Lady in the Water (2006)

Idea: Building manager Cleveland Heep (Paul Giamatti) discovers Story (Bryce Dallas Howard) swimming in the pool after hours. She's fragile, so he takes her in for the night. Cleveland soon discovers that Story is a narf (think sea nymph), seeking the Vessel to whom she must tell her tale before she can return to the Blue World. As Cleveland tries to track down the right writer within the apartment complex where he works, he also has to locate other participants that Story needs to safely go home.

Much as Mission: Impossible III served as a national referendum on the formerly enduring popularity of Tom Cruise, Lady in the Water seems to be one on writer, director, producer and now supporting player M. Night Shyamalan. I don't want to defend him, per se, because I don't think it's a defense that he needs. He needs . . . he needs a co-writer is what he needs.

Let me explain. With only seven directorial credits to his name, Shyamalan is disproportionately, Cameron Crowe sized famous. That's the way it is, and I'm not in the business of assessing fame, so just take it at face value. He made two movies that no one has ever heard of, and then he rolled out The Sixth Sense. Suddenly, he was an Oscar-nominated prodigy, and every one wanted a piece. Looking back on the varying success of the three intervening movies, I wouldn't go as far as to call it squandered promise. I'm not sure what the promise of The Sixth Sense was, anyway. Artsy? Kind of full of itself? Not that surprising? It was a well done movie, the ghosts creeped me out, and I'd watch it again.

Some critics complain that Shyamalan should drop the art house pretentions and just surrender himself to what he is -- a horror director. Which he isn't. Sure, he and composer James Newton Howard rely on blank camera vistas and sudden musical crashes to scare us, and you could call each of his movies, to a certain extent, creature features, but that's oversimplifying. Simplifying is an idea Shyamalan could benefit from, yes, but that's certainly not the problem with this offering.

A narrator pretty much lays the story out in an opening monologue, and I was rolling my eyes, groaning, and fidgeting my way through it. For a bedtime story (a fairy tale in my parlance), it was awfully self-serious. Kids don't play that way. But then the real movie started, and I got into it. Shyamalan has always done a great job setting the story and characters up, and, as he always brings it in under two hours, I wouldn't say he takes too long doing it.

It is at this point that he should bring in a co-author. It's not Shyamalan's ideas that need work, it's the execution. Someone to look over his shoulder, reading the dialogue, and politely, gently asking, "You sure you wanna go there?"

For all his thriller efforts, all Shyamalan's main movies are about a few simple things: right and wrong, good and evil, the interconnectedness of all things, and interdependence. If anything, it's equilibrium he seeks to achieve. As a director, he has a knack for finding the one actor that would fill whatever role perfectly and bringing out the one quality that s/he possesses that brings it all together. As a director, he can be strangely literal (esp. here), but he understands humanity in a way that a lot of others don't. As a writer, well, I'm starting to look back on roles in his other works and realize they were the ones he would have played if he could have. A writer often creates a proxy, and I'm too partial to the technique to criticize it.

As an actor, Shyamalan's natural in front of the camera, and he does alright. None of it is ever quite enough (not scared enough, not shocked enough, not happy enough, etc.), but I have seen so much worse so many times that complaining seems unnecessary. Besides, Giamatti, Jeffrey Wright, and Sarita Choudhary (among others) are so enjoyable that it almost doesn't matter.

I say almost because, seriously, what is with Howard? I liked her so much as Ivy in The Village, where her stilted delivery and strange accent worked with the setting. If this is the way she normally talks, then she needs a dialogue coach immediately. She borders on animatronic most of the time. There was one scene where she started talking normally, but it didn't last. If it was an acting choice, I fail to see the reasoning behind it.

Overall, it's a tough call. There's no big twist, just a series of hiccups. It's too self-serious at times, but it gets the job done. You know what? If this was some animated movie for kids, not a single critic would wrinkle his/her nose at the idea of narfs and scrunts and giant birds that carry people away. There's nothing wrong with a fiction writer creating new worlds. Wes Anderson (the contemporary with whom I most closely associate Shyamalan) does it all the time, and critics are quick to embrace his vision. People are unfairly harsh with Shyamalan. This isn't the best movie ever made or even his best, but it's not that bad. And that, my friends, is pretty good. B

This isn't exactly what I had in mind

 

I know what I said, but this isn't exactly the way I thought it would turn out. Ah, well, put the National back in the right place, and we will forget this ever happened.

 

Sidebar: Does anyone else think he looks terrible in that shot?

Supposedly brilliant players usually miss one move checkmates in critical games. This is akin to a professional race car driver backing his station wagon into the garage door.

 

Ha! I can't believe I haven't found this site sooner. I've only read the chess topic so far, and it's cracking me up.

 

If you would prefer, however, to get whipped into a righteous fury regarding the current state of the English language, may I suggest this?

Wet Hot American Summer (2001)

Summary: Last day at Camp Firewood, August 1981. There's a director (Janeane Garofalo), a lifeguard (Paul Rudd), an arts and crafts lady (Molly Shannon), various counselors (Michael Showalter, Marguertie Moreau, Michael Ian Black, Zak Orth, Ken Marino, Joe Lo Truglio, Amy Poehler, and Bradley Cooper), and a couple of kitchen guys (Christopher Meloni and A.D. Miles). Variegated insanity including a love triangle, a desperate attempt to lose one's virginity, a rafting trip, and a space lab part landing during the talent show ensues.

Okay, let's see here: think of any movie you have seen set during summer camp. Think of any movie set during summer, period. Think of a few romantic comedies. Think of Rocky. Got it all in mind there? Good. Now let's make fun of all of it by blowing it completely out of proportion.

And . . . that's the ball game. Hilarious movie. Not perfect by any stretch of the imagination -- not all the jokes work, some bits don't come together, some of the actors don't fit in their roles -- but wonderfully inspired. Director and co-writer David Wain and co-writer Showalter have a great handle on the sheer insanity that is summer camp as well as the trite film conventions they mock so lovingly. Yes, lovingly. Not ruthlessly. You've really got to love movies to make fun of them this much. That town sequence? Or that moment with Garofalo and Rudd in the dining hall? Or Garofalo and Truglio's destructive search for Marino? Genius.

Although the ensemble is well put together, there's really only one stand out: Rudd. Way, way back in the Clueless days, I liked Rudd well enough, but I didn't see the big deal. His forehead's big, and he's got the kind of lips that demand that you grab his face and smush them up in a "Isn't he adorable?" grandmotherly sort of way. He's the boy next door type. I firmly held that belief until a recent interview convinced me that Rudd was hilarious in the kind of way that made me want him as my friend. As such, I had to track down, of all things, a completely off-the-radar comedy from 2001.

Rudd is a treasure in the movie. A gem. A find. I could watch him pitch that hilarious fit in the dining lodge a hundred times over and still crack up. The delivery on the line, "You taste like burgers. I don't like you anymore." had me in stitches. He has excellent comedic timing: never stepping over anyone else, never let it hang for too long, never giving away that he's sitting on something hysterical. I wish I could hang out with him now.

If only I hadn't sent the DVD back so soon. B+

I liked him as Don John

 

But Dana Stevens does a pretty good job of explaining Keanu Reeves' appeal here. Too bad she misses Thumbsucker. Making an icon out of nothing is a mean feat.

A Scanner Darkly (2006)

Brief: A scanner (Keanu Reeves) known only to his superiors as "Fred" infiltrates a group of Substance D addicts and dealers (Winona Ryder, Robert Downey Jr., Woody Harrelson, and Rory Cochrane) in order to locate the source of the dangerous drug. Fred is asked to closely monitor one member of the group, Bob Arctor, i.e. himself.

Allow me to sum up the reaction of one Elfin April and her viewing partner, Emily, following our screening of said film: What? And also, What?

It should be noted that I've never read the Philip K. Dick's novel based on his own drug experiences, and I suppose if I already knew the plot I may have been able to follow it a little better. As it was, there were about three false endings: the first two made the entire movie make no sense, the third explained the other two, and then the fourth, the actual end of the movie, put all the pieces back together, but a lot of it still went over my head.

First off, rotoscoping still looks cool. It has a way of enhancing the image despite the fact that less is in focus than with traditional camera work. Plus, and maybe this was just me, sometimes the animators leave a little something in, like not colouring over a plant on a desk or an ashtray on a coffee table. I liked that.

Also, Richard Linklater still rocks. Even when he's commercial, he brings an outsider's perspective, a sort of slow charm to his work. His direction has a disarming intelligence to it. Although a lot of the subject matter went over my head, it still had an affect on me, which is more important.

Some stuff I've read talked about how Dick's work is more/just as relevant now. In terms of surveillance, I see the connection. In terms of pretty much anything else, not so much. For instance, and I'm about to give a lot away here, they manufacture the drug, and they regulate the rehabilitative therary. Only the effects are permenant, and they use the worst cases to reproduce more drugs, and the government controls the whole thing or at least acquiesces to it. I feel like this is a metaphor or extended parable, but what's the reference to? Some other kind of drug? I guess it could be, but I think anyone would be hard-pressed to prove that the government manufactures, say, heroin, gets people addicted to it, and then enslaves them. So, death because that's what they call D in the movie? Um, I don't think that's it either. This sucks. I feel like there's more to this movie, but I just can't cut through the fog.

I'm not exceptionally bright by any measure, but I usually get movies. I didn't get this. Maybe I will if I see it a few more times, but, if I don't? Then I am going to have to suspect that the problem lies within the film instead of myself. B+

I saw . . . this : Part 2

See Part 1 for instructions.

East of Eden (1955)

It's pretty good for a Steinbeck adaptation. Perhaps the best way to experience Steinbeck, in fact, is on the screen: you wouldn't have to read his ham-fisted FORESHADOWING or his "look at me! look at me!" style of symbolism. I have no idea why the intro had to be, at least, 8 minutes long, or why the girl's interest suddenly and definitely shifted to Cal (James Dean), but the competition between Cal and Aron (Richard Davalos) for their father's love was well done. I can see why they made such a big deal out Dean's big screen breakthrough. For all the imitation, nothing has ever come close to approximating his angst or the magnetic heat underneath it.

Dog Day Afternoon (1975)

Part one of my Sidney Lumet weekend. I liked it, and I can think of far worse movies to be locked up with, but I kind of don't see the big deal. Pacino was great (man always shows up to work), Durning was underused, nice to see John Cazale in anything else because he does sweaty and nervous with the best of them. The "Attica! Attica!" bit went over my head because I didn't get what he was referencing (he explains it in the film, but it was still sort of lost on me) and because the "true story" factor seemed slightly beyond my grasp. Maybe I'm just used to watching bank robbery movies with guys in mask who run around with machine guns and hurry to cover the cameras. I did like the way it focused on the robbers' perspective rather than a cat and mouse game between negotiator and criminal. The movie's a product of its time, I guess, but the performances, story, and dialogue have aged well enough to carry it through.

Network (1976)

Part two of said weekend. Eerily prescient and incredibly well cast (Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Peter Finch, and Robert Duvall in the leads), but it's too slow in spots (the famed "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!" scene went on for the better part of forever), it gets repetitive quickly, and the dialogue had serious issues with the overuse of jargon and the under use of natural speech patterns. It's the same with any Aaron Sorkin script (idealistic, romantic language expressed beautifully), but you've got to be into it to work with it, and Paddy Chayefsky's script's difficult to get into. Great name, though.

The Hour will be aired as a late-night show on the main CBC network beginning in the fall.

I knew it! As soon as Emily told me, I thought, "I wonder what they offered him?", and then I thought, "Must be the network." Oh, George, why debase yourself so?

 

Okay, maybe he's really into this idea and thinks it's great for all sorts of reasons I cannot fathom (and don't relate to something that rhymes with yelling clout). But, read those quotes and tell me he's not phoning it in.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006)

Story: On their wedding day, Will (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth (Keira Knightley) are arrested for their parts in Capitan Jack Sparrow's (Johnny Depp) escape. Will makes a deal Lord Cutler Beckett (Tom Hollander) : a pardon for Jack's compass. Elizabeth and Will, however, end up part of Jack's scheme to cheat Davy Jones (Bill Nighy) out of the 100 years service Jack owes Jones.

I don't know how I am going to write this post without giving at least one thing away, so I think you are just going to have to accept that. Work with it. Frankly, I'm doing you a favour.

Way, way back in 2003, when Melanie, Kelsa, and I hit the theatre to check out Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl on a whim, it was great. Nothing but fun was had. As a result, I was pleased when I heard a trilogy was in the works.

Unlike what 2004 would like us to believe, sequels don't match what came first. They tend to blow, and this outing was no exception.

To be honest, I don't see the point of a sequel. Profit-wise, it makes sense. The first proved that pirates were no longer box office Kryptonite (heh), provided some youngsters with star turns, and earned Johnny Depp his first Oscar nomination. Why not do it again?

But story-wise, everything was wrapped up in the first outing: the curse was reversed, Jack got his boat back, Will got Elizabeth. There was nothing else to tell. So, the team behind the first movie would have to come up with an entirely new problem for our heroes and heroine. Additionally, they needed to stretch the new situation over two movies in order to complete the trilogy. It sounds hard, but it's not nearly as difficult as Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio (co-writers) would have you believe.

For one, make sense. Obviously an undead crew cursed by Aztec gold or a squid-man that rules the sea requires a certain suspension of disbelief. I get that. My favourite TV show, pretty much ever? Was about a petite blonde that hunted vampires. Trust me, I get suspension of disbelief. But when you go the fantasy route, you still have to stick with the rules that you invented for your world. I found the Bootstrap Bill (Stellan Skarsgard) stuff hard to follow the first time around (and I just watched it for the second time a week ago today as a refresher for yesterday), and this movie made it even worse. I mean, you know, nice for Will to get to finally meet his dad and all that, but what?

Also, am I really supposed to believe that everything we went through "six months ago" didn't occur to firmly convince me of Will and Elizabeth's love and loyalty to one another? Now I'm to buy the idea that Elizabeth might want Jack instead? My eye! For reasons beyond all human understanding, Knightley cannot manage to act attracted to Depp for even a split second. How hard could that possibly be? I thought she was more likely to jump Norrington (Jack Davenport, who is back and a fox) at any given moment than have a go with Jack. And you know what Knightley's performance did suggest? That Elizabeth loves Will. So why all the hoopla? Why the tacked-on drama? Why didn't anyone hit her in the face this time around?

Speaking of Knightley and her face, it's no secret that I am not her number one fan. Something I have acknowledged for years, however, is the fact that she has a beautiful face. No, really, I can't stand her, but those are some pretty cheekbones. I know they had the Domino hair to work with, but I think the hair and make-up people must absolutely hate her. She looked terrible - the colour and cut of the hair was unflattering, the lip colour was all kinds of wrong, the eye make up looked like a seven year old had smeared it on with a melted crayon. First movie? Pretty. Second movie? Dog.

Speaking of a face like Knightley's, Bloomers's looked leaner this time around. No matter what those people at Slate or The Tyee have to say, these movies are ones in which I genuinely like Bloomers -- he makes a good sidekick, a good devoted, idealistic young lover, and a good 17th (guessing) century pirate/blacksmith. Seriously, these styles suit him. And -- for those who want to see this sort of thing -- the shirt even comes off at one point. You're welcome.

I'm not going to go into how good Depp consistently is in this role. It's like he was born to play a perpetually drunk, morally ambiguous fortune hunter. Although, one thing, why was his hair more dread-y this time around? They couldn't find the wig or extensions or whatever from last time?

Why did PotC:TCotBP work? It was intelligent, funny, a dash scary, tightly paced, and, above all, it kept the action moving. Exposition is a necessary evil, but it doesn't have to feel like pulling teeth. This movie was a million years long, boring for spans of eons, only funny when it made callbacks to the original, and avoided sense like the plague. And skeletons are scarier than anthropomorphic fish with bizarre accents. All in all, it had a bad case of The Matrix Reloaded, a sequel so awful that I didn't bother with the third installment.

If you could cut out, oh, say, 60 of the 150 minutes, it might have been fun, greasing the wheels until the final movie in 2007. It's not that this movie is that all that bad - director Gore Verbinski has a great handle on action set pieces and slapstick set up. It's just that it so thoroughly undoes the good work of the first that it makes you hate it. C+

Oh, what the hell: Why is Barbossa back at the end? WHYYYYY?! I hate that ending. HATE. It basically complete re-writes the first movie, and, if he doesn't tell us what's up in the first 15 minutes of the third movie, I am going to kick some ass.

And, while we're here, why is the monkey immortal? See?! See what I mean with the no sense and the general unravelling of the first plot?

The Jack Bull (1999)

Story: Myrl Redding (John Cusack) leaves two of his prize stallions in the care of Henry Ballard (L.Q. Jones) as collateral until he can pay the toll Ballard demands for crossing his land. When Myrl returns, he discovers that Ballard's men have beaten the horses as well as the man Myrl left to care for them. When the law refuses to uphold Myrl's claim that Ballard restore the horses to their former condition and pay his friend a penance, Redding takes the law into his own hands.

You know, there are lots of times when I forget why I put a movie on my Zip List. This one's pretty obvious - John Cusack. My love of John should really start to know some bounds.

Of course, it could have been the horses. I forget where, exactly, I read it, but one of a girl's first loves is horses, and I like horses well enough, so maybe I thought, "John and I have so much in common! We both like horses!" Or maybe I thought I'd like to see him on a horse. It's unclear.

Because really, truly, if I had watched the trailer sooner than yesterday directly before I watched this made-for-cable-TV nightmare, I might have called it quits a lot sooner.

Continuing the thread that Bloomers kicked off last week, Cusack is also a guy that just doesn't work when it comes to the past. Unlike Bloomers, he certainly comes across as masculine, but that's not the problem. Everything about him -- his voice, his way of speaking, his mannerisms, his very face -- screams 20th (and 21st) century. There is just no way a man like him could have possible be born in another time. There are these times in the movie (and I'm not going to go into them) were he drops his voice to a whisper pitch to get his point across, and I seriously found myself thinking, "People back then didn't whisper." I mean, of course someone at some point after the Civil War but before the turn of the century whispered, but, if Dr.Quinn taught me anything, people on the frontier sure liked to raise their voices.

I still like Cusack. I will continue to buy, swoon over, and quote his movies. I accept that he, like the lovely Michelle Pfeiffer, is an actor of limited range. Basically, John mostly plays the same guy over and over ( Lloyd Dobbler) and occasionally ventures outside that mold and does well ( Being John Malkovich or The Grifters). That works for me.

The problem, for me, is that now I have to invent a new range category. You've got your Brad Pitts and Tom Cruises - people who can realistically take on a variety of roles, but you can't distinguish from character to character. You've got your James Gandolfinis - guys who can't play a lot of different characters but can do a lot with the roles they've got. Then you've got the Platonic Ideal of range - someone who can take on a lot of different roles and can do a lot with those roles. Think Johnny Depp. Think Philip Seymour Hoffman. See? Do you see how Cusack is destroying my beautiful three-tiered theory?

So, John, here's what I think - you're just not cut out for this kind of thing. The only thing I did during more than call Emily to complain about how bad this movie was was giggle and ask myself why I continued to watch this crap. There's a lot of things wrong with it - it's too earnest, poorly paced, laden down with improbable dialogue and improbable characters. Most guys would have just shot Ballard for their trouble and gotten on with in. But, oh no, not Myrl. He wants his horses restored (which he could have done himself if he shot Ballard in the first place). And what does he get for his trouble? Giant, asteroid-sized spoiler ahead. Hanged. And then his son (Drake Bell, who looks convincingly like John Cusack, much as he did when he was young Rob Gordon) is walking away with the healthy horses, tears streaming down his face, while Bob Dylan sings.

My games of "Hey, It's that guy!" were not enough to make this venture worthwhile, John. So, listen to me: Just because someone in your family writes the script, it doesn't mean you are required to do it. And, if you do want to be involved, cast someone else. D-

The Devil Wears Prada (2006)

Short: Recent journalism graduate Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway) is offered a position as notorious "Runway" editor-in-chief Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep)'s second assistant. Although it doesn't line up with her career goals, Andy decides to take the job "millions of girls would kill for."

Confession: I've never read Lauren Weisberger's novel, but I know the Vogue/Wintour backstory.

And, based on this movie, I never want to read it. Stupid piece of shit, it must be. And why? Because it's impossible to sympathize with the protagonist.

The movie begins with a somewhat racy montage of women, including Andy, getting ready for work. Ladies are carefully choosing their every article, from outer- to underwear and top to bottom. Andy? Grabs pretty much any old thing from her closet. Okay, you think, they are setting up a contrast. I get it.

But, no, it couldn't possibly end there. Women are carefully selecting their breakfast foods (let's side step how ridiculously degrading this part was); Andy stops on her way to the interview to buy an onion bagel loaded with cream cheese. I already picked up on the contrast, but I guess we need to hammer it home for the slow ones in the audience (like the two older ladies sitting behind us. No, seriously, you two. Shut. Up.) But the problem with this part of the contrast isn't that Andy is chowing down, it's what she eats and when. She eats something that anyone would reasonably expect to stink up their breath, and she does it after she's out of the house. While she's on the way to an interview! Stinky breath is no way to make a good impression, and anyone with two brain cells to rub together knows that.

Oh, but then. Yes, there's more. We see all these various girls in various outfits doing what? Hailing cabs. I roll my eyes. "No, no. Just don't. Don't," I try to tell the movie. But it does. It just has to, doesn't it? Andy takes the subway. Listen to me, people: there's nothing wrong with taking a cab to make sure that you are on-time for an interview. Nothing at all. If you are going to take public transportation, I recommend that you take the bus before the bus you think you need in order to make it there early. You're welcome.

By the time "our" "heroine" is informing Miranda that she knows neither Priestly nor Runway and "everyone just calls [her] Andy," while Miranda is doesn't even bother with an eyeroll, I know all I need to know about both characters: Andy is unprofessional, whiny, and refuses to take responsibility for herself. Miranda is my hero.

As cruel and ruthless as Miranda is supposed to be and as Streep makes her, she also gives her an electric spark that no other character comes close to matching in this lifeless, paint-by-numbers piece. Barely raising her voice above a whisper-hush and fabulously flopping her coat and bag down on Andy's desk every morning, Streep also injects more humanity and pathos into her role than Hathaway manages for the whole of the film.

I don't blame Hathaway, specifically. Part of it is that she's overmatched and part of it is that Aline Brosh McKenna's script gives her nothing to work with and part of it is David Frankel's dull direction. The friendship dress down, the relationship trouble, and the eventual Kelly Taylor "I choose me" moment fail to feel earned, much less sensical. Most people take not quite the right job right out of college and put up with a lot for the reward. Why her friends and boyfriend think they are above it is beyond me.

Oh, and thanks to Stanley Tucci for being such a delight as fashion editor Nigel. Most men would have taken him to hammy heights, but Tucci keeps him grounded.

Patricia Fields' (of Sex and the City fame) costume design is alternatingly maddening and enviable. Just thought you might want to know.

I know that you might be thinking that it's supposed to be a trifle, but I don't think I am taking it too seriously. The movie barely does what it sets out to do, and that's a serious problem. Good thing Streep's around. B -

More pathetic than you realized

 

Who is more pathetic than you realized? Elfin April, of course. See, I get all worked up about movies in the way, basically, that you only get all worked up about . . . well, I was going to say, "your mom," but that's more insulting than I intend this statement to be. Let's reverse. Think about something that you really like. You know, really, really like. You tell everyone you like it, but you try to play down just how much you like it because you don't want to come across as too crazy. In the end, you embarrass yourself when this other person you are talking to has the gall to suggest that there is something wrong with this thing you like, and you end up flipping your basket.

 

That's me and movies. Lots of movies have lots of problems, and I do my best to acknowledge that. I can get behind the fact you don't love everything I love, but I can't always get behind why.

 

So when I come across a nice post/list that seems to defend my point of view, well, I tend to get all worked up about it -- but in a good way. A semi-tearful, someone really gets me, way.

 

See? Told you I was pathetic. It's a good read, though.

 

Yes, I will review a movie again at some point. I plan to carve out some time this very weekend (!) for a stack of DVDs that have been collecting dust for six weeks now.

A pale shadow of democracy

 

Exercise your right to vote . . . by telling Elfin April if you want to read her opinion regarding Superman Returns .

 

Readers, should I see this one or skip it? Any particular reason for either vote?

Finally Figured it Out: A rumination on a certain possibly transgendered harbinger of Armageddon

Emily sent me this article from Slate's Summer Movie Week (an idea which excites me to no end). I immediately fired back that I already read the same thing in The Tyee two years ago.

I can't say I disagree with either one, which basically state, as Chris Rock did at the 2005 Oscars, "If you can't get Russell Crowe, just don't make your stupid epic." Don't get Brad Pitt or Colin Ferrel or, for the love of peace, Orlando Bloom. I'll give Clive Owen a pass because I don't blame him for that mild disaster, and I stand by my belief that Bloomers was at least serviceable as Paris, Eric Bana rocked the hizzouse as Hector, and Gerard Butler is a jack of all trades. It has something to do with a certain fleshy masculinity that allows these actors to transcend time and space.

It was also bizarre that the common link in these articles was Bloomers, as I had been thinking of him recently.* I was having yet another conversation with myself along the lines of, "Have I been him or her an unfairly bum rap?" See, I have been listening to Elton John's "My Father's Gun" a lot lately, which put me in mind of that scene in Elizabethtown where all his relatives are standing around trying to tell Drew what a great man his father was and how much they are going to miss him, and all Drew is doing is standing over his father's coffin, changing the angle of his head, and puzzling out what the look on his father's face is supposed to be. When he finally hits upon it, "whimsical," he sort of lets out this sigh of bittersweet relief. It's well done, to be honest. There's a lot in that movie that isn't nearly as well done (I could begin and end my whole case by asking why Claire was interested in Drew to begin with), but that part is nice.

And that's my problem with Bloomers. Most of the time he's just plain bad, all miscast and adolescent and scant, but sometimes, just sometimes, he's pretty good. So I thought back to when I liked him, if at all, and the answer was Pirates of the Caribbean. In a movie where I detest 2/3 of the stars, it's a wonder that I like it so much. Perhaps Depp is just so good that he rubs wonderfulness off on everyone else, but I think it's a little more than that. I think the problem with Bloomers is that, right now, he's Heath Ledger circa 2001.

Ledger just kind of appeared in 10 Things I Hate About You and magically elevated the movie from flash-in-the-pan to something more lasting. The other stars of that minor hit? David Krumholtz has got his TV show, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is carving out a nice indie scene It-Boy career, and the rest of them stagnated or disappeared outright. But, boy, were people all over Ledger. Soon he was Mel Gibson's tragically heroic son, and then - poof! - a leading man in his own right. Not just leading, in fact, since the whole poster was his face. And that movie went? Nowhere. Because it blew.

In the very same year, he also had a very affecting turn as Billy Bob Thornton's suicidal son, but he was in the movie for maybe twenty minutes, and everyone else was busy focusing on other things.

So Ledger's career goes down the crapper pretty much the instant it starts, and, to be honest with you, I thought that was the end of him. But then Ang Lee decided gay cowboys and New Yorker short stories would translate well to film, and the rest of that story is bound to go down in film history.

And that's the problem with Bloomers, too, I think. Or, rather, that's Bloomers' problem. He's doing this leading man stuff because people think he should be, but he shouldn't. He's just not leading man material. And maybe he could be, but right now he's young and inexperienced and it shows. And maybe, just maybe, if he sort of steps back and gives it time, he could stumble into his very own Brokeback.

Or he could blow even worse than he already does. Too early to tell.

But, yes, Slate and The Tyee, no one is Russell Crowe. Perhaps you should give another guy a chance before you get too caught up in your self-congratulatory criticism, though.

*Yes, for the record, I sit around thinking about movie stars and their careers. Piss off. You do it, too.

Balance almost restored

This is great. Too bad Network just arrived from Zip.

But then this is the sign and symbol of everything wrong with the world. I'll make it clear: The National = Good. Reality TV = bad. It's lazy and largely unoriginal and, yes, plays into voyeurism. Not every show has to be a stimulating work of art, but there's no need to fill the airwaves with tripe every hour of the day and displace something of value in order to do it.

Of course, this did make me feel a bit better. Shatner rules.

It's not like I don't see the reasoning here

Because I do. I get it. He just "won" on that deplorable show (top rated and one of the worst offerings by far), so putting him on the cover helps keep him and his probably soon to be available debut album in the public mind. But seriously? This guy? Wentworth Miller and Jake Gyllenhaal I get, but this is too much.

It's not like he's one of these two guys. Redford and Newman really aren't ones I typically go in for, although I do appreciate their old-school movie star charisma. But, let's not kid our selves: these two look damn good here.

A Prairie Home Companion (2006)

Premise: The last performance of an old fashioned radio variety show, hosted by GK (Garrison Keillor) and populated by such characters as 30s-style detective Guy Noir (Kevin Kline); singing sisters Rhonda (Lily Tomlin) and Yolanda (Meryl Streep), and Yolanda's suicidally minded daughter, Lola (Lindsay Lohan); and cowboy duo Dusty (Woody Harrelson) and Lefty (John C. Reilly). All are awaiting the appearance of the Axeman (Tommy Lee Jones), while Guy pursues the femme fatale (Virginia Madsen) he's been waiting for all these years.

Let it be known that I have never once listened to screenwriter Garrison Keillor's radio show. I hear good things, but, well, I wouldn't even know how to find it here. So, there's that.

But Robert Altman doing what only Robert Altman can? Being perfectly in his element? That's what film-making's about.

Metaphors for Keillor's voice and Altman's style abound, and I am wary of throwing my hat in for either. I will say that Altman excels in creating a feeling of camaraderie, of familiarity, of warmth, of kindness, and of family between everyone that crosses the screen from the bit players to once-rising starlets* to the Greatest Living Actress.**

*Now it's more like the star accidentally hit something and has veered tragically off course. Don't you realize that I wanted to like you?

**of Her Generation. The necessity of the caveat depends on who you ask.

To call the plot secondary to the characters is being generous (at least in this case), but it doesn't really matter when it looks like this much fun. Barely anything "happens," and Altman, through his tremendous cast, can move the viewer from hysterical laughter to tears in a split-second. Everyone seems so natural that even the occasional jar is quickly forgotten, replaced almost instantly by another beautiful memory. A-

P.S. At least one woman in the audience thought she should sing along. Hard to resist joining her. Must get soundtrack.

Oh, Bloomers

There's no love lost between Orlando Bloom and I, to say the least. I think very little of him as an actor and even less of him as an individual human being with feelings, except, of course, to further my theory that Orlando Bloom is a) a woman, b) possibly Keira Knightley, and c) a sign of the Apocalypse. I'd go into the whole thing, but it involves 16th century paintings and Virginia Woolf novels, and I doubt you'd appreciate the genius anyhow.

And yet, somehow, I feel compelled to follow his career. Worse yet, I seem to know an inordinate amount about "his" personal life. So when this story came to my attention, do you know what I did? Laughed. Laughed hysterical and repeatedly, as though I cannot return to the story without laughing again. It all seems so improbable and wrong, and, yet . . . hilarious. And that picture? Not only does one of those people look like he is on spring break and the other like she has been locked away from daylight for the last century, but it looks like Bloomers has thrown his mug up in the lens, unaware of the frightened woodland creature next to him.

So thanks for that, Bloomers. And while I'm in a rare grateful mode, let's all give thanks to those programming geniuses over at the TVtropolis network (formerly Prime). Everyday after work I can enjoy Beverly Hills 90210. Today Dylan threw a vase and a fit on his first date with Brenda, and soon she will have a lump on her breast and a pregnancy scare, and later she and Kelly will become frenemies, but she'll save Kelly when Kelly nearly dies from her diet pill addiction. Oh, I love this show.

Friends With Money (2006)

Brief: Olivia (Jennifer Aniston) doesn't have money or a husband, but her three best friends do. Franny (Joan Cusack) is happily married to Matt (Greg Germann) and sets Olivia up with her trainer, Mike (Scott Caan). Christine (Catherine Keener) is unhappily married to her screenwriting partner David (Jason Isaacs) and assists Olivia in her product sample hoarding scheme. Jane (Frances McDormand) has stopped washing her hair because her arms get tired, and her husband, Aaron (Simon McBurney), may be gay.

Or at least everyone else seems to think he is.

Oh, Nicole Holofcener, I wish I could be you. Seriously. You are not only one of the few female filmmakers I can think of off the top of my head, but you are also unparalleled in the way you deal with women. Women in the Holofverse are complicated mixes of strong, weak, beautiful, and vulnerable. In a word, they are real. More real than most women you see on the screen, far more real that anyone woman you find in a rom-com. There they are always reduced to stereotypes filled out by women so beautiful that suspending disbelief becomes a Herculean feat.

Perhaps the best part of Holofcener's are the way they only follow the bare minimum of a plot. Plot, you see, isn't something that happens in a real person's life, and it doesn't so much happen in her movies. They're more episodic: she gets such lived in performances out of her actors (the combination of her and her staple, Keener, is nothing short of film magic) that you get the feeling that you are being dropped in the middle of something. Holofcener leaves you in there a while, lets you get to know her characters, gives you a feel for the places, the smells, the people, and then she plucks you not at the end but simply further down the middle. Problems aren't so much resolved as pushed along. People don't undergo the seismic changes you see in more "Hollywood" movies, but you do start to see cracks along the fault lines.*

*I know nothing about such things. That metaphor may be even worse than I think.

I think even less of Aniston than you might presume, so I am pleased to report that she holds her own in the face such enviable talent. She almost, almost, almost nearly sheds her perfect pop princess image for long enough for Olivia to resonate. It's actually what the leads do around Olivia that fill in the necessary details of her performance, but it goes a long way to putting her sitcom days behind her. Of course, I understand that The Break Up undid most or all of this good work, but I still regard it as a start.

Right now the comment on IMDb is "So What?" "So what," kid? This is the "so, what" of life. It's the "so what" of being a woman. If this film is bold, the boldness is found in its honesty. Perhaps that's just too much for some. B+

Also, I recently screened I Love Your Work. I'm not sure I should have done that, and I'm not sure anyone else should either. Giovanni Ribisi leads a bizarre cast as a currently hot star married to another currently hot star (Franka Potente), has a sort of mental breakdown, and begins to remember a very different relationship with a very different girl (Christina Ricci). I spent the first 30-45 minute trying to figure out what the hell I was watching, the next half hour or so in a fugue state, and the final 30 wondering where co-writer/director Adam Goldberg was going with all of this and what was up with Rebel Without a Cause refs and red lighting. I'm left with nothing more than a dazed sensation and a generally vague response of "I guess I watched that." I'm still not entirely convinced that I did, but I must have.

The Lake House (2006)

No plot description as I have not seen The Lake House. It doesn't come out until next Friday, but I'm going to tell you about it anyway.

I'm going to tell you that . . . I hate The Lake House. I hate it. Every time I see a TV spot, which contains all I need to know about this monstrosity, I get worked up and yell at the TV.

Forget the fact I neither buy Keanu Reeves as an architect nor Sandra Bullock as a doctor (well, maybe a pediatrician. Is she a pediatrician in this movie?). Forget the fact that, because I am evil, I spent unaccounted-for minutes giggling at the sight of scores of publicity photos of Keanu Reeves sitting around reading letters and Sandra Bullock looking out the window looking pensive/sad, although I guarantee that those two things make up, like, 67% of the movie.

It's the following line that gets me every time: "We're living two years apart."

And Bullock sounds so horrified and sad at the prospect that you would think that she, a lady doctor, just found out that she has prostate cancer.

Because, seriously, if you are both that in love and are aware of this problem, then what is the big deal? Just have him meet up with you at the lake house at some future time after you have already fallen in love and get together in real life. And, you know, run through the obits from the last two years and make sure he doesn't die between now and then. See? Easy-peasy.

I mean, I saw one crappy-ass made-for-TV movie where the couple-in-love exchanging letters lived in the 1860s and the 1990s respectively, so there. That's way harder to reconcile and may have involved killing oneself and time travel. I don't think I watched the end.

So what I'm saying is thus: I know that romances are predictable, but I really shouldn't have been able to a) figure it all out during a commercial and b) come to a solution during that time. Seriously, took me 15-30 seconds, and now the industry wants me to spend ten Jack Trippers and one hundred-odd minutes suffering through more? No.

And, while we're here, Alison Gillmor asks, Whither the rom-com?