The Grouchy Editor

The makers of Bridesmaids are going to great lengths to convince prospective ticket buyers that their film is not one of those dreaded “chick flicks.”  Don’t let them fool you, fellas, because Oh.  Yes.  It.  Is.

Bridesmaids brings to the table nearly everything clichéd about the much-maligned wedding movie:  the self-pitying heroine (Kristen Wiig), who watches in horror as her best friend dumps her in favor of material bliss; the caddish lover (Jon Hamm); the long-suffering “good guy” (Chris O’Dowd) who puts up with all manner of female foolishness; the wisecracking girlfriends.  In other words, Bridesmaids is a female version of a Judd Apatow movie – and that’s not a good thing.

Apatow, perhaps stung by criticism of the string of male-oriented Porky’s clones on his resume, produces this vehicle for Wiig (she also co-wrote the screenplay) and, I’ll have to admit, on the few occasions that I actually laughed, it was during scenes that featured an Apatow specialty:  gross-out humor.

But this movie is no step forward for the romantic comedy.  Showcasing actresses who behave just as immaturely as the boys do in movies like Superbad and The Hangover is not exactly an advancement for feminism in Hollywood.  Proving that girls can do everything boys can do only matters if what they do is worth doing.  Alas, just as The Hangover insisted it was the bachelor party that matters most, in Bridesmaids it’s the wedding that is all important – not marriage itself.

Despite what the promoters of Bridesmaids would have you believe, this movie is not about “relationships” between anyone – male or female.  Each character is there to serve a simple function:  set up the next (usually lame) comedy sketch.

Whatever happened to the good “chick flick” – movies like Four Weddings and a Funeral and Terms of Endearment?         Grade:  C+

Director:  Paul Feig   Cast:  Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Rose Byrne, Melissa McCarthy, Chris O’Dowd, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Jill Clayburgh, Jon Hamm, Ellie Kemper   Release:  2011

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The vampire (or zombie) movie, when it falls flat, is almost too easy to pick apart. But let me do it anyway.

Story:  “Mister” (Nick Damici) and young Martin (Connor Paolo) drive north in hopes of finding a better life in New Eden (Canada), but on the journey they clash with religious fundamentalists, vampires, and a low budget.

What’s Rotten:  Damici has all the charisma of a wooden stake and the magnetism of garlic breath.  He is the “strong, silent type,” which is a good thing because at least that means he doesn’t have much dialogue.

Soaring violins are no substitute for real drama, mellow piano music doesn’t trump genuine pathos and, most of all, LOUD sound effects are a cheap way to make the audience jump.

Director Jim Mickle aims for a grim, gritty ambience, a la The Road, and mostly he succeeds.  But you need interesting characters to populate such a dreary, apocalyptic universe.

What’s Fresh:  There are a couple of cool scenes, both of them, interestingly enough, involving aggressive female vampires.  Or maybe that’s just me.

When the stereotyped “small group of survivors” expands to include women, it’s refreshing that Mickle eschews the usual Megan Fox-type and instead includes a pregnant woman and a middle-aged nun (played by Kelly McGillis, of all people).

If you’ve seen The Road, I Am Legend, The Walking Dead, or any other zombie/vampire movie, then you’ve already seen Stake Land.      Grade:  C+

Director:  Jim Mickle  Cast:  Nick Damici, Connor Paolo, Danielle Harris, Kelly McGillis, Michael Cerveris, Bonnie Dennison  Release:  2011 

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I believe I finally know enough about Bobby Fischer.

I remember when Fischer, in 1972, defeated the Russian Boris Spassky and became world chess champion.  In the years since that historic match in Iceland, I’ve read many articles about the strange boy wonder from Brooklyn.  Earlier this year, I consumed Endgame, a 416-page biography of Fischer’s evolution from chess prodigy to infamous anti-Semitic, anti-American, radio-ranting fugitive from the law.

And now, thanks to Liz Garbus’s documentary, Bobby Fischer Against the World, I even know what Fischer’s backside looks like in the shower.  Other than that unexpected visual, the movie didn’t really show me anything new about the person Life magazine dubbed “The Deadly Gamesman.”

But the film is still intriguing, mostly because its subject remains such an enigma. Nothing I’ve read and nothing in this documentary really explains the reason behind Fischer’s intense drive.  Bobby Fischer became the world’s best chess player because, basically, chess was all he did.  No football games with the boys for young Bobby, and no girls in the backseats of Chevys.  Just Bobby and a chessboard – thousands and thousands of times, for years on end.

Fischer simply fell in love with the game and, whenever possible, used it to escape from the outside world.  Ironically, that obsession eventually brought the outside world to him.  If Fischer were alive (he died in 2008), he might say the makers of this movie got the title backwards – he would probably prefer The World Against Bobby Fischer.

Fischer’s single-minded drive cost him a chance at a well-rounded, balanced life – and quite possibly his sanity.  That’s enough for me to know.        Grade:  B

Director:  Liz Garbus  Release:  2011

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When the end credits began to scroll for the new documentary Project Nim, I rose from my seat to leave but found the aisle blocked by a young boy and his family.  I tapped the kid on his shoulder, made a slitting gesture across my throat, and said a single word to him:  “Dirty.”  The kid smiled, stood up to let me pass, and asked his parents to do likewise.

The kid and I had communicated like Nim Chimpsky, the “star” of Project Nim.  Nim, a chimpanzee born in captivity, was the subject of a famous – or infamous – scientific experiment that began in 1973 when a Columbia University behavioral psychologist and his students began a sort of English immersion project for Nim.  The idea was to place the chimp with a New York City family – husband, wife, kids and pets – and to raise the little fella exactly like a human infant.  The goal was to determine whether chimpanzees can learn language – not just symbols and memorization, but real grammatical communication.

Depending on whom you believe, the experiment did or did not go well.  After years living with the LaFarge family, Nim was transferred to a string of unpleasant new homes, including an animal medical research lab.

Project Nim is a remarkable movie.  It tells the sad story of Nim, certainly, but it also reveals a lot about the people in his world, including project leader Herbert Terrace, a man seemingly more interested in bedding female undergrads than in making good science and who, probably to his regret, allowed director James Marsh to interview him for this film.  There is very little humor in Project Nim, but the audience broke out in derisive laughter whenever the unctuous, clueless Terrace attempted to justify his self-centered behavior.

Some people love animals, and some do not.  I’d call myself a “dog person.”  I’m not all that crazy about other creatures, including cats, birds … and chimpanzees.  Face it:  Chimps grow monstrously strong, frighteningly aggressive and, as demonstrated in the movie, disturbingly horny.  Nim was no exception – he was no Old Yeller, and he wasn’t Bambi, either.

But when Nim is torn from his human environment and consigned to a lifetime of caged isolation, you have to be pretty cold-blooded not to feel for him.  One episode near the end of the film, when a former “family” member comes to visit Nim in his pen after years of absence, took me completely by surprise with its emotional power.

Oh, yeah.  You might be wondering about that business between the kid and me at the end of the movie; the boy who let me pass after I gestured at him and said, “Dirty.”  What was that about?  I could tell you, but I don’t want to.  You’ll have to see Project Nim to find out for yourself.        Grade:  A-

Director:  James Marsh  Release:  2011

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