Tag: romantic comedy

Rapid Review: About Time

It’s about time that a time travel film was this sweet and unabashedly romantic.

The fascination with time travel comes from the fact that we are all locked into a linear existence, and while our thoughts can take us back to relive moments or create dreams for the future, we can never stay there for long. In fact, it’s the “do-over” that is core to understanding our fascination with time travel film and literature. It was there in the opening to TV’s Quantum Leap, where Doctor Beckett finds himself leaping from life to life, striving to put right what once went wrong and hoping each time that his next leap will be the one home. Romantic comedies hold many of the same appeals, an idealised version of how things should be when you meet “the one”, and corresponding obstacles that are necessary to the ultimate victory in the game of romance. Naturally, it’s Richard Curtis, the master of the latter genre, who attempts to harness the wibbly wobbly elements of temporal logic and apply them to this thing called love. It begins when Tim Lake (Domhnall Gleeson) is told by his father (Bill Nighy) that all the adult men in his family can travel through time. Tim uses this great power to get a girlfriend, ultimately finding his soul-mate in Mary (Rachel McAdams).

You can put to one side the holes in the time travel logic, because the film is more fundamentally about the relationships and insecurities of its leads. Often compared with Groundhog Day (1993), it’s also close in tone to last year’s Safety Not Guaranteed, where time travel is simply the push that places our would-be couple together. Indeed, Tim and Mary remain a couple for much of the film: we witness their life, their love, their fights, awkward family gatherings, tragedies and births. Mary remains unaware of Tim’s chrono-shifting abilities, but this allows for the building of the other great relationship of the film: the strong bond between Tim and his father. Nighy, of course, steals every scene that he’s in, and forms part of a particularly strong family of characters that includes Lindsay Duncan as Tim’s mother, wild-child sister Kit Kat (Lydia Wilson) and the delightfully batty Uncle Desmond (Richard Cordery). It was also wonderful to see Richard Griffiths playing a thesp in his last on-screen performance.

After Time doesn’t take the cheap emotional exit strategies, and never falls into the “big dramatic moment” or the third act revelation that almost derails the romance. Instead, it’s about self-realisation, with Tim taking years to learn the true secrets to happiness, and finding those moments that you completely embrace when they are happening. You’ll want to go back and relive this one again.

Rating: ★★★½

About Time was released in Australia on 17 October 2013 from Universal.

October 25, 2013
Review: New Year’s Eve

[stextbox id=”grey” caption=”New Year’s Eve (2011)” float=”true” align=”right” width=”200″]

Director: Garry Marshall

Runtime: 129 minutes

Starring: Hilary Swank, Michelle Pfeiffer, Zac Efron, Robert De Niro, Halle Berry, Ashton Kutcher, Katherine Heigl, Jessica Biel, Sarah Jessica Parker, Josh Duhamel, Jon Bon Jovi

Distributor: Roadshow

Country: US

Rating: Rental for Sure (?)

More info

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Once a year, the world holds its breath as the stars align for a single purpose. It brings together rich and poor, the famous and the not so famous and children sing a song in perfect harmony. That moment is, of course, the release of a new Garry Marshall film. One of the more insidious trends over the last few years has been the hyperlinked romantic comedies that throw a whole lot of celebrities at the screen for five minutes at a time, hoping that for what the films lack in depth they will make up for in volume. Last year’s Valentine’s Day was Marshall’s first foray into the this type of film, following the world that He’s Just Not That Into You created, and now the same creative team behind Valentine’s Day has reunited to watch the ball drop on New Year’s Eve.

It’s New Year’s Eve 2011, and Claire (Hilary Swank) is in charge of the festivities at New York’s Time’s Square, including the famous ball drop. Things go wrong when the ball gets stuck. Meanwhile, record company secretary Ingrid (Michelle Pfeiffer) quits her job, and enlists young deliveryman Paul (Zac Efron) to help her fulfil all of her resolutions before midnight, in return for tickets to an exclusive party. At a nearby hospital, the dying Stan (Robert De Niro) refuses treatment from his doctor (Cary Elwes) and two nurses (Halle Berry and blink-and-you’ll miss her Alyssa Milano), but wants desperately to see the ball drop one last time before he croaks.

Then there’s slacker Randy (Ashton Kutcher) who gets stuck in a lift with Elissa (Lea Michele), who is in turn a back-up singer for superstar Jensen (Jon Bon Jovi), a man who simply wants to reconnect with former lover and chef Laura (Katherine Heigl). Sam (Josh Duhamel) rushes to get to New York to give a speech, but is also angst ridden over meeting up with a woman he had a chance encounter with the year before. Griffin (Seth Meyers) and Tess (Jessica Biel) compete with another couple to have the first baby of the New Year for a cash prize, and Kim (Sarah Jessica Parker) struggles with her adolescent daughter Hailey (Abigail Breslin), who just wants to be snogged.

Or: a group of people with intersecting lives do things on New Year’s Eve.

The formula for New Year’s Eve was set in stone long before the cameras rolled, and for most people this film will do exactly what it promises: engender good feelings towards the people that you see immediately after the screening, but create an empty feeling that can only be filled with more rom-coms. As can be gleaned from the plot description, for want of a better phrase, there is little room for character detail for any of these people, even in the bloated two-hour running time, with their New Year’s revelations and warm fuzzies a foregone conclusion.

Each of the stories could fill its own film, such as Sam’s road trip with a random family (that includes Yeardley “Lisa Simpson” Smith), and some work better than others. It would have been genuinely fun to spend more time with Ashton Kutcher, but not so much Glee’s Lea Michele, and there are some nice moments in the Efron/Pfeiffer subplot. Yet any film where Zac Efron’s performance outshines Pfeiffer (who incidentally is one of two Catwomen in the film, the other being Halle Berry), has serious problems. The sheer number of stars is of course unnecessary, and virtually anybody could have played these roles. It goes without saying that this is a cynical marketing tool, but New Year’s Eve is a film where the cogs are clearly visible.

If Hollywood continues to sell us these films, then we should have no trouble believing that Sarah Jessica Parker is the hard-working mom who can’t bag a man (again), that Michelle Pfeiffer is a mousy and meek secretary and that Katherine Heigl ever eats chocolate. Their continued success ensures their perpetuity, but is it too much to ask that we pull back on the celebs and amp up the story? Rom-coms have a winning formula, but as (500) Days of Summer, Knocked Up and the collected works of Woody Allen continue to prove, there is no reason they have to be this average. To writer Katherine Fugate, Garry Marshall and all of Hollywood: your New Year’s resolution is “must try harder”.

[stextbox id=”custom”]Our New Year’s resolution, on the other hand, is to never forget how mediocre this film is, lest we be suckered into seeing whatever the 2012 equivalent is. Unless it is an Easter film. Or Christmassy.[/stextbox]

New Year’s Eve was released in Australia on 8 December 2011 from Roadshow Films.

December 31, 2011
Review: Midnight in Paris

[stextbox id=”grey” caption=”Midnight in Paris (2011)” float=”true” align=”right” width=”200″]

Director: Woody Allen

Runtime: 94 minutes

Starring: Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams, Marion Cottilard, Tom Hiddleston, Kathy Bates, Adrian Brody

Distributor: Hopscotch

Country: US

Rating: Certified Bitstastic (?)

More info [/stextbox]

Like him or hate him, it is virtually impossible not to have an opinion on Woody Allen. After almost fifty years of filmmaking, with as many films to his credit, it is difficult to imagine an American movie landscape without him. From his “early funny films” through to the more recent downers like Match Point, it is hard to have missed seeing at least one of Allen’s contributions to the canon. Unless you live in Australia, of course, where Allen’s films have become something of a rarity. His most recent film prior to Midnight in Paris was You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, which completely bypassed local cinemas and is yet to see the light of day even on the home front. Yet absence makes the heart grow fonder, and Allen’s latest effort reminds us of why he was worth missing in the first place.

Gil (Owen Wilson, Hall Pass) and Inez (Rachel McAdams, Morning Glory) are a couple who travel to Paris. Gil, a successful Hollywood screenwriter and struggling novelist, has fallen in love with the city and believes that he would have been better off living in the ‘heyday’ of the 1920s. Seeking to escape Inez’s pompous friends and parents, Gil decides to go for an evening walk through the streets of the City of Light, only to find that the answer to his prayers might just be a stroke of the clock away as he is whisked to 1920s Paris to hobnob with the great writers of the day.

With the exception of 2009’s Whatever Works, based on a screenplay Allen had written in the 1970s, it has been difficult to know exactly which Woody Allen we would be getting over the last decade or so. With this love letter to Paris, Allen reaches back to his ‘golden era’ of Manhattan, in a musically-driven opening sequence that recalls that Oscar-winning film. Indeed, Midnight in Paris is the kind of high-concept comedy that Allen would have made in the 1970s, and here he does so with all the cocksure confidence and audacity that the younger filmmaker consistently brought to the table. Crafting a story that is equal parts The Purple Rose of Cairo and Deconstructing Harry, by way of the similarly-themed 1990s British TV comedy Goodnight Sweetheart, Allen operates in his element, giving audiences just the right doses of cheeky satire, off-the-wall humour and good old-fashioned love story. Yet to simply say that this is the best Woody Allen film in years would be to diminish the simple magic of this story.

One of the often inextricable elements of Allen’s comedies is Allen himself, and those stand-ins for the highly-parodied persona have ranged from the brilliant (John Cusack in Bullets Over Broadway) to the misguided (Kenneth Branagh in Celebrity). Owen Wilson seems like such an obvious choice, as the affable comedian slips comfortably into the khaki pants and collared shirts that Alvy might have worn while wooing Annie Hall. With his distinctively enthusiastic drawl, Wilson’s persona has become as much of an identifiable affectation as Allen’s own schtick, but here it is used to give the character not only a vulnerability but a believable entry point for an audience that is asked to simply go with a story that casually involves time travel and gives Wilson no less than three beautiful women vying for his attention.

Peppered with pinpoint casting in Tom Hiddleston (as F. Scott Fitzgerald), Kathy Bates (as Getrude Stein), Adrian Brody (Salvador Dali!) and Marion Cottilard as Gil’s 1920s love interest, Midnight in Paris could have very easily descended into farce. This may have been the type of film that Allen was known for in a bygone era, but like his protagonist, he enjoys looking back to his best years, but is perfectly content to live and work in the now. Bringing to bear all of the confidence and self-assuredness that only a veteran filmmaker like Allen can provide, he couples it with the youthful enthusiasm of his cast to create a film to genuinely fall in love with.

[stextbox id=”custom”]Not simply the best Woody Allen film of the year, but a contender for one of the best films of the year. A romantic comedy that lives up to both words in the moniker, Midnight in Paris is a trip worth taking.[/stextbox]

Midnight in Paris

October 18, 2011
Review: What’s Your Number?

[stextbox id=”grey” caption=”What’s Your Number? (2011)” float=”true” align=”right” width=”200″]

Director: Mark Mylod

Runtime: 120 minutes

Starring: Anna Faris, Chris Evans, Zachary Quinto, Andy Samberg, Ari Graynor, Martin Freeman

Distributor: Fox

Country: US

Rating: It’s Your Money (?)

More info[/stextbox]

‘Romantic comedy’ has become a bit of a misleading label of late, with the romance being synonymous with foreplay as the focal point of the story. Gone are the days in which a romantic encounter atop the Empire State Building would suffice, or a cross-country trip between two mismatched soul-mates would result in true love, with everything from No Strings Attached to the identical Friends With Benefits attempting to stick a square peg into the mainstream’s all-too-willing hole. Not for nothing either: the success of risqué comedies Knocked Up and Bridesmaids have established the public’s craving for something they can enjoy with their best mates and their favourite squeeze equally.

In What’s Your Number?, based on Karyn Bosnak’s novel 20 Times a Lady, Ally Darling (Anna Faris, Yogi Bear) breaks with the latest in a long line of bad relationships and discovers, in the pages of a women’s glossy magazine, that she has slept with more men than double the national average. Concerned she will exceed twenty lovers without ever finding “the one”, she enlists the help of the promiscuous Colin (Chris Evans, Captain America: The First Avenger), who lives in the apartment across the hall. In exchange for using her apartment to hide out from his endless string of morning after girls, he aids her in tracking down past lovers in the hope that one of them will be what she has been looking for.

Every romantic comedy has a conceit that needs to be overcome. Without these arbitrary rules, there would be no conflict and the two people on the poster would probably get together in the first reel. What’s Your Number? has the particularly obnoxious setup of using the number of sexual partners a woman is “supposed” to have before finding the true man. The aim appears to be to present Ally Darling as a modern woman, fully in control of her destiny, but just blind to the fact that she has always been best when beating her own drum. That’s not the euphemism you think it is. Instead, before Ally comes to her final and inevitable realisation, it is almost as though the film is punishing its lead for having a less than “virtuous” history. Is that really the message behind this film? Too much sex might stop you from bagging a man? Indeed, several gags about worn-out vaginas seem to subtly suggest so.

Anna Faris continues her trend of spotty film role selections, despite the fact that we know she is capable of so much more from Brokeback Mountain, Lost in Translation and her appearances on TV’s Entourage. Here she does nothing to redeem the endless parade of Scary Movie films or rom-coms that someone in her talent agency needs to be shot out of a canon for. Meanwhile, genuine megastar Chris Evans, fresh from Captain America and soon to return to the role in The Avengers, is too good for this slender material. Is he still paying penance to Fox for the Fantastic Four films? That said, his previous experience doesn’t go entirely to waste. Shots in which he wears little more than a hand-towel are sure to please all the right demographics.

It’s not a complete disaster, with a handful of genuinely funny lines throughout. One of the best Twitter jokes to grace the screen comes in Ally’s enquiry to Colin as to the location of her coffee pot. “I broke it. If you were on Twitter you would know that already,” comes the knowing reply. Of course, this is all ruined by Ed Begley Jr’s role as a Twitter obsessed father, who perpetuates the bad rep that Tweeters get. It’s the dick jokes that are the real zingers, including a bit from Anthony Mackie as a closeted ex with political aspirations, but as with many recent rom-coms, it falls short of genuine edge with its reliance on coy winks over outrageous zingers.

[stextbox id=”custom”]What’s Your Number? is a question that should be answered in single digits, although if nudge-nudge-wink-wink references and naked Avengers are a thing, this is your movie.[/stextbox]

October 13, 2011
80s Bits: Teen Witch

Welcome back to 80s Bits, the weekly column in which we explore the best and worst of the Decade of Shame. With guest writers, hidden gems and more, it’s truly, truly, truly outrageous.

[stextbox id=”grey” caption=”Teen Witch (1989)” float=”true” align=”right” width=”220″]

Director: Dorian Walker

Runtime: 90 minutes

Starring: Robyn Lively, Dan Gauthier, Joshua John Miller

Studio: Trans World Entertainment (TWE)

Country: US

Rating: Better Than Average Bear (?)

More 80s Bits [/stextbox]

The 1989 teenybopper fantasy romance Teen Witch proves that anything is possible by just being you. For most clumsy teenagers discovering this is never a straightforward journey, particularly when on your sweet sixteenth birthday you discover that you are a spellbound witch. So what would you do if you discovered that you had magical abilities? Fame…Fortune…Love?

Louise Miller (Robyn Lively, The Karate Kid III) is an awkward geeky gem who just can’t seem to break into the in crowd. Her thoughts are consumed by winning the heart of football captain Brad and dreams of being the most popular girl in school. Louise puts her newly found powers to good use by changing her bratty annoying brother into a dog, turning the cheerleaders into truth telling catty bitches and casting a voodoo doll striptease on her stuffy arrogant teacher in front of the class for revenge. Having mastered her spells Louise is now ready to transform her life to rock star status all simply by getting a piece of clothing, a record, a potion to sprinkle all over herself and spin around 13 time at 45 rpm counter clockwise. Then BAM she becomes the teen idol of the school.

Some of the film’s most memorable moments are the musical numbers where the film goes Glee 80s style. Pre-MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice, we have three white rappers that prove white men can’t rap. These three douche-bags pop up rapping randomly throughout and hit a high point in the flick with the love rap-off “Top that!”. With slicked hair, vests, braces and Hawaiian jackets the boys put NKOTB to shame. Another hilarious breakout is captured during the cheerleader’s locker-room scene where they declare through song and dance that they “like boys”. To top off the musical vein, Louise models her mystical transformation on sassy singer superstar, Shana (Cindy Valentine), a possible lovechild of Taylor Dayne and Susanna Hoffs (The Bangles).

Some familiar appearances include Dick Sargent, best known as husband Darren in Bewitched. Here he plays conservative Frank Miller, father to Louise. Marcia Wallace who’s voice is recognisable as Edna Krabappel in The Simpsons, plays Ms. Malloy, a free spirited drama teacher who sees herself in the young teen witch and embraces her talents. Zelda Rubinstein (Poltergeist, Poltergeist II) plays witch, psychic and guide to the new apprentice spell caster. The lead male role of Brad Powell played by Dan Gauthier captures the jock role perfectly, being a better looking home brand Tom Cruise.

[stextbox id=”custom” caption=”The Reel Bits”]Teen Witch is about 5 years behind its time as far as 80s teens comedies go, but it is super entertaining from start to finish.[/stextbox]

We’d normally put a trailer here, but for your collective enjoyment, here is the “Top That!” rap sequence:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_a5Mvw0j1rY

September 30, 2011
Review: Crazy Stupid Love

[stextbox id=”grey” caption=”Crazy Stupid Love (2011)” float=”true” align=”right” width=”220″]

Director: Glenn Ficarra and John Requa

Runtime: 133 minutes

Starring: Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Julianne Moore, Emma Stone, Marisa Tomei, Kevin Bacon

Distributor: Roadshow Films

Country: US

Rating: Highly Recommended (?)

More info

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The power of love is a curious thing. It’s been the subject of so many films that it leaves little hope for us poor susceptible humans in distinguishing movie love from the real thing. For directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa it’s a familiar subject, having just come off the critically acclaimed I Love You Phillip Morris, but having also explored different kinds of camaraderie in their scripts for Bad Santa, Bad News Bears and even their earliest feature script, Cats & Dogs.

With Crazy Stupid Love, Cal Weaver (Steve Carell, Dinner for Schmucks) is on the verge of divorce with his wife (Julianne Moore, The Kids Are All Right) after decades of marriage, and doesn’t quite know how to deal with the situation. Eventually, he chooses to try and get over her with the help of ladies man Jacob (Ryan Gosling, Drive), a smooth-talking night-club denizen who thinks that he has got women all figured out until he meets Hannah (Emma Stone, The Help).

Dan Fogelman’s (Bolt, Tangled) script treads very close to being a standard rom-com on the surface, something that we see several times a year. Yet the screenplay, the first that Ficarra and Requa have directed and not written themselves, immediately distinguishes itself when the lead character jumps out of a moving car in the second scene, unable to deal with the situation emotionally. It shouldn’t be a surprise, however, from a creative team that has taught us to expect the unexpected, and certainly Ficarra and Requa’s script to Bad Santa never softened its world view one iota. Despite having dealt largely with family-oriented fare, Fogelman shows an innate understanding of his usual target audience: the average, and often broken, family unit. Crazy Stupid Love may be occasionally exaggerated, but it is an frank portrayal of love cracked open so we can examine its core.

The strength of the unconventional script has attracted a strong calibre of actor to the film, with Carell believing in the project enough to produce it as well. Carell brings a performance unlike any other in his career, restraining his often dysfunctional character archetype into a person that doesn’t know he is in a comedy, and reacts all the more honestly for it. Cal Weaver is often as tragic as he is hilarious, and serves as a perfect balance to the shark-like Ryan Gosling, a figure who is the complete flip side of the coin to Carell’s. Recalling aspects of his Blue Valentine performance, the scenes in which he falls in love with Emma Stone’s Hannah are both touching and genuine. Julianne Moore, is a uncharacteristically clothed performance, is the catalyst for Carell’s spiral but never the villain. Even Kevin Bacon’s inclusion, someone who could have easily been the bad guy, is floundering just as much as the rest of Fogelman’s world.

Crazy Stupid Love is disarmingly funny, if not outright riotous, because it often hits so close to the bone. It is about the beginnings of love and the end, it is about forbidden love, teenage love and even the love between two close friends brought together by an odd situation. There will be moments when you will cringe, particularly as the young Robbie (Jonah Bobo, Choke) professes his love to the older Jessica (Analeigh Tipton, The Green Hornet) in front of the assembled school yard. It’s crazy, it’s stupid, but we’ve all been there, and its that mad stupidity that keens this big blue marble we call home spinning.

[stextbox id=”custom”]It may be crazy, but there is nothing stupid about this smart take on modern romance that audiences are bound to fall in love with.[/stextbox]

Crazy Stupid Love is released in Australia on 29 September 2011 from Roadshow Films.

September 28, 2011
Interview: Steve Carell on Crazy Stupid Love

Steve Carell is a very busy man. Having just finished a historic seven-year run on TV’s The Office, Carell is not one to rest on his laurels. Building on a film career that began with small but memorable roles in Bruce Almighty and Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, it was with The 40 Year Old Virgin that his status as a leading man in comedy began. Today he continues his film career as both an actor and heading his Carousel Productions, where he served as producer for Crazy Stupid Love, and has recently launched a television division. As such, he has little time for tourism. Looking out the window of a hotel room at the Sydney Harbour Bridge, he comments “This is as much sightseeing as I’m doing”.

With Crazy Stupid Love, Carell plays a man who is on the verge of divorce with his wife (Julianne Moore) after decades of marriage, and chooses to try and get over her with the help of ladies man Jacob (Ryan Gosling, Drive). “I thought it was a great script”, Carell notes in response to his dual star/producer duties. “I thought it was different. It didn’t read to me like a typical romantic comedy, when on the third page the character jumps out of a moving car because he can’t engage in a discussion with his soon to be ex-wife…It was funny, and also heartbreaking at the same time. So that really set the tone in my mind as to what the movie would be”.

Directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa have just had success with the Jim Carrey/Ewan McGregor film I Love You Philip Morris, and this was appealing to Carell. “And also Bad Santa. I thought they were very talented writers and in meeting with them I just felt that we all shared the same sort of vision for the movie, and you never know. Going in we wanted the movie to have a certain tone and we met with many different directors and they all had some varying tones in mind. Some thought it was a much broader comedy others…less so”.

On love and madness

“I drove halfway across the United States to surprise my girlfriend who was actually dating someone else by the time I got there. It was the saddest slowest drive back home.”

When it comes to making a romantic comedy in 2011, there is a virtual minefield of cliches to avoid and a sense that it has all been done before. “The one thing that we all agreed was that we wanted to as much as possible stay clear of all of those cliches that you find typically in these romantic comedies and when we did find them to point to them , you know, to circle them or underline them and say ‘You see this isn’t us, this is – you know, sometimes life reads like a romantic comedy’”.

Crazy Stupid Love brings a variety of types of love to the table, each with its own slant on how crazy the emotion can make us. “It’s about a lot of different types of love. It’s about this couple falling back in love, or renewing it…But it’s also about Ryan and Emma (Stone)’s characters falling in love for the very first time and how fresh and new, and both of them falling in love with someone in a much stronger way than they probably ever had before with anyone else…And then the love between the babysitter and the younger boy. And there’s also sort of a love between my and Ryan’s character, and friendship that has grown out of a really awkward partnership and a very unlikely partnership. That’s the other thing I liked about this. It’s a rom-com but in many different ways and not just about a couple. Love of family too!”

Yet Carell admits freely to being a hopeless romantic. “I’ve been married for so long and I guess I define soulmate as somebody who makes you feel more powerful. I will never forget on our wedding day that I saw [my wife] down the aisle, I was filled with this sense of calm which I didn’t expect. I thought I’d be very nervous and ‘Oh my god, I’m getting married’. But it was just the opposite. I saw her and I thought my life is going to be fine because of her. I just felt doubly, like this person will have your back and you will have theirs. The two of you will be stronger than you would be separately”.

Of course, he is not immune to having done crazy, stupid things for love. “I drove halfway across the United States to surprise my girlfriend who was actually dating someone else by the time I got there. It was the saddest slowest drive back home. And I saw it in her face when I got out of the car. ‘Hi, I’m here!’ and you just know, not only was it a bad idea but there definitely someone else involved in this scenario. So that was pretty stupid”. A potential movie idea for the enterprising comedian we think. “Yeah”, he quips. “And it’s called The Trip Back“.

On the perils of being funny and Seeking a Friend for the End of the World

“Characters in comedies don’t know they’re in a comedy and they shouldn’t act like they are in a comedy.”

For an actor known for playing social misfits or very ordinary characters dealing with extraordinary situations, Crazy Stupid Love sees Carell turn in a performance unlike any other in his career. Working with seasoned actors Ryan Gosling and Julianne Moore gave Carell ample opportunity to flex his acting chops and balance the humour and drama in the situation. “You know what, when I first talked to Ryan about him playing the character of Jacob we talked exactly about this because he’s not known for doing comedy and he said that his approach was that he just wants to play it, he just wants to play the character. He said “I see dramatic actors all the time going into comedies and trying to act funny, trying to do funny things and be silly, because they don’t have the confidence that its going to be funny if they just do it”.

Ultimately, Carell enjoys playing characters that are grounded, and that’s where the comedy comes from. “I think it’s less about just making faces. It’s all subjective too, there’s so many different types of comedy…Even in the broadest character I like it when they are believeable to a certain extent. Like Peter Sellers would play Clouseau and its a very broad character but you believed it. You believe that he believed it. You believe that Clouseau is going through all of this stuff and even though it was broad, it seemed like a plausible person. Here’s the thing: ultimately I feel like the characters in comedies don’t know they’re in a comedy and they shouldn’t act like they are in a comedy”.

While Ficarra and Requa gave Carell plenty of opportunities to explore his character and improvise. Yet, he adds, this isn’t always the case. Speaking of what we assume was Seeking a Friend at the End of the World, he explains: “It depends on the movie, and it depends on the director frankly. I just did a movie a few weeks ago that was very tightly scripted and I didn’t improvise at all. It was very line by line”. However, this was not the case on Crazy Stupid Love: “We’ll generally do one or two takes exactly as scripted. Ryan and I improvised a lot in a a lot of our scenes. And I think you can find a lot in improvisation, especially if you are improvising with someone who is really good and isn’t just improvising to be funny.

It was from this place that the locker room scene with Ryan Gosling in the sauna emerged. “It was so hard not to laugh. We giggled all the way through it. I had the idea that maybe my character should pass out and maybe fall forward toward him, which he had to prepare himself for both physically and emotionally”.

So, was Gosling actually naked in that infamous scene? Carell remains elusive on this point: “I’ll never tell. I’ll leave that to your imagination”.

Crazy Stupid Love is released on 29 September 2011 in Australia from Roadshow Films.

We also sat down with directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa on Crazy Stupid Love. Check out the video.

We need to thank Roadshow for the chance to speak with Steve Carell, and of course, Mr. Carell for his time while in Sydney.

September 25, 2011
Review: Monte Carlo

[stextbox id=”grey” caption=”Monte Carlo (2011)” float=”true” align=”right” width=”220″]

Director: Thomas Bezucha

Runtime: 109 minutes

Starring: Selena Gomez, Leighton Meester, Katie Cassidy

Distributor: Fox

Country: US

Rating: Worth A Look (?)

[/stextbox]

Selena Gomez began her career, like so many great thesps before her, on Barney & Friends. Largely known these days as the girlfriend of Justin Bieber, Gomez follows in the footsteps of countless starlets by working her way up through the Disney ranks, and most notably her stint on Wizards of Waverley Place and the Disney Channel Original Movie Princess Protection Program. Attempting to shed her kiddie image, she has turned to The Family Stone helmer Thomas Bezucha to take her around the world in a series of expensive frocks.

When 18-year-old Texas girl Grace (Gomez) graduates from high school, she is excited to finally travel to Paris with her best friend and fellow diner waitress Emma (Katie Cassidy, A Nightmare on Elm Street). At least until her parents drop a bombshell on her with the news that her stepfather will pay for the trip, as long as Grace’s uptight older stepsister Meg (Leighton Meester, Gossip Girl) goes with them. The trip begins as a disaster of a budget tour, until their lives take a turn for the better when Grace is mistaken for heiress Cordelia Withropp-Scott (also Gomez) and all three start to enjoy the high life.

This somewhat familiar take on the Prince and the Pauper tale is based on the novel Headhunters by Jules Bass, formerly of founder of Videocraft International, better known now as Rankin/Bass. In the 1960s and 1970s, the company produced a series of stop-motion holiday specials including Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town and Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer. Indeed, “animated” is a word that is incredibly appropriate to Monte Carlo, a film where a great deal of activity is occurring around very little of substance, but a tremendous amount of fun is had in the process. The film takes its time to get going, and for a time it seems that this will be just another tale of warring sisters bonding in a fish-out-of-water scenario. Yet when the largely unexpected twist of the body-double enters the narrative, energy levels are cranked up to red cordial proportions.

The photography from Jonathan Brown (School for Scoundrels, Mama’s Boy) is of the bright and vivid variety, like candy erupting from a carefully formed mountain of bunnies. Showcasing the dazzling lights of both Paris and Monte Carlo, along with Budapest for some reason, it occasionally misses the mark in Paris by giving screen-time to some of the less interesting vistas of the City of Light. Gomez proves to be a likeable young adult actress, freed from playing the teenage/high school Disney roles that have kept her in a mouse trap for the last few years. Similarly, Meester makes the transition from caricature sister to likeable with impressive ease. It’s Katie Cassidy that surprises though, often stealing scenes away from her more recognisable co-stars and completely injecting a sense of random into events.

It’s interesting to note that this was originally written for an older cast, with Nicole Kidman and two other actresses allegedly set to play three women pretending to be rich heiresses on the search for husbands in Europe. That storyline was potentially demeaning for everyone involved, and the real achievement of Monte Carlo‘s script – from Bezucha, April Blair (Lemonade Mouth) and Maria Magnetti (Without a Trace) – is that stays interesting for people over the age of 13 while maintaining the youthful exuberance needed in what is essentially a romp.

[stextbox id=”custom” caption=”The Reel Bits”]A surprisingly fun and less teen-centric outing than one would expect, even if the plotting is fairly familiar. A bouncing ball of energy, there is much to like in Monte Carlo.[/stextbox]

Monte Carlo is released on 22 September 2011 in Australia from Fox.

September 21, 2011
New Year’s Eve special content trailer

In the tradition, and from the producers, of Valentine’s Day, comes this year’s rom-com full of an ensemble cast of big name actors: New Year’s Eve. Roadshow has sent over a special trailer/featurette for the film, showing the work of the cast and veteran romance director Garry Marshall (Pretty Woman, Valentine’s Day, Beaches).

A celebration of love, hope, forgiveness, second chances and fresh starts, the film is a series of intertwining stories of couples and singles, told amidst the pulse and promise of New York City on the most dazzling night of the year.

The film stars a stellar line-up including Jessica Biel, Jon Bon Jovi, Abigail Breslin, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, two-time Academy Award winner Robert De Niro, Josh Duhamel, Zac Efron, Katherine Heigl, Ashton Kutcher, Lea Michele, Sarah Jessica Parker, Academy Award nominee Michelle Pfeiffer, Ryan Seacrest, two-time Academy Award winner Hilary Swank and Sofia Vergara.

New Year’s Eve will be released in Australia on 8 December 2011 from Roadshow Films.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJs3DbcxP1U

September 20, 2011
80s Bits: The Sure Thing

Welcome to 80s Bits, the new weekly column in which we explore the best and worst of the Decade of Shame. With guest writers, hidden gems and more, it’s truly, truly, truly outrageous.

[stextbox id=”grey” caption=”The Sure Thing (1985)” float=”true” align=”right” width=”220″]

Director: Rob Reiner

Runtime: 104 minutes

Starring: John Cusack, Daphne Zuniga, Anthony Edwards, Nicollette Sheridan, Viveca Lindfors, Tim Robbins, Lisa Jane Persky

Studio: Fox

Country: US

Rating: Highly Recommended (?)

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After playing Michael “Meathead” Stivic on Archie Bunker’s All in the Family for several years, Rob Reiner made his directorial debut with the now-classic mockumentary This is Spinal Tap, in which he demonstrated that his flair for comedy and knowledge of the music scene could be combined into one brilliant whole. Reiner would of course go on to direct classic back-t0-back hits of Stand By Me, The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally…, Misery and A Few Good Men, but he had to first prove that he could make a narrative feature. The Sure Thing is an often overlooked classic that Michael Dare of the LA Weekly said “gets my unapologetic nomination for greatest film ever made”.

High schooler senior Walter Gibson (John Cusack) and his best friend Lance (Anthony Edwards) are about to start college, but Gibson is doubting his sway with women. While Lance jets off to sunny babe-filled California, Gibson continues to strike out at his New England college. His attempts to seduce the uptight Allison (Daphne Zuniga) go awry when he tries to trick her into tutoring him, and this only results in pushing her further away. So Gibson resolves to head out to meet Lance on the promise of a “sure thing” (Nicollette Sheriden), hitching a ride with the upbeat couple Gary Cooper (Tim Robbins) and Mary Ann Webster (Lisa Jane Persky). If their singing wasn’t bad enough there’s another problem: Allison is the other passenger in the car, and it’s a long trip to California.

The steady flow of rom-coms that emerge every year have dulled our sense to the truly romantic, so it is always refreshing to revisit something that may follow the same predictable conventions, but have all the energy and audacity of a director who hadn’t yet been tainted by them. Emerging from a landscape that saw the teen market in terms of “outrageous” sex comedies of the Porkys variety, as Roger Ebert remarked at the time, it us refreshing to see an old-fashioned romantic film in this vein. Indeed, it is almost a twin to the Academy Award-winning Frank Capra film, It Happened One Night. While it would be silly to suggest that they should sit next to each other in the canon, there are many parallels to be had between the films. Apart from the central road trip at the core, both films tap into the zeitgeist of their respective eras, with Capra’s antidote to the Depression giving way to the hedonism of the mid-1980s, just prior to their own Wall Street crash. More to the point, both films are about two people falling in undeniable and genuine love.

John Cusack had been stuck in a series of teen movies at this stage in his career, before Cameron Crowe’s Say Anything… would allow him to break out in more varied roles in the 1990s and beyond. Yet in many ways it is with The Sure Thing that Cusack broke out of his former standard teen roles and was allowed to create a character with something other than a singular dimension. Equal parts unhinged and goofily lovable, Cusack’s character is perhaps the earlier incarnation of his much later Hot Tub Time Machine persona. Similarly, Zuniga would go on to become a household name in Melrose Place (by way of Princess Vespa in Spaceballs), she too is relishing in the chance to escape from the likes of The Dorm That Dripped Blood and teen-drama Vision Quest.

[stextbox id=”custom” caption=”The Reel Bits”]A clever and fast-paced script buoys this teen comedy above similar 1980s dreck, and sits proudly as the birth of the careers of several stars.[/stextbox]

September 2, 2011