Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
Marty McFly wrote in yesterday about this one, but we got this review a little earlier from “Van Nistelrooy.” It just got a little misplaced in all the hubbub here at the Labs in the last week. Personally, I think this sounds like it could be great fun. If you’ve ever seen WILL SUCCESS SPOIL ROCK HUNTER?, then you know just how much fun a smart sex comedy can be...
Hi Harry,
I suppose most people aren't as interested in a "romantic comedy" review as the next sci-fi or middle earth epic sneak peek, but maybe I'm just speaking for myself, weaned on Star Wars and action movies, usually when the person at the theater tries to hand me a flyer for a screening (why is it always a romatic comedy?) it is something I would have no interest in taking a weeknight to see, my eyes roll back in my skull and I pass them by like some drunk asking for change. Well, this time I was at the theater with my girlfriend, and she hadn't been to a screening before, and Tuesday night was open...no, it wasn't something that intrigued me like "Solaris", but I took the flyer and RSVP'd my way in to see "Down With Love", starring Ewan McGregor, Renee Zelwigger, David Hyde Pierce, Tony Randall, Jeri Ryan and others.
Big crowd in attendance when we got there, 45 minutes before the start. The theater held 350 and it was full- highly skewed toward a female audience, lots of older couples as well. Director of the evening's events announces that this is a work print and the first audience screening...unfinished titles, no credits, temp score (excellent temp score.) The setting is 1963 in New York- production is fantastic and the attention to style is immaculate. We see lots of shots of the Pan Am building, several in-car scenes used backgrounds shot around that period. We have Ewan McGregor's character, super suave ladies' man mysoginist writer Catcher Block, innocent farm girl turned feminist independence writer Barbara Novak (Renee Zelwigger) as the "romance"- more of two people who we see moving toward each other, but throughout the movies are basically enemies as Novak's new book has virtually destroyed Catcher Block's airline stewardess (Jeri Ryan, among others) fantasy lifestyle. As a famous expose writer, Catcher Block, fresh from exposing Nasa for hiring Nazis, decides to trick Novak into becoming an old-fashioned girl, falling in love with him and becoming his wife- thus proving her feminist, anti-love viewpoint book worthless and returning 1963 earth to the control of men. He has to do this undercover of course, as Novak can't stand him. He creates an innocent geeky astronaut character and goes about his plan...
Meanwhile, Novak's agent, Vikki Hiller (Sarah Paulson) and Catcher's agent, Mcmanus (David Hyde Pierce) have their own hate/romance episode in parallel, though the Vikki Hiller character is nothing more than North Dakota in winter and David Hyde Pierce is just as you would expect, a neurotic guy, as usual. Not interesting in the least, but DHP provides some comic moments, including an amusing scene as a host of a beatnik party in Catcher's 60's mod bachelor lounge high rise apartment.
I enjoyed the movie, the print felt complete, just too long (115 minutes, or thereabouts, with no credits)...I'm sure they will remedy that later. It was fun. Not my cup of tea of course, but I sat through and half enjoyed Bridget Jones diary and this was much more enjoyable for me. The chracacters are all cartoons of 60's characters, this can be funny, but it might wear on some people after a while. Everybody in the movie is a phony, but that is how it is written. The 60's scenery is truly brilliant though. Mcmanus, Catcher Block, and Novak all have fantastically detailed 60's apartments that could only exist in the movies. We also have the skyscraper magazine publishing houses of men's and ladies magazine with all of their contrasts.
I suspect that people old enough, or film savvy enough to have watched the movies of this period that this movie pays homage to, the film will be even more enjoyable- late in the movie Novak wears the same white hair-turban that I know I've seen on Doris Day in some movie, I am sure there is a lot more literal referencing. What this movie celebrates is the old films, but also blows their eccentricities out of proportion for comedic effect, the silliness beatniks, pipe-smoking males with sock garters, "that-girl" style enterances, bomb protests, 60's special effects and film scores. There are a few sex references and Austin Poweresque visual double-entendres (one clever one utilizing the old style split screen phone conversation to simulate cunnilingus and more) that would never exist in the Doris Day movies...all are appropriate and make the colorful movie more colorful.
Not for the Jackass crowd, but not anything close to a sappy romance movie either. The film isn't preaching any message, in the end, all of the wrong people end up with each other, and the writers tell us they'll always be happy now- it is is truly silly, but it fits the theme.
"Down With Love" is a stylish, fun movie.
Tony Randall’s in it! Maybe they really will make a movie along the lines of ROCK HUNTER! Oh, man... now I’m really curious about this. I will publicly admit to liking Payton Reed’s BRING IT ON, and after I wore out the chapter with the bikini car wash, I even realized it’s a pretty funny, well-made film. Let’s hope Reed took a big step up this time, and that he’s ready to move on to THE FANTASTIC FOUR now...
"Moriarty" out.
