bunch of comedy DVDs to watch. Afterwards, it graciously stopped raining so a bunch of us could walk to Landmark Sunshine to catch the real event of the weekend, A Serious Man. The new Coen Brothers joint feels, in some ways, like a culmination: the weirdness and frustration of Barton Fink, the deadpan reactions of The Man Who Wasn't There, the shaggy-dog intrigue of The Big Lebowski, and, perhaps surprisingly given the seemingly smaller scale, the bleak worldview of No Country for Old Men. But even with all of this plus the usual grotesques and especially grotesques sitting behind desks, it doesn't feel like a retread; more like a sharpening to a fine, fine point. A Jewish man looks for meaning and order in his life and can't quite find it; sounds deceptively simple. But it's carried out with such a specific mix of the mundane and surreal, perfectly shot with those Roger Deakins washed-out whites that it becomes unstoppable rather than reductive or repetitive. I don't think it will rank among my favorites of theirs (Fargo, Raising Arizona, Lebowski, O Brother) if only because I guess, looking at that list, that I tend to favor some more overt and lovable comedies, but it is kind of amazing in that Coens way that I can't always articulate. Also, it is pretty hilarious.
After the movie, a contingent came back to Greenpoint to watch SNL and eat cupcakes provided by one of the Maggies (I spent a lot of time with both Maggies this weekend, as well as the other Trinity-related kids, and Sara joined a select group of people, most of whom are Marisa and Rob, who have seen three movies with me in a 24-hour period). Today I had cupcakes for breakfast and sort of met John Darnielle. So despite the cold I developed while all of this great stuff was happening, twenty-nine is feeling pretty good so far.
Then Sara and Marisa and I stuck around and met up with Jon for The Invention of Lying. Curious, after this movie and Ghost Town, how Gervais is developing a tone apart from his TV or stand-up work -- he brings a bit of wit and edge to relatively sweet-tempered movies, rather than creating or starring in dead-aim satires. There are some really smart ideas in Lying (which he co-wrote, co-directed, and leads) but they're not ignored so much as not pushed to their limits. Nothing in the movie is, though it's enjoyable on its terms. Jon pointed out, correctly I think, that because the movie's premise -- giving us a world in which lying has never been discovered, and everyone pretty much says what they think -- requires the actors to perform in sort of an intentionally awkward, stilted, deliberate manner, it also slows them and the movie down; for a high-concept, especially for one that's actually quite funny, the movie itself is surprisingly poky. It doesn't have the energy of Groundhog Day, which virtually no one can keep from mentioning in relation to this movie because it pretty much sets the speculative-comedy standard. But it's consistently amusing and has at least one sequence -- bring up some of those smart ideas I mentioned earlier -- that can stand with similar scenes from Monty Python or Woody Allen. In fact, the movie's lack of verve makes it feel a bit like something Woody Allen would contribute to an anthology of thirty-minute movies, rather than a fully polished feature (also, they totally use the Woody Allen credit font, which I've never seen anywhere else). All of this makes it sound like I didn't care for the movie, but it really is worth a look, if not urgently.
I did sort of a birthday thing on Saturday, but first, for warm-up, Marisa and Sara and I reconvened, this time with Amanda, to catch Whip It, Drew Barrymore's rollerderby-centric directorial debut. Whip It has certain qualities that are by no means indicative of a good movie: it embraces a formulaic story, and the actors look like they had a great time making it. But Barrymore is doing something right, because the formula and the good vibes work well together, and Whip It is unpretentious, sometimes infectious fun, rather than lazy or tedious or smug. It works because the relationships in it feel real; the element I most feared, Marcia Gay Harden playing a disapproving Texas mother, turns out to be really nicely acted and affecting, as is the Ellen Page character's unforced relationship with her dad (Daniel Stern, hey, totally didn't recognize you in the trailers, welcome back). Page also shows friend-chemistry with Alia Shawkat from Arrested Development, and the whole cast succeeds in creating characters who are more or less like real people, but a little funnier and cuter. This movie does not deserve to bomb! The list of female-centered movies that will have outgrossed Whip It at the end of this year will be mild depression in waiting.
Then we went down to Dojo and had dinner with a bunch of awesome people; I don't know why I still get a little surprised when a bunch of awesome people come out to dinner with me when I tend to hang out with awesome people, but I do sometimes get surprised, and it's a nice one. In related news, I have a bunch of mix CDs to listen to and a bunch of comedy DVDs to watch. Afterwards, it graciously stopped raining so a bunch of us could walk to Landmark Sunshine to catch the real event of the weekend, A Serious Man. The new Coen Brothers joint feels, in some ways, like a culmination: the weirdness and frustration of Barton Fink, the deadpan reactions of The Man Who Wasn't There, the shaggy-dog intrigue of The Big Lebowski, and, perhaps surprisingly given the seemingly smaller scale, the bleak worldview of No Country for Old Men. But even with all of this plus the usual grotesques and especially grotesques sitting behind desks, it doesn't feel like a retread; more like a sharpening to a fine, fine point. A Jewish man looks for meaning and order in his life and can't quite find it; sounds deceptively simple. But it's carried out with such a specific mix of the mundane and surreal, perfectly shot with those Roger Deakins washed-out whites that it becomes unstoppable rather than reductive or repetitive. I don't think it will rank among my favorites of theirs (Fargo, Raising Arizona, Lebowski, O Brother) if only because I guess, looking at that list, that I tend to favor some more overt and lovable comedies, but it is kind of amazing in that Coens way that I can't always articulate. Also, it is pretty hilarious.
After the movie, a contingent came back to Greenpoint to watch SNL and eat cupcakes provided by one of the Maggies (I spent a lot of time with both Maggies this weekend, as well as the other Trinity-related kids, and Sara joined a select group of people, most of whom are Marisa and Rob, who have seen three movies with me in a 24-hour period). Today I had cupcakes for breakfast and sort of met John Darnielle. So despite the cold I developed while all of this great stuff was happening, twenty-nine is feeling pretty good so far.