So, I was able to sit down for a couple of years and pump out a book. It’s got little to do with movies.Download and read “Thank You, Goodnight†right HERE for free.
And now, you can follow me on TWITTER under the name: Stipp
SCREENINGS, SCREENINGS, SCREENINGS
I know, it sucks when you don’t live in New York or LA.
They get all the good things but the nice thing about having me around like a corpse you decide to stick in a chair, just taking up space and requiring no maintenance at all, is that it’s a good thing to live in the Valley of the Sun. I know it’s been strange around here as of late if you were to listen to Howard Stern, with there being a runoff election being decided by cutting a deck of cards (yeah, we’re real progressive in this state) and some a-hole who tried to end it all by sticking a samurai sword in the steering wheel and trying to ram a wall only to go through the goddamn wall and end up not finishing what he started, but I’ve got screenings to invite you to: BRÃœNO and, later in July, FUNNY PEOPLE.
BRÃœNO will be screening on July 7 at Harkins Tempe Marketplace and FUNNY PEOPLE will be screening on July 28 at Harkins Tempe Marketplace.
I hope to have more information on how many tickets I’ll have for each but until that time, block out your calendars as scuttlebutt has been pretty positive for both.
TWITTER CHAT WITH THE DIRECTOR OF FOOD, INC. THIS FRIDAY AT 10 am PST
No, I haven’t been able to see this documentary about all the lovely things that go into making our meals but word’s been good for this movie and now you can feel free to talk directly to the director himself. Now, I’m still on the fence about how “interviews” on Twitter can be effective but if any of you give this a whirl and find it useful please let me know. The information for this follows below…
Food Inc. Live Twitter Chat with Director Robert Kenner this Friday at 10 am PST!
Food Inc opened in select markets last week to an overwhelming response! As we prepare to open around the country this Friday we want to give fans an opportunity to conduct a live twitter chat (at #foodinc) with the director, Robert Kenner.
It’s simple to participate. At 10am PST this Friday (June 19th) login to twitter and put #foodinc in the search bar and hit enter. You are now following the conversation! If you have a question, be sure to include the #foodinc tag. This way the question will stay on this thread. We hope for a large turnout so please be patient while we try to answer as many questions as possible. We appreciate your support in getting our vital message out to the public!
In the meantime, please follow Magnolia Pictures on twitter and Facebook for updates on Food Inc. and all of Magnolia’s upcoming films.
THE PROPOSAL – REVIEW
There’s a moment in the movie when you realize that basing a review on its actual mechanics would be a fish/barrel situation.
For some reason, and if you just pay attention to the screen you’ll notice it, Alaskan Brewing Company has paid for a product placement. The movie takes place, for the most part, in Alaska and everyone seems hooked on Alaskan Amber. The bottle is everywhere and when you dig a little further into the line of brew this company puts out you see that they have 8 different varieties. This product placement is curious because you find your eye drifting to the red labels of this beer, extras are drinking it, Craig T. Nelson is drinking it, Sandra Bullock is drinking it, Malin Akerman is drinking it, the whole town seemed zombified by this beverage and, I’m pretty sure, this is not what you want someone like me doing while watching your film: wondering why everyone is hooked on Alaskan Amber and not their pale, IPA, ale, stout varieties. And this is all neither here nor there but this is what happens when you have a script that’s about as airy and delicately put together like a petite madeleine and performances from the likes of Bullock and Reynolds that, honestly, felt like they were done with about as much regard for the audience as a 10 year-old is on Valium. That said, though, you could have done a lot worse.
Noticing that this hackneyed story, the theme of the mean curmudgeon who suddenly has a new outlook on life by the end of the film, is something that is as old as time is eternal. THE PROPOSAL doesn’t look to blaze any new trails when it comes to the romantic comedy formula and, in fact, it takes some of the more basic elements of what makes them so enduring like bubblegum pop music. You have the wacky comedic relief played by Oscar Nunez who is absolutely the funniest thing in this film when you realize that he embraced the kind of role usually reserved for a John Turturro-type and explored all the ways in which he could make a true mark on this film; his unshaved bikini area absolutely solidified this. You have the wise one who knows what’s good for everyone, played here by Betty White who is just a delightful and spry actress who brings a bubbly effervescence to the role as the grandma who knows it all. You have the evil, metaphorically mustachioed, character that is looking to tear everything asunder, played here by Denis O’Hare whose character actually becomes funnier when he’s off camera at the end of the film. You also have the red herring of the group, Malin Akerman, who is not only wasted in her performance as an old girlfriend who, in other films, is used as someone who represents the lost lover who might-possibly-maybe be the one our protagonist decides to fall in love with instead but she’s horribly utilized in this movie. These four players represent what’s usually at the core for a successful romantic comedy and, to be fair, everyone does what they are supposed to do. They’re caricatures of real people and they play their far-removed-from-reality roles as best they can. It falls on Bullock and Reynolds to make it work.
The two of these actors work well with one another. Ryan Reynolds without question has the kind of comedic timing and subtlety necessary to make this movie more than just a bland story about how one person is going to need to marry the other in order to keep them in the country. Reynolds shines as someone who could actually bring a much needed relief to those who are dragged to these movies with their significant others (read here: men) because he understands the kind of movie he’s in. It’s not a question of whether or not he can pull it off, much like a Matthew McConaughey who embodies sleepwalking through a film as of late, but how he can make a film feel much more livelier than it isn’t. On paper this is about as routine as it comes, first time writer Pete Chiarrelli making good use of the basics in a romantic comedy that will bring people to the multiplex, and disappointingly it’s Sandra Bullock who fails to bring anything fresh to a genre that would have done well with some of what made her performance in 2006’s THE LAKE HOUSE a surprising delight.
Playing the shrew of a boss who no one likes respects or admires, stop me if you’ve heard that one before, the film goes out of its way to showcase Bullock as a woman who simply hates the world. I don’t think she loves anything, money, power, advantage, none of these things, as the film paints her an inhuman robot that not even the most testosterone fueled type-a personality would be able to match. That’s what makes her glorious transformation into a woman who can find love that much more grandiose but it genuinely does a disservice to a film that is broadcasting that it is simply a vehicle to make a buck and to be forgotten as soon as you walk out of the door. Bullock has her moments but, as the script is written, there isn’t much more she can do other than not exude a real human emotion for more than 1/2 of the film; it just doesn’t feel like acting, it’s more akin to following instructions on a piece of paper as if it were a table from Ikea that needs some assembly. She doesn’t acquit herself well in this role and it’s really not Bullock’s fault if you try and understand what’s really amiss. That fault lays at the feet of Anne Fletcher who has been in this territory before.
Bursting on the scene like an adolescent zit, Fletcher gave us her opening salvo as a director, the abominable STEP UP in 2006. This gave her enough juice to take the reigns of the genuinely terrible 27 DRESSES. DRESSES, if you read some of the comments leveled at her by other critics, garnered the same criticism which I am leveling at it. THE PROPOSAL feels like a movie that is devoid of any human tethering. From its unnatural use of lighting, set design and set-ups you would be hard pressed to find a modicum of reality stitched within the layers of this rancid onion. Craig T. Nelson feels like a caricature of a dad who is having trouble connecting with his son, the mother feels like an oblivious opposite to Nelson’s distant behavior and the film suffers as if it were a sitcom put to celluloid. Truly, if you want to know why some films are critic proof the answer is embedded within this film. It is because there is nothing of value to criticize. Like the petite madeleine the film crumbles upon inspection. It cannot stand up to someone taking the movie to task for all its shortcomings because, yes, it would be like picking on someone smaller than you, weaker than you. It’s strength is in its weakness and middle America is going to devour and eat this up.
This is Ryan Reynold’s film and thankfully he makes all this pap tolerable as it’s forced down the gullet of your brain. Should you find yourself laughing it’s not because there isn’t anything to laugh as there are a few good moments but a few moments does not a movie make. It may be good enough for the ladies of America who believe this movie is what they’re looking for this summer but they would much be better served with a movie that comes out next month, 500 DAYS OF SUMMER, a movie that wants to be more than a romantic comedy; it wants to be remembered.
THE PROPOSAL is a film that you can tolerate, even enjoy, for its run time. There are more than enough moments for those with a low threshold of what they find funny to laugh at, and it will most certainly entertain them, but for those who are looking for a film they would actually want to enjoy beyond the superficiality of its plot I would recommend to keep looking.
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