The Screengrab : annette bening

DVD (Mini-)Digest for December 23, 2008

Paul Clark — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 15:00:00 GMT

Christmas is just two days away, and for you last-minute shoppers, the studios are unloading several of their late summer and early fall releases to fill out an otherwise slow DVD week.

The most notable of the bunch is Burn After Reading (Universal, also Blu-Ray), the Coen brothers’ follow-up to the Oscar-winning No Country for Old Men. Much more comedic than its feted predecessor, Burn has a no less bleak view of human nature. Consequently, despite the many laughs the film has to offer, the film is much more disquieting upon reflection than one might guess while watching it. But even if you’re just in the mood for entertainment, you should still be able to relish the game performances, especially those given by Frances McDormand, John Malkovich, Brad Pitt, Brad Pitt’s unspeakable hair, and the priceless double act of J.K. Simmons and David (Sledge Hammer!) Rasche.

This week’s other releases include Anna Faris doing what she does best in The House Bunny (Sony, also Blu-Ray); Meg Ryan, Annette Bening and friends in The Women (Warner, also Blu-Ray); Steve Coogan taking comic aim at both Shakespeare and the alleged sexiness of Jesus in Hamlet 2 (Universal); and the fashionably unhinged Julianne Moore in Tom Kalin’s Savage Grace (Weinstein).

Screengrab Fall Preview: Scott Von Doviak’s Picks

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 17:30:00 GMT

We’ve reached that part of the summer when Rainn Wilson comedies and films by Fred Durst are considered top new releases, so it must be time to look ahead to the fall. Traditionally this is the movie season for Oscar contenders and challenging indie fare, so let’s put away the robots and superhero tights and play a little 3 Up, 3 Down. (Feel free to weigh in with your own picks, my fellow Screengrabbers – if you dare.)

3 UP

1. Burn After Reading – No Country for Old Men was a return to form for the Coens, and we’re all happy they finally got their Oscars. But it’s been a while since we’ve had a pure shot of that Coen Brothers feeling. No Country was adapted from a Cormac McCarthy novel, The Ladykillers was a remake, and Intolerable Cruelty originated with other writers. Based on the trailer, Burn After Reading looks like a return to the inventive goofiness of The Big Lebowski and O Brother Where Art Thou?, which puts it right in my wheelhouse.

2. The Road – Speaking of Cormac McCarthy, the second adaptation of his work in as many years in due in November. The grim post-apocalyptic tale is brought to the screen by John Hillcoat, director of The Proposition, a western that certainly counts McCarthy’s Blood Meridian among its influences. Viggo Mortenson has the lead, and the supporting cast includes Charlize Theron, Guy Pearce, Robert Duvall, Garrett Dillahunt and The Wire’s Omar himself, Michael K. Williams.

3. Synecdoche, New York – Charlie Kaufman’s directorial debut didn’t exactly wow most critics at Cannes, but the guy hasn’t let me down yet. (Well, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind didn’t really do it for me, but I’ll blame Sam Rockwell for that.) Even if it doesn’t really work, the premise – which has theater director Philip Seymour Hoffman building a replica of New York in a warehouse – should provide more of the Kauf’s trademark reality-bending weirdness.

3 DOWN

1. The Day the Earth Stood Still – Unnecessary remake of a sci-fi classic, with Keanu Reeves as an alien? The first time I saw this trailer, I thought it was a fake. The second time, I just said “No thanks.”

2. Twilight – I understand I’m not the target demographic for this “y.a.” phenomenon, but I still resent the fact that it’s in my face everywhere I go these days, and that’s only going to get worse as the release of this adaptation approaches.

3. The Women – This has got to be the uber-chick flick of the year: Meg Ryan, Annette Bening, Eva Mendes, Bette Midler and Debra Messing in a remake of the George Cukor classic. If I grow a vagina between now and when it comes out, maybe I’ll reconsider.

WILD CARD

Oliver Stone’s W. This can’t possibly be any good, can it? And yet I can’t wait to see it. We might be looking at a train wreck for the ages here.

Related:
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Oliver Stone Finds His Dick

When Good Directors Go Bad: Regarding Henry (1991, Mike Nichols)

Paul Clark — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 20:00:00 GMT

In the past four decades, the career of Mike Nichols has gone through its share of ups and downs. Nichols made his name as a director with a number of popular, acclaimed films, but he also has several inexplicable films to answer for. I might have spotlighted 2000’s awful What Planet Are You From? had Nathan Rabin not done so already. But Regarding Henry is a more than acceptable alternative, with the bonus of demonstrating the worst tendencies of Nichols’ later films.

Nichols has long been one of Hollywood’s go-to filmmakers for classy star vehicles, particularly “dramedies” geared to adults like Working Girl, Postcards From the Edge, and Primary Colors. But much of Nichols’ enduring critical rep still rests on his seminal early classics Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Graduate, and (my favorite) Carnal Knowledge. Without these films, Nichols would be little more than a slightly more upscale version of Lasse Hallstrom.

In short, Regarding Henry is a pandering comfort blanket of a movie that’s smothering instead of cozy. It’s also a textbook White-Collar Guilt movie, in which an affluent protagonist (in this case, a lawyer played by Harrison Ford) suffers a tragedy (here, a shooting that causes memory loss) that forces him into a crisis of conscience that makes him a better person. Movies like this invariably divide people into two categories- morally-compromised rich people, and salt-of-the-earth poor people. This dichotomy feels like a cynical attempt on Hollywood’s part to flatter the less financially successful viewers while allowing the more privileged to vicariously experience the hero’s awakening before speeding home in their BMWs.

Regarding Henry, based on the first produced screenplay by Jeffrey (later J.J.) Abrams, contains no surprises on this front. In fact, the film is so intent on concentrating on the psychological stuff that it skates right through the physical healing process. Once Henry learns to walk and talk (his first word is “Ritz,” the significance of which feels like a bad joke) again, he’s soon ready to go home. After he arrives back in his expensive apartment, everything happens as it should- his once-rocky marriage is quickly mended, he becomes a better father, all that. Heck, the movie begins with Henry successfully smooth-talking a jury in defense of a hospital that’s being sued by a dying old man. If you can’t see where that subplot is going, then congratulations, because you’ve finally seen your first movie! Too bad it’s this one. And let’s not get started on the film’s simplistic view of minorities, especially Bill Nunn’s ever-cheerful Magical Black Man caregiver.

After his shooting, Henry’s memory loss causes him to regress to a state of childlike naïveté. But while Ford is about the 500th actor one would cast to play childlike, the movie itself does a bang-up job of regressing to a grade-school mindset. Regarding Henry is a movie in which the hero’s problems are solved by getting a puppy, moving to a new house, quitting his job, and pulling his daughter out of her exclusive boarding school. Sure, the money won’t hold out forever, but you don’t think about those things when you’re young, do you? The way Regarding Henry paints it, it’s a wonder more rich people haven’t tried to put themselves through the profound spiritual experience of getting shot in the head.

Click here for previous When Good Directors Go Bad posts.