A married pair of ex-urbanites relocates to a small village in hopes of starting a family, only to receive an unexpected surprise thanks to a mix-up at the adoption agency. Sven and Göran are finally set to realize their shared dream of becoming parents. In preparation, the happy couple even decides to leave city life behind in favor of moving to a quaint village in the country. Unfortunately, the local villagers don't exactly extend a warm welcome to the optimistic couple; while some greet them with outright hostility, most are content simply to shun them. Upon receiving news that the adoption agency was unable to locate a suitable international baby, Sven and Göran agree to take in a local orphan. On paper, Patrik was listed as being age 1.5, though upon meeting their new adopted child it quickly becomes apparent to Sven and Göran that someone misplaced a decimal point. In reality, Patrik is a homophobic 15-year-old juvenile delinquent who's none too happy about being taken in by a pair of aging gay men. Still, Göran recognizes that Patrik needs a home, and agrees to put the openly hostile boy up until he and Sven can find a more suitable place for him to live. But former street punk Sven isn't quite as accommodating due to the fact that he knows well what a young ruffian such as Patrik may be capable of. Over time, Sven's trepidation about Patrik prompts him to confront not only his own misgivings about marriage and suburban living, but his long-buried feelings about his own estranged son from a previous marriage as well.
Available on Netflix: Desperately Seeking Susan, directed by Susan Seidelman
If you haven't ever seen Desperately Seeking Susan... why have you never seen Desperately Seeking Susan? Are you a child? Please rent it right now, and bask in a vanished New York City.
A petite New Jersey housewife finds self-fulfillment through amnesia in this new wave comedy of errors set in New York's hip '80s downtown scene. Rosanna Arquette stars as Roberta, who turns to the personals for vicarious thrills after her four-year marriage to staid hot tub salesman Gary (Mark Blum) grows stale. Her favorite classified ads trace the romance of Jim (Robert Joy), a struggling musician, and Susan (Madonna), a Soho vamp who's just narrowly escaped being murdered alongside one of her other boyfriends — a gangster who recently stole some Egyptian jewelry. Through a series of complicated missteps, Roberta ends up losing her memory and convincing both herself and a broodingly handsome young man named Dez (Aidan Quinn) that she's the elusive, adventurous Susan. Soon, Roberta finds herself being romanced by Dez and pursued separately by her husband, Jim, Susan, and by a murderous mobster who's looking for the stolen jewels. For her second feature outing, which was partially inspired by Jacques Rivette's Celine and Julie Go Boating, director Susan Seidelman filled her cast with hipster extras, downtown personalities, and New York thespians. Notable faces include comedian Steven Wright; future indie mainstay John Turturro; future TV stars Michael Badalucco and Laurie Metcalf; punk singer Richard Hell, who also starred in Seidelman's Smithereens; and performance artist Ann Magnuson, who would star in the director's Making Mr. Right. The big dance-club sequence was filmed at Danceteria, the disco that helped launch Madonna's career. The scene, and the film, helped propel "Into the Groove," one of the singer's all-time club classics, into the charts even though it was actually a b-side to the single "Angel."
Charlie Barker has been having a real tough time of things lately. Sure, everybody seems to agree that he is an immensely talented performer of a higher pedigree than most, yet that doesn’t seem to be helping him land any roles. In fact, his days of regular work have slowly withered since moving back to New York to pursue a purer artistic sensibility in his chosen craft. Meanwhile, his mediocre acquaintances have achieved unprecedented success despite the abysmal lack of values and aptitude that Charlie possesses, a horrifying fact of show business that has only made him more bitter as he ages. Luckily, his no-nonsense and somewhat demanding wife Stella has allowed him to enjoy luxurious comfort by toiling vigilantly in a career as a producer for a high-rated talk show. The couple even has planned to adopt a Chinese baby and start a family. Then one evening, at an industry party to which he’s been unceremoniously dragged, Charlie meets Clea, a vapid young twentysomething whose prime achievement appears to be the ability to fill out a tight dress. Her insipid delirium instantly frustrates him, but little does Charlie Barker know that this ambitious blonde temptress has set him in her sights. Amy Glazer’s second feature wryly dissects the vacuous nature of the New York entertainment scene with salacious zeal and dark wit, mercilessly skewering the ruthless politics, spirit-crushing resentment and utter loss of dignity that goes hand in hand with art. —Landon Zakheim
Ben Bingham (Richard E. Grant) has slipped into a fossilized middle-age, unlike his vibrant wife Amanda (Carrie-Anne Moss). When she finally leaves him, Ben is at a loss. He drowns himself in gin and refuses to get out of his pajamas until his popular 17 year-old son Justin (Johnny Pacar) takes over. He changes Ben's "look" and pushes him out into the social scene. Before Ben knows what is happening, he is the most popular single man in town, pursued by his nurse (Jenna Elfman), his trainer (Janeane Garofalo), and karaoke-singing twins. Things change when Justin falls in love for the first time and now finds his father's lifestyle incredibly superficial. Ben is forced to refocus, recapture his humanity, his heart, and most importantly, his wife... who is now with another man.
Available from Netflix: 2 Days in Paris, written and directed by Julie Delpy
I loved this movie—it was hilarious, original and felt true. Plus, loads of Parisian eye candy (the architecture, people). It's actually available to watch instantly, so as long as you're on the Internet, you might as well check it out right now. Shoo. I'll be here when you get back.
Ingenue Julie Delpy does triple duty as writer, director, and star of this romantic comedy. French photographer Marion (Delpy) and American interior designer Jack (Adam Goldberg) are returning from a vacation in Venice. Despite the fact that it was supposed to be the ultimate romantic getaway, disagreements and misunderstandings seemed to drive them farther apart rather than bringing them closer together. Before they return to the United States, Marion and Jack have a quick two-day stop in Paris to visit Marion's parents and pick up the cat that they had been pet-setting for their daughter. Unfortunately for Jack, Paris proves to be quite a culture shock. Not only are Marion's parents a pair of eccentric former "revolutionaries" who make no qualms about having knock-down-drag-out arguments regardless of who's present, but they also appear to have a particular distaste for Americans. Add to this the fact that Marion's friends hold nothing back when it comes to discussing their sexual lives, seem fixated on food rituals, and that Marion seems to run into former lovers on every street corner, and Jack quickly begins to suspect that he doesn't know his girlfriend half as well as he thought he did when they were living the simple life back in New York.
An aged, divorced mother becomes "the other woman" in her ex-husband's life when the pair enters into an unexpected affair during an out-of-town trip. Jane (Meryl Streep) has been divorced from Jake (Alec Baldwin) for a decade. The mother of three grown children, she owns a successful Santa Barbara bakery/restaurant and maintains a friendly relationship with Jake, who has since been remarried to the much younger Agness (Lake Bell). Jane and Jake are attending their son's college graduation when they agree to an innocent meal together. Before long a simple dinner date has erupted into an all-out affair, and when architect Adam (Steve Martin) falls for Jane, he realizes he's been drawn into a most peculiar love triangle. Is love sweeter the second time around, or should Jane and Jake just be happy with what they had, and finally move on with their lives?
In this satire, parents who are worried that their children might not be walking the straight and narrow path discover a rehabilitation camp designed to curb alternative lifestyles. Megan (Natasha Lyonne), a high school student and member of the cheerleading squad, seems like an ordinary enough teenage girl, but her habit of honestly expressing herself and lack of romantic enthusiasm for her boyfriend convince her very repressed parents, Peter (Bud Cort) and Nancy (Mink Stole), that Megan is becoming a lesbian. So Megan is shipped off to True Directions, a camp for gay and gay-leaning teens, where Mary Brown (Cathy Moriarty) attempts to deprogram kids with homosexual tendencies. The first step in the process is to get each teen to admit to their homosexuality, which Megan is loath to do, since she doesn't believe she's a lesbian -- or at least she didn't think so before she met her new friend Graham (Clea DuVall), who seems quite sure that she likes girls. Meanwhile, Mary's son Rock (Eddie Cibrian) may be exempt from the camp's activities, but he turns more than a few heads among True Directions' male inmates. Noted female impersonator RuPaul appears as a camp guide, and Julie Delpy has a cameo as a "lipstick lesbian."
An independent-minded young woman discovers the joys of football, much to her family's chagrin, in this upbeat British comedy drama. Jess Bhamra (Parminder Nagra) is an 18-year-old growing up in West London, where her family has taken every effort to stay in touch with its Indian heritage. Jess' father and mother (Anupam Kher and Shaheen Khan) are after their daughter to go to law school, learn to cook a traditional Indian dinner, and settle down with a nice Indian boy -- the latter of which is high on the agenda of her older sister Pinky (Archie Panjabi), who is soon to wed her longtime beau Teetu (Kulvinder Ghir). However, her family is unaware that Jess has a secret passion -- football (or soccer, as it's known in North America). While Jess' enthusiasm for football star David Beckham is obvious, given the fact his photos cover the walls of her room, her parents don't know that in her spare time she likes to play a friendly game in the park with some of the boys in the neighborhood. One day, while Jess and her pals kick the ball around, she meets Jules (Keira Knightley), who is quite impressed with Jess' skills. Jules plays with a local semi-pro women's football team, the Hounslow Harriers, and she thinks Jess has what it takes to make the team. Jess knows that her parents would never approve of their daughter playing football, so she doesn't tell them, and starts spinning an increasingly complex series of lies as she tries to keep up a double life as a student and a footballer. Jess soon discovers a number of her new friends have their own problems to overcome; Jules dreams of playing pro ball in America, but has to deal with her stubborn and disapproving mother (Juliet Stevenson), while Joe (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), Hounslow's Irish coach, still struggles with the disappointment of a career as a professional athlete which was dashed by a knee injury.
Based on the Saturday Night Live sketch of the same name, Wayne's World is a wacky, irreverent pop-culture comedy about the adventures of two amiably aimless metal-head friends, Wayne (Mike Myers) and Garth (Dana Carvey). From Wayne's basement, the pair broadcast a talk-show called "Wayne's World" on local public access television. The show comes to the attention of a sleazy network executive (Rob Lowe) who wants to produce a big-budget version of "Wayne's World"--and he also wants Wayne's girlfriend, a rock singer named Cassandra (Tia Carrere). Wayne and Garth have to battle the executive not only to save their show, but also Cassandra. Director Penelope Spheeris, Myers and Carvey hang a lot of silly, but funny, jokes on this thin plot, and the energy of the cast--as well as the wild pop-culture references--make Wayne's World a cut above the average Saturday Night Live spin-off movie.
The husband-and-wife team of Nancy Meyers and Charles Shyer, who scored with their 1991 remake of the 1950 Father of the Bride, returned for this updating of the 1961 comedy about twins who hope to bring their divorced parents back together. Sheyer and Meyers stayed close to the original screenplay by David Swift, based on Erich Kastner's book Das Doppelte Lottchen. At a summer camp in Maine, 11-year-old Hallie Parker (Lindsay Lohan) meets Annie James (also Lindsay Lohan). Despite a curious resemblance, Hallie develops an immediate dislike for Annie, and the feeling is mutual. However, the two eventually discover they are twin sisters separated not long after they were born. Their parents, Elizabeth (Natasha Richardson) and Nick (Dennis Quaid), had met on the Queen Elizabeth 2 and married on that same voyage. After a divorce, Nick brought up Hallie at his Napa Valley vineyard, while Annie lived with wedding-gown designer Elizabeth in London. Neither twin was aware she had a sister, until their summer-camp meeting. To learn more about their parents, they switch places and maintain the deception until Nick states he will remarry. The twins then try to engineer a renewed romance between Nick and Elizabeth, but Nick's annoying but attractive fiancee Meredith (Elaine Hendrix) presents a major problem in reaching their happy-ending goal.
The All-American Girls' Professional Baseball League was founded in 1943, when most of the men of baseball-playing age were far away in Europe and Asia fighting World War II. The league flourished until after World War II, when, with the men's return, the league was consigned to oblivion. Director Penny Marshall and screenwriters Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel re-create the wartime era when women's baseball looked to stand a good chance of sweeping the country. The story begins as a candy-bar tycoon enlists agents to scour the country to find women who could play ball. In the backwoods of Oregon, two sisters -- Dottie (Geena Davis) and Kit (Lori Petty) -- are discovered. Dottie can hit and catch, while Kit can throw a mean fastball. The girls come to Chicago to try out for the team with other prospects that include their soon-to-be-teammates Mae Mordabito (Madonna), Doris Murphy (Rosie O'Donnell), and Marla Hooch (Megan Cavanagh). The team's owner, Walter Harvey (Gary Marshall) needs someone to coach his team and he picks one-time home-run champion Jimmy Dugan (Tom Hanks), who is now a broken-down alcoholic. After a few weeks of training, as Dugan sobers up, the team begins to show some promise. By the end of the season, the team has improved to the point where they are competing in the World Series (which is no big deal, since there are only four teams in the league).
Betty Thomas directed this adaptation of the classic children's stories by Hugh Lofting (1886-1947), updating the original concepts into the present day. When noted surgeon Dr. John Dolittle (Eddie Murphy) swerves his car to avoid hitting a dog, he hits his head on the windshield, triggering his long-dormant gift for holding conversations with animals. Friends, associates and his wife Lisa (Kristen Wilson), all express concern, but Dr. Dolittle is happy as he takes on new animal clients. Soon Dolittle's clinic becomes a haven for talking rats, birds, and other assorted members of the animal kingdom, and Dolittle's new four-legged and furry friends, in turn, teach him a few things about being human. The effects seamlessly combine Jim Henson Creature Shop animatronics, computer graphics, and real animals, but some viewers might yearn for a return of the Great Pink Sea Snail and Lofting's other imaginative creatures.
Three teenagers two-timed by a local lothario decide to turn the tables on him in this romantic comedy. John Tucker (Jesse Metcalfe) is the big man on campus at his high school -- he's the captain and star player of the basketball team, he's got money, he's good-looking and charming, and he can have any girl he wants. However, the latter attribute is about to get him in serious trouble when three different girls at his school -- Heather (Ashanti), Beth (Sophia Bush) and Carrie (Arielle Kebbel) -- discover they've all been dating John at the same time. Determined to bring down the campus ladykiller, the girls devise a plan -- they pick a cute but socially clumsy girl who is new at school, Kate (Brittany Snow), and give her a crash course in stealing John's heart. Once Kate has John wrapped around her little finger, she's supposed to drop him like a bad habit and give him a taste of what heartbreak is really like. However, it seems that the early stages of the plan work a little too well, and John and Kate end up falling for each other for real.
Amy Heckerling's adaptation of Cameron Crowe's Fast Times at Ridgemont High is often considered one of the finest films of a disreputable genre (the teen sex comedy), and kick-started the careers of many future stars. The center of this ensemble film is Jennifer Jason Leigh as Stacy Hamilton. She is a young, innocent high-school student who, as the film opens, is asking for advice from her friend, the sexually outspoken Linda Barrett (Phoebe Cates). Stacy takes a liking to nebbish Mark Ratner (Brian Backer), but he is too afraid to make a move even after Stacy all but throws herself at him. She eventually hooks up with Mark's more confident best friend, Mike Damone (Robert Romanus). When not concerning itself with these four characters, the film spends time with stoned surfer dude Jeff Spicoli (Sean Penn) and his ongoing feud with history teacher Mr. Hand (Ray Walston). The film includes brief appearances by such future stars as Nicolas Cage, Eric Stoltz, and Forest Whitaker.
Louise (Meg Ryan), a high-powered Manhattan lawyer, is touched when she arrives for the weekend to her family's upstate getaway to find it strewn with rose petals by her husband of 13 years, Ian (Timothy Hutton). Unfortunately... Ian is not expecting Louise, rather his much younger girlfriend (Kristen Bell). In fact, he's actually in the process of writing Louise a letter explaining his intention to leave her for good. An oddly cool Louise has other plans. She takes Ian captive, refusing to release him until he commits to working on their marriage together. When Ian's impatient mistress shows up, not to mention an opportunistic gardener (Justin Long), things start to get seriously complicated. Not merely a war of the sexes, Serious Moonlight is a story of a war of the wills as Ian tries to talk his way out of the situation.
From writer/director Katherine Dieckmann, the acclaimed filmmaker of Diggers and A Good Baby, comes Motherhood, starring Uma Thurman, Anthony Edwards and Minnie Driver. Shot entirely on location in New York’s West Village, this bittersweet comedy distills the dilemmas of the maternal state (marriage, work, self, and not necessarily in that order) into the trials and tribulations of one pivotal day. Motherhood forms a genre of one – no other movie has dedicated itself in quite this way to probing exactly what it takes to be a mother, with both wry humor and an acute sense of authenticity.
Eliza Welch (Thurman) is a former fiction writer-turned-mom-blogger with her own site, “The Bjorn Identity.” Putting her deeper creative ambitions on hold to raise her two children, Eliza lives and works in two rent-stabilized apartments in a walk-up tenement building smack in the middle of an otherwise upscale Greenwich Village. Eliza’s good-natured but absent-minded husband (Edwards) seems tuned out to his wife’s conflicts, not to mention basic domestic reality, while her best friend Sheila (Minnie Driver) understands this – and Eliza – all too well.
Motherhood takes place in a single day that pushes to the tipping point Eliza’s fundamental fear she’s lost herself. Starting at dawn, her to-do list is daunting: prepare for and throw her daughter’s 6th birthday party, mind her toddler son, battle for a parking space during an epic alternate side parking showdown, navigate playground politics with overbearing moms, and mend a rift with after posting her best friend’s confession on her blog. On top of it all, Eliza decides to enter a contest run by an upscale parenting magazine. All she has to do is write 500 words answering the deceptively simple question, “What Does Motherhood Mean to Me?”
In the process of trying by nightfall to put these thoughts into words that don’t “sound like bad ad copy,” Eliza rediscovers her own voice and realizes what is truly valuable in her life. At once hilarious and poignant, Motherhood looks at the challenges facing mothers everywhere with a keen eye to every slight to a nearly-middle-aged woman’s selfhood – from being called “Ma’am” by condescending twentysomethings to endlessly stooping to pick up toys and a spouse’s dropped socks.
Motherhood is a hymn to the joys and sorrows of raising children, and the necessity of not losing yourself in the process. Thurman’s Eliza is a unique creation, by turns endearing and hysterical, tender and aggrieved. She is ably abetted by Edwards’ subtly layered performance as her distracted spouse, and Driver’s earthy, bemused turn as her closest ally. With remarkably naturalistic performances from its child actors and a roster of colorfully only-in-New-York supporting players, Motherhood is at once powerfully heartfelt and scrupulously real.
Cool thing: from now until November 6, if you buy a ticket to Motherhood in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago or Boston through Fandango, $1 of your purchase will be donated (by whom? I don't know) to Susan G. Komen for the Cure for breast cancer research.
Recent college graduate Ryden Malby (Gilmore Girls star Alexis Bledel) has just survived four years of higher education, but when she's forced to move back into her childhood home, the stress of dealing with her eccentric family, landing a job, and finding the right guy leaves her with precious little time to ponder where her life is truly heading.
Four ambitious and beautiful young women. From four very different worlds. Just like hundreds of others, they are caught up in the frenzy that sweeps the nation when Alejandro Mateos (Julio Bracho), one of the country’s most powerful producers, dreams up a nationwide talent search to cast the lead in his next big movie. But all this is news to Alejandro’s on-again, off-again lover, Eva Gallardo (Patricia Llaca), a diva of epic proportions, who expected to get the part. While Eva schemes to nail down the role, our four leads begin their own journey on the road to fame.
From the creative team behind the smash indie success, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, comes I Hate Valentine’s Day - a new romantic comedy starring Nia Vardalos, John Corbett, and a hilarious supporting cast featuring Judah Friedlander, Zoe Kazan and Rachel Dratch. Meet Genevieve (Vardalos). The owner of a flower shop in the heart of Brooklyn, NY and a romantic with a unique take on the dating game. Genevieve lives by a strict five date rule so she doesn't get dumped and never gets hurt. Then she meets Greg (Corbett). He's good looking, funny and new to town, and before they know it, both are falling for each other. Will this new romance cause Genevieve to reconsider her philosophy of love?
It's been a decade since Ben (Duplass) and Andrew (Leonard) were the bad boys of their college campus. Ben has settled down and found a job, wife, and home. Andrew took the alternate route as a vagabond artist, skipping the globe from Chiapas to Cambodia. When Andrew shows up unannounced on Ben's doorstep, they easily fall back into their old dynamic of macho one-upmanship.
Late into the night at a wild party, the two find themselves locked in a mutual dare: to enter an amateur porn contest together. But what kind of boundary-breaking, envelope pushing porn can two straight dudes make? After the booze and "big talk" run out, only one idea remains—they will have sex together...on camera. It's not gay; it's beyond gay. It's not porn; it's art. But how exactly will it work? And more importantly, who will tell Anna (Delmore), Ben's wife?
Writer/director Lynn Shelton, director of My Effortless Brilliance and recipient of the "Someone to Watch Award" at the 2009 Independent Spirit Awards, expertly mines the biggest ironies of the male ego to hilarious effect. Humpday is a buddy movie gone wild.
As you may know, the percentage of women directors hovers around 9%, which is a ridiculous statistic in 2009 (or ever). It's not (just) that Hollywood is sexist—-if female directors brought in the big bucks on opening weekend, studio heads would certainly sit up and take notice, as might Oscar voters. But how to find out when these films are showing? Well... come here! (Update: Hmm, the same year I start this blog, the Academy nominates TWO female-directed movies for Best Picture! Coincidence?)
