Oddly, this is my second post with this title, but this time it refers to the movie Stranger Than Fiction. But maybe it’s not odd, since there are no less than six different films — unrelated — of this same title. But I’m talking about the Will Ferrell one from 2006. The other night, while staying up to catch the lunar eclipse, I popped this movie in. Anyone who writes fiction will love this movie for obvious reasons, but so will everyone who enjoys consuming stories… as well as people who identify with slight obsessive-compulsive tendencies. And IRS agents. And people being audited. Basically, this movie is for everyone.

There are early clues that this story is going to be told in an unconventional way, as writing appears right on the screen during the opening sequence to give the audience a visual display of IRS agent Harold Crick’s (Ferrell) affinity for numbers and counting. Soon, we are introduced to the idea that the soothing female voice doing voice-overs (Emma Thompson) is actually audible to Harold. I mean, he notices her talking about him, narrating his life. The stakes are set when we hear our trusty narrator forecasting an early death for poor Mr. Crick.

From here it gets a little confusing as the story starts some seemingly  unrelated threads of other characters. Don’t worry, you’ll get it on the second viewing.  This is one of those lovely movies that brings it all together at the end and ties a neat bow. This is a feel-good movie that has some intelligent fun with fiction, IRS agents, literary professors and bakers, with a twist of romance mixed in.

You’ll enjoy it. Here’s a cute clip. Notice how Harold sits in the accordion part of the double bus. The whole movie is smart yet subtle like that.

Four nods to this one!

It’s PG-13, but personally I don’t know what age I’d recommend on this one. I watched with my preteens, and since I’m a nazi about people not sleeping together on the first date, I didn’t even have to say anything. They know where I stand. Other than that, I don’t recall language or violence issues — unless you count the multiple ways the narrator imagines of killing herself… but I found those comical. Sick me.

Enjoy!

I was a big fan of this show when it first aired in 1994, and was devastated when it was pulled after a mere 19 episodes, leaving the romantic storyline forever frozen in a sad cliffhanger. Apparently they were looking for another 90210, when what they got was a non-glamorous, tender, real portrayal of one teen girl’s life, including all the people that surrounded her. The show was neither glitzy nor gritty. It walked the extremely-fine line of averageness — even made it beautiful — so that it has become a treasured favorite of regular-ole people like myself.

I don’t understand how the studios messed this up: when they hired Winnie Holzman — who had worked on The Wonder Years and thirtysomething — to create My So-Called Life, they should have known they’d get something more nuanced and deeper than your average teen drama. I have a favorite scene in the series, where Angela removes her new-looking boots to trade them for a homeless girl’s shoes. It shows her thinking about it, then unlacing and switching the pairs of shoes. Sounds pretty ordinary, doesn’t it? But it was cinematic music… it held the beat just a little long to emphasize something without even saying a word.

So, in case you were too old or too young, or too busy or too male to enjoy it on first run, please go add it to your Netflix queue today. Don’t be afraid of a little flannel and a lot of “like”s and “I mean”s. It’s the Pride and Prejudice of its era, transcending the trends of its day, just as enjoyable today as when it first came out. See the episodes in order, and tell me what you think!

This modern classic gets an unabashed five nods from me:

Not really for kids. Deals with teen issues of sexuality, guns, drugs, so it’s great to see as a teen or with a teen.

Here, I’ll get you started. Enjoy:

I also liked the way the book was told in alternate first-person, sort of as a series of journal entries… but more like word snapshots. My son’s first-grade teacher would call them “small moment” scenes. Short but detailed. It was a great way to keep us invested in what would otherwise be a rather confusing, tangled story.

If you are the sort of person that just can’t get past the paradoxes that the whole premise of time travel deals with, then this story isn’t for you. If you can, you’ll enjoy either the book or the 2009 movie, or both.

Hey, that’s funny. I just realized that the movie’s main actor, Eric Bana, his last movie was about time travel, too — the new Star Trek.

I’ve had a hard time liking Bana since he played in the 2003 screen version of The Hulk, a movie I absolutely hated. I wanted to like it, because I liked the TV show and think the Bruce/Hulk is one of the most interesting super heroes. He’s not simply Jekyll and Hyde — good and bad. I like to think of Hulk as misunderstood. And that there are times for the use of anger and physical power, like to protect the weak and innocent, not to be a victim of a vilified military. The 2008 version looked exactly the same — Hulk vs. the military and I think that’s really boring.

(I also wanted to like the 2003 Hulk movie because of my long-time love of the movie Labyrinth in which Jennifer Connelly also starred. But I digress.)

But, in The Time Traveler’s Wife, Bana is really good, as of course is Rachel McAdams, who I liked in this performance better than in The Notebook.

Back to time travel.

It is nearly impossible to create a good story that centers around time travel, because first you have to deal with what happens when you change something in the past or future. This movie didn’t attempt to grapple with it, which makes it a little unusual. It laid out, very early and very clearly, that Henry, the time traveler, didn’t have the power to change anything significant in the past or future. Of course, the things he does throughout the movie change things as far as his relationship to his wife, but still… I could accept these boundaries and enjoy the movie within them.

This made the movie really a story about a man’s relationship with his wife.

Their relationship reminded me a bit of Lois and Clark (Superman), where she is the stability that anchors him, domesticates and humanizes him. Poor Henry, though, instead of having super-powers, has a super curse, in that he cannot control when or where he travels in time. There are some redeeming factors, though, and I enjoyed how these things made room in the story for other elements. After all, a guy that time travels at random can hardly hold down a job, so it’s very helpful that he can win the lottery so as not to be worried about money on top of his other issues.

I found it particularly interesting that the story took on infertility as a main issue. It made the otherwise rather perfect Clare more real, that she had serious issues of her own to grapple with.

So, Henry and Clare ended up being, for me, one of the more relatable couples I’ve seen onscreen. They are experiencing a great love, but not an ideal life, and I get that. Awesome love doesn’t equal perfect life. Not until we’re all behind the pearly gates, I guess.

The screenplay writer is Bruce Joel Rubin, who also wrote Ghost and several others. I liked this screenplay well enough that I’m tempted to check out his lesser-known films like My Life and even Stewart Little 2! Well, we’ll see, since he also wrote the Last Mimzy which I found rather silly.

On a more visual design note, the movie had a lovely look. You get a feel for it in the movie poster, isn’t that image beautalicious?

This movie gets four and a half nods from me!

enjoy!

So I want to point you toward two other shows I’m just starting on DVD.

Jericho

This CBS show only made it through a partial second season, and I’m just a few episodes in on season one, but this is a show that is tugging at my emotions already.

But let’s back up. Here’s what CBS says Jericho is about:

Returning for a second season as a result of one of the most unprecedented and impassioned displays of fan support on behalf of a television program, JERICHO is a drama about what happens in the aftermath of a nuclear explosion in the once peaceful town of Jericho.

In other words, it is near-future post-apolcolypse sci-fi. This could have gone very grandiose and epic (kind of what V is doing) but instead, the episodes have featured small, immediate problems, like a little girl with a bruised windpipe and a stranded woman getting picked up by escaping ex-cons. How people deal with these immediate problems — rather than the obvious one of the apocolypse itself — is great storytelling!

Also, it has a rather charming small-town-pulling-together-in-crisis thing going on. It’s a great exploration of how a town would have to transition from denial (people still trying to go to work) to survival (everyone pooling resources and sharing tasks).

Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles

Another show that has already hit the skids — (when will the networks learn?) — is Fox’s Terminator series. This one is more small-cast and personal, dealing with Sarah and her teenaged future-leader-of-the-resistance son some years before the world is taken over by machines. An artificial intelligence called Skynet, to be precise.

Same brand of fun as the movies — hand-to-hand action, some explosions, some suspense. It does aim a little higher, though, with some thought-provoking tie-ins through Sarah Connor’s voice-over narration. Perhaps it must dig a little deeper to compensate for the TV budget, but I think this is a good thing. Sarah wrestles with whether she should kill one man to help save humanity, or how to protect a son who is destined to risk it all to save the world, and so forth. Keeps it interesting.

I also enjoy strong female leads, and Sarah is good, but Summer Glau as the girl terminator is perfect. They have fun playing off the idea that people would underestimate small-statured women. Not unlike Sydney of Alias, now I think on it. By the way, this is one complaint I have with Jericho, at least in the few episodes I’ve watched. There is a fair amount of “help the poor girl” going on. In the early episodes that featured young women, both heroines were ultimately saved by Jake, the hero. Ah well, can’t have it all. There may never be another Alias.

What, you haven’t watched Alias? Okay, before you try Jericho or Terminator, GO WATCH ALIAS. If you can get past the occasional fake blood and torturous screaming now and again, you’ll find a smart, exciting mystery/romance with one of the strongest lead women characters ever on TV. Sydney Bristow.*

* And I don’t mean strong as in physical, because that would probably be the terminator girl. Sydney can handle herself physically, but her real strength lies in her quick thinking and her caring and humanity that shine through even the toughest situations. She’s the kind of woman you want your daughter to be as she faces her own demons in life.

Human / Visitor relations

Well, at the request of my loyal fans, I’ve got some thoughts about the “V” premiere from Tuesday. I shuffled my tail down to my mother’s house for a DVR session on her big screen Wednesday.

I have to agree that it was a little disappointing, but you saw my over-the-top expectations so… in a way, I expected to be disappointed. However, here are the good points of the premiere:

1. They understand sci-fi storytelling pretty well. They answered the important audience questions of believability when they arose, for the most part. For example, when Anna’s HEUGE image first appears on the underbelly of the starship, she speaks in English. I had barely formed the “oh yeah?” question about her speaking English when the scene cut to television images of other cities, where Anna was speaking the native language of each region. Good save, guys. And good implications. These aliens know more about us than we think. They know our languages, yet they’ve just arrived? Hmmmm, she says, with a sinister eyebrow raise.

2. Anna did beautifully in her role. Her interview with Chad Decker (I can’t stop thinking of “Party of Five” when I see him — and what’s with his teeth? Are they dentures?) was wonderfully tense, and made you wonder what Chad is made of. And Chad, in my opinion, is in the most interesting character position, rubbing up directly with the main villain. I’m interested to see what scuffles they put him in and what decisions he makes. I hope they build him into someone more than just a pawn. He’s positioned to be a rook, at least, against this queen. Maybe even a knight.

3. SPOILER ALERT! Alan Tudyk — okay, could they have blindsided us more with his — ahem — reptilian side? Wash is an alien! I was sort of sad, because I love Alan and wanted him with the good guys. Well, my big hope is that his character arc includes him becoming a traitorous visitor and fighting with the humans. Can they twist him back around over the course of a season? I think so, and it would be divine storytelling. But will they? Not sure. Think Alias, guys! Twist those characters! Shapeshift them! We love it!

4. And speaking of traitorous visitors, I am so glad they are setting up more than a good humans/bad visitors dynamic. They’ve hinted at all sorts of shades of gray. Ryan Nichols as the visitor that has gone native, who promises that there are other traitors that will help the humans. Now, just because we see reptilian underbody, we can’t assume they are bad. NICE. Then, we have Erica Evans son, Tyler, joining the young nazis ambassador program and getting entangled with the visitors. Will he be used unwittingly against his people, or even willingly choose to fight with the visitors?

Okay, so there are some great mystery boxes set in place during this pilot. (I’m calling it a pilot, though that may not be the correct term since the show is picked up already [for now].) Here are the problems:

1. Biggest problem, I think, is that it was an hour pilot rather than a ninety-minute pilot. Sci-fi needs those extra minutes to establish a) the world, b) the problem and c) the characters fully. So, we got the world, the problem, but we were a little thin on the characters. All the character threads had to be set in motion, and it’s a large cast to introduce. Correct me if I’m wrong, but the Firefly pilot must have been ninety. It had to introduce nine crewmembers, all coming from very different backgrounds and with distinct motivations. “V” needed ninety. In sixty, we got a little about each of the main character’s backgrounds, but we didn’t get more than cliche motivations and value systems. Of course Erica goes running to find her only son at a time of crisis. Of course Ryan runs to his fiance. Ho, hum.

Here’s what I hope: that future episodes explore deeply ONE main character’s conundrum rather than trying to move all the characters forward equally in each episode. Use the story to tell us something deeper about someone. Don’t skim the surface with all of them at once. Trade off. Do I think this will happen? Not sure.

2. Other problem. I saw the story being butchered a couple times. Gives strength to my theory that there may be a lot of cooks in this kitchen. For example, the most important line of the hour, the climax — the thesis, if you will — was this (wording is not exact):

They [the visitors] are forging a terrible weapon here. Devotion.

Waaa? Devotion is not a weapon. You can’t hit someone with Devotion. Devotion is something they give you. The story required the use of the word at the other end of that stick — a much more important word. A word that tells what you (the visitor) are hitting people with. What you are giving them and then turning around and using against them. Do you know what that word is? It’s upstream from DEVOTION. It’s a four-letter word…

Got it? Leave your guess in the comments. Come on. We all know what makes a great story. We are consumers of story all our lives. What word did they need to use there?

And why didn’t they use it?

My theory is that someone thought it would be construed as some kind of political statement. So they sacrificed the storytelling. I found that pretty cowardly. Tell the bold story. People may read into your words things you didn’t intend, but at least they’ll feel something. DEVOTION was a cowardly choice. The story required a word that has been used and misused over the centuries! The same word used by Hitler and Jesus. By devils and gods –  just what the visitors are.

So what word is it?

(Though, like Spanglish, it is not an all-ages movie — it’s also PG-13.)

The Family Man is about a wall street executive who gets a chance to see the life’s road he didn’t take — the one of marriage and family vs. high-powered career. A “what might have been” story.

Now, the last movie Nicolas Cage was in that I really liked was Raising Arizona, so I remember that I didn’t have high hopes when I first saw this. But his pairing with Tea Leoni (also from Spanglish) was so charming I was taken in.

For instance, when he wakes on the second morning of his “glimpse” he hears the baby cry and goes to the bathroom door where his wife is showering to tell her about it. She can’t hear him because she’s singing in the shower (Rolling Stones, no less) so he must open the door to get her attention. The look on his face when he must deal with her nudity (not shown on camera, but firmly implied through the obscure glass) as a non-sexual event is PRICELESS, as is her annoyed “what’s the problem” attitude of a woman who has been married for thirteen years and is interrupted in the midst of an otherwise perfect shower experience.

Okay, found the vid — right at the beginning of this clip on YouTube. I warned you of the semi-nudity right? But finish my review first because once you start the clip, you won’t want to stop as he tries to change the baby’s diaper and deal with the daughter’s awareness that he is not actually her dad.

There are some great lines in this movie, like when Cage tries to have it all by moving his family into the city so he can work for his pre-glimpse firm, and he tells the upset Leoni that he wants to give her a life that people will envy.

“They already do envy us,” she says. And she’s so right — yes, some people envy those with worldly success. But another class of people value personal, family success even more. It’s the kind of movie that makes you question which class of person you are.

And of course, the movie’s mantra: “I choose us.” It’s Jerry Maguire-worthy!

This one gets four out of five nods.

Hopefully, people didn’t go into this movie looking for a love story like Dates (or a crude farce like Waterboy) because this movie actually had something to say — something Hollywood almost never says.

So what did this movie (which was, incidentally, funny and charming as well) say?

It showed parents sacrificing their own happiness for their kids’ well-being. It showed them choosing family obligation over momentary pleasure. It showed them, in short, being responsible grown ups.

Shocking, I know!

Well, not Tea Leoni’s character, but she was the catalyst for the story, and she played her part so that you both laughed at her and felt sorry for her. It was a razor-fine line. She must be a pretty great actress.

But Adam Sandler and Paz Vega played their concerned parent roles well, and it became obvious that Sandler believes in this story. He didn’t set himself up as a perfect man, but as a real one, trying desperately to hold his family together.

The show-stealers were the two daughters, though. Shelbie Bruce as Vega’s Mexican-born, Americanized daughter and Sarah Steele as Sandler’s kind, grounded, charming daughter. It was those two parent-daughter relationships that made the film, and these two actresses did wonderful jobs.

Two things were wrong with this film:

1. The Title — come on, who thought this was a good idea? Yes, a language barrier is a part of the movie, and you could even argue that the two people communicating the worst were Sandler and his wife! But the word Spanglish is just plain ugly. Words have shape and sound, and much like Susan Sarandon’s movie Stepmom, this title kept me away from the film. It doesn’t say heartwarming movie to me.

2. The Teasers — this movie is grossly mis-billed as a “zany” comedy, which, aside from Leoni’s incredibly strange sex scene, is way off. Here’s what Netflix’s blurb says about Spanglish:

Cultures clash with a mighty clang in this comedy of manners and mayhem directed by James Brooks. When a beautiful Mexican housekeeper, Flor (Paz Vega), is hired by a rich Los Angeles family, everyone’s life is upended in hilariously zany ways, especially when the parents (Tea Leoni and Adam Sandler) make it their mission to be so welcoming that they become overwhelming — especially the dad, who’s quickly smitten by Flor’s beauty.

This makes it sound like Sandler plays a guy who would start an affair with his housekeeper right under his wife’s nose, which is really the opposite of the events of the movie. And using words like “hilarious” and “mayhem” makes it sound like fluff when it is substance (with flair). And it led me to worry all through the final moments of the film that the whole movie setup was just to get the two leads into bed. Thankfully, it wasn’t, and if you haven’t seen this movie, be forewarned. It is a movie about parents and children more than about men and sex. Hurrah for that!

Think I’ll start rating the things I review… how about nods? I give this four out of five nods. If you’ve been avoiding Spanglish for fear it is like Big Daddy, don’t worry. It has its priorities straight. See it.

= 4 nods

So, the other night I was sorely lacking in Netflix movies, so I thumbed through my well-worn personal collection, and trumped out the Hollywood version of Jane Austin’s Pride and Prejudice.

I own this movie, yes. I also hate it.

Or, I did hate it when I first saw it. But since I love the story (like every other English-speaking pansy) I thought I’d better let it rest and try it again later. And yes, on subsequent viewings, I’ve hated it LESS, but I still hate the poor movie as though it has personally injured me.

Why, I asked myself upon this latest viewing. I shouldbe able to rationally dissect it after a handful of viewings, shouldn’t I? Why do I have such a visceral reaction to it?

Here are some thoughts:

1. Elizabeth — is poorly cast. Now, I’ve liked Keira Knightly in other roles — she makes a great Elizabeth Swan, so she’s not inappropriate for period dramas (did I just call Pirates of the Carribean a period drama? Ho ho ho!) But why on earth did the poor woman think that spunk meant baring one’s teeth and looking as cat-like as possible. Her performance lacked elegance. Elizabeth Bennet was not brash, just spirited. This distinction is important to the story because she contrasts her ridiculous family (as well as her elegant but demure elder sister — a delicate balance).
2. Darcy — is poorly cast. Okay, I had to look up Matthew Macfadyen to see what else he’s done, so obviously I’m not an MI-5 fan. Maybe his fans were pleased. And I’m not saying it’s easy to reprise the role that made Colin Firth an immortal sex symbol. But all his mannerisms seemed off to me. He helps her into the carriage, then, upon walking away, splays out his fingers like he’s trying to shake off something disgusting. Maybe he’d gently stroke the tips of his fingers with his thumb, re-enacting the touch of her hand? Maybe he’d clasp his hands together in front of his face, bringing her touch to his own lips. Splayed fingers, not working for me. The pasty mask that was supposed to be shy indifference didn’t work for me, either.
3. Other castings — oh dear. Mr. Bingley is not a buffoon! Mr. Collins is not a serial killer! But I best move on…
4. Dialogue — Why is everyone in such a hurry to say their lines? Are they trying to fit a three hour movie into two hours? Apparently. Yikes. Slow down, people.
5. Beauty — the film lost something of the art of Jane’s book. Something the 1995 BBC version captured. I get it — they were trying to differentiate the public assembly dance from the Netherfield ball, but the assembly came off dirty and chaotic. Dude, I would thumb my nose if I were Darcy! Yet in this scene we are supposed to side with Elizabeth.

But here’s the real problem with this version: The Screenplay!The credited writer is Deborah Moggach who has no other notable credits, but as is often the case with Hollywood, the compromised story and affected dialogue may not be her fault… it may have been a case of too many cooks in the kitchen.

The thing is, you can’t rush a character story. You can’t fit all the scenes from the book into two hours and make any of them feel genuine and nuanced, subtle and understated. Pride and Prejudice is over 120,000 words long. Harry Potter six had to hack it to the bone to display 170,000 words onscreen… but then I think they’ll bleed over some key points into HP7. But I digress.

Lesson to be learned: Writing is important! A good screenplay is like the first domino. When it falls, everything down the line suffers. And it’s really hard to adapt a well-woven character story into a two-hour narrative. When adapting a classic you have this ugly desire to be “faithful” to the book. I’d rather see them be true to the spirit of the book than to the actual scenes. They tried, with P&P, but ultimately I think they failed. You don’t love Elizabeth’s spunk, you don’t admire Darcy’s reserve, you don’t laugh at Mr. Collins or understand Charlotte’s choice. Wickham and Georgiana become cardboard and don’t feel important to the plot, and poor Bingley is truly cringe-worthy. Jane and her parents survive rather well, as does Lydia. Lady Catherine is given too much screen time, presumably to play her role in the reversal of fortune at the end, but frankly the stronger motivator of reconciliation is what Darcy does for Lydia. Not that I would change the book one iota. But a film is not a book.

I give the Hollywood version of Pride and Prejudice a paltry two nods:

Last night, feeling the void where a great period adaptation should be, I put on Little Women. Ahhhh. Need satisfied*.

* To be fair, Pride and Prejudice is a longer novel than Little Women by 30,000 words.

Now, to end on a sweet note:

–Pride and Prejudice, 1995, BBC adaptation