Six LA Love Stories

Love can be exhausting.

(2016) Romantic Comedy (Random Media) Beth Grant, Matthew Lillard, Stephen Tobolowsky, Carrie Preston, Alicia Witt, Peter Bogdanovich, Ashley Williams, Michael Dunaway, Ross Partridge, Marshall Allman, David Claassen, Jennifer Lafleur, Michael Milford, Davie-Blue, Hayley Polak, Mitch Swan, Don Most, Savannah Remington, Kayla Swift, Ogy Dunham, Summer Rose Ly, Jamie Anne Allman. Directed by Michael Dunaway

 

The rest of the country has a kind of love-hate relationship with Los Angeles. Some admire the beautiful beaches and the energy that has made it one of the world’s great cities. Others decry the shallowness that comes from essentially being a Hollywood company town. Still, like every town, city, megalopolis and village around the globe, love occurs on a daily basis.

This film takes place on a single day in sunny Southern California and follows six different couples, all at varying stages in their relationship. None of the stories are interconnected and all have just one thing in common; a couple either falling in love, deeply in love, or falling out of love.

At a pool party at a Hollywood producer’s mansion, Robin (Williams) bitches on her phone about her air-headed sister while Wes (Partridge) overhears. The two strike up a conversation and although Robin initially reacts with distaste, she soon finds that she and Wes have a lot more in common than she thought.

Alan (Lillard) arrives home early from work to discover his wife Diane (Preston) having sex with another man. Infuriated, then deeply wounded, Alan struggles to find out why she betrayed him like that; Diane’s answers aren’t what he expects nor are they necessarily what he really wants to hear.

Amanda (Lafleur) is the stage manager at a self-help convention event where multiple speakers are given a limited amount of time to address the audience. As Duane (Bogdanovich) goes up, Amanda is confronted with her ex-lover Camille (Dunham) who is getting ready to speak. As Amanda seems to be okay with things the way they are, Camille has something she specifically wants to say to her.

Mara (J.A. Allman) meets up for a drink with her ex-boyfriend Pete (M. Allman) whose acting career has stalled and has decided to take a stab at screenwriting instead. As Pete describes a recent meeting with a studio exec, Mara is reminded of all the things that led to their break-up but can’t quite deny that there isn’t a spark there.

Terry (Witt) visits her ex-husband Nick (Dunaway) to discuss the schooling options for their daughter. Nick appears to have moved on from their amicable divorce but Terry clearly hasn’t. Her feelings of anger towards her ex hide something much deeper and much less unpleasant inside her.

Finally, John (Tobolowsky) is the only tourist on the tour of the Will Rogers estate with Meg (Grant), a guide there. While they are initially at odds with each other – John is a college professor who also writes books for a think tank on Rogers and is a bit of an insufferable know-it-all – Meg senses that she can supply something that John may need even more.

The moods on the various vignettes vary from overtly humorous (Meg-John) to bittersweet and dark (Alan-Diane) to surprising (Terry-Nick). Like most ensemble pieces, the quality varies between the stories, ranging from authentic (Alan-Diane) to goofy (Meg-John) to downright unrealistic (Meg-John). The cast is pretty solid though and the performances are generally reflective of that, although Lillard and Preston essentially steal the show in their vignette which is very much the best of the six. While I liked both the Meg and John characters and the performances by Grant and Tobolowsky, I just didn’t connect with their story which seemed tonally at odds with the other five. The one that the director appears in as an actor oddly enough was for me ironically the weakest vignette of the six.

This was originally released on home video back in 2016 but was re-released last month by Random Media who apparently cleaned up some sound issues (reviews from the original release complained about the sound but I didn’t notice any problems with it). While it is reminiscent of Love Actually in terms of subject matter, this movie first of all doesn’t have the interconnection between the stories that film has which while totally not a bad thing, I found myself wondering why they needed a full length movie (albeit one only an hour and 20 minutes long) for this movie when six individual short films might have worked better. Besides, London at Christmastime trumps L.A. in the summer anytime.

The Alan and Diane story is the one worth seeing but because the six stories are intercut together, you have to watch the other five as well and while none of them are painful to watch, none of them approach the quality of the Alan-Diane saga so keep that in mind. Otherwise a solid effort by a first time narrative feature writer-director.

REASONS TO GO: The dialogue is generally pretty well-written.
REASONS TO STAY: The quality between vignettes varies.
FAMILY VALUES: There is profanity and some sexual content.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Bogdanovich appears at the behest of his daughter Antonia who is a producer on the film.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, Fandango Now, Google Play, iTunes, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 6/6/18: Rotten Tomatoes
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Love Actually
FINAL RATING: 6/10
NEXT: Hearts Beat Loud

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88 Minutes

Al Pacino looks thrilled to be in this movie.

(2007) Thriller (TriStar) Al Pacino, Alicia Witt, Leelee Sobieski, Amy Brennerman, William Forsythe, Deborah Kara Unger, Benjamin McKenzie, Neal McDonough, Leah Cairns, Stephen Moyer, Christopher Redman, Brendan Fletcher, Kristina Copeland, Tammy Hui, Vicky Huang, Victoria Tennant, Michal Yannai, Paul Campbell, Kaj-Erik Eriksen, Heather Dawn. Directed by Jon Avnet

Young Jamie Cates (Hui) witnesses the brutal murder of her twin sister (Huang). Although it was dark, Cates identifies former Eagle Scout Jon Forster (McDonough) as the culprit. Although there is little physical evidence tying him to the crime, the testimony of noted forensic psychologist Jack Gramm (Pacino) is enough to convince the jury to convict Forster of the heinous crime and sentence him to death.

Flash forward nine years. It is the eve of Forster’s execution and Gramm has been out partying with his students, afterwards waking up with a stranger (Cairns). He is stunned to learn that overnight, one of his students (Copeland) has been murdered in exactly the same way as Joanie Cates. The FBI, with acerbic agent Parks (Forsythe) and U.S. Attorney Guber (Redman) want to have a word with Gramm at his high-tech consulting office in downtown Seattle. At first he thinks that they want to pick his brain about the crime, but it seems they have a different agenda. Gramm stalks out of the office, leaving his long-suffering assistant Shelly (Brennerman) holding the bag.

Afterwards, Gramm begins to get disturbing phone calls; the first informing him he only had 88 minutes to live. In the meantime, the callers, voice heavily disguised, counts down the time left in a series of frequent phone calls. While this happens, another one of Gramm’s students, Lauren (Sobieski) is attacked, his car is blown up and a mysterious assailant in black leathers and a motorcycle helmet is shooting at him. Plucky teaching assistant Kim (Witt) thinks her volatile ex-husband LaForge (Moyer) may have something to do with it – he served time in Walla Walla with Forster – but Jack is convinced it’s an inside job. With time ticking down, suspects a-plenty and Jack himself under suspicion for the murder of his student, he’ll need all his skills to figure out who’s behind this and save his own life, as well as the lives of those around him.

Pacino is one of the best actors of his generation, but he has little to do here but scowl. He is clearly the centerpiece of the film, but at times it feels like he’s just giving a by-the-numbers performance, literally phoning it in (his character spends a whole lot of time on his cell phone). Pacino’s character is supposed to be a womanizer, but I get the feeling that while Gramm surrounds himself with beautiful women, the casting of Witt, Sobieski, Brennerman, Unger, Cairns and Copeland was done more for their looks rather than whether or not they were right for the part. Even so, in a role that’s not his best Pacino is still always watchable. Sobieski, in particular, is cruelly wasted; she’s one of my favorite actresses but she is clearly uncomfortable with certain aspects of her character, which is poorly developed. In fact the motivation for her actions doesn’t make sense with other aspects of her character. Not to give anything away, but it makes the whole crux of the movie a bit laughable.

Who did Pacino’s hair? He looks like an extra from a Lita Ford video. Yes, I get it; womanizer, vain, rich – but a man of those qualities would probably pick a more contemporary hairstyle for himself. The writing is really lazy, relying on cliché over character development and exploring no new ground whatsoever.

While I like the concept a lot, the filmmakers don’t really make use of it effectively. There are a ton of lapses in logic, coincidences that stretch credulity, plot points that lead nowhere, characters that don’t need to be here, characters that act wildly out of character without explanation…need I go on?

This is one I can’t honestly recommend. It started with a poorly written script and that seems to have defeated a pretty talented cast and crew. Avnet as a director has done much better work than this, including Up Close and Personal and The War. I usually am forgiving of movies that push the envelope of believability – after all, it’s only a movie – but this takes it a little bit too far. All I ask is that a movie remains true to its own internal logic, and this one simply doesn’t. Pacino fans may want to check it out, but there really isn’t any other reason to go see it as a rental or even as a free download.

WHY RENT THIS: Pacino, even in the worst movies, is worth checking out. Interesting concept. Gorgeous women.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Poorly written. Lapses in logic. Extraneous characters and plot points.

FAMILY MATTERS: Some brief nudity, a whole lot of bad language and a surfeit of implied and actual mayhem.

TRIVIAL PURSUITS: From the time that Gramm is informed that he has 88 minutes to live, the movie runs in real time.

NOTABLE HOME VIDEO FEATURES: There’s a featurette on Avnet and his directing style.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $32.6M on a $30M production budget.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: Nick of Time

FINAL RATING: 4/10

NEXT: The Amazing Spider-Man 2

The Last Holiday (2006)

Gerard Depardieu missed lunch but Queen Latifah lets him eat a finger or two.

(2006) Comedy (Paramount) Queen Latifah, Gerard Depardieu, Timothy Hutton, LL Cool J, Alicia Witt, Giancarlo Esposito, Jane Adams, Mike Estime, Susan Kellermann, Jascha Washington, Matt Rose, Ranjit Chowdhry, Michael Nouri, Jaqueline Fleming, Emeril Lagasse, Lana Likic. Directed by Wayne Wang

We are most of us so busy making a living that we forget to actually live. Our noses are so far down to the grindstone that we fail to notice the blue sky and sunshine above our heads. We certainly are prone to forgetting that our lives are short and can end without warning; so many of us leave it with so many of our dreams unfulfilled.

Georgia Byrd (Latifah) works at a New Orleans department store giving cooking demonstrations and selling cookware. She is crazy about co-worker Sean Matthews (LL Cool J) but is far too shy to make a move. She goes home at night and watches cooking shows, making gourmet recipes that she serves to a neighborhood kid (Washington) while she consumes Lean Cuisine frozen meals because she’s dieting.

One day at work she hits her head and loses consciousness. She is taken to the store infirmary (do any department stores really have those? Outside of Harrods in London I mean) where Dr. Gupta (Chowdhry) takes a CAT scan on the used machine he has just received and to his horror discovers several brain tumors – products of the rare condition Lampington’s Disease. The size and location of the tumors indicate that Georgia is in the final stages of the Disease and has only a few weeks. The operation that might save her may well do no good at all and the prohibitive cost of the potentially life-saving surgery is something her HMO won’t cover. Georgia hasn’t the time to contest it.

She decides to spend her final Christmas season at the Grandhotel Pupp in Kylovy Vary, Czechoslovakia. It’s an exclusive resort but Georgia has been frugal and has accumulated a pretty good amount in her 401k so she cashes it out and flies out to Czechoslovakia. Why there? Why, her favorite chef – Didier (Depardieu) is the executive chef there.

Once there she intends to indulge herself and pamper herself with spa treatments, skiing lessons and of course sampling one of everything from the Chef’s menu. He is so grateful that she is not another diet-conscious American requiring substitutions of “healthy” ingredients that he comes out to meet her himself. This draws the curiosity of a neighboring table where Senator Dillings (Esposito), Congressman Stewart (Nouri) are sitting, as well as the man who is wining and dining them – Matthew Kragen (Hutton) who happens to own the department store chain where Georgia was formerly employed. He sics his assistant Ms. Burns (Witt) with whom he is also having an affair with on Georgia to find out just who she is. The paranoid Kragen is concerned she’s out to ruin his deal that the support of the politicians is crucial for.

Her can-do attitude and positive outlook are inspiring to the lot of them and the more enchanted they become with Georgia, the more suspicious Kragen gets. He gets the officious Gunther (Kellermann), a hotel concierge, to go through Georgia’s things. Gunther discovers that Georgia, whom all the others (as well as the hotel staff whom Georgia treats with kindness and respect – something they aren’t used to) assumes is extremely wealthy, is a store clerk in one of Kragen’s stores. But her triumph quickly turns to shame when she discovers a letter that Georgia has written instructing hotel staff what to do should she pass away while she’s at their hotel.

Sean, in the meantime, decides that he needs to tell Georgia how he feels about her (it turns out the feelings were mutual) and decides to fly to the hotel to do just that. However a blizzard has made getting there precarious and Georgia herself has decided she’d rather spend her last days at home. Will the two be able to get together before the end?

This is a remake of a 1950 comedy starring Alec Guinness in the role Queen Latifah plays here. It’s a very different movie, somewhat more witty and a good bit darker (there’s an astonishing twist that you WILL not see coming near the end of that picture that is absent here). This is much more heart-warming, a kind of a warm hug on a winter day by a beloved friend. Latifah shows her chops as a leading lady; she’s done a lot of comedies both before and since but this is really in many ways the best of the lot.

Georgia starts out kind of mousy (which is really playing against type for Latifah) but good-hearted and as she finally comes out of her shell and allows herself to live we get a sense of the joyfulness she has inside her. She simply learns to enjoy the things that are good in life; good food, good friends, taking risks and trying new things. It’s a lesson not all of us learn in many more years of life than Georgia has lived.

The supporting cast is particularly solid, with kudos going to Depardieu as the chef who feels underappreciated (although with the foodie revival of the last few years he may be feeling better these days) and Hutton who’s Keegan is a greedy paranoid bastard but not altogether without saving graces. LL Cool J, who has become quite accomplished as an actor since on L.A. NCIS shows some good chemistry with fellow rapper Latifah.

This isn’t a particularly remarkable story – even in 1950 when Guinness did it this was pretty tried and true stuff. It’s simply done very well here, largely due to the screen presence of Latifah who makes the audience feel like old friends. Much of why the movie works is due to Latifah who simply makes this movie a vehicle for her personality. While some of the dialogue is clumsy and has the characters saying things that human beings don’t say in reality, it can be overlooked if for no other reason for the warm fuzziness coursing through your veins when the end credits roll.

WHY RENT THIS: Really heart-warming. Latifah shows that she can carry a film on her own here. Depardieu is a whole lot of fun here.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: The dialogue can be awkward. A bit too rote in places.

FAMILY VALUES:  There are a few sexual references but nothing too overt.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: During the scene where Georgia is serving Sean duck hash on toasted baguette, the Food Network chefs who were advisors and on-site chefs had to substitute for the duck in Sean’s portion because actor LL Cool J doesn’t eat duck.

NOTABLE HOME VIDEO EXTRAS: There are a couple of Wolfgang Puck recipes that you can make at home, as well as an interesting featurette as to how this remake nearly hit the screen in the mid-80s…starring the late John Candy, which was shelved at the comedian’s death until Latifah’s agent read it and thought it would make a great starring vehicle for his client.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $43.3M on a $45M production budget; the movie failed to recoup its production budget.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: The Holiday

FINAL RATING: 7/10

NEXT: John Dies at the End

Peep World

Sarah Silverman puts up her dukes.

(2010) Comedy (IFC) Michael C. Hall, Sarah Silverman, Rainn Wilson, Judy Greer, Taraji P. Henson, Ron Rifkin, Leslie Warren, Alicia Witt, Lewis Black (narrator), Stephen Tobolowski, Nicholas Hormann, Kate Mara, Ben Schwartz, Octavia Spencer, Geoffrey Arend. Directed by Barry Blaustein

 

Families are our bedrock but they can also drive us crazy. Sometimes we love ’em to death but other times they can make us so mad we can’t see straight. You love your family more than anyone but the flipside is that you can hate your family more than anyone too.

The Meyerwitz family is gathering at a swanky L.A. restaurant to celebrate the 70th birthday of patriarch Henry (Rifkin). The family, dysfunctional and argumentative at the best of times, is living under a veil of tension more than usual. That’s because Nathan (Schwartz), the baby of the family, has written a best-selling novel that is a thinly veiled account of his family, with all their dirty secrets intact and there for the world to see.

Daughter Cheri (Silverman), a failed actress is actually suing her brother. Eldest brother Jack (Hall), who before Nathan’s success was the most successful Meyerwitz, is seeing his architecture business crumble and to relieve the stress, regularly goes to peep shows to take out his frustrations. His wife Laura (Greer) is pregnant to compound matters.

Joel (Wilson), the ne’er-do-well of the family, is on the run from loan sharks and is desperately trying to guilt money out of his brother Jack who doesn’t have the money to give any longer. He tries to keep the knowledge of the unsavory things he’s done from his girlfriend Mary (Henson) who only sees the good in him.

And Nathan himself isn’t without his own demons. Condescending and cruel to those around him, he takes an erectile dysfunction pill while getting ready for a date and winds up with a monster boner that won’t quit. And even Henry has a few secrets of his own – and you can bet they’re all going to come out at this dinner from hell.

The movie has a terrific ensemble cast, led by Hall who is in my opinion one of those actors who always elevates the material he has. I’ve never been a huge fan of Silverman but she turns in what might just be her best performance yet as the neurotic Cheri. This is a bit of a stretch for the usually caustic Silverman (and there are elements of her usual persona here albeit much toned down) and she nails it nicely.

Wilson is kind of the comic foil here but while he’s usually pretty good this is not one of his better performances. Greer however is golden here – she has become one of my favorite comic actresses in just the last couple of years. She and Henson make up the heart of the movie.

The issue here is that most of the characters are pretty one-dimensional and cliché. The actors cope to varying degrees but it becomes noticeable often. The story isn’t that much better – there are no real surprises and nothing that you haven’t seen before and done better. Even Lewis Black’s narration is by the numbers and a waste of this inventive comedian’s talent.

This is a movie that wasted its potential. The premise is a sound one albeit one that has been done before (the dysfunctional family gathering) and the cast is superb. With better writing this could have been an indie classic. Still, the talent holds it up just enough to make it worth seeing.

WHY RENT THIS: A nice ensemble cast who try real hard. Some funny moments.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: One-dimensional characters.

FAMILY VALUES: There’s a whole lot of bad language and a fair amount of sexual themes.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The hand with the different color painted nails in the salon that Jack enters is the same hand of the “Ice Cream Killer” that is on the trophy shelf of “Dexter,” the Showtime series that Hall also stars in.

NOTABLE HOME VIDEO EXTRAS: None listed.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $14,351 on an unreported production budget; this was a big box office flop.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: The Royal Tenenbaums

FINAL RATING: 6/10

NEXT: Hotel Transylvania