“Sideways
,” the first comedy (well, dramedy) to be nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture in recent memory, is in serious danger of being overhyped. Viewers will come to it expecting “one of the best films of the last decade” or a “hilarious” film and be disappointed, which is a shame, because the modest charms it actually has are quite engaging.
To wit: This is a film that substitutes quiet charm for laugh-out-loud jokes, wry observations for deep insights into the human condition, and a mellow rambling pace for a plot that pulls the characters (or viewers) along. It is more a mellow afternoon spent at an out of the way winery than it is a glitzy event of a movie.
This is definitely worth a rental, but do not go in expecting to have your life changed by “Sideways.” And, frankly, thank goodness for that. If only more Best Picture nominees were created by film makers content to make a satisfying film, instead of a religious experience.
Given that the “24” writers are the only ones in television attempting something like this, I suppose it’s not surprising they do not seem to feel the need to improve on their writing from the first season. The real time gimmick is still a big enough gimmick that they seem to be coasting on it.
And that’s a pity. The writing in this second season of “24” is flabby, silly and typically telegraphed miles and miles off. Fans tuning in looking for edge of their seat thrills aren’t going to find them here; they’d be better off switching from Fox to sister station FX and “The Shield.”
The very first hour telegraphs things that the characters will be blissfully ignorant of for several hours — Hey, there’s a conspiracy inside the White House to subvert the president’s authority! Hey, this cartoonishly evil bully Kim works for isn’t going to just let her get away with defying her authority! Jack is mad and he’s a loose cannon!
Plot elements seem to have been lifted from online fanfic: When running from the evil father, Kim runs, not into the crowded public street, but into an alley empty of people; Kim is an au pair instead of a nanny despite the fact that most people have no idea what an au pair is and despite the fact that she neither seems to be a foreign student nor a college student at all; an expensive sports car’s trunk conveniently springs a leak in time for police to investigate the sudden gusher of blood despite the fact that even the cheapest car trunk won’t drip a drop if you spill a 2 liter of soda back there (learned the hard way); no one seems capable of getting along with each other, and instead White House officials and intelligence agency officials alike have to snarl half-threats at each other and refuse to do even the most rudementary cooperation; this bizarre inability to connect with each other extends outside the workplace — instead of calling up his estranged son and saying he’s been badly hurt on the job, the humorously named George Mason has his son arrested and brought in wearing handcuffs, in a failed attempt to win the Father of the Year award.
If they cut most of this nonsense out — along with the entirely pointless Kim storyline — the show would be half its length, which just might make it tight enough to watch. As it is, this is a rental, at best. Flabby, slow and silly.
“Saved!” is very cute, although not a perfect movie.
I liked the sense of humor, and the (mostly) naturalistic cinematography and casting — the girls from “Mean Girls” would look like space aliens here. The kids all looked and acted like kids — even Mandy Moore had a fairly bad haircut by the standards of movie teenagers — although it slipped once or twice (the dialogue about the clinic on the Vespa didn’t sound like kids, but rather a Moral dropped in by the writer).
I didn’t go to a religious school myself, so I can’t speak to how spot-on the characterizations of the students and teachers is, but Hesperia is very religious and I have a lot of interaction with the “Christian community,” and I was certainly nodding in recognition quite a bit at some of the personality types. The humor wasn’t necessarily AT the Christian community — or, if it was, it was the sort of humor of someone laughing at themselves.
And, of course, one of the all-time greatest scenes in a movie is Mandy Moore flinging a Bible at another girl, screeching “I am FILLED with Jesus’ love!”
Good stuff.
I can’t remember the last time I laughed so consistently all the way through a movie. I have to wonder what is going on with Saturday Night Live, since this was produced by Lorne Michaels, written by Tina Faye, and every adult but one is a current or former SNL cast member. Why does the show suck so much when this movie was so great?
In any case, “Mean Girls” is probably the best teen comedy ever, sharp, funny, relentlessly unsentimental, with strong (but not perfect) acting, some clever twists and a solid soundtrack.
I don’t know of any film that so well observed the nature of high school cliques (and cheerfully discusses groups like the “angry hot black chicks” who certainly were a clique in my high school), the way teenagers (particularly girls) treat each other and even the quirks of the teachers (unlike most teen films, they aren’t all ciphers or buffoons here). A lot of the bits feel very authentic, including the central plot element of the Burn Book, in which the titular mean girls write things about the other students in the school to make themselves feel better. Other great bits include real-looking high school students (except for the four mean girls themselves), the terribly true to life wannabe “cool” parent and one of the girls dumbing herself down to be able to talk to a cute guy without it being corny and ridiculous like a feature-length afterschool special.
There’s a bit of drinking (which ends with someone getting very drunk and embarassed) and a bit of talk about sex (which never goes anywhere beyond someone taking off their shirt), so it’s a surprisingly family friendly film for parents of preteens.
A great film with an actual decent message, but which relentlessly refuses to give into cliches or heartwarming schmaltz. Strongly recommended to anyone who ever really wanted to like teen movies, stretching all the way back to the John Hughes era, but who found them a bit too nauseating at the end of the day.
Unlike, apparently, most moviegoers in the 1990s, I found the original “Lion King” to be far too saccharine for my tastes. A fairly bland character makes a bad decision, briefly gets mixed up with some interesting outcasts, the clock whirls forward through all that stuff, and then he goes back to fix his mistake. While I’m no fan of “Hamlet,” I felt “The Lion King” really robbed the story of much of the drama it could, and should, have had. And, frankly, I was irritated that Timon and Pumbaa got so little screen time.
“The Lion King 1 1/2” to the rescue. Not only do we get to see Simba’s time with the duo in more detail, we get to see all of “The Lion King” through Timon’s much more cynical eyes, and the story improves for the retelling. The creators of this sequel clearly like the original movie, which is interwoven or sometimes literally used in the background of new shots, but they’re also well aware of its cornier elements, and Timon is as well.
The conceit of having Timon and Pumbaa watch their own version of events on a giant television screen (seen in silhouette, “Mystery Science Theater 3000” style) is great, and allows for them to comment on the action, make fun of overly dramatic elements (“What’s up with that running, if you can call that running?” Timon asks of Pumbaa’s dramatic slow motion race through desert sand) and act as audience surrogates when they buzz through the boring stuff. It’s simple, but effective, and embodies the sly, sarcastic sense of the filmmakers. Set pieces from the original film are turned on their ear (“Everything the light touches … belongs to someone else.”) or gleefully skewered (“Oh, great timing, omniscient monkey!”).
The story of this sequel is a fairly classic Disney story, of the misfit character who doesn’t fit in with the social norms of his environment, and sets out on an adventure that both makes him a hero and redefines his relationship to his community. In this case, it’s Timon, who isn’t the nervous wreck the other meerkats all are, nor, unfortunately, nearly as competent at any of the skills they think are important (i.e. tunneling and watching out for marauding hyenas). In the course of his journey to find a place where he won’t have to hide underground, he encounters the flatulent Pumbaa, who is recast as part embarassing uncle, part smelly family dog, with well-observed bits brought out by both the animators and performer.
While children, especially little boys, will enjoy the gross-out humor (of which there is relatively little), for the most part, “The Lion King 1 1/2” is an adult film, and perhaps the first post-modern Disney movie, commenting on another Disney movie with the leading characters explicitly observing and analyzing the original events. Of course, for those looking for lots of more of what the original movie offered, they’ll be disappointed — the story is slight, the song-and-dance number is lightweight and very silly and the lions are, frankly, something of an afterthought — but for those of us who thought the original needed a little more bitter with the sweet, this new film is a delight.
Strongly recommended for Disney fans who prefer their cartoons a little less sugary sweet, and a little more tart and sour instead.
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