Ricky Gervais is famous for his comedic innovation. After creating the British television show The Office with Stephen Merchant, he brought his seemingly real, slightly uncomfortable sense of humor to American viewers with the same show, starring Steve Carrell. In Ghost Town, Gervais brings his uneasy wit to the movie screen.
Ghost Town is a romantic comedy of a sort. Gervais plays a dentist, Bertram Pincus, who is a classic misanthrope. He spends his time avoiding human interaction and prefers his own company. After a routine hospital procedure, he dies briefly. He goes about his normal life, abrasive and unfriendly, but he is inundated with visitors, visitors from the other side of life. That is, visitors from death, or ghosts.
You wonder, after seeing Gervais in The Office, how much of his work is acting. He's probably really that big of a jerk. His character from television, officer manager David Brent, is unlikeably real and creates such awkwardness the show can be as off-putting as his character. It's a mishmash of reality television and situation comedy, with it's jostling single camera and hard to discern plot. But in Ghost Town, Gervais exudes that same off-putting attitude, although with much more confidence. And at the same time, you are charmed by his unhappiness, his loneliness. That's what you never saw with his David Brent character. Brent is self-centered and self-serving out of sheer neediness, but you never sympathize with him. You can't stand him. The vulnerability and subtlety in Ghost Town is the real surprise and gift of the film.
And Ricky Gervais isn't the only actor bringing you that gift. Tea Leoni, as his neighbor, and Greg Kinnear, as the ghost of her dead husband, also work so well in this film. Tea Leoni, I think, is vastly underrated. I can only think of a few movies she's been in, like Spanglish and, way back there, Family Man. I can't even think of another one. Why? She's so talented at presenting the funny side of her character, and then revealing with sensitivity, the unhappiness that lies beneath. I think you'll wonder why she doesn't get more work in Hollywood.
One last aspect of this little film is its soundtrack. So rarely does the soundtrack seem to complement a movie well. And this film, funny and bittersweet, would be challenging to score. Thankfully, the music here has a quiet, charming tone just like its film.
Ghost Town offers so much more than the usual romantic comedy. If you want a silly, over-the-top, mainstream romantic comedy, this isn't it. But if want a funny, insightful comedy for adults, you may like this one.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Sister Bunny
The House Bunny seems like a simple, funny, sexy movie. The idea was that a Playboy Bunny meets a group of nerdy college girls and they improve each other. The Bunny develops her mind and the college girls develop their femininity. Laughs, a little sap, and some sexy Playboy Bunnies should make for a light-hearted film. But it all goes deeper than that.
My heart was broken during the opening titles. Turns out the Bunny, played by Anna Farris, was abandoned at birth and grew up in an orphanage. She longs for a home and family. And when she becomes a beauty contestant at 17 and catches the attention of the Playboy corporation, she thinks she's found the family she always wanted. And the bunnies do seem like friends or sisters, shopping together, getting manicures, and dancing at parties. Right away, the filmmakers want to show how shallow and empty the Bunny's ambitions are. All she wants is to be Miss November. So far all she's done are pictorials, like Girls with GEDs. The filmmakers want you to get the message that beauty and a socially acceptable appearance are rather empty, and what matters is the content of your soul. But when you make a movie in concert with Hugh Hefner and his corporation, that message doesn't really stand a chance.
Of course the pretty Bunny is not only beautiful and sexy, but she's kind, open-minded, and innocent in a way. Which is quite a feat for a girl who showers with the photographer before her photo shoot. When she's kicked out of the Playboy Mansion for being too old, she lands near a sorority house full of misfit girls who are very smart but very dumb when it comes to social skills and push-up bras. So she gives them lessons in party-planning, cosmetics application, and how to wear revealing clothing. And they teach her how to read. The most important lesson she teaches them, of course, is about friendship, acceptance, and sisterly support. What matters most to Bunny, after all, is finding a home with a loving family. And she insists that that's what she had at Hefner's mansion.
It struck me was that, yes, those girls living at the Playboy Mansion probably do support each other. But not while picking out halter tops at the mall. Centerfolds already know how to look pretty sexy. And that can do wonders for your career, but what about your life? Seems to me that those Playboy Mansion shenanigans could wreck havoc with that. After spending time in the orgy room or hottubbin' in the grotto, what might happen? And this is where friends come in. You need your sister bunny's support when she has to take you to the clinic for another pregnancy scare or to pick up a prescription for another infection.
When you follow this train of thought, you begin to hope The House Bunny was right. You hope life for the Playboy Bunnies is full of real love, love that lasts, the love of good friends. I suspect they need it.
My heart was broken during the opening titles. Turns out the Bunny, played by Anna Farris, was abandoned at birth and grew up in an orphanage. She longs for a home and family. And when she becomes a beauty contestant at 17 and catches the attention of the Playboy corporation, she thinks she's found the family she always wanted. And the bunnies do seem like friends or sisters, shopping together, getting manicures, and dancing at parties. Right away, the filmmakers want to show how shallow and empty the Bunny's ambitions are. All she wants is to be Miss November. So far all she's done are pictorials, like Girls with GEDs. The filmmakers want you to get the message that beauty and a socially acceptable appearance are rather empty, and what matters is the content of your soul. But when you make a movie in concert with Hugh Hefner and his corporation, that message doesn't really stand a chance.
Of course the pretty Bunny is not only beautiful and sexy, but she's kind, open-minded, and innocent in a way. Which is quite a feat for a girl who showers with the photographer before her photo shoot. When she's kicked out of the Playboy Mansion for being too old, she lands near a sorority house full of misfit girls who are very smart but very dumb when it comes to social skills and push-up bras. So she gives them lessons in party-planning, cosmetics application, and how to wear revealing clothing. And they teach her how to read. The most important lesson she teaches them, of course, is about friendship, acceptance, and sisterly support. What matters most to Bunny, after all, is finding a home with a loving family. And she insists that that's what she had at Hefner's mansion.
It struck me was that, yes, those girls living at the Playboy Mansion probably do support each other. But not while picking out halter tops at the mall. Centerfolds already know how to look pretty sexy. And that can do wonders for your career, but what about your life? Seems to me that those Playboy Mansion shenanigans could wreck havoc with that. After spending time in the orgy room or hottubbin' in the grotto, what might happen? And this is where friends come in. You need your sister bunny's support when she has to take you to the clinic for another pregnancy scare or to pick up a prescription for another infection.
When you follow this train of thought, you begin to hope The House Bunny was right. You hope life for the Playboy Bunnies is full of real love, love that lasts, the love of good friends. I suspect they need it.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Find the Entertainment
In the recent past, if I missed a show, I had to wait until the summer re-runs. Or if there was some old black and white movie from the 1940's that I wanted to see, I was out of luck. Recently, I could just go to my library. Luckily, the local library makes all the hot dvds available for free. Or lots of shows, like The Office or Lost, issue dvd sets with each new season. Right now, we don't even have to wait that long. We can catch whatever we missed streaming over the internet, via the network website, hulu, or other sites.
Some shows I just love to re-visit, like Arrested Development or The Tick. I can watch those instantly on hulu.com or Netflix. By the way, I don't understand how The Office can be such a big hit, when Arrested Development barely made it. Arrested Development is almost a hybrid, between the typical family-centered sit-com and the fake documentary-style TV show, like what we see in The Office. And even The Office wasn't the first to do this. Before The Office(British or American), there was People Like Us, also from England. It was part of the late-night British sit-com lineup for PBS here.
If you want, you can even buy lots of these shows. Absolutely Fabulous or Black Adder are both hard to find, unless you purchase the dvd sets.
There you are: lots of suggestions for entertaining time-wasters. Here, I'll get you started. This link takes you to a bit of People Like Us on youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_VND1196WI
I've even watched some shows on youtube. They'll be broken into 10 or 15 minute chunks, but they still work fine. Usually, I only resort to this with something that is really hard to obtain, like BBC sit-coms (Murder Most Horrid) or PBS shorts (Posh Nosh).
Some shows I just love to re-visit, like Arrested Development or The Tick. I can watch those instantly on hulu.com or Netflix. By the way, I don't understand how The Office can be such a big hit, when Arrested Development barely made it. Arrested Development is almost a hybrid, between the typical family-centered sit-com and the fake documentary-style TV show, like what we see in The Office. And even The Office wasn't the first to do this. Before The Office(British or American), there was People Like Us, also from England. It was part of the late-night British sit-com lineup for PBS here.
If you want, you can even buy lots of these shows. Absolutely Fabulous or Black Adder are both hard to find, unless you purchase the dvd sets.
There you are: lots of suggestions for entertaining time-wasters. Here, I'll get you started. This link takes you to a bit of People Like Us on youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_VND1196WI
Monday, December 29, 2008
Fixing A Fairy Tale
Penelope is a modern fairy tale, or an improved fairy tale. But that makes it sound like medicine you have to take. Which it isn't at all - you will love the solution to the curse that turns Penelope from a pig-nosed girl into a lovely woman. One of the underlying themes, of the influence a mother has on her daughter's self-regard, is done very well here. You can see that Penelope's little pig snout would never have been such a problem for her if it wasn't such a problem for her mother. This kind of issue if usually done quite meanly and with a sledge-hammer. In this film, it's done with sublety and humor, like in a real family where everyone understands the mother's loving, while mistaken, attitude.
And this is a movie a real family could enjoy. Although it wasn't marketed as a children's film, it has enough wit and style for adults while remaining sweet enough for kids. Christina Ricci, in the title role, is wonderfully innocent and fresh here. Her romantic interest, played by James McAvoy, seems like a seedy loser at first. He's one of those trendy actors, nearly indistinguishable from Tobey Maquire and Elijah Wood. Those are the guys with the beautifully expressive eyes, but it seems to me they always look like they're about to burst into tears. Can those two actors come across as likeably down-on-his-luck as McAvoy?
The production design adds so much to this story. The sets, the costuming, the locations bring a Victorian veneer to what is a modern story. Rather dark at times, it reminds you of Tim Burton. But where Burton's style is menacing and gory, this film's design is whimsical and charming. It is a fairy tale, after all.
And this is a movie a real family could enjoy. Although it wasn't marketed as a children's film, it has enough wit and style for adults while remaining sweet enough for kids. Christina Ricci, in the title role, is wonderfully innocent and fresh here. Her romantic interest, played by James McAvoy, seems like a seedy loser at first. He's one of those trendy actors, nearly indistinguishable from Tobey Maquire and Elijah Wood. Those are the guys with the beautifully expressive eyes, but it seems to me they always look like they're about to burst into tears. Can those two actors come across as likeably down-on-his-luck as McAvoy?
The production design adds so much to this story. The sets, the costuming, the locations bring a Victorian veneer to what is a modern story. Rather dark at times, it reminds you of Tim Burton. But where Burton's style is menacing and gory, this film's design is whimsical and charming. It is a fairy tale, after all.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Theatre Britain
It seems like only the best British films make it over the Atlantic, God bless it. But there is quite a variety: stuffy, costume dramas; intelligent comedies; and the newest James Bond installment.
While we're on the subject, I can't see the appeal of Daniel Craig, the newest Bond. He does bring the character out of that cheesy smirk left behind by Pierce Brosnan. Of course, Brosnan was fine in the role, but did he ever really come across as dangerous? He just wasn't threatening enough to carry it off, so it becomes camp. I love a good action flick, but this franchise is a little tiresome. Although it's still creative in the many wonderful and marvelous ways the human body can suffer death, after watching a few of these, you can't tell them apart.
British comedy is another animal. Thankfully, we're a little more sophisticated than Benny Hill and Mr. Bean. Although I still love Rowan Atkinson's Black Adder. The latest British guy to make me laugh is Simon Pegg.
Run, Fat Boy, Run is Pegg's new film and it's more mainstream then his usual movies. His previous Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz are hilarious and ridiculously gory. Shaun is a parody of the typical zombie movie, with the main character having a hard time telling the difference between disaffected, urban neighbors and the flesh-eating undead. Hot Fuzz is also a parody, but of PBS Mystery! series. Can you imagine bloody murder by garden shears in Miss Marple's quaint English village? Seeing the polite, reserved characters from those stories pull submachine guns from their picnic baskets is loads of fun.
With Run, Fat Boy, Run, Simon Pegg has gone all the way over to romantic comedy. Pegg plays Dennis, who left his very pregnant fiance at the altar and has never recovered. So in an attempt to get her back, he says he's running the London Marathon. Leaving aside the impossibility of preparing for a 26 mile run in two weeks, this is a sweet, heartwarming movie. If you like that sort of thing. But it's not done as well here as it could be. And overall, this Pegg movie isn't crafted as well as his previous comedies.
The last British comedy I've seen is Death at a Funeral, starring Matthew McFadyen. While very funny in part, the one gross-out scene kind of ruined the whole movie for me. Which is too bad, since it has a great collection of intersecting plots and hilarious characters. And I have started to love Mr. McFadyen, who I last saw as Kiera Knightley's Mr. Darcy. He was the one thing in that Jane Austen re-make that worked. How did he manage to play cold Mr. Darcy and generate so much chemistry? Even little Kiera couldn't manage that. Her Elizabeth Bennett was petulant and immature.
The last thing I must mention is that after watching a few British movies, you get the feeling that there are only 35 actors in the whole UK. You see the same faces over and over. In Death at a Funeral, however, it was refreshing to see lots of new actors onscreen.
While we're on the subject, I can't see the appeal of Daniel Craig, the newest Bond. He does bring the character out of that cheesy smirk left behind by Pierce Brosnan. Of course, Brosnan was fine in the role, but did he ever really come across as dangerous? He just wasn't threatening enough to carry it off, so it becomes camp. I love a good action flick, but this franchise is a little tiresome. Although it's still creative in the many wonderful and marvelous ways the human body can suffer death, after watching a few of these, you can't tell them apart.
British comedy is another animal. Thankfully, we're a little more sophisticated than Benny Hill and Mr. Bean. Although I still love Rowan Atkinson's Black Adder. The latest British guy to make me laugh is Simon Pegg.
Run, Fat Boy, Run is Pegg's new film and it's more mainstream then his usual movies. His previous Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz are hilarious and ridiculously gory. Shaun is a parody of the typical zombie movie, with the main character having a hard time telling the difference between disaffected, urban neighbors and the flesh-eating undead. Hot Fuzz is also a parody, but of PBS Mystery! series. Can you imagine bloody murder by garden shears in Miss Marple's quaint English village? Seeing the polite, reserved characters from those stories pull submachine guns from their picnic baskets is loads of fun.
With Run, Fat Boy, Run, Simon Pegg has gone all the way over to romantic comedy. Pegg plays Dennis, who left his very pregnant fiance at the altar and has never recovered. So in an attempt to get her back, he says he's running the London Marathon. Leaving aside the impossibility of preparing for a 26 mile run in two weeks, this is a sweet, heartwarming movie. If you like that sort of thing. But it's not done as well here as it could be. And overall, this Pegg movie isn't crafted as well as his previous comedies.
The last British comedy I've seen is Death at a Funeral, starring Matthew McFadyen. While very funny in part, the one gross-out scene kind of ruined the whole movie for me. Which is too bad, since it has a great collection of intersecting plots and hilarious characters. And I have started to love Mr. McFadyen, who I last saw as Kiera Knightley's Mr. Darcy. He was the one thing in that Jane Austen re-make that worked. How did he manage to play cold Mr. Darcy and generate so much chemistry? Even little Kiera couldn't manage that. Her Elizabeth Bennett was petulant and immature.
The last thing I must mention is that after watching a few British movies, you get the feeling that there are only 35 actors in the whole UK. You see the same faces over and over. In Death at a Funeral, however, it was refreshing to see lots of new actors onscreen.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Local Anesthetic
Local Hero was recommended for years. A good friend told me several times that it was one of her favorite films. It was critically acclaimed, beautifully photographed, and dead boring. This was the kind of film that gave critics a bad name, before Mamet and Tarentino made moviegoers hate critics for new reasons. Yes, if you love Scottish travelogues, you may like this film. And it promises all kinds of bittersweet character development, but it never delivers.
Made in 1983, just as Hollywood was getting on the environmental soapbox, it portrays a monster oil company attempting to purchase a village on the Scottish coast to build an oil refinery. Unexpectedly, all the residents are delighted. I kind of thought this was going to be a David vs. Goliath contest, between hardy, honest fishermen and a big, bad corporation. Not at all - Burt Lancaster, supposedly the villain as the oil company CEO, is an eccentric engaged in alternative "insult" therapy and interested only in astronomy. He's first shown napping in a board meeting. Peter Riegert, sent to arrange the purchase from the villagers, plays along deftly and sincerely, slowly falling in love with this small, quiet village and its lovely views.
But it doesn't work. I'm no greenie, but even I would hate to see a picturesque fishing village spoiled by petroleum and chemical processing. Even in the early 1980's, surely the Scottish government would have had something to say about an international corporation building a major refinery along 3 miles of its pristine coastline. And then there's the seals. Nearby, there's a bay for endangered seals. Are you trying to tell me there wouldn't have noise from the local treehuggers and biologists about the seals?
I guess I could get happy about the reality of the Scottish fishermen and villagers in this film: they're dreadfully poor, and very happy about the millions they're about to receive. They're going to move elsewhere, and don't seem to care that their beautiful village will soon be a poisonous oil refinery.
Made in 1983, just as Hollywood was getting on the environmental soapbox, it portrays a monster oil company attempting to purchase a village on the Scottish coast to build an oil refinery. Unexpectedly, all the residents are delighted. I kind of thought this was going to be a David vs. Goliath contest, between hardy, honest fishermen and a big, bad corporation. Not at all - Burt Lancaster, supposedly the villain as the oil company CEO, is an eccentric engaged in alternative "insult" therapy and interested only in astronomy. He's first shown napping in a board meeting. Peter Riegert, sent to arrange the purchase from the villagers, plays along deftly and sincerely, slowly falling in love with this small, quiet village and its lovely views.
But it doesn't work. I'm no greenie, but even I would hate to see a picturesque fishing village spoiled by petroleum and chemical processing. Even in the early 1980's, surely the Scottish government would have had something to say about an international corporation building a major refinery along 3 miles of its pristine coastline. And then there's the seals. Nearby, there's a bay for endangered seals. Are you trying to tell me there wouldn't have noise from the local treehuggers and biologists about the seals?
I guess I could get happy about the reality of the Scottish fishermen and villagers in this film: they're dreadfully poor, and very happy about the millions they're about to receive. They're going to move elsewhere, and don't seem to care that their beautiful village will soon be a poisonous oil refinery.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Don't Convert
Lots of chat out there about the new converter box you will need to watch TV if you don't have cable. Even though I am a TV/movie junkie, I haven't had cable in about 10 years. Who needs it? Anything I've ever wanted to see was easy to get without spending money to have 300 channels, 275 of them being sports and assorted other garbage.
What with episodes on-line, all kinds of shows being released in DVD sets, and home delivery movies, all your entertainment needs can be met. I fell in love with the original Office, the British one, when I was given the DVD set as a gift. And in recent years, if you have a fast internet connection (like DSL), you can see most things on-line. I was dying to see the new French & Saunders sitcom Clatterford (or Jam & Jerusalem in the UK). Found some episodes on youtube. Found the rest of them at Netflix (my favorite!). You can even get TV and movie podcasts, although the laptop is as small as I want to go.
So who needs a converter box? Who needs cable? Ditch them both!
What with episodes on-line, all kinds of shows being released in DVD sets, and home delivery movies, all your entertainment needs can be met. I fell in love with the original Office, the British one, when I was given the DVD set as a gift. And in recent years, if you have a fast internet connection (like DSL), you can see most things on-line. I was dying to see the new French & Saunders sitcom Clatterford (or Jam & Jerusalem in the UK). Found some episodes on youtube. Found the rest of them at Netflix (my favorite!). You can even get TV and movie podcasts, although the laptop is as small as I want to go.
So who needs a converter box? Who needs cable? Ditch them both!
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