Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
I’m delighted to hear that this is really playing well for audiences. I’m a big fan of WILL SUCCESS SPOIL ROCK HUNTER?, and this sounds like a loving tribute to that and other films of that era.
And if it does reeeeeeeeal well, then maybe Fox and Peyton Reed will get all crazy on FANTASTIC FOUR, and that’s what we want, right? RIGHT?!
FROM THE DESK OF: Dr. Ultimately
PATIENT: Down With Love
HISTORY: Barbara Novak, a seemingly naive yet empowered non-fiction author from a small town in Maine arrives in Manhattan with big hopes for the success of her latest self-help tome - Down With Love. Her plan to tip the gender scale is upset when man-about-town and advice columnist Catcher Block decides to expose her "sex a la carte" mantra as a flimsy facade for what women really want - "Love and marriage."
SYMPTOMS: Relentlessly advertised as an homage to the Rock Hudson/Doris Day sex comedies of the sixties, Down With Love, has an electricity to it that builds from the opening credits and rarely abates till the film's climax.
More hip stylish in theory than in practice, Down With Love manages to blend a nineties sexy flavor with a "wink-wink aren't we cute" attitude towards conservative romance, women in the workplace, and retro pop-culture. Unfortunately, o matter how vintage this film tries to be, in an upsettingly annoying fashion comes across as a charicature of its source material, and - to its credit - walks that fine line between parody and genuine homage throughout the length of the picture.
Conceptually, the idea is a novelty, and can be done well (see The Hudsucker Proxy, for example). In this case, it seems more like a pilot (a long pilot, clocking in at about two hours) for That 60's Show, and might have been better suited as such. It's the little things - Maybe it's the way Rene Zellweger walks like her underwear is always riding up too high in the back; Or the way she seems to be conscious of every line she speaks. It could be the crazy jazz-pop background music that never stops or the frenetic camera movements that seem to make one feel like they're stuck in a gaudy tourist trap on the highway of cinema history.
In context, Down With Love doesn't fail by a long shot. Ewan MacGregor, as Catcher (and gosh-golly astronaut Zip Martin), handles the material with relative ease, not really emoting much, but having just enough fun to fill out the role. Both he and Zellweger are at their best during the zippy wordplay and clever use of split screen effects, where the actors are given to some delightful - and wickedly funny - verbal and physical choreography. David Hyde Pierce and Sarah Paulson fill the supportive best-friend roles and incidentally make for far more compelling (and funny) characters. Tony Randall makes a cameo and a great (and under-used) supporting soundtrack featuring songs by Frank Sinatra and Astrud Gilberto adds an authenticity that all the pastel colors and art-deco production design really couldn't affect.
PROGNOSIS: Funny, well-cast, and clever at times, Down With Love manages to capture the free-wheeling style of yesterday's cinematic sex-romps and multiply it all times ten.
When it's good, it's very good (MacGregor and Pierce), and when it's dull, it's unbearable (Zellweger's third-act tell-all). Go with your best gal or guy and have a good time (but take in a matinee).
DR. ULTIMATELY
Thanks, man. This is going to be a nice alternative on MATRIX weekend when I need a li’l somethin’ to cleanse the palette between bouts of SF ass-kickery.
"Moriarty" out.
