Movie Review: Adventureland - The Scarlet V

Like some of Cameron Crowe's earliest films, his most perceptive looks at romantic triumphs and travails in a specific time period, both in society and in someone's life - Greg Mottola's Adventureland is a sweet-hearted look at romance among college grads coping with their new independence in the summer of 1987. Thankfully, the movie also leaves behind some of the vulgar crassness that seems to always work in Judd Apatow's work (Knocked Up et al.) but which felt strangely out of place in the Mottola's gentler Superbad (2007). Credit much of the movie's resonance to its cast and their performances, each of them investing easily identifiable personae with some surprising gravitas. The summer he graduates, James Brennan (Jesse Eisenberg) finds himself stuck in his Pennsylvania hometown. A planned trip to Europe falls through because his parent's economic situation takes a downturn. In order to raise the money he needs to move to New York for grad school, he takes a job at the local amusement park, Adventureland. There he meets Em (Kristen Stewart), a beautiful but emotionally distant co-worker; Connell (Ryan Reynolds), a studly maintenance man with a mysterious past; and Bobby and Paulette (SNL's Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig), the park's clueless owners. The summer job at Adventureland ultimately offers James some romantic adventures, some hard lessons as he confronts adulthood, and a nostalgic soundtrack to his life. Loathe as I am to admit it, I feel a particular affinity with Eisenberg's James. Like his character, I carried the "Scarlet V" (virginity, as it's referred to in the movie) late into my young adulthood for many of the same reasons. James is starting to outgrow the need to modulate his personality for mass consumption. That is, he no longer feels the need to hide his intelligence in an attempt to attract women. Eisenberg's performance seems rooted in a Woody Allen-esque irony, a shorthand that informs us of James' potentially attractive intellect. This resonated strongly with me, because, after a time, I also discovered that once you show your particular quirks, you become a more distinctive person. And just like the summer in which I all of a sudden found myself with more prospective partners than I could handle, James finds himself caught between the soulful but distant Em, and the hot but shallow Lisa P (Margarita Levieva). Mottola perfectly captures the period and the stage of life in which James finds himself. Using music to stoke the atmosphere, he does one of my favorite things, often overlooked, with the soundtracks - he populates it with songs not just from 1987, but with older songs one might still be listening to at the time, like "Satellite of Love." That song in particular is integral to the story, as James discovers that Connell, who claims to have jammed with Lou Reed, is suddenly outed as a poseur by his lack of familiarity with this iconic tune. The song serves as a metaphor for James' own disillusionment with his idol/friend, as he comes to realize that all the advice he's received from him on women is even more ignorant than any he might have gleaned for himself. Adventureland opens in theaters nationwide tomorrow. This post first appeared at The House Next Door on 4/1/09. Still courtesy of Miramax Films.

DVD Roundup: Music Fans Have a New Film Outlet to Look to

The Weinstein Company’s Miriam Collection has quietly been carving out a niche market, putting out some films and documentaries aimed at music fans. A couple of months back they released a documentary (which first appeared on PBS on American Masters), Pete Seeger: The Power of Song, about the folk legend. Just recently I caught a few of their other noteworthy offerings. Lou Reed's Berlin is a concert film by director Julian Schnabel . It captures Reed as he performs his 1973 album, Berlin, live for the first time, backed by the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, at St. Ann’s Warehouse, in Brooklyn, New York, in 2006. The depressing album, a commercial failure in the U.S. during its initial release, has grown to be considered one of Reed’s best, if still least accessible. It tells the story of a couple on a downward drug-addled spiral. Schnabel shoots it as if Reed were one half of the couple, now older and performing a requiem for Caroline, its ill fated other half, occasionally superimposing grainy home-movie-like footage of actress Emmanuelle Seigner, whenever referring to the woman. If you’re a fan of Reed’s you’ll definitely be drawn in. But for those unfamiliar with his cutting songs, this may not be the best performance to introduce Reed by. However, the three additional songs he performs at the end of the film, not on the Berlin album, are pretty impressive. Starting with a truly showstopping performance of “Candy Says,” in which Antony of Antony and the Johnsons provides a heartbreaking backup vocal, then gliding into “Rock Minuet,” before ending with “Sweet Jane,” the DVD may be worth purchasing for those final 20-minutes alone. Control is the debut film by former rock photographer and video director Anton Corbijn. The biopic covers the last seven years in the tragic life of Ian Curtis, lead singer of the short-lived but influential Joy Division. The screenplay is based on his wife Deborah’s book Touching from a Distance, and depicts the singers epilepsy, his affair with Annik Honoré (Alexandra Maria Lara), his estrangement from Deborah (Samantha Morton), and his eventual suicide which the film implies may have been due to depression caused by the huge amounts of prescriptions he had to take to quell his seizures. Newcomer Sam Riley remarkably revives the ghost of Curtis in his strong performance. Not only does he capture the external haunted blankness of the man, but he vividly gyrates about the stage in his concerts as the real-life Curtis was distinctly known to. And the actors perform all of the music themselves while still doing the original band justice. Control’s stark black and white cinematography, coupled with the tableau-like mise-en-scène, evokes the old photographs Corbijn himself took of the group in their brief heyday. The film may also be the first I accuse of being too accurate in its storytelling. It occasionally gives the sense of the players going through the motions with a dispassionate inevitability. This might be the point, though, as Corbijn recreates the same blank sterility that one feels in the aura of mystery surrounding Curtis, a talented man lost too soon. For a warmer look at the band, the documentary, Joy Division, makes for a great second-bill of a double feature. Director Grant Gee speaks to all of the surviving band members, Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook, and Stephen Morris, about many of the same anecdotes that appear in Control. There are live performances throughout, as well as an interview with Annik Honoré about the time she spent with the band and late singer, Curtis. Covering their time together from the early days, when they were known as Warsaw, to Curtis’ suicide on the eve of their first American tour, and their reformation as the group New Order, Joy Division fills in the blanks that Control leaves open. It is an electrifying assessment of a band whose time in the public eye was fleeting yet significant. Stills provided courtesy of Genius Products and The Weinstein Company.