Movie Review The Big Year

The Big Year (2011)

Directed by David Frankel 

Written by Howard Franklin 

Starring Jack Black, Owen Wilson, Steve Martin, Rosamund Pike 

Release Date October 14th, 2011

Published October 17th, 2011

I've always longed to be part of a community. I love the idea of a group of likeminded people who share a joyous passion for something. Sure, I have the community of fellow Chicago Cubs fans but we're such an edgy, angst-ridden bunch; it's hard to have a sense of community among people constantly waiting for something bad to happen.

I should consider birding. The wonderful new comedy The Big Year starring Jack Black, Steve Martin and Owen Wilson offers a wonderful, angst-free group of people whose passion is so purely beautiful that you can't help but admire and envy it, even if you don't quite understand it.

Birding and Birder Not Bird-watching or Bird-watcher

Brad Harris (Jack Black) has a crappy job and little money but he does have his birds. Brad is a passionate birder and this year he is going to chase his dream, a Big Year. A Big Year is when a birder, bird watcher to us non-birding enthusiasts, spends one year crossing North America trying to see as many bird species as possible.

Kenny Bostick (Owen Wilson) is the greatest birder in the world. Kenny set the world record with his big year not long ago. Now, with an El Nino weather pattern on the horizon, Kenny knows someone will try to break his record and he's intent on keeping his legacy, even if it strains his marriage to Jessica (Rosamund Pike).

Third Retirement is the Charm

Joining Brad and Kenny on a quest for a Big Year is Stu Preissler (Steve Martin). Stu has just retired for the third time and his Big Year is his best chance to finally make his retirement permanent.

On the surface, The Big Year sounds like a ludicrous idea for a movie; a movie about bird-watching? A movie about bird-watching starring Jack Black? What's that old phrase about judging a book?

Never Judge a Book...

Get past the cover of The Big Year however, and you find a brilliant, sensitive, smart comedy about seeking adventure and chasing a dream that only makes sense to you. There is a pioneer spirit to these crazed men chasing their bird obsession and as directed by David Frankel that spirit is infectious and entertaining.

Jack Black is the heart of The Big Year as Brad. Black provides the voiceover for the film and his sensitivity, humor and passion are as surprising as they are terrifically low-key; it's Jack Black dialed down to a regular human speed and it works.

The Surprising Chemistry of Jack Black and Steve Martin

Jack Black and Steve Martin have surprisingly great chemistry as these two very different men who have only one thing in common, but one really great thing. Martin also sparks wonderfully with his onscreen wife JoBeth Williams, adding another terrifically human level to this well-grounded comedy.

Owen Wilson has the most complex role in The Big Year. Kenny Bostick's passion is less justifiable and closer to madness than is anyone else's. Kenny, we are told, already cost himself one marriage in his pursuit of a Big Year and looks to be on the verge of losing a second.

Owen Wilson The Greatest Birder in the World

Yet, even as his marriage to a woman he clearly cares about, Kenny cannot let go of what he believes will be his legacy. Rosamund Pike is excellent as Kenny's wife, a reasonable and sensitive woman who is a great deal more patient than any one should have to be until she can be patient no longer.

David Frankel is an exceptional mainstream auteur. Frankel tells very mainstream, easily accessible stories that could, in the hands of lesser directors, become wacky and over the top. Under his guidance however, stories like Marley & Me and The Big Year, become sensitive, smart human stories that mine humor from universality and truth.

A Shortcut Here and There

Of course, The Big Year has to take a few shortcuts to get where it's going. A few scenes have an air of convenience to them but that's only because the scenes were required to keep The Big Year from being three to four hours in length.

At the very least, Frankel's shorthand dialogue is neither insulting nor simpleminded. Rather, it's purposeful, well directed and exists only long enough to serve its purpose. A good example is a scene between Owen Wilson and Steve Martin.

The Honor System

There are rumors among the birding community that Kenny Bostick may have cheated to get to his Big Year, abusing the honor system on which the whole of the Big Year concept is based. Thankfully, Stu witnesses Bostick in a moment when Bostick doesn't know he is there earnestly seeking to see a particular bird that he has heard and could technically claim as he has recognized its call.

The moment is convenient for Stu's presence to witness it but the scene is necessary as it establishes Kenny Bostick as an honest man who takes his birding seriously; a point that only makes his home life compromises more poignant and sad.

An Unexpected and Welcome Surprise

The Big Year made me smile repeatedly all the way to the end and sent me home with a giant grin as well. This is a wonderful little human comedy populated by wonderful characters whose crazy adventure is inspiring, invigorating and at times both moving and funny.

The Big Year is the most unexpected and welcome surprise of 2011.

Movie Review Marley & Me

Marley & Me (2008) 

Directed by David Frankel

Written by Scott Frank and Don Roos

Starring Owen Wilson, Jennifer Aniston, Alan Arkin

Release Date December 25th, 2008

Published December 24th, 2008

I haven't had a dog since I was a kid. His name was Rusty. I have this painting that someone bought at goodwill or a garage sale that just happens to be of a dog that looks exactly like Rusty. I cannot walk past it without smiling. Rusty was the dumbest dog in history. He would answer to any name shouted loud enough and he chased parked cars. But he was my dog and I loved him. The new movie Marley & Me with Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston inspires that sort of pet related introspection. The movie based on John Grogan's bestselling book is filled with spot on recreations of the kinds of memories dogs leave behind.

John Grogan wanted to be a globetrotting journalist who wrote the stories that changed the world. Instead, he went to work at the Sun Sentinel in Florida and covered city council meetings and wrote the occasional obituary. When he got his big break it wasn't going to Columbia to track the drug trade like his pal Sebastian (Dr. McSteamy, Eric Dane).

Nope, John Grogan's big break came when a columnist quit the Sentinel on short notice and his editor (Alan Arkin, in all his cantankerous glory) needed someone to fill 600 words in the lifestyle section. That was when John wrote his first article on his dog Marley, aka the world's worst dog, and launched himself to national syndication.

Marley was the world's worst dog. He ate everything from shoes to drywall. If there was a thunderstorm he might do more damage than the storm itself. John and his wife Jenn, also a journalist, got Marley when Jenn began talking about having a baby and John decided, behind her back, that he wasn't ready. Sebastian suggested getting the dog as a way of putting her off and it worked for a while. Eventually however, the Grogan's did have a baby and the family and Marley continued to grow.

Directed by David Frankel, the movie made from John Grogan's bestseller is filled with heart and humor in a most earnest fashion. It's something unlikely in the age of irony and disaffection for a movie to be so bravely serious about the day to day life of a family. The risk is being labeled cheesy, sentimental or cornball. Director David Frankel doesn't seem to care about the labels and in not caring the film is almost heroic.

There is nothing wrong with irony but once in a while a movie like Marley & Me is a welcome respite from the modern form of humor all detached and 'meta' and weird for the sake of weird, or awkward for the sake of awkward. Marley & Me treats the family life of John and Jenn Grogan with a seriousness that keeps the movie from becoming the Beethoven sequel so many of us imagined.

If Frankel and writers Scott Frank and Don Roos had given the same care to John Grogan's work life I might have a lot more nice things to say about Marley & Me. Unfortunately, the filmmakers give such a strange and distorted idea of how journalism works that it becomes distracting. Trust me when I tell you that no journalist has ever shown hesitation about being promoted and been handed double his pay as an enticement. Even if there were an ounce of truth to this story, the movie doesn't make it remotely believable by playing it as Arkin and Wilson play out the scene in Marley & Me. 

It's a little thing but it irritated me.

Aside from the job stuff, Marley & Me is a fun, thoughtful, well crafted family movie that gets right every aspect of owning and loving a dog. Even if you don't own or love dogs you will appreciate the way Director David Frankel and stars Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston never condescend to the audience. The film is serious about the way it treats the Grogan family and the humor emanates from a place of truth because of that seriousness.

Movie Review The Devil Wears Prada

The Devil Wears Prada (2006) 

Directed by David Frankel 

Written by Aline Bros McKenna

Starring Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt, Meryl Streep, Stanley Tucci, Adrien Grenier 

Release Date June 30th, 2006 

Published June 29th, 2006 

The Devil Wears Prada, adapted from the bestselling novel by Lauren Weisberger, wants desperately to be an urbane, witty combination of Sex In The City and the haute couture of a glossy Vogue magazine cover. More true to the film's nature however is a typical little fish, big pond story that combines elements of Cinderella and Mary Tyler Moore.

Anne Hathaway stars in Devil Wears Prada as Andy Sachs, a wide eyed midwestern girl in the big city of New York hoping for her big break in journalism. Landing a job at Runway magazine as the second assistant to the legendary Runway editor Miranda Priestley (Meryl Streep) is the kind of job that opens a lot of doors.

This, however. There are no typical assistants, assistant gigs. Priestley is a tyrannical slave driver with a withering gaze and a dismissive whispery voice that sets your teeth on edge, especially with her dismissive catch phrase "That's All" dropped randomly during any discussion.

At home Andy's life in the big city centers around the tiny apartment she shares with her boyfriend from back home Nate (Adrien Grenier, TV's Entourage). He is working his way to becoming a chef while watching Andy run ragged by her new job.

The thrust of the plot is seemingly predictable. Will the poor midwestern girl succumb to the glamor explosion of her new job at the expense of her midwestern values or will she be true to herself and her boyfriend. To the film's credit this very typical storyline does not play out completely as expected.

Director David Frankel and writer Aline Brosh McKenna cannot resist a few cliches along the way. Watch as the film trips along the edge of an old fashioned Hollywood values play as they position Andy's life choices. Andy can have the job and the glamor or the true love of her old boyfriend and all the pre-packaged old school benefits of marriage, kids and settled down 'bliss'.

For some reason Andy cannot have both. At 23 years old neither Andy's boyfriend nor her closest friends, played by Tracie Thomas and Doug Sommer, are unwilling to understand the sacrifices one must make in order to make it in a challenging field such as the one she has chosen.

The boyfriend and the friends bitch and moan about Andy changing into someone they don't know anymore. They even go as far as to condemn her when she accepts the chance to travel to Paris for a few weeks of work. I don't know about you but if a friend of mine were headed for Paris I would try and hide in their luggage rather than complain about it.

To reiterate, the film does not end with the old school values lesson. In fact the movie takes a wide left turn that Hays code era films never would have been allowed to take. Andy has a quickie relationship with a disingenuous newsman, played by Simon Baker, that is counter to her midwest values but that director Frankel does not play as corruption but rather as the choice of an independent minded woman.

Therein lies the problem with The Devil Wears Prada. The film is pushing two divergent messages at once. The old school idea that women are happier with relationships and kids than with a successful career and the idea that women can make independent choices that don't have to conform with old school values. The film wants it both ways, condemn Miranda for eschewing the classic homemaker idyll but celebrate Andy for being independent. The shifts in ideals never make sense.

The film in some fit of old school values rage wants Andy to choose the path of boyfriend and wedded bliss over career and glamor but then shows the career and glamor to be the more interesting and even correct choice, seemingly against the movie's own will.

Is Meryl Streep's Miranda Priestley an arrogant harridan deluded by her power? Yeah, but she also has great success and a serious belief in the integrity of what she does. Streep fights off any attempt to typically humanize Miranda choosing instead to have Miranda stay true to her driven hard nose self something the film then positions as her being unhappy.

Miranda however never really seems all that tortured by her life. She has a great life and while it may have cost her several husbands, she is a strong independent woman with little time for the trifling matters of the male ego. This is not something to lament, not in the post-feminism era. Miranda Priestley, despite her seeming loneliness, is a success story and for the film to try and portray it any other way is yet another nod to old school values.

The most important thing one needs to know about The Devil Wears Prada is that Meryl Streep reaffirms that she is an American treasure. Ms. Streep's performance is just spot on, perfect. Nailing Miranda's bitter aloof nature while never allowing her bitchiness to become a cliche. Streep gives Miranda fierce integrity even as the film tries to position her as an arch villain desperate in her loneliness and unhappiness. Ms. Streep will simply have none of it.

Watch Streep's final scene, played just with her face as she gives an approving Mona Lisa smile to the new independent Andy and then just as quickly returns to being typical Miranda snapping her driver to attention with a withering whisper. This is one of the most entertaining performances of the year and the second brilliant performance from Ms. Streep in a matter of weeks, she was exceptional in A Prairie Home Companion as well.

A film that desperately wants to be as hip and edgy as the haute couture it models fails because it lacks the originality of the clothes on its characters' back. The Devil Wears Prada is simply too conventional a fairy tale to be set in and around an industry, fashion, that while fatuous is often very original, forward thinking and ahead of its time. Mary Tyler Moore meets Cinderella as a plot is so mid-seventies.

On the other hand, Ms. Streep is so good I can give a partial recommendation to The Devil Wears Prada based on her performance alone. Just dim your expectations of the film and sit back and enjoy an American treasure at work.