"Do you think she's talented, deeply and importantly talented?" Why yes, that is a snap of young Nora Ephron's byline on a review of Breakfast at Tiffany's in her college newspaper.
In honor of the grande dame of rom-com chick flicks, here's a bit of snark prompted by SJP's latest [based on Mrs. Anthony Lane's best-seller, no less]
MROW! And speaking of kitties, color Rich Juzwiak less than impressed with Miranda July's vision of The Future:
Granted, it’s narrated by a cat named Paw-Paw who cloys with Yoda-lite musings like, “I’m cat of nobody, I’m not even cat, I’m not even I” (even more cloying: he’s voiced by July, who also plays the protagonist, Sophie). Granted, this is the kind of movie where people bond over cloud formations and say things like, “Your footsteps and your movements sound happy.” Granted, any screaming here is reserved for release and used as an impractical attempt at practical communication (Sophie unleashes to check if a stranger she’s talking to on the phone can hear her from her house). Granted that said confrontation is mostly delivered by mumble. But make no mistake that the confrontation is absolutely there. July has referred to “The Future” as her version of a horror movie, and this is true in the most fundamental, interactive way possible: It is painful to sit through.
**The Anthropologie catalogue could not resist the siren song of In the Mood for Love.
Reverse Shot has dedicated its entire 30th issue to bringing the pain. Recommended Simply the Worst entries [on the worst work in filmmakers' oeuvres] include but are by no means limited to The Ladykillers*, The Life Aquatic, Light of Day, and My Blueberry Nights.**
*Gotta say, more than six years ago [!] I laid into The Ladykillers. Still feeling pretty good about that decision. But, my, the cinetrix was young and angry then!
There are some days when the cinetrix feels like the only person on earth who still remembers the early, smarmy work of Mr. Hanks. All this Saint Tom shit makes me want to projectile vomit. The last movie of his I deigned to see in the theatre was Forrest Gump. I was on a first [and last] date with someone really keen to see it, and to my eternal chagrin, I didn't press hard enough to see The Client, our other option, instead, because, c'mon, The Client? It was meagre consolation that I did not have to pay for my ticket, given that I'll never have back the 142 minutes that Republican Party commercial for conformity and unquestioning loyalty [and against promiscuity and casual drug use--bye, bye Jenny!] took from me.
Hanks is just a self-satisfied, bloated showboater. Acting in a Coen Brothers movie doesn't give him any sort of cred, it just serves to remind the audience how much the success of any of the brothers' past pastiche souffles rose and fell on the work of the character actors that popped in and out of the ensemble--Buscemi, Goodman, Turturro, McDormand, Jon Polito.
The Ladykillers feels like a summer stock version of a Coen Brothers movie. Forget asking how well the remake stands up to the original Ealing comedy. There is no joy, no sense of getting away with anything here. Even J.K. Simmons [Garth Pancake] seems like pale simulacra of the late [and more talented] Michael Jeter. The knowing winks and nods of the past have been replaced with a heavy-lidded, flinty-eyed stare that says to the audience, even if you hate this movie, it's still gonna make shitloads of money. Suck it up, true believers.
