Screening Log

This new site feature is a collective effort to summarize our viewing habits. Occasionally, you will find titles here that are coming to a theater near you, in addition to films viewed on television, and even films viewed in piecemeal. The screening log is archived each month; to view past entries select a month in the menu below.

March 2006 activity

Total Log Entries: 87

Total Comments: 44

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Must Love Dogs / USA / 2005

Within 24 hours, by a total coincidence, I watched two Hollywood movies about love triangles centred upon supposedly strong (or at least interesting) women (Clare Danes and Diane Lane, respectively) struggling to make it in the modern world, falling for the wrong guy (who naturally has commitment issues) before finding ‘real’ love with a bumbling, awkward misfit who’s passionate about his work and good with his hands. There was even an identical scene in each movie, as the two lovers, about to clinch the deal, realise neither of them has contraception and are forced to improvise. The way each film deals with this dilemma says a lot about the differences between them. In Shopgirl, it’s a way for Jason Schwartzman’s character to show his selfish side, a shortcoming he will later remedy. In Must Love Dogs, it’s an excuse for an aimless, madcap chase across town in search of condoms, a lot of screeching tyres and wisecracking.

Shopgirl is not a good movie- it’s pretentious, lightweight, not a fraction as insightful as it thinks it is. But it benefits from excellent casting (with the exception of writer Steve Martin, who just comes across as empty and self centred) and a sense of genuine affection for its’ younger characters. And any film which not only features live music from Sun Kil Moon but casts frontman Mark Kozelek in a fairly major role (he’s the best thing in it) gets my vote.

Must Love Dogs is the worst John Cusack movie since One Crazy Summer a full 20 years ago. The man can usually coast by on charm alone, but here he’s hampered by an Oprah- winning screenplay and the fact that he’s playing second fiddle to Lane’s neurotic, lonely middle- aged male- fantasy schoolteacher. This is a film which seems to go out of its way to avoid doing anything remotely interesting. Even when potentially disruptive characters enter the frame- such as Stockard Channing’s lonely retiree- they are swiftly neutered into bland clichés like the rest of the pale, meandering cast.

by Tom Huddleston | Source: DVD
09 Mar 2006 5:35 AM | Submit Comment

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