Category Archives: romance

Bogdanovich’s “She’s Funny That Way”

comedy, legend, movies, romance, , , ,
She's Funny That Way

She’s Funny That Way is a good movie, coming across sometimes funny and sometimes serious, but has a great cast that keeps the show on the road.

Directed by Peter Bogdanovich, who helmed such winners as Paper Moon and The Last Picture Show, does a fine job with this movie as it seeks an amicable ending.  Another favorite of mine, Wes Anderson, who directed such witty movies as The Grand Budapest Hotel and Fantastic Mr. Fox, is one of the many producers of this movie.

It starts off with a sit down interview with Izzy, played by Imogen Poots, who is a hooker-turned actress and now successful. She talks about her rise to stardom and her first Broadway role.  She reflects on the people involved in her breakout role, and the movie cuts to that time on Broadway, where they are thrown into a state of romantic uncertainty and confusion.

A salacious, but bleeding heart director, played convincingly by Owen Wilson, hires Izzy, a former hooker he solicited, now turned actress, to star alongside his wife, played humorously by Kathryn Hahn, and his wife’s ex-lover, played by Rhys Ifans. Playing on the outer edge of this confusion and adding a lot of hilarity are Jennifer Aniston, Cybil Sheppard and Will Forte. There are also numerous cameos, including Tatum O’Neal, Quentin Tarantino and Peter Bogdanovich himself.

The movie really gets fun when the director’s wife (Hahn) discovers his fetish for soliciting and then helping call girls. It comes to light when one of the more recent call girls he helped, Izzy, auditions for a role in the play he is directing. She does a fantastic reading because she is reading for a call girl, typecasting. A hilarious scene follows where his wife, who wants to get back at her husband, rehearses with the lead actor (Ifans) in a passionate love scene, and she makes real sexual advances toward him. The director tries to stay professional, as her husband is jealous. I was laughing at his reactions, so funny all the way through, and Wilson is hilarious.

Jennifer Aniston plays someone that I have never seen her play before, an unlikable character, so I was uncomfortable with it at first. She does a great job of being the typical psychologist who totally makes the patient feel inadequate and weak. Adding to that, in their face, telling them what is wrong with them. Aniston is great and funny.

There are so many good qualities in this movie. The reason I really enjoyed it is that the director, Peter Bogdanovich, brought together all these fine actors, some of whom I had worked with before. He is such a wonderful director, and I am delighted to see him working again.

“Christmas at the Cartwright’s” Charming Hallmark Movie

drama, family, holiday, movies, romance, television, , , , ,
christmascartwright

Like most Hallmark movies, Christmas at Cartwright’s is a charming holiday film that airs each year around Christmas. Cartwright’s is a fine example that Hallmark movies are innocuous, amusing and heartwarming to watch.

Directed by Graeme Campbell, the story follows Nicky Talbot, played by Alicia Witt, who is a single mother and, without prior notice, becomes unemployed.  With Christmas just around the corner, being without a job is going to be tough. Finding a way to earn money to give her daughter, Becky, played by T.J. McGibbon, an engaging and cheerful Christmas with a few gifts.

Nicky learns that a local department store, Cartwright’s, is hiring extra staff for the holiday shopping season. She applies for a position. Nicky is happy because it appears she will have a job, but Fiona Aldrich, played by Gabrielle Miller, a senior executive at the store, puts the kibosh on her plans and turns her down.  Fiona is jealous of Nicky because she has seen her with Fiona’s would-be boyfriend named Bill.  Gabriel Hogan plays Bill, who is the store manager.

Along comes Harry Osbourne, played by Wallace Shawn, who suggests Nicky work as the store Santa. That way, she can keep her identity hidden from the other workers.  We are talking Hallmark magic here on the storyline. It is a little unbelievable for a young woman playing an older man as Santa. It gets funny at times, but still hard to believe.

Christmas at Cartwright’s is a fun movie to watch with the whole family.  All the actors are great. Their roles are believable and engaging. The movie is timeless because it is like a fairy tale, where you have to believe what is happening to get into the holiday magic. Like all fairy tales, the story is worth seeing again every Christmas.

Cusack and Dano Play Brian Wilson in “Love & Mercy”

drama, legend, movies, music, romance, true story, , , , , , , , ,
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Love & Mercy delves into the part of the entertainment industry where evil people lurk. Such people control and manipulate the artist while feeding off the artist’s life force, creativity, energy force or whatever you want to call it. There are not a lot of these life suckers, but the few that are there can wreak havoc. This movie answers the questions of what happened to Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Robin Williams and so forth. Luckily, Brian Wilson meets a woman who has the tenacity to help him and save his life.

The movie, directed by Bill Pohlad, his second film as a director, takes a refreshing and almost clandestine approach to the story about Beach Boys co-founder and songwriter Brian Wilson. Two very talented actors play Wilson in different stages of his life. Paul Dano is the younger Brian. Here we see him with his cousin and a good friend; together, they launched the Beach Boys musical group in the early 1960’s. John Cusack is Brian in the 1980’s while under the control of his ingenious and vicious psychologist, Dr. Eugene Landy, played truthfully by Paul Giamatti.

The story flashes forward and back while twisting the lives of both the young Brian and the old Brian. Watching young Brian create memorable music, we see a whiz kid. He starts with “surfer” music and moves to more complex studio-produced music. During this time, we hear some great music by the young Brian Wilson. He is a unique soul, creating hit song after hit song.

He did have problems to face, such as not wanting to fly in an airplane or being on the road with the Beach Boys. So, he refused to go on the road and instead worked in the studio. He also took popular recreational drugs at the time, which probably caused all his problems. Some may label him, while others would say he did have demons, but psychiatric treatment is not the answer.

Dano is great as the young Wilson. His performance captures Wilson and his various mood swings and eccentricities. Here, the viewer must not mistake this for mental illness. He is a genius while conversing about the mind and spirit. The older Wilson is constantly under the psychotherapy of Landy’s 24-hour surveillance and over-medication, and misdiagnosis. He blatantly manipulates Wilson, guising help with a colorized screen of undermining half-truths, invalidation and total lies.

The older Wilson decides he wants a new Cadillac and meets a saleswoman, and his champion, Melinda Ledbetter, played brilliantly by Elizabeth Banks. They fall for each other and begin dating, supervised by Landy and his associates. History will prove that Landy had other interests in Wilson besides his mental health, as Melinda touches on when she confronts the ill-intentioned psychologist.

At first, the flashbacks are a little annoying because the younger Wilson and the older Wilson are two very different people. After a while, it all makes sense. Both the young and old versions are hard to watch, yet Melinda proposes a breath of hope. And when she confronts Landy, I cheer her on. She does the right thing and doesn’t smack him in his demented face as he shrinks back from her absolutely determined smile. She saves Wilson and flourishes.

Blake Lively in “The Age of Adaline”

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ageadaline

The Age of Adaline appears to have everything a movie needs to be in order to be a really good movie, so it seems.  Two main elements are missing – a really good script and a seasoned director.  Nevertheless, it is the number one romance movie at Amazon as I write this review.  The wave of potential has carried over to On Demand, Blu-ray and DVD because of the astounding cast and cinematography.

The Age of Adaline tells the story of Adaline Bowman, played very well by Blake Lively (Gossip Girl). She is a woman born in 1906, and she looks like she is in her late twenties when we meet her in 2014. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you would know the big part of the story is that she will never age another day.

In a series of flashbacks, the movie narrates while showing how Adaline was given the baffling curse of never aging past the age she was at the time of the curse. The narration is where both the writer and the director made their big mistake. Any filmmaker will tell you to let the story unfold. Don’t tell us. Show us.  The imagery worked just fine, but the narration is used unnecessarily twice. The narration made it all seem so hokey. As if the director had to convince us that this transformation really happened to Adaline. The narration isn’t needed because her curse is so believable throughout the movie. It’s like a fairy tale. Lively is convincing, and her talent held my attention throughout the movie. Along with a very talented ensemble of co-stars kept me hoping for a better story.

What is fun about the movie is the story shifts through history with some hitches along the way. Adaline worries she will be recognized as a curiosity and is terrified that she will be used as a guinea pig for governmental experimentation.  Adaline decides to live on the run, changing identities and locations in a timely manner. Until she encounters Ellis Jones, played charmingly by Michiel Huisman, he is a man beguiled by her inscrutability and decides to woo her with her own medicine – history. He captures her heart, but not without a disquieting concern. It just so happens that another Jones family member, Ellis’ father (played by Harrison Ford), might have a stronger connection to Adaline than anyone knows.  Ford is great, as always, and I just love watching him in this movie.

Lively is gorgeous in personality and body.  Yet, while watching the movie, I kept feeling that she didn’t get along with the director, Lee Toland Krieger, or he didn’t know how to bring her over the top as the star of the movie and let the story be told. He just placed her in the scene, hoping something would happen.  What she did was fantastic. Kriegerm just didn’t know who to capture it. The reason I say this is that the seasoned actors like Harrison Ford were true to form. Kathy Baker and Ellen Burstyn had minor roles, but I had a great time watching them in the movie.  They knew what to do with an inept story and director.

Being number one on Amazon merits a mention, as the movie has its qualities. The overall story is engaging because of the concepts it explores, such as love at first sight, lasting love, growing old, becoming wiser, and finding old friends and family. They are magical, endearing through Adaline.

“Camilla Dickinson,” a Love Story

book, drama, history, indie, movies, romance, , , , , , ,
camilla

Camilla Dickinson caught my eye because my daughter enjoyed reading A Wrinkle in Time by the same author, Madeleine L’Engle, who authored Camilla, which the movie is based.

Co-written and directed by L’Engle’s goddaughter, Cornelia Duryée Moore, the movie is refreshing and a reminder that films can be simple and poignant without the box-office bonanza. We so often see movies encased with special effects and evil villains out to destroy the world – not the case with Moore’s feature film debut.

Moore was primed to direct this movie with a resume that includes quite a bit of writing, acting and theatrical familiarity. She even co-founded the Seattle Shakespeare Company.

Adelaide Clemens plays the daughter of an affluent family in 1948 Manhattan. At first, she seems shy and withdrawn because her mother, played by Samantha Mathis, is being romanced by a Frenchman. She can’t tell her dad, played by Cary Elwes, because he is stoic and feels his wife is too emotional and immature to confront the issue.

camilla2

Camilla meets her best friend’s brother, Frank, played by Gregg Sulkin. They begin an innocent courtship that is true enough to reinstate her trust in true love.  Like any story, complications crop up and keep the plot moving along, but never really hinder Camilla’s newfound independence.  Her independence is nurtured through Frank, his friends and music.  Camilla shares her desire to be an astronomer and study celestial bodies. Frank encourages her, and her confidence grows.

The whole cast is very good, but the movie is a bit too long and could use some trimming, especially where scenes start too soon and end too late. Still, I enjoyed the movie since it is a believable story of the 1950’s.

The period look is attractive and adds to the era’s story. It is an interesting tale, considering that the author, later in life, wrote wonderful, inspired stories with women as central characters.

“Serena” With Lawrence and Cooper

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serena

Directed by Danish filmmaker Susanne Bier, who is known for taking on big and complicated stories, took a wrong turn with Serena.  The movie is beautifully shot by Morten Søborg, but that is about as far as it goes, which makes this topic a little tough for me to write since I like to keep them positive.

Serena is a well-known book by Ron Rash and was adapted for the screen by Christopher Kyle. The movie has a stellar cast and a beautiful backdrop. Yet, the production company had the movie in the can and on the shelf for two years before it ever premiered in the movie theaters. A sure sign something is amiss. Yet, the book is very popular with rave reviews on Amazon.

I watched the movie, and it’s a hodgepodge of scenes that end terribly. I was left empty after spending nearly two hours watching a beautifully shot movie, only to care about the characters in a story not worth watching.

Skilled adaptation of a popular book is hard to find.

The story takes place around the time of the Great Depression, when we see classic automobiles and new empires being built from the bottom up by dedicated, hardworking individuals.

Jennifer Lawrence plays Serena, a beautiful and poignant young woman with a suspicious past involving her family’s Colorado lumber company. Bradley Cooper plays George Pemberton, a logging magnate in North Carolina’s Smoky Mountains.  The time is before the infamous 1929 stock market crash, which puts his ability to secure a loan in peril. He also has to ward off a humane push to turn his land into a national park. That much is clear, but Serena’s role in his life is not. Sure. They love each other dearly, but what is the real story that caused Rash’s book to be so popular? What was left out of the movie or not explained in the movie that caused it to sit on the shelf for 2 years?

Serena becomes Bradley’s wife and partner in his lumber company. She does a dam good job.  They both share the goal of moving to Brazil after cashing in on the Smoky Mountain timber.  One thing that I found ambiguous was Serena.  She is a remarkable woman who can outshoot and outride any man, but she is neurotic or borderline psychotic.  Her parents ran a logging company and were killed in a fire along with other members of the company. Serena was the sole survivor, and there is a hint that she had something to do with the tragic fire.

Another unclear point is where Rachel, the mother of George’s illegitimate son, is put on the run by George after she saves Rachel and his son from murder. She tells him she is going to meet up with Jacob, who will now take care of her.  Who is Jacob? How come we didn’t see her and Jacob together before this scene?

I wish Bier had made these plot points clear-cut.  At the end of the movie, Serena’s suspicion becomes somewhat clearer. Yet, it means nothing because I am bored. The story is confusing and has a sad ending.