Much Ado About Nothing

January 30, 2015 | Paul Wake Baker

If you buy the cliché that young people who argue and harp at each other are actually flirting, then William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing might have been the first great play to use it. In Joss Whedon’s modern dress adaptation, he has whittled the play to under two hours and presented it in a witty original format.

The story concerns two young lovers who are both possessed of too much wit for their own good and their sharp tongues frequently cut others to bits, but none moreso than themselves, for Beatrice (Amy Acker) and Benedick (Alexis Denisof) constantly cut each other to ribbons. After sleeping together, the two part ways, then, when the victorious army returns from the war, they continue as if nothing had happened.

Beatrice lives with her uncle, Leonato (Clark Gregg), who is the Governor of Messina. Although they are excessively wealthy, she shares a room with Leonato’s daughter, Hero (Jillian Morgese). The Prince of Aragon, Don Pedro (Reed Diamond) comes to visit, bringing with him his disgraced brother, Don John (Sean Maher), and the celebrated war hero, Count Claudio (Fran Kranz) and Benedick. No sooner have they arrived at this beautiful villa than Claudio reveals that he is deeply in love with Hero. Now that the war is over, he wants to marry her and asks Benedick’s advice. A confirmed bachelor, Benedick can only speak of himself, stating that he will never get married, that it is an odious state that can only ruin a man. Unperturbed, Claudio tells Don Pedro about his love and the Prince volunteers to intercede with her at the costume party later that night. He is successful and the marriage is set for a week later.

Don John has brought along two of his associates to help him plot revenge on the lot of them, his girlfriend, Conrade (Riki Lindhome) and a vicious young man named Borachio (Spencer Treat Clark).

For his own amusement, Don Pedro hatches a plot to bring Beatrice and Benedick together: he and the men will have a conversation that Benedick will overhear in which they opine about Beatrice’s secret love for Benedick. Meanwhile, Hero and her maidservant, Margaret (Ashley Johnson) will do the same for Beatrice, letting her know that Benedick is desperately in love with her, but is afraid to tell her because of her acid tongue.

When Don John hears of the intended marriage between Claudio and Hero, he tries to find some way to derail the marriage. Borachio has the answer. He has been involved in a relationship with Margaret and he can set up a scene where she dresses in Hero’s clothing and they make love in Hero’s room, so that Claudio will believe Hero is unfaithful.

The night before the wedding, local security chief, Dogberry (Nathan Fillion) has set out the night watch. Claudio, Don Pedro, and Don John all witness what they assume to be Hero making love with a stranger and Claudio decides to humiliate Hero by exposing her at the wedding. Later that night, Borachio and Conrade are smoking a joint outside as Borachio brags about how he set up the Count Claudio for a fall, when Dogberry’s watch finds them, having overheard Borachio’s confession of villainy. Arrested, Borachio and Conrade are brought in for questioning. Dogberry has a few problems with English in that he frequently says exactly the opposite of what he means, thus confusing the two during their “interrogation.”

Intrigued by what they have heard, each of the other’s secret love, Benedick and Beatrice come together and discover that they really, truly are in love. They pledge themselves to marry.

At Hero’s wedding, Claudio goes through with his threat and roughly accuses Hero of infidelity before the entire assembled wedding party. He and Don Pedro race away and Hero collapses of shock. The minister comes up with a plan that Hero should pretend to be dead, then Claudio will regret his actions and when he finds out she’s alive, they’ll marry anyway. Beatrice, livid with anger over Claudio’s actions, forces Benedick into a duel with Claudio to prove his love to her. Benedick confronts Claudio, telling him that Hero is dead and challenging him to a duel which will take place later.

Before there can be more mayhem and mischief, Dogberry brings Borachio and Conrade to Leonato and reveals that Hero was not immoral on the night before her wedding. And so, there is a double wedding at the end.

There are many things to be loved in this modern day version of the Shakespeare classic. For one thing, many aspects of the story are clear as a bell, rather than buried in pages of language. Whedon has created a beautiful black and white modern world for this play to be set in and it looks beautiful, more like a classic French film than anything American. The actors are all extremely sharp and the characters are extremely well-drawn. Good, young actors contribute a great deal to the success of this movie. Both the men and women are incredibly handsome or beautiful throughout the movie. I don’t think there is one “normal” looking person in the film, which is something that normally bothers me a great deal. Does everyone always have to be supernaturally beautiful? Apparently so.

The movie is quite funny, for the most part, although at times the black and white medium makes it feel like the story is a bit darker than it actually is. Some of the parts are a bit overdone, such as Benedick’s extremely foolish eavesdropping on the conversation that sets him up with Beatrice. Fillion plays Dogberry a little low-key for me and many of the lines that are funny in Shakespeare just look a little dumb with Fillion’s dry delivery.

As with all modern dress versions of Shakespeare, language is a problem. I give full credit to Joss Whedon for doing an excellent job of cutting and compressing the play to get it down into very good length, but when when someone who is apparently modern gives out with “thee” and “thine” and “by my troth” it just doesn’t remotely ring true and frankly, it seems ludicous. From the DVD special features, it seems that this project was put together very quickly using Whedon’s friends who had often read Shakespeare together as a fun thing to do. Perhaps if it had been given a little more preparation, Whedon might have rewritten Shakespeare even a bit further and brought the language into line with the way we talk. But if they just wanted to film friends doing Shakespeare, I guess it wouldn’t be Shakespeare without the language.

This isn’t really Whedon’s fault. Many others have attempted to set Shakespeare in a modern day environment and each of them ultimately fail because Shakespeare’s language is over 400 years old and it sounds archaic and looks dumb when spoken by people dressed like us. Much Ado About Nothing is far more successful than most attempts and I found it to be a highly entertaining, well-acting, well-cut film.

Even so, it requires a willing suspension of disbelief that is way beyond my own rich fantasy life.

Friends with Kids

January 22, 2015 | Paul Wake Baker

This 2011 movie written, produced and directed by Jennifer Westfeldt is about a group of shallow, sex-obsessed Manhattan Yuppies who start having children. I’m going to discuss the full plot in some detail, so if you don’t want the ending spoiled, you probably shouldn’t read this review. On the other hand, the story is quite predictable and if you haven’t figured out the entire plot in the first five minutes, then all cylinders aren’t firing anyway.

Jason (Adam Scott) and Julie (Westfeldt), are both well-paid professionals in their mid-30s. Best friends for many years, they live in the same building in Manhattan and have long telephone conversations usually involving a choice between grisly ways to die. Julie asks Ben if he’d rather die a long, painful death by cancer or to see a loved one die the same way. Ben chooses to watch the loved one die because he would still be alive.

They gather regularly with married friends Alex (Chris O’Dowd) and Missy (Kristen Wiig), who are obsessed with having sex, and Ben (Jon Hamm) and Leslie (Maya Rudolph). Not interested in each other Jason and Julie continually seek their own romantic relationships, the success measured in sexual happiness. Their friends have children, but they continue to seek permanent mates themselves until one evening they decide to have a child of their own. Seeing the misery that their friends have experienced, they decide that they can raise a child and still search for their own soul-mates.

While Ben and Leslie manage to make their marriage work, Alex and Missy’s relationship falls apart, further evidence that they’ve made the right decision. As time passes, Jason becomes involved with a dancer, Mary Jane (Megan Fox), while Julie finds Mr. Right in the form of Kurt (Edward Burns). When Alex gets drunk at a New Years skiing getaway for the eight of them, he comes down hard on Jason and Julie for not thinking through the effect their decision will have on their child. Jason strongly defends the decision, declaring how much they love each other and how much they love their little boy.

Taking this to heart, Julie realizes that she really does love Jason more than Kurt. When they get together to celebrate her birthday, she tells him how she feels, but Jason recoils, explaining that he loves her as a friend and is already in a deep relationship with Mary Jane. Julie decides to move to Brooklyn to get away from him. Both of their relationships end and Jason then realizes that he actually loves Julie, too. It ends with him telling her that he’s changed his mind: he’d rather die himself than to watch her die of cancer. She is reluctant at first to accept this change of heart, but when he promises great sex, she changes her mind.

There are moments in this movie that ring true and come close to being genuinely touching, but the predictability of the plot makes it very hard to become attached to story. The characters are genuinely shallow. Self-obsessed relationship-junkies who have probably never had an original thought in their lives, their elevation of sex to the be-all and end-all of human love comes across as pathetic and self-serving.

Maybe this is the present or the future of American ideals, but I sure hope not. One can admire Westfeldt for her hard work in doing the project, but I really wish she had taken the time to put some thought into it. I can’t really recommend this movie to anyone.

Pretty in Pink

December 27, 2014 | Paul Wake Baker

It’s very rare in the realm of popular movies (outside of period pieces) that costumes play a major role, but Marilyn Vance is largely responsible for the success of the 1986 John Hughes script Pretty in Pink. The third of the “Brat Pack” trilogy of movies, following Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club, it closely resembles the first film, Sixteen Candles, and if Hughes had had his way by casting Anthony Michael Hall in the pivotal role of Duckie, it might have been even closer.

The following review contains total plot spoilers, so beware.

The film is about a high school senior, Andie (Molly Ringwald), with a great fashion sense. Coming from the poor side of the tracks–a fact that is bluntly stated in the opening shot when the camera actually crosses the said tracks–Andie lives with her father (Harry Dean Stanton) and struggles against the conformity in her high school. By frequenting thrift shops, she puts together an amazingly fresh and offbeat ensemble every day. Of course, the rich girls at her school are complete snobs and they all wear expensive (or looks expensive) clothing and they make fun of her attire. Her best friend, since they were kids, Phil “Duckie” Dale (Jon Cryer) is also loose from head to toe, wearing outfits as outlandish as Andie’s are stylish. Also poor and outside the circle of the rich kids, he follows Andie around like a puppy dog and seems oblivious that she’s not interested in him romantically.

In spite of her outcast status among the girls at school, she seems to be an object of interest to some of the wealthiest boys, including Steff (James Spader), who she rejects near the beginning of the movie, and Blane (Andrew McCarthy), who seriously interests her. She works at a record store called Trax, for a beautiful, outlandish girl in her thirties, Iona (Annie Potts) and she seeks Iona’s advice a lot. Blane shows up at the store one day and seems to be returning Andie’s feelings. When he asks her to go out with him, Duckie is cut to the quick, goes into a serious depression, and even backs out of his friendship with her.

Blane takes her to a party at Steff’s where the girls’ antipathy toward her is obvious and makes her totally uncomfortable. Taking her upstairs, they blunder into a room where Steff is lolling around with the coolest girl in the school, Bunny (Kate Vernon) who makes fun of her. They leave and go to a club that Andie hangs out at, but Duckie is there with Iona and he picks a fight with Blane, so they leave. He asks her to the prom and she gets excited about going with him. They commit themselves to the relationship, but Steff keeps bothering Blane about it until Blane finally backs out and embarrasses Andie in school.

Her father buys her a pretty ugly prom dress and she combines it with Iona’s old prom dress to make a new creation that is pretty cool. She goes to the prom alone, but sees Duckie there and they go into the prom together. Blane, who has also come alone, both apologizes and at the same time blames her for their relationship not working and tells her that he loves her. In a reversal of character, Duckie tells her to go after Blane, then a beautiful girl, the Duckete (Kristy Swanson) gets his attention and he’s off with her. The movie ends with Blane kissing Andie in the parking lot.

If some of this plot seems a little muddled, it’s partly because the entire ending was re-written and re-shot after preview audiences booed the ending. In the original script, Andie ends up with Duckie. It’s really weird and creates a lot of confusion. For one thing, the entire film has built toward Blane’s complete screw up with Andie and her moving beyond him–and that includes his blaming her at the end for something that was entirely his own fault. How she could go with him after that is anybody’s guess. Part of the issue, too, is that while her friendship with Duckie is strong and deep, there isn’t any romantic attraction on her part, which negates the original ending. In an interview on the DVD, Molly Ringwald admits that Robert Downy, Jr. almost got the role of Duckie and that she had a strong chemistry with him that would have made the original ending work, but that she herself did not like ending up with Jon Cryer because they didn’t have any kind of romantic chemistry.

So the ending is compounded by multiple mistakes and it really screws up an otherwise engaging, funny, and hip movie.

The script by John Hughes was written for Molly Ringwald and the character of Andie is fully realized, fueled by a dynamic and engaging performance by the actress. The direction by first time director Howard Deutch is loose and fun. He creates a great little, believable world for Hughes’ characters to inhabit. Jon Cryer is outstanding as Duckie, always funny and charming. Harry Dean Stanton is terrific as Andie’s father and Annie Potts gives an amazing performance as Iona–probably the best performance of her career. James Spader is both beautiful and slimy, a combination that he has made into lifetime’s work. And the cast is sprinkled with terrific cameos, including Andrew Dice Clay, Dweezil Zappa, and Kristy Swanson.

Molly Ringwald and Jon Cryer’s costumes are wonderful. The only other movie I can think of that made such a fresh fashion statement was Woody Allen’s Annie Hall. The use of pink in all of Molly’s costumes tactfully underscores the title of the movie and every outfit is innovative and fun. The final ingredient that makes the movie special is the well chosen soundtrack that captures that great late eighties indie rock sound.

The DVD contains many special features that enhance viewing pleasure and they go into fine detail on the problems of the ending.

Even though the movie is deeply derivative of Hughes’ earlier success Sixteen Candles, it remains fresh and charming, but the uncertainty of the filmmakers regarding the ending creates a true confusion that was simply never addressed, either by Hughes or Deutch, and that makes it difficult to enjoy.

Even so, I highly recommend this movie for an evening’s light entertainment.

Elizabethtown

December 6, 2014 | Paul Wake Baker

If ever there was a candidate for a movie that needed a Second Look, it is the 2005 Cameron Crowe romantic comedy-drama, Elizabethtown. Crowe wrote and directed the film, which features music by his wife, Nancy Wilson, one-half of the musical duo Heart.

Drew Baylor (Orlando Bloom) is a rising young star in a world-beating athletic shoe company in Oregon (think Nike) working for a man named Phil (Alec Baldwin). He has designed what the company has hyped as the next great shoe, Späsmotica, but just before it is released, the reviews start tumbling in and it turns out that it is the biggest turkey ever put out by the prestigious firm, doomed to loose the company close to a billion dollars. He has to say goodbye to his job and his girlfriend Ellen (Jessica Biel).

When he gets home, Drew rigs his exercycle with a knife in an effort to kill himself, but before he can actually do the deed, his sister, Heather (Judy Greer) calls him to inform him that their father, Mitch (Tim Devitt) has died and that he must go to Elizabethtown, Kentucky, his father’s home town, to cremate the body so that he can bring the ashes back to Oregon. As they talk, their mother, Hollie (Susan Sarandon) is freaking out trying to cook. On the flight, he meets offbeat, perky flight attendant Claire Colburn (Kirsten Dunst) and they have an immediate affinity for each other. She gives him directions on how to get from Louisville to Elizabethtown and gives him her phone number.

After arriving, his cousin, Jessie (Paul Schneider), a former member of country-rock band called Ruckus, greets him and re-introduces him to his dad’s friends and family, including Uncle Dave (Loudon Wainwright III) and Aunt Dora (Paula Deen). They had planned on a burial in Elizabethtown and are completely against cremation. He checks into his Louisville hotel and finds him in the middle of gigantic wedding party, “Chuck and Cindy: The Wedding.” He tries to call Heather, Ellen, and Claire with no luck, then Heather calls him and tells him he needs to return at once to deal with Hollie, who is still freaking out. Ellen calls him to break up and finally he gets on the line with Claire who is just returning home. They begin a conversation that lasts all night long, discovering more and more how much they like each other and they finally meet half-way to watch the sun rise together. They spend the day together and shop for his father’s urn. Along the way, Drew becomes friends with Chuck and Claire practically joins the wedding party.

With so much going on around him, Drew just doesn’t have either the time or the inclination to grieve for his father’s loss, but he does keep revisiting the man in the form of flashbacks to his childhood. At one point, Drew is ready to call off the cremation, but it is too late. The deep has been done, so he collects the urn. Claire shows up at his hotel again and they finally consummate their relationship, but the next morning, she prepares to leave. Drew catches her in the hotel parking lot and explains about his monumental failure with the shoe company. To her credit, Claire doesn’t care, but there is still something that keeps her from committing to him. She explains several times that both of them are stand-ins, one side of an incomplete relationship and that this role is one they have to play.

As romantic comedies go, this is a very smart one, always entertaining, and deeper than it probably should be. Crowe is an excellent screen writer and he really knows how to tell a story. His characters get under your skin and you can’t help but root for them to have success. Both Drew and Claire are extremely well-written and their romance is something that feels very special, maybe as special as Chuck and Cindy? Could be.

However, even with such a great script and excellent director on hand, the movie could have easily failed—and nearly did. The first actor cast as Drew, Ashton Kutcher, apparently had no chemistry at all with Dunst and was replaced after filming had started with Bloom. It was a brilliant decision because the character of Drew must carry the film and Bloom is extraordinary in the role. I don’t often rave about young actors suddenly fulfilling their promise, but Orlando Bloom is so engaging, both in the comedy and in the drama, that it is pretty much impossible not to like him and pull for him. Dunst gives one of the best performances of her career and the worldly, carefree Claire, someone that every guy I know would love to meet.

I always love seeing Susan Sarandon in any movie she does and she is great once again as Drew’s mother Hollie, bringing a careless wonder to a woman trying to cope with the loss of beloved husband. As if that wasn’t enough, the ensemble cast is terrific. Paul Scheider is great as cousin Jessie, Bruce McGill is hilarious as Bill Banyan, and both Deen and Wainwright are wonderful in their cameos.

One staple of any Cameron Crowe film is great music and Nancy Wilson has obliged us with a big catalogue of mix and fill music, as well as her own film score that compliments the action and the mix music perfectly.

The end of the film is quite something and I find that I can watch Drew’s trip cross-country back to Oregon again and again for the footage of the great central United States. And I love that Mitch’s final resting place isn’t one place, but rather an entire country. I can’t help wishing that I had a son like Drew to help distribute me between Lincoln, Nebraska, Santa Fe, New Mexico, and San Francisco, California.

What a way to go!

I

November 25, 2014January 18, 2015 | Paul Wake Baker

Il Postino (The Postman)

“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close.”

~ Pablo Neruda, 100 Love Sonnets

F

November 22, 2014February 25, 2015 | Paul Wake Baker

Fargo

Alfred Hitchcock would have liked this 1996 Joel Coen and Ethan Coen quirky thriller that contains so much comedy it transcends genres. It borrows a number of techniques from the master of thriller movies, including a clever McGuffin, a villain with empathy, horrific incidents that are hilarious, and a tremendous environmental atmosphere.

The Fighter

There are just a handful of good boxing movies, but The Fighter must be ranked among them. This 2010 film written by Scott Silver, Paul Tamasy, and Eric Johnson is based on the true story of two brothers who each attained some degree of success in the world of boxing. There is some stretching of the truth in order to make a good movie—and that is just what director David O. Russell gives us.

The First Time

The very sweet teen romance written and directed by Jon Kasdan is disarmingly honest, with characters that feel so real there isn’t the hint of artifice. Centered around two teens who meet by accident, become friends, and each decide to give up their virginity to the other, this film will leave you with a warm, gooey feeling that makes it a worthwhile viewing experience.

Fly Away

Written and directed by Emmy Award winner Janet Grillo, this 2011 low-budget independent film, shot in a mere 14 days is full of emotional punch and great characters brought to life by a bright and talented cast.

The French Connection

If you are looking for the meaning of life, this movie is not for you. Indeed, if you are looking for any meaning at all, this is not your movie. Rather, it is a completely kinetic film. Directed by William Friedkin, it echoes the French cinema of the 1950’s, which itself echoes the American gangster films of the 1930’s. It is all movement and action, with practically no dialogue, moving in a steady arc of energy toward a violent ending.

French Kiss

Sometimes the charm of two charismatic actors with great chemistry, combined with a smart, talented director, can make even the most banal of screenplays work to perfection. Such is the case with Lawrence Kasdan’s 1995 romantic comedy, French Kiss.

Friends with Kids

This 2011 movie, written, produced and directed by Jennifer Westfeldt, is about a group of shallow, sex-obsessed Manhattan Yuppies who start having children. It stars Adam Scott, Westfeldt, Chris O’Dowd, Kristen Wiig, Jon Hamm and Maya Rudolph.

Frozen River

There are a lot of great movies that somehow never make it into the public eye and Frozen River is one of those films. It deserves to be seen–and probably deserved a lot more national attention than what it actually got.

French Kiss

November 22, 2014 | Paul Wake Baker

Kate (Meg Ryan) is a history teacher whose fear of flying goes far beyond what most of us would think of as terror, but she has a serious problem that involves flight. An American history teacher, she is engaged to Canadian Charlie (Timothy Hutton), residing in Toronto on a Resident Visa and waiting until her Canadian citizenship comes through before they get married. Charlie is a doctor who is about to fly to Paris for a medical convention and he begs her to come with him, even though she isn’t supposed to leave the country because of citizenship issues, but the point is moot because Kate just can’t board a plane. When a great house becomes available, they go to look at it. Charlie fears it will be too expensive for them, but Kate reveals that she has a considerable savings that she hadn’t told him about yet.

A few days later, Charlie calls her in a drunken stupor and reveals that he has fallen in love with a French girl, Juliette (Susan Anbeh) and won’t be coming home. In spite of her fears, Kate decides to board an Air Canada flight and go to Paris to get him back. The guy sitting next to her, Luc Teyssier (Kevin Kline) is a French thief who is illegally smuggling a small American grape vine back into France in order to create a new hybrid wine. However, tucked into the cheesecloth padding the root ball is a stolen diamond necklace. Luc begins an argument with Kate to distract her from her fear of flying, plying her with little bottles of liquor he has stolen from the flight attendants’ cart. He hides his vine in her travel bag so he can successfully smuggle it back into France. At customs, he meets his old friend Inspector Jean-Paul Cardon (Jean Reno), whose life he once saved. Returning from a vacation, Jean-Paul gives him a ride with his family so he can inspect Luc’s bags to make sure he isn’t smuggling anything.

Kate goes to Charlie’s hotel to find him, but a smarmy desk clerk won’t reveal his room number to her. Another petty thief, Bob (François Cluzet), tries to hustle her as she sits on a sofa in the lobby waiting for Charlie to come down. When she sees him kissing Juliette, she passes out and Bob steals her bag. Luc arrives, passing Bob at the door, to discover Kate passed out on the floor. He revives her and when he realizes that Bob has her bag, he takes her, steals a car, and drives to Bob’s apartment where they find he has already disposed of everything but her bag and the vine. Thinking he has now recovered the necklace, they leave, but have an argument on the street and separate. Kate goes to the American Embassy to get a duplicate passport, but they stonewall her because she is a permanent Canadian resident. At the Canadian Embassy, they won’t give her a duplicate Resident Visa because she was once arrested for possession of pot. Alone, penniless on the street, she reluctantly returns to Charlie’s hotel. In the interim, Luc has searched the root ball of his vine and finds the necklace is gone, so he goes back to Bob who proclaims that he didn’t take the necklace, that it must still be in Kate’s bag.

When Kate makes a scene at the hotel, the desk clerk tells her that Charlie and Juliette have gone to the south of France where they intend to get married, so she sets off for the train station. Bob arrives at the hotel to fleece more guests, but is arrested by Jean-Paul who is interrogating him trying to find a “big fish,” a more important criminal. At that moment, Luc arrives and forces the clerk to tell him where Kate has gone. Bob points out Luc to Jean-Paul and tells him that Luc has stolen a diamond necklace. Jean-Paul now chases Luc to the train station where they lose him.

Aboard the train, Luc finds Kate and volunteers to help her get Charlie back, so he can buy time to inspect her bag. Over the next few days, both of their affections begin to turn toward each other as Luc tries to help her reunite with Charlie, even though he now loves her himself. She reveals that she actually has the necklace and slowly gives in to her feelings for Luc.

Although the screenplay by Adam Brooks is certainly not a ground-breaking story, Kasdan does a marvelous job of telling it. The cinematography and editing are both terrific and they aid determined performances by Kevin Kline, who is almost always brilliant, and Meg Ryan, who, despite a few hammy scenes, is her usual charming self. The two of them bring a lot of chemistry to the romance, which is essential in a romantic comedy and their performances take a simple story and make it memorable. France has never looked so good on film, not just Paris, with both gaudiness and grit, but the countryside and vineyards of Luc’s birth really shine, not to mention the French Riviera.

It is a tight, fast moving film that engages the viewer constantly during the one hour and 51 minutes of length. Colorful, skillfully directed, with wonderful, engaging cast, this is one romantic comedy that should be on your shelf. I highly recommend it!

Waitress

November 6, 2014November 6, 2014 | Paul Wake Baker

Funny, touching, tough: three words that truly describe this vastly underrated 2007 comedy-drama, written and directed by the late Adrienne Shelly.

Jenna (Keri Russell) is an amazing pie-maker in some unnamed southern town. She works at Joe’s Pie Diner with her friends, Becky (Cheryl Hines) and Dawn (Adrienne Shelly), under the management of Cal (Lew Temple) and the ownership of Joe (Andy Griffith). She’s married to a domineering redneck man named Earl (Jeremy Sisto), who takes all of her tip money and bullies her relentlessly, but she’s been hiding away some of the money and she hopes to enter a pie contest where the prize is $25,000–with the intention of leaving him as soon as she can. This plan gets derailed at the very beginning of the movie when she discovers she’s pregnant.

This brings on the inspiration for her to make tomorrow’s featured pie, the “I Don’t Want Earl’s Baby Pie.” Dawn remarks that she shouldn’t probably write that on the menu board, so Jenna changes the name to the “Bad Baby Pie,” a quiche with Brie cheese and a smoked ham center.

She considers making an “I Hate My Husband Pie” made of bittersweet chocolate–unsweetened–made into a pudding and drowned in caramel. Deciding to keep the baby, she goes to see her doctor only to find that her gynecologist has gone into semi-retirement and most of her cases have been taken over by young, attractive Dr. Jim Pomatter (Nathan Fillion). When he congratulates her, she tells him that she doesn’t really want the baby, but is having it anyway, so please don’t be all happy for her. “It’s not a party.”

Her mother taught her to bake as a child, singing this little song (written by Adrienne Shelly):

Baby, don’t you cry, gonna make a pie

Gonna make a pie with a heart in the middle

Baby, don’t be blue, gonna make for you

Gonna make a pie with a heart in the middle

Gonna be a pie from heaven above

Gonna be filled with strawberry love

Baby, don’t you cry, gonna make a pie

Hold you forever in the middle of my heart.

Everything is about pie creation. She brings the doctor her “Marshmallow Mermaid Pie” that she created when she was nine years old. She makes a “Falling In Love Pie” (chocolate mousse) for Dawn’s date, and she fantasizes about new pies night and day. At one point, she considers making a “Baby Screaming Its Head Off in the Middle of the Night and Ruining My Life Pie” that would be a New York cheesecake brushed with brandy and topped with pecans and nutmeg.

“I Can’t Have An Affair Because It’s Wrong and I Don’t Want Earl to Kill Me Pie”

Finding Dr. Pomatter irresistible, she begins an affair with him and considers making an “Earl Murders Me ‘Cause I’m Having An Affair Pie” made with smashed blackberries and raspberries in a chocolate crust, but decides it would be better to make an “I Can’t Have An Affair Because It’s Wrong and I Don’t Want Earl to Kill Me Pie” with vanilla custard and banana–no–hold the banana. Among the other pies mentioned in the movie are the “Spanish Dancer Pie,” the “Naughty Pumpkin Pie,” the “Singing Tuna Casserole,” and “Jenna’s Special Strawberry Chocolate Oasis Pie.”

After she discovers that Becky is having an affair with Cal, she asks him, “Are you happy?” He answers, “I’m happy enough. I don’t expect much, give much. I don’t get much. I generally enjoy whatever comes up.” Dawn finds happiness with a little accountant named Ogie, but Earl continues to make Jenna’s life miserable, forcing her to have sex with him, slapping her around, and controlling her. In fact, she conceives of the “Pregnant, Miserable Self-Pitying Loser Pie,” made of lumpy oatmeal with fruitcake mashed in and served flambé.

In spite of the comedy, the movie holds a very dark side. Earl, for example, though an ignorant bully, has unexpected depth. He’s never really been loved and he depends on his control over Jenna to give meaning to his life. Joe, the owner of the Pie Shop, is himself an old loser, but he advises Jenna to leave Earl and start all over. “This life will kill you,” he says. “Make the right choice.”

The script contains many unexpected depths and Shelly’s deft direction and control of the story arc keep the movie on point through its one hour and forty-eight minutes. Keri Russell is beautiful, with a big heart that makes you love and root for Jenna to find a way out of her mess. Nathan Fillion is charming as the nervous, tender Dr. Pomatter. Cheryl Hines and Adrienne Shelly are funny and poignant as her waitress friends and Andy Griffith is terrific as Joe–again providing unexpected depths.

But the pies are magnificent. Every pie in the movie looks absolutely beautiful and each one acts like a Greek chorus, providing commentary on the action.

Unfortunately, Adrienne Shelly did not live to see her movie appear at the Sundance Film Festival or to see its critical success. Three months before it was due to open, Shelly discovered a thief in her apartment. The man panicked and killed her. A foundation has since been established in her name to help young female filmmakers fulfill their dreams and you man contribute at The Adrienne Shelly Foundation.

Everyone should see this movie! It’s a film that can be seen over and over again with a kind of sensual culinary pleasure, with laughter and tears, and lots and lots of love.

Funny, touching, tough.

Roman Holiday

November 2, 2014 | Paul Wake Baker

This classic romantic comedy is as much fun today as it was when the film was first released in 1953. It is built around two lies of identity told to each other by the main characters so that they can spend a day together in Rome.

Princess Ann (Audrey Hepburn in her first starring role) of some unnamed kingdom is touring the capitals of Europe on a goodwill tour and has landed in Rome, her last stop. Young, bored with her grueling daily schedule, and rebellious against her keepers, the Princess throws a fit of pique at her bedtime and is given a shot of sedative to help her sleep. Before the shot can take effect, however, she quickly dresses and sneaks out of the embassy in the back of a service truck. As she wanders the streets of Rome alone, she falls asleep on a public bench.

Foreign correspondent Joe Bradley (Gregory Peck), after losing badly in a poker game with his pal, photographer Irving Radovich (Eddie Albert) and other reporters, heads home, but spots Ann sleeping on her bench. Concerned for the girl’s welfare, he tries to wake her up and put her in a taxi, but she can’t function without him, so he brings her back to his tiny apartment and lets her sleep on his ottoman. The next afternoon, while she’s still sleeping, he goes into his office, sure that he’ll get in trouble for missing the Princess’s press conference. Not knowing that the meeting has been canceled due to a royal “illness,” he tries to convince his boss, Mr. Hennessy (Hartley Power), that he has interviewed her and narrowly avoids getting fired over his lie. However, when he sees a picture of the Princess in the paper, he realizes that she’s the girl in his apartment and he may be able to get a terrific story out of it.

Hiding his identity from Ann, Joe plays the part of an innocent American businessman on holiday and she makes up the name Smith (Smitty) so that he won’t think she’s a princess. In this regard, he takes unfair advantage of her. While he knows who she is, she has no idea that he’s a reporter trying to get a story. He proposes that they spend the day doing all of the things she’s always wanted to do. He ropes Irving into coming along for most of the day to take pictures of her using his cigarette lighter camera. Ann gets a haircut, eats at a sidewalk café, goes riding on a scooter with Joe, and goes dancing on a boat, all liberating her in ways she’d never imagined. As Joe gets his story, he begins to fall in love with her and she with him.

Part of the movie’s strong appeal when it was released was that England–indeed, the whole world–was then currently enthralled in Princess Margaret’s love affair with a commoner, Peter Townsend.

The other part almost exclusively relates to Audrey Hepburn’s stunning debut. Although she had appeared on Broadway, acclaimed in performing the title role in Gigi, she was virtually unknown in the world of film and took the industry by storm with her performance in Roman Holiday. Under William Wyler’s expert direction, her performance is restrained and vulnerable, yet one never doubts that she is absolutely extraordinary, a real princess, and a true beauty. Among the awards she received was the Academy Award, the Golden Globe, the BAFTA, and the New York Film Critics Circle Award, all for Best Actress. She was aided by Edith Head’s amazing costumes, which also earned an Oscar.

Gregory Peck and Eddie Albert are perfect in their roles, too. Peck brings a calmness and dignity to the hard-nosed reporter that elevates the role far beyond what it might have been and he is the perfect foil for Hepburn. They have a chemistry that is truly magnetic. Albert is almost unrecognizable as Irving. With a beard and full head of hair, he adds a Bohemian element to the role that really makes him seem a natural part of the European scene.

The script was written by John Dighton and the great film screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, but because he was blacklisted for refusing to cooperate with the House Un-American Activities Committee, Trumbo did not receive credit for his writing. Instead, author Ian McLellan Hunter was listed on the credits and was nominated, along with Dighton for the Academy Award for Best Screenplay. The pair actually won the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Written American Comedy, but Hunter’s award was later transferred to Trumbo’s widow Cleo in 1993.

William Wyler’s direction is superb. He decided to shoot the film in black and white, even though color in vogue in 1953 and, in retrospect, it was a great decision. The beauty of Audrey Hepburn is truly shown to great advantage, as is the chiseled manly face Gregory Peck. The third major star of the film is Rome itself. Wyler decided to shoot the film entirely on location, a notion that Hollywood shunned at the time, preferring to shoot all their films on the back lots of the studios, using rear projection of world-famous landscapes and buildings. In Roman Holiday, again, the black and white film loves the city in its pre-gaudy, non-Felliniesque gray tones. The coliseum, the churches, the plazas, sidewalk cafés and little scooters running around everywhere gives the movie a truly authentic aura that meshes so well with Hepburn and Peck’s performances.

The DVD includes a terrific documentary, “Remembering Roman Holiday,” the featurettes “Restoring Roman Holiday” and “Edith Head – The Paramount Years,” plus photo galleries and some really interesting trailers, including Audrey Hepburn’s interview following her screen test and her modeling some of Edith Head’s costumes.

Funny, beautiful, frolicsome, Roman Holiday remains one of the great classic love stories of all time and should be seen by everyone–should, in fact, be a part of everyone’s film collection.