Milk

Wow. The best news is Gus Van Sant might be back from experimental film school. I’d read something similar after he made the little-seen Paranoid Park, but I guess I was still numb from the shell shocked loneliness of Gerry and, to a lesser degree, the softcore slaughter porn of Elephant, which actually kind of hooked me in the same way it’s hard to turn away from roadside car crash aftermath, and finally that Kurt Cobain meditation, Last Days, by which time I’d thrown up my hands.

But those films made it easier to forget Van Sant was the same career-making fever dreamer who blew it up with Drugstore Cowboy, which might be the underappreciated James Legros’ (best) biggest picture (try out Living in Oblivion if you’re interested), which begat My Own Private Idaho and featured the still interesting pre-Speed Keanu Reeves (come on: River’s Edge, Parenthood, I Love You to Death), which begat To Die For and made Nicole Kidman, which begat Good Will Hunting and made a couple of B-listers you probably wouldn’t recognize, and which, coupled with Finding Forrester, might have been the mainstream material that sent our boy into the wild. I could go on, but time’s up.

Though I’ll say this, Sean Penn won this year’s game of pretend for a reason.

The Other Boleyn Girl

Strikes me as Cliff’s notes on Henry VIII vs. The Boleyn Family: an emotionless by-the-numbers survey of Anne’s rise and fall, the dissolution of Henry and subsequently England’s ties to Rome, and the ruination of the Boleyn family, check, check, check and check. And the usual tease-all, show-nothing, bee stung, deer in the headlights character work of Scarlett Johansson; see also Match Point, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, He’s Just Not That Into You, etc. Empty but strangely satisfying, like a Twinkie.

50 Words or More

In an effort to resurrect this thing, I'm making a New March's resolution to write at least 50 words or more about each movie I see. So pieces are going to be (even) less finished and more like notes from a ratty spiral bound.

The Visitor

Gathering my thoughts for this post, I thought to myself that "The Visitor" feels a lot like what I'd written about "The Station Agent" back in January. Turns out both were written and directed by the same guy: Thomas McCarthy (often credited just as Tom). Who, by the way, starred as the snakey, Stephen Glass-like character Scott Templeton in one of the top, oh, say three TV shows ever made: "The Wire."

But I'm off topic, and, what the hell, let's go even further afield. I'm moving away from New York after 12 years here, and one of the things I've been up to is making a list of things I'll miss (and trying to decide if any of them are stoppers), i.e., the Staten Island Ferry, the ability to see Swedish vampire movies the weekend they open on, at most, two screens nationwide (this one's almost a stopper, but hey, that's what Netflix is for, right?), the variety of food. And that's about it.

But today I added one tiny thrill I'll miss: spotting celebrities whose work I admire, which often seems to correspond with the kind of actor, etc., who you might read in Entertainment Weekly decide that the "legitimate work" in New York trumps living in LA for them. So today I added Seth Gilliam, who played Sgt. Ellis Carver, to my small, but quality list of "Wire" players. Okay, there are really only two, the other being a really crabby looking, though perfectly in character, John Doman, who played the bush league Machiavelli, Deputy Ops. Rawls.

But these two, Jim Jarmusch, Sigourney Weaver and Peter Greene (Zed, "Pulp Fiction," with whom I got in a now-hilarious shouting match over a stool at a downtown bar) do not a home make. So I'm out. (But if I bump into Omar, Bunk, Bubbles and Stringer Bell at my going away party, I'm cancelling the damn truck.)

Mmm, and right, if you liked "The Station Agent," and what's not to like, add "The Visitor" to your queue.

How the mighty have fallen...

...for Zooey Deschanel. I will likely lose all critical credibility with this next bit, surprising, and ever so pitiable, on the order of, say, a big tough guy having a soft spot for The Notebook. (Zing!) But I flipped to Failure to Launch on TBS tonight and couldn't flip away. Their "one movie, every night of the weekend" programming never made much sense to me until now. I'm a 21st century hobo, meaning I have no DVR (and ride the rails eating out of tin cans), I missed the first 20 minutes, and I just may tune in to the makeup session.

It's not a bad story idea. McNutty is the wounded but idealized supermanchild of the sort you find on every other page of Men's Health. (Extreme mountain biking! Rock climbing! Perfect abs! He's got it all, except for love.) And he can't let go of the security of living with the folks. SJP is a once-jilted hagshrew who needs to make the past right by controlling the present, and topping every scene partner. (I'm Carrie Bradshaw, dammit.)

Ol' Matthew gives a winning, easy performance, and for once you don't resent him coasting on his now-exhausted "awright-awright" charm. Are his teeth really that white? Kathy Bates and Terry Bradshaw are funny and touching as his parents. They clearly care for him; they just want some space. Bradshaw's "Naked Room" performance is worth the price of your time. And Bates, reliably, has one, sharp moment that cuts you.

And okay, SJP, who I cannot find the right words to express how much I dislike (witchface), manages to find one or two vulnerable moments (clown makeup), and here and there play someone more than a character from her new series, Sex in the Suburbs (glamour magazine conspiracy).

But the real payoff, is Zooey Deschanel's performance. You know her from Elf, maybe from All the Real Girls; her sister is Fox's Bones. She's gives the most tired dialogue a witty snap, has a fresh take on a been-there scene in a sporting goods store with Rob Corrdry's gun clerk, and flashes her big Suicide Girl eyes under her Vargas pinup haircut. SJP (beauty?mark) just can't hold the screen against her. You know, I think I take back everything I ever said about bangs. Pow!

P.S. Yes, there are inexplicable CGI animals with personalities. They eventually serve a, the?, story point. But there were other, better ways to get there. I guess the producers had money to burn, and decided to graft a kidflick to their adult comedy. I mean what does a kid care about the leaving Mom's cooking blues? I don't know, I guess I did say he was a manchild.