An eclectic movie mix from HBO as I take a look at a cancelled TV show having a feature length film send-off, an award-winning TV movie, and a notable documentary.
“Hello Ladies”…A slightly unusual send-off for an HBO series that was cancelled after only one season of 8 half hour (at most) episodes. In fact, the 82 minute long “Hello Ladies: The Movie” is not much shorter than half the length of the entire series. Anyway, I enjoyed the series, and was sorry to see it end so soon. As such, the movie felt like a satisfying way to wrap it up, but I’m not sure it would work as well on its own. Sure, Stewart (the great Stephen Merchant, who looks like a delirious scarecrow and gets me to laugh just by watching him smile) may be a little unrealistically awkward—especially during a surprise celebrity cameo—and Merchant-the-creator (also the co-writer of The Office, Extras, and Life’s Too Short) may seem a little too eager to punish Stewart for the “crime” of trying to have sex, but more of the jokes land than not. And the film contains moments of surprising depth, with truths about not chasing a shallow happiness you’ll never achieve. Grade: B+
“The Normal Heart”…Based on Larry Kramer’s famed stage play (which, sadly, I’ve never gotten to see), this Ryan Murphy directed TV movie is a fairly solid hybrid (too large in scope to be television, too intimate and stage bound to feel like a totally satisfying movie) that does a decent job of getting across the anger and frustration that gay men must have felt when nearly every political figure in America refused to lift a finger during the 80’s AIDs epidemic. Mark Ruffalo’s hard-charging activist might seem over-the-top in his alienating ways, but the movie shows you that he had a point: if even the people most affected by this crisis (his fellow activists) aren’t willing to speak out about this shoddy treatment, how can anything hope to change? If even the speakers of the gay community were half-closeted, would they have really had a voice besides his? Grade: B
“The Case Against 8″…A documentary about notorious Proposition 8 in California that banned gay people from getting married (also leaving tens of thousands of couples that had already gotten married in limbo), and the legal fight to overturn it, co-counseled by legendary adversaries Ted Olsen and David Boies (on opposite sides of Bush vs. Gore in Florida) who joined forces for this case. A couple years ago, HBO made arguably the best legal documentary I’ve ever seen, “Hot Coffee,” but this film isn’t really trying to be about the law…and, for me, that’s not entirely a good thing.
I understand that marriage equality is a much more passionate issue than, say, tort reform and the ramifications of limiting the amount of damages in civil suits. Still, the movie’s personalized focused on people affected by this law is nice, but not as interesting as the actual court room battles of trying to overturn the law. Watching two top legal eagles try to navigate the labyrinth of civil rights, marriage, and custody laws necessary to win this thing is the real juice. Grade: B