Honesty, obsessiveness marks ‘Me and You’

PEGGY J. ROGERS

Can two people fall in love over a pair of pink shoes? People connect

with each other doing just about anything, and that’s the underlying

theme in the art-house comedy “Me and You and Everyone We Know.”

This is the first film by performance artist Miranda July, who

wrote, directed and stars in the movie. July’s characters feel so

detached from their world that they’re driven by blind desperation to

feel a connection with other people. They yearn for emotional

intimacy but have a hard time finding it.

The humor results when people are forced to deal with the

consequences of their behavior. Reality has a nasty way of creeping

into everyone’s personal fantasies.

July’s character, Christine, is a budding performance artist who

meets Richard (John Hawkes), a charming and vulnerable shoe salesman.

Richard is separated from his wife and has two sons. He’s waiting for

something magical to happen in his life.

Christine’s odd personality and aggressive approach confuses

Richard, making him feel both attracted to and threatened by her.

As Christine and Richard try to decipher the mixed messages they

send each other, Richard’s two sons, Robby (Brandon Ratcliff) and

Peter (Miles Thompson), are learning about life on their own. The two

boys are adjusting to the separation of their parents to moving into

an apartment with their dad.

Seven-year-old Robby occupies his time by chatting on the Internet

with a woman who thinks he’s a grown adult and is reaching out to him

for a sexual relationship. This would be disturbing if the woman

actually knew Robby was a child, or if Robby actually had a clue what

she was saying really meant. Instead, it’s just kind of a reminder

about limitations of Internet messenger chats.

His older brother Peter is taunted by neighborhood girls Heather

(Natasha Slayton) and Rebecca (Najarra Townsend). The two girls

aren’t quite 18, but are curious about what Richard’s co-worker

Andrew (Brad Henke) would say to them if they were. They begin using

Peter as a guinea pig for their sexual experimentation. Slayton is so

obnoxious that she’s one of the highlights of the movie.

When “Me and You and Everyone We Know” is at its best, the story

is so honest that you feel embarrassed for the characters. This is

one of those quirky slice-of-life movies, full of people who talk and

act like people you know. It acts as a confessional for events that

must have really happened at some point in July’s life.July’s

obsessions with both adolescent sexuality and vivid color could have

easily given this movie the title “Pink Freud.” Her art direction is

beautiful. There are a few moments when characters talk like people

in an art house movie, but for the most part the characters behave

and speak in ways that ring true.

It’s refreshing to see a filmmaker willing to take risks with both

characters and subject matter, and this is a great first movie. “Me

and You and Everyone We Know” has been winning audience awards at

festivals all year long, and it’s easy to see why.

* JIM ERWIN, 40, is a technical writer and computer trainer.

‘War’ a blockbuster of negative messages

Movies are a perfect vehicle for telling stories. The moving

pictures reach the human eye at the speed of light while sound

travels at a rate of five mph to our ears. The popularity of silent

movies before sound was added illustrates the attraction of moving

pictures.

Steven Spielberg’s “War of the Worlds” is a visually driven action

film that plays like a silent movie: You can follow the story with

the sound turned off.

The action, and not the words, tells the story. This remake of a

1950s science fiction movie is an undiluted chase film, a scary twist

to a kids’ game of hide and seek. Once the aliens land on the East

Coast, they seek out and kill every man, woman and child.

Only a handful of humans are able to outrun the UFO invaders after

the aliens’ surprise first strike. Unable to put much physical

distance between themselves and the attackers, people soon stop

running and start hiding in hopes of surviving another day.

Spielberg is a master of chase and pursuit movies, playing against

the audience’s expectations. Unlike cop stories that generally

feature the good guys chasing the bad guys, the director flips the

equation over by having the hero being chased, such as in the movies

“Jaws,” “Jurassic Park” and “Minority Report.”

“War of the Worlds,” however, is most similar to one of

Spielberg’s earliest works about a motorist unable to escape being

terrorized by a crazed truck driver. The made-for-TV movie “Duel” and

“War of the Worlds” both put their main focus on the chase. It gives

just a trickle of information about the characters outside of their

reaction to being relentlessly pursued.

One family in particular is blessed with incredible luck at

ducking and dodging the tireless aliens -- Ray (Tom Cruise), daughter

Rachel (Dakota Fanning of “Man on Fire”) and son Robbie.

As a deadbeat dad, Ray’s antagonistic attitude toward his ex-wife,

his children and their new stepfather appears to be the reason why

the wife split. If words were bullets, Ray’s snide and cutting

remarks to his pregnant ex would be as deadly as a blast from the

alien death machines.

The surprise attack by the aliens comes as a welcome relief in the

first act after watching Ray spew verbal abuse upon his teenage son

and tell his little girl in so many words to leave him alone. Ray is

friendlier toward his neighbors until the aliens emerge from their

hiding place and start to exterminate the human race. As the ugly

aliens turn on the humans, the humans turn on each other, stealing

from one another, refusing to lend a hand and, if need be, killing

each other.

When Ray and his family do align with neighbors and strangers

while on the run, the situations turn out badly. Helping others is no

help and more often proves a hindrance. The underlying message of the

sci-fi flick is “every man for himself.”

“War of the Worlds” puts an ugly twist to the saying, “United we

stand ... “ turning them into “Divided we stand, united we fall.”

Showing a negative human viewpoint is neither good nor bad, so

long as the portrayal is played out to the finish. Whether Ray

changes or is affected by the events when the story ends is as

uncertain as understanding why the story ends without a clear

explanation. There are a lot of unanswered questions about both the

characters and action when the film ends.

For being the big movie of the year, given its release on the

second busiest weekend of the year, “War of the Worlds” lacks the

thrills of recent Fourth of July blockbusters like “Independence Day”

or “Men in Black.”

“War of the Worlds” is worth watching, even if just to watch Tom

Cruise run for his life, but on DVD.

* PEGGY J. ROGERS, 40, produces videos and documentaries.