You may be wondering why I haven’t written anything on this blog for a long time now.  Well the answer is because I have a new blog now and you should definitely check it out.  http://filmfun.today.com/ It’s all about my views, critiques, and recommendations of new and some classic films and television shows.  Please check it out.  Comments are appreciated.  Thanks so much.

~Shaboomer

Screenwriter and star Jason Segel is a long time member of the Judd Apatow crew, having started out on Apatow’s television shows as the memorable Nick Andoplois of Freaks and Geeks and a year later as frequent guest star Eric on Undeclared. Apatow has been on a roll with writing, directing, and producing one hit comedy film after another. Although Segel was never fortunate enough to star in any of these films he was quoted stating since Judd wasn’t writing him any lead roles he decided to do it himself. Which is how Forgetting Sarah Marshall came to be and Apatow happily produced it. Even though Segel wrote this film, his character can’t help but remind Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared fans of his previous Nick and Eric characters. He even shares a scene with Undeclared-on-screen-girlfriend Lizzie, actress Carla Gallo.

For this being Segel’s writing debut he’s done impressively well at the box office for his opening weekend coming in second place bringing in $17.3 million. It really isn’t a surprise to me because he was able to bring unique qualities to his romantic comedy. Typically romantic comedies are told by the female’s point of view and can be seen as more like chick flicks that guys only see because their girlfriends drag them to see it. This film is an exception because there is plenty of male humor such as Peter (Segel) being dumped by his girlfriend while naked, which was inspired by one of Segel’s real life break ups although he had found it hilarious rather than devastating because of his nakedness. Also Segel had real life aspirations of trying to write a Dracula puppets musical, which makes for some very comical scenes in this film.

Another different technique Segel used in this film was creating equal characters. No one character is seen as the villain but rather they are all equal characters with different perspectives on love and relationships, who have all made mistakes in the past. In the beginning of the film we may assume that Peter is the good guy because he is our protagonist and Sarah (Kristen Bell – amazing actress now on Heroes but was previously on the amazing show Veronica Mars) is the bad guy because we see her from Peter’s perspective, but as the film continues her character causes Peter and us, the audience, to realize that she has her reasons and Peter has made mistakes as well. I believe this gives the comedy a more realistic ground to be stabilized on, providing stronger meaning than more typical outlandish comedies.

~Shaboomer~

In Noam Murro’s directing debut of Smart People, released April 11^th, he proves that some times smart people can’t always make the smartest decisions.

This slower paced movie is focused more on character development rather than action, but none-the-less it is entertaining and real because of its unique characters.

After experiencing a trauma induced seizure, a self-involved professor, Lawrence Wetherhold (Dennis Quaid), must re-evaluate his life and become more dependent on others. His doctor, who happens to be one of his forgotten students from years back, Janet (Sarah Jessica Parker), informs him he is suspended from driving for six months. To his unwanted rescue, his free-loading adopted brother, Chuck (Thomas Haden Church), comes to stay for a “win-win” situation in his eyes, in which he stays for free and becomes Lawrence’s chauffer. With his visit, Chuck, tries to encourage Lawrence’s over-achieving teenage daughter, Vanessa (Ellen Page) to lighten up and for Lawrence, a widower, to get back in the game and pursue Janet as a love interest.

This film’s strongest element is its make-up of individually complex main four characters played by exceptional actors. It is hard to pick out just one of the four lead actors as showing the most talent, because they equally make their own characters believable, comical, and at times heartwarming. All four characters are on different levels of intelligence but equally connected in their lacking abilities to connect with and create fulfilling relationships with others.

Through these characters’ problems, the film plays with conventional relationship titles. In Lawrence’s relationships as professor, his colleagues don’t understand him and he has a great problem with remembering past students. With his own adopted-brother, he treats him more like his chauffer than his brother and refers to him as “adopted” with every opportunity he gets. And finally Lawrence’s initial treatment of Janet is as a student to lecture rather than a love interest.

Vanessa, with her genius intelligence, she acts too old for her age in which she is more like house wife than daughter to her father, performing all household duties, becoming jealous of the threat of a girlfriend, and she accepts the lack of acknowledgment from her father for her exceptional educational accomplishments. Also because of Chuck’s willingness to show Vanessa how to have a good time as a teenager, in a drunken stupor, she tries to make a move on her adopted uncle as a love interest rather than uncle because “he’s adopted anyway, it doesn’t count.” These confused definitions and blurred boundaries of relationships emphasize each character’s inadequacies with relating to others properly.

Although each of the four main characters’ are interesting and well developed, the film seems to overlook the development needed of its supporting characters. Such as the idea of having a lesser talented college brother, James (Ashton Holmes), for Vanessa to look down on and to be unappreciated by his father. This would make a positive addition to the family dynamic, but it wasn’t developed enough throughout the film and seemed as though in the final edit many of his scenes may have been cut causing a lack of interest in his character for us the audience.

Also, the character who seemed to be Janet’s best friend and fellow doctor, was only used in two important but quick scenes. One in which we find out Janet had a crush on Lawrence when he was her professor in college. The other we find out Janet has a habit of self-sabotaging her relationships. Although he is not a very important character, since he was included in these two scenes he should be present in a few more to make his character believable as Janet’s best friend and to provide him with more purpose in the film. Again, possibly an editor’s mistake?

Even with its few flaws, this film’s strong base of interesting characters and their struggles to connect with others is what drives this film. It proves that no matter what your intellectual abilities or limitations may be you can never have all the answers when it comes to relationships.

~Shaboomer~

This week I was a speaker in a Gender Colloquium at Rider University and I decided to include a shortened version of my speech here about Adam’s Rib, Legally Blonde, and the patriarchal unconscious connection in law and film. Enjoy.

The law is seen as an ideal system that mediates all and shouldn’t be altered; but there is the presence of the patriarchal unconscious which creates flaws in this system. The patriarchal unconscious is that unknowingly, just as males are the fathers and head of the households, males are in control of the law system and how it functions. George Cukor’s 1949 film, Adam’s Rib, is a screwball comedy about a married couple, who are also both lawyers that take on the same case defending opposite sides. Adam Bonner tries to prosecute Doris Attinger who is accused of attempting to murder her uncaring husband; while Amanda Bonner defends this woman on the basis of “equal rights under the law,” which Amanda insists if the person on trial were a man he would be vindicated for trying to kill the lover of his unfaithful wife in order to protect his home. Adam’s Rib seems to be a film fighting for women’s rights and against the biased patriarchal unconscious, but on closer analysis one can see that the message seems to lose its hold in the end when Adam wins over his wife, Amanda, and the argument is dropped

The scene in which we see Amanda start to become passionate about fighting for women’s rights is the next scene as they drive to work. Amanda is driving which seems like the film’s way of showing that Amanda is equal and has power, but then this is undermined by portraying her as a stereotypical bad woman driver with all the other male driver’s beeping and yelling. The shot composition throughout this scene distinguishes the divide between Amanda and Adam’s views as they are framed by the windshield with a divide down the middle. We first hear Amanda’s view when she says, “There’s lots of things a man can do and in society’s eyes it’s all hunky dory. A woman does the same thing, the same mind you, and she’s an outcast.” When she makes this strong statement she is looking forward, facing the camera because she is driving, so her view is clearly and strongly conveyed. When Adam states his point that anybody who commits a crime, whether it’s a man or woman, should be punished; rather than fully understanding Adam’s view we are distracted by Amanda trying to get a parking spot. This lack of acknowledgment of his view could be because in society we are too aware of this view as an excuse of the patriarchal unconscious to suppress women, or it could be because this is leading up to Amanda winning the one case in court, but finally losing in the long run with the ending of the film.

This film falls under the category of being a genre film, a screwball comedy, which causes the film to follow the patriarchal unconscious by not allowing the audience to take the lessons of women’s rights seriously. One particularly humorous scene is when Amanda asks the people of the court to imagine Mrs. Attinger, Mr. Attinger, and Mr. Attinger’s mistress as the opposite gender than what they are, in order to prove a point. In this scene when the females are transformed, their facial expressions and posture remain the same and we see the people around them acknowledge the change by sitting up or murmuring to each other. When Mr. Attinger transforms into a woman we hear Amanda say “try, try hard,” as if to imagine a male as a female is a very hard task. Then when he is dressed in the women’s clothing he changes his face into softer expressions, he stops slouching and sits straight, turns his hand up, and raises an eyebrow. His transformation seems more elaborate as he tries to be more feminine and we hear people gasp with much more surprise. This humor undermines Amanda’s strength as a lawyer. This sex change is supposed to support Amanda’s statement when she says, “an unwritten law stands in back of a man who defends his home. Apply this same law to this maltreated wife and neglected woman.” Her statement is strong and accurate but people miss it because of the distraction of the patriarchal unconscious which causes us to find a male in women’s clothing humorous since it seems such a contradiction from the dominant and anti-feminine role the male is given and the strong focus of heterosexuality in our society.

The ending of this film emphasizes the fact that Amanda, a female lawyer, has failed in altering the legal system. Again because this is a screwball comedy, there must be rules that are followed as a genre film which also affects the ending of this film. While Amanda may have won the case, this win caused a riff in their marriage which is typical in screwball comedies in order for the ending to be a happy moment where the couple forgive and embrace. In this last scene, Adam shows Amanda that men can use the trick of tears just as women and Amanda uses this as further evidence toward her point: that men and women are the same and should be treated this way. But Adam uses the “little difference” between men and women to finally win his argument once and for all and drop the subject forever. The patriarchal unconscious exists because of this “little difference” in which men feel that they should be in more power than women; and at the end of this film Amanda shows that she agrees with this ideology because there is a happy ending embrace to this screwball comedy.

At the start of this film Amanda seems to have a strong stance of pro-women’s rights and equality, but as the movie progresses Adam’s argument becomes stronger and Amanda becomes weaker by the falling out of their relationship as husband and wife. Therefore the film simply shows the injustices of the law and the prejudice of women but it does not truly fight for women’s rights because in the end the “little difference” is rewarded and the woman is merely wife to the man.

You might be wondering why the title of this blog is: The Patriarchal Unconscious: From Adam’s Rib to Harvard. That’s because in my original paper I compared Adam’s Rib to the 2001 film Legally Blonde because like Adam’s Rib it also seems to question the injustices of the law system, especially sexism. It was interesting to compare a film from the 1940s to that of one from the postfeminist era. But again with a close analysis of Robert Luketic’s Legally Blonde, one can see that it seems to start out unknowingly fighting against the patriarchal unconscious, and in the end Elle appears to be accepted for doing things her own way, but the major fight to change the system and the patriarchal influence is lost. Elle’s original fight in the film is actually for her ex-boyfriend to propose, but through this she came to realize her real fight should be for women’s rights. Just as in Adam’s Rib, Elle won the small fight by winning her case in court, by her terms; but she loses in the end because instead of standing up for women’s rights and trying to alter the law system she merely supports the law and actually claims that it is just, by giving credit to the patriarchal system for accepting her even though she was different in her hyper-feminine ways. Although these films are 52 years apart, and there’s the period of the feminist movement between them, they both seem to question the flaws of the law system, but unfortunately they each end with happy comedy endings allowing female inequalities in law to be masked by Hollywood genre conventions.

~Shaboomer~

With the awesome tagline “From director Frank Oz comes the story of a family that puts the F U in funeral” Death at a Funeral is a quirky hilarious and heartwarming story which focuses on a dysfunctional British family in the morbid setting of a funeral.

The DVD was released last month and was directed by Frank Oz who previously directed such films as The Stepford Wives, Little Shop of Horrors and The Muppets Take Manhattan and was written by Dean Craig.

In this film, all Daniel (Matthew Macfadyen) wants to do is provide a nice funeral for his father’s death but as his family and friends are gathered the services stumble upon many interruptions including one man (Peter Dinklage), a stranger to everyone except the deceased, who has a dark secret which he threatens to expose unless financially compensated. Never mind all the drama brought about by Daniel’s family members and friends: competition with his famous writer brother who’s back from the US, a friend who obsesses about his recent rash fearing it may be a deadly disease, his cousin’s fiancé hallucinating on drugs, and his handicapped, bitter pain in the arse Uncle Alfie.

This type of film could easily be translated into a play with its one major location and the way the events carry out through the ensemble of characters. Think of Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) which was originally a play and was adapted to the screen. The majority of the film takes place in the one location of the Brewster house with several characters appearing and disappearing adding more and more layers to the chaos in which Mortimer (Cary Grant) is trying to control. Also coincidently Arsenic and Old Lace involves a plot with multiple deaths and, with the presence of a cop in the home, the characters become increasingly conscious and paranoid about their actions. In Death at a Funeral Mortimer and the Brewster house is replaced by Daniel and his home and the cop is replaced with a Priest which seems even more appropriate of a moral reminder.

With an ensemble cast so well put together its hard to pick out any one person who stands out the most but the American actor Alan Tudyk (Knocked Up, Serenity) must be recognized for his impressive scene stealing performance. We are introduced to his character Simon (yes he has an English accent) as a nervous guy who is dependent on Martha (Daisy Donovan), his fiancé, for support and is dreading the funeral of her uncle because her father will be there to judge and belittle Simon. One quick stop at Martha’s brother’s house, the pharmacist student, and everything goes wrong for Simon because Martha gives him what she thinks is valium but in fact is her brother’s experimental drug which causes similar effects as acid. Throughout the rest of the film we are sucked into Simon’s hilarious moments of hallucinations, nudity, and emotional outbursts. What’s great about this character and Tudyk’s performance is this character could easily become just a source of comic relief but instead he actually grows throughout the film and Simon and Martha’s relationship strengthens through the judgment from others of Simon’s strange and inappropriate behavior.

If you like black comedies and are looking for a good laugh, Death at a Funeral is the film to see.

~Shaboomer~

I’m very excited about Run Fatboy Run which opens in theaters this Friday 3/28. It was originally released in the UK in September of 2007 and was supposed to be released in the US in December of 2007 but was delayed a few times and now will finally be out in the US this weekend. The film topped the UK box office in its opening week and remained at the top of the chart for four straight weeks. To date it has earned over £10.5 million. Hopefully it will gain similar success here in the US.

The plot of the film focuses on Dennis (Simon Pegg) a slightly overweight and childish middle-aged man who left his pregnant fiancée of five years at the alter. He regrets this action and wants her back but she is now happily with an American played by Hank Azaria. In order to prove himself and win his ex-fiancée back he’s decided to show that he can be dedicated by committing to a Nike River-run marathon in London. Now he must train with the help of his friend Gordon played by Pegg’s good friend Dylan Moran (Shaun of the Dead).

What I am most excited about is the collaboration of three great comedians coming together with all their wit and talents in order to produce this film. These three all seem to have their own variation on comedy and it should be interesting to see what kind of humor will be produced from this unique mix.

First there is David Schwimmer, best known as Ross from the hit series Friends making his motion picture directing debut with this film. Schwimmer has had some directing experience in which he directed ten episodes of Friends and a few episodes of other TV series. As an actor Schwimmer’s comedic acting tended to focus on the romantic comedies in which he is a lovable nerd that needs a little help in order to be with the one he loves. Having the experience of playing these types of roles will help him in his directing decisions since the main character is of a similar character type.

Next, another American comedian Michael Ian Black, who wrote and starred in Stella wrote the screenplay of this film. Stella was an offbeat sketch-comedy with the tagline: “Dumb comedy dressed up in a suit.” It was aired on Comedy Central in 2005 with a short run until it was cancelled, but has since gained an underground following and fan club. Many of the jokes focused on the absurd parodying of relationships and situations in typical dramas. It makes sense that Black would write this serious story about a man trying to win back the one he loves with such an absurd idea of the man showing this commitment by running in a marathon.

Finally there is British comedian Simon Pegg, best known for writing and starring in the cult zombie spoof film Shaun of the Dead who co-wrote this screenplay and stars in the film. In Shaun of the Dead Pegg’s character is similar to his character in this film as Dennis: they both are romantics at heart but have strong commitment problems. Similar to Black, Pegg also likes to focus on bizarre and parody. With zombie spoofs and cop spoofs (Hot Fuzz) already under his belt, he is now focused on the underdog sport spoof. He also wrote and starred in his own British TV series Spaced which is similar to Stella with its absurd sketch-comedy qualities.

I’ve been waiting a long time for this film since I heard about it while I was in London in June 2007. I can’t wait to finally see the creation of these three comic brains this weekend and I suggest you do the same.

~Shaboomer~