Nicole Holofcener - Classic or Dud?

I resecreened Please Give last week because I was recently at a party listening to a crush of mine talk about how she frequently gets antiques cheap from craigslist and estate sales from people who don't know better (she's a weekend interior designer). I told she should check out that movie because it's about that sort of thing. Upon revisiting, I'm wondering if I should have kept my mouth shut.

Doesn't Catherine Keener essentially have the same job in both Please Give and The 40 Year Old Virgin?

She has an Ebay store in 40YOV, and a high-end antique furniture dealer in PG, so...almost?

Was able to find Walking and Talking through my library system.

I just noticed W & T is on Netflix instant in the US.

looks like the new one is her best reviewed? AO Scott flipped. I suspect Gandolfini make get a memorial award or two.

the trailer made my skin crawl but as noted upthread I'm a fan.

Please Give = very ugly film. some laughs.

Lois Smith's cute grandson was nice tho (apparently he was in the American Pies)

― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, November 30, 2010 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

What do you mean by 'very ugly'?

― She Got the Shakes, Sunday, December 19, 2010 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

For the first time I thought she tipped over into the Whiny Urban White Entitlement Crap ppl were always ready to accuse her of.

ok i can see that, though i like it a lot. which of hers do you prefer?

I wouldn't go quite so far as Andrew on PG, but close:

http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/please-give/4790

I'm middle-aged, all the others kinda blend in; the first two? obv Jake Gyllenhaal as video-store jailbait worked for me.

ppl were always ready to accuse her of.

Did anyone actually accuse her of this anywhere?

well, see the link above

I'm middle-aged, all the others kinda blend in; the first two? obv Jake Gyllenhaal as video-store jailbait worked for me.

― Miss Arlington twirls for the Coal Heavers (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, September 18, 2013 3:12 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

does she have more than one movie where there's a video store love interest? (kevin corrigan in walking and talking)

slight mistake by morbs -- should be photo-developers jailbait

Jesus, that Slant review.

i don't think he wears his hair that long anymore

but what about it? I found every character in Please Give eminently slappable.

Her best movie? Gandolfini's line readings are ideal.

The last ten minutes are meh, as you might expect.

My review.

dug this. part of walking and talking revolves around a similar 19th century coincidence/contrivance, feel like gentle talky improbability is underused in ~the modern cinema~.

the daughters (his, hers, the friend) were excellent as well.

The pain and regret with which Gandolfini shades his four-word response in the last third — which I won’t repeat but everyone who’s seen Enough Said knows which sentence I mean

lol i dont and i just saw it

good movie though. i liked how Holo undercut the moment where keener gave jld some fresh chervil. nice sendoff for gandolf

Armond happy!

Holofcener comes close to Mike Leigh’s poignancy–and on her own terms. Enough Said is both a sit-com breakdown and an indie-movie breakthrough.

http://cityarts.info/2013/09/20/bitch-slapstick/

damn

there is one more Gandolfini perf btw

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1600196/combined

As I was leaving the cinema, I heard one woman say to a friend that she quite liked it, but she couldn't believe how banal their conversations were. "When they first got together it was OK but as it went on there was zero chemistry between them". I felt like intervening.

No one is writing relationships like this. So great. Makes me cross to see a one-dimensional film like Blue Jasmine get so much attention when something of this richness and subtlety is also in cinemas.

and 93 minutes!

my favorite film of the year to date

For me it might be a tie between this and The Act of Killing, which would make quite the double bill.

Don't know that I liked Enough Said as much as Please Give, but I liked it a lot. Quibbles: the 20-30 minutes after they meet is a good romantic-comedy, but a romantic-comedy nonetheless--not a genre I have much use for. Also knew the exact tone the ending would strike long before it arrived. Anyone would.

But I cared what happened, most of the humour clicked for me ("Blessings..."), and I found Julia Louis-Dreyfus's world falling apart moving. (Reminded me of Mia Farrow's moment of helplessness in Hannah and Her Sisters.) Some of JL-D's performance was filtered through my 10,000 hours of watching Seinfeld--there was just the right amount of Elaine there for me. I've never watched The Sopranos, so that wasn't a factor; I'm sure it would be for many people.

saw this today. beautiful stuff; i loved how natural and real it felt without making a point of being 'real' the way a lot of movies are. like there's no grossouts or anything. and the moments between gandolfini and dreyfus where he seemed to take her by surprise with something he said, she just laughed so naturally with him

great great great

this film self-diagnoses 15 minutes before the end when JL-D says "I'm the idiot."

I liked Gandolfini's character, so one more than Please Give.

NH now makes sitcoms for the NPR set

"now"

I think you mean Woody Allen though

him for the seniors, her for the 40s/50s

she does soft-pedal the satirical elements of Keener's poet, between "blessings" and "friends with Joni"

oh I dunno: Keener's line readings suggest she (Keener) knows her character's been gently poked.

well that's another flaw

you're no good with haiku

sez you

Really liked this. Possibly the best Holofcener to date, though let me rewatch Lovely and Amazing and Please Give sometime and get back to me.

Essentially the Idiot Plot put to valuable use: the deception is a plot machination, of course, but I'd argue that it is as much of a result of class embarrassment as it is of new-relationship jitters; Eva's as much in love with the idea of having a richer, cooler, classier friend as she is of the idea of falling in love again, so how can she, now having a friend in common with Joni Mitchell, possibly accept her new friend's leftovers? The performances are all lovely on down to the daughter and her friend, though I got a bit weary of Toni Collette and Ben Falcone's characters pretty quick. Also, when the screen fades to white five minutes towards the end, I was honestly surprised that the movie wasn't over. Surprised, though not necessarily disappointed--I'll take this ending when I like the characters this much.

otm

I thought this was great. I enjoyed how it tweaks the conventions of romantic comedy by realistically portraying how romance looks from middle age but manages to be sweet and funny too. Both leads ooze tons of charm too.

Multiple reliable sources all indicate that her newest is a dud. I’ll probably skip it; its not like I’m looking for another opportunity to be annoyed by Ben Mendelsohn.

A disappointment. I don't get Mendelsohn.

He’s terrible in Rogue One and Ready Player One, the only two things I’ve seen him in. Granted, those aren’t good movies, but reviews of this film tend to single out his performance as a problem (Mendelsohn “plays [his character] like a benign Dr. House,” writes Bill Chambers).

Maybe it’s the Tarrytown location but I kept thinking of the HBO show Divorce, and how Thomas Haden Church would have been an improvement

The film’s ok, though - it’s just nowhere in the league of any of the previous 5. And I don’t understand why it needed to look so ugly.

liked Mendelsohn in Starred Up; maybe he should just play prison dads.

Yeah I think he made a conscious effort to move away from just playing criminals a few years ago but he was good at it!