You might have heard that a few weeks ago I took in my brand new jeans to be hemmed - and the tailor shop lost them. Yes, lost my brand new jeans.
Women everywhere just know how hard it is to find a pair of jeans that fit and look good, so losing a pair you like can make you want to shoot steam out of your ears. And I was about to do so at the tailor shop - thank heavens they got my bridesmaid dress taken care of - until the jeans finally showed up yesterday. And they didn't charge me for the hem. Thank GOD. Cuz I was not looking forward to going back to the Tommy outlet at Great Lakes Crossing and getting another pair. And they wouldn't have been on sale anymore anyway.
I got the jeans excited to wear them to work. Well, at this rate, I won't be GOING to work, if a budget deal isn't reached.
But I'm not going to rant about that. At least in public...
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Movie Review - Music and Lyrics
It's a pity when you get a good cast, funny lines and a good idea, and squander it on a mediocre script. Such is the case with Music and Lyrics, a rom-com that's out on DVD.
The plot is pretty simple: Alex Fletcher (Hugh Grant) is the Andrew Ridgeley of an 80s band called Pop, and he can write music, but not lyrics. Sophie Fisher (Drew Barrymore) is the new plant watering girl who overhears a lyrics-writing session, mutters a 'better' line under her breath, and ends up Fletcher's writing partner.
Yeah, that struck me as weird too.
See, Fletcher has an opportunity to pen a song for the next big thing - a sexed up blonde pop tart named Cora who thinks she's spiritual - a sort of amalgam of Britney, Christina, and Shakira, all of whom get name checked in the script. He just can't write the lyrics. In the past that was his musical partner Colin's role, and Colin later ran off with a bunch of Alex's songs and made a mint, while Fletcher fell into obscurity.
So of course now Fletcher has to persuade Sophie to write songs with him so he can get back into the game, even though she doesn't want to, and the trials and tribulations of getting this song to Cora's stage show are what define the movie.
Except, well, they don't. There came a point about 45 minutes in that the movie felt finished to me, but it went on for another 45 minutes with side plots and the usual romantic confusion. And the characters don't always hold true - Sophie is presented early on as deeply peculiar and maybe germophobic, but neither personality trait rears its head later. (I say that because Sophie isn't exactly normal, but then again, you don't cast Barrymore for normal.) And Hugh Grant just plays The Usual - full of heavy blinking, stuttering and twitching, so that's pretty standard.
And in fact that's what the movie is - pretty standard. The lyrics everybody raves about aren't particularly good, the melody is pure bubblegum, the plot wanders around creating obstructions, and the songs are only catchy in that way that makes you want to gouge your own ear drums out about an hour or two later. The exception to the ho-hum is that Grant especially gets some whipcrack hilarious lines - delivered only the way he can deliver them - and the video for 'Pop Goes My Heart' which will inspire some serious flashbacks if you lived through the 80s British Invasion. Oh, and Grant's voice is pretty good, and Barrymore can carry a tune although, delightfully, she sounds pleasantly average, which I found refreshing.
Don't get me wrong, I like Hugh Grant - to a degree, although I think he looks a little thin and craggy here - and I find something very appealing about Drew Berrymore. She's got a kind of luminosity that transcends what seem to be her negative hallmarks: unflattering makeup and hair that constantly needs brushing. I keep wishing we could see her made up to showcase her unique appeal. And they have pretty good chemistry, so that works for the movie, even if you know going in that they're going to hook up, it's just a question of when and how.
An opportunity was missed here to talk about the rise and fall of music's best and brightest - or at least most successful - between Fletcher's Pop and Cora. But I get that that might be too heavy for a romantic comedy, so it's never explored, even though the movie might have been weightier and more worthwhile had that been discussed.
In other casting notes, Brad Garrett has a smidgen of fun as Alex's manager and Kristen Johnston is at her full-bore insane best as Sophie's sister. And Campbell Scott is nearly unrecognizable as an old writing teacher of Sophie's in a side plot that was completely unnecessary. When I realized it was him, all I could think was, "This is the same guy who said 'I was just nowhere near your neighborhood'?"
Only rent this one if you like any of the leads and can take your romantic comedies with a heavy dose of cheese.
Animal Trauma: None, although I can't say the same for the plants.
Overall: Some good lines and an 80s flashback can't make up for a lackluster script. Two roses out of five.
The plot is pretty simple: Alex Fletcher (Hugh Grant) is the Andrew Ridgeley of an 80s band called Pop, and he can write music, but not lyrics. Sophie Fisher (Drew Barrymore) is the new plant watering girl who overhears a lyrics-writing session, mutters a 'better' line under her breath, and ends up Fletcher's writing partner.
Yeah, that struck me as weird too.
See, Fletcher has an opportunity to pen a song for the next big thing - a sexed up blonde pop tart named Cora who thinks she's spiritual - a sort of amalgam of Britney, Christina, and Shakira, all of whom get name checked in the script. He just can't write the lyrics. In the past that was his musical partner Colin's role, and Colin later ran off with a bunch of Alex's songs and made a mint, while Fletcher fell into obscurity.
So of course now Fletcher has to persuade Sophie to write songs with him so he can get back into the game, even though she doesn't want to, and the trials and tribulations of getting this song to Cora's stage show are what define the movie.
Except, well, they don't. There came a point about 45 minutes in that the movie felt finished to me, but it went on for another 45 minutes with side plots and the usual romantic confusion. And the characters don't always hold true - Sophie is presented early on as deeply peculiar and maybe germophobic, but neither personality trait rears its head later. (I say that because Sophie isn't exactly normal, but then again, you don't cast Barrymore for normal.) And Hugh Grant just plays The Usual - full of heavy blinking, stuttering and twitching, so that's pretty standard.
And in fact that's what the movie is - pretty standard. The lyrics everybody raves about aren't particularly good, the melody is pure bubblegum, the plot wanders around creating obstructions, and the songs are only catchy in that way that makes you want to gouge your own ear drums out about an hour or two later. The exception to the ho-hum is that Grant especially gets some whipcrack hilarious lines - delivered only the way he can deliver them - and the video for 'Pop Goes My Heart' which will inspire some serious flashbacks if you lived through the 80s British Invasion. Oh, and Grant's voice is pretty good, and Barrymore can carry a tune although, delightfully, she sounds pleasantly average, which I found refreshing.
Don't get me wrong, I like Hugh Grant - to a degree, although I think he looks a little thin and craggy here - and I find something very appealing about Drew Berrymore. She's got a kind of luminosity that transcends what seem to be her negative hallmarks: unflattering makeup and hair that constantly needs brushing. I keep wishing we could see her made up to showcase her unique appeal. And they have pretty good chemistry, so that works for the movie, even if you know going in that they're going to hook up, it's just a question of when and how.
An opportunity was missed here to talk about the rise and fall of music's best and brightest - or at least most successful - between Fletcher's Pop and Cora. But I get that that might be too heavy for a romantic comedy, so it's never explored, even though the movie might have been weightier and more worthwhile had that been discussed.
In other casting notes, Brad Garrett has a smidgen of fun as Alex's manager and Kristen Johnston is at her full-bore insane best as Sophie's sister. And Campbell Scott is nearly unrecognizable as an old writing teacher of Sophie's in a side plot that was completely unnecessary. When I realized it was him, all I could think was, "This is the same guy who said 'I was just nowhere near your neighborhood'?"
Only rent this one if you like any of the leads and can take your romantic comedies with a heavy dose of cheese.
Animal Trauma: None, although I can't say the same for the plants.
Overall: Some good lines and an 80s flashback can't make up for a lackluster script. Two roses out of five.
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