Movie Review: The Women

Directed By: Diane English

Starring:
Meg Ryan as Mary Haines
Annette Bening as Sylvie
Debra Messing as Edie

During The Women, I laughed, never cried, and rarely knew when the filmmakers wanted me to do one or the other. The film, a screechy but somehow charming melodrama, features a cast comprised entirely of women, each of them a talented actress audiences have been watching and admiring for years. The lead is none other than Meg Ryan, the retired queen of the romantic comedies, ironically playing a woman experiencing marriage long after the romance and the comedy are over. She is accompanied by Annette Bening, well-accustomed to those skeptical and slighted female roles. Here, she continues the tradition she began in American Beauty and continued with Mrs. Harris, but does so with designer clothing and handbags. Debra Messing and Jada Pinkett Smith round out the gossipy foursome, playing the mother of four rambunctious kids (all girls) and a lesbian respectively. They are all so different; we never know how they all became such good friends.

Diane English, the writer and director who struggled for a reported fourteen years to get this remake made, is never shy about the film’s edge: it is all about women and all for women. Within the first fifteen minutes, the first male character (discussed, but never seen) is already revealed to be an adulterer. He is the husband of Mary Haines (Ryan) and is slinking around with the overtly-sexual perfume girl at Saks Fifth Avenue, Crystal Allen (Eve Mendes). Mendes plays the big-breasted bimbo as a bombshell with very little brains, so dumb she would reveal the affair to store’s chatty nail technician (Debi Mazar). Soon enough, Mary’s best friend Sylvie (Bening) catches wind of the gossip and is obviously perplexed: should she pry into the marriage of her best friend or should she keep it a secret? Too late, Mary finds out before Sylvie can tell her and immediately kicks her philandering husband to the curb, much to the dismay of their young daughter (India Ennenga).

This is when the film begins to buckle under itself. At first a light and breezy comedy about gal pals, it awkwardly attempts to transition into more dramatic territory. Mary’s daughter begins to act out; Mary tries to heal her depression with rehab and then, not surprisingly, a new clothing line; Sylvie and Mary’s friendship is threatened by a serious argument; and Sylvie’s career is pushed to the brink of destruction when her sales drop and she is forced to make some tough decisions. All of this, crammed into just under two hours, is hurled at the audience with vigor and determination, but without the grace or humor that permeated the earlier scenes. It is fortunate then that English regains her composure just in time to provide the film with a fitting conclusion that, thankfully, feels closer in tone to the beginning than the middle.

Over the fourteen years of research and development that was invested in Diane English’s pet project, she should have spent more time smoothing out the muddled mid-section to allow for a more even and engaging transition from beginning to end. The melodramatic and clichéd plot is expected; this is a comedy, after all, and does not necessarily need to provide any thoughtful insight about its characters or their situations. What is left to be said about divorce, adultery, or job woes that hasn’t been said limitless times before in better movies? English never wastes our time with such faux revelations, instead directing her primary focus on entertaining and charming her strictly-female audience. For the most part, she succeeds, thanks mostly to her well-assembled and delightful cast. If nothing else, it reminds me of why I like Meg Ryan, Annette Bening, and all of the others…and why they should have busier acting careers today.

News: Jackman Out Of Cleo

Steven Soderbergh's ambitious project Cleo has just lost one of its leading stars, actor and Broadway star Hugh Jackman. The star of the recent box-office flop Australia and the host for the next Academy Awards removed himself from negotiations earlier this week and some news sources are suggesting that is may be because of scheduling conflicts with the Oscars telecast or some other project. The film, a 3-D live action musical about Cleopatra and her relationship with Marc Antony, will cost a reported $30 million to make with musical selections supplied by the indie rock group, Guided by Voices. The film will also reportedly star Catherine Zeta-Jones as Cleopatra and Ray Winstone as Julius Ceasar. Without judging the film before seeing it, it seems more likely to me that Jackman abandoned negotiations because of the film's outrageous nature than anything else. A 3-D musical that blends rock and roll with Cleopatra certainly sounds like a risky venture and Jackman may be searching for a guaranteed success after the damaging Australia. Jackman will, most certainly, strike gold at the box-office later this year with the action film, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and then will follow that with the Neil Marshall-directed Drive (which could be the source of the scheduling conflict). The good news for Soderbergh is that, despite his choice actor dropping out of negotiations, he still has more than enough time to recast the role and film Cleo before its release sometime in 2011.

Movie Review: Milk

Directed By: Gus Van Sant

Starring:
Sean Penn as Harvey Milk
Josh Brolin as Dan White
James Franco as Scott Smith

Harvey Milk is inspirational, not just because of what he fought for, but because of how he fought for it: with determination, grace, and respectfulness. His message of equality is an important one, one that is still timely and relevant even today. His tactics to achieve change, resembling the peaceful ones of Martin Luther King Jr., transcend religious or political ideologies. Many may look at him as being immoral because of his homosexuality and this film to be even more so because of its idealization of him. Putting my own religious beliefs aside, I believe that no one word can ever fully describe a man or a woman…not gay or straight, young or old, black or white, etc. It is the culmination of their beliefs and actions that defines them and, with all of the achievements Harvey Milk made in his lifetime (not just for homosexuals, but for all people), his story is one that deserves to be told.

And his story is told exceptionally well. Sean Penn is a masterful talent and his touching and endearing portrayal of the first openly-gay elected official in the United States is one of the best of his career. We meet Harvey as an unsatisfied man, a researcher for Bache & Co. who is slowly but surely coming out about his homosexuality. He encounters the handsome and younger Scott Smith (Franco) and their relationship blossoms quickly. They move together to San Francisco and open up a camera shop on the famed Castro Street. Initially excited to be a part of the largest and most well-known gay community in the country, they are soon disgusted to see the hatred directed towards their newfound friends by members of the San Francisco Police Department. Harvey eventually becomes an unelected leader and defender for the abused citizens, the self-proclaimed Mayor of Castro Street. When this proves to be not enough, he decided to run for office.

It is not an easy road for Harvey to finally get a position on the Board of Supervisors. He loses the election three times and even loses Scott, tired of all of the politics, along the way…but he finally achieves his goal. Immediately heading into battle against such people as the infamous Anita Bryant, he desperately tries to stop the passing of Proposition 6, an act that would call for the dismissal of any gay public school teacher and any teachers that supported gay rights. In one of the most criminally-misguided efforts in American history, the supporters of Proposition 6 argued that these teachers would be teaching homosexuality to their students, something that they considered to be a form of child molestation. History tells us that Proposition 6 will not pass, but Gus Van Sant manages to build considerable suspense anyway…as he does in the film’s tragic climax.

Milk is a bittersweet story because, even though it is encouraging and inspirational, we know how it must end: with the devastating assassination of Harvey Milk at the hands of Dan White (brilliantly played by Brolin), his former ally. Van Sant bravely does not shy away from this powerful scene, instead depicting it bluntly. Harvey’s assassination was, of course, part of his gripping journey, an integral part that has helped define his legacy, no matter how sad or heartbreaking it is. In order to stay true to his story, this scene must be shown. Gus Van Sant has made one of the most emotionally-touching films of the year, propelled by strong performances from every cast member and a firm grip on the story at hand. Though the screenplay does often try to canonize the politician and activist, it is Sean Penn’s brave and stirring performance that helps us break through our own belief systems and experience the life and message of Harvey Milk.

Movie Review: Twilight

Directed By: Catherine Hardwicke

Starring:
Kristen Stewart as Bella Swan
Robert Pattinson as Edward Cullen
Billy Burke as Charlie Swan

To begin this review, I must offer a disclaimer of sorts. I am a fan of the popular book series, written by Stephenie Meyer. As such, my love for the books has made it impossible to judge the film without some pre-viewing bias. Whether or not my preconceived notions help or hurt the film’s chances will soon be revealed. With that said, I can begin my review with a clear conscious. Meyer’s first novel and the premiere installment in the best-selling series is a touching story, filled with various subplots and many characters. It is much easier to properly develop and characterize all of them within four-hundred pages of text…but director Catherine Hardwicke and screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg have the task of squeezing all of this into two hours. The bad news is that some of the book is lost in translation; the good news is that the same cannot be said for its charm, which is still firmly in tact.

The film, following the book rather faithfully, follows Bella Swan (Stewart), a high school student from Phoenix who is moving to Forks, Washington to live with her father, Charlie (Burke), after her mother remarries. Forks, we are told, is the rainiest place in the continental United States, a fact that I won’t question due to the constant rain that falls upon nearly ever scene. On her first day at her new school, Bella meets a lot of new (and noticeably overly-friendly) friends, none more intriguing than the Cullen family. They are five adopted siblings: Alice, Rosalie, Emmett, Jasper (Ashley Greene, Nikki Reed, Kellan Lutz, and Jackson Rathbone respectively), and, the most fascinating of them all, Edward (Pattinson). But, when Edward glares angrily and with great disgust at Bella throughout their biology class, she is dismayed. Could his strange behavior really be because of her? As the relationship between Edward and Bella blossoms, she finds out the truth.

The truth, as almost everyone knows, is that Edward and his entire family, including their parental figures Carlisle and Esme (Peter Facinelli and Elizabeth Reaser), are vampires…but they are not ordinary vampires. Unlike others of their kind, they refuse to feed off of humans, instead forcing themselves to drink the blood of animals only. “We like to think of ourselves as vegetarians,” Edward explains. Somewhere, a disgruntled PETA member is writing a very angry memo to Summit Entertainment. Anyway, their love is greatly challenged by Edward’s desperate thirst for her blood and yet he is conflicted in his heart and mind by his undying love for her. It is this aspect of the film that is the most intriguing. When a trio of bloodthirsty and violent vampires, led by the brutal James (Cam Gigandet), sets their gaze on Bella, it will take all of the Cullen family to save her from certain death.

The complaints that many have had with Twilight are justified; I, myself, had them as well. The relationship between Bella and Edward is rushed, so quickly that it soars past believability and into contrivance. The film, as a whole, is visibly low-budget and sports some unconvincing special effects. And the battle between James’s clan and the Cullen family is not explored nearly as well as it was in the book and, therefore, lacked some of the edge that it originally had. However, all of this was expected. With the exception of the budget (a criticism of Summit more than anything else), similar errors are common in book-to-screen adaptations. I do believe that this is the best film that could possibly be made from Stephenie Meyer’s novel and still retain its spirit. Fans will, no doubt, love it and the uninitiated willing to give it a chance may find themselves caught up in the hysteria as well.

Movie Review: Hamlet 2

Directed By: Andrew Fleming

Starring:
Steve Coogan as Dana Marschz
Catherine Keener as Brie Marschz
Amy Poehler as Cricket

Hamlet 2 is not, as one might expect, a sequel to William Shakespeare’s classic tragedy, but rather a movie about a school production of a sequel. The play is being helmed by Dana Marschz (Coogan), a down-on-his-luck drama teacher. Steve Coogan, a British actor in the process of transitioning into the American industry, is charming, but this is a thankless and faulty role. Marschz is a detestable man, sleazy and rarely amusing; Coogan plays him better than anyone else could have, but it hardly matters. The same cannot be said for the supporting cast members, almost all of whom are given more likable and interesting characters to portray. They all combine in a funny--yet not uproariously hilarious, as some critics might claim--and brutally politically incorrect comedy that mocks everything from Shakespeare and Jesus Christ to Hillary Clinton and the ACLU. It may not be Shakespeare, but it’s good nonetheless.

The life of Dana Marschz has been a fairly pathetic one; he has no income, is so broke that he and his wife (Keener) must take in a boarder (David Arquette), is on the verge of losing his drama department at Tucson High School, and is famous primarily for doing a commercial for a sexually-transmitted disease medication. “I'm having a herpes outbreak, right now--but you'd never know it. Thanks, Herpocol!” He chortles, flashing a glistening grin at the television screen. It’s funny because we have all seen these commercials, have all wondered what kind of actor would be a part of them…and now we know. After his last play, a rendition of Erin Brockovich, was panned by the school newspaper and viewed by only a handful of people, he is informed that his program will be cancelled if he cannot show a significant improvement with his next production.

Now, stop to think how deranged a man must be if he would be willing to put his career on the line with a sequel to William Shakespeare’s Hamlet…involving a time machine, Jesus, Albert Einstein, and Hillary Clinton. Not surprisingly, the school administration is outraged and the local community is disgusted. Parents refuse to allow their children to participate in such a profane and offensive play. Out of everyone, I sympathize with them; I wouldn’t want my sixteen-year-old to take part in something like this. But, most of these parents just throw up their hands and let their kids do it; in the end, they are cheering along with the other remaining audience members. The play, banned by the school’s supposedly stuffy (but probably just sane) principal, is relocated to an abandoned old warehouse. Sure enough, protesters show up; when will they learn that picketing stuff only gives it free publicity?

Hamlet 2 is a funny film, but its greatest flaw is an inevitable one given the premise. Its story depends on the stupidity of its main character, a fumbling and unlikable man. He must be there to propel all of the new jokes and offensive remarks, but we can’t help but wish he wasn’t. This is rectified by a more subtle supporting cast, including the dryly humorous Catherine Keener and the always-wonderful Amy Poehler. Hamlet 2 is at its very best when it is slyly poking fun at Elisabeth Shue, playing herself. She has retired from the vicious movie business in order to become a nurse and just happens to be Marschz’s favorite actress. In the end, she is the play’s biggest supporter, laughing hysterically while everyone else is storming away out of their seats. I cannot say that I was as enthusiastic as she was about this film, but I certainly wasn’t leaving my seat either.