Reel Girly

Bloggers tend to lean towards the obscure, the local, and the arty for their reviews. I think this is wise given that the obscure and the arty are generally a part of the media enclave most needing word of mouth, and what is a blog but a running word of mouth? I know it needs no added WOM but (call me a fan-girl) I wanted to write about the tiny breaths of genius present in summer comedy Knocked Up. I found a fun bit with flat questions from ABC.

Not one for ambiguous humor (or titles) Apatow is being critically championed as the man to revive mainstream comedy, the “Mayor of Comedy”. He is impressive. He never strays from his flock of loyal companion (including wife Leslie Mann, the casts from both his sitcoms Undeclared and Freaks and Geeks, even his kids are in Knocked Up) but what interests me most is something that seems consistent in all his films. Everyone, in the world of Judd Apatow, is nice. There aren’t any outright bastards in his films. Even the bitchy people are endearing. SNL’s Kristin Wiig kicks ass as an insecure, needy, and biting junior exec. and even Steve Carrell, Apatow’s long standing comrade and a famously nice guy, walks away from Katherine Heigl’s super pregnant E! Correspondent saying “I’m not an ass hole.” Granted, Carrell wasn’t nice to her, but still, no one’s actually an ass hole, they’re just insecure, or confused, or dumb or even vaguely gross. The latter abject category is of specific interest in Knocked Up, where gross and sweet are odd bedfellows…just like Ben (Seth Rogel) and Allison (Katherine Heigl). Mainstream comedy usually delves into baud, or slapstick, or plain potty humor, and Knocked Up does that too. I particularly liked a portion where Leslie Mann’s character, Debbie tells Allison that her husband Pete (Paul Rudd in like the role of his life!) has been jerking off into their new towels and even after she washes them they’re never soft again. The film’s absence of slapstick is not really proof of its intelligence but where else has bodily humor ever been endearing? I mean seriously, it’s more cute than gross that those towels will never be soft again. Makes sense gross is okay, what with the film revolving around impending birth. What else is gross and sweet? Not much!

So if I’m going to be a fan-girl, I’m not itching for Ratatouille but a recent comrade in the universe of film journalism, Alex Vo of Rottentomatoes.com, wrote a researched, cute, fun, get-you-excited-about-the-movie, interview with Patton Oswald, a.k.a. Remy the culinary rodent, from Pixar’s Ratatouille.

I loved Alex’s references to stand up comics and to Home Movies, one of the best shows to ever grace the flickering screen of Adult Swim. I learned about Patton Oswald from Erik Blevin’s Kick-Ass Movie Pitches a few years ago and if I had the chances, it’d be the first thing on my list of quesitons. Perhaps it’s too five minutes ago…eh. if you haven’t read it before, I hope you also laugh until you need your inhaler:-)

With all the hullabaloo of SFIFF50 just behind me, I’m hoping to be a bit more dutiful to my blog and really, what better way for me to dive in than to dance about in the well worn path of Raimi’s newest Spidey saga?

I’m really surprised to find that my views are largely my own - I mean, no one else seemed to think Spiderman 3 was political. Arguably, I’m hinging my entire thesis on one shot: the shot in which a finally redeemed Spiderman comes to save MJ in front of a mob of media and lands dead center in front of an iconic, waving flag. However, it seems to me that a film in a previously very intelligent franchise, helmed by a very intelligent (genius at times) filmmaker, is not ridiculously simple for no good reason. Even amidst the static created by heaps of needless villains, the plotline remained quite incomplex. I read all about Raimi’s casting requirements and I get he was up against a few walls, but people love to forget that in the interest of communicating ideological content, competent filmmakers have historically chosen to wrap their ideologies in simple films. They do so to give the viewer the time and mental bandwidth to consider the story’s implications and to find the moral. I’m of the mind that Spiderman’s third grade reading level plotline dug at a brand of redemption that seems a tad…shall I say prescriptive.

Spiderman encounters Venom, chooses to be poisoned, believes his choices (at first) to be partially charitable and then his downward spiral goes far deeper than any of other brands of damnation present in the first two films. His decisions, if you will, extend beyond self-preservation and go into offensive positioning. Also, call me goofy, but his eventual ally in Harry was a little Tony Blair for me. I’m just saying.

As far as the overall thrill-factor of the film goes, I’m with the chorus. 3 doesn’t match the candor of it’s predecessors, and it smacks of compromise all over the place, but if I’m right, and Raimi’s goal was to make a political parable, or even a letter to the president (dare I say it) 3 achieved that goal. Well, presuming that the president will take this third grade level “letter” as a message from the Raimis. Really, that’s funny all on it’s own. No punch line (or pimp suit) required.

p.s. i have some great press stills but i’m still experience some glitches with uploading. They’re massive files and the way I’m making them smaller isn’t working out. Will edit the post as soon as I can figure out how to deal with the images. Best! -S

I’m not great at keeping up with Ain’t it Cool News but once in a while I get hooked to something I find there.

If I could interview just half as well as this guy, I’d be set for life. His skill and stealth and sheer prowess…I’m gripped by his every word!

Read.

Back in the first days of my interviewing and writing on film, I conducted an interview with Josh Seftel. Josh’s films Taking on the Kennedys had just been released on DVD and greencine had me chat with him for their site. Josh was pretty dreamy. At the time he’d done a bunch for TV episodes for shows like Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and what not. I had no idea he’d go all feature narrative on us!

Well, here’s My Interview with Josh, and Here’s a link to the trailer of his new feature with both (!) Cusacks and my fav Marisa Tomei.

What’s more? He was recently mentioned on cable TV’s version of the world’s greatest radio show THIS AMERICAN LIFE! Talk of the town, that one.