The Red Shoes

Moira Shearer in The Red Shoes (1948)
Originally uploaded by cinema la superlativ

I’ve heard about The Red Shoes for years and decided to finally check it out. I think I can safely say I don’t really see what the big deal is.

This movie is a Technicolor marvel to be sure, but I honestly found it to be a bit slow and cliché. The Red Shoes is the story of Victoria Page, Julian Craster & Boris Lormentov – the dancer, the composer and the head of the company. Victoria and Julian fall in love, but must hide it from Lormentov as he “created” them both and has made his thoughts on love clear – you can love dance or be in love, not both. The romance takes all three into a tragic spiral that none of them foresaw.

The Red Shoes is all about the dancing and the music, but really not much new or different, or even nostalgic in the story department. While the film does a decent job of focusing on three lead characters without cheating any of them out of screen time. The visuals are pretty stunning as well, but all in all I don’t think I will be watching this movie multiple times.

Director: Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger

Boris Lermontov: "The Ballet of The Red Shoes" is from a fairy tale by Hans Andersen. It is the story of a young girl who is devoured with an ambition to attend a dance in a pair of Red Shoes. She gets the shoes and goes to the dance. For a time, all goes well and she is very happy. At the end of the evening she is tired and wants to go home, but the Red Shoes are not tired. In fact, the Red Shoes are never tired. They dance her out into the street, they dance her over the mountains and valleys, through fields and forests, through night and day. Time rushes by, love rushes by, life rushes by, but the Red Shoes go on.
Julian Craster: What happens in the end?
Boris Lermontov: Oh, in the end, she dies.

Adventureland

more kristen stewart, sundance, 1.18.09
Originally uploaded by cybermelli

James graduates from college like anyone, full of head-knowledge and with little grasp on the real world; Mom & Dad have always provided everything for him so he assumes that this won’t change as he plans to enter grad school at Columbia in the fall and spend the summer touring Europe. However, his plans come crashing down around him when his parents announce they’ve hit a roadblock and James will have to give up Europe, and get a job to pay for his apartment and school if he still wants to go. Depressed, James gets a job at Adventureland the local amusement park where he is subjected to the worst summer job he could imagine, but like any bad job he meets the people that begin to redefine who he is and for the first time James must make real decisions about his life.

This movie was marketed horribly; when I watched the trailers all that was brought to the forefront was the comedy and the fact that Greg Mottola directed Superbad - a movie that I thought was super bad. Instead, this movie is a poignant, dramedy about a boy that for the first time in his life has to deal with his choices and the choices the people around him make. James has to take responsibility for his life for the first time and become an adult.

I have to say that I hated Twilight with a fiery passion and thought most of the cast gave horrific performances, but in Adventureland Kristin Stewart actually does an amazing job playing a subtle, nuanced, flawed young woman. I am not yet sure she has the prowess or charisma needed to maintain her star status.

Though there were no bad characters in this movie, and Jesse Eisenberg was great as the lead I have to say my single favorite character is Bobby the manager of Adventureland. Bobby is such an awkward, quirky character that exists so much in his own world you can’t help but to love him. Kristen Wiig was perfect to play his wife Paulette.

Adventureland is a highly underrated movie and shouldn’t get ignored as we roll into summer movie season.

Director & Writer: Greg Mottola
James Brennan: Jesse Eisenberg
Mrs. Brennan: Wendie Malick
Frigo: Matt Bush
Paulette: Kristen Wiig
Bobby: Bill Hader
Joel: Martin Starr
Em: Kristen Stewart
Mike Connell: Ryan Reynolds

Two Girls and a Guy

I haven’t made up my mind about James Toback. I’ve seen some of his movies and while none of them seem to leave me cold, none of them excite me in a way that makes me want to run out and partake in the James Toback film catalog.

In Two Girls and a Guy James Toback explores a twisted love triangle, one that was entered into with out either girl knowing they were a part of a triangle. At the open we have extroverted Lou and rational Carla, pretty girls in their mid-twenties waiting on the front stoop of their boyfriend’s apartment building. As the girls start to talk they quickly make an alarming realization – both of their boyfriend is the same man, Blake Allen. Together Lou & Carla break into Blake’s apartment and wait for him to return. Once Blake arrives they confront him and the three get down and dirty emotionally as the girls try to uncover what is the truth about Blake and what is a lie, all the while Blake does everything in his power to avoid any kind of direct moment with the girls that will make him look like the bad guy, and he worries about the fragile state of his mother.

What is amazing about Two Girls and a Guy is watching Robert Downey Jr. in the midst of his dark, drug induced days. This film came out in 1997, before Downey’s jail time, and while he was slowly drowning in his self-inflicted flaws. The crazy thing is that watching this movie you can visible see the difference between Downey then and now, somehow now having been broken and reached rock bottom he is clearer and his focus and understanding of life come through his eyes and his performance. It makes me wonder where Downey would be now if he hadn’t gotten cleaned up; would he have gone the way of River Phoenix or would he have ended up more along the lines of Charlie Sheen? It makes me incredibly glad that Downey did hit rock bottom and manage to bounce back again, a talent like his is one that needs to be shared.

After watching Two Guys and a Girl I am sure that with a refresher on my basic psych principles or even if forced to dig deeper in a film class, that there are a lot of textual layers to that film. Carla, Lou and Blake are such distinct, flawed characters that the film could only get deeper with further analysis. Blake is also a character that needs study; man or woman you have to admit that what Blake does to these girls is hideous but somehow all of his arguments start to make sense along the way and occasionally you actually feel bad for the man.

While I still don’t have an opinion on James Toback I do think that his films might require further viewing. I am just not going to rush out to see them all immediately.

Director & Writer: James Toback
Lou Johnson: Natasha Gregson Wagner
Carla Bennett: Heather Graham
Blake Allen: Robert Downey Jr.

Blake Allen: I may have been hiding parts of my life from both of you to avoid causing pain. But I didn't say anything to either one of you that I didn't whole-heartedly mean.
Carla: If you believe what you just said it's worse than if you don't.

The Wedding Planner

Mary is one of the most sought after wedding planners in the greater San Francisco area and it finally looks like she is going to land the job that will get her the partnership in her wedding firm with the marriage of new-money Fran Donolly. However, Mary soon figures out that the wedding will be more complicated than it seems when she realizes that Fran’s fiancé Eddie is actually Dr. Steve Eddison, a doctor she had a romantic interlude with right after meeting Fran. What follows is a romantic comedy in the style of the Hollywood classics as Steve has to come to terms with why he flirted with Mary and Mary needs to deal with her attitude towards all of the men in her life.

The Wedding Planner really is one of my guilty pleasure movies. I can’t tell you quite why except I feel like it could have been made forty years ago and starred Rock Hudson & Doris Day. This film is soft, sweet and funny to it’s very core and will undoubtedly score well with the hopeless romantic types or fans of Jennifer Lopez or Matthew McConaughey.

Normally, the “seductive” smile of Matthew McConaughey has no effect on me, but in this movie hid good old southern charm comes shining through and he is pretty impossible to resist.

There is not really a whole lot I can say about this movie. It’s a guilty pleasure for a reason and talking too much about it would spoil it as I’d have to look to hard and find the flaws that I know are there but have cheerfully been avoiding.

Director: Adam Shankman
Writers: Pamela Falk & Michael Ellis
Mary Fiore: Jennifer Lopez
Steve Edison: Matthew McConaughey
Fran Donolly: Bridgette Wilson
Massimo: Justin Chambers
Penny: Judy Greer
Dr. John: Kevin Pollak

Mary: Y'know, "those who can't do, teach"? Well those who can't wed, plan.

For Your Consideration

Home for Purim is a little drama filled with a fine cast who have all put their time in and are well seasoned actors. They are dedicated to making the best film they can but think nothing of their little movie – until an internet rumor about Marilyn Hack getting an Oscar nomination starts. From there the buzz really begins, soon two of the other lead actors get Oscar buzz as well and suddenly the little movie explodes into a potentially big movie and everyone in the cast, crew and press gets caught up in the Hollywood rollercoaster.

Christopher Guest has had a very long string of quirky comedies to his name and For Your Consideration is one of the most biting of his films. This is a film about the razor edge of Hollywood, it’s the dark underbelly that is self-obsessed, and self-serving. Guest manages to bring humor and satire into the Hollywood mentality; he shows that while most actors say they act for the art of it a greater part of them than they’d like to admit really wants the fame and the accolades.

The fun and somewhat unexpected part of For Your Consideration is that it shows the full cycle these actors go through from production, to publicity and the reception of their film, when the nominations are released and the after. It covers everyone from the producers, the hair-brained director, the writers, to the entertainment newscasters.

If you’ve never liked any of Guest’s other films then I should say that you really won’t enjoy For Your Consideration. But if like me, you have an appreciation for Guest’s humor and especially if you love movies about movies then you need to see For Your Consideration.

Director: Christopher Guest
Writers: Christopher Guest & Eugene Levy
Marilyn Hack: Catherine O’Hara
Sandy Lane: Ed Begley Jr.
Morley Orfkin: Eugene Levy
Victor Allen Miller: Harry Shearer
Corey Taft: John Michael Higgins
Whitney Taylor Brown: Jenniger Coolidge
Callie Webb: Parker Posy

Corey Taft: In every actor there lives a tiger, a pig, an ass, and a nightingale.