The Adventures of Peet & Peet

Melinda and Melinda (2005)
Fox Searchlight Pictures presents a Woody Allen film, starring Will Ferrell and Radha Mitchell. Written by Allen. 100 m. PG-13 for adult situations involving sexuality, and some substance material.

3.5/5

A Lot Like Love (2005)
Buena Vista Pictures presents a Nigel Cole film, starring Ashton Kutcher and Amanda Peet. Written by Colin Patrick Lynch. 107m. PG-13 for sexual content, nudity and language.

1/5

She’s deeply astute, multi-faceted, sometimes ferociously independent. Or, she’s obtuse, oftentimes ditzy to a fault, and all sex appeal with little else offered.

Will the real Amanda Peet please stand up?

At 33, Peet has launched a career trajectory that isn’t exactly uncommon. She parlays big-budget efforts in order to do
serious, small endeavors. At least that’s how we think that it unfolds, just as we assume Peet is actually quite adept at playing dumb, but is not actually without brains.

Woody Allen’s longtime casting director Juliet Taylor must have made similar assumptions. Peet is given a chunky supporting role in “Melinda and Melinda,” a true dramedy in which Peet is an ambitious filmmaker married to unemployed actor Hobie (Will Ferrell) in the film’s comedic segment.

The film’s setting is actually an extended conversation between two playwrights over dinner, both who see a friend’s true-life story of adultery as the basis for their own type of productions. It is Sy (Wallace Shawn, whose inclusion at any dinner table is a charming homage) who sees the humorous elements of the story. He invents Melinda (Radha Mitchell) as a next-door neighbor who attracts Hobie’s fancy, despite her seemingly troubled existence. Trying to be coy with his longing, Hobie exhibits all of the obsequious mannerisms instead.

Hobie is too spineless to suggest trial separation and, besides, the playwright’s hand won’t allow it. Instead, Sy invents a confrontation of side-splitting proportions: the actor is relieved to see his wife diddling her producer in their upscale apartment because it gives him license to fawn over Melinda publicly.

Sy’s dinner companion, Max (Larry Pine), sees the situation completely differently. The comedy of the situation, he argues, only merits an inevitable tragedy. In his world, Melinda (again, Mitchell) visits her school chum, Laurel (Chloë Sevigny), during a transition period in the young friend’s life. Laurel is on the outs with her self-consumed actor husband Lee (Jonny Lee Miller), who has found comfort at the bottom of a bottle of booze.

Laurel’s attempts to align Melinda with Mr. Right are complicated by her friend’s tragic compulsion; Melinda’s choice of opera composer Ellis (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is secretly coveted by her college confidant.

Some may find Allen’s dueling plots in “Melinda” to be an overt sign of indecision. I disagree strongly. While many abandoned him after “Manhattan” only to rejoin him when he made something which had a far-reaching appeal (like “Hannah and Her Sisters”), Allen has consistently executed one well-made film a year. His writing for his female leads is still amongst the very best today; it’s also not hard to admire that he’s made films that he fancies, and not some target demographic.

“Melinda” is a celebration of the pregnant idea, which has infinite potential until the screenwriter is forced to make a decision and outline its intended path. Mostly, it’s an acknowledgment that stories can be anything we want them to be, especially when we’re in the cineplex. Much like Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, audiences are chained to their seats while the flickering light behind us projects images. Implicit in the arrangement is a concession by the audience: We are asked to believe the images are reality for 100 minutes, until our “enslavement” is ended. Our bonds are only broken when the director wields his will, and the ending of “Melinda” is a big wink to that ideology.

Naturally, we could break our own chains by simply exiting the theater, which might be a good idea if you bought seats to “A Lot Like Love.”

Here Peet is outfitted in a much less tasteful persona, a groupie who takes a dithering college graduate (Ashton Kutcher) on a brief sexual odyssey in an airplane bathroom.

From there, it’s some kind of puppy love between Oliver and his seductress Emily. That’s the only way to explain the friendship which inexplicably evolves out of this 10-minute fling.

In a plot twist that owes a debt of thanks to “Before Sunset,” the pair walk along the streets of New York City, discussing unessential elements of life. Oliver broaches a bet: Emily should phone him in six years to see how his life goals have unfolded.

But Emily’s despondency over a breakup leads her to contact Oliver just three years later for a New Year’s Eve date. It’s a convenient to the plot, which will eventually turn into hell’s version of “Groundhog Day,” wherein the two main characters are doomed to engage in the same, stupid “meet cute” every year or so.

The story certainly trails Oliver and Emily before, during, and after professional and personal highs and lows, but I became fidgety over its lack of any sort of decisiveness. It sort of became what everyone thought “Melinda” would be: an opus of meandering that really makes no formal declaration of anything significant.

By the time Oliver and Emily align their feelings and profess their true love seven years after their initial hookup, the audience will be paralyzed into a yawn-inducing stupor. Not only is the conclusion a forgone contrivance, but it’s a good 90 minutes late.

It’s no relief that both Kutcher and Peet’s characters lack any dimensionality that would allow this film’s audience to care about their eventual union. “A Lot Like Love” not only forgot to outfit its central protagonists with brains, it most assuredly left its good ideas on the drafting table.

Chumming the depths of hell

Sin City (2005)
Miramax/Dimension presents a Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez film, starring Bruce Willis, Mickey Rourke and Benecio Del Toro. Written by Miller. 124m. R for sustain strong stylized violence, nudity and sexual content.

4 stars

The first thing you inevitably notice about Robert Rodriguez’s new film, “Sin City,” is that it’s going to play by its own made-up rules.

The black and white film is contrasted by occasional bright red hues, black-light induced whites and shimmering golds. Its setting belongs to parts of three distinct generations. The first is the 1930s, when Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler were cooking up stories as hard-boiled as they come. The second is a pseudo-1950s, littered with ornate cars with little overall functionality and former manufacturing towns on the precipice of becoming metropolises. And one can’t help but see the grime of overly perverse sex and violence of modern times, of leather-clad dominatrices and big-breasted women who saunter slowly across the screen so that a drooling male audience can absorb every curve and line.

As a wannabe comic nerd and a vociferous supporter of film noir and detective novels, I loved “Sin City.” Those who find themselves similarly immersed in this dank underworld created from the pages of graphic novelist Frank Miller might consider taking a cold shower after this two-hour collection of vignettes.

While the stories exist independently of each other, they are linked by both their setting - the seedy Basin City - and their advocacy of troubled males with littered pasts helping dames in need.

There’s Hartigan (Bruce Willis), a soon-to-be-retired detective who just can’t shake this kiddie rape case that’s been nagging him. The deeper he digs, the quicker he realizes that power brokers have worked overtime to protect familial interests. It all ends badly, mostly because it has to, down by a pier while 11-year-old Nancy (Makenzie Vega) looks at her savior with doe eyes.

Hartigan last words before trailing off are hard-boiled poetry: “An old man dies. A young girl lives. A fair trade.”

While we’ve known for years Mickey Rourke wasn’t much to look at, he’s completely disfigured while assuming the role of Marv, a giant ape and a one-man revenge squadron. The victim? A hooker (Jaime King) who showed him a spot of kindness and wound up dead in one of those frame jobs.

Marv’s brutish nature is a bundle of acknowledged contradictions. His soft spot for Goldie, the hooker, is quite a disparity from the torture of her killer’s co-conspirators. In the hands of Marv, victims pray for a swift retribution that never materializes.

It all ends badly, because it has to, with Marv in the hands of Basin City’s evil patriarchs. As the powers that be rip several thousand volts through his system, the ape taunts: “Is that the best you can do, you pansies?”

Finally, there’s Dwight (Clive Owen), a known murder who’s found a new face and started acting like a half-crazed vigilante. He the self-assigned protector of Shellie (Brittany Murphy), a waitress with a menacing one-night stand (Benecio Del Toro) that won’t leave her alone.

Dwight’s true alliance with the prostitutes who run Oldtown comes in conflict with his meting out justice. Soon, he’s protecting one corruption by destroying another. There is no right or wrong in “Sin City,” just self-proscribed revenge.

My chief complaint about comic book adaptations turned into feature films is that the studios always hedge their bets. Trying to attract both demographics, too many directors see the comic book through their own tried-and-true film techniques. Rodriguez is a maverick, a pioneer in both digital filmmaking and someone unafraid to take calculated risks. He considers Miller’s novels sacrosanct, appropriating each panel and translating it to the screen. The result is the most alive comic book ever created. (Rodriguez also resigned from the Director’s Guild of America so that he could share co-directing credit with Miller, who didn’t sit behind a camera but instead directed the action in the books.)

The action delights in wild contrasts, not only in those created by the permeation of color in a two-toned world, but in over-the-top interactions. True to a comic book realm, people are struck by high-speed cars and stand up to walk without a second thought. Everyone’s dialogue is short, crisp and full of imagery. Women are “dames” and a beat up jalopy is a “bucket of bolts.” There’s constant internal narration by the male leads, which either heightens the experience or is a constant reminder to audiences that they’re watching a film. I’d like to believe it augments the action and oftentimes gives purpose or motivation to some seemingly poor decisions.

By the time the film reverts to Hartigan’s surprisingly continuing storyline, the pacing has been thrown a little off track. The twists won’t cease, however, so the audience jumps back on for another ride.

Ultimately, the film is a lot of things; misogynistic and ultra-violent immediately come to mind. It won’t be for everyone. Yet those looking for the ultimate opportunity for escapism may not have to look any farther than the back alleys of “Sin City.”

Clowns to the left of me, Red Sox to the right

Fever Pitch (2005)
Fox 2000 Pictures presents a Bobby & Peter Farrelly film, starring Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore. Written by Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, from a book by Nick Hornby. 101m. PG-13 for crude and sexual humor and some sensuality.

3 stars

I think one of the reasons I love the Boston Red Sox is that their seasons have a very cinematic structure. They are the lovable underdog, who scrap and fight to the top before finding some excruciatingly painful way to lose to their evil doppelganger, the Yankees.

Since their inevitable collapse always comes late in the season, Red Sox faithful steadfastly wait by their team’s side until each devastating blow has been cast. It’s a remarkable commitment for the diehards - from early April to the time of Bucky, Buckner and the Babe. Since their dedication is unparalleled, it’s certainly ripe for cinematic appropriation.

Enter “Saturday Night Live” alumnus Jimmy Fallon, whose role still hasn’t evolved out of the supporting element into bona fide lead. He’s Ben, who’s only had one stable element in his life since age 7: the Red Sox’s impressive string of runner-up finishes.

He meets Lindsey (Drew Barrymore) in the off-season. She’s looking to reverse a trend of dating within her work pool of high-powered yuppies. She chooses Ben because, as a school teacher with low-to-moderate good looks, he’s the antidote to all of Lindsey’s potential suitors.

A romance invariably develops, raising the radars of Lindsey’s overachieving friends. There must be a reason her boyfriend is approaching 30 and still on the market, they chide her.

Despite Ben’s best attempts to warn Lindsey’s of his obsessive tendencies toward the fellows of Fenway, she thinks his allegiance is cute. Lindsey meets Ben’s extended family, a rag-tag group of diehards, at opening day. They aren’t enamored with their fellow faithful’s choice, mostly because Lindsey is painfully ignorant of the Red Sox mystique.

The film uses the Red Sox typical season as frame for its storytelling. There’s the remarkably hot start, which teases fans into thinking: This could be the year. And then there’s the June swoon, where Ben and Lindsey’s relationship becomes rocky. Ben can’t distance himself from the team, which he says needs his undivided attention, while Lindsey risks being buried in an avalanche of real work.

The July and August rebound does little to help along the relationship, especially when Lindsey asks Ben to accompany her to Paris - and all he can think about is a weekend series with the Mariners. By September, things in both the Red Sox and relationship realms are looking almost over.

But Boston’s 2004 season couldn’t have felt more appropriate for the silver screen. The team overcame impossible odds to defeat the Yankees and take the World Series, a Herculean feat never before accomplished.

And by following the Red Sox, the movie transcends the whole “baseball-themed” approach. It’s a story of unhealthy addiction, certainly, but it’s also a reflection of an uncanny demonstration of commitment.

For Ben, the Red Sox is his life. It has brought him friends and close family-like relationships; their seasons have provided structure to his day-to-day agenda. Since his love for the team transcends all other expressions of affection, sharing the Red Sox with Lindsey was his way of expressing his fondness for her.

Both sides bend unnaturally to reach compromise for the sake of the relationship. And for the first time, Ben has put someone before his beloved team, a decision is not without ramifications.

But committed relationships are all about jumping hurdles in unison. Ben and Lindsey’s celebration on the field after game 4 of the World Series is not just a demonstration of their love prevailing. It’s a festivity of jinx-breaking: For the Sox, it’s been 86 years. For the Ben and Lindsey, it’s been one major presentation that went right instead of wrong, dealing with an apparent pregnancy, recovering from a blow to head by a line drive and finding love despite insurmountable odds.