Salmon Fishing in the Yemen

Hubby and I saw "Salmon Fishing in the Yemen" last night. It stars Ewan McGregor, Emily Blunt and Kristin Scott Thomas (who was superb), and is a lovely little movie for a date night if you don't examine the plot too closely. It's a very chaste movie, too--only one f-bomb is dropped, and I think there's only one extended makeout session, one scene of rather pathetic marital relations, and one hot bout of first-time ex. But there is a lot of witty dialogue and fine acting. So check it out.

Micro-Mini Movie Review: The Women

The. Worst. Movie. Ever.

Read Anthony Lane's review in The New Yorker until I calm down enough to write mine.

Cinequest 18: A conversation with Michael Arndt.

I can't believe it's taken me three days to post this, but that's life with a full-time job and a toddler. Anyway, Friday came close to my idea of a perfect day: I spent it talking about movies at Cinequest's Day of the Writer event. If they had tossed in free martinis and a shoulder rub, I would have achieved Nirvana.

The mega-fabulous Jens Michael Hussey, Cinequest's Director of PR, invited me to lunch with some of the speakers. (Full disclosure: I used to volunteer for Cinequest in the PR department. So it wasn't just my wit and charm that got me invited.) Jens, bless his heart, introduced me to the day's guest of honor: Michael Arndt, who won the Academy Award in 2006 for Best Original Screenplay for "Little Miss Sunshine" and is now working at Pixar on "Toy Story 3."

I'd like to report that success has gone to his head and made him an insufferably arrogant Hollywood a-hole, but I can't. He's really nice, friendly, humble guy. When I told him how much I'd enjoyed "Little Miss Sunshine," his response was, "I was really lucky." Then he went on to talk about the great cast and crew. Then he graciously inscribed the copy of Little Miss Sunshine: The Shooting Script that I'd tucked into my purse. Basically, I wanted to hug him.

Later in the afternoon, Arndt did an interview with Richard Walter (who chairs UCLA's graduate screenwriting program) at the San Jose Repertory Theater and received Cinequest's Maverick Spirit Award. Here are my notes, as least as far as I can decipher:

On how he started out: "I originally wanted to go to film school. I ended up working as a script reader for studios like Fox and Columbia...I wrote a bunch of edgy, dark scripts that didn't go anywhere. Then I decided to do the exact opposite: a script where people would go insane with happiness."

On the idea for "Little Miss Sunshine": "I happened to see a beauty contest on TV with little girls. I thought, what if one of the contestants was this fat little girl?"

On how his life has changed since winning an Oscar: "'Little Miss Sunshine' didn't get made for a long time. By the time it won the Oscar, I was working on staff at Pixar. I went back to work the next day [after the Academy Awards] and it was like, 'That's nice.' At Pixar, no one gives a shit if you won an Oscar. It's Pixar. But it's like working at Disneyland. I was so used to working alone."

On his writing habits: "Now that I'm working at Pixar, I go into an office in the morning and write all day. But when I'm home in Brooklyn, I wake up around 11, go get coffee, goof around, and when there's nothing else to do, I'll start writing. I can work about four or five hours before I'm ready to jump out the window. I'm not someone who believes you have to write every day. A lot of writing is sitting in a room solving problems and coming up with ideas. It's subterranean work."

On how he wrote "Little Miss Sunshine": "I resisted it. I thought it was too small. Then I saw an anime feature called 'My Neighbors the Yamadas." I realized that every family has a story. I wrote 'Little Miss Sunshine in Three Days.' [Three days? Three days? I almost feel out of my chair.] But I had spent five years thinking about the story. So I would just wake up and start writing."

On why "Little Miss Sunshine" worked while his previous scripts didn't: "Previously, I'd start with an idea of a story and the characters were just to fit that idea. But with 'Little Miss Sunshine,' I saw the characters first, and the story evolved. Once they start talking to each other, I just started hearing their voices in your head. And that tells you what they'll do."

On writing comedy: "In comedy, you set up absurd situations, and the more rational the character acts, the funnier it is. Like when the emcee asks Olive where her grandfather is, and she says 'In the trunk'...If you have a distinctive voice, you'll succeed in comedy. Diablo Cody [the screenwriter for "Juno"] has work for the next three years. With comedy, the writer is in control. Action movie writers are a dime a dozen. Comedies are also cheaper to make!"

And speaking of Diablo Cody: "I'm last year's Diablo Cody. It's amazing that the Academy has honored first-time writers two years in a row, and it's exciting that a low-budget, female-centric story can do so well. I'm a great fan of movies from the 1930s and 1940s, which had strong women. Female energy is great comic material. Comedy has become a boy's club, but in 'Juno,' the male characters are peripheral. The main relationships are among the women, and I hope that's a game-changer."

On the character of Duane: "Duane was especially close to me, probably because I read too much Nietzche when I was young. I thought it would be great to have a character take a vow of silence until he achieves a goal. Duane wants to take off and transcend his situation. He's a prisoner in his own home. I'm in love with characters who have a lunar sense of alienation."

On "Little Miss Sunshine"'s alternate ending, available on the DVD, where the family steals the trophy and hightails it out of the pageant: "That came from the mind of Abigail Breslin. It was shot in one take, because that's all we had money for. The original ending hadn't been working. I had eight different drafts of it." But the ending that they finally used "was an example of finally trusting your instincts. The meaning of the story was revealed in the climax. In this case, procrastination really was my friend."

On determination: "I didn't give up. I wrote 10 screenplays, and none of them went anywhere. I didn't have a Plan B. In the end, writing has to be its own reward. Writing is taking an active stance toward life. By writing, you're finding out how you think."

Why doesn't he write novels? "Good novelists see more deeply into life. Screenwriting is about action. Film can't compete with fiction's sense of interiority. Fiction seems like the deep end of the pool, and I'm a shallow guy." [Editor's note: Hardly. I've met shallow guys, and Michael, you are no shallow guy.]

But of all the things Arndt talked about, what really stuck with me were his comments about authenticity in writing. "Emotion is the final frontier," he said. "Honest emotion is the best special effect." (Think about that next time you're forced to watch "Transformers: The IMAX Experience.")

When they stopped the Q&A to give Arndt the Cinequest Maverick Spirit Award, I couldn't believe that 90 minutes had passed.

But I can't forget to tell you the joke with which Richard Walter ended the event.

"How many screenwriters does it take to screw in a light bulb?"
"Change??"

Heath Ledger, R.I.P.

I don't know why the news of Heath Ledger's death at the age of 28 is making me so sad.

Maybe it's because he had a daughter about my son's age. Maybe because he was such an incredible actor. Maybe because he seemed like a decent person. His daughter should have had the chance to grow up with him in her life.

Lately, I've been grieving over the deaths of strangers more acutely, but this death, of such a talented person, at such a young age, really gets to me.

Mini-Mini-Movie Review: Transformers

Worst. Movie. Ever.

No, I did not rent this turkey on purpose. I gave my husband his own NetFlix queue, and "Transformers" is how he repays me. He now owes me a month of foreign films and chick flicks.

For a much more cogent review, head over to Great White Snark.

Mini-Movie Review: Syriana

Well, it's official. I can no longer see any movie where a child is harmed. I mean, I knew that something bad happened to a kid in "Syriana," but I figured I could handle it. I couldn't.

Let's just say that my son will never be allowed to attend pool parties at the homes of Saudi Arabian princes. (Fortunately, there isn't much chance of that happening.)

Anyway, back to the movie. It deserves a long, more thoughtful review than the one I'm about to give it. It's an ambitious work of storytelling, weaving together multiple threads in a tale about the CIA, oil, Islamist terrorists and Saudi Arabian princes. And of course, all the bad things that the United States government is doing in the Middle East, all in the name of oil. It really makes you want to go out and buy the first Prius you see. The director is Stephen Gaghan, who also helmed the very fine "Traffic." Ensemble casts and dense plot lines seem to be his stock in trade.

"Syriana" probably could have been a very satisfying six-hour miniseries. I'm embarrassed to say that found myself struggling to follow it, and I'm usually a pretty careful viewer. I would watch it again...but there's that "bad things happen to kid(s)" problem.

Of course, my inability to completely follow the plot may have been due to the fact that I was mightily distracted by George Clooney. I usually am, but in this film, I was a bit discomfited (and impressed) by his 35-pound weight gain. He certainly deserved the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his subtle, heartbreaking performance as CIA operative Bob Barnes. I would have also given him the Directing Oscar for the stunningly great "Good Night, and Good Luck," but then, I'd give him an Oscar just for being George Clooney.

See "Syriana," and let me know what you think. But if you're a parent, you might just want to skip the pool party sequence. (Note: Big spoiler ahead.)

Not to mention the convoy-in-the-desert scene at the end of the film. What is it with these directors? Don't they have kids? And why does the death of the prince's two small children, whose seem to function as collateral damage, seem to hold less cinematic weight (their death comes almost at the end of the movie) than the death of the son of Matt Damon's character?

Wait, I think I can answer that. I just don't want to.

(Photo courtesy of spcoon.)

Mini-Movie Review: Sin City

My husband rented "Sin City" on NetFlix. I'll sum it up in one word: Vile. And that's just the writing.

This movie is Exhibit A in why the NC-17 rating should be applied more liberally to violent movies. It seems that because this movie was "cartoonish," the gore and sadism was OK.

While it's pretty trite to say that there should be less violence in movies, I'm going to go one step further. There should be more sex in movies. (More good sex, that is.) And less violence.

"Michael Clayton" opens today. Huzzah!

The week is not lost. George Clooney's new move, "Michael Clayton," opens today.

Manohla Dargis gave it a glowing review in The New York Times. So did David Denby in The New Yorker. Like I need someone else to tell me to go see a George Clooney movie.

In other news about all things Clooney, Brad Pitt suggested that George should run for president.

About the new kid in town.

My friend Peggy described Sparky as my "late transfer in."

"It's like the guy who joins your classroom after the semester has started because his family just moved to town," she said.

I'm just hoping the new guy will end up being class valedictorian, prom king and the quarterback of the football team.

My life is turning into the mid-life version of a John Hughes movie. Fabulous.

Movie Review: The Holiday

After a steady diet of heavy, meaningful movies like "Little Children" and "Volver," I decided I needed more lighthearted fare. So I NetFlixed "The Holiday." The previews made it look like fun, mindless entertainment: Two women swap houses for the Christmas holiday. One (Cameron Diaz) gets a charming English cottage; the other (Kate Winslet) gets an incredible L.A. mansion. And the movie has a solid cast: Kate Winslet, mega-biscuit Jude Law, Jack Black, Edward Burns and semi-biscuit Rufus Sewell. And Cameron Diaz. Who destroys the film.

You know, I've never felt that strongly one way or another about Miss Diaz. She's always seemed kind of innocuous, like a big Labrador Retriever puppy: cute, gangly, and fun to hang out with. She upstaged Julia Roberts in "My Best Friend's Wedding." She did more-than-solid comedic work in "There's Something About Mary." And, most notably, she was great in "Being John Malkovich"--in part for her completely willingness to let herself be made up to look totally frumpy. (We won't mention the "Charlie's Angels" films. I won't even link to them. Sure, I've only seen bits of those travesties, but I resent the moments of my life that I lost watching them.)

So imagine my surprise and disappointment to see her suck absolutely all of the life out of "The Holiday." She didn't deliver a single believable line reading. Not one. Maybe it wasn't her fault: she was totally miscast as Amanda, the uptight owner of a movie trailer production company.

Fortunately, her scenes are saved by the fact that she gets to play most of them opposite the utterly tasty Jude Law, who--in addition to being photographed mostly in golden tones that filled me with rather unholy emotions--manages to make you believe that 1) he's in love with the annoying Amanda and 2) he's a nice guy, despite what you've read in the tabloids about his fondness for his kids' nannies.

For example. His character Graham (Iris' brother) tells us that he cries at the drop of a hat...whereas Amanda can't cry at all. Oooh. Irony. Whatever. I cried when I saw Diaz wearing a bra in one of her sex scenes with Law. Who wears a bra when they're in bed with Jude Law? Even Kate Winslet let us see her boobs in "Little Children," because she knows that women don't have sex wearing underwire. (The following photo isn't that scene. But it shows Jude being all sheepish and adorable and hoping that we'll remember him for his other, better movies.)


(Photo courtesy of 楊曼妮的閒晃世界Mani Yang's lounging world. Some rights reserved.)

Luckily, the movie has Kate Winslet, who seems as incapable of turning in a bad performance as Diaz seems unable to stop mugging. As Iris, the lovesick writer of a wedding column for the Daily Telegraph, Winslet easily has you rooting for her to dump Jasper (Rufus Sewell), the object of her unrequited love, in favor of Miles, played by the strangely subdued Jack Black. Black plays his scenes as if he can't quite believe the script isn't giving him a chance to improvise.

For my tastes, director Nancy Meyers (of "Something's Gotta Give" and "What Women Want") should have cut down the subplot about Iris befriending an aging old-studio Hollywood screenwriter (Eli Wallach), but she seems to want to use this B-story to comment on "what's happened to the movies." Her own being Exhibit A.

Seriously. What happened to the romantic comedy genre? Is it just totally dead? I think it's been replaced by movies like Judd Apatow's truly funny "Knocked Up," which, in all its R-rated glory, manages to convey how relationships really are: messy, off-color and full of all sorts of unacceptable emotions and bodily fluids.

In "The Holiday," Nancy Meyers doesn't seem to want her characters to get their hands (or their emotions) dirty. The movie may be glossy fun, but it's deeply dishonest. It left me feeling like I'd just eaten a Safeway peach: beautiful on the outside, but tasteless and dry once you bite into it.

Movie review: Shortbus

"Shortbus" is a funny, painfully honest look at the sexual lives and relationships of a group of New Yorkers, gay and straight, who meet in the infamous underground salon Shortbus. The acting is a little uneven, but the actors are so open and likable (and daring) that you forgive them, and come to care about them. In the end, this isn't a movie so much about sex as it is about isolation, loneliness, and people's attempts to connect.

Note #1: Be warned, this is so NOT a first-date movie. You'll see full-frontal nudity, male and female, and a variety of unsimulated (and often amazingly gymnastic) sexual antics. All within the first 5 minutes.

Note 2: Despite note #1, the nudity and sex aren't necessarily erotic. That's according to my husband, who could barely tear his eyes away from the PowerPoint presentation he was working on.

So much for my attempt to NetFlix a movie that would a) appeal to my interest in art-house movies and sex while b) appealing to my husband at the same time. ("Honey! It's about sex! There are naked people having sex! Look!")

Once again, the question: What's the difference between erotic, and pornographic? I just wish there were more movies like this--that dealt openly with sex, without the soft-focus titillation of most Hollywood efforts. I'm also wondering why a movie like this has to released unrated, while splatter porn like "Hostel 2" gets an R. But that's a topic for another post.

(Photo courtesy of idealterna.)

O happy day.

"Ocean's Thirteen" opens today. Here's the glowing review from the New York Times.

Not that I'd let a review, positive or negative, keep me from George.

Movie Review: Volver, Part II

Well, I take back everything I said in my last post about Volver. I finally watched it through to the end. Maybe it was the wine, but I got kind of choked up at the end. I can't say that this film moves at the pace of oh, "Desperate Housewives," but it packs much more emotional resonance.

So don't listen to what I said before. I get cranky sometimes. Rent Volver and see for yourself.

Even if it's not your cup of tea, you still get to look at Penelope Cruz.

(Photo courtesy of Cinencuentro.)

Movie Review: Le Petit Lieutenant

I really wanted to like this movie, especially since I figured its premise--guns! cops! murder!--would get hubby to admit that for once, I had added a good film to our NetFlix queue. Even if it did have subtitles.

Alas, my movie-picking abilities failed me. While well-acted, Le Petit Lieutenant suffers from glacial pacing and a plot twist halfway through that had both of us tilting our heads and saying "Wuuuhhh-at?" And not in a good way.

One reason to see this movie is for Nathalie Baye's performance, which stayed with me for days. Baye can say more with one glance than most American actresses can say in a two-hour movie. She was great in An Affair of Love, (or, in the original French, the way more interesting Une liaison pornographique).

So rent Le Petit Lieutenant to watch Baye, one of the great French actresses. Just don't expect "CSI" (despite one very grisly morgue scene) or "Law & Order." And if you can explain the end to me, I'd really appreciate it.

(Photo courtesy of ladconcord)

Now THAT's a mom.

No self-respecting blog on motherhood would be complete without this testament to a mother's love for her child: a Star Wars birthday cake.

Get the full story, including "making of" pictures, at Great White Snark.

Movie Review: Little Children

Blog theme trifecta: a movie about both sex and motherhood.

Not to mention the suburban horrors of your local playground at 10:30am (hint: it's Mean Girls, fast forwarded 20 years).

I can't say that I enjoyed Little Children while I was watching it (except for the sex scenes, which were way too short, IHMO). But in the days since I saw it, I can't stop thinking about it. I could have done without that voiceover, but that's a quibble.

This is an insightful, disturbing portrayal of infidelity, maturity (or the lack thereof), and the horrors of suburban life.

Volver, Part I

Thoughts while watching Volver, while drinking a glass of wine.

I wish I lived in Spain.

No woman should wear a plaid skirt. Even Penelope Cruz.

However, I do wonder: Why can't I have breasts like Penelope Cruz?

OK, Penelope Cruz is supposed to look like Sophia Loren. I get it. Now can someone fix her hair? My father loved Sophia Loren.

While I like the characters in it, this movie is really slow. I don't think I'm supposed to think that. I'm supposed to think it's Incredible and Meaningful. And Touching.

What do the windmills mean?

My husband just walked in. "Is this where she's pregnant?"
"Penelope Cruz is pregnant?"
"Oh, maybe not. I guess it's Salma Hayek."
"Salma Hayek is pregnant? By whom?"
"I don't know. Google it."
Men are so useless. I did Google it. Salma Hayek is pregnant, and engaged to some French bazillionnaire. In fact, she's as big as a house. Seriously. More power to her. But where have I been? How could I have missed this?

Oh my God. Penelope Cruz is peeing. I mean, her character is peeing.

Back to Volver. Oh, shit. Penelope Cruz can sing, too. Life is so unfair.

Her dead mother has come back from the dead, halfway through the movie.

God, I'm tired. I'm going to bed. I'll watch the rest later. (Note: If I can stand to stop a movie halfway through, it is Not A Good Sign.)

The Last King of Scotland.

We watched The Last King of Scotland last night. It's the story of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin (Forest Whitaker), as seen through the eyes of his (fictional) personal doctor, Nicholas Garrigan (James McAvoy). Forest Whitaker completely deserved his Oscar for the role. Completely. No question. It's no wonder that he won a whole slew of awards.

Rent the DVD and watch the special features, especially the one where the producers talk about how they almost didn't cast Whitaker, whom they considered a great actor but a "gentle giant." But he told them he had "a little bit of Idi Amin" in him, and proceeded to give an audition in which he completely scared the shit out of the poor director, Kevin Macdonald.

Then watch footage of the real Amin, and try not to get the chills.

Whitaker nails Amin, who was charming one minute and then utterly insane the next, not unlike some Silicon Valley executives I know. Makes you glad that some of these people don't have access to a militia.

Mini-review: Children of Men.

Just finished watching "Children of Men." Out of 5 stars, I give this movie 6.

I'm kicking myself--or would be, if I were actually working out--for not seeing it in a theater. But in my defense, I have a good excuse. I'm not particularly anxious to see movies about infertility, because, well, I'm living that particular hell.

Now that I've seen the movie, I have one word for myself: Wimp. The movie's not about one infertile person. It's not even really about infertility. (Thank God, because that would involve charts and ovulation predictor kits and drugs and shots and scheduled sex and a host of other really unerotic things.) In "Children of Men," the whole human race is infertile, and has been for almost two decades. This is not good news for Gymboree or Baby Gap.

I can't even remember which film won Best Picture in this year's Oscars, but I can't stop thinking about "Children of Men." An incredible piece of film making, cinematography, acting, everything.

Oh, and it stars mega-biscuit Clive Owen, which in itself is enough to catapult it to the top of my list.

Daniel Craig is hot, hot, hot.

We finished watching "Casino Royale" tonight. Frankly, Daniel Craig could read the phone book and I'd still need a drool bucket.

But don't worry, George Clooney. My heart still belongs to you.