40 Year Old Virgin (2005)

Took me a while to get to go see this film. Not because I avoided it on purpose, not at all. Steve Carell has been a funny guy before that film, and even though everybody just discovered him this past summer as the lovable virgin, I knew him from The Daily Show appearances, the short-lived Watching Ellie, Bruce Almighty and of course, The Anchorman. His atypically funny – not always going for the obvious; and not always rushing to the punchline. He takes his time with jokes, building them up, improvising along the way. And that’s the feeling this movie gave me. Behind the gags and fish-out-of-water situations, there’s a genuinely funny story about a guy who never got laid. A guy who’s being encouraged by co-workers to overcome that particular obstacle, and as soon as possible.

The movie is now out on DVD, supposedly with more raunchy material, and more dirty jokes. This is a dumb marketing ploy, because frankly I didn’t lust for more lust in the film. I found it more sweet and kind than filthy and titillating. Maybe I’m not the intended audience. Either way, I liked the movie. First of all, because of the casting. Catherine Keener, Leslie Lynch, Leslie Mann, all with a great comic timing, providing a believable romantic interest and hilarious situations for Andy (Steve Carell) to stumble upon. Then there are the men — Paul Rudd, Romany Mulco and Seth Rogen. All nice guys, and all genuinely want to help Andy with his problem. Except, like in any male group, there’s the dominant one, and the submissive ones. So there’s always going to be one who’s chronically exaggerating just about everything in his life, and another who’s trying to imitate “alpha male” behaviour, but it conflicts with his moral values. It’s funny to watch these guys interact and fill the roles so well, while Andy is just taking notes from these “models”.
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Corpse Bride (2005)

First it was Wallace and Gromit, and now – Corpse Bride? Wow, two claymation films in one year, better yet, released within a month? This is very nice indeed – the big studios are looking at the animation a little closer, despite Disney’s troubles and closures. I wonder if those two just happened to be finished at the same time, or it was a strategically planned release, to position new animation studios as the future entertainment sources (as opposed to lousy Disney flicks)? After all, only Dreamworks (Shrek series, Madagascar) and Pixar (anything from them is a gem, really) can release cartoons that actually make money. But enough of cynicism – it was a film from Tim Burton, it was not a typical hand-drawn or tired computer-animated product, it was unusual. And as far as I’m concerned, unusual is good. It’s memorable.

Corpse Bride follows James and The Giant Peach and Nightmare Before Christmas – in style and many themes. It’s very dark, painstakingly shot frame by frame, does feature songs (unlike W&G), and it’s aimed at kids, despite its subject matter. W&G had plenty of grown-up references and humour in it – which is why the theater was roaring with laughter – adult laughter, and that can be a bad thing for a cartoon. If kids don’t get a grown-up joke, they won’t tell everyone in their class to come see it next weekend. Whereas adults are too busy promoting serious films to their friends, rather than “that odd toon I saw with my kids yesterday”. Which is a shame, really – because Corpse Bride is very, very entertaining. It’s just not going to get the word-of-mouth it deserves.
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Serenity (2005)

Ok, this is not going to make me very popular, but here goes: I never cared much for Buffy or Angel. It’s not that I didn’t like the shows, I just never got into them, and if you consider glimpsing at an odd episode here and there for 1-2 minutes WATCHING, then yes, I watched them. Saw the Buffy movie (wasn’t it in the mid-80s), and didn’t really care to get hooked on the small-screen version, and the spin-off (Angel). But I heard it was good. In fact, the voices that kept droning on and on about just how good those two shows were – those annoying zombie-like voices was the reason I never got hooked – just don’t like anything that has an immediate cult following. It’s not natural.

Wait, let me retract – I was hooked on Lost from the premiere, I got into numerous sitcoms from get-go (Out of Practice, How I Met Your Mother – come to mind from this season). But that was my own choice – I sat down in front of TV, discovered something on my own, decided I like it, and ever since then, more and more religiously, have been watching, waiting, drooling and dreaming about that particular show. Nope, that didn’t happen with Buffy or Angel. Neither with Firefly – the short-lived series (2002, was it?) that was a precursor to Serenity, the Motion Picture. Sure, I heard about the captain of a small cargo ship, and about the cast, and of course the creator Joss Whedon, but I just don’t like to be pressured into watching things. So, Firefly came and went, got canned, and we almost forgot all about it. Except there was a movie in the making.
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Commander-in-Chief (ABC)

West Wing is limping towards the inevitable cancellation (well, everyone’s going to call it an official end of the show – after all eight seasons for a drama is very, very good – but we know that the show has suffered a lot since Aaron Sorkin and Rob Lowe left). There are hardly any other political dramas on TV these days. Which makes it even a bigger surprise that it took so long to come up with a clone of West Wing – and what a pretty good clone it is.

ABC knows family entertainment, and so they take a proven and winning formula and add some parents and kids themes to it. The result is a little off-balance, but it makes for great entertainment. It’s West Wing Light. It’s West Wing with a bachelor’s degree, and not a PHD. It works.
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Threshold (CBS)

This TV season is full or supernatural shows (trying to duplicate the amazing success of last year’s Lost. Of all the shows I am most intrigued about Threshold – a new project from Brannon Braga – the guy behind numerous Star Trek’s series. To be sure, I tuned in to watch Supernatural, Surface and Invasion, and while all of them are engaging and suspenseful shows, I put Threshold a few notches above – it has better talent and shows off more experienced writing team.

First off, Carla Gugino. She was the heart of a recent ABC show “Karen Cisco” (remember the role played by Jennifer Lopez in Out Of Sight). A great FBI caper, with interesting cases, intelligent criminals and a good cast, the show didn’t survive, but it proved that Gugino can move to small screen successfully. She’s back in a similar role – an ass kicker with a degree. An ass kicker under pressure.
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Everything is Illuminated (2005)

We are all immigrants. We all have roots elsewhere. Even if you think you’ve lived in the same little town for generations, keep digging and eventually you’ll find that somewhere, at some point in the past, your ancestors have come here, and decided to stay. They immigrated. Therefore you too are immigrants. Don’t argue with it, don’t rationalize it, just look long enough at your family tree and you’ll see where the roots come from. And if you don’t see them – aren’t you curious to find out? That’s the idea at the core of this movie. And you don’t have to be a nostalgic, odd-looking, Jewish boy to start looking for your roots half-way across the globe. You just have to be curious enough…

Everything Is Illuminated is a directorial debut of Liev Schreiber (Spinning Boris, Manchurian Candidate, Sum of All Fears, RKO 281) based on a novel by Jonathan Safran Foer. A great novel, heavy with stories of a Ukrainian Jewish village that was essentially saved by one woman. Liev mentioned (after the screening) that he discarded most of the heavy material and concentrated on a “road trip” movie. I think it was a great decision – leave the heavy stuff for readers – tell a compelling story in less than two hours. And here’s the story.

A strange-looking American comes to town (Elijah Wood playing Johathan Foer), looking for his Ukrainian roots, more specifically a village that no longer exists on any maps. He’s escorted around countryside by Alex (Eugene Hutz), his grandfather (they run a business together – showing out-of-towners around – to find graves of their ancestors, archival records, etc), and grandfather’s seeing-eye dog named Sammy Davis Jr. Jr. Elijah is the odd man out, a collector of memories – he has a wall in his room covered in plastic bags, each containing a piece of his family’s history, a piece of himself. The collection is one of the strangest things I’ve ever seen – brooches, pens, pins, wrappers – it’s not your typical photos and letters. But then again, he’s not a typical kid. For instance, he also doesn’t eat meat – which not only provides a hilarious running joke for the movie, but also comments on our personal choices as individuals.
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Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005)

Nick Park has done it again. First with the original three short films (each more amusing and precious than the other), then with Chicken Run in 2002. Now, finally the time has come for the famous duo to claim the big screen. For those who don’t like animation (or have something against claymation), Wallace and Gromit are an English man and his dog, the former is an aspiring inventor, the latter is the savior who comes and repairs whatever damage is done by a particularly unstable invention. They mean good, but sometimes get carried away with their inventions. They are a great pair of characters, an odd couple of sorts, and it is their relationship that works so well in this film – they are inseparable, and yet, very different to the point of clashing at every turn. The film is not only a showcase of hard work and determination (as you know, stop-motion films are shot frame-by-frame), it’s also a testament to a solid script, love of characters, and a phenomenal support cast. You can’t help but love this little town and its characters – it feels so real, and yet cartoonish at the same time.

If you’re familiar with the short films, this movie follows exactly the same way – a simple story, a few unusual inventions and a lot (and I mean A LOT) of sight gags. Except this time everything is bigger – bigger cast, more involving soundtrack, bigger laughs, and of course, a bigger menace. In the short films the duo dealt with a cunning penguin at some point. This time their nemesis is a were-rabbit. OK, let me explain. Wallace and Gromit run a pest control company (called “anti-pesto” – there’s more where that goofy name came from). They take care of a neighborhood, look after people’s gardens, capture rabbits and other pests, making sure that nobody’s flowers and veggies are harmed. Naturally, there’s a big vegetable competition coming up, and everyone’s involved in this somehow (oh, how I would love to live in a neighborhood where people compete in growing veggies). There’s the organizer – Lady Tottington – who cherishes this tradition, has a phenomenal garden of her own, and loves animals of all sizes – even if some of them may feast on her prize-winning veggies. There’s a handful of obsessive gardeners who lock up their veggies for the night in the most unusual fashion, and count the days until their creations get a chance to shine at the contest. Let’s see, there’s Victor Quartermaine, Lady Tottington’s boyfriend who has plans for her estate, and has little tolerance for pests, or nice, friendly people like Wallace who are simply making a living capturing pests.
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My Name Is Earl, How I Met Your Mother, Out of Practice, Office

Ah, mid-to-late September is here. You know what this means. No, not the gorgeous fall season. No, not the cloudless sky and cool nights. No, not the horrendous traffic as all kids big and small get on the road and start crawling sideways… No, this means new TV shows. And unlike so many many other websites, magazines and TV promos, in here we will not review a show before seeing it. We will tell you what we think after we sit down and catch it ourselves. That’s what reviewing is all about. Late, but honest. Anyway, we’ve been so busy trying to catch up with all the new shows out there, that it’s best to review stuff in groups. Today, it’s the new offerings from CBS – How I Met Your Mother, and Out Of Practice; and NBC’s new hit – My Name Is Earl. Also, an honorable mention to The Office. Why, you may ask? Why the heck not.

It’s good to be a sitcom these days. Hardly any competition, very high standards, and very low expectations. It means that if you are so-so, you have about 3-4 weeks before you’re canned. But if you’re good… Boy oh boy if you’re good, you’re the next Desperate Housewives, only funnier, smarter and only half-an-hour long. And not sexist. Yeah, I gotta problem with that housewife show, and the more popular it gets, the more I resent this pretentious piece of crap. But enough about my hang-ups.
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A History of Violence (2005)

David Cronenberg has fascinated me since I discovered Dead Ringers in the early 90s. See, I was convinced at the time that there were two guys playing Mantle brothers. I realize that part of the credit should go to Jeremy Irons, but it also takes a special director to present two different people, with two distinct personalities, and appearances. Cronenberg has been studying multiple personalities and multiple universes in Spider, to an extent in Crash, and definitely in M Butterfly and Existenz. He’s also fascinated with people under tremendous stress, being put under scrutiny (again Spider and The Fly), and as you may know, his films typically include a decent dose of gore. Naturally, when I heard about “A History of Violence”, the title was all I needed to know. It’s Cronenberg’s territory. It might be confusing, but it will not be boring for a minute.

It’s no surprise that very first reviews of the movie keep mentioning that it’s his strongest, most accessible film to date. While I personally disagree (the techno geek in me easily identified with characters of Existenz, and Scanners; and Crash was easy to watch because of James Spader), I understand these reviewers. They get it. They hope others get the movie too. And I’d like to think that I got it too, although the theater experience left a very sour taste in my mouth. I can only hope Cronenberg was going for this effect. But before I get to this, a little about the plot.
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Water (2005)

Deepa Mehta has been working on this movie for almost seven years. There were troubles on the set, Indian religious organizations threatened to close the set and pull funding. So the production stopped and moved to Sri Lanka in order to finish this project. Usually when one hears about “problems on the set”, the assumption is that the movie is horrible, and the producers are trying to salvage it. This is a different story – the movie is controversial, and also important – it needed time and a lot of love to be made. Now that I’ve seen it, I know it was worth the wait. The film is beautiful and heart-wrenching at the same time.

Indian films are maturing. Just a few years ago you could not tell them apart from one another – extensive dance numbers, catchy music, colourful characters, the universal battle of good vs. evil (only nobody’s really in any danger at any time). But in 2003 Bollywood/Hollywood came out – mocking and revering all these cliches, telling a modern, smart story, and giving us three-dimensional characters. This film was also directed by Deepa Mehta (whose earlier films Fire and Earth have strived to go deeper into culture, and draw out better stories). Deepa has put together her strongest, most memorable film to date – it’s accessible, powerful and works on many levels.

Before I get to the details, I just have to note that this film not only goes beyond Bollywood cliches, it establishes and then evolves some of Hollywood cliches as well, showing that it’s possible to deal with archetypes, and tell a familiar story, and still be original, and fresh. Typical, I guess, that it takes an outsider to show us (allegedly, the pros of moviemaking) that you can recycle plot or characters without losing your audience, without boring them to death. And that’s precisely why Indian movie business can churn out hundreds of films a year (they have been having tough couple of years), and still bring in people to the theaters in droves. Whereas this summer has shown that movie overkill doesn’t work on American audiences – when people see commercials for 2-3 big new movies every week, they’re not even going to try to catch any of them (let alone the “big ones”), they’ll turn to other sources of entertainment. But enough ranting – I got a great film to describe.
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