Out in Theaters

I haven't seen many movies lately due to my new Fall schedule but am still reading about movies and anticipating movies that will be coming out in theaters. Out in theaters now or soon (not where I live, but anyhoo) is Dedication with Mandy Moore, Billy Crudup and Tom Wilkinson. Sounds pretty good but is another movie from the male angst point of view. And i'm also interested in The Hottest State based on a novel by Ethan Hawke though haven't read the reviews yet. Also, Startdust, the fantasy novel that is The Princess Bridesque movie intrigues me especially since it has one of my favorite actresses Claire Danes. Unfortunately The Nanny Diaries is getting tepid reviews so that might be a renter for me. And SuperBad is getting super reviews. Yet another movie about sex-crazed adolescents boys but I'll probably see it anyway. That's all from the movie lap top.

A Jane Austen Fanatic goes to Becoming Jane

When a Jane Austen fanatic, such as myself, goes to see a movie imagining what the real Jane Austen was like, well she enters the theater with both excitement and fear.
What will she find? How can she separate the Jane she knows and created in her own mind from the Jane played by Anne Hathaway on screen?
Well, the experience wasn't as jarring as it could have been. I was able to keep my own image of Jane safely maintained and enjoyed this movie-screen version of Jane (a totally different one than the one I know)-- way too passionate, way too pretty, and way too love-struck teenager.
Apart from this disconnect, I enjoyed the movie. I liked the lovely scenery, the snippets of scenes from Jane Austen's novels, and the sassy and sexy talking Tom LeFroy played by James McAvoy, last seen in the Last King of Scotland. He didn't seem like any kind of Jane Austen hero that I ever knew but what the hey.
Don't get me started on the implausibilities in Becoming Jane because I could go on -- about a weird parental scene at the beginning of the movie, or virulent boxing, or the cricket playing Jane, or writing Pride and Prejudice in a night on so forth. But I will spare you.
All in all, my Jane, still in tact, Anne Hathaway's Jane, cute and ultimately not that memorable.

Zodiac

I just saw Zodiac, out on DVD, a movie about a real-life serial killer, The Zodiac, who killed during the sixties and seventies in the San Francisco Bay area. Really though the movie is about a cartoonist who becomes obsessed by the case and later writes two books about it. Jake Gyllenhaal plays the cartoonist -- supporting characters of note are Mark Ruffalo as the beleaguered detective, and fellow newspaper man Robert Downey Jr. deliciously playing the role of the newspaper man gone nutty over case -- he's got some great lines in this movie. He actually becomes a completely destroyed alcoholic, which is interesting given Downey's problems with substance abuse. When I first started watching the movie I was giddy with excitement. I love movies set in a newspaper room, and I love movies where their is an intriguing problem for the actors to chew on. However, the movie kinda strays as it goes on and you start to wonder why the cartoonist is getting so obsessed, he even gets his kids in on solving the mystery of the killer's identity, but all in all Zodiac is worth watching even though it has a less than satisfying ending.

Dream Girls

So I finally saw Dream Girls. I am not much for movies with a lot of singing -- bores me -- but felt I needed to see such a much talked about movie. I liked the Effie character and was wowed by her voice, but felt the movie was kinda dumb overall and some of the break into singing/ trying to advance the plot scenes (ie the used car lot scene) were just cheese ball. Jamie Fox, who I really like in other films, just seemed to have one look, sort of a dumbfounded furrowed brow stare. He seemed personalityless. Well, I can mark viewing Dream Girls off my to do list. Phew!

David Denby's "A Fine Romance"

David Denby, movie critic for The New Yorker, wrote in the July 23rd issue about the modern romantic comedy. He compares today's romantic comedies with ones of the 30s such as It Happened one Night and The Philadelphia story where the man is the "love object" and the woman the "pursuer". He describes the modern romance film of the last 10 years such as High Fidelity, The Break Up, and Knocked Up as the slacker-striver romance: Man a good-natured slob and woman an intense career driven beauty with little spirit.
This article really struck me because I have always found this view of women in these modern films annoying where the men act like children who like being silly and having a good time and the woman are their disapproving mothers. Yuck! Why can't the woman be silly and goofy. And why would these accomplished woman want to be with these slovenly men? It seems to me that this view of men and women is depicted in many aspects of our media, commercials, Sitcoms etc. Why isn't the woman fun anymore? And if I were a man I would be offended by this view of themselves, ambitionless losers who are kinda cute but without much substance.
Perhaps this view mirrors our society where woman who work full-time, raise children, and keep a household together, seem to lose their sense of humour, while men look for escape routes from the modern expectations placed upon them.
I don't know. But I like the term "slacker-striver" -- it really hits the nail on the head, and I look for modern movies that go beyond this simplistic view of women and men.