Bachelorette a Walk on the Wild Side

If there’s one valuable lesson to be learned in life, it’s that best friends can sometimes be your worst enemies even if they’re your BFFs.

Such is the fundamental premise of Leslye Headland’s freshman offering “Bachelorette” which is based on her well-received play of the same name.

Portly Becky (Rebel Wilson) is all set to marry the handsome but immemorable Dale and it’s up to feisty careerist Regan (Kirsten Dunst) to handle the maid of dishonor duties starting with four-alarm phone calls to high school buddies Gena (Lizzy Caplan), a smart-ass, sarcastic bohemian and Katie (Isla Fisher) a ditzy party girl.

Becky and Regan form the core of the clique but it’s only because BFF in their case means Bulimic Friends Forever.

2012 Gary Sanchez Productions, BCDF Pictures, Weinstein Company, RADiUS-TWC

Even after Becky finds out that a wasted Regan and Katie destroyed her wedding dress by trying to squeeze into it for a Facebookesque photo op, Becky can only reminisce about the times she and Regan spent in high school puking up lunch in the girls’ room.

Much raunchier than kindred chick flicks like “Bridesmaids” or anything starring Jennifer Aniston, one could probably say with fair accuracy that “Bachelorette” is more like a raunchier version of “Sex in the City” meets “The Hangover.”

The “Sex in the City” similarities go right down the principals sporting the same hair color too–two blondes, a redhead and a brunette.

Headland, better known as a TV and screen writer of the soon-to-be-released “About Last Night” and “Terriers,” a 20th Century Fox Television and FX Network co-production, pulls out all the stops in the one-liner department.

As the girls frantically search for tailor to repair Becky’s dress, Headland lets loose with zinger after zinger in a script that is tight and punchy―as in punch to the gut.

Casually relaxed pronouncements using the C-word and B-word are peppered throughout the tight 90-minute romp.

A perpetually tooted-up Gena lets her cell phone go to voicemail with a greeting that prompts the caller to “Eat a d**k.”

Katie overindulges at the reception and gradually spirals into a drug-and-drink-induced stupor.

“I don’t know what to do around people I really like, either sleep with them or get really drunk,” she relates.

After Katie overdoses on Xanax paramedics are called.

And with only minutes to spare before the wedding and no wedding dress in sight, a frazzled Regan chastises an inflexible wedding planner who notes that the cascade of mishaps aren’t on the itinerary.

“Providing a fucked up b*tch wasn’t on the itinerary either,” Regan snaps.”It’s Manhattan on Saturday ―five minutes is like 30 minutes.”

With a goofy wedding band and an eclectic soundtrack borrowing from the classics, 80s and 90s, “Bachelorette” is blisteringly uneven in parts but in a wickedly entertaining way if you can look past the vulgar language and cancer and bulimia references.—Steve Santiago

Artist entertains but Chaplin it’s not

Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo star in "The Artist," 2011, The Weinstein Company

When I first saw “The Artist,” I couldn’t quite make out whether this film was a gimmicky effort made to appeal to a niche segment of cinephiles or a finely crafted homage to the silent era.

Directed by the relatively unknown Michel Hazanavicius, “Artist” (2011) has garnered glowing critical review including three Oscar nominations for Hazanavicius: best director, best original screenplay and best editing.

Despite that, “Artist” is still not in the same league as its cinematic ancestors: “The Passion of Joan of Arc” (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1928), “The Battleship Potemkin” (Sergei M. Eisenstein, 1925), “Greed” (Erich von Stroheim, 1924), “The General” (Buster Keaton, 1926) and “Metropolis” (Fritz Lang, 1927) are just a handful of films from that era that should, at the very least, receive a special screening by the academy prior to handing out any statuette for “Artist.”

But with its legions of gushing critical followers, that seems unlikely to happen.

In any event, “Artist” opens with a screening of George Valentin’s (Jean Dujardin) latest silent picture “The Russian Affair” during which aside from him being tortured by a Frankenstein-like electrical device, not much else happens.

But after the screening, a starstruck fan, Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo),  accidently inserts herself into media frenzy outside the theater and is photographed planting one on Valentin’s face.

When his wife Doris (Penelope Ann Miller) sees the photo on the front page of Variety the next day, she is none too amused by both Valentin and his kooky Jack Russell Terrier, Uggie, who is trained to mimic Valentin’s pantomime.

The Weinstein Company, La Petite Reine, Studio 37

Meanwhile, Peppy Miller is ecstatic at having been photographed by Variety and decides to go on an audition at Kinograph Studios.

While waiting for her audition, she shows a butler (a bored Malcolm McDowell) the magazine cover and is dejected when he still doesn’t recognize her.

After earning a role and receiving a nod of approval from the casting director, Peppy celebrates with a Tiger Woods-like fist pump.

She then turns to a still seated McDowell and says “My name is Peppy Miller” to which McDowell wryly smiles and shrugs it off.

The Weinstein Company, La Petite Reine, Studio 37

Valentin later suggests Peppy paint a fake mole above her upper lip to attract more attention and miraculously she starts commanding better roles.

As time rolls on to 1929, sound technology comes into being and Valentin’s relationship with Doris

becomes more mundane and strained.

On top of that, Studio head Zimmer (John Goodman) screens one of the first rushes employing sound and Valentin laughs it off  as a joke.

“If that’s the future, you can have it,” he sniffs (perhaps echoing the same criticism Walt Disney received when he first proposed producing animated feature-length films).

Not surprisingly, Valentin inexplicably wakes up to an entire world using the new technology of sound only he is unable to speak, still silent and still holding on the a bygone era.

It turns out to be a Buñuelian dream from which Valentin awakens sweating and clearly disturbed― so much so that the normally outgoing actor becomes introspective on the ride to the studio at which he discovers that most of the silent actors and stage hands are gone.

Kinograph Studios has decided to halt production of silent films in favor of talkies.

“You and I belong to another era, George. The world is talking now,” Zimmerman tells a stunned Valentin.

In a matter of hours, Valentin discovers that he has gone from yesterdays box office idol to today’s washed up actor―it wasn’t possible back then to hang on for dear life by coining boorish phrases like “winning.”

Meanwhile though, Peppy Miller is winning having signed a deal with the newly reinvented Kinograph Studios.

She still believes in Valentin and eventually helps resurrect his career but only after Valentin makes one more desperate attempt at producing and acting in his own silent film which fails miserably.

The Weinstein Company 

“Artist” is an entertaining, well made and aptly researched and edited piece but the effusion of positive critique of it as something new rather than novel is puzzling and makes one wonder whether or not some critics are really familiar with the silent film canon.

Still, in addition to the categories for which it is nominated, “Artist” should probably also be nominated for best costume design, best cinematography and music score.

Everything is period correct even down to interior light switches and poster fonts.

Under ideal circumstances, there should probably be more of a push to restore original silent films and screen them at modern theaters but as they say, “every dog has its day” and if there were such a thing as an Oscar for dogs, Uggie would certainly earn my vote.―Steve Santiago

 

‘Twilight’ saga getting soggy with ‘Breaking Dawn: Part 1’

Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattison share a moment in 'The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn-Part 1', Summit Entertainment, LLC

Once upon a time, Hollywood  made movies intended to be seen in one sitting usually lasting 90 minutes or so.

You told a story with a beginning, a middle and an end—voilà, there’s your movie.

But toward the end of the 20th century when executives decided to establish the sequel as the preferred business model in the American film industry—and theoretically ensure a stream of income lasting years if not decades—brevity no longer equaled bankroll and all bets were off.

So it comes as no surprise that the fourth release from the Twilight machine, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1, should once again prove to be a huge maybe even record-breaking commercial success.

By some estimates, the Twilight film franchise has already earned nearly $2 billion to date—equal to the entire GDP of some foreign countries.

But just why do films like The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 reap huge box office receipts over and over again?

Some may argue that the story line is well written and that alone should ensure success while others may point to pioneering franchises like The Godfather, Back to the Future and Star Wars for having really perfected the model.

All of that may be true but in reality, sexy, well-dressed, young werewolves and vampires + exotic locations + an army of devoted fans ranging from tweeny boppers to cougars = blockbuster.

So with a time-tested formula in place for The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1,  Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner again reprise their roles as Bella Swan, Edward Cullen and Jacob Black respectively.

Billy Burke (Charlie Swan), Ashley Greene (Alice Cullen) and Peter Facinelli (Dr. Carlisle Cullen) also return.

This time around the fun begins when 18-year-old Bella finally chooses to marry Edward despite his aversion to the idea in the last installment, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse.

In Eclipse, it was Edward who insisted they wait to get married so Bella can “experience life” a little more despite the fact that once Bella decides to become one of the undead, experiencing life becomes an oxymoron along the lines of jumbo shrimp, etc…

Not surprisingly, Bella decides to forego a college education (and a career?) opting instead to marry into the classier Cullen clan over the perpetually shirtless Jacob and the Quileute wolf pack—even though it was the lovelorn Jacob who risked his life and was severely injured fighting Victoria and her “newborn” clan in Eclipse.

Alas, things finally appear to be looking up for Bella and Edward.

After a fairy-tale wedding which takes place in the forest—apparently all the wedding halls in Forks were booked—Bella and Edward nix the idea of going to a Sandals-style resort opting instead to honeymoon on the Brazilian island of Esme.

In the much gushed over honeymoon scene, it’s hard to differentiate the characters Bella and Edward from Pattison and Stewart who are a romantic item in real life.

The morning after consummating their marriage, Bella discovers she is bruised and tired as a result of Edward’s night stalker mojo.

She soon discovers that she is knocked up (surprise, surprise) with Edward’s super seed—a human-vampire hybrid capable of growing faster in Bella’s womb than her body can physically handle.

Fearing the rapidly developing fetus will literally destroy her, the couple returns to Forks and Dr. Carlisle’s sparsely staffed medi-clinic where Bella decides to deliver her spawn.

Unlike Mia Farrow’s Rosemary Woodhouse, who gives birth to a demon child so ugly she screams in fear when she first sees it, Bella gives birth to a beautiful vampire crossbreed named Renesmee.

Fortunately, director Bill Condon spares us the blood and gore of a graphic childbirth suggested by Meyer in the novel and opts for the PG-13 birth.

Commenting earlier to Entertainment Weekly, Stewart agreed with Condon in that she thought the birth scene was too tame and should have been filmed as was written in the novel but that would have earned Breaking Dawn – Part 1  the dreaded R-rating and leave hordes of  Twilight minions theoretically unable to see the film.

The richly layered lens work of Mexican cinematographer Guillermo Navarro (Desperado, From Dusk Till Dawn, The Long Kiss Goodnight, Hellboy, Zathura, Pan’s Labyrinth, Night at the Museum, I Am Number Four) will certainly satisfy those seeking a “shooters” film.

Still, the sumptuous cinematography shot in Rio de Janeiro, Vancouver and Louisiana combined with the bubblegum-chewing appeal of its beautiful cast won’t be able to steer Breaking Dawn Part 1 away from its own formulaic linearity and seemingly unending storyline.

The four Twilight novels combined produce almost 2,500 pages of text while most modern versions of the King James Bible run a scant 1,280 pages by comparison.

By the time the fifth film in the series (Breaking Dawn Part 2) is released sometime in November 2012, one can’t help but wonder if this franchise isn’t morphing into what could be a made-for-television series.

Diehard Twilight fans will undoubtedly be counting the days to the next installment in 2012 but for those who would choose a good night sleep over breaking dawn (otherwise known as pulling an all-nighter to grown-ups) perhaps there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Isn’t 2012 the same year the Mayan calendar predicts the world will end?—Steve Santiago

Contagion a flick without a cure

Contagion (2011) Warner Bros. Pictures, Participant Media, Imagenation

With an all-star cast and people like writer Scott Z. Burns (The Bourne Ultimatum, The Informant!), one would expect director Steven Soderbergh (Sex,Lies, and Videotape, Erin Brockovich, Traffic) to knock one out of the park with his latest fare Contagion, a film about the ease at which pandemics can spread in an age when international travel is within the reach of millions.

The problem with Contagion though isn’t with an unknown superbug, it’s more that it’s a lumbering hulk of a movie that would have played much better as a public service announcement about what people should be doing in their everyday lives as a matter of basic hygiene—covering your mouth when sneezing, washing hands often, etc…

Despite its popularity with many critics and its tagline: “Nothing spreads like fear,” (which is probably what’s compelling audiences to see it) Contagion comes off as fresh only to those who’ve never heard of the History Channel and the numerous times this plot has been featured ad nauseam on shows about natural disasters and hypothetical pandemics.

And even though Contagion is packed with a literal who’s who of stars—Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law, Laurence Fishburne, Marion Cotillard, Kate Winslet—it makes very little use of the talent on hand and delivers even less in the form of character development.

Beth Emhoff (Paltrow) succumbs first to the virus after having travelled to Asia but not before stopping off in Chicago for a quickie with an ex-boyfriend who also gets sick and ends up dying.

Poetic justice? Maybe.

In a bid to keep his sanity (while society unravels and after losing his wife and son to the virus), Mitch Emhoff (Damon) alternates between standing on line for MREs (meals ready to eat) and peeling his daughter’s (Anna Jacoby-Heron) horny boyfriend off of her all while planning his great escape to Wisconsin of all places.

Meanwhile, a stone-faced Dr. Ellis Cheever (Fishburne) icily admits “we have a virus with no treatment protocol, and no vaccine at this time” but is more preoccupied with evacuating his healthy wife Aubrey (Sanaa Lathan) than he is with his top field investigator, Dr. Erin Mears (Winslet) who after contracting the virus is unceremoniously buried outside a hockey arena in a mass grave.

On the other side of the planet, World Health Organization official, Dr. Leonora Orantes (Cotillard) is surreptitiously held hostage by Asian villagers while mega-blogger Alan Krumwiede (Law) sips forsythia tea and wanders around London wearing a jerry-rigged hazmat helmet that looks as if it were made from the plastic covering found on some sofas.

This is the kind of film that makes me wish I owned stock in a hand sanitizer company.

Still, Contagion manages to cough up (insert laugh track here) a couple of fine performances mainly from Dr. Ian Sussman (Elliott Gould, yes that Elliott Gould from MASH) who reminds Krumwiede that “Blogging is not writing. It’s just graffiti with punctuation” and Sanjay Gupta who plays himself.—Steve Santiago