Wishful Thinking (1999)

Wishful Thinking

A three part movie without charm, meaning or anything close to a story worth telling. It's almost physically painful to get through it, even being a standard 91 minutes runtime only.

Everybody's Fine (2009)

Director: Kirk Jones
Writer: Kirk Jones (based on: Stanno tutti bene(1990))
(Original Screenplay: Massimo De Rita, Tonino Guerra, Giuseppe Tornatore)
Cast: Robert De Niro, Drew Barrymore, Sam Rockwell, Kate Beckinsale
Genre: Drama

The thing about Everything's Fine I first like to point out is the fact I kept thinking this is so much more of an European style story than Hollywood usually produces. Not researching before watching, I didn't know until the end credits Kirk Jones has actually based this movie on Giuseppe Tornatore's Stanno tutti bene (1990). Tornatore's well known for Cinema Paradiso, The Legend of 1900 and Malèna just to mention a few of his others, and then the mood of this movie makes a lot more sense as it sure feels like something coming out of Italy or France.

I'm not a huge fan of American remakes in general, but as its been two decades since the original I object less. Especially since the world have turned quite a bit in those decades. Everybody got less time on their hands today and traveling is easier than ever, but rarely do any of us take the time to travel anyway. Frank (De Niro) reminds us of that facts of life with his travel, but he also pokes at the fact everybody always seems to think it's better portraying everything as fine when relatives, colleagues, old friends or even family asks how we are.

I predict much of the reason Kirk Jones have managed to attract such an ensemble cast, is the fact they've seen the original. Jones have only made Nanny McPhee and Waking Ned Devine prior to this, and with such an atypical Hollywood production I don't think he would have been able to attract them normally. Drew Barrymore, Sam Rockwell and Kate Beckinsale are all among the group of actors/actresses I generally enjoy, and they deliver so incredible well with De Niro here. They've managed to get all those emotions into their characters, and it's such a joy to watch.

I'm not gonna dig much into the story at hand. Frank is a recent widower looking forward to welcome all his four kids home for the weekend. Kids who live spread across the country, so they're never getting all together anymore. Frank's late wife was usual the one keeping in touch with the kids, but now he feels its his duty to do so. When all kids cancel last minute, Frank sets out to surprise them by visiting them instead. We get to follow his journey, and it's a heartwarming experience highlighting common society problems with this period of time, as well as being a reminder about our elders, the human side-effects of this new wide open world and the facades most people puts up for their surroundings just to mention a little.

It's a lot of depth in this movie and there's a lot of marvelous details in many of the scenes. There's also a couple of scenes I would have either cut all together or at least given less of an impact, but overall this is the best I've seen from Hollywood's brightest acting stars in quite a while. All in all a shining example of why many of us would like Hollywood to embrace more of the European style, as the combination of Hollywood's money and talent with the emotionally deep story-style from European filmmakers are a match made in cinematic heaven. It also made me wanna see the original.

Music and Lyrics (2007)

Director: Marc Lawrence
Writer: Marc Lawrence
Cast: Drew Barrymore, Hugh Grant, Haley Bennett
Genre: Rom-Com

Somehow I've never even heard of Music and Lyric until I found it now, which is surprising considering Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore are the two leads of this romantic comedy. Even more surprised by that fact after watching it, because I really enjoyed it. It got charm, it's playful and while being quite predictable as most of the genre; it's a movie length of light entertaining, a whisper of the eighties as well as the star-culture of our society.

Music and Lyrics are written and directed by Marc Lawrence. Marc co-wrote Sandra Bullock's hit Miss Congeniality back in 2000, he wrote and directed Two Weeks Notice in 2002, a movie which also starred Sandra Bullock and Hugh Grant, and as late as last year he was back with his 3rd movie where he had sole responsibility of writing and directing. Also this time with Hugh Grant in a leading role, along Sarah Jessica Parker, in Did You Hear About the Morgans?. As I found this movie so well crafted for the genre, I'll be taking a closer look at Two Weeks Notice soon, and if I like that one as well I might even watch the latter mentioned. I really don't like SJ Parker, but Marc Lawrence might be a new rom-com favorite of mine if this movie is telling of his capability.

Drew Barrymore did as usual seem to have a lot of fun making the movie. Her character is quite amusing with her whimsy charm and unusual looks at life. While Hugh Grant does one of his more typical roles, as commonly portrayed in movies like About a Boy, Notting Hill, Love Actually and so on, it works well within the script this time. Being old enough to remember some of the eighties helps and being a pop-culture junkie probably doesn't hurt either as the movie pokes some fun into both washed-up heroes, teen stars and the common adoration of such.

Whip It (2009)

Director: Drew Barrymore
Writer: Shauna Cross (screenplay and novel)
Cast: Ellen Page, Drew Barrymore, Marcia Gay Harden, Kristen Wiig, Juliette Lewis, Jimmy Fallon, Alia Shawkat, Eve, Zoe Bell, Ari Graynor, Andrew Wilson
Genre: Drama, Sport

Whip It follows all the rules of a story about an outcast girl finding her place in the world. It doesn't try to surprise every 5th minute, it doesn't try to be more than it is and it's the kind of story you've been told often enough it at least goes 15 on each dozen.

It's saved by a charming way of telling its small and well known story, good supporting cast and of course Ellen Page (at least in my case). It's flawed and unoriginal, but not every story needs to reinvent the art of movies. Ever so often you just want light entertainment for the cause of entertainment, and Whip It does its job. At least more or less.

Edit January 15, 2010:

It's been two weeks since I first viewed this movie. As you can read above I wasn't very impressed, but still enjoyed it for the lightweight entertainment it gave me. Now I'm back to adjust the rating one notch up from the original 7 I rewarded it with.

The reason? During these two weeks I've time and again seen small parts of the movie again when I've been in need of entertainment, without having the time to watch an entire movie. And it's grown on me. Not only when watching, but also when remembering parts of it. I've also seen it in full again during this time.

The story is still not very original and it's still somewhat flawed, but it's playful, it's an ensemble cast enjoying spending time together and digging into their characters and as a directional debut it's very impressive work by Drew Barrymore.

As time goes by I might again go back to my first thoughts about this movie, but there's something in my gut telling me otherwise. I think this really is a small diamond in the rough, and you would have to search far and wide to find such a simple story told so well.

Edit August 17, 2010: Along with a lot of other movies, this was adjusted downwards during the latest rating scale adjustments; making the last edit's seven to eight adjustment wrong. It's not because the movie have become worse, but because in hindsight the scale was adjusted.