Youth in Revolt

First Hit: A film with potential, and eventually fails the farther it progresses.

Expectations are not good things to have. With a film title of "Youth in Revolt" I wanted a film worthy of this title (Think "Rebel Without a Cause" but with a comedic twist?).

Michael Cera has the nerdy milquetoast character down pat and I was hoping something really good out of him. In this film his name is Nick Twisp (Which could be a play on milquetoast) a guy who pines for a relationship and wants to have sex before he gets any older.

The opening scene of this film is hearing him masturbate while in bed to start his day. I'm not sure why this is funny or interesting and it was the choice the director made to begin this film. His closest friend is also in the same position, pining for a girl he cannot have.

Lucky for Nick his family takes a vacation to a lake where he meets Sheeni Saunders (played by Portia Doubleday). She is very forward and prompts Nick to make a date with her. She lets him know she is dating a guy name Trent who is 6' 2", swims, speaks French, and writes “futurist percussive poetry.”

However, Sheeni plays Nick along to the point where Nick falls totally in love with her and will do anything for her. To prompt himself along, Nick creates an alternative persona Francois Dillinger.

Francois convinces Nick to “burn down half of Berkeley” by blowing up his mother’s boyfriend’s car and trailer. Nick becomes a fugitive from justice but is able to easily hide because his mother’s new boyfriend Lance (played by Ray Liotta) is a cop and promises to keep Nick clear from suspicion.

Sound far fetched? It is, and this is the film’s failing. It does nothing really well despite some great actors. The failings of this story are its script and director.

Cera is good as the milquetoast guy and a little more interesting as Francois but the combination is wasted in this film. Steve Buscemi, Fred Willard, E. Emmet Walsh, and Mary Kay Place are all great actors and are also wasted in this film because it just doesn’t work. Doubleday is too sophisticated and not believable as a 16 year old girl.

Overall: This film is not believable and the farther it gets the worse it gets. In the end it simply fails and with a title like Youth in Revolt, I wanted something better not something revolting.

It's Complicated

First Hit: Although funny, even laugh out loud funny at times, it could have been stronger about its subject matter.

It’s Complicated isn’t complicated at all. The premise could be complicated but as it is presented in this film it becomes a rather simple story attempting to be complicated.

The story: Ten years after their divorce Jane and Jake (played by Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin respectively) rekindle their love and romance for each other after spending an evening drinking and eating in a New York Hotel bar.

Complication 1) they hide this event from their three children. Complication 2) they hide if from Jake’s new wife Agness (played by Lake Bell). Complication 3) Jane meets and becomes attracted to Adam (played by Steve Martin) who is her architect, a very straight up sensitive guy, and looking for a solid partner.

What drives Jake to look back to Jane is that he is unhappy with his new wife who is bossy and also wants him to become a new father at 57 years old. What he enjoys with his liaison with Jane is their familiarity and history. He also sees her as accomplished in business and interestingly sexy.

This new vision drives him to want to have afternoon quickies and steamy meetings. Yes, this could have been a complicated story if the script called on all the participants to be strong players, but this didn’t happen. What did happen were scenes which created situational laughs which were effectively done but lacked depth.

Some of these scenes were the hotel scenes where the future son-in-law sees them kiss, Jane’s woman’s group meetings, and when Adam and Jane and high on pot at a party given by her daughter.

There is a palpable chemistry between Baldwin and Streep. This makes the film work. The idyllic family, Streep and Baldwin’s three children, was a stretch. They just seemed too perfect and not realistic in their relationships with each other and their parents. I didn’t pick up much chemistry between Streep and Martin, but it wasn’t the main part of the film.

Overall: I laughed often and appreciated this aspect of the film but it isn’t a complicated film nor is the depiction of their relationship.

Everybody's Fine

First Hit: A very slow lifeless film with very little to say.

The premise of this film is that a dad, who is a recent widower, expects his children to come home for a holiday. One by one they tell him they cannot make it for some reason or another, so he decides to go visit each of them unannounced.

Although this is an interesting premise, this film really fails to deeply explore the reasons why his children don’t tell him the truth of their lives. It fails to explore family dynamics.

Robert De Niro plays Frank Goode (the dad) who is sick with a disease he picked up from his job of putting plastic coating on telephone wires. Every once in a while, when the children talk to each on the phone, the audience is treated to pictures of these plastic coated telephone wires while we hear slightly garbled dialogs of the conversations.

This is supposed to be symbolic about the distance between the children and the dad while also expressing the calls wouldn't have happened without his work. He starts his trip by visiting his oldest son who lives in New York. He gets there and he isn't home. He waits a day or so but gives up, slips an envelope under the door and leaves. We find out later that this son has a drug problem and is in Mexico.

The next stop is to visit the oldest daughter Amy (played by Kate Beckinsale). She is a smart high-powered advertising executive but appears to be very distant from her husband and child. Frank suggests to her that he'd like to stay there a couple of days, but Amy rushes him out of the house on the pretext she is busy but she is really headed to Mexico to try to find her older brother.

The next visit is to second son Robert (played by Sam Rockwell) who has somehow given his father the impression he is a conductor in an orchestra when in fact he plays the drums in an orchestra. Frank is clearly disappointed that he didn’t know this.

Then he visits his youngest daughter Rosie (played by Drew Barrymore) who is outgoing and attempts to tell her father why the children don’t tell him all of what is going on in their lives. However, at each reason, Frank fires back his justification.

The fact of the matter is that Frank didn’t and doesn’t listen to the truth only to what he really wants to hear.

De Niro, doesn’t have the feel for this part. He portrays very little depth on the screen and doesn’t seem very engaged to this film. Beckinsale is adequate as an ad executive but the role has little going for it. Rockwell gets a little more meat in his lines and does bring some friction and interest to the interchange between him and De Niro. Lastly Barrymore is good at bringing some sunshine and truth into this little story. I don’t think the writing level mined the depths of family dynamics which would have propelled this story into an interesting film.

Overall: This was a tired attempt to bring forth how siblings find it difficult to communicate their truth to their father.

Up in the Air

First Hit: A very enjoyable film with some very superb acting from the principals and supporting cast.

In the 1990’s I was a consultant and my job required me to travel from client to client spending more than ¾ of my time away from home. In fact there were multi-year segments in which I didn’t even eat a meal at home. If I was hungry, I would just walk up the street to a restaurant and get something to eat.

With this background, I was really interested in seeing this film to see if they could show this kind of lifestyle accurately. As I sat there watching Ryan Bingham (played by George Clooney) I was convinced that the director Jason Reitman had gotten the essence of this sort of life.

In the film, Bingham’s job is to fire people from their jobs because the company’s management cannot do it. Doing this job requires that he not get emotionally attached to their pleas to understand why they are being fired and the hurt and anger that follows his devastating news. Because of the economy, business is booming so he is on the road for months at a time; never going home.

He loves this lifestyle. He has few responsibilities and nothing to tie him down or make a commitment about. He meets up with Alex (played by Vera Farmiga) who portends to have the same unattached lifestyle.

Their first meeting is a contest on who has the most and best frequent flier and express cards. Ryan indicates that he’ll quit the road when he hits a certain number of miles. They have a blissful one night exchange and like it so much they decide to plan their flying schedules to meet up again and again.

When Ryan’s company calls him home they tell him they’re putting in new technology that will make is traveling moot. To prove this new technology is a mistake, he takes the innovator Natalie (played by Anna Kendrick) out on the road so she can experience the real gist of the job. Being a new MBA graduate she is fired up but learns quickly that theory and practicum are different worlds.

Reitman gets the nuances down just right; the secret drive of business travelers to move through airports, hotels and car rental lines quickly and efficiently. I felt the rush, fun and aloneness of it all, just as I remembered. Clooney has the look and feel of this character and is absolutely ideal for this character. He’s funny, melancholy, intelligent, aloof and direct. He was made for this role. Kendrick is perfect as the MBA who wants to make a name for herself and is filled with idealism. Farmiga is very good as a fellow traveler and hides her duel life well. Lastly, I thought all the people who played the parts of the people getting fired were great. They felt real, like everyday people suddenly faced with losing their jobs.

Overall: This is a really good film. Even the tone and texture of the film itself gave it the feel of realism and accuracy.

Serious Moonlight

First Hit: A somewhat well intentioned comedic/dramatic story which mostly fizzles because of the director and actors failed to find the heart of the story.

Timothy Hutton plays Ian who returns to his summer retreat home from a business trip with plans to tell his wife Louise (played by Meg Ryan) that he is finished with their relationship and wants a divorce. He has invited his new lover over to the house for a quick tryst because he believes Louise won’t be arriving until the following day. However, Louise is already there and when Ian sees her he’s surprised and also decides to tell her about his decision. Louise hits him on the head knocking him out and when he awakes he’s tied, with duct tape, to a chair. She explains that what will happen is that Ian will change his mind and decide to not divorce her and when this happens she’ll untie him. However, he breaks loose but she knocks him out again and again ties him with duct tape, but to the toilet. While he is contimplating his fate, Louise goes out and returns only to find a thief in their home. The thief ties her up as well. Now they are both in the bathroom tied up. But somewhere between the moments the thief ties up Louise and Ian’s new girlfriend Sara (played by Kristen Bell) arrives for the second time, the audience figures out the plot and the problem with the film. The ending is now telegraphed. My sense is that the writing was good but the interpretation is where this film falls apart. The director didn't see the hole that was being dug and the actors fell into the hole as well. There just was't enough clarity as to when to expose more of the story and when to give it some grist.

I generally like Ryan and she has done some good dramatic stuff (In the Cut) and light hearted stuff (You’ve Got Mail). Here she seems lost as to what direction to take the character. Hutton has had an extensive career but, for me, has never stood out as a powerful actor. It is the same in this film. Cheryl Hines, the director, was a friend of the late Adrienne Shelly (writer of this film) and certainly didn’t have enough experience to bring the best out of this story.

Overall: It is a reasonable video rental type film.