If you like Nicole Kidman, or Jack Black or Jennifer Jason Leigh, you should check out Margot just because their performances were all really good.

Furthermore, If I’m going to spend 2 hours with a bunch of characters I wouldn’t want to spend time with in real life, I better take something from the experience. I’d better learn something.

With The Savages, I understood the characters. I understood why they did the things they did and I sympathized with them even when they were flawed and shitty to one another.

huh….anyway if i watched a movie with a character i could idenify with. i guuess the only movie ni’d like wouls enough a guy staring at a computer while wanting a real doll…

anayway i think the identify thing is over rated. it can make a movie work(better) for you but it’s not a deal breaker.

bad e.g. i can watch an action movie and maybe think it’s ok even though i know i wouldn’t last 15 seconds in a fight…and yeah i know the wedding thing is a more realistic movie but you get my point.

and not liking a characters in a movie isn’t a sin….. ;)

greg araki…. when how about doom generation/nowhere vs juno ?? which one better reflects ‘the kids’. hmm….

and anyway…i ‘m the weirdo that can relate to things in movie put isn’t expecting to see anything like my life(to boring to film/to pathetic to film)

but did the wedding movie work more for than the squid one ???/

I haven’t watched a lot of Araki (yes I know I should catch up with Mysterious Skin), but Smiley Face doesn’t quite seem to fit in with the rest of his stuff. It’s just a pure bong load of comedy. No darkness. No anger. No drama.

As for Wes Anderson going deep…I don’t know if he has it in him and I don’t know if that’s a bad thing. I don’t want to crack open a whole Wes Anderson debate (or maybe I do), but as I’ve said before I don’t find him to be as empty as his detractors like to imagine. There’s an unreality to his work that isn’t shared by Baumbach and Jenkins…their aim at the emotional truth is much less oblique, but there is a beating heart at the center of every Wes Anderson movie.

I loved Squid and the Whale, and will see Margot with an open mind but tempered expectations. My wife has a complicated relationship with one of her sisters so I’m curious about whether I’ll be less attuned to Margot’s key dynamics than her.

It’s also interesting that Araki chose to follow his major breakthrough, the devastating Mysterious Skin, with a film that invites comparisons to Harold and Kumar. Not necessarily bad but interesting.

Looking forward to the Lynch review, as well as a write up of a certain highly touted thriller by a certain pair of filmmakers.

The truth is, love them or not, they’re family and they continue to impact our lives in one way or another even when we’re grown up.

I have to say though, I just saw The Savages this afternoon. It was also about two adult siblings and for me it was equally funny but far more emotionally powerful than Baumbach’s film was. Probably because it was something much closer to my own personal experience.

Joel, I share your ambivalence about Araki, but Smiley Face was just a straight up comedy and a frequently funny one. I’d recommend you check it out, at least on DVD.

Hedwig, I had a bad feeling about Midnight Kiss going in, it does sound too indie for its own good, but I can’t resist movies about LA and I was intrigued by the black and white. Despite my reservations, it charmed me almost completely. Yes it had flaws, but for a film shot in 16 days on a shoestring budget, I’m happy to give it the benefit of a doubt.

And yes, it doesn’t matter if you hate a member of your family, the heart will always be torn about loving them since that is what we are meant to feel – love, if you can’t love your family then how are you with people on the outside? These women have avoided each other at all costs except for that weekend, that was the first time they’d seen each other for 3 years so they are not close at all. The statements by these women or characters is not to be taken at face value, they lie and tell the truth simultaneously. When we met Margot on the train, the 2 of the first things she said were lies, you find that out as you go along with the movie.

In Search of a Midnight Kiss sounds somewhat pretentious but then so did Once and I enjoyed the hell out of that movie so why not? I imagine I will be lucky to find this one anywhere other than DVD, so I’ll try to remember to add it into my Netlfix queue.

As for Smiley Face, I have a strong aversion to Greg Araki. I just can’t see the appeal in his films. They always have some good things going for them, but then he loses me. I don’t know if I’ll bother with this one at all even though I really respect Farris’ comic timing.

In search of a Midnight Kiss sounds unbearably indie, but you make it seem worth checking out. If it ever comes to my neck of the woods, I probably will.