Hey folks, Harry here with Rav spilling about a movie entitled LOVELY & AMAZING! This sounds like a really good movie to me. So all you Dallas folks, be sure to check it out!
Hey Harry,
Tomorrow the USA film festival in Dallas Texas begins, a bunch a films will play, some good and probably a few that suck, I'll be at four of the films, starting tomorrow with Slap Her, She's French at the Lakewood theatre, but none of that really matters right now as I'm writing to tell you guys about a little film I saw about 6 months ago called Lovely and Amazing, it will be closing out the fest on next Thursday, It will screen along side All the Queen's Men, so I'll be the guy at the All the Queen's Men theatre re-directing everyone I can find to the Lovely and Amazing screening room.. Lovely and Amazing stars Catherine Keener, Jake Gyllenhaal Brenda Blethyn, Emily Mortimer, and Dermot Mulroney.
Lovely and Amazing is the story of the Marks family....to be more correct the women of the Mark's family. Brenda Blethyn the mother of the family who is contemplating plastic surgery in her golden years. Catherine Keener and Emily Mortimer play two quirky sisters suffering from well what could be most easily described as duel-mid-life-crises. Oh and finally there is young actress Raven Goodwin, a overweight African American girl, who their mother has just adopted.
My favorite part of this film was Emily Mortimer, god it would be great to see her in more roles, here she is a rising actress struggling with a career that seems to have came out of nowhere. She had a bit part in a film, but it was a good line which was then featured on the trailer and the poster, so now the film has her doing interviews, photo shoots, and everything else in support of her few lines. She begins to date a very self-absorbed egotistical actor which doesn't help the fact that she already is an insanely insecure person. I'll shutup on that description before I begin to spoil things, overall she captures the insecurity and stress of her character flawlessly. Although it is a bit sick to word it this way, but it really is a joy to watch her hardships unravel.
I adore Catherine Keener, in fact her being in the film was one of the main reasons for me attending the screening at Telluride, be it Simpatico, or the craziness of Being John Malkovich, or even Death to Smoochy she never fails at being a fun personality to watch, being the perfect "universal" movie actress today playing just about every type of role out there for females. Here her character is a bit of a "starving artist" having trouble trying to sell her little trinkets to specialty stores, until her husband, whom she's feeling a bit of a disconnection from, forces her to get a job. So what does she do? She walks out and gets a minimum wage job at a one hour photo shop, where her boss is a 17 year old kid played by Jake Gyllenhaal. In my personal opinion this is her best performance to date, sadly some of the elements of her character might have been lightened a bit by recent releases like Life as a House (you will get what I'm referring to when you see it), except here it is handled a hell of a lot better. Catherine has one very memorable scene with Raven Goodwin inside a Mcdonalds restaurant that was sooooooo perfect, although Raven is supposed to be an adopted sister of hers they still seem to have a sisterly bond of some sort.
Jake Gyllenhaal....boy oh boy can this kid fucking act, when I originally saw this film it was the same exact weekend bubble-boy was released, I had yet to see Donnie Darko, the only gyllenhaal film I could remember seeing was October Sky where he impressed the hell out of me as Homer. In Lovely and Amazing he doesn't really have to stretch his roots much as he plays a seventeen year old photo shop manager bossing around Catherine Keener. If you are not wholly convinced of this kid's talent yet, just wait till you see this film, a shot of him standing on the road confused and a bit humiliated resonates in my mind as I write this review. His part may be small in this film, but his part has a massive impact on the film. When I think of Jake Gyllenhaal this character comes to mind...not Donnie Darko, not Homer Hickam, not even Bubble Boy, Jordan.
The biggest surprise for me out of the film was well the actual film...or lack of film I should say. This was the first HD 24P film I ever saw in a theatre, and I did not even know it was 24P until well after the film I didn't even get a hint at it until the end credits rolled really. Unlike Jason X and Episode 2, Lovely and Amazing is a pure drama grounded in the real world far far away from any digital effect and the videography perfectly took place of 35mm, on retrospect there were a few spots that looked like well "different," but me being the idiot I am just assumed it was a really interesting out of place background effect by a good dp (you will see this during the outside of the fast food restaurant.
At Telluride Lovely and Amazing was billed as "Happiness for Women", I don't exactly think that that description does the film complete justice. Yes, it has the same nearly sick honesty as solondz film had, but in a bit of a much more tame atmosphere. Who knows maybe this is what you get after you run Happiness through the Lifetime censors. Lovely and Amazing is a fantastic honest film that you can't let pass you by. Again it is playing next Thursday night at the USA Film Festival in Dallas, TX (http://www.Usafilmfesitval.com) and Lions Gate will do a limited release on it in July, find a screening room showing it and watch it ASAP. Also to everyone attending (and would-be stalkers) the film fest tomorrow I'll be the camp crystal lake counselor at Slap Her, She's French.
Later,
Ravvy
