"Friends" with "Sushi"

Whaaazzzup, its Adam Scott with Jennifer Westfeldt in Friends With Kids. It occurs to me that Scott, who is quite good in the picture, rather resembles a less-snide Stephen Malkmus, which is a way fo saying that he doesn't resemble Stephen Malkmus in the least. As for Westfeldt, she is indeed talented but I sometimes have this nagging feeling that she is in a sense her own Nanette Newman. William Goldman adepts who get this joke may consider it unkind, and I agree, it is, and I don't mean to be, but still. Nagging feelings. My review of Friends With Kids for MSN Movies is here. Closing out my MSN reviewing rounds for this week is Jiro Dreams of Sushi. 

Comments

[FanOfGlennKenny]

Enjoyed your review, Glenn. As always!

[Norm Wilner]

I thought I was the only one who used the Nanette Newman story in casual conversation. I feel slightly less alone now.

[Glenn Kenny]

Feeling slightly less alone: that's what this blog is ALL ABOUT, Norm.

[D]

I would like this movie better if it were an adaptation of "The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?"

Because then it would be Edward Albee or at least like one of those YouTube clips with the baby goats running around in someone's backyard.

PS: Nanette Newman! Meow, Glenn.

[AdenDreamsOf]

Glenn, are you saying that Scott looks like Malkmus or that he plays characters with Malkmus-like personalities?

[Glenn Kenny]

Um, "looks like." What IS a "Malkmus-like personality," anyway? I imagine something like a Nicky Katt in "The Limey," only he channels his energy into grooming rather than putdowns and contract-killings. And then he breeds, so he can lord it over everybody on account of THAT, too. No wonder male magazine writers of a certain age dig him so much.

[Victor Morton]

I liked JIRO a bit more than you did, Glenn. From Silverdocs:

JIRO DREAMS OF SUSHI (Gelb, USA/Japan, 8) Only second-best Japanese food-porn movie ever (maybe it needs a black-hatted Outsider). Seriously, a huge crowd-pleaser and there's more to it than food porn -- it's also about parental authority, the creative process, teamwork, old-school Japan vs. The Kids Today, work ethic, and the sometimes odd rituals surrounding the food business. Title character is as lovable and wise as they come. Really, only flaw is I wanted more -- maybe the younger son, who has slightly more downscale place and there's hints of sibling rivalry, but even the fact that THAT is repressed is telling. Pure entertainment from start to finish.

[ZS]

Adam Scott was in Star Trek: First Contact.

[AdenDreamsOf]

Glenn, I'd classify a Malkmus-like personality as being on the smug, self-involved side. Personally I'm a huge fan of his music, but I find the way he comes across in interviews to be saddening and obnoxious. He also doesn't seem to be particularly nice or grateful towards his fans/following. Nicky Katt's character in "The Limey" is too cool to be mentioned in the same sentence as Mr. Malkmus.

"I embrace this lifestyle"

[Bettencourt]

I love the Nannette Newman/William Goldman reference, but I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree over whether Adam Scott is too "physically unprepossessing" to be a lady-killer.

I've never spotted him in Star Trek: First Contact, but I do remember him in Hellraiser: Bloodline.

[Mary Collingwood]

Wonderful review! I enjoyed it and love this show as well. It's really funny when both of these start fighting with each other on the show. Thanks

[bill]

Damn it. I wanted to be the first one to announce that he got the Nanette Newman thing.

[That Fuzzy Bastard]

Actually, I always thought Goldman's complaints about Newman underlined how dumb Goldman could be, even about his own scripts. HIs vision of the Stepford wives as a bunch of Playboy bunnies would have been amusing, and perhaps more appealing as a cheesecake fest, but it would have totally killed the real satiric weight (and genuine horror) of the movie, which was terrifying precisely because it presented Stepford as what ordinary life is like. Goldman's movie would never have become the kind of phenomena that Forbes' movie did.

[bill]

Goldman's movie would have been Ira Levin's novel, which is plenty satirical, and quite good.

[That Fuzzy Bastard]

But it's specifically the *visual* aspect that's at issue with the casting of Newman, right? And there, Goldman was wrong, and Forbes was right---the Stepford Wives should look like suburban wives, not centerfolds. If Stepford looks like Hugh Hefner's mansion, then it's just a sci-fi movie, not a satire---everyone can walk out of the theater, say "My life sure doesn't look like that," and go to bed undisturbed. If Stepford looks like an ordinary suburb, and the wives look like just-slightly-better-than-ordinary people (allowances for movie-ness), then Stepford *is* our world, and you have a truly great, truly unsettling movie. Goldman's great talent has always been making potentially unsettling material toothless---he managed to have a Nazi doctor torturing Dustin Hoffman without once making the audience think of Mengele---and I'm always glad that THE STEPFORD WIVES got away from him, and became something genuinely terrific.