Come September (1961)

This movie is arguably more notable for what happened off-set during filming than for the film itself.

While the film was focused more on the romance between Robert (Rock Hudson) and Lisa (Gina Lollobrigida) the romance between Sandy (Sandra Dee) and Tony (Bobby Darin) was brewing off-set as well as on. Darin & Dee ended up marrying and having a somewhat tumultuous seven year marriage.

Hudson plays wealthy American, Robert Talbot, who owns a rather expansive estate in Italy where he only lives one month out of every year-- always in September (hence the title). In his absence, his butler-- Maurice Clavell (played brilliantly by Walter Slezak) converts the expansive estate into a hotel.

While on business in Milan one July, Talbot realizes he misses Lisa-- a nice Italian girl he'd courted the previous September. Little does he know, Lisa has gotten sick of waiting for him and is about to marry a British fellow named Spencer (Ronald Howard).

With a single phone call, Lisa decides to call off the marriage with Spencer and give Talbot another chance.

Both Lisa and Robert show up at his estate in July and September forcing Maurice to quickly remove all evidence of the hotel.

Clavell also has to walk a fine tightrope hiding the truth about his true role and the actual ownership of the estate with the hotel guests at the same time trying to hide the existence of the hotel from Robert... While he inevitably fails on both counts-- Slezak provides some excellent comedy throughout the movie that keeps it from slipping into mediocrity.

Meanwhile a group of American teenage girls is staying at the hotel with their chaperone. As she's about to join the girls on their tourbus-- the chaperone slips on a cork and breaks her leg. Fearing a lawsuit, Talbot maintains the ruse of the hotel and steps in to chaperone the girls and to protect them from a trio of American boys whom he knows are up to no good. Despite his best efforts to prevent romance from blossoming young Tony (Bobby Darin), the ringleader of the trio and Sandy start falling for each other.

There is a bit of cat-and-mouse between Tony and Robert in which they perpetually try to foil one another-- Robert trying to protect the virtue of the girls left in his charge, and Tony and his friends trying to get those same girls alone that makes for some amusing comedic moments. It also acts as an amusing foil that perpetually gets in the way of Robert & Lisa's romance.

One of the highlights of the film was Bobby Darin's single vocal performance, a catchy upbeat number, Multiplication, that he wrote specifically for this film.

All in all, it's an enjoyable classic comedy-- certainly dated, but still fun.

Related Links
Come September (Internet Movie Database)
Bobby Darin (official website)

Absurdistan by Gary Shteyngart

Once in awhile a cleverly written book with an unusual protagonist comes to my attention. On the recommendation of a friend, I gave this delightfully peculiar tome a chance. Gary Shteyngart did not disappoint.

Misha Vainberg is a spoiled overweight Russian heir to a fortune his father accumulated in post-Soviet Russia. Misha wants to believe that the world is generally good as are the people he encounters. Unfortunately, in his encounters he learns that the world and its people are far from scrupulous and there was and is more to his father than he'd realized.

After a brief stint in the United States attending college at the fictituous midwestern "Accidental College" (a not so subtle jab at many private midwestern liberal arts colleges such as Albion, Adrian, Alma, and Antioch) and living briefly in Manhattan Misha reluctantly returns to Russia.

Due to his father's shady dealings, an Oklahoman with the ironic name of Roger Daltrey, ends up dead. And thus poor Misha Vainberg is denied re-entry into the United States and a reunion with his girlfriend, Rouenna Sales, from the Bronx.

The book is written as an appeal to INS, or perhaps a love letter to America where Misha so desperately desires to return to. In Misha's struggle to secure a false Belgian passport in the fictitious former Soviet Republic Absurdistan he encounters a bevy of fun and unusual characters. The book is an exceptional satire of the American dream as soon through the foreign eyes of burgeoning democracies, the defense industry, and even takes a few not so subtle jabs at Haliburton.

The one flaw of this otherwise enjoyable tale is the intellectual condescension that seeps through in Shteyngart's writing. Misha's attraction to Rouenna is largely due to their multicultural pairing. He seems to have a hero complex, like he's rescuing a poor girl from the Bronx. Maybe he is doing just that, but there's still that hint of condescension that he's better or knows better what's best for her. The poor are portrayed as an object of pity, whether or not they're deserving of that pity is beside the point. Granted, this is a minor flaw, that only detracts slightly from Shteyngart's enjoyable writing style.

Related Links
Absurdistan on Amazon.com
An Interview with Gary Shteyngart (Del Sol Literary Dialogues)
Absurdistan NY Times review

Almost Famous - The Bootleg Cut (2000)

In 2000, Cameron Crowe released this brilliant and largely autobiographical film about a young budding rock journalist who gets to live every music fan's dream of going on tour with one of his favorite bands, the fictitious Stillwater.

Stillwater is a fictitious representation of many actual experiences Crowe had as a young rock journalist. Many of the experiences William Miller had with Stillwater in the film are experiences Crowe had with an assortment of different groups from The Allman Brothers Band to Led Zeppelin to Lynnyrd Skynnyrd (to name but a few).

What makes this movie so brilliant isn't that it's based on fact (although, admittedly that does help), it's that the performances are spot on. There are scenes where Kate Hudson says more with her eyes than most actresses say in all the lines they deliver over the course of their career.

There's a certain likability of William Miller and of Penny Lane and the chemistry that Kate Hudson, Billy Crudup, and Patrick Fugit share really pulls the whole film together. In this director's cut, remains over 30 minutes of extra footage that did not make it into the original theatrical release.

While some of the scenes that ended up being deleted do feel like filler material, there are also several extra scenes or extended scenes which really add a lot to the film as a whole. Probably the strongest of the extra scenes features Crudup, Hudson, and an ice machine. Russell (Crudup) has a glass and every time he gives Penny Lane (Hudson) a compliment he puts another cube of ice in his glass until finally he says, "I'd keep going but my glass is full." To which Hudson replies simply and perfectly, "Damn."

The performances are solid, all around Billy Crudup, Kate Hudson, Patrick Fugit, and Frances McDormand is exceptional as William's worried mother. Sometimes there's a film where one or two actresses can hold the viewer's attention and the rest seem like filler, but all of these actors give such exceptional performances that they command the viewer's attention in each and every one of their scenes.

There are few movies out there that are good enough to garner repeat viewings, but this one never gets old. It captures the heart and imagination of the viewer and for the duration of the film, it feels ever so perfectly like a home away from home.

Goodbye Lemon by Adam Davies

I was "burned" on Davies debut, The Frog King, I found it a rather mediocre tale. It was given to me by a coworker all too familiar with my love of Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City. I gave The Frog King a try as it had a similar premise-- young writer guy in NY struggling to find himself gets his heart broken and has to re-define himself after messing up his relationship. Where McInerney succeded, Davies had failed. For all his faults, I was still able to make an emotional connection with McInerney's main character-- the same could not be said for Harry Driscoll, Davies' protagonist in The Frog King.

But I believe in giving second chances-- and after reading Davies Goodbye Lemon am I ever glad I did! Every once in awhile I'll read a book which packs a rather emotional sucker punch to the gut. I hadn't read one in awhile, so Goodbye Lemon was a very welcome and long overdue sucker punch.

The Frog King's Harry Driscoll was a rather unlikable louse who essentially got what he deserved-- he cheated on his girlfriend, she left him. Good for her-- and despite Davies best efforts to make Driscoll a likable character he really wasn't. On the flip-side, Goodbye Lemon's Jackson Tennant was an incredibly human and tragically flawed character. Sure he made mistakes, he carried with him a huge ball of hate-- a ball of hate that was everything he knew, a ball of hate based on his perception of the events surrounding the death of his older brother, Dex, when they were still children.

This is a book of love-- it's not the dime-store romance drivel. It's not romantic love at all which is what makes it so refreshing. The "guy meets girl, guy loses girl, guy gets girl back" is dime-a-dozen "dick-lit" (the male equivalent of chick-lit)-- much of it is just poor man's Hemmingway or Fitzgerald (it seems all the protagonists in those novels are modeled on Jake Barnes from The Sun Also Rises). Goodbye Lemon instead focuses much more heavily on fraternal and paternal love and how one tragic event was able to turn a family inside out and tear them apart and how it took another near-tragedy to pull that family back together.

Jack is not generally a likable guy. But his flaws are tangible and real which makes him sympathetic even in those parts of the book where one might want to reach into the pages and knock some sense into him. While the novel starts by focusing on Jack's relationship with his girlfriend, Hahva, it takes a rather dramatic shift in focus to the relationship between Jack and his brother Pressman and his estrangement from and his desire to become the antithesis of his father for whom he carries a profound hatred.

The book does have its comic moments, but essentially it's rather heartfelt and poignant in its own stark masculine way and has made it into my favorite books list-- I'd say number 4 with a bullet. So, if you're looking for something a little different than the dime-a-dozen dick-lit contemporary fiction, Goodbye Lemon is just what the doctor ordered.

The Big Bamboo by Tim Dorsey

Florida is an unusual state-- this is a fact which is made evident by the writings of Dave Barry, Carl Hiaasen, and the lesser known Tim Dorsey.

Dorsey, a long time contributor to various Floridian newspapers, is quite familiar to all of Florida's various eccentricities. Dorsey's brainchild, Serge A. Storms, a frenetic, unhinged, yet imminently likable chap has graced all of Dorsey's novels either as the major character or as a major supporting character.

Using Storms, Dorsey perpetually illustrates the eccentricities that set Florida apart from other states, the over-abundance of senior citizens, Cubans, and all the various other unique characters that make Florida so... well... Florida.

While not as reknown as Barry or Hiaasen, Dorsey's brand of humor is just as thoroughly enjoyable. No one is immune to Dorsey's humorous jabs in his most recent offering-- The Big Bamboo, a hilarious send-up of the celebrity culture of Los Angeles as Serge and his perpetually drug-addled cohort, Coleman, take a trip to the City of Angels in Serge's latest pet project-- returning the film industry to Florida. In the process Serge and Coleman get themselves involved in a bizarre kidnapping scheme and find themselves being chased by the Japanese mafia and some Alabaman oil barons who worship anything and everything that has to do with SEC college football.

While the vanity, self-importance, pretension, and general atmosphere of Los Angeles are incredibly easy targets for Dorsey-- he does manage to insert plenty of amusing jabs to keep the reader chuckling throughout the book. This may not be Dorsey's best offerings, but it's certainly not his worst either and is as enjoyable as any of his other comedic offerings. All of his satirical barbs at Los Angeles do seem to find their mark despite being rather predictable and cliche.

Things to Do In Denver When You're Dead (1995)

Andy Garcia can't carry a movie on his own. Lucky for him, he didn't have to-- well at least not this time around. While Garcia did get top-billing and his mug shared the movie posters with that of the beautiful Gabrielle Anwar, this film is much more of an ensemble performance. Sharing the screen with Garcia are Treat Williams, Christopher Lloyd, William Forsythe, Bill Nunn and a delightfully quirky Christopher Walken as a quadripilegic mob boss.

If taken seriously, this film is absolute tripe. But this is a film that lampoons itself by simple virtue of its own existence. This film is emminently enjoyable if you allow yourself to have as much fun watching it as Christopher Walken appears to have had performing in it.

Things to Do In Denver When You're Dead gives a glimpse into a culture completely foreign to most people. It's not so much a portrayal of a life in the mob as a caricature of it. The dialogue is pure joy as you, the viewer, get drawn in by mafia colloquialisms like "boat drinks," "buckwheat," "the man with the plan" and assorted other lines you probably have never heard before in any other mob films, and are more than likely certain to never hear again.

Essentially it's a tale of an "action" gone wrong. The Man With the Plan (Christopher Walken) orders Jimmy the Saint (Garcia) to give his son, Bernard's, ex-girlfriend's new boyfriend a bit of a scare so he'll back off making the way for a reunion between Bernard and said ex.

When things go horribly awry resulting in death sentences for everyone on his crew, Jimmy feels responsible and does his best to make things right with his crew-- to get them out of the city before the hitman, "Mr. Shhhh" (played brilliantly by Steve Buscemi) has a chance to take them out.

Unfortunately for Jimmy, he's recently fallen in love with the beautiful Dagney and he realizes if he doesn't extricate himself from his relationship and make himself scarce he's as good as signed a death warrant for both of them.

While the plot isn't one of the better to emerge from Hollywood, it doesn't matter. The true enjoyment of the film comes from its dialogue (what you might expect from David Mamet if he had a sense of humor) and spot-on performances from the entire cast. While it borrows some lighting and camera angles from classic film noir it's not so much a film noir as a poignantly humorous caricature of a film noir.

The Weather Man (2005)

This movie was overlooked in the theaters-- I believe I blinked the day it was in the theaters and it was gone before I had the chance to see it.

The film was full of the somber melancholy humor which made movies like American Beauty and About Schmidt worth watching.

David Spritz (Nicolas Cage) is not a likeable character, but because he's not likeable he's delightfully real. He's not cardboard caricature of a human, he is human and as such he resonates with an audience that may not like him, but still finds it within their hearts to sympathize with him.

Spritz a local weatherman for Chicago has a career on the rise. He's been shortlisted to become the Weather Man for a national morning show, Hello America with Bryant Gumbel. But even as his professional life is going well, his personal life is disintegrating around him. He and his wife are estranged and have seperated. His two children-- son Michael (Nicholas Hoult last seen playing Marcus in About a Boy, Hoult nails the American accent to great effect) and daughter Shelly (Gemmenne de la Peña previously seen in Erin Brockovich) won't talk to him, he can't stand the man, Russ (Michael Rispoli) whom his ex-wife, Noreen, has started dating, and his own father (played with brilliance as always, by Michael Caine) doesn't take him seriously.

The humor comes in the comedy of errors that Spritz life has turned into-- getting repeatedly pelted with various forms of fast food (Burritos, Big Gulps, Chicken McNuggets, Frosties, etc. etc.), and random strangers asking him what day the "nipper" was going to be (referring to the abhorrent catch phrase "The Spritz Nipper" which his station came up with).

Some of the more poignant moments in the film include Spritz realization that while his daughter has been nicknamed, "Camel Toe" she's oblivious to the true definition and takes it as a compliment rather than as a slur (camel toes are tough, they do all that walking in the desert), and when Spritz decides to settle a score with the pedophiliac counselor who made advances on his 15 year old son.

In the end, sometimes life is shit and you need to make the best of the lemons it gives you, and in the end Spritz comes to learn and understand that message. His life may not have turned out as he planned, but he was still able to make the best of how it turned out.

A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore

I remember when Ralph Hinckley, The Greatest American Hero, discovered a mysterious space-suit with a cape that granted him superhuman powers-- it even came with an instruction manual, which he somehow managed to lose.

Charlie Asher was having a bad day. His wife had just died after giving birth to their daughter, Sophie, and a shocking new development he had just unwittingly gotten himself a new job, Death. And much like Ralph Hinckley, Charlie is missing the instruction manual which is supposed to give some, albeit vague, insight into what his new job entails.

So begins Christopher Moore's latest novel, A Dirty Job. As with Moore's other literary offerings. This book is filled with Moore's quirky humor. From the Russian and Chinese ladies who live in Charlie's building and often babysit Sophie, to the employee's of his second-hand store-- an ex-cop, Ray, who has a bad habit of using the store's computer searching for female companionship from the Philipines and the Ukraine; and Lily, a teenage Goth girl who is frustrated when that boring square, Charlie, gets the all too cool job of being Death-- a job she feels she is much more deserving of. And then, there's a seven foot tall, Minty Fresh, an African-American dressed from head to toe in green, who introduces Charlie to his new job.

Charlie, like many fathers, believes it's important for his child to have a pet for both companionship and to learn some sense of responsibility. The trouble is that from the various fish, hamsters, and even ALMOST getting a kitten. These pets mysteriously wind up dead shortly after Charlie brings them home.

Strange things are afoot in San Francisco-- mysterious dark creatures attacking Charlie, voices coming from the sewer grates that only Charlie can hear, and small "squirrel people" wandering the city in period costumes are among the anomalies.

In addition to Moore's quirky sense of humor, his novels often explore elements of the supernatural, in ways these themes are not traditionally explored. This owes to Moore's exceptional imagination which is second only to his sense of humor when it comes to his positive attributes.

While none of Moore's novels are bad (quite the opposite, they're actually in varying degrees of "good" to "excellent"), some are certainly better than others. While A Dirty Job may not be his best, it is certainly one of his better and has a bit more heart than his other novels have brought to the table.

For those already familiar with Christopher Moore, no encouragement from me is necessary. You already know about the book and are marking off the days on the Calendar until it's April Fool's Day release-- or you were lucky, like me, and were able to get yourselves an advance copy which has already been read. For those not familiar with Moore-- as much as I loved this novel, I wouldn't recommend starting with A Dirty Job. Island of the Sequined Love Nun, Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story, or Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal are much better introductions to Moore's quirky and thoroughly enjoyable style of writing.

So folks, brace yourselves for some more Moore! The only way in which Moore is predictable is that he never disappoints-- so come April 1-- RUN don't walk to your nearest bookstore and pick up your copy of this delightful tome!