broken english Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Perusing the 126 titles listed by online retailer DVD Empire, The Lives of Others is so obviously the pick of the week that I hesitate to write any more about it. It's an engrossing, all-too-relevant drama that sneaked under my natural defenses and was quietly devastating. Martha Fischer reviewed it for Cinematical last fall and felt that both the film and actor Ulrich Mühe were "unforgettable"; Kim Voynar saw it in February and wrote: "At it's core .. this is really just a simple story told and acted extraordinarily well." The Sony DVD features an interview with and commentary by director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, deleted scenes and a "making of" feature. This drama about spying in East Germany in the 1980s is made even more poignant by the news that Mühe died just a few weeks ago.

Broken English divided audiences and critics. Parkey Posey stars as a woman dealing with aging, loneliness and romance; Zoe Cassavetes wrote and directed. Our own Ryan Stewart was especially bothered by what he felt was an ending that was strongly reminiscent of another recent movie, while Kim Voynar was more positive overall in her review. Personally, I felt the positives outweighed the negatives. Now that Magnolia has released it on DVD, I hope more people will give it a shot.

Sometimes you see a familiar name on a DVD and you make an impulse decision to buy or rent the movie. Sometimes you must restrain yourself. From all reports, The Ex is the kind of romantic comedy that gives independent movies a bad name -- and I use the term "independent" only because this was released by The Weinstein Co. Scott Weinberg called it "resoundingly wretched"; read his review for all the gory details and make sure to pass by the pretty (?) faces of Zach Braff and Amanda Peet on the cover.

Did writer/director Zoe Cassavetes intend Broken English to be an uncomfortable experience? From cursory glances at the advertising material and generally lukewarm reviews (64% positive as adjudged by Rotten Tomatoes), including an unenthusiastic critique by Cinematical's Ryan Stewart, it looked like another 'thirty-something New York City woman floundering in the dating scene' movie, another Parker Posey vehicle that could just as well be appreciated on television (Kim Voynar, on the other hand, had a generally more positive take on the film).

Then I read Anne Thompson's Variety blog on Sunday, in which she mentioned that her friends disliked the movie "mainly on the grounds that it wasn't well-made. While the movie meanders, I suspect that it made them uncomfortable. The plight of the lonely single woman is not one that many people want to deal with, really." She pointed to Lisa Rosman's exquisitely written blog entry, which was prompted by watching the film; meanwhile, I also came across a post by filmmaker Jen Prince (Eve of Understanding) at the Open Plan Films Blog; she described it as "lovely and genuine," but wondered why the film was being marketed as a comedy.

With such a confluence of thoughts, I decided to see for myself. Broken English is a very imperfect film; the pace is herky-jerky, the constant close-ups are irritating (like an invasion of your personal space) and too many moments meant to inspire emotion fall flat. Still, what affected me most were the long dramatic, silent stretches in which Parkey Posey convincingly embodies a woman who is not falling apart, but trying to hold herself together. It gets awfully lonely once all your friends are paired off and most single people of a certain age don't want to admit how desperate and agonizing it can feel, much less see it dramatized on screen. But I think the positives outweigh the negatives: Broken English deserves to be seen before it disappears from arthouse screens.

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.

There's just something about being a single woman in your 30s that seems to be an endlessly fascinating subject for independent film. Writer/director Zoe Cassavetes, making her directorial debut here, doesn't exactly explore uncovered ground in her film Broken English, and yet, she somehow manages to put such a charming face on the subject matter that we don't really care. Parker Posey plays Nora, who, in her 30s, finds that nothing in her life has gone how she once thought it would. She majored in Fine Arts, thinking she would work in the art world; instead she works in a boutique hotel in a dismal and depressing little office as the manager of guest relations, kissing the backsides -- and, occasionally, the frontsides -- of VIPs to keep them happy. She thought she'd be married to a great guy and settled down with a family; instead, she hangs out with her married friends, and relentlessly dodges Glen, an annoying co-worker who clearly has a major crush on her.

Odds and ends for Thursday:

• Even though IMDB lists Zach Braff as its director, Barry Sonnenfeld is in final negotiations to helm Andrew Henry's Meadow for 20th Century Fox. Pic, which is based on the popular children's book, follows a boy inventor who escapes suburbia and travels to a meadow. There, he sets up some sort of community where he eventually teams up with other outcasts on a mission to save their parents. Braff, along with his brother Adam, originally set up the pic and developed the story while Adam wrote the script. Perhaps, since Zach is now off directing a Danish re-make, he has relinquished his director's hat.

• Who knew Catherine Zeta-Jones was so into magic. Apparently, the actress is in talks to star opposite Guy Pearce in biopic about the one and only Harry Houdini. Set in the mid-twenties, Death Defying Acts will pick up Houdini's story while he's at the height of his career, touring the country and amazing the public with his brilliant escape acts. That's right folks, David Blane has nothing on this guy. Zeta-Jones will play an exotic psychic (I wonder if that means she tells your fortune while in her underwear?) who seduces Houdini into a passionate affair.

• Well, it looks like HDNet Films is really starting to make some moves. Not long after Todd Wagner and Mark Cuban's company decided to up its budget cap from under $2 million to under $5 million (assuming the right talent was attached), comes word that Zoe Cassavetes' Broken English has wrapped up its stars and will become the latest HDNet venture to head into production. Onboard what appears to be a quirky romantic comedy about a woman lost in her 30's and looking for love, will be Parker Posey, Drea de Matteo, Gena Rowlands, Jeanne Moreau, Justin Theroux and Josh Hamilton.

According to a report in Screen Daily this morning, little Zoe Cassavetes is set to join dad John and big brother Nick as a feature film director. With only a single short under her belt, Cassavetes has lined up an impressive cast to star in her debut, including Gena Rowlands (who she gets to call "Mom"), Parker Posey, and French icon Jeanne Moreau. Entitled Broken English, her film explores the life of a woman in her 30s who "is becoming debilitated by a lack of luck in love." (What on earth does that mean? Like, physically crippled? That seems just a little bit dramatic, doesn't it?)

Despite the impressive cast, the movie's budget is less than $2 million. It's being produced by Andrew Fierberg, Christina Weiss Lurie, and Steven Shainberg (Fierberg produced Secretary, which Shainberg directed) for Vox3 Films, a new independent production house based in New York; in order to succeed, Fierberg believes the studio needs to keep all budgets below $2 million, and that $1 million is ideal. If the money to produce a film cannot be raised within a year and a half, however, he sends writers and directors on their ways, so that their ideas don't die for a lack of funds. Though the company has only completed a handful of projects (including Shainberg's forthcoming Fur, which stars Nicole Kidman), they have six in various stages of development, and hope to "build a library of low-budget films" within a few years.