Present tense, imperative mood

Ruby Sparks

Crit

Wow! I was fully prepared to be unimpressed by this, but instead it's in competition with Moonrise Kingdom for my favorite of the year so far.

It's the Pygmalion myth, of course, except with prose fiction instead of clay, but in terms of cinema it owes much less to the best-known adaptation of that theme than it does to Vertigo and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind--which is to say that it's far darker than I anticipated, with as squirm-inducing a sequence as you'll ever see. That ethical issues are allowed to intrude on an ostensible romantic comedy about a creation coming to life is unsurprising; that Hollywood would allow a sweet-natured boy played by the angelically baby-faced Paul Dano to make such an ethical hash of things is as unnerving as it was for people who were surprised to see James Stewart's Scottie Ferguson turned into such a manipulative monster by Hitchcock.

The screenplay is by Zoe Kazan, who plays the title character-character and who proves herself to be not merely the cutest young woman on the screen today, though she is that. Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, who discovered Dano for Little Miss Sunshine, directed.

Trailers

• Won't Back Down--Parents stage a revolution to fix a failing school; looks ever so inspirational.
• The Master--Philip Seymour Hoffman as a spiritual guru, Joaquin Phoenix as a messed-up guy who seems in the market for same. Oh! Just noticed: directed by P. T. Anderson.

As if you'd seen a ghost

My Favorite Wife

(1940)

You know, if Gail Patrick's third wheel were as sympathetic as Randolph Scott's fourth, this would be a practically perfect comedy. But poor Patrick, whom I just saw in My Man Godfrey: did she ever get to play anything but a spoiled rich bitch?

Cary Grant's 45-degree-angle take when his Nick first spies his ostensibly late wife (Irene Dunne, never lovelier) may be his best single comic moment ever, which is tall cotton.

Shag the dog

The Campaign

Crit

If this had hit its comedic peak consistently, it would have been one of the great political comedies ever. As is, it's often hilarious, and sometimes even effective in making serious points about the massive role of money in the political system--it's worth your 8 bucks and your 85 minutes, though maybe wouldn't be worth $11 and 100m.

Trailers

• Trouble with the Curve--Eastwood (acting only), Amy Adams, and baseball: it's a math equation.
• This Is 40--"Sort of a sequel to Knocked Up"; it's a maybe.
• Silver Linings Playbook--Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper crazy in love.

Even though you're nowhere near me

High Fidelity

(2000)

Oh, gosh, would that it were that easy. This has always seemed pretty nearly perfect to me before, and I still love it dearly, but whoosh! we go from Rob and Laura being apart to Rob and Laura (and how can I never before have noticed the "Rob and Laura" of it? It could have been set in New Rochelle?) being back together, and, postreconciliation, from Rob still exhibiting symptoms of Peter Pan Syndrome to his being completely cured at a pace inconsistent with the rest of the film. Still . . . quibbles.

All my changes were there

Neil Young Journeys

Crit

Geez, for a peaceful man, Shakey (or maybe just director Jonathan Demme) has bullets flying in his first three songs, whether the targets are buffalo, midwestern college kids, or "my baby."

The concert is at Massey Hall in Toronto, but Demme intercuts footage of Young driving around in his childhood town in north Ontario--yes, the quotation of "Helpless" is his own, telegraphing the end-credits music--in fact, not one but two small towns where he did lots of stupid stuff that he gleefully narrates (being convinced by a prankster, for example, that road tar tastes like chocolate--but not at first, so you have to stay with it).

Young has aged into a facial resemblance to a benign Jack Nicholson, and watching him up close is an ugly delight--one of my favorite concert films, which makes Demme pretty much the king of that genre,

Trailers

• The Sessions--Didn't even recognize John Hawkes as the polio patient who is signing up for sex therapy. "Based on a true story," could be pretty syrupy.

Mad men

Vincent & Theo

(1990)

Tim Roth's Vincent van Gogh wears a constant expression that gives no clue what he'll do next, except that it seems unlikely not to be disastrous, which may explain why his brother, as played by Paul Rhys, wears a constant expression suggesting that he has no clue what might be coming next, except that he seems certain that it will be disastrous. A very un-Altmanesque film from Altman, about mad brothers, conjoined at the heart.

Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, . . .

Terminator 2: Judgment Day

(1991)

Nah, I wasn't really ever gonna term--, er, deaccession this. Fact is, there just aren't a lot of good deaccession candidates left (which is a good thing), so Friday night is evolving into the night when I just watch something I haven't seen for at least 5 years. When soccer season kicks in and I start filling my DVR with excess matches, then maybe I'll start deaccessioning films I have saved there.

Anyway, this is at least a half-hour longer than it ought to be (half of that excess was added for the DVD release, I guess), and it's got more sentimental bilge sloshing around its decks than that movie Cameron made about the boat and the berg, but when it kicks ass, it kicks ass of Schwarzeneggerian proportions. Speaking of whom, I was wondering at the start whether the fact that Arnold plays a good-guy Terminator this time was known or widely suspected by the time the picture was released; hope not: the audience should have had the same reluctance to trust him that the Connors do.

And speaking of Sarah Connor, I do recall that much was written at the time about Linda Hamilton's extraordinary physical transformation for the film, and it's as impressive as ever, if her acting is no more so than ever: she's as much a sexless death machine as any Terminator. The special effects, too--especially those pertaining to the T-1000--while not as mind-boggling as two decades ago, are still worth the trip. Summer eye candy at its best.