Ten Statements About....JEFF WHO LIVES AT HOME (2011)

Place your own beginning to a vaguely homoerotic joke here.

"What you just said sounded like Yoda took acid and stumbled into a business meeting."
"You can make all the fun of Yoda that you want. Yoda would be fucking killer in a business meeting."

1) On its surface, this is one of my least liked subgenres of dramedies--namely the 'Holy Fool' comedy, where some psychologically or culturally awkward individual enriches the lives of those around him with his simplistic views of life. But unlike so many of these 'Holy Fool' films, this one works because the film doesn't flinch from acknowledging that Jeff, the designated Holy Fool, is a bit of a screw-up whose life isn't all that wonderful. Even more importantly, it leaves the Holy Fool's situation only superficially improved and lets us decide if this is a temporary uptick or not.

2) One of the reasons this film is effective is because its three principles are cast against type--especially Jason Segal. The Duplass Brothers, who wrote and directed, seems to have recognized something I didn't realize about Segal...namely that there's a quality to his face that makes him look haunted and lost at times. The Duplasses takes full advantage of this, both when using Jeff as a catalyst for Ed Helms' Pat's storyline and when exploring whether this Holy Fool is all that effective as a life leader.

3) I don't know if the Duplasses intended this or not, but I continued to find myself obsessed with the way Judy Greer, who plays Pat's wife Lisa, looks so much like Susan Sarandon, who plays the mother of both Pat and Jeff. To me, it means that Pat's attraction to Lisa may have something to do--whether consciously or not--with his own issues with his family. It might also explain while Pat and Lisa don't have kids even after being married for this long....

Somehow, when I think of all my contemporaries who wish
to see Susan Sarandon wet, I don't think this is what they
mean....

4) Susan Sarandon may very well be in that category of women (like Selma Hayek) who just. doesn't. age. And because she's still got this timeless quality, it makes the whole subplot of her and her insecurities regarding a secret admirer weird. Quite frankly, she doesn't look all that much older than Segal and Helms (something driven home every time she interacts with Rae Dawn Chong, who does look her age), even though she's got to be in her late 50's by now; she definitely doesn't look 'ugly and droopy.'

5) While I understand how the whole sequence with the basketball game is designed to give us some insight into how Jeff's mind works, I wonder if it really was needed. It does seem to only take up time and while the fact that Jeff was an ace ball player was established in the credit sequence, the way it was established is so borderline subliminal (a photo of him playing for Harvard) that I can see people easily overlooking it.

6) I know I might be isolated in this opinion, but I don't find the destruction of Pat's Porsche all that funny. It's not because I don't find the destruction of silly status symbols funny; it's because the sequence of events is waaaay too spot on as a metaphor for the stripping away of Pat's high-class pretentions so he can emerge a better person in the final act. It's the sort of too-clever-for-its-own-good plot development this film manages to avoid for the rest of its running time.

7) I have to wonder if solidifying the place this film occurs in as Baton Rogue was wise. It really doesn't offer up anything specific to the story except that it's close to New Orleans--which is referenced in Saradon's plotline but not really paid off on. Given how the story is more about these three characters and the way their lives intersect, maybe not drawing attention to the city would have made more sense.

"Uhhhh, no...Paul's not here, man."

8) Anyone who doubts my contention in the past that Jason Segal deserves a bigger career should look at the scene in the fancy restaurant Pat coerces Jeff to go into to spy on Lisa. Segal manages to get so many emotions on his face--his awkwardness at being out in public, his embarrassment at being dressed as he is (and presumably stinking of pot) in this environment, his compassion for his brother--while also maintaining his mental and emotional disconnectiveness. It's an amazing performance from an actor who's underrated.

9) I get that coincidence is meant to be a major part of the film; the quote at the very beginning makes that very clear. But there are some coincidences--particular one that hinges on a character not noticing a co-worker friend's tattoo--that threaten to break the film's narrative flow. The Duplass Brothers never quite pull the suspension of disbelief wholely out of shape, you can hear it creaking at these moments.

10) The ending...man, the ending is jarring. It signals a violent tone shift in the narrative, switches between conventional and handheld, and just doesn't quite work out. Plus, from the moment Jeff starts running along the bridge, the entire direction of this plot point is thoroughly predictable. This might be the one thing that works the least for the film as a whole, even though it could have worked if blocked out better.

Overall...while it is flawed, violently so, there's enough here that lifts it up above the 'quirky indie comedy' that I can't stand so much. Plus it's got three good central performances. Recommended with reservations.

Ten Statements About....BULL DURHAM (1988)

"Lady, baseball gloves do not go with that
dress.  Nor does it hide the fact that you're
a hootchie."

"You never hand in your luggage in the show; somebody else carries your bags. It's great. You hit white balls for batting practice. The ball parks are like cathedrals. The hotels all have room service, and the women all have long legs and brains."

1) Let's get this out of the way right now: Susan Sarandon's Annie Savoy is a truly detestable character. She makes a practice of seducing young ball players under the rubric of teaching them to be better people; sends a young girl out to sleep with her prospective boy toys for the season as 'spring training;' plays mind games with Tim Robbins' Ebby LaLoosh....until it results on her not getting laid, at which point she whines and moans about wanting sex; and overall keeps trying to pretend she's anything but a hootchie. If this movie was about a triangle between Annie, Ebby and Kevin Costner's Crash Davis, it would be an unwatchable romcom....

2) ...which is why, thankfully, the romance stuff is just seasoning for what the movie is really about--baseball, both as a science and as a form of magic. Ron Shelton's script manages to address both metaphors for the game equally, and it's those moments of the players using different angles to get the results they want that make the film come alive.

3) It is a thorough shame that Kevin Costner decided at some point he had to be a big screen sci-fi action star, because it's films like this where his strength truly lies. Crash is a very vivid character, a professional who knows he's getting too old for this but is trying his hardest to hold on just a little while longer. And Costner manages to give Crash a level of arrogance without it leaking into assholishness. There are people I can think of right now who could look at this and get a message about hanging onto their glory a bit too long.

4) I was surprised when I revisited this for this review how, well, modest it is for an R rated film. The nudity is mainly clinical, happening in the locker room, and the love scenes all occur under the covers or are conveyed through implication. The rating, I suspect, is mainly for the language.

"Better enjoy this while we can, Robbins...in about twenty
years, you'll be single and I'll be in Actor Limbo...

5) God, I miss Trey Wilson, who was such an amazing actor capable of taking the smallest role--and his role is pretty small here--and making it big just with his presence. The thing that was coolest about him is how he makes every actor he shares a scene with look better. And when he had a great actor to work with--Costner, Tim Robbins, Roberth Wuhl--the film just shines for those few minutes.

6) And speaking of Robbins...it's tough taking a character from a cartoon--and trust me, LaLoosh in the beginning is a cartoon, a caricature of every bad boy pitcher that was roaming the landscape in the late 80's--to a fully realized character in the space of ninety odd minutes. And Robbins does so subtlety and realistically.

7) I think this is a film that worked partially because Robbins and Sarandon were falling in love on set. It gives the film a sense of veracity it might not otherwise have, making the strange handling of the payoff to this plotline work better than it should have.

8) Reason why this movie could not be made now #792: Shelton would not be allowed to end the film with Crash not sharing in LaLoosh's success. Even though the seeds of his being cut and leaving baseball are planted deep in the first act, a modern version of this film would have LaLoosh use his pull as a prospective superstar to bring Davis with him, or insist on Davis getting the roster spot instead of him, or some other sort of inspiring, punch-the-air nonsense....instead of the logical ending of seeing Crash struggle with giving this career up, break the record quietly and without fanfare, and head off to fade away gracefully.

It's a dark day when Tim forgets the chords for 'Michael
Row Your Boat Ashore'....

9) As much as I dislike the Annie plotline, I give Shelton credit for this--he finds a way to parallel her story with Crash's, gets her to realize that the two of them are not all that different, and have her 'fade away' just as gracefully as Crash, settling down with the man who understands her perhaps better than she does.

10) I have to wonder how the film would have benefited or suffered if we got a better sense of Durham as a city. The film's almost total immersion in the ball parks might explain why Annie does come off so badly; maybe if we saw her interact with her students, or with other people in the town she might seem less....well, skanky.

Overall...a great little film that works as a meditation on baseball almost more than it does as the romantic comedy, bouyed by some great performances and a clever script.