Easy A

In Easy A, Emma Stone plays the daughter of Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson.  I was already a Stanley Tucci fan and a Patricia Clarkson fan – I’m now an Emma Stone fan, as well.

Here’s the setup:  Stone plays Olive, a nerdy high school girl who’s embarrassed to admit to her best friend that she stayed home all weekend.  She concocts a story about a first sexual experience with a college boy, and she soon finds herself with a “reputation.”  One thing leads to another, and before she knows it she has a client list of social outcasts for whom she provides stories of imaginary sexual acrobatics in return for things like Bed Bath & Beyond gift cards.  As one can imagine, things spin out of control.

Holding it all together is Ms. Stone, who gives Olive a sweet combination of brains, comic sensibility, and pluck.  Stone, who was fantastic in Superbad and Zombieland, rolls into the A-list here, holding her own with Tucci and Clarkson and lighting up every minute she holds the screen.

Easy A is funny and brisk and thoroughly enjoyable, and much of that is due to Stone’s Charisma.  I understand she’s going to play Gwen Stacy in the new iteration of Spider-Man.  For the first time, I’m interested.

Jumanji

In my review of SITA SINGS THE BLUES, I noted that most of the films we see are achingly average. For Exhibit A, I present to you JUMANJI, a feature-length adaptation of a picture book by Chris van Allsburg. The picture book, a trifling story that gives van Allsburg an excuse to draw things like monkeys making a mess of a kitchen and rhinos charging down Main Street, gets the full Hollywood treatment. It’s shoehorned into a three act structure about a kid who learns to deal with fear, it gets Robin Williams as a star, and it’s a full-throated combination of CGI and practical effects that veers between fun and terrifying, depending on the viewer’s combination of wildlife and insect – related phobias. (Yeah, yeah. I know. Arachnids aren’t insects. Everyone loves a pedant.)

While some of the effects are quite good (I particularly loved the giant plastic spiders – fishing line and all.), JUMANJI doesn’t plant the combination of danger and adventure. Its world is so dangerous that it’s hard to have much fun in it. That leaves the kids out, and it makes the parents so conscious of the effect it may be having on their kids that it leaves them out, as well.

Still, stars Williams, Kirsten Dunst, Bradley Pierce, and Bonnie Hunt do professional work, and I’m a sucker for father-son relationship stuff, so I’m not willing to call JUMANJI a right-out failure. It’s just achingly average, like so much else we see.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Vicky Christina Barcelona

Sorry, I just don’t care about anybody in VICKY CHRISTINA BARCELONA.

Look, I’ve got a wife, two jobs, three kids, a dog, a house, and the very real possibility of an airline furlough on the horizon. I find it difficult to get lost in the problems of wealthy young people with worthless educations and too many options.

The feckless rich girl must leave the wealthy artist’s household because of her restlessness? Frak you.

The wealthy artist is locked in a destructive relationship with the crazy lady? Frak you.

The aimless rich girl must choose between the wealthy artist and the wealthy banker? Frak you and enjoy his bonus check.

I mean, hey, I’m all for the glamorous rich. I love it when they dance around in Fred Astaire movies or banter with Groucho. But I just don’t have time for the sun-drenched parasites in this movie.

Next.

Lars and the Real Girl

I recently spent several paragraphs elaborating on the word "charming" as it related to ONCE. While there's nothing effortless about filmmaking, ONCE feels effortlessly charming, like it just happened. LARS AND THE REAL GIRL, however, works so hard at being charming that we can practically hear the servos hiss, gears turn, and ropes creak in the background.

Lars (Ryan Gosling) is socially handicapped. He is so painfully shy that human touches feel like burns, and he can barely speak even with his own brother. Margo works with Lars, and something about him seems to capture her imagination. But Lars can't see it, can't see anything, for he's too busy hiding behind his walls. Lars is drowning; he needs something to latch on to. He latches on to a doll. Not an action figure or a teddy bear, like his marginally better adjusted officemates, but a life sized Real Doll, a sex toy he names Bianca and invests with a past, a personality, even an attitude.

The charming part comes in when we see how his family, his friends, his town respond to Bianca. For Lars, you see, lives in the kindest, most forgiving, most loving town in the world. In fact, I'd say it's downright charming. In Lars's town, the citizens see Bianca for what she is: training wheels for Lars as he relearns socialization. In Lars's town, an ambulance will respond to a 911 call for a doll, and doctors and nurses are happy to get involved (Lars also benefits from a charming insurance company, I presume.). In Lars's town, the guys from the hardware store even bowl with Lars, Bianca, and (you saw it coming) Margo. Charming.

But there can be a fine line between charming and precious, and LARS AND THE REAL GIRL crosses right over it. The music is too precious. Lars himself is somewhat precious. And the conceit that an entire town, and not just a few core supporters, would be willing to play along with Lars is just too precious.

And yet, I'm a sucker for charming. So I liked this movie, even if I can't wholeheartedly recommend it. See it with something inanimate.