It’s Raining In L.A.
It’s amazing how a little drizzle shuts down a city.
I am looking forward to c a couple of weeks in the snow next month… but even I find the rain that I would shrug off without a thought in New York to be problematic here. Weird.
I’ve been a bit blog-absent as the DP/30 universe has become relentless, awards season is upon us, my son is transitioning into a big boy bed, and something got in my eye and gave me a minor infection that has left me and my 3-prescriptions-ago glasses trying to focus effectively while staring into light, which is what irritates my eye. The good news is that my eye is almost back to 100% and the contacts will go in tomorrow. The more good news is that Wednesday looks to be one of the truly epic days in the history of DP/30, featuring no fewer than 2 living legends, a production pioneer at the top of his game, and an award winning screenwriter to boot. And there may be a fifth shoot.
But that’s not helping the blog be more interesting.
Saw Margaret last week, as a double feature with The Sitter. The DDG comedy was funny as hell now and again, but basically felt like 20 good gags in search of a plot that might hold together by the thinnest of threads. Jonah Hill is funny. Children behaving like adults is sometimes funny. Black people liking white idiots from the suburbs can be funny. But you know what really struck me? As R-rated as this film was… it didn’t have the courage of Porky’s and that era of bad, but likable broad comedy, teen crap. Opening the film with…
SPOILER ALERT!!!!
…Jonah Hill going down on a blonde….
SPOILER END!!!
…. is about the tone the film needed. But somehow, the idea of Jonah getting off was actually not attractive to the filmmakers. Ari Graynor is funny, but she became more and more bland as it became clear that had she reciprocated, it probably wouldn’t have been that good. The film was missing the sexual threat of Kat Dennings. (So is her TV show, where they use her breasts like she was a girl with long hair that needed to figure out a new way to keep her hair out of her eyes each day. Note to CBS: The anorexic one isn’t the sexy one.)
Anyway.. Margaret.
The power of Lonergan compelled me through the first act. And then into the second. And then, like a pill taking someone from completely sober to a fall down drunk in a second, things changed. it was as though someone who had no idea what movie he wanted to make had suddenly taken over. Ideas were repeated ad naseum. Others were established and then abandoned. And it all conflicted. Some may thing that this sloppiness is a sign of genius. But for me, the not very sloppy first two acts and the other movie’s 3 acts… signs of genius. Throwing the kitchen sink at it, waiting to see what sticks and becomes the end of the film… not so much.
Really, this was a 3.5 act movie… maybe 4. And perhaps there is a longer cut that is substantially better. I know that a sheepdog with a Moviola could have improved this version by excising 20 minutes without blinking an eye. Of course, one of the victims of that cut would be, for instance, part of the Matt Damon big set-up and pay off… which doesn’t really pay off. Cutting Matt Damon must have seemed like a bad idea. But as this movie plays, the way Damon is used is so poorly structured that it sticks out badly.
Usually movies get away from strong filmmakers in the second act and they recover in the third. This is the rare movie where the close is weaker than the middle.
And still, I would recommend it to anyone who loves film as a form. Lonergan’s ambitions are miles beyond so much of what’s out there. The performances are, generally, excellent. And without really being “a 911 movie,” this will make you think… a lot. It will make you think about well-meaning Upper West Side liberals who forget to look in the mirror to seek their truth because they are too busy putting on a show. It makes you think about the family member in the mid-west who you feel guilty about not calling and now realize that you’re better off without her holiday card. It will make you think about all the confusion that we live in.
But as is, it is a broken movie. And I can only pray that, like Kingdom of Heaven, the other cut makes it all make sense and allows what does work so well to really soar even higher.
Drip, drip, drip…
The Sitter felt like perhaps the softest of the R-Rated comedies of the year. A bunch of potential to make things crazy, but it kept on pulling its punches and wimping out. I mean, you have a half-pound of cocaine flying around the inside of a car, and no one even manages to get high at all, let alone high in an amusing way?
Oh, and, not to talk about my personal life, but a half-pound of cocaine (or so) being valued at 10,000 bucks? I wish.
2 living legends – its gotta be people who are 50 + years old … Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese ? those guys
have to show up sometime…
DP at some point will you ever interview people like Katherine Heigl… Tina Fey – Kristen wiig – Sarah Jessica Parker ? they are acting legends to a core group of segment ..
does this mean Ari Graynor might get a dp/30 ?
the drive director dp/30 was okay but a long time ago i found a 10 minute interview with him and Ryan that was 10 minutes long and thats all that was needed for me
iron lady and coriolanus dp/30 … these are hard to watch cause my level of interest in the movies is at 10% ..regardless of who is in it …some parts of history
are just too hard to make exciting . DP sell these to
history channel and let them rerun it like 12 times.
my favorite audio podcast is from nerdist … lots of actors and comics do 1 hour interviews – they do go off topic and sometimes it the best stuff – they tell great stories …
Saoirse Ronan dp/30 – there was 4 minutes of real talk
about Sandlers movies – but then went back to talking about her movie …rather her talk about stuff she likes for the rest of the interview .
is it just me or does anybody like it when actors go off topic ..uncluding the late night talk shows
WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN knocked my socks off. It’s up there with DRIVE and MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE as my favorites of the year. It broke my heart and terrified me. Still more to see but —wait for it– TILDA POWER!!!! JOHN C REILLY (my favorite actor) POWER!!!!
Similar reaction to Margaret. The first 10 minutes hooked me in, there is a scene early with so much power that you rarely see this year.
But the third act is an issue, I think they cut out a lot of stuff especially with the Matt Damon character. It really hurt the ending of the film, which should be a lot more powerful that it ended up being.
I wish there is a director’s cut on DVD somehow, where Lonergan can do whatever he wants with it. Lonergan is a true talent though, You Can Count On Me is an excellent indie film.