Song of a Reformed Headhunter

This year's thanksgiving was a time with family, friends and movies. We watched three movies with R and S, and then another movie when we got home last night. The Big Wedding (2013), directed by Justin Zackman who also co-wrote the screenplay, suffered from a lack of direction. The best thing, and the cutest thing, in it was Ben Barnes, who played the Columbian son adopted by white parents. When his religious biological mother came for his wedding, the family bent over backwards to hide the fact that dad and mum were divorced. It was a flimsy premise for a film, and it showed. Bahz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby (2013) more than made up for the disappointment. I loved the excess of it, the garish house, the lavish parties, the rap music, the over-the-top art direction. I was not looking for a faithful rendition of a great novel into film. I was looking for, from Luhrmann the director of Romeo and Juliet , and of Moulin Rouge , a re-envisioning of the world, and he gave us one,...

American movies that are ostensibly about family are really about individualism. The family become the context, the arena, in which the individual struggles for genuine happiness or authentic conscience. This truism came home to me after watching The Oranges last Thursday and The Details last night, both films from 2011. The Oranges , directed by Julian Farino, is set in an area of New Jersey where the cities all have the word "orange" in their name. The Wallings and the Ostroffs share a long friendship until the wayward Ostroff daughter (Catherine Keener) returns and has an affair with David (Hugh Laurie), the head of the Walling household. The resultant shake-up makes everyone realize their unhappiness and seek change. Oliver Platt puts in a pitch-perfect performance of the hapless Ostroff, father of the young siren. He is partnered by the always worth watching Allison Janney. The Details , a black comedy, casts Tobey Maguire as Dr. Jeff Lang, who lives an outwa...