The Frame » Mia Farrow

Be Kind, Rewind

Jandy — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 20:43:12 +0000

In a struggling New York-area city stands a dying building. It has been condemned, ready to be taken over by fancy apartment developers unless its owner Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover) can turn a profit on his VHS rental store to make the necessary repairs. When he takes a research trip to find out how to improve business (leading to some nice jabs at Blockbuster-style megastores), he leaves his adopted son Mike (Mos Def) in charge, warning him to keep his hapless friend Jerry (Jack Black) out of the store. Of course, Jerry doesn’t stay out of the store, and having been temporarily magnetized in an accident (don’t ask), he erases all the tapes. Rather than admit defeat, the pair grab a camera and film short versions of the movies – Ghostbusters, RoboCop, even Driving Miss Daisy – which, incredibly, become more popular than the actual films among patrons soon willing to line up and pay $20 to have their favorite movies “sweded.” Anyone who’s ever made films in their backyard or known people who did will likely be charmed by the town coming together over the process of making and exhibiting homemade films. I was, though I still feel that Gondry’s ideas aren’t quite as good in execution as they are in his head. Thankfully, he does realize his concept much more fully and satisfactorily than in The Science of Sleep. However, once home moviemaking rallies the town, the film just stops abruptly, a move likely to annoy any viewers who aren’t convinced by Gondry’s belief in the power of cinema – any cinema.
Above Average

Radio Days

Jandy — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 02:05:11 +0000

This essentially plotless Woody Allen film consists of a series of nostalgic vignettes about a 1940s working class New York family. The title comes from their love for the radio, the center of pop culture at the time; the radio also provides the subplot following Mia Farrow as a wanna-be radio singer who gets mixed up with gangsters. Like Broadway Danny Rose, it’s not particularly deep, but it’s also very enjoyable. Having Allen only doing the voiceover (his alter-ego character is a played by a very young Seth Green) is probably a good thing.
Above Average

Broadway Danny Rose

Jandy — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 02:39:34 +0000

In this lesser Woody Allen film, Danny Rose (Woody) is a theatrical agent whose clients always leave him when they start becoming successful. His current client, a has-been tenor trying to make a comeback, gives him further grief by having an affair with a young woman (Mia Farrow) with gangster connections. Not only does Danny worry about the tenor’s wife, he also gets himself in trouble with the woman’s family. Farrow is fun as she imitates a gangster moll, but there’s not really enough to the story to make the film more than mildly entertaining.
Average

Hannah and Her Sisters

Jandy — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 16:16:31 +0000

For whatever reason, I’ve been in a Woody Allen mood lately, rewatching Manhattan and some of my other favorites. I can’t always decide what I think about Allen as a filmmaker, largely because what I think of him as an actor keeps getting in the way (to be clear, I don’t think much of him as an actor). It took Hannah and Her Sisters about twelve minutes to become my favorite Woody Allen film. It’s witty but not silly, warm but not maudlin, deep but not pretentious, neurotic but not annoying. It’s got most of the qualities Woody is known for without the excess of them that he often falls into. It’s wonderful, and THIS is what Allen needs to remember how to do if he ever wants to regain his reputation and success (he’s done it to some degree with Match Point, but Hannah is so far superior to Match Point it’s hardly a competition). Whether you like Allen or hate him, don’t give up on him without seeing this.
Superior