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lizgrass
Reviews
Two Weeks Notice (2002)
Guilty As Charged
I am an intelligent, creative, culturally knowledgeable person, bordering on elitist (could you tell?). When I think of great filmmakers I think of Godard, Kurosawa, Truffaut, Antonioni, Scorcese, and of the new masters, Wes Anderson, Steven Soderbergh, Alexander Payne and Spike Jonze.
So, if you could, please don't tell anyone that I saw Two Weeks Notice, let alone that I kind of liked it. Could you do that for me? Oh, wait. Shoot.
I guess the cat's out of the bag so I might as well explain myself. It doesn't have an original premise (they hate each other and then fall in love? No, it can't be), the script is saddled with a political agenda it can't support, the punchlines rarely pay off and it was just generally rife with romantic-comedy clichés. But it was so cute, wasn't it?
Okay, I've given up on trying to save face. Admit it, Hugh Grant was born to play unnecessarily rich and irresistibly charming British cads. And although I generally dislike Sandra Bullock, she has most successfully turned the klutzy-but-cute thing into her multi-million dollar calling card.
Say what you will about me and my guilty pleasure, but Two Weeks Notice wasn't so bad, considering the fact that it was pretty bad. And by the way, I liked Maid in Manhattan and Sweet Home Alabama, too. So there.
About Schmidt (2002)
Comb-overs and mullets, oh my!
Jack Nicholson may have traded his wild-eyed gleam for a comb-over, but his talent for pouring himself into a role is as evident in this week's About Schmidt as it was 28 years ago in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
As Warren Schmidt, Nicholson is befuddled, to say the least, when, just days after his grudging retirement, his wife of many years drops dead on the kitchen floor. As if that weren't enough, Warren's only child (Hope Davis) has her heart set on marrying the best mullet and mustache combo middle America has to offer (played with aplomb by Dermot Mulroney).
Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor wrote the dead-on screenplay, which should come as no surprise to those who've seen their previous collaborations, Citizen Ruth (1996) and Election (1999). Payne and Taylor are able to take the seemingly banal setting of Payne's native Omaha and reveal the lascivious and perhaps pitiful stories hidden among the cornfields. (Those who remember the line in Election referring to the level of moisture in a particular nether-region of Reese Witherspoon's body might be just as wide-eyed when a saucy, stark-naked Kathy Bates attempts to seduce Nicholson's Schmidt.)
About Schmidt is by far the year's most original movie, (yes, more original than Spike Jonze's wacko Adaptation), due in no small part to uncanny performances by Bates and Nicholson-not to mention Payne's sympathetic direction and that phenomenal script (all of which are up for Golden Globes this year).
It is even nominated for the grandest, most golden Globe of all, Best Picture-Drama, which begs the question, if the movie's that good, doesn't Mulroney's mustache deserve at least an honorable mention?
Éloge de l'amour (2001)
Do the French understand this?
Jean-Luc Godard is a cinematic genius, there is no denying that. He was a major player in one of the most influential movements in the history of film, the French New Wave. His films Breathless, Contempt and Masculin-Féminin are among the greatest ever made. He is a legend to movie-goers and filmmakers alike.
That said, this movie is a dud. In Praise of Love (Éloge de l'Amour) is confusing rather than enigmatic, and boring rather than thoughtful.
I wanted to like this movie, I really did. I wanted to act intelligent and proclaim, `Ce film est excellent!' Mais, I mean, but, it isn't. Watching In Praise of Love is like reading a graduate philosophy textbook that is written in French poetry, with translation in hyroglyphics.
The story, if one can call it that, centers on Edgar, a man confused about his own emotions, who is trying to make a film (or novel, or opera) about relationships. In a flashback that comprises nearly the entire second half of the movie, we come to find out that one of the women Edgar was hoping to cast is in fact a woman he met years earlier when speaking to a couple persecuted during World War II who are in the process of selling their story to Steven Speilberg. (Don't worry, I've seen the movie, and I'm not quite sure myself.)
Several mentions are made of `stupid Americans', and this movie made me feel like the stupidest of all. But Godard is Godard, so rest assured, his strange vignettes are just as haunting and aesthetically beautiful as they are perplexing.
I Spy (2002)
Funny S***!
This movie was just "okay", but would have been "excellent" if it weren't for the meddling interference of something known as `plot.' Without the `plot', I Spy would have only been about 45 minutes long, but it would have been about 245% better. Just give me Owen Wilson and Eddie Murphy bantering back and forth about women and cock size and I'm happy.
The `plot', which I'm told is an integral part of most films, is laughable if not downright s****y. Alex Scott (Wilson) is a government agent assigned to search for an invisible spy plane and fly it home. To be really clever and un- governmenty, his agency decides to pair him up with a civilian, the cocky Kelly Robinson (Murphy), a championship boxer and all-around pimp for the ages.
Let the hilarity ensue!
And ensue it does. Hysterical slap-stick comedy and raunchy buddy humor make I Spy a great movie (to rent) and one of the best comedies ever to feature a black man and a white man and Famke Janssen.
Come to think of it, though, the `plot' is pretty funny in its own right. Just wait until a Chinese criminal asks the guy from Clockwork Orange if the plane is `really invisible' (hold your horses, it is!!). You'll be literally sitting camly on your seat and kind of chuckling. And when the love interest (Janssen) pulls a switcheroo, you might just not pee your pants.
Funny for sure. But unfortunately, the funniest scene is the `Sexual Healing' duet that features prominently in every teaser, trailer and commercial.
Roger Dodger (2002)
Misogyny is King
Hate women? Hate yourself? Then you'll just love Roger (Campbell Scott), the pathetic protagonist of Dylan Kidd's debut as writer/director. Though smug, rude and impossibly cruel, Roger somehow manages to endear himself to the audience by the end of the film, and most of that dichotomy is due to a fascinating performance by Scott, best known for his role in 1992's Singles.
Roger is the quintessential misogynist-he hates women because they hate him. And of course, he thinks he has us all figured out. His nephew Nick (Jesse Eisenberg, brother of that heinous girl from the Pepsi commercials) unfortunately believes this and calls on his uncle to teach him how to `score'. Unfortunately for Roger, the guinea pigs of this experiment (Jennifer Beals and Elizabeth Berkley in her best performance ever) find Nick's naïveté much more charming than the cocksure bull**it that is Roger's calling card.
But behind the hard shell of arrogance is a little boy who just wants to be loved (what, you didn't see that coming?). His outburst at a party thrown by his ex- lover/boss (Isabella Rossellini) only confirms what we knew all along, that poor Roger has a bit of a self-esteem problem.
It's been done, you say? Well not this well it hasn't. Kidd's script is excellent and Scott's reading of it is about as believable as a loveable asshole can be. And although the camera work is jerky at times, it is on the whole intimate and naturalistic, instead of indie-annoying. Plus, Eisenberg as the nephew is so cute and charming that I actually want to teach Roger a lesson and de-virginize the kid.