Movie Review The Family Tree

The Family Tree (2011) 

Directed by Vivi Friedman

Written by Mark Lisson 

Starring Dermot Mulroney, Hope Davis, Chi McBride, Max Thieriot, Selma Blair, Christina Hendricks

Release Date August 26th, 2011

Published August 25th, 2011 

The Family Tree, starring Dermot Mulroney and Hope Davis is nuts, in a really great way. This dysfunctional family comedy about a family going to pieces is populated by a wonderfully game all-star cast that sacrifices dignity at every turn to deliver more than a few ridiculously funny moments.

The story is thus, Dermot Mulroney stars as Jack Burnett, a below average suburban working stiff. Hope Davis is his bitchy wife Bunnie and Max Theriot and Britt Robertson are their screwed up kids Eric and Kelly. Eric is a Jesus freak with a love for guns while Kelly portrays herself as loose though she’s not really.

What happens to this family during The Family Tree includes infidelity, a very unique accidental death–an acquaintance, not a family member—drugs and some divine intervention. All of the action is captured by first time director Vivi Friedman in a madcap fashion that plays like American Beauty through the prism of the Coen Brothers.

The phenomenal supporting cast includes Chi McBride’s funniest and most unexpected performance in years as Burnett's neighbor. McBride is joined by a veritable Battle of the Network Stars size supporting cast that includes Burn Notice star Gabrielle Anwar, Mad Men’s Christina Hendricks, Jane Seymour, Selma Blair, Madeline Zima, Keith Carradine, Rachel Leigh Cook and Bow Wow, among others.

Corralling all of this talent into one wonderfully wild movie is first time director Vivi Friedman. Working from a script by a veteran TV writer, and I do mean veteran, the guy who wrote for Hart to Hart, Mark Lisson, Friedman takes her cast and just keeps whipping them into a weird comic frenzy right up to the odd, highly unlikely but still strangely satisfying ending.

Hollywood tried to turn Dermot Mulroney into a hunky leading man a few years ago but it never took. He’s better off without the romantic comedies; character roles like this one in The Family Tree may just be his niche. Mulroney finds a note of suburban white guy awkwardness in The Family Tree that never fails to find the most unexpected laughs.

Hope Davis is a terrific match for Mulroney as a Real Housewife of just outside Beverly Hills. I don’t want to spoil all the trouble that Davis’s Bunnie finds in The Family Tree, but I’ll just say that after her character comes out of a brief hospital stay she becomes endearing and adorable in strange and interesting ways.

I could go on for a while about the rest of the cast but as I said, I don’t want to spoil the movie. The Family Tree is not without its flaws, the guy in the tree… sorry, no spoilers. That aside, I laughed a lot and quite hard while watching this terrific little indie comedy that will without doubt sneak up and surprise you if you give it a chance.

Movie Review: The Weather Man

The Weather Man (2005) 

Directed by Gore Verbinski 

Written by Steve Conrad 

Starring Nicolas Cage, Michael Caine, Hope Davis, Michael Rispoli 

Release Date October 28th, 2005 

Published October 28th, 2005 

It is only very recently that I have become a big Nicolas Cage fan. I loved his Oscar winning work in Leaving Las Vegas but his subsequent descent into action stardom was marred by some seriously awful work in Con Air, The Rock, 8mm and Gone In 60 Seconds. He won me back a little with his extraordinary work in Scorsese's Bringing Out The Dead but that was almost forgotten in the midst of Cage's weepy period with City of Angels, Family Man and Captain Corelli's Mandolin.

Right now, however, Cage has hit a stride that is remarkable. Pushing aside the subpar blockbuster National Treasure, Cage's run of Adaptation, Matchstick Men, Lord of War and now The Weather Man is one of the greatest series of performances by one actor in movie history. Forget the bad box office, when Cage is teamed with great people and great material there may not be a better actor working today.

Dave Spritz (Nicolas Cage) is Chicago's number one weather man. His 'Spritz nipper' has fans across the windy city stopping him on the street to ask him which will be the chilliest day of the week. Of course not everyone is a fan of Dave's. On more than one occasion Dave has found himself on the wrong side of some flying food items including a shake, a box of McNuggets, even a burrito.

Dave attributes the food throwing to the fact that he is paid a lot of money to do a job that is not that difficult. He is paid high six figures plus appearance fees, works two hours a day and did not even have to get a degree in meteorology. The food items are essentially karmic payback for a way too easy path through life, and, more to the point, a reaction to how often Dave simply gets it wrong weatherwise.

Dave is a serious case of arrested development. He has never really accomplished anything. His father, Robert (Michael Caine), on the other hand, is a Pulitzer prize winning novelist and a wonderful father to boot despite the fact that his son is a very obvious disappointment. Dave also wrote a novel although, like most everything else in his life, he never followed through with it.

Most disappointing about Dave is his family situation. Dave is divorced from his wife, Noreen (Hope Davis), and cannot seem to connect with his two children, sixteen year-old Mike (Nicholas Hoult) and eleven year-old daugter Shelly (Gemmenne de la Pena). Mike has recently been busted for smoking pot and Shelly has taken up cigarrettes. 

Dave is convinced he can turn the whole thing around with a new job on a national morning television show in New York. He had better act quickly, however, because his father is dying and his wife is preparing to marry another man. His kids' problems are even more disturbing but best left to your discovery in watching the movie.

If Dave Spritz's life sounds depressing, well that's because it really is depressing. The Weather Man, directed by Gore Verbinski, makes no pretense about the level of sadness in its story. Dave is a pathetic character, a wretched failure as a husband and father and a son. He is a narcissus cloaked in his own misery. Still, as played by Cage, Dave Spritz is fascinating to watch.

Cage's chameleonesque ability to melt into his characters is perfectly on display in The Weather Man. Even minor touches like his ease in front of a green screen doing the weather are really convincing. His near meltdowns are a tour de force of wonderfully acted inner turmoil. Dave's plastic surface seems ready to melt from the heat of his inner conflict and that is Nicolas Cage at his absolute best.

Gore Verbinski intrigues me. While I found both Mousehunt and The Mexican to be underwhelming, The Ring was visually accomplished and Pirates of The Carribean showed the potential of a mainstream movie to exceed the limitations of its genre and be both entertaining and artistically crafted.

The Weather Man is yet another step forward in Gore Verbinski's evolution into maybe becoming a very rare kind of director, a mainstream 'auteur'. Watch the way in which his camera observes Dave without engaging him. The audience, like rubberneckers at a crash site, seem to watch Dave's sad life unfold in a slow motion drive by and we cannot turn away. Here's hoping Verbinski does not get too caught up in the Pirates sequels and forgets to make more films as engrossing as The Weather Man.

The film's trailer might give people the impression that The Weather Man is a drama with comedy. There are laughs in the film but they come from a very dark place. They come from failure, humiliation and pain, and the sorrowful ways that Cage's character deals with what happens to him and around him. Dave Spritz is a sad sack character who invites indignity and cannot seem to escape it.

So if the film is as dark as I describe, it begs the question; why did I like it so much? Because it sets out to create a portrait of a particular character and no matter how dark things get the film stays true to that character and tells his story in a most compelling fashion. I liked it because Nicolas Cage is so amazing, to simplify things.

Cage deserves an Oscar nomination for his extraordinary work in The Weather Man. That, however, does not mean that the film is typically entertaining. Some people will have to change the way they look at movies to find pleasure in this film. The movie is challengingly dark and uncompromising in its grim gray look and attitude.

For fans of complicated, interesting movies that ask you to invest yourself heavily in one character The Weather Man is what you are looking for. For the average moviegoer this may not be your cup of tea. The Weather Man is not an easy film to like but, if you are up for it, you will be rewarded with yet another performance by Nicolas Cage that establishes him as arguably the most uniquely talented actor working today.

Movie Review The Hoax

The Hoax (2007) 

Directed by Lasse Hallstrom 

Written by William Wheeler

Starring Richard Gere, Alfred Molina, Marcia Gay Harden, Hope Davis, Julie Delpy, Stanley Tucci 

Release Date April 6th, 2007

Published April 8th, 2007 

A biography of a man famous for a fake biography, what an inspired idea. No doubt the great Clifford Irving chuckles at the thought. The man who made his name by inventing, from public record and his fabulously tricky mind, a biography of Howard Hughes, must chuckle endlessly at how his famed hoax has made him a real celebrity.

This multi-million dollar hoax that engulfed his closest friend and his wife, landing all of them in jail, is now the security blanket of his fame and fortune. It could not have turned out more fortuitous unless he had managed to skip the 14 months he spent in federal prison. This grand illusion he spun into a million dollar book deal has, since sending him to prison, allowed him to become an honest bestseller.

The scam has now led Irving to have his life's greatest and most fantastic achievement portrayed in a film, The Hoax, in which he is played with gumption and a touch of crazy by Richard Gere. Directed by Lasse Hallstrom, the film takes a few minor liberties with the true story; but I'm sure Clifford Irving won't mind.

In the spring of 1970 Clifford Irving, a bestselling novelist and biographer, found himself with a book no one would publish. His latest novel, though praised as a work of angry humor, has just been declined by his long time publisher McGraw Hill and even his friend and editor Andrea Tate (Hope Davis) seems ready to write him.

The desperate moment leads to the invention of a story so fantastic that only master storytellers and con-man like Clifford Irving could come up with it. Bursting into Tate's office he declares that he has the story of the century and he is putting it up to the highest bidder. That story becomes the auto-biography of Howard Hughes, and the highest bidder is McGraw Hill, because there were no other bidders. There really was no book.

Teaming with his best friend and fellow author Richard Suskind (Alfred Molina), Clifford plans to take advantage of the eccentric millionaires current status as a reclusive nutjob, alleged to be hiding out in empty hotels, terrified of germs and slowly deteriorating, on the theory that the crazed Hughes won't come after them for fear of having reveal himself in public.

Together, and with the help of Clifford's wife Edith (Marcia Gay Harden), Clifford and Richard will craft the Hughes story from public records, interviews with friends and associates and fantasy tales of Hughes interviews conducted by Clifford himself to create this unusual and unlikely narrative. They will get the publisher to advance them hundreds of thousands of dollars and take advantage of Swiss banks to launder the money. The plan is foolproof... to Clifford anyway.

Little did the flim flam man and his partners realize just how big this story was. How this story would not only affect the frail but feisty Mr. Hughes but also the President of the United States Richard M. Nixon and, allegedly, change the face of history.

Directed by Lasse Hallstrom, The Hoax is a welcome departure from the directors usual brand of cloying uplift. Hallstrom's films, The Cider House Rules, Chocalat and The Shipping News are brutal exercises in sickly sweet life lessons. Overly precious with a complete lack of self awareness, these films show a director whose mind is on tugging heartstrings, not making a truly heartfelt film.

The Hoax is a completely different film. Gone is any attempt at uplift. Where there was no self awareness, there is now a light hearted wink and a nod. There is sincere humor in the storytelling and direction of The Hoax which delights in conspiring with Irving to pull off his hoax while presenting an unvarnished look at who this guy was. Clifford Irving was a man incapable of the truth, a literally physical aversion to telling a true story. The Hoax, through the playful, heartfelt performance of Richard Gere nails just who Clifford Irving had to be to attempt; and nearly pulls off; one of the greatest cons in history.

Casting a movie is an art form that is highly underappreciated. The wrong actor in a role can destroy any script; no matter how good that script really is. The Hoax could not be anymore perfectly cast. Richard Gere delivers the single most satisfying performance of his long and illustrious career. In recent years the man once called 'the sexiest man alive' has made a living with sullen, wooden characters in cut rate mainstream program pictures.

There have been good performances, I really liked his wronged husband in Unfaithful, but it seemed the charm was waning and that Gere was restless and bored. The Hoax finds Richard Gere rejuvenated, full of life and bursting with the kind of charisma that made him a star decades ago. His Clifford Irving is an astonishing work of guts and wit and the kind of charm that only the best actors can communicate. This is a first rate performance worthy of Gere's first serious consideration for an Oscar.

The supporting cast is equally sensational. Alfred Molina, as Clifford's best friend, crafts a schlubby, lovable lost soul who would be easily enthralled by someone like Clifford Irving. A talented writer in his own right, Suskind was drawn into this web of lies of his own will but Molina conveys beautifully the longing for glory, even the reflected kind, that likely drew Suskind to Irving.

Hope Davis is tough as nails with just the right touch of naiveté as Irving's editor while Oscar winner Marcia Gay Harden provides the emotional center of Irving's life as his ex-wife. Stanley Tucci, Zeljko Ivanek and Eli Wallach each deliver spot on supporting work in cameos that serve to deepen what is an already strong cast.

2007 has been a strong year already with movies like Zodiac, Smokin' Aces and Breach setting a very strong tone. Now comes The Hoax and it is the best of the bunch. Smart, funny, and brilliantly constructed, The Hoax delivers on the best work of director Lasse Hallstrom and actor Richard Gere, really, in their entire careers.

A truly engaging and sensational piece of work, The Hoax is a movie that you absolutely must see.

Movie Review: About Schmidt

About Schmidt (2002) 

Directed by Alexander Payne 

Written by Alexander Payne, Jim Taylor

Starring Jack Nicholson, Hope Davis, Dermot Mulroney, Kathy Bates, 

There have been a few times in Jack Nicholson's career where the image of Jack, the iconic ladies man, Laker fan Jack, the famous image, overcame the actor Jack Nicholson. Films like Wolf and even his role as The Joker in Batman showed Nicholson mugging for the camera and playing off his image rather than his talent. Then, in the early 2000’s, Nicholson seemingly set out to destroy ‘Jack’ the image and return to Jack the Actor. The Pledge, one of the best films of 2001, showcased Nicholson in a role stripped of any glamour or vanity. The Pledge is a slow boil performance that is both subtle and heartbreaking. And in About Schmidt, Jack goes for yet another unglamorous, though more mainstream, role as an aging retiree trapped in a life unlived.

As Warren Schmidt, Nicholson is a 66-year-old insurance company actuary. It’s a job Warren tells us has endowed him with the ability to determine just how long people will live. Thus, Warren is well aware of his own mortality as he sits at his retirement dinner with his wife of 42 years played by June Squibb. 42 long years, 42 very, long, years. As Warren describes in a very funny voiceover: “Who is this old woman in my bed?”

Warren and his wife have one daughter, Jeannie (Hope Davis) who is soon to be married. Though he is not allowed to say anything about the wedding by his domineering wife, Warren secretly hates his daughter’s fiance, played by Dermot Mulroney. This isn't your typical ‘no man is good enough for my daughter hatred.’ As Warren introduces his daughter’s fiance, in his voiceover, we are quick to see just what a real doofus this guy is.

Now retired with little to do Warren spends his days with crossword puzzles and watching TV. While flipping channels he comes across one of those child-reach infomercials where some celebrity tells you that for 22 dollars a month you can feed a starving child. Warren, for some reason, likely boredom, writes down the phone number, and is soon doling out the cash and writing letters to a six year old African boy named Ndugu.

The voiceover narration in About Schmidt comes from the letters Warren writes to Ndugu, and just hearing Nicholson open a new letter with the words "Dear Ndugu" provides the funniest and saddest moments of the film. Nicholson’s rye recognition of how he’s really talking to himself 

It is not long after Warren retires that his wife passes away, leaving Warren with an empty house and a newly purchased Winnebago in his driveway that his wife had purchased to drive cross country for their daughter's wedding. Taking to the road, Warren's adventures including a sad, tragic meeting with a couple of fellow RV drivers that is a terrific diversion from the main story. The film however gains it's true narrative thrust when Warren arrives for his daughter's wedding and ends up staying with the groom's mother Roberta (Kathy Bates). Her full on personality is immediately at odds with Warren's quiet dignity. A scene where Warren and Roberta share time in the hot tub is pure comic bliss that shows Nicholson at his slow boiling best.

Director Alexander Payne is a true pro, a visionary comic auteur that deftly combines realism and comedy. About Schmidt is filled with moments of warmth and humor that never seem fake. Thanks to one of the best scripts, casts and directors of any film in the last year.

Movie Review: The Secret Lives of Dentists

The Secret Lives of Dentists (2002) 

Directed by Alan Rudolph 

Written by Craig Lucas 

Starring Campbell Scott, Hope Davis, Denis Leary 

Release Date N/A 

Published November 25th, 2002 

Campbell Scott is one of those rare actors with an eye for a good script. His deliberateness has made him a darling of the indie scene ever since 1991's Dying Young and 1992's Singles threatened to pigeonhole him as a romantic leading man. His varied roles in films include Big Night, The Spanish Prisoner and last years remarkable if little seen Roger Dodger. For his latest role, Scott has taken yet another chameleon like turn. In The Secret Lives of Dentists, Scott plays a role that is the exact opposite of his role in Roger Dodger but with an equal amount of skill and bravery.

In Secret Lives, Scott is David Hurst, a dentist married to another dentist Dana Hurst (Hope Davis). They live together with three daughters and work together at their family dental practice. Like many marriages, the surface is perfect but simmering beneath is a cauldron of unrequited emotion and misunderstood feelings. As Dana is preparing for a local theater performance, David is being accosted by a difficult patient played by Denis Leary. Adding to David's problems is his youngest daughter who will only stop crying when he is around and refuses her mother.

With all of these distractions, it's not surprising that David is slow to realize his wife's straying affection. Dana is leaving work at odd hours, returning home later than expected and the final clue comes when David visits her backstage at her theater performance and sees her kissing another man. Dana has no idea that he saw her and the balance of the film is David deciding how to confront his wife.

This is not a new story, we've seen numerous takes on this same subject. What is different however is Campbell Scott's measured, intellectual performance and director Alan Rudolph's deft mix of David's inner and outer worlds. Denis Leary is at first a character in reality then he becomes part of David's conscience, functioning as a physical expression of David's unexpressed anger. Who better than the fireball comedian Leary to play rage?

The Secret Lives Of Dentists functions on a psychic level where most films can't. The script by Craig Lucas, adapted from a novella by Jane Smiley, plays out David's psyche with wit and smarts and without the gimmicky feel that usually comes with such a subject. Aside from one dream sequence in which Robin Tunney, David's dental assistant, sings the song Fever while Leary plays the trumpet, the film avoids obvious flights of fancy.

I really loved how the film dealt with David's inner turmoil as it's main story and balanced it with scenes of everyday family life that in reality wouldn't pause for marital crisis. The family in the film has everyday problems goings on. Kids have to get to school and bills have to be paid. And when one of the girls gets the flu, the illness works it's way through the whole family, a very real life relatable moment that would be pushed aside in most films in favor of heightened melodrama. Here, this detail is a reminder of all of the things constantly competing for everyone's attention. 

This is a terrific cast, Campbell Scott particularly. In a role that is a polar opposite of last year’s Roger Dodger, Scott shows range that his father, the legendary George C. Scott, would envy. The knock on Campbell Scott early in his career was that he would never achieve his father's powerful presence. What Campbell doesn't have in presence he makes up for in bravery, range and acting. Roger Dodger should have been his first Academy Award nomination, but it wasn't. Here's hoping that injustice can be made right by nominating him for this role

Movie Review: The Nines

The Nines (2007) 

Directed by John August 

Written by John August 

Starring Ryan Reynolds, Hope Davis, Melissa McCarthy, Elle Fanning 

Release Date August 31st, 2007

Published November 14th, 2007 

Gary (Ryan Reynolds) is an actor on a big time cop show and he has just hit rock bottom. After his girlfriend left him he decided to burn all of her things in the back yard. He ended up burning down his house. While the house burned Gary hit the streets and bought some crack and shared it with a prostitute in a fleabag hotel. When the cops caught up to him he was on the phone with 911 operators asking why he didn't have a belly button. This being Hollywood however, Gary's criminal meltdown was more like a minor PR problem. Sentenced to 30 days of home arrest, Gary's publicist Margaret (Melissa McCarthy) has set him up in the house of a friend of hers, a writer, out of town writing a pilot.

Soon Gary strikes up a friendship with his next door neighbor, Sarah (Hope Davis), a bored housewife and fan of Gary's. She listens to his odd ramblings about the house being haunted and eventually she even seems to believe him and offers evidence of a conspiracy to confine him to the haunted house. Is she just as crazy as Gary or is there more going on? Meanwhile, there is the writer whose house Gary is borrowing. His name is Gavin, also played by Reynolds, and he has just signed on for a reality TV show that documents the behind the scenes happenings on the new show he hopes to put on the fall schedule. 

The show stars Melissa McCarthy as a mother to an oddly prescient, mute child played by Elle Fanning. Gavin's liason at the network is Susan (Hope Davis). Is this an alternate reality? It must be if Gary is Gavin and Margaret is Melissa and so on but then how is the actor aware of the writers reality as if it were happening at the same time and how does Gavin know that some actor was staying in his home while he was gone.

It gets weirder folks as one more reality emerges, that of the characters on Gavin's TV show where Gabriel is the husband of Mary, McCarthy's character. This time Sara/Susan is Sierra some force of evil who attempts to lead Gabriel away from his family. Or is the real dimension and what Sierra tells Gabriel about humans and his real self are true? Bizarre, cryptic and oddly fashioned, The Nines never plays out as you think it might and that is what makes it so fascinating. Unpredictable in the strangest ways, this film from writer-director John August, who wrote the multi-narrative feature Go for director Doug Liman, is a serious mind-fuck that will keep you guessing throughout.

Ryan Reynolds is better known as a comic actor but when he wants to he can bring it dramatically. He definitely brings it in The Nines delivering three distinct and captivating characters. Melissa McCarthy has the unique challenge of playing herself for a segment and brings the challenges of a working actress in Hollywood to light in just the briefest of roles. She is less interesting in the other two realities but effective enough to maintain the film's strange charms. As for Hope Davis, you keep waiting to get more from her and she recedes. There is no doubt that this is Ryan Reynolds' vehicle but a little more for Davis and The Nines could go from recommendable to must see.

As it is The Nines is a strangely fascinating sci fi trip. Ryan Reynolds is one of the more engaging young actors working today and he proves it with not one but three excellent performances in The Nines.