Wknd Box Office: Neighbors, Fading Gigolo, Finding Vivian Maier
By Debbie
Schlussel
I got a terrible virus on my desktop on Friday as I was writing and getting ready to post my movie reviews, and my laptop was running too slow to get the reviews finished and up before the Jewish Sabbath. Sorry for the delay. Nothing good at the movies, except the arthouse movie, anyway. For two out of three new movies, it seems it’s open season on Jews (courtesy of Jews). Again.
* “Neighbors“: Yet another dumb, pointless, disgustingly raunchy movie aimed at teens and 20-somethings with zero class. And it wasn’t even funny. I laughed 3-5 times, and that’s it. Plus, love that they did their best to include an anti-Semitic line in it: “You f–king Jews and your mothers!” That one is uttered by one of the two leads, an Australian woman who is married to a Jewish guy named “Mac” (what Jew is named “Mac”?). His character being a Jew is pointless and never mentioned except to include that stupid line. (When will they do a movie in which there’s a line like, “You f–king Muslims and your honor-killed, beheaded mothers!” ?) I normally hate Seth Rogen, and he maintained his hateworthy streak here. In fact, I hated every single person in this annoying, waste of time movie.
The story: “Mac” and Kelly (Rogen and Rose Byrne), a married couple with a baby, learn that a fraternity bought and moved into the house next door. (When they originally thought a gay couple was moving in, they were gushing and cheering over it.) The couple is worried that the fraternity will be too noisy, so they approach the frat boys (led by Zac Efron and Dave Franco) and ask them to make sure to keep the noise down, then party with the frat boys at their first noisy party and drink and do drugs with them all night.
It’s hard to sympathize with the couple because they are disgusting, filthy, illegal drug using pieces of crap who are no different than the frat boys. Mac smokes pot at work, and he and Kelly have sex in front of their kid and in front of open windows with no curtains. Plus, they are completely immature and idiotic. They leave their baby alone all night in their house while they are partying, drinking, and doing drugs at the frat house. And we are supposed to side with them in their quest to get rid of the frat boys? I didn’t. I thought, “a pox on both your houses.” In fact, I wished somebody would do what I wish someone would have the guts to do to the Boko Haram terrorists in Nigeria: drop a bomb on them all. Boom! Wishful thinking on both counts, sadly.
And, like I said, for what is supposed to be a comedy, it’s just not funny. A woman with a penis wrapped around her neck–that’s funny how? Frat boys making molds of their penises for sex toys and the Black guy getting his pubic hair waxed off by the molding process? Funny to you? Only if you’re a warped and very common moron, which many moviegoers basically are now. The movie was just stupid and a complete waste of time. And it didn’t even move fast. It was a long, slow, repetitive slog.
FOUR MARXES PLUS TWO OBAMAS PLUS TWO BIN LADENS
* “Fading Gigolo“: This awful Woody Allen-wannabe movie is written and directed by John Turturro, who also stars in the film and is clearly trying to imitate Allen. He even employs Allen as his co-star. But it’s just dumb, long, slow, boring, and pointless, unless the point is to mock Chassidic Jews and make them look like backward idiots. And that seemed to be the point. The movie does have an Allen-esque vibe to it, but it lacks the charm . . . completely.
Turturro is a broke book lover who is also a part-time floral arrangement maker. His close friend, Woody Allen, is a broke used book store owner who can no longer afford to keep his store open. Allen is in an interracial relationship with a Black woman who has several kids. Allen’s dermatologist, Sharon Stone, is a married woman who wants to have a menage-a-trois with her female best friend, Sofia Vergara, and a man. She asks Allen if he knows a man who would be interested. Allen sees a monetary opportunity and recruits Turturro to do the gig for money.
At first Turturro doesn’t want to do it, but with mounting bills he must pay and no solution in sight, he begins and soon realizes he has “the gift.” Allen is also making good money as Turturro’s pimp and is constantly recruiting new customers. One day, he takes the kids of his lover to a Chassidic widow (French actress Vanessa Paradis, Johnny Depp’s ex-girlfriend and the babymama of his kids), whom Allen pays to extract lice from one of the kid’s hair. In the process, he convinces the woman to go to the gigolo but tells her the guy is a massage therapist. It’s completely unrealistic, as the woman is extremely modest, and in real life, such a woman would only go to a masseuse, not a masseur. Soon, Turturro is falling in love with the Chassidic woman, to whom he lies and claims to be Jewish.
A Chassidic neighborhood security guard (Liev Schreiber) is suspicious of where the widow, in whom he has a romantic interest, is going, when she goes for her massages, so he follows her, and soon kidnaps Woody Allen and makes him go to a Jewish religious tribunal (known as a “din Torah”) held by the Chassidim. This would also never happen. They don’t kidnap non-religious Jews and force them to participate in Jewish religious tribunals. Just doesn’t happen.
In any event, soon the woman falls in love with Turturro, but then she ends up with Schreiber. Turturro doesn’t think he wants to be a gigolo anymore and wants to leave town. The end. And the point of the movie was? Other than to separate you from your ten bucks-plus and mock religious Jews, I’m not sure.
FOUR MARXES PLUS TWO OBAMAS PLUS TWO BIN LADENS
* “Finding Vivian Maier“: I enjoyed this interesting documentary about a deceased Chicago-area nanny, Vivian Maier, and her undiscovered, incredible photography talent. The movie was made by John Maloof, a Chicago-area real estate agent, hipster, and flea market patron, and Charlie Siskel, nephew of the late movie critic Gene Siskel. I enjoyed not only the story told in the movie, but the way it was shot, the background music, and so on. It’s well done, light, enjoyable, and entertaining.
The movie follows Maloof, who bought a trunk full of negatives of photos at an auction. He begins to develop the photos and sees how incredible they are. He discovers that the pictures were taken by Maier, and he sets out to find out who she was. He learns that Maier was a nanny to wealthy families in the well-to-do Chicago suburbs, including Highland Park and Lake Forest. The movie not only tells the story of how Maloof gets the photos into galleries and public showings, but also the story of Maier and her eccentric habits, behaviors, and pretenses.
While it is interesting, it is also sometimes jarring, such as the story of when one of the children for whom she is caring is hit by a car. Instead of running to see if he is okay, she runs to take photos of the boy lying in the street. She also takes a number of the kids for whom she cares to the most destitute, dangerous Chicago neighborhoods, so she can take her photos.
The film explores Maier’s background–was she French or just pretending?–and interviews the parents who hired her and the kids for whom she cared. We also see photographers and artists commenting on the skill of her photos and videos.
Although the movie is only 83 minutes, at times it does seem a trifle repetitive and would have been fine at just an hour. Still, it’s entertaining and enjoyable enough, and good as documentaries go. Some critics have written that there is too much Maloof in the movie and not enough Vivian Maier, but I say the exact opposite. Maloof is clearly a bright guy with creative sleuthing to quench his curiosity about mysteries. The story of how Maloof found these photos and researched the subject are what I found most interesting. I enjoy doing my own such detective work and would have loved to know more about how he found the people and information that he did about such an obscure, unknown person.
Great for an afternoon or evening away from it all and learning about one of the strange and interesting people that make American strange and interesting and the guy who discovered her posthumously.
THREE REAGANS
I got a terrible virus on my desktop on Friday as I was writing and getting ready to post my movie reviews, and my laptop was running too slow to get the reviews finished and up before the Jewish Sabbath. Sorry for the delay. Nothing good at the movies, except the arthouse movie, anyway. For two out of three new movies, it seems it’s open season on Jews (courtesy of Jews). Again.
* “Neighbors“: Yet another dumb, pointless, disgustingly raunchy movie aimed at teens and 20-somethings with zero class. And it wasn’t even funny. I laughed 3-5 times, and that’s it. Plus, love that they did their best to include an anti-Semitic line in it: “You f–king Jews and your mothers!” That one is uttered by one of the two leads, an Australian woman who is married to a Jewish guy named “Mac” (what Jew is named “Mac”?). His character being a Jew is pointless and never mentioned except to include that stupid line. (When will they do a movie in which there’s a line like, “You f–king Muslims and your honor-killed, beheaded mothers!” ?) I normally hate Seth Rogen, and he maintained his hateworthy streak here. In fact, I hated every single person in this annoying, waste of time movie.
The story: “Mac” and Kelly (Rogen and Rose Byrne), a married couple with a baby, learn that a fraternity bought and moved into the house next door. (When they originally thought a gay couple was moving in, they were gushing and cheering over it.) The couple is worried that the fraternity will be too noisy, so they approach the frat boys (led by Zac Efron and Dave Franco) and ask them to make sure to keep the noise down, then party with the frat boys at their first noisy party and drink and do drugs with them all night.
It’s hard to sympathize with the couple because they are disgusting, filthy, illegal drug using pieces of crap who are no different than the frat boys. Mac smokes pot at work, and he and Kelly have sex in front of their kid and in front of open windows with no curtains. Plus, they are completely immature and idiotic. They leave their baby alone all night in their house while they are partying, drinking, and doing drugs at the frat house. And we are supposed to side with them in their quest to get rid of the frat boys? I didn’t. I thought, “a pox on both your houses.” In fact, I wished somebody would do what I wish someone would have the guts to do to the Boko Haram terrorists in Nigeria: drop a bomb on them all. Boom! Wishful thinking on both counts, sadly.
And, like I said, for what is supposed to be a comedy, it’s just not funny. A woman with a penis wrapped around her neck–that’s funny how? Frat boys making molds of their penises for sex toys and the Black guy getting his pubic hair waxed off by the molding process? Funny to you? Only if you’re a warped and very common moron, which many moviegoers basically are now. The movie was just stupid and a complete waste of time. And it didn’t even move fast. It was a long, slow, repetitive slog.
FOUR MARXES PLUS TWO OBAMAS PLUS TWO BIN LADENS
* “Fading Gigolo“: This awful Woody Allen-wannabe movie is written and directed by John Turturro, who also stars in the film and is clearly trying to imitate Allen. He even employs Allen as his co-star. But it’s just dumb, long, slow, boring, and pointless, unless the point is to mock Chassidic Jews and make them look like backward idiots. And that seemed to be the point. The movie does have an Allen-esque vibe to it, but it lacks the charm . . . completely.
Turturro is a broke book lover who is also a part-time floral arrangement maker. His close friend, Woody Allen, is a broke used book store owner who can no longer afford to keep his store open. Allen is in an interracial relationship with a Black woman who has several kids. Allen’s dermatologist, Sharon Stone, is a married woman who wants to have a menage-a-trois with her female best friend, Sofia Vergara, and a man. She asks Allen if he knows a man who would be interested. Allen sees a monetary opportunity and recruits Turturro to do the gig for money.
At first Turturro doesn’t want to do it, but with mounting bills he must pay and no solution in sight, he begins and soon realizes he has “the gift.” Allen is also making good money as Turturro’s pimp and is constantly recruiting new customers. One day, he takes the kids of his lover to a Chassidic widow (French actress Vanessa Paradis, Johnny Depp’s ex-girlfriend and the babymama of his kids), whom Allen pays to extract lice from one of the kid’s hair. In the process, he convinces the woman to go to the gigolo but tells her the guy is a massage therapist. It’s completely unrealistic, as the woman is extremely modest, and in real life, such a woman would only go to a masseuse, not a masseur. Soon, Turturro is falling in love with the Chassidic woman, to whom he lies and claims to be Jewish.
A Chassidic neighborhood security guard (Liev Schreiber) is suspicious of where the widow, in whom he has a romantic interest, is going, when she goes for her massages, so he follows her, and soon kidnaps Woody Allen and makes him go to a Jewish religious tribunal (known as a “din Torah”) held by the Chassidim. This would also never happen. They don’t kidnap non-religious Jews and force them to participate in Jewish religious tribunals. Just doesn’t happen.
In any event, soon the woman falls in love with Turturro, but then she ends up with Schreiber. Turturro doesn’t think he wants to be a gigolo anymore and wants to leave town. The end. And the point of the movie was? Other than to separate you from your ten bucks-plus and mock religious Jews, I’m not sure.
FOUR MARXES PLUS TWO OBAMAS PLUS TWO BIN LADENS
* “Finding Vivian Maier“: I enjoyed this interesting documentary about a deceased Chicago-area nanny, Vivian Maier, and her undiscovered, incredible photography talent. The movie was made by John Maloof, a Chicago-area real estate agent, hipster, and flea market patron, and Charlie Siskel, nephew of the late movie critic Gene Siskel. I enjoyed not only the story told in the movie, but the way it was shot, the background music, and so on. It’s well done, light, enjoyable, and entertaining.
The movie follows Maloof, who bought a trunk full of negatives of photos at an auction. He begins to develop the photos and sees how incredible they are. He discovers that the pictures were taken by Maier, and he sets out to find out who she was. He learns that Maier was a nanny to wealthy families in the well-to-do Chicago suburbs, including Highland Park and Lake Forest. The movie not only tells the story of how Maloof gets the photos into galleries and public showings, but also the story of Maier and her eccentric habits, behaviors, and pretenses.
While it is interesting, it is also sometimes jarring, such as the story of when one of the children for whom she is caring is hit by a car. Instead of running to see if he is okay, she runs to take photos of the boy lying in the street. She also takes a number of the kids for whom she cares to the most destitute, dangerous Chicago neighborhoods, so she can take her photos.
The film explores Maier’s background–was she French or just pretending?–and interviews the parents who hired her and the kids for whom she cared. We also see photographers and artists commenting on the skill of her photos and videos.
Although the movie is only 83 minutes, at times it does seem a trifle repetitive and would have been fine at just an hour. Still, it’s entertaining and enjoyable enough, and good as documentaries go. Some critics have written that there is too much Maloof in the movie and not enough Vivian Maier, but I say the exact opposite. Maloof is clearly a bright guy with creative sleuthing to quench his curiosity about mysteries. The story of how Maloof found these photos and researched the subject are what I found most interesting. I enjoy doing my own such detective work and would have loved to know more about how he found the people and information that he did about such an obscure, unknown person.
Great for an afternoon or evening away from it all and learning about one of the strange and interesting people that make American strange and interesting and the guy who discovered her posthumously.
THREE REAGANS
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