Put on your cruel shoes, big hat and stuff your cocktail money into your designer bag.

It was clear from the loud screams during the opening credits that this was going to be a crowd pleaser. You got your four gals, their love interests, gay pals, and new for this film, the obligatory black side-kick girl friend. Jennifer Hudson, you rock girl.

Two and a half hours didn’t exactly fly by, rather it felt like blitzing an entire season on a great big screen.

Highlights: Fully exposed male member,hot simulated sex, fashion, weddings, girl bonding, lots and lots of shoes, & Big’s real name and email address John@jjpny.com.

Favorite Quotes: “40 is the last year a woman can be photographed in a bridal dress without the unintended Diane Arbus reference”.

“Why is it that we are willing to write our own vows, but not our own rules.”

Personally i have a hard time with the well worn plot twists based on a misunderstanding. I spent a good 80% of the film with an anxious pit in my stomach wondering when the other shoe was going to drop. Oh why doesn’t she just check her voice mail messages and see that her man was just working through his own issues. Ultimately these misunderstandings served as life lessons for our gals as they struggled with their relationship issues. Samantha ponders the loss of her identity as part of a “we”. Miranda and Carrie turn their lives upside down before they come around to seeing their love interest’s point of view. Growing up means realizing it’s not all about you anymore. Unless of course that’s the kind of life you choose. Without revealing the ending I will state that there were smiles all over the lobby, but by the time I got to the parking lot below I found myself front and center of a huge verbal girl fight over blocking the exit lane. Perhaps all those 20 something audience members were in a sublimated funk pondering the concept of becoming a 40 something single.

Keeping in mind the travel theme of Tango Diva postings, I chose the film “The Visitor” to review.

Even though the entire film takes place in and around NYC, a major subtext is how lucky we are to have the freedom to travel. If you are a US citizen you can also experience the guilt and shame of our rigid post-911 immigration policies.

Didn’t mean to get all heavy on you in the first paragraph. I swear this is a highly entertaining film. If you missed Thomas McCarthy’s earlier amazing film “Station Agent”, add that to your NetFlix rotation and go to a real live theater to support “The Visitor”.

This is one of those stories that stay with you. Love that.

On the surface, “The Visitor” is a rumination on loneliness. A middle-aged professor from Connecticut is followed sleep walking through his life after the death of his wife. He pretends to be working on his book and studying the piano, neither of which he has any passion for.

He makes a long delayed visit to his NYC apartment to deliver a speech he pretended to have co-written. Our professor puts his key in the lock, heads down the hall, opens the bathroom door and surprises a terrified Sudanese woman taking a bath.

Here’s where the plot takes a 180. A Syrian musician and his jewelry making girlfriend thought they were renting this apartment from someone named Ivan. Turns out they were scammed and now have nowhere to turn.

In a never seen before burst of compassion the professor offers to share housing with this young couple. They couldn’t be more different in temperament or culture. Seems they are just what the doctor ordered for our uptight white man. His world comes alive as he gets increasingly more involved in their lives. When the musician gets arrested in the subway for jumping the turnstile even though he actually paid, our protagonist exudes righteous indignation and assumes everything will be straightened out in no time.

Instead, things get worse when it is revealed the musician is in the country illegally.

In walks the professor’s mother, having flown in from Michigan because she hasn’t heard from her boy in five days.

I don’t want to reveal any more, only want to applaud the filmmaker for giving us a picture of how the world changes when we discover the humanity in one another and act upon it. You may not join the Peace Corps but you will think twice the next time you get in a cab with your third-world driver.

 Film Review: Lars and the Real Girl

Most of the films out right now are two plus hours long and
full of enough psychological drama to keep you sleeping with the night light on.

Here’s something completely different. 106 minutes of weird, wrapped in poignant, and tied up with an amusing bow. 

For starters, it’s about a socially awkward young man who lives in the garage behind his older brother Gus’s (Paul Schneider)  house in a generic mid-west sort of small town. Lars, played by Ryan Gosling, is a loner at work and a recipient of pity by Gus and  his wife. One day at work, Lars observes his cube mate surfing porn and discovers the wonderful world of anatomically correct life size dolls. By the time the large shipping box  appears on his doorstep he has convinced himself that the plastic vixen inside is actually his internet girlfriend, in town to spend some quality time with him. The film could easily have devolved into  some bad SNL skit, but happily it reveals itself to be a surprisingly entertaining study on people’s need for intimacy and the nature of acceptance.  

If you hang in there and have any affection for the midwest you will grow to love this film.  

You have got to love a town full of people who don’t just humor Lars, rather join in on his delusion. After all, she’s new in town and doesn’t know anyone. Having grown up in the land of tuna casseroles and jello molds I found myself completely invested in the plot. Lars & Bianca have a chaste relationship, no frat house jokes here. There are a lot of laughs thanks to the absurd nature of fitting the visiting plastic girl into the local social scene. Bianca ultimately becomes a vehicle for Lars to work out his issues with his brother and with the town’s help, ultimately heal himself. LARS AND THE REAL GIRL is indy-style entertainment.

You can get the creeps next week with "No Country for Old Men" or "Before the Devil Knows your Dead."