New Line Cinema

Going the Distance

brittany — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 02:00:00 +0000

When I first read about this film in the making, I was psyched. I’m a huge Drew Barrymore fan, and it appeared that finally, a romantic comedy was in the works that presented a more modern interpretation of male female relationships. It looked like it might actually include both sides of the story rather than just a fairy tale version of the woman’s desire to be desired.

Mission accomplished… sort of. A reflection of a modern day romance challenged by location, work, and common fears of intimacy, Going the Distance takes a small step on the road to diversifying the romantic comedy genre. But it’s a slippery slope, especially in the Hollywood Hills. I’m certain that many viewers will see themselves and their relationships reflected on screen; I know I did. However, both the plot and dialogue reinforce a dominant misconception of feminist thought—in order for women to heard, and in this case dateable, they have to join the boys club.

Going the Distance chronicles the courtship of Erin (Barrymore) and Garrett (Justin Long) as they meet, fall for each other, and struggle to maintain their relationship between NYC and San Francisco. Erin and Garret are introduced at a bar when he discovers she is ERL, the Centipede videogame high-scorer he has been working to beat. Flabbergasted that ERL is a girl, the rest of their evening follows suit as the beautiful Erin chugs beer, devours chicken wings, and trades crass jokes with the dudes. Apparently this behavior is just what it takes to get the commitment-phobic Garrett to fall in love. The reality of Long and Barrymore’s off-camera relationship is impossible to separate from that of the characters they play in the film, but it works. While many moments are contrived, the chemistry between the two is infectious, especially in the beginning when the cinematography fools you into thinking you’re watching a documentary.

Taking a cue from Knocked Up, Going the Distance offers the bulk of its humor via the supporting cast of men and fails in providing another interesting female character. Garrett’s overly-involved buddies Charlie Day and Jason Sudeikis steal every scene they are in, whether by dj’ing the couple’s hook-up or convincing Garrett to grow a moustache in order to pick up older ladies. Erin’s support comes in the form of a cynical, disapproving sister, the always enjoyable Christina Applegate. Just like Leslie Mann in Knocked Up, Applegate’s character is dull and stereotypical forcing the usually hilarious actress to idle through meager screen time and meaningless dialogue.

Barrymore is one of the few ladies in Hollywood with some real power in her pocket and, flawed as it may be, does her part to shift the traditional perception of women in film in favor of a more realistic, multi-dimensional character. When a co-worker asks where she is going, Erin, a grad-student and aspiring reporter, who have just been through the wringer with her editor, retorts, “I’m thirty-one and I’m an intern. I’m getting wasted.” As a thirty-one-year-old aspiring writer who has recently applied for a few internships herself, I immediately resonated with this character. As the film develops we watch Erin struggle with building a career in a dying industry, falling in love and eventually, having to choose between the two.

Written by: Alicia Sowisdral, September 9th 2010

Sex and the City 2

admin — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Directed by Michael Patrick King

New Line Cinema

Allow me to save you $8. Here is the plot of Sex and the City 2: Four privileged white women take a break from relentlessly moaning about their privileged lives to go on an Orientalist fantasy excursion to Abu Dhabi, where they are each assigned a brown servant to wait on them as they maraud through the country, dressed like assholes, exoticizing people, mocking culture, flouting religious custom, and on occasion, “saving” the natives with their American liberation and largess.

SATC was always only about a certain type of woman, despite attempts to make Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte into everywoman. But the friendships between the protagonists felt universal. And as cartoonish as the individual characters could be, I saw pieces of them in the women around me, if not in myself.

Then I got older. So have the characters in SATC, but the franchise’s male creators aren’t quite sure what to do with women over forty. And so they have taken four flawed but generally likable women and made them repugnant.

Charlotte’s chirpy childishness—always a little icky—seems gross coming from a twice-married woman with two children. Carrie’s self-centered flakiness and drama-whoring is exhausting. Samantha and Miranda are unrecognizable—Sam having gone from an independent woman in charge of her sexuality to a desperate caricature fighting to hold on to her youth (Note: Chris Noth, who plays Mr. Big, is two years older than Kim Cattrall, who plays Samantha. Interesting that Samantha is portrayed as fading, while Big still gets to be…well…Mr. Big) while Miranda quits her job because the new partner at the firm is a sexist jerk. No fight. She simply gives up, which seems completely out of character.

SATC was never as feminist as it was made out to be, but now it seems as un-empowering and pandering as a those pink “girl” computers by Dell. And when the fearsome foursome arrive in the Middle East, privilege, racism, and ignorance meet in an unholy trifecta. Here is what we learn:

All you need to know about Arab countries, you have already learned in Aladdin. If you have a Jewish married name, do not use it on a trip to Abu Dhabi. In an Arab country, be sure to wear expensive clothing reminiscent of the aforementioned cartoon. (Two words: gold harem pants.) Arab men are either frightening crazy-eyed religious fundamentalists or hot menservants. (By the way, it is not at all creepy to accept the services of said hot, brown menservants, and if one such manservant is gay... jackpot! Two new accessories for the price of one! Refer to him as Paula Abdul.)

No woman ever follows the tenets of Islam by choice; all women who wear abaya or niqab are oppressed and secretly want to be white, wealthy, American women who wear revealing couture. Arab women who are not oppressed may be bellydancers in Western-style nightclubs. It is feminist to travel to Muslim countries and expose yourself, simulate fellatio on a hookah, grab a man’s penis in a restaurant, and possibly have sex on a public beach. If you are trying to communicate in an Arab country and cannot find the right words, saying “lalalalalala” will get your point across.

Now, I am sure there are those who will say that I am thinking too deeply about a movie that is meant to be a bit of fluff. For you, I will share that SATC 2’s problems are not all about the portrayal of women, privilege, race or religion. Before any of those things pricked my nerves, I was already sighing at the films stilted dialogue, awkward group dynamic, hackneyed situations, and corny jokes that beg for a sitcom laugh track. And then there was the spectacle of seeing Liza Minelli performing “Single Ladies.” Yes, Liza with a “z” sings Beyonce with a “B.”

Excerpted from What Tami Said

Written by: Tamara Winfrey Harris, June 4th 2010

The Time Traveler’s Wife

admin — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 10:38:00 +0000

Directed by Robert Schwentke

New Line Cinema

Shortly after I started reading The Time Traveler's Wife, I found out that there was a movie coming out, and was interested in seeing how the two would compare. Book-to-movie adaptations are generally thought to be letdowns, but I wanted to see exactly how a love story about a time traveler—from a book more than 500 pages long that shifts through time and narration—would look on film. I was curious as to how Henry and Clare’s interwoven story would translate to the big screen, and if the problems I had with the book would be present in the film.

So how did the movie do? The short answer is, it did well. Now on to the long answer…

The style of the storytelling changed for the big screen. There was no narration and not a lot of time traveling actually. The story was mostly told as it happened in the present. They removed a lot of minor characters and got rid of extra storylines. This made it much easier to keep up with the primary story of Henry and Clare's love.

Getting rid of the excess, however, took away a lot of what I liked about the book. For one, some of the minor characters were also my favorites. There are references in the film to things that are important in the book, but are given no explanation in the movie, such as Henry’s need to run. What suffered most were scenes of Henry’s interaction with Clare as she’s growing up. I was disappointed that so much was left out because without that background, you have no idea why Clare loves Henry so much once they meet in the present. There are several pivotal moments that Clare and Henry share when she’s a child and a teenager that bond them together, and those are not mentioned.

Thankfully, some of the problems I had with the book were not present in the movie. The story did not lag at the end, and I didn’t get the same sense of devastation and defeat from Clare that I did in the book.

It’s hard to say what I might have taken away from the movie without first reading the book. I think the core of the story is still there—an unbreakable bond between two people who love each other. And it was a treat to see their story move from inside my mind to the big screen.

Written by: frau sally benz, August 16th 2009

He’s Just Not That Into You

admin — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 05:01:00 +0000

Directed by Ken Kwapis

New Line Cinema

He’s Just Not That Into You wasn’t a terrible movie. Despite its manipulative moments, this film did manage to skip many of the eye roll-inducing rom-com conventions. This movie just wasn’t that romantic or particularly funny. In fact, He’s Just Not That Into You is filled with disempowering messages.

Loosely based on the book of the same name, the story revolves around (yikes!) nine interconnected twenty- and thirty-somethings looking for love in Baltimore. Beth (Jennifer Aniston) has been living with Neil (Ben Affleck) for seven years and is anguished over his refusal to marry her. Beth works with Janine (Jennifer Connelly) who is unhappily married to Ben (Bradley Cooper), who eventually starts cheating on her with Anna (Scarlett Johansson). Anna receives dating advice from Mary (Drew Barrymore) who is so clueless that she isn’t aware that “MySpacing someone is the new booty call.” Gigi (Ginnifer Goodwin), who works with Beth and Janine, is on a quest for romance, which has her making an overeager fool of herself with the men she dates. Gigi starts getting brutally honest advice from Alex (Justin Long) after his buddy Conor (Kevin Connolly) blows her off after a date. Conor, coincidentally, feels unrequited love for Anna, even calling her right after his date with Gigi. (Anyone confused yet?)

Keeping up with the interlocking story arcs didn’t distract me from the anti-feminist messages. The women in this movie didn’t do much other than agonize over and obsess about relationships. Nearly every line of dialogue that comes out of the women’s mouths is about the men who are (and aren’t) in their lives.

I took offense to the fact that Gigi receives so much advice on how to act with men from a man who has made a second career out of loving and leaving women. While Gigi’s attempts to take things into her own hands make her look obsessive, immature, and just plain stupid, why couldn’t she have received this earth-shattering info about her behavior from female friends? After all, women co-wrote the book and the screenplay. What do Liz Tuccillo and Abby Kohn know that their female characters do not?

I also objected to Alex telling Gigi that if a man wants to be with a woman “he will make it happen.” In my opinion, this statement is really an underhanded way of telling women not to go after what they want. According to Alex, women shouldn’t be proactive in the dating game because men are the ones who green-light romances. The fact that Beth, who suggests that Gigi “break the rules” about dating, can’t get her man to commit to marriage only reinforces this idea. Alex also never once tells Gigi to worry about how much she actually likes the guys she dates, which, incidentally, is the best dating advice I ever got.

Another thing that bugged me about this film is the way gay men were depicted. While He’s Just Not That Into You passed on the stereotypical 'wise black woman' role, the screenwriters inserted no fewer than five mammy-esque gay men. Is there a law that states that gay men can only appear in mainstream Hollywood fare if they are providing straight people with a shoulder to cry on?

Sorry, folks. I’m just not that into this film.

Written by: Ebony Edwards-Ellis, February 9th 2009