Netflixorama

A tragic television hardware malfunction has rendered us without cable. I feel like I've gone to live in a cave. A cave without reality t.v. However, in every tragedy, there is opportunity and I have been able to catch up on my films.

1) Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus
Nicole Kidman plays the famous fringeophile photographer, known for her portraits of freaks, nudists and carnies. And she plays Arbus well, a woman stunted by her wealthy Jewish upbringing and her traditional marriage to fashion photographer Allan Arbus. Into the Arbus apartment building moves Robert Downey Jr. dressed as Chewbacca (well, not literally but his character suffers from an incurable hirsuteness disease). Over the course of the film, Arbus' love affair with the thoughtful freak destroys her marriage and awakens her creative vision.

It's a fine premise anchored by a strong performance by Kidman but I couldn't help but feel that the love story was forced. Robert Downey Jr.'s become one of the dullest actors around, constantly mugging and smirking as if his dream job was the lead detective on the next CSI spinoff. The lovable furball and Diane's love for his freakish humanity overwhelms the plot and Arbus' peculiar vision as a photographer, hinted at early in the film, gets lost. In addition, the softpedaling of the personal consequences of Arbus leaving her husband and two daughters seemed a poor screenwriting choice, especially when Arbus' deteriorating mental health caused her commit suicide at age 48. Still, the film is a competent take on Arbus' artistic coming-of-age.

Grade: B-

2) The Aristocrats
As a lover of comedy, I really looked forward to seeing 100 comics telling the same joke 100 different ways. But the concept sounds better than the execution. If anything, The Aristocrats kills a 60-year joke in 90 minutes. Out of the 100 tellings of the Aristocrats, 90 sounded more or less the same with a slightly different bent on feces, incest, and bestiality. For their versions, I'd give Sarah Silverman an A+, Taylor Negron an A-, Jason Alexander, a B and Howie Mandel a B-, and anyone who dared to actually reverse the punchline an A. Other than that, many of my favorite comedians disappointed.

Grade: C

3) Kramer v. Kramer
Back in 1979, when advertising was hot and even the yuppies looked like 80s hippies and divorce and custody battles meant drame, Kramer v. Kramer swept the Oscars. Fast-forward 30 years and the film doesn't age so well. Ad agency salaries are $30,000 a year. After Meryl Streep abandons her husband Dustin Hoffman and their son, Hoffman and the other single parent in their apartment building cling to each other like single parenting is post-apocalyptic. Now it's matter-of-fact. Still, Kramer v. Kramer's relentless earnestness works and it's nice to see two legends in their prime with Streep looking like Kate Winslet and Hoffman looking a spastic cross between Michael J. Fox in The Secret of My Success and Tom Cruise chopped off at the waist.

1979 Grade: A, 2006 Grade: B

4) The Door in the Floor
Based on the John Irving story "A Widow for One Year," The Door in the Floor stars Jeff Bridges and Kim Basinger as two married getting over the loss of their twin boys in a traffic accident. Bridges plays Ted Cole, a successful children's book author, who has moved on (sketching nudes with bored local housewives until they'll sleep with him) but his wife, Basinger has not (catatonic throughout). Bridges hires an assistant, who happens to look like their boys, and soon Basinger and the college kid are porking and drama ensues. It's Bridges' performance that makes this film work, giving his character a swaggering, often comic narcissism that's imbued with enough compassion and vulnerability to make you care. Everyone else around him is gray in comparison, especially Basinger, who you'd think has been around the industry long enough to turn in at least one or two non-wooden performances on accident.

Jeff Bridges Grade: A-, Kim Basinger Grade; D, Overall Grade: B+