Reader Request: "The Other Woman"

We held a poll for new DVD write-ups and you chose this one. It's your fault! ;)

You're familiar with the ol' term "edited with a chainsaw", yes? Thist post will surely be written by one. Edited with a chainsaw is an odd phrase since it scapegoats the editor when messy jumbled narrative choices and general incoherence are just as often the fault of screenwriters and directors. Not that editing can't make things worse. Quick, explain what happened in that final battle on the rainbow bridge in Thor because I still don't know. If I ever meet Paul Rubell I will definitely ask him. I don't mean to single Mr Rubell out among editors but my mind lept to Thor because The Other Woman -- our topic du jour -- also stars Her Lady of Ubiquity Natalie Portman. But, really, Thor isn't particularly egregious as incoherent actioners go. Continuity and visual coherence are no longer the end goals they once were. (Thanks for nothing, Paul Greengrass!)

Bad Lawyer! Natalie's sexting when she ought to be working.

When people use that chainsaw phrase today -- if they do at all - it merely means "this makes no sense!" or perhaps  "I hate this". It's flexible which is why it's still useful as verbal shorthand even though there's been no actual "cutting" of film in some time.

What are we even talking about? Oh, yes, The Other Woman: It makes no sense. I hated it.

I wish flexibility were a trait we could assign to writer/director Don Roos' latest but for as much as the new movie twists and bends, frequently and often in its attempt to be several different movies or perhaps a television series, it's always snapping and breaking rather than stretching and settling into new poses. My first urge is to call it incoherent (hence the editing cliché) but that's not quite right. The narrative is neither ambitious nor inept enough for true incoherence. But one thing is for certain, The Other Woman does not know itself. It's vague whenever it needs to be precise and bloated whenever it needs to trim.

Is it a romantic drama? Quite often but only for a few minutes at a time.

Is it a flashback picture about a hasty romantic decision? Well, it's structured a bit like that at first but then you realize the flashback is over and it was more like oddly placed first act decorative exposition and you're back in the present.

Is it a comedy? Not really, although there are a few jokes.

Is it a story about a woman who is way too immature to parent, suddenly thrust into the Stepmom role? It seems like that but then why all the romance? It keeps hinting that there's more to her than immaturity though that "more" never shows itself.

This blended family isn't blending well at all. Both moms, biological & step, like to verbally lash out at everyone around them.

Is it a thorny drama about blended families? Yes, half the time.

Is it a piercing drama about grief and the fragility of new life and love? At times but not for very long at a time.

Do all of these separate movies star two hugely unlikable women, who are members of the First Wives Club and the Young Homewreckers of America club? Ding! Ding! Ding!

Lisa Kudrow and Don Roos have been frequent collaborators for years now, and though he usually casts her as very bitter or frustrated women, they've been able to find such interesting layers of hurt and comedy in the roles. Sometimes she's an outright revelation (particularly in The Opposite of Sex and in her online series Web Therapy). Natalie Portman, who was in the process of winning the Oscar when this film finally arrived, is an uneven actress and she hits some notes here very well (she doesn't shy away from Amelia's immaturity or difficulty at thinking beyond the moment) but it's a repetitive and undercooked performance.

You can forgive a lot when you watch bad movies if the protagonist or antagonist or supporting characters are either straight up likeable or charismatically flawed. But virtually no one in The Other Woman lays claim to your heart. Two of the most generally "likeable" characters, played by Lauren Ambrose and Anthony Rapp, pop in from time to time to provide a laugh line or a sympathetic ear but they're in so little of the movie that it's difficult to get any sort of bead on who they are outside of their trio friendship with Natalie Portman and The Other Woman doesn't care enough about these friendships to suggest anything about their strength.

Rapp, Portman and Ambrose are friends. But how much and for how long?

The three main characters are walking wounded nightmares: Amelia (Natalie Portman) is bitchy, self-deluding, immature and hypocritical (she married a cheater and despises cheaters and doesn't view her actions as inappropriate even though she actively pursues the married man); Carolyne (Lisa Kudrow) is the shrewish ex-wife who is so brittle and unforgiving that you can't help but be glad that her husband escaped her; Jack (Scott Cohen) doesn't make a whole lot of sense and remains a cypher since the film keeps drifting away from him towards the women and his son. You know there's more to him but he only reveals his hurt in the final moments and then, promptly and all too easily, seems to segue immediately back into Father Knows Best mode.

The same day I watched the film I attended a party and I was trying to explain my problem with the film to a friend. Since I was a little buzzed from drinks my critique veered uncomfortably away from the verbal into something approaching charades format; I played Natalie Portman and acted out One Scene As Every Scene, if you know what I mean. It went exactly like this (verbatim!) ...though I wasn't wearing a wig.

This happens over and over again in the movie whether we're in coming-of-age land, the flashback movie, in romantic drama territory, the family strife issues film or baby grief catharsis. All five of the movies we're watching have the same scene: Natalie lashes out, apologizes, feels bad about herself, and continues to blame other people; Repeat for the entire movie until she grows up a teensy bit at the end in an unconvincing and unclimactic way.

Don Roos has made two very good features in the past (The Opposite of Sex and Happy Endings) which both demonstrated a unique voice with a deft command of interlocking character arcs, plotty developments that inform the arcs in question, and the ability to conjure a whole passel of hugely flawed somewhat off-putting characters that manage to be endearing or fascinating because of the good humor, complexity and depth of the characterizations. The Other Woman shares many of these same structural elements but none of the success with them. It's tough to say what went wrong but it went very wrong. Best to call this one That Other Movie, ignore it, and rewatch one of those earlier fine pictures instead. D

Suggestions Noted, Movies Graded.

Grading is highly subjective, dizzying, lip-biting stressful.Just a reminder that I listen to you. You may have noticed a bit more tv coverage as per your requests. Plus, I'd heard a few complaints that the new version of the site (no longer a newborn, now a crawling gurgling six month-old) didn't have a sidebar with current grades of recent movies. I've added that in now, just in case you miss a review or need that damn letter.

I hate grading! I feel for you professors out there. I often find one piece of a movie a total A and the rest lacking. Take  that multi-graded X-Men Report Card that's usually the way it goes. Or, perfect and subject appropriate example: Easy A in which Emma Stone is performing in an all time high school movie comedy classic and the rest of the movie... uh... isn't. Perhaps all movies should get multi-layered report cards? Nah, too much work.

You can also check the review section in the top navigation bar whenever you need want a quick rundown of what I'm seeing or how I've been grading it.

Review: X-Men First Class

Professor R.Hello. My Name is Professor R* and my area of study is the cinema.

I come to you in peace but it's time to reveal the shocking truth. A new mutation has developed in the storytelling arts. Second and third acts, those middles and endings moviegoers like you and I have known since birth, will soon be extinct. A new more lucrative mutation has developed among storytellers: the eternal beginning.

This looping trait -- sometimes cutely referred to as "rebooting" and other times clearly marked as "2" -- is a matter of evolution. As television has come to dominate pop culture the movies have transformed into gigantic hybrids, attempting to master television's most powerful assett (long form storytelling) without having the right equipment by which to master it (weekly hour-long episodes). It's survival of the fittest and greediest. The largest films now only deliver endings when absolutely cornered (and charge double for the rare privilege of "finality" Harry Potter, Twilight, The Hunger Games) and now frequent in eternal beginnings (see also: The Avengers prequels, all "reboots" and 'hey, that's the same movie in a new locale!' sequels).

Such is the case with X-Men First Class (2010) which begins as an exact replica of X-Men (2000) in Nazi occupied Poland when young Magneto's (aka Erik Lehnsherr) mutant abilities first manifest. He is ripped from his parent's arms and returns the favor by tearing up the steely barb wired gates. After that eerily familiar opening, fleshed out with some psychological torture by Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon) we travel cross the ocean to New York for a "meet cute" with two other Mutant Babies, wee telepath Charles and wee shapeshifter Mystique in the vast Xavier mansion in Westchester -- I don't recall the telepath and the shapeshifter knowing each other so intimately in the previous X-films but, sorry, "reboot". Proceed, movie, proceed.

The New Mutants: Beast, Banshee, Angel, Mystique, Havok, and Darwin. 50/50 Success Rate.

With four character intros and two locales behind us we leap forward some two decades and continue criss-crossing the Globe: Switzerland, Nevada, Argentina, DC, Russia; With virtually every new locale we get new characters and plotlines.  "This season on X-Men!..."

Though the film moves efficiently through its locales and characters, it only ever lands with impactful force while chasing Magneto who is himself chasing his childhood enemies. This potency comes largely from two things. First, it's the cleanest and most direct narrative in the movie. Second, it's the narrative that stars the great Michael Fassbender who has screen presence in spades and emotional acuity to die for. (The early Nazi showdown in Argentina, a tense multi-lingual drink at a table that erupts into violence: this is a corrective homage to Inglourious Basterds, yes?, with Fassy allowed to live and triumph.) Fassbender has been boldly claiming himself The Most Important New Screen Star in The World onscreen for at least three years now (speaking of eternal beginnings) but now that he's in a blockbuster, the world will finally realize he's already claimed it. Well done.

Even this Nazi hunt showdown in Argentina, thrilling as it is, is more prologue than triumph or resolution. The plot is acrobatic to say the least but the only acrobats that stick their landings are Fassbender and McAvoy. 

"Your work is puerile and under-dramatized. You lack any sense of structure, character and the Aristotelian unities."
-Wednesday Addams [Addams Family Values]

One may be forgiven for wondering if the movie will ever start, well into its running time. There are so many beginnings within this overarching First Class BEGINNING! that even after the elaborate Hellfire Club threat is established, you still have to stop the movie to introduce government officials and a handful of new mutants who are to become the first students at Xavier's school. Their training, which should make for excellent B plots in season 1 episodes, is reduced to jokey split screen mayhem.

The movie's lazy tone deafness about familiar X-Men themes: persecution, diversity, self-loathing versus pride leads to uncomfortable moments. As a friend remarked to me, post screening, but do we really need an intense close up on the one black character the second somebody uses the word "enslaved"? And the continuing dialogue refrain of "Mutant and Proud" which should be relatable and even cathartic, given that the X-Men have always been excellent stand-ins for oppressed minorities, comes across as silly.

January/Emma. As cold as ice. As hard as diamonds.

To be fair to the movie, some of the eye candy works: James McAvoy's blue eyes are worth a thousand CGI effects, January Jones is a visual treat in human form and the actresses inner ice is an amusing counterpart to Emma Frost's outer mutation; Banshee (Caleb Landry Jones) a character one could fairly expect to be a failure when transferred to screen works tremendously well (loved that underwater bit). Many of the other characters, though, are duds. Havok (Lucas Till), for instance, is lacking the unique visual identity that made him tick in the comic books (and why mess with chronology mythology to include him. Is Scott Summers younger brother suddenly his father or something?) But if I'm accusing the movies of being unable to end, I should wrap up myself.

Banshee's sonic wave

The Cuban Missile Crisis finale to this beginning chapter is enjoyably chaotic rather than incoherent (which is more the norm lately as action sequences go), with the few separate action threads braiding together well. But even First Class's satisfyingly staged final battle and the subsequent team-splitting coda is mere prologue. If this were a television pilot, I'd be DVR'in the shit out of it but it's a movie. And as a movie, it's frustratingly hit and miss and lacking a big payoff.

"Studios are hardwired not to bet on execution, and the terrible thing is, they're right. Because in terms of execution, most movies disappoint."
-Scott Rudin [The Day the Movies Died]

This storytelling mutation is so cruel.

Keep that carrot dangling, but never give away its precious nutrients. The audiences may, for a price, enjoy its vibrant color from afar. When your hungry audiences grow weary of merely staring at said carrot, DO NOT offer it to them. Instead, remove the carrot entirely. They'll find sustenance elsewhere, and a few years later you may begin dangling the same carrot again once they've rebought their ticket.

Beginnings are the easy part. Bet on them! Sharp character arcs, taut screenplay construction, crescendos and rhythm in the story telling, glorious "it could only ever end this way" resolutions --- the stuff of second and third acts -- are the hard work. But hard work is difficult and, thanks to blockbuster cinema's mutation, no longer required.

Professor X, with the help of Cerebro, sees all reboots in development. They are legion.

X-Men First Class Report Card
Fassy & McAvoy: A |  Every Moment Where They Stared At Each Other Meaningfully Or Teary Eyed: A+++ (KISS HIM!) | Production Values: B+ (good stuff mostly) | The Surprise Cameos: A | "Beast" Makeup: D (why can't they get this right? They biffed it in The Last Stand, too) | January Jones: XXX | The Other Villains: ZZZ | Everything Else & The Movie Itself: B- or C+

*Like Professor Charles Xavier, I have a shiny scalp, pleasantly shaped skull, a thing for redheads and bird women, reside in a large building in New York, and am inexplicably fond of stuffy Scott Summers. Unlike Professor X my mutant powers have yet to manifest and I am (fortunately) not confined to a wheelchair, though I feel like I am today as I've thrown my back out. ARGH! Back to sickbay with me.

Yours, Professor Nathaniel R. 

Review: "Beginners"

Have you ever found yourself wincing in premonitory fear that a gay character or theme will be mishandled by filmmakers or actors? Set those worries aside when approaching the expressive charming BEGINNERS. Though the story about a lonely bachelor artist Oliver (Ewan McGregor) and his newly-out dying father Hal (Christopher Plummer) is fictionalized, it has the stamp of the exquisitely personal about it. It's handmade, in other words, never to be mistaken for a movie made by committee. Writer/director Mike Mills' (Thumbsucker) own father came out of the closet when he was in his thirties and the film is an obviously loving tribute from son to father.

Gay characters in the movies are sometimes little more than caricatures and depictions still largely fall into "types". Older gay men have it especially rough in media representations; if they aren't altogether invisible they're desexualized or depicted as lonely and pitiable. Beginners won't have it like that. One could argue that it's practically heroic in its willful embrace of wholly human characters, no matter their age or sexual preference. Hal is played with lively curiousity by Christopher Plummer with that customary dark twinkle in his eye. It's actually brilliant casting since Ewan McGregor is such a kindred spirit when it comes to those mischievous undercurrents...

Read the Full Review @ Towleroad

Pirates the Fourth

Blockbuster franchises are not unlike waves in the ocean. That's true even for the ones that don't take place on the high seas. The marketing rhythmically churns them up and up until they break oh-so-formidably on opening weekend and then they're just foam. Which is to say that Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides evaporates instantly after you watch it, leaving you with precious little to remember it by that you didn't already remember from The Curse of the Black Pearl back in 2003.

Ian McShane as Blackbeard

I saw Pirates 4 only a week ago. The only things I remember are as follows...

Read the full review at Towleroad

(I'd say it's better than the other sequels but that doesn't mean I can help out its dismal rotten tomatoes score and call it "fresh". And it's quite possible that I have blocked out all memories of the 2nd and 3rd movies for self preservation purposes. Oh Johnny...)