Greenberg

Ben Stiller is always good for laugh. I mean, there was Dodgeball, Zoolander, the two Nights as the Museums, the whole Fockers series. He's not the funniest character out there, but he's funny enough that I'll watch his new movies.

Greenberg is his latest adventure where he plays a neurotic Roger Greenberg who recently gets out of the mental hospital and is asked by his brother to watch their house while they are away on vacation.

Meanwhile, his brother's assistant, Florence (Greta Gerwig), comes around and helps Roger get by with all of the house chores. Since Roger doesn't drive or know anything about dogs, the weak and impressionable Florence is there to help him out.

In the meantime, Roger, who is lonely and looking for a new start in life, starts to fall for Florence, but his violent outbursts and inability to accept any accountability for his actions, begins to wear thin on Florence. Can Roger turn this awkward forced relationship into something romantic that will last, or will like everything else in his life, be something fleeting that just passes him by?

Greenberg was directed by Noah Baumbach, who directed the nearly intolerable Margot at the Wedding. Greenberg is rated R for strong sexuality, language, lots of drug and alcohol use and some minor violence.

Greenberg is definitely a dark comedy. I did fine humor in many of the scenes, though I found everyone to be a bit predictable. The movie is about an hour and 40 minutes long.

The movie also stars Rhys Ifans, Jennifer Jason Leigh (Fast Times at Ridgemont High), and what I hope to be an up-and-coming Brie Larson.

Greenberg wasn't too bad. It's not my favorite Ben Stiller movie, though I have to admit that I'm not a huge fan of dark comedies. However, this one was good enough to earn it 3.1 stars.

Synecdoche, New York

If you are a fan of artistic movies, then you're dumb and you're not going to like this blog entry.

I got Synecdoche, New York from Netflix recently. If you don't get it yet, it's a play on Schenectady, New York. Schenectady being an economically shrinking town in New York full of formerly employed New Yorkers who do not want to live in the state capital of Albany.

Synecdoche, on the other hand, is a part of speech, a term denoting a part of something that is used to refer to the whole. I think of the term Nazi, which when heard conjurs up impages of German soldiers in World War II and a general refrence to Germany as a whole. However, this is not entirely accurate as Nazi was a political party and I think you could argue that most people that lived in Germany were not Nazis, though most were conscripted into service and fought for their cause. Do you think that the Germans would talk about how the Democrats were bombing Berlin?

Back to the movie. Synecdoche, New York stars Philip Seymour-Hoffman, who I think is taking cues from Robert De Niro. Hoffman has starred in 7 movies in less than 2 1/2 years, including Charlie Wilson's War, The Savages, and Before the Devil Knows Your Dead. Also starring in the movie is Catherine Keener, also taking cues from RDN, with 9 movies since 2007, including What Just Happened, with RDN, The Soloist, and Into the Wild. Minor roles include Jennifer Jason Leigh, Samantha Morton, Michelle Williams, and Diane West.

The movie tracks the life of director Caden Cotard who is staging an autobiographic play of his life. He was won a grant that endows him unlimited resources to produce his play. However, the play never seems to get completed. Cotard ages, his child grows up to participate in unsavory activities, and his wife leaves him. Cotard becomes neurotic and a hypochondirac.

Meanwhile, the set for his play becomes larger and larger, eventually occupying a reall large warehouse that comes to include a miniature cut-out of New York City. He hires an actor to play him, who, in an attempt to recreate Cotard, hires an actor to play the actor who plays Cotard.

I get the humor in the movie. I'm sure this would have made a hysterical book. However, the movie is long and drawn out. It's sort of dark humor or tragic comedy. And, yes, spoiler alert, nearly everyone dies in the end, but don't we all die in the end?

Synecdoche, New York is rated R for language, sexual content and nudity, and confusing dialog. Fortunately, this movie cuts out right near the 2 hour mark and not the 40 year mark like the play.

I am not a huge fan of the artistic movies, nor of the dark comedies. I didn't care for Broken Roses. Didn't like Burn After Reading. I did understand the comedy, but I was just not a fan of it. I give this movie 2 stars.

Margot at the Wedding

Have you ever been on that hike where you know you are lost and you keep walking and walking? You walk for what seems forever, but you can never figure out where you are. Hours must have passed, and still no familiar sites, no distictive landmarks. You may even be walkin in circles. You look at your watch and much to your surprise, you have only been walking for 20 minutes.


Having given up, but wanted to get return home, you start walking in the other direction. This time, you know you've walked for at least another hour. But when you look at your watch, it's only been another 20 minutes. How can this be? How can time pass so slow?


If you've ever experienced this walk either in real life or in a dream, then you've also watched Margot at the Wedding. This movie is proof that the cast of stars does not make a movie. I love me a movie with Nicole Kidman and Jennifer Jason Leigh, best known for playing Stacy in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, for obvious reasons. I like Jack Black, but for other reasons. Yet, this movie just didn't cut it.


Nicole Kidman plays Margot, a mother of a what I thought was a young girl named Claude (short for Claudia???). Her sister Pauline (Leigh) is getting married to dumbass Malcolm (Black). Margot and Pauline have not gotten along for years, so this reunion is a little awkward.

Margot is the psychiatrist-visiting mental case, whereas Pauline is the drug-taking unstable mental case. And Malcolm is just a lunatic - crazy ideas, violent outbursts, spontaneous cursing, and, believe it or not, a reckless relationship with another woman.



Margot tries to talk Pauline out of getting married to Malcolm. Margot's son (that came out of nowhere) is attacked for being a fruitcake. The neighbors kill a pig. A tree falls on the wedding tent. Pauline leaves Malcolm. Pauline poops her panties. Everyone leaves. Margot's son is put on a bus, only to have Margot come chasing after him. End of movie.


Yeah. Just weird.


The movie is rated R for adult situations, Kidman's masterbation attempt, Jennifer Jason Leigh walking around the bedroom with her boobs hanging out, Malcolm's constant profantiy, some child homosexuality, and a beat-down. This is one of the few Kidman movies in which she doesn't show some naked part of her body, though I am fine with that. She's still very attractive. The movie is 92 imnutes long, but it takes about 3 hours of your mental capacity away from you.


Overall I give this movie 2 stars. The movie went nowhere and took too long to get there. If it weren't for the boobies and the self-pleasuring, I would have rather eaten a pillow case. Don't waste your time watching this movie unless you have some guilty pleasures that you need to satisfy.