It’s kind of interesting watching a film try to do an autopsy on itself while the body’s still moving. That’s what you get with “Someone Like You” (2001), a rom-com starring Hugh Jackman, Ashley Judd and a strong supporting cast (including Marisa Tomei as the wacky BFF). Judd, perennially jilted, decides to take a scientific approach, deconstructing men’s romantic misbehavior (they’re cows with a hard-wired aversion to monogamy). Pre-Google mistaken identity hijinks ensue. Meanwhile, we’re all sitting there knowing she’s going to hook up with frenemy Jackman in the end (don’t act like I spoiled it – you knew it, too).
Archives for posts with tag: Marisa Tomei
Normally, I struggle to empathize with trashy characters flailing their way through life. Normally, when a film clocks in at two-plus hours, I struggle to understand why it wasn’t 30 minutes shorter. “The King of Staten Island” (2020) is not normal. Pete Davidson’s self-deprecating vanity project benefits greatly from Judd Apatow’s direction and co-writing. You can see his handiwork all over the witty, working-class NYC repartee. And the last half hour feels more like a welcome reward instead of a trudge to the finish, as our twentysomething hero gamely wrestles with the inertia that comes from a lifetime of mourning.
In most movies about dumbasses, the dumbass has an epiphany that makes them stop being such a dumbass. Not in “The Wrestler” (2008), which is about a dumbass wrestler. It’s more like real life: dumbasses pretty much stay dumbasses forever, doing the same dumbass stuff over and over, with occasional forays into virgin dumbass territory. I liked it. Speaking of virgins, Marisa Tomei is very naked in this movie, belatedly answering prayers of now-middle-aged men who wanted to see her naked when she was doing chick flicks like “Untamed Heart.” Not mentioning anyone in particular. He’s probably just a dumbass.
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