Abilities Dis
03. Oct, 2008 
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Rachel Getting Married
Squirms of Endearment
Trailers & Mo
It’s been quite a long time since Jonathan Demme made a narrative film worthy of praise. 15 years to be exact, as Philadelphia was his last fictional work of note, which was quite an hamazin’ follow-up to the bestness that came a year before, Silence of The Lambs. While he’s excelled recently with a pair of documentaries (Jimmy Carter Man From Plains and The Agronomist), big budget Hollywood fluff like The Manchurian Candidate and The Truth About Charlie have been questionable choices for a man of such great talent, even the latter being repoopulously ridiculed by Marky Mark and Ari Gold on Entourage. We can now table such discussions as Demme surges back big time with the little ensemble family drama Rachel Getting Married, which has now sirpassed the funtastic Married To The Mob as his finest ‘married’ movie of balls thyme
From a character rich script by Sidney Lumet‘s daughter Jenny (not to be confused with his other daughter Amy, most famous for putting her giant rack on display at the 2005 Academy Awards), Demme throws an intimate wedding party (including such guests as Fab 5 Freddy, Roger Corman and Robyn Hitchcock… guess Jimmy Carter wasn’t unavailable) that’s almos as catastrophic and more unnerving than what transgressed in Meet the Parents. Anne Hathaway achingly plays Kym, the Gaylord ‘Greg’ Focker role here that’s eons away from the kiddie stuff she’s done before, and while you’ll feel just as sorry for her as you did for Ben Stiller, there aren’t many laffs to ease her or our pain. Kym’s been in and out of rehab for ages, ever since a tragic event in her adolescence, and she’s coming back home to celebrate, although ruin might be a better word, her sister (Rosemarie DeWitt, aka Mad Men‘s Midge Daniels)’s nuptials (to TV On The Radio‘s lead singer Tunde Adebimpe). While her family’s happy to see her at first, including her overly cautious pop (stage actor and Elmo pal Bill Irwin, who shines bright) and his cold and distant ex-wife (Debra Winger, who’s been sorely missed in the world of cinema), Kym quickly shifts the attention from her sis’ happiness to her unhappiness, and all hell breaks lose. There is light at the end of this dark tunnel, and the actual wedding is soulful and so gorgeous that you’ll wish you were invited. Rachel is dynamite stuff and is right up there with The Visitor, Mister Lonely, Towelhead and Frozen River as some of the mos touching and affecting films we’ve seen this year
Corny Stalk: Anne, beware of ESPN’s (un) The Talented Mr. Roto, who may need a restraining order cause he’s obsessed with you
Verdictgo: Breast In Show
Blindness
See No Evil No See
Trailers & Mo
After City of Gawd and The Constant Gardner we’ve come to eggspect nothing but the best from director Fernando Meirelles. Blindness, adapted from the celebrated book by José Saramago, may not be on par with either of those last two brilliant films, but it comes awfully darn close. Blindness is about an unnamed city dealing with the outbreak of an unexplained… BLINDNESS epidemic. The blindness keeps getting passed from one poor soul to another, and eventually becomes such a major problem that the government quarantines the inflicted in an abandoned hospital. They’re basically left on their own, and if you can imagine the blind leading the blind, then you’ll have a purty good idea of how bad shiz will get. Luckily the wife (Juliane Moore) of a blind optometrist (Mark Ruffalo) can see, although not everyone is aware of this, and she does her best to make order out of the chaos, while trying to hold onto her sanity in the process. This cast is rounded out with remarkable performances by Gael GarcÃa Bernal,
ef=”http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001999/” target=”_blank”>Maury Chaykin, Danny Glover, Alice Braga, Yusuke Iseya and Don McKellar, who also wrote the screenplay
While this supposedly unfilmable film may be a bit muddled in the story and message delivery department, probably due to the fact that the novel was written in a stream-of-consciousness prose, we dare you to name another film this year that equals its beauty, or is as mesmerizing or stomach turning and churning as Blindness is. Actually Rachel Getting Married fits that bill, but it’s not about a dystopian society and we’re major suckers for that genre so take that! This is kinda like a junior Children of Men, which in our opinion, could be one of the bestest movies of the decade. This isn’t even close to being one of the best of the decade, but it’s close to breaking our top ten of 2008. Others don’t seem to agree and we hope they go blind
Blinded By The Light: while we haven’t seen The Miracle Worker or City Lights, here are six pics about blindness we recommend you viddy well… Tommy, Dancer In The Dark, Ray, The Village, Manhunter and Blind Date. OK, so Blind Date isn’t about blind people, but it IS about dates that are blind!
Verdictgo: Breast In Show
Humboldt County
Puff, Puff, Pass
Trailers & Mo
Peter(Jeremy Strong)’s a recently failed and disillusioned med student who needs to lighten up, and does so by lighting up. After a one night stand with a singer named Bogart (Fairuza Balk), he follows her to the Nor-Cal county in the film’s title, which if you weren’t aware is HIGHly known for it’s cannabis growing. The next day she ups and leaves, and leaves him with her wacky tobaccy family (Grima Wormtongue, Ruth Fisher, Doug from VCB). The fish out of water eventually learns how to walk on high land and is soon chillaxing and waxing about life with these granola barflys. While it may be a bit more realistic of a pot movie than Pineapple Excess was, Humboldt is like taking a hit from a cashed bowl. If you don’t know what that means, you probably won’t be interested in Humboldt, but if you do know what that means, you should juss stay home and pack a freshie
Building Bridges: Lawrence Bridges makes his acting debut with Humboldt, but the dude has a lot of other talents, including casting Brad Pitt in his first commercial, a Pringles spot
Verdictgo: Very Little Merit But No Stinkin Badges
Rachel joins Humboldt in very limited release, while Blindness opens thighs wide
until next thyme the balcony is clothed…
