MY MOVIE SHELF: Saving Silverman

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 205  Days to go: 143

Movie #233:  Saving Silverman

Sometimes a movie is so stupid, so over-the-top, so insanely goofy that it winds up being hysterical. Saving Silverman is that kind of movie, exactly. Whether it’s Judith (Amanda Peet) kicking everyone’s ass, or Wayne (Steve Zahn) fighting off a raccoon on his head, or Darren (Jason Biggs) being set on fire by electrified nipple clamps, Saving Silverman is a batshit crazy funny movie. And that’s before you even factor in the presence of Jack Black as J.D.

In What About Bob?, Bob says, “There are two types of people in this world: Those who like Neil Diamond, and those who don’t. My ex-wife loves him.” That’s a funny line, but Bob was a crazy person, so I think we can all agree that those who love Neil Diamond are on the right side of history.  At least, that’s the position taken by the makers of Saving Silverman. Wayne, Darren and J.D. are best friends since childhood, and they obsessively love Neil Diamond. So much so, in fact, that they — in addition to the weird memorabilia and the restraining order — have formed a Neil Diamond tribute band, Diamonds in the Rough, complete with sparkly shirts and wigs of perfect Neil hair.

Their perfect threesome, and their band, are put in jeopardy, however, when Darren takes up with bossy and controlling Judith, who runs his life and rules the roost and doesn’t even seem to like him very much (she makes him get butt implants), and also is a bit obsessed with showing her cleavage. But if she doesn’t like Darren, she really hates Wayne and J.D., so Wayne and J.D. attempt to break the two up. Several crazy hijinks later, and we find Wayne and J.D. have kidnapped Judith in order to get Darren back together with his “one and only someone” from high school, Sandy (Amanda Detmer). Nevermind that she’s about to become a nun.

Cue naked yoga and sexy Arby sauce and a jail break and a murderous coach (R. Lee Ermey) who sees the logic in taking a dump on the front lawn. There are knock down, drag out fights, stripper outfits and a live serenade by Neil Diamond himself. Plus, the whole thing ends in a triple wedding.

Jason Biggs was the quote-unquote star of this film, and Jack Black has certainly carved out a headlining career for himself as a giant spazz, but the real star of Saving Silverman — of any movie he’s in, frankly — is Steve Zahn. The man is a national treasure. He is never not sort of endearingly incompetent and goofy, he commits a hundred percent to every role and every line and every pratfall, and he makes it all look completely effortless. Honestly, the man should be making $30million a picture. He’s that great.

Amanda Peet, too, is far more talented than she’s given credit for. She’s a comedic gem and she has absolutely no fear when it comes to going all out, be it as a gangly goofball in other films or as an emasculating fiend like she is here. She’s just ballsy and amazing and great, all the time. I love her. I love him. I love them together.

“Admit it! I’m the strong-willed, assertive man that you need and you’re the hardcore bitch I’ve always dreamed of!” Amen to that.

MY MOVIE SHELF: Orange County

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 174  Days to go: 175

Movie #203:  Orange County

Before there was a show called The O.C., there was a movie called Orange County, and while I never watched the former, I can still say with confidence that I prefer the latter. (I don’t like it enough that I ever would’ve bought it of my own volition, mind you, but I liked it before I met my husband and saw he owned it. It’s a decent flick.)

The success of the movie rests on the charm and abilities of one Colin Hanks (as Shaun Brumder), early in his career, and he doesn’t disappoint. He’s harried and charming, the sole sane person in his family, in his school, in his entire hometown. All he wants to do is get away. He wants to go to Stanford and study to be a writer under the tutelage of his idol Marcus Skinner (Kevin Kline). When his harebrained college counselor Mrs. Cobb (Lily Tomlin) sends the wrong transcript in, though, he gets rejected. So he and his girlfriend Ashley (Schuyler Fisk) look for a way to fix things.

Unfortunately, Shaun’s family is not helping matters. His divorced parents (the fabulous Catherine O’Hara and the almost-as-fabulous John Lithgow) are selfish and self-centered — mom’s a drunk who doesn’t want him to go so far away, dad’s a materialistic guy in full mid-life crisis who doesn’t want him to become a poor writer, both are more concerned with their own dramas than Shaun’s. And Shaun’s brother Lance (Jack Black) is a drugged-out wastrel looking as gross as Jack Black ever has, which says an awful lot, who ruins everything he comes near with urine or pills or fire. Even Shaun’s friends are surf-obsessed stoners who get in the way more than they help.

The obstacles and goal are somewhat trite and clichéd, but underneath there’s a sweet story here about how you don’t need to escape your family or your home in order to grow into something great — that your family, as crazy and complicated as they may be, can make you great, can make you who you are. It says a lot for being able to find your own way, and build your own successes naturally out of who you are rather than out of an idea of who you should be. Honestly, I could’ve used that kind of guidance and affirmation in my own adolescence. I certainly stumbled in trying to make my way and find my voice a lot more than Shaun did.

MY MOVIE SHELF: Kung Fu Panda

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 214  Days to go: 217

Movie #163:  Kung Fu Panda

Imagine you have big dreams, that you are passionate about something — writing, acting, kung fu, whatever — and it would be a dream come true to be able to engage that passion as your vocation, as your life’s purpose. But maybe you don’t feel like you’re good enough. Maybe nobody cares about the stories you write, or maybe you’re not young or pretty enough to be a movie star, or maybe you’re a big fat, lazy panda without any sort of athletic ability. (Hypothetically.) Then Kung Fu Panda might be the movie for you.

Jack Black is Po, who just so happens to be a big, fat, lazy, kung fu-loving panda. He works in his family’s noodle business, but he dreams every night of being a mighty kung fu warrior. On the day of the announcement of the Dragon Warrior — the one the prophecy claims will defeat villain Tai Lung (Ian McShane) — Po suffers a series of mishaps trying to see the festivities and winds up being named the Dragon Warrior himself. Everyone thinks it’s a fluke, even Po himself, but “there are no accidents.” More than anyone else, Po has to prove to himself that he is special, that he can excel in ways others can’t, in ways perfectly suited for him. This personal journey is what leads Po to his true destiny, and what saves the village from Tai Lung.

There are others who don’t believe in Po either, particularly kung fu warriors Tigress (Angelina Jolie), Monkey (Jackie Chan), Mantis (Seth Rogen), Viper (Lucy Liu) and Crane (David Cross), to make no mention of Master Shifu (Dustin Hoffman). As they learn to accept Po, however, as well as their own limitations and the fact that things happen for a reason, they find peace with Po’s Dragon Warrior status and even come to accept him as a comrade. Though this doesn’t stop him from proving himself in the final battle, all the same.

The thing that makes a really good animated film is when it appeals to adults and children alike, and Kung Fu Panda easily succeeds in that arena. Anyone of my generation, who remembers old kung fu films on TV, sloppily dubbed into English so the mismatched dialogue became a punchline can appreciate the similar aesthetic that Kung Fu Panda creates with its aura of mysticism and import. And anyone who has ever geeked out over memorabilia or extreme fandom will love Po’s awestruck reaction to being in the Jade Palace. And simply everyone will fall in love with Po. He is sweet and humble and self-deprecating and enthusiastic and sincere and very, very funny. Anyone who performs their best kung fu moves in quest of something to eat is a soul after my own heart.

The best part of Kung Fu Panda, however, is its belief in even the most unlikely heroes. It holds that each one of us has the power to be everything we want and need to be. It’s about being comfortable with yourself, knowing yourself, and working toward your goals. “There is no secret ingredient.” And luckily, “there is no charge for awesomeness. Or attractiveness.”

MY MOVIE SHELF: The Holiday

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 237 Days to go: 242

Movie #140: The Holiday

After the first two high-profile directing jobs of Nancy Meyers’s career (What Women Want and Something’s Gotta Give), I would’ve told you — loudly and vehemently — that I was not a Nancy Meyers person. She’d written a thousand things I loved, so her writing wasn’t the problem. Her directing, however, drove me crazy. At least that’s what I assumed. Nowadays, though, I think I was wrong. I think those two particular movies just happen to be awful and that Nancy Meyers herself is an intriguing and prolific talent. It was The Holiday that started me changing my mind.

What Women Want and Something’s Gotta Give, while huge commercial hits, are terrible movies. Terrible. I will defend this stance forever. I will die on this hill. First of all, What Women Want is little more than a mockery of women. It demeans women and reduces women to a few silly quirks Mel Gibson can look ridiculous emulating or smirkingly exploit, and it in no way seems to make any kind of authentic or sincere statement about women, how they think, or what they want. It’s just awful. Something’s Gotta Give is better, softer and more forgiving and understanding to women, but it still bases itself entirely on the idea that gross, sexist Jack Nicholson is at all worthy of Diane Keaton’s love. Not only that, but it features an extended crying jag from Keaton that is clearly supposed to be funny but instead plays like women are ridiculous hysterical creatures. It’s a jokey cry; it’s an exaggerated, wailing cry. It’s awful as well.

The Holiday also features an over-the-top crying jag by Iris (Kate Winslet), but it offsets it with a woman named Amanda (Cameron Diaz) who overthinks everything and never cries. In this way, it creates two very specific women who react at times similarly and at times vastly different from one another with regard to failed romances. And by portraying these women as existing on a spectrum of emotions and tendencies, it instantly prevents them being seen as caricatures. Not only that, but it gives these women interesting and compatible men to fall in love with: Graham (Jude Law) and Miles (Jack Black).

The movie begins with Iris and Amanda both failing at a romantic relationship. Iris has been constantly strung along and toyed with by emotionally manipulative bad boy Jasper (Rufus Sewell) and Amanda has been blamed for her boyfriend Ethan’s (Ed Burns) cheating because of her highly rational, outwardly unemotional demeanor. When Amanda throws Ethan out and Iris learns of Jasper’s engagement moments after he was once again suggestively flirting with her and giving her hope, the two women are desperate to get away from their lives. Amanda finds Iris’s English cottage on a Home Swap website and they decide to switch houses — Amanda coming to Surrey and Iris going to L.A. — for two weeks surrounding the Christmas holiday.

Amanda almost immediately starts second guessing herself once she’s settled into the cottage, but changes her mind about giving up and going home when Iris’s brother Graham stumbles onto her doorway one night after meeting up with friends at the pub and drinking a tad too much. Suddenly Amanda finds herself in a situation where she can let go of thought and follow her emotions, and she and Graham have a lot of very sexy chemistry to urge things on.

Iris, meanwhile, meets Miles when he comes to Amanda’s house to pick something up for Ethan. They are cordially friendly, since Miles has a girlfriend, but when that falls apart, Iris is able to commiserate with him because she knows exactly how it feels to be discarded and to think you’re not worthy of being loved.

There are bumps in the road for both couples, but ultimately they find themselves happier than they’ve ever been. Amanda is able to find her heart, and Iris is able to find her gumption (thanks in no small part to a lovely B-plot about an old Hollywood writer played by Eli Wallach). Graham is able to find someone who doesn’t shrink away from how complicated his life can be, and Miles finds someone who is beautiful and easy to be with and who appreciates him fully. So it’s a movie not just about women who are unlucky in love suddenly finding it, it’s about men who struggle with love as well. Their stories are on equal footing. They mesh. It feels more like these couples coming together just fit rather than like a movie that panders to the idea of an emotionally stunted woman stumbling on a miraculous dream guy. It’s refreshing and lovely, truly.

I’m a big fan of Kate Winslet and Jude Law, so it was never a question I would find their performances more than capable, but Cameron Diaz and — especially — Jack Black can be wild cards. Thankfully, though Diaz’s arc has the gimmick of being occasionally narrated by Movie Trailer Guy thanks to Amanda’s job as a trailer producer (which, being a movie person, I thoroughly enjoy), the performance of Amanda is easy breezy. She’s neurotic, but doesn’t overplay her hand, and when placed in awkward situations with Graham, she handles them with aplomb. Even better, Jack Black is beautifully subdued here. Miles is a music composer, so Black gets to indulge a little bit when talking about movie scores, but other than that his performance of Miles is low-key and sincere. It’s delightfully understated work that really brings out his charm. It’s without a doubt my favorite performance of his. Ever.

The Holiday is a romantic comedy that really works for me in large part because it thwarts a lot of romantic comedy tropes. The romantic intendeds aren’t bickering opposites who come together at the end despite all logic, nor do they fall in love at first sight and instantly become a happy couple. These people are all honest, careful portrayals of characters who feel like they could be real, and the movie intentionally takes its time with them, building their relationships brick by brick, piece by piece. The closing moments feel earned and sustainable, and yet the movie still gives off the aura of happy, blissful fantasy that romantic comedies are made of. It’s a lovely film, and I hope Nancy Meyers has quite a few more like this in her.