Movies, Take One

So here's what I've liked recently, and why. Remember: I love to argue / learn / hear about movies, so be sure to add your two cents'!

Frozen River: Bleak, grim, chilling (literally and figuratively), unforgettable. I wasn't necessarily in the mood for such an intense film, but it drew me in. The plot is basically about the intersection of desperate lives, and it gives you a vivid insight into a gritty corner of life on and off the St. Regis (Akwesasne) Mohawk Reservation that straddles the border of upstate New York and Quebec. Melissa Leo, one of the two female leads, is awesome; she definitely deserved her Oscar nomination for this role. Grand Jury prizewinner at Sundance.

The Spitfire Grill: I guess this is an oldie now -- 1996 -- but I hadn't seen it. It's kind of a grown-up Mystic Pizza (remember that one from 1988? A young Julia Roberts showing lots of promise; a young Annabeth Gish overacting like crazy; Conchata Ferrell as the crusty heart-of-gold pizzaria mama?) This film is a little more authentic and believable. Ellen Burstyn is the exact same crusty heart-of-gold restaurant mama, but with a little more finesse in her acting; and I really liked Alison Elliott's performance, even though it was uncertain and forced at times. Marcia Gay Harden is such a good actress and so it's too bad that she so often slips over the line into stagey high-school-Our-Town acting. Still, in The Spitfire Grill she has the best Maine accent of the cast.

Waiting . . . Okay, so the mood required for this one is: "I'm ready for a raunchy Ryan Reynolds flick. A really raunchy, really Ryan Reynolds flick." He pretty much dominates any film he's in (I don't care if all his characters are snide and ego-driven, so long as he takes his shirt off at least once per movie.) If you've ever worked in a restaurant, especially a big chain restaurant, I'm guessing you'll like this movie and agree that its depiction of the sleaze behind the scenes isn't much of an exaggeration. Okay, so I never put dandruff on a customer's salad when I was a cook at Farrell's, and I never slept with the manager when I was a waitress at Denny's, but, well, I followed the five-second rule a lot, and I worked with people just like the characters in this movie.

The Prizewinner of Defiance, Ohio: Whitney and I loved this movie. First of all, you can't go wrong with Julianne Moore (hmm, except for Laws of Attraction). Secondly, you usually can't go wrong with Woody Harrelson, especially because he picks excellent scripts (speaking of which, I'll talk about Trannsiberian in a later post). So there's excellent acting in this film. But it's also just unique and surprising in lots of ways -- plot, script, production values, directing. The main story is interspersed with little surrealistic retro clips done like late '50s / early 60s TV ads, where Moore's character speaks directly to viewers about her "career" as a contest winner. It's based on a true story about a desperately poor Catholic mother of 10 whose husband is both a loving father and a rage-filled drunk. She manages to support her family with her prize winnings -- everything from cash to cars to appliances. It brought back vividly to me those days in the 60s when contests and promotional giveaways were everywhere: Queen for a Day, green stamps booklets, jingle contests. I even won one of those contests myself once! I submitted a name and a picture for a new Kool-Aid flavor: "Poop-Deck Punch," with a little sailor in a tipsy cap. Got a pair of walkie-talkies. Anyway, The Prizewinner of Defiance, Ohio is a more complex story with more nuanced characters than its retro theme might imply.

The Cider House Rules: Everyone I know has already seen this, but it was a catch-up for me, and what a wonderful surprise. Sometimes Michael Caine irritates me, but in this film he showed all his power as an actor; he clearly loved his character, inhabited it so fully that you love him, too. The film's already an American classic, so I won't bother summarizing it, but if you haven't seen it yet, put it on your list (along with anything else directed by Lasse Hallstrom that you've missed).

All for now. Next post: Angels and Demons, The Ex, In Bruge, Shrink.