Sometimes, you want a movie to be much better than it actually is. "Flirting with Disaster" is a case in point.
Writer-director David O. Russell's subsequent features, "Three Kings" and "I Heart Huckabees," are gems. "Kings" was an entertaining, engaging action flick that managed to sneak an anti-imperialist message into a Hollywood studio production. "Huckabees" was a zany romp that combined humor and philosophy in ways no one would have thought possible.
On top of that impressive pedigree, "Flirting with Disaster" has a promising premise. Mel (Ben Stiller) has recently become a father, but can't decide what to name his son. Having been adopted, Mel has no knowledge of his real heritage. He sets off with his wife, Nancy (Patricia Arquette) and a researcher into adoption issues, Tina (Tea Leoni) in search of his birth parents.
In the first act, things roll along at an amusing pace, but the execution starts to falter when the trio meet up with a pair of Michigan cops, Paul (Richard Jenkins) and Tony (Josh Brolin). Rather improbably, the cops join Mel in his search. Meanwhile, Mel is strongly tempted to have an affair with Tina, while Tony looks to take advantage of Mel's inattention to his wife. Things only get more complicated from there, as the group meets up with Mel's birth parents, a pair of hippies who see nothing wrong with making and selling LSD.
Anyone who has seen "Huckabees" knows that Russell has no qualms about putting some rather improbable elements in his films. But while "Huckabees" is whimsical and ludicrous almost from the very beginning, "Disaster" is grounded in a very realistic plot and setting. This makes the rather absurd developments--like the extremely brazen flirtations between Mel and Tina and Nancy and Tony--feel off-kilter, rather than amusing reflections of Russell's ideas.
Moreover, Russell does a poor job of exploring his themes. He has two big ones here, infidelity and identity, which he could have given a thorough and interesting investigation. Instead, Mel's dilemmas are resolved in a few lines of dialogue amidst the ridiculous third act. These thorny issues deserve more than a pat treatment from an imaginative and insightful writer like Russell.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Monday, May 17, 2010
Breakfast at Tiffany's
A good romantic comedy should be like champagne: light, bubbly and refreshing. "Breakfast at Tiffany's" is more like molasses: slow, sappy and not worth the effort.
Audrey Hepburn stars as Holly Golightly, a young gold digging New Yorker. From the moment that a young writer named Paul moves into the apartment above her, we know that he will teach her that love is more important than money.
The cockamamie plot isn't worth delving into, but the problems of the movie are. Chief among them is the pacing; at times this film is ponderously slow, expending lots of time and effort on rather minor gags. Paul, played by George Stoppard, is badly lacking in charisma, and seems particularly dull next to the burning candle that is Audrey Hepburn. Finally, the movie hasn't quite made the transition from book--it's based on a Truman Capote novel--to screen. Monologues which might seem moving on the page feel forced when we seem them spoken. Some moments which could have been handled delicately in the book, such as a scene in which Golightly calls out for her brother in her sleep, seem ridiculous in the film.
"Breakfast at Tiffany's," which was made in 1961, interestingly straddles the divide between Old and New Hollywood. On the one hand, it takes a surprisingly frank attitude towards sex, barely bothering to conceal the out-of-wedlock liaisons of its characters. On the other, it features Mr. Yunioshi, a walking stereotype played by Mickey Rooney. Suffice to say that this squinty-eyed, buck-toothed Japanese character was not the Irish actor's finest hour.
The "Breakfast" filmmakers appear to have taken the attitude the Cleveland Cavaliers took with LeBron James: we have the perfect star, so we don't need anything else. Hepburn is charming, but the rest of the film is unfortunately a clunker.
Audrey Hepburn stars as Holly Golightly, a young gold digging New Yorker. From the moment that a young writer named Paul moves into the apartment above her, we know that he will teach her that love is more important than money.
The cockamamie plot isn't worth delving into, but the problems of the movie are. Chief among them is the pacing; at times this film is ponderously slow, expending lots of time and effort on rather minor gags. Paul, played by George Stoppard, is badly lacking in charisma, and seems particularly dull next to the burning candle that is Audrey Hepburn. Finally, the movie hasn't quite made the transition from book--it's based on a Truman Capote novel--to screen. Monologues which might seem moving on the page feel forced when we seem them spoken. Some moments which could have been handled delicately in the book, such as a scene in which Golightly calls out for her brother in her sleep, seem ridiculous in the film.
"Breakfast at Tiffany's," which was made in 1961, interestingly straddles the divide between Old and New Hollywood. On the one hand, it takes a surprisingly frank attitude towards sex, barely bothering to conceal the out-of-wedlock liaisons of its characters. On the other, it features Mr. Yunioshi, a walking stereotype played by Mickey Rooney. Suffice to say that this squinty-eyed, buck-toothed Japanese character was not the Irish actor's finest hour.
The "Breakfast" filmmakers appear to have taken the attitude the Cleveland Cavaliers took with LeBron James: we have the perfect star, so we don't need anything else. Hepburn is charming, but the rest of the film is unfortunately a clunker.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Shampoo
"Shampoo" is that rare film, a well-intentioned sex comedy. Unfortunately, it doesn't quite manage to become that even rarer feat, an effective sex comedy.
Warren Beatty is George Roundy, a hairdresser dating Jill (Goldie Hawn). He's trying to get money out of financier Lester Knapf (Jack Warden) to open his own salon. Meanwhile, he is having sex with Lester's mistress Jackie (Julie Christie), wife (Lee Grant) and daughter (Carrie Fisher, in a rather un-Leia like role). After a series of minor misadventures over the course of a day and a half, George realizes he loves Jackie. But just as he does so, Lester runs off with Jackie, presumably to marry her.
"Shampoo" is all about hypocrisy, not only sexual but also political. (The film takes place during the 1968 election and finds many opportunities to stick in some ironic Nixon quotes.) But it never manages to offer any real response to that hypocrisy. Jackie is supposed to be the most honest of these philanderers. Yet the characters are too underwritten for her decision to stay with Lester to have any meaning. Is she going for the money? Is she turning her back on a dishonest man (even if it means loving another one)? Does she really love Lester? Any of these interpretations are plausible given her words and actions. Such ambiguity might make another film feel more realistic and true, but for a rather broad comedy it just seems that the filmmakers haven't sorted it out.
Moreover, while there are a few funny moments here, the film never crackles with the wit that's needed for this subject matter. It's easy to skewer vapid, pretty Californians, but doing it well takes the kind of verve that the Coen brothers so deftly display. Beatty and Robert Towne, who co-wrote the script, just don't have that kind of cleverness in them.
Director Hal Ashby has no visual imagination whatsoever. He helmed some of the most famous films of the 1970s, including "Harold and Maude" and "The Last Detail," but he is wholly at the mercy of his script and actors, which don't come through here. The only original music, provided by Paul Simon, is a cheap knockoff of the soundtrack to "The Graduate." It's nothing more than Simon harmonizing and strumming his guitar; it could easily have been written and performed in a matter of minutes.
Beatty famously sought to make "Shampoo" for over a decade. He wanted to skewer his image as a womanizer with this film. While it may be entertaining for him, the rest of us need a bit more than a film about a playboy taken down to size.
Warren Beatty is George Roundy, a hairdresser dating Jill (Goldie Hawn). He's trying to get money out of financier Lester Knapf (Jack Warden) to open his own salon. Meanwhile, he is having sex with Lester's mistress Jackie (Julie Christie), wife (Lee Grant) and daughter (Carrie Fisher, in a rather un-Leia like role). After a series of minor misadventures over the course of a day and a half, George realizes he loves Jackie. But just as he does so, Lester runs off with Jackie, presumably to marry her.
"Shampoo" is all about hypocrisy, not only sexual but also political. (The film takes place during the 1968 election and finds many opportunities to stick in some ironic Nixon quotes.) But it never manages to offer any real response to that hypocrisy. Jackie is supposed to be the most honest of these philanderers. Yet the characters are too underwritten for her decision to stay with Lester to have any meaning. Is she going for the money? Is she turning her back on a dishonest man (even if it means loving another one)? Does she really love Lester? Any of these interpretations are plausible given her words and actions. Such ambiguity might make another film feel more realistic and true, but for a rather broad comedy it just seems that the filmmakers haven't sorted it out.
Moreover, while there are a few funny moments here, the film never crackles with the wit that's needed for this subject matter. It's easy to skewer vapid, pretty Californians, but doing it well takes the kind of verve that the Coen brothers so deftly display. Beatty and Robert Towne, who co-wrote the script, just don't have that kind of cleverness in them.
Director Hal Ashby has no visual imagination whatsoever. He helmed some of the most famous films of the 1970s, including "Harold and Maude" and "The Last Detail," but he is wholly at the mercy of his script and actors, which don't come through here. The only original music, provided by Paul Simon, is a cheap knockoff of the soundtrack to "The Graduate." It's nothing more than Simon harmonizing and strumming his guitar; it could easily have been written and performed in a matter of minutes.
Beatty famously sought to make "Shampoo" for over a decade. He wanted to skewer his image as a womanizer with this film. While it may be entertaining for him, the rest of us need a bit more than a film about a playboy taken down to size.
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