Humpday **1/2

Director: Lynn Shelton
Cast: Mark Duplass, Joshua Leonard, Alycia Delmore

Andrew (Leonard) and Ben (Duplass) were best friends during college but drifted apart as the years went by. Andrew ended up getting married and lives with his wife Anna (Delmore) in Seattle where Ben, who's coming back from a long term stay in Chiapas-where he did art with natives- irrupts one early morning unannounced.
Suddenly Ben finds himself in a strange party with Andrew's new friends; a group of hippies, artists and swingers.
While Anna sits at home waiting with a cold dinner, Ben gets drunk, high and agrees to do an art project with Andrew.
Said project, a movie which they will submit to the local Humpfest, will feature them having sex. The following morning trying to hide behind and accuse the hangover they rekindle their talk and realize this is something they actually want to do to prove how one of them isn't as "Kerouac" as he thinks and the other isn't completely "white picket fences".
Writer/director Shelton has some interesting points of view about how heterosexual males choose to bond and the movie has some really funny moments, that don't necessarily involve sexual orientation stereotypes.
As the movie builds up to the imminent encounter, to take place at the "Bonin' Motel", it's not so much the characters who begin to falter and doubt, but the filmmaker herself.
"What exactly about two straight dudes having sex on camera is a great piece of art?" asks Ben as he sits next to his buddy half naked.
The question isn't directed to them as much as it is to Shelton, who came up with a cute idea and later had nothing to say with it (as happens a lot lately in "art").
She then has them involve in a conversation that's half profound questioning of our sexual perceptions, half silly conversation- a keg away- from a frat party.
Her postmodernist attempt to question the existence of her own movie feels more like a happy accident than an intention; and in her search for a door into the heterosexual male's mind she only came up with clichés.
Her idea of what it's like to be heterosexual can't help but be stained by very feminist ways of thinking. Even when she might swear she's trying to make the guys seem reasonable, she ends up being condescending to them and towards homosexuality.
When Andrew reminds himself that he's about to star in a movie about "two straight guys boning", Ben instantly asks "how are they going to know that we're straight?".
It's sweet of Shelton to want to explore the fears that lie behind society's take on homosexuality, but when she makes Ben reveal that he had "a moment" with a guy during his teenage years (kudos to Duplass for making this scene seem much deeper than it has any right to be) the whole thing feels reduced to a movie about the incomplete bonding of two college buddies afraid of middle age.
Shelton may not get men in the way she wants, but with Anna she saves the movie from becoming insulting.
She isn't only the most grounded character in the film (a lot is owed to Delmore's bittersweet, mature performance) but she's also the only one who seems to have a life outside the screenplay.
Her dialogues are more planned and thought out than anything the boys have to say and even when she suggest to her husband that he should get "that thing" out of his system, she seems to be talking from a place of pure empathy and even love.
She also has a confession of her own and even if it's not a mindfuck of a revelation it feels more human and real than anything else featured here.
Sadly, "Humpday", like its characters, is never as open minded as it wants to be.

Jennifer's Body ***

Director: Karyn Kusama
Cast: Megan Fox
Amanda Seyfried
Johnny Simmons
J.K. Simmons
Amy Sedaris, Adam Brody

"Jennifer's evil" says Needy (Seyfried) to her boyfriend Chip (Simmons). "I know" he replies with a bit of a "duh" look in his face.
Jennifer has been Needy's friend since infanthood ("sandbox love never dies") and in a way they compliment each other.
Needy's the geeky-with makeover potential- looking, good girl with a steady boyfriend and a curfew.
Jennifer is the hot cheerleader with a thirst for boys who pretends to be a virgin just to turn on her victims more.
People around them wonder what the hell they have in common, but as many other things in high school, the nature of their friendship remains a mystery.
Things change after a bar burns down and Jennifer's boy hunger seems to develop into actual demonic cannibalism.
Jocks turns up dead, Jennifer turns up mysteriously bloodied in the middle of the night and Needy has more slasher worthy moments than anyone would ever dream of.
Kusama's teen-thriller packs a hell of a punch and owes most of it to Diablo Cody's terrific screenplay which obviously makes an extensive use of pop culture references ("it's true! It's on the Wikipedia") but manages to outlive its otherwise temporary shelf life by contributing to the dying teen flick genre.
"Jennifer's Body" might not bring anything new to the table, in fact Cody sometimes seems to betray the very nature of her story. For example why did she have to bring it all down to good old fashioned geek vs. hot competitiveness when there's been a million more movies like that before?
But when she's on a roll the characters deliver some truly brilliant, and extremely quotable, bits of dialogue that both poke fun and exalt the adolescent life.
There is nothing really scary about the movie (even if Fox does seem like she might eat you alive to stay wrinkle free) but Cody taps into some fascinating issue circling modern life.
For one, she is unashamedly open about sex and ignores the ridiculous cliché that "smart girls" don't have sex.
When Chip coyly announces to Needy that he'll be getting condoms for their date later during the day, Cody is in fact screaming that "smart girls have sex...with protection". The film offers several moments of refreshing maturity that play out in awkwardly sweet moments.
We are also reminded of the indifference our culture has grown towards violence. As the murders increase in the town where the movie takes place, it's only a matter of time before they're seeking the next big thing ("sorrow was last week's emotion").
This trait is embodied through Jennifer who struts the halls without a care in the world, even if everything outside is collapsing.
When Needy proclaims "we had faith. We were fucking idiots" the post-Obama world seems to balance on a tightrope for a fraction of a second...
Then we're being vastly entertained by the sight of two girls in formal dresses fighting inside a pool and everything goes back to normal.

Crush of the Week.

"There's no point Don".

From the moment "Mad Men" began, it was obvious that there would be an episode featuring JFK's assassination and the repercussions it would have on the characters.
However, I never expected it to be half as brilliant as "The Grown-Ups" was. Unless "Lost" has one helluva final season and Emmy voters get sudden geek nostalgia, it bagged a third consecutive win for them in the Best Drama category.
With this and last week's astounding "The Gypsy and the Hobo" the show finally transcended the "is it about anything?" veil it had cast over itself.
Now its relevance becomes obvious in a subtle way; when one of the characters asks reluctantly why is Lyndon Johnson President when nobody voted for him I couldn't help but think of the harsh political situation going on in my country.

The best thing about the episode was how they underplayed the whole event to show the passing of time and the fact that we never know what's around the corner.
Peter (Vincent Kartheiser) for example is so caught up with his work that he doesn't even notice what's going on in the TV set.
Director Barbet Schroeder knows we know what's going on, but doesn't let the characters become selfconscious about it.

When they do, it turns into something so chaotic and emotional that you can't believe it's hitting you in the way it does.

Peggy (Elizabeth Moss) for example was busy having an afternoon delight with Duck (Mark Moses) and their television wasn't even plugged in as the events unfolded.
The world does not stop moving just because you do is the message and this plays to an even greater effect when in the last scenes Betty (the brilliant January Jones) comes to terms with how this suddenness can not prevent her from living her life.

In the episode's most poignant scene, as Betty watches the news their maid Carla (Deborah Lacey) comes in, asks if anything has happened as Betty begins to sob and tells her the President is dead.
In a moment worthy of Norman Rockwell she sits down next to her employer-without being asked-and lights up a cigarette.
Very few moments in television have made me hold my breath like that did.

When Don (Jon Hamm) gets home he explains to his children the events "everything's going to be OK. We have a new President, we're all going to be sad for a little bit".
This ambiguous certainty becomes the episode's, and the decade some might say, central theme as all the characters begin to question their very existence.
After Betty unravels Don just says "you'll feel better tomorrow. You'll see."
This might not be true for any of them, but this show just made it clear its brilliance won't stop at nothing.

Mira Does Baz.

Watching Mira Nair's disappointing version of "Vanity Fair" I couldn't help but notice how much she drew from "Moulin Rouge!" towards the movie's end.

First she makes Reese Witherspoon perform in full Hindu garb a la Nicole Kidman in the "Hindi Sad Diamonds" number in the 2001 film.
Reese isn't as good a performer as Kidman, but she pulls it off like she always does: relying on pure charisma.

A few minutes later Gabriel Byrne confesses her love for Reese by uttering the words "the only thing of value in this life is to love and be loved".
If you're not humming "Nature Boy" ("Moulin Rouge!"'s trademark song) already there's something wrong with you...

And just a few scenes later James Purefoy discovers Reese in the middle of a not so decent situation and obviously his normal reaction is to tear her elaborate, expensive looking necklace from her neck and throw it away.
He then proceeds to dump her, not without first doing his best Rhett Butler impersonation.
Ah if the whole movie has been just half as brilliant as Luhrmann's we'd have been in business.

Gavin, Jack and Oscar.

"I am happy to co-host the Oscars with my enemy Alec Baldwin" - Steve Martin

The amazing Steve Martin is returning to host the Oscars and this time he's bringing Alec Baldwin with him.
The news are all over the internet by now (read here) and they truly fill me with joy.
When's the last time we had a truly funny Oscar show? I mean truly, outrageously funny...
Perhaps Ellen Degeneres' wonderfully offbeat hosting three years ago, but we've come little to be close to the glorious days of Billy Crystal.
I, for one, am sure that these two will kick major ass and somewhere in NYC Tina Fey (who should be at every awards show from here til the end of times) is smiling gladly at the idea of Gavin Volure and Jack Donaghy together one more time.

Write and Wrong.

It's become more obvious by the year, that screenwriting is a dying art in Hollywood. While there used to be superb movies about screenwriters, now studios just get the best talent to pen out stuff like "Ice Age 3" or "Transformers 2".
Yahoo! Movies featured a very interesting article on how this year's Oscar Original Screenplay category is utterly lacking.
Click on the picture to read the whole article and share your opinion with me.