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DVD Your Friends & Neighbors
In the age of ever-increasing crassness on screen (see the Farrelly brothers' comedies), there are some filmmakers who can make serious commentary instead of just throwaway gags. Neil LaBute's second feature is a corkscrew comedy of savage, bitter people who can't find happiness in many a thing, let alone sex. The film is not as tight or commanding as his first feature, the black-hearted In the Company of Men, but he gives six nameless characters six juicy parts with plenty to talk about. The emotional punch is devastating for those trying to find love and happiness on celluloid. One wife and husband (Amy Brenneman, Men's Aaron Eckhart) are nice people, living in a dream home, who can't connect sexually. Drama teacher Ben Stiller and live-in girlfriend Catherine Keener may just work out if, well, he didn't talk all the time. Stiller confesses his love for best friend Eckhart's wife; Keener starts an affair with artist assistant Nastassja Kinski. Then there's Jason Patric (who also produced) as a calculating, misogynistic doctor who has not had a peer on film or theater since David Mamet's Sexual Perversity in Chicago (which took a different film form as About Last Night...). Manipulative and forward, he's the white-hot core to LaBute's fire and has the monologue of the year to boot. LaBute's callous films aren't for everybody, but there is an art and clear-headedness to his work that most American independent filmmakers can't create on screen. Note: the six characters speak the only lines in the film, although through careful editing it never seems this way. --Doug Thomas
Im confused. Are we supposed to like anyone in this movie? Are we supposed to believe that these people hung together long enough to fall apart in the time frame of this movie? The only character I even remotley liked was Cary (Jason Patrick) because he was such a complete vilain. Never once did he deviate from exactly the person he portrays. He is utterly dispicable, and in the scene where he reveals his best sexual experience to his friends Berry and Jerry, any posibility of liking or relating to the character is hopefully destroyed. All that aside, Cary accomplishes one task in this movie, other than atracting our enmity. He confronts Jerry's girlfriend (Terry?), and completely destroys her in the span of a single nasty sentence. You see, from the beginning, we understand that's she's completely self absorbed, and doesn't care about anybody. Cary is excessive, but that's also in keeping with his character, so somehow he's absolved, right?
So this movie is supposed to be dark is it? Well, okay fine, but here's the problem with that approach. When you isolate the characters from the audience to such a degree, anything dark they do loses its impact because we can no longer relate to them anymore. All I wanted to see was bad things happen to everyone in this movie, without acception. That may sound dark on my part, but they started it.
This movie is basically about 2 a--holes, and 3 cowards. 2+3= why am I watching this? Is this really a slice of the American social experience? Because I don't know anybody like this. Maybe the people I can't stand being around live like this, but that doesn't mean I want to watch a movie about them either. Two stars are given because at least this movie engaged me on an emotional level, but if I want to watch a bunch of people I can't stand, I'll watch the news. Read that how you like. Sure this movie is dark, but there's nothing organic about it, so it ends up feeling contrived, and ultimately pointless.
Dark, comical, and disturbing
I liked this movie because it is original, and you get very absorbed in the characters. The acting is very good, the story ties together, and it holds your attention. Best of all, at least for those who appreciate dark humor, this is very comical. It is, in my personal opinion, a brilliant, well directed film.
With Friends like these......
This modern, partly dark, slightly comic, exploration of sexual goings-on in America is somewhat of a strange excercise. The film takes the opportunity more than once to rabbit-punch the audience. A very good cast turns in fine performances. Notably, Aaron Eckhart, Catherine Keener and Jason Patric who presents one of the oddest characters in memory. His confrontation with Keener in a bookstore is worth a star all its own.
Two bored businessmen, exiled to a remote company outpost on a six-week business trip, decide to enliven their visit by romancing a deaf woman and then savagely dumping her. Slimy Chad (Aaron Eckhart) convinces schlumphy Howard (Matt Molloy) to take part in the vicious scheme by framing it as an act of revenge against uppity womankind, but it quickly becomes apparent that he harbors some even more sinister motives. What might have been a simple exploration (some, no doubt, would say reiteration) of straightforward misogyny is elevated by the remarkable performance of Eckhart; at once charming and nauseating, his fascinating interpretation of pure competitive evil dominates the film. Neil LaBute's intelligent script is somewhat reminiscent of Whit Stillman's darker moments (minus the... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Aaron Eckhart - Stacy Edwards - Matt Malloy Director(s): Neil LaBute DVD Release Date: Released the 17 March 1998 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Controversial director Neil LaBute tweaks our culture's moral compass in his dark comedy The Shape of Things. Dorky museum guard Adam (indie heartthrob Paul Rudd, made to look as dweebish as possible) meets student Evelyn (Rachel Weisz) as she's preparing to deface a classical statue; instead of stopping her, he musters up the courage to ask her out. But soon he finds himself so completely in her thrall that he willingly succumbs to her every want--and she wants him to change his hair, his clothes, his face, even his friends (Frederick Weller and Gretchen Mol). In In the Company of Men, LaBute presented two men cruelly experimenting with a deaf woman's affections; The Shape of Things proposes that women can be just as monstrous. Though LaBute could stand to delve more... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Gretchen Mol - Paul Rudd - Rachel Weisz - Fred Weller Director(s): Neil LaBute DVD Release Date: Released the 23 September 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Four extremely beautiful people do extremely horrible things to one another in Closer, Mike Nichols' pungent adaptation of Patrick Marber's play that easily marks the Oscar-winning director's best work in years. Anna (Julia Roberts) is a photographer who specializes in portraits of strangers; Dan (Jude Law) is an obituary writer struggling to become a novelist; Alice (Natalie Portman) is an American stripper freshly arrived in London after a bad relationship; and Larry (Clive Owen) is a dermatologist who finds love under the most unlikely of circumstances. When their paths cross it's a dizzying supernova of emotions, as Nichols and Marber adroitly construct various scenes out of their lives that pair them again and again in various permutations of passion, heartbreak, anger,... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Mike Nichols DVD Release Date: Released the 29 March 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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At times brilliant and insightful, at times repellent and false, Happiness is director Todd Solondz's multistory tale of sex, perversion, and loneliness. Plumbing depths of Crumb-like angst and rejection, Solondz won the Cannes International Critics Prize in 1998 and the film was a staple of nearly every critic's Top Ten list. Admirable, shocking, and hilarious for its sarcastic yet strangely empathetic look at consenting adults' confusion between lust and love, the film stares unflinchingly until the audience blinks. But it doesn't stop there. A word of strong caution to parents: One of the main characters, a suburban super dad (played by Dylan Baker), is really a predatory pedophile and there is more than an attempt to paint him as a sympathetic character. Children... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Jane Adams (II) - Jon Lovitz - Philip Seymour Hoffman Director(s): Todd Solondz DVD Release Date: Released the 27 April 1999 Usually ships in 24 hours
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The absence of Hollywood-style glitz, cheesy one-liners, and fluffy storylines contributes to this movie's excellence. Another important component of this film is, of course, the thoughful and honest performance given by each of these talented actresses. They key to this film is its honesty. Many women will be able to relate in some way to at least one of the characters-- unlike Hollywood-style movies in which many of the female characters are shallow, one-dimensional, and glammed-up to the nth degree. This movie does a good job of depicting the lives, emotions, and struggles of women as they really are. More Info about this DVD Director(s): Rodrigo García DVD Release Date: Released the 26 December 2001 Usually ships in 24 hours
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