Management (2008) - Great star chemistry in under-appreciated romcom

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+ Best On-Screen Couple of the Year: Jennifer Aniston & Steve Zahn

 

 

A lazily clad handsy fellow wanting to grab Jennifer Aniston's butt is the picture used to attract audiences on this questionable poster for Stephen Belber's Management

A man running his parents' Arizona motel without a life partner himself one day has a beautiful businesswoman as guest for a couple of nights, who subsequently drives off with his heart. - But can he score her for the long run?

 

Management is written and directed by debuting Stephen Belber (Tape (2001, writer)).

Steve Zahn (Night Train (2009)) is really natural and funny, which also goes for Jennifer Aniston (The Edge (1992-93)), and the two share real chemistry in this delightful and different romcom. It isn't sugar-coated but it is packed with charm. There's fine supporting performances from James Hiroyuki Liao (Prison Break (2008, TV-series)) as Zahn's Chinese friend Al, and Woody Harrelson (Ellen (1998, TV-series)) swings in a role as an aggressive punk-rocker ex to Aniston.

Management doesn't reach poetic or any unforgettable heights, but it is a damn sympathetic crowd-pleaser.

 

Related post:

 

2008 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III] 

2008 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II] 

 

 Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: Unknown

Box office: 2.5 mil. $

= Uncertain (but likely a box office disaster; projected return of 0.12 times its cost)

[Management premiered 7 September (Toronto International Film Festival) and runs 94 minutes. Shooting took place in Oregon, including Portland, from October - November 2007. Aniston received 8-9 mil. $ for performances in the years around Management, and so likely received something in this neighborhood for the film, which may therefore easily have cost 20-30 mil. $. This would make it a box office disaster. The film opened #17 to a 378k $ first weekend in 212 theaters in North America, where it only diminished from there and grossed 934k $ (37.4 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Brazil with 483k $ (19.3 %) and Mexico with 295k $ (11.8 %). Roger Ebert gave the film a 3/4 star review, equal in rating to this one. The-Numbers asserts that the film made 3.9 mil. $ on home video sales in North America, which, if added into the equation, would change the film's status to that of 'merely' a mega-flop. Belber returned with Match (2014). Aniston returned in 30 Rock (2008, TV-series) and theatrically in Marley & Me (2008); Zahn in Monk (2009, TV-series) and theatrically in Night Train (2009). Management is rotten at 47 % with a 5.30/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Management?

Dallas Buyers Club (2013) or, Taking Life by the Horns

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A terrific still is the basis for this beautiful poster for Jean-Marc Vallée's Dallas Buyers Club



Dallas Buyers Club is the mostly true story of Ron Woodroof, a drug-toking hustler, electrician and rodeo cowboy, whose deteriorating health gets diagnosed as AIDS in 1985, where the doctor tells him he has a month left to live. Woodroof survives for another 7 years, taking experimental drugs to diminish the harsh effects of the virus and setting up a club for sick people to buy the unapproved (later illegal) drugs through him.

 
Matthew McConaughey (Mud (2012)) plays Woodroof in a physically demanding performance, (he lost 22 kg for the part), and may very well win his first Oscar in a few weeks for the job, (ed.: he did.) Jared Leto plays the transsexual Rayon, who becomes Woodroof's business partner and good friend, and Leto's physical transformation is as impressive as McConaughey's, (and Leto is also Oscar-nominated, (ed.: and also won!))

Jared Leto as Rayon in the film, when he still looks good

The third major role in Dallas is Jennifer Garner's (Juno (2007)) turn as a doctor whose sympathy gradually shifts from the hospital system to the alternative that Woodroof represents. Garner is once again wonderful, but she seems to stand in the shade of the physically transformative men in most reviews, which she doesn't deserve.
There is something painful in watching this movie, - and for me it wasn't the 'good' kind of painful. The lead and Leto's parts are deadly sick through the entire film, and we are in hospitals again and again. They are emaciated and look incredibly bad. Furthermore, Woodroof can be a stupid asshole.
He is fiercely disgusting in the way he leads his life, and he only distinguishes himself from his equally no-good hick friends, when he receives his death notice. AIDS is what makes him a redeemable character; the disease educates him into being a better person, which is in a way pretty terrible. What propels the character forward is his strong will to live and to help others to live.
SPOILER The few moving moments of the film were for me the scenes just before Rayon's death, when Woodroof finally stops throwing homophobic abuse at his closest friend.
I know it was part of the character they created for the film, but for me the distance between he and I became too big for me to get thrown over completely, once he (predictably) altered behavior.
The story of struggling with the DEA and AIDS-patients dying in droves every day is as interesting as it is depressing. Dallas Buyers Club does a good job of shedding light on the illness and the way it was treated (and not treated) at this point in time in the US (1985-1992). The desperation is palpable, yet didn't cut my heart in half. You may think this a compliment or not, as you like.
Dallas Buyers Club has obvious merits in its performances and strong handling of its story. It is not one of my favorites of 2013, and in the case of McConaughey, ironically, I think that he has starred in not one but two essentially better films in this Oscar-year that he is sure not to win an Oscar for, Jeff Nichols' Mud and Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street, although his performance in this film is small. For AIDS-themed cinema with more impact try out How to Survive a Plague (2012), The Normal Heart (2014) and BPM (Beats Per Minute) (2017).
Canadian director of Dallas Jean-Marc Vallée has also directed the gay-themed C.R.A.Z.Y. (2005), which isn't a perfect film, but which I personally enjoyed a great deal more than Dallas Buyers Club. He is already busy with his next film, Wild (2014), which stars Reese Witherspoon as a woman on a very long solo hike.

Meet the hero of Dallas Buyers Club, Ron Woodroof, in the trailer here

Budget: 5 mil. $
Box office: 33.2 mil. $
= Big hit

What do you think of Dallas Buyers Club?
Did I miss anything crucial in my review?

Bandidas (2006) - Cruz, Hayek take the West in wacky venture

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Co-stars Salma Hayek and Penélope Cruz look luminous before a setting sun on the poster for Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg's Bandidas

Two curvaceous latino girls rob banks to fight a corrupt American banker's take-over of Mexican land and gold. The pair becomes a trio, when an investigator from New York joins them.

 

Bandidas is written by co-writer/producer Luc Besson (Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017)) and Robert Mark Kamen (Taken (2008)) and directed by debuting Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg (Marco Polo, TV-series (2014), both).
This investigator is played by Steve Zahn (Rescue Dawn (2006)), and country musician/actor Dwight Yoakum (Safe Room (2002)) plays a decent villain in the film. However, the center of Bandidas are its two divine stars: Penélope Cruz (Volver (2006)) and Salma Hayek (Frida (2002)), and they are both wonderful to behold and add to a certain entertainment value that the high-paced, outlandish film undeniably has.
Bandidas is a French-Mexican-American co-production made by two debuting Norwegian directors, and it feels roughly as authentic as a Greek kung fu movie.
Bandidas looks like a soft drink commercial throughout and is packed with all the various elements that its main father Besson obviously believes that a 'real' western must have. But the film comes closer to being a colorful and very silly pastiche of the genre than a real entry into it.

 

Related posts:

 

Joachim Rønning, Espen Sandberg: 2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED V]
2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]

Top 10: The best adventure movies reviewed by Film Excess to date   

Kon-Tiki (2012) - Heyerdahl's great adventure retold wonderfully

2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 35 mil. $
Box office: 19.2 mil. $
= Huge flop (returned 0.54 times its cost)

[Bandidas was released 18 January (France, Belgium) and runs 93 minutes. Shooting took place in Mexico, including in Mexico City. The film only had a small limited release in North America with the results kept under wraps. Its biggest markets were Spain with 4.3 mil. $ (22.4 % of the total gross), Mexico with 3.1 mil. $ (16.1 mil. $) and France with 2.9 mil. $ (15.1 %). The film made an estimated additional 8.7 mil. $ on the North-American home video market. Rønning returned with Kubisten (2007, short) and theatrically he and Sandberg returned with Max Manus: Man of War/Max Manus (2008). Cruz returned in Volver (2006); Hayek in Ask the Dust (2006). Bandidas is rotten at 56 % with a 5.40/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

 

What do you think of Bandidas?