Forget Juno, because this is the quirkiest movie of last year. While John Turturro's directorial debut makes occasionally succeeds simply because it's so incredibly strange. Nick Murder (Jason Gandolfini of "The Sopranos") is a married man who cheats on his wife Kitty (Susan Sarandon) with a fiery red headed prostitute named Tula (Kate Winslet, completely cutting loose). Of course, Kitty finds out (in the very first scene of the film), and everything after that is simply the results of Nick's affair. Kitty and Nick's daughters (Mary Louise Parker, Aida Turturro, and Mandy Moore) turn against him, while Nick's co-worker (Steve Buscemi) advises him to use his estrangement to have as much sex as he can. Parts are odd, parts are funny, and some of it just flat out doesn't make any sense. That said, it's fun to watch the diverse cast start singing/lip-singing to songs from Tom Jones, Dusty Springfield, and a host of others.
While the story threads of Gandolfini, Winslet, and Sarandon are handled well, Turturro fumbles the ball with the three daughters; Mary Louise Parker is wasted, and Mandy Moore's wedding sub plot adds next to nothing. However, in spite of its flaws and its overabundance of quirk, this weird little movie is quite enjoyable, and hints that Mr. Turturro could become a very promising talent behind the camera with a bit more practice.Grade: a flaming hot "B"
Nominations: none.
Number of 2007 Films Seen: 61
3 comments:
The only thing good about this movie is Kate and her scenes.
That's it. :-\
but how could you not love Susan Sarandon and the choir singing "Break Another Piece of My Heart"? Or the "Delilah" sequence? It wasn't perfect but it had its moments...:)
Well, Sarandon was good, yeah. She tried to work with it, I'll admit. But the film wasn't too willing, I guess... *sigh*
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