REVIEW: It's Complicated

Plot synopsis for It's Complicated from moviefone.com:

Writer/director Nancy Meyers ('Something's Gotta Give,' 'The Holiday') directs Meryl Streep, Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin in 'It's Complicated,' a comedy about love, divorce and everything in between.

Jane (Streep) is the mother of three grown kids, owns a thriving Santa Barbara bakery/restaurant and has--after a decade of divorce--an amicable relationship with her ex-husband, attorney Jake (Baldwin). But when Jane and Jake find themselves out of town for their son's college graduation, things start to get complicated. An innocent meal together turns into the unimaginable--an affair. With Jake remarried to the much younger Agness (Lake Bell), Jane is now, of all things, the other woman.

Caught in the middle of their renewed romance is Adam (Martin), an architect hired to remodel Jane's kitchen. Healing from a divorce of his own, Adam starts to fall for Jane, but soon realizes he's become part of a love triangle.

Should Jane and Jake move on with their lives, or is love truly lovelier the second time around? It's...complicated.

One thing in particular nagged at me throughout the entirety of this movie: the false reality that writer/director Nancy Meyers creates. Sure, Streep's character Jane owns a thriving bakery, but is that enough to afford a million dollar addition to her already multi-million dollar home? And this addition is for the kitchen of her dreams because, apparently, the one with the two stoves and seating for six isn't enough. It looks like a Williams and Sonoma ad. In fact, the whole movie feels like an ad for luxury goods. Everyone is stylishly dressed (and, of course, super good-looking), driving luxury cars or hybrids, it was just way too much to have to swallow.

The saving grace of this movie is Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin, specifically Alec Baldwin (Streep has a couple weird "giggly" moments). But Baldwin is winning and charismatic and, this might have something to do with my love of 30 Rock, hilarious. These two have amazing chemistry together. Given the convincing attraction between Baldwin and Streep, it was a stretch to believe that Jane would see anything in Adam, Steve Martin's character, who is a complete nerd. Martin and Streep's on-screen time falls completely flat.

The movie does have a few hilarious moments and some great one-liners. But it's mostly full of dumb jokes that go on too long (let's have Meryl Streep and Steve Martin smoke pot!) and throwaway gags (let's put John Krasinski in a pre-teen girl's pajamas!). Also there are these odd "we're having a good time" montages full of sap. Overall, despite a few laughs, this is not a movie I would recommend seeing.

(I'm going to go on an architecture rant before I finish here. I've seen about a half dozen films featuring characters who are architects and they all have a hard time getting it right. This movie, with Steve Martin's character as the architect, is no exception. Movies always try to glamorize architects when we're not that glamorous. I have a hard time believing that an architect designing single-family homes is going to drive a high-end Mercedes. Or that he is going to need a staff of 30 (in a brick loft, of course), all of them hand-drafting (hand-drafting!!). The kicker to all this is when Adam shows up to Jane's ill-conceived kitchen addition with a roll of drawings big enough to build a mixed-use complex in Shengxen. Attention to detail is not this movie's strong suit. OK, rant over.)

Wade: 2/5 stars
Kinsey: 2/5 stars

REVIEW: Fantastic Mr. Fox

Plot summary for Fantastic Mr. Fox from fandango.com:

A wily fox uses his formidable cunning to outsmart three feeble-minded farmers, who resort to extreme tactics to protect their chickens in director Wes Anderson's animated adaptation of the popular Roald Dahl children's book. For 12 years, Mr. and Mrs. Fox (voices of George Clooney and Meryl Streep) have lived a peaceful life in the wilderness with their son, Ash (voice of Jason Schwartzman). Shortly after their young nephew Kristofferson (voice of Eric Anderson) arrives for a visit, Mr. Fox's long-suppressed animal instincts begin to take over and the faithful family man resorts back to his old ways as a cunning chicken thief, endangering not only his family but the entire animal community as well. When evil farmers Boggis, Bunce, and Bean force the animals underground in a desperate attempt to capture the audacious Mr. Fox, dwindling food supplies force the frightened animals to band together in one last attempt to fight for the land that is rightfully theirs. Bill Murray, Michael Gambon, Willem Dafoe, and Owen Wilson provide additional voices.

It seems that many people have written off Wes Anderson as a perfect example of "style over substance." And it's true that he does have a specific style, a "quirk" as many describe it. While some of Anderson's films do focus too much on being visually appealing, hopefully Fantastic Mr. Fox will put an end to the perception that he doesn't know how to put a charming, meaningful story together. And I think charming is the perfect word for this film.

Definite credit needs to be given to Wes Anderson for leaping into the medium of stop-motion animation. It's a gutsy move, but it fits the Roald Dahl source material perfectly. It has a wonderful childish, cartoon feel. Anderson uses all the nuances apparent in stop-motion to his advantage, whether it's the sometimes herky-jerky movements or the ruffling of fur from fingers moving the models. When there are close-ups on the characters, that subtle fur movement even adds an extra layer of depth and feeling to the characters. Attention to detail is superb in this film, with all the characters being nattily dressed, something of a staple with Anderson's.

I keep coming back to the word charming. So many little instances that just make a guy smile, like, for example, using the word "cuss" in place of actual cuss words which leads to a heated argument where every fourth word is "cuss." Or that when a nicely-prepared plate of French toast is placed in front of the tie-wearing Mr. Fox, he suddenly and viciously tears into it like the wild animal he is.

Despite the humor, the film does have some dark undercurrents, which come from the source material. Of course the guy who created Willy Wonka is going to be slightly sinister. Characters do die, there is violence, and the three villains, Boggis, Bunce, and Bean, are definitely frightening. This film strikes the balance in everything it sets out to achieve. In our opinion, Fantastic Mr. Fox was, well, fantastic.

Kinsey: 4/5 stars
Wade: 5/5 stars

Julie and Julia

Due to the fact that we could not for the life of us get a TV signal with our rabbitt ears, Kinsey and I had to break down and buy cable for our new apartment in Rochester. Just basic cable, mind you. Very basic. But the great thing is that we get six PBS stations. It might be a bit dorky, but we watch the crap out of these stations. Lydia's Italy, Barbecue University, Mexico One Plate at a Time, we eat these shows up (pun!).

So it goes without saying that we were definitely in the mood for a foodie movie when we went and saw Julie and Julia last night. Julie and Julia is a based on a book which is based on a blog written by Julie Powell. In said blog, Julie chronicles a year-long expedition of cooking all 524 recipes in Julia Child's landmark cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. The movie spends half its time with Julie and her challenge and half its time with Julia Child coming into her desire to be a cook while in Paris in the 1950s.

The first thing that has to be said about this film is that Meryl Streep nails it once again as Julia Child. Not only does she nail the vocal tones and fluctuations and body movements, she takes it beyond mimicry and makes her "make-believe" Julia Child a full-fledged personality. Her interactions with Stanley Tucci (playing her husband) are subtle and fantastic. I was smiling every moment she was on-screen.

I wish I could say the same thing for the Julie part of the film. Not to take anything away from Amy Adams, who plays Julie, but her character is boring and self-absorbed. There's just no stakes, no conflict to really care about. With Julia, you have her attempt to break into a male-dominated profession, to break through a culture barrier, to rewrite the history of cooking. With Julie, you have burnt beef bourguignon and stupid fights with her husband. Frankly, I could have done without the Julie in Julie and Julia.

Wade: 3/5 stars
Kinsey: 4/5 stars

Doubt

Doubt is a film adaptation of the same-named stage play. The film stars a trio of Oscar nominated actors: Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Amy Adams. The plot involves the Catholic Church, specifically P.S. Hoffman's (the priest) relationship to a young male student. Streep and Adams are two nuns (the tough one and innocent one, respectively) who attempt to unravel the truth about the priest and the student.

Kinsey and I were both looking forward to this film, specifically because of the cast, and we both came out of it a bit disappointed. Don't get me wrong, the acting was good, especially P.S. Hoffman (I think Meryl might've pushed it too hard). But overall, the film was pedestrian and forgettable. The director, John Patrick Shanley (who wrote the play and the screenplay), attempts to jazz up the film with the occasional canted camera angle and an overdone sense of visual metaphor, but there's no rhyme or reason for any of it. In my opinion, he should've taken the approach of Ron Howard, director of the film version of the stage play Frost/Nixon (which I haven't seen), and let the acting be the focus.

And as for the main conflict, well, the answer seemed fairly obvious to me. The film doesn't give the audience a straight answer of did-he-or-didn't-he and tries to place seeds of doubt (hence the title) in your mind, but I didn't really buy it.

For me, the saving grace of this film was Philip Seymour Hoffman, who has become such a good actor that I will see any film he is in (I sat through Synecdoche, NY, didn't I?). The guy is so natural and is able to envelope such an array of different characters, it's really astounding. He strikes the opposite tone of Meryl Streep in this film, who really forces the representation of her character as the stereotypical "to be feared" nun (Kinsey would vehemently disagree with me on this note). Their scenes together are still the best ones in the movie, however.

Like I said before, Doubt was disappointing and I doubt (ha, ha) that it'll stand out in my memory for very long.

Wade: 3 stars
Kinsey: 3.5 stars

Anthony: 3.5 stars

Ashley: 3 stars