Tools
dir. Brad Silberling
Opens Fri Dec 17.
My boyfriend and I rate movies we see with our kid on the "HH" scale, which stands for "how high?"--as in, "How high does an adult have to be in order to enjoy this?" A film is awarded a number between 1 and 10, with 1 meaning "completely sober," and 10 meaning "higher than all the dirty hippies at Hempfest rolled into a big, dirty ball." Spongebob Squarepants? That won an HH rating of 1--an adult can enjoy that movie right along with his kid. Shrek 2? About a 3. The Cat in the Hat? A 9.5. Baby Geniuses 2? HH 48--i.e., physically impossible to be high enough to enjoy.
Not that we--or I, since my boyfriend hasn't smoked pot for seven long years now--would ever get high around our kid, of course. That wouldn't be responsible. Our HH ratings are theoretical, a coded way for us to discuss and/or dismiss the typically dreadful films that we're forced to sit through with our kid.
Stranger Personals
So I'm happy to report that Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events earned a rare HH 1 after a Saturday morning screening. The movie is faithful to the books, mining the first three for settings, characters, and unfortunate events. Jim Carrey is perfectly cast as the evil Count Olaf, an actor who assumes a series of grotesque disguises as he pursues a trio of orphans whose inheritance he's after. The pair of roundups cast as the elder orphans, Jennifer Coolidge and Liam Aiken, effortlessly more than hold their own against Carrey, for which both deserve bonuses--or Golden Globes.
Two complaints: Unlike the books, which unfold at a leisurely pace (it can often take weeks or months for Count Olaf to catch up with the orphans), the timeline in the film is compressed. The events unfold over two or three days, which not only makes it harder to buy into the visually stunning alternate universe director Brad Silberling and his art director have created, but also makes Count Olaf seem less of a threat--despite the fact that he murders two of the orphans' guardians (Billy Connely, Meryl Streep). And while the film's narrator (Jude Law), like in the books, goes out of his way to emphasize the dark, depressing fate of the orphans, the filmmakers lose their nerve, tacking an upbeat final bit of narration that betrays the books' trademark pessimism.
Finally, while Lemony Snicket's itself earns an HH rating of 1, the shadow-puppet animation sequence that serves as the end credits is a perfect 10--not because they're awful, but because they're so visually arresting. I fully intend to buy the DVD when it's released, watch it again with my kid, and then, when he's away at Grandma's house for the night, watch the end credits over and over again, baked out of my mind. They're that good. DAN SAVAGE
Spanglish
dir. James L. Brooks
Opens Fri Dec 17.
On a pleasant spring day in the year 1937, the Airship Hindenburg, in-bound from Frankfurt, Germany, burst into flames over the Lakehurst naval station in New Jersey. A total of 36 passengers lost their lives.
I bring up this little bit of history because this Friday, the career of Téa Leoni will, like the Hindenburg before it, tragically combust. For Hitler's dreamy airship the cause of its combustion was hydrogen; for Leoni's career, it will be a film called Spanglish.
She plays Deborah Clasky, a recently downsized marketing executive in the midst of a crisis: Her marriage is unraveling, her mother is an alcoholic, and her daughter is afraid of her. A knot of nerves, prone to shrieking and unable to run her own household, Deborah hires a housekeeper named Flor (Paz Vega), who has fled Mexico illegally with her daughter. It's an inexplicable hire, given Deborah's fragile condition, for not only is Flor drop-dead gorgeous, but she also speaks no English--placing her, of course, square within the danger zone of Deborah's husband's (Adam Sandler) frustrated libido.
What follows is intended to be a clash of cultures--a clash that should be perfectly ripe for a filmmaker such as James L. Brooks, whose previous films, including the great Broadcast News, successfully mined the humor to be found in liberal guilt. Spanglish is no Broadcast News, however--in fact, it's not even As Good As It Gets (which was an abomination in its own right). What it is, sadly, is absolutely the worst film of the year, and much of the blame for the film's failure falls on the shoulders of poor Leoni, whose performance is so grating, so irritating, that you cringe whenever she's on screen. This isn't merely a bad performance; it will soon be a legendary one, sure to be referenced in future reviews--a cautionary tale that every actress would be wise to pay attention to, lest they find themselves stumbling toward a similar fate. Once upon a time, Leoni had promise (see Flirting with Disaster); now the likes of Adam Sandler is acting the pants off of her. Which can mean only one thing, really: Career oblivion is lurking just around the corner. Oh, the humanity. BRADLEY STEINBACHER
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