I’ve Got Nothing to Wear (2007)

So, I just caught the first two episodes of “I’ve Got Nothing to Wear,” a perfectly awful reality TV show that debuted tonight on TLC.

The concept for the show is great. Three fashion students take a few less than attractive items from a woman’s wardrobe and each make two brand new outfits for her. A fashion professor from the Fashion Institute of Technology mentors the students. And in the meanwhile, a fashion stylist helps the woman shop for a few basic wardrobe pieces, and creates a handbook showing her how to mix and match specific pieces in her wardrobe to form a plethora of different outfits.

Sounds great right? Maybe theoretically, but as any high school student can tell you, communism sounds good theoretically.

The production value on the show was so low, I felt like I was watching something made in the AV studio of a high school, or for a public access cable station. The show is riding on the popularity of other fashion and makeover shows, like Bravo’s “Project Runway” and TLC’s “What Not to Wear.” I love Project Runway and What Not to Wear. I did not love “I’ve Got Nothing to Wear.” And yet I watched it, mostly to delight in how perfectly terrible it was, and because it inspired me to write this ranting review.

The show is a half-hour long, and a lot of things happen in that half-hour. We see a lot of the fashion stylist, Jorge Ramon, sorting through the woman’s closet and taking her shopping. We see a lot of the woman inspecting her new creations. What is missing is really the process of how the three student designers take the old pieces and create new outfits. Maybe I’ve been spoiled by Project Runway, where we see the designer’s process of creating an outfit, from sketching to draping material on a dress form, to sewing it, to making last-minute alterations on the model.

The three student designers were different in each episode. They were all 20-something fashion students who mostly were attending the Fashion Institute of Technology, where I believe the show is filmed in a room the size of a large bathroom. All three designers are working in one very small room together, and I literally felt claustrophobic while watching it. For the most part, all the designers and the woman whose wardrobe they are recreating had pretty decent screen presences. And Jorge Ramon, the stylist, was nothing if not enthusiastic.

The guy who seemed so indescribably painfully awkward on camera was the design mentor, George Simonton. Imagine your high school math teacher, the one who wore the big glasses and had the pocket protector and sounded a whole lot like Ben Stein’s character from “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” Now combine that image with the one of a dorky uncle of yours, one who tries to make jokes but nobody laughs. That’s who is hosting the show. Except instead of wearing a pocket protector, he wears a lot of bracelets, and throws around the word “fabulous” like it’s going out of style. Needless to say, he’s no Tim Gunn, or Stacy London and Clinton Kelly.

Sadly enough, if the show doesn’t get cancelled, I will probably keep watching it. It’s kind of like rubbernecking at the scene of a car crash. You know you shouldn’t look, but it’s so hard not to.

Paris, Je T’aime (2006)

Seeing this movie was an exercise in mental and emotional stamina and ultimately ended in exhaustion of both.

Paris, Je T’aime is a film about love in Paris, to put it as simply as possible. The movie is broken down into 18 short films, each about 10 minutes long, each about different people and events, and none seemingly having any connection to the other. So there really is no plot. And I found that I had to work too hard while watching the movie to process what I had just seen and start fresh with a new set of characters and circumstances every few minutes.

It wasn’t that the movie was confusing. Each section of the movie takes place in a different area, or arrondissement, of Paris. Each section has a title shot with the name of the director before it begins. So it’s very clear that it’s a new story each time.

But it’s like reading a book of short stories. Things happen so quickly in the story, that by the time you think you understand what is going on, who the characters are and what motivates them or they trying to accomplish, the story is over, and a new story begins. You don’t really get a chance to get attached to the characters, to relate to them, to empathize with them, or to really understand all the subtleties of the story or figure out the symbolism.

And it was very emotionally exhausting, because each story is about love (a couple of them didn’t make any sense to me and I don’t see how they were about love at all, but anyway), so the characters are going through many different feelings. And because the segments are so short, you don’t have time to really process and recover from the first set of feelings, before moving onto the next, and the next, and the next.

Some of the themes on love were the death of a spouse, the death of a child, strangers connecting, divorce, putting work before family, satisfying your partner, young love, etc.

There was a huge cast, because each of the 18 arrondissements had a different set of actors. Some notables were Elijah Wood, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Nick Nolte, Bob Hoskins, Natalie Portman, Steve Buscemi and Juliette Binoche, and notable directors Alfonso Cuaron, Gus Van Sant, Joel and Ethan Coen, Wes Craven and Gerard Depardieu.

What was consistent throughout was the look of the film. The colors of the film were the same, and many of the camera angles were similar. It really did feel like you were watching one movie.

My favorite section was directed by Alfonso Cuaron (of Harry Potter fame) and starred Nick Nolte. It had a twist ending that was quite unexpected and delightful.

Once (2006)

I loved, loved, loved this movie. The story was totally unrealistic and yet somehow completely realistic at the same time. Once, which won the World Cinema Audience Award for a dramatic film at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, is sort of a musical. It chronicles the lives of two poor musicians, who within the course of a week meet, collaborate on an album together and fall in love.

Once stars The Frames’ Glen Hansard and Czech musician Marketa Irglova. I am a huge fan of Lay Me Down, a single by The Frames. All the music from the movie was composed and performed by Hansard and Irglova, and it’s beautiful modern rock music. It’s the kind of music that you feel like you could fall into and swim around in. There are pretty acoustic guitars and lovely piano melodies. The lyrics are honest and chronicle the pain of unhealthy relationships, being hurt, losing love and wanting love. Some of the songs do sound a bit like the Coldplay style of ballad, but it’s so much more passionate and evocative. (You can listen to the whole soundtrack free at www.foxsearchlight.com/once/) And Hansard performs some amazing vocal feats of octave jumps that sound almost operatic. The songs are brimming with emotions. I just can’t say enough good things about the music.

It was really interesting to see a movie where the main actors are not really actors at all, but musicians. The film was made on a teensy, tiny budget of $150,000, and the street scenes in Dublin were shot without permits and with a long camera lens. The film wasn’t overacted, and certainly not over-produced. At times it felt like you were watching someone’s home movies, and it was very refreshing compared to the summer blockbusters. I felt like I was watching something that was really happening; a real week in real people’s lives.

So what I found unrealistic about the film is mostly the way the characters meet. Hansard’s character works for his father fixing vacuum cleaners, and also plays his guitar on the street at a busy Dublin shopping area. Irglova’s character, who is a cleaning lady who also sells flowers on the street to support her young daugher, just approaches him one evening while he is playing and she starts asking him questions about his music and himself. This seems very dangerous to me as a girl who grew up in New York city. You don’t walk up to the street musicians, you don’t make eye contact with them, and you certainly don’t start talking to them. But maybe that’s why I don’t have a cute Irish boyfriend. Maybe not.

What I found very realistic about the movie is that the characters do not get together in a romantic way. They don’t even kiss. They both have just come out of painful relationships, and in the end, even though the characters really and truly connect and obviously love each other, they each go back to their past relationships. Hansard’s character goes to London to get back together with his ex-girlfriend who cheated on him. And Irglova’s character moves back in with her estranged husband. To me, this is reality. There are no fairy tales. People stay in unhealthy relationships, and for so many reasons. They think they can’t do any better, or they stay together for “the sake of the children,” or because it’s familiar, or because they simply don’t want to be alone.

The Yiddish Policemen’s Union (2007) by Michael Chabon

I love to read, but I am not big on detective stories or mysteries. I scare way too easily. But when I heard that Michael Chabon was going to release a new novel, I knew I had to read it. I loved “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay,” and was thrilled that his new novel would also be about Judaism, because I felt like I learned a lot about Judaism from Kavalier and Clay.

“The Yiddish Policemen’s Union” is a typical detective story, and while I was reading it, I felt like The Maltese Falcon music should have been playing in the background. And I am happy to report that it wasn’t scary at all. There were no surprise twists and turns, and I didn’t have nightmares from it. But it was still a very interesting read, and had great meter and pacing.

The story takes place in the real town of Sitka, Alaska, but it is the fictionalized location of the Jewish quasi-state after World War II. In the book, the Jewish homeland of Israel never got off the ground, and instead Jews were allowed to move to this particular region of Alaska, where they would be allowed to live for 60 years and then send back into the diaspora. We come into the story just weeks before this deadline, and as many characters say in the book, and as it has always been in the world, “It’s a strange time to be a Jew.” Our main character, a secular, Yiddish-speaking Jewish detective is investigating a murder, and in the course of the novel, learns more about his community, his family, and himself. There isn’t a happy ending here, as there never has been for the Jewish people.

I did learn a bit more about Judaism from the novel. The book is peppered with Yiddish words and phrases, some of which were familiar, though the majority of which weren’t. Any reader, Jewish or not, will be able to figure out the usage of the words though from their context. It’s funny the way that the Yiddish words are used in detective speak, such as the cops calling a gun a “sholem,” the way cops in Americans would call it a “piece,” and a phone is a “shoyfer,” the way Americans would call it a “horn.”

The story also deals with a concept in Judaism that was unfamiliar to me, that of a “messiah of the day,” that in each generation, a possible messiah is born. It was really neat to learn more about that, just as I learned about the Golem in Kavalier and Clay.

Dreamgirls (2006)

Based loosely on the careers of 1960s and 70s Motown divas Diana Ross and the Supremes, Dreamgirls was entertaining at best, though mostly just long and predictable.

It’s a big-budget musical, so the costumes are really neat, as is the lighting. The movie is more than two hours long, with the first half chronicling the Dreamette’s rise to stardom, and the very, very long second half of the film showing the emotional breakdown of the characters and their lives. It’s a quintessential musical, and while I love musicals, if they’re not done right they can all seem the same. In the first half of the film, the singing is only done while the performers are actually performing to an audience on a stage, or if they’re in a recording studio. I loved that; it seemed organic, even though the songs themselves sounded nothing like what Motown really sounds like. The second half of the movie is when the singing as dialogue begins, and it was unoriginal.

The film had been in the works for more than 20 years, ever since the Broadway musical debuted in 1981. After the success of the movie Chicago, Dreamgirls was finally made, and with an all-star cast of Eddie Murphy, Beyonce Knowles, Jamie Foxx and Danny Glover. Jaleel White, better known as Steve Urkel from the TV show Family Matters, even had a small role in the film.

The one part of the movie that I loved was Jennifer Hudson’s portrayal of Effie White, the overweight girl with the big personality and amazing, soulful voice who is ultimately cut from the group because she doesn’t fit the right image (light-skinned, thin girls with pop-star voices to attract white audiences). Her rendition of “And I’m Telling You I’m Not Going” was heart wrenching and quite frankly, the only thing that made this film worth watching. I wish I could sing with that much passion and soul. I am very glad she won the Oscar for her performance.

The Italian (2005)

Though the title might suggest otherwise, The Italian is a Russian film, and is filled with all of the characteristic bleakness of Mother Russia. I was enthusiastic about seeing this film after reading a synopsis of it, but was disappointed.

The Italian is set in an orphanage in Russia, where the children are packed in like sardines and bullies rule. We meet 6-year-old Vanya, who is about to be adopted by a couple from Italy. During the two-month waiting period until Vanya is legally adopted, he becomes obsessed with finding his birth mother. Vanya is compelled to do this by the fact that a birth mother arrived at the orphanage to take the son she abandoned several years ago home. She is cruelly turned away after learning that her son was adopted by another couple, and she then commits suicide. Vanya cannot bear the thought of his own birth mother facing the same fate, and decides to find her at any cost.

Though the movie was only 90 minutes long, it felt much, much longer. I attribute this to the horribly depressing state of things at the orphanage, and in Russia in general. I have only seen one other Russian film, “The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath,” which is Russia’s “It’s a Wonderful Life,” and even that movie, which was about the holiday season, was exhaustingly depressing. I am so glad that my ancestors left Russia, and I didn’t have to grow up there. It seems like a miserable place where there is no point of living.

But, I digress. What was remarkable and thought provoking about the film was that even in this bleak world, even though Vanya was abandoned as a baby and has suffered abuse at the orphanage, he has an amazing capacity for love. He so desperately loves the mother who abandoned him, who he never even met, that he must find her at all costs.

There are many characters that all seem like they could be real people, motivated by greed or lust or power, or who are just beyond hope.

Though I usually don’t have any trouble with subtitles, I did find these intrusive and at times difficult to follow. There are sometimes several different conversations going on at the same time, some that are just in the background, and they are all subtitled in together, which made it confusing.

I also really disliked the way the resolution of the film was presented. It happened in the last 10 seconds of the movie, and was only described in a voiceover with subtitles. Had the two loud, annoying ladies in my theater not figured it out loudly during the ending credits, I don’t think I would have caught what happened.

Shrek the Third (2007)

I saw this movie to relax my mind at the end of a hard, long day. And it did just the trick. It was nice to see a movie with a familiar feel, setting and characters, that didn’t require any real thought on the part of the audience. It was pure mind-numbingness.

Shrek the Third (or Donkey’s Revenge, as I like to think of it) followed the usual Shrek plot outline. As always, Shrek has to overcome his problems relating to people in order for everyone to have a happy, fairy tale ending. And everyone does! In this installation, Shrek and Fiona are filling in as king and queen of Far, Far Away. Shrek journeys with Donkey and Puss in Boots to find Arthur, a teenager who, except for Shrek and Fiona, is the only rightful heir of the kingdom. Shrek has already decided that he doesn’t want to be king, and just wants to go back to his swamp, so he goes on this quest to find Arthur. Meanwhile, Fiona finds out that she is pregnant, and Prince Charming gathers all the villains from a myriad of fairy tales to attack the kingdom, so that he can become king of Far, Far Away. Fiona gathers the usually dainty fairy tale damsels in distress (Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White) to defend the kingdom in that crazy, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon style of hers. Needless to say, everything works out in the end.

It’s always delightful to me when I watch a cartoon, be it a pen and paper cartoon, or a computer animated film, and I forget that it’s a cartoon. Shrek 3 definitely accomplished this. There was a fantastic and really impressive bit of CGI when Prince Charming tosses his hair, and you can see all the little hairs blowing in the wind. It was neat.