Wild Canaries

I never write reviews but 'Wild Canaries,' I feel, truly deserves a public service announcement. Please go see this movie. It is a perfect, if unintentional, blast of zeitgeist that will educate you on how the new America rewards its self-satisfied elite for the barest of efforts. You will swoon at the sad realization that this demonstration of talentless privilege unwittingly provides.

In short, this movie managed to make its lack of heart (and art) so outrageously offensive that I can only pray that it will quickly disappear from my consciousness..

From the moment Levine's idiotic presence graced my screen I knew I was in for it. My theory is that his brand of self- satisfied mug can only derive from a total lack of self-awareness coupled with a life of being rewarded for mediocrity, and I think this movie and some of the reviews on this site bear me out. Sophia Takal, who I really liked in the truly inspiring movie 'Supporting Characters,' joins him here with a screechy, sophomoric characterization that should, if there is any justice in this world, put an end to her acting career.

The writing, if I can call it that, managed to sap any and all energy and tension out of every single pivotal scene in the movie. Here's a clue: even if you're writing a 'screwball comedy,' the audience expects the characters to act in a somewhat believable manner. Situations, as opposed to screeching while jumping up and down and doing stiff 'funny walks,' are what drama, comedy, and tension should derive from. The 40's screwball comedy/mysteries they are trying to emulate were dripping with elegance, real mystery, tension, and charm. This movie has none of these things- and less.

The only mystery here is how this mess got funded, and, sadly, even that isn't much of a mystery; to answer my own rumination, there really is no justice in this world-- These are exactly the kind of entitled hipster idiots who somehow manage to convince gullible dental surgeons and rich families to open up their wallets and drop their pants so they can take a shot of uninspired arriviste 'art' up the wazoo.

But, not to worry for their future: I'm sure that what these hacks lack in talent will undoubtedly be assuaged by the oblivious and comfortable lives they will lead living off of their parents' real-estate investments while basking in the adoration of like-minded dimwits.

I truly wish these people the best in the hope that, for all our sakes, they stay far away from anything that resembles a movie set in the future.

And thank heavens there's a real world outside of Red Hook and Bushwick that knows crap when it sees it. And if it sounds like I'm making a personal attack on the makers of this movie, it's because I am; I don't like being taken for an idiot.

Every once in a while you see a gem at Maryland Film Festival. This picture is a gem.

I'm giving them an extra point or two for being young filmmakers. Really good tho. A dream of a screenplay, with several events taken from the filmmakers' lives -- Lawrence Michael Levine wrote and directed, and plays the male lead. His real-life wife, Sophia Takal, co-stars. Ms Takal's dream of resurrecting a casino, which Mr Levine thought was a bad idea in real life, recurs in the film, and the mysterious wild canaries of the title appear at the casino.

This is a screwball murder mystery a la The Thin Man. Levine and Takal are also big Colombo fans, and Colombo's trench coat makes an appearance.

A very hip comedy, with great jokes and payoffs (a running gag about who should drive the car pays off hilariously), along with expert physical comedy. Funny and endearing. Nick and Nora would be proud.

If memory serves correctly, "Manhattan Murder Mystery" was only so-so Woody, kind of a throwaway, and this reboot/homage/ripoff is a lot more entertaining. The opening scenes are nothing special, but the murder plot starts heating up pretty quickly; the rest of the film's an interesting blend of comedy and suspense. The killer's MO is totally preposterous—maybe a comment on hipsters who always have some weird art project going on—but most of it's played pretty straight until the farcical climax, not counting a couple of ingenious sightgags; the script gets a lot of mileage out of one character's inability to figure out his new iPhone.

I'm pretty sure no other director would have picked (writer-director) Lawrence Michael Levine to play the male lead, but Sophia Takal has plenty of goofy charm as his suspicious fiancée. Indie stalwart Kevin Corrigan ("Results") makes a fine prime suspect; the attractive supporting cast includes Anne Parisse, Alia Shawkat and Jason Ritter as young creatives who get involved in various ways. At least one critic (Richard Brody of The New Yorker) picked "Wild Canaries" for his year-end-best-of list, though the critics on this site appear to be a much tougher crowd… Decidedly above-average streaming Netflix fare.

Different tastes for different folks; I was looking forward to this movie since I love '30s Screwball Comedies, but instead of a throwback it is just another low-budget almost home movie trading under the Indie banner.

Director and Producer double as the romantic leads and both turn in terrible performances. Levine is annoying throughout, failing at slapstick and virtually impossible to identify with (his character). As his girlfriend, Sophia Takal's character is supposed to annoy Levine' s character with her shrill outbursts, but instead annoys the viewer (this viewer, intensely) almost non- stop. Apparently both she and Levine studied the classic Screwball technique of rapid-fire dialog delivery, but in her case it is counter-productive.

An okay supporting cast walks through what seems like a xerox of a xerox of an old plot - sort of lampooning one of Woody Allen's salutes to old-fashioned movies (take your pick, MANHATTAN MURDER MYSTERY, anyone?). Takal becoming obsessed with the suspicious behavior of her neighbors starts out cornball and soon turns contrived as the so-called suspense develops.

For the finale, Levine has endless boring verbal recaps and explanations that try to tie up the innumerable loose ends of the story - I assumed this was parodying the old know-it-all summations that William Powell was famous for (and Don Adams used to imitate comedically), but they're dull.

Worst ploy was use of masks sort of like the old MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE TV series for impersonation, a gimmick that was overemphasized and ludicrously amateurish. Duelling lesbian subplots get a brownie point for trendiness but were so telegraphed that one wonders why producer Takal didn't insist that writer-director Levine rewrite them until they played convincingly.

Sitting in a movie theater watching this sort of junk is demoralizing, especially since I was around at the birth of the current Indie movement (back when the IFP market at the Plaza Hotel even predated the creation of Sundance) and witnessed first-hand the discovery of new talent like Spike Lee and the Coen Brothers. Now "indie" is just an umbrella for marketing purposes, like "alternative" (a perfectly good dictionary word if used properly) became a rack-jobber category in the music industry.

WILD CANARIES (its title emphasized visually to begin and end the film, but meaningless nonetheless) is just one more mediocre effort - a script that would certainly have been rejected by any major studio, hence independent by default.

As the title line implies, I had mixed reactions to this film. There were times when I had to force myself to continue watching it. Those were the times when the female lead character, Barri, was acting particularly like the little girl trying to charm her daddy and get away with all the antics and pranks that come with that. Despite the director/writer being aware of having a female lead who is "bratty", a word she uses to describe herself at one point, I kept wondering would anyone intentionally be with someone like this? But, alas, there's someone for everyone.... The longevity of their relationship, and others, is one of the film's subplots. The main storyline is the "mystery" which another astute reviewer compared to a Woody Allen film, especially "Manhattan Murder Mystery." I agree; in more than one way this film was like the WA film: on some levels stupid, slapstick comedy which, if you like it, then you'll like this. Ultimately I kept watching it, as it was also somewhat engaging and entertaining, as another reviewer pointed out, thanks to great photography and visuals of Brooklyn Heights, both indoors and out.