Two Late Reviews: The Thing About My Folks, Junebug

1. Junebug (Director: Phil Morrison)

JUNEBUG has been nominated for Best Supporting Actress (Amy Adams)

Morrison hasn't done anything big, but if you're into the band Superchunk, he did some videos for them. He also was a producer on Comedy Central's "Upright Citizens Brigade." Written by Angus MacLachlan, who also worked with Morrison on a movie I've never seen or heard until now, Tater Tomater. Junebug has come and gone here in Nashville, that's why I've sort of delayed the review.

It concerns Chicago art buyer Madeleine (Embeth Davidtz) and her quicky-marriage husband George (Alessandro Nivola) who go to George's home in North Carolina looking to buy paintings from a mentally off-kilter man named David Wark (Frank Hoyt Taylor), and to go see his family. His brother Johnny (Ben McKenzie of "The O.C.") is married to a lively, talkative girl named Ashley (Amy Adams, who is getting the rave reviews here) who is expecting a child. His parents Peg (Celia Weston) and Eugene (Scott Wilson) are true Southern folks; Peg is a sort of meddler/complainer and Eugene is a quiet guy always looking for a screwdriver down in his garage.

Junebug is a sort of frustrating movie to watch. It is agonizingly slow and scenes that should matter don't seem to impact the rest of the story. Amy Adams is the reason to watch this; her character and her performance dominate the movie--but as for any other enjoyment you might get, it's tough to come by. There's a scene where Madeleine tries to help Johnny with some sort of paper, and Johnny puts the moves on her, but it amounts to nothing in the scope of the movie. There's not even an acknowledgement that it happened. And there's a lot of that going on in here. If I had one other positive, it is the brief scene where Johnny goes to work and all his friends are telling stories and making observations--that was one of the more amusing scenes, and it happens in a flash.

A tiresome movie, it's getting a lot more critical praise than I would allow.

2. The Thing About My Folks (Director: Raymond de Felitta)

De Felitta hasn't done anything in which you've probably heard. This was written by star Paul Reiser. This got a limited release on September 16 and we got a promo screening of it a couple of days ago, so it should be coming here soon I guess.

Ben Kleinman (Reiser) and his wife Rachel (Elizabeth Perkins, busy this year) get an unexpected visit from his father Sam (Peter Falk), who comes carrying a note from his wife saying that she has left. So, the search is on, and Ben and Sam go on the road looking for her in places she might have gone, an excellent time for them to talk and experience things together. Of course, the road trip is a means by which the dirty laundry can be aired, and the supposed truth can be found. It's your typical road movie.

After one of the worst trailers of the year, I wasn't expecting too much out of it, but it clearly didn't rise all the way above it. This is another movie that has too much thrown into it. There are characters who you assume are going to be important later who drop out, and when you find out what has happened to Sam's wife, it is immensely unsatisfying. These types of things may happen all the time; who am I to say? But it's not exactly the most fun thing to watch anyway. I will say Peter Falk is one of those aging actors who is used too infrequently. That may be his choice, although he does work a lot but not in very many top-notch films these days. There's really not much that is just absolutely dreadful here; it's kind of like An Unfinished Life that way, where there seems to be an attempt to face certain issues and make a point, but come up empty.