Movie Reviews: Casi Divas, Post Grad, Shorts

GO  PASSING STRANGE “People say, ‘Why don’t you bring the play to Los Angeles?’ And we say, ‘How about if we don’t?’ ” Those were the words singer-songwriter (and former Negro Problem frontman) Stew had for the Weekly’s Judith Lewis last year, when explaining why his Tony-winning, autobiographical rock musical Passing Strange had yet to be performed in his own hometown — fitting, perhaps, given the strong feeling of ambivalence toward L.A. that courses through the play itself. Now, for those (like this critic) who missed the show during its runs in Berkeley and on Broadway, Spike Lee’s concert-film version — taped during the final two performances at the Belasco Theatre and once more especially for Lee’s army of craning, swooshing cameras — provides a richly satisfying record. To see it, however, you’ll have to order it from the Sundance Institute’s “Sundance Selects” on-demand cable service, since like the stage version, Lee’s film is bypassing local theaters despite opening this week at the IFC Center in New York.

Appearing center stage, flanked by a trio of backing musicians, the regal Stew (né Mark Stewart) serves as narrator and interlocutor for this Proustian journey into the irretrievable past, centered on a restless African-American teen (known only as “Youth” and played superbly by Daniel Breaker) coming of age in South Central in the 1970s. Chafing at the clichés of urban black identity and desperate for “real” experience, Stew’s musically minded alter ego sets sail for Europe, where he gets a crash course in a whole new set of clichés, discovering sex and drugs in Amsterdam and joining a radical collective in Berlin. At every step, the “real” rips through the Youth’s — to say nothing of Rent’s — idealized notions of la vie bohème, and our hero finds himself faced with the conundrum of Sondheim’s Georges Seurat: to make love or art. Nimbly directed by Lee and propelled by a rousing cabaret rock score (by Stew and Heidi Rodewald) that cleanses the palate of contemporary Broadway’s prevailing jukebox drivel, Passing Strange conjures a rare kind of theatrical magic with its emotionally raw, frequently euphoric portrait of the (black) artist as a young man. (Scott Foundas)

David Lee Sundance Selects

Passing Strange

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POST GRAD Post Grad tries to do three things at once — and half-hits the mark on only one. Part of it is wacky Little Miss Sunshine family time, with Carol Burnett in the Alan Arkin part and Michael Keaton as the clueless paterfamilias. Part is sketch comedy, which — given Keaton’s frequently under-used talents, plus Jane Lynch as his wife and a supporting cast stacked so deep that J.K. Simmons can be thrown away on two scenes — is not half-bad. But most of Post Grad is a soggy, Devil Wears Prada–aspiring romance, with Ryden Malby (Alexis Bledel) as a just-graduated girl whose deep lust for literature (she has read The Catcher in the Rye!) is exceeded only by her flawless navigation in heels. When a job in publishing isn’t forthcoming until the second act, Malby leaves the big city and heads back to the homestead to choose between the older Brazilian hottie next door (Rodrigo Santoro) and her devoted, absolutely spineless BFF, Adam (Zach Gilford), who has waited around for years, passive-aggressively declaiming his unrequited love while hoping for better things. Then comes that second act, which features Malby actually getting a magazine job in this economic climate, only to quit it for true love. Yes, she quit a publishing job. In 2009. Vicky Jenson’s live-action debut is as cartoonish as er work on Shrek, and that’s Okay for the comic bits. The rest seems like a remarkably cynical crossbreed — for all demographics but, ultimately, for none. (Citywide) (Vadim Rizov)

SHORTS Austin’s rebel without a crew, Robert Rodriguez works in exactly two filmmaking modes: fast, cheap, genre violence (the El Mariachi trilogy, Sin City, Planet Terror), and fast, cheap, CGI-overloaded family adventure (the Spy Kids trilogy, The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl 3-D). One of the latter, Shorts is a cute and mildly clever fantasy about a nerdy suburban tween named “Toe” (Jimmy Bennett), who finds a rainbow-colored stone with wish-fulfillment powers; with the comic elasticity of a Tex Avery cartoon, the simplistic plot’s limitless possibilities are digitally and unsubtly rendered. (Calling all dung beetles, upright crocodiles, man-sized frankfurters and booger monsters!) Structured episodically but cheekily out of order, the film introduces Toe’s friends, family, schoolyard enemies and broadly eccentric neighbors — including germaphobic scientist William H. Macy and dictatorial CEO James Spader, for whom every parent works to improve a portable gadget that transforms into near-everything — as each comes into perilous contact with the magical rock. Be careful what you wish for, as we learned as adolescents, which is precisely who and only who this rowdy romp is for — though I’d score points for Jon Cryer and Leslie Mann’s slapstick as Toe’s accidentally conjoined folks. (Citywide) (Aaron Hillis)