BEFORE: A simple follow-up, sure - but I promise this will make a little more sense once tomorrow's film is revealed. I finally gave in on these Steve Martin films when some premium movie channel ran them both in the same week, a couple months ago. It seems sometimes that there's no rhyme or reason to cable TV scheduling - if I were in charge, running a film and its sequel back-to-back would be a no-brainer. Wouldn't people who enjoyed a film just stay tuned to see what happens next to those characters?
I'm catching a break from the TCM schedule today - the roadtrip finishes up in Texas with "Giant", which I watched last year, moves on to Nevada for "Meet Me in Las Vegas" and "The Ox-Bow Incident", then hits Wyoming for "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" (seen it) and "Cat Ballou". Finally the itinerary comes to New York for the whole weekend, starting with "Portrait of Jennie" and "The Pride of the Yankees". Yeah, I'm not watching a film about the Yankees.
THE PLOT: George Banks must accept the reality of what his daughter's ascension from daughter to wife, and now, to mother means when placed into perspective against his own stage of life.
AFTER: I found a lot of insincerity in the acting here, Steve Martin's a fine actor but at times I felt he was dialing it in. And like in the previous film, they didn't give Diane Keaton a lot to do, except act pregnant. The worst offenders, however, were the young newlyweds. Any time that actors reading their lines sound just like actors reading lines, it messes with the suspension of disbelief.
Once again, there's no six-act structure, no major turning points (except, I suppose for the pregnancy announcements), no darkest-before-the-dawn moment, and no last-minute save. It's merely a peek into the lives of a family as two of its members conceive and carry babies to term. If that's your thing, great, more power to you - but it doesn't make for a movie, not in the traditional sense. And if we don't have our traditions, really, where are we? Movies are supposed to be for showing fantastic things on screen - flying spaceships and fighting robots and zombie hordes - because we just can't see them in real life, you dig?
Other screenwriting sins include sending away characters when they are not relevant (the teen boy goes to camp, the expectant father goes on a business trip to Tokyo) and creating all kinds of plot threads that never connect to anything. Why remind us of the conflict between George and the in-laws' Dobermans if you're not going to do anything with it? And who cares that it's the hottest July in years - how does that affect anything?
The only way this is relevant to me, at this point in time, is that my boss got married over the holidays, and recently his wife announced she's pregnant. So I am witnessing a situation similar to George Banks', that of becoming a father later in life. Obviously it's a game-changer for anyone, but I get to watch this one play out from a relatively safe distance. Still not movie-plot worthy, though.
Full disclosure: I was called upon to do a voice for a cartoon a few months back (I've been known to do funny voices during the workday, so the boss knows what I'm capable of) and had to create a voice for a gay French fashion designer. I have to admit that I watched clips of Martin Short from this film for inspiration, along with Bronson Pinchot from "Beverly Hills Cop".
Starring Steve Martin, Diane Keaton, Kimberly Williams, George Newbern, Kieran Culkin, Martin Short, BD Wong, Eugene Levy (all carrying over from last night's film) and Jane Adams (last seen in "Wonder Boys").
RATING: 3 out of 10 contractions
If foreign investors are waggling a big check at you but you don't have any ideas for the comedy-type film they want you to produce but you really do want that big check, there's an easy answer. Pick a name from the standard list of comedic film actors and an In Over His Head premise from the standard list. "Steve Martin" "must get a woman in labor to the hospital." Cash the check.
ReplyDeleteJust fill screen time until the In Over His Head scene. Cash the check.
One of your associate producers looks like he really wants to say something.
You allow him to speak.
"Isn't that, like, kind of a heavy subject?" he asks. "These two parents are in their late Forties, absolute minimum. Their obstetrician will definitely be giving them lots of warnings about the difficulties of pregnancy at 50. There's a huge chance that she won't carry the baby to full term, or that the child will suffer chromosomal abnormalities...or that the mother will die in childbirth. How do we intend to handle that scene?"
"Just FedEx the check to the accountant," you sigh. He's very new.