by ultradamno » Tue May 09, 2006 12:13 am
Just came from seeing [i]Don't Come Knocking[/i] and enjoyed it very much. It's not, ummm...[i]knocking[/i] any of my choices for this thread down a peg (a little tightening and a more development of Howard's character and it would have, though), but enjoyable.
I've seen more negative, some downright hostile, responses to Ru's performance in this than in any movie since [i]Return to Oz[/i] and I'm at a loss to account for it. Where many have painted her character as an annoying harpy (how anyone could take it so seriously as they evidently did is beyond me), I thought she was hilarious. I remember personally feeling she showed a lack of comfort in physical and generally silly comedy in [i]Life in the Fast Lane/There's No Fish Food in Heaven[/i] (though that project's general lack of focus might have been a major contributor to that impression in retrospect), here I thought she was hitting every note just right. In fact, and maybe it was just the red hair, but at a couple of points she was reminding me more of Vicki Lewis' Beth on "Newsradio" (esp. in the alley and being shoved around by Mann-this plays more comedically than it sounds-on the street), than any kind of shrew or "weird" (a adjective I've seen a couple of times).
Roth and Polley, both working the more deadpan angle, were also standouts.