Now Over 5500 Reviews and (near) Daily Updates!

WELCOME! Use the search engines on this site (or your own off-site engine of choice) to gain easy access to the complete MAKSQUIBS Archive; more than 5500 posts and counting. (New posts added every day or so.)

You can check on all our titles by typing the Title, Director, Actor or 'Keyword' you're looking for in the Search Engine of your choice (include the phrase MAKSQUIBS) or just use the BLOGSPOT.com Search Box at the top left corner of the page.

Feel free to place comments directly on any of the film posts and to test your film knowledge with the CONTESTS scattered here & there. (Hey! No Googling allowed. They're pretty easy.)

Send E-mails to MAKSQUIBS@yahoo.com . (Let us know if the TRANSLATE WIDGET works!) Or use the Profile Page or Comments link for contact.

Thanks for stopping by.

Monday, May 19, 2008

GARDEN STATE (2004)

Desperate to please Prodigal Son/Find-Your-Bliss dramedy can’t sustain a tone as its sit-com gags & visual black-outs collide with sentimental friendship reunions when an under-employed L.A. actor goes home for his mother’s funeral. Writer/director/ lead Zach Braff tries to hit THE GRADUATE tropes (its Dustin Hoffman meets Ray Romano with groovy music interludes), but there’s no dramatic energy left in this set up. As the free-spirited kook he falls in love with, Natalie Portman would be a lot more adorable if she didn’t work so hard at it. And while Ian Holm earns points for a respectable American accent as the chilly dad, he comes to grief with a final unplayable touchy-feely scene; pure showboating from Braff as writer. The guy to watch turns out to be slacker pal, Peter Sarsgaard, effortlessly acting everyone else off the screen. The film’s one insight may well have been unintentional: reversing the old template of uptight WASP jolted by encounters with earthy Jews, Greeks, Blacks, whatever. Now, it’s the assimilated Jews who need to warm up.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Instead, check out THE STATION AGENT to see this sort of thing done with some style & honest feelings.

No comments: