Deborah Lipp

This sucks. Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip is getting better and better. The relationships are more interesting, and the characters are developing in fascinating ways. I want more more more Studio 60.

Babel (2006) 10/10
The accidental shooting of an American tourist (Cate Blanchett) touches the lives of a poor Moroccan family, a Mexican nanny (Adriana Barraza), and a deaf Japanese schoolgirl (Rinko Kikuchi). Directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu.

You will probably think I’m making this up, but I swear I read two or three different capsule descriptions of this movie and still had no idea what I was going to see. The biggest hint is that this is a Iñárritu movie; he’s the guy who directed Amores Perros, which was also about a group of unconnected stories tied together by a single accident. Here, I think that the director has truly honed his skills. The stories flow back and forth from country to country without confusion, and the sense that they are tied together by an undercurrent of meaning is strong. The characters in Babel all long to reach through each moment of failed communication and somehow touch what they really want.

Nowhere is this more poignant than with Cheiko (Kikuchi), isolated by her deafness, she is far more isolated by grief at the death of her mother. More than anything, she wants to be an ordinary girl, but it’s hard to flirt with boys when you can’t hear them. She wants to be no different than her friends, but her grief isolates her. Her constant grasping for sexual contact is touching and sad. Kikuchi is brilliant in the role, although I think it’s a real shame that they hired a hearing actress to play a deaf character.

The part you’ve seen on TV or in previews involves Richard (Brad Pitt) and the shooting of his wife Susan (Blanchett). The incident, and his desperate struggle to get help for her, is magnificently filmed; claustrophobic, terrifying, infuriating. Perfect, too, is the intimacy between them; they have come to Morrocco for time to heal their marriage, yet still have enough physical ease for him to help her onto a makeshift bedpan with no pretense at shyness.

Susan was shot accidentally by a shepherd’s son who was target shooting, but soon the fear of terrorism has made the shooting an international incident, and the family is terrified. While police in Morrocco stand firm to the point of beating an elderly couple who may be connected to the rifle, they are exactly paralleled by immigration police on the Mexican-Canadian border. What is true about both sets of police is that doing their job prevents them from seeing the “Other” as human.

In Japan, a third police officer is forced to see the girl he questions as human in a poignant and lovely scene.

If all this sounds confusing, it isn’t. You always know where you are and who you’re dealing with. You always experience a powerful and authentic sense of place, something very important to me when I watch movies.

I was very pleased that, despite the drama, fear, and violence, Babel wasn’t overblown. I feared I’d see a death or tragedy or horrible coincidence in every scene, but, while terrible things happened, I never felt like I was being bludgeoned. Perhaps just because it felt real in some crucial way.

I know. What is wrong with me? I am addicted to the show and love watching it, and at the same time, watching it makes me think about these things.

So there was this one that I saw where people were nominating themselves, and they made over this woman who was petite and dressed like a schoolgirl. She was 26 and she looked 12. And she knew this was her issue but she didn’t know what to do about it. Which totally reminded me of what I said about “It takes a village.” I mean, where were her friends or family? Was there no one she could ask to go shopping with her? Okay, I get that being on TV looks fun, professionals are better at it than amateurs, and five thousand dollars rocks. I get all that. I also get that we are a profoundly isolated culture and that television professionals feel like our friends. Instead of, y’know, having friends.

In comments in my previous post, Roberta questioned how much anyone would welcome unsolicited advice. Which is a point, but here was a woman who actively sought out the advice, and apparently had no one to seek from except the people on the TV.

And then there was this other episode, and it reminded me of my first post, about how people seem to want clothing and consumerism to heal them. This woman had nothing but hand-me-downs, tons of them, and after the garbage can session she cried and said that having a lot of clothes and a very full closet made her feel safe.

Don’t get me wrong, these clothes were awful. But in what way is buying nicer clothes going to address her need to feel safe?

The Devil Wears Prada (2006) 6/10
Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway), a recent journalism graduate, takes a job as second assistant to the director of Runway Magazine, Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep). There she must contend with her demonic boss and the aspiring demon first assistant Emily (Emily Blunt).

The Devil Wears Prada is an extremely inconsequential movie that is 70% fashion show, 20% broad comedy, and 10% interesting. Yet there are several things about it that stick in my craw to an extent that I feel compelled, virtually against my will, to review it.

First, there’s Anne Hathaway. Hathaway has eyes the way Angelina Jolie has lips. They’re otherworldly eyes that landed here from Eye Planet to sit on Hathaway’s face and stare back at us with enormous dark wonder. Big fucking eyes.

But she’s not much of an actress, and so the dramatic arc that is supposed to comprise the “plot” of The Devil Wears Prada is not very visible. Supposedly, she goes into Runway Magazine all serious and journalistic and literary and sweet and cute and cuddly, but as she becomes good at her job in high fashion, and also becomes fashionable, she turns to the Dark Side and becomes a detestable fashionista bitch, alienating her friends and boyfriend (the reasonably cute Adrian Grenier). Then! Spoiler! She Sees the Light! And reverts to her incredibly sweet, literary-minded self who has no need of high fasion.

So, first of all, yuck. But secondly, she just doesn’t pull it off. What happens is sweet, wide-eyed dowdy Andy becomes sweet, wide-eyed, hot-looking and competent Andy, so why is that a bad thing again? At some point, her friends start telling her she’s gone to the Dark Side, and I’m thinking What? How? All she’s done is pretty up and work long hours. So what?

And, yeah, some friends. At the start, she tells her friends and boyfriend that it’s going to be a hellish job, working for a notoriously demanding bitch, but it will open a lot of doors for her, so she’ll stick it out for one year. And they all agree, yeah, good plan. Except within six months they’re all over her case for never being around and changing and becoming “one of them” and all. Yet, the movie seems firmly on their side. The entire script construction is telling us that Andy has become E-Vile. But I don’t see it. I see Andy bringing cool swag to her friends, which they lap up. Her buddy Lily (Tracie Thoms) adores the free Marc Jacobs bag that retails for $1100, and still bitches Andy out for working hard at the high-stress job that brings home the goodies.

They also start to get pissy with her when she develops sympathy for the evil boss. Guess things are supposed to stay black and white. I mean, the movie relies so much on a conventional script, the kind where you know not just exactly what’s going to happen, but exactly what’s supposed to happen, that you do all the work. Except in this case, it really felt like the script wasn’t even coming along for the ride.

Of course, yes, Streep is great as Cruella de Ville Miranda Priestly, and she manages to bring substance to the role. And Stanley Tucci is lovely in his turn as a put-upon and good-hearted designer. But is that enough? Hell, no. It’s so utterly not enough that it’s a real shame for Streep to get the nomination for this film.

Before I update my score, allow me to assure you that I know this is crazy. Neurotic. Bizarrely obsessional. But fuck, it’s only once a year and I’m entertaining myself. I’m totally into seeing as many nominated films as possible. I saw Letters from Iwo Jima last night, and I have a date next Wednesday to see Babel with my friend Meri Sue, so that’ll up all my numbers as well.

As of now, I’ve seen six of the fifteen films with “major” nominations; four Best Picture nominees plus Dreamgirls and The Devil Wears Prada. I love me.

Here are the nominees in the five major categories:

» Read more..

My score keeps climbing. Saw The Devil Wears Prada tonight, which was so not worth it, but it did up my numbers to 5/15 major nominations, 8/45 nominations for all full-length films.

Gotta say, it’s a crime that Streep can be nominated for that, in the same year she did Prairie Home Companion. I mean, wonderful in both, but still.

Little Miss Sunshine (2006) 10/10
Seven year-old Olive (Abigail Breslin) dreams of winning a beauty contest. When she gets the opportunity to enter the Little Miss Sunshine contest, the entire dysfunctional family piles into the old van to get her there.

(This is a continuation of a conversation between oddjob and myself in comments, and also draws on a really good conversation I had this evening with my step-sister Victoria.)

In every blurb and write-up about Little Miss Sunshine, the family is referred to as dysfunctional. Which is some sort of shorthand for kooky and unhappy. Looking back, I’m not actually 100% sure that they are all that dysfunctional, except for Uncle Frank (Steve Carell), who recently attempted suicide. That’s dysfunctional. The father (Greg Kinnear) can’t get his career as a motivational speaker off the ground. His “motivation” is kind of mean-spirited, and his family doesn’t let him get away with much of it. Which makes him kind of a failure and kind of a bastard, and a little clueless, but I’m not sure I’d use the word “dysfunctional” for him. The mom (Toni Collette) is overwhelmed by her family and her life, and angry that her husband isn’t bringing in any money. Which makes her very, very normal.

Overall I think these people are a little sad, a little offbeat, and very touching. They are not hurting each other except in the small ordinary ways that people can’t help. I’m just realizing this now, but maybe what I liked so much about Little Miss Sunshine is the family isn’t all that dysfunctional. The preview would have you believe that Grandpa (Alan Arkin) is creepy and that the family is insane, but he’s not and they’re not.

Olive wants to be in a beauty contest, but bizarrely, and delightfully, she is unaware that she’s kind of fat (the actress wears a fat suit). She is utterly unsuited for the beauty contest that is the world, as is the rest of this family. (Which, again, doesn’t make them dysfunctional). “Life,” Dwayne (Paul Dano, who is my favorite part of the movie) tells us, “Is one fucking beauty contest after another.” And these people will persist in not winning beauty contests. Of course, beauty contests are insane, and this movie makes the best case since King of Hearts that the asylum is the world and the inmates are the ones who’ve noticed.

What worries me about Little Miss Sunshine is that people are laughing at how nutty the Hoover family is, and maybe I’m the only one who is actually moved by them. Everyone sold me this movie as a comedy, and yes, it’s funny in parts. Some good slapstick, some witty lines, some flat-out enjoyable silliness. But I’ve come away from it thinking, not giggling.

Saw Little Miss Sunshine last night. So now it’s 4/15 major nominations, 7/45 nominations of any length film.

I am rocking this.

Saw The Queen tonight, so the score is now 3 and 6.