You can’t go home again. That is the biggest message I got from watchingLeatherheads on DVD. 

I am a big fan of the old romantic comedies of the 1930s and 1940s. Frank Capra is one of my favorite directors. And I applaud George Clooney for attempting to recreate that special time in Hollywood, but in the end, it just did not work. 

The movie itself is a respectable comedy. I thought it had some funny scenes and the performances were admirable. George Clooney did his best, but he does not quite measure up to Clark Gable or Cary Grant. Renee Zellweger was charming, but she was no Jean Arthur or Barbara Stanwyck. John Krasinski did show plenty of boyish charm, but Jimmy Stewart he was not. For example, there is a scene set in a sleeper car on a train, and while the dialogue is snappy and the timing impeccable, it just felt false, like a caricature of ‘realscrewball comedy’.  By the way, I hate that term.

To me, the biggest obstacle for a movie like this made today is the obvious comparisons to the old stars, the old scripts, and the old directors. When Capra filmed his movies, he was not trying to capture a certain feel. He just did what came natural. Leatherheads just did not feel natural. Which is too bad, but as I said in the beginning, you can’t go home again. But maybe that is just me.

One of the things I love about DVDs are the Bonus Features. I always watch them. I find the art of making movies fascinating, and I hope that some of these bonus features can give me some insight into the work itself. These Bonus Features were mostly boring. The deleted scenes should have remained deleted, and the ‘making of’ feature was not so much about how the movie was made as to what it cost. The only interesting part was a Visual Effects Sequence that showed a scene from the movie in a split screen with the original film on one side, and the computer enhanced version on the other side. You would not think that a movie set in the 1920s would not require much CGI, but surprisingly, it did. It makes me wonder exactly how much of every movie these days are CGI and how much is real. I guess it doesn’t matter, as long as the CGI is done well, remains invisible to the viewer, and is not a distraction.

I would recommend skipping most of the bonus features and just watching the Visual Effects one. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Samuel L Jackson can do one thing really well. He can play angry with the best of them. In the new movie “Lakeview Terrace” he gets to do that all movie long. Jackson plays an LAPD officer with an attitude who thinks he is the keeper of his neighborhood. When a new couple moves in next door, he decides he doesn’t want them there. The couple happens to be interracial (she is black and he is white). The problem is, Jackson was so over the top psycho that I did not buy for one minute that everyone around him did not notice. Was everyone else just blind to crazy? This is probably my biggest problem with the movie.

The movie was directed by Neil LaBute, who broke new ground when he wrote and directed “In the Company of Men (1997). It is safe to say that with Lakeview Terrace, the director did not take any chances, did not break any new ground, and maybe even just phoned it in.

I would have liked to have seen the racial discrimination addressed in a smarter more innovative way, something worthy of my time, something to talk about.  Instead, it winds up being an unimaginative cliché. In the end, the movie turns out to be a thriller sans thrills, sprinkled with a little social commentary sans actual commentary.

I have had a difficult time deciding whether I liked this movie or not. It’s one of those movies that you are supposed to like, and if you don’t, you are just not sophisticated enough of a movie fan. How can you pan a Coen Brothers movie right after they made “No Country For Old Men?”

I don’t think anyone will actually pan the movie. Maybe there will be some people that really want to say they didn’t like it, and then they will look over their shoulders and see all the critics shaking their heads, so they just nod and agree it was brilliant.

Well, I have decided that I didn’t love the movie, but I didn’t quite hate it. It is an average artsy comedy, maybe trying a little too hard to be quirky. Some of the performances seemed a bit forced.  Some of the writing felt too much like masturbation. Sure you get off, but after you wash your hands, you are still alone.  If I had to describe my feelings after watching the movie in one word, I think that word would be unfulfilled (speaking of masturbation!).

None of the characters were very likable, except Brad Pitt’s character of Chad Feldheimer. As a matter of fact, Brad Pitt was actually quite brilliant in this movie.  George Clooney on the other hand, was just plain annoying.  He had that thing going on where he shakes his head way too much when he is talking. I hate that. Is that just me? John Malkovich was his usual solid intense self, and Frances MacDormand was, well, I can’t make up my mind. Was she just good at playing a wreck or has she actually become one?

Despite all of my complaints, I have to admit there were a few very funny moments in the film. This might be one of those movies where watching it again on DVD your opinion begins to change. Maybe that is the true genius of the movie. Maybe it’s so big, so complex, so quirky, I could not wrap my mind around it in a single viewing. Maybe, but I doubt it.

It was a comedy with an all star cast, and two of the hottest writer/directors around that wound up being about nothing and didn’t quite hit the mark.

 

The word “reality” has been bandied about in the world of entertainment so much lately that the first thing you think of when hearing the word is fake. I have to admit I entered the cinema with this cynical view to watch a documentary centered on 5 teenagers in their senior year of high school, class of 2006, in Warsaw Indiana.

The community the movie is set in is predominantely white and middle class, although there seems to be at least a few afluent families, and at least a few people of color. I couldn’t help but think that maybe in 50 to 100 years, this documentary will be more about an extinct middle American white community than about teenagers, but I digress…

Now, its been many years since I was a teenager, but I didn’t think there really was much difference with being a teenager in today’s society than it was in the early 80s, when I was in high school. I was right, for the most part. Kids are still kids. They still treat each other poorly, they still have the same concerns and fears. They even have the same dreams as we did when we were their age. The big difference is lag time. There is none in today’s teen world. Everyone has a cell phone, everyone is on the Internet, and it seems pretty easy to text message someone in class, much easier than passing notes was anyway. So rumors, innuendo, and gossip spreads at lightspeed. It seemed like these kids were used to it, and I think it was amazing me much more than it was affecting them.

The movie centers on kids from different cliques. There is the popular girl, the jock, the artsy girl, the geek, the hood. No wait, that’s Breakfast Club. I guess they don’t have any hoods in this community, so they replaced him with the good looking guy. My first impression of these kids was wow, they are all so messed up! But as we sit and watch the train wreck that is the average teenagers life unfold before us, I realized that they are not any more messed up than any other human being is at that point in their lives. I forgot a very important thing: teenagers make a huge deal out of every single little thing.

I found myself rooting for the geek, at the beginning. I guess I identified more with him than the others, and that may tell you which clique I belonged to in high school. But I have to say, Nanette Burstein did a great job portraying these lives because at some point, you find yourself rooting for all of them, even the really mean popular girl.

If I had to use one word to describe the movie, it would be compelling. You just can’t turn away. Even from the uncomfortable parts. What more can you ask for from a documentary? Well, maybe truth, I guess that is something you can ask for.

I had a few problems with what seemed to be inconsistancies in chronology. One kid’s face miraculously clears up one day, just to be marred with acne the next. All of the girls seemed to look alike, so it was difficult for me to distinguish between who was in and who was out of certain social circles. Burstein would have needed several camera crews working 24 hours a day to capture some of these events in real time, as she leads us to believe. I will admit it did make me question the validity of some of the scenes. And it seemed the only parents that made the final cut were the bad ones, the ones that were putting ridiculous pressure on their children, or were unconcsiously passing on their own inner demons to their children.

Could all parents possibly be this bad? Besides these small issues, I did enjoy this film. There are some very funny scenes, some disturbing ones, and some very poignent moments. American Teen is worth your time.

One last thing, if you decide to see it, make sure you stay through most of the credits if you want to get updates on where these teens are today (two years after graduation).