Citizen Ruth (1996)

First of all, Citizen Ruth reminded me about solvent abuse.
God... No one does that anymore do they? Used to be a major thing. And I remembered that and i don't know why that is something inordinately funny about huffing glue to me. I guess compared to other drugs, it doesn't look so severe. You just look like you're having a panic attack.
Anyway, this film is about a women who's addicted to doing this (as well as anything else she could get her hands on) and finds her self pregnant. Due the continuous habit of Ruth (played by Laura Dern) getting getting caught and having her 4th or 5th child at this point, she's advised by a judge to have an abortion. This begins a battle between the hard left and hard right to decide the future of this fetus.
I first found out about this film while reading Peter Biskind's Down and Dirty Pictures. It's an incredibly rich idea or concept and the idea has always stuck with me. It seemed impossible to me that that could ever make a comedy out of it and land it as well. But surprisingly, it can have it's cake and eat it!
By some act of movie miracle, Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor manage with their debut film to make a generally even-handed movie about Abortion and have it be thoroughly hilarious as well as sensitive and affecting. First off the script is solid and it's perfectly paced with a strong sense of story. They also wrote a great character in Ruth and it's the best thing I've ever seen Laura Dern ever do. Ruth is an incredibly stupid person, who unfortunately also has a bad addictive personality. She's selfish and childish and i guess that takes the sting out of the tail of all the A-word talk because she's so unaware of herself, she doesn't understand the severity of her choices and Dern hits the nail on the head perfectly, not by portraying her as a junkie but as a wholly lazy woman.
Other notable cast members include Swoosie Kurtz and Mary Kay Place playing right wing protesters and everyone's favorite American bureaucrat prick, Kurtwood Smith as their leader. They're all playing roles that they've all done before several times but it works for the film to make for a realistic environment for when things get more incredulous.

I watched Citizen Ruth (1995) on BBC 2.
My 2011 in Movies will return with Bridesmaids (2011)...

My First Mister (2001)

Something really peculiar really happens in the structure in My First Mister...

The first 20 Albert Brooks-less minutes drag like hell; hopelessly so. It’s just the worst cliché-ridden teen emo/goth-dramatics- all incense and poorly-lit bedrooms. Gawd. Leelee Sobieski is struggling to keep her head above water in this over written introduction complete with sarky and self-loathing voice-over.

Once Sobieski leaves school and comes in contact with men’s formalwear mall-shop manager (Albert Brooks) then become quite watchable, which I level solely at his quiet grumpy genius.

She asks for a job at his store and he agrees as long as she removes her piercings and make-up… she begins to scrub up and develop a friendship and burgeoning crush on her. Here’s the crux of the story- at this point, which way do you turn?

Do they get together and do the May to December thing?

If not, do they play out an inspoken jawn like in Lost In Translation?

If they do, how will that inevitably muss-up?

I imagined that they would but Sobieski learns more about what she’s searching for in life by realising that she can’t be happy trying to share her life with him because they’re basically very different but they end as good friends.

What actually happen is… well it aint predictable. Brooks gets leukaemia and they set out to make peace with his life before he expires. They get shoe-horned love interest from this point onwards- Sobieski finds Brooks long-forgotten son and Brooks gets lucky with his nurse (the awesome Mary Kay Place).

To be fair there is a lot of unused acting talent unused from Michael McKean to Carol Kane, which is strange since My First Mister is directed by Christine Lahti, an actress herself. I’m not surprised see she can attract actors or that she’s no visual stylist but i’d have thought she’d be able to tell the difference between a good and bad script or would set-up all her colleague for a fall like this one- only Brooks comes out of this movie unscathed and that would be because he has a history like Bill Murray of… not ad-libbing but performing his own version of the dialogue; in his own voice.

As acceptable as My First Mister is for it’s Sunday afternoon comedy-drama-ness, it’s instantly forgettable or easily confused with Steve Buscemi and Thora Birch in Ghost World, though I’d be quick to say they’re very different films.


I watched My First Mister (2001) on DVD via LoveFilm.
My 2011 in Movies will return with Barney's Version (2010).

Lonesome Jim (2005)

Lonesome Jim is directed by Steve Buscemi. That's good enough for me.
It also features Casey Affleck and Liv Tyler, who are good too, which sweetens the deal.
I know it won't set the world alight. I'm sure it'll be a fairly withdrawn, intimate affair similar to his directorial debut, Trees Lounge.


Meh. Lonesome Jim was a major snore fest.
I'd love to know what attracted all the talent to work on it. Cos i can't imagine it was the weak script or mild subject matter; the 'loner goes back home' theme has been run into the ground since forever.
I'll accept that there are a few laughs in Lonesome Jim but not enough to actually care about what's going on.
I'm sincerely curious about where the missing link is in the success of this film. As much as i hate to say this, i might have to level some of it at Buscemi cos it's just not very interesting to look at or watch. 
It is shot on digital, but it's more that it looks more like a skate video than a feature film. It's a micro budget film, i accept that but i don't see why that should be an excuse. It's impertinent of me to bring this up but everyone here could have made a lot more money or better spent their time doing more high-profile gigs... and i have no idea why they didn't.
Not that i'm blaming Affleck but it's not even that, his character is dislikable. It's worse. I was totally uninterested in him this film, which would be a problem since he's the main character and in almost every scene.
Liv Tyler here- the love interest, another snore. I don't want to rag on Liv Tyler. I had the biggest crush on her when Sleeping Beauty came out (shout out to Bertolucci and Mr. Skin) and she is one of the founders of the Manic Pixie Dream girl movement in movies but her performance here is soo dull.
Kevin Corrigan's in this and he does his grumpy loner bit, which i love but the only good performance and it's really good, is Mary Kay Place playing Jim's mother. You really empathise with this woman who's coddled her kids and given then everything they want but they've just developed these incredibly unhappy personalities and can't understand why.
I mean what I don't get is, i'd imagine it's very hard to get people to produce your script, even at the lowest end of the scale- you're still talking about hundreds of thousands of pounds/dollars required and you need to enthuse hundreds of people about it from actors to producers to executives so
1. Who read this and liked it?
2. Who thought 'ooh,someone needs to make this into a movie - ooh, JAG marathon on Sky3!'
But in the end, you kinda just wanna give everyone in this movie a slap and tell them to buck up! and if we're looking for a moral from this situation-even if Buscemi does want to direct you in his movie, read the fuggin script before you commit.

I watched Lonesome Jim (2005), on BBC I-Player.
My 2011 in Movies will return with Please Give (2010)...