Hey everyone. Capone in Chicago here. I've got a couple of reviews for you of my two favorite wide releases this week--one for each of your moods (because I'm assuming you only have two).

SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK
Whatever you do, do not let someone (including me) try to explain the plot of writer-director Charlie Kaufman's film starring Philip Seymour Hoffman. First off, it's impossible to do. Second, the film is also totally devalued the minute you attempt to explain or analyze it to someone who hasn't seen it. Kaufman has written some of the most original works in the last 10 years, including BEING JOHN MALKOVICH, CONFESSION OF A DANGEROUS MIND, ADAPTATION, and ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND. In my book, the man is a certifiable genius when it comes to his writing. SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK is also written by Kaufman, who attempts his most ambitious work yet about theater director Caden (Hoffman), who is married to a woman (Catherine Keener) who despises him and has a daughter who barely knows him. Caden wins a major theater grant that gives him license to perform any show over any period of time for as long as he likes without fear of not being fully financed at all times. With his life falling apart before him, Caden decides to cast actors to play characters in his life, including an actor to play him. He recreates moments from his miserable life in the hopes of finding some greater purpose to his existence. As the days, weeks, months and years (yes, the timeline of the film goes across decades of Caden's life) pass, each new person he meets on the street or in his apartment building goes right into his work. There is no actual performance of these mini-plays. Instead, he ends up a building a replica of the buildings he goes into on a daily basis. As the actors he's using begin to form bonds and have love affairs, those relationships, too, must be represented in the ongoing, never-actually-put-on play.

You see what I mean about the plot being impossible to explain? And as much time as it took me to get used to the rhythms of Kaufman's film, it's not a struggle or pain to keep up with what's going on in the film. SYNECDOCHE doesn't feel like a gimmick either, which I thought it would. The almost too good to be true cast of mostly women (including Samantha Morton , Michelle Williams, Emily Watson, Dianne Wiest, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Hope Davis) breathe so much beautiful life into the proceedings that it's easy to get lost in the warmth the film does manage to deliver despite its dreary lead performance from Hoffman, who has never been more stark-raving miserable. As the film enters its final act, it becomes less about the specific incidents in Caden's life and more about embracing the ordinary things that happen to us in our day-to-day existence. For most of us, real life is mundane with punctuations of excitement. Movies and plays are the opposite. Charlie Kauffman is attempting, through his character, to capture the ordinary and make it seem less so. Synecdoche is like nothing you've ever seen before, while trying very hard to display things you see everyday. Some may have issues with the movie's final moments, but I cherish them, especially when Dianne Wiest enters the story. This film is a gamble, both on Kaufman's part and yours. Take the chance, and check out one of the most unnerving and comforting films you'll see all year. I can't explain it any better than that. And don't let anyone else try to talk to you about it before you see it.

ROLE MODELS
Sometimes it is possible to take a formula film, with a predictable ending and all, and make it something special and exceedingly funny thanks in large part to an absolutely dead-on cast. ROLE MODELS is a collection of some of the funniest people working today, both known and relatively unknown, doing dumb shit and doing it oh so well. Master ad-libber Paul Rudd plays Danny, an energy drink salesman who goes from school to school with Wheeler (Seann William Scott), who dresses in a Minotaur costume selling a product called Minotaur (how do they come up with this stuff!?). The men are arrested and sentenced to community service, serving as big brothers to two trouble kids played by Christopher Mintz-Plasse and Bobb'e J. Thompson. The program is part of Sturdy Wings, run by an ex-con director played by the goddess Jane Lynch (BEST IN SHOW, THE 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN), who is determined to turn this reckless energy into something constructive for these two kids.

What Rudd (credited as a co-writer of the film, along with Ken Marino, Timothy Dowling and director David Wain) managed to pull off is some truly funny comedy. Wain and Marino were part of the vastly talented group of folks who did "The State" on MTV about 100 years ago, but they continue to produce quality funny films, such as WET HOT AMERICAN SUMMER and last year's THE TEN. I'll admit, I kept waiting for the film to falter or get unbearably boring, but it never really does. The concluding battle set among live-action role playing (LARP) cast members goes on a bit too long and isn't that satisfying, but based on the two times I've seen the film, the sequence is a solid crowd pleaser. Throw in the lovely and unbelievably busy Elizabeth Banks as Rudd's on-again/off-again attorney girlfriend, and you've got a damn fine movie that isn't going to win any awards for originality but still remains one of the funniest things out there right now. Rudd is just funny whenever he opens his mouth, and Scott (AMERICAN PIE) has become of the most reliable comic actors working today. He's not simply doing a variation of his Stifler riff. This is a far more measured performance than we're used to from him, and he pulls it off like an expert. Between this film and THE PROMOTION early this year, Scott continues to surprise me with how much of his untapped comedy resources we have yet to explore. The film goes for the cheap laughs nearly as often as tries out things that are truly new. ROLE MODELS won't teach you be a better parent, camp counselor, or how to LARP, but it does seem determined to make you laugh a lot. It's hard to believe there's someone out there who wouldn't get a kick out of this baby.

-- Capone
capone@aintitcoolmail.com