Ex misses the spot
5/15/07
Another post-Oscars pre-Summer Blockbuster disaster.
The opening of this movie offers a lot of promise. Tom (Zack Braff) and a very pregnant Sophia (Amanda Peet) are lying in bed trying to decide on a name for their new baby. After a series of humorous options they eventually agree to wait before making any decisions and Tom leaves for work. Thus concludes the funniest five minutes of the movie.
Tom then heads to work, where instead of earning the promotion he was hoping for, he gets fired for shooting his mouth off. While he is wallowing in self-pity, he gets the call that Sophia has gone into labor. After having the baby (and naming him Oliver, after their anaesthesiologist) the couple decides it's time for Tom to take his father-in-law (Charles Grodin) up on the job offer at his small advertising firm in Ohio. They pack up their sedan and hit the road. When Tom arrives at his first day at work he meets Chip Sanders (Jason Bateman), Sophia's old fling, his father in law's sycophant and his new boss. Needless to say the two don't get a long.
The rest of the movie flows like a bad episode of Three's Company: one misunderstanding after another. Sophia's father gets fired, a major account is lost, Sophia moves out, and Tom is beaten up during a game of wheelchair basketball when he is discovered to not be a paraplegic. Everyone hates Tom; the man cannot catch a break, until the writers decided that they needed to wrap up the movie, so for no good reason everyone all of a sudden is back on Tom's side.
This movie made no sense, the script was lame and Charles Grodin's dye job made him look rediculous. I wish I had more to say about this movie, some redeaming qualities, but there really aren't. For the amount of times I laughed, I rolled my eyes twice as much so I can't even say that the humor was a redeaming factor. The Ex certainly did not lead to any treasure.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Georgia Rule
Rules were meant to be broken
5/7/07
Lindsay Lohan has an uncanny talent - she is able to single handedly sabotage any scene she is in and make a potentially decent movie intolerable. Furthermore, knowing that this was the movie from which came the letter from Morgan Creek criticizing Lohan's inappropriate and unprofessional behavior on set, I was even less impressed with her performance. It used to be that an actor's personal life might be able to enhance his or her careers - take Marlon Brando or James Dean. However, in today's media saturated culture a star's personal life takes away from his or her professional persona. With Lohan and the other starlets of today their images are splashed all over magazine covers, Internet blogs and entertainment TV shows so it seems unnecessary to pay to see them even more. Lohan's public behavior is so similar to that of her character, so spending 2 hours in a darkened theater watching even more of it seems superfluous and repetitive.
That being said...Georgia Rule tells the story of Rachel (Lohan) when she is essentially dumped at her Grandmother's house in Idaho for her last summer before college. Grandma Georgia (Jane Fonda) is a strict rule-keeper who imposes her schedule and regulations on everyone around her. Georgia's alcoholic daughter, Lily (Felicity Huffman) is at her wits end with her own daughter, Lohan, a rebellious teenager who can't follow any rules. Even though Lily can't stand her mother, and left home herself, she thinks it will be a good idea to send her daughter to the small Idahoan town for a summer of Grandma Boot Camp.
Rachel doesn't even make it all the way to Grandma's house before running into a load of trouble. Her mother kicks her out of the car with a few miles to go before arriving at their destination. She is picked up by Simon (Dermot Mulroney) and driven into town by the stranger. When he does not take her up on her advances she insults his intelligence and sexuality. A few scenes later we are (not) shocked to find out that he is in fact a respectable doctor (vet) in the community who is still mourning the loss of his son and wife in a car accident a few years earlier. Trying to earn sympathy points and to redeem herself Rachel tells Simon that she has been repeatedly raped by her stepfather since she was 12. The rest of the movie searches back and forth trying to, not only make Rachel seem sympathetic but also figure out whether the story she told was in fact true.
The movie set its sights high - with many different subplots - none of which really come to fruition. There's the Mormon teenager who Rachel insists on sexually corrupting, Simon who she attempts to seduce, her relationship with her stepfather, mother and grandmother are all tested and finally she has to deal with herself. That seems like a lot for one small movie, and it is. None of those issues ever seem to pan out and the viewer is left feeling unsatisfied and frustrated. What I think was ultimately supposed to be the point of the movie was that the mother/daughter bond is so strong that nothing can break it apart, but who knows - it wasn't marketed as a Mother's Day movie. I say skip this movie and if you are looking for a nice family oriented flick, go watch On Golden Pond again.
5/7/07
Lindsay Lohan has an uncanny talent - she is able to single handedly sabotage any scene she is in and make a potentially decent movie intolerable. Furthermore, knowing that this was the movie from which came the letter from Morgan Creek criticizing Lohan's inappropriate and unprofessional behavior on set, I was even less impressed with her performance. It used to be that an actor's personal life might be able to enhance his or her careers - take Marlon Brando or James Dean. However, in today's media saturated culture a star's personal life takes away from his or her professional persona. With Lohan and the other starlets of today their images are splashed all over magazine covers, Internet blogs and entertainment TV shows so it seems unnecessary to pay to see them even more. Lohan's public behavior is so similar to that of her character, so spending 2 hours in a darkened theater watching even more of it seems superfluous and repetitive.
That being said...Georgia Rule tells the story of Rachel (Lohan) when she is essentially dumped at her Grandmother's house in Idaho for her last summer before college. Grandma Georgia (Jane Fonda) is a strict rule-keeper who imposes her schedule and regulations on everyone around her. Georgia's alcoholic daughter, Lily (Felicity Huffman) is at her wits end with her own daughter, Lohan, a rebellious teenager who can't follow any rules. Even though Lily can't stand her mother, and left home herself, she thinks it will be a good idea to send her daughter to the small Idahoan town for a summer of Grandma Boot Camp.
Rachel doesn't even make it all the way to Grandma's house before running into a load of trouble. Her mother kicks her out of the car with a few miles to go before arriving at their destination. She is picked up by Simon (Dermot Mulroney) and driven into town by the stranger. When he does not take her up on her advances she insults his intelligence and sexuality. A few scenes later we are (not) shocked to find out that he is in fact a respectable doctor (vet) in the community who is still mourning the loss of his son and wife in a car accident a few years earlier. Trying to earn sympathy points and to redeem herself Rachel tells Simon that she has been repeatedly raped by her stepfather since she was 12. The rest of the movie searches back and forth trying to, not only make Rachel seem sympathetic but also figure out whether the story she told was in fact true.
The movie set its sights high - with many different subplots - none of which really come to fruition. There's the Mormon teenager who Rachel insists on sexually corrupting, Simon who she attempts to seduce, her relationship with her stepfather, mother and grandmother are all tested and finally she has to deal with herself. That seems like a lot for one small movie, and it is. None of those issues ever seem to pan out and the viewer is left feeling unsatisfied and frustrated. What I think was ultimately supposed to be the point of the movie was that the mother/daughter bond is so strong that nothing can break it apart, but who knows - it wasn't marketed as a Mother's Day movie. I say skip this movie and if you are looking for a nice family oriented flick, go watch On Golden Pond again.
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