Bruner Blog

More fun with Rick at the movies

Been getting to the moving pictures quite a bit these days. Last night was “About a Boy.” I had read this terrric novel by Nick Hornby before I even saw the earlier movie made of his novel “High Fidelity.” Interestingly, the two movies didn’t share any prominent crew members — different directors, screenwriters, cinematographers and editors — but to my eye, the two films had a common feel in terms of the approach to the editing, cinematography, narration and soundtrack. Perhaps Hornby thoroughly injects his stories with these filmmaker’s choices, or maybe this film was a bit derivative stylistically of “High Fidelity,” or possibly I’m just imagining it. Whatever, it’s not a problem. It works. I liked “High Fidelity” a lot, and I liked “About a Boy,” too. I’m not generally a big Hugh Grant fan, but I thought he was excellent in the role of Will Freeman, the deliberately shallow 38-year-old bachelor sucked into an extended family of strangers through gawky 12-year-old Marcus, who is desperately in need of a father figure to teach him how to be cool.

I hope the film does reasonably well. My concern is that it’s a hard movie to categorize in terms of its target audience. Despite the parallel coming-of-age plots, it’s certainly not a teen film (although rated PG 13): no violence, slapstick or nudity. It’s really about a 38-year-old man learning to grow up. It’s off-center by Hollywood standards, but it’s definitely no independent art film. It’s also distinctly not an American film, set effectively in London, so that American audiences will need to keep their ears tuned more sharply than normal in order to negotiate the Brit accents and colloquialisms. It’s also borderline for a date film, as, like “High Fidelity,” it’s ultimately a morality tale about committed relationships. And while it’s consistently very funny, it’s poignant to the point of schmaltzy, suffused with themes such as depression and suicide, public humiliation, the pain of honesty, emotional bonding and the purpose of life. The best I could come up would be it is an “adult feel-good film,” which doesn’t sound like that hot of a ticket. Reminds me a bit of the excellent “Secrets & Lies,” tho more Hollywood. Word of mouth and Grant’s star power are its best hope. Good sign was the theater was nearly sold out on opening night at a 10:15 pm showing.

Also saw “Cat’s Meow” the other night, the new film from Peter Bogdanovich (of “The Last Picture Show,” “What’s Up Doc” and “Paper Moon” fame). This new film takes for its plot a speculation on how a real Hollywood mystery played out when William Randolph Hearst was host aboard his luxury yacht to a celebrity weekend cruise that included his mistress actress Marion Davies (played by the charming Kirsten Dunst), Charlie Chaplin and once legendary gossip columnist Louella Parsons, among others. During the voyage, film producer Thomas Ince died under mysterious circumstances that were never investigated or discussed by the witness in the years to follow.

The movie had its appeal, including a really enjoyable performance by Edward Herrmann as Hearst, as well as its period charm, a great set, lots of colorful characters and a sufficiently complicated plot. Ultimately, however, it fell a bit flat for me. It was rather slow in parts and conspicuously a dramatic staging — I never lost to illusion the recognition that I was watching actors playing characters in a film. I see that Yahoo! Movies categorizes it as a “thriller.” That’s one thing I would not call it. Doubtful it will do much to revive Bogdanovich’s long career slide.

Finally, as long as I’m at it, last weekend I rewatched Preston Sturges’s “Miracle of Morgan’s Creek” at the Film Forum’s ongoing Great America Comedy Series. It still had its share of laugh-out-loud moments, but it was slower and a bit more obvious in many of its gags and slapstick than I had remembered (I recall fits of hyperventilation when I saw it first in my early 20s). By and large, the absurdity and ribald nature of story itself delivers most of the laughs — Trudy Kockenlocker (played wonderfully by Betty Hutton), forces her nerdy admirer Norval to cover for her while she spends all night at a bon voyage dance for departing WWII soldiers, whereupon she gets so drunk that she marries a soldier but forgets both his name and the fake name she used during the ceremony (for no logical reason), but not before consummating the matrimony. The screwball antics just mount from there. Eddie Bracken’s pie-eyed double-takes and frequent stuttering get a bit tiresome, but performances were fun all around, including the quintessential brassy younger sister by Diana Lynn, and William Demarest (of “My Three Sons” fame) delivering some outstanding pratfalls as exasperated father Constable Kockenlocker.

Why, you might wonder, do I bother posting these film reviews to my site? Do I think I’m some kind of film expert? Well, if I ever held such illusions, that bubble was popped fairly decisively last night by my friend who openly mocked me as a film ignoramus for not knowing what Dogma 95 was. (For those as dimwitted as me, it’s more than a film genre, it’s a film certification program with a strict set of 10 guidelines (the “Vow of Chastity”), co-designed by Danish director Lars von Trier and epitomized by his torturous film “Breaking the Waves.” The whole idea is so pretentious it makes me laugh. An attempt the reinvigorate creativity in film-making, the movement seems pretty formulaic in its own Euro-trash way: inductees must shoot only in natural light (fine); all music must be part of the scene being filmed (whatever); the director cannot take a credit (oh, puh-lease — how we must suffer for our art), but stupidest of all, the camera must be hand-held. How does this possibly make the film more natural? You can’t help but to be aware of the jittering picture frame throughout the whole movie. It’s nauseating. I felt sea sick all the way through “Breaking the Waves.” The opposite of entertaining, despite a brilliant performance by Emily Watson, “Breaking the Waves” was just unpleasant to watch, which is why I avoided Bjork in von Trier’s subsequent “Dancer in the Dark” and why I will probably also avoid Nicole Kidman in his upcoming “Dogville.”) The only silver lining in my humiliating education is that I’m apparently so behind the times that the genre or whatever it is has already become passe. I’m glad I missed it.

So, having clearly established that I’m such an amateur film fan I don’t even deserve to be called a “buff,” why the hell do I bother subjecting my invisible friends to read my film proscriptions? Well, obviously part of the answer is that I just love the sound of my own voice (even if it’s in my head I as blog in silence). Why the hell else would I keep a blog, if I didn’t? Writing this made me remember that as a kid, I didn’t have so much an imaginary friend as I did an imaginary audience (a bit like De Niro in “The King of Comedy”). No wonder I became a writer, public speaker and failed actor.

Here’s the real secret. It occurred to me that if I am a “reviewer” (albeit a blogviewer), I might be able to write movies, books and CDs off on my taxes. Haven’t talked it over with the accountant yet, but I figured it might be worth a try. Lucky you.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 18th, 2002 at 3:04 pm and is filed under aa-home. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.