Video review: "The Meddler"

“The Meddler” is one of those little indie movies that are perfect for video. They tend not to get released in smaller cities, and even then it can be a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it run at the one art cinema in town. A delightful comedy with some hefty messages underneath the laughs, it treats its characters as realistic people who might exist in the world with their own peculiar virtues and faults.

The foibles of Marnie (Susan Sarandon) are pretty evident. A wealthy widow from Jersey without a lot to do, she moves out to Los Angeles to be near her daughter (Rose Byrne), a successful television writer who’s unlucky in love. Marnie is a born smotherer who repeatedly crosses boundaries -- dropping hints about grandchildren, etc. Soon enough the kid has (gently) elbowed Marnie out of the picture.

But, in her own passive-aggressive way, Marnie is unstoppable. Soon she’s co-opted her daughter’s circle of friends into becoming her own, lavishing one with an expensive wedding party. She keeps dropping by the Apple store to buy more overpriced junk she doesn’t need, and soon she’s driving a young worker there to college classes she encouraged him to take.

Marnie is a true giver -- even when the recipient can’t take anymore.

She strikes up a halting romance with Zipper, a twangy cop/farmer played with a twinkle by J.K. Simmons. He spots her on the set of a movie where he’s working security -- Marnie just walked by one day and became an extra -- and pitches some woo. Marnie, long used to being the interloper in other people’s lives instead of the one who gets loped, isn’t quite sure what to make of the creased Casanova at first.

Written and directed by Lorene Scafaria, “The Meddler” is a movie that doesn’t have a lot of story to it. It’s just people intersecting, rubbing off each other, finding connections that weren’t there before. The movie takes a woman who at first seems ridiculous and even a little pathetic and lets us see her intricate humanity. It’s funny, and enlightening.

Bonus features are good, and are the same for DVD and Blu-ray editions.

There is a gag reel and two featurettes: “The ‘Real’ Marnie” and “The Making of The Meddler.” The centerpiece is a feature-length commentary track with both Scafaria and Sarandon. I really enjoy it when the filmmakers and stars participate in these together, so it’s more of a dialogue than one person droning on.

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Review: "The Meddler"

"The Meddler" is a movie without a lot of big moves, but it spins joyfully in its own little circle.

Susan Sarandon plays Marnie, a Jersey widow who moves out to Los Angeles so she can smother her daughter with kindness. The daughter, Lori (Rose Byrne), pushes her away at every turn, so Marnie continually seeks out other venues in which to insert herself in other people's lives.

That's pretty much the entire story. It may not sound like enough for an entire movie, but writer/director Lorene Scafaria ("Seeking a Friend for the End of the World") and Sarandon give us a wonderful character study with a lot of heart and a little wisdom, too.

This is one of those deals where you just enjoy spending time with these characters, and that's enough.

Sarandon tries on an agreeable Brooklyn honk (though it has a tendency to fade a bit from time to time) as she narrates Marnie's story, told largely through a series of long -- and unreturned -- voice messages she leaves for Lori. It's mostly rote checking-in kinda stuff, here's what I'm up to, hope things are going well with you, etc.

But Marnie unwittingly slips in constant little digs that tear at Lori's fragile psyche. She's a successful writer who's got a new TV show lined up, but recently broke up with her boyfriend (Jason Ritter) who's also a big action movie star. She's getting on in years, cherishes her independence but also quietly pines for children, and Marnie is there to pick-pick-pick at all her insecurities.

A mother's love is boundless -- which is another way of saying it's ceaseless.

Marnie is an interesting gal. She's not exactly dim, but she's not very self-reflective and instinctively crosses over borders. Years of being told she's doing so by Lori only enables her to acknowledge that she's crosses boundaries while she's doing it.

Her husband, Joe, left her a big pile of money so she doesn't have to work. There are a lot of hours in the day, and Marnie tries a bunch of things to fill them up. She starts volunteering at the hospital (without actually signing up to do so), walks into a movie set and becomes a regular extra, befriends the young Genius at the Apple store (Jerrod Carmichael) and soon is driving him around to the college classes she encouraged him to take.

That doesn't begin to mention how she inserts herself into Lori's circle of girlfriends -- Lucy Punch, Cecily Strong, Sarah Baker, Casey Wilson -- showing up at a baby shower as a +1, without the 1. Soon she's planning an extravagant post-wedding party for one of them costing tens of thousands of dollars, out of her own pocket. Marnie basks in this attention, even if it is a faux substitute for the mother/daughter relationship she craves.

Heck, Marnie even signs up for sessions with Lori's therapist (Amy Landecker) just so she can talk about her daughter, since the real thing doesn't want to.

The funny thing is, for all her brazen feats of meddling, Marnie can be quite shy and retiring when others pull the same move on her. She's clearly intimidated by her late husband's family back East, a gregarious clan of Italians. And when a nicely creased older cop shows her some romantic attention, she demurs at first.

Zipper -- his real name, btw -- is played by J.K. Simmons, who just oozes rustic charm and magnetism. He's a lonely divorced guy who lives in the rural outskirts of L.A., playing Dolly Parton music for his chickens and lamenting his distant relations with his daughters. Marnie's drawn to him, but she's so used to being the interloper, she's a bit confused when someone intrudes into her sphere.

I really enjoyed this movie. It doesn't feel like it's trying to push any big revelations on you or impress you with an intricate storyline. It's just people, bumping into each other and interacting. Sometimes their flaws rub each other the wrong way, and sometimes a weakness is beheld as a strength by others.

Mostly "The Meddler" is a showcase for Susan Sarandon, who's usually known for playing such strong women. Marnie is too, but in a different way. Her yearning never really goes away, but starts out as desperation and turns into something more positive. It's like watching someone drowning, and then their frantic flailing becomes a calm, sustaining stroke.

Video review: "Dinner for Schmucks"

 Steve Carell gives an off-kilter, weird performance in "Dinner for Schmucks." As Barry, an IRS agent whose social skills appear to have stopped developing around third grade, Carell creates a character that we do not believe could really live and breathe in the real world. But it's such a pitifully funny creation, we go along with the gag.

Barry's hobby -- his only passion in life, really -- is stuffing dead mice and placing them in diorama poses, what he calls "mousterpieces." When he runs into Tim (Paul Rudd), he's soon made the patsy in a nasty game run by Tim's boss: Each man has to invite the most pathetic loser they can find to a dinner party. The guy who brings the most laughable guest wins.

A remake of a French comedy, "Dinner for Schmucks" doesn't contain joke-a-minute laughs. But when a scene hits high gear, it's as funny as anything I saw in 2010. Zach Galifianakis has a hilarious turn as Barry's boss, who's a dork himself but just enough less of a dork than Barry to convince him that he can control Barry's mind.

Lucy Punch also has a great walk-on scene as a sexual stalker who tries to put the moves on Barry, but he's too much of a moron to realize he's being seduced.
"Dinner for Schmucks" contains a full course of mirth.

Video features are a bit light, but worth a look.

On the DVD version, there are deleted scenes, a gag reel -- dubbed "Schmuck Ups" -- and a feature on the Biggest Schmucks in the World.

In addition, the Blu-ray edition contains a featurette on "The Man Behind the Mousterpieces," another called "Meet the Winners" and a spoof of LeBron James' "The Decision" press conference starring Carell and Rudd.

Movie: 3 stars out of four
Extras: 2.5 stars out of four

Review: "You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger"

I'm enough of a Woody Allen fan to say there's no such thing as a bad Woody Allen movie. The problem with "You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger" is not that it isn't good, but that it feels like we've already seen this movie too many times before.

The narcissistic writer, the ambitious career woman trapped in dead-end marriage, the workplace flirtation that turns into (maybe) something more -- we've encountered these characters many times before in various iterations over Allen's 40-plus years of filmmaking. The only thing that changes is which actors play them.

Allen is a famously prolific writer/director, cranking out about a movie a year. There's bound to be repetition of themes and plots across such a huge body of work, but lately it seems he sticks to a formula with interchangeable parts.

Even the plain, spare black-and-white title sequences and old-timey musical score feel less like the affectations of a stubbornly independent artist than the rut of someone who can't find anything fresh to say.

That's also the plight of Roy (Josh Brolin), an American novelist living in London with his wife Sally (Naomi Watts). Roy gave up a career in medicine to write, and after one modestly successful book he's been unable to come up with anything publishers want.

They depend on financial assistance from Sally's mother Helena (Gemma Jones), who recently was abandoned by her husband of 40 years, Alfie (Anthony Hopkins). He didn't seem to have any real reason for divorcing Helena, other than fear of getting old, and she took it rather badly -- first attempting suicide, and then turning to a fourth-rate psychic for spiritual help.

Sally has recently taken a job working for successful art gallery owner Greg (Antonio Banderas), and it's not long before she's longing for the attention of her sexy boss. Roy, meanwhile, has become enamored with the young Indian girl (Freida Pinto) who moved into the apartment across the way, allowing him to play peeping tom.

Helena takes to popping in at Roy and Sally's any hour of the day, chattering away about her latest revelation from the psychic. She believes she's destined to meet a new love, and that Alfie won't be nearly as happy with his new wife as he was with her.

That psychic may just be stringing Helena along, but proves prescient about Alfie's new relationship. Charmaine (Lucy Punch) is half his age and a prostitute -- that's actually how Alfie meets her. But the old dodderer convinces himself she's got a the proverbial heart of gold, instead of just being a digger of it.

When Allen is really clicking -- say, with "Hannah and Her Sisters" or "Annie Hall" -- these self-deluded creatures seem, for all the ridiculousness of their relationships, at least believable. But here, the characters are mere comedy constructs, built to be laughed at.

Is Alfie such an aging lothario that he'd hand over his life to an obvious tart? Could Roy be any more obvious and piggish in his overtures to his lovely neighbor? Would level-headed Sally really throw herself at a man who makes no pretense of returning her affection?

Only Jones, as the increasingly discombobulated Helena, has any real weight or plausibility to her character. She's wallowing in self-pity and half a loon to boot, but we at least deem her a real person we could pass on the street.

"You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger" is cookie-cutter Woody Allen. His fans will savor the familiar taste, while the rest of us wish he'd seek out new recipes.

2 stars out of four

Review: "Dinner for Schmucks"

"Dinner for Schmucks" is a pretty darn funny comedy. Not laugh-a-minute funny, as the good bits are spread a little thin. When it hits, though, it hits on all cylinders.

Mostly I think this is due to an extraordinarily strange performance by Steve Carell. But we'll get to that in a minute. First I'd like to discuss the title.

"Schmuck" is Yiddish, a pejorative for the male sex organ, and is generally considered to be a swear word. If it weren't the title of a mainstream Hollywood movie, it's unlikely any newspaper would allow me to use it in print (or even the wild, wild Web).

The interesting thing is that nobody in the film is identified as being Jewish. In fact, the rich businessman who organizes the titular dinners -- in which his lackeys compete to see who can bring the biggest idiot as his guest -- is about as WASP-y as you can get.

No one even uses the word "schmuck" at any point in the movie. So while I'm all in favor of using foreign swear words for the coy naughtiness, I'm a little confused as to how they arrived at this title. Anyway.

The straight man is played by Paul Rudd, a perpetual cinematic wing man finally getting a shot at the lead. (If only we could cast him and Judy Greer together in a romantic comedy, the world would feel right.)

Rudd plays Tim, an analyst at a company specializing in buying up distressed companies, stripping and selling them. He wants to move up to the seventh floor where the big boys play, leapfrogging each other to impress the top dog, Fender (Bruce Greenwood).

The boss likes Tim's gumption in pursuing a deal with an eccentric Swiss tycoon, but has a condition for the promotion: He must take part in the monthly dinner competition. But where is he to find an idiot?

Then Barry arrives, as if sent from above. Played by Carell with a bad haircut and some prosthetic teeth, Barry is an IRS agent whose real passion is taxidermy. In his case, Barry likes to collect dead mice, stuff them and pose them in romantic little dioramas -- having picnics, riding bikes, etc.

Tim runs Barry over with his car, and immediately senses that something is amiss when Barry offers to pay him to make the whole thing going away. Clearly, the patsy has arrived.

Carell gives Barry a dim-witted sweetness that's hard not to like. It's not so much that he's stupid, but his experience with meaningful human interaction is so limited, he's like a kindergartner among surly eighth-graders.

For instance, Barry has a boss who has convinced him he can take control of his mind through hypnosis, even though he's only marginally more sophisticated than Barry. He's played by Zach Galifianakis in hilariously self-serious turn -- at one point, he turns his face dark purple and then back to normal again, like switching a light. They don't teach that at the Actor's Studio.

The actual dinner happens rather late in the game. Barry shows up at Tim's a day early, and in a matter of hours has managed to estrange his girlfriend Julie (Stephanie Szostack), a sensitive artistic type who's appalled that Tim would participate in the cruel game.

This sends her running into the hirsute arms of Keiran (Jemaine Clement), a pretentious artist whose works all involve depictions of himself. Keiran envisions himself as some kind of wise, horny satyr with the lower half of a goat, but the real hindquarters he resembles belong to a horse.

Things really get rolling with the arrival of Darla (Lucy Punch), a stalker ex-girlfriend of Tim's. She tries playing a sex game with Barry, who remains colossally clueless.

"Would you like to lick cheese off my naked body?" Darla teases. "Oh, I'm sure Tim has plates," Barry responds.

Directed by Jay Roach from a screenplay by David Guion and Michael Handelman, "Dinner" is a fast-paced farce with a decent helping of big laughs. Oh, and it's based on a French comedy called "Dinner for Idiots" ... so still no clue on where the schmucks came from.

3 stars out of four