Whenever Gina gets a break from school, we tend to catch up on movies. Sometimes this means hitting a few I’ve noticed and added to my list of things I should see. Sometimes it means just grabbing whatever at the local blockbuster looks fun. So it tends to be a mix of premeditation and impromptu choice. And, while we’re both fans of film-as-art, we’re also not above film-as-slightly-better-if-at-all-than-tv. Anyway, so I won’t forget them, here’s a quick list of some things I’ve checked out fairly recently, along with a really quick evaluation of each:
Narnia: yes
Happy Endings: hell yes
The 40-Year-Old Virgin: hell yes
November: no
Heights: hell yes
Suspect Zero: maybe
EuroTrip: yes
Melinda & Melinda: no
The Ring Two: hell no
The Skeleton Key: yes
March of the Penguins: hell yes
Mr. & Mrs. Smith: yes
Narnia was surprisingly good. It wasn’t Lord of the Rings good, but it was far better than that Harry Potter nonsense that the rest of the country seems so fascinated with of late. But the real surprise of this batch was Heights, a very fine little picture with great acting from a strong ensemble cast. It’s a Manhattan film of weaving storylines that come together in unexpected ways. Happy Endings was quite a find as well. It’s a great comedy with lots of postmodern elements (and, though a funny film, some deeply philosophical insights). The 40-Year-Old Virgin was laugh-out-loud funny from the very first scene.
The most disappointing of the group was Melinda & Melinda. I’ve always liked Woody Allen’s films. And I keep thinking he’ll hit one out of the park late in his career, but this isn’t it. In fact, M & M is riddled with some of the most pretentious, lifelessly wooden dialog I’ve ever seen from him. Allen is capable of high wit, but this isn’t an example of it (and is, in fact, a very poor substitute for it). I got so bored with the film that I finally gave up on it–which is rare for me. So maybe all the pedantry is somehow justified in the final act, but I had better things to do than wait around for it. Will Farrell is very good in it, but he can’t carry it. And in the mouths of lessor actors, the jokes fall flat. Maybe it’s just me. Maybe I’m just tired of narcissism and upper-east-side neurosis as a lens through which to view the human condition. Allen has made that work before, but not here.
P.S.: I also like it when films we pick more-or-less at random have commonalities. In this case, Elizabeth Banks shows up in Heights and in The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Jesse Bradford appears in Heights and Happy Endings.