Tag Archives: June Squibb

Love The Coopers

Every family is dysfunctional to a degree, some more than others. The Coopers, Sam (John Goodman) and Charlotte (Diane Keaton), a couple whose 40-year marriage has lost its energy, have a family with issues galore. Charlotte wants one more happy family Christmas celebration before they split.

Love, The Coopers is like an edgier Hallmark Christmas movie, with cast members who are better known. Like a Hallmark movie, things generally work out. Like a Hallmark movie, there are few non-white faces. Unlike a Hallmark movie, a few impolite phrases are uttered and bodily functions draw attention. But don’t worry: LTC is safely PG-13.

Cooper offspring include Hank (Ed Helms) and Eleanor (Olivia Wilde). Hank’s marriage to Angie (Alex Borstein, best known as the voice of Lois Griffin on Family Guy) is breaking up. Among their three kids is son Charlie (Timothee Chalet) who is at that awkward age and is especially awkward at kissing.

Eleanor (Olivia Wilde) is a flirty type who picks up cute serviceman Joe (Jack Lacy) at the airport and drags him to the family’s Christmas Eve dinner as her pretend boyfriend. Their verbal jousting (over political and religious differences) provides some of the film’s highlights.

Emma (Marisa Tomei) is Charlotte’s younger sister with whom a sibling rivalry persists. She is busted for shoplifting at the mall. She does some amateur counseling from the back seat of the patrol car for the quiet cop (Anthony Mackie), who opens up about his sexuality.

Guests at the Christmas dinner table also include Charlotte and Emma’s dad Bucky (Alan Arkin) and his favorite diner waitress Ruby (Amanda Seyfried). Also, an addled aunt played by June Squibb is more cute than funny. Narration for the story is by Steve Martin.

Love, The Coopers—I added the comma to indicate that it refers to a Christmas card signature, not a command—is a not unpleasant holiday film. But it’s not as touching as The Family Stone (which also starred Keaton) or It’s A Wonderful Life, not as funny as Christmas Vacation or the Santa Clause movies. I’d put it right around Christmas With The Kranks level in the Christmas movie rankings.

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I’ll See You In My Dreams

As cool as it is to see a 72-year-old woman and a 70-year-old man as the stars of the light romantic comedy I’ll See You In My Dreams, the story is more like one from a romance novel than one from real life.

Don’t get me wrong: ISYIMD is a sweet, fun movie. But much of it does not ring true.

Carol (Blythe Danner, Gwyneth Paltrow’s mom) is a slim, attractive 70-something whose flirtations with a much younger pool boy (Martin Starr) seem to stir her libido. Then, when complete stranger Bill (Sam Elliott) smiles and pays a passing compliment in the grocery store, things begin simmering.

A nudge from her bridge buddies (Rhea Perlman, June Squibb and the wonderful Mary Kay Place) brings her to a senior speed-dating event, which provides chuckles and eye rolls (plus a quick scene with Max Gail of Barney Miller fame). A later chance encounter with smiling Bill leads to a dinner date and fast-moving romance.

Here’s what doesn’t compute. Carol claims that she’s been uninterested in dating, sex, etc. since her husband died twenty years earlier. That’s hard to buy, considering her appearance and comfortable station in life. Likewise, Bill says he, after his wife left him, cashed in his investments, moved to California and bought a boat. Yet he, too, (he claims) has had nothing going romantically for a while.

For some women, Elliott’s squinty gaze, his bushy moustache, his sly smirk of a smile, his very long unlit cigar and that incredible Dodge-truck-selling voice will be enough to incite a fantasy or two. For some men, Danner’s beauty and figure at 70+ will be a turn on. As the pool boy tells her when they first met, “You don’t look that old.”

I’ll See You In My Dreams features Danner delivering a respectable performance of classic torch ballad Cry Me A River at a karaoke bar. The funniest sequence in the movie involves the four bridge buddies inhaling a bit of medical marijuana and heading out to the grocery store for munchies.

A flaw of I’ll See You In My Dreams is it plods along at a casual pace for the first hour or so, then suddenly sets about to resolve things in a hurry. The film clocks in right at 90 minutes.

For moviegoers of a certain age who sit at home and complain that all the new romantic movies are about young people, stop complaining. Go see this movie! Danner and Elliott look great together and the other cast members add just enough spice to make ISYIMD an amusing reason to head to the theatre.

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Nebraska

Nebraska is one of the year’s best movies and Bruce Dern gives one of the year’s best performances. Huge credit goes to screenwriter Bob Nelson and director Alex Payne for their story, their characters and their settings.

If you’ve ever heard or read about Garrison Keillor’s fictional Lake Wobegon, Minnesota, or if you have spent time in a rural plains community, you’ll recognize many of the people and places in Nebraska.

Hawthorne, the town in Nebraska where much of the movie takes place, has both Lutheran and Catholic churches, plenty of bars and large plots of farmland surrounding the town. It’s the hometown of Woody Grant (Dern) and his wife Kate (June Squibb). They live in Billings, Montana now.

The journey to Nebraska begins when Woody gets a letter in the mail naming him the winner of a million dollars. He wants to go to Lincoln, Nebraska to cash it in. Woody’s son David (Will Forte) finally agrees to drive his dad from Billings to Lincoln. After an accident slows them down, they decide to stop in Hawthorne and spend the weekend with Woody’s brother and his family.

Kate and David’s brother Ross (Bob Odenkirk) also head over to Hawthorne and a family reunion of sorts gets underway. Old memories are recalled. Will runs into his former business partner and town blowhard Ed Pegram (Stacy Keach) who stirs up old turmoil. David learns things about his family that he never knew.

A favorite scene is a cemetery visit where tombstones elicit memories of past family members, friends, lovers and enemies. (I lived a version of that scene in my own life in 2009 with a visit to Gully, Minnesota, where my father-in-law and many more of my wife’s relatives are buried.) A visit to the old abandoned homestead brings back memories, some unhappy, for Woody.

Nebraska has several side characters that add spark to the film, especially David’s two cousins who are hilarious. Woody’s brother Ray, incidentally, is played by Rance Howard, father of Ron “Opie” Howard.

Director Alexander Payne shot Nebraska in black and white, which is perfect for showcasing a town that probably looks about the same as it did 50 years ago. He punctuates the film with lingering shots of plains landscapes, which communicate the sense of being in the middle of nowhere.

Dern won the best actor award at the Cannes Film Festival and is a likely candidate for an Oscar nomination. His character appears to be simple, but is revealed to be complex, with demons and resentments that have haunted him for a lifetime. Dern should be ever grateful to Payne and Nelson for handing him such a wonderful role, especially at this point in his life. He’s 77.

84-year-old June Squibb brings spunk to her role as the wife who has endured much during her marriage to Woody. She should also be mentioned in awards conversations.

Nebraska is engaging on many levels, but mainly for capturing true human emotion. I highly recommend you see this film and, if they’re still around, take your parents and grandparents.

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