Movie Maven

It's a week of brothers apparently. I am off to the Toledo, OH bureau of Maven, Inc. today, as my little brother (not so little anymore- he's taller than I am, and his sense of sarcasm is twice the size of mine) is graduating from high school. I've alerted him that this milestone of adulthood is highly inconvenient for me, as there are several delicious events coming up, including Cake at Boston's Earthfest, and John Williams directing the Boston Pops. But family duties trump all, and so I will be reporting from the mid-west for the next two weeks.

Perhaps most unfortunately, I will be missing the Brattle Theater's celebration of film makers the Coen brothers, called "A Gathering of Coens." It started May 16, and continues until Wednesday, with "Raising Arizona," "The Big Lebowski," "Barton Fink," and "Miller's Crossing." I know everyone and their mother loves "Lebowski," but see if you can stretch out a bit and watch Miller's Crossing if you haven't already. It's stupendous.

Directed by: Christophe Honore

The Boston Gay and Lesbian Film Festival was a couple weeks ago, and unfortunately I had to work through most of it (stupid rent). I cannot accurately describe the depths of my despair at having to miss Turkish/Italian director Ferzan Ozpetek's latest feature "Saturno Contro (Saturn in Opposition)." If you have no idea who I'm talking about, go rent "La Finestra di Fronte (The Window in Front)" right now.

This is a film that in the end is saved by moments of quirkiness and charm, though the work as a whole is such a muddle. In one moment, Jeanne enters Ismael's apartment to find him in bed with another woman, whom she assumes in Alice. When she discovers it isn't, she does not respond, but simply lights up another cigarette, sucks it down and stares bleakly into space. It's a throwaway moment, but it's witty and indelibly French.

Director: Doran Dukic
Writer: Doran Dukic, based on the short story "Kneller's Happy Campers," by Etgar Keret
Starring: Patrick Fugit, Shannyn Sossamon, Tom Waits, Leslie Bibb

Normally, films that deal with teenage depression and death are laden with well-intentioned "messages," generally directed to parents rather than to the teens themselves. The story is usually told with de-saturated color and a grimness of purpose that, well, just depresses you. Most think this is an appropriate reaction, but I have long held the theory that within drama there are sad films and then there are depressing films. The first is genuine encapsulation of human emotion. The second is merely manipulation of the viewer.

What a delicious surprise, then, that "Wristcutters," about a boy who commits suicide after breaking up with his girlfriend, is at heart a gently funny road movie. The boy, Zia (Patrick Fugit) commits suicide by the title's method at the beginning of the film, and enters an otherworldly way station for people who have "offed" themselves. He establishes that the universe he's inhabiting isn't terrible or hellish, just kind of depressing. "It's fitting that this place is exactly like life," he says in a voice over, "only a little bit worse." Zia has a job at a pizza place, and hangs out in a dingy bar after work, trying to guess how the other patrons killed themselves. But when he learns that his girlfriend (Leslie Bibb) also committed suicide a month after he did, he goes to find her at the edges of the world beyond the city where he lives.

Along for the ride is his Eastern European rocker friend Eugene (Shea Whigham) who electrocuted himself with his own guitar. They take Eugene's car, which has a black hole underneath the front seat they keep dropping things into, and listen to Eugene's music as they travel "East-ish" into a barren wasteland that has the curious look of a Dali painting set in the Nevada desert. They pick up a hitchhiker (Shannyn Sossamon) who says she was put there by mistake and is looking for the people in charge of this humid purgatory to send her home.

Perhaps the strangest thing about "Wristcutters" is that you tend to forget it's about suicide. In spite of the title, the film doesn't dwell on the violence of Zia's beginning act, but rather on his determination that his life can still have meaning, even after it's ostensibly over. It is a sad movie, but it never depresses. Eugene's entire family killed themselves, in various ways and for various reasons. But the horror of their deaths is nonexistent; they all live together in this world and love and support each other, just as they did in life. The point, of course, is that the worst thing that can happen to you is not death, but loneliness.

The three travelers end up in a community run by a man named Kneller (the inimitable Tom Waits,) a place where lost souls somehow end up, and maybe perform some miracles in the process. These scenes where the characters rest and recharge for the road ahead are the most lovingly rendered in the film, and Waits steals the movie as a weary, battle-scarred hippie assisting people with their salvation.

The film is hardly perfect. The ending especially looked a bit sloppily done, the rhythm was sped up too abruptly and the climax was improperly explained (though it did feature a cameo by Will Arnett, and who can say no to that?) The last 20 minutes were filled with action and rushed exposition; it almost looked like it came from a different film from the lovely, delicate nature of the previous hour. And without giving too much away, I felt like the denouement was a bit of cop-out in terms of resolution. But a less than perfect ending is a small price to pay for Ducik's overall vision, which is moving and sad- but not depressing.

(Photo courtesy of Autonymous Films, via The New York Times)

This reporter is much dismayed after recently reading about Warner Bros.' decision to give the ol' heave-ho to both Warner Independent Pictures and Picturehouse, two semi-independent speciality arms of the corporation. Anne Thompson of Variety delivered the bad news May 8:

"The Draconian studio is shutting down not one specialty arm but two, both Warner Independent Pictures and Picturehouse, with the notion that New Line Cinema can handle whatever specialty needs the studio has. New Line chief Toby Emmerich will be given something to do going forward."

Warner Bros. recently absorbed New Line Cinema after "The Golden Compass" became a financial disaster and left the studio unable to remain independent. The vague idea is that New Line can take over where Warner Independent and Picturehouse left off. I've always had fond feelings for New Line (they did produce and distribute the live-action versions of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles," which basically defined my childhood) but judging their production line-up on imdb.com, they don't exactly have the adventurous spirit that defined the two now-defunct companies. For example, Picturehouse has an illustrious recent past, with "Pan's Labyrinth," "La Vie En Rose," "A Prairie Home Companion," and "Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story." Warner Independent has "Good Night, and Good Luck," "Everything is Illuminated," and "We Don't Live Here Anymore" under its belt. It's true that New Line has a few sort-of indie hits with "Be Kind, Rewind," and "Love in the Time of Cholera." Recently, though, it's been working with dreck like "Semi-Pro," "Mr. Woodcock," "Rush Hour 3," and, God help us, "The Butterfly Effect 2."

The studios will be able to finish work on several films slated for release this year, including Picturehouse' "Mongol" and Warner Independent's "Towelhead." According to Variety, the executives are meeting over the next few weeks to discuss the status of other projects at various stages of production and distribution.

Warner Bros. is staying mum about where exactly they want to take New Line and claims this does not mean they are stepping back from working with riskier, independent films, according to President and COO Alan Horn in Variety:

"After much painstaking analysis, this was a difficult decision to make, but it reflects the reality of a changing marketplace and our need to prudently run our businesses with increased efficiencies. We’re confident that the spirit of independent film making and the opportunity to find and give a voice to new talent will continue to have a presence at Warner Bros.”

Oh Alan, my friend, how I would like to believe you. But, alas, my innate elitism says that New Line, now that it's completely under your thrall, will become a cabal of corporate whores with no sense of artistry. Warner Independent and Picturehouse at least had a small voice of vision and imagination within the robotic drone of the "tentpole" films and focus group-approved family fare. Think about a world with no "Pan's Labyrinth." Now think about a world without "Mr. Woodcock." Which world would you like to live in?

My beloved Lance Mannion posted yesterday on watching the three "Indiana Jones" movies in preparation for the stupidly-titled latest film coming out this summer. He specifically mentioned that the melting Nazis in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" were a bad decision, taking away from the spirit and life of the series. Thus quoteth Lance of the Mannion:

"Great movie with such a disappointing and ill-conceived ending, so far removed from the tone and spirit of all that had gone before, that I'm sure the original audiences would have walked out of the cineplexes befuddled and depressed if John Williams' rousing march hadn't come back on over the end credits and carried us all back to the moment when the whip snaps the gun away from the treacherous guide and Harrison Ford's scarred and scowling face looms out of the shadows and the adventure started all over again in our imaginations."

I respectfully disagree.

I also recently watched "Raiders of the Lost Ark" on the teevee yesterday. And I love the melting Nazis! The melting Nazis are one of the main things people remember. When you meet someone who doesn't know the films that well and you say "I saw 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' last night," they always reply with "Is that the one with the melting Nazis?" When I was a kid, and my mother brought "Raiders of the Lost Ark" home from the library where she worked, do you know what I was waiting for? The melting freakin' Nazis!

I do agree with Lance that the ridiculous inclusion of the quasi-mystical elements of the film are somewhat randomly included, and pretty darn cheesy. I think it's best when it's a little cheesy. It's best with a little bit of randomness. And however stupid you think the magical Ark is, you have to admit, the sheer visual impact of the melting Nazis is bonafied bad-ass. Not to mention the righteous triumph that Spielberg must have felt in defeating Nazis with a lost artifact that signifies God's covenant with the Israelites. The defeat of the cartoon villain had to occur in a way that was gruesome, ironic and particularly cartoonish. The Ark was an obvious choice.

Also, I agree with Mannion that convincing Karen Allen to come back as Marion Ravenwood was the best decision Lucas and Spielberg ever made. Marion is everything a heroine should be: for God's sake, the first time we see her, she's drinking a Nepalese sherpa under the table. After her, "Temple of Doom's" Willie Scott might as well have been played by Paris Hilton.

I was bored today, so I decided to dabble a bit in the art of Blogger template. I went a little mad, as you can see. I wanted to keep the dark background, which I think works for this milieu, and I used the neon pink and white to demonstrate some sort of art-deco, old-timey movie house, city at night, feeling... thingy.

Ok. I know nothing about design. But I rather like it. Any of you web design moguls out there have any thoughts? Any tips for further renovations? Do you like it? Does it give you seizures? Let me know!

Your Movie Maven is happy girl this week. I do not have school for eight months, since come July I will be swallowed into the maw of a full-time six-month internship at the arts section of a certain newspaper. I plan to take on a personality akin to Jennifer Jason Leigh in "The Hudsucker Proxy;" so from now I'm "a fast-talkin' career gal that thinks she's one of the boys." Now if only I could find a guy named Smitty...

In other news, the fact that I don't have classes means one thing for me: I get to read for fun. So I went to the library in Copley Square last weekend- America's first large municipal library, doncha know. I came out smelling a little worse for wear, but I had a re-usable tote bag full of delightful goodies to attend to my imagination whilst I'm at my current, soul-sucking telemarketing job.

My first recommendation: Henry James' "The Portrait of a Lady." Specifically, the Oxford World's Classics edition. It's tidily enclosed in a small blue cover, perfect for train travel. And it has a nifty introduction by John Updike. I've read it before several times, but I swoon over James' perfect phrases like "dusky pestiferous tracts," and observations like "'If all good people were hidden away in convents, how would the world get on?'" Poor, wonderful, foolish Isabel Archer is my ultimate female character, whom James most exquisitely (and unfairly) dooms, even after it appears that she's won. The ending will frustrate you, but in a way that miraculously still seems complete.

And for those who will ask, yes, I am still reviewing movies. What is the Movie Maven without her cinematic delights? Expect my review of "Iron Man" (God help me) this weekend.

The New York Times has an excellent article compiling five filmmakers' favorite summer films. Especially of note is director Larry Charles' hilarious piece about choosing John Waters' "Female Trouble" for a first date, and director Tamara Jenkins' discussion of the first time she saw "Last Tango in Paris."

I have finished with questioning the writers on "Lost." They're either madmen, geniuses, frauds or some fascinating combination of the three. They will take us where they take us, and I'm willing to let them take the reigns.

But I have one last question for them, completely unrelated to the psychology, metaphysics, philosophy or the stupid polar bears of the show:

Why, oh why, oh WHY do they think that we care at all about the future of Jack and Kate? Because we don't care. We really, really don't.

In addition to endless comic book reenactments and stoner comedies, this summer also brings about the release of "Sex and the City: The Movie," a film much anticipated among the Y-chromosome-challenged and sassy gay boyfriend set.

I've always had a very troubled relationship with "Sex and the City": The HBO Television show. Every so often the show would discuss in the most beautiful, and wickedly funny terms, the issues about being a single woman. One of my favorite discussion was centered around SSB (Secret Single Behavior). I almost gasped in recognition when Charlotte- the innocent brunette with the wide set fish eyes- discussed how she loves to inspect her pores for half an hour before bed, and bemoaned the fact that she couldn't do it now that she's married. And when Samantha- the slutty one- got breast cancer, I was actually quite touched by her steely, yet vulnerable performance. "I just don't want to lose my tits," she declares. "Because they're fabulous." Never had the complex relationship between a woman and her anatomy been so perfectly illustrated in one line.

Most of the time, though, I wanted to kill everyone on the show except Miranda (the snappy redheaded one). As a single girl who lives in a major city (albeit younger than the Fab Four, and a student) I can tell you that we spend a lot less time sipping martinis at noon and chatting on the phone in our Ferragamo shoes and a lot more time...umm...working. Usually two jobs, to pay the rent and grocery bills living as a single girl in said city. I get to sip a martini usually once a month... and it's usually been mixed not by a hot male bartender armed with Grey Goose, but rather by my good friend Zohar. In my apartment. With leftover Smirnoff I found stuffed in the back of my freezer behind a box of chicken nuggets.

Also I know this has been said before, but it deserves mentioning again: I can understand how Miranda, a lawyer, can afford her lifestyle. And Samantha, who's an advertising exec. And even fish-eyed, useless Charlotte appears to own some sort of art gallery. But Carrie can afford $500 shoes and an apartment on the Upper East Side? As a columnist? For a newspaper??? She doesn't even write for the Times- it's some sort of New York Post clone she works for. In Real Life, Carrie would have been downsized long ago to keep up with the rising cost of newsprint.

Besides this fundamental issue of verisimilitude, I was also just annoyed with Carrie's endless monologues, meant to be her column. I hated her terrible puns and obvious double entendres, and the show's pretension that this is really witty stuff that you should feel privileged to be hearing. They were lame, she's a terrible writer, and the paper should downsize her, if only to spare us her idiotic ramblings about "Poor me, I can't find a man, but I've got wildly overpriced shoes, so it's ok."

But Movie Maven, you ask, what on earth should we look to for an accurate account of the single woman in the city?

For that, my friends, simply look to "30 Rock."

The show about a show, based on one woman's experiences working on a show, is quickly becoming my favorite show on television. It's got some of the sharpest writing around, and though Alec Baldwin gets most of the props, I would argue that the flawless cast gels in perfect harmony to highlight each other's attributes. But the main reason I watch is for Tina Fey's character Liz Lemon, a 30-something single girl.

Liz Lemon is the woman Candace Bushnell forgot.

Fey's Lemon could be pretty much any single girl, in any major city. She has an apartment that's nice, but not glamorous. She has a job that she enjoys, but it's hard and takes up a lot of her time.
She eats candy for breakfast, partially because she doesn't have time, but partially because she secretly enjoys it. She eats dinner standing in the kitchen while watching reality shows on her portable TV. She dresses like a normal woman going to work every day. She's a good person, a liberal and a feminist, but she can be shallow, spineless and manipulative to get what she wants. Last episode, upon being offered Baldwin's Jack Donneghy's lucrative position, she slaps him across the face, then promptly strides into the writer's room and announces "Suck it monkeys, I'm going corporate!"

Basically she's every woman I know. Including myself.

Lemon also has an oafish ex-boyfriend who affectionately calls her "Dummy," and whom she's in constant danger of going back to. One of her co-workers, played by Jane Krakowski, likens the schlub to the cheese doodles Lemon's eating: "You know they're bad for you, but you eat them because it's easier than cooking." This is truer than any other "lesson" on relationships that Sex and the City ever tried to demonstrate.

The true story of single women is that sometimes we are tempted to settle for the cheese doodle, because it's easier than working for something better.

It is pretty obvious to those that follow film that the seasons of the year in America formulate the pattern of films that arise throughout the year. Let's take a look at the four seasons (gauged from mid-Atlantic/ Mid-West weather patterns that I am generally most used to):

Fall

Festival officials will also be holding SXSW's 2nd "Interactive Festival," celebrating new media technology; I'm pretty sure they added that just to make it more painful for me to be in Boston.

Politics, court intrigue and brocade. There is little more a film needs to either be a juicily good medieval, political and psycho-sexual exploration ("Richard III," "The Lion in Winter,") or a hysterically bad costume drama ("Elizabeth: The Golden Age," "Marie Antoinette,") Mining material from King Henry VIII's reign and personal life similarly almost never steers you wrong, and once you include Philippa Gregory, the mistress of vaguely erotic historical fiction, what you should have is the atomic bomb of either guilty pleasures or legitimate cinema.

Which is precisely why "The Other Boleyn Girl" is so terribly disappointing. It's not nearly good enough to be considered a legitimate film in its own right, nor is it bad enough to become a cult classic or even immediate guilty pleasure. It's sense of self-importance is not charming or silly, but simply off-putting, and forgettable.

The story follows a fictionalized account of Henry VIII's (Eric Bana) prolonged affair with Mary Boleyn (Scarlett Johansson), sister to future queen Anne Boleyn (Natalie Portman). It had a promising trailer, with hilarious nuggets of dialogue such as "We're sisters- and therefore born to be rivals," and "He came out besotted!" It was adapted from Gregory's novel of the same name by Peter Morgan. Morgan boasts a good resume, with "The Last King of Scotland," "The Queen" and HBO's "Longford" under his belt, but I got the feeling that he didn't quite know what to do with "Boleyn Girl." The dialogue is too meandering, and generally relegated to advancing the plot rather than reflecting on what's happening. Henry switches from Mary to Anne and back several times; the audience is supposed to feel the drama every time, but the triangle becomes monotonous after a while.

Gregory, while perhaps not a purveyor of great literature, has a firm grasp of the genre she writes in. The text has an excellent balance of fact and creative extrapolation, and the tone has a sense of what issues within the book should be taken seriously and what should not. The movie was for some reason unable to take the same approach- it seemed too queasy for a good exploration of the serious bits, and too egotistical to poke any fun at the genre. The supposed incest between Anne and her brother George (Jim Sturgess), for example, was handled very badly. It comes out of nowhere, is resolved too quickly and has a weird mix of delicacy and grotesqueness that does nothing but demonstrate that the producers were not happy with having an incest theme in a high-budget commercial film.

Portman, Johansson, and Bana all acquitted themselves nicely with the material they were given, though none of them stood out as especially grand. The only actor with any meat to her performance was Kristen Scott Thomas as the Boleyn girls' long-suffering mother. Thomas manages to lasso a performance that could have easily been swept away in all the tulle and commands the screen whenever she appears. When she is there, she is the only one you look at. David Morrissey is also splendid as the scheming Duke of Norfolk who pimps out the Boleyn girls.

Bana was fine as Henry. But I wonder if it would not be braver to cast, say, Vincent D'Onofrio as Henry, or James Gandolfini. Or Philip Seymour Hoffman. A larger man, with a sense of girth and majesty would make far more sense than (admittedly smoking hot) Eric Bana. Casting Bana opposite Portman and Johansson also shies away from the fact that the Boleyn girls were 14 and 15 when they were sent to the king, who was approaching his late 30s. Director Justin Chadwick seems to want to show all the soft-focus sexiness of Henry's personal life, but none of the yuckiness.

To create a believable sense of noble life during King Henry's reign it is imperative to first lose any sense of modern culture. The one thing that continually irritated me while reading Gregory's book, and while watching the film was how indignant the Boleyn girls were about their situation. There's a constant stream of feminist critique within the dialogue, and unforgivable lines like "The world's not changed that much yet. Men still rule." It ignores the fact that women were not indignant about their situation in life. They did not complain, nor rebel against their male oppressors. The ones that did, first of all, were burned or hanged as witches. But for most, they were raised to believe that this was their lot in life- this was the proper way things were done. Being pimped out to the king after your married was a great idea. The idea that this was wrong or exploitative would not have occurred to most of them. Wouldn't it be more horrific to simply show how women were basically owned by their fathers until they were sold to be owned by their husbands, rather than telling everyone in toothless, contrived dialogue? Would that not make it even more remarkable that it was not the longed-for male heir that succeeded Henry after his death, but Anne's daughter, Elizabeth? Chadwick seems content to simply have the Boleyn girls make furious shouts to the wind about the indignity of their place in society- something I doubt the real Anne Boleyn would ever have done.

Photo courtesy of Shakefire.com.

on this blog? Many apologies for the lack of programming of late. As usual, I have simply gathered too much on to my plate, and now am busily engaged in choking it all down, bit by gristly bit, until I either finish it all or vomit the myriad responsibilities into the nearest trash can (how do you like that for a bit of nifty metaphorical footwork. And such visuals!)

Anywho, after this week I'll be back at it. Lorda mercy I can't wait until the semester's over.

Josh Levin is officially my hero of the week, for his stunning rip on the woe-begotten state of parodic film, as exemplified by the atrocious-looking "Meet the Spartans."

This was the worst movie I've ever seen, so bad that I hesitate to label it a "movie" and thus reflect shame upon the entire medium of film. Friedberg and Seltzer do not practice the same craft as P.T. Anderson, David Cronenberg, Michael Bay, Kevin Costner, the Zucker Brothers, the Wayans Brothers, Uwe Boll, any dad who takes shaky home movies on a camping trip, or a bear who turns on a video camera by accident while trying to eat it.

In this day and age, one becomes a connoisseur of adapted screenplays. The good. The bad. The updated Shakespeare teen comedy. The Harry Potters. They are money in the bank for the production companies, and delicious fodder for book lovers, who wail against the cheapening of great literature, rending their clothes and gnashing their teeth.

Out of this distracted melee comes "Atonement", the adaptation of the Ian McEwan novel of the same name. It would be criminal to discuss the plot in any detail in you haven't read the book. Set in the mid-1930s, the first half of the film takes place during one fateful day, when fanciful young writer Briony (Saorise Ronan) witnesses an altercation between her sister Cecilia (Keira Knightley) and their gardener Robbie (James McAvoy). She terribly mistakes the situation, and her mistake becomes an event that shapes all their lives. The second half of the film finds them all in very different circumstances, during the British retreat from France. It's a truly brilliant book, and director Joe Wright, who helmed the recent adaptation of "Pride and Prejudice", shows again his agility for capturing not just the plot and characters of a novel, but also it's essence.

Wright does magical things with natural light, turning a precocious 12-year-old into something out of "A Midsummer Night's Dream", and generally transforming the English countryside into something simultaneously idyllic and unsettling. As the ethereal Briony skips through the sparkling woods around her house, and her sister basks in a bathing suit in the dappled sunlight, you know it won't be long before something truly awful happens. The music is nothing less than perfect; the pounding keys of a typewriter mingle with the conventional violins and piano, and the beat that results is steady and maddening in a way. It's the audio embodiment of these characters marching blindly into disaster.

Parts of the second half of the film are problematic. The depiction of the hellish conditions at the Bray Dunes in Dunkirk is spectacular in the conventional way, but one does feel a strange sense of disappointment looking back on it. It misses the slightly otherworldly quality of the first half of the film, though this can still be observed in other scenes, particularly in the hospital where the older Briony works. In many ways it looks like every other mass scene of carnage, with digitized soldiers and little actual substance. Some of the most harrowing pieces of McEwan's novel are his descriptions of the Bray Dunes, and though Wright has the noise and chaos of the physical place, it lacks McEwan's subtle examinations of the soldiers' inner chaos.

Where Wright and his performers succeed most is in the restraint of the performances. Knightley is exceptional, playing a wealthy young woman with all the education in the world, but, as her social status dictates, with absolutely nothing to do. McAvoy, while not as mature an actor, is still able to command the screen (and he doesn't look so bad either). But perhaps most risky of all, Wright doesn't make you look at them all the time. Briony, both as a child and in her older manifestation, is what you look at. Her character is the most provocative; she can lead your sympathies one minute, and draw ire the next. Ronan has been nominated for an Oscar for her performance as 12-year-old Briony, and indeed she seems to exude an intensity and depth far beyond her years.

The film is not as "good" as the novel, perhaps. But this of course makes the assumption that a story can work the same way, effectively, in every medium available. It is appropriate that an adaptation is sometimes referred to as a "translation." There are always things that are lost in translation. Wright, I think, understands this concept. It is the mood, the tone, and the heart of a story that is important. Bring these things to the film, and the plot will follow.

(File Photo Courtesy of the New York Post)

Well, unfortunately, my dears, the work that I have left to do has surpassed me by a considerable amount, so I've not a lot of time this week for brilliant strokes of criticism genius. Later on in the week, I'll be expertly reporting on Atonement, which I finally got to see last weekend, but for now, I'll leave you with just a few tidbits:

1. Check out the Oscar Noms

Oh, yes, they're out, and the nominees look as boring as ever. Pretty much everything that's to be expected- though Ratatouille up for best original screenplay is an interesting little diamond of originality.

2. Heath Ledger

I've gotten three text messages, two phone calls, and several emails about the untimely and unbelievable death of one of the most promising actors of my generation. No doubt E! will be spewing all the awful unnecessary details: the autopsy reports, the tearful interviews with people who barely knew him, the "what went wrong" scenarios. I will simply say that he was a beautiful and talented man. He was a wonderful artist who had a great career ahead of him. My thoughts and sympathies go out to his family and friends.

Jane Austen.

Sigh.

I love Jane Austen. I loved her before she was cool, too. I loved her best when I was a bookish teenager, whose heart fluttered at the notes of passionate longing and stolen glances scattered in Austen's novels. I loved her characters- those magnificent women, clever and witty and sometimes plain, who peopled the upper-middle class lodgings of her genteel English settings. And the men. Gentlemen, cads, fiends, scholars, attractive but conniving cousins- these were my kind of heartthrobs. Forget J.T.T and Brad Pitt. I was a Darcy kind of chick.

The recent rash of Austen adaptations, pseudo-adaptations and references have had me simultaneously enthralled and a little perturbed. Though I will always be a Colin Firth woman, the Keira Knightly adaptation of Pride and Prejudice was a gorgeous revelation of a movie. It was lavish and brilliantly cast, and had a cinematic color palette like a nineteenth century oil painting. And I'm sorry, but I stand by Clueless, a vague interpretation of Emma. I thought it was funny when I was eleven, and I think it's funny now. I was, unfortunately, vastly disappointed with Becoming Jane last year, which seemed to have the notion that only way Austen could have written about love was to have experienced it herself. There is absolutely no factual evidence of any love of Austen's life, save for a few mentions in her diary of a flirtation or two. But since then everyone and their mother has been leaping on the Austen bandwagon- buying their I Heart Mr. Darcy t-shirts and their "An Elizabeth in a Darcy-less world" book bags.

Philistines.

There is a lot of speculation as to why Austen has been graced with so many adaptations of her novels and her life (the only one who appears to have had more is good old Bill Shakespeare.) But PBS, doesn't seem to mind, as long as it rakes in the donation dollars from Viewers Like You. Last Sunday, PBS will air six adaptations of Austen's novels, as well as a biopic Jane Austen Regrets about all these proposals she was supposed to have turned down.

Yesterday was the airing of a 90-minute adaptation of Persuasion.

It wasn't that great.

There's only so many scenes we can have with Sally Hawkins as Anne Elliott, writing in her diary and then looking up at the camera pensively. How much pining can one audience endure? The film unfortunately falls into the genre of the interminable Masterpiece Theater drawing-room drama, with little substance (or provocative dialogue) to back up the gorgeous shots of the English countryside.

I have greater hopes for some of the other films, many of which have been written and/or directed by British adaptation guru Andrew Davies, who directed both the quintessential Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth, as well as a version of Charles Dickens' Bleak House that haunts me to this very day. They'll be airing every Sunday from January 20 to April 6, with a two-week break for the beloved PBS telethon.

Yes, the search for Thenextlittlemisssunshine is officially over, and the winner is Juno.

It would have been really cool if I could have played the caustic film critic, and denounced Juno in all of its mousy brown glory, said it's trite, it's too precious for its own good, it's annoying, etc.

But, dammit all, I can't. It's adorable. And not in an annoying way, either. It's genuinely sweet, and funny, and well-executed and honest. It has a marvelous cast, and a bittersweet ending and a fragility that makes you think if you blow on it too hard it will burst into little dandelion spores and float away on the breeze.

But again, NOT in an annoying way.

How Jason Reitman managed to achieve this, I'll never know. At the beginning I fretted, for it seemed like Reitman was going to make it the Quippy Show with Ellen Page. "I'm going to be so quippy and wise-cracking it's going to BLOW YOUR MIND!" But it seemed like about a quarter of the way through, Reitman and his cast loosened up, stretched their legs, and created something genuine. Something that sounded like how real people talk and associate with each other.

You all know the plot: after a halting, awkward bout of lovemaking, precocious 16-year-old Juno (Page) becomes pregnant by her best friend Paulie (Michael Cera, every nerdy girl's crush.) She decides to give up the child for adoption to cool Mark and frigid Vanessa (Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner), a wealthy couple who might not be what they first appeared to be.

It's hard to get around the fact that the film does romanticize teen pregnancy in a few ways. As a girl who saw more than one round belly waddle down the aisle at her high school graduation, the choices that people make in these situations are far more fraught, and far more emotional than the movie would have you believe. What it does do a good job on is the stigma attached to teen-aged girls who get pregnant, the looks and sense of shame hailed down on girls who made a bad decision. There is a sort of devastation in the way the school receptionist witheringly eyes Juno's swollen belly as she signs off on a doctor's slip. But in the end, Juno triumphs. The divine forces of retribution (also know as the Lifetime channel) do not wreck their havoc upon her life. Juno is no "fallen woman."

The ending is a bit problematic from the audience's standpoint, at least in my personal experience. Without giving too much away, I thought it ended quite happily, or as happily as the circumstances would have allowed. A few of the friends I saw it with, however, said that it depressed them, though they weren't too sure why. It may have to do with the views each of us takes regarding teenage pregnancy and adoption, as well as child-rearing in general. But rest assured that this film is, as a whole, a comedy, and a lighter approach to a very serious matter. The philosophy of the film may be summed up with Juno's comment to Vanessa upon meeting her at the mall:

"The kids at school are constantly grabbing my stomach- they call me the cautionary whale."

Over the last few years, in the course of many parent conferences and

elementary-school curriculum nights, I’ve become familiar with the concept of the “just-right book.” This, my children’s teachers patiently explain, is a book that is perfectly suited to a child’s reading ability: neither too easy, in which case he or she will grow bored, nor too difficult, which risks frustration and confusion.

I defer to the pedagogical expertise of the professionals, but something in me nonetheless rebels against the idea that the books children choose should always be safely within their developmental comfort zone. There is pleasure to be found in bewilderment, in the struggle to make sense of what is just above your head, and there is wisdom as well.

Scott then goes on to point out the value in finding the unusual film for your children. Not just basing what your kids can see on the rating a film receives (which anyone with any kind of film industry knowledge knows is inherently biased) but rather based on the child's maturity level and engagement. This unbelievable few paragraphs of unrestrained sense and rationality most likely got its own special kind of hate mail, but I for one applaud Scott for getting up and saying that film is not an enemy, nor a bastion of demonic threat. It is a medium, some of which is appropriate for children, some of which is not.