my life in ruins英文影评

my life in ruins英文影评
非常急.- -最好在明天上午给我.大家帮忙吧.我贡献出我所有的财富.- -40.?虽然有点少.将就点阿.阿,不能给40?- -那就30吧.

Throughout My Life in Ruins, a couple of characters are frequently reminded that they are not as funny as they think they are. Unfortunately, this also applies to the movie itself. It wants to be a bubbly and occasionally zany comedy with a touch of romance surrounded by gorgeous Greek scenery ... but it often feels flat and forced, and even the landscapes seemed blah. It's being touted as a follow-up to My Big Fat Greek Wedding, with the same lead actress (Nia Vardalos), but it doesn't have the pleasing blend of comedy and family sentiment that made its predecessor a success.
The movie is about a five-day tour of legendary ruins in Greece (thus the title). Georgia (Vardalos), a former history instructor whose stopgap job as a tour guide has extended for years. She hates her job, fusses because she's being assigned "second-class" tourists, and finds fault with everything in Greece that isn't at least 2,000 years old. Various Greeks -- her boss, her bus driver -- tell her that she has lost her kefi, a Greek word meaning joie de vivre or mojo or the ability to not annoy the audience. She just needs to relax and get laid and stop worrying her pretty head about things.
The Greek chorus of "you're too uptight" is joined by widower tourist Irv (Richard Dreyfuss), one of the many cliched tourist stereotypes traveling through Greece with Georgia as guide. She also has to deal with incomprehensible Australians, dorky Americans, sexy Spanish divorcees, a dysfunctional British family, and a cute little old lady who steals stuff -- not to mention the sleazy competing tour guide who has decided to torture her into quitting.
I waited for Georgia to stop putting up with these pests and start taking charge, preferably with charges of dynamite, but instead I had listen to her whine about how everyone wants to go to the beach and eat ice cream instead of listening to her lecturing about ancient Greek history. The character's continual plastered-on smile makes you wonder if she's running for Vice President. On the other hand, it's refreshing to see a female character go after men who are younger than she is with no comment, much less repercussion.
Irv comes across as one of those magical wise characters that dispenses homespun wisdom, the white Midwestern version of Morgan Freeman, I suppose. Still, Dreyfuss has enough charm to pull it off most of the time. I was dissatisfied by the way Irv's storyline resolved, and wondered if it hadn't originally been scripted or filmed one way and then changed due to criticism. Other supporting characters are fitfully funny, but more often grating.
Bear in mind that Vardalos, who scripted My Big Fat Greek Wedding, didn't write My Life in Ruins. The screenwriter this time is sitcom writer Mike Reiss, who resorts to cringeworthy gags about Greek names like Poupy and Kakas. The movie was directed by Donald Petrie, who has directed a number of forgettable romantic comedies, the most memorable of which was Miss Congeniality.
My Life in Ruins is obviously meant to appeal to women in a summer stuffed with blockbusters aimed at a younger male audience. But women deserve better escapist fare than this feeble attempt at romantic comedy.Variety reported this week that the audiences for Drag Me to Hell have been skewing "surprisingly" female. But Alison Lohman's character in that film, although she might seem blandly Everywoman-ish at times, is far more fun and fierce than the plastic fantastic Tour Guide Georgia. If you want Greek scenery, rent Mamma Mia; if you want a kickass heroine, try the Raimi film; if you like Vardalos, hopefully she'll be more lively in next month's I Hate Valentine's Day, which she wrote and directed.
2
MY LIFE IN RUINS may sound like a catastrophic sequel to Nia Vardalos's 2002 hit, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, but the only connection is Greece itself.
In this one, a noticeably slimmer Vardalos plays a Greek American history professor down on her luck. Having lost her job at a university in Athens, she's been forced to work as a tourist guide. Pangloss is the name of the company and Vardalos's Georgia is having difficulty in reaching its required standards of Panglossian optimism.
The source of Georgia's discontent is the philistinism of the tourists she ferries around all day. While she's aching to infuse them with her passion for the grandeur that was classical Greece, they're interested only in shopping, swimming and the nearest comfort stop. What's more, they're just as unimpressed with her as she is with them. Their bad reports have seen her fall to the bottom of the company's food chain - assigned to the cheapest hotels, the most decrepit bus and the most unruly customers.
This premise gives the director, Donald Petrie ( Miss Congeniality), licence to go for broke in the national stereotype department. He wheels out a busload of actors who take the need to be obnoxious so seriously that any impulse towards humour gets lost amid the mugging. There's the usual complement - a snooty English family led by Caroline Goodall, dressed as if for an outing with Hercule Poirot; a couple of painfully convivial Australians (Natalie O'Donnell and Neighbours graduate Simon Gleeson) glued to their beer cans; two Spanish divorcees (Maria Botto and Maria Adanez) desperately in need of an Almodovar movie; and an assortment of hyperactive performers competing for the title "ugliest American".
One of these is Richard Dreyfuss's Irv, the joker in the pack, who likes to interrupt Georgia's dissertations with commentaries of his own. You don't have to be clairvoyant, however, to realise that this display of mutual hostility is all camouflage. The twinkle in Dreyfuss's eye shines so brightly that he might as well be wearing a sign announcing that it's his mission in life to jolly Georgia out of the state she's in.
Petrie is also aiming to give you more than your money's worth in armchair travel. We begin at the Acropolis and move on to Delphi, Olympus, the Parthenon and the Plaka.
And more important, there's romance. Unlikely as it seems, everybody here eventually turns out to be a romantic. Irv, for instance, is bravely hiding his grief over the death of his wife whose ghost turns up in one scene played by Rita Wilson, whose real-life husband, Tom Hanks, happens to be one of the film's producers. And there's Georgia's love interest, who comes heavily disguised under a Yeti-like beard and a manner so gruff that she spends the first part of the film labouring under the impression that he doesn't speak English. We can easily guess otherwise.
Handsome Greek TV star Alexis Georgoulis has the part and as his courtship of Georgia progresses, he gradually makes more of his face visible by shaving off the beard and cutting his hair. If nothing else, it's a novel variation on the striptease. It's also supposed to be part of Georgia's path to enlightenment. In falling for the man behind the beard she's supposed to see the world through eyes no longer blinded by preconceived notions based on superficialities.
All this would be fine if we were persuaded to share her new enchantment with her travelling companions but they're still stuck with the wardrobe of cliches they set out with.
The script offers a few diversions from the main game. One of the oldest members of the group has taken up shoplifting as a hobby. Georgia also has to deal with Alistair McGowan, an unfunny British comic who's been cast as a rival tour guide intent on sabotaging her efforts to keep her job. But Petrie, who handled slapstick with ease in Miss Congeniality, has lost his timing with this one. There's none of the blithely nonsensical spirit that infuses the atmosphere when actors are enjoying themselves. This lot are trying too hard and the result falls far short of the alchemy that comes from real inspiration.
Handsome Greek TV star Alexis Georgoulis has the part and as his courtship of Georgia progresses, he gradually makes more of his face visible by shaving off the beard and cutting his hair. If nothing else, it's a novel variation on the striptease. It's also supposed to be part of Georgia's path to enlightenment. In falling for the man behind the beard she's supposed to see the world through eyes no longer blinded by preconceived notions based on superficialities.
All this would be fine if we were persuaded to share her new enchantment with her travelling companions but they're still stuck with the wardrobe of cliches they set out with.
The script offers a few diversions from the main game. One of the oldest members of the group has taken up shoplifting as a hobby. Georgia also has to deal with Alistair McGowan, an unfunny British comic who's been cast as a rival tour guide intent on sabotaging her efforts to keep her job. But Petrie, who handled slapstick with ease in Miss Congeniality, has lost his timing with this one. There's none of the blithely nonsensical spirit that infuses the atmosphere when actors are enjoying themselves. This lot are trying too hard and the result falls far short of the alchemy that comes from real inspiration.
3
It’s easy to point out what’s wrong with “My Life in Ruins,” but I don’t feel good about it. The movie clearly has its heart in the right place, which makes sense considering screenwriter Mike Reiss wrote some of the most heartfelt “Simpsons” episodes ever. The problem is that his script paints with such a broad brush that it’s hard to get emotionally involved in a story that bears little resemblance to reality – which in itself is not unforgivable, but doesn’t work here – and goes out of its way to manufacture conflict.
The story is set in Greece, and Georgia (Nia Vardalos) is a walking encyclopedia of history, slumming as a “B group” tour guide. Her tourists dislike her because she actually tries to teach them something, instead of taking them to the gift shop and the local American chain restaurant. Her latest group of travelers is no different, and Georgia vows that this trip will be her last, especially after seeing the luxurious accommodations that her “A group” coworker, the sleazy Nico (Alistair McGowan), is allowed to provide his group. When she accidentally hits “funny guy” Irv (Richard Dreyfuss) where it hurts, she tries to give her customers a more enjoyable trip, but to do so, she must find her passion for life, which has long lain dormant. Will the mysterious replacement bus driver Poupi (Alexis Georgoulis, the Greek version of Gael Garcia Bernal) be the one to help her find it?

Well, duh, and that’s the movie’s problem; nearly everything about it is either a big ‘duh’ or a big WTF. Ever seen a group of tourists introduce themselves to the guide as they board the bus? Neither have I, but they do it here, solely for the benefit of the audience. (How else would we know their names and which stereotype they represent?) Likewise, tour guides don’t go off route and let their customers dictate the day’s itinerary, but remember, very little of this movie is grounded in reality. Even the gay jokes are of the WTF variety. How is it that gay characters in movies have no gaydar?
Give credit to Vardalos, then, for not giving in to the insanity around her. She gives this movie everything she has and nearly saves it in the process, but unfortunately can’t overcome the stock characters that surround her. The movie thinks it’s being clever by acknowledging these stock characters up front when Georgia jokes about each of her groups having Ugly Americans, Drunk Australians, Bitter Divorcees, and the aforementioned Funny Guy, but a better idea would have been to let these characters inhabit those traits while developing personalities of their own. Lord knows Mike Reiss is capable of bringing the funny with a healthy dose of nuance, and distributor Fox Searchlight is not known for meddling with quirky scripts (“Juno,” “Little Miss Sunshine,” “Slumdog Millionaire”). So what gives?
You can’t help but think that Fox Searchlight looked at “My Life in Ruins” as little more than a nifty slice of counterprogramming to the testosteronefest that is “The Hangover” and “Land of the Lost.” (And, if Will Harris’ review of “Land of the Lost” is any indication, the makers of “Ruins” chose their weekend wisely.) But counterprogramming is only half the battle; you still have to make a good movie, and while “My Life in Ruins” has its good points, its heart does not make up for its lack of smarts. Sorry, Nia. Really, we are.