comedy

Sunshine Cleaning

| Paul Wake Baker

Sunshine CleaningSunshine Cleaning is a delightful comedy and drama, with a great cast, a strong script by Megan Holley and crisp, clean direction by Christine Jeffs. Although it hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves, the two performances at the center of it by Amy Adams and Emily Blunt really propelled the two actresses to the acclaim they so richly deserve.

In Albuquerque, NM, Rose Lorkowski (Adams) is a single mother in her thirties, a former cheerleader who dated the captain of the football team, Mac (Steve Zahn), and was thought to have a bright future, yet she works as a house cleaner and is looked down on by all of her former classmates. She is still having an affair with Mac and he recommends that she could make a lot more money doing crime scene cleanup.  Enlisting the help of her frustrated sister, Norah (Blunt), she dives in with no knowledge or understanding of the business.

As they work their way through a series of gross cleanups, they meet Winston (Clifton Collins, Jr.), who runs a special supply store and he helps them to become more professional. During one cleanup of a dead woman’s house, Norah finds a fanny pack filled with pictures of the woman’s child, Lynn (Mary Lynn Rajskub) and she sets out to find her.  When she does, she can’t bring herself to tell Lynn what happened, but the two develop a friendship.  Rose wants Mac to divorce his wife and marry her, but he balks.

The sisters were both children when their mother committed suicide and Rose, as the eldest, has strong memories of the event that traumatized both of them.  Their father, Joe (Alan Arkin) has a series of money making schemes that always seem to fail, but he has a great relationship with Rose’s son, Oscar (Jason Spevack). He helps by babysitting the boy, who also develops a friendship with Winston.

Adams and Blunt provide both comedy and drama, showing a great range acting. Adams manages to be both very strong and very vulnerable at the same time, while Blunt is brilliant as the troubled little sister.  All of the supporting roles are very well acted.  The script is tight and lean, wasting no time on things that don’t matter.  Everything ties in well.  The directing and editing are terrific.

It is an extremely entertaining and well made movie. I highly recommend it!

Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon

| Paul Wake Baker

inherent viceI am not a huge fan of Thomas Pynchon, but I have a friend who is quite devoted.  Prior to this book, I had only read Gravity’s Rainbow.  I enjoyed it quite a bit, but was not motivated to read other books by Pynchon.  However, earlier this year, my friend loaned me his copy of Inherent Vice, explaining that it was like Raymond Chandler on acid and I couldn’t resist giving it a try.  Later, reading the review from The New Yorker, which extensively quotes Raymond Chandler’s essay “The Simple Art of Murder”, I came to understand how much my friend’s explanation made sense.

Others may dwell on the plot, but I would prefer to allow readers walk into it a little blind, so that the book may be a treat. What impressed me the most was the style of writing.  This is a comedy–and for me it was a laugh-out-loud comedy.  In terms of style, I thought Inherent Vice more closely resembled what you would get if you attempted to take some Zap Comix and novelize them.  Yes, Doc Sportello is a private eye, but he is a gumshoe who is permanently stoned.  His adventures involve characters who appear to be permanently tripping.  The “serious” characters are actually full-blown cartoons.  When a house full of surfer band hangers-on turn into zombies and chase Doc and his friends in the Woody from Hell, you can’t tell if it is really happening or if Doc is just tripping, but it is a hilarious sequence.

The book captures the Southern California of the early 1970’s very accurately, populating it with a hilarious beach crowd, throwing in bimbos, policemen on steroids, surfers, lawyers, real estate developers and gonzo bums.  The book could have very easily been a collaboration with R. Crumb.

If you read this book and understand it as a comedy and I think that you will completely enjoy it.

Adventureland

| Paul Wake Baker

AdventurelandAdventureland is a funny and moving teen romance written and directed by Greg Mattola about a group of teens working at a summer carnival. The main character, James Brennan, is a student who has just graduated from a small college and is saving up his money to go to the Columbia School of Journalism so he can begin a career in travel writing. Played with both humor and angst by Jesse Eisenberg, James is trying to find romance, but his own geekiness stands in his way.

It doesn’t take long after meeting Em for him to start falling for her. Older and wiser, she is a student who lives and studies in New York (NYU) during the school year, but works as a carny in the summer. She’s also having an affair with Mike (Ryan Reynolds), a guitar player who also fills in there in the summer as a maintenance man. Married, his one claim to fame is that he is rumored to have jammed with Lou Reed, James’ hero.

The film is a period piece, set in the summer of 1987 and Mattola has gone to great lengths to make the film of its time. The park seems quite old by today’s standards and the costumes and hair styles all reflect the late 80’s very well. Although some of the humor is a bit juvenile, it generally works well. The supporting characters are sharply defined and quirky. Kristen Wiig as the park manager and Bill Hader as her husband and assistant are both quite funny and Martin Starr is quite good as James’ pal Joel.

Both Eisenberg and Stewart are very good and this is probably Stewart’s best performance. They are the only two characters in the movie who have serious scenes and they carry them off very well. It’s a fun movie and worth spending the time watching.

Juno

| Paul Wake Baker

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I was really bowled away by Juno. What a great film!  The story of a teenage girl named Juno MacGuff (Ellen Page) who gets pregnant and decides to carry the baby and give it up for adoption to a needy couple, this movie really delivers great comedy and great drama.  Page is so natural and relaxed in her performance that she is completely believable and she literally carries the movie. The Academy Award-winning script by Diablo Cody is a wonder.  The dialogue is quick, witty, full of pithy phrases that separate Juno and her friends from the run-of-the-mill teenagers at her high school (“Desperately seeking spawn” LOL).  Directed by Jason Reitman, it hits every note spot-on and leaves you with just an amazingly good feeling.

It’s full of wonderful supporting performances, including: Michael Cera as Paulie Bleeker, Juno’s dorky boyfriend and father of the child, J. K. Simmons (the wonderful pitchman at Farmer’s Insurance University) as her dad, Allison Janney as her step-mother, Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner as the anticipated foster parents. They all work together brilliantly in an ensemble cast all clustered around the wonderful performance by Ellen Page at the center and heart of the movie.

So GOOD! I highly recommend this film to literally EVERYBODY!

Austenland

Aside | | Paul Wake Baker

Austenland PictureAustenland is a movie whose premise holds great promise, but is ultimately disappointing.

Released in 2013, this movie is based on a novel of the same name by Shannon Hale. The film was written by Hale and director by Jerusha Hess. Sadly, both of these creators made some very serious errors in planning this movie.

I haven’t read the book, so it is impossible for me to gauge whether they screwed it up or if it is faithful and the novel simply failed on its own.

The heroine of the movie, Jane Hayes (Keri Russell) is a disheartened Jane Austen fan. Obsessed with the writer, she looks at her own life and sees failed relationships, a dead-end job and no future, so she decides to spend her life savings on a trip to England to resort called Austenland where fans can dress like their favorite characters and act out with British actors hired to emulate such heroes as Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice. Even her life savings however does not qualify her for anything more than the “copper package” that gives her a tiny room and a disfavored status among the other tourists.

On the way there, she meets a rich and rather stupid American woman who introduces herself as Elizabeth Charming (Jennifer Coolidge) and they travel together. The resort is run by a lady named Mrs. Wattlesbrook (Jane Seymour) who has a great disdain for those who bought the cheap plan, the only one of which on this trip is Jane.

Making friends with the groundskeeper/chauffer Martin (Bret McKenzie), she find it tough sledding with the men who play the aristocrats, notably Mr. Heny Nobly (JJ Field) and Colonel Andrews (James Callis). One can guess what happens.  Most of the men fall for Jane while she is making out with Martin.  There are all sorts of hijinks that are supposed to be funny and in the end, she discovers that Martin himself was only an actor, paid to have a romance with her.  Both Martin and Mr. Nobly meet her at the airport on her way home and she rejects them both.

Any serious Jane Austen fan will find that this movie missed the mark in many, many ways.  I really like Keri Russell and I’ve got to say she was more or less wasted in this effort. The script needed to be much more heavy on Jane Austen and less concentrated on trying to be funny.  It could have incorporated a great deal from each of the books and been really funny and witty, but instead, it concentrates on the people playing the parts and one opportunity after another is passed by.  I detest movies that beg for laughs and fits that category.

 If you have an hour and a half to fill, this will keep you entertained, but it falls far short of its potential.