Movie Review Black Los Angeles

BlackNLA Movie Reviews

*****THE REEL DEAL: Reviewz from the Street*****

by Edwardo Jackson

BIASES: late 20s black male; frustrated screenwriter who favors action, comedy, and glossy, big budget movies over indie flicks, kiddie flicks, and weepy Merchant Ivory fare

SUMMER MOVIE ROUNDUP

And it don't stop, and it don't quit...

THE NIGHT LISTENER (R) *opening 8/4
Biases: Heard it did alright on the festival circuit.
Players: Robin Williams, Toni Collette, Bobby Cannavale
Logline: Based on the novel by Armistead Maupin, "Listener" features latenight talk radio host Gabriel Noone (Williams) who, after developing a strong phone relationship with a young caller named Pete (Rory Culkin) just as his own life is falling apart, goes on a wild goose chase to see if the damaged Pete really exists, or if he's just a product of the manipulations of his adopted mother Donna (Collette).

The Deal: Uh oh - Robin Williams' got a beard: he must be serious now. So serious that this slow, dour, talky little indie exchanges moments of mood for outright boredom. Thanks to fine support by burgeoning indie vet Cannavale (TV's "Will & Grace") and Sandra Oh playing skeptic (but not acerbic like her "Grey's Anatomy" Cristina), we don't lose complete interest in the sad deteriorations of Gabriel's personal life. Normally dependable Collette, who is so sturdy and durable an
actress she is quickly becoming the Meryl Streep of her generation (sans all the awards), is, well, sturdy and dependable, not sensational. The same can be said of this production overall. It has moments of mystery and ruse, but doesn't truly fill one's vessel (and I say this despite a nifty "Usual Suspects"-like ending). One question that kept reverberating around my mind was could anyone's life be THAT
empty for Gabriel to go chasing after this boy/story against all common sense? It's a question that, after seeing the film, still goes unanswered.
@@ REELS (Extra medium)

A SCANNER DARKLY (R)
Biases: Not sure I'm feelin' this paintbrush thing.
Players: Keanu Reeves, Robert Downey Jr., Winona Ryder, Woody Harrelson, adapted from the novel by Philip K. Dick, writer/director Richard Linklater
Logline: In the near future of suburban Orange County, undercover narcotics officer Bob Arctor (Reeves) lives with two drug user friends and is charged with having to spy on them, as well as on himself. Can Arctor win a losing battle to the narcotic Substance D long enough to solve his case, win over drug-addled love interest Donna (Ryder), and stave off addiction?

The Deal: Intelligent, distracting, confusing, challenging, and issue-laden all apply to "A Scanner Darkly." Raising typical sci-fi themes of Big Brother and the always topical matter of government intrusion into our lives, "Darkly" does a solid job of examining the human cost of technology and the hopeless meshing of personal and
professional lives of a credible undercover narcotics officer (not too unlike Jack Bauer in the third season of "24"). What I thought would be an annoying technique of live action footage painted over with a colored grease pencil animated look actually helps meld Arctor's blurring real life and drug-addicted worlds. From behind his "scramble suit," a full body device that effectively hides the identity of the
wearer by scrambling their appearance with continually flashing personalities, Reeves' oft-maligned, low key, dude-like voice works in his role as a cop teetering on the edge of disenchantment with our continually losing war on drugs. Toss in an entertainingly random Downey Jr., an alluring (in a drug-induced way), agreeably naked Winona Ryder, and a paranoid future where everything and everyone can
be tracked, recorded, and surveilled, and you have a very issues-oriented, contemplative sci-fi thinkpiece.
@@@ REELS (It's pretty hot - go give it a shot)

CLICK (PG-13)
Biases: This movie is going to suck. Hard.
Players: Adam Sandler, Kate Beckinsale, Christopher Walken
Logline: Overworked, career-stymied architect Michael Newman (Sandler) is given a universal remote to control his hectic universe from an angel (Walken) disguised as a Bed, Bath & Beyond employee. Be careful what you wish for; the power that comes with the remote control starts messing up Michael's universe.

The Deal: Featuring product placement galore (Twinkies, you whored yourself out for a Sandler movie???), a lame soundtrack, and a plot with more holes in it than a golf course, "Click" is "It's a Wonderful Life" crossed with...a really dumb Adam Sandler (non)comedy. It's gross - and not in a funny way. In fact, there's nothing here that's
done in a consistently funny way. Relentlessly boring, "Click" tries to be heartfelt and poignant with its bad "Dallas"-like end - about an hour after losing my divided AND undivided attention. As the junk food chugging Michael, Sandler mails this one in better than the Postmaster General. Not even the god of German pop music, a preening, "all teeth, all hair, all height, all the time" David Hasselhoff can salvage big
laughs in this movie. And to "nothing to do but stand there and look good" Kate Beckinsale: It's nice when the check clears, huh? Ruining a great high concept (for an "SNL" skit), "Click" may live up to its name when it reaches TV. It'll make you change the channel.
@ REEL (If you can't sneak in, don't go in)

CLERKS II (R) *opening 7/21
Biases: I'm still laughing from Caitlin in the bathroom with the dead guy.
Players: Brian O'Halloran, Jeff Anderson, Rosario Dawson, actor/writer/director Kevin Smith
Logline: Having "graduated" to working fast food, our favorite Quik Stop clerks Dante Hicks (O'Halloran) and Randal Graves (Anderson) work a riotous day at burger joint Mooby's under the sarcastically attractive Becky's (Dawson) supervision, Dante's last before leaving Jersey for Florida to marry his domineering rich fiancee Emma
(Jennifer Schwalbach). Oh yes - and there's a Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (Smith) sighting.

The Deal: First of all, it's in color, with an infinitely larger budget ($15 million) than its humbler, career-making predecessor ($26,000). So it's got that going for it, which is nice. As with any true Kevin Smith tact incinerator, "Clerks II" is joyfully juvenile,
disgusting, and extremely random. Like a dirty version of "Seinfeld," Smith's "II" indulges entire diatribes on geek minutiae (Quick, what's better - "Lord of the Rings" or the "Star Wars" trilogy? What? You don't care??) while also tackling in fine, controversial fashion hot button issues of racism, marriage, and...dancing?

Anchoring "Clerks." 2.0 is the comfortably one-note duo of O'Halloran and Anderson (have these guys worked outside of Smith's View Askew universe?). Age has only made Anderson's chaos incarnate Randal that much more foul-mouthed and mean-spirited, while O'Halloran's Dante is just as whiny but, remarkably, a little more sympathetic. It could be the charming-as-usual Dawson's love cynic Becky ("Marriage is just a cornerstone to drive economics") crushing on him that softens him, or the smothering, acerbically controlling performance of Smith's real-life old lady Schwalbach as Emma - who prances around in a pink baby tee that proudly forecasts her as "Mrs. Hicks" - that humanizes poor, porky Dante. Regardless, the undeniable show-stealer is Trevor Fehrman as the quirky, fey Elias, a virginal, fanatical "LOTR" religious freak (need I say more?). Most of the Kevin Smith regulars make cameos (Ben Affleck, Jason Lee, Ethan Suplee, etc.) including
"The New and Improved Jay and Silent Bob," still hanging outside the spot, selling weed, cursing, and doing crazy dances - although they claim to have found God through rehab (Jay sports a "Got Christ?" shirt - classy!)

As with the most of Kevin Smith's work (We'll just agree that "Jersey Girl" never happened. Okay? Moving on...), "Clerks'" greatest asset is that it doesn't care what anyone else thinks. Musical number to the Jackson Five's "ABC?" Sure. "Interspecies erotica" (don't ask)? Why not. Sporadically funny and sure not to draw anyone my mom's age? Who cares! Kind of like Jared Hess' writing and humor ("Napoleon Dynamite," "Nacho Libre"), either you get it or you don't. It's shocking. It's gross. It's "Clerks." "II."
@@@ REELS (It's pretty hot - go give it a shot)

SHADOWBOXER (R) *opening 7/21
Biases: This is the "Monster's Ball" guy, right?
Players: Cuba Gooding, Jr., Helen Mirren, Vanessa Ferlito, and producer/director Lee Daniels
Logline: Trained assassins Mikey (Gooding, Jr.) and Rose (Mirren) are on the run from a sadistic crime boss (Stephen Dorff) after not executing his pregnant wife Vickie (Ferlito). While hiding out in suburbia, they form a functionally dysfunctional little family with one eye constantly over their shoulders as the dour Mikey reluctantly continues his brutal, breadwinning day job. The Deal: I don't know quite what to make of this film, other than it is visually arresting, full of golden, fairy-tale-esque images shot with a burnished, digital video look. Written by "Monster's Ball" alum Will Rokos, "Shadowboxer" is an idiosyncratic, nakedly sensual (pardon
the pun), color-drenched and nourish film with oddly humorous, roughly engaging drama. Any boundaries about sex, age, race, or violence are casually smashed to smithereens in Lee Daniels' directorial debut. While Cuba redeems his "Dirty" sins with an effective, emotionally hamstrung portrayal of Mikey, it's the smoky-voiced sexy, racially ambiguous, Jolie-lite Vanessa Ferlito who burns a hole through the
screen. With its dartboard effective casting (Mo'Nique? Joseph Gordon-Levitt? Macy Gray???), "Shadowboxer" is a curiosity worth going a few rounds with.
@@@ REELS (It's pretty hot, go give it a shot)

THE GROOMSMEN (R)
Biases: None.
Players: Donal Logue, Jay Mohr, Matthew Lillard, John Leguizamo, actor/writer/director Edward Burns
Logline: The gang's all back in (suburban New York City) town for Paulie's (Burns) upcoming wedding to his pregnant fiancee Sue (Brittany Murphy). Well, they all never left except for T.C. (Leguizamo), who's back after eight years and with a secret that may help take the edge off Paulie's pre-wedding jitters.

The Deal: Shot on what looks like digital video, "The Groomsmen" is a movie that is miscast from the very beginning. Mr. Burns - you've got a movie full of funny people yet this thing is a drama? Not that these well-groomed actors can't handle a shift to the dramatic - they can. What they can't handle is a bunch of inorganic, expository dialogue that advances the plot instead of revealing character, whose ACTIONS
drive the plot. Through its portrait of five men in various stages of arrested development, "The Groomsmen" drowns us with a lot of boring, straightforward talk about relationships that's not interesting in the least as they drink, they golf, they rock out. Ooo wee. When it tries to be funny, it's not; when it tries to be dramatic, there are no real dramas. Although a very viable and accessible topic to my single self as I see my circle of boys around me get paired off to the Chapel O' Love ("Every time a guy gets married, he's divorcing his friends," soothsays Lillard's very married, family guy Dez), the writing is too flat for me to care enough about the outcome of the fairly pedestrian troubles of these men. My screening partner said to me, "This is like the white version of 'The Best Man.'" Me: "Only not funny."
@ REEL (If you can't sneak in, don't go in)

ONCE IN A LIFETIME: THE EXTRAORDINARY STORY OF THE NEW YORK COSMOS (PG-13)
Biases: Soccer's boring - but not at World Cup time.
Players: Matt Dillon, directors Paul Crowder and John Dower
Logline: Thanks to the dreamer machinations of Warner Communications mogul Steve Ross (the "Godfather of American Soccer"), the North American Soccer League (NASL) is born, with Ross' owning the marquee franchise New York Cosmos. As the Cosmos went, so did the NASL, peaking in 1977-1980 before flaming out under the excess of its own golden, wax wings, melting down due to internal and international disputes, dragging the league, and the immediate future of soccer in this country, down with it.

The Deal: Howard Cosell, circa 1980: "Soccer will be the biggest big league of all." Rrrrrright. Narrated with clarity and a touch of New York accent by Matt Dillon, "Cosmos" plays as stylishly directed time capsule (complete with cheesy, '70s boom-chica-wa-wa score and nifty, period transitions) as well as slight morality tale. You don't have to like soccer much (I sure don't; complains one of the on-camera soccer enthusiasts: "Americans don't have the attention span others around the world have for a game that's free-flowing and continuous." Nope, we sure - What were we just talking about???) to like this movie. The characters/caricatures are great: the legendary, enigmatic Pele, eager for an American championship in the twilight of his career; the self-styled, self-absorbed villain, star player Giorgio Chinaglia, who hijacks the team by forming "a shadow government" that informally,
then formally, runs the team (he takes over as team president while being a player); Steve Ross, addicted to excess and importing star players, was George Steinbrenner before George Steinbrenner. I mean, it was the '70s, baby - Studio 54, drug use like candy, pre-AIDS lovin' - excess was success! They played hard and PLAYED hard (a reporter tells us that on the plane on the way to the 1977
championship game, "there were two sex acts performed" - now that's what I call a warm-up!). With enough front office and on the field infighting to rival a rerun of "Dynasty," including a number of humorous, contradictory statements and accounts by still-bitter rivals today, "Cosmos" entertains and informs about as well as you would expect a soccer doc could. It's not quite as exciting as the Cosmos players themselves ("it was like traveling with the Rolling Stones," swoons one reporter), but more fun than a nil-nil soccer match. At least in this movie, we know for sure that SOMEBODY scores.
@@@ REELS (It's pretty hot - go give it a shot)

THE OH IN OHIO (R)
Biases: Great title.
Players: Parker Posey, Paul Rudd, Mischa Barton, Danny De Vito
Logline: Hairy, puffy, depressed high school teacher Jack (Rudd) is married to the "creative and predictable" Priscilla (Posey), a woman who's never had an orgasm. After some therapy introduces her to the world of self-gratification, Priscilla, and her addiction to battery-powered pleasure, awakens to a whole new world around her.

The Deal: Stating off the top that 30 million American women suffer from this type of sexual dysfunction (really? I've never met one - ha ha ha - no, really), "OH" simultaneously ridicules yet justifies our ego's reliance on sexual performance as personal confidence/happiness barometer. Despite being "the prettiest woman in Cleveland" (a dubious distinction? I'm kidding, Cleveland!), Parker Posey's Priscilla (try saying that five times fast) is played with ripe physical comedy and unapologetic, fastidious fridigity; Posey is drier than a Tanqueray martini. Although her Priscilla has never enjoyed sex, you tangibly share in her struggles to make up for lost time as well as balance out her newfound recreational activities with the real world. Selfish, flabby, and quietly emasculated, Paul Rudd's sad sack Jack, who claims Priscilla's inability to climax is "ruining" his life, believably drifts along the harbor of mid-life crisis, trying to decide what truly is valuable in life. Liza Minnelli makes a grand cameo as a pink-wearing orgasm shaman, while the physically overrated Mischa Barton (TV's "The O.C." - I still don't see what the big deal is over
her average looks) is a decent actress in a decent, indie-quirky role. With its weird, inexplicable, thoroughly indie ending, "OH" gives power to learning how to let go and let life - as well as to power "toys."
@@ REELS (Extra medium)

YOU, ME, AND DUPREE (PG-13)
Biases: Looks like the chaste little brother to "Wedding Crashers."
Players: Owen Wilson, Matt Dillon, Kate Hudson, directors Anthony & Joe Russo
Logline: "Dupree's never really been domesticated," claims newly married, job-harried best friend Carl (Dillon) to his young bride Molly (Hudson), daughter of his intimidating, real estate mogul boss (Michael Douglas). Needing a place to live (and a job, and a woman, and a purpose), Dupree (Wilson) crashes on Carl and Molly's couch - and the very fabric of their fragile, newlywed lives.

The Deal: It's a classic love triangle: a girl, a boy, and his boy. Playing his umpteenth take on "arrested development" (get it - the Russos, directors of TV's "Arrested Development?" Of course you don't - that's why the (Emmy-winning) show is canceled...), Owen Wilson, in fully sensitive, New Age-y, "lovin' and livin'," mode plays multigenerational charm monster Randolph Dupree with his trademark
whispery, granola-headed daffiness. His Dupree is the type of guy to relocate with a moosehead - and name it; whose idea of dress pants are khakis with drawstrings; and who enjoys dipping chicken wings in MILK as much as a good Audrey Hepburn movie. Sure, he's a havoc magnet, but you can't hate on him because he's too well intentioned ("It's the tyranny of the pleasant personality," Wilson has mentioned to the press about his role). Dillon, as straight-arrowed, pressure-cooked Carl, and Hudson, as the pretty teacher wife of shifting sympathies, acquit themselves fine, given the schizophrenic nature of Mike LeSieur's debut script.

I'm fine with the cast - the problem is with everything else. From bad editing (notice the bottle of scotch in Dillon's hand be replaced by a glass of scotch from cutaway to cutaway in one scene) to the haphazardly absurd third act - and the decidedly paranoid character/plot turn that precedes it - "Dupree" is not as cohesively funny as it should have been. Wedging in lip service to the concepts of brotherhood, adult male puberty, and the power of love (no matter how aimless your personal direction may be, mind you), this movie is sweet, innocuous, but ultimately unbelievable on any level. Instead of going balls out as a farce or going for sophisticated adult comedy (like "About a Boy") by commenting on the little ways our boys grow into husbands, fathers, MEN - and apart from each other, "Dupree"
doesn't really need you or me.
@@ REELS (Extra medium)

LITTLE MAN (PG-13)
Biases: I don't care enough to have biases. Can someone make the Wayanses stop?
Players: Co-writers/actors Shawn & Marlon Wayans, Kerry Washington, co-writer/director Keenen Ivory Wayans
Logline: Recently released midget criminal Calvin (Marlon Wayans) steals an expensive diamond, hides it in the bag of married, busy career woman Vanessa (Washington), and poses as a baby abandoned on her doorstep in order to get the ring back.

The Deal: Laughs couldn't come any cheaper if they were sold at Wal-Mart. The Wayanses' creative laziness knows no bounds, trying to pass off random acts of violence as humor (ahem, "Madea," anyone?). And what the hell is a talented dimepiece like Kerry Washington DOING in this hot mess?

Something funny happened on the way to 0 REEL, "Three Strikes" oblivion: I laughed. I laughed regrettably, and enough, not to even count them. After the first five minutes, there is nothing funny about the incongruous comedy of seeing grown-ass Marlon Wayans in baby gear (save his ridiculous cheesing whenever validating his...baby-ness), nor in Shawn Wayans' grating, sorry-ass falsetto (why is Kerry's voice deeper than yours, Shawn?). The truly funny bits come when the Wayanses don't try so hard, i.e. anything to do with Calvin's fresh-outta-the-pokey randiness. Those parts seem natural extensions of character (yes, we care about those, even in comedies) and situation, in lieu of the coarse Wayans crutch of casual crass (which, somehow, always translates into cold, hard CA$H). Still, their brand
of "humor" is so obvious, it's not even humor - it's just obvious. What's also obvious is that they just. Won't. Stop.
@ REEL (If you can't sneak in, don't go in (and I snuck in))

WHO KILLED THE ELECTRIC CAR? (PG)
Biases: Was it ever alive?
Players: Narrated by Martin Sheen, writer/director Chris Paine
Logline: Forced to manufacture electric cars in order to meet the California Air Resources Board's (CARB) Zero Emission Mandate of 1990, the auto industry begrudgingly introduces air quality-friendly vehicles such as General Motors' groundbreaking EV1, only to cannibalize its own product and rabid consumer base by recalling the model in the face of staunch consumer demand.

The Deal: Although a tad melodramatic (it opens with a "funeral" for the EV1), this movie poses an audacious but excellent question: Who DID kill the electric car? And I have a question of my own: Why didn't we know about it in the first place?

Can you say "C-O-N-spiracy?" Going back to the electric car's glorious roots in the 1910s (they were the original cars before losing out to the clunkier, hand-crankable gas guzzlers of the 1920s in a format war akin to the superior Betamax losing out to VHS), "Killed" casts a lineup filled with the usual (Big Oil, Big Auto, the government), and unusual (technology, US the consumer) suspects. Despite a bevy of stars on its side (Tom Hanks, Mel Gibson, etc.), electric cars like the EV1 seemed to be doomed from the start, with US automakers fighting their existence in court by challenging CARB's ZEV mandate at the same time they were manufacturing them. Mapping out an incestuous network of opposition that includes bad marketing, Big Auto's dependence on a lucrative parts supply infrastructure for the gas-powered internal combustion engine, and the bait and switch tactics of the Bush-sponsored fallacy of hydrogen car fuel cell efficiency, the LA-centric "Killed" will ignite your inner environmentalist, if not your outer economist (the technology is
available for 180 miles per gallon electric-based hybrids, yet we're getting 40 mpg hydrogen fuel-cell cars shoved down our throats as the fuel of the future - RIGHT). Seeing how I'm writing this to you breathing through one nostril, thanks to persistent, summer-fueled LA Basin smog, I'm on fire already. "Killed" just fanned the flames.
@@@ REELS (It's pretty hot - go give it a shot)

Like what you read? Agree/disagree with The Reel Deal? Think he's talkin' out his...HUSH YO' MOUF! (I'm only talkin' about The Reel Deal!) Email him at ReelReviewz@aol.com!

Edwardo Jackson is the author of the novels EVER AFTER and NEVA HAFTA, (Villard/Random House), a writer for UrbanFilmPremiere.com, and an LA-based screenwriter. Visit his website at www.edwardojackson.com