favorite movie #92 - election edition: election

Favorite movies that have had an impact on me - #92 - Election (1999) - Reese Witherspoon is amazing as Tracy Flick, the indefatigable, unscrupulous, ever-achieving senior who is running for student body president. Matthew Broderick is her teacher Jim McAllister, who loathes her. This dark comedy never tries to make any of its characters likable and is all the better for it.

big little lies

I just finished watching the HBO series Big Little Lies and, I'm sure, like many others, didn't want it to end. The slow, almost hypnotic pace of the direction by Jean-Marc Vallée in producer and writer David E. Kelley's adaptation of Liane Moriarty's book eased viewers into the complicated lives of the mothers of first graders in an affluent suburb of Monterey, California.

I quickly scooped up the book and was not disappointed by its southern Australian setting. The characters are the same: the charismatic, rapid-fire and funny Maddie, the outwardly serene but haunted Celeste, the tortured young mom Jane. These three women and their children and the men in their lives are all tangled together in a web of lies, both big and small. The story begins with a crime scene and the reader must shuffle through a series of entertaining, and at times, disturbing unreliable narrators until the truth is finally revealed.

Jane, Maddie, and Celeste share a high-end kaffee klatsch

Moriarty perfectly captures the Mommy Wars that some people indulge in these days and invites the reader inside the heads of the three main female characters. We see the men in their lives through theirs and other's eyes, but a little like the classic film The Women, the emphasis is squarely on the ladies. Themes of abuse, to children and adults, runs throughout. The setting may be beach/bucolic, but the passions run deep. Big Little Lies is a great read and I'd be willing to check out more by this author. There are rumors of a second series of the HBO show, too.

catching up with ... how do you know

This should have been a good movie, but it's not. It's not bad because the main actors — Reese Witherspoon, Owen Wilson and Paul Rudd —lack appeal. They are all fine. The script has some funny moments and even Jack Nicholson is giving it his all. Witherspoon plays a character that is trying to sort out her life, professional and private. For a female character to do that in a movie, and to actually be the focus of the movie, is a rare and good thing. So what exactly is wrong with How Do You Know?

It starts with an original premise — Witherspoon's character is a female jock (softball) who has just been cut from her team and is having a lot of trouble trying to figure out not only what to do next, but who exactly she is. Unfortunately, the film soon introduces the love triangle, and her character seems to completely forget her dilemma. Even though I just watched the movie, I have no idea what her character's name was, or any of the characters. That's not good.

There is a completely uninteresting, unbelievable, and almost unintelligible subplot involving Rudd and his dad, played by Nicholson, involving corporate scandal. Maybe Brooks just wanted to include his old buddy Nicholson in the film? How Do You Know at least is less crass than As Good As it Gets, another James L. Brooks film that starred Nicholson (which I really couldn't stand.)

The either/or proposition that Witherspoon faces is beyond predictable. Before the movie starts we know that Paul Rudd is going to be the one she ends up with. Rudd, who is one of the most charming actors out there, in this movie plays a total shlump. He's a nice guy, but not a nice guy a girl would want to spend too much time with. He is so cringeworthy so much of the time that it is highly unlikely that he and Witherspoon would end up together. I was actually hoping against hope that she would walk off into the sunset by herself, and start dealing with that question of what she was going to do with the rest pf her life post-softball career, which would be far more realistic than ending up with Rudd. I feel like a traitor to my Rudd crush writing this, but he was just icky. Maybe Brooks caved from the original ending, because that's how Rudd played his character throughout the movie.

Owen Wilson, who may have been playing far from the "perfect" guy (as if there is such a guy or girl), was his usual charming self, with a good dose of me-centric professional athlete thrown in. He was perfect in the role. Maybe he wasn't someone Witherspoon would decide to be with forever, but the guy deserved points for trying. Neither Rudd nor the script ever really gave a great reason why she shouldn't at least attempt to give her relationship with Wilson a chance.

The best scene in the movie was when Rudd asked Witherspoon, who he has a crush on but really hardly knows, to tag along with him and visit a female friend who has just given birth. Talk about being clueless about boundaries. But the script says she should go with him, so she does. They witness an exhibition of "true love" in his friend's hospital room and an extreme example of Rudd's character's usual cluelessness (which is actually the movie's funniest moment). Rudd then thinks he's finally broken through, gotten Witherspoon where he wants her, and she, as usual, just doesn't think of him that way at all. It's a real, human moment. But the movie then falls back into cliché rom-com territory and forces the two of them together anyway.

Either Owen Wilson's or Reese Witherspoon's characters got a raw deal, because their dialogue together was far more fun and full of potential than anything she shared with Rudd:

Witherspoon: What am I doing? I caught myself. Don't judge anybody else until you check yourself out, that way you are lucky if it's your fault because then you can correct the situation. I'm nervous over something that is going on with me, and I ended up with an attractive guy who you would have to be an idiot to mistake for anything more than just a fun friendship, and... and, yes amazing sex, and then I give that guy a hard time for just being who he is. Totally my fault, I'm sorry. Please forgive me.

Wilson: Are you apologizing? 

Witherspoon: Yeah. 

Wilson: If you are really apologizing, you may be my dream girl. I heard those footsteps and I'm like, right, somebody nuts is coming back to be more nuts, and now an apology. You might be my dream girl.

As far as I can tell, by movie's end, Witherspoon still doesn't know.

summer movie catch-up — water for elephants

I saw Water for Elephants weeks ago and just haven't gotten round to writing about it yet, although I did enjoy watching it in a theater. Watching Robert Pattinson and Reese Witherspoon on a Graham Norton Show rerun recently reminded me how nicely done the movie actually was.

Pattinson and Reese Witherspoon had a nice chemistry. This is actually the best I have ever seen Witherspoon look in a movie. She was perfectly at home in the period costumes and make-up and was extremely comfortable and believable with the animals.

Pattinson seemed perfectly cast as leading man Jacob Jankowski. I haven't seen in him in much else besides the Twilight movies on cable, which don't seem to require acting, just brooding, so it was a pleasant surprise to find him actually able to be convincing as young medical student in the '30s who who has to drop out of college after his parents die and there is no money to continue his education. He ends up working as a vet for the Benzini Brothers Circus, which is run by the violent August (Christoph Waltz). Jacob becomes close to August's wife Marlena, who is the circus's star performer. Romance and drama ensue.

The plot is old-fashioned and melodramatic, but that actually was a plus. It was a period piece, telling a story. It may be a small slice of life, but it was entertaining. The bad guy (Waltz) was so bad I was waiting for him to grow a mustache so he could twirl it. I'm not sure what the wonderful James Frain was doing in such a small role as an elephant trainer, but it was fun to see him. There was also a nice cameo by veteran actor Hal Holbrook.

The look of the film was great. Some scenes seem to have been filmed with a vignette filter, adding to the old-timey atmosphere. The costumes and sets were impeccable, the drab browns and Depression-era grays a perfect contrast to the bright colors of the circus. I haven't read the book, and I'm not sure I'm interested enough in circus life to want to, but I enjoyed going back in time for the duration of the film. There are some upsetting scenes of animal cruelty, which might be a turn-off for some. All in all, Water for Elephants is a nice period romance. If you get a chance, give it a look.