romantic comedy

Peggy Sue Gets Cloned

Brandon Judell — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 05:01:01 +0000

Peggy Sue Gets Cloned Brandon Judell September 27, 2012 - 01:01

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"The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there," L.P. Hartley noted in the opening of his novel The Go-Between.

In 1986, Francis Ford Coppola tried to explore that notion with his wan whimsy in Peggy Sue Got Married, which closed the New York Film Festival. Kathleen Turner, who was nearing the end of her film career as a marketable entity on the West Coast (The War of the Roses (1989) was her final Hollywood hit), starred as the eponymous fortyish mother whose greasy spouse (Nicolas Cage) is ditching her. Distraught, Peggy Sue is persuaded to attend her high school reunion where she ends up being crowned queen. Immediately, she collapses and winds up traveling back in time to her teens. The quirk is that both she and the audience see that Peggy Sue clearly is a middle-aged mom dressing up in age-inappropriate attire, while her parents, friends, and all the other screen personae see her as she would have been at age 16.

What joy! Peggy Sue can now reunite with her deceased relatives and tell her mom (the superb Barbara Harris) that she loves her. But can the past be changed? In her original life's journey, Peggy Sue wed her high school sweetheart (Cage) who wound up being such a relentless jerk. But if she turns her back on him now, what will happen to her future children whom she misses so much?

With a cast that includes Jim Carrey, Barry Miller, Joan Allen, Maureen O’Sullivan, and an inept Sofia Coppola as Peggy Sue's sister, the film often soars into the imaginary heavens of delight but then just as quickly sputters and crash lands due to Coppola's leaden helming, which is not surprising on two counts. Coppola has, if memory serves me correctly, never centered a film around a woman before, and his only sustained comedy was his early effort, the truly delightfully offbeat You're a Big Boy Now (1966) starring Peter Kastner and Elizabeth Hartman.

Now, 26 years later, the New York Film Festival is taking a second chance on the same scenario, but this time with a Gallic sensibility. Noemie Lvovsky directs and stars in Camille Rewinds as the alcoholic Camille, an unsuccessful actress whose spouse has left her for a younger damsel.

Distraught, Camille is induced to attend a New Year’s party where she'll be reuniting with all of her old classmates. After countless toasts, New Year's rings in, and Camille collapses and winds up travelling back to her teens, where she ponders, "If you could go back in your life and change a love that you know will end badly, would you end it?"

Although the story yet again doesn't take advantage of all of its delicious possibilities, this more elastic rendering carries far more charm than its predecessor thanks to Lvovsky and her far less wooden castmates. The young women here are more natural, the lads less stereotypically jerky, and Lvovsky's direction far more light-handed. The end result is a smile-engendering journey back to youthful innocence that we all wish we could take. After all, who wouldn't mind losing their virginity once again, and this time with some polished technique?

Eat, Pray, Love, Arizona-Style

Brandon Judell — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 06:16:38 +0000

Eat, Pray, Love, Arizona-Style Brandon Judell July 23, 2012 - 02:16

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With the current Sedona, writer/director/producer Tommy Stovall establishes that showcasing good-hearted, spiritually eccentric people with the power to revamp big-city workaholics into Thoreaus and Elizabeth Gilberts is his modus operandi.

A tiny, low-budget American indie, Sedona is a love letter to this small Arizona town with its jaw-dropping red sandstone formations, a major draw for those seeking mystical transformations. Just imagine a lush National Geographic special with uplifting plot lines.

Sedona's initial tale concerns Tammy (Titanic’s Frances Fisher), a middle-aged businesswoman driving on to Phoenix for a major advertising deal. The dear, frazzled coffee-addict, though, just might never reach her desired destination. Fate? First, her auto is damaged by a small privately owned plane forced to land on the highway due to engine trouble. Then she's apprised her car parts have to be ordered, so to pass time she winds up getting a foot massage from Deb (Beth Grant), a feel-good expert on chakras and astrology. During this session, Tammy conjures up memories of being an unwed teenage mom who was forced to give up her son. After this painful recollection subsides, she rents a car, loses its keys, meets a middle-aged hunk (Blue Lagoon's Christopher Atkins, and looks under a statue's skirts to see if the sculptor actually included a vagina, as all the townspeople insist.

A few miles away on a hiking trip, a gay male couple, Scott (Seth Peterson) and Eddie (Matthew J. Williamson), with their two sons, intermittently display their love and irritation with each other. Will Scott, a lawyer, ever overcome his attachment to his cell phone and become an affectionate element of this family? Well, when one son gets lost in the snaked-filled hills, you can bet a catharsis is on the way.

If this weren't enough, there’s a surprise connection between all of the characters about which my lips will remain mum.

However, I'll vocalize that Sedona is a pleasant, pain-free pastime that might just calm you down a little and help you ponder your interaction with this angst-filled world. Clearly a family film in the best sense, one boasting an affable cast, a basic, humane screenplay, and serviceable helming, it’s proof that sometimes that's all you need.

(Out on DVD, Blu-Ray, and digital download on August 22, 2012. Will be available On Demand through major U.S. cable providers.)

Love and Stilts, Detroit Style

Brandon Judell — Tue, 08 May 2012 21:08:24 +0000

Love and Stilts, Detroit Style Brandon Judell May 8, 2012 - 17:08

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The Giant Mechanical Man (TGMM), the Lee Kirk film starring Jenna Fischer (The Office) and Chris Messina (Six Feet Under), is for audiences who have a yen for a true romantic comedy, one that feels gentle and real, but lacks the heroine getting the runs in the middle of traffic. Or a scene where a man's chest hair is pulled off. Or a finale where an overweight, pothead/pornographer gets the beautiful blonde. It's also one, thankfully, that's never been in the vicinity of Nicholas Sparks.

If you have to place this delightful offering anywhere, TGMM is much closer in sensibility to (500) Days of Summer than to any Apatow commodity. That has a lot to do with Kirk's effortless direction, the impressive casting, cinematographer Doug Emmet's superb take on the Detroit locale, and the oddball trajectory of the love story.

This "tall" tale begins with Tim (Messina) being dumped by his live-in girlfriend (Lucy Punch). She's apparently outgrown being charmed by his lack of ambition and his profession: earning his living as a mime on stilts while dressed as a businessman with an attaché case.

Across town, the hapless Janice (Fischer), who dreams that she's losing her teeth, is fired from her temp agency for being the antithesis of Janet on Three's Company. She lacks verve and confidence, she's told. Unable to pay her rent, she moves in with her successful, condescending kid sister Jill (Malin Akerman) and her sibling's spouse (Rich Sommer).

So how do the two would-be lovers meet, wind up working at a zoo with penguins and selling grape drink while overcoming all obstacles, including a smarmily hilarious self-help guru (Topher Grace)? And why you will care?

Well, I'll at least tell you why you'll give a hoot. The chemistry between the leads is startlingly palatable. As wrong as Sarah Jessica Parker was for Hugh Grant in Did You Hear About the Morgans?, Fischer is right for Messina here. In bed and out of it, the two create a whole. If you recall that cartoon segment in Hedwig and the Angry Inch, the takeoff on Aristophanes's explanation of why we are seeking our other halves, you'll instantly see that this duo melds into a plausible unit effortlessly. Together Fischer and Messina exude that practically indefinable essence that is the capability of certain actors to convince moviegoers that they are actually witnessing true love bubbling forth on the screen.

While not perfect -- and what is? -- this Tribeca Film Festival offering, which is now slowly opening around the country, is a solid summer palate cleanser to savor between all those main courses of superhero wham-a-thons.

Drowning in Love

Brandon Judell — Sun, 22 May 2011 14:00:00 +0000

Drowning in Love Brandon Judell May 22, 2011 - 10:00

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Submarine

Teen romance is often hilarious, especially for folks who are no longer teens. No wonder filmmakers keep returning to the topic. Why, to witness a hormonally whacked lad taking love so gravely . . . to contemplate an acne-prone youth actually believing another soul will complete his own . . . to see a young man as he slowly moves his lips in for that first smooch as if the earth's rotation depends on it, is to observe a spectacle either as spectacular as Moses' parting of the Red Sea or as delirious as brunch at Pee-wee's Playhouse.

Of course, Shakespeare had it both ways. Although he eventually transformed Romeo and Juliet into a tragedy of tragedies, until that Act 5, Scene 3 fatal Waterloo, which eviscerates the notion that true love could traipse the roads of Verona unperturbed, there were more than a few amusing banters.

Benvolio: Here comes Romeo, here comes Romeo!

Mercutio: Without his roe, like a dried herring. O flesh, flesh, how art thou fishified!

But now with a slightly more chipper viewpoint, writer/director Richard Ayoade has ably adapted Joe Dunthorne's acclaimed Welsh coming-of-age novel, Submarine, a book that has been compared favorably by at least one reviewer to Catcher in the Rye. The result is a deliciously sardonic yet heartfelt film that emerges from a sea of adolescent angst with as much charm as such recent praiseworthy fare as Terry Zwigoff's Ghost Worldand Miguel Arteta's Youth in Revolt.

Set in a time period that feels very mid-'70s, 15-year-old Oliver Tate (Craig Roberts), a haphazard lad, wishes his life was like a cinematic work in the making. His goal, besides a life worthy of a film that is "a monumental achievement," is to answer the question "What kind of person am I?"

Aiding Oliver in this quest is a cast of characters that includes his father, Lloyd (Noah Taylor), an extremely milquetoast-y scientist whose specialty is fish. His mother, Jill (Sally Hawkins), is a demoralized spouse who once wanted to be an actress but was told her tongue was too large for her mouth. Lloyd and Jill stopped having sex seven months ago.

Enter the new neighbor, the hypersexed, hippie-ish, spiritual guru Graham Purvis (Paddy Considine), who might just be up to seducing Jill in his very groovy van.

Oh, no! Can Oliver save his parents' marriage while losing his virginity to the love of his life, Jordana Bevan (Yasmin Paige), a tough cookie of a classmate who suffers from occasional bouts of eczema and likes unromantic settings? Will setting off little fires bring them together?

A richly developed character study that's splendidly written and visually inspired, plus sublimely edited by Nick Fenton and Chris Dickens, Submarine deftly sends up its protagonists while never demeaning them. It's a whimsical love letter to adolescent inadequacy and the overcoming thereof, one that might be backed up by the anonymous quote, “Raising teenagers is like nailing Jell-o to a tree."

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Finally, a Date Film for the Lobotomized

Brandon Judell — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 15:12:23 +0000

Finally, a Date Film for the Lobotomized Brandon Judell June 16, 2007 - 11:12

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romantic comedy

There's a telling paragraph in the production notes for the new romantic comedy And Then Came Love:

"On the first day of production, a grip was electrocuted and had to be rushed to the emergency room; a P.A. had a fender bender in a rented production vehicle; the location fee ended up being twice what was anticipated; and a second meal was called as production went over schedule. [Producer/writer Caytha] Jentis did her best to recall the deep breathing exercises from her Lamaze class."

Instead, Ms. Jentis should have looked up the Ten Plagues in the Bible. God was apparently giving her a hint: "Stop or your creative first born will be decimated." And believe me, God wasn't pulling any punches.

What we have here is a low-budget, colorless 99 minutes of insipid dialogue, lackluster performances (with one exception), a stale Chick Lit plot, and direction by Richard Schenkman that should be highlighted at every film course in America: "Watch what this chap has wrought, and do the opposite."

The story depicted here is a modest one, but simplicity is not in itself a fault. As Leonardo da Vinci once noted, "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." Leo, however, should have included the qualifier "often." Anyway, driven magazine columnist Julie (Vanessa Williams) is raising six-year-old Jake (Jeremy Gumbs) all by her lonesome, which is only fair. After all, she spawned him alone after a trip to a sperm bank.

At first glance, Julie has everything a modern woman could desire: a beautiful son; a job she adores; a handsome, successful photographer boyfriend named Ted (Michael Boatman); an understanding homosexual boss (Stephen Spinella); and an acidic, interfering mom (Eartha Kitt) who wants her wed. But then Jake starts acting up. Yes, the lad is troublesome to say the least. Hey, this behavior is definitely not from her side of the family.

Whose seed is responsible for this terror tot? To find out, Julie hires a private investigator. The "villain," it turns out, is the very sweet Paul (Kevin Daniels), a struggling actor who's starring in a Weehawken, New Jersey, production of The Importance of Being Earnest. Any fans of Oscar Wilde, run for the hills.

The problem here is that neither Paul nor Mr. Daniels can act. This would-be thespian's one charismatic moment is when he goes shirtless. The man does sport an exceptional set of pectoral muscles, but then who doesn't these days?

Back to the plot: Julie against her will falls for poor Paul while still dating rich Ted. Whom will she wind up with? Duh! And will Paul ever learn he's Jake's father? Duh to the second power! The only times festivities liven up are when Ms. Kitt shows up and does her diva bit. Now 80, this superb songstress and highly underrated actress vitalizes the proceedings to such a degree that everyone else seems that much drab when she vacates the screen. The lovely Williams is especially ineffectual, whether she's hiding behind trees in Central Park with her mouth open or kvetching about the cards life has dealt her.

As for Gumbs, he's not an especially endearing child, Boatman is beyond bland, and Spinella, once one of our great stage actors, is apparently in need of a paycheck. But the main problem here is Caytha Jentis's witless, by-the-numbers screenplay, a better name for which would have been And Then Came Ineptitude.