The Twilight Saga: Eclipse

Grade: D+

Poorly adapted, sloppily directed and atrociously acted, this one is dead on arrival. Pun intended.

And, as you may recall, I’m a huge Twilight fan.

I found the first “Twilight” surprisingly good, the sequel “New Moon” entrancing, so why such a prominently downward spiral? Sadly, the answer is an easy one – the creative team got lazy with a sure fire franchise. No one said adapting beloved novels (especially a series) was easy. The “Harry Potter” films have suffered greatly under the weight of absolute fidelity to the novels, boorishly directed by some and overly stylized by others, they have run the gamut of cinematic experiences – hypnotic to tranquillizing.

“Eclipse” is deadly dull and goes nowhere fast.

It’s not grandly surprising that director David Slade wasn’t connected to the first two films, as it plods along from one uninteresting scene recreation to another. The storytelling is confused, the pace excruciating, the melodrama trickly sweet and thoroughly deadpan. Themes of sexism and abstinence-only (a longstanding and unresolved debate in my office) are here blatantly apparent and thoroughly mind numbing.

“I love you.” “I love you more.” “I will not kiss you until you ask me to.” “Kiss me, you fool.” “I want to have sex with you while I’m still me.” “Not until after the wedding, my love.”

You call this stuff human/vampire/werewolf romance? Scarlett and Rhett, they’re not.

What is surprising, and exceedingly shameful, is that composer Howard Shore has received a paycheck for ripping off his own breathtaking “Lord of the Rings” score, replete with soaring stanzas and dramatic melodies – it is painful to acknowledge while sitting in the theater I thought it D-rate Howard Shore before I actually discovered he was the composer. Interspersed with poorly selected pop songs only makes the film more disjointed. It is a relief that Shore cannot also be blamed for the appropriated Peter Jackson camera work, pull away shots of mountaintops and forest ranges simply screaming cinematic plagiarism. A snowcapped mountain finale scene is the stuff of a Universal Studio back lot tour. Flashbacks so gothic, mysterious and filled with pathos in the novels here become throwaway, confused and meaningless expositions. 100 minutes in, we finally get some action that is tensionless (despite Shore’s music telling us otherwise) rushed, and CGI’d to within an inch of its life.

Robert Pattinson, solid in the first films and terrific in the recent “Remember Me” broods. Then he broods. Then he broods some more for good measure. Why Bella chooses him over Jacob is anyone’s guess, as there isn’t a hint of attraction written into Melissa Rosenberg’s lethargic screenplay. Taylor Lautner doesn’t fare much better moving dexterously between puppy dog and seething – even I tired of his amazing (and overtly displayed) body in short order. Kristen Stewart is adequate if obviously embarrassed, Bryce Dallas Howard screamingly abominable as the red-headed villainess of the piece. The Cullen vampire clan is given absolutely nothing of interest to do and they all deliver admirably.

Get your shit together, guys – Novelist Stephanie Meyer may be no J.K. Rowling, but she still deserves better than this. Lord knows we Twilighters do.

More Movie Info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1325004/

A Single Man

Grade: A

An exquisite portrait of grief, Tom Ford has written and directed a breathless work of genuine beauty and emotional clarity.

As a gay man in the 1960s overcome with despair over the sudden loss of his partner of 16 years, Colin Firth is the very thing itself. His overwhelming loss is quietly devastating, a pain so utterly debilitating and so culturally unacknowledged that he emanates swallowed grief. The simple honesty of his portrayal feels very much like breathing under water, the palpable anguish every human who has experienced loss knows all too well while trying to maintain a dignified air of normality in the presence of others. Graceful memories come and go in fleeting moments, and Ford stunningly juxtaposes the dull colorlessness of grief with momentary bursts of vibrant life. The film’s cinematography captures the pulsating emotions of such loss as no other film that has come before.

Effectively a three person “day-in-the-life” novella, Julianne Moore is solid as the brash best friend internalizing dashed hopes of her own, a survivor of a seemingly loveless marriage and the heartbreak of an unrequited and never possible love. But it is Nicholas Hoult (known to many as Tony in BBC’s “Skins,” impressive here without even a hint of his Brit accent) who also astounds, overtly sensual yet also filled with aching tenderness toward his professor, and a longing that is at once brimming with sexuality and his own sense of wonderment and sadness – it is both Firth’s memories of his great love (Matthew Goode, in too few scenes together that with all speed beautifully telegraph the depth of their love for one another) and his scenes with Hoult that are especially surprising and effecting, two isolated men of different generations trying to find connection within each other.

Adapted from Christopher Isherwood’s novel, Ford has flooded his piece with poignant imagery – waking up in the morning and shrinking back into the recognition of who you are and the life you’re living, the smell of a beloved pet that trigger feelings of such unconditional love and affection, the devastating sexuality of a brief yet unfulfilled encounter. Living every day as though it may be your last, absorbing every moment, just how fleeting is love and life. Like a truly fine glass of port sipped in front of a roaring fireplace, this is a romantic work to be savored.

More Movie Info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1315981/

Remember Me

Grade: B+

Modest storytelling sometimes brings the most welcome surprises.

Robert Pattinson is a young man mourning the death of a beloved older brother and a family torn asunder. Emilie de Ravin is a young woman who as a girl watched her mother being murdered as an after-thought during a subway robbery. The walking wounded finding one another is often the stuff of cloying clichés and high melodrama, but it is also the stuff of simple empathy and ordinary grace. This is a deeply tender and embracing film.

Pattinson is especially fine fangless – tortured yet charming, soulful yet charismatic, outwardly calm but filled with twitchy passions just beneath the surface. It’s a quirky and yet subtle performance until it’s not, and we finally get to see years of barely repressed anger erupt. His relationship with a younger sister (the unaffected Ruby Jerins) is so natural and genuinely affectionate it rips at the heart strings, and provides the true center for the entire film.

And what a smile he has. Great smile.

There is little to surprise in the love relationship, but there is such easy chemistry between Pattinson and de Ravin it’s just nice watching them on screen together. The entire film has an organic energy to it, older brothers and their adoring siblings, the awkward first dates of even highly attractive individuals, divorced parents genuinely trying to place their children’s needs above their own, first time introductions to family, the oddly innocent albeit intentional cruelty of children.

Idiosyncratic humor helps immensely throughout.

The films significant flaws stick out like a sore thumb – a coolly absent Wall Street father (well played by Pierce Brosnan but with a weird accent) and a controlling police chief father (played by an overly erratic Chris Cooper) are far too by the book to be terribly compelling. There are also too many slaps heard round the world, emotionally violent eruptions that make sense in terms of character motivation but still manage to feel jarring and a touch Lifetime Movie Channel. The required best friend is downright irritating, with snappy and ill-advised dialogue that feels as though Bruce Vilanch was subcontracted to add some funniness to the proceedings. And we all know how hysterical his Academy Award intros are…

And yet it still quietly, almost imperceptively, moves, and then suddenly, unexpectedly, haunts.

The film’s last few minutes are genuinely shocking, likely to leave some desolate and others angry - a visceral reaction is assured. For me, they make the film so much greater than the sum of their parts, as we come to understand we are being told one small story among thousands, and are reminded that life should be treated with respect, value, and tenderness.

Unimportant moments, and how we choose to live them, truly matter.

More Movie Info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1403981/

Avatar

Grade C+

Director James Cameron has delivered one hell of a 2 1/2 hour visual roller coaster ride. As an amusement park ride, this one gets an A.

Sadly, I really wanted to see a movie.

It is a truism that the “Lord of the Rings” might as well be the only fantasy saga ever written, as everything else effectively flows from it. I begrudgingly admit that “Star Wars” is essentially Tolkien in space, and here Cameron has liberally plagiarized from both of these epics, most notably (but by no means exclusively) from “The Two Towers” and “Return of the Jedi.” Quite frankly, I’m a little surprised Peter Jackson and George Lucas haven’t joined forces in a law suit.

Let’s see – in “Star Wars,” Ben Kenobi tells Luke he must “feel the force flow through him.” In “Avatar,” we are told that life energy “flows through us.” The cloud city from “Empire Strikes Back?” Covered in moss but there. Grand Moff Tarkin style villain, replete with severe haircut? Check. Han Solo flying in to save Luke’s ass during the big final battle? Check. King Théoden dying in battle after a death scene with his daughter? Check. Trees with life energy? Ever heard of Ents? Anakin Skywalker reincarnated? You got it. Nature against technology? Ever heard of Ewoks? Getting trapped under a horse during battle? That would be “Return of the King.” Contacting Avatars from other villages to unite? Pillar lighting sequence in “Two Towers.” Avatars coming to the rescue from another village? Wow I loved Gandalf leading the charge at Helm’s Deep. City in the tress? Elven forest of Lothlórien.

Shall I go on?

For a movie that is so desperate to be visionary it stubbornly manages to be uniquely unoriginal.

And yet, for a good 90 minutes, the film is mesmerizing to watch, so long as you don’t remove your 3D glasses, at which point it just gets rather blurry. You can reach out and touch a whole truckload of cool stuff, and golf balls whiz at your face. It’s dazzlingly colorful and achingly beautiful. A technological wonderland. Then it’s repetitious. Still cool. Just way too long.

Bad people from Earth who have ecologically destroyed their own planet try to get rid of nature-loving Avatars to raid their planet’s resources. The good guys are the scientists trying to study the relationship between the planet and the beings who inhabit it. The bad guys are the military (who fight “terrorism with terrorism,” after all) and the miners who want to destroy all indigenous life that gets in the way of the black gold hiding under the planet’s surface. Stephen Lang is scarred and snarling, Giovanni Ribisi whiny and wimpy – I suspect they were both annoyed they didn’t get much 3D in the forest action. Sigourney Weaver is an icy head scientist, perhaps annoyed she doesn’t get to climb back into the same battle gear Cameron first had her wear in Aliens – the guy even steals from himself. Only Sam Worthington demonstrates any character development as a paraplegic (he could have had surgery to fix his injury but health care being what it is, he couldn’t afford it. Subtle.) living a full life in his Avatar body, treading the fine line between the studying and spying he supposedly signed up for. And, he’s hot. Will love conquer all? Uh, duh.

There are stunningly beautiful and heartfelt moments to be found, especially as we watch Avatars connecting and communing with the nature that surrounds them. Only here is the film not derivative of so many better films, and it is a life philosophy lesson to be humbly embraced.

In the end, a film must enthrall, interest and inspire once the glasses are taken off, and I would imagine sitting through this one in 2D would send one immediately into a dream state, one would hope in 3D again.

I saw the film yesterday, and I can barely remember it at all. It’s faded into the mists of Endor. I mean Pandora.

More Movie Info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0499549/

The Hurt Locker

Grade: C+

Let’s all chip in and make a movie that takes place in Iraq - it’s a surefire beeline to the Oscars. Nominated for nine Academy Awards including Best Picture, and still I look forward to the Academy Awards every year.

The definition of insanity.

After about 15 minutes into this film, I stopped watching the movie and started counting the clichés. It’s an impressive list, if I must say so myself:

1. Maverick commander who everyone hates and contemplates killing but who ends up taking better care of his men than anyone anticipates.

2. Surprise attacks. And more surprise attacks. And more surprise attacks. Usually starting with someone being shot dead in surprise fashion.

3. Good guys being mistaken for bad guys.

4. Star cameos = death in one scene.

5. American commander letting Iraqi civilians die because he can.

6. Soldier removing his headset so he doesn’t have to follow instructions.

7. Ammo running out at the most inopportune moments.

8. The military therapist who’s never seen real action so can’t truly understand what the men go through. What do we think will happen to said doc when he finally joins his patient on a mission?

9. Jamming guns.

10. Pulsating, throbbing music, choppy camera editing.

11. Every other scene someone yelling “Put the mother fucking gun down!” Alternative: “Get down. Get the fuck down.”

12. “Days Left” in Bravo Company’s rotation flashing on the screen every 15 minutes or so.

13. Lines like, “If I’m gonna die, I wanna die comfortable.” Or “What’s the best way you go about disarming these things?” “The way you don’t die, sir.” Or “Kill that fucking asshole.” Or “He’s down. Good night. Thanks for playing.” Or “It’s real quiet. I don’t like it.” Or “You’re not good with people but you’re a hell of a warrior.” Or “I’m too old for this shit.”

14. Gun shells dropping to the ground in slow motion.

15. Finding a smoldering cigarette when entering an enemy layer, to signify they just left moments before.

16. Fight Club.

17. An officer befriending a little kid.

18. Carrying a dead child through the streets in Christlike fashion.

19. The call home to the wife. She picks up, somehow knowing it’s him. “Will?” “Will?” “Will?” Will hangs up, unable to speak.

20. Iraqis unable to speak English until a gun is put to their temples. Then they speak English.

21. “Apocalypse Now” fires raging in darkness scene.

22. Figuring out where the bad guys are hiding for no explicable reason whatsoever.

23. Music that sounds like a heartbeat.

24. Distraught soldier standing in the shower with all his clothes on.

25. The soldier unable to acclimate to home life.

The performances are universally solid, especially Jeremy Renner as an adrenaline addicted bomb expert. Everything else is merely adequate or expected. The film’s final moments are indeed painfully sad and haunting, but they deserve to be in a superior film. The fact that the story is based on a “fictional retelling” by a freelance journalist who wanted to tell of the “kinds of things that soldiers go through that you can't see on CNN” makes it all the more irritating for how false it all feels.

And the winner is…..I just know I’m gonna be pissed.

More movie info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0887912/

Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire

Grade: Non Applicable

Yes, I’m totally copping out. Call a cop.

As a young woman who has survived more physical, emotional and spiritual brutality than any human being should ever have to endure, Gabourey Sidibe is nothing short of absolutely brilliant.

As a mother who is one of the most severely, disturbingly damaged individuals one is ever likely to encounter, Mo’Nique is nothing short of absolutely brilliant. She damn well better win the Oscar.

As a teacher who gives a damn - heart, mind and soul - for her students, Paula Patton is brilliant. Her students are so jarringly, beautifully, endearingly portrayed I'm still not sure if they were actors or not.

And yes, as a social worker in way over-her-head but trying, trying, trying valiantly on behalf of her client, Mariah Carey is brilliant (so much so that I knew I knew her but couldn’t place where).

And the film is so bleak, dire and depressing I literally wanted to put a bullet into my brain.

Raped, brutalized, exploited by both father and mother, Precious is a character who will sear herself into your memory. Emotionally vacant, dead inside, much of the film is a flatline of utter despair and hopelessness. Glimpses into a fantasy life represent her only fleeting moments of relief, all too quickly dragged back into the reality of a sub-human but all too human existence. She is a survivor, she is a fighter, she is indomitable, but she is also rather doomed.

Have you broken out the flask yet? It gets worse.

As a mother who is broken beyond all repair, Mo’Nique portrays a woman almost animalistic (scratch the almost) in her craven need for her twisted and distorted definition of love. She is an inner child howling for someone to take care of her, but she is so cruel, evil and destructive that one’s unwilling sympathy merges with much greater contempt and the desire that someone please put her out of her misery. And ours.

There’s family dysfunction, and then there’s something so far beyond that Webster’s has yet to put a name to it.

It is impossible to grade this film because, as harrowing, real, moving and illuminating much of it may be, I simply refuse to take on the responsibility of recommending you sit through it. It would be like encouraging you to invade someone’s privacy.

Several years back, I attended an event for the Lesbian and Gay Anti-Violence Project, where the “entertainment” was a woman who sang of the brutality perpetrated against her people:

I’m black, and you beat my body. I’m in chains, and you beat me down...

No one really knew whether to be moved or mortified. Personally, I chose the latter.

I’m reminded of the experience because, yes indeed, life is a bitch and then you die. I’m not sure just how much I want to be reminded how very much worse it is for others than it is for me. I guess I’m an awful human being that way.

Abandon hope all ye who enter here.

More More Info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0929632/

Inglourious Basterds

Grade: B

I’m always put off by directors who desperately want to be noticed. Never mind the screenplay, the performances, or even those pesky little things called facts, I can’t help but think of Rudy Guiliani’s first Mayoral inauguration when his young son kept popping up from behind the podium, stepping on his Daddy’s lines and mugging for the camera as though begging, “look at me look at me look at me.”

Okay, little Quentin, we’re looking we’re looking.

In his masturbatory fantasia that bears no relation to actual WW II history, director Quentin Tarantino knows how to spin a fantastical yarn while photographing depictions of violence in all their obsessively blood spurting glory. He masterfully succeeds in treating every scene as a mini-opera, powerhouse vignettes that build tension and gravitas while never quite telegraphing how they will play out or ultimately fit into the scheme of the story. He is also a genuine auteur at inserting intensely modern sensibilities into another era, at once highly entertaining and intentionally jarring. He seems delighted at his ability to keep us off-balance, but also a little too self-impressed with how smart and offbeat he is by half.

Just to make sure we’re paying attention, Quentin underscores all his crescendos with a variety of musical stylings which include latin guitar strumming, eclectic pop music, and the ever-dreaded choral arrangements – everything and anything so long as it bears no resemblance to the film’s actual time period. While subtitles are most welcome and ingeniously utilized to fuck with us and his characters, his trademark use of superimposed captions have now become merely tiresome and distracting.

Brad Pitt, clearly having the time of his life, portrays a Tennessee good ole boy who runs a special ops unit of assorted Jewish-American oddballs who make their way into German-occupied France to kill (and scalp) Nazis. Their motivation is to kill (and scalp) Nazis. Never for a moment do we forget we are watching Brad Pitt having the time of his life. Killing and scalping Nazis. He also loves to brand the few and far between he allows to survive with swastikas on their foreheads. It’s all ghoulishly satisfying, but also lacking in any real depth or motivation.

(Spoiler Alert: If you want to see Adolph Hitler’s face blown to smithereens Brian DePalma style, this is the film for you. Forget about Eva and the bunker, pesky details about what actually occurred during WW II would get in the way of Tarantino’s reverie.)

Christopher Waltz stands out as a marginally nutty “Jew Hunter,” an insanely brilliant investigator, connivingly evil, but nevertheless deliciously fun to watch –a moral center is not the film’s strong suit. Mélanie Laurent glows as a Jew inexplicably permitted to survive as a youth who matures into a very vengeful young woman (kinda hard to blame her) and Diane Kruger delights in the glamorous role of a movie star gone rebel.

The film’s climax, the burning of a cinema filled to capacity with those pesky Nazi’s, is oddly anti-climactic. Think a poor man’s “Godfather.” Or just think of “Godfather III.” After two and a half hours, Tarantino has petered out.

It’s all highly intriguing, beautifully filmed, offbeat and undeniably entertaining. Yet ultimately, it is also frustratingly pointless.

And, um, what’s with the misspelling of the title? Pretentious much?

More Movie Info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0361748/

Up

Grade: A

PIXAR’S bestest everer.

Anyone who doesn’t absolutely adore this picture has a heart of stone covered in ice buried six feet under.

If Republicans, Democrats, Socialists and Tea Baggers were all made to watch this film together, we would have world peace, an end to global warming, universal health care, and an end to world hunger in no time.

We might even see Levi Johnston and Sarah Palin embrace one another.

Okay, maybe I overstep. But it really is that poignant and magical.

The stage is set with an opening montage that is one of the most moving portrayals of dreams unfulfilled in the name of life and love one is ever likely to see. Fellow childhood adventurers become husband and wife and, somewhere along the line, their lofty plans of travel and exploration never quite come to pass. Time simply runs out.

As an elderly man who believes he left a promise broken to the one he loved, the voice of Ed Asner provides the crusty but tender center of everything that follows. We would expect nothing else. Thanks to PIXAR’s miraculous animation, facial expressions are beyond extraordinary – grief, grumpiness, chagrin, world weariness, invigoration, joy and tenderness are as real as real can be. Like the thousands of muti-colored balloons that lift a man’s life and home into a world of adventure, the film captures a rainbow of emotions, and our hearts. Not since “Mary Poppins” opened her umbrella has whimsy taken such unabashed flight.

As the plump scout who needs to help the elderly in order to advance to his next troop level, Jordan Nagai is every bit a boy – overly enthusiastic and exuberant, clumsy, whiny, wide-eyed and filled with wonder, he is the product of a broken home and an abundant love of chocolate. How many of us were that chubby kid who couldn’t climb the rope in gym class? (I know my hand is raised.) “The wilderness isn’t quite what I expected,” he announces, “it’s wild.” This is one unintentionally funny kid.

And then there’s Christopher Plummer, Asner’s boyhood hero gone bad. Get these two guys on a stage together while there’s still time.

Moments of pure comic genius mix seamlessly with genuinely thrilling sequences that will have you nail biting and cheering. In the end, Asner comes to realize it was the normal, everyday and mundane moments in life that mattered the most all along. The true adventure is simply being with the one you love.

I cried with relish, and so will you – cross my heart.

More Movie Info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1049413/

Up in the Air

Grade: A

Uncompromising.

There’s nothing more professionally agonizing than laying someone off from work. That said, I’ve discovered I’m quite good at it. Hidden talent, so to speak. I get through it by convincing myself they’d rather hear the news from someone who gives a shit than from someone who doesn’t. I also find a klonopin an hour before and many glasses of wine after also help. The hardest part is acknowledging – no matter how stressful, sad, or upsetting it may be, no matter how many sleepless nights it may take in preparation – it’s not about you. Not even a little.

George Clooney spends his life on airplanes. His life goal is to join the elite 10 million mile frequent flier club. His check-ins at airports and hotels is masterful. His methodology toward getting through security is a thing of beauty. He fires people for a living. From the sky he looks down on America, from Kansas City to Detroit, New York to San Francisco, Omaha to Miami, St. Louis to Las Vegas. The landscapes are all different, but the heartache he executes is universal. We are one America in a devastating economy. Disciplined, systematic, businesslike, almost ritualistic, he is neither unsympathetic nor heartless. Merely disconnected. Just the way he likes it.

Clooney is ideally cast as the charmer with a cynical veneer that ever so slowly begins to crumble. There are no sweeping revelatory moments, few grand gestures and none that result in a romantic Hollywood pay-off, simply a man who comes to realize his isolationist philosophy has resulted in a life empty and alone. Subtly heartbreaking, a Clooney smirk is suddenly transformed into quite the devastating thing.

Stylized, crisp, caustic and unapologetically cool, writer/director Jason Reitman unflinchingly delivers the non-feel-good film of the year. Often bitingly and brutally funny, with dialogue Mamet would kill for, not since “American Beauty” has a film captured the longing of a life and a culture so perilously off track.

As a love interest with a crackling cynicism all her own, Vera Farminga is completely appealing, thoroughly non-plussed, and happily non-committal. While the romance initially feels rushed and underdeveloped, the mushy middle of an otherwise completely baked cake, a sudden turn toward steely hardness catches one off guard and pierces Clooney’s thawing heart. And ours. Anna Kendrick plays the upstart up-and-comer with a plan to contain costs by firing people remotely, initially coldly pragmatic about the insult she plans to add to individual injury until she begins firing people herself – a traumatic scene in which she fires a company man via webcam becomes truly haunting when she finally and reluctantly crosses his name off a very long list of names to follow.

Small acts of tenderness play out in quietly dignified ways, desperation never quite percolates out from underneath the surface. Sentimentality be damned, the film bravely remains true to a man who lives thousands of feet above the earth, never really connected to himself or anyone around him. The tragedy is that he knows it and, while he helps others find redemption, he never quite finds it for himself.

“What’s the point?” a brother-in-law-to-be asks a stubbornly shut down Clooney. “There is no point,” he is told, “I guess life is just better when you have a co-pilot.”

A lesson too late learned.

More Movie Info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1193138/

it's Complicated

Grade: B+

If not for the many, many, many talents of Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin, and Steve Martin, this would have been a pat and predictable albeit marginally inviting romantic comedy about a 10-year divorcee who has an affair with her ex and the man who stands patiently on the sidelines.

But this has the many, many, many talents of Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin, and Steve Martin and, not unlike the road less traveled, it has made all the difference.

Always Meryl Streep and yet never Meryl Streep, this year she deserves two Oscar noms (and at least one Oscar) for both the delectable “Julie & Julia” and her performance here. It’s been a bumpy few years from my vantage point – ice-chomping her way through the dreadful remake of “Manchurian Candidate,” Jewing it off the deep end in “Prime” and “singing” her way through “Mama Mia,” but this year her nuance and heart are back in full form, and she’s positively glowing. It is a Martha Stewart life this woman lives post-divorce – the stunning chateau of a home she bought right after her marriage ends, the massive vegetable garden, cut flowers in every room, gorgeously well-centered children (and adorably well-centered son-in-law to be) giddily supportive movie star best friends and a blossoming (yet exceedingly cozy) business. It would all be too much fairy tale good fortune to be tolerated, yet Meryl makes us swallow hook, line and sinker – its Meryl Streep after all, living the life we all want for her and the one we imagine she lives anyway. Self-assured yet vulnerable, radiant yet body-conscious, joyful and yet longing, we all want to be a guest at her next dinner party. A moment of lighthearted rapture melds into “what the fuck am I doing” mortification, and it is Streep at her very best.

As the ex going through yet another mid-life crisis, Alec Baldwin is charismatic and sincere, pot-bellied and seductive, affectionate, comfortable, sad and hopeful, and he and Streep have natural chemistry together. As the man in waiting, Steve Martin goes for subtlety (why is it that broad comics like Martin and Robin Williams often give far better dramatic performances than comedic ones?) a man healing his own broken heart while gracefully seeking the love of another. Our allegiances tend to shift depending on who Streep is with at the time, a testament to the strength of some truly lovely performances.

Mary Kay Place, Rita Wilson and Alexandra Wentworth provide a nice sisterhood, and Caitlin Fitzgerald, Zoe Kazan, and Hunter Parrish (the final lead in “Spring Awakening,” who will always have a soft spot in my heart for being in the show’s last performance, one of the most special nights of my life) all appropriately attractive, carefree, clueless and supportive of their divorced parents, and all providing surprising honesty and pathos at the idea of a potential reconciliation. As the family outsider yet one of the family, John Krasinski almost got me to forgive some dreadful theater etiquette (yet another performance of “Spring Awakening,” where he and his gf wouldn’t stop talking and left before the curtain call - blasphemous. I finally asked them to “shut up” sometime during Act II) as the fiancé who sees all and says nothing – he steals more than one scene he’s in.

Genuinely funny, tender with only a sprinkling of sentimentality, and only occasionally predictable to a fault - the missed date, dinner waiting on the beautifully set table. The joint invariably getting discovered and everyone getting stoned, annoying if not for the fact that Streep and Martin are so damn hysterical. And is there anything that makes an audience go “awwww” more than the boy getting turned down for a date with the VIP pair of tickets cradled in his hands? Yet the film also has much to gently convey about feelings that are never extinguished, all the things that might have been, and the possibilities that exist just around the corner.

More movie info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1230414/