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Leaves of Grass (2009, Tim Blake Nelson)

Posted on 12 May 2010 | Leave a comment

I wonder if Tim Blake Nelson has read Disgrace. Cheap, cheap, cheap comment.

One-liner even.

It’s a one-liner.

Leaves of Grass is not–if I underlined, I would here–an American Disgrace. It’s something different from that sort of attempt, but also something different from a mainstream or independent attempt… it’s a comedy drama unlike most others because the comedy is absurd at times and it’s got Edward Norton playing a genius pot grower.

It’s also got him playing a genius classical philosophy professor, which then makes it a twin movie–in a genre occupied, with the exception of Parent Traps, mostly–in recent history–by Jean-Claude Van Damme. I wonder if anyone mentioned that one to Norton.

It’s a fine, fine film. It’s funny, it’s touching–it features the best Richard Dreyfuss performance in many years not to mention actually talking about anti-Semitism in an American film without being sensational. I don’t think, actually, anti-Semitism even gets a sensational handling in American film anymore. American film pretends the country isn’t chock-full of bigots, unless they’re bigots who get easily cured by the end of the picture.

Great acting by Norton (the lack of Oscar nomination is a hilarious, gut-bursting joke), Dreyfuss and Nelson. Susan Sarandon’s underwritten but fine, as is Melanie Lynskey. Keri Russell’s surprisingly okay.

It’s a great film until the third act, when Nelson seems to realize something should probably happen and it’s fine after that point.

Just not great.

CREDITS

Written and directed by Tim Blake Nelson; director of photography, Roberto Schaefer; edited by Michelle Botticelli; music by Jeff Danna; production designer, Max Biscoe; produced by Nelson, Edward Norton, Bill Migliore, John Langley, Elie Cohn and Kristina Dubin; released by Millennium Films.

Starring Edward Norton (Bill/Brady Kincaid), Tim Blake Nelson (Bolger), Keri Russell (Janet), Richard Dreyfuss (Pug Rothbaum), Susan Sarandon (Daisy), Josh Pais (Ken Feinman) and Melanie Lynskey (Colleen).

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Posted in 2009, Color, Comedy, Crime, Drama, English, Latin, Millennium Films, Thriller, USA

Tagged Bill Migliore, Edward Norton, Elie Cohn, Jeff Danna, John Langley, Josh Pais, Keri Russell, Kristina Dubin, Max Biscoe, Melanie Lynskey, Michelle Botticelli, Richard Dreyfuss, Roberto Schaefer, Susan Sarandon, Tim Blake Nelson

For Your Consideration (2006, Christopher Guest)

Posted on 28 December 2006 | Leave a comment

Apparently, when Christopher Guest doesn’t do pseudo-documentaries, his films simply don’t work. I didn’t realize For Your Consideration was different in that approach until a lot further in than I should have, probably fifteen minutes or something. As it opens and introduces the set-up (I guess that part would be called the first act, which is an odd thing for one of these Guest and Levy improv films to have), the film’s interesting and sort of funny. Giggling funny. Audible laughter. Then it starts going places–there’s a story and it moves. Instead of being about a movie being made, it’s a narrative about the cast and their Academy Award dreams. Guest takes a mocking approach to the characters, then lays on syrup to make the audience care. It really feels like they started making a movie and realized it wasn’t working, so they made For Your Consideration.

Obviously, there are some good performances. Guest himself, as the director of the movie in the movie, is excellent. Except he’s barely in it. At first I thought he was doing a German director, then I thought maybe Woody Allen, then he disappeared so it didn’t really matter. Eugene Levy plays an annoying agent and he’s only interesting because it’s Eugene Levy. It’s not good because it’s Eugene Levy, but somehow, Levy has become someone who is cast for who they are, not what they can do. Very interesting, but it doesn’t make for a good performance. Harry Shearer is fine. Half of Catharine O’Hara’s acting is good, but when she turns into a silicone Sharon Stone, the film really loses her and she loses her. She starts making fun of the character too, just because there’s nothing else to do. Fred Willard’s kind of funny as the annoying entertainment “reporter,” but even he’s nearing Levy territory. Only Parker Posey is great, but I’m more and more frequently coming to the conclusion she’s always great. Posey’s even good in the scenes where she’s supposed to be poorly acting. Some of it she does get the bad acting down, but there’s a little bit when she’s actually good in this horrible scene.

For Your Consideration is either the end of Guest for a while or he’ll come back real strong next time. But I wouldn’t bet on it. Though, obviously, if it has Parker Posey, I’ll see it.

CREDITS

Directed by Christopher Guest; written by Guest and Eugene Levy; director of photography, Roberto Schaefer; edited by Robert Leighton; music by Jeffrey C.J. Vanston; production designer, Joseph T. Garrity; produced by Karen Murphy; released by Warner Independent Pictures.

Starring Bob Balaban (Philip Koontz), Jennifer Coolidge (Whitney Taylor Brown), Christopher Guest (Jay Berman), John Michael Higgins (Corey Taft), Eugene Levy (Morley Orfkin), Jane Lynch (Cindy), Michael McKean (Lane Iverson), Catherine O’Hara (Marilyn Hack), Parker Posey (Callie Webb), Harry Shearer (Victor Allan Miller), Fred Willard (Chuck) and Ricky Gervais (Martin Gibb).