Extract (2009, Mike Judge)

All Movie Guide Summary:

Jason Bateman, Mila Kunis, Ben Affleck, Kristen Wiig, Clifton Collins, and J.K. Simmons star in writer/director Mike Judge's comedy about a flower-extract plant owner contending with an ever-growing avalanche of personal and professional disasters. An employee at the factory has just suffered an unfortunate accident on the assembly line, but little does the put-upon owner realize that things are about to get much worse. As the injured employee threatens to sue and it begins to look like his company will be bought out, the frazzled owner attempts to catch the culprit responsible for stealing wallets from the coat room and begins to suspect that his wife is sleeping with the gigolo he hired to seduce her.

I finally caught up with Judge's latest. This was a "most-anticipated movie" for me last year, though interest slid once reviews were less-than-overwhelming. Though not as consistently funny as "Office Space" and "Idiocracy", "Extract" does ride on that Judge patented low-key charm that is extremely rare in movies and television.
That charm and the inter-personal relationship comedy is what worked for me. All the stuff involving the wife, the gigolo, Ben Affleck, the workplace, was funny, interesting, and somewhat well played (REALLY well played by Affleck, and Dustin Milligan's dumb gigolo is classic Judge); though all the stuff involving Kunis, lawsuits, etc. just seemed like "plot" that needed to be there. I think that even Judge acknowledges this as being somewhat clunky and obvious, by casting himself as a factory employee who has to dispense exposition, at one point in the story, in order to cause some dramatic conflict.
But that plot clunkiness doesn't take away from the shambling low-key charm that this comedy has. Hollywood isn't making these type of movies that often anymore. It really reminded me of some comedy I'd catch on in the afternoon on HBO when I came home from middle school. It's mainly about characters, not a high concept; and most of the humor is derived by these characters and their traits (Judge mastered this with "King Of The Hill"). While not blown away by this film, I'm looking forward to seeing this come up on cable, to see how it holds up and/or rises in esteem. Judge's films always seem to play better, the more often you see them.
I really hope that Judge continues in this vein, and is allowed by Hollywood to continue making his type of comedies. His movies are notorious for not doing any kind of box office (I don't think "Extract" was any different: $10 million domestic), but I really think he's got another stunner or two in him.

Silver Streak (1976, Arthur Hiller)

I didn't really watch this. I was falling asleep in and out. I thought that Pryor would be in this more. I usually love Colin Higgins' screenplay work. Should I have been watching Stir Crazy?

Park and Recreation, "Summer Catalog"

Summary:

Leslie holds a picnic lunch for past directors of the Parks Department, hoping they'll provide inspiration as she prepares the annual Summer Events Catalog.

B Story: Tom tries to take the cover photo for the catalog with Mark and Ann as a couple with kid. His plans are complicated by Ann looking awkward on-camera.

C Story (really the B story?): April and Andy busy themselves at the picnic. Decide to go out to a bar, which April is to young to get into. Their date is a bust. A picture of them together at the picnic ends up being the Catalog cover photo in the end.

Up In The Air (2009, Jason Reitman)

I've been working my way through the Oscar nominees and finally got to Up In The Air, namely because it came out this past week on DVD/Blu-Ray. It is a very good film with some great performances. This is the kind of movie that is rarely made these days; the mid-level drama-with-jokes. It had elements of classic comedy scenarios; the romance, the business comedy, the misanthrope-who-needs-to-change comedy, set against the backdrop of the current jobless crisis. More filmmakers should be using current events as the backdrops for comedies. The reason this film had the most Oscar-nominated actors this year was because it had clearly defined characters that were each given character moments that helped drive the story, and weren't just shoehorned in for fireworks. Another reason films like this don't get made often; the ending. Bittersweet. Some things don't work out. And the things that do work out for Bingham; they are bittersweet. And that's what made this film rise in its quality to me: the ending.

A Foreign Affair (1948, Billy Wilder)

All Movie Guide Summary:

Writer/director Billy Wilder (in collaboration with producer/writer Charles Brackett) earned his first critical condemnation with A Foreign Affair. Reviewers accused Wilder (as they would so often in the future) of moral bankruptcy, challenging him to prove what could possibly be funny about the Nazi war guilt, the bombed-out city of Berlin, the postwar European black market or attempted suicide. All of these elements are in Foreign Affair, and all are very funny. John Lund is an American army captain carrying on a casual affair with Berlin songstress Marlene Dietrich, who accepts Lund's attentions so long as there are contraband cigarettes and nylons added to the bargain. Iowa congresswoman Jean Arthur is sent as part of an American fact-finding delegation to Berlin, and Lund is compelled to clean up his act--or at least pretend to. Despite her initial shock at the corruption all around her, straitlaced Arthur eventually falls for Lund, but Dietrich has been at this game a lot longer. For an interesting cinematic and sociological exercise, A Foreign Affair should be shown in tandem with Wilder's 1961 Cold War comedy One, Two, Three.