The Eclectic Mix

I’m rapidly deciding that I really like the Brits’ style and approach to making their TV shows and movies. They concentrate on telling a story, solid movie-making and don’t get hung up in fancy writing, over-involved plot lines, and over-the-top special effects. In short, it’s all really easy to watch and not distracting.

Our first example is Kinky Boots. It’s a simple and charming story about a man who is forced to take over running the family men’s shoe factory in a northern England town when his father dies. He’s been around shoes all of his life, but, as can be expected, didn’t really have the family business in mind as a career goal. But when he starts running the business, he discovers that the factory’s largest customer is no longer ordering from them, and that his father was cranking out shoes for the order in spite of it, probably in order to keep the workers employed.

But during a trip to London, the man (Charlie) comes across a drag queen (Simon/Lola) who faces a chronic problem with his profession: women’s shoes aren’t made for men. Charlie ends up working with the drag queen to produce a line of boots specifically aimed at drag queens and transvestites that will stand up to a man’s build. In the process of producing the line for debut at a shoe fashion debut show in Milan, Charlie must overcome his own problems, the hesitancy of his employees, a crumbling relationship, the insecurity of Simon, and personal and corporate financial peril.

As wacky as the storyline sounds, and feels like it was taken from a sitcom, it actually is based on a true story and a documentary that the Beeb produced just over five years ago. But the story is predictable and feels a little formulaic, but as I said at the top, it’s so well executed that you don’t mind it. This is your prototypical feel-good comedy, just involving factory workers and drag queens. So just how could you go wrong?

It’s a fun movie to watch. Not laugh out loud funny most of the time, but charming and cute and entertaining without trying to go too far or be too silly. Most everyone in the story is likable, and you do end up rooting for both Charlie and Simon, especially with the unusual runway show that the company puts on.

So all-in-all, a very good movie, certainly not great by any means, but a lot of fun and well done. Four out of five stars.

Finally, I’ll just drop in a quick note here as I’ve finished the last available season of Doc Martin, a TV show I’ve been watching and have reviewed here.

Season four is the last season produced, with an announcement made by the star, Martin Clunes, that there is a season five in the works. That said, the show could have ended happily at the end of season four, which might have been part of the plan. Unfortunately, though, season five isn’t even going to be filmed until 2011 and not released until fall of 2011, so I’ll have to wait at least a year to catch up on the good doctor.

But to summarize–and I know there are some of you watching it on PBS as they’ve brought it over, so I won’t give away anything–Doc Martin is a London-based cardiac surgeon who develops a fear of blood, and ends up taking a job as a GP in the hometown that he left almost as soon as he could. The people of the town are beneath him, the job is beneath him, and you can just tell he loathes every minute of it. But over the course of the seasons of the show, he and the town have settled into an understanding, if not an acceptance of each other.

He has an on-again-off-again love interest in a school teacher, which, I am pleased to say, stays tense throughout all the seasons of the show. It’s part of what makes the show so interesting to watch: it’s a subtle comedy packaged to make you uncomfortable: the stiffness and phobias of the doctor, the odd characters in the town, and the uncomfortable interactions of the characters with the doctor and each other. You never get comfortable watching the story, but it’s done so effortlessly in both the writing and acting that you almost forget all these people are just actors filming in a town that’s also a stand-in for a fictional community.

So back to season four: very worthy of the series, and as I said, it could have ended with the last episode, and still made you happy. And yes, the whole of season four is predictable as well, but I didn’t mind because it’s where the story needed to go: the doc needs to realize what it is that he really wants.

So a weekend of British entertainment…Good stuff. Plus, I started season two of Kingdom, and it’s proving to be very good as well…Can’t wait to see more.

See you tomorrow.

Tonight’s movie: Born Romantic, a fun, slightly confusing, romantic comedy. Sort of…

Yes, it’s a love story, centering on four men, though we don’t really don’t know it’s also telling the story of the fourth until the end of the story, all of whom have issues, baggage, or problems being in love, finding love, or showing love.

One guy is a former rocker who dumped his girlfriend at the time, and now, eight years later, has decided he made a mistake and wants to get back together with her. Another guy is a petty thief who is afraid of hurting his victims, so he and his partner use chloroform to knock out their victims after they take withdrawls from ATMs. And the last guy is living with his ex-wife in their house that they are unsuccessfully trying to sell because one side of it is slowly sinking.

A cab service and three cabbies act as the sages in the film, talking about romance and sex and women and men, both amongst themselves and to their fares who are both the men and the subjects of their advances.

The thief chooses a neurotic who lives in constant fear of life, really: she’s afraid of germs, car accidents, flying, and bacteria in and on food, among other things. Yet she owns and operates a business that tends to graves for those who can’t do it themselves because they’re too busy or out of town or out of the country.

The rocker’s girlfriend has discovered herself and isn’t sure a life with him is what she wants anymore, and isn’t sure he’s changed at all.

And the final guy has fallen for a bookish museum technician who restores the art.

And they all meet, fall in and out of love, and discover a lot about life and love at a club that hosts salsa dancing.

In the end, everyone gets what they want, and we find that love does indeed conquer all. It’s the path that the movie takes to get there that’s interesting.

At it’s base, it’s a simple story, about six people (well, seven, but I’m not giving that one away in case anyone reading this wants to see it) who are messed up, have difficult situations to work through in their lives, and are, as pop culture constantly reminds people who aren’t in a relationship, alone. And yes, the film is an allegory, meant to draw we the viewers in and recognize traits in each of the characters that we possess while it makes broad statements on life and love. But what it’s great at is doing all this and being obvious about it while still not pounding it over your head or doing it in a way that makes you want to stop watching. In that sense, it’s a very charming film.

The acting is understated, with Craig Ferguson in the lead as the divorced man, and he isn’t playing any of the over-the-top characters I’ve seen him play before. The filmmaking itself is also pretty basic and plain, letting the story do the talking and not making the visuals too disruptive.

But for some, the film will be too slow and too confusing at first…Or perhaps even too strange: the whole story revolves around two basic locations: the cabs and cab company/cafe (yeah, it’s operated out of a cafe), and the salsa club. And the characters are absurdly messed up enough to make you recognize what their problems are. So I could see how some viewers would probably go through the first half of the movie and wonder what the hell they’ve been watching. But if you like a well-made movie, or a good love story, or a good character study, it’s worth sticking through. Four out of five stars.

See you tomorrow.

Home is the film du jour, apt because it is a Swiss production in French–or the French that the Swiss speak…And that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to how weird this film is. But first…

The story: A family is living a good life in their home on land that has been bisected by a highway, but that highway was never completed. So they cross it freely, play on it, and basically pay it no attention. Then one day, suddenly, the highway is completed, and cars start rushing by the house. The family deals with it for a while, but then gradually goes mad with the noise and lack of sleep. In the process, the oldest child vanishes, and shortly after that, during what would be the summer vacation for the family, they begin insulating the house and bricking up the doors and windows to lock out the noise of the outside world. Only when the oldest daughter returns briefly do we discover that they’ve bricked themselves in completely with no way out.

Okay, some background here…Netflix only thinks I’ll give this three stars, so it’s not one I would have picked up on my own. But a coworker saw it at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival, and I checked out some reviews based on his appraisal of it. And it sounded quirky enough, possibly slightly funny, and one of those films that gets into your head. Heck, if you look it up in Netflix, you’ll see that one of the member reviews rates it highly, but starts out by saying “This is one messed up flick!” So I took a chance.

Unfortunately, after waiting so long for it to come out on DVD and to get it from Netflix, either my expectations got too high, or I just wanted too much of it to begin with. Yes, this is a very messed up film, with a very close and loving family that simultaneously borders on being completely dysfunctional: the hard-working father who enjoys time together with his entire family, a slacker oldest daughter, a mother who seems to have something mentally wrong or at least slightly off, the brilliant middle child, and a young son who is treated as though he’s younger than he seems. At the heart of the family is this house, which, I think, may just be a long-time dream recently realized, but then the road comes through but is left unfinished for some time. So all through this movie, whether intentional or not, there’s a constant undercurrent that just doesn’t feel right. And then there’s the feeling once the road is done that this is just turning into some sort of heavy-handed social commentary–highways are bad, destroying families and lives, and so on.

But I think it’s really more a statement on families digging their heels in when faced with unfavorable situations. This family had a choice, or at least we were never told they didn’t have an option to move. And they certainly didn’t fight the road when it initially came through and didn’t talk to any powers that be once the workers came through and resurfaced the highway and put the guardrails back up. So whose fault is it that they’re stuck in this situation? One thing’s for sure: the whole family reacts in the extreme to the problem, and you can’t really be sure who the catalyst was.

The film itself is simple–no special effects, nothing really special about its production. The acting is pretty solid, and the story is pretty well written, so no complaints there.

So overall, if you’re looking at one disturbed foreign movie, check this one out. Though I know there a lot of you who won’t find this to be your cup of tea. It’s not great, but it isn’t horrible, either. And Netflix hit this one on the head for me: Three out of five stars.

See you tomorrow.

A Netflix-recommended movie this time, and it came in under the “quirky, foreign, musical-comedy category” which sounded appealing at the time.

Now, let me be clear: this film definitely has music, some comedy, it’s a little quirky, and it’s definitely foreign. So I guess they weren’t lying in the description. But as quirky and charming as the first two-thirds of the movie is, the last third is sad and strange and dark. And yet the film is mostly fulfilling.

Here’s the story: the daughter of an older widow is quiet all the time, staying in her room and listening to many classic records that her father sold in the record shop below their apartment, and earning her the nickname “Little Voice.” But it turns out that she has listened to these albums by Judy Garland, Billie Halliday, Marilyn Monroe, and other classic female singers so much with her father and after his death that she can imitate their singing and styles extremely well.

So enter Ray Say (Michael Caine), a smarmy small-time music promoter and manager who discovers Little Voice in the early stages of his relationship with her mother. He tries to take Little Voice big time, and after one hugely successful show in their small town, he calls in a big-time manager to make her (and his) career. But there’s only one problem: Little Voice can only sing when she “sees” her father in whatever audience she may have.

Long story short: Little Voice is innocent and still missing her father, her mother is an abusive drunk, Caine’s character is a greedy promoter who only sees her as his meal ticket, and the only one who cares about her is a telephone installer (played by Ewan McGregor). Everyone, of course, except for McGregor’s character is out to use Little Voice, and all she wants to do is use the singing to connect with her dead father.

Sure, in the end you’re satisfied, because Little Voice and McGregor find happiness in each other, and everyone else is broken because the second performance they promised never came to fruition. But I was put off by the emotional brutality that the last third of the movie takes in showing just how much all of the “bad guys” got screwed.

The acting corps is amazing: Caine, McGregor, Jim Broadbent (one of my favorite actors ever!), and Brenda Blethyn (who has shown up in a whole bunch of some great movies I like). And even more amazing is the actress who played Little Voice: Jane Horrocks. She sang all of the songs herself, and did an amazing job.

So, all-in-all, this movie gets three out of four stars. Because on the surface, it should be great, and started out really well, but just got stuck in its own desire to make a point in the end.

There we go. A two-movie weekend. Now on to the week.

See you tomorrow.

Yes, it was family movie day around here for the Lathrop clan.

We went to see Despicable Me, another in the vast cavalcade of computer animated family films that seem to be flooding the market lately. But, like most of the genre, this one was charming, funny, generally well done, and pretty entertaining.

The story is, as it is for most of these movies, formulaic and predictable, but it works, because it’s just quirky enough and original enough in its presentation of characters.

But anyway, it goes like this: Gru is an evil mastermind who specializes in stealing large landmarks. But lately, his successes haven’t been as good as they had been when he was younger. So enter a new villain in his town who successfully steals an entire pyramid from Egypt, and Gru is out to one-up the upstart by stealing the Moon.

In the process of undertaking his plan, Gru adopts three girls with the initial plan of simply using them to get him into the new villain’s lair so he can steal a shrink ray gun. But predictably, Gru ends up being smitten by his new charges and begins to lose focus on his evil plan. The kids end up being sent away, Gru goes off on his mission to steal the Moon, and in the process, discovers that the mission isn’t the most important thing to him.

So yeah. Pretty far-fetched, but that’s what these CGI films can do perfectly: make the absurd at least look super-realistic. And unlike Pixar, Universal decided to go with some big stars, but not many you could instantly identify by voice, and the two I might have been able to nail right away (Steve Carrell as Gru and Julie Andrews as his mom) had Russian or eastern European accents. But easily, the cute and slapstick factors of the film are completely given over to Gru’s minions, little yellow clones created by Gru to help him carry out his evil schemes. They are clumsy, fairly stupid, and speak a babbling language that we, the viewers don’t understand. But that’s part of their charm and fun.

And honestly, sitting here thinking about the movie, the single biggest gripe I have against the movie is for its product placement: This was the first animated film for Universal, which owns NBC and its companion networks, and NBC and MSNBC are given prominent placement throughout. And if that’s the biggest complaint I can come up with for the movie, it’s gotta be at least halfway decent.

So, I’m giving this a Four out of five stars. Not a five, they aren’t there yet: it’s not up to Pixar’s gold-standards. But for a first movie in a genre, it’s very well done. And I’m sure I’ll be watching it on DVD once it comes out.

See you tomorrow.