It's been an odd movie-viewing summer chez cinetrix and 'Fesser. For the most part we've been binging on series 3 of "The Thick of It" episodes, which I can't recommend passionately enough. Oh how I love Malcolm Tucker in all his scabrous fury. And we've only been to the cinema itself twice, with, um, uncomfortable-making results both times.
You gotta feel for the 'Fesser. It can be difficult choosing a movie when I persist in this obnoxious tendency to read about films before I sees 'em. [I know, right?] Or have the temerity to catch flicks at festivals and thus be over them by the time they receive theatrical release. Which is a long-winded explanation for how we ended up watching Harry Brown. After all, who doesn't like late-model Michael Caine? I suspect that sentiment is what lured a lot of the trusting white-haired, NPR-supporting folks into the theater with us for what turned out to be a nasty bit of business indeed. The guy in front of us up and left, maybe sickened by the chav violence. Or the drug dealer violence. Or the violence against Emily Mortimer. Or the OAP/vigilante violence. Tough to say.
Cyrus, which we caught just last week, was equally unsettling, albeit for its violence against the cinema. I am no fan of les freres Duplass, to put it mildly. And I find Jonah Hill to be singularly unpleasant to regard. But the 'Fesser heard John C. Reilly and Marisa Tomei and was hooked. Sigh. What we do for love, you know? I'm still recovering.
A quick synopsis in case you missed the memo: Reilly is a divorced guy who wears sweatpants. His soon-to-remarry ex is, improbably, Catherine Keener. More improbably, when she drags him to a party, he encounters another hot babe (Tomei) who is charmed by his honesty. Which is thrown to the winds once he discovers his new lady friend has a lumpen 21-year-old son who doesn't relish the idea of an interloper ruining the good thing he's got going on. Holy intimations of the incest taboo, Batman! What's gonna happen?
Ah, who cares? Sweet Jesus, can we call a moratorium on man-boys of all ages? And especially man-boy rivalries in which any female character exists solely to prove the premise of Eve Kosovsky Sedgwick's Between Men theory? Pretty please? Don't get me wrong. Reilly is a peach of an actor, and was sweet as pie in a recent "Fresh Air" interview, but I'd rather watch him really sing instead of drunkenly humiliating himself bellowing "Don't You Want Me, Baby." WE GET IT. He's a sad sack with soulful little button eyes. [Hill is just loathsome.]
Can we also talk about Marisa's renaissance for a sec? I mean, I want to be hot like the 40something Ms. Tomei when I grow up, just like every other woman I know. It delights me that an actress her age isn't cast as a washed-up crone. And I suppose it's nice that she's playing women in age-appropriate [mostly] relationships. But does it ALWAYS have to involve her banging some schlub like Philip Seymour Hoffman or Mickey Rourke or Reilly? Talented actors all, but isn't there someone attractive or fit she could be cast opposite? Is Viggo not available?
Which brings me, reluctantly, back to Cyrus, in which Tomei's never even naked. Instead, she's poorly lit and shot in incredibly unflattering close-ups, the mascara thick on her lashes. Oh, G-d, and let's not even start in on that Jennifer Beals circa Flashdance mass of curls. The cinematography's no better. Sometimes she's actually out of focus [and not in a rack focus sense]. Much has been made of this flick being the Duplass boys' first foray into mainstream movie-making. Um, hi. Pro tip: You keep Marisa Tomei in focus. And you sure as shit don't make Catherine Keener look worn and DRAB. Where I'm from, that's a crime.
Oh, wait, here comes another unprompted zoom/reframe! And another. That isn't even rhymed in the reverse shot. Awesome! Edgy!
I am trying to forget all about Hill's creepy, manipulative, puling momma's boy, but it'd be hard to mention the diegetic/soundtrack music without the "quirky character trait" that Cyrus composes synth music that'd make Vangelis, John Tesh, and Tangerine Dream gang up with KMFDM to administer a hell of a beat down. Is it so we don't miss the incestuous closeness between Hill & Tomei that we are plagued with "Love On A Real Train" knockoff noodling? And I'm not sure what to do with the dial tone sound undergirding the final scene's soundtrack music, either. Have hangups been resolved? Is the relationship flat-lining? Got me, pal.
Revisiting the crap cinematography and "Oh, ha ha! The kid's into Yanni-stizz shit. Isn't that hiLARious?" soundtrack nonsense reminds me of the biggest misfire in the film. Our not-so-young lovers are in the blissful early stages of cohabitation, a state conveyed to us by an impressionistic montage and a shift into asynchronous dialogue meant to convey the halting, tentative joys of their romance. You may remember this technique from Out of Sight, where Soderbergh assembled the sexiest ever out-of-time interlude between Jennifer Lopez's federal marshal and George Clooney's career con. Watch it now. I'll wait.
That, boys and girls, is gorgeous, artful editing of sound and image. The scene in Cyrus reaches for these heights of improbable intimacy but falls far short, coming off instead as a salvage of images from the mostly improvised shoot with dialogue dubbed over in post.
And then it gets worse. The same technique is pressed into service a second time, only now the creepy voice-over/montage trick is used with imagery of freakin' Jonah Hill. Ewwwwww.
I've already devoted more time to this flick than it merits, so I'll close with a final point of information query. What the hell do these characters do for a living? They live in modest houses and drive ordinary cars, yes. And I know, Reilly's character is a "freelance copy-editor," which gave this freelance copy-editor a giggle. And of course he works with his ex? Whatever. But what about Tomei's Molly? She "home-schooled" Cyrus, who is now old enough to be a college graduate, yet there is no other parent in the picture. Who paid the bills? Basically, she "goes to work" only to allow Reilly's character to discover evidence of plotting and duplicity when he helps pack up Cyrus's belongings before he moves out. Seriously, where'd the scratch for all those synthesizers come from?
