It's Kind of a Funny Story

It's Kind of a Funny Story's chief draw was its writers/directors (the same team that did Half Nelson). That film was raw, immediate, and wonderfully ambiguous. That's mostly lost in their new film.

What it does have going for it is Zach Galifianakis. His performance is actually amazing. It appears effortless in the best way. He slides from quirk to poignancy without showing the seams. He steals the show. Poor Emma Roberts gets a good character only to be slighted with screentime. The impression her Noelle makes on the audience pales in comparison to the one she makes on the film's protagonist.

I related quite a bit to the story the first time through, recognizing bits and pieces from my own life. The story treats mental health issues with heft without ignoring an audience's need to be entertained. If the ending fails to continue that commitment, oh well. That's Hollywood. I smiled. I felt my heart swell. The second time through, the nostalgia had diminished. I saw the flaws. IKOAFS strives for that independent film spirit while trying to straddle the mainstream. I wish I hadn't read a review where the film was likened to the films of John Hughes prior to seeing the movie. Once that seed was planted, some of the film's originality was lost to me.

The fantasy sequences/freeze frames/narration largely don't work. They try too hard. When the film relaxes and lets the characters interact on a real playing field, it hits its stride. Good movie, but I wonder what the writers/directors of a film like Half Nelson could do with this material. Oh...wait...

***

Rocket Science

I enjoyed the characters and the way that the director respected them enough to infuse them with quirk and qualities that ground them in familiarity. The situations were outside my realm of experience, but the feelings of awkward youth are all too familiar and seem to keep rolling into adulthood. And that's why these coming of age tales will keep me coming back for more. Rocket Science has a winning protagonist constantly in over his head. It makes for a good mix of comedy and just the right amount of angst. It works. Writer/director Jeffry Blitz has an ear for fast talking teens on the other end of the teen spectrum from Juno. And more importantly, he has the memory of one who has had circles talked around them.

****

King of California

I didn't expect too much from this forgotten 2007 studio/indie. It was largely panned by critics and I hadn't heard anybody I know even mention it prior to my blind buy on Friday.

I enjoyed the movie. I had a good time with the characters. The movie started off poorly, with heavy voice over serving as exposition from one character. The music was too on-the-nose quirky (reminiscent of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest at times). The movie is Z-a-n-y with a capital "Z". The film asked the audience to make the concession early on that a resourceful and bright teenager could slyly fool parents, social workers, and other authorities for a long, extended period of time. Just go ahead and grant them that or you'll be bothered for the rest of the movie. But it grew on me just as the two main characters grew on me. Not like an unpleasant (or even pleasant fungus) but rather as people can grow on you after you've misjudged them based on first impressions. I found the movie to be a warm, heartfelt, original pic with a very enjoyable, manic performance from Michael Douglas and a fine piece of acting from Evan Rachel Wood. Plus, there was a character named Pepper. That's the bees' knees right there.

This (along with Lars and the Real Girl) seems to be heading a wave of films using and skewing mental illness to their own ends, but I am not really bothered by it. I learn about these people through these exaggerated maladies. As a member of the mentally ill community, I say, "Go for it, but do so with tenderness as these two films did."

***1/2

The Pineapple Express

I got a chance to see an early screening of this movie at the Landmark. It was a blast. It's really what you'd expect when the writers of Superbad decided to make a stoner action/comedy. Zany, irreverent, goofy, and outlandish with just a smidgen of duder love. James Franco, Seth Rogen, and hilarious, but once again the writers have set up a scene-stealing role. It was McLovin in Superbad, but the most memorable part of The Pineapple Express is Danny McBride as Red. Gut-busting funny.

There is a lot of riffing going on and it can be a bit over done sometimes. I imagine the run-time will be reduced when it's released in theaters in August, and these riffs could be the starting point as could the uneven and awkward scenes between Gary Cole and Rosie Perez as the bad guys. It's not like I expect stand out realistic performances from comedies like this one, but each time they were on screen, I was annoyed and wanted to get back to the heroes. The heavies (including Craig Robinson from the American "The Office" and Kevin Corrigan) don't really hold a candle to Rogen, Franco, and McBride's antics.

It's strange to think I could find people being high so entertaining on screen and be utterly unamused when people do drugs off screen. Keep the screw ups screwing up on screen and not in my backyard.

***1/2

The Darjeeling Limited

I was drawn into the movie through its characters, distinct from each other in mannerisms, speech, and habits, but connected in a storied relationship crafted with a history that is revealed naturally instead of overtly. The characters' bond with each other becomes all the more clear when a tragic event takes us back into their last shared tragic event so that the audience can see that although these people are tied together chiefly by blood, their love becomes apparent when something hard, sad, and quieting happens.

I also believed that traveling on a train with my two brothers across a foreign country could alternately be the greatest and worst times I've ever had.

****

Dan in Real Life "I was able to relate to this blunt sting of emotion that comes with angst and sharp emotions. Adult angst."

When I was watching this movie with my mom on Saturday the word "saccharine" came to mind. Partly, it was because I wanted to seem smart, even to myself. Partly, it was because it fit. Dan in Real Life is sweet, but not so sweet that it rots your teeth. Instead, it was the kind of sweetness that left my spirits buoyed about the possibility and necessity of love the way only the fictionalized world of film can do (that's both sad and pleasing).

In short, Dan is a columnist, widowed dad of three young daughters, and part of a larger family of brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews, and parents that gather together to close down their lakeside house for the year. Dan has a meet-cute with Marie (Juliette Binoche), who he really likes but is dating his brother (Dane Cook). Dan tries to balance his new elation and hope for this woman with his devotion to his brother and temperamental daughters. The emotional turmoil that ensues equals hijinks and emotion that entertain and satisfy that warm, fuzzy part of my being.

The film doesn't stray much from the order of events you'd expect from the set up, but what raises this film above the trappings of a sitcom or cookie-cutter rom-com is its strength of characters (particularly Dan and Marie) and strict believability in the way the characters handle the events while still maintaining the genre's sensibilities.

Steve Carrell continues to show depth and range beyond what he became known as on the Daily show - the clueless but endearing and pleasant buffoon. That continues in The Office (albeit with a more room for development). Now that he's in films that embrace his range, I'm beginning to latch onto his skill and persona. His solid work in Little Miss Sunshine was deserving of more recognition and his work as Dan only serves to further his nuanced forty-somethings. His Dan is going through growing pains normally attached to adolescence - the thrill of impulsive love - that somehow link a diverse audience to this family man. I don't have kids. I haven't lost a wife. But I was able to relate to this blunt sting of emotion that comes with angst and sharp emotions. Adult angst. It makes for a very good character.

Julliette Binoche, whom I must admit I just recently discovered in her small role in Paris Je T'aime, makes up the other half of this interesting infatuation. I am amazed by her subtle specificity. Her face carries so much information on it in action and reaction that I thought I could read her so much better than many of the female characters I have seen in more traditional rom-coms. She's also believable. Even when Dan and Marie's interactions are pulled directly from the rom-com rulebook, she and Carrell are able to give a sense of spontaneity that rings much truer than what I've seen before. The fact that I really, really liked her and Dan made me really pull for them. And because of that, the conflict was all the more involving. Conflict without investment in the characters and situations surrounding it is fruitless.

Eventually, the film does pull off one of those familiar sweet as candy endings, but by then I was so rooted in the characters that I was able to dismiss (well, mostly) the derivitive nature of the moment. The fact that the ending is open and closed shows off some of the films respect for its characters.

That respect extends to the family as well. The family interactions are familiar, but still ring of authenticity in the relationships. Family members are uniquely pleased and annoyed by each other because there is that foundation of love. So, even when characters respond in ways that further the conventions of the genre, I was satisfied that a loving family was being portrayed in that it saw one of its members struggling and reacted in a way related to truth from that ideal.

It's a solid, crowd-pleasing movie that left me smiling. Among all the rough and tumble of the films at the multiplex this time of year, I was very happy to leave a film not only excited about production values, acting, directing, writing, thrills, chills, sadness, and relevancy, but also for the good I felt coursing through me as I walked out of the theater.

****

Stranger than Paradise

Stranger than Paradise lives up to its title. It's strange all right. It's like an impenetrable, boring, morose, deadpan strange trip to Cleveland, New York City, and Florida. And that be exactly what writer/director Jim Jarmusch was going for. If so, Bravo! Still, the film left me wanting ol' Roberto Benigni from Down by Law to waltz in with his zaniness and liven up the joint.

Instead, I got the droll, monotone comedy and silence of John Lurie, Eszter Balint, Richard Edson. Lurie plays Willy, whose cousin Eva, played by Eszter Balint, from Hungary comes to visit during a stop on a trip to Cleveland, Ohio. When she leaves, a year passes before Willy and his pal Eddie, played by Richard Edson, drive out to Cleveland and rescue Eva from a cold winter and boring nights at home with Willy's aunt (a deadpan, monotone, very foreign, and funniest performance by Cecillia Stark). When they get to Flordia, they discover Florida isn't the Paradise they expected it to be. A series of comical miscommunication and misunderstandings follow.

John Lurie is an actor I'd prefer not to see in movies again. He is as bland as they come. Even when conveying emotion, he's lifeless. Any laughs from the film are hard to come by because the comical moments are so underplayed that it's hard to know if they're even supposed to be funny. So, instead of natural reactions of laughter, I did a lot of head scratching trying to figure out if things were funny or if I just needed to find something to laugh at to keep me going. Lurie is the chief culprit, but Jarmusch writes and directs moments engineered for this strange ambiguity of appropriate reaction.

Most of the time, my reaction was just looking at sometimes beautiful black and white cinematography and freeze framing shots in my mind (or literally with the pause button).

Like Down by Law, I don't really get the point or points if any that Jarmusch is trying to make. If his point is just to entertain, he failed me.

I can say that there is a big improvement from Stranger than Paradise (his first movie) to Down by Law (his next movie after that). I can only hope that if I see enough of his movies, his work might eventually improve to a completely enjoyable experience.

**

Down by Law

Down by Law is still walking around in my brain. I saw it last night. I'm still deciding how I feel about it, so this may end up being a stream of consciousness review when all is said and done.

I think I liked it. It definitely did not possess the usual attributes and qualities I look for in a film, especially independent film. It's atmosphere is pretty bare. Jarmusch creates a stale air speaking "Louisiana, Louisiana" and "jail, jail." I can't really put my finger on it more than that.

I felt distanced from the film and the characters for most of the film. There were times when they opened up or had a brief spell of interaction that was mildly amusing, but there was also a lot of bland waiting and silence. It can surely be said that silence can say a lot, but I don't think the silence in Down by Law said that much. More accurately, it said what it had to say and then kept repeating it over and over again.

Of course, whenever you add Roberto Benigni to the mix and you get more interest and excitement than whatever you had before. he adds life and mischief to the film. The best moments in the film - and there are several really, really good scenes - take place after Benigni joins the other two characters in their jail cell. I'm not particularly a fan of Benigni, but I am impressed by how his mere presence in Down by Law made the film and the other two main characters interesting.

Jarmusch employs a leisurely pace. He certainly doesn't rush things. At times, he tried my patience. Other times, especially when the three main characters were on the lam, he kept me engaged (for the most part).

Since this is only the second Jarmusch film I have watched all the way through (the other being Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, which employed a similar leisurely pace), I can only really speculate here...but I think Jarmusch is still trying to find his voice in Down by Law. He doesn't really say that much in the film. And what he does say, he doesn't say well. I might be looking for meaning in all the wrong places, but it seems he was really just making a dark, bleak, sometimes zany comedy about casual friendships and the long arm of the law. It also moves along the lines of a tough-love letter to the seedy streets, back alleyways, back woods and swamps of Louisiana.

I had a love-hate with the cinematography. On the one hand, the black and white images on screen could be beautiful. Black and white lends itself to beauty. But the camera was stationary or static for many shots. This added to the stale air. It must be difficult to film a jail cell and make it interesting, but Jarmusch didn't even try. If his intention was to show the boredom of jail, he succeeded. As a setting for a film, I think that setting has to be visually interesting for the audience.

I'll give this movie a marginal recommendation, though I do want to see Down by Law to see if I missed the point along the way the first time. I also look forward to seeing what ol' Jarmusch has up his sleeve.

***

The Perfect Score

Ah, the SATs. How can a group of teens with different dreams for the future band together to steal the answers and beat the system? Humorlessly.

I caught this movie Friday night on TBS. I should have gone to bed. Somehow I excuse myself from putting the movies I watch on late nights on the weekend through the same standard set I employ during the week. I'll sit through much worse films at 2 am on a Saturday morning than I would at 7:15 pm on Friday night. And I don't know why. It's almost always a mistake.

One such mistake was watching The Perfect Score. It had a lot going for it. Scarlett Johanson (who has been good in movies such as Lost in Translation, Ghost World, and Match Point), Erika Christensen (who was good in Traffic), and Chris Evans (who surprised me with solid work in Sunshine) all have major roles. Well, okay. That's pretty much all it had going for it.

The scheme is lame and would never work, not even in my wildest dreams. The cast of misfits and popular kids never gel as a acting team. In fact, three of the performers should be ashamed of their performances in the film. Bryan Greenburg, Darius Miles (who, granted, is not a professional actor), and Leonardo Nam are awful. Everyone else is bad, but Greenburg, Miles, and Nam are truly awful. Nam in particular is all bravado and hi-yucks as the stoner of the crew. He sets the tone for the movie. Any easy joke available will be made. The movie is as smart as a stoner in the middle of a long day of bong-induced pleasure.

Even though the movie hints at the desire to look at the complexity of those high school-types that we know all too well, it fails. Everyone ends up being the sum of what we already know about them. Even as the characters change near the end (which they do all at the same time oddly enough), they still remain the products of the writers' memories of high school and certainly movies set in high school (they reference The Breakfast Club). But rather than exploring teenagers through in-depth conversation as in TBC (except maybe a few on rooftops or in the woods), we learn of these students' "complexities" through this hair-brained scheme.

Ah, the scheme. Even though the writers' put forth a lot of effort into making the heist of the answers exciting with close calls, alarms, and setbacks, I was bored. When they decide to steal the questions and complete the test as a team after a setback, I cringed. They'll beat the system by taking the test? Yahoo!

And you know some of these teens have to hook up! It wouldn't be a teen movie if nobody kissed or tightly embraced each other. Even The Breakfast Club fall into that mold.

Do they take their team answers and "cheat" on the test? Do they realize their dreams? Does anyone care? Not me.

P.S. - this movie is the perfect example of the misuse of voice over...

*1/2

2 Days in the Valley

This film was a pleasant surprise. I didn't quite know what to expect, but I picked up the film because it stars Eric Stoltz and Jeff Daniels. I'm sure there was more to the thought process when I was walking the aisles at The Exchange and saw the VHS for a buck, but the meat and potatoes of the winning argument was: 1 dollar, Daniels, Stoltz.

And it was worth it. Normally, that isn't a compliment, but it is this time. What I got for the buck was a zany, dark comedy/thriller (?). I laughed a lot during this movie. Not hearty guffaws, but well-earned chuckles. I found the film to be clever, but not in a showy way some dark comedies are.

The film connects strangers in a way that some people might find overly-coinicdental, but in a movie this free and light (though dark, know what I mean?) I didn't mind it at all. I kept hoping everybody would meet up and hijinks would ensue. And they did. Boy, oh boy, did they ever.

And Stoltz and Daniels? Great. My only real complaint is that the movie has these great directions it could have taken their two characters. Instead, it pushes them into minor roles. In a movie like this, all the roles might be seen as minor, but Stoltz and Daniels kind of get forgotten. Stoltz's character is a cop who might have to bust a prostitution business running out of a massage parlor. His partner, played by Daniels, is gunning for the place. Problem is Stoltz's character kind of likes one of the prostitutes. Sure, it's not Bible humor, but I thought that would have made for a really interesting movie all on its own. Even though I really enjoyed the whole movie, I kind of wish it had followed those two guys more. Perhaps the greatest flaw a movie can have (besides a title like Dude, Where's my Car?) is to present something amazing and go in another direction. I'm sure there's something worse, but I'm kind of enjoying the ranting.

***1/2

Ernest Goes to Jail

There is no subtle Ernest movie. You can look, but there are none. But there is a funny one. Ernest Goes to Jail is funny. Laugh-out-loud-funny even. It's not a well-scripted movie.

There is no explanation why bad actors acting badly can be hilarious sometimes.

Say what you want (and you will) - but Jim Varney can be funny. His Ernest shtick got old (or maybe always was to some of you), but somehow he's really funny in Ernest Goes to Jail.

A lot of the laughs recieved are easy laughs. There's no complexity to the humor. What you see is what you get. And I liked what I got.

***

Waitress

It has been a good week for movie watching. I caught Waitress a few hours after watching Once. Each are excellent films with winning qualities. It's wrong to label Waitress as a romantic comedy. It's really a character piece. It's about Jenna the waitress, everybody else is just a part of her life. She was a wonderful character to spend time with. It helps that she's very funny, as is the film. Laugh out loud. And in ways I didn't quite expect.

Waitress is a charming little comedy with wonderful characters and performances. I was all about Keri Russell. She's spitfire, man. All woman.

I've seen her pine for a better life, but never in such a defeated way. Her Jenna is stuck with an awful husband who is both intimidating and menacing while remaining incredibly needy. I cringed every time he touched Jenna. I wanted to save her. But she didn't need saving. She said so herself. Russell also handled dialogue very well. She has many wonderful conversations in the movie, and she always manages to steal each one out from under the other talented performers around her. It's a memorable performance I'll be talking about for some time.

This movie is about finding happiness. Sometimes, it means messing up. Sometimes it means settling. Sometimes it means saying no to what you thought it was. Sometimes it means...well, you get the idea. Lots of definitions unique to each person.

I liked the feel of the movie. It was sweet and sassy, and sometimes dark. Jenna basically hates her unborn child and curses her every once in a while. I did feel bad for her while she felt bad for herself. And I rooted for her. I really rooted for her. I wanted her to be happy.

SPOILERS SPOILERS

When she found happiness, she found strength. It was so unexpected that I appreciated it all the more. The final scene with Jenna walking hand in hand with her little girl was priceless. It was so unusual to feel so happy walking out of the movie after Jenna had been so unhappy for much of the film. The happiness she found was abrupt, a 180 move. But I believed it because the filmmakers and Russell sold it so well. I didn't believe her husband would fold so easily afterwards, but I appreciated the way she found strength when she found love. Real love. Not the kind she had with her equally charming doctor played by Nathan Fillion. It was interesting to see the two become intoxicated with each other because the film didn't really dwell on the fact that both were committing adultery. Rather the film chose to focus on how each fulfilled a missing part of each other for a spell.

END SPOILERS END SPOILERS

I also liked how the film realistically portrayed how people rationalize doing things that are considered wrong. And I didn't blame them. They convinced me.
These people have to work things out for themselves. No amount of preaching is going to fix things for them.

I can't really complain about anything about the film. It was a great way to spend an evening.

****

Knocked Up

This film is juvenile and crass. The guys in this film are kinda creeps. But I liked the film. It made me laugh. I guess I'm immature. I could say I loved it because of the love story and complex look at becoming a parent (which was nice and well done), but I laughed out loud like a 14 year old boy amongst all the toilet humor and rude behavior.

I liked the performances. I liked the characters (save for a few of the slacker friends of Seth Rogen's character). I wanted the two mismatched characters to fall in love and be great parents. But I knew they shouldn't. I didn't believe it when it happened. When Seth Rogen's Ben decided to grow up, it happened in a rush, in a montage. The change appeared easy because it happened so abruptly. He had spent the whole movie acting like a immature shlub, but then he got it in his head that he needed to change, and it just happened.

Reconciliation seemed forced. It ended neatly, tossing away what had been a fairly realistic approach to the awkwardness and difficulties of relationships. But I kind of expected that. It's a romantic comedy. Good things must happen. I did appreciate the sometimes awful things in the relationship that happened along the way. I guess I'm odd that way. It made for good comedy, you know, except when people were being horribly mean to each other.

I probably should give a *** rating given all the problems I just pointed out, but I was somehow charmed amongst all the uncharming behavior. Plus, I've gotta give a nice solid rating to any film that makes me laugh as much as Knocked Up did. The mushroom scenes in Vegas are classic hilarity. And despite the unrealistic ending, I was satisfied by it. It gave me what I wanted even if it shouldn't have.

***1/2

Ed Wood

I saw Plan 9 From Outer Space. I saw Glen or Glenda. They begged the question: how could someone be so stupid to make films such as these?

Ed Wood takes a different approach: Ed Wood was not stupid (at least not completely), but actually a man who was too confident in the fruits of his labors. He was a man so in love with his words, the people he made movies with, and the hope of making something someone could remember him for that he was blind to the futility of his pursuit of quality. I hate the man's movies, but I admire the man. He was in love with filmmaking and wouldn't let anything get in his way of making what he considered his art. A foolish man perhaps, but not the buffoon I assumed he must have been prior to seeing this movie.

To be fair, the reality of Ed Wood's life in the Tim Burton film that bears his name is heightened and exaggerated. I know the writers of Ed Wood are merely interpreting his life, but I never doubted the reality of the film. I believed it completely. The actors (Depp, Landau, Murray, Parker, Arquette, and others), Tim Burton, and the writers helped create characters that are somehow acutely absurd and utterly authentic at the same time.It's played for laughs. They're zany.

So zany...even more so because I have seen the director's films whose productions are depicted in the film. I recommend seeing Plan 9 and Glen or Glenda and Bride of the Atom before seeing Ed Wood. It's hilarious to see the film's writers' reasons for why Wood's films ended up as they did. Sometimes the reasons are oddly poignant, which is strange for such a zany film. When Ed puts his friend and father figure, Bela Lugosi, in his films with a speech about how the actor is still relevant (and making an atomic master race) or a simple moment of smelling a flower in a film where it makes no sense to smell a flower, my heart swelled a bit. The scenes in the context of their respective films are ludicrous. However, in the context of the film Ed Wood, they are priceless proclamations of the maligned director's love for his favorite actor and best friend.

I love this movie. I think anyone who loves movies, want to make movies, or likes to learn about interesting people (even people who make awful movies) should give this movie a watch.

*****

Mr. Jealousy

I said earlier that I enjoyed Eric Stoltz in Mr. Jealousy. Well, scratch that. I loved him in Mr. Jealousy. Very funny, but in that dry sort of way that is very difficult for performers to achieve.

This film is very much in the Noah Baumbach style. Intellectuals on the cusp of true adulthood and maturity resisting any change. In the case of Mr. Jealousy, the young intellectuals are in their thirties rather than the just out of college gang in Kicking and Screaming. The Kicking and Screaming gang was just beginning to feel the angst of what a character in Mr. Jealousy might have called "Post-Euphoria." In Mr. Jealousy, everyone has jobs, goals, and relationships. It is those relationships that the film focuses on. It seems that maturing romantically, so to speak, has its own struggles. In the case of Mr. Jealousy, maturing means dealing with jealousy that rears its ugly head in every relationship Stoltz as Lester has had since adolesence. It's a problem I can relate to. Not just the jealousy, but the problems men stick themselves with that keep them from being happy with that special person already in their lives. In that way, certainly not stylistically, I felt this film was a kin to High Fidelity, where John Cusack faces the struggle to achieve his own romantic maturity.

Baumbach writes with a very personal tone which suggests he writes at least partly from experience. His scripts also reflect a common intellectual humor in their dialogue. Mr. Jealousy is no exception, but I think it can be said that he had improved some in the time in between the preceeding film, Kicking and Screaming, and his second film, Mr. Jealousy. His script is definitely more focused. And while Kicking and Screaming has the better lines, Mr. Jealousy holds its own in that category and stands apart with its more realistic dialogue.

Baumbach also adds an offscreen narrator to the mix in this film. His voice is conversational but dry and detatched. He seems only mildly interested with what is happening. And that's a plus. The narration is never really forced. No humor is created out of anything less than necessity. The narration is spare. It only adds to the moments it is used, rather than serving as a bump out of the reality of the film.

Stoltz is great, showing a real skill for subtle humor. He has some great reactions and lines delivered with just the right balance of realism and wit. Like Cusack in High Fidelity, it's very important to like the lead character in these movies because they're the ones sabotaging their relationships. They are to blame, but we as an audience have to sympathize somehow with their destructive behavior. And I did. I like Lester a lot. I was rooting for him the whole time.

The object of his jealousy and desire is played by Annabella Sciorra. My prior experience with the actress left much to be desired. She was the lead in The Hand that Rocks the Cradle. That movie sucked, unless of course you make fun of it with a group of friends. Then there was her brief work on Law and Order: Criminal Intent which can be categorized as solid but easily forgettable. But she is very worthy of both jealousy and desire in Mr. Jealousy. Her character has a playfulness and delightful clumsy streak that make her adorable. She asks questions like "What would you do if I bit you right now?" and makes them endearing. That's skill. Her clumsy streak lets the actress show off some physical comedy skills.

My buddy Chris Eigeman shows up in a supporting role. He's solid as always, but the real scene stealer is Carlos Jacott. He was the scene stealer in that other Baumbach movie, Kicking and Screaming, as well. He just pulls off absurdities in his character so well. In his Baumbach movies, he plays insecure men. Like Stoltz's character, I relate to Jacott's.

I must admit that I initially had a lukewarm response to this film, but with each subsequent film my heart grows fonder. The film has a slight storybook feel with its narrator and fragile romance, and I love it for that. The way it approaches romance and the pursuit of that romantic maturity we men have so much trouble finding rang true even when the situation grew unbelievable. When you can believe in the essence of a film, any absurdity is welcome because it doesn't detract from the joy of the movie, of Mr. Jealousy.

****

Little Miss Sunshine

This is the funniest movie I saw last year. Its not exactly the most authentic movie of the year. It's calculated. But that's not always a bad thing. I don't think it is here either. I've heard that the characters of Little Miss Sunshine fall into independent film cliches, but I must not have seen enough independent movies to be in the loop because they felt fresh to me. Sure, it's a bit of a shock that such singularly defined characters would be in the same family, much less the same movie, but that's okay. The acting melts the family into something I found believable. I could empathize with them, and that made them real. They're real in the world of the movie (a comedy where everything is accentuated a bit above normal=the beauty pagent). And I liked the performances. Paul Dano's character could have been a one-note hijink, but I feel comfortable with saying he infused the character with heart and angst I could buy. His breakdown shook me in ways that I did not expect from this movie. Real acting bravado. Abijail Breslin was a treat. Her scene with Alan Arkin in the hotel was pure acting joy. Alan Arkin's character is a bit of a cliche (the foul mouthed old yeller who says what he wants to when he wants to), but he made the most of it. I had a good time with it. I laughed. Sometimes uncomfortably, but laughs none the less.

****

Stranger Than Fiction

I haven't felt as happy or as satisfied for years as I was leaving the theater after Stanger Than Fiction. I think I really loved the film for how it handled its clever premise. The plot sets itself up for what could have been an awkward, poorly done meeting of two of its characters, but I think the film handled the situation wonderfully. I also love how the film allows Will Ferrell's character to hear a narrator's voice (from a woman who actually does exist) without explaining why. The answer would have been trivial to the plot. Who cares why he can hear it? I like films that keep us caught up with the characters' available knowledge rather than concocting answers to questions better left unaswered. Will Ferrell was very good. He showed great subtlety in his performance that I never would have guessed was in his range. I also really got into the love story. Sure, it was "cute." But it also felt real in a very surreal way. The film doesn't depict reality in the way we know it to be, but the reality it portrays is very real on the screen. And that's where I took it all in. Great script, too. A lot of comparisons were made to the work of Charlie Kaufman, but I think Zak Helm found his own voice and told a story much sweeter and more endearing than anything Charlie has written. But Charlie's the best out there, so...ya' know...

****1/2