Rachel Getting Married

It's hard to tell if the point of Rachel Getting Married is to make you feel the turmoil of a recovering drug addict attempting to rejoin her family or to make you feel like every wedding you've ever attended was completely lame.

RGM stars Anne Hathaway as Kim, a drug addict released from her latest stint in rehab just in time to join the final preparations before her older sister's wedding. Kim's family inhabits one of those shabbily wealthy sprawling old Victorian homes in Connecticut. The kind filled with cozy furniture and expansive wrap-around porches that make it hard to believe a Waspy drug addict could live there. In fact, we never learn how Kim became a drug addict, just that she did and made a mess of herself and her family including one tragic accident that created an irreparable rift in the family, which I won't spoil for you here.

Despite the tragedy, Rachel's family itself is a paragon of feel-goodiness, including her overly attentive father (who is played by Mister Noodle's Brother on Sesame Street!), her Mother Earth stepmother and her straight-arrow older sister Rachel. We watch as Kim tries to insert herself in Rachel's wedding weekend, resulting in awkward, painful interactions in which Kim can't seem to stop stealing the spotlight from her sister and crowing "but look at me, I'm the addict!" It succeeds mightily in making you feel the same discomfort and anger at Kim as her family does.

Anne Hathaway got a ton of buzz about her role in this film and deservedly so. She ain't no Princess here, at turns painfully endearing and shamelessly raw. Her transparent skin and bloomy eyes make her perfectly suited to play a fragile soul teetering on the edge of a precipice between suburban propriety and gritty addiction. She's perfectly matched with her wounded mother, played by Debra Winger. Yes, that Debra Winger from Urban Cowboy.

The only off-notes of the film come from the wedding itself, which we follow in deep detail from rehearsal through reception. Rachel is marrying a man from....somewhere tropical? Or African? I can't tell. He wears unfortunate glasses, but everyone seems to think he's too swell to care.

He's a musician and so the house is dripping at every moment with a hodgepodge of ethnically diverse musicians playing at all hours of the day. The wedding itself is a multicultural, Bohemian stewpot of reggae singers, someone I think was a monk and one girl who I'm pretty sure was a singer from American Idol (Tamyra Gray, if my eyes don't deceive). The whole wedding feels like the "Teach the World to Sing" Coca Cola commercial. And it's almost as sugary.

It's a bit hard to swallow all the ethnically diverse love and energy pouring in great quantities from every scene of the wedding party. Where were the boring old people complaining the chicken was too dry? Where was the drunken uncle who gets a little handsy after too many gin rickeys? Do they not know about the chicken dance in Connecticut?!!!!! Sorry, but the crowd was just a little too perfectly diverse and in love with one another to be altogether believable.

Otherwise, this is a smart little film filled with a great deal of emotion and earnest pain. Kim's plight is raw and transparent, and as a viewer, you're pulled fully into the complex emotions her family has for her. You want to root for Kim, but you want to slap her too. Just like real family.

Role Models

Sigh.

Approximately 37 people have been hounding me to watch Role Models, swearing that I will DIE, literally DIE laughing. "It's exactly like Knocked Up." "It's even better than 40-Year-Old-Virgin." This is what they tell me.

Which leads me to the question, Role Models?

The one starring Paul Rudd and -- finger quotes -- "actor" Sean William Scott? I respectfully disagree. It just wasn't that funny, guys. Sorry, but it wasn't. Sure, it had a few laughs but for the most part, I found myself leaning forward hopefully on the sofa waiting for the story to kick in. Any moment, I kept thinking. Right up until the end. Sigh.

Let's talk about what works first: Paul Rudd. Is there a more lovable actor in film today? You can't not like Paul Rudd. Men want to be him. Women want to date him. He's just adorable. And he's funny. But one thing he's not, and it pains me to say this, Paul, is a screenwriter. Rudd co-wrote this movie, and it shows, filled with slow, sophomoric plot developments, predictable jokes and tame attempts at envelope-pushing.

The set-up for the plot is incredibly long and drawn out: two guys have an implausible screw-up at work and have to perform community service mentoring young boys to avoid jail time as a result. Trust me, it's a painful road to get there, especially when it's so obvious where the plot is heading all along.

Surprise, surprise, the young mentees assigned to Rudd and Scott are an unpredictable and unruly lot, leading to loads of hijinx for our two heroes. Wait...it's all totally predictable and if you can't see the ultimate resolution (the boys grow to love their mentors!), you need to schedule an optometry appointment post haste.

But what's even worse than the script and the plot is Sean William Scott. HOW IS THIS GUY GETTING WORK? He is not an actor. He is a frat boy. He's the dude who's so talentless that his dad gets him a job in his company even though he can barely manage to make copies of his butt on the copy machine.

I imagine that Sean William Scott shares an apartment somewhere in Hollywood with Vin Diesel and Ashlee Simpson and they just sit around and laugh, laugh, laugh themselves silly about how people pay money to watch them. Then Vin Diesel gets his foot stuck in the toaster AGAIN and Sean and Ashlee try to help him but they got lost on the way there because they can't remember how to operate the doors to the living room (push, not pull!), so they forget about Vin and instead spend the afternoon staring in wonder at the light switch.

Something like that.

Pineapple Express

As a rule, I am not a fan of stoner humor. Nothing against it; it's just never tickled me fancy. Cheech & Chong? Harold & Kumar? Eh. I just can't find a way to be interested. So I was a little apprehensive about Pineapple Express, which for the uninitiated, is a true stoner comedy about a pleasantly even-keeled stoner, Dale, played by Seth Rogen, and his eccentric dealer, Saul, played by James Franco, who get accidentally wrapped up in a chase escapade after witnessing a murder.

To my surprise, the Stoner Comedy 101 scenes of Dale and Saul waxing ineloquent in slow-motion, smoke-filled highs were few and far between. Thank god. I'd rather watch paint dry. This was much more of a silly action movie than I ever expected. The funniest scenes in the movie had to involve Saul's dealer, Red, played by Danny McBride -- who is one part Steven Seagal wannabe, one part needy housecat. Red gets beat up, shot and stabbed about a dozen times and just keeps showing up in future scenes like a chubby, mullet-wearing version of the Terminator.

I also loved the duo's pursuer, played by Craig Robinson, whom you're more likely to recognize as warehouse foreman Darryl from The Office. In Pineapple, he's a merciless killer who will crack you up with his very delicate emotions ready to burst forth at any moment.

The plot is predictable, familiar and takes way too long...two-hour-run-time too long. Some of the ancillary characters, like Rosie Perez as a dirty cop and a band of Chinese drug dealers, seem like afterthoughts, but do serve to add small doses of humor here and there. I could have done without the extended and very predictable fight scenes at the end of the film, although it was fun to watch chubby Seth Rogen try to fistfight.

Would I recommend Pineapple? I guess so...but certainly not as a gateway drug to a future appreciation of stoner flicks.

Changeling

First of all, I couldn't help but snicker at the description on the back of the Netflix envelope referring to "Ace director, Clint Eastwood." Who wrote that? An old-timey journalist from 1938? Ace director! He's the cat's pajamas!

Don't get me wrong, if anyone deserves the Ace title, it's Eastwood. The man delivers a good film and Changeling is no exception. Although, if anything in this film, his directing is so spartan and unembellished that you won't even notice it. I guess I'm saying that even a tool like Bruckheimer probably couldn't have screwed up this material: the story is that good. We loved watching it.

Changeling follows the true story of 1920's Los Angeles mom, Christine Collins, as she battles police corruption to find her missing son, Walter. The LAPD, facing horrible public image problems, brings Christine's son back to her, but she's convinced it's not her son. When Collins tries to make public the fact that the LAPD returned the wrong kid, she quickly finds herself staying at a mental institution on police orders.

A legal team headed up by anti-LAPD preacher, played by John Malkovich (who is just so good at being preachy, let's be honest) and a shark of an attorney come to the rescue of Collins and attempt to mount a strike at the LAPD. But what makes the movie really compelling is the co-story of the alleged murderer, Gordon Northcott, accused of murdering 20 boys, Walter Collins among them. Northcott's scenes are riveting and his madness is chilling.

Collins is played by Angelina Jolie. Now, I will be the first to admit that she's a good actress and she handled the role with skill. But I couldn't help but feel like she's just too physically striking to make this role believable. Draped in face-framing clothes and brilliantly rich make-up, she looked stunning...too stunning. The camera loves her face but it's so distinct that it distracts you from the character.

At no point was I unaware that I was watching Angelina Jolie, not Christine Collins. I could only imagine how powerful the role would have been in less facially-captivating hands (that is a nice way of saying "not so pretty"). Forgive me, but I'm thinking Frances McDormand here.

My favorite character in the film was Collins' lawyer. For the life of me, I can't figure out who the actor is (why have you forsaken me, IMDB?) but I've seen him in other roles and he's superb in this film. He'll make you want to love your lawyer. I'll refer to him henceforth as "Ace Actor Portraying a Lawyer."

The Reader

"I nailed Kate Winslet. And I still wear Underoos."



Hurrah for babysitters! Friends Marcie and Beth kindly offered to watch the wee one so Motley Husband and I could sneak off for a matinee on Saturday, which for anyone with a toddler, is something akin to being given the keys to your own private island. I know, a matinee might sound boring to you, but trust me, two hours of relative relaxation that don't involve a short person whining at you to read the 37th installment of Dora the Explorer is pure bliss.

So, we showed up to our local megaplex on the hopes of just finding something playing around the time we arrived that didn't involve the words Paul, Blart, Mall or Cop.


Check. The Reader with Kate Winslet was starting in five minutes.

We grabbed a giant vat of popcorn and loaded it with butter (more on that later...) and settled in for what I can only describe as the creepiest love story I've ever seen.

The Reader is set in post-war Germany and is told through the perspective of a fifteen year-old-boy who befriends a much older woman, Hanna Schmitz (played by Winslet), on a chance encounter in the street. The two eventually become lovers and "the Kid" reads to Schmitz at each of their liaisons. It's like a pedophile's version of Oprah's book club, if you will.

Anyway, the actor cast to play the boy looks VERY, VERY young. Winslet looks VERY, VERY experienced by contrast and the many lingering love scenes between the two were squeamish and unsettling to say the least. I'm sure for some tastes, this sort of thing is titillating but I found myself feeling much the same way I did as a teenager stuck watching "dirty parts" of a movie in front of my parents. It creeped me out. When the two finally parted I heard Motley Husband mutter, "Thank god."

The rest of the movie was happily filled with Nazis. Yes, that's right, I found Nazis a welcome change to Kate Winslet licking the navel of a pubescent boy. Sue me.

The Nazis...see, years later when our young friend is in law school, his class attends and studies the trial of a former Nazi war criminal, who turns out to be none other than his former lover, Hanna Schmitz. Here the movie takes a very beautiful and agonized turn as the boy tries to rectify his feelings for Schmitz with the brutality of her crimes.

You'll be able to guess Schmitz's fate and the Nazi themes are all very familiar to us, but you will be moved by the performance of one of Schmitz's former victims, played with chilling iciness by Lena Olin. There was nothing in the movie that came as a great surprise--even the big 'reveal' should be no surprise to anyone with working eyeballs--but it was all well done and much of it was very moving.

Oh, and about the popcorn. So after shoveling down the better part of two pounds of popcorn, followed by a giant coffee and a beer, Motley Husband got throwing-up sick and he couldn't eat anything for almost a day and so claims now that he got some kind of bug. We have been going round and round on this one because he is sticking to this "bug" story, but we both know that BUTTERED POPCORN IS NOT A BUG.

The defense rests.

The Wire, Season 3

Resident bad-ass and all-around best TV character ever created, Omar, from The Wire.


I think we're still feeling the effects of the writer's strike because the movie landscape out there is...well, it's just a huge pile of crap. Motley Husband and I actually have the chance to go to a real movie theater this weekend -- without a toddler -- and I can't believe the stunning array of choices awaiting us.


Honey! Should we see Confessions of a Shopaholic OR Paul Blart, Mall Cop? Oh, I can't decide between these two dazzling gems!

Thank god there's still The Wire. I haven't had any movie posts lately because we have become deeply and passionately obsessed with The Wire Season 3. This just has to be one of the top television series ever made (Arrested Development, don't worry, you'll never lose your #1 spot).

Watching this show, I have to believe that somewhere in the bowels of a mansion in Malibu, Ron Howard, Stephen Spielberg and Martin Scorcese are huddled together on the floor crying over the fact that they didn't think of this show first. It's just so damn good, it has to burn up every other director/producer/writer in town.

If you don't know, The Wire is a cop show on HBO. Now, I know what you're thinking, "Cop show, shmop show, if you've seen one CSI, you've seen 'em all."

But The Wire isn't like any cop show you've ever seen. Set in Baltimore, The Wire presents a unique and in-depth look at both the cops and the drug dealers they track. Each season of the show follows just a single investigation. It gives the audience an unbelievably gritty and real look at how the game is played on both sides of the law. The cops are both heroic and flawed. The drug dealers have dimensional, empathetic sides. It's nothing short of spectacular.

Season one was unbelievably good. Season two was -- eh -- not as great, but still very good. But Season three is back to fantastic, reuniting our police force with the nemesis of Season 1, the Avon Barksdale drug ring.

In Season 3, we get to watch the ominous rise of Barksdale's #2, Stringer Bell, as he attempts to evolve their business into legitimate enterprise using the drug money bankroll. Layered into the self-destructive antics of the police force is a new cast of characters from City Hall, giving us a glimpse into the gray morass where political ambition clashes with the everyday needs of a city police force. I won't give you even a hint of the plot, but suffice it to say that you're going to love how one rogue police captain decides to deal with drug enforcement this season.

And let me just take a moment to talk about the character of Omar Little. Omar is a rogue vigilante who robs from the drug dealers, making him an enemy of the street and not exactly a friend to the cops either. He's like an ass-kicking, shotgun-toting Robin Hood and HE IS THE BEST CHARACTER EVER CREATED. Did I mention that he's gay? It's so interesting and pretty astonishing to see how the show handles an openly gay street vigilante. I promise you it's something you'll never see in that fluffy pancake called Law & Order.

If they made a spin-off show called "Omar Cracks Some Motherf'ing Heads," I would watch it every day. You should watch the show for Omar alone. Please. I'm begging you.

Something terrific is brewing here for Season 4, and I for one can't wait to see how the City Hall players muck up the soup. And if Hollywood keeps making craptastic features involving the words "Mall Cop," you can bet we'll be watching a lot more Wire here at the Queue.

Hugh Jackman Manages to Make the Oscars Even Worse

Hugh Jackman, manhood called. It wants you to turn in your man-card.

Seriously, I had no idea that Wolverine had lady-parts. Watching Jackman prance around the stage in his hideous "I think I'm hosting the Tony Awards" musical montage ruined the Oscars for me.

And let's be honest, he didn't have to do much to ruin them. I heard a news story last week about how the producers were determined to spice up the show this year to combat sagging ratings from last year. And, by spice, they clearly meant drag out every major award with bloated and ridiculous introductions.

Goldie Hawn: "Amy Adams, you are the most talented and godlike person who has ever walked the face of the earth. Humanity would fail were it not for the grace of your immaculate being. Amy Adams, I am going to sacrifice this human child before you on this stage just to honor how important you are to my life and to the future of planet Earth. Amy Adams, I have never married Kurt Russell because I have been waiting to become your wife. Marry me."

Beyond the horrible scripting was the boring, predictable filler, including A Look Back at Comedies of 2008. Seriously? That was the best you could come up with? God forbid you actually cut an hour out of this bloated awards show and actually get to the awards.

When will the producers of the Oscars learn that people tune into the Oscars for just three things?

1. To see what people are wearing. Note to Hollywood: we need less stylists making everyone look pretty/boring and we need more Tilda Swinton. Holy cats, she can wear some wackadoo duds.

2. To see who wins the awards. Not to see a musical montage from the soundtrack of Doubt. I repeat: NO ONE CARES. THE PEOPLE FROM DOUBT DON'T EVEN CARE.

3. To watch the uncomfortable interactions of Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Aniston. On that score, well-played Oscars.

The only bright spots of the telecast came from the more youthful and fresh interplay of duos like Tina Fey/Steve Martin and Seth Rogen/James Franco. Take note, Oscar producers, comedians + funny = enjoyable. Hugh Jackman + estrogen = misery.