I Love You, Beth Cooper (2009) – DVD

November 10, 2009Posted in2000s, Authors: Jefferson Robbins, Canada, Comedy, Coming of Age, DVD, Romance, Teen

*½/**** Image N/A Sound N/A Extras C
starring Hayden Panettiere, Paul Rust, Jack T. Carpenter, Lauren London
screenplay by Larry Doyle, based on his novel
directed by Chris Columbus

by Jefferson Robbins I believe this is what it looks like when a veteran director throws in the towel. Morosely paced, edited with no ear for slapstick, perfectly mediocre in its staging, timing, scripting, and performances, I Love You, Beth Cooper (hereafter Beth Cooper) betrays benign neglect on the part of producer-director Chris Columbus. It's as if he tossed together all the ingredients for a thoughtful but teen-friendly confection–a recipe inherited from his late mentor John Hughes–and took it on faith that the cake would bake itself. There's even a weird invocation of the dead god of teen comedies: Columbus casts Alan Ruck, a.k.a. Cameron in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, as the hero's dad and supplies the sidekick with Cameron's absent, oppressive shadow of a father. That's not homage–that's the desperate rubbing of a talisman, a prayer to recapture lightning that leaked out of the bottle long ago.

The State: The Complete Series (1994-1995) – DVD

September 28, 2009Posted in1990s, Authors: Jefferson Robbins, Comedy, DVD, Television

Image B+ Sound B Extras A-

by Jefferson Robbins "The State" probably had me at its opening kicker, a knockoff of the tumbling SPECIAL logo that prefaced every "Charlie Brown" program on CBS in the 1970s. The titular comedy troupe's eleven members are all about my age, so when these "twentysomething sketch-comedy whores" got their own show on MTV, this twentysomething sketch-comedy consumer was in generational tune with them. The members of The State clearly watched, and had grown up watching, a shitload of TV, just like their audience. Nostalgia's a powerful thing.

Important Things with Demetri Martin: Season One (2009) – DVD

September 22, 2009Posted in2000s, Authors: Jefferson Robbins, Comedy, DVD, Television

Image A- Sound B Extras B-
"Timing," "Power," "Brains," "Chairs," "Safety," "Coolness," "Games"

by Jefferson Robbins If he ever gets tired of being Steven Wright with a guitar and a facial expression, Demetri Martin may have a future as a filmmaker. It's plain from the first season of "Important Things With Demetri Martin" that the comedian/actor thinks about the various parts of a given scenario and holds the branching possibilities in his mind in a three-dimensional way. This is typical of puzzle fiends and anagramists–terms which suit Martin well–and any producer/director worth a damn. His well-known line drawings, here set into motion by animators, make me think he's read both Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions and Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics. His comedy is a realm where everything is nametagged and hypertexted. (See the title of his debut CD: "These Are Jokes".) No surprise, then, that his stand-up routine is a hit in this age of Google Maps and floating metadata. Wait 'til we're all staring through the lenses of our augmented-reality iPhones, swimming in subsurface information–then we'll truly be residents of Demetri Martin's world.

Parker Lewis Can’t Lose: The Complete First Season (1990-1991) – DVD

August 25, 2009Posted in1990s, Authors: Jefferson Robbins, Comedy, Coming of Age, DVD, Scream/Shout! Factory, Teen, Television

Image C Sound B Extras B-
“Pilot,” “Operation Kubiac,” “Power Play,” “Parker Lewis Must Lose,” “Close, But No Guitar,” “G.A.G. Dance,” “Love’s a Beast,” “Saving Grace,” “Musso & Frank,” “Deja Dudes,” “Radio Free Flamingo,” “Science Fair,” “”Teacher, Teacher,” “Rent-a-Kube,” “Heather the Class,” “Jerry: Portrait of a Video Junkie,” “Splendor in the Class,” “The Human Grace,” “Citizen Kube,” “Randall Without a Cause,” “Jerry’s First Date,” “Against the Norm,” “King Kube,” “Teens from a Mall,” “My Fair Shelly,” “Parker Lewis Can’t Win”

by Jefferson Robbins It’s the cool uncle of “Malcolm in the Middle”. It’s got “Scrubs” among its progeny, and the ’80s teen comedies of Savage Steve Holland somewhere back up the line of descent. It may have single-handedly established the swoosh-smash-zip school of sitcoms, festooned with sound effects, inner monologues, and discursive daydreams. If it wanted, “Parker Lewis Can’t Lose” could claim “Family Guy” as a descendant, for the way it appropriates “Parker”‘s absurdist jump-cuts to tangential situations.1

Dollhouse: Season One (2009) – DVD | Blu-ray Disc

August 5, 2009Posted in2000s, Authors: Jefferson Robbins, Blu-ray Disc, Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi, Television, Thriller

DVD – Image N/A Sound N/A Extras N/A
BLU-RAY – Image A- Sound B Extras B
"Ghost," "The Target," "Stage Fright," "Gray Hour," True Believer," "Man On the Street," "Echoes," Needs," "A Spy In the House of Love," "Haunted," "Briar Rose," "Omega"
—
"Epitaph One," "Echo"

by Jefferson Robbins They're committing a grand social experiment over there at FOX, using some of the most loyal genre lovers in fandom as their rhesus monkeys. The disease they seek to wipe out, it appears, is the intermediary of the critic. Take much-abused, much-adored TV creator Joss Whedon; kick dirt in the face of his latest brainchild, "Dollhouse", when the poor thing is too weak to stand; and then, upon achieving maximum buzz by holding back longed-for portions of the resulting science-fiction series, release them through a hidden proxy and pretend it's a leak. It's pandering to geeks' idea of the Internet as a wild frontier, where the dispossessed can build a community and you can't stop the Signal, man. Meanwhile, for critics with a yen to stay independent of the studio's manipulation, they send out watermarked, shit-quality burns minus the fourth disc in the "Dollhouse" home video release. That missing platter features basically all the supplements any reasonable person would expect with their purchase, as well as the original, scrapped pilot "Echo" and the unaired thirteenth episode, "Epitaph One." So any critical analysis–like the one I'm about to perform–can be written off as sour grapes, spilt milk, the breast-beating of a self-appointed arbiter of good taste who's just mad because he didn't see it first.

What Makes Sammy Run? (1959) – DVD

July 20, 2009Posted in1950s, Authors: Jefferson Robbins, Biopic, Comedy, Drama, DVD, Music, Romance, Television

***½/**** Image C Sound C Extras B-
starring Larry Blyden, John Forsythe, Barbara Rush, Dina Merrill
teleplay by Budd & Stuart Schulberg, based on Budd's novel
directed by Delbert Mann

by Jefferson Robbins In adapting his hit 1941 novel What Makes Sammy Run? for a planned live TV broadcast, writer Budd Schulberg dropped two elements: driven Hollywood producer Sammy Glick as union-buster; and Glick as self-hating Jew. In an interview with Schulberg featured on the telecast's DVD release, he cops to scrubbing the former but not the latter. "I didn't think I would have enough time and space to adequately describe what the Writers Guild was and what the whole problem was," he says. Though Schulberg's not queried on Sammy's Judaism, it's safe to assume that throughline was a non-starter for a network (NBC) trying to capture Middle-American living rooms in 1959.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Like: FFC Interviews Lynn Shelton

July 9, 2009Posted in2000s, Authors: Jefferson Robbins, Interviews

LsheltoninterviewtitleHumpday director Lynn Shelton wants her men get to know each other better

July 10, 2009|It's mere coincidence, filmmaker Lynn Shelton will tell you, that her last two movies plumb the phenomenon of men reaching a make-or-break point in their friendships. Coincidence also, one assumes, that both films feature these bosom bros sprawled out across the same bed after the climax. The soft-spoken exploration Shelton began in My Effortless Brilliance (2008) finds a comedic payoff in Humpday, her third feature, which won a special jury prize at Sundance. In June, the film came to the Seattle International Film Festival for its first screening in Shelton's native city and base of operations–where it proceeded to win none of SIFF's upper-echelon awards, netting low runner-up status in the categories of best film and best actor (for Mark Duplass) and a second-place showing for Shelton as best director (with first-place going to The Hurt Locker's Kathryn Bigelow). Symptoms of a hometown backlash? Still, her flick had already outpaced many of its SIFF fellows in the race for distribution and strong word-of-mouth.

Seattle International Film Festival ’09: Hachiko: A Dog’s Story

June 14, 2009Posted in2000s, Authors: Jefferson Robbins, Biopic, Drama, Family, Film Festivals, UK, ZERO STARS
Hachi: A Dog's TaleZERO STARS/****starring Richard Gere, Joan Allen, Sarah Roemer, Jason Alexanderscreenplay by Stephen P. Lindseydirected by Lasse Hallström by Jefferson Robbins SPOILER WARNING IN EFFECT. It's better than Marley & Me, but so's a Tasering. At least the title alerts you up front to the presence of a dog in this Lasse Hallström movie--the latest Japanaptation, after Shall We Dance, to star serial sentimentalist Richard Gere. As a lifelong mutt owner, I'm unimpressed by stories of fierce canine loyalty and homing instinct. The dog hears your train coming and runs to meet you? That's because he knows you're…

Seattle International Film Festival ’09: Deadgirl

June 7, 2009Posted in2000s, Authors: Jefferson Robbins, Film Festivals, Horror
***/****starring Shiloh Fernandez, Noah Segan, Jenny Spain, Candice Accolascreenplay by Trent Haagadirected by Marcel Sarmiento and Gadi Harel by Jefferson Robbins The word "zombie" is never uttered in Deadgirl, but the movie belongs to that genre, both in its plot device and in the way it uses the animate dead to probe a particular neurosis of our culture. In this way, it does the best job of its ilk since 28 Days Later..., and it resembles that movie in its question of women as currency or possessions in a world gone feral. Drinking and breaking shit in an abandoned mental…

Seattle International Film Festival ’09: Fifty Dead Men Walking

June 6, 2009Posted in2000s, Authors: Jefferson Robbins, Crime, Drama, Thriller, UK
**/****starring Ben Kingsley, Jim Sturgess, Kevin Zegers, Rose McGowanwritten and directed by Kari Skogland by Jefferson Robbins You're watching the wrong guy if you keep your eye on Martin McGartland (Jim Sturgess), a Special Branch mole in the Belfast IRA circa 1988. The one to mark in Fifty Dead Men Walking is his handler, codenamed "Fergus" and played by Ben Kingsley under a hairpiece that makes him look astonishingly like Ben Gazzara. As he transitions from mere manipulation of his charge to fatherly love, Fergus reveals himself to be the only character made valid by the script and fully fleshed…

Seattle International Film Festival ’09: Art & Copy

June 4, 2009Posted in2000s, Authors: Jefferson Robbins, Documentary, Film Festivals
**½/****directed by Doug Pray by Jefferson Robbins The metaphors that Doug Pray's subjects arrive at to describe their chosen medium--advertising, in all its forms--are atmospheric. "It's like air and water," says Jeff Goodby, creator of the "Got milk?" campaign. "It's around you. It's gonna happen to you." Art director and ad legend George Lois ("I want my MTV") is perhaps more honest: "I think advertising's a poison gas." Pray's documentary does a great job of illustrating where we are now in our relationship with our ads. Where it doesn't succeed is as a history lesson, save for opening nods to…

Seattle International Film Festival ’09: Black Dynamite

June 3, 2009Posted in2000s, Action, Authors: Jefferson Robbins, Comedy, Film Festivals
***/****starring Michael Jai White, Byron Minns, Salli Richardson-Whitfieldscreenplay by Michael Jai White, Byron Minns, Scott Sandersdirected by Scott Sanders by Jefferson Robbins When last we saw Michael Jai White, it was in the biggest movie of 2008, getting a shiv in the uvula from Heath Ledger. The veteran action performer (Spawn, Universal Soldier) wants to shrug that one off with a joke of his own. The pre-credits scenes in Scott Sanders's Black Dynamite, a vehicle created specifically for White, make you fear another I'm Gonna Git You Sucka or Undercover Brother--a satire on '70s blaxploitation tropes that uses actual, professional camera setups, editing,…

Seattle International Film Festival ’09: I Sell the Dead

June 1, 2009Posted in2000s, Authors: Jefferson Robbins, Comedy, Film Festivals, Horror
**/****starring Dominic Monaghan, Larry Fessenden, Angus Scrimm, Ron Perlmanwritten and directed by Glenn McQuaid by Jefferson Robbins I was genetically engineered to like this movie, a Hammer Films riff with dollops of Evil Dead slapstick and EC Comics creep-out--so I guess I have to blame the filmmakers for fumbling the experiment. It's rare that a gothic-Guignol seems to drag, but at 84 minutes Glenn McQuaid's graverobbing comedy I Sell the Dead could still be shorter, some bits of business dropped without harm. Then you've got a great hour of television with a fuckton of feature-film pedigree. Producer Larry Fessenden roleplays…

Seattle International Film Festival ’09: Cold Souls

May 31, 2009Posted in2000s, Authors: Jefferson Robbins, Comedy, Drama, Film Festivals, France, Sci-Fi
**½/****starring Paul Giamatti, Dina Korzun, David Strathairn, Emily Watsonwritten and directed by Sophie Barthes by Jefferson Robbins We have much to praise and condemn Charlie Kaufman for, and popularizing science-fiction and meta-fictional elements to eyeball modern emotional displacement could count in both columns. In her first feature, writer-director Sophie Barthes deploys an amazing cast in an effort that will, for better or worse, be invariably compared to Kaufman's Being John Malkovich and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Paul Giamatti (Paul Giamatti) is in theatrical rehearsals for "Uncle Vanya", and all that Russian ennui is weighing on his soul. So…

Seattle International Film Festival ’09: Nurse.Fighter.Boy

May 25, 2009Posted in2000s, Authors: Jefferson Robbins, Canada, Drama, Film Festivals
***/****starring Clark Johnson, Karen LeBlanc, Daniel J. Gordonscreenplay by Charles Officer and Ingrid Veningerdirected by Charles Officer by Jefferson Robbins It's broad-strokes storytelling set in Toronto's Jamaican expatriate community, in which each character and situation is understood immediately, almost subconsciously. Night-shift nurse Jude (Karen LeBlanc) is herself a patient, suffering from a potentially fatal sickle-cell disorder. It's her son Ciel (Daniel J. Gordon) who keeps her going, both figuratively and metaphysically--he's a magical thinker, reaching back to Caribbean incantation and rootwork, crafting charms to preserve his mother's life. Then washed-up boxer Silence (Clark Johnson), a closed book, drifts into their…

Seattle International Film Festival ’09: The Hurt Locker

May 18, 2009Posted in2000s, Authors: Jefferson Robbins, Best Picture (Academy Awards), Drama, Film Festivals, Thriller, War
***½/****starring Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, Brian Geraghty, Guy Pearcescreenplay by Mark Boaldirected by Kathryn Bigelow by Jefferson Robbins It's either a shame or a blessing for Kathryn Bigelow's tense Iraq War drama The Hurt Locker to emerge now rather than in 2004, the year of its setting. Back then, war fury was all the rage and might have doomed the movie--we had to believe that invading Iraq was the right thing to do, or why else had we buried 1,100 soldiers by the time George W. Bush won reelection? But just the same, we could have used this reminder of…

Seattle International Film Festival ’09: Humpday

May 15, 2009Posted in2000s, Authors: Jefferson Robbins, Comedy, Drama, Film Festivals, Romance
***/****starring Mark Duplass, Joshua Leonard, Alycia Delmorewritten and directed by Lynn Shelton by Jefferson Robbins SPOILER WARNING IN EFFECT. The difference in intimacy between male friendship and married companionship gets laid bare in the opening minutes of Humpday. There's the comfortable, cuddled body contact shared by young Seattle office drone Ben (Mark Duplass) and his wife, Anna (Alycia Delmore). And then there's the bellowing, clenching reunion of Ben and free-spirited old buddy Andrew (Joshua Leonard), who, not seen in a decade, arrives unannounced on the redeye from Mexico. "I respect the FUCK outta you, man!" Andrew declares, and it's both…

Seattle International Film Festival ’09: In the Loop

May 13, 2009Posted in2000s, Authors: Jefferson Robbins, Comedy, Film Festivals, Satire, UK
***/****starring Peter Capaldi, Tom Hollander, Gina McKee, James Gandolfiniscreenplay by Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, Tony Rochedirected by Armando Iannucci by Jefferson Robbins It's the Downing Street Memo actualized as comedy. Spun off from director Armando Iannucci's own 2005 BBC series "The Thick Of It", In the Loop broadens its scope from the backroom foibles of clueless, self-interested British MPs to encompass the American policy vultures, partisan hacks, and PTSD generals who devise, or are victimized by, war policy. Ported over wholesale from "The Thick Of It" is Peter Capaldi's bloodthirsty Malcolm Tucker, chief enforcer for the Prime Minister and…