Monday, August 02, 2004
As I am older than the coveted 16-to-24 market, it's been a long time since I felt too young for a movie. But in watching Something's Gotta Give (2003) last night, I encountered that long-lost feeling. The movie started out promisingly enough, with some witty banter and comic situations as an unlikely crew of houseguests assembled in a conveniently posh Hamptons getaway. But it quickly became clear that I was going to be subjected to an endless number of macular degeneration jokes (that's where older people can't read things close up *or* far away).
This might have been cute, I suppose, if so many of the movie's presumptions -- or are they assumptions? -- weren't so patently unbelievable to me. I was appalled to learn that Jack Nicholson is still found attractive, particularly to young women, which is the premise of the movie to some extent. Even Diane Keaton, who is more appropriate for him age-wise, is way more together and foxy than he is. Jack is cool, but at this point he isn't really a viable "sexy older man."
Speaking of Diane Keaton, this movie was heralded as the best movie role she's had in ages -- as indeed it is. But it's too bad that the movie she was in isn't better.
It started out well enough. Even the "opposites attract" cliche romance was a little interesting at first, since it was based on actual conversations and situations that we, the viewers, got to hear and see. As the movie progressed, however, we were subjected to more and more musical interludes, where we can see the people in the movie talking and laughing, or looking meaningful in some way, but we couldn't *hear* the conversations, which made them just about meaningless. It's like the screenwriter actually wrote maybe 5 good conversations, and then for the rest of the script put the instructions "MAKE IT SEEM LIKE AN INTERESTING/PROFOUND CONVERSATION IS HAPPENING" whenever the going got rough.
(It's this sort of lazy writing that makes the movie Before Sunset (in theaters now) so remarkable in contrast. In that movie, the characters actually talk the whole time, and it's actually interesting for the whole 1.5 hours. Holy moly.)
What's really sticking in my craw about this movie is how irritating the Keanu Reeves character, Dr. Julian Somebodyorother, was. He was all smily and romantic and so BLAH it was sickening. And I know I am supposed to rejoice that this male character was disposable and one-dimensional -- as opposed to the typical female disposable and one-dimensional character -- and I suppose on principle I do ... but that didn't make him any less irritating. When he walked into a cafe in Paris with a scarf around his neck and a present for Diane, I just about barfed. It's almost enough to make you give Jack Nicholson a second look ... but not quite.
This might have been cute, I suppose, if so many of the movie's presumptions -- or are they assumptions? -- weren't so patently unbelievable to me. I was appalled to learn that Jack Nicholson is still found attractive, particularly to young women, which is the premise of the movie to some extent. Even Diane Keaton, who is more appropriate for him age-wise, is way more together and foxy than he is. Jack is cool, but at this point he isn't really a viable "sexy older man."
Speaking of Diane Keaton, this movie was heralded as the best movie role she's had in ages -- as indeed it is. But it's too bad that the movie she was in isn't better.
It started out well enough. Even the "opposites attract" cliche romance was a little interesting at first, since it was based on actual conversations and situations that we, the viewers, got to hear and see. As the movie progressed, however, we were subjected to more and more musical interludes, where we can see the people in the movie talking and laughing, or looking meaningful in some way, but we couldn't *hear* the conversations, which made them just about meaningless. It's like the screenwriter actually wrote maybe 5 good conversations, and then for the rest of the script put the instructions "MAKE IT SEEM LIKE AN INTERESTING/PROFOUND CONVERSATION IS HAPPENING" whenever the going got rough.
(It's this sort of lazy writing that makes the movie Before Sunset (in theaters now) so remarkable in contrast. In that movie, the characters actually talk the whole time, and it's actually interesting for the whole 1.5 hours. Holy moly.)
What's really sticking in my craw about this movie is how irritating the Keanu Reeves character, Dr. Julian Somebodyorother, was. He was all smily and romantic and so BLAH it was sickening. And I know I am supposed to rejoice that this male character was disposable and one-dimensional -- as opposed to the typical female disposable and one-dimensional character -- and I suppose on principle I do ... but that didn't make him any less irritating. When he walked into a cafe in Paris with a scarf around his neck and a present for Diane, I just about barfed. It's almost enough to make you give Jack Nicholson a second look ... but not quite.
// posted by Margaret @ 9:48 PM 
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