Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009)

I’ve read, I think, three of the four Shopaholic books. (Yes, I admit it, I like a trashy novel now and again.) I am often disappointed in movies of books I’ve read, and Confessions of a Shopaholic (based on the book of the same name and its first sequel, Shopaholic Takes Manhattan) was no exception to this rule. First off, the setting was changed from London to Manhattan and the quite British Becky Bloomwood of the book became an American (although Isla Fisher, who played the part, is also British). I could be wrong, but my dim memory of the book also tells me that Becky was a fairly successful financial journalist when the book opened, and that made her credit problems more ironic. There are various other plot points which were changed, not for the better, that I won’t bother going into.

There was some pretty funny stuff in the movie, especially the scenes with the 12-step program for compulsive shoppers. But there were too many things that didn’t ring true, or were not explained. For example, Alicia, the character played by Leslie Bibb (a tall blonde) whom Becky sees as a rival and who acts quite proprietary to Luke (Hugh Dancy) – at some point Luke just says “Oh, we’re not together” with no explanation of why it looked that way. Becky gets out of her financial troubles by holding a big sale where she sells all the stuff she’s bought for enough to pay off her debts. Hello? Credit cards for shopaholics are a bad idea because (a) you aren’t just paying for the item, you’re paying interest and (b) clothing, like cars, begins to depreciate as soon as you take it home. Even if (unlikely) she sold everything for the price she paid for it, she’d still have been in the hole for the interest.

But really, what spoiled the film for me was the clothes themselves! Despite her passion for shopping and her wish to enter fashion journalism, the Becky in the movie not only has bad taste, but doesn’t seem to know what looks good on her. Each outfit is crazier than the next and makes her look short and dumpy. Perhaps that was supposed to make the audience identify with her, but I don’t watch light romantic comedies for socialist realism.

I did enjoy the performances of Joan Cusack and John Goodman as Becky’s parents, and Wendie Malick as the hard-nosed Shoppers Anonymous facilitator. If you like this type of movie and it comes your way without much effort, go ahead and watch it, but it’s no Bridget Jones nor does it do justice to Sophie Kinsella’s “not-so-trashy trashy novels.”

The Proposal (2009)

The Proposal (2009) didn't get stellar reviews, but I enjoyed it, as did both my companions. The plot ideas have surely been used before: marriage of convenience to get a green card (Green Card (1990)), antagonistic couple grow to love each other, hard-charging female boss is mellowed by love, etc. etc. etc. But anyone who looks for a completely new plot in a romantic comedy is delusional anyway. The charm of Ryan Reynolds, Sandra Bullock's individuality, and Betty White's terrific performance as Reynolds's grandmother all combine to lift this a bit above some other romcoms I've seen. And the gorgeous Alaskan scenery is almost a character in its own right. It was an enjoyable way to spend an afternoon with some of my loved ones.

Hope Springs (2003)

The only reason to seek out Hope Springs (2003) would be to have a complete Colin Firth film festival. Or, perhaps, if you wanted to induce nightmares with the truly scary Minnie Driver. It's a romantic comedy that's not very funny, except for some little bits by Mary Steenburgen as the transplanted New Yorker innkeeper who's besotted with her homely husband. The romance is not very believable either.

Colin Firth plays a British artist who's been dumped by his fiance -- he's received an invitation to her wedding to another man. He flies to Boston and in the airport corridor sees a poster for a town called Hope, so of course he takes a very long bus trip to get there. (Since Hope appears to be in either Vermont, New Hampshire or western Maine, this is pretty silly; the bus trip wouldn't be that long.) The locals are nosy busybodies and the innkeeper sends nurse Heather Graham to help him heal from his romantic disappointment. They fall in love in a jerky series of vignettes of such activities as dancing with the old people at the nursing home where she works. Then the old fiance, Minnie Driver, appears, having tracked Colin down, and tells him it was all a joke, the invitation was a fake, just to get him to set a date. Oh, I could go on and on, but the plot just gets sillier.

Sometimes a film like this is slightly redeemed by the scenery. The scenes of (let's call it Vermont) were pretty, but the mythical town of Hope must rejoice in the longest peak foliage season anywhere. When Firth arrives in town, beautiful autumn leaves are swirling around; all through the romance, they continue; and at the end of the film, although enough events have taken place to take up several months, the bright autumn leaves are still on the trees. It just doesn't work that way in real life.

Sweet Liberty (1986)

Written, directed, and starred in by Alan Alda, Sweet Liberty (1986) is an enjoyable little movie about making a movie. Alda plays a history professor whose book on the American Revolution is to be made into a movie on location in the historic town where he lives and teaches. Naturally the locals are thrilled, especially the local troop of Revolutionary re-enactors who will play the American soldiers. They, and Alda, are dismayed to learn that historical accuracy is a low priority for the film's director, played by Saul Rubinek. He puts it succinctly to Alda: the target audience, ages 12-22, like to see three things in a movie. They want to see authority defied, property destroyed, and people's clothing removed. The director will get what he wants in an unusual way before the movie ends.

There is also a love story between Alda and a fellow professor; while they are "on a break," each gets involved with one of the film's stars (Michael Caine and Michelle Pfeiffer), but those involvements prove ultimately unsatisfying. Another subplot involves Lillian Gish as Alda's mother, and appears to have been written in merely to give Alda the opportunity to act with this screen legend, whose first films were released in 1912. Death-defying feats (mostly by Michael Caine), slapstick comedy, and a jaundiced eye cast at Hollywood recur throughout the film. It was an enjoyable way to spend a little less than two hours, and most likely better than anything that was on network TV that night. I don't think you should go out of your way to see it, though.

America's Sweethearts

It's funny that America's Sweethearts should be the first movie I post on, since it's not really representative of what I usually watch. Before I get to it, I should mention one more thing about my Netflix queue, which is that I very rarely rearrange it. The films are usually on the queue in the order in which I added them. Very occasionally I'll put something on and shoot it to the top; and when I add a multi-part tv series, I will do some rearranging so that I have some "real movies" in between episodes. But otherwise the chips fall where they may.  If Netflix had a "shuffle" feature I might make use of that, but with such a long queue it's just too tedious to move things one at a time. So, anyway, sometimes films come along and I don't even remember why I added them.

America's Sweethearts (2001) is a romantic comedy featuring Billy Crystal as a studio PR man, John Cusack and Catherine Zeta-Jones as a former star couple who have broken up, thus endangering their careers as "America's Sweethearts," and Julia Roberts as Zeta-Jones's sister and personal assistant. Hank Azaria plays the Spanish actor who has supplanted Cusack in Zeta-Jones's affections. I like John Cusack, who has the same kind of goofy charm as Nicolas Cage, and Hank Azaria's performance was very funny.  I tend to enjoy Billy Crystal too, as his fast-talking, one-liner-full persona reminds me of lots of New Jersey and Long Island guys I went to college with. Julia Roberts, I think, maybe really is America's sweetheart with that big grin. In this film, they had to have flashbacks of her in a fat suit and glasses to explain why John Cusack wasn't with her from the beginning, since her character was both more beautiful and a better human being than her "sister," Zeta-Jones.

I gave this movie three stars out of five. It was an enjoyable way to spend a little less than two hours, and besides the performances mentioned above, the subplot of the eccentric director and his film was a nice send-up of Hollywood pretension. But, it's also the kind of movie I created this blog for, in that a year from now I may not otherwise remember that I've already seen it.