Scenes: The 40 Year Old…
I wanna start this post with a little farewell.
ph. Universal
Aquaman, with gloves on. I’ll send you on a farm, with lots of land so you and other Aquamen can run around. Play in the aquafields.
For some reason, I thought of that line as Steve Carrell making fun of his character, Andy.
And before I start talking about the scene, I just wanna air our a ‘style guide’ item. Do not call a woman or a female character shrill even if. Ever. It’s like calling a black person or character articulate.
But here I am sort of breaking my rules by talking about a scene in The 40 Year Old Virgin, where we’re a few generations after free love but we still have problems. Fine, the scene isn’t directed in a way that I would think a well-directed scene would be. How did Trish (Catherine Keener) even find out that her daughter Marla (Kat Dennings) wants to have sex? How are they still yelling at each other in between Andy’s bike ride to her house? How near does she live from the store? However, this is a comedy, and I don’t know the rules for that yet. And you know what, I like Catherine Keener here. She bellows at her daughter, believably softens a little to Andy and to figure out what Marla is saying and gradually brings her volume back up for Marla. Watching them go at each other makes my throat hurt.
I love the exchange here.”Oh, mistake. Okay, so I was a mistake then?” “Oh, you’re not a mistake. Your sister was the mistake!” Or “Oh my God, are you kidding? We never have sex! Do we ever have sex?” “No we don’t.” “Ah-ha!” “What?! You do, you’re such a liar! Why are you lying to me! Why?” And Marla says something about boyfriend and go. They realistically show their emotions on top of their lines. Some fights don’t have high and low volume times, they’re just fights. And one of the greatest ones I’ve seen under 90 seconds.
She shows she has a life outside and before her boyfriend. It’s arguable that she is or isn’t a perfect mother but she’s protective and has good intentions. Trish is comfortable enough to introduce Andy to her ‘real family,’ opening up to her flaws. She asks “Oh God, you wanna run away, don’t you?” and like a gentleman, Andy doesn’t. Because Andy has his own flaws and secrets too.
Related Articles
- Interview: Steve Carrell (guardian.co.uk)
Singin’ in the Dark!
Hey, it’s Lucy from “The Office UK“/”Studio 60″/”Ugly Betty.”I don’t know which one of those shows that she had a character named Lucy but I’m gonna call her Lucy anyway. And a guy who plays Poppy’s (Sally Hawkins) brother-in-law in Happy Go Lucky. I swear casts in British films are so incestuous, although they never mix the ‘rich’ ones with the ‘poor’ ones. The one on the middle is Simon Pegg and the one who’s back is facing the audience is a zombie.
His name is Eddie…Paulson? Fact! The first time I saw this film was at Daylight Savings Time at Much More Music. Technically the movie went on for an hour. I also can’t remember how it ends. I’ve always been afraid to watch the movie on the big screen because apparently if you mess up the words, you get stripped in front of everyone. Anyway, Meat Loaf is telling off that boy something fierce. Also, why does every ‘bad’ movie between 1967 to 1980 need a muscle-y blonde man bimbo? That rule still exists today, a muscle-y blonde man bimbo appears as a character in Xavier Dolan’s Heartbeats.
Was Alfred Molina ever this skinny? Is my question too generous? Although I’ve only seen it enough to get the gist of it, I have the DVD here and my rusty French translates the title to Nights of the Devil or Diabolical Nights or something.
Ohh, Gaad! Anyway, I’ve always thought of Mr. Blonde (Michael Madsen) as Quentin Tarantino‘s on-screen double. Also, Coconut is so the best song in this movie.
Note to Americans: only the gay Canadians have the ‘beady little eyes.’ And fine, it’s funny hearing Anne Murray being called a bitch.
If I was a Congressman, I’d make America F**k Yeah the national anthem. Although best part of this film involves its parody of Susan Sarandon. And I usually hate homophobia in film, but seeing Tim Robbins and Sean Penn be called F.A.G.’s seemed really funny. Well, mostly because I hate Sean Penn.
After the Team America clip, we have this, and for a split second the curtains and the wallpaper made me think of the balcony space in ‘The Muppets.’ But no, this is a real person from Blue Velvet‘s wacky world. There’s always interludes of 1960’s American songs, and we thank David Lynch for seeing something dark in that decade. Speaking of the 60’s, I wonder what would happen if David Lynch directed an episode of “Mad Men.” Oh wait, that already happened.
Sookie! When I yelled that at the screen, the hipsters in front of me laughed. Funny thing is I don’t even watch “True Blood.” And again, I didn’t even know she was in this movie, especially since I loved Anna Paquin as a child. I previously blogged about how I hate Kate Hudson, but I kinda like her again here. Here her face still looks like that of an awkward teenager’s, and it’s still mesmerizing to watch her sing. I declare an Almost Famous curse, because the cast members except Billy Crudup ended up doing bad movies. Well, Paquin did have 25th Hour, and she’s better than doppelgänger Claire Danes can aspire to be.
I’m so ashamed to not know the lyrics to this song, because my dad is like the biggest Tears for Fears fan and I listened to this stuff in high school. My dad thinks the members of Tears for Fears met in a mental ward. Anyway, my favourite movie in high school, and one that needs revisiting stat! Also, when Donnie (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Gretchen (Jena Malone) kiss. Joy Division has never been better used in a soundtrack.
Joseph Gordon Levitt for mayor! Although Joe Levitt would sound like he’s running in the South.
Dance, white boy, dance!
‘Singin’ in the Dark’ programmer Shawn Hitchins says that this is what it’s gonna be like if Rob Ford gets elected for mayor. Best film criticism I’ve heard all year.
Courtney Love auditioned for the role of Nancy in… Sid and Nancy, but the casting agents considered her too young and it went to Chloe Webb. Love thanks the gods for not giving her the role because British TV called Chloe Webb ugly. I agree. And was Gary Oldman ever that young?
And we end this ding along with blasphemy. This is both optimistic and cynical. The Eric Idle character tries to comfort us, but they all end up alone and deserted, no one venerating them for their deaths. Yet.
Multitude of thanks to Hitchins for giving me the list of movies he chose for his sing along “Singin’ in the Dark” as part of this year’s Nuit Blanche, which is like the only event in my calendar. Photos courtesy of Universal (Shaun of the Dead, Blues Brothers) 20th Century Fox (Rocky Horror Picture Show), Alliance Atlantis (Boogie Nights) Miramax (Reservoir Dogs), Paramount (South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut), Pandora Films (Donnie Darko), MGM (Blue Velvet, Sid and Nancy), Fox Searchlight (500 Days of Summer) Warner Brothers’ Pictures (A Clockwork Orange), HandMade Films (Life of Brian).
Fellini’s Women Don’t Walk, They…
This is a part of Nathaniel R’s Hit Me With Your Best Shot series, starring Anita Ekberg, CEO of LOLCats, and Marcello Mastroianni, curator of cool.
I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with Federico Fellini‘s work, mostly on the love side. There’s like one or two films of his that seem insipid and enforced schoolboy attitudes. But for the most part, he’s the guy that the stereotypically pretentious cineastes like, which is ironic because he’s so fun and silly and childlike and playful. This week, Nathaniel’s doing La Dolce Vita. I try my best in writing the most intelligent film criticism I can, but do you really want erudition out of a movie about Italians in their thirties partying it up?
This movie was also my introduction to Anouk Aimee. I like her better here than in 8 1/2, but then I always like the flirt over the neglected wife.
The picture above will also be the gayest moment in a Fellini film, second to all of Satyricon. Although someone correct me if I’m wrong.
Nonetheless, here’s my favourite shot/sequence is the last one. It’s the morning after a party, two of the women spot a commotion on the beach. And of course, Fellini women don’t walk, they saunter. I don’t even remember the shots being like this. I remember them all walking to the beach from the right hand side of the screen. But really they walk through the forest area from the right hand side of the screen and they walk on the beach with their backs facing the audience. And of course I don’t remember how much the forest looks like a backdrop, but then those ‘painted’ trees look like they have dimension. I’m not gonna cheat and look up on iMDb whether Fellini filmed this in a studio or not. I just love how surreal the shot is. Not Bunuel surreal, no offense to him, but fun, playtime surreal.
This one
Here’s Marcello (Mastroianni) looking as fresh as an 18-year-old. I also don’t remember the film being almost three hours long, but if I was having this much fun, this movie could have gone on all night long.
La Dolce Vita is playing today at October 10 and November 9 at the Bell Lightbox, but I kinda wanna see Rules of the Game too.
Okinawa Assault 