STN Entertainment

'Joe's Apartment'

'Walking and Talking'

Corrigan), a nerdy video store
clerk who, surprisingly, dumps
her.
omposition Lesson One:
So what's a girl to do? Men
Write about what you know. are swine. The ones you love are
That's just what writer/di- noncommittal. The ones you like
rector Nicole Holofcener's are unavailable. Who hasn't
feature-film debut, Walking and been dumped or felt lonely? Who
Talking, surveys — a slice of life hasn't tried to juggle old friends
taken directly from the pages of and new relationships? Amelia
her own diary. As such, it rings feels like an outsider who can't
much truer to life than, say, connect. "You're so wrapped up
NBC's "Friends," with Los An- in what's happening to you, you
geles actors pretending to in- don't know what's happening to
habit a New York setting. Nope, me," she laments.
Walking and Talking looks like
Laura's obsessiveness threat-
the real thing.
ens to self-destruct her engage-
The New York apartments ment. "You were married at 19;
are cramped, the furniture sec- you don't even know what I'm
ond-hand or trash-picked, and talking about," she chides her
the streets are real — not some baby-faced psychologist.
studio lot. Even the
A folksy-flavored al-
wardrobes — that crum-
terna-soundtrack
M OVIES
pled, permanently un-
(which struggles to be
pressable, layered-cotton
heard) and a score by
look — reflect the not-quite-Park Billy Bragg add authenticity
Avenue incomes of the amiable to the film's urban core. Cine-
cast — four singles approaching matographer Michael Spiller
their wonder years.
has been responsible for 21
This film follows two child- episodes of Nickelodeon's "The
hood friends, Amelia (Catherine Adventures of Pete and Pete,"
Keener) and Laura (Anne but here he reins in his adven-
Heche), through their post-ex- turous camera style to provide
tended adolescence crises — the a serviceable job.
search for "30-something" com-
The acting debut by the di-
mitment. Both women possess rector's father, Lawrence
an urban edge — a gritty natu- Holofcener, is quite charming.
ralness — that suggests not He plays Andrew's father, who
enough sleep and unsettled quickly forgets recent events,
thoughts about jobs, men and though his long-term memory is
relationships.
still sharp.
Laura, who is studying to be-
Overall, the idiosyncratic and
come a therapist, is a "compul- emblematic Walking and Talk-
sive obsessive" according to her ing presents only a passable at-
lackadaisical fiance Frank (Todd tempt to portray the dilemma o
Field). With their marriage ap- f dating in an urban environ-
proaching, Laura wants to con- ment. Perhaps Generation X-
trol everything.
er's will relate to it like the
Maid of honor Amelia Woodstock generation related to
(Catherine Keener) feels like You're a Big Boy Now, Francis
she's about to lose her best girl- Ford Coppola's 1966 UCLA the-
friend. Trying to get over her old sis project.
boyfriend Andrew (Liev
Schreiber), Amelia tries an in-
40t
terim romance, referred to as
"dating down," with Bill (Kevin
—Dick Rockwell

Rated PG-13

Rated PG-13

C

A lot of things bug Jerry O'Connell in Geffen Pictures' MN production of Joe's Apartment.

I

f you want to slum it, stop
over Joe's Apartment. It's in-
habited by 50,000 and one
filthy occupants.
The new tenant, Joe (Jerry
/--
O'Connell, Sliders), right off the
bus from Iowa, is happy to have
found a home. It's the last rent-
controlled tenement in the city
and sits forlornly on a single city
block.
A sycophantic senator (Robert
Vaughn) wants to turn the prop-
\_--) erty into a Manhattan prison.
That means Joe's apartment
building must go. But wait, Joe
is as happy as a pig in slop.
No, make that, Joe is a pig in
slop.
Now, here's where the in-
credulous part comes in. Sur-
prisingly, Joe has tiny little
allies who want to stay in their
home just as much as he does.
Joe's apartment is bugged. No,

Dick Rockwell is a video

producer I instructor for the
Royal Oak Schools. He has
taught filmmaking and film
study at OCC and teaches
video production at DAFT's
summer program at
Cranbrook.

not under surveillance. Bugged only applying the first rule of
by swarms dicky cockroaches. comedy: It's comedy if someone
And thanks to some nifty spe- else falls down the stairs; it's
cial effects, this colossal colony tragedy if you do.
Grinning sheepishly, Jerry
of cockroaches can talk, sing and
dance. Now, this fantastical idea O'Connell resembles a slightly
might have worked in an MTV younger Dennis Quaid. His act-
short film, but it soon wears ing chores involved working
thin. That's why Kafka's "The with real roaches — and in-
Metamorphosis" was just a cluded putting them in his
mouth. What a trouper.
short story and not a
And co-star Lily (Megan
novel. Insects, with the
Mums
Ward), playing the sena-
possible exception of
tor's ecologically sensitive
the ingenious ones in
The Hellstrom Chronicle, are daughter, allowed a lampshade
only interesting for a short time, full of the varmint to be dumped
and then you exterminate them. on her. A heck of a way to cover
I've got to give the set de- up cleavage. If any of this
signer, special effects crew and sounds funny, try to imagine it
the roach wrangler credit. The in context. It's surely not for en-
gloomy lighting, squalid decor tomophobiacs.
Joe's Apartment is offbeat and
and rust-marred bathroom ac-
couterments will never make weird. Add to that, a strange
Better Homes and Gardens. But cast assemblage which includes
they do look properly appalling Hawaiian singing star Don Ho
"Tiny Bubbles" (as Joe's conniv-
in Joe's Apartment.
Some of the hyperbolic slap- ing slumlord) and rapster San-
stick is cruelly funny, as when dra Denton (a.k.a. Pepa) as
the apartment's previous ten- Lily's co-worker.
Joe's Apartment: Enter at
ant, a stout elderly woman, tum-
bles down several flights of your own risk.
stairs, gets up a bit shaken, only
) . 63
to collapse due to another ail-
ment. Director John Payson is
— Dick Rockwell

Bagel Barometer

'ck) - .®
'Ock)Z*-

'c

Outstanding

,,

Very Good

c__,

Good

Fair

03