Something's Gotta Give
Harry Sanborn: Jack Nicholson
Erica Barry: Diane Keaton
Marin Barry: Amanda Peet
Julian Mercer: Keanu Reeves
Aunt Zoe: Frances McDormand
Leo: Jon Favreau
Written and Directed by Nancy Meyers
Running time: 124 minutes
Rated 12a
The screenplay behind this study in sit-com blandness is as predictable as today will be yesterday tomorrow. Everybody who
got hooked into coming aboard this outing gave it their utmost to convince us that a gorgeous girl like Marin Barry (Amanda
Peet) could see herself in a serious physical relationship with the overweight crusty, old crank Harry Langer (Nicholson).
In order to achieve the unachievable, she had to be in some kind of reality between totally thick and misguided but that's
the premise behind this attempt to exploit some talent and make a fast buck - possibly a big one with all those Nicholson
fans out there just waiting for each new masterpiece he sets his comedic mind to. But after this, I do wish he'd set his agent
off in search of something serious and more challenging for his mature abilities.
The other part of making the older man-younger woman situation barely credible is that Nicholson's character is a business
entrepreneur whose ventures in running 'the world's second top hip hop label" are so successful that he can work when
he wants and take his girlfriend for a weekend tryst at her mother's ocean getaway just because he can. The man has money
and idle time, a magnet for any luscious babe, right?
Things go awry when the carefree couple, expecting the house to be empty and about to take some clothes off for a romp
between the sheets after a long boring drive, discover that Erika (Diane Keaton), Marin's mother, has not gone back to her
city home as promised. Not only is she in residence, but her sister Zoe (Frances McDormand) is with her.
Dinner is strained as the women pounce on the profligate older bachelor unmercifully, in a very over the top sequence.
It's one of many false notes played for laughs and message by writer-director Nancy Meyers who tends to write in TV level
stereotypes and direct with uneven control over her own plot and cast. There are times, like when the lovers are in a post-coital
fog on the bed when the pauses and silent stretches suggest that the lines weren't clicking or were just too difficult to
say. Why this wasn't corrected in post-production suggests that there wasn't enough coverage of the scene to allow tightening.
Unless, of course, Meyers thinks these situations are part of the Nicholson genius and that such moments play out just fine.
The rest of it is a melodrama with comedic flourishes in which the super-annuated playboy and the inveterate spinster
discover that a match between them was made in Hollywood heaven. It surely was. The material is extremely laboured, but the
effect occasionally clicks with tthe two ageing stars managing to demonstrate vitality and magnetism, ingredients that no
doubt override low filmmaking standards, banal dialogue and situations, and other deficiencies. It's the "Odd Couple"
turned even.
Giving due though where it is deserved, Keaton fulfills this role with as much liveliness as she has ever had, probably
her best work since 1993 for "Manhattan Murder Mystery." Keanu Reeves plays a handsome doctor who falls for Keaton
in a farcical parallel to the other couple in Meyer's construction of how a romantic comedy should unravel. However, I'm still
totally unconvinced by this absurdity of an actor - he struggles to be even one dimensional...maybe he should bid for the
title role if Hollywood ever considers a remake of Eric Sykes' classic silent movie "The Plank".
Big Fish
![bigfish.jpg](sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/bigfish.jpg)
Directed by Tim Burton
Written by by John August from the novel by Daniel Wallace
Cinematography by Philippe Rousselot
Edited by Chris Lebenzon and Joel Negron
Starring Ewan McGregor, Albert Finney, Billy Crudup, Jessica Lange, Steve Buscemi, Danny deVito, Loudon Wainwright III
At one point during Big Fish, somebody notes that what we think of as evil often isn't really evil at all it's just lonely,
and lacking in social graces. The line resonates not so much because of what's in the film, but because of what we know about
the film's maker. If ever a director was known for sympathies with lonely freaks the wallflowers of the world it would be
Tim Burton, director of Batman and Edward Scissorhands, writer of The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy.
Melancholy. Despite his reputation for darkness and impressionistic production design, Burton's universe is most often
characterised by sadness and verges on despair. Thinking of the moments from his film career that have stuck with me, I'm
drawn to Batman Returns, where he clearly evinces sympathy for the devil, beginning the film with a long sequence tracking
the progress of a baby basket set adrift in the sewers of Gotham City. Later, another indelible image has Michelle Pfeiffer
prone on the ground, her body broken from a long fall, and a swarm of alley cats flowing inward from the outside of the frame
as if drawn to a plate of tuna. And one of my problems with Burton's Batman movies though many would cite this as a peculiar
strength of the films was always that, although they allegedly reflected the director's understanding of the darkness underpinning
the comic books, Burton never seemed interested in exploring the mindset of the superhero himself in as much detail as that
of his adversaries.
Batman was followed by the wonderful Edward Scissorhands essentially a fairy-tale take on horror-movie formula and Batman
Returns was followed by Ed Wood. Edward Scissorhands cemented Burton's identification with the ostensibly bad guy and amply
demonstrated his impatience with middle-of-the-road ideas about what constituted beauty and ugliness, what was attractive
and what was frightening. Ed Wood, meanwhile, took as its subject a different kind of supervillain the director of what are
popularly known as some of the worst movies ever made. In Burton's hands, Wood became a lovable incompetent, and Burton paid
him the highest tribute imaginable by staging scrupulous and almost spooky re-creations of scenes from Plan 9 From Outer Space,
those clumsy images that are flash-burned into the brains of anyone who grew up watching duff old SF movies on late night
telly. Among the questions raised by Ed Wood, which included among its flourishes a conversation between Wood and Orson Welles:
Assuming its impact on our shared culture is equal to that of its highbrow cousins, is the greatness of a great bad movie
necessarily less than that of a great good movie?
Mars Attacks! was a commercial failure, but also one hell of a movie, balancing urges toward a mean-spirited destruction
of middle America (Don't run! We are your friends!) by the bullies of the galaxy with awkward groping at a happiness defined
by the ascendancy of America's freaks and geeks as heroes who fend off alien invasion. The narrative is a little wobbly, but
the film's violent energy is utterly manic and the comic timing spot on a feat I don't think Burton has exactly managed either
before or since. He followed that with a couple of fairly unremarkable but bankable Hollywood blockbusters (Planet of the
Apes, Sleepy Hollow), and now he allegedly returns to form with Big Fish. Ironically, this very Burtonesque feature was directed
from someone else's screenplay, which was adapted from another author's book. But it's one of those films that somehow seems
to have even more to do with the peculiar preoccupations of its director than the ones the director conceives himself.
It's no surprise to learn that Steven Spielberg was originally attached to the project. As a matter of fact, some of the
opening scenes, featuring a group of kids staring, agape, as one of them decides to knock on the door of a local witch's house,
ape Spielberg pretty expertly. But the material really has more in common with Terry Gilliam specifically The Adventures
of Baron Munchhausen. Like that film, Big Fish is the story of an old man who habitually spins wild, unlikely stories to the
assorted consternation and delight of the people around him. It also has something to say about the relationship between old
people and young, those with life experience to fill volumes and those without much but a vague sense of jealousy that their
parents are hogging the spotlight.
The father-son stuff is pretty soppy. Son Billy Crudup is impatient with Dad Albert Finney's propensity to dominate conversation.
Dad comes down with terminal cancer. Reconciliation looms. Burton himself lost a father about a year before starting work
on the film and just recently became a father himself which may help explain his interest in the material, but most of the
scenes sketching out this strained parent/child relationship are ordinary and half-hearted. What really attracted him must
have been the opportunity to visualise Edward Bloom's stories as a series of fanciful vignettes. There's a gentle giant and
a secluded, magical town nestled in the woods along the road less travelled. There are circus performers, a very Burton-esque
pair of Siamese twins and a bank robber. There's Danny DeVito. (Naked.)
These scenes are narrated in almost appallingly sprightly and folksy fashion by Ewan McGregor, who plays Edward's younger
self. (It's quite something to hear McGregor and DeVito jabbering at each other with Southern accents.) What grates isn't
so much McGregor's performance he's pretty good, actually, albeit in a disappointingly Forrest Gumpish role that closely
reprises his open-hearted romantic lead in Moulin Rouge!. It's the repetitive, episodic nature of the screenplay that drags
the film down as it veers back and forth from perfunctory scenes set in the present day to the breathlessly imagined adventures
of Storytelling Dad, explicated in an unrelenting voiceover that saps the impressionistic magic in evidence. It's a shame
the film is so busy with dialogue, because the images are so insistently rich and varied (and clearly digitally manipulated)
that the combined result is aural and visual clutter.
And the bulk of the film is directed and edited as though Burton was in a terrible rush fearful of boring his audience,
or of letting too much time elapse before his next self-consciously whimsical flourish flutters across the screen. I wonder
if the poor guy hasn't been damaged by his various encounters with the Big Hollywood Machine, since on the whole this feels
awkward, like a film made by someone who thinks he has something to prove or maybe to atone for.
There is a gorgeous scene though, where Edward, driving through a thunderstorm, is forced to pull over and stop his car
and then finds that he's completely submerged. And once the reliable Helena Bonham Carter, very good in a crucial storytelling
role with Burton so obviously exploiting his talented girlfriend gets a chance to tell her own story (in, yes, another voiceover)
the film's divergent elements begin to make emotional sense. And there's a tearjerking magnificence to the final reel that,
although it's hard not to see it coming, helps make up for the sloppiness of everything that has come before. With impressive
magnanimity, Burton dedicates himself to the film's ultimate defence of the power and rightness of storytelling, of the ways
it allows human experience to draw on itself and multiply, and of the essential comforts it can give those in need. You'll
laugh, you'll cry, etc. But it's unlikely that you'll be taken by surprise which is what Burton's best films excel at. Accolades
and Oscar attention are a near certainty, as Burton gets recognised not just for directing successful strange movies, but
for finally joining the Hollywood mainstream. Indeed, Big Fish is the most establishment film he has ever made.
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Bob Harris (Bill Murray) is an actor in his 50's, who is visiting Tokyo to shoot a whisky commercial. Charlotte (Scarlett
Johansson) is a newlywed, in her 20's, who is visiting Tokyo with her husband (Giovanni Ribisi), a photographer. Once there,
neither Bob nor Charlotte can sleep, because they are both trapped in lives that are unfulfilling. Bob's marriage is dull
and his acting career is not what it once was, while Charlotte is still trying to figure out what her purpose is, and this
includes if she really knows the man she married. The two share a series of gazes in the hotel bar, and one night when neither
of them can sleep, they end up talking over a drink.
Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation is about the brief time Bob and Charlotte spend together. It is not concerned with
scenes of deep romance; these characters find in each other an escape from the world they usually know. Their conversations
are the ones of strangers, starting with the usual get-to-know-you stuff and eventually learning about who the other person
really is. One of the movie's best scenes comes when Bob tells Charlotte what it's like to have children. We hear how bland
his marriage is when he talks to his wife, who sends him carpet samples to find out which colour he likes best. There's no
spark to Bob and his wife's phone conversations; they seem to be playing their parts because they're supposed to.
Charlotte's husband is a total space-cadet/rock band photographer. When he talks, he makes no sense, as if he's constantly
confused. When he kisses her, it looks like so forced and meaningless. We see how different he can be when he runs into an
'actress' (Anna Faris) whom he once photographed and becomes more animated and interested in what she has to say, and even
scolds Charlotte for criticising her. In Bob, Charlotte finds a way to be herself; here's someone who understands where she's
coming from and can tell her if life gets any easier.
The title refers to a couple of different things. One is how Bob responds to the Japanese culture. One terrific scene
occurs during Bob's commercial and photo shoots, as he tries to figure out why the director's long speech only translates
to a few words in English. Also very funny is a scene where Bob is visited by a prostitute. Bill Murray has always has a classic
sense of sarcasm and here, he shows a perfect state of bewilderment as he tries to discover this culture he has never experienced.
The title also mirrors Bob and Charlotte's failure to communicate with the things in their own lives. They basically have
found each other because they feel like no one else can understand them or what they're going through. Maybe they are as guilty
as their spouses that the marriages are not working, but that does not matter to them. Once Charlotte's husband goes to another
part of Japan to shoot photos, she begins spending a lot of time with Bob. This begins with an extended sequence where they
go out with some of her friends.
The scenes of Bob and Charlotte out on the town are exhilarating. Coppola shoots Tokyo as a place that has freed these
two from their lonely states of existence, giving them a sense of refuge. The crowning moment is a scene where they take turns
singing karaoke, each choosing songs that so perfectly describe the lives they're stuck in. Bob's (Nick Lowe's "What's
So Funny About Peace Love and Understanding" and Roxy Music's "More Than This" are especially effective, because
we can tell he really means what he's singing. The scene is followed by my favourite shot in the movie, as Bob and Charlotte
sit on a bench, her head on his shoulder. It's the first moment where we can truly believe they are both content.
The performances are nothing short of magnificent. Bill Murray, who has managed to create what feels like a new career
with serious roles, makes Bob his saddest and most beautiful character. Bob is a man who looks at himself with disgust, and
Murray's face displays the perfect amount of sadness to pull it off. He's a funny guy, yes, but if anything, it's a way for
him to forget how pathetic his life really is. Murray was Oscar-snubbed for his superb performance in Rushmore; for it to
happen after this wonderful movie would be the ultimate slap in the face.
Scarlett Johansson earns her place as a major talent too. She's turned in solid performances with her work from Ghost
World and The Man Who Wasn't There, but this time, she shows a different kind of innocence. For the first time, we see her
as a young woman, struggling with adult decisions and learning what it's like not to be a child anymore. She is young and
still has her energy, and this helps Bob remember what it was like to really enjoy life. There's a scene late in the film
where she finds out Bob has slept with a hideous lounge singer. A lesser performance would have contained yelling and screaming
and confrontations. Johansson does all the talking with her eyes.
Lost in Translation is the second film from Sofia Coppola. With this picture, she proves that her talent has the potential
to be as great as her old man's once was. Coppola has created a film that loves its characters, and she complements them with
superb tone and atmosphere. The movie's cinematography is melancholy but delicious, and the soundtrack downplays each scene,
slightly similar in feel in moments to Coppola's outstanding debut (which included Air on the soundtrack, as does this), The
Virgin Suicides.
Lost In Translation ends with one of the best and most romantic scenes I have seen in a long time. We have come to know
and love these characters, so what happens could not be more appropriate. It takes a lot for a contemporary film nowadays
to bring me to tears, but this one did. This had me so invested in it that when the characters shared their final moment together
it felt so special that inner emotions are deeply touched. I couldn't remember the last time I had felt happier and sadder
to see two people together. So few films earn their endings; this one does. It is a superb piece of work of which Coppola
can be very proud.
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