Thursday, September 25, 2008

So Slight, Why Am I Even Writing About It?

10 Items Or Less is so unassuming it barely exists. But it does have a few things going for it.

It's got an offbeat performance from Morgan Freeman, playing a livelier, more naive version of himself. He's an actor named Morgan doing a little research at a grocery store for a part he might play in a small indie film--he follows one female cashier around the whole day and that's pretty much it. It's also got a role for Paz Vega as the grocery clerk. I don't know if she has a future in English-language movies, but, as we've seen from Spanglish, she can survive even disasters.

There are also some interesting cameos. Right off the bat you've got Jonah Hill. While he's become a star of sorts, he's shown in films like I Heart Huckabees, The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Rocket Science that he livens things up in small parts. Then there's Ann Dudek as the ill-tempered, slutty checkout girl who's sleeping with the boss. It's fascinating to see her playing such a different type from her recurring roles on House and Mad Men. Then there's Jim Parsons as a receptionist. He's the best thing on The Big Bang Theory, but I don't recall ever seeing him anywhere else.

One more thing. I watched much of the film with the closed captioning on, and boy did they screw up a lot of words. For instance, late in the film, Morgan Freeman spots Danny DeVito and calls him "Big D" (it's even in the credits). On CC, it reads "Big Knee."

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

You forgot to mention the movie is a total yawner. If you actually watched it beginning to end there must have been absolutely nothing else to do. Or, maybe it was the spine-tingling anticipation that surely something was going to happen before the final credits let you confirm the cameos?

7:25 AM, September 25, 2008  

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