Tag: movies

MOVIE REVIEW: Easy A

Maybe Easy A is trying too hard to be the next John Hughes movie.


The date movie with the wife for the month, Columbus Day, was Easy A, based on some positive reviews. High school student Olive Penderghast (Emma Stone, from the movies Zombieland and Superbad) finds herself invisible in high school. She ends up lying to her best friend Rhiannon (Alyson Michalka from some Disney shows and the current Hellcats) about going away for a weekend sex romp with a fictional college freshman, when in fact she barely left her bedroom. After the lie gets out, she finds that people ARE noticing her, for the wrong reasons. She then embraces her inner Hester Prynne from the book “The Scarlet Letter,” which she is currently reading in school.

I don’t see a lot of “teen comedies”, but I did enjoy this one, albeit with some reservations. I totally believed that one can get lost in high school, even someone as bright and attractive as Olive. Definitely bought the notion she could have a vapid BFF like Rhi, who she’s known since grade school. I can relate to the intoxication of sudden attention. When she agrees to help out a bullied gay friend, Brandon (Dan Byrd from Cougar Town) by pretending to sleep with him, her image rapidly goes downhill; that part is certainly believable, though played a bit loosely.

I also enjoyed Stanley Tucci and especially Patricia Clarkson, as Olive’s liberal and trusting parents, Dill and Rosemary, who occasionally offer TMI, though it sometimes felt those scenes were from another, better movie. And I really enjoyed Thomas Haden Church as her concerned English teacher, Mr. Griffith.

I was less impressed with the caricatures that the religious fanatics, i.e. born-again Christians, led by Marianne (Amanda Bynes, from What I Like About You) are portrayed. It’s not that I don’t think Christianity can’t be knocked, as this article seems to suggest. It’s just that they are painted with such a broad, and lazy brush. Also, a simulated sex scene is more slapstick than the rest of the movie, giving it an uneven tone.

Maybe Easy A is trying too hard to be the next John Hughes movie. Hughes gets namechecked more than once.

Let me say again: I liked the film. It didn’t drag, I didn’t want to check my watch, and I liked spending time getting to understand Olive’s motivation as her life gets spun around. And if the ending is a tad predictable. and maybe a little rushed, that was OK too.

Recommended for rental.

M is for Mockingbird

A marathon reading to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Harper Lee’s classic novel TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD and raise funds for Literacy Volunteers of the Greater Capital Region will take place on Saturday, November 6, 2010 from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. at the Townsend Park Bakery LLC, 238 Washington Ave., Albany.


2010 is the 50th anniversary of the publication of the book To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. If you are unfamiliar with this classic, which won the 1961 Pulitzer Prize, read here, and the affiliated links. But basically, it’s about a young white girl named Scout, a/k/a Jean Louise – the “tomboy” narrator of the tale – growing up in a U.S. Southern town in the 1930s with her older brother Jem, whose lawyer-father Atticus Finch ends up defending a black man accused of raping a white woman, and the repercutions the trial has on all involved, indeed on the whole town. The case was almost certainly inspired by the Scottsboro Boys trials of the 1930s in Alabama, where nine black teenagers allegedly gang-raped two white women, a crime that never actually occurred.

The story is probably best known through the popular 1962 movie adaptation starring Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch, Brock Peters as the accused, Tom Robinson, and Mary Badham as Scout, Oscar-nominated for Best Supporting Actress. The film also featured a young Robert Duvall, in his film debut, as the mysterious and misunderstood Boo Radley, a role some have compared to his part in the 2010 film Get Low.

The film was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, but lost to the epic Lawrence of Arabia. It won three awards: Peck for Best Actor Award (his first Oscar win, fifth nomination); Horton Foote for Best Adapted Screenplay; and the team of Art Directors/Set Decorators. Hear one of the most famous speeches from the movie, as well as its musical theme from the Oscar-nominated score by Elmer Bernstein.

From Wikipedia: In 1995, the film was listed in the National Film Registry. It also ranks twenty-fifth on the American Film Institute’s 10th-anniversary list of the greatest American movies of all time, and #1 on AFI’s list of best courtroom films. In 2003, AFI named Atticus Finch the greatest movie hero of the 20th century.

Atticus Finch is considered not only one of America’s most beloved lawyers but also one of the greatest cinematic fathers.

Earlier this year, I got a chance to see a play adaptation of the story at Capital Rep in Albany. While not as strong as the movie – how could it be? – it was nonetheless enjoyable.

For the 50th anniversary, CBS Sunday Morning reported on the celebratory events taking place in Harper Lee’s hometown. Notably absent was the reclusive Ms. Lee herself, who never wrote another book because she felt it could never be as good as her first one.

An interesting dichotomy: To Kill A Mockingbird is taught all over the country – here’s a readers’ and teachers’ guide – but also one of the books most banned or challenged.

A marathon reading to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Harper Lee’s classic novel TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD – To Kill A Saturday – and raise funds for Literacy Volunteers of the Greater Capital Region will take place on Saturday, November 6, 2010, from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. at the Townsend Park Bakery LLC, 238 Washington Ave., Albany, NY. Rumor has it that I will be one of the readers.
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And now for something completely different: Mockingbird – Carly Simon and James Taylor.

ABC Wednesday – Round 7

MOVIE REVIEW: Get Low

The movie Get Low was occasionally laugh-out-loud funny, but it wasn’t cornpone humor as it might have been portrayed.

When I was growing up, living next door to my Grandma Williams’ house in Binghamton, NY was a crotchety old man named Pete Nedahall – not sure of the spelling. We – my sisters, my grandma’s next-door neighbors on the other side, and I were mighty afraid of him. If you stepped on his property to retrieve an errant ball, you were afraid that this stocky man might come out, wearing a T-shirt and boxer shorts, with a pitchfork, which he did from time to time. But mostly he yelled at us in his thick eastern European accent, perhaps Hungarian. Some of the neighbor kids would taunt him. His wife Kate was actually relatively pleasant to us, but when she died, he became even more embittered.

In the new movie Get Low – though it has a 2009 copyright – Felix Bush (Robert Duvall) plays a similarly onery hermit with a shotgun who decides to hold his own funeral, while he was still alive. The local pastor Gus Horton (Gerald McRaney) won’t help Felix with his plan, despite his large wad of “hermit money”, but the local funeral director Frank Quinn (Bill Murray) is not so fussy. Aided by his assistant Buddy (Lucas Black), Frank helps Felix promote the party. Meanwhile, someone from Felix’s past, Mattie Darrow (Sissy Spacek), returns to town, which proves to be a complicating factor, as does his relationship with another pastor, Charlie Jackson (Bill Cobbs).

The movie was occasionally laugh-out-loud funny, but it wasn’t cornpone humor as it might have been portrayed. This is largely a function of the acting. Duvall has visited similar characters before, most notably in The Apostle, my favorite movie starring him. This is not as good a movie, but his performance is equally solid. Also to be noted is Bill Murray, who has learned in middle age, how to ratchet back his comedic characters and still be funny. I also liked Lucas Black, who I doubt I’ve ever seen in a film.

The movie is based on a true story, which apparently meant the funeral part, but not the back story about why he was closed off for four decades. Interestingly, there were critics who liked the movie very much, save for the more-or-less transparent ending. While I can see their point, the penultimate scene worked for me because of the sheer force of Duvall.

Besides, knowing the ending got me to thinking about old Mr. Nedahall, who I hadn’t crossed my mind in decades, and what secret pain he might have been experiencing those many years ago.

30-Day Challenge- Day 21 – Favorite Movie Quote

I used to BE a Census taker, so maybe I take it personally.

I love the movies, and I love movie quotes. When the American Film Institute presented its list of 100 Top Movie Quotes, you know I had to be watching. The Wizard of Oz is a particular yeasty source of quotes.

The one I may have actually used most often in real life is #27, from Midnight Cowboy: “I’m walking here! I’m walking here!” when Ratso Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman) almost gets run over by a cab. I hear Hoffman explain that he almost DID get run over by that cab, who was supposed to be blocked off while the crew filmed the scene.

The one that creeps me out the most: A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti; I used to BE a Census taker, so maybe I take it personally. That line’s from The Silence of the Lambs, which I never actually got all the way through, spoken by Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins).

Ultimately, though, the all-encompassing quote is what I need to go with: Davis (Steve Martin) saying in the movie Grand Canyon: “That’s part of your problem: you haven’t seen enough movies. All of life’s riddles are answered in the movies.” I’m not 100% sure that’s true. But it might be.

MOVIE REVIEW: The Switch

Part of my enjoyment of The switch is the relationship between Bateman and…

Carol and Lydia went to the Poconos with Carol’s parents, one of her brothers, his wife, and their twin daughters a couple of Saturdays ago. Carol came back on Wednesday because she had to work on Thursday, but Lydia stayed. So Friday night, we felt almost obliged to see a movie. For one thing, it wouldn’t cost anything for a babysitter. For another, said babysitter is getting married in two weeks, so she might not be available for a while.

So what to see?

Scott Pilgrim is at the mall that I dislike, and it’s supposed to move to the local theater soon. Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky I knew nothing about, Winter’s Bone seemed too intense for date night, and Inception started too early, and Dinner for Schmucks too late. It came down to Eat Pray Love, and The Switch, and since the latter not only reviewed better (52% positive vs. 38% on Rotten Tomatoes) but was also considerably shorter, we went with that.

Remember the wisecracking friend of the Meg Ryan character in Sleepless in Seattle? That role here is played by Juliette Lewis. Or the Mark Feuerstein function, playing the confidant to Mel Gibson in What Women Want, now provided by Jeff Goldblum. Or the whole “friend zone” thing, which is the entire premise of When Harry Met Sally; Jason Bateman and Jennifer Aniston reprise Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan (again). Plus a character in most romcoms for whom one says, quoting Joe Jackson, “Is she really going out with HIM?”

Add to this the Big Unsustainable Lie that has fueled sitcms from I Love Lucy to Frasier to The Office. Actually, LIES, one of which you can discern by merely reading the summary of the film, and without which there is no story at all.

Yet, oddly, we mostly enjoyed the film. Part of it is that relationship between Bateman and…Goldblum, whose interactions are among the funniest in the film. I also loved the chemistry between Bateman and Thomas Robinson, who plays the little boy who is NOT immediately adorable like that kid in Sleepless in Seattle, but who I related to at some level.

So if you have NEVER seen a romantic comedy, you’ll probably like this one. But if you have seen a few, you may appreciate the fact that the acting, especially of Bateman, plus some touching moments, salvages the often by-the-numbers script.

Oh, and I’ll never think of ABC News’ Diane Sawyer, thanked in the end credits, quite the same way again.

Ramblin' with Roger
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