Movie Round-up, part 1

I haven't posted about movies in a while because most of what I've been watching lately hasn't been all that noteworthy-- or at least, nothing's captured my attention, particularly. So, I'm gonna write a few little notes about what I have been seeing instead of a more in-depth post about each:

Starting with the worst of the worst, don't rent Ellie Parker. This is a vapid, self-involved little piece starring Naomi Watts-- whose charms are usually plenty to carry a film. It's about a struggling actress, driving through Los Angeles from audition to audition, puking blue icecream, fucking gay guys, busting her boyfriend having sex with some random chick, and generally behaving with a great deal of hysteria. Frankly, it's just boring. Honestly? I don't necessarily want to condemn a film about "the artist's struggle" offhand, but, really, what kind of commentary on Americana can a movie about the insular L.A. acting scene really offer? I don't care. I just don't. And the really unpleasant puking scene(s)... well, they really tested the limits of my already extreme vomit phobia.

Another boring piece is Duane Hopwood. I was attracted to this movie in the video store because it had Janeane Garofalo in it, and I guess I kinda have a crush on her. I just love her. But, it was really another movie about a hang-dog divorcee, here, in the form of a typically blank-eyed David Schwimmer. So, maybe this movie would have some resonance if that whole divorce-with-kids-and-crappy-job-and-an-alcohol-problem was part of my existence but as it is, it just felt like so much re-tread. And my lovely Janeane was unpleasingly platinum blonde and pretty haggard looking. This could work for her, were she given a proper venue for her usual barbs, but here, she was just aging backdrop. What a shame that she so rarely offers up her full potential.

I also watched an interesting triptych sort of movie called Eros. It's basically three little shorts directed, respectively, by Wong Kar Wai, Steven Soderbergh and Michaelangelo Antonioni. More or less, it's an excercise in the "male gaze." It's men watching women that they want to fuck but don't really know all that well. The Wong Kar Wai peice is about a tailor who falls in love w/ his client who happens to be a beautiful prostitute. She gives him an occasional handjob but she dies, alas, before he really has an opportunity to "possess" her. Soderbergh's piece is described as "droll" on the cover-- and it is. It's about a guy who is telling his shrink about the dreams he keeps having about watching a woman take a bath. He can't remember who the woman is when he wakes up but we learn at the end that she's actually his beautiful wife. And the Antonioni thing starts with a woman arguing with her boyfriend while topless and ends with a curious nude ballet duet number with this girl and another--mightily buxom--woman. So, I guess I was engaged and thought that the shorts were, really prettily shot and stuff. But there's only so much that I can enter into pieces in which the camera forms a barrier through which I can see these women, and admire their form, but can't move any closer to them. A pretty, though ultimately, unsatisfying experience.

I also caught a showing of P.S. on cable. I'd seen this movie before and really liked it, though I wished it had gone deeper. It's Laura Linney-- who I love because she's undeniably sexy and is never any less than a full-grown woman-- and Topher Grace-- who I love because he has the ease and humor of perpetual youth. Actually, I think Topher Grace is a smidge underrated, due to his sit-com resume. I think the kid's got a real future, once people begin to appreciate his unique on-screen sexual persona. But I digress. I like the particular diction of this script a lot. There's minimal need here to offer expository, even though it's very dialogue heavy. Most of the characters have a lifetime of history with each other and so, they speak as though they already know the story that the audience doesn't. It's nice to not be forcefed backstory, I think. But really, I like this movie, which has the potential to enter into corniness and sentimentality-- the basic, somewhat mystical, story is about a kid who enters this woman's life and winds up looking like, painting like and having the same name as her boyfriend who died when she was in high school-- because, in the end, it's rather no-frills. There's this great, very urgent sex scene--so urgent, in fact, that she doesn't remove anything but her underwear-- in which Linney actually, visibly comes. It's a great thing when women are alotted their fair share of such moments-- I see enough of women who just lie there, women who are more invested in getting men off than they are in reaping such benefits for themselves. It's tiresome. I get so SICK of movies in which women are presented as vehicles for male viewing pleasure, male tactile pleasure, male fantasies in general...agency! Agency, I demand it! Ugh, I'm digressing again. Another thing I find appealing about this movie is that this woman falls in love w/ a guy who's 20 years younger than she is-- and he falls in love w/ her too-- and it works out! Nothing tragic happens. No one freaks out about it-- they both seem to get what they need and the power dynamic isn't weirdly skewed. It's just nice. I mean, how many Madame Bavary-esque stories do we really need in which women must suffer and/or die for engaging in atypical, extramarital sexual relationships? And one more thing I like about it: Marcia Gay Harden. Enough said. However, the movie is short. When it was over, I just wanted more. I wanted to know more about what these two characters were destined to learn about each other. I can't imagine this would make a very interesting movie, but, you know, I'd really just like to watch these two characters hang out together-- you know, going to the movie rental store, going to Pier 1, folding towels, complimenting each others' new haircuts...these two just have such great chemistry together. Maybe I just want to be friends with them-- the characters, not the actors, I think. What a weird thing to say. OK, OK, so maybe this movie wormed its way past my usual lack of reverence for love stories... fine, fine, whatever...

I'm going to have to write about the rest in a future post. Too scattershot tonite.