The Writers' Resource

Jay Leno is so chuffed that he is on at 10 pm that he has a massive great 'ten' logo built into the floor and the show continually plugs him being on at 10.  Not much use to me as the cable time I see the show is nowhere near 10 pm so the ten thing is a dead loss.  What does amuse me is that he has the same routine he has always had (walks out to up-beat, funky music, shakes hands with a pre-selected group of studio audience, then returns to centre stage where he delivers the monologue, hands in pockets and intermittently clasped and rubbed together.  I have always wondered how he, a fastidious chap, could bear to have contact with so many strangers.  But these days of H1N1 viral contact and the fever over 'flu - it could be deadly.  So then it hit me.  In his pockets he has pre-loaded waterless hand-santizer.  A quick rub, one hand to a pocket, withdraw and then rub hands lightly together and Bob's your uncle, fresh as a daisy!  Watch the routine carefully.  It is so predictable that it has a rhythm about it.  Shake, high five, music ends, hands in pockets, hands rubbed together, speak, hands in pockets for a refresher, clasp hands to dry, continue monologue.  Nice one Jay!

The show is pleasant enough and they have clearly been trying to break the tonight show template by changing things around, but the abrupt ending following the news promo is a little deflating.  Still, it's nice not to be locked in to the music numbers, and people flogging their wares.  I like the 'earn your plug' segment a lot.  The Ford car race is a pain in the neck though and needs to have some more production value. Tonight with Matt Lauer gave them the chance but they blew it.  Jay appears to be such a nice chap that it may jsut end up being the kind of filler programme you turn on when all else fails.  Sad, that.  The lame ventriloquists, gagmeisters and bits must go.  Tighten up the bits and if the length is fill for money reasons, make them intorunning or serialised gags or season regulars to maximise the locations and sets. But I am sure the producers have thought of this.

Speaking of sets, the set is great - nice lightbox look with some excellent silhouette vignette appeal.

Well, I will give it a few more nights.

It's always unnerving to see the opening titles with the lead star as E.P. and 'While she was out' has Kim Basinger doubling as heroine and persuader, each role suffering at the hands of an inexperienced director, also doubling as writer.  In general, a short story is a perfect adaptation vehicle for a film.  Short, snappy, linear with its peaks and troughs clearly enunciated.  Not so with this one as the opening is mired in sludge and is as slow as those last few hours before Santa arrives, which is when it is set.  Needing to get away from her nasty-piece-of-work hubby, Della (Kim B.) whizzes out on Christmas Eve to buy some last minute wrapping paper.  And to have a secret smoke as her ciggies are in the car.  Not so secret as the nasty-piece-of-work has already sussed out her stash.  Eventually parking, she leaves a note on the windscreen of a thoughtless bastard who has occupied 2 parking spaces.  That's her mistake and what follows is a complex chase with a handful of violent and well-made-up deaths.  Oh, a scene of Kim taking a pee in a flowing creek.  OK, so Huey Lewis set that precedent in 'Short Cuts'.  But when the baddie (Chuckie, just like that murderous doll) calls 'Della, Della!!!!' with all the agony of Marlon Brando in 'Streetcar...' the audience lost control and cackles broke out.

Should we have been laughing? It had all the ingredients of a scary thriller.  Chases a-plenty, a multi-racial gang of chasers, angst and tension at home so Della didn't want to go home, two cute kids who were threatened, and a pretty but gutsy lead character who had more moxie than we would have guessed at the start of the movie.  She was no housewife though.  On that score, it seemed that the kids were to blame, being messy and lazy and no wonder Della was down.  She also was peri-menopausal and her husband was one of those guys more likely to be seen in a Todd Haynes film about the 50s & 60s...

The fundamental problem is that the actions are not causes or consequences for the most part, and little of what we see on the screen is motivated or with an exciting and substantially rewarding payback. Such as the perfume reference, the fact that the wrapping paper is sodden at the end of the film, that pissing scene and so on.  Much clever layering could have taken this from a C+ to an A.  Some of the lines were just hokey.  So Susan Mountford was probably a light hand at directing, more worried about getting through this, her first film, without too much of a budget over-run and not taking the time to think out what the dialogue was supposed to be doing for the story.  Also, as writer/director and I bet doing the big financing runaround, she was exhausted when the shoot began and burnt out during the post.

Am I being too nasty?  Well maybe.  It was an adequate first film and certainly not as horrendous as some I could mention.  But then 'Pulp Fiction' was QT's first film ...

WR

Sandra Bullock is a darn fine marquee name for most lovers of light & frothy comedy (that is not to say she can't do serious as well) and in 'The Proposal', she gives real voice to a pretty good screenplay that is probably a little too 'script by numbers'.  But it works, and the audience I saw it with absolutely loved it.  They felt for the characters, laughed at the jokes, adored the casting, in particular Betty White and were relieved that it all works out somehow in the end.  The film is well promoted even to the extent of having a game you can play (be Margaret's new assistant....'). www.myspace.com/proposalmovie  Ironically Canadian, Ryan Reynolds is charming too and never oversteps the mark.

When I say that it is 'script by numbers', I don't mean it in a derogatory sense.  The writer, Peter Chiarelli)  has done his homework and the director (Anne Fletcher) has put in some pretty good hours on the visualisation and playing out of the lines and characters. The settings are terrific and there is a lot ot look at in every frame.  Sandra Bullock's ability to do comedy is well-known and in this she also plays 'unpleasant' as well as 'annoying' but without ever becoming a figure of derision or being hateful.  You just feel sorry for her all the way through and gradually, the root of her problems is revealed.  She does 'self-deprecating' better than anyone and makes some brave choices including a ripper of a nude scene.  Great waxing job by the way.  

Her corporate suits are just fab too as is the oversized handbag.  Mmmmmmmmm.

If you want to forget your troubles for a couple of hours go and see it.  Don't over-analyse it.  It is just fun.

In cinemas in Mexico at least at the moment.  Check your local listings to see where.

Over the years, I haven't really enjoyed much of Russell Crowe's work but in 'State of Play' we see the true craft in this patchy Aussie yobbo rising to the surface.  I am wondering whether it was the mix of fab cast and a director (Scotsman, Kevin McDonald) whose heart is in docos that made this film zing along.  Ben Affleck is tremendously restrained in his role of the senator whose crusading against war-profiteering is at the heart of the story and Rachel McAdam is very believable as the gradually toughening up cadet reporter.  It may sound a bit hokey - there are grubby stereotypical reporters a-plenty in the story and there's an other-world feel about the main set, the newspaper office, reigned over by the wonderful Helen Mirren.  Script is well crafted but for the most part unselfconscious and this has something to do with Russell Crowe's comfort in the part of Cal McCaffrey the investigative reporter with all those quirks - long unkempt hair, daggy car and clothes, recesses of hidden anger, stubborn streaks and the list goes on. 

It is pure entertainment and has that essential edge of the seat feel.  Music is restrained and the costumes are very real.  Every plot twist has a sense of the real about it and only a couple of times did I feel that 'ouch' of revelatory sentences catching us up with story.

This is a good film jam-packed with strongly researched detail (well, what else would you expect from the director of the Idi Amin film of 2006, 'The Last King of Scotland'?).

It's playing on General Release now. Go and see Russell in his most attention-getting role since 'Romper Stomper' and his best since 'L.A. Confidential'.