The Good Life (2007)

Tags

Bill Paxton, Drama, Harry Dean Stanton, Mark Webber, Movie, Patrick Fugit, Zooey Deschanel

look, I told you...I'm sorry I superglued my hand to you...it was an accident...

R

Mark Webber, Zooey Deschanel, Harry Dean Stanton, Bill Paxton, Patrick Fugit

Jason: My dad used to tell me that the people I meet will never care more about who I am than they will about what I look like.  And because I look the way I do…people may never care about me at all.

Jason (Webber) lives in a small, football-crazy, town.  His family is poor, his father has just committed suicide, and paying the bills is basically impossible.  He also suffers from an immune system disorder that causes all his hair to fall out.  Despite all that, he’s a generally humble, nice guy, and Frances (Deschanel) takes a liking to him when they meet.  Of course, she’s got some issues of her own.

Here’s the pattern of the mood of this movie:  depressing, depressing, dark, sad, depressing, depressing, everything’s actually great!

That pattern didn’t work too well for me.  Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad if it didn’t feel like a tacked on ending, only there to assuage the worries of some important people that didn’t want to green light such a depressing movie.

The tone problems aside, it just wasn’t a very compelling movie.  Zooey is playing a slight twist on her usual character.  She’s the beautiful girl who comes along, instantly falls for the quiet, troubled protagonist, and leads him on various little adventures that show him a better side to life.  I say it’s a twist on the usual character because this girl has some pretty serious secrets she’s hiding.  Their relationship was probably the best plot line in the movie, but that’s only because everything else was even less interesting.

Maybe it was just the boring lead performance by Webber that did it in.  I’m not sure.  I kept thinking that Patrick Fugit, who has a smaller part, would have been better in the lead.  He’s a more interesting actor, in my opinion.

The movie’s point, in the end, is to notice the little moments in life that make it worth living.  A smile here, a beautiful sight there…but to only dwell on depressing moments for the first hour and a half, then remind us of the happy stuff for the final minute, just doesn’t work.  I think dwelling on the good moments in between the bad would have made for a more enjoyable movie, and it would have gotten the point across even better.  As is, it just felt phony and insincere.  Then again, phoniness is sort of a theme in the movie…

Apparently a pretty girl singing a pretty song can instantly put a stop to an elderly person’s dementia-related outbursts.

10 – 3.5 for being way too depressing and then trying to spring happy on us at the end – 1.4 for a dull lead performance = 5.1

Gigantic (2008)

Tags

Comedy, Drama, Gigantic, Movie, Paul Dano, Romance, Zooey Deschanel

you! yeah, bare neck! where's your scarf!?

R

Paul Dano, Zooey Deschanel, John Goodman

Happy: What are you reading?
Brian: Uh, it’s an article about a Tibetan Rinpoche who plays basketball with some other monks in Arizona.  It says they got in a fight with five advertising executives in front of a bunch of kids…what are you reading?
Happy: Um… mostly just ads.  This one’s for a meditation cushion…that’s filled with buckwheat…it costs $249.
Brian: It’s a cushion?
Happy: Yeah…it’s mostly just a pillow that…looks like a stump.
Brian: Seems like a lot.
Happy: …Yeah.

Brian (Dano), a salesman of high priced mattresses, has always dreamed of adopting a Chinese baby.  He’s single and under 30, so it’s difficult for him to get approved, but he’s on a waiting list.  One day he meets Happy (Deschanel), the daughter of a man he sells a mattress to.  They start up a relationship which seems a bit destined for trouble.

Okay, that’s a very basic plot description I’ve provided above.  There’s a lot more thrown in to this movie.  So much that it feels cluttered and unnecessarily complicated.  There’s Brian’s lonely scientist friend who seems to exist only in his lab.  There’s various scenes with John Goodman being transported around in the back of a station wagon because of his back problems.  We get segments involving Brian’s dull family, Happy’s annoying family, the quirky employees at the mattress business, and then the weirdest subplot involving a homeless man (played by Zach Galifianakis) constantly attacking Brian with a pipe, a gun, and his fists.

All of that is in addition to the main plots about Brian and Happy’s relationship and Brian’s attempts at adopting a Chinese baby.  Maybe it would all work better together if all of the subplots work, but they do not.  Brian’s family is very boring.  Ed Asner plays his father, and the movie came to a dead stop every time they let Asner go off on one of his speeches.  There just didn’t seem to be much of a point to most of the scenes with the family, especially their little trip into the wilderness.

Zooey is playing yet another, ditzier, variation on the pixie-girl-inserted-into-lonely-guy’s-life character she’s being pigeonholed into these days.  This is the second movie in a row I’ve watched with her in it, and though there are some similarities between the two characters, she was much more interesting and enjoyable in 500 Days of Summer.  Paul Dano is alright in the lead, but his nearly complete lack of emotion or joy makes it hard to root for him in his quest to adopt a child.  It seems like he’s depending too much on the child bringing him happiness, when he should be concentrating on bringing happiness to the child.  And there’s another plot twist (I think…) late in the movie that would bring his qualifications as a potential father into question to an even greater extent if other people knew about it.

There are some funny moments here, especially towards the beginning, and it almost achieves some touching moments near the end, but overall I felt very detached from this movie.  It did not maintain my interest or make me care about anybody involved, which ultimately makes for an unpleasant movie watching experience.

Sweden makes the best beds because they have longer nights, thus more sleeping time.

10 – 2.5 for dull subplots – 1 for dull lead characters – .6 for the whole thing with the homeless guy = 5.9

(500) Days of Summer (2009)

Tags

500 Days of Summer, Comedy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Movie, Romance, Zooey Deschanel

hey, how 'bout you fall in love with me now, k?

PG-13

Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Zooey Deschanel

Rachel: Just because she likes the same bizzaro crap you do doesn’t mean she’s your soul mate.

Tom (Gordon-Levitt) writes messages for greeting cards and believes wholeheartedly in true love.  Summer (Deschanel) is a new employee at the same greeting card company.  She does not believe in true love, meeting “the one”, or any other such romantic nonsense.  The two meet, really like each other, and spend a lot of time together.  The problem is, one is totally in love, while the other is just having a fun time.

I saw this movie way back in February at a special showing, long before I started doing my movie-a-day reviews, but now that I’ve seen it again, I can write a review.

The movie begins by telling us that while this is a story of “boy meets girl”, it is “not a love story.”  We see their break up early on, then start jumping from good times to bad times to post break up times, with a helpful day-meter also flipping back and forth in order to keep us aware of which of the 500 days we’re on.  If done poorly, this could have created a very disjointed film, but I think it actually flows very well for the most part.

I enjoyed all the quirky, creative steps outside of reality, like the characters talking directly to the camera and Tom’s imagined dance scene (complete with marching band and a cartoon bluebird) celebrating his and Summer’s first, uh, intimate night together.  Again, that stuff could all seem forced and out of place if not done right, but here it all seems to fit with the feel of the movie.

The actors all do a good job, particularly Joseph Gordon-Levitt.  He could have easily come off as whiney and too desperate, but I thought he achieved more of a sympathetic character that you’d want to help through the situation rather than just telling him “get over it!”  Though, speaking of his character.  He studied to be an architect, and that’s a rather major part of the movie, but don’t architects do more than draw skylines?  Admittedly I don’t know anything about architecture, but it would’ve been nice to see him draw some blueprints or something maybe, rather than just doodles of buildings.  That’s beyond minor, as far as complaints go, but it’s something I noticed.

As for other minor critcisms,  there’s a couple of scenes that seem a little extraneous or repititious, in that they are making a point about the characters that has already been made clear in the film.  Also, the everything-is-going-to-be-ok ending seemed a little forced and unnecessary.  I would have been happier with the movie ending about one minute before it actually does.

Overall, though, I obviously liked this one a lot.  Good music, likable and funny characters, an interesting twist on romantic comedies, and a heapin’ helpin’ of Zooey.  These add up to a very pleasant movie-going experience.

12 year olds in movies are wise, and are the only source of relationship advice you really need.

10 – .6 for the extraneous/repititious scenes – .4 for that ending I didn’t like – .1 because I didn’t think the younger sister character was very believable = 8.9

The Happening (2008)

Tags

Drama, M. Night Shyamalan, Mark Wahlberg, Movie, Suspense, The Happening, Zooey Deschanel

we'll just hide here until the movie's over...

R

Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel

Elliot: Plastic……I’m talking to a plastic plant……I’m still doing it.

Something unknown is causing people to kill themselves all over the northeastern United States.  Elliot (Wahlberg) and Alma (Deschanel) are on the run from whatever it is, along with a bunch of other people.

I knew going in that this movie has been blasted by critics and moviegoers.  I also happened to know all the secrets of the movie.  Basically it was like I had seen it before, so in a situation like that, my enjoyment of a film will rely mostly on the look of the film, the characters, and the actors’ performances.

In this case, it looks good, but the characters and actors ruined it for me.  I thought Wahlberg and Deschanel really didn’t know what to do with the characters and the dialogue.  In most of his movies, Shyamalan has had actors (like Bruce Willis and Mel Gibson) who can play serious and light comedy both equally well, but in this case it just doesn’t work.  Though, to be fair, the dialogue is also to blame.  It’s not nearly as clever or interesting as Shyamalan’s better movies, and neither is the central relationship between Elliot and Alma.  I never really bought it throughout, so the scene near the end that’s supposed to be touching didn’t really have much affect.

The first 10-15 minutes of the movie is a nice set-up with the disturbing suicides, but once the theorizing starts and the characters start running from THE WIND, it really loses steam.  There’s also way too many plot conveniences, like radios that are found at just the right time to turn them on and hear a critical piece of information, etc.

While I didn’t think this was as terrible as a lot of people are saying, it’s still a lackluster effort.  It’s almost like Shyamalan got this new idea and wanted to rush it out to theaters as fast as possible, with no time to write a good script.  Better characters, dialogue and performances would have elevated this up to a very watchable film.

10 – 2.4 for poor characters/acting – 2 for bad dialogue + .3 for the good opening = 5.9

Yes Man (2008)

Tags

Comedy, Jim Carrey, Movie, Romance, Yes Man, Zooey Deschanel

Yes, it is worth watching just for me.

PG-13

Jim Carrey, Zooey Deschanel

Norman: You called me Norm!
Carl Allen: Ya.
Norman: Could that, like, be my nickname?
Carl Allen: Ya, I guess.
Norman: Ah nice, I like your style, Car. That could be yours.
Carl Allen: Ya…Carl’s pretty short already, but…

Carl (Carrey) is a guy who’s kind of a miserable anti-social jerk. A friend gets him to go to a life empowerment class that teaches him to say “yes” to everything. No matter what the question, proposal, suggestion, he has to say yes. This leads to good and, of course, bad outcomes. Allison (Zooey!) is the standard eccentric, lovable, pixie that magically falls in love with our hero once he heads down this new path.

This is a very standard story that fulfills every requirement of a typical romantic comedy.  Down on his luck guy, recovering from heartbreak, friends that try to get him to be more social, some situation forces him to change his ways, things get better, he meets the perfect girl, he’s sailing along, there’s a speed bump which causes big problems, then he learns an important lesson just in time to win back the girl and be happy.

Carrey’s done a few of these now, including Bruce Almighty and Liar Liar.  Though this movie reminded me more of one I watched last week, Ghost Town, starring Ricky Gervais.  Despite having very different stories, I think an overall plot development outline of both movies would look virtually identical.

But back to Yes Man!  Zooey is cute.  There’s no getting around that, and that certainly added to my enjoyment of the movie.  Jim Carrey has grown on me over the years, especially when he’s being a more realistic character (see Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind).  At times he’s good in this, but he resorts back to his rubber face, kramer-esque stuff too much.  I can just imagine the script writer, not being able to come up with good dialogue for a scene, adding a note that says, “and then Jim does some of his wacky stuff!”

Overall, it’s a funny – if cluttered – film that I doubt will leave anybody loving it or hating it to a strong degree.  It’s just kind of there while you watch it…and then gone when it ends.

10 – 2 for Carrey’s lame antics – 2 for very standard plot + 1 for Zooey – .5 for having her character a bit underdeveloped – .2 for leaving some loose ends untied = 6.3