Category: Comedy Drama

MURIEL’S WEDDING (1994, Australia)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

Director: P.J. Hogan
Cast: Toni Collette, Bill Hunter, Rachel Griffiths
My Rating: 9/10
Rotten Tomatometer: 79% Certified Fresh

PLOT: A young social outcast in Australia steals money from her parents to finance a vacation where she hopes to find happiness, and perhaps love.


For years and years, I had always assumed Muriel’s Wedding was your stereotypical romantic comedy.  I mean, come on, it’s got Wedding right there in the title.  The story involves a quirky young woman, obsessed with weddings, who runs away from home to find a new life for herself.  Who knows…maybe she’ll get married herself?

But what am I saying, of COURSE she gets married…once again, it’s in the title.  So, based on that bit of logic, I never made any serious effort to watch this movie.  The rom-com has never been my absolute favorite genre.  For me to enjoy one, it has to really stand out in some way.  Either it must be REALLY different (Stranger Than Fiction), or it must be a shining example of the genre (The Philadelphia Story), or it must be so well written that it sneaks past my defenses (Jersey Girl – I know, I don’t get it either, I just responded to it, leave me alone).  I never imagined Muriel’s Wedding would meet any of those criteria.  On the surface, it didn’t look like much.

Welp…I was wrong.  Be warned because some story spoilers may follow, though I will do my best to be obtuse where necessary.

The plot: Muriel (Toni Collette, in the role that put her on the map) is a painfully awkward, overweight young woman who lives for weddings.  At the opening of the film, she is one of many women fighting for the tossed bouquet at a friend’s wedding, and the look on her face is of pure religious ecstasy.  She wears a hideous leopard print outfit completely out of place with…well, everyone.

Her home life is one of middle-class desperation.  She and her family live in a hopelessly hopeful seaside town called Porpoise Spit.  Her parents are in a loveless marriage, she and her oldest brother are on the dole (that’s “welfare” to us Yanks), and one of her sisters seems capable of greeting her only with the same phrase over and over again: “You’re terrible, Muriel.”  She has “friends”, but when they’re on their way to celebrate their newlywed friend’s discovery that her new husband is already cheating on her (long story), they tell Muriel point blank they don’t want her around anymore because she’s a drag on their image.  Muriel’s reaction to this news is as pitiful and heartbreaking as anything I’ve ever seen on film.

It was around this time that I started to wonder if the word Wedding in the film’s title was some kind of perverse code word for “suicide.”  What’s going on here?  There’s comedy here, but it’s comedy of awkwardness, the kind of comedy that can be painful to watch.

Through an improbable, but satisfying, chain of events, Muriel steals quite a bit of her father’s money, goes on an impromptu vacation, and meets an old schoolmate, Rhonda (Rachel Griffiths, in her film debut), who gets Muriel to open up a little.  For the vacation resort’s talent show, they lip-synch and dance to “Dancing Queen” by Abba in white stretch pants, a scene that must have at least partially inspired the makers of Mamma Mia!  Instead of returning home after her vacation, Muriel moves to Sydney and tries to reinvent herself.  At her low points during this time, she finds herself irresistibly drawn to the wedding gowns on display at the local bridal shops…

The rest I leave for you to discover.  One of the joys of this movie is how one thing leads to another in completely unexpected ways.  This was, without a doubt, one of the most unpredictable films of any kind that I have ever seen.  I can’t tell you how delightful it is whenever I find a movie that avoids cliches and narrative pitfalls and continually surprises me.

For example, there’s a scene involving – how can I say this without giving too much away – two people clumsily making out, a broken window, two naked men, and a malfunctioning beanbag cushion that had me laughing uproariously.  And then, just when I thought the scene was over, a curveball gets thrown that made me gasp audibly, as if I were watching footage of a dog getting run over.

The whole movie is like that.  For an hour and forty minutes, I was completely and utterly in the dark about what might be coming next.  The screenplay is bloody ingenious.  It starts with what looks like a generic rom-com premise, leads you down the garden path, then removes the path, and then removes the garden.  There are genuinely tender moments, and moments of delight (Muriel’s reactions during her first date are sheer perfection), and one or two shocking moments, and, and, and…  You get the idea.

Muriel’s Wedding gets high marks for its honest performances and its unfailing unpredictability.  The posters and especially the trailers paint the film as an “uproariously funny” comedy, and it is…at the funny parts.  There are also loads of dramatic surprises, and tender moments, and utterly unexpected plot twists.  It’s one of the most original movies I’ve ever seen.

SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK

By Marc S. Sanders

Bipolar disorder can be a crippling ailment, not only to the person, but to his/her family as well. That, I imagine are the limits of my knowledge on the subject. David O. Russell’s Silver Linings Playbook will have you believe a way to embrace the disorder is to be involved with people who accept it and love you regardless.

Bradley Cooper is magnificent as Patrick; a hyperactive man suffering from his own demons. He is short tempered, confrontational, and prone to exhausting and uncontrollable outbursts. Because of that, he has lost his wife, his job, his friends and when the film begins, he is being picked up by his mother from an eight month court ordered stay in a mental institution on his way to live with his parents, Dolores and Patrick Sr., played brilliantly by Jacki Weaver and Robert DeNiro. Patrick is determined to rebuild his life. He feels confident that he is now on a positive track of exercise and healthy eating, and he wants to win back his wife. It is not so easy however, when Pat refuses to take his prescribed medication and his own father probably suffers from a similar disorder and he has to share a house with him. This means dealing with Pat Sr’s obsessive compulsiveness over his beloved Philadelphia Eagles, as well as his own short temper and his insistence on using family time with Pat Jr as a means to break the “jeu, jeu” that has cursed the team. Pat Jr. wants to move on with his life and find meaning and peace. His own obsessions with winning back his wife and overcoming witnessing the affair she was having behind his back do not help.

However, then Pat Jr meets Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence in her Oscar winning role) and her own past is tormenting her, following losing her policeman husband in the line of duty. It’s clear she has not overcome this experience and she has taken up dance, which she is teaching herself in a refurbished garage. Tiffany is not quick to accept Pat Jr, but eventually the moments necessary for any film about relationships line up despite some screaming and shoving.

It sure sounds like I’m describing a heavy, miserable drama, here. Reader, I’m not. David O. Russell offers up moments of comedy without any of his characters really trying. No one is outright normal in this film. They are all burdened with their own idiosyncrasies and diagnoses, even Pat Jr.’s therapist, who we learn is an obsessed, face painted Eagles fan himself. Russell repeatedly uses a steady cam (I believe) to rush right up into the face of his characters, individually, when a moment is overtaking him or her. It’s a way of showing that no one else in the room can see what the sufferer is seeing. Everyone else is bound by their own disorder. Russell uses this device to isolate the character that owns the scene whether it is Delores, who endures the aggravation of her husband and son, Tiffany who can not get over the loss of her husband at a young age, Pat Sr. who must live with his Eagles losing another game, or Pat Jr. who is only trying to adapt to a new way.

There is no calmness in the domesticity of Pat Jr’s life and it only feeds the fire of his bipolar disorder. What he needs is someone who will not shun or ignore the disorder but embrace it and Tiffany is that person. Tiffany is also the person who will beat up on Pat Jr in one scene to bring his self-involved neglect to light. A helpful gesture for Pat Jr, but not a fulfilling action for Tiffany. Then in another scene she will solely come to his defense. The best moment in the film belongs to Jennifer Lawrence as she storms through the door and quickly confronts DeNiro on his own shortcomings, basically disarming him with sports statistics of every Philadelphia team, only to prove that Pat Jr had nothing to do with the outcomes of these games. Lawrence is harboring a machine gun of dialogue and she does not let up. DeNiro, I’m sure, loves to balance scenes like this with talent of this caliber. (I’d imagine he was missing great acting moments like this when he was shooting his Focker movies.) Russell wisely captures most of this scene in one shot. He is well aware of his leading actress’ strengths.

The ending is as quirky and inspired as Little Miss Sunshine, where Pat Jr and Tiffany participate in a dance competition that has everything is on the line, not just for their own sanity, but also for that of Pat Sr and the rest of the family. At the risk of spoiling a piece of the story, I have to recognize the dance sequence in this climax. Russell and his choreographer wisely mix it up with contemporary music that quickly switches over to head banging heavy metal and back to contemporary again. I caught it as an allegory of the mood swings these characters, especially Tiffany and Pat Jr, go through. The dance is messy, unsophisticated, aggressive and most of all it is adorable and lovable all at the same time. Psychologically, there must be something eating at Pat Sr and Pat Jr, and Tiffany and the rest of the cast, but that is, in no way, a reason not to love them.

STAND BY ME

By Marc S. Sanders

I’m not embarrassed to say it.  I’ve experienced a mid-life crisis.  Last night, I watched Rob Reiner’s Stand By Me, and I absolutely broke down in tears when it finished.  As I approach age 50 later this year, the most recent viewing of this film alerted me that my childhood memories are further away than I ever realized before. 

Reiner lifts this coming-of-age story from Stephen King’s novella entitled The Body. Four boys spend the long and hot dog days of summer in Castle Rock, Oregon (it was Maine in King’s story) in their tree house smoking cigarettes and discussing important topics like Annette Funnicello’s breast size on The Mickey Mouse Club and the recent disappearance of a twelve-year-old kid.  Yackety Yak and Lollipop play on their transistor radio in the background.  The wimpiest one of the pack, Vern (Jerry O’Connell), overhears the location of the kid’s body is off the side of the railroad tracks, about twenty miles away.  Teddy (Corey Feldman), along with best friends Chris (River Phoenix) and Gordon (Wil Wheaton) decide to embark on the search for the body and get their picture in the paper, labeled as heroes.  It’ll take them the Labor Day weekend to carry out their quest.

During their long journey across the railroad tracks into the woods, the four boys will discover what concerns them, like figuring out if Goofy is a dog and who could win in a fight; Superman or Mighty Mouse.  As well, they’ll uncover what gives them anxiety ahead of their entry into adulthood.  Gordon lives with being unloved by his parents both before and following the accidental death of his older brother (John Cusack).  Chris lives with being unfairly labeled as a young hoodlum.  Teddy endures the aftermath of an abusive military father currently living in the looney bin.  Vern suffers from a hesitancy to live for adventure and risk due to ongoing fear. These boys had a future that awaited, but for some it seemed like there was no escaping the destiny the locals of their small town had already mapped out for them. 

In the last few years, I reconnected with a childhood friend by means of social media.  Visiting New York City annually over a three-year period, I got to see Scott in person and recollect on our times together.  It had been over thirty years since we had seen or spoken with one another.  We reminisced about tormenting the substitute teachers, and our first crushes.  We reflected on favorite movie scenes that we acted out in between classes.  We are different now, though.  Nowhere near the same as we were at age 12.  We have families and careers and responsibilities.  Yet, our memories of trading comic books, talking dirty, going to movies, and acting out cops and robbers shoot outs in the backyard all remain. 

When Stand By Me opens, a present day adult (Richard Dreyfuss) is shown reflecting in the distance following reading an article about a lawyer who was killed in a restaurant.  This narrator then flashes us back to the year 1959 when this adventure between him and his three friends occurred.  One of those friends was the lawyer who was killed.  A piece of his history has ceased to live and continue on.  That terrifies me personally.  Friends, and family, and people I’ve encountered over my half century will leave my presence, never to be seen or spoken to again.  I’ll never get the opportunity to reflect with them again, much less make new memories.  I’m now living in an age where Facebook comments seem to weekly consist of saying “very sorry for your loss.”  Friends are losing their parents.  Some are passing away themselves.

Stand By Me might not be altogether realistic.  The boys are getting overpowered by a sinister Kiefer Sutherland, who’s not afraid to use a switch blade and cut one of the kids’ throats.  King’s story also feels like an elevated Hardy Boys or Tom Sawyer kind of adventure.  I don’t know of anyone who went looking for a mutilated corpse during my summer days living in Wyckoff, New Jersey.  The adventure conceived by Stephen King serves as a thrill that you imagine as you read it off of the page.  My upbringing consisted of play dates and sleepovers with Scott, Star Wars toys and Saturday morning cartoons.  Yet, the connections that thread the main story together are what’s to treasure in Rob Reiner’s film.  The friends we make in grade school before becoming interested in high school, alcohol, sex, and career planning, are the most important people we know and first encounter in our lifetimes.  It’s impossible to forget them or the impact they had on our lives.  Scott certainly had an impact on my life.  I credit my sense of humor to him, and his carefree attitude to the ugliness of this world.  Sometimes that’s all we have to survive.

King and Reiner use the body that is being sought as a device to drive the characters.  What’s going to bring these boys together with no outside influence?  How can young Gordon deliver his revered sense of imagination as the writer he’s to become?  The best way is to put the boys around a camp fire.  Gordon can then entertain his pals with the story of an incredibly fat kid who got his revenge on the locals during a pie eating contest that results in a massive “Barforama.”  It’s silly and sophomoric and childish fun, but for 12-year-olds, it’s the best thing imaginable.  Teddy dreams of being an army hero storming the beaches of Normandy like his father was rumored to have done.  His sleeping bag is his machine gun mowing down an oncoming train.  Vern’s favorite food?  Watch the movie to find out.  Chris might be regarded as the outlaw, but he’s also the most mature, and perhaps the mentor to Gordon who suffers from the loss of the brother he loved, as much as he suffers from the neglect of his mother and father.  At age 12, in 1959, Chris was all that Gordon had.  I may have had more than Gordon at that age, but whenever I was with Scott, he’s all that I had.

Ultimately, Stand By Me is not an adventure or a silly comedy about boys being boys.  It’s a character study of kids just outside of their formative years.  It’s a film that captures a single moment before friendships inevitably expire.  It’s a reminder to embrace those you’ve treasured over your lifetime, because we cannot be twelve years old forever.

ALICE DOESN’T LIVE HERE ANYMORE

By Marc S. Sanders

Martin Scorsese was destined to be a great director. No doubt about it. Look at 1974’s Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. Not only does it offer an Oscar winning performance from Ellen Burstyn as Alice, but this early career film contains skilled tracking shots.

Scorsese uses his camera like a musical instrument. He times it to move on a certain cue. Near the end when Alice needs to pick up her 12 year old son Tommy (Alfred Lutter, well played here) from a police station, Scorsese is clearly on foot positioned behind the police counter. When the time is right, he walks it behind the cop and extras in a crescent step by step over to behind Alice. We are in the scene. It didn’t take much imagination, but Scorsese is economical for an engaging payoff. The camera continues to follow a young Jodie Foster as Tommy’s rebellious pal, Audrey and then after she’s quickly escorted out by her mother, it peers into the room where Tommy is waiting. It’s an unbroken steady cam moment that predates his classic tracking shot of the Copacabana in Goodfellas, or the bloody overhead outcome from Taxi Driver.

The story is decent, though nothing big. Alice is forced to flee following one set back after another with the men she encounters in her life. First she’s unexpectedly widowed from her unappreciative and cruel husband, next she encounters a charmingly young Harvey Keitel who sheds his first impression quickly. Then she comes across Kris Kristofferson but is he right for her?

The second half of the film inspired the basis for the classic TV show Alice, featuring Linda Lavin and Vic Tayback who plays Mel the cook in the film as well. Scorsese uses the diner sequences for some good laughs of confusion and slapstick with side characters Flo (scene stealer Diane Ladd) and Vera (Valerie Curtain, another scene stealer).

These are good characters here. You want Burstyn’s Alice to be happy and succeed as a mother to Tommy and become the singer she dreams about. She’s adoring. She tries, and she always works hard. Burstyn has some great moments of various range whether she’s feeling like a pestered mom driving the long highways, having anguish and fear with the men who cross her path, or when she’s singing Gershwin’s “I’ve Got A Crush On You” at the piano of a seedy bar. I loved her in the role.

This is not really a special movie. Yet, it’s an important one in cinematic history. See this film to see the master director when he was merely a pupil, exceeding what was likely minimally ever expected of him to accomplish.

Martin Scorsese is just a great director.

FORREST GUMP

By Marc S. Sanders

There’s not much that I can say to further praise the merits of Robert Zemekis’ Forrest Gump. It’s a film of legend though it’s a sore spot for die-hard fans of Pulp Fiction, which competed for Best Picture in 1994. Guess which film won. Tom Hanks won the Oscar for the second year in a row, following his outstanding turn in Jonathan Demme’s Philadelphia. Zemekis won Best Director. Eric Roth’s screenplay won as well.

What holds a lasting impression for me about Forrest Gump is the sweeping travel through time of a man with limited intelligence but unlimited willingness to explore and participate, whether it be as a Ping Pong Champion, a Medal of Honor recipient for heroism during the Vietnam War, a millionaire entrepreneur of a shrimping boat business, or a man who just felt like running from one corner to the next of the North American continent. Forrest Gump never knew to compromise a belief he had, probably because he was never aware of the capability to compromise in the first place.

An interesting theme occurs throughout Roth’s screenplay (adapted from the novel by Winston Groom). The people that Forrest encounters are always shouting their ideals and agendas. Yet no one seems to listen. Not just Forrest though. No one at all listens to each other. Lieutenant Dan (Oscar nominee, Gary Sinese) shouts for an immediate evacuation of a hostile territory under attack and no one on the other end of the line, appears to be listening to him. He orders Gump to leave him there, but Forrest does not listen. Forrest only focuses on rescuing his friends, Lt. Dan and Bubba (Mykelti Williamson). What exactly were Americans like the Hippie movements, the War Veterans, the Black Panther party, even the men in the burlesque nightclubs, as well as the various assassinations attempting to accomplish really? Did they accomplish anything? Did any of these parties make an impactful change, or did they just like to hear themselves talk? Did they just want the recognition for only themselves and no one else? When Forrest meets up with his love Jenny (Robin Wright), in a gorgeous caption in front of the Washington Monument (often shown during Oscar film compilations), he has just shared his thoughts over a loudspeaker, unaware that not one of the thousands of war protestors could hear him because the microphone had been unplugged. Later that day, a Black Panther participant only cares to wave his finger and shout his agenda in Forrest’s face. Is Forrest interested? Is he even listening? Is the Jenny, the hippie and her protestor boyfriend listening? Like many Americans, Forrest was only concerned with what was most important to him; Jenny. When Forrest develops a following during his cross country run, everyone is looking for his purpose and his message, and Forrest is unaware that he needed to offer one. Americans are always looking for the next best following. When Forrest passes the Grand Canyon and stops running, the parade of lost souls behind him shouts, “Now what are we supposed to do?” Forrest doesn’t listen. He just walks away and declares he’s tired. America during the mid twentieth century was lost. Forrest was not. Forrest just went in the direction in front of him.

Zemekis pulls an interesting trick of contrasting Forrest against other regulars. The nurse who sits on the bench next to Forrest is more interested in reading a mundane two dimensional issue of “People Magazine.” A man listening to Forrest’s tale of rescue in Vietnam was only concerned with the bullet that struck Forrest in the butt, not the men he saved or the loss of his dear friend Bubba. The old codgers who hang around the local barber shop in Greenbough, Alabama just watch the exploits of Forrest as the years go by. Their hair gets grayer and their skin gets more wrinkled, and life just passes them by while Forrest passes life by. It’s a subtle, yet effective, device that I appreciate on repeat viewings.

Sally Field contributes to the disregard Forrest has for menial issues. If Forrest is going to be denied going to a regular school because his intelligence level falls a few points below average, she will make certain that does not interfere even if it means pleasuring the principal. Mama Gump has the wit and intelligence. Forrest does not. However, their commonality shows in their disregard for what keeps us from living life to the fullest. Without Mama as his influence, Forrest would never have met the President again, and again, and again.

Mama reminds Forrest that “Life is like a box of chocolates…” You know the rest! It doesn’t matter what we get, as long as we get what we pursue.

THE BIG SHORT

By Marc S. Sanders

Ever since Adam McKay’s The Big Short was released in 2015, it has remained a favorite film of mine. I watch it at least once every year. McKay’s script with Charles Randolph, adapted from the book by Michael Lewis, is enormously funny but also realistically frightening.

The film shows how America’s housing market crashed in the first decade of the 21st Century. Mortgage backed securities never failed in history until now, and no one anywhere, especially the banks, ever believed a crash would occur, but it did. Only a select few people like Dr. Michael Burry (Christian Bale) and Jared Vennet (Ryan Gosling) foresaw what no one else could imagine, and thus they took advantage of it by making enormous betting transactions against the housing market. To say you need a strong stomach for this kind of investment is a serious understatement.

Burry is the first one to realize that the country as a whole will default on their mortgages once their interest rates go up in 2007. He represents Scion Capital and invests billions of dollars against the mortgage backed investments. Now he watches for the next two years while the capital at Scion declines into negative digits and drowns out the frustration with death metal music. Bale is fascinating as Burry who has a brilliant mind, but he lacks social skills.

Vennet gets wind of Burry’s discovery and sells the idea to Mark Baum (Steve Carell) and his team of representatives. Vennett narrates how it all played out in the market; how ratings agencies gave triple A rankings to bonds made up of worthless backed securities. McKay wisely has Vennett introduce celebrities like Margot Robbie, Anthony Bourdain and Selena Gomez to break down the vast complexities of everything. Robbie in a bathtub. Gomez playing black jack. It’s hilarious and relatable. Gosling is great. A great scene is his selling presentation which includes a metaphoric prop of a Jenga tower. Vennet has no qualms about collecting premiums as the rest of the country is going down. He’s profiting, and why not? Big banks have been doing it for years.

Carell is spectacular as well as Mark Baum. He has a heart, but he’s an angry individual. It sickens him to make money off this short buy, but it’s the responsible action to take for the benefit of his own clients. Mark also suffers from his brother’s suicide. McKay allows just enough time for this to draw out the misery of this character. Carell should have gotten an Oscar nomination at least. Baum is a guy with no filter as he confronts authoritarian parties throughout the film. He’s a hero really, but he’s not a guy I’d ever want to be left in a room with either.

An additional story arc comes from two young guys (Finn Wittrock & John Magaro) who also uncover this opportunity. They enlist Brad Pitt as a recluse who get them into the arena of big traders. These kids who started their investment company in a garage are great as well. Another party who came out of nowhere to uncover what no one else saw.

McKay assembled a magnificent blend of actors for these unusual characters who always hid behind their computer monitors. He directs with a lighthearted approach having his characters breaking the 4th wall at times to explain what all of this means in the simplest terms.

As simple as McKay makes it with his humor, this was a terrible, terrible tragedy putting millions of people out of work and owners losing their homes. Even renters lost their homes. Pay your rent but it means nothing if your landlord isn’t paying his mortgage. McKay tragically shows this outcome.

It’s terrible to imagine, but it’s a major downfall of the American economy. When the country, is doing well, while paying short term low interest rates, no one concerns themselves with what could all go away in an instant. It’s a vicious cycle, and the only funny thing about it all is that the supposedly most brilliant investors will naively allow this to happen over and over again.

The Big Short is one of the best films made in the last 20 years.

LICORICE PIZZA (2021)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Cast: Alana Haim, Cooper Hoffman, Sean Penn, Tom Waits, Bradley Cooper
My Rating: 7/10
Rotten Tomatometer: 92% Certified Fresh

PLOT: The story of Alana Kane and Gary Valentine growing up, running around and going through the treacherous navigation of first love in the San Fernando Valley, 1973.


You know that old saying, “You’ll either love it or hate it”?  I’m afraid that doesn’t apply to Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest film, Licorice Pizza.  At least not for me.

The plot: Gary, an impossibly precocious and business-savvy 15-year-old child actor, still in high school (the movie opens with him getting his yearbook pictures taken), develops a crush on Alana, a 25-year-old production assistant, and pursues her – and pursues her and pursues her – while she wrestles with her own emotions and the fact that, dude, he’s fifteen years old.  He calls a shaky truce on his emotions so they can remain friends, and in the process they…let me see if I can remember it all…go on several auditions, help Gary’s mom with her public relations business, open their own business selling waterbeds, fly to Texas (?) and back, fall in and out of “like” with each other several times by attempting to form physical relationships with people their own age, meet an actor who is clearly meant to be William Holden, and by the end of the movie they finally seem to be mutually in love with each other.  Sort of.  Maybe.  It depends on your point of view.  But moving on…

For all its faults, Licorice Pizza did keep me grinning for virtually all of its longish running time, and it also made me laugh out loud many times.  Only in a Paul Thomas Anderson – or maybe also a Tarantino movie – could you have a scene where a mixed-race couple (white husband/Asian wife) have a conversation in which the white husband speaks the most atrociously absurd, cringeworthy pidgin Japanese to his wife, and it gets an earned laugh for the sheer audacity of the scene.  Is it offensive?  Certainly, if this happened in real life, the husband would be cancelled faster than an all-Latino sitcom.  (Ba-ZING.)  But I’ve gotta be honest, that was one of the great belly-laughs in the film.  I found it funny in the same way that Robert Downey Jr. in blackface in Tropic Thunder was funny, in that the people committing the offenses are clearly dumber than sacks of sand and so have absolutely no idea they’re being morons.  But I’ll leave the Theory-of-Comedy discussion for another review…

In true P.T. Anderson fashion, the dialogue is as sharply written as anything by Sorkin or Mamet.  Not a second is wasted on unnecessary exposition or explanation.  (Although, to be fair, a LITTLE more explanation would have been preferred…more on that later.)  Each scene gets to the point, either directly or indirectly, with surgical precision.

There are some editing jumps that will keep a viewer on their toes.  The movie shows a scene of Gary testing a waterbed for the first time, then jumps to him hawking them at a “Teen Fair”, then suddenly he has his own storefront, sales reps, and a bank of telephone operators.  We can only assume that he had the capital, the licenses, and the business logistics to not only make this happen but to clearly be successful at it, at least for a while.  I mean, he is fifteen years old, so why wouldn’t he know how to do all this, right?

[Actually, now that I think about it, there IS a precedent for this plot: Rushmore, Wes Anderson’s 1998 film about another precocious 15-year-old boy who falls in love with a much older woman and spends most of the rest of the film attempting to woo her while she wrestles with her emotions and her desire for a relationship with someone who was born in the same decade as she was.  Do with that information what you will.]

When the age gap between Gary and Alana was explained very clearly at the beginning of the film, I was pretty sure the two of them could never be in a relationship, and I was taken out of the movie a little.  However, as the movie progressed, the film’s charm and effortless wit made me forget how far apart they were.  Gary behaves in such a way that I forgot just young he’s supposed to be, and I forgot just how old Alana is supposed to be.  The film expertly took me by the hand and got me rooting for them to be together, despite how – let’s not mince words – illegal it would be for them to be together.

SPOILER ALERT, SPOILER ALERT, SPOILER ALERT, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

SPOILER ALERT.

So the movie does its job, that I’ll grant you.  But when the film ends, and Gary and Alana kiss and go running off screen together, and Alana finally says, “I love you, Gary”, and the credits started rolling…I stared at the screen, raised my arms in supplication to the scrolling credits, and said, “Say WHAT…?”  Because it was at that point, after the abrupt ending, that I started to have questions.  Lots and lots and LOTS of questions.

If Gary is a high school student – and he is a high school student – when did he ever go to class?  The film never shows us.  One could make the case of, well, you have to ASSUME he’s going to class.  Okay…but when?  In between auditions and plane flights to a live taping of a musical number in front of a live audience and opening not one but two small businesses where his employees seem to be composed entirely of his school-age buddies?  And one of these businesses involves him buying a large quantity of pinball machines to start an arcade.  Where is this money coming from?!  His acting paychecks?  He’s not a major star.  He’s a minor bit player, at best.  And yet, not only can he finance two small businesses on his own (he has a mother, but we only meet her twice), but the maître d’ at a local restaurant knows him by name and treats him like Hollywood royalty – he even has his own table at this place.

And let’s talk about that ending.  She says, “I love you, Gary”, and they run off screen.  What does this mean?  Does this mean she’s about to embark on a physical relationship with an underage boy?  One could say, “Well, of COURSE she’s not going to start going steady with him or anything.  She’s twenty-five and he’s fifteen!  The idea’s absurd and icky!  No, there’s no way anything like that can happen between the two of them, so this ending is just her affirming her love for him in a platonic way because that’s all they will ever be able to be to each other: devoted friends.”

Yeah, but…are we just supposed to make that assumption out of thin air?  The entire movie has been working on getting these two characters together, and it ends (quite suddenly) with that happening, and…we’re just supposed to think, “Yeah, but they’re not TOGETHER-together”?  If that’s the case, I feel there should have been a little more information to make that clearer.

I’m reminded of something I read where a college professor is teaching film students about Hal Ashby’s prescient film Being There.  MORE SPOILER ALERTS, kind of unavoidable here…but the film ends with a humble gardener with an IQ in the double-digits walking serenely out onto the surface of a lake.  The professor asks his students what this final scene means.  And the students say, well, there’s a sunken pier just out of sight under the water, or the water is quite shallow, or they even theorize that the scene isn’t really happening, it’s just in the gardener’s mind.

The professor pounds on his desk and says, “No, no, NO!  What you see is what you get.  The guy is literally walking on water.  Nothing in the film mentions a sunken pier or low water levels, and we’ve never seen any of his dreams before now.  Any explanations you’re giving for why he’s walking on water, aside from his ability to actually do it, is just you bringing something the scene that isn’t there.”

That’s what I think about the ending of Licorice Pizza.  It’s problematic because, to me, it doesn’t matter what I think happens at the end when she proclaims her love and they run off.  The movie is clearly indicating they DO wind up in a relationship.  We can infer all we want about what may have happened after the cameras cut, but we are left with what the film has presented to us.  And that left me feeling weirdly uncomfortable.

To be sure, there are movies out there, acknowledged masterpieces, that depend heavily on the viewer doing some heavy lifting.  The one that comes to mind the most for me is 2001: A Space Odyssey, a film whose ending is suitably awesome and beautiful…but what in the Sam Hill does it MEAN?  Do enough reading and analysis and there are conclusions to be made that make sense and which elevate that film.

But Licorice Pizza is no 2001.  This is just not the kind of movie that lends itself to that kind of theoretical dissection.  If there are buried truths to be discovered, fair enough, but how much digging am I expected to do?  As the great man once said, “If you have to ask what something symbolizes, it doesn’t.”

First impressions are very important. And my first impression of Licorice Pizza is that, while it’s solidly acted and directed, and the dialogue is pitch perfect, the story itself leaves something to be desired.

[P.S.  A friend of mine said that if you were to switch the genders in this movie, it would never have been made.  I might agree, were it not for the fact that there have already been several films already made about that very topic, that is, an adult man in an inappropriate relationship with a much younger or underage woman.  American Beauty, Lolita, Lost in Translation, etcetera.  Maybe Lost in Translation is not the best example, as both characters are legal adults, but you get my point.  Frankly, I thought the gender switching in Licorice Pizza was kinda refreshing…up to a point.]

LICORICE PIZZA

By Marc S. Sanders

Can you ever imagine topping your pizza with licorice?  Seems weird, odd and just…well…no!  That’s the message of Paul Thomas Anderson’s winning film Licorice Pizza.

As I watched the picture, I knew that many would not get the point.  They may become bored or even think this is a weird movie.  That’s what I thought when I first saw Anderson’s 1999 film, Magnolia.  I loved that film, but that ending is…yeah…waaaaaay out there. 

Anderson’s script centers on a 15-year-old boy named Gary Valentine (Cooper Hoffman; son of Phillip Seymour Hoffman) and the girl-SCRATCH THAT-woman, I mean, that he becomes enamored with named Alana (Alana Haim).  Gary approaches Alana at his high school where he is about to have his class picture taken.  She’s there working in a dead-end assistant position with the photographer.  Fast dialogue takes place in this opening scene where Alana can’t take this kid seriously even though he’s a seasoned child actor, known throughout the San Fernando/Encino, California landscape among known casting directors and agents.  Eventually, the relationship blossoms as Alana serves as an adult escort for Gary who has to go on a television program.  (Mom was not available to accompany underage Gary; hence the word escort.)  Soon after, it’s established that though Gary seems more mature than a typical 15-year-old because he’s had a career during most of his young life, Alana is in a limbo of not reaching adulthood yet, despite the number of her age.

Gary’s worth as an actor is expiring as he’s not the cute precocious kid that Hollywood is looking for anymore, and so he’s on his way to his next venture, never allowing himself to be set back.  Why not sell the newest innovation of the early 1970’s?  Waterbeds!  Meanwhile, Alana does her best to move on to her next life changing chapter by dating an actor her age.  However, things don’t work out.  He was born Jewish, like her family, but he defiantly announces he’s an atheist over Shabbat dinner and will not recite the kiddush prayers. 

The contrast in Gary and Alana’s progress through life in 1973 couldn’t be further separated from one another.  Anderson writes these two characters as they are going in opposite directions.  They are 10 years in age apart from one another.  Gary doesn’t allow himself to be defeated when one business venture after another doesn’t pan out.  Alana is short tempered and easily stuck in a rut, however, when things don’t go her way.  This is the running theme of Licorice Pizza.

Other folks that I’ve discussed this film with find it weird that a 15-year-old boy and a 25-year-old woman are hanging together and drawn to one another.  Yeah, it’s weird, but it happens.  Out there, there are unusual relationships or friendships.  Spend a month working in a community theatre like I have and then tell me weird relationships don’t happen.  Forget about whether they are legal or not.  Forget about if it’s perverted.  (Though, truly it really isn’t depicted in a perverted manner in Anderson’s film.) There’s a relationship between Alana and Gary where romance and attractiveness are certainly tested, but that doesn’t mean it’s ever consummated. 

The fact that the relationship between the two characters is difficult on them and the audience is the point of Licorice Pizza.  Anderson is a brilliant writer/director here because he has an ongoing visual theme happening.  Often during the film, both characters are filmed running towards something.  They are either running towards one another or something else or they are running away from each other.  Gary and Alana seemingly know that this relationship could never come to an intimate, loving, romantic relationship.  After all, he’s fifteen!  She’s twenty-five!  Yet, what Paul Thomas Anderson demonstrates is that no matter how physically fast you can run or how far you can run, these two characters will never, ever catch up to one another. 

Gary yearns for Alana because lust interferes in most boys at age fifteen.  Alana needs Gary, however.  She tries and tries new opportunities to stimulate her daily lifestyle beyond Gary, like volunteering on a politician’s campaign or attempting to get in the good graces of a well-known Hollywood actor (a brief, yet memorable appearance from Sean Penn).  Dating a man closer to her age also doesn’t work out.  She’s outgrowing her Jewish home life that she’s still stuck in as well.  Alas, it doesn’t ever work out for her. 

The actress, Alana Haim, who takes on the role is surprisingly skillful.  She’s tough and sad and lost.  Anderson may have written the character, but Haim evokes the emotions that progress her listless story arc.  Each time, something happens to Alana, I couldn’t help but feel such despair for her.  I’ve been there.  When I graduated high school!  When I graduated college!  When I broke up with a girl!  When I had to move into an apartment!  When I became a father!  How many of us truly go on to the next plateau knowing exactly what to do?  Some folks like Gary, can do that.  Others like Alana just can’t.  I think more people have been in her spot than they care to admit.  Paul Thomas Anderson is brave enough to not present Alana’s triumph so easily or quickly.  Movies don’t always have to show the happily ever after ending.

Gary moves from one chapter to another as well.  Because he’s a well-known kid actor of yesteryear, he’s granted more resources than Alana, even though he’s ten years younger.  He always gets a table at the local restaurant.  He knows all the casting directors.  He knows how to get around and get things started.  Audiences are smarter and likely know that whether Gary is selling waterbeds in a run-down business shop or later turning the place into a pinball arcade (now that pinball machines are legalized; which I never knew they were illegal to begin with), he won’t become such a successful entrepreneur.  Yet, that never fazes Gary.  This is just the next big thing that occurs to Gary.  So, he’ll just give it a go.  The confidence Alana lacks in herself, Anderson gifts with the Gary character.  Cooper Hoffman makes a grand debut with Anderson’s direction and character foresight.  He’s definitely not performing in his father’s shadow here.

Licorice Pizza carries so much symbolism in the point to the story that you might not even realize how apparent it is until later when you reflect back on the film. Obviously, Paul Thomas Anderson is very careful to insist how far apart these two people are, not just in age, but in how they carry themselves and their lifestyles.  However, he does not stop with just the two main leads.  A side gag has a guy who’s the owner of a Japanese restaurant discuss an advertising campaign with Gary’s mother.  A suggestion is proposed by Gary’s mom.  The man then “translates” to the woman simply by repeating the same thing in English with a terribly awful Japanese accent and then the Japanese woman sitting next to the man speaks in her native tongue.  The man carries himself as if he understands the woman and translates back to Gary’s mom in his own Americanized dialect.  It’s shockingly funny how wrong and insulting this guy is.  This guy knows nothing about Japanese cuisine or culture or what they say or what interests them and yet he’s trying to make a business venture out of it.  It’s wrong and highly inappropriate (which makes the scene very funny), but it exists. It’s garish to watch this behavior, but there are thousands of insensitive people doing thousands of insensitive things every day; people who couldn’t be further apart from practicing what they truly were not destined to preach.  If you stop and think for a second, you can’t deny that this is one more weird thing out there in the world that’s odd and yet probably exists somewhere down the street or in another state or another time.  This guy has a connected with a Japanese woman without any concept of understanding or appreciation.

The title of Anderson’s film is never literally addressed.  (Later, I read that Licorice Pizza was actually the name of a popular record store in California way back when.)  Yet, my mind periodically went to its significance while watching the movie.  Try eating pizza with a thick, doughy crust and topped with tough, taffy texture like licorice topped on it.  I’ve never done it, but I’d imagine it’s hard, very hard, to swallow.  So, while Alana and Gary are certainly friends, the hormones of a fifteen-year-old boy and the lonely, lost nature of a twenty-five-year-old woman becoming involved with one another are hard to digest as well.  No matter how Gary and Alana approach their connection to one another it just does not work.  Alana falls off a motorcycle at one point. Gary runs to her.  We see that all the time in movies.  But what’s he going to do when he reaches her to offer aid?  What more can Gary do except to say “Are you okay?”  Gary gets arrested during another time in the film.  Alana runs after the police car Gary is handcuffed in, and tells him it’s going to be okay.  Yet, what is she really going to do?  She doesn’t know anybody like a lawyer or an adult that can help.  She doesn’t have the capability of helping him.

Run as fast as you want.  Run as far as you want.  Gary and Alana can never, and will never, catch up to one another.  They’ll never meet at an appropriate age, always living a decade apart.  They’ll never share a commonality with each other that promises a loving and intimate relationship.  So, while Licorice Pizza has a silly, comedic name, it’s truly a tragic story of impossible love. 

Licorice Pizza is definitely one of the best, most inventive and sensitive films of the year.

LOVE, ACTUALLY

By Marc S. Sanders

Love, Actually is like a warm favorite blanket to snuggle up in. Richard Curtis writes and directs a collection of the greatest British actors (along with American Laura Linney) in a kaleidoscope of love and relationships against the backdrop of beautiful London, England during the five weeks leading up to Christmas.

I won’t list my favorite characters or actors. In a film this treasured, this loved and this appreciated, that would be like picking your favorite child. It’s impossible when every single storyline is perfectly executed with thought and tenderness.

The stories of love uncovered, love that’s lost, love based in friendship, and love drowning in heartache beautifully jump from one to the next and then back again. Curtis is wise to not show all of the facets of each story early on. Some stories reveal more about themselves later that’ll leave you hurting for those that are not so merry and those that offer plenty of cheer.

I’m especially happy that Curtis did not compromise in the language or subject matter of his tales. Strong language at times makes for some memorable dialogue and nudity presents a normality to how we really are with those we have affections for.

It’s fair to say everyone in life experiences some variation of love. Yes! I mean everyone. Richard Curtis reminds you that love is a natural instinct, and so we can not focus on the easily recognized gloom of our world. To have these stories captured around Christmas time only enhances what we treasure, or what we wish we didn’t have to endure at times. Curtis’ blazing soundtrack helps along the way.

Love is hard. Love is challenging. Love will sweep you off your feet and love will destroy everything you thought you had. However, love will never leave you with complete regret. It’s never the love we have for someone that we regret. It’s only a wish to have it wholesome, healthy, happy and pure.

Love, Actually is all around.

HAPPINESS (1998)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

Director: Todd Solondz
Cast: Jane Adams, Jon Lovitz, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Dylan Baker, Lara Flynn Boyle, Louise Lasser, Ben Gazzara, Camryn Manheim, Molly Shannon
My Rating: 8/10
Rotten Tomatometer: 81% Certified Fresh

PLOT: Various characters, some linked, some not, struggle with the search for happiness in their lives.


A little history:

Todd Solondz’s film Happiness was so controversial that the Sundance Film Festival actually refused to screen it.  It was originally financed by October Films, but upon seeing the final product, October’s owner, Seagrams, dropped the film like a hot potato.  Happiness initially received an NC-17 rating, which would have immediately limited distribution opportunities, as well as created advertising difficulties.  Therefore, it was released unrated, uncut, and unaltered.

I remember reading about this movie years ago in Roger Ebert’s four-star review; he eventually labeled it one of the top ten movies of 1998.  I got curious, so, since this was in the days before Netflix – and I’m not sure Netflix would have made it available anyway – I snapped up the first DVD copy I could find and watched it.

And…um…oh my.  There are dark comedies (Pulp Fiction), and there are Dark Comedies (Dr. Strangelove).   And then there are DARK COMEDIES.  Happiness is a DARK COMEDY.

Remember that scene in Pulp Fiction when Marvin gets shot in the back of the car?  Remember the blood that covered the rear windshield and the blood and pieces of flesh and skull that were peppered all over John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson?  Horrific, right?  But it was such a shocking moment that I remember laughing hysterically for the first few seconds after the incident, so that I missed the next few lines of dialogue from Vincent and Jules.

Happiness is like that.  You’re watching scenes of emotional devastation, but the circumstances under which they’re happening are…kinda funny.  Or at least funny in that shocked kind of way.  Your brain can’t quite believe what your eyes and ears are feeding it, and so you laugh.  At least, I did when I recently re-watched it with my girlfriend last night.  She didn’t do a lot of laughing, for the record.

The plot: We meet three sisters, Joy (Jane Adams), Helen (Lara Flynn Boyle), and Trish (Cynthia Stevenson).  Joy is an aspiring 30-something songwriter who still lives at home and has just broken up with her boyfriend in a scene that’s right at the top of the film and sets the appropriate mood: somewhere between funny and discomfort.  Helen is a moderately successful writer who has written a bestselling collection of poems about childhood rape.  Cynthia is a mother of two boys, married to a successful psychiatrist named Bill (Dylan Baker).  She seems to be the happiest of the three sisters, but she’s that kind of person who says things like, “You know, we all thought you would never amount to much, but NOW look at you!”

Cynthia’s husband, Bill, has a dark secret, one which I will not divulge here, but it’s revealed fairly early in the film.  He is a man so desperately in search of happiness that his efforts to fulfill his desires dance on the edge of farce.  He is so compelled to be happy (or at least what passes for happy in his mind) that he is, at one point, reduced to, um, “interfering with himself” in the backseat of his own car in broad daylight, risking discovery at every second by passers-by.

I haven’t even mentioned the part where he drugs the tuna fish sandwich.  Or ditches the PTA meeting for an impromptu “rendezvous.”  Or has a conversation with his 11-year-old son about why length doesn’t matter.  But enough about Bill for now.

Helen, the author, feels like a faker because she was, in fact, never raped as a child, so her happiness and success is built on lies.  She wishes her work could have more immediacy or legitimacy.  Then she could be REALLY happy.  And she might have a way: Daryl (Philip Seymour Hoffman), her next-door neighbor, is so obsessed with her that he finds it impossible to talk to her in person.  So he starts making obscene phone calls to her while he’s at work.  He gets the shock of his life when, after one call, she star-69s him and says, “I want to see you.”

And Joy…poor, ironically-named Joy.  Her trials and tribulations in the movie are more relatable than the others I’ve mentioned previously, so I’ll leave them alone for now.

Now, the subject matter of the movie has sparked controversy, as I mentioned earlier.  Are we, as an audience, expected to empathize with these characters?  Speaking as a guy who has had his fair share of heartbreaking crushes, I’ve gotta say I did empathize a bit with Daryl, the phone pervert.  I certainly don’t condone his behavior, but I was achingly aware of his thought processes as he stood in the elevator next to the object of his desire, desperate to talk to her, certain that she represents true happiness, but eternally unable to do anything about it.

I also identified a little with Kristina, played by Camryn Manheim.  She lives a couple of doors down from Daryl and is always knocking on his door to deliver tidbits of news.  (“Our doorman was found bludgeoned to death in his apartment this morning…supposedly his penis was missing.”)  She is clearly crushing on Daryl, but Daryl is oblivious in the face of his own crush.  Their relationship, or lack thereof, pays off in a scene set in a diner during which a secret is revealed that sees the Marvin scene from Pulp Fiction and raises.

But what about Bill, Cynthia’s husband with the dark secret?  While I can relate to characters like Kristina and Daryl and Joy, what is this distasteful nonsense doing in this movie?  Let’s make no bones about it: Bill is a monster, enslaved to desires he can’t understand; he can only bend to their will.  Does that make him an object of sympathy?  SHOULD that make him an object of sympathy?  There’s an excruciating scene where Bill’s son asks him very, VERY specific questions about his compulsion, and to our amazement, instead of shying away from them, Bill tearfully answers them honestly and directly, including that last question that I had completely forgotten was in the movie.  Does this honesty make Bill honorable?  Previous scenes have shown that Bill is always honest with his son, and he makes the decision not to break that streak, even when the answers are shameful and, probably for some, gag-inducing.

My take: Bill’s crimes and desires have made him irredeemable, in my book.  But…BUT…he did the right thing by being honest with his son.  In that ONE sense, I have to give the character props.  If I were in his place, I’m not sure I would have done the same thing.

Geez, I just realized I haven’t even mentioned another subplot about the parents of the three sisters who have relocated to Florida and are undergoing a separation (NOT a divorce!), even though they’re still living in the same house.  Eh, I’ll leave that one alone, too.

So anyway.  Whenever I read a review that gets this long-winded, I always find myself asking the question, “Yeah, but is it any GOOD?”

Yes, it is.  It’s literate, compelling, and funny, but you may hate yourself for laughing afterwards.  That’s the genius of the movie.  It creates these situations that you laugh at, but when you try to describe the scene to your friends, they just stare at you in abject horror.

(I give it an 8 instead of a higher score just on the basis of the “icky” feeling I get when watching some of the scenes.  You’ve been warned.)