Day: June 6, 2012

The Best Temp Gig Ever: LFM Reviews Safety Not Guaranteed

Aubrey Plaza in "Safety Not Guaranteed."

By Joe Bendel. The cynicism of journalism is about rub up against the idealism of science. However, the science practiced by Kenneth Calloway is a decidedly scruffy, DIY affair. His unusual classified ad attracts the attention of a Seattle magazine writer, who brings along two lowly interns to help investigate Calloway’s time travel claims in Colin Trevorrow’s Safety Not Guaranteed, which opens this Friday in New York and the Pacific Northwest.

Based on a real classified that became a minor internet sensation, Calloway’s ad seeks: “Someone to go back in time with . . . You’ll get paid after we get back. Must bring your own weapons. Safety not guaranteed. I have only done this once before.” To Jeff Schwensen this sounds like the perfect set-up for a mock-the-rube piece (and also represents a good opportunity to hook up with an old summer fling). At first, Darius Britt, an intern who makes Janeane Garofalo look upbeat, sees it pretty much the same way. However, when Schwensen’s direct approach spooks the self-styled time traveler, he sends Britt in undercover to win their subject’s trust.

Much to her surprise, she starts to like the guy—kind of a lot. After all, Calloway is a socially stunted paranoid delusional—what’s not to like? Of course, Derek Connolly’s consistently clever script leaves the door open just wide enough for viewers to consider the possibility Calloway is not so crazy after all. Like they say, just because you’re paranoid . . .

Mark Duplass’s beefy Calloway (somewhat resembling Lon Chaney, Jr. before his transformations) and Aubrey Plaza’s much younger and very petite Britt look like a wildly mismatched couple, but the way they click as kindred outsider spirits makes perfect sense in the film’s’ dramatic context. Frankly, their romance-in-denial chemistry is shockingly endearing. Meanwhile, Jake Johnson delivers generous helpings of outrageous humor, of both the politically incorrect and ribald varieties. You know that obnoxious guy you put up with because he is so unfiltered you want to hear whatever crazy thing he says next? Johnson nails that vibe as Schwensen (sort of like a Tom Hanks circa Bachelor Party). Poor Karan Soni is also good sport playing the Arnau, the nebbish straight-man intern, looking appropriately lost amid all the bedlam.

Helmed with sensitivity rarely seen in a genre send-up, Trevorrow nicely balances the comedic bravado with a humanistic sensibility. Indeed, Safety never moderates Calloway’s twitchiness, nor does it judge him. Yet the film offers an unmistakable rebuke to the urban hipster condescension for small town America. Don’t let the “from the producers of Little Miss Sunshine” copy line set off your quirky indie alarm bells. It is a film with a sharp edge and a big heart, but it always stays true to its geek roots. Thoroughly satisfying, Safety Not Guaranteed is enthusiastically recommended for general movie-going audiences when it opens this Friday (6/8) in New York, Los Angeles, Portland, and Seattle.

LFM GRADE: A

Posted on June 6th, 2012 at 10:10pm.

LFM Reviews While We Were Here

By Govindini Murty. Kat Coiro’s While We Were Here (see a clip above) is the latest in a tradition of stories about travelers whose lives are transformed by Italy. From Goethe’s famous trip to Italy and its echoes in his Wilhelm Meister novels to William Wyler’s Roman Holiday, Merchant Ivory’s A Room With a View, and Mike Newell’s Enchanted April, Italy has long worked its magic on voyagers to its mythic shores.

While We Were Here presents an understated variation on this familiar theme. Jane (Kate Bosworth), a quiet and somewhat melancholy writer, journeys to southern Italy with her husband, the dour Leonard (Iddo Goldberg). Leonard, a viola player, has been invited to perform in a concert in Naples. While Leonard spends his days in rehearsal, Jane wanders the streets of Naples, experiencing life at second-hand. The mediated nature of Jane’s existence is reinforced by the fact that rather than interact with any of the locals, she spends her time listening to tape-recorded conversations of her Grandmother Eves (Claire Bloom) discussing her experiences during WWII. All this is purportedly for a book that Jane is writing, but Grandma Eves’ lively reminiscences about life during the war form a pointed contrast to Jane’s anomie in the peace and plenty of the present. One day Jane makes an impulsive decision to take a ferry to the island of Ischia off the coast of Naples – and there falls into a romance with an American lad named Caleb (Jamie Blackley) living a carefree existence on the island.

Kate Bosworth and Jamie Blackley in "While We Were Here."

While We Were Here is essentially a three-character chamber drama that plays outdoors in the glorious settings of Naples and Ischia. All the character’s problems are of an internal nature. Jane and Leonard have marriage problems, but even as Jane tries to address them, the gloomy Leonard prefers to disappear into the work of his viola rehearsals. Jane wants to write a book about her grandmother’s experiences in WWII, but she’s worried she can’t make the book interesting because of a lack of engagement on her part.

Kate Bosworth as Jane.

As for Caleb, his disruptive influence on Jane and Leonard’s lives is overtly likened to that of Dionysus, with one scene taking place in a grape arbor on Ischia and Caleb himself somewhat resembling Caravaggio’s portrait of the vine-bedecked god. However, even as Caleb pursues Jane, he has no job and no plans for his life. He quotes Vittoria Colonna’s sonnets to Michelangelo as he and Jane tour an Aragonese castle, he takes Jane riding on a scooter and swimming in the ocean, but their relationship doesn’t seem destined for much more than that. Indeed, it seems to be her grandmother’s voice-over about the fun she had with her American and Belgian boyfriends during WWII that spurs Jane on to her affair with Caleb in the first place. Ultimately, Jane makes her own choices, but the person having the most fun with life in the film may just be Claire Bloom’s earthy, albeit unseen, Grandma Eves.

While We Were Here is not only an homage to the great “voyage to Italy” films, but, with its black and white cinematography, also evokes the look of classic Italian Neorealist drama. As Jane wanders through the narrow streets of Spaccanapoli, one would almost expect a young Sophia Loren, in her role as a voluptuous pizza maker in De Sica’s The Gold of Naples, to appear around the corner. And though Kate Bosworth might be the physical opposite of Sophia Loren, her slim blonde beauty and reserved quality do resemble that of such ‘60s actresses as the pixyish Jean Seberg from Godard’s Breathless (even down to the striped sailor top) and the cool, lovely Monica Vitti in Antonioni’s masterpiece of alienation, L’Avventura. Beyond looks though, Bosworth’s strong, sensitive acting forms the emotional core of the film (in particular in one standout scene with Goldberg’s Leonard), and she and Blackley have a number of amusing scenes in which their easy banter make the movie eminently watchable.

Romance in Italy.

Regardless, it’s enough for me that the film is set in Naples and Ischia. Naples is one of my favorite cities, and although I haven’t yet made it to Ischia (I opted for Capri instead on a trip some years ago), it was delightful to see again the streets and sights of old Neapolis. I have many fond memories of wandering the narrow thoroughfares of Spaccanapoli (under which lie ancient Roman streets), down the long Via Toledo, through the 19th century glass and wrought iron Galleria Umberto I, and into the Cafe Gambrinus (den of literati and revolutionaries) for an espresso. Other favorite sights that appear in the film include the Teatro San Carlo, the vast hemispherical Piazza del Plebiscito with its Neoclassical church, and the impressive facade of the Bourbon-era Palazzo Real. The latter in particular has a charming old library surrounded by dusty palm trees that overlook the massive walls of the medieval Castel Nuovo (only in a land as ancient as Italy is a medieval castle described as ‘new’!). Even if the film’s characters don’t seem to revel in their surroundings, we certainly can.

While We Were Here is a pleasant diversion for a sunny summer day – which is hopefully when this film will be released. Screening at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival, the film was produced by the same team behind the delightful With Great Power: The Stan Lee Story, and was recently picked up for distribution by Arclight Entertainment.

LFM GRADE: B+

June 6th, 2012 at 7:15pm.

Jaycee (Son of Jackie) Chan Takes Over the Family Business: LFM Reviews Double Trouble

By Joe Bendel. Some were skeptical when fifty-eight year old Jackie Chan announced his retirement from the action movie genre at Cannes. Whether this is one of those Depardieu retirements or he actually really means it, only time will tell. Regardless, the scheduling is fortuitous for the release of an old-fashioned action-comedy starring Chan’s son. Jaycee Chan steps into some big shoes as half of a pair of mismatched security guards trying to foil an art heist in David Hsun-wei Chang’s Double Trouble, which opens this Friday in New York.

Jay is a take-charge loose cannon, which earns him plenty of demerits for poor team-building skills. However, his reckless disregard for procedure is rooted in a tragic episode from an earlier period of his life. He is the one Taipei Palace museum guard an elite gang of art thieves would not want to tangle with, but he is the perfect candidate for a frame-up. Frankly, that was not part of the plan for two slinky Cat Woman-attired robbers, but the result of the bumbling interference of Ocean, the comic relief security guard-tourist visiting from Beijing. Dragging along Ocean is a lot like taking the proverbial accordion into battle, but Jay is forced to, for the sake of clearing his name.

As the earnest Jay, Jaycee Chan exhibits something of the rubber face and rubber bones that made his father an international movie-star. He also has a similarly likable on-screen demeanor. Unfortunately, Double Trouble is a bit too much like late Hollywood period Jackie Chan than his early cult favorites for fans to pronounce the baton has been fully passed. However, it is safe to say HK model Jessica C. (a.k.a. Jessica Cambensy) has arrived as an action femme fatale. After all, there is a reason she is on the poster with Chan, even though they are bitter foes in the film. As for his reluctant crime-fighting partner, a little of Xia Yu’s Ocean goes a long way.

Indeed, the bickering bromance is laid on rather thick and the humor is almost entirely of the slapstick variety. Nonetheless, the depiction of border-crossing friendship (and maybe even romance with another member of Ocean’s tour group, appealingly played by Deng Jiajia) is rather pleasant, because it never feels overly soapboxey or clumsily forced.

There are some nice stunts in Double and it also has Jessica C. going for it. It sincerely aims to please, but it is hardly has the grit or heft of a Police Story or even the relatively recent Shinjuku Incident. A harmless distraction, Double Trouble may indeed be remembered as a stepping stone for its promising young cast. It opens this Friday (6/8) in New York at the AMC Empire and Village 7, as well as in San Francisco at the AMC Cupertino and Metreon, courtesy of China Lion Entertainment.

LFM GRADE: C+

Posted on June 6th, 2012 at 10:01pm.