Review for "Sunshine Cleaning"

It seems too easy to compare “Sunshine Cleaning” to “Little Miss Sunshine,” the award-show darling from 2006. If the similarities in the title weren’t enough, perhaps the supporting role by Alan Arkin, an adorable yet quite strange child, and the surrounding themes of death would also do the trick. Indeed, the comparison seems too easy but compare I must.

If you liked “Little Miss Sunshine,” you will likely enjoy “Sunshine Cleaning” as well. If you weren’t in love with “LMS” (like me), you will likely still enjoy “Sunshine Cleaning” as it manages to tackle its subject matter with a little more, well, sunshine than the former film. “Cleaning” revolves around single mom Rose (Amy Adams) who, along with her sister Norah (Emily Blunt) takes up crime scene cleanup as a way of making ends meet. They start their own business and slowly but surely learn the ends and outs of what it takes to clean up a trailer after, say, a murder-suicide. It’s a dirty and often gruesome job and both women find themselves attempting to provide comfort and peace for the loved ones left behind, while dealing with their own troubled pasts.

The wonderful thing about a small budget, independent film like “Cleaning” is that it allows for true, genuine character development and exploration that often goes missing in bigger movies. The characters here are brilliant. Even when the story line seems potentially lacking and unquestionably rushed, I loved the characters and was truly interested to see what would happen for each of them. Arkin plays the haunted grandfather to a tee, one part loving and well intentioned, one part having never recovered from where his life has taken him. Rose’s son Oscar (Jason Spevack) is a likeable and sympathetic little weirdo who brings the audience in subtly rather than dramatically. Clifton Collins, Jr. gives a very steady performance as a janitorial supply store manager who serves as a confidant (and occasional babysitter) for Rose.

The real stars, of course, are Adams and Blunt. As is often the case, Blunt’s younger sister Norah is the perfect opposite to Adams’ Rose; fragile and weaker on the surface but stronger than even she gives herself credit for compared to tougher and harder on the outside but hurting and tired inside. I would challenge any moviegoer to sit through a scene in which Norah climbs up a train trestle to “stare into the face of God” without feeling emotionally attached to her character. Likewise, it is hard to take in Adams’ performance without feeling, in some small way, moved. Her shortcomings as a mother, sister, or whatever else are less worthy of condemnation and more marks of true authenticity. She is on the verge of breaking when she starts her company and it seems that bringing this small service, however unappreciated it may be, into people’s lives gives her a bit of hope if nothing else. What I love most about Adams, particularly in this role, is the way she acts and engages both the audience and her on screen surroundings with her eyes. Here her eyes are almost pleading with you, with her family, with the universe to just give her a break. Being that “Cleaning” was released in March, it’s unlikely that Adams will see any attention come award season but her performance here is better than any female role I saw all of last year.

Where “Cleaning” truly excels is in its willingness to allow the emotion of the film to develop organically; to “let the game come to it,” so to speak. Far, far too often films such as this resort to trolling for emotion. That is, scenes that are supposed to be moving or emotionally engaging are played up with music or camera angles in an effort to MAKE the audience connect. More often than not this doesn’t work and many times when it does, the viewer feels kind of dumb for falling for the movie’s dirty little trick (see: just about any movie involving the death of a family pet). In essence, you feel forced or baited into crying or “feeling for” the character.

There is no such trickery with “Cleaning.” Director Christine Jeffs simply puts the material and the characters before the audience and allows them to make their own judgment of whether to get connected to what’s happening or not. And, for me at least, it worked. I truly enjoyed this film and maybe more importantly, I CARED about this film and about its characters. That is something that honestly doesn’t happen all that often and I hope to see the efforts put worth here rewarded come award season.

Grade: A-

"17 Again"/Zac Efron

A few months back I wrote a column about people, places, and things that I feel I should strongly dislike but for some reason I can’t quite bring myself to do so. I’m a pretty opinionated person and so it’s quite disconcerting when I cannot bring myself to “hate” something when I know good and well I probably should. The focus of this particular column was Justin Timberlake, whom I have a slight man crush on despite desperately wanting to hate him. After watching this movie, I have a sinking suspicion I may have to add another person to that list.

“17 Again” is the story of the middle aged Mike O’Donnell (Matthew Perry) who has lost sight of the good things in his life. As his marriage is coming to an end and his children seem to be less than concerned about spending time with him, Mike lives with his best friend Ned (predictable comic relief played by Thomas Lennon) and regrets the decisions he made in life that led him to this point. Soon, however, he finds himself turned into the teenage version of himself (Efron), enrolls at school, and starts to live his life over again. While part of him struggles to find a way to get back to his real self, part of him is excited about the opportunity for a re-do of sorts.

If you think that sounds similar to “Freaky Friday,” “Big,” “13 Going on 30,” or about 2,200 other films, you would be correct. This is not a unique formula by any means. The age-jumping concept is has been used time and time again and it seems like just about every generation has their own version of this film that sticks out. However, as I’ve said before, I really make an effort not to judge a film based on whether or not it’s been done before. Not every movie can be an original award contender. It’s about entertainment if nothing else. Still, I would be lying if I said my hopes were high going in. Formulaic teen film plus Zac Efron is not likely to equal success in my mind.

I’m pleased to say “17 Again” managed to surprise me. As expected there’s very little “new” here but there is a lot of fun. Best of all, there’s some very good (and very unexpected) acting. A teen flick is usually RIPE with terrible actors who have nothing but a pretty face to go with their complete and utter lack of anything resembling talent. Not so much with this film. Sure, there’s a very award Michelle Trachtenberg trying desperately to play a girl 6 years younger than she really is (awful casting on this one) and the extras are predictably bad. These gaffs are more than made up for, however, by Efron and his son/school mate, played by Sterling Knight. There’s a certain dynamic between the two that works very well and brings an authenticity to the movie that would have been otherwise missing.

Efron especially impressed me with his acting chops. I’ve never really seen this kid in action before. Once, while working, a coworker’s child was watching the original “High School Musical” in my office and I heard enough to know that I did not care to watch volumes two or three. I’ve not seen “Hairspray” because of my well known, long standing hatred of musicals. Until the last couple of weeks when Efron hosted “SNL” and then starred in this film, I hadn’t really seen much of him. I simply knew that, as a teen heart throb that stars in Disney produced musicals, he was to be disliked, sight unseen. I stand by this assessment because, let’s be honest, everything this dude is about is pretty much against what the majority of males are about. I mean, come on, the guy sings during basketball games. SINGS. Not good.

But there seems to be, at least on the surface, more to Efron than just the looks and INSANE popularity. Make no mistake about it, “17 Again” is a throw-away film. Without Efron as the headliner, the studio would be thrilled to make 20 million off of this thing. It is very easy, even for much better actors than Efron, to turn in a throw-away performance in a movie like this and it would be hard to fault him for doing so in his first starring role away from the “HSM” franchise. Instead, he plays the character straight and shows some real talent. You can tell that he really put effort into studying Matthew Perry’s mannerisms and brings those to the screen. At the same time, he doesn’t seem to take himself too seriously, which is the other big issue a lot of young talents make in an effort to make sure they’re seen as real actors. This isn’t a film that calls for a dramatic, strong, impassioned leading performance. Efron hits the right chord here and the movie is genuinely pretty good because of that. Perhaps most importantly, I wasn’t constantly aware that I was watching Zac Efron on the screen. I was just watching an entertaining little movie that happened to have a couple of big names in it. Even some of the best actors in Hollywood struggle to play a character instead of playing themselves.

Overall “17 Again” wasn’t life altering and I didn’t come away feeling like I’d just witnessed the changing of the Hollywood guard as I’m sure Disney would like me to feel. Perhaps my extremely low expectations going in influenced my thoughts as I left. But I was entertained, I was impressed by the acting, and unfortunately I think it’s going to be a little harder to dislike Zac Efron from now on. At least, that is, until he sings on the basketball court again. Seriously, that needs to stop.

Grade: B

Madden

Note: I usually don’t write much about sports on this blog because I know that a good half of my “audience” could care less about the intricacies of the NBA Draft or why it sucks to be a Raider fan. But I haven’t had just a whole lot of blog fodder (such as a dead rabbit in the street) lately and so a sport column is what I have to offer today.

Yesterday it was announced that longtime NFL analyst John Madden was retiring. The news was less than shocking as there has been some speculation over the last few months that Madden was on his way out. Still, this announcement was somewhat out of the blue and left me, perhaps like many others, to consider his legacy.

As a coach, Madden was one of the best. He spent about a decade with the Raiders, winning one Super Bowl and compiling the best winning percentage of any coach in the history of the game. But his coaching resume pales in comparison to what he’s done away from the field. Madden picked up with CBS after the 1979 season and has been in the broadcast booth ever since. He was the go-to color analyst for many years, jumping from CBS to Fox and from Fox to Monday Night Football. For many, he has been THE voice of the NFL. His fear of flying has become well known, as he almost always takes his custom RV from city to city. Even his endorsement deals, from ACE Hardware to Tinactin foot cream, are easily recognized and remembered.

Without question his greatest contribution to the sports world is the video game named after him. “Madden” is routinely one of the best selling games year in and year out no matter what gaming platform one might prefer. This year will mark the 21st installment of the game and it shows no signs of slowing down, no matter if John is in the booth or not. Just about every gamer of the last 15 years has, at one point or another, played, if not owned a “Madden” game.

Over the last decade, Madden’s commentary has quite often come under fire. In truth, it seemed more and more like he was either less interested in the games he was watching or his mind wasn’t working as fast as it once had. Never an intellectual by any means, what Madden brought to the table was an insight only a man involved with the game for 60 years could offer and once that ability began to deteriorate so did his credibility. I know plenty of sports fans who could barely stand to watch a Madden-analyzed game because his commentary was so poor.

Still, even at his worse, Madden had moments of greatness. Every once in a while he’d pick up on something that no one else would see and bring it to the viewers attention. Perhaps the most casual of sports fan doesn’t care about these little details but a lot of hardened fans do. His knowledge of the game is outstanding and that came out more often than not, even if you had to suffer through a little annoyance to get to it. The Madden video games taught many a football fans that never played the game some of the ins and outs of play calls, zone defenses, and the SAM linebacker. And, for me at least, his voice has become synonymous with nighttime football, be it Sunday or Monday.

I liken Madden to his college basketball contemporary Dick Vitale. Many a basketball fan cannot stand Vitale’s analysis, no matter how insightful it may be. Both Madden and Vitale can be loud and obnoxious and if you’re not paying really close attention you can completely miss the points they try to make. But like Vitale with college basketball, Madden is a FACE for the NFL. In a world that changes dramatically from year to year, he’s been one of the faces of the league for over 30 years. An entire generation (or two, or three) knows his name, his face, his voice. Whatever shortcomings he has displayed over the last decade have been more than made up for by the good he has done in that time.

I’m not going to claim that the NFL is suddenly worse for having seen a legend move on to another phase of life. In all honesty, his replacement Cris Collingsworth is a pretty solid broadcaster in his own right and is probably an upgrade from day one. But stepping in for one of the league’s all time greats won’t be an easy task by any means. Madden is and has been a tremendous ambassador for the sport and his presence in the broadcasting booth will be surely missed.

E.R.

Tomorrow supposedly marks the end of the acclaimed/never ending NBC series "E.R." In truth, I don't think I've ever watched a full episode of this show that's been going on for somewhere between 14 and 39 years. I've tried a couple of times but I guess I didn't get into it when it was popular and so I don't really know (or care) about the characters or story lines. Still, it's pretty remarkable for a show to go on for this long.

It's been too long, in fact. Sure, I may have a group of friends who are out of "E.R.'s" target audience but I don't think I know a single person who still watches this show. And I hang out with some people who watch A LOT of TV. I can't remember the last time I even overheard a conversation in which ER was brought up unless it was, in fact, the actual emergency room. Still the show has hung on. In a world that can't embrace the genius of "Firefly," "Pushing Daisies," or "Arrested Development" I find it hard to understand how a tired medical show like this has managed to stay on the air (and supposedly hold viewers) for 15 years. It's become a running joke within my "Office" watching group. Every single week, as we await the last segment of "The Office" while they run a "final season of E.R." commercial, someone (usually Jason) says, "that show is still on the air?!" It's truly amazing.

So that got me thinking. Now that "E.R" is about to turn over the reign of "Most Shocking that it's Still On the Air" television program, what will take its place? So without further adieu, I present to you the "Top 5 Shows Most Likely to Unexpectedly Still be on the Air After 15 Years." (The title of this list needs work, I know.)

5. "Grey's Anatomy"
This seems like the obvious choice to replace "E.R." because of the many similarities the two have. But I'm not entirely convinced this will make it through another year so it drops down the list. I actually watched this show for a couple of seasons before it jumped off the deep end and I realized I didn't like any of the characters. I quit for good when they performed a surgery in the parking lot..in the bed of a pickup truck....on a deer. That was enough for me. Everything I've read says it's gotten even weirder and when it shows up on "The Soup" from time to time, I'm glad I made the decision to quit. Yet it continually gets great ratings and plenty of people are still sucked in despite admitting the idiotic plot lines. That's the mark of a shockingly lengthy show run.

4. "C.S.I."
I know some people who still watch this show and it's continually in the top 5 of the ratings each week. But the multiple spinoffs are a recipe of disaster. There are only so many ways you can kill a person and investigate the scene of the crime. (See what I did there?) When I stopped watching 4 years ago this was already getting old but it shows no signs of slowing down.

3. "Dancing with the Stars"
I've never watched this show and I feel as if my life is somehow better for that. But my gosh, a lot of people watch this. Eventually, this dancing craze will die out and people won't care about it as much, just like poker. But this brings in both young and old alike who will keep it around WAY longer than it should be allowed to continue.

2. "NCIS"
I know one person under the age of 40 who watches this show (you know who you are) and he swears up and down that it's "a really good show." I've now attempted to watch this 3 times and the farthest I've ever made it into an episode is 12 minutes. It. Is. TERRIBLE. I cannot imagine anyone watching a show in which Mark Harmon is the best actor. MARK HARMON. Yet it's been running for 6 years and is now in syndication. The USA Network runs it 3 times a day. I know what you're thinking, "Sure, but USA used to run "Walker Texas Ranger" all the time." EXACTLY. They ran an incredibly bad TV show that lasted almost a decade. That's a clear cut sign that this piece of junk is going to keep loitering around for years to come.

1. "Desperate Housewives"
Perhaps I run in the wrong circles, but I honestly can't say I know for sure that a single one of my friends or associates still watches this show. It had its little craze where everyone watched it as a guilty little pleasure but that time has come and gone. No one seems to care about it and other shows make a sport out of poking fun at it (one of the best moments in "Family Guy" history). It's been running for 5 years and already seems to have lost any hardcore fans it may have had. Every time a promo for this show crosses my eye I think, "Wait, people still watch that show?!" Yet there it sits, week after week, in the top 10 rated shows on TV. It's going to keep going, people, and in 10 years we're going to see incessant commercials for its series finale and wonder who's still watching. I guess we should all just get used to it now.