Take Care - A Film Review

Take Care is a 2014 romantic comedy written and directed by Liz Tuccillo, and starring Leslie Bibb and Thomas Sadoski. The film is a charming and offbeat romantic comedy, about a fairly simple story about an injured woman who gets her ex-boyfriend to care for her out of payback for her nursing him during his cancer.

Frannie (Bibb) is a woman who is recovering after getting hit by a car, with a broken right arm and left leg. She is house-bound, stuck in a fourth-floor walk-up, and while she has her friend and sister for occasional help, she is often struggling on her own to make a meal, go to the bathroom, or just get around her home in general. She says of her friends’ appearances to help, “Sure, here and there, when they can fit me in. But I’m not anyone’s priority.” She can be childish, and is described as “dramatic” by her ex-boyfriend, but Bibb is likable and charming in her performance, so that overrides the immaturity of the character.

Frannie often feels lonely in her home and needs more consistent help, so she resorts to contacting her ex-boyfriend, who her friends have called “The Devil” for dumping her after Frannie took care of him for two years while he had colon cancer.  Thomas Sadoski as Devon delivers a good performance, but Devon is an unlikeable character like Frannie. He is bland and dull, and often has a wishy-washy attitude when it comes to both Frannie and his jealous girlfriend Jodi (Betty Gilpin). While he knows that he “owes” Frannie for what she did for him, he often seems awkward and unsure of himself throughout the movie, and doesn’t have much of an attractive personality to justify why either woman would be interested in him.

Through this arrangement, Devon regularly comes to Frannie’s apartment to buy her groceries (he had recently gotten $6 million for a software deal with Yahoo), cook her dinner, take her to the doctor, wash her hair, and spend time with her watching T.V. Her favorite show is Law & Order, and there is a fun running joke with Frannie and the reruns. “I can see the murder in the first minute and I know who did it . . . it calms me somehow.” Those moments are some of the highlights of the film, which has an otherwise thin script.

There is an entertaining subplot with Frannie’s neighbor, a guy who blasts dance music in his apartment and does CrossFit. He often is dragged into Frannie’s life, whether it is carrying her up the stairs or her making him come over to make a sandwich for her, and so forth. He is a normal guy who wants to be left alone, and doesn’t want anything to do with her problems. “When someone asks me to do them a favor, it feels like they’re sucking air out of my lungs, like they’re trying to steal my life.” His aggravation with Frannie’s self-involved drama is often a funny diversion from the main plot, and showing an entirely different life outside of Frannie’s world.

Jodi is often made the villain of the film, and her jealousy and own neediness often makes her more of a caricature, rather than a woman who has every right to be uncomfortable with her boyfriend spending a lot of private time nursing his ex-girlfriend back to health. Gilpin delivers a good performance, but her character is definitely made to be over-the-top in her whininess.

The movie is light and fun to watch, mostly because Bibb and Sadoski has a nice chemistry together as exes and burgeoning cordial friends. Even though the outcome of their relationship is predictable, the scenes where they are bonding over his cooking and her love of Law & Order are warm and nice to watch, like seeing old friends reconnecting. It is a movie that would work as a one-hour play, as most of the action takes place in Frannie’s apartment, and the actors seem mostly suited to working in theater and television. It is a nice movie, not great, but pleasant to watch for an offbeat romantic comedy.

Mistress America - A Film Review

Mistress America is a 2015 comedy-drama directed by Noah Baumbach. It stars Greta Gerwig, Lola Kirke. It is about the friendship between two soon-to-be stepsisters, one who is a sheltered college freshman (Kirke), and the other an older charismatic party girl (Gerwig). I haven’t liked Noah Baumbach's movies (both Kicking and Screaming for its pretentiousness and Margot and the Wedding for its depressing mood), but I thought a comedy would be different, and it wasn't.

Tracy (Kirke) is beginning her freshman year at Barnard in NYC, and is having a hard time adjusting to living away from home (New Jersey) for the first time, as well as making new friends. She has awkward fumblings with her classmates during group discussions; submits her story to the school literary society and scampers away like a scared kid when spotted dropping her story in the submission box (only to be later rejected as a candidate); begins a charming and blossoming relationship with a classmate(Shear), but is disappointed when he begins dating someone else; and eats alone at lunch, putting both a slice of pizza and a bowl of cereal on her tray, and avoiding sweets in order to fit in with her elite peers.

To combat her loneliness, she takes her mother’s advice and calls her soon-to-be stepsister Brooke (Gerwig) (after scrolling through a list of contacts on her iPhone with a broken screen), who is 31 and lives in the city. Brooke is a whirlwind of big-city chicness, a bon vivant Holly Golightly type who lives in a studio space in Times Square, sings in a band, hobknobs at parties, teaches spinning classes, and speaks of her romantic visions of what NYC should be, all while frequently talking about herself in one breath and captivating the starry-eyed Tracy, who takes notes and writes a story entitled “Mistress America,” starring a carefree and glamorous heroine based on Brooke.

Brooke was an obnoxious character to watch. Gerwig delivered a good performance, but she didn’t have the charm to pull off this selfish and bubble-headed bon vivant. Her character constantly talked at a busy pace that was irritating, like she wouldn't take a breath and let others speak, and she was grossly narcissistic and immature, especially in her 30s, which was pathetic. Although there is a revealing moment where Brooke shows emotional vulnerability while talking to her dad on the phone, it is a brief moment before she returns to her exasperating self.

In addition, there is an awkward and uncomfortable scene where Brooke is confronted in a bar by a former high school classmate who had been bullied by Brooke, and to see Brooke frequently dismissing the former classmate by innocently claiming she didn’t know her and insulting her for still being upset about this bullying was maddening to watch, as Brooke seemed entirely selfish to the point of not having empathy for anyone else and living inside of her own self-made bubble to protect herself from hurt.

Lola Kirke’s performance as Tracy was one of the most realistic in the film, and it was wonderful to see her character gain confidence in herself throughout the film and slowly realize that she is much smarter and much more together than anyone else in the room. Kirke previously excelled in playing a small but memorable role in Gone Girl as a thief, and was virtually unrecognizable in this film. So that is a testament to her versatile acting ability that she succeeded at playing both a college freshman seeing Brooke’s world through rose-colored eyes and a street-smart Louisiana thief who figures out Amy’s deceptive personality much more quickly than others. Tracy was a very identifiable character for anyone who has been a college freshman, for when she was feeling lost at school and trying to navigate the social scene and missing home, those were some of the most honest parts of the film.

The story escalates when Brooke, who dreams of opening a restaurant that is a trendy neighborhood hangout called Mom’s (“So that people can say, ‘Let’s go have dinner at ‘Mom’s’”), goes to Greenwich, CT to take care of unfinished business, namely to confront her former friend and her husband over a money dispute, and along with Brooke comes Tracy and her classroom crush and his insanely jealous girlfriend (Jasmine Cephas Jones), who arrive at the house, and the screwball comedy antics begins. People are coming in and out of rooms, doing callbacks to earlier lines, there are misunderstandings, and old issues from the past are dredged up. The sequence is an obvious attempt at screwball comedy, but the execution felt rushed and hammy, as if the characters knew what kind of movie they were in. It felt very fake and predictable, and got old and tiring to watch very quickly, especially since very few of the characters were interesting or had depth to them.

However, an enjoyable highlight of the film was the soundtrack by Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips. It sounded like authentic 80's synth-pop, but it was original music composed by them, and it added a special quality to the film, like romantic and happy and excitement over new adventures.

The film has mixed qualities. Baumbach has an eye for talented actors, comedic one-liners, and self-aware depictions of urban and upscale creative types. But the attempt at screwball comedy by both him and Gerwig came across as heavy-handed and obvious, and did not flow as naturally as it did in the films that they said was their inspiration, After Hours and Something Wild. The film is just under 90 minutes, but the premise and characters wear out their welcome within the first hour, and it gets tedious to watch from then on.

Short Thoughts on Magic Mike: XXL

Magic Mike: XXL was a lot of fun to watch. It cut out the melodrama from the first movie, got rid of Matthew McConaughey's creepy self, and put the focus on a group of friends taking a road trip to dance at a stripper convention, with awesome dance sequences along the way. Jada Pinkett Smith was really good as the emcee friend of Mike's, and I was happy to see more talented dancers added in, like Twitch and NYC voguers. And a woman choreographed the dances, which I was surprised but happy to see.

I could have done without the stripper dances by Kevin Nash and Michael Strahan, those were just creepy to watch. But everything else was good, and Joe Manganiello was surprisingly really funny in this. Tatum's dance scene early on was like a Flashdance/Footloose homage with a reprise of "Pony," it was awesome. I was happy to see a fun dance movie that cut unnecessary crap out of the way and reveled in itself.

Short Thoughts on The Angriest Man in Brooklyn

Last month, I watched The Angriest Man in Brooklyn, and missed Robin Williams. Besides his stellar career in standup and Hollywood films, he was really good in indie dark comedies, like this one and World's Greatest Dad. He could downplay his star self to play ordinary characters in offbeat, smaller films, and really was a unique talent in standup and comedic and dramatic films. It wasn't a major story, more about appreciating life while getting to be angry about death at the same time. It was enjoyable and touching and interesting.

Short Thoughts on Beginners

I really enjoyed watching Beginners last month. I thought it was a really good film about starting over in life, dealing with life changes, forming new relationships, and re-examining one's attitude in life. It just struck me as a special film and very touching and moving. It starred Christopher Plummer, Ewan McGregor, Melanie Laurent, and a cute little dog. Bonus: my uncle Mike had a small part in the film as a priest.

My Most Influential Movies Growing Up

• Pee-Wee's Big Adventure (it introduced me to absurd humor, and I loved the variety of characters during Pee-Wee's quest to get his bike back)
• The Professional (it was the first "adult" movie I had seen when I was 12, and I thought the dialogue was fascinating, and I fell for the lead characters and their complexity)
• Angus (one of the most real movies about high school that I have seen)
• Beauty and the Beast (gorgeous animation, beautiful songs, and a female lead who is bookish and brave and smart)
• Big (it made me want to grow up and join the adult world)
• Clueless (sharp, funny dialogue that was quotable to me as a kid)
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie (it was one of the first "dark, gritty" movies I had seen, and it made me love movies in that style, as well as appreciating the maturity in the story when I was 7).

Until the End of the World and The Unbelievable Truth - Film Reviews

This past weekend, I enjoyed seeing two movie screenings for free.

One was a press screening of the Director's Cut of Wim Wenders' Until the End of the World, his 1991 sci-fi road trip epic. The theatrical version was nearly three hours long, but Wenders didn't like that version, calling it the "Reader's Digest" version. So in 1994, he released his five-hour version, with more extended scenes, more background on the characters, more comedic moments, etc. even with an intermission, it was long as hell to watch, but excellent. It was like a miniseries edited as one long movie. I could see why some parts were cut out (scenes that do not have to with the major plot, exposition scenes, silly comic scenes), but I still loved it, and think it is an amazing movie. Plus, the soundtrack is spectacular. smile emoticon

The other movie I saw was at BAM, from 1989, called The Unbelievable Truth, starring Adrienne Shelly and Robert John Burke, and directed by Hal Hartley. It is about a morbid teen girl and an ex-con who find kinship with each other in a close-knit working class Long Island town. I really liked it, and it was a lot funnier than I expected. It was a cool movie, with really good performances, and I was happy to see a really good indie movie from much maligned Long Island.