A Piece of Work

The documentary about Joan Rivers is doing really well. It's gotten a lot of great press, strong ticket sales and a 91% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It also happens to be really good. It's fascinating, disturbing, funny and tragic.

I've never been a Rivers fan, and the film not only told me why that's true (her jokes are not consistently very funny but are consistently polarizing, she looks like an alien and she's a little off her rocker) but why it shouldn't be (she's tough, feisty, very human and a little off her rocker).

Highlights include footage of a young and vibrant Rivers in her early days on The Tonight Show, the heartbreaking tale of her losing the friendship of Johnny Carson, a scene showing her stomping on a heckler at a standup show (with more wit and heart in those improvised moments than in the rest of her act) and the harrowing reality behind her forced smile at the Comedy Central roast in her "honour". The unsettling opening shots of Rivers applying her thick makeup in extreme closeup are never built on with an in-depth discussion of her plastic surgery compulsion, but strangely it's not her other-worldly aesthetics that hold the fascination of Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work.

I've never known Joan Rivers as anything other than the scary lady making fun of everyone's dresses on the red carpet. But tonight I saw her scared to open her play in New York because she thinks everyone hates her. I saw her confess that no man has ever called her beautiful, ever. I saw her scratch her way back into the limelight after losing everything. I saw her cope with the suicide of her husband and the betrayal of friends. I saw her in her 20s, looking just like Chelsea Handler as she pushed the envelope on what women were allowed to say. I saw her at age 75, staring hopelessly at an empty date book. I watched as she held tightly to her grandson's hand as if frightened he might slip away and listened as she passive-aggressively tossed around Kathy Griffin's name, her comedy descendant and... replacement, really.

The film's most moving moments are when real tears spill over Rivers' botoxed cheeks. When she talks about defending her daughter's honour, Rivers begins to cry. But it's when she reveals that she had to fire her long time friend and manager that she really got to me. The scary lady got to me, and I truly appreciated for the first time that she's a person, not a punchline. She may look fake, but she's real (and tough as nails to boot, not to mention loyal beyond reason). The revelation that with her manager gone she has "no one left to say 'remember when'," is heartbreaking. And when she speaks of being an actress at heart, playing the role of the comedian, her entire crazy persona snaps into focus.

Everyone already knows how this film ends. After winning Celebrity Apprentice, Joan Rivers has been back in the spotlight in the past few months. She's released a new book and been performing steadily. The film goes out with the once-empty date book now filled with work. But the truly great thing is that over the course of a couple hours, the audience has come to care about the scary lady from the red carpet. We get her now: she's very strange, but at the core of it all she just wants people to like her. Doesn't everybody? Joan Rivers has been around for decades, fighting to stay in the industry she loves, no matter how many people try to get her to disappear. She really is a Piece of Work. And now, people who once couldn't have cared less, can smile with knowing that the success of this documentary means that Joan Rivers is still holding on.

First Look: The Tempest

In a joint article with other My Entertainment World website My Theatre, here are some preview photos from one of my most anticipated films of the year: Julie Taymour's adapatation of Shakespeare's The Tempest. Due out on December 10 (in the year of the play's 400th anniversary) from Touchstone pictures, The Tempest stars Helen Mirren as a female version of the film's hero, Prospero. Comedian Russell Brand, Alfred Molina, Alan Cumming and Djimon Hounsou also star.

Taymour, who's direction and design for the stage adaptation of The Lion King won her notoriety, praise and Tony Awards, is tackling her second major Shakespeare adaptation with The Tempest. The first is an iconic Titus that is at once brilliant and bizarre. The Tempest promises to be similarly enthralling.

Salt: predictable, badass and predictably badass

I'll keep this brief, there's not actually a lot to say about this film. The coolest thing about Salt is that the lead role was originally written for Tom Cruise and then tweaked to fit Angelina Jolie. The fact that a skinny chick like Jolie is in practice a hundred times more badass than Hollywood's erstwhile favourite action hero, is pretty darn cool. The film flies by, the stunts are great, the pacing perfect and the performances pretty decent. The story's okay, the effects impressive and the dialogue acceptable. In fact, Salt would be a truly awesome absurd summer movie if it weren't for one thing.

I've heard people complain that she should be dead within the first 10 minutes. I don't actually care about that fact at all. If we were looking at realistic survival statistics James Bond would never make it out of the scrapes he gets himself into. No, I'm all for bizarre heroics and feats of inhuman strength and cunning. My problem is predictability. Let's pretend for a minute that Liev Schreiber didn't accidentally let slip the big twist on The Daily Show (and desperately try to cover it up- to moderate success). I still think I could have seen it all coming

*** SPOILER LINE***

Of course Angelina's one of the good guys- she's the title character! They establish pretty quickly that she loved her civilian husband, we see her withstand torture for her country and she's clearly the most capable and smartest character in the cast. If anyone can think of an example in which such a character was anything BUT the good guy I'd certainly like to hear about it. In contrast, I don't recall ever having seen Liev Schreiber play a good guy. He's always duplicitous. Besides, he comes out of the gate all proclaimed national heroics and over the top personal loyalty- they set him up as perfect, and the perfect guy is NEVER perfect, especially if we hear more about his perfection than see it. Their good/evil flip could be seen a mile away by anyone even remotely familiar with Hollywood tradition. It was pure laziness in an otherwise enjoyably executed action movie. Angelina (just awesome enough to make up for being a little creepy) deserves better from a movie for which she agreed to dangle from a windowsill 11 stories up.

Ramona & Beezus

Beezus and Ramona was my favourite book when I was little. I read it with my mom. Then I read the rest of the series, all 7 of them. I haven't revisited these beloved books in years but, remembering them as a cornerstone of my childhood, I couldn't have been more excited (and apprehensive) when I heard they were making a movie.

But as more and more details about the film reached my ears, my reservations eased. The title (Ramona and Beezus, the reverse of the original book), which annoyed me at first, made sense considering the film would be an amalgamation of all 8 books not just an adaptation of the first one. I was greatly reassured when I heard the sweet story that Beverly Cleary had agreed to sell the rights after all these years only after reading the producer's 4th grade book report on Ramona. But it wasn't until casting began that I knew I would like Ramona and Beezus.

The producers went with a relative unknown for Ramona, the delightful Joey King who would make her mark in the iconic role instead of bringing kid star pedigree to it. The tricky role of Beezus (the sympathetic character as seen through the eyes of her little sister could have looked like a bully) went to Selena Gomez, easily the most endearing of all the Disney Channel princesses, who was beautiful in the role. In a perfect casting stroke of genius, they chose my beloved John Corbett to play Mr. Quimby. Corbett, always charming, always warm, usually goofy, has a wonderful fatherly presence and his 6'4'' frame and baby face give him the perfect balance to simultaneously play hero to his daughters and regular guy trying to get by. The small but fun role of Ramona's teacher went to the always wonderful Sandra Oh and dreamy/fun Tad Hamilton..err... Josh Duhamel would play Hobart. But the piece de resistance would be Aunt Bea. Without the perfect actress to capture Ramona's grownup counterpart, the film just wouldn't be right. But these producers knew what they were doing and made the most perfect of all perfect choices: Ginnifer Goodwin. I adore Ginnifer Goodwin, I've loved everything I've ever seen her play since the day she first captured my heart as the self conscious cellist in Mona Lisa Smile right through to her standout work on Big Love. And as fun-loving, hopeless romantic Aunt Bea she brought the perfect cuddly warmth and kiddie spirit.

And that PERFECT cast was given some great stories to play. With highlights chosen from all the books, Ramona and her Father took centre stage (being the most resonant in today's economy and all) with the love story being borrowed from Ramona Forever. Writers Laurie Craig and Nick Pustay chose all the right stuff from each of the books (almost all of them were represented somehow), making for a beautifully paced, poignant and timely character story.

I laughed the whole way time at Ramona's earnest audacity, Mr. Quimby's sweet antics and Beezus' silly adolescent worries. And from the sisters' heart-to-heart straight through to the bittersweet ending, I cried my eyes out- happy, nostalgic tears, not at all unlike Toy Story 3 tears. It was moving, sweet and the first time something I loved on paper as a kid has ever been made even better by the big screen.