LARRY CROWNE: The Film Babble Blog Review

LARRY CROWNE (Dir. Tom Hanks, 2011)

Initially, it's kinda neat to see Tom Hanks as just another average Joe for the first time in ages. He's playing a divorced man who prides himself on being named Employee of the Month repeatedly at the ficticious U-Mart (a Walmart-like big box store) he's worked at since retiring as a Navy cook.



Thing is, Hank's wide-eyed ernest title character never went to college, so he gets told by the store's higher-ups (including Rob Riggle) that they have to lay him off.



Hanks buys a motorscooter at his neighbor Cedric the Entertainer's permanent yard sale, so he can save money on gas, and applies to every retail outlet in the area. He learns over and over again that times are tough. Mainly because folks keep saying that out loud.



Hanks enrolls in community college where he befriends a fellow scooter rider classmate Gugu Mbatha-Raw, and falls in love with his professor (Julia Roberts somehow seeming bored and smug simultaneously) who teaches a class called "The Art of Informal Remarks." No really.



If it feels like I'm rushing through the plot it's only because there isn't much of one. A UP IN THE AIR-type premise about the bleak job situation doesn't go anywhere, and neither do any of the cutesy collection of comic bits that Hanks strains to set up.



Hanks' first film as director, THAT THING YOU DO (1996), was a trivial but highly likable musical comedy, so I had hopes that his second try at helming a vehicle would have something more going for it than what the trailers were suggesting. No such luck.



This flimsy film also features Breaking Bad's Bryan Cranston in a horribly written role as Roberts' no good writer husband who spends more time looking at internet porn than working at home, and That '70s Show's Wilmer Valderrama as MBatha-Raw's jealous boyfriend, which is also a thankless uninspired part.



Only Lietenant Sulu from Star Trek himself, George Takei as a Economics proffesor has a few moments of something slightly resembling funny.



Hanks has blandly assembled a half-assed rom com out of very limited material, stitched together with empty quasi-inspirational sentiment, and Tom Petty songs.



After watching this film I can't answer who Larry Crowne is. Hanks' everyman appeal fades in the first 10 minutes and we never learn nothing about why his marriage ended or why he so loved his retail job before he was canned.



There's nothing interesting about Roberts' character either - she's a jaded educator, that's all I got. So why should we care if they get together?



I can't think of a single reason.



More later...

Elizabeth Gilbert: A new way to think about creativity

If you are a creative person and pursuing a career in a creative industry and/or field, you should check out Elizabeth Gilbert's lecture on TED Talks.

Elizabeth attended New York University, where she studied political science by day and worked on her short stories by night. After college, she spent several years traveling around the country, working in bars, diners and ranches, collecting experiences to transform into fiction. These explorations eventually formed the basis of her first book - a short story collection calledPILGRIMS, which was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway award. During these early years in New York, she also worked as a journalist for such publications as Spin, GQ and The New York Times Magazine. She was a three-time finalist for The National Magazine work, and an article she wrote in GQ about her experiences bartending on the Lower East Side eventually became the basis for the movie COYOTE UGLY.

In 2000, Elizabeth published her first novel, STERN MEN (a story of brutal territory wars between two remote fishing islands off the coast of Maine) which was a New York Times Notable Book. In 2002, Elizabeth published THE LAST AMERICAN MAN - the true story of the modern day woodsman Eustace Conway. This book, her first work of non-fiction, was a finalist for both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Elizabeth is best known, however for her 2006 memoir EAT PRAY LOVE, which chronicled her journey alone around the world, looking for solace after a difficult divorce. The book was an international bestseller, translated into over thirty languages, with over 10 million copies sold worldwide, and a movie version in the making, starring Julia Roberts. The book became so popular that, in 2008, Time Magazine named Elizabeth as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

In 2010, Elizabeth published a follow-up to EAT PRAY LOVE called COMMITTED -- a memoir which explored her ambivalent feelings about the institution of marriage. The book immediately became a number one New York Times bestseller, and was also received with warm critical praise. As Newsweek wrote, COMMITTED "retains plenty of Gilbert's comic ruefulness and wide-eyed wonder", and NPR called the book "a rich brew of newfound insight and wisdom." COMMITTED will be published in paperback in February 2011.

Links And DVD Delights

Links are the film babble blog's bread and butter! Here's some good ones :

First off we always encourage you to first check out the

IMDb

- it's the best movie site bar none on this here internet and it answers many many questions. Like "was that the same guy who was in that movie or old TV show?" and "how many Chucky sequels were there?" When looking up a particular movie on the IMDB clicking on the external reviews link will give you a listing of different critical columns from all over cyberspace. One of the best to check is :

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/

This site compiles reviews and provides good synopsises and consensus ratings. Good stuff.

DVD DELIGHTS :

"It does one good to make a clean breast of it sometimes...to a total stranger" - SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER (1960)

MELVIN GOES TO DINNER (2003) Dir. Bob Odenkirk. I wish there were more movies like this these days! Thoughtful character-driven comedies are getting harder and harder to come by. It's like an updated MY DINNER WITH ANDRE X 2! 4 people (Michael Blieden, Stephanie Courtney, Annabelle Gurwitch, and Matt Price) with loose and not-so-loose connections to one another by chance meet for dinner at a posh LA eatery and discuss everything from the supernatural to relationship etiquette with funny insights aplenty. Based on the stage play by Blieden (who plays Melvin) and gracefully directed by Bob Odenkirk (of Mr. Show fame) the core cast is enhanced by amusing cameos from David Cross, Fred Armisen, Jack Black, Melora Walters, and even Odenkirk. Highly recommended.

The DVD has a few great extras - a hilarious short film about an ill-fated film festival appearance by the filmmakers and some of the cast and 2 different commentaries that are as funny and interesting as the film itself.

- Daniel Cook Johnson (film babble blog editor)

DVD DISSES :

MONA LISA SMILE - Dir. Mike Newell. A chick flick even a chick-flick lover would hate. It would be too convenient to label it as a female DEAD POET'S SOCIETY - it's more like a trumped-up "Facts Of Life" episode. Watch only if you want to see such new hopefuls as Maggie Gyllenhall, Kristen Dunst, Ginnifer Goodwin, and especially Marcia Gay Harden being wasted in one dimension period piece. Julia Roberts fans should be used to this type of thing though.
- Sarah Warner

SECONDHAND LIONS - Dir. Tim McCanlies. In less than 3 minutes the premise is set - Haley Joel Osment is dropped off by his scamming Southern-Belle Mama (Krya Sedgewick) to spend the summer with his eccentric uncles Michael Caine and Robert Duvall who mysteriously have a treasure of millions of dollars hidden somewhere on their farm property. Incredibly hokey yarn that even tries to work in a PRINCESS BRIDE style backstory in the form of Caine's tensly told tales to Osment while Duvall overacts a sleep walking lovesick winner of the SNL game show sketch "Who's More Grizzled?" * You could do worse than to sit through this pleasant pap but then you could do a lot better. A whole lot better.
- Bertie Shafer

More to come...