Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with my look at KISS KISS BANG BANG and SHOPGIRL. Both film are open right now in select cities, but aren't anywhere close to being open wide yet.
SHOPGIRL
The flick is about contrasting relationships. Claire Danes is the main character, an artist living alone and working a day job at Saks. Her loneliness compels her to start a relationship with a quirky unwashed slacker (Jason Schwartzman) who makes her laugh, but has no idea how to handle a relationship. She prods him, unknowingly, into making himself a better person and that results in him leaving town, following a band on the road for 3 months.
In that time she meets Steve Martin's character, a super rich older man who knows how to emotionally satisfy her. She falls in with him, despite it being said right up front that he's not looking for anything permanent. She doesn't quite hear that (because she doesn't want to, it'd seem), so from that point on they can't ever really be on the same level with each other because their relationship means completely different things to each person.
This is an odd sort of romantic comedy. The Steve Martin relationship gets the most time and Martin himself is the narrator of the movie, but there is very little chemistry between him and Claire Danes. The lack of chemistry is very much intentional and their relationship is supposed to be a very sad one, but when you have a movie with as much of a deliberate pace as SHOPGIRL, you need something to grab on to.
I wasn't bored during the movie, but I think a lot of that had to do with the frequent cuts to Jason Schwartzman on the road, learning a little bit about life and love. Schwartzman makes this movie. His herky-jerky nervous energy really gives the film a jolt of life every time he's on the screen. Danes does a compelling job as the main girl, but I never once came close to falling for her like I did, say, Scarlett Johansson in LOST IN TRANSLATION or Natalie Portman in GARDEN STATE. Her personality isn't as immediately lovable (to me anyway) as those two characters. She's very pretty, but I never felt like I wanted to leave my seat, step up into the screen and hug her and protect her from the world's evils.
On the whole, SHOPGIRL is a solid story with a knockout performance from Jason Schwartzman. It's worth a view, but I wouldn't put it in the "must see" category.
KISS KISS, BANG BANG
This film, on the other hand, I'd quickly recommend to just about every body. There's so much life and energy in KISS KISS, BANG BANG and so many knockout performances that it has become one of my favorites of the year.
I can lay my love of this film on the feet of Val Kilmer and Robert Downey Jr. Their buddy/not-so buddy relationship in the movie is great, with constant jabs at each other, the constant put-downs and gags...
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Shane Black (writer of MONSTER SQUAD and some other cop movies that made lots of money) has finally directed his own script and made this... a murder mystery set in the world of Los Angeles. We follow a loser played by Robert Downey Jr. He was a small time crook that somehow loses his way into the underbelly of Hollywood's elite party scene and is paired with Val Kilmer's Gay Perry, a homosexual P.I. that's supposed to show Downey the ropes for a role he inadvertently scored.
Suddenly, they have a dead body on their hands, mean bastards with ski masks that are trying to kill them and a huge mystery to solve.
I won't go into any more of the plot. The fun of the film is discovering the various twists and turns along with these characters, reacting along with them. It really is almost as if you were right there along with Downey at certain points in the movie. As you react to something fucked up, he reacts in a way that is almost like a reaction off of your reaction... if that makes a damn bit of sense.
Just know that you get a good mystery, characters that I want to see a long movie series dedicated to and some class A nudity from Michelle Monoghan (who gives off a strong Liv Tyler vibe, but seems less loopy than the beautiful Ms. Tyler) and some of the best laughs you'll have in a theater this year.
If Downey and Kilmer don't get an MTV movie award for their kiss I'll be very upset. Just sayin'.
Anyway, I highly recommend this movie. If it's playing near you, give it a shot. I think you'll dig the hell out of it.
-Quint
