A Smart Teen Comedy--Youth in Revolt

Let's start the New Year off right with a great new teen-angst comedy called YOUTH IN REVOLT. The adults in the cast include such great character actors as Jean Smart, Zach Galifianakis (Hangover), Ray Liotta, Fred Willard, M.Emmet Walsh, and Mary Kay Place, and the two main teens are the delightful Portia Doubleday and the rising young comedian Michael Cera, who is making a name for himself playing (or being typecast as) the smart mouthed, sex obsessed, virgin, sensitive, geeky teen as in the TV show Arrested Development, and films Superbad, Juno and Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist---all of which I highly recommend. In YOUTH IN REVOLT, he plays the aforementioned teen and his alter-ego, a smooth French lover who helps him to loose his virginity by getting into all sorts of trouble, and thankfully, the film has so much plot and quirky characters that I was very entertained right up to the end. Apparently the story is based on a cult novel popular with young adults, and I look forward to reading it. As for Michael Cera, I don't mind that I've seen this character before, because he does it so well, without a trace of sarcasm or smugness. This is a smart and happy surprise!
My dvd pick this week was FATHER OF THE BRIDE (1950) with Spencer Tracy (who was Oscar nominated), Joan Bennett, and a radiant Elizabeth Taylor as the bride. The film was remade in 1991 with Steve Martin and Diane Keaton--and as I recall the remake was better in some ways than the original, although they both cover the same ground. Tracy narrates the entire film, which I felt was tiresome and unnecessary, and the story drives home without much subtlety how expensive and overblown and out of hand weddings can be and have become. (Do regular people today really KNOW 500 people to invite to a ceremony?) There are many reality shows on TV today that deal with these excesses (Bridezilla, the wedding dress show, the cake shows, etc) that I guess these things can happen, but I felt that too many mountains were made out of molehills, and I didn't feel too sorry for Tracy, since he is a successful lawyer living in a huge fancy house in a great part of town. Still it was fun seeing Elizabeth Taylor shine and there were some clever moments like when Tracy is stuck in the kitchen fixing drinks and can't get out to the living room to greet guests or give an obvious wedding announcement.
Next week, when it opens, I will report on the WORST FILM OF 2009, which is quite a shock considering the talent behind it: Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Steven Spielberg!

No Jews were harmed during the filming of A Serious Man

On a bike trip to Oregon last September I bought a copy of the Elizabeth Taylor bio by Kitty Kelly, and it happened that same day that in a thrift shop I bought a $2 dvd of The Taming of the Shrew (1967) which she made in her hey-day with then husband Richard Burton. I remember seeing TTOTS in '67 with a friend at the beautiful Chinese-styled downtown theatre the Fifth Ave before it became the spectacular live theatre house that it is today, and the film was fascinating, bawdy, colorful, funny, and the film broke four times during it's 2hour running time, with the lights coming on each time for several minutes. That was maddening, but I still forgave the technical gaffs because the film was so engaging. Franco Zeffirelli was the director, still best known for his version of Romeo and Juliet a year later. The film holds up extremely well (this is Shakespeare, after all) and the cast is superb. At first Taylor made me wince--she seemed rather obvious and over the top with her shouting and eye rolling, but when finally Burton is introduced, his blowzy drunkenness seemed more over the top than her, and the film really takes off. I've read all sorts of interesting political takes on the story (mostly about the sexism of the play) since then, but the way it is played out makes me wonder if anyone saw this version, which is a delight to watch.
Also this week watched Never So Few, a WWII film featuring Frank Sinatra, Gina Lollobrigida, Peter Lawford, Steve McQueen (in his first major role), Richard Johnson and Paul Henreid. It's a serious story about a few Kachin allies who along with a small troop of Americans hold off 40 thousand Japanese in Burma. Unfortunately there's a lot of talk and some rather simplistic action scenes that mute the film's effect.
On TMC last night watched Here Comes the Groom, a modest Frank Capra film with Jane Wyman and Bing Crosby, who sings three songs too many in that bland forgettable sort of manner that people like to call laid back. The corn is spread thickly and even though I liked the pace and some of the shtick, it was rather annoying at times, too. Not one of Capra's best, considering It's a Wonderful Life, It Happened One Night, Meet John Doe, Mr Smith Goes to Washington, Mr Deeds Goes to Town, Arsenic and Old Lace, etc....

But fortunately, I've saved the best for last. Today I caught up with the Coen brothers newest film, A Serious Man, and it jumps to the top of my Top Films of the Year list. It is very dry, and very funny, and goes deep into the Jewish psyche of the 1960's. Some criticism has said that it is anti-Semitic, that it makes fun of Judaism, but I loved the characters so much that it's hard to make that stick. The leading man is having a very bad year--his wife is leaving him for one of his best friends, a student is trying to black mail him for a better grade, his son is ready for bar mitzvah but barely avoids getting beaten up by a classmate everyday, his brother is sleeping on the couch and hogging the bathroom to drain a neck abscess for hours every day, and he is lusting after a sexy neighbor. This is all handled with an eye for the absurd and humorous, and for once I wasn't the only one laughing at the screening--at least four or five other members of the audience (of 14) were guffawing loudly (this was an 1130am Thursday matinee, after all.) I suspect A Serious Man to be solidly in the top 5 of the year, since tomorrow Precious opens and will move Man to number 2.