The Town (2010) 8/10
For Doug MacRay (Ben Affleck), Jim Coughlin (Jeremy Renner), and their friends, bank robbery is the family business. They live in the Charlestown section of Boston, a center for bank and armored car robbery. Now Doug wants out. He’s falling for Claire (Rebecca Hall) and the FBI is looking into his last robbery. But getting out isn’t going to be easy. Directed by Ben Affleck.
The Town makes an art of gritty, but it still looks good. Maybe I should say Affleck can’t make up his mind, but instead I feel like he recognizes the fine line between realistic and annoying. There’s certainly a trend towards documentary-style, hand-held, muted colors, and the like, to broadcast to the audience, “Hey, we’re authentic!” Yeah, sure. What Affleck does is cut in little bits of grittier filming, blended with a more conventional look, and it works. It’s important, because it’s the kind of movie where people say “the city is a character,” and so you do have to feel the locations. There’s a strong sense here of alleys, bars, shops, crappy apartments, gentrification—the whole way in which a city lives, breaths, and grows.
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Tag Archive for Jon Hamm
Monday Movie Review: The Town
Monday Movie Review: Kissing Jessica Stein
Kissing Jessica Stein (2001) 10/10
Jessica Stein (Jennifer Westfeldt) is a neurotic, brainy single woman seeking a man. Helen Cooper (Heather Jurgensen) is a sexually voracious woman eager to try the one thing she hasn’t tried: sex with a woman. Despite Jessica’s misgivings, they tentatively enter into a relationship.
This is one of my favorite movies, and I’ve seen it several times. Looking back, I see I’ve included it in Tuesday Trivia no less than three times. Yet I’ve never reviewed it here! It’s come up in conversation lately, since I’m going to L.A. and might be meeting Jon Hamm, (!) and Jennifer Westfeldt is his long-time girlfriend (Hamm has a small role in the movie). So, having said how much I loved it during the day, we sat down and watched it this evening.
It has all the great things you could want in a romantic comedy. It is witty, it is character-driven; populated by real people with real lives; every supporting player has motivation and personality. Take Jessica’s friend Joan (Jackie Hoffman). She’s riotously funny, and moves the plot along in exactly the way a conveniently-placed friend must. She’s also a fleshed-out person with her own trajectory in life.
Speaking of characters, Tovah Feldshuh as Jessica’s mother really enriches this movie. She only ever gets to play the one role in movies, but she’s magical in it every time.
Kissing Jessica Stein is frankly, boldly sexual, and very funny about sex. I have to say that “I was surprised to learn that lesbians accessorized,” is one of my all-time favorite quotes, and there is a funny bit about blow-jobs that brings tears to my eyes.
What gets me most about it is that it’s one of those movies, like The Object of My Affection (but way better), that explores the strange gray region between friendship and romance; between love and “love,” and does it brilliantly.
