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Poll

Which film is your favorite?

Haven't Seen Any
7 (25.9%)
Don't Like Any
3 (11.1%)
A New Leaf (1971)
5 (18.5%)
The Heartbreak Kid (1972)
5 (18.5%)
Mikey & Nicky (1976)
2 (7.4%)
Ishtar (1987)
5 (18.5%)

Total Members Voted: 27

Author Topic: May, Elaine  (Read 4685 times)

roujin

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Re: May, Elaine - Director's Best
« Reply #10 on: August 27, 2014, 08:50:24 PM »
1. A New Leaf (1971)
2. The Heartbreak Kid (1972)

don s.

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Re: May, Elaine - Director's Best
« Reply #11 on: August 27, 2014, 11:55:43 PM »
1. A New Leaf
2. Ishtar
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oneaprilday

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Re: May, Elaine - Director's Best
« Reply #12 on: January 30, 2015, 04:04:10 PM »
Heartbreak Kid is on TCM tonight! (8 pm ET)

oneaprilday

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Re: May, Elaine - Director's Best
« Reply #13 on: February 06, 2015, 11:59:13 AM »

The Heartbreak Kid

What an incredible movie. Why isn't May more celebrated than she is? Too searing in tone maybe? It's certainly painful in its extreme bleakness though I laughed aloud quite a lot.

But I can't stop thinking about it. As sharply insightful as it is about the soullessness of the American dream and about relationships, it's hard to get away from. It takes that self-justifying pursuit of one's own dreams - that grandiose idea that anything and everyone is worth sacrificing for that dream - and skewers it, offering us a vision of the dream really is, a veritable pig on a stick, an apple in its mouth, and its blank eyes gazing at nothing. It's funny and it's horrible.

Grodin is so perfectly cast. His smile - it has this pasted on feel, even in the moments when he's supposed to be at his happiest, when his dream of the most perfect girl and most perfect life is most fully coming to fruition.

And the song, "They Long To Be (Close To You)," like Lenny's smile, straining to be sincere, and so effectively used - its lyrics becoming ever more deeply, horribly ironic with each repetition: shouted with desperate semblance of happiness during that symbol of American freedom, the roadtrip, and murmured, later, in the wake of the perfect wedding.

Throughout, May never backs away from a scene, letting it play out in all of its awkwardness until each becomes more unbearable and more brilliant (and funny).

And nobody here, even the characters whom we might find most true, most sympathetic, least hypocritical, gets off. Lila marries the dream, not the reality, as much as anyone, and bakes and burns. And for all his cynicism, Mr. Cocoran (the brilliant Eddie Albert - oh that scene when he, with a still dignified but panicked hurriedness, pushes the boat away from the dock!) is as shallow and soullessly self-satisfied as anyone. When money won't buy off the person whom he perceives will damage his notion of the perfect life and perfect daughter and perfect marriage, he simply absorbs the problem. And nothing, really, has changed for anyone.

As deep as anyone gets is revealed as merely a pretentious college student's notion of vulnerability, nakedness without sex. And Lenny and Kelly are thrilled by their own shallow profundity.

And that final scene and moment. As I asked on Letterboxd, Why is the final shot of this film not as celebrated as the final shot of The Graduate?  Following the biting, tone-perfect brilliance of what comes before it, that final shot, those final moments, Lenny and us left in the blank of what he has chosen and of who he is, is just as savagely insightful as what Nichols offers us.


Noticed A New Leaf scheduled on TCM the other day and because of the love for the film from many of you Filmspotters, I hit record on the DVR. I'm so glad I did. Totally delightful, sweet and funny with a sharp edge.
. . .
Thanks, Filmspotting comrades, for what I'm sure will be one of my "top discoveries of 2013"
If A New Leaf was one my discoveries of 2013, The Heartbreak Kid will definitely be on my discoveries of 2015 list.

maņana

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Re: May, Elaine - Director's Best
« Reply #14 on: February 06, 2015, 01:38:12 PM »
Yeah, The Heartbreak Kid is fantastic. Unfortunately my reaction to A New Leaf was a little more tepid.
« Last Edit: February 06, 2015, 03:14:51 PM by maņana »
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oneaprilday

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Re: May, Elaine - Director's Best
« Reply #15 on: February 06, 2015, 04:14:35 PM »
Tonally, pretty similar though, no? Perhaps HK is a bit more thematically layered.

Anyway, I'm looking forward now to checking out Ishtar and Mikey and Nicky (if I can find it anywhere?). More May, please!

(Btw, now I understand your signature, maņana!  8) Love it.)

maņana

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Re: May, Elaine - Director's Best
« Reply #16 on: February 09, 2015, 12:41:27 PM »
Maybe my expectations were just too high, but I wasn't particularly fond of the performances in A New Leaf. And I didn't really understand the ending as it related to the Matthau character.
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1SO

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May, Elaine - 1SOAD
« Reply #17 on: March 17, 2015, 01:46:16 AM »
And that final scene and moment. As I asked on Letterboxd, Why is the final shot of this film not as celebrated as the final shot of The Graduate?  Following the biting, tone-perfect brilliance of what comes before it, that final shot, those final moments, Lenny and us left in the blank of what he has chosen and of who he is, is just as savagely insightful as what Nichols offers us.

1SOAD strikes again

I went in with that giant chip from A New Leaf still on my shoulder. I hated the 70's low budget look of the film. The scruffy independence of it. I despised the filmmaking... and yet there was something here telling me this was different. It started with Jeannie Berlin enjoying her egg salad sandwich. She wasn't overdoing the messiness of it. Very natural even though it was comically exaggerated. The kind of uncomfortable humor that would be in the good episodes of "The Office". You could see it as funny, but I was cringing too much to laugh.

The switch flipped during the breakup lobster dinner. You could line up the greatest directors in all of cinema and I'm not sure anybody could navigate the humor, horror and heartbreak so perfectly. I worried when the waiter popped in that he would ruin the discomfort, but he enhanced it just right. After that I was wearing a Team Elaine May jersey.

I pulled out your quote about the final shot because I agree. The Graduate is my #2 film of all time and that final shot is one reason why, yet the ending of The Heartbreak Kid is just as perfect. "savagely insightful". I haven't come up with a description that accurate, that strong since I don't know when.
* * * - Very Good

This may easily go higher when I watch it again. One of the Top Discoveries of 2015.
« Last Edit: March 17, 2015, 02:53:15 PM by 1SO »

oneaprilday

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Re: May, Elaine - Director's Best
« Reply #18 on: March 18, 2015, 11:03:57 AM »
1SOAD strikes again
;D

The egg salad scene and the lobster dinner scene. Yeah. The former, as you say, has nothing over the top about it, but it's funny - and deeply uncomfortable, in part, I thought, because as a viewer I was with Lenny in being slightly disgusted - but I knew I shouldn't be because, well, Lenny's a jerk and Lila is great - and just enjoying her sandwich. Feeling complicit with Lenny then - oof. A brilliant one-two to the gut.  And then the lobster dinner. Is there another scene in cinema like it that is so extended - a one location scene - and that so deftly maneuvers  various levels and tones? I had to fidget and look away several times, the discomfort is so finely pitched.

I'm glad you agree about the final shot, too. It couldn't be more perfect.

Does your experience with this film change your feelings about A New Leaf at all?

1SO

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Re: May, Elaine - Director's Best
« Reply #19 on: March 18, 2015, 12:06:22 PM »
I'm conflicted about my feelings towards A New Leaf. The obvious thought is that I should revisit it, but it's still pretty fresh in my mind. May's character in that is similar to Jeannie Berlin's character here. She's easy to make fun of because she's socially inept and bizarrely unaware of it. Yet Berlin brings something more to the character. Perhaps it's the blending of Berlin and May's takes on this type of person. May is a skilled writer, but Berlin comes at it as an actress, and I think makes the character more humane.

I found this interesting tension with Charles Grodin, who is positioned as the lead in a mold similar to Albert Brooks in something like Defending Your Life or Modern Love. In Modern Love he does some terrible things, yet he never goes too far to where there's any hesitation about rooting for him to get the girl. Grodin displays the same selfish neurosis in small details - like the way Lenny is critical about sex with his wife - and he has winning moments. The compliment he gives to Cybill Shepherd about her physical perfection is a great moment for any romantic comedy. May doesn't look to condemn Lenny's selfishness. It's just there and while you see where he's coming from, people are being hurt in the process. I got none of this from Walter Matthau in A New Leaf.

Have you seen Force Majeure? It's the closest example I can think of to scenes that are both comedic and terribly sad and super awkward all at once. Yet Majeure draws out the moments like a car crash in slow motion. May's scene is more like a snowball growing as it rolls downhill, becoming a full blown avalanche.

 

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