Working Girl

Working Girl

Director:

Mike Nichols

Writer:

Kevin Wade

Tonight I re-watched Working Girl from the 80s for the millionth time. However, in Central Park as part of the outdoor summer film festivals in all the Boroughs, the film truly came to life. A quintessential New York experience, which encapsulates the very soul of New Yorkers (or at least those passionate and hopeful types with whom I tend to associate). When this film was released in 1988, its tagline was: For anyone who's ever won. For anyone who's ever lost. And for everyone who's still in there trying.
I think that's pretty much sums up New Yorkers in our entirety. Meanwhile, young Harrison Ford...wow.

Monday poll: Worst movie ever and worst movie experience

On a slow day at the office, I like to engage the online community in what I call an afternoon poll.  Today I queried: "What is the worst movie you've ever seen and what is the worst movie experience?"  I was pleased with all the responses.  Highlights from the peanut gallery included for your own office amusement:

FILMS: 

*Mr. Bean's Vacation--I don't understand this comedy and thus question it being classified as such.

*The Net-- I quote "so I could make out with my sixth grade crush in the back row" (Could someone please tell me what happened to Sandra Bullock?  They've been showing Miss Congeniality on repeat for weeks...is this a search cry?).

*All the Pretty Horses--this is, in fact, a horrible movie...a hetero Brokeback is just not that interesting.

*A Cinderella Story---I am not sure how my friend was tricked into this film outing.

*Cats and Dogs--I was actually not aware of this movie.  I am not sure how such a cinematic achievement could have slid past my radar, but a quick imdb search solved that crisis.  WOW.  This may be the worst movie ever.  For further proof: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0239395/

*The Island--ewwww

And my own shortlist:

*Elizabethtown

*Garden State

*Gross Pointe Blank

*Hush

*Deep Impact

*Lost in Space

*Evening

(Okay, these are likely not the worst, but the ones I can think of off the top of my head).

EXPERIENCES:

These were not exactly what I had anticipated.  But I did enjoy my friends response re: Gangs of New York screening.  He and his friends got thrown out for mocking a woman in religious garb.  While I don't condone this kind of shenanigans, my question is why was a fundamentalist seeing Gangs of New York?  Isn't it a little too heretical?  Am I wrong, but isn't Cameron Diaz playing a prostitute?  And isn't Daniel Day Lewis impersonating a butcher?  The kind that doesn't pray to the meat before he filets it?  

My own worst film outing took place on the opening night of a film we like to call TITANIC. My best friend got violently ill and missed the second-half of the film.  AKA when it sinks.  Please remember the time in which every female under 18 had seen this film at least double their age number.  Not my friend.  She has yet to see that old woman drop the rock in the ocean ever.  

Alright, back to your livelihoods citizens.

Tropic Thunder and NYC ICY

Tropic Thunder

Written/directed by Ben Stiller (and Justin Theroux)

Tropic Thunder next to Louise Bourgeois...so bizarre, yet so in sync with my eclectic filmic tastes. This popcorn flick was one of the most anticipated of the past two months (blame that on who you would like).  The premise (the three biggest stars shooting the worst jungle action movie, come horrible reality show when drug lords take over the film shoot) is pretty funny, especially when you consider Jack Black, Ben Stiller, and Robert Downey Jr. as a black guy..but hilarity really ensures from all the odd cameos...Matthew McConaughey and Tom Cruise in his best role since Jerry Maguire (if not ever) as Les Grossman, meglomaniac studio executive.  Yes, there were many one-jokes, as I call them, carried out to 90 minutes.  However, if there are several interweaving one-jokes, it's okay.  Like lots of characters interacting, pushing each others' set of traits.  Pure situational comedy but nevertheless, entertaining in a teenage boy kind-of-way.  You sensed it was going to happen, it does, yet it is still funny because the actors are experts at this kind of humor.  Everyone is along for the ride.  

Maybe the cinema equivalent of NYC ICY...you know what you are in for when you step in the door.  Hell has frozen over.

Louise Bourgeois: The Spider, the Mistress, and the Tangerine and Levain Bakery

Louise Bourgeois: The Spider, the Mistress, and the Tangerine (and Ruby et Violette bakery)

Now at Film Forum

In tandem with the current Guggenheim retrospective, Film Forum on Houston presents a powerful documentary about the French sculptor, painter, and installation artist.  Bourgeois, a fierce, firecracker Frenchie is a fascinating subject material for such an expose.  Her work cries out for explanation and this film provides several unique perspectives: culturally, socially, and critically.  The Spider, the Mistress and the Tangerine, though not an Oscar contender (too small perhaps), is a model for what documentaries should be.  The subject is explored thoughtfully and unapologetically (she is, as we learn, a somewhat difficult and particular woman) with rare moments of performance.  There is a visual component other than talking heads (her art, situated in international museums and built in her studio).  There is sort of a mystery (her psychological unraveling, the dark undercurrents of her tortured work) and there are obstacles (being a female in a male-saturated art world, a perfectionist in a disordered society).  We see that we are both watching something real and something really well-done, composed and deliberate.  At times, like the key tangerine scene, even visceral.  

Though inconvenient to both museum and movie theatre, Ruby et Violette bakery on 50th prepares some excellent artisanal cookies.  For the Personage in your life.

American Teen and Buttercup Bake Shop

American Teen

Written/directed by Nanette Burnstein

I quote poet Walt Whitman, "I Celebrate myself, and sing myself/And what I assume you shall assume/
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you." For this displaced modern midwesterner, I assumed this latest fad documentary would be verse near and dear to my own upbringing. The sort of cinema which would bring to light a true depiction of today's teens, who are not cast members of Laguna Beach, the O.C., Gossip Girl, or High School Musical. But rather products of changing times, social pressures, hormones, and fast food consumption. Atoms of my own soul.

I quote my friend Gemma, "Whomp, whomp." This is not that film. Clever editing transforms five Indiana high school students into caricatures from a John Hughes movie (see the Breakfast Club-inspired poster) or "Heathers" without the irony. The jock, the outsider (she IS Ally Sheedy), the band geek, the rich girl, and a stereotype I've already forgotten. There are confessionals of teen angst, some animation sequence which express their inner turmoil with being middle-class white kids in suburban America (Juno did this with more flair), and a handful of typical awkward social situations (dates, proms, house parties).

As much as I am not recommending this film, I will admit that the band geek/freshman hottie romance of convenience scenes seemed pretty dead-on. Favored moments; when the hottie's mom is cutting the band geek's hair, attempting to make him look less like a Ninja Turtle, and the hottie looks into the camera "People still won't like him. He's weird." Wow, out of the mouths of babes. She later cheats on him at a neighborhood swimming pool. Maybe it is Laguna Beach?

The only thing more saccharine than the overall message of this film...frosting shots at Buttercup Bake Shop. Sort of like Soco and lime for the underage crowd.

Hancock and the Dark Knight (and Cupcake Cafe)

Hancock

Written by Vincent Ngo and Vince Gilligan

Directed by Peter Berg

The Dark Knight

Written/directed by Christopher Nolan













A friend wrote his undergraduate thesis on post-9-11 masculinity in American cinema. He focused on Brokeback Mountain and the Spiderman movies, the normalizing of exhibiting male emotion and what it means to be a hero in a world where evil is ambiguous.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist or an imaginative undergraduate to see that the main characters in Hancock and Dark Knight are not John Wayne. Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, and Will Smith, lead actors of my generation, embody characters who are flawed, frightening, and broken. These are not our parents' superheroes.
Though not an aficionado of the Batman canon (I dabble), I have seen all the films from Keaton to Kilmer to Clooney. I know all the words to Seal's "Kiss by a Rose" and I once came as Poison Ivy for Halloween. However, I doubt Jim Carrey's Riddler would have fared well in this new Batman narrative. His campy persona, neon jumpsuit and cacophonous giggle would be incongruent in the intensely dark storyline where death is a coin flip away.
Mr. Ledger, whose highly-publicized performance is worth every accolade, is hard to watch on screen. I felt as if I was watching the actor unravel. He takes every risk, manufactures every mannerism. There is no "acting;" there is only who he is. For this reason, it seems like dangerous voyeurism. As for the rest of the film, there are some good performances, some great chase scenes, but it is 45 minutes too long. I also find the character of Bruce Wayne too obnoxious and true to a growing class of entitled i-bankers, oblivious to our precarious economic situation. Count your hedgefunds now, hang onto your shirt soon. Maggie Gyllenhaal is too drab to be so coveted.
Mr. Smith portrays a drunk, volatile superhuman. But unlike Batman, Hancock seemed to have a positive message encouraging personal change for the betterment of all. For once this summer, we had some girl action star power (I won't give too much away) other than Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 (What? Alexis Bledel rides a camel). We also had a great ensemble with Bateman, Theron, and Smith. So why did this film concern me? I saw this film in Europe, where thanks to our flagging currency, a matinee ticket was $22. Forget about coffee at $7. Those horrible chocolate coated ice cream bites: $12! I'll take New York prices thanks.

Let's return to a simpler time at Cupcake Cafe, West 18th in Chelsea. Take a slice of carrot cake with colorful frosting, fruit juice, and a selection from the attached childrens' bookstore. I could go for some Dr. Seuss.