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Posts Tagged ‘family’

The Last Song

Monday, September 20th, 2010

“People make mistakes… even the people that we love.”

If you know me you’ll know I’ll watch anything with Miley in and my expectations come relatively high. For some reason I winced a little, as I often do, on hearing that this was based on a Nicholas Sparks novel, before quickly remembering he was also the source of The Horse Whisperer and A Walk to Remember, both of which I love.

This a story that’s been done a million times before, and part of it came to me fairly unexpected. Miley plays your typical unruly teen moving in with her estranged dad after getting into trouble at her old home. The father/daughter thing immediately reminded me of Fly Away Home and Save the Last Dance – regarding the former, there’s even a little wildlife subplot here, with Miley discovering and protecting a bunch of turtles on the nearby beach; regarding the latter, the rebellious teen’s misguided attempts to ingratiate herself with the neighbourhood peers, not to mention of course the reluctance to pursue a once shining potential in an artistic field. The catch here is, daddy’s dying.

It’s a gigantic cheesy cliché in the end, but you’d be kind of foolish to not expect as much. I wanted this movie to make me cry, and ultimately it did (even on a second viewing). There’s something about a girl playing piano for her daddy at his funeral that’s almost as unerringly pure to me as I’ve always said a girl on a horse is in a movie, it just can’t fail to move. Miley can definitely act – I’ve been rewatching Hannah Montana from the start recently in the run-up to its last episodes, and to compare her work here with her work in early episodes of her TV show is to see a girl whose talent has grown fast. I know there’ll be some read that and simply refuse to believe it but really, do the comparison. Even if you still don’t think she can act her way out of a paper bag, you can’t deny that she’s improving. If you’re a fan, you don’t need to be told this. But if you’re not, trust me, her movie work is not as abrasive as you think.

Tags: cuties, family, father-daughter, loss, music, teen
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Taxidermia

Tuesday, August 31st, 2010

I didn’t really have the option to watch this one a second time before reviewing it – it’d been sitting on the Sky+ for quite a while and I watched it in the end simply to free up some space, so it was deleted right after – and though it might’ve helped, I don’t think I could’ve brought myself to watch it again so soon anyway. This is a bizarre, sprawling, ugly movie that you can’t deny is slightly fascinating, but I wouldn’t really wish upon anybody.

The movie comes in three distinct acts, three generations of one family, the taxidermy of the title really only coming into play in the final third (though I’m sure there’s some clever way in which the title applies to the whole movie – I really haven’t been able to think about it that much lol). The first segment has a soldier escaping from his drab existence into perverse fantasies which ultimately cross over to reality where he impregnates his superior’s wife, leading to his execution. In the second, we see the child of this strange beginning as a champion speed eater in what feels like an origins story for Augustus Gloop of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”, lol, only again it’s repellently filmed. The third segment has this man’s child, a scrawny taxidermist reluctantly taking care of his enormous (seriously… enormous) father and feeding up equally enormous caged cats with butter until he accidentally leaves the cage open… as always, I’ll leave off the even more bizarre final turns of the story summary.

If the movie’s trying to say anything, it does so with unwavering pretension. The ending of the movie has a sort of cutting comment to make about art, the final image being (trying to avoid spoilers) a work considered as art, over-elevated as such, which through the course of the movie we have learned enough to know better. Or something. I’m not gonna pretend to have made up my mind about this one, lol. I think it’s the first Hungarian movie I’ve ever seen, it’s certainly unique, it certainly got a reaction out of me, and it’s certainly very well made technically (I don’t think I’ve ever seen such horrifyingly realistic cinematic vomit). If like me you appreciate anything different and can stomach almost anything, this is absolutely worth the time.

Tags: art, family, generations, Hungarian, obesity, speed-eating, trash, war
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Up in the Air

Wednesday, January 6th, 2010

Well I didn’t see this coming… when I heard this being talked about in connection with Oscar Buzz, a movie directed by Juno‘s Jason Reitman (don’t get me wrong, I liked it, but it was overrated*) and starring George Clooney who I always feel can only play himself, I cringed. It seemed this was soon to be the movie that ruined an otherwise good-looking Oscar season and ceremony Slumdog style. It was only when Malcolm Ingram, of whom I only really know of via Kevin Smith’s podcast, tweeted, “I’ll be damned if @jasonreitman didn’t channel Hal Ashby for his new flick UP IN THE AIR…” that my interest really perked up about it. I still started the movie fearing the worst…

Again, I’m not sure where to start (and if I get around to filling in the missing reviews from the end of last year through repeat viewings, you’ll hear that a lot over this season’s Oscar movies)… maybe at the end. At this very moment, even though I’ve still a few potential contenders to see, I’m fairly stunned to find myself thinking this may be the movie I find myself rooting for come March 7th. If nothing else, it ranks alongside Moon and An Education as one of the most intelligent movies I’ve seen of the past year. But on top of that, it has heart that comes from nowhere, on at least two occasions near crippling humour, and a way of capturing the world as it is right now, “our time” and all that (I usually hate that too!), in a manner that I can only compare to Cameron Crowe’s (who I have frequently compared to the aforementioned Ashby) take on the dying gasps of the 60s in Almost Famous. Ingram wasn’t wrong, Reitman has taken leaps here from Juno and if the movie doesn’t sweep all the major categories then I hope he at least benefits from a rare Picture/Director split. If you know how overrated I have on occasion felt Juno was, you’ll know how hard it is for me to say that.

What’s funny is the movie doesn’t immediately fill you with this sense of appreciation. When we first meet Clooney and the woman he falls in love with, played by Vera Farmiga (good, but not as intense as in Orphan), they’re exactly that kind of character that makes you think after about 5 minutes … “ … and why should we care about these people?” They’re rich, fairly obnoxious, hollow people travelling the world and staying in swanky hotels making a living off firing people. Pure loathesome. What’s amazing is how quickly the movie wins you over to them and holds interest over nearly 2 hours approaching the most human, emotional resolutions I have seen in film in the past year. Avatar may be an achievement, Tarantino overdue, and The Hurt Locker one of the greatest war movies of all time, and they’re all among my favourites of last year, make no mistake… but I think this movie, against all the odds given the protagonists, speaks for more people than all those put together in the Right Now, including, to my astonishment, me. If you knew how much I expected, and for a time wanted, to loathe this movie, you’d know how stunned I am to be saying all this.

*Yep, I loved this one so much, however, that I’ll be revisiting Juno and Thank You For Smoking and anything else Reitman has done so don’t call me on that in the comments …

Tags: comedy, employment, family, romance, wedding
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One Magic Christmas

Wednesday, January 6th, 2010

At last, my “good, new (to me), Christmas movie” for the year How come they always come to me at the last minute?

At the heart of this movie is a practically flawless performance by Mary Steenburgen. An angel, played by Harry Dean Stanton, is sent to her with a mission basically to get her back into the Christmas spirit, as she never says “Merry Christmas” to anyone anymore (“Nobody ever means it when they say it anyway,” she tells her 6 year old daughter). Like the best grinchy characters, she’s not a total Scrooge (okay, obviously he wasn’t either, but I like that sentence anyway). We get a sense that she’s “worth” saving despite her current opposition to the Christmas season when we meet her. We see her happily singing in the shower early on, and singing again later on in the street at night in what turns out to be an important scene. We discover a different side of her, this side worth saving, in these private moments shown in harsh contrast alongside her difficult and very real public life. She remembers better times and knows what happiness is … but like a lot of us, she just doesn’t get much.

Midway, when I had already pretty much fallen in love with the movie, it takes a turn I will try not to spoil here but feel compelled to discuss. I’m pretty sure there will be reviews out there that criticise the way it deals with death given that many kids, some perhaps without one or both their parents, will see it and be taken in particularly in the Christmas season. I wondered how JK Rowling, who has always been so final about death even in her magical world, would think of this movie. But despite a little unsettlement at one particular point here, I kinda went with it in the end as it’s more a It’s a Wonderful Life type solution in the end and is more about giving Steenburgen’s character a second chance than giving anybody in the world just anything their heart desires, which let’s face it would be the “bad Disney” many people mistakenly perceive. I would just say, if you plan to watch it with young kids, especially if your family has known death, then take a look at it first yourself and then decide whether to go ahead and watch it together.

All this goes towards saying, wow, what a movie. Its early portion has moments in it where Stanton’s character “intervenes” with events that just goshdarnit make you want to believe in angels at the very least. The grounding of all the fantasy elements in this harsh reality is crucial and missing from so many seasonal movies because filmmakers are so afraid of offending anybody this time of year. This one so goes for it, more than I ever imagined. You watch this and Return to Oz and The Black Cauldron and think “who the heck had a bad day at Disney in 1985 and can I shake their hand?” ‘cos they really nailed the tightrope balance between dark and light at that time. If you’re starved for a great new Christmas movie to watch next year (since it’s a bit late now for this Christmas), and haven’t seen this, put it on top of your list. It mightn’t be great great, but it really goes there.

Tags: Christmas, cuties, death, family, magic, time
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Revolutionary Road

Monday, January 12th, 2009

I was racking my brains thinking how on earth I’d find something to write about this before the Golden Globes tonight (still having the same trouble with Benjamin Button, which I’ve really got to see again before I say anything), but then I found this quote from Ty Burr of the Boston Globe:

“Winslet gives a fearless performance here. It’s not her fault her husband has shrouded it in Taste.”

He’s nailed it. Not necessarily about Kate Winslet’s performance, but in the Taste remark – on the tone this movie comes across with, which I kinda had a gut feeling it would have even as I put it dutifully into my first Oscar predictions almost a year ago – like, you put Sam Mendes, Kate and Leo, Kathy Bates, Roger Deakins and Thomas Newman together in a room, you’d be a moron if you failed. The problem is, these guys are the best people at making movies in the world – Mendes and Deakins for sure – … and here, they’re phoning it in, joining the dots, forgetting originality and artfulness in the pursuit of pure craft. I read that Todd Field was gonna make this instead of Little Children … man, I wouldn’t safrifice that movie for the world, but I’m pretty sure he’d have made a better version out of this than Mendes. Mendes’ vision is just so tired … though I can’t deny how well-made this movie is, it is absolutely one of the dullest I have seen in my life.

I should say somewhere in this review, straight up, that in addition to all this, this clearly isn’t a movie for me. At my very core, and it’s at the top of a very short list of things that irk me so, I simply can’t begin to feel the kind of sympathy this movie seems to be almost just assuming from the outset for people who bring children into the world a) unplanned and b) unprepared. I just had nothing for Kate and Leo here except perhaps over a look Leo has in the last scene when one of the daughters calls to him at a playground to “watch, daddy,” and he’s lost in thoughts – there’s a pain washes over his face that kinda caught me offguard. And their performances are good, for sure. I just didn’t know why I was supposed to care. And I know, that’s because, “I’ve not been there,” so don’t bother telling me. Boohoo for parents.

So, anyway, it’s basically the squeaky clean version of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and the team behind the movie certainly makes a place for it as a companion to movies like Little Children – Titanic – *American Beauty – whatever 6 degrees connection you’d like to make. I can’t lie, however … it really is one of the dullest movies I’ve ever sat through, and I don’t think that’s ever likely to change.

Tags: drama, family, marriage
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The Savages

Thursday, May 15th, 2008

Despite having been a fan of Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney so long it actually makes me feel old (and, in the case of Hoffman, I’ve genuinely almost grown bored of him in his recent work lol), I couldn’t help putting this off and off so much did it resemble your typical indie “gem”. This aversion was almost immediately turned off by the beautiful series of random shots that open the movie. The look, the cinematography of this film is really gorgeous in places, bright blue skies and wide angles, the clean wide world ever present around the filthy reality the protagonists are being faced with, that reality we all tend to kick under the rug as much as possible, that we all grow old and die in frequently humiliating and degrading ways.

I don’t know if it needs to be nearly 2 hours long – it does wear a little thin in the end and could easily do what it does in closer to 90 minutes (shut up, I haven’t mentioned length in ages ), but Hoffman and Linney are perfect – Hoffman in particular is the way I like to see him best after the costume and make-up ridden roles in Capote and gag Charlie Wilson’s War. It’s a subject that hasn’t been covered quite so well before and one that you kind of need to confront yourself with from time to time to stop shallow preoccupations swallowing you entirely.

Tags: age, brother, family, sister
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Daddy Day Camp

Tuesday, April 29th, 2008

Now, how do I say this …? Despite really enjoying Daddy Day Care, I still came to this expecting the absolute worst after the reviews and, well, just look at the re-casting they did. It’s almost as bad as Splash, Too, lol. The presence of Cuba Gooding Jr. not only makes it worse but adds the whole dimension of depressing to the picture. I mean, really: what happened to him?!

But you know what? It grew on me. I laughed. Loudly in places. I mentioned about the toilet humour in the first movie that I liked how it threatened to go too far yet never quite did. I’ve gotta say, here, the gross stuff does go a little far – you could almost make a direct comparison between the “I missed!” scene in the first movie where evidently a little boy with potty problems gives Eddie Murphy’s bathroom a new coat of brown paint, yet all this is played from Murphy’s expression, and a scene here where a kid vomits all over the inside of Cuba Gooding’s tent – I guess Gooding’s expressions aren’t as convincing, because he has to have some of the vomit drop on his forehead. Later, we get the full-on Problem Child/Little Britain style projectile stuff. Not necessary. But I did laugh.

In the end it has just as solid a family message as the first, and I was honestly slightly stirred especially by the son taking matters into his own hands to win the contest, also the climbing wall smashing down on all the trophies Scattered throughout are a number of scenes with a very cute girl called Telise Galanis who hopefully has a future. I truly had no problems with it. Yes, the first is better, duh, it was first. But this one really deserves some kudos for overcoming such mindbogglingly bad casting issues.

Tags: camp, cuties, family, sequel
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Daddy Day Care

Saturday, April 26th, 2008

“Will you say multi-dextrose for me again? It’s too cute.”

I really expected this to be an intolerable nightmare saved only by Elle Fanning, so I was pleasantly surprised to find myself laughing through it a lot more than is probably acceptable, even a couple of l’il tears in my eyes in places. Angelica Huston is practically perfect if a little familiar (she even gets a similar ending here to her character in Ever After) as the evil headmistress of a first class pre-school trying to thwart the relatively restrained Eddie Murphy’s attempts to start a more homely form of daycare, and Lacey Chabert is fun as her sidekick. The kids are adorable almost without exception – they all have their “moments”, particularly at the end when announcing to parents being shown around Huston’s school how they’ve benefited from the daddy day care. Steve Zahn is perfect as a Trekkie who’s able to handle the kids better than anybody since he accidentally read Dr. Spock’s Baby and Childcare.

The movie’s mood veers effortlessly from toilet humour that threatens to go too far at times yet never does and is actually surprisingly effective (“I missed!”) through to pure schmaltz and heartstring tuggery. For family entertainment, I found it almost literally bang in between the astonishing R.V. and the abysmal Yours, Mine and Ours that it most resembles … I don’t know what that means to anyone else, but to me it means I really have no objections, I loved it.

Tags: children, cuties, family
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