Cinematic Blues – 3/8/10

Every week, Netflix sends me three movies from my queue. Sometimes I get the new releases that I keep at the top of the list, and sometimes I get titles from lower down on the list. Often these are movies I forgot I put on there, and more often than that, I’ve forgotten why.

Still, it is my duty here in the Bunker to take the celluloid bullets that no one else will and review them for you, our faithful readers.

You are faithful, right? Yes? Good. Read on.

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THE PENTHOUSE (2010)
Directed by: Chris Levitus
Written by: Corey Large, Kyle Kraven, David Martin, and Chris Levitus
Firstlook Studios

“Yeah. It wasn’t really about a gopher, though.”

Before I get to the review, I want to tell you about this nightmare I had the other night. I was on this awful reality show called “Strangers in a Penthouse” which was kind of a Real World/Big Brother mix-n-match thing. This major douchebag (MDB) and his on-screen hookup won the game, and thus the titular Penthouse apartment in NYC. MDB had a couple of friends move in, one of whom was that guy from “Boy Meets World.” No, not that one. The other one.

BMW is dating Penny from “Big Bang Theory” and claims to be a writer, but is going through this existential crisis and has a fear of commitment which is tested when MDB’s sister – who may or may not have been a “Deal or No Deal” model – comes to visit.

The other roommate is a male nurse, who is your standard overcompensating chipster frat boy, and is too busy giving the doctor he works for (Mya. Yes, the singer. Don’t ask me why.) a full physical to care about anything else.

There was a game of strip tag, a cubicle on the roof of the building, Ed Begley Jr., and a whole lot of other things I don’t really want to re-live. I’ll tell you this, however: I am never ordering a 5-layer burrito with extra habanero sauce after midnight ever again.

When I popped in this bullet-train-to-video DVD, the nightmare started up all over again.

Elwood Says: 1½ Hot Carls out of 5.

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DARE (2009)
Directed by: Adam Salky
Written by: David Brind
Image Entertainment

“Yeah, well…Alexa has nothing better to do than pretend, period.”

Is being dressed down by Alan Cumming all it would take to completely change your attitude and way of life? Would that be what you need to go from Sandra Dee to SANDY? For Alexa Walker, apparently it was.

After being harshly critiqued by visiting actor Grant Matson (Cumming) for attempting to be Blanche DuBois on-stage without any life experience off-stage, Alexa (Emmy Rossum) goes on a rebellion bender. First, she puts a streak in her hair. Then she mouths off to her teachers, lands in detention, and goes to a party where she loses her virginity to school bad boy and acting partner Johnny (Zach Gilford). The movie makes it seem like this all happens literally overnight.

Caught up in the ‘I’m Changing’ wave is Alexa’s best friend Ben (Ashley Springer) who goes from ambiguously gay to full-on gay after his own encounter with Johnny. Ben was not well served by the story, or by Springer, and comes across as a very two-dimensional character.

Things get even more awkward from there as jealousy, lust, and an extremely misguided attempt at a threesome get to hot for these children to handle.

Rossum – an opera singer and highly seasoned performer for her young age – has one big gap in her repertoire, and that is that she doesn’t know how to act like she’s acting. When she makes the sudden and jarring shift from Good to Not So Much it’s a complete transformation, and very confident. It’s unrealistic at best. We’ve all been there, and it’s not that easy.

It’s difficult to buy Gilford, best known for playing white-bread Good Guy Matt Saracen on TV’s “Friday Night Lights” as the Bad Boy at first, but as the movie progresses we discover that to be intentional. Johnny is perhaps the most layered and lost soul of the three principals in the film, and Gilford plays his sorrow and loneliness with nuance and skill, giving an impressive performance.

Elwood Says: 3 Stanley Kowalskis out of 5.

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SERIOUS MOONLIGHT (2009)
Directed by: Cheryl Hines
Written by: Adrienne Shelley
Magnolia Home Entertainment

“Why am I duct taped to a fucking chair, Louise?!?”

When filmmaker Adrienne Shelley was murdered back in 2006, she left behind a number of finished and unfinished stories. Thanks to her friends and family, one of them became this funny, delightful movie about a marriage in crisis and the series of unfortunate events that puts it back together again.

Louise (Meg Ryan) arrives home one day early from a business trip to find that her husband Ian (Timothy Hutton) has decked the house out with all sorts of romantic trimmings…

…for his girlfriend, Sara (Kristen Bell), with whom he is intending to go to Paris the next day.

At first glace, this movie looks to simply be a retelling of “French Kiss,” which also starred Ryan and Hutton as a broken couple where Hutton runs off to Paris with his new squeeze. However, the film quickly takes a left turn when Louise knocks Ian unconscious and restrains him – first to a chair, then to the toilet – in order to talk him into staying with her.

This is a fun and playful, but honest script from the late Shelley, and would work very well as a stage play. The entire film takes place in one or two rooms of a house, and there are only four main roles.

Ryan plays the same kooky character she’s played before in “French Kiss,” “When Harry Met Sally,” and “You’ve Got Mail” but the neurotic is tempered by a Been There kind of mentality that comes with age. Meg Ryan is at the point in her life and career where she can draw from so much experience that a role like this comes easy and natural. (Take note, Alexa Walker.)

During the course of the day and night spent with this couple, there are laughs, tears, a tense but polite face-off between Louise and Sara, and a home invasion. One scene during the robbery is a little offputting, if only for the close parallel between it and the details of Adrienne Shelley’s death, but the entire circumstance is mostly played for laughs.

While she isn’t really headed in this direction, Kristen Bell could easily make a career out of being the Next Meg Ryan.  Justin Long was amusing and a little scary as the landscaper turned thief, Todd. (Go ahead. Laugh. I did.)

The final scene was very much out of place with the rest of the movie, and looked like something that they added because test audiences didn’t get the resolution the first time. It shouldn’t have been included at all.

This movie was clearly a labor of love. A heartfelt tribute to Shelley with wonderful performances from the cast and a job well done by first-time director (and Shelley’s “Waitress” co-star) Hines.

Elwood Says: 4 Airborne Flower Pots out of 5.

Similar Posts:

• Cinematic Blues – July 20, 2010
• Cinematic Blues – 6/29/2010
• Cinematic Blues – 5/11/2010
• Cinematic Blues – 3/28/2010
• Cinematic Blues – July 13, 2010

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