You Kill Me Junebug.
I don't want to like Tea Leoni-she's married to David Duchovny (actually, from everything I've read about him, he sounds like a major pain in the ass to be married to), she's thin, beautiful and has a lot of family money. But then I read an interview with her or see one on TV or see a movie of hers...and I think she must be the coolest person in the world. She just seems like someone you could hang out with and have a drink and bitch about life and then start laughing your head off at something stupid. All these are reasons why I'm sorry she has not made more movies and every time she does, she gets stuck with Woody Allen, Ben Kingsley or Adam Sandler. What is that? She's gorgeous and she's with these guys? Come on-thank God she gets to go home and see someone good-looking (although he looks awful in the pictures from his latest show) instead of these guys with whom she keeps making movies.
Which brings me to her latest movie (and as Manola Dhargis of the NY Times said, she is woefully underused). It's the story of frank, a hit man in Buffalo with a drinking problem. Frank (Ben Kingsley) gets sent to San Francisco to join AA, get a job and clean himself up. Why the Polish Mob (which is losing money) would send him to an area of the US where real estate prices are sky-high doesn't make sense but I guess you just have to buy into the story and go with it. Frank gets a job apprenticing at a funeral home, where he meet Laural, whose step-father just died. This is a very black comedy, with Frank needing to clean up so he can go back to killing people and Laurel trying to help him-he even teaches her some tricks of the trade. I liked it-it was dark and funny but I really wish Tea would get a guy in a movie who is just as good looking, smart and funny as she is-she deserves it. I'm thinking Ryan Gosling.
I also saw Junebug. This is a very small, character driven piece about a newly married couple (he's from North Carolina, she's a diplomat's child who has lived all over) who go to his home state-ostensibly to visit an artist for her gallery but also to visit his family. What I liked about this movie is that everyone could have easily become a cliche-but none of them did so. Each had their own personal quirks and irritants but no one ever became "the Southern Mother", "The Silent Father" or the "The Screw-Up Son and Talkative Daughter-in-Law". Each had something in them that redeemed them and made them a person-Screw-Up Son wants to get his GED and learn about Huck Finn. Mom doesn't really care for the New Daughter-in-Law and it would have been untrue to the film if she had completely warmed to her by the end of the movie but she has thawed a bit. The Good Son loves his parents and his wife, despite their flaws-which he sees very clearly.
This isn't a heart-warming movie but it is one that genuinely cares about the people in it and that's kind of rare these days.
Which brings me to her latest movie (and as Manola Dhargis of the NY Times said, she is woefully underused). It's the story of frank, a hit man in Buffalo with a drinking problem. Frank (Ben Kingsley) gets sent to San Francisco to join AA, get a job and clean himself up. Why the Polish Mob (which is losing money) would send him to an area of the US where real estate prices are sky-high doesn't make sense but I guess you just have to buy into the story and go with it. Frank gets a job apprenticing at a funeral home, where he meet Laural, whose step-father just died. This is a very black comedy, with Frank needing to clean up so he can go back to killing people and Laurel trying to help him-he even teaches her some tricks of the trade. I liked it-it was dark and funny but I really wish Tea would get a guy in a movie who is just as good looking, smart and funny as she is-she deserves it. I'm thinking Ryan Gosling.
I also saw Junebug. This is a very small, character driven piece about a newly married couple (he's from North Carolina, she's a diplomat's child who has lived all over) who go to his home state-ostensibly to visit an artist for her gallery but also to visit his family. What I liked about this movie is that everyone could have easily become a cliche-but none of them did so. Each had their own personal quirks and irritants but no one ever became "the Southern Mother", "The Silent Father" or the "The Screw-Up Son and Talkative Daughter-in-Law". Each had something in them that redeemed them and made them a person-Screw-Up Son wants to get his GED and learn about Huck Finn. Mom doesn't really care for the New Daughter-in-Law and it would have been untrue to the film if she had completely warmed to her by the end of the movie but she has thawed a bit. The Good Son loves his parents and his wife, despite their flaws-which he sees very clearly.
This isn't a heart-warming movie but it is one that genuinely cares about the people in it and that's kind of rare these days.
posted by SHbookworm at 12:29 PM
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