L'Avventura, La Notte, L'Eclisse, and Dan In Real Life

A few months ago I reactivated my Netflix again, and since then I've been watching entirely too many movies. Here are thoughts on a few recent ones.

About 6-7 years ago I saw L'Avventura, written and directed by the late Michelangelo Antonioni. I thought it was great, but for some reason I never got around to seeing the second and third movies in the trilogy, La Notte and L'Eclisse. Well, with the aforementioned Netflix account I could finally see them, and so when they got close to the top of my queue, I decided to rewatch L'Avventura to freshen my memory. For some reason I didn't think it was as good as I remember thinking it was. Maybe knowing the resolution (or lack thereof) took a bit of its luster away or maybe my tastes have simply changed since I first saw it.

Then La Notte arrived, and it was as good as I had remembered L'Avventura being, which is to say it was great. While L'Avventura and L'Eclisse have both been released as exquisite DVDs from the Criterion Collection, La Notte has only been released in Region 1 by Fox Lorber, so the DVD was pretty crummy, but as I said, the movie was great.

Based on this I had high hopes for L'Eclisse, but it turned out to be something of a disappointment. The stock exchange scenes with Alain Delon were probably the most exciting scenes of the trilogy, but the malaise that worked so well in the first two movies was just exasperating here. Monica Vitti, the female lead of the first and third movies, and the secondary lead in the middle movie, was great throughout. After finishing the third movie I looked her up on IMDB to see what else she's been in, and was saddened to read she has Alzheimer's.

On a significantly lighter note than Antonioni's alienation trilogy is the movie I got & watched today, Dan In Real Life. I had modest expectations for it, since from the previews the story was pretty straightforward. While obviously not in the same league as Antonioni's trilogy, this movie was a lot better than I was expecting, definitely one of the best movies from its genre I've seen in awhile. There were a lot of funny moments that weren't obvious from a mile away, and Steve Carell's performance was great -- probably the best I've seen from him so far. The chemistry between him and Juliette Binoche was surprisingly good, and I thought the story of their quick developing romance was very realistic. The real surprise of the movie though was all the awkward moments. The quantity and intensity of the awkwardness rivaled at times the second season of the original British version of The Office. Which is to say, it was great! Ever since watching that second season I've gotten into the bad habit of pausing it just as it starts to get really awkward, going and doing something else for a bit, and then coming back to the movie when I'm more ready for it. I must have done that at least 5 times during the movie.

Dan In Real Life seems to me like a really well done version of a movie from a few years ago that I had high expectations for, but ended up being pretty bad: Jersey Girl. The two movies have very similar plots, and both even feature the same song at key points, Pete Townshend's "Let My Love Open The Door." But that's where the similarities end, since in terms of the acting & chemistry of the leads, the comedy, the awkwardness, and believability, Dan In Real Life was much, much better. In fact, I would say that Dan In Real Life surpassed the high expectations I had for Jersey Girl, and Jersey Girl was below my modest expectations for Dan In Real Life. This is very similar to my opinion of the similar movies I ♥ Huckabees and Stranger Than Fiction. I had very high expectations for I ♥ Huckabees and was disappointed, and had modest expectations for Stranger Than Fiction, and that ended up being one of my favorite movies of 2006.

The Daily Show starts in 3 minutes so I will end this now.