Postcards from the Edge

Directed by Mike Nichols (1990) Novel & Screenplay by Carrie Fisher

Starring: Meryl Streep, Shirley MacLaine, Dennis Quaid, Gene Hackman, Richard Dreyfuss

Suzanne Vale (Streep) overdoses on pills and cocaine.  She’s sent to rehab, and once she gets out it’s written in her contract that she must live with a responsible party for her next film.  She moves in with her mother, Doris Mann (MacLaine), an alcoholic in denial.

The movie is centered around the mother-daughter relationship, while Suzanne works on her movie.  Her mother is bombastic, and Suzanne switches between loving her and hating her for it.  It’s a film built off performances, and Streep is a knock out. While she’s tempted by her co-star’s prescription drugs, hesitatingly starts a relationship with Jack Faulkner (Quaid), and is told three times over that her acting while off drugs isn’t top-notch.

It’s a very Hollywood movie, with scenes of Suzanne in costume moving from set to set.  While she’s walking to her car, she see seemingly talks to Jack on a suburban street, until a crew comes by to take the houses and white picket fences away.  Doris Mann is a vestige of Classic Hollywood, and MacLaine gives her best poise in that arena, replete with a song and dance number at Suzanne’s coming home party.  All of these items set the movie in a particular time and place, and while we could have another Postcards from the Edge in our time, I don’t see it done half as well or with the same kind of wit.

What the film makes plain is that recovering from addiction depends on the people there for support.  While a nagging mother and three picky executive producers can make turning back to drugs desirable, a fellow addict and a director who’s as much a friend as a cohort can help make life easier.

 

 

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

Time to take up drinking.  Ugggghhhhh…

Image from http://www.reviewstl.com/gi-joe-movie-review/

Directed by Stephen Sommers (2009): Starring: Adwale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Christopher Eccleston, Sienna Miller, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Byun-hun Lee, Rachel Nichols, Ray Park, Channing Tatum, Marlon Wayans, Dennis Quaid

I had next to no expectations coming into this movie, besides my friend’s commendation that it’s hilariously bad.  And so it is.

Some Notes:

1) Christopher Eccleston and Joseph Gordon-Levitt are villains here.  Way to make me root for the bad guys, movie.  It doesn’t help that while watching, I discover that Byun-hun Lee is marvelous and Sienna Miller is really only good when she’s evil.

2) The lead up to the Paris set piece here is that McCullen wants to get revenge on the French for torturing his ancestor.  And this probably has something to do with his wearing a ruby pin the entire time, I don’t know.

3) The CGI is really bad in some places, but really good in others.  Why?  It already looks like they’re spending the entire budget on special effects, so why scrimp on the CG in certain scenes?  I don’t understand.

4)I missed the Brendan Fraser cameo.  Was it towards the beginning, when I wasn’t paying any attention?  Although I like that he invented that his character is a descendant of Rick O’Connell.

5) Explosion-riffic. So that’s… something.

6) Okay, this goes back to “Way to Make me Root for the Baddies.”  While I’m not saying the performances were all that great, the villains definitely get the best of the writing in this movie.  Even Eccleston’s “menacing” lines are better than the half-hearted jokes Marlon Wayans is given. JoGo’s voice as the eeeeevil Dok-tor entertains me as well, although I’m curious to know if that’s his voice transmografied or with a different voice actor or what.

7) Sienna Miller’s character is called Baroness because she… married a Baron?  Who’s name is “Baron de Cobray,” by the way. For fuck’s sake.  Meanwhile, she’s passing when she’s evil, but when she plays her “good” self, she’s really annoying and fake.  Besides Casanova, I can’t think of another movie that I’ve seen her in and I can’t recall if she was any good in that. I also hold that while she can rock out wearing the glasses, that shade of brown just doesn’t suit her.

8 ) It’s another case of the White Kid is Better at You in Ninja School.  I always thought Snake Eyes was Asian-Anerican, but my knowledge of G.I. Joe is hazy.

9) While I’m not knocking how the flashbacks are segued into the story (usually some object in the scene sparks off a memory), it’s usually jolting enough to through off the pacing.  A large portion of the movie is flashbacks, and it becomes distracting.

10) I really hope that the villains just hang out and mess with their cell phones for the sequel, while the good guys are all Action Packed.  They might as well jump the shark in this franchise and make it completely tongue in cheek humor.