Review: Dean Spanley, Big Stan, Zack and Miri Make a Porno and Welcome to the Sticks

My favour­ite post-Oscars quote came from David Thomson in The Guardian: “When the Slumdog mob – Europeans and Indians, adults and kids – took the stage to claim the best pic­ture Oscar, a land­mark was being estab­lished which dir­ectly reflects America’s reduced place in the world.” And as if to illus­trate that very point, this week Hollywood have offered us a piteous pris­on com­edy called Big Stan and Zack and Miri Make a Porno. It’s like they aren’t even try­ing anymore.

Big Stan is the debut fea­ture by com­ic act­or Rob Schneider, best-known for a pair of ghastly adult com­ed­ies fea­tur­ing his hap­less male pros­ti­tute alter-ego Deuce Bigelow. Schneider amaz­ingly main­tains a sol­id career (largely via the pat­ron­age of his great friend Adam Sandler) but there’s no sat­is­fact­ory explan­a­tion for how he was let loose with a cam­era except that Hollywood is genu­inely out of ideas.

Schneider plays a real estate con man who is con­victed and sen­tenced to jail. Terrified at the pro­spect of immin­ent anal rape he enlists a mar­tial arts mas­ter (David Carradine) to make him, er, impreg­nable. Like being punched in the swing­ers by an angry dwarf for 90 minutes.

Zack and Miri Make a Porno is exactly what it says on the tin – room­mates and best friends since High School, Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks need money fast and decide to enter the porn busi­ness. Living in freez­ing, sub­urb­an Pennsylvania is barely an obstacle, nor is their lack of exper­i­ence. What does get in the way (and you can see this com­ing a mile-off so it’s hardly a spoil­er) are their own sup­pressed feel­ings for each oth­er. Kevin Smith is an enthu­si­ast for great films – he just doesn’t make them any more (if he ever did).

Dean Spanley is a delight­ful, semi-local, sur­prise dir­ec­ted by No. 2’s Toa Fraser and star­ring Sam Neill, Bryan Brown and Peter O’Toole. Once a week Fisk Jr (Jeremy Northam) duti­fully vis­its his iras­cible old fath­er (O’Toole). On an out­ing to hear an Indian swami talk about rein­carn­a­tion they meet Dean Spanley (Neill) who, when suit­ably lub­ric­ated, reveals his own exper­i­ences with rein­carn­a­tion (or his own men­tal befuddle­ment depend­ing on your point of view).

Utterly charm­ing, mov­ing and sweet, Dean Spanley is a very safe bet for a night out. Fraser is a dir­ect­or with a sure touch and O’Toole is noth­ing less than a magi­cian – I can’t think of a bet­ter word for the spell he casts in this film.

Welcome to the Sticks is the biggest film ever to hit France, and an American remake is under­stand­ably on the way, but des­pite it’s easy-going drollery it is the same film they’ve been mak­ing in France for years: urb­an soph­ist­ic­ate gets les­sons in liv­ing from down-to-earth ‘real’ people (taxi drivers, garden­ers or car valets and in this case post­men). Kad Merad is a Post Office man­ager under pres­sure from his wife to get a pro­mo­tion to some­where glam­or­ous – the Riviera per­haps. Instead he is trans­ferred to unfash­ion­able Bergues in the far north where his fears of a cul­tur­al and cli­mat­ic no man’s land don’t quite come true.

The film relies very hard on its tried and true fish-out-of-water schtick but the bois­ter­ous camarader­ie between the char­ac­ters means it eas­ily wins you over in the end.

Printed in Wellington’s Capital Times on Wednesday 4 March, 2009.

Notes on screen­ing con­di­tions: Big Stan and Zack and Miri were at Readings dur­ing sparsely atten­ded pub­lic ses­sions. Dean Spanley was also at Readings, this time a Glengarry’s pre­view. Welcome to the Sticks has been out a couple of weeks but I’ve only just got to it – a raucus Sunday after­noon ses­sion at the Lighthouse in Petone. They loved it.