Movie Natters: March 20, 2006 Archive

A mixed cinematic weekend

Posted at 8:38 AM on March 20, 2006 by Euan Kerr (2 Comments)

I hit cinematic lows and highs on Saturday and Sunday, both at the hands of movies where the star wrote both the story and the screenplay.

Saturday found me slipping in at the last moment to see "Shopgirl" Steve Martin's longtime labor of love. We saw it at a discount theater, and even spending just $2 on this movie seemed a bit of a rip-off.

Clare Danes puts in a solid doe-eyed performance as Mirabelle the Saks 5th Avenue gloveseller who is blundering around looking for love in all the wrong places. What's a little creepy though is seeing Martin, who wrote the original novel, and the screenplay, play her older lover. He claims she understands he's only in it for the physical relationship, but, of course she doesn't. It took ages to get to the sad end you coud see was coming from about 15 minutes into the film. I rarely long for a movie to end but that's what happened this time round.

Then, Sunday, I watched "Don't Come Knocking" the new Wim Wenders/Sam Shepard collaboration. Shepard wrote the story and the screenplay. It's very good. More on this later.....

A quick aside: as a prelude to amongst other things the upcoming "Thank You for Smoking" the Midmorning Show is looking at the increasing amount of smoking on film.

Comment on this post