Fuhgedaboudit

Films: Donnie Brasco
Format: DVD from Sycamore Public Library on The New Portable.

Like a lot of the movies that are still on my Oscar list, Donnie Brasco is one that I’ve almost watched a couple of times. These days, I seem to need to be in the mood for a mob movie, and Donnie Brasco is absolutely a mob movie. It’s also a movie that features Al Pacino playing an interesting combination of roles. On the one hand, Pacino made his name playing mob guys. On the other hand, his character here isn’t the boss. In fact, this is almost Pacino playing against type.

Low-level mobster Benjamin “Lefty” Ruggiero (Pacino) is introduced to Donnie Brasco (Johnny Depp), a jewel thief. Lefty wants Donnie to serve as a middleman for a large diamond ring he received as a payment, which Donnie claims is a fake. Donnie gets Lefty something much closer to a real payment, and in gratitude, Lefty more or less brings Donnie into the Mafia, introducing him to several made men including Sonny Black (Michael Madsen).

Show, Don't Tell!

Film: Enchanted April
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on laptop.

I’ve done this blog for almost six years. I think in that time I’ve earned a bit of credibility in terms of going into movies with enough of an open mind that I like movies that aren’t made for me. I genuinely hope everything I put in the spinner will be a movie that I like. I don’t want to waste my time watching movies that I dislike. So I did go into Enchanted April hoping that it would be closer to my enjoyment of films like Sense and Sensibility and not something that ended up with me shaking my head.

As the last paragraph hints, I ended up shaking my head. It’s a shame, too, because there’s real potential in Enchanted April and a wonderful cast. The story touches on aspects of magical realism, and I love magical realism when it’s done well. There’s something really special about a story that puts the real world in that sort of context. So when it’s done in a way that comes out as half-assed, I get frustrated with it.

I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do

Film: Four Weddings and a Funeral
Format: DVD from DeKalb Public Library on laptop.

Every genre has its clichés. I’d suggest that a genre can in many ways be defined by its clichés better than by any other elements. For romantic comedies, one of the clichés is the imperfect person looking for love. After all, if the lonely heart was perfect, there’d be no reason for him or her to not have someone already, right? The issue is making that person likable, someone we want to root for and see find happiness and romance without making them such an ideal person that the premise isn’t destroyed from the outset. Because of this, the most common personality issue for a rom-com main character is being a physical or social klutz. Most of us can sympathize with being clumsy or awkward in some situations, so makers of films like Four Weddings and a Funeral have an obvious way to make the main character both likable and significantly imperfect.

We learn about this imperfection of Charles (Hugh Grant) immediately. The best man at the wedding of his friends Angus (Timothy Walker) and Laura (Sara Crowe), Charles almost sleeps through the whole thing, forgets to bring the rings with him, and makes a few embarrassing gaffes at the reception. This tells us everything we need to know about Charles as a person. He’s well-meaning, but forgetful and socially awkward. At this first of four weddings, he meets Carrie (Andie McDowell) and ends up in bed with her. This tells us everything we need to know about the plot moving forward.