[Review: IN THEATRES] IN A WORLD... (7/10)

Written, directed and staring Lake Bell, the Sundance award winning comedy In A World… is set in the unusual, rarely seen and often exclusively an all-boys club world of trailer voice-overs. When great Don Lafontaine known for the phrase “In a World…” passes (told in a spirited credit montage) the phrase is retired, that is until the resurrection of the phrase in ad copy for a new “quad-illogy” – for a quazi-feminist action film called The Amazon Games.

Making use of (likely) several pals in the alternative comedy world, Lake Bell rounds out the cast with some greats including Demetri Martin, Tig Notaro, Nick Offerman, and Ken Marino. Fred Melamed plays Carol’s (Bell) dad – a rival legend who realizes its time to move on, he’s happy living with a sexy groupie, a year younger than Carl – and starts training Marino’s Gustav.

In A World announces the arrival of Lake Bell as alt comic – she’s quite wonderful here as Carol, a geeky women who at 31 is still in the process of finding herself. Early in act one Carol is asked to leave home… so the groupie can move in – she barely makes end meet as a freelance vocal coach – initially teaching Eva Longoria to take a cockney accent. Carol’s unlikely love interest is Louis – played by Demetri Martin, and they share very funny and very sweet scene.

That’s the tone Bell strikes – In A World... is often hilarious, setting up awkward situations that are both funny and in once instance painful. Carol moves into her sister Dani’s apartment (she’s played by Michaela Watkins). Living with the always snacking Moe (Corddry), Carol evokes sister code – asking her to record and collect the voice of a flirtatious client. Carol ultimately redeems herself and the film has a happy ending even with a few detours.

The competition for the trailer for The Amazon Games comes down to three voice over artists: Carol, Gustav, and Sam – but Bell has so much fun along the way (moments I won’t spoil). In A World succeeds while other alternative comedies (including those co-written by Marino) often haven’t for me. Sometimes comedies just simply work – often when they take themselves seriously. Bell first and foremost does – taking risks. Sure at times it’s a little sitcom like – but that’s exactly what this is – situational comedy. I await what she does next as writer/director – Bell, has made a confident, original film.

Screening: Dipson Amherst

[Review: IN THEATERS] I'M SO EXCITED (7/10)

Arriving in the middle of the summer (verses Oscar season), Pedro Almodovar’s latest, I’m So Excited is hilariously weird. Known for dark humor and themes (especially his last film, the very strange revenge thriller The Skin I Live In) this is more upbeat. 

On the tarmac we meet two Almodovar regulars: Jessica (Penelope Cruz) and her lover Leon (Antonio Banderas) – distracted by the news of Jessica’s pregnancy Leon forgets to remove a brace that is sucked up into the plane’s landing gear and that’s when the trouble begins. I should tell you the film opens with a disclaimer “nothing in this films is based on reality” – here Almodovar is having a good deal of fun – think Murder on the Orient Express crossed with the kind of 1950s Dorris Day Romp with the bisexuality of one, Mr. Almodovar. It is true: the colors are more vibrant and the cabin more spacious than say, even Virgin Atlantic – Ebert said it best in his review of Almodovar’s Broken Embraces “a voluptuary of a film, drunk on primary colors…as it ravished me, I longed for a freeze frame to allow me to savor a shot”. All of his film films are visually beautiful (although The Skin I Live In takes it to a whole new level of insanity).

Bound for Mexico City the crew are all gay (or bisexual) including pilots Benito and Alex, stewards Ulloa, Fajardo and Joserra – while the first class cabin is full of – I think the polite word is eccentrics including another Almodovar regular Cecila Roth. Much of what happens is a bizarre joy including one shot (you’ll know it when you see it) this is one of this summer’s funniest. Upon hearing the flight is doomed and cannot land in Mexico City the crew takes to entertaining the first class folks, while they individually fall apart (a funny gag has each talking on the phone while the whole cabin can hear their conversation).

Knowing the film exists in an alternative universe frees it for all sorts of absurdity – the coach passengers are all drugged and are asleep, while the first class passengers are given other drugs to loosen their inhibitions – this is filmmaking without restraint and while at times it might not quite pull it off, I was always smiling (sometimes in disbelief). This is the kind of film that requires surrender: sure it’s a mess but Almodovar, after a series of intense films is having a little fun with his cast of regulars. 

Screening: Dipson Amherst, Dipson Eastern Hills

[REVIEW: In Theaters] GIRL MOST LIKELY (6/10)

Girl Most Likely (which premiered at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival as Imogene) is a near miss of a film – on one hand you get a hilariously neurotic performance by Kristen Wiig (hilarious neurotic could be her middle name) as the (former) title character Imogene – and Annette Bening as her mom with a gambling (and perhaps sex) addiction. By all means this should be a winning combo but something about it just doesn’t quite come together – comedy is made often in editing (as any film is, really), and here things seem structurally off.

Directed by Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini (Pulcini is also the film’s editor), it’s slightly out of touch – Wiig plays a failed New York playwright who is granted admission into an exclusive uptown world via a playwriting grant (and she fails to produce work for it), when her life is turned upside down she resorts to suicide. An over crowding problem at the hospital forces Imogene into the care of Zelder (her mom), who lives down the shore outside of Atlantic City with a CIA operative known as George Bousche (Matt Dillon). Christopher Fitzgerald plays Ralph, the geeky brother (also living at home) – who builds a human replica of an exoskeleton.

The film captures two paces of life without the interest to really explore just how hard Imogene has fallen: it’s a shame, I think this is where the richness of this material can be found (and thus more humor can be unlocked). This isn’t to say Girl Most Likely is a dumb movie, but it suffers the same fate the last two theatrically released films from this duo have (The Nanny Diaries and The Extra Man) they are out of touch without being critical of those that are out of touch. Their first narrative (and doc hybrid) American Splendor was about life at ground level. Luckily this is more interesting and accessible than The Extra Man, but still A Girl Most Likely seems to lack the ambition to pull off what it really should.

With that said, the performances are fine (not their best, but fine), with a few laughs and surprises, it’s not without sequences that drag a little too much and inevitable plot points that you wish it would have the ambition to avoid (including Wiig’s new love interest, which I have said nothing about because its rather predicable). There are lots of better (and worse) films out right now at both your art house and multiplex. And despite the title no one in the film is transgendered.  

Screening: Regal Quaker Crossing, Dipson Amherst