by Michael Dequina
The Ever-Elusive Creative Inspiration
Last week, while walking down the street with me after a screening, a filmmaker friend of mine suddenly stopped in his tracks. Right then and there on the sidewalks of Westwood, ideas for the opening shots of his next film just came to him as if out of thin air. After doing the whole bit of crouching down and making a frame with his fingers, he immediately called his storyboard artist to report his eureka. To witness creative inspiration strike was fascinating, as such an experience is completely foreign to me.
What does this have to do with anything? (Already, I hear the cries of "F4.") I guess this is my way of making a pre-emptive excuse for what is a less-than-inspired column this week. Or maybe it's just my cheap way of elongating the column, considering the length of last week's premiere installment was, much to my surprise, rather well-received.
But then again, it's difficult to muster up much energy and excitement when a lack of inspiration is the common thread linking the three new theatrical releases I've seen this week. (How's that for a ridiculously labored introduction?)
DEEDS = Dud
"Are we really that out of touch?"
That was the thought Poop Shoot Poo-Bah Chris Ryall and I shared as we walked out of Tuesday night's screening of MR. DEEDS. Most of those in the audience (which, it should be noted, consisted largely of recruited viewers and only a smattering of actual press) were left just short of rolling in the aisles by every little gag, be it either the umpteenth time star Adam Sandler said "wicked cool" or whenever someone engaged in the revolutionary comedy concept of a pratfall. Chris and I sat stone silent through the entire picture, wondering why exactly everyone else found hilarious what we thought to be only lightly, sporadically amusing at best.
In all fairness, any Sandler fan will more than likely react to MR. DEEDS with the same amount of enthusiasm as most in the crowd at the screening. After the most-deserved critical and commercial drubbing of the unwatchable LITTLE NICKY, this movie finds Sandler falling back on old tricks that worked for his public before: his Longfellow Deeds is a modest, gentle soul in the vein of his character in THE WATERBOY, but he also has a certain propensity for violent outbursts, as in HAPPY GILMORE. He also revisits THE WEDDING SINGER territory in that this film is ultimately a love story with a name-brand starlet (in this case, Winona Ryder) as his leading lady.
This throwback quality is essentially where MR. DEEDS goes wrong. As small-town New Hampshire pizzeria owner/aspiring greeting card writer Deeds proceeds to shake up Big Apple high society after inheriting a $40 billion fortune, there's a feeling of sameness at work--and not because the film is a remake of the 1936 Frank Capra classic MR. DEEDS GOES TO TOWN. (I'm not even going to go into the questionable notion of Sandler standing in for Gary Cooper, or the even more unfathomable idea of Steven Brill--he who perpetrated NICKY--filling the shoes of Capra.) Sandler goes through the scruffy, "just a regular guy" motions, and Brill and scripter Tim Herlihy follow lazy suit. Gimmicky celebrity cameo? Check--John McEnroe as himself, sending up his bad boy image. Oddly accented background character? Check--John Turturro as Deeds' stealthy Spanish servant Emilio. Grotesque bodily gag? Check--Steve Buscemi as the aptly named Crazy Eyes; Deeds' severely frostbitten right foot. Brutal slapstick jokes? Check--take your pick: Peter Gallagher (as a scheming businessman) getting hit in the head and other sensitive areas numerous times by tennis balls; Deeds pummelling a mugger; or Emilio taking numerous whacks at Deeds' permanently frostbitten foot with a fireplace poker.
That broad mean streak in the humor mixes uneasily with the Capra-derived sincerity, which Brill is completely unable to handle when the romance between Deeds and duplicitous tabloid TV producer Babe Bennett (Ryder) takes over. It's bad enough that Sandler and Ryder don't display a single iota of chemistry between them; Brill just makes the pairing all the more ludicrous by ratcheting up the would-be drama during the more serious moments. Romantic comedies inevitably have their sober moments of crisis, but what the hell was Brill going after in giving Ryder a full-on breakdown scene where she leans against and then slowly slides down a door while in heaving sobs? Then again, that scene was probably the only big laugh-getter of the entire film.
A Patchy PUMPKIN
PUMPKIN is one fucked movie. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, though. (For clarification purposes, "fucked up" would be an unequivocally bad thing.) It's actually rather remarkable how long writer Adam Larson Broder and his co-director, Tony R. Abrams, are able to milk some biting, discomfiting laughs out of their potentially off-putting comic conceit: pampered sorority girl Carolyn (Christina Ricci, who also produced) falls for mentally challenged boy Pumpkin (Hank Harris), whom she's coaching for the Challenged Games. Broder and Abrams don't sugarcoat Carolyn's initially shallow reaction to Pumpkin, nor do they downplay the absurdity of Carolyn's rather abrupt change of heart and hard romantic fall for Pumpkin's "pure soul." But the film hits a wall as it soon tries to have it both ways as a formulaic, heart-on-sleeve story of love and tolerance and an outrageous, over-the-top satiric exercise; it becomes increasingly unclear if scenes are bing broadly played for dramatic or comedic effect. Broder and Abrams are far more successful at playing the more wicked, warped side, best exemplified by the film's amusing portrayal of vacuous sorority sisters; Marisa Coughlan and Dominique Swain steal scenes as the high-strung head sister and Carolyn's wild-haired, nonconformist roommate, respectively. PUMPKIN is certainly different and holds the attention easily, but being different doesn't exactly mean being (completely) good.
LOVELY AND... Just OK
Brenda Blethyn, who plays the title character's overprotective mother in PUMPKIN, has a more fully-formed role in LOVELY & AMAZING, Nicole Holofcener's heartfelt ensemble dramedy about the crippling neuroses of a mother and her three daughters. Blethyn is matriarch Jane, who, as the film opens, is about to go under the knife for a liposuction procedure. Eldest daughter Michelle (Catherine Keener) is a former homecoming queen who has grown bitter thanks to a passionless marriage and dead-end aspirations as an artist. The younger Elizabeth (Emily Mortimer) has a slowly but surely budding acting career, but losing out on a job for not being sexy enough leaves a lasting sting. Although adopted, eight-year-old Annie (newcomer Raven Goodwin) is not immune to the family legacy of poor self-image; being African-American, she longs to fit in physically with the rest of her family. Holofcener's loose, character-driven style is a definite plus, but it also proves to be the film's undoing as each character's respective arc leads to an unsatisfying creative cul-de-sac. The untidiness of the film's non-resolutions may bear the truth of real life, but it also makes the 90-minute wallow in self-loathing--and the actors' admirable efforts--feel especially pointless.
Sights Unseen
Paramount not so wisely scheduled their main media screening of the Nickelodeon TV series spinoff HEY ARNOLD! THE MOVIE directly against the screening of LILO & STITCH; take a wild guess as to which one I (and most invitees, for that matter) chose to attend. Although millions of moviegoers young and old already caught Disney's dynamic duo last weekend, I'm assuming that the pattern set forth by the screening duel two weeks ago will hold, and the heartwarming tale of a girl and her pet escaped alien lab experiment will remain the first choice for anyone seeking animated fare at the multiplex.
In a release pattern that speaks volumes about the studio's faith--or, more appropriately, lack thereof--in the project, Fox is sneaking THE FIRST $20 MILLION IS ALWAYS THE HARDEST into a couple of theatres in New York and Los Angeles with virtually nonexistent promotion. What could have possibly gone wrong with this adaptation of Po Bronson's novel about big-dreaming Silicon Valley computer engineers? (And why the hell am I asking so many rhetorical questions this week?) The film began life with a screenplay by Jon Favreau, who was fairly fresh off of SWINGERS when he was hired to do the duties; it arrives on screens a few years later with a drastically rewritten script and COYOTE UGLY slab of Aussie beef Adam Garcia toplining the cast. You do the math.
That's a Wrap...
As always, my longer and slightly more formal takes on current and older releases are available at my regular Web outpost, Mr. Brown's Movie Site. I'll be back a little earlier (Wednesday!) and hopefully a little more inspired next week with the low-down on the big Independence Day weekend releases.
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