Drea de Matteo Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Note: This film can't be reviewed without spoilers right from the get-go, so fair warning.

There are about a billion movies released each year, and even someone like myself, whose business is movies, can't see them all. Some of this year's biggest blockbusters and most talked-about art house films will undoubtedly slip by me. So it's certainly possible that director Zoe Cassavetes hasn't seen the film Before Sunset*, which came out three years ago. What's harder to believe is that none of the actors, crew members, or studio people involved with Broken English saw it either. If they had, surely they would have pulled her aside at some point and whispered in her ear that the ending of her film is, while not an actionable rip-off of Sunset's ending, close enough to make any audience member who has seen both films do a double-take. Let's put it this way -- a friend of mine who saw Broken English with me, and is only a casual movie watcher, actually perked up at the end and said 'Hey, isn't that what happened in that other Paris movie, with Ethan Hawke?" That's how similar the two are.

Putting that aside, the film is a passable -- sometimes more than passable -- romantic comedy about a Manhattanite named Nora, played by Parker Posey, whose fast-approaching collision with age 40 reminds her that she has very little in her life. Nora's job is something of a hospitality person at a fancy hotel -- early on we see her tending to whims of a flirty rock star played by Justin Theroux. Her dating life is a revolving door of disappointments and false starts with weirdos and barely-there guys who pay little attention to her, although on the plus side she does live in Manhattan so she at least gets taken to places like the Film Forum, which gets an extended cameo in the film.We actually get to see the theater's notoriously drink-holder-free armrests caught on film -- if only one of the characters had actually commented on it. And of course it goes without saying that there's a best-friend for Parker's character to lean on -- she's played by The Sopranos' Drea de Matteo, in a pretty straight-forward role.

If you are a Parker Posey fan, which was the last film of hers that you really loved? I just went down the list, and was surprised to see that the last starring role that was really, really great was her Jackie O in The House of Yes. Of course, she's had some great roles since then, but they were all ensemble pieces -- The Anniversary Party, A Mighty Wind and my personal favorite: her neurotic dog-owning Meg Swan in Best in Show. To me, the recent Fay Grim was her big comeback role, but it's one of those films that requires a certain cinematic taste, and was definitely her putting on her old, quirk hat. On the tails of that we're getting Broken English, which might just give her some better mainstream work than her previous side roles in movies like You've Got Mail and Superman Returns.

Rope of Silicon has posted a trailer to English, which pretty much runs through the plot in its short collection of scenes. The movie is about a 30-something Manhattan woman named Nora (Posey) who is single and cynical about love and unhappy at her hotel job. She's also jealous of her friend Audrey's (Drea de Matteo without the goofy Tribbianis or mobsters) "perfect marriage," and has a mom who keeps reminding her that she's single (Gena Rowlands). Nora goes on a series of dates that include Justin Theroux as a mohawk-headed actor and Josh Hamilton -- who played her brother, Marty in Yes -- as a guy her mom fixes her up with. As with any romance, when all hope seems lost, she meets the alluring Julien from France, who energizes her life. She quits her job, heads to Paris and goes out to experience what French men have to offer. It's Posey without the over-acted quirk, which will make her easier to digest for the masses, but still with the same snark that her fans love. And we only have a little less than a month's wait to see it -- it heads into limited release on June 22.

The difference between a small-scale dogfight and a real championship dogfight in 1957 is the audience. At the former, the all-male crowd is stereotypically country-bumpkin with faces and clothes covered in dirt. At the latter, rich folks are present, including women wearing their pearls and Sunday best. The surprise isn't that each has their own demographic, though; it is that either has any enthusiasts at all. Perhaps it is the illegality that draws them in, or maybe it's that gamblers will bet on just about anything.

While I was thinking about how dog fighting would be a tough-sell for a film like Walker Payne, which stars Jason Patric as a novice of the sport, I overheard some people in the audience discussing the contrary. They claimed the picture would be more marketable if the filmmakers cut out the dramatic story and just kept the dog fighting. If there are in fact people who enjoy watching pit bulls kill each other in a ring, then that edit would certainly make sense, since the film's narrative has very little going for it.