Yes, No, Maybe So Double: "Hanna" and "The Other Woman"

It's a double dip for Yes No Maybe So as we're way behind. Can't the movie world just stop for a little bit during the holidays so that we can all enjoy the movies we have right in front of us? Too many things. Too many things. Here's a girlish double and we'll get more manly in the next installment.

Let's start with The Other Woman which used to be called Love and Other Impossible Pursuits (better less generic title) starring the ubiquitous Natalie Portman. And that's ubiquitous with a capital U because, really, she's only going to get more inescapable from here on out.

The Other Woman

First there's this movie, then there's that Ashton Kuchner romcom, then Your Highness, then there's Thor (yes, 4 releases in 2011) plus the next two months of awards shows and then the wedding and the baby and so on. Is she aiming for Jolie/Pitt levels of über celebrity status? You won't be able to get away from her. You're going to look in the mirror and see Natalie Portman.


Don Roos's key successes (The Opposite of Sex and Happy Endings) were told in a unique voice (always a plus) and revealed a deft hand with actors. His frequent collaborator Lisa Kudrow (yay!) plays the first wife and I think everyone wants to know if Natalie, post-Swan even though this was shot earlier, is going to be able to up her game as she moves into her thirties.

On the other hand this looks soft, overly happy and above all unfocused (child rearing, adultery, infant death, custody battles, family bonds, the kitchen sink). It also displays this other woman and asks you to root for her to win the married man which is...unnngh. Really? But it's a trailer, and maybe this isn't at all easy to summarize. Roos, particularly in Happy Endings, was able to balance a lot of flawed characters and emotional arcs. So maybe the marketing department just doesn't know what to do with it?

Despite what seems like far too many plot points (especially for a trailer) you have to admit there's a certain amount of 'wow... this could go in all sorts of interesting emotional directions.' That is if, and it's a big if, the trailer is a false witness to the actual tone.

It doesn't look promising to me but I am curious. You?

This trailer and discussion has presumed spoilers.

Hanna

Next we have Saoirse Ronan training for kills in the woods, with the dissonant mix of modern music and fairy tale titles. Little Saoirse's eventual target: Cate Blanchett.

You can't say that Joe Wright skimps on acting talent lining up Queen Blanchett to square off against Eric Bana (daddy?) and Saoirse Ronan (baby girl?). You also can't say that he didn't earn a couple films worth of experimentation and possible failure after his first two terrific pictures (Pride & Prejudice and Atonement).

I know that the deady little girl thing is a rite of passage for all underage startlets (just ask Natalie Portman, Kirsten Dunst, Dakota Fanning and Chloe Moretz and whoever gets cast in Hunger Games) but I can't say that the child soldier thing is for me. Rooting for trained assassins is so ... unpleasant. Child assassins? Even worse. Why is it such a popular genre? And isn't the trailer giving away a huge twist. [SPOILER?] Isn't it basically saying that Saoirse is Cate's daughter and that Cate is the villain rather than the victim/target? [/SPOILER?]

Visually there are a handful of hooky images and many trailers don't succeed at that even though they all try. Maybe Joe Wright and team could provide real chills (acting) and thrills (action).

So I guess that's two Maybe Sos for me. How are you feeling about seeing either of these pictures?
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A Lisa Kudrow Binge

"I don't need to see that."

This week I accidentally binged on Lisa Kudrow.

I've usually enjoyed her comic movie roles (especially in the Don Roos films The Opposite of Sex and Happy Endings) though I was a little unnerved by what seemed to be an encroaching bitterness in her comic persona the last time couple of times we visited (Kabluey and Easy A). I was starting to miss "Phoebe"'s sunniness on early seasons of Friends.

But I had somehow never seen The Comeback (2005) which I watched this week (two episodes left... maybe I should save them). Its very brilliance probably doomed it as it's an exceedingly uncomfortable showbiz comedy. Its comic impulses have satiric bite... one might call it comedy with real fangs. I was squirming even while laughing loudly. Immediately after watching those I tried a few episodes of Web Therapy, which I am also super late to -- hey, I'm too busy with the movies-- and now I'm fully back on Team Kudrow which I had somehow slipped away from. I got so nostalgic for past Kudrow glory that I even ended up looking up what Jennifer Aniston & Courtney Cox were up to, which I assure you I have never purposefully done before, though I do watch and enjoy Cougar Town on occasion.

Kurdow laughing at Streep's guest
role antics on Web Therapy

It's fascinating that Kudrow's big fame began with such a naive neo-Bohemian persona as Phoebe Buffay and now she so eagerly conquers these self-lacerating or unlikeable characters... It's almost like she's been morphing over the year's from Phoebe to Phoebe's misanthropic twin Ursula. Remember her?

My point is this: Lisa Kudrow is talented and underappreciated, even if she's not exactly underrewarded - hello gazillion$ in Friends residuals. She's probably only less of a mainstream presence now because her preferred style of comedy is of the take-no-prisoners variety.

Here's the first of the three most recent episodes of Web Therapy (episode #46) which starred Meryl Streep (as "therapist" Camilla Bowner) who is doing reparative therapy on Fiona Wallice's (Lisa Kudrow's) gay husband. Wickedly subtle humor courses under the less subtle verbal gags ... it's all in their nuanced line deliveries, reactive beats and funny expressions.



Are you now or have you ever been on Team Kudrow?

Related Reading:
Signatures: Lisa Kudrow
Monologue: "Michelle's Miracle Glue"

Monologue: Michelle's Miracle Glue

Have we ever talked about Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion?

"I love it." "unh! Me, too."

So rewatchable, don't you think? Most of the laughs spring from the stupidly succinct sycophantic banter between Romy (Mira Sorvino) and Michelle (Lisa Kudrow). They've been inseparable for over a decade but somehow they're still surprised by every shared feeling.

Romy: Oh my god I hate throwing up in public.
Michelle: Me too!

One scene that always cracks me up comes right after the best friends have had a rare fight on the way to their high school reunion. They've concocted a lame "business women" story that they invented post-it notes in order to impress their hateful former classmates.

But since they split up on the way to the reunion, they're both trying to use the same story. Michelle, already flailing in her attempt to impress the four bitches who made their high school years miserable, rethinks her story as she notices Romy telling the same one. She adjusts.

Actually I invented a special kind of glue.

The ringleader of this Arizona-division Heathers wants to catch Michelle in the lie "Oh really? Well then I'm sure you wouldn't mind giving us a detailed account of exactly how you concocted this miracle glue, would you?"

No.

Kudrow takes a hilarious frozen pause. Her comedic timing has always been superb. The way she enhances the comedy can really only be seen and heard. She's working within Michelle's very limited register and it's all very slight eye flashes and movements. There's also the occassional escaping unh sound which, in Kudrow's comic arsenal, is both the aural equivalent of an eyeroll and a nervous tic.

Well. Ordinarily when you make glue... first, you need to thermoset your resin. And then after it cools, you mix in an epoxide which is really just a fancy-schmancy name for any simple oxygenated adhesive, right?

Her confidence growing in the telling, which surprises even her, Kudrow's line readings begin to shift from wobbly recitation to educational sass.

And then I thought maybe just maybe you could raise the viscosity by adding a complex glucose derivative during the emulsification process.

And it turns out I was right.

The scene is already a good joke in concept. You've got scientific formulas tumbling out of the mouth of a ditzy blonde character (whose still very much in character). In the execution it's even better. Kudrow as Michelle doesn't even seem to know whether she's making this up on the spot or remembering it.

The punchline to her science lesson is sweet revenge. There's a shot of the queen bees in stunned silence. "I don't believe it. You must be the most successful person in our class."

Uh huh. And you're not. Bye!

There she goes. A business woman... 'From L.A.'

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recommended further reading: Adam's wonderful "Signatures: Lisa Kudrow"
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Signatures: Lisa Kudrow

Adam of Club Silencio here with another look at my favorite actresses and their distinguishing claims to fame.

Dede: God. How does a woman get so bitter?

Lucia: Observation.

--The Opposite of Sex (1998)

My own bitter observation: "TV actresses" never get the love they deserve until they make that stealthy transition to the silver screen. Some may never get their due respect; like a Sarah Michelle Gellar - whose physical, comic and crushing turn as Buffy would ascend the cinematic heights of... magic crustaceans and dead Japanese kids baring the grudge of a Hollywood remake. (That was Bitter Observation #2.) For every damning P.S. I Love You, there's still Lisa Kudrow's savory sense of humor underlying all that manufactured bliss - and Hilary Swank being "girly and fun" (no one's buying it Warner Brothers.) Kudrow's characters balance well between TV and film. Either they're so confidently clueless that they couldn't care less, or they're so hyper aware they'll do just about anything to alter their situation. Kudrow's best moments come when placed at that delicate cusp of self awareness. Even her ditsiest selves have dreams wherein they know the formula for glue.

Lisa's sardonic strengths hit so masterfully under the radar and always for maximum effect. There's an understated intellect and biting wit even in her most deluded variations. Cherish is the word I'd use to describe her sublime performance on The Comeback. Valerie Cherish is a divinely humble creation; a washed-up sitcom star making her prestigious (but only to herself) return to the dregs of network TV. She even has her own reality show, but in her strict attempt to avoid any reality, it eventually hits her much like a cupcake shooting a low blow to the stomach. Sweet, painful... satisfying.

"A cupcake's never funny the second time. Never."

Hers is the subtly sweet, knockout punch that will give you "the rare double vomit." Valerie may not have her dignity, but maybe just enough fame to forego that worry for one more TV season -- exactly when this series was canceled (Bitter Observation #3). Behind Kudrow's every gesture is a pointed but understated truth, and it probably helps that Kudrow had a hand in the astute writing. Any attempt by Valerie to hide something becomes her greatest exposure. It's so befitting (and ironic) then that her catchphrase is, "I don't want to SEE that!"

Likewise her hysterical collaborations with writer/director Don Roos continually tap into that same inner judgment, and translates her talents so well to the big screen. If her characters are now too bitter or jaded to be bound by network standards, at least they get their cinematic happy endings. Like Lucia of The Opposite of Sex, who so desperately wants to meet someone who'll love and shampoo her, but would never utter the word "love" without a shudder down the spine and convulsive snide remark. Or Mamie of Happy Endings whose job at an abortion clinic is more or less therapy for giving away her stepbrother's baby; that bitterness is undercut with some real soul and sympathy. She gives these characters their world-weary backbone.

"Back Brace Girls"

left: Michele Weinberger, right: Valerie Cherish

Web Therapy, Kudrow and Don Roos' latest collaboration, is another painfully bracing comedy about yet another woman on that path of excruciating self-discovery. Meet Fiona Wallace, a therapist bored with anything beyond three-minute sessions, who needs patients who can launch her pitiful online career. The slow burn of the web series is an evolving character comedy of a person so selfish, so disparaging, that her act of observing others becomes all about her own reveal. Secrets and truths are exposed, wounds are opened and salted, and we haven't even gotten to her patients.


Whenever moments are almost too painful to watch, Lisa Kudrow ensures it's Must See TV.

[editors note: Web Therapy is also now available on iTunes]

"We Can't Wait" 2009 Preview

Tomorrow the blog will begin to be invaded by brief peeks at 20 films we're excited to see in 2009 (at least at this writing -- trailers could change our pre-viewing feelings). Who is "we" you ask? This year I did the anticipatory mindmeld with Whitney of Dear Jesus, Fox of Tractor Facts, Joe of Low Resolution and JA of My New Plaid Pants to come up with the top 20. I am horrified to inform you that these so called "friends" did not help me place Stephen Frears Chéri on the list. The plentiful posts I've already done on the matter will have to be enough until its Berlinale premiere later this month. The other highest ranking "orphans" from my own personal list function as an accidental Natalie Portman Double Feature.

Brothers is from actor-friendly director Jim Sheridan (In America, In the Name of the Father) and its based on the Danish film by Susanne Bier which I've recommended for rental many times. In the original film Connie Nielsen (in a terrifically engaging and warm star turn) is an army wife whose husband (Ulrich Thomsen) has been shipped off to Afghanistan. His troubled brother (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) helps her out around the house and they form a makeshift bond in his absence. If the plot sounds similar it's because Bier herself didn't stray far from its distraught wife and uncomfortable romantic triangle that also characterized the plot of her English language debut Things We Lost in the Fire.


In the American remake Natalie Portman plays the tearful wife. The title characters are Tobey Maguire as the soldier hubby and Jake Gyllenhaal as the ne'er-do-well brother. I'm interested to see what mojo Portman can work on both of them. Think of how bewitched bothered and bewildered Clive Owen, Jude Law (twice!), Timothy Hutton and Jason Schwartzman have become in her presence onscreen. Even wooden Hayden Christensen was thrown by her. He was haunted by the kiss she should never have given him [gag] !

17 Photos of Isabel comes from writer/director Don Roos and I think he proved with The Opposite of Sex and Happy Endings that he definitely has his own voice as a filmmaker. It's a voice worth hearing from time to time. He's also the filmmaker we can thank for Lisa Kudrow's best performance (The Opposite of Sex) and even, arguably, Maggie Gyllenhaal's (Happy Endings) which is saying a lot. The film is about a woman who is having trouble with her stepson but I don't know who plays whom. Neither Kudrow (returning for a third round with Roos) nor Portman are playing a character named "Isabel". The working title was Love and Other Impossible Pursuits.

Did you like Roos' previous films? Do you share my intermittent Portmania?

The Official "We Can't Wait ~ Top 20 of 2009" kicks off tomorrow @ Noon. You can see other "orphans" at Low Resolution, Tractor Facts and My New Plaid Plants

In case you missed any entries they went like so...
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We Can't Wait:
#1 Inglourious Basterds, #2 Where the Wild Things Are, #3 Fantastic Mr. Fox,
#4 Avatar, #5 Bright Star, #6 Shutter Island, #7 Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
#8 Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, #9 Nailed, #10 Taking Woodstock,
#11 Watchmen, #12 The Hurt Locker, #13 The Road, #14 The Tree of Life
#15 Away We Go, #16 500 Days of Summer, #17 Drag Me To Hell,
#18 Whatever Works, #19 Broken Embraces, #20 Nine (the musical)
intro (orphans -didn't make group list)
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Kudrow Goes Kabluey

On a whim a couple of days back, I accompanied Rob to see Kabluey. It was remarkably easy to relate to the sad sack awkward main character who couldn't quite get his crap together because that very day I had stupidly fumbled an opportunity to see Vicky Christina Barcelona (you know that hurt me in my tender places) and Hamlet 2 also slipped through the cracks. I'm so disorganized!

Anyway, Kabluey is a no-budget indie about a war bride (Lisa Kudrow) whose husband has been in Iraq for way too long. She can't manage single motherhood and two unruly boys. Her estranged brother- in-law (writer/director Scott Pendregrast) shows up to help. Only he isn't much help. There's some inspired slapstick (involving the job he gets as a giant blue corporate mascot) a 'where ya been?' cameo (Teri Garr) and a dependably wicked supporting spin from Christine Taylor (aka "Marcia! Marcia! Marcia!" and Mrs. Ben Stiller). Though Kabluey is almost relentlessly downbeat at its core there's quite a few laughs to be had within the miserabilism.

Kabluey B: It might be hard to catch in theaters due to the very limited release but worth a rental once it arrives on DVD

Here's the trailer below and I've paired it with the classic "Smelly Cat" from Friends just for fun.



Which brings us to Lisa Kudrow. Her film career has been ...odd. Everyone loved her on Friends as ditzy bohemian Phoebe. Yet towards its last seasons Phoebe got much bitchier and less loveable and Kudrow's post Friends career characters have had a startling underlay of anger to them. I'm not talking about the enjoyable vicious comic diva but rather the unhappy woman variety of bitchery.

Now some actors naturally project different persona and read different from small to large screen but I think it's worth noting. But I can't think of an actress who reads more intriguingly disagreeable than Kudrow apart from maybe Anne Heche at her prime. This isn't to say that Kudrow isn't a valuable screen actor. I haven't seen her recent cancelled television series The Comeback but she was absolutely terrific as the bitter sister-in-law in The Opposite of Sex (1998, robbed of an Oscar nomination). She did fairly complex engaging work as the bitter stepsister in Happy Endings holding her own in scenes opposite a never-better Maggie Gyllenhaal (which is saying a lot). And here again she does good work as a bitter sister-in-law.

But all this bitterness and sisterhood. What is going on here?
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Who Let the Dogs Out?

Hey guys! mB here from A Blog Next Door, subbing for Nathaniel for this weekend. Now, I am usually one to follow up punny post title with something equally as punny (and SJP-worthty) like "The world is going to the dogs!" or "It's a dogged world out there" but really, I'll spare you - mainly because you're probably wondering what dogs I'm talking about. But if you are, it means you haven't been cringing at movie trailers in the past month. Seriously are dog-movies the new biopics?

Disney's Bolt (or the movie I like to call: Disney Animation's attempt at making a name for themselves in the shadow of [and with creative direction from] PIXAR])

Watch the trailer here and listen to John Travolta who instead of being the owner of a dog who talks (remember that?) to being the eponymous hero of this very troubled animated production (Lilo & Stitch's Chris Sanders penned and directed it before, well... who knows what happened, he's only credited for writing now). Miley Cyrus is also on board, to give the film tween-cred. 

Cringe-Factor: 2/5 

The pigeons scene and the annoying sidekick hamster make up for the overall sense of 'so...?' that I felt while watching it: kinda feels like a Dreamworks film and not a Disney one, no?

Hotel for Dogs (or the movie I like to call: Why can't Lisa Kudrow find better roles/films?)

Watch the trailer here and try and make sense of why this movie was made. It looks like a Rick Moranis film from the 1990s. Turns out Emma 'Nancy Drew' Roberts is still trying to make a name for herself as an actress and a film about a Hotel for Dogs is the way to do it. Like I said, Lisa Kudrow offers the parental role.

Cringe-Factor: 4/5 

What made me cringe more: Lisa Kudrow's hair, seeing Don Cheadle in this or the shoe vending machine? No wait the "This is the grossest thing I have ever seen"/"That's awesome" banter.

Beverly Hills Chihuahua (or the movie I like to call: wtf?)

If you haven't seen this (which would mean you haven't seen Wall-E as 

it premiered before that PIXAR gem) watch the trailer here. Now, come back and tell me what the Aztecs, chihuahuas and Beverly Hills have to do with each other...

Cringe-Factor: 5/5

There are no words really...

Marley and Me (Or the movie I like to call: Huh... Jen's breasts bounce a lot in the trailer of that memoir-turned-film film)

I have probably been lying under a rock cause I had never heard anything about Marley and Me (the book) nor Marley and Me (the film). While watching the trailer last night at a Mamma Mia! showing there were too many awwwws when the pup Chariots-of-Fires his way into the screen. I just wanted to know what the hell the movie was about. Isn't that what trailers do? Either that, or get you weirdly interested. This one did nothing. (Maybe TFE readers can enlighten me and get me excited as I do enjoy Ms Aniston's work)

Cringe-Factor: 4/5

A puppy running in the beach... it's just too cutesy for me. And Jen screaming after him with Owen Wilson... yeah. No.

I don't have anything against dogs - I just wonder why is it they are (more often than not) at the forefront of 'bad' Family Films (and really... am I the only who wonders when did Hollywood forget how to make good Family Films?): think of Tim Allen's Shaggy Dog, Cuba Gooding Jr's Snow Dogs, the awful-looking Cats & Dogs, even stuff like Firehouse Dog. Rarely do we get an 101 Dalmations, an All Dogs go to Heaven, or a Beethoven anymore.  

But what do you guys think? Is Hollywood just canine-impaired or are we just experiencing a summer that's more interested (and better at) bats, mice, pandas and even robots?