MY MOVIE SHELF: The Ref

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: 162  Days to go: 156

Movie #221:  The Ref

Obviously I love Christmas movies; I own quite a few of them. The Ref is a Christmas movie unlike most, however, and I love it all the more for it. This is a movie about the frustrations of Christmas, the resentments of family, and ripping off insults as fast as you can think them up. Also, there’s a burglar on the loose.

In 1992, I watched Denis Leary’s No Cure For Cancer so many times I could recite it from memory. I probably still could, it was pounded into my brain so many times. I can definitely still sing his “Asshole” song. I bought the album, too, and listened to it incessantly. It was one of the funniest things ever. In The Ref, Denis Leary plays Gus, who is basically an entire character based on the comic ideology of No Cure for Cancer, and it’s fantastic.

Gus is a master thief who falls into a “roadrunner booby trap” and has to improvise on his getaway by taking Caroline and Lloyd Chasseur — “that’s 18th century French Huguenot” — (Judy Davis and Kevin Spacey) hostage on Christmas Eve. Lloyd and Caroline are a married couple who hate each other, hate their lives, and bicker incessantly. (“I don’t believe it. You want to have sex with him!” “What??” “‘Use the ouchless. We have bungee cords.'” “I’m frightened. Humans gets frightened because they have feelings. Didn’t your alien leaders teach you that BEFORE THEY SENT YOU HERE?!”) But Gus has a gun. “Married people, without guns — for instance, you — DO NOT GET TO YELL.”

Gus is hiding out until his partner can secure them a boat to escape on, but Lloyd and Caroline’s son, Jesse (Robert J. Steinmiller Jr.) — who “has the kind of imagination–” “that the mafia gives scholarships for” — is heading home from military school (where he’s blackmailing Lt. Siskel, played by J.K. Simmons), and Lloyd’s oppressive and meddling mother Rose (Glynis Johns) is en route with his brother Gary (Adam LeFevre), sister-in-law Connie (Christine Baranski) and their two children for Christmas dinner (after they stop to eat first, because “God knows what disaster your Aunt Caroline is making.”) It makes for one hell of a dinner party, and that’s without taking into account the wreath of lit candles everyone has to wear — “in honor of Saint Lucia” — for their “traditional Scandinavian Christmas feast.” (“My forehead is blistering.”)

There’s a bit of a knock-down drag-out eventually, with everyone getting involved. (“Just who do you think you are?” “Slipper socks. Medium.”) And it all works out in the end, in the spirit of Christmas. (That is not the spirit of Christmas. The spirit of Christmas is either you’re good or you’re punished and you burn in hell.”) “We should unwrap them in the morning. It’ll be more festive.”

Everyone — and I mean everyone — is fantastic in this. Dialogue flies back and forth, joke after joke, insult after insult. Davis and Spacey are unsurprisingly phenomenal, and Leary is very comfortable in this particular persona, so there are no fumbles on his part either. And while I enjoy all the supporting cast, extra attention should really be paid to Johns and Baranski, who go completely balls-out committed to each character’s own particular pathologies. (“Don’t make me nuts today. It’s Christmas!”) “And I still say getting laid by an eighteen-year-old linebacker is JUST WHAT SHE NEEDS.”

Add in a drunk Santa Claus, and it’s a Christmas movie for the ages. Ho ho ho!

MY MOVIE SHELF: Juno

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: 218  Days to go: 219

Movie #159:  Juno

I dressed up as Juno for Halloween three years ago, when I was pregnant with my youngest. Nobody knew who I was, but one guy at work guessed “someone from a movie about teenage pregnancy,” so I counted that in the win column, but I was pretty disappointed in the rest of humanity, if I’m being honest. Juno was a pop cultural touchstone in the late aughts, and I feel like more people should be aware of that.

Diablo Cody’s manufactured jargon script got a lot of backlash (not enough for her not to win the Oscar, but enough), but I think if you get past that mildly annoying affectation, it contains a really sweet and touching story. Juno (Ellen Page, breaking into the big time) is a junior in high school who indulged in some beautiful chair sex with her friend Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera) and wound up pregnant. The movie takes us through the seasons as Juno’s pregnancy progresses and as she interacts and builds a relationship with the decidedly more upper class couple she’s chosen to be the adoptive parents, Mark and Vanessa Loring (Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner).

Page handles the quirky dialogue well without making it sound too rehearsed, and Cera being an adorable doofus is kind of his bread and butter, only this time he adds tangy organge tic-tacs to the mix. They make an awkward and clumsy couple, never sure how to act around each other now that their friendship has been strained by pregnancy and never able to be as vulnerable and loving with each other as they want to deep down.

Meanwhile, Bateman and Garner are excellent as an affluent couple who clearly want different things but haven’t discussed it. Vanessa is an open wound of desperation and heartbreak, so painfully in need of a child and terrified of never getting that chance. She grasps onto the hope that Juno brings, but also fears it, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Mark, on the other hand, is the other shoe. He’s a big kid afraid of growing up, afraid of being responsible, silently blaming Vanessa for railroading him into something he isn’t ready for.

There’s a lot of pain, a lot of sorrow, and a lot of hope and optimism in the film. J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney are snarky and supportive as Juno’s parents, not really putting up with any of her angst but loving her completely, making it perfectly clear they have her back no matter what. It has a great message about love and family, about finding someone who loves you for exactly who you are. It’s uplifting in that way, to the point where I honestly don’t even notice the forced quirkiness. I just notice the joy.

Because in the end, joy is what Juno is selling. Everyone should know that.