Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
TheLoveMonkey’s a first-time spy writing to us from here in Los Angeles, and he’s seen two very different movies that he wants to discuss today. One is a comedy from a member of The State, which currently seems to be rearing its ugly head in all sorts of odd places like STELLA or RENO 911 or (shudder) THE PACIFIER. The other film is the collaboration of Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean that I reviewed a little while ago. Check these out:
I recently just saw the screenings for both Mirror Mask and The Baxter. The first one that I saw was The Baxter, a movie by Michael Showalter, the guy who helped bring us Wet Hot American Summer and is currently working on the TV show Stella. This is a movie is about the other guy, the Bill Pullman in Sleepless in Seattle, Ralph Bellamy in His Girl Friday, the guy who is such a complete and total pushover that he always loses to the Tom Hanks of the world. These people, according to the film, are called Baxters.
One Baxter in particular is a C.P.A. named Elliot Sherman (Michael Showalter), he meets the heroine, named Caroline Swann, (Elizabeth Banks), and she wants to marry him. Elliot is thrilled, but then her old high school boyfriend, Bradley Lake (Justin Theroux) shows up. Elliot knows what’s going to happen, because it’s happened to him twice before, he’s going to lose her to this great guy who flies in from out of now where and steals his girl.
But this time Elliot won’t let it happen, he’s not going to lose her simply on the principle. Even though he’s having feelings for the Baxteress temporary secretary, Cecil Mills, (Michelle Williams) that he’s become friends with. This movie is funny throughout and has one hilarious part that almost made me hurt myself I was laughing so hard. This is a great cult movie about a guy who was never meant to get the girl.
It’s great to see the other side of the romantic comedy, the Baxter’s best friend, Ed (Michael Ian Black) who loves to wear woman’s clothing for some reason, instead of giving him sage like advice about his current romantic entanglements gives him the worst advice I’ve ever heard in my life. Elliot is also so completely inept at fighting for his girlfriend that the harder he tries the worse he does at winning her affection. There were a few cringe inducing moments when he’s trying to look cool in front of his lady but other than that it’s pretty funny.
The actors do a great job; Theroux does an excellent job of just being a total dick and constantly showing Elliot up at any opportunity and then pretending like he has no idea that he’s doing it. Elizabeth Banks does a great job as the girl, a self-absorbed sorority girl who wants to be in control of everything, that’s why she likes Elliot so much, he is completely controlled by her.
But Michael Showalter does the best job as a guy just trying to figure out what has happened to him, one minute he was happy, with a beautiful fiancée and a great life, and it all started to crash down around him. But as the movie progresses he realizes that he only wanted Caroline because she was the heroine, not because she’s the woman that he loves. It’s a great movie coming to your local independent film Movie Theater then Comedy Central.
The next movie I saw was Mirror Mask, the ambitious film by the Jim Henson Company with Neil Gaiman creator of the Sandman Comic Books and his partner Dave McKean. This film is stylized just like their comic books; it’s very dark and mixes several different films into one. It has a touch of Wizard of Oz, with a dash of Labyrinth, a smidge of Legend and healthy dose of Never-ending Story.
The story is of a young girl/artist named Helena (Stephanie Leonidas) her mother (Gina McKee) and father (Rob Brydon) are living their dream of owning a circus, but Helena hates it. She wants to be a normal teenager, with normal friends and a normal life. Then in a case of be careful what you wish for her mother suddenly becomes ill and the circus comes to a grinding halt.
Helena blames herself for what’s happening to her mother while her father tries to scrap together enough money to take care of his sick wife. Helena goes to sleep the night of her mother’s operation and wakes up in the world that she has created in her drawings. The entire place looks like it’s made out of paper and everyone wears masks. She meets a young entrepreneur/con artist named Valentine(Jason Barry) who tells her that the darkness is taking over the town caused by the dark queen. She assumes that she’s just dreaming so she takes the initiative to stop the darkness from coming. She goes to center of town to help the town but instead is told by the mayor, (who looks exactly like her father) that she looks very much like the princess that caused all the problems they’ve been having.
She just assumes its part of the dream, and is told the story of how the white queen (who of course looks just like her mother) was tricked by a young princess into letting her use a charm to escape their reality and put the queen into a deep sleep. Someone needs to find the charm and awaken the white queen to save their world. So she and Valentine decide to go find the charm so she can help the white queen. As Helena goes on her quest when she looks into windows she sees herself doing the most horrible things like dressing like a skank and making out with boys.
She soon figures out that the princess, who is the dark queen’s daughter, has switched places with Helena and is destroying the princess’ true world and Helena’s life in the process. So Helena tries even harder to find the charm and just as she’s about to get it she’s betrayed by Valentine and given to the dark queen who figures someone’s daughter is better than no daughter at all. Meanwhile, Valentine, feeling guilty, rescues the charm, which turns out to be a Mirror Mask, which is what the princess used to switch places with Helena. I’m not going to ruin the end for you but if you haven’t guessed by now it all ends happily.
All the actors are British or Irish so I had never really heard of any of them but they were all good but neither the story nor the special effects really impressed me. But I was never a huge fan of the Sandman series either so that may be why I don’t have quite as high of a regard for it. There were some funny moments, but only one real moment when people laughed out loud. It held my interest but it was nothing that I would run out and watch in the theaters but it would be a very pleasant video rental.
So if it comes to your theater definitely watch The Baxter, that kind of smart fun comedy needs more support but you can wait for Mirror Mask on video.
The Love Monkey
Nicely done, man. Thanks.
"Moriarty" out.
