Besando a Charlie

I don't know why so many people seem to hate this movie; from the reviews, it seems they had no idea of what it was about before they watched it. As far as movies having to be 'believable', well, that isn't really what most cinema is about, now, is it. No one dances spontaneously like it's choreographed; spaceships don't travel past the speed of light; martial artists don't get to fight a whole crowd of opponents one at a time. So reality isn't what we're really after here, now is it? No. What we want is to go to a movie and feel good when we come out. And that's exactly what this film does, unless you can't stand the idea of a beautiful woman being gay and being happy. Which is what I suspect so many of the people who wrote the damning reviews feel. That said, well, I can't really comment on how good or bad the acting is; I can't really tell the difference between merely average or good acting, and great acting. But I can tell bad acting (think Chuck Norris in pretty much anything; nice guy, great martial artist, terrible actor), and this wasn't bad at all. In fact, I enjoyed every moment. I rate a movie on whether I will watch it again (I will), and how many times I want to hit the pause button to do something else, and I didn't stop the movie at all. Nine out of ten stars.

Unfortunately, the film is the mud as well as the gem. Two perfect beauties, two usually miscast actors in roles that befit them, a rather original script... it all should have gone great. However, the overall directing of the movie is superficial, most of the support actors play badly and the script oscillates between very good and very bad.

The idea of the movie was nice, the overall setup, but the ending just blew and the hysterical explosions of badly acted emotion over badly written lines were like giants craters in the road to liking the film.

Bottom line: if you are looking for a romantic comedy, this at least has some brain and a definite direction away from stereotypes, even if it doesn't avoid them all. But the quality of it isn't great.

I went to the Hampton's Film Festival in East Hampton this past weekend and saw a wonderful romantic comedy called Gray Matters. The film's overall look and message had a tone similar to one of my favorite directors, Nora Ephron. There was a delightful air of Harry Met Sally combined with You've Got Mail. The references throughout the movie to the 40's were superb. One of my favorite scenes was the opening shot where the two main characters Gray and Sam (brother and sister) ballroom dance to the tune of Cheek to Cheek, sung by actress Jane Krakowski. The footage of Manattan with Cheek to Cheek playing in the background had a feeling of a Woody Allen film. I thought the dialogue was not only funny but witty and timely. Molly Shannon delivers one of the funniest scenes in the movie referring to Oprah Winfrey and how she would surrogate a baby for Oprah and Steadman because she loves Oprah so much. It had the audience in hysterics. Heather Graham gives the performance of her career as a quirky, can't make up her mind, ad executive who struggles with her sexuality after meeting and falling in love with her brother's fiancée. Miss Graham was born to play to this role. At times she reminded me of a young Goldie Hawn. I stayed for the Q and A after the movie and was amazed to find out that the budget on this film was a 10th of what it appeared to be. If this was Sue Kramer's directorial debut, bravo, I look forward to seeing her next attempt at taking the helm. I would like to recommend this film for audiences of all ages. As I walked out of the theatre in East Hampton, I over heard an elderly woman around the age of 80 say " What a lovely film, I hope my granddaughters get a chance to see it".

Greetings again from the darkness. First time writer/director Sue Kramer certainly tackles an interesting and unique topic with her initial outing.

A quick synopsis: Brother (Tom Cavanaugh) and sister (Heather Graham) live together and are so close and spend so much time together that people naturally assume they are a couple (Ick!). Sister sets brother up with gorgeous, friendly, smart newcomer to the city (Bridget Moynahan) whom they meet at the dog park. Brother and newcomer immediately fall in love and set a wedding date for the next weekend. Sister and bride to be share a long, wet kiss before bride to be passes out drunk. This incident threatens to ruin brother - sister relationship while "outing" sister as the reluctant lesbian she is.

I rarely struggle over a rating or comments for a film. Normally the rating just hits me and the words flow. This one has me almost as confused as Heather Graham's character (Gray). I very much admire the soft-shoe approach that Kramer brings to this most delicate topic. No, I don't consider the theme "coming out" ... I consider the theme self-discovery of identity. Learning to accept one's self and not "pretend" to be what is expected. This topic is explored through some humorous moments, but in a strange way we actually go through the awakening with Ms. Graham.

The key actors all do a nice job. Graham and Cavanagh have a nice chemistry, Moynahan in lingerie is always a good call, Sissy Spacek as the world's worst therapist and Rachel Shelly in an extension from "The L Word" are all solid. Even Molly Shannon is finally cast in a role that suits her just fine. The best and most entertaining character is the Scottish cab driver played charmingly well by Alan Cumming. He is such a likable guy ... except for the whole gay bar scene.

What really prevents this one from reaching another level is strictly the number of unbelievable events. Two smart people zipping off to Vegas to get married after 6 days and having someone 30 years old first entertain thoughts of gaydom are just two large examples of stretches that ask the viewer for a bit too much latitude. Still, there are some funny moments, funny lines and a thought provoking identity theme that make it worthwhile.

So actually I really didn't like the movie.. I don't like exaggeration in movies overall and I feel like the actress that played Gray overexaggerated to much. But then, somehow, after about 50 minutes I started liking the movie. Until then, for me, it was like a bad, not really funny, rom-com.. but then it got a deeper meaning. It was less about two people (or 3?) falling in love but about self-discovery.

So for me this is a movie I will recommend this way (to mostly people of the LGBTQ+ community): "You're probably wanna stop watching it at one point or another, but that would be a mistake. In the end you're gonna be happy that you watched this movie"