The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill (2003)

Finally watched a netflix movie (on my laptop, alone in a hotel room). I picked a good one! This delightful documentary (that I missed the week it played on the big screen where I live) was shot in San Francisco, where dozens of cherry-headed conures flew free, stopping in to visit musician Mark Bittner, who fed them, named them, and loved them. The ending surprised me and I highly recommend it.

Funny People (2009)

Jack & I saved this to see with Amy (Christiana and Kara went with us too). Profane? Of course. Too long? Yes to that, too. It would have been easy to snip 20 minutes here and there and put it under 2 hours. But it was still very funny some of the time (and serious some of the time, too--that's when the cell phones in the theatre lit up with people texting and checking messages). 

As Terry Gross said on NPR's Fresh Air, Judd Apatow has created a comedy franchise. I saw and liked, when they were on the air, a few episodes of the TV series The Critic (animated, 1994-95) and loved every one of The Larry Sanders Show (1993-97) and Undeclared (2001-03), all of which he produced (among other people). Recently Jack and I enjoyed every one of Freaks & Geeks (1999-2000). When Apatow moved to feature films, he wrote, produced, and directed The 40 Year Old Virgin (2005), Knocked Up (2007), and this one; was a producer on Superbad (2007) and Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008); as well as writing and producing Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007), You Don't Mess with the Zohan (2008), and Pineapple Express. And those are just the ones I have seen (I liked all but the last). He met Adam Sandler while working at the Improv comedy club and they became roommates when Apatow dropped out of USC after his second year. 

The prank phone call footage that opens Funny People is real videotape from that time. I'm not a big Sandler fan. I've missed some of the big broad ones, and, although he's been in some movies I have liked, I often preferred his co-stars: in Anger Management (2003) Jack Nicholson, in Spanglish (2004) Téa Leoni and Paz Vega, in The Longest Yard (2005) Chris Rock and Burt Reynolds, although in Punch-Drunk Love (2002), with Emily Watson, he was a treat and his over-the-top Zohan was very funny. 

Seth Rogen, who figured prominently in many Apatow projects named above, winces, whines, and irritates (he apparently vowed to boycott Entourage after they made fun of his looks, yet he disses a real actor in this one, though I can't remember whom) (I did like him in Zack & Miri Make a Porno). Jonah Hill (co-star of Superbad and supporting in many of the above Apatow oeuvre) and Jason Schwartzman's (I Heart Huckabees (2004), Shopgirl (2005), Marie Antoinette (2006), Darjeeling Limited (2007), all good, and Ringo Starr in Walk Hard) characters are pushy and annoying, to comic effect. Leslie Mann is Apatow's real-life wife (also his cast regular), and their children Maude and Iris play her children Mable and Ingrid here, and I think Mable is my favorite character (stay to listen to her sing over the credits). Or maybe it was Rapper RZA, who plays Rogen's co-worker at the grocery deli counter. RZA's soundtrack credits include Knocked Up, the excellent Forest Whitaker vehicle Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999), and 8 Mile (2002), which starred rapper Eminem, who had one of the many cameos in Funny People. In fact, the cameos and Hollywood in-jokes helped make this work for me, as well as the joke-jokes, i.e. the stand-up comedy. 

So the deconstruction above may lead you to believe I didn't enjoy this. But the total is greater than the sum of its parts and all five of us had a good time watching it last week. It's a testament to Apatow's talent (and his franchise).

Julie & Julia (2009)

To quote a line from the script: utter bliss. Like many children of the 60s (and the 50s), I had been looking forward to this tale of Julia Child's becoming the famous cookbook author interspersed with Julie Powell's memoir of tackling 524 recipes in 365 days for at least 5 reasons.

1. I've read much of the book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and eaten many of the dishes, though the only thing I ever made myself was the creamed mushrooms (they were divine). Maybe I tried to make the boeuf bourguignon once, too (or, as Garrison Keillor would say, "berf"). I want to try it now. Or maybe someone will make it for me? And I ate the vichyssoise many times in my teens and wish someone would make that for me too!

2. I watched Julia's cooking show from time to time, as well as the Saturday Night Live parodies and they were great.

3. Meryl Streep as Julia Child? Genius (who else could do that voice? And Streep has it pitch perfect).

4. Written and directed by Nora Ephron (This is My Life (1992), Sleepless in Seattle (1993), more in a minute)? Also genius.

5. I happen to enjoy Amy Adams, in this and everything else (her film debut was as one of the contestants in the beauty pageant in Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999), she was nominated for Junebug (2005) and Doubt (also playing opposite Streep), and, as I've written, I liked Enchanted, though it was syrupy, and Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, which had detractors, and Sunshine Cleaning, and Adams was one of the few redeeming parts of Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian).

Reading through Streep's credits it's hard to pick my favorites. When I was in film school in 1982, Streep chose The Deer Hunter (1978) for us to see before she appeared to speak (Sophie's Choice, one of her first accented roles, was released later that year). Heartburn (1986), Streep starring in Ephron's directing of her own screenplay of her own novel's thinly veiled story of her own breakup with Carl Bernstein, was great fun. Streep did another accent as Ethel Rosenberg in the fabulous PBS miniseries Angels in America (2003), a similar one in Prime (2005), and modulated her voice beautifully in The Devil Wears Prada (2006) and Doubt.

Stanley Tucci (some of my faves: the TV series Murder One (1995-96), Big Night, What Just Happened, and opposite Streep in Prada) was delightful as Paul Child, and their relationship was enviable, in stark contrast to Heartburn. Speaking of heartburn, it couldn't have been easy for the actors to eat so much on screen--they must have had barf, er, berf, bags handy between takes. Julie's husband Eric (Chris Messina, Away We Go, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Towelhead, and a tiny part in Ephron's You've Got Mail (1998)) chowing down the bruschetta was impressive. Also impressive were the clever uses of camera angles, hidden platform shoes, and more (this wonderful behind-the-scenes article is so long, even I haven't read the whole thing, because I'm on deadline tonight, so I can't vouch for its spoiler-free status) to make the 5'6" Streep look like she was 6'2". Which they did. The set design and the music contributed to make the whole thing a delicious experience. You won't be surprised to learn I am adding it to my food movie list, which I'm going to move up to August.

Update: As I predicted, but forgot to write before, Mastering the Art of French of Cooking is enjoying a resurgence of sales. The Charlie Rose episode with Ephron and Streep is now available online.

In the Loop (2009)

This profane political farce about US-UK relations on the brink of a vague and unnamed conflict had Jack & me laughing from start to finish, particularly at the vitriol spewed by two Scotsmen, Peter Capaldi and Paul Higgins. 

Director Armando Iannucci, a prolific TV producer/director/writer (I'm Alan Partridge (1997-2002), among others) who was born in Glasgow to a Scottish mother and Italian father, brought from his BBC series The Thick of It (2005-7) his four fellow writers (Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, and Tony Roche) as well as actors Capaldi and Higgins, who play the same characters Malcolm Tucker and Jamie MacDonald, respectively. Chris Addison (Toby) was also in The Thick of It, but as a different character. I can't comment on it, because I never saw it (I would like to, now), nor the Alan Partridge series and movies, though I had heard of the latter. 

Tom Hollander (Gosford Park (2001), Pirates of the Caribbean II and III (2006-7)) is the British diplomat bumbling his way back and forth across the pond, Addison his hapless assistant, Gina McKee (you've seen her face but wouldn't remember her name from Atonement, HBO's Tsunami (2007), Notting Hill (1999) and others) is the ineffectual voice of reason, and Capaldi's and Higgins' characters are supposed to do damage control for the Prime Minister (whom we never see) but mostly wreak havoc with their hilarious verbal abuse. Steve Coogan (who played Alan Partridge in every incarnation, the director in Tropic Thunder, the lead in Hamlet 2, and a brilliantly awkward version of himself in Coffee and Cigarettes (2003)) has a cameo wearing a watch cap and complaining about a wall. 

On this side of the Atlantic we have Karen Clarke (Mimi Kennedy, the mom in Dharma & Greg (1997-2002)) and her hapless assistant Liza (Anna Chlumsky, THE girl in My Girl and My Girl 2 (1991 and 94), David Rasche (Burn After Reading and the wonderful Scotsman-in-America comedy The Big Tease (1999) with Craig Ferguson) as the Senator and James Gandolfini (Tony Soprano, now and forever) as the complacent general. Smart, lewd, nasty, and side-splitting.

The Hurt Locker (2008)

Director Kathryn Bigelow has been on my radar for some time as a woman who directs action movies, but the only other one of her movies I saw was Strange Days (1995), with a science fiction premise (people A can rent people B's memories/brain waves, especially dangerous ones, and then plug the memories into A's brains to feel like they are experiencing the dangerous things themselves), starring Ralph Fiennes and Angela Bassett. Although I didn't really like Fiennes in it, it was very good, and later I read that Bigelow wanted him to exhibit just the characteristics that annoyed me (I think describing those characteristics might be a spoiler). Fiennes has a cameo in Hurt Locker, which is named for a term that writer Mark Boal (who also wrote the story of another war movie, 2007's In the Valley of Elah) learned in Iraq: hurt locker means a place you don't want to go.

Sorry, I buried the lead: Jack and I really liked this powerful war movie that Jack called "taut." We're not alone. The reviews have been good (here's one, but stop after the 6th paragraph if you are as serious as I about avoiding spoilers) and the blood is mostly offscreen, despite a lot of heart-stopping danger. Three men dominate the tale of a bomb squad in Iraq in 2004. Star Jeremy Renner, who plays Sgt. James, was in the excellent dramas Twelve and Holding and North Country (both 2005) and was nominated for the Independent Spirit Best Actor award for this and for the title role in Dahmer (which I did not see in 2002). Anthony Mackie (Sgt. Sanborn) has plenty of good work, including Notorious, as Tupac Shakur, and there is a sly reference in Hurt Locker to his leading role in Spike Lee's She Hate Me (2004), where he played a man who sold his sperm to wealthy lesbians (good stuff, Spike!). Mackie has 6 movies in post- or pre-production now, including, if imdb is to be trusted, two in which he will play Buddy Bolden, who was a seminal jazz cornet player (ha!) around the turn of last century. Brian Geraghty (Specialist Eldridge) was in Sam Mendes' very dark comedy Jarhead (2005) about Marines in Saudi Arabia, and rounds out the trio. Guy Pearce (The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994), L.A. Confidential (1997), Memento (2000--I like to call it Otnemem)) and David Morse (St. Elsewhere (TV, 1982-88), Contact (1997), and The Green Mile (1999)) have cameos, as well as Christian Camargo (whom I thought was J-Lo's husband Marc Anthony, but was really Rudy from season 2 of Dexter) as Colonel Cambridge.

Up (2009)

Last Wednesday Jack & I had sort of planned to see The Stoning of Soraya M., which we knew would be depressing, and I was contemplating writing about it and The Ugly Truth together, which would have been a quite the study in contrasts. But, instead, we went for an animated feature; specifically one that may be nominated for a few Oscars (we are both on a board that comments on the Oscars each February for our local newspaper, and, because of this, we have seen more animated movies in the past 3 years than in all of the years since our kids outgrew them). We had a grand time, with no children in tow (though there were some in the theatre at our summer matinee). Director/writer Pete Docter (directed Monsters, Inc. (2001) and got credit for contributing to the stories of both Toy Story movies (1995 and 99), Monsters, Inc., and WALL-E) joined with director/writer Bob Peterson (first time director, wrote the screenplay for the charming Finding Nemo (2003), and was credited for additional story material in Ratatouille) (all in the preceding sentence are blockbuster animated movies produced by Pixar, if you didn't know, and you probably did) for this entertaining Pixar fantasy of an old man, Carl (Ed Asner, who was in six episodes of the aforementioned Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, three of the now-ended brilliant animated series The Boondocks, and 200 other things besides The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Lou Grant), who sets his house aloft with helium balloons, and has a boy scout named Russell as a stowaway. They missed the opportunity to make a helium-voice joke, even though, for a little while, you may think there is one, but there are a ton of other great gags, and the second half has a pack of talking dogs that are still making us giggle from time to time. This is suitable for all ages except the very young, because of some danger, one injury, and one death, and the crazy hanging out over ledges that made this acrophobe squirm just a little, even in animation. Preceded by a short cartoon called Partly Cloudy (not the same as the upcoming feature Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, which is Sony, not Pixar), a wordless trifle about storks picking up and delivering babies fashioned by cloud-people, that had us wondering if we were in the right theatre.

The Ugly Truth (2009)

One reviewer quipped, "The Truth will set you back 9 bucks," and so Amy, Melissa, and I (Christiana would have gone with us had she been available) didn't expect much from this chick flick rom com. Therefore we were pleasantly surprised when we didn't feel cheated out of our hour and a half nor our ticket cost (I had a coupon, though, because I'm an AMC Movie Watcher!) (could I get paid for publishing that?) (hmmm). The writing team of Karen McCullah Lutz & Kirsten Smith (10 Things I Hate About You (1999), Legally Blonde (2001), She's the Man (2006)) and director Robert Luketic (Legally Blonde, Win a Date with Tad Hamilton! (2004), and the un-chick-like 21 (2008)) have struck paydirt in this predictable and predictably popular story of a smart career woman and the macho "relationship expert" with whom she is forced to spend time. Yes, the ending is terribly contrived, not to mention noticeably computer generated, but there are more than a few cute bits with Katherine Heigl (ABC's Grey's Anatomy, Knocked Up (2007), and 27 Dresses (2008), the latter of which I haven't seen), Gerard Butler (he has a good list of credits, but the only thing I've seen is P.S. I Love You, which I turned off before it was over; but soon to be featured in three more 2009 releases), Cheryl Hines (Jack & I liked her in Waitress (2007) and, of course HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm, and I was fond of the cancelled TV series In the Motherhood earlier this year), John Michael Higgins (hilarious in Best in Show (2000), A Mighty Wind (2003), and The Break-Up and For Your Consideration, both in 2006), and Nate Corddry (you should rent the entire series of NBC's Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (cancelled) and season 1 of United States of Tara (season 2 coming soon)). It would not be a terrible way to spend a little time with a beloved daughter or other young lady in your life. Not too young, though; it's deservedly rated R for sexual content and language.

(500) Days of Summer (2009)

One of these days I'll find a link to a list of movies with punctuation in the title. There has to be someone as obsessive-compulsive-disorderly as I who would maintain one. Meanwhile, this charming bit of entertainment is the latest addition to that list. Mix together a first-time feature director (Marc Webb), a couple of screenwriters (Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber) whose only produced credit is the much lambasted Steve Martin sequel The Pink Panther 2 (2009), and two remarkable actors: Joseph Gordon-Levitt (the young alien in the TV series 3rd Rock from the Sun and variously damaged young men in the excellent indies Mysterious Skin (2004), Brick (2005), and The Lookout (2008)) and Zooey Deschanel (see my description of her in Yes Man), and the unexpected result is delightful. Some reviewers have complained about the voice-over, the animation, and the musical number (you must have seen that in the trailer), but Jack & I liked just about everything in this. We followed the ups and downs of Tom's (Gordon-Levitt, who finally gets to be happy on screen, at least part of the time) and Summer's (Deschanel) relationship easily, even when the action jumped to non-sequentially-numbered days in the chronology (grateful for the numbers clearly displayed so we didn't have to guess). Good music, including The Smiths, Feist, Black Lips, Hall & Oates, Simon & Garfunkel, and Deschanel singing "Sugar Town" in a karaoke scene. Back to our old practice of seeing a movie on opening afternoon, we had a fair amount of company in the mall multiplex. Try it, you'll like it.