About Last NIght (**3/4)

So…David Mamet writes this play back in the 1970s — Sexual Perversity in Chicago — that puts him right on America’s culture radar as a master of dialogue, up-and-coming playwright, etc. It’s about two couples, sexual politics, and the rise and fall of one relationship in nine weeks. In 1986, it becomes the movie About Last Night…. Mamet hates it, but it does well and help establish Demi Moore and Rob Lowe as Brat Pack elite. It keeps some of Mamet’s dialogue but adds a dusting of rom-com, multiplex potpourri and sets the drama over the course of a year.

Cut to 28 years later, and the ellipsis is gone from the title, and it’s set in the age of cell phones, in, unfortunately, Los Angeles, which removes the climatic visual element from the seasonally timed segments. But it mostly follows the earlier film’s template; not only Mamet gets a credit, but so do Tim Kazurinsky and Denise DeClue, authors of the earlier screenplay. The primary couple, still called Dan and Debbie, are played by Michael Ealy and Joy Bryant. (In one scene, they fondly watch the Moore-Lowe version on video.) Kevin Hart and Regina Hall play the best friends/comic foils/cruder pair (Jim Belushi and Elizabeth Perkins in the 1986 movie).

Further removed from the Mamet pedigree, the movie comes across as perfectly ordinary and pleasant. While the play’s men vs. women 1970s sexual politics are probably dated, this only slightly updates the politics while keeping out any edge to the characters and moving further away from Mamet’s dialogue. (Perhaps this isn’t all bad. Having just watched the 1986 movie’s opening dialogue, which does come from Mamet, I thought it sounded exaggerated and artificial; the replacement scene is a slightly more natural, if more generic, mildly comic story of an extra-special blow job.)

Bryant is a joy to watch, pun intended, but her character is so nice that the inevitable tension that crops up in the relationship seems manufactured. Seriously, her vice is insisting that everyone uses coasters so as not to leave a mark on the table. In this iteration, the plot about the man wanting to hang out with the boys and not be tied down or told where to put his glass is both an annoying cliché and not convincing. The fraught-with-sexual tension relationship between the bickering secondary characters provides most of the humor, although it too is entirely predictable.


IMDb link

viewed 2/5/14 8:00 pm at University City Penn 6; posted 2/6/14

The Wonders (***1/4) [screening]

A Jerusalem bartender and sometime graffiti artist (Ori Hizkiah) gets mixed up with a burly private investigator, a cool redhead, and a kidnapped spiritual guru in this offbeat mystery. Lured by curiosity, noble intentions, and a bribe into helping spy on the imprisoned rabbi, the bartender spends most of the film trying to figure out if he’s being played by the investigator, played by the redhead, or both, and also wondering why the rabbi seems uninterested in being rescued. It’s a slightly longish tale, but keeps you guessing while delivering a satisfying conclusion.

IMDb link

viewed 10/20/13 12N at Ritz East [Philadelphia Film Festival] and posted 10/20/13

Priceless (**3/4)

Here’s a French pastry of a comedy that has a mild throwback quality to it. Hotel bartender Gad Elmaleh meets professional seductress Audrey Tautou, currently trading her company for the financial attention of a wealthy older gentleman. The poor barman fools her into thinking he’s rich, but his becoming as mercenary as her is what finally wins her over. She lets him in on the tricks of her trade. For example, leaving a sentence unfinished is one way to leave a suitor wanting more, and thus eager to please. I liked the movie (shot in Nice and Monte Carlo), despite a faint believability quotient, but the story of gullibility and greed made for a romantic comedy without real romance.

IMDB link

viewed at Ritz 5 and reviewed 5/7/08