Shall We Dance? Blu-ray Review (2008)

“Shall We Dance?” Blu-ray

This remake of Masayauki Suo’s 1996 Japanese romantic comedy of the same name is essentially the same movie charged with an American sensibility.

In this case, that means more drama, more gloss, less grace, less sophistication. It’s a small movie that’s been supersized, but not in a bad way.

Richard Gere is John Clark, a disenfranchised Chicago lawyer unhappy with life’s daily grind and the fact that his wife (Susan Sarandon) is too busy to spend time with him. It’s then that he discovers the joy of dance via Miss Mitzi (Anita Gillette, excellent) and her dance studio.

What he finds there is twofold--the beautiful Paulina (Jennifer Lopez), who’s as cold as a Chicago winter, and his dancing destiny.

A groundswell of schmaltz with no surprises unfolds, but this well-acted, crowdpleasing movie doesn’t fail. It isn’t as rich as the original and the ending slumps into a sleigh of suburban whining, but the dancing has chops, as does the excellent supporting cast.

Read the full, unedited review here.

Rated PG-13. Grade: B

The Hottie & the Nottie: DVD Review (2008)

“The Hottie and the Nottie”

What fresh hell is this? Why is Paris Hilton back to haunt another movie? Are people hungry for more of her low-wattage acting onscreen? Can’t they just go and smell one of her perfumes, think nice thoughts about her and call it a day?

That’s probably too many questions to ask, but the reason Hilton has existed so long in pop culture at least deserves some answers. I don’t have any. Maybe you do. This movie sure as hell doesn’t.

In “The Hottie & the Nottie,” Hilton is Christabel, the glam “hottie” of the title who long has been lusted after by Nate (Joel David Moore). When they reconnect in Los Angeles, plain Nate tries to score with Christabel again, only to learn that she won’t hear of having a boyfriend until her ugly girlfriend June (Christine Lakin) has one, too.

What ensues doesn’t feel as if it was directed by a living human being, but by the sleeping pill, Ambien. The movie lulls you into a hypnotic state of gross-out horror, with Hilton’s canned acting front and center.

The only reason this movie isn’t being smacked down with an F is because of Lakin, who movies beyond her warts and monobrow to eventually prove she has some appeal.

Rated PG-13. Grade: D-

Behold the greatness that is Paris Hilton here:

Baby Mama: Movie Review (2008)

Baker's dozen

Written and directed by Michael McCullers, 96 minutes, rated PG-13.

The new Michael McCullers movie, “Baby Mama,” goes down like a tall bottle of warm Similac. And that’s a good thing.

Based on McCullers script and set in Philadelphia, the film stars Tina Fey as Kate Holbrook, a successful, 37-year-old business woman who’s living the high life, albeit with a bum womb.

Apparently, her womb is T-shaped, which pretty much spells trouble since single Kate is finding it impossible to get pregnant in spite of repeated efforts at artificial insemination.

At the start of the movie, her doctor tells her she has a “one in a million chance” of conceiving, so Kate does what any resourceful individual would do--she decides to look into adoption agencies, which curiously won’t have anything to do with her, and then she chooses another route, one that ultimately changes her life.

She goes to an agency that specializes in connecting people like her to surrogate mothers like Angie (Amy Poehler). The agency is run by the unusually fertile Chaffee Bicknell (Sigourney Weaver, very funny in a role that finds her smiling gracefully through an onslaught of old-age jokes), who apparently can get pregnant at the drop of a wink. What Chaffee devises for these two women will mean tens of thousands of dollars to Angie, the same to Chaffee, and a child for Kate, who wants a baby more than anything.

But at what cost? For Kate, it turns out to be higher than expected, particularly since Angie isn’t exactly the cultured woman Chaffee promised. Instead, she’s a crude, combative mess, the sort of person not above relieving herself in the bathroom sink if the toilet happens to be unavailable.

When Angie decides to dump her common-law husband, Carl (Dax Shepard), she moves in with Kate, which allows the two to bond, argue, go to nightclubs and enjoy bouts of karaoke even while a major twist brims on the periphery.

Though the movie never reaches its full comedic potential--it’s too nice and too safe to really dig in and go for the bigger, rowdier laughs--it’s still fun. A good deal of this is because of the chemistry shared between Fey and Poehler, whose years of working together on “Saturday Night Live” allowed them to perfect their shtick to the point that it eclipses the movie’s shortcomings (specifically, its shoddy direction).

Lifting the movie higher is Steve Martin as Kate’s boss, a pony-tailed phony who has made millions in the whole foods movement; the actor hasn’t been this loose in years, likely because the film’s success doesn’t fully rest on him. Greg Kinnear is stuck with the least-interesting role as Kate’s dull love interest and he fares less well, though Romany Malco as Kate’s doorman does have a go of it in a part that could have been equally as forgettable. Here, it isn’t. His best scenes are shared opposite Poehler, the film’s true star, whose manic energy and cagey reactions go a long way in making this “Baby” work as well as it does.

Grade: B

View the trailer below:

Charlie Wilson's War: DVD Review (2008)

"Charlie Wilson’s War"

A war movie with winks.

Set in 1980, just after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, Mike Nichols’ film follows Charlie Wilson (Tom Hanks), the Democratic congressman from Texas who finds himself being urged to help the Afghani people by one Joanna Herring (Julia Roberts), a right-wing Houston socialite whose claim to fame, at least at the time, is that she was the sixth richest person in Texas and Charlie’s part-time lover.

Given those complications, Charlie agrees to her request to supply the Mujahedeen with the guns they need to eliminate the Russians from Afghanistan.

With the help of his assistant Bonnie (Amy Adams) and CIA agent Gust Avrakotos (Philip Seymour Hoffman, a fantastic mess), Wilson raised more than $1 billion in secret CIA funding to help shut the Soviets down.

Of course, history tells us that by doing so, Wilson essentially supported those who formed al-Qaida, but what did he know? He was just working for the woman and doing what he believed was right.

In Nichols’ capable hands, he does so in a movie that’s as comfortable dropping bombs at swank cocktail parties as it is in dodging others tossed overseas.

Read the full, unedited review here.

Rated R. Grade: B+

View the trailer below:

Forgetting Sarah Marshall: Movie Review (2008)

Sarah Who?

Directed by Nicholas Stoller, written by Jason Segel, 105 minutes, rated R.

Nicholas Stoller’s new movie, “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” is a romantic comedy about getting dumped. It’s also about the ramifications of finding out you were being cheated on before you got dumped. Oh, and it’s ultimately about trying to get your life back on track in spite of the crushing depression that follows.

Where are the laughs in that, you say? Since this is the latest film from producer Judd Apatow (“The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” “Knocked Up,” “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby,” “Superbad”) they’re in here. But since this also is a movie that takes its time in getting to those laughs--perhaps too much time, at least when compared to its predecessors--don’t expect them to come too quickly or to hit too hard.

The film follows all of the awkward, heartbreaking ugliness that occurs when Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell), a famous television actress, decides to end her 5-year relationship with Peter Bretter (Jason Segel), the likable guy who composes the music for her show, just when Peter thought they were at their happiest.

It’s a situation that leaves Peter feeling at his most emotionally and physically naked--literally in one scene. When Sarah breaks up with him, she does so just as Peter is emerging from the shower. What drops when she delivers her bad news isn’t just his jaw, but also his towel. Standing there in all his shattered glory, his loose body quivering as he weeps openly and uncontrollably in the nude, it’s safe to say that at this point, nothing is looking up for Peter.

But it is for Segel, who wrote the screenplay and in the process, conceived one sweet role for himself. With Apatow and Stoller behind him, what he has created is a worthwhile entry into Apatow’s growing catalog of male comedic weepies.

Desperate to get away from Sarah (but not really), Peter naturally goes to the one place Sarah herself favored for a vacation retreat--Hawaii. Not surprisingly, she’s already at the same resort when he arrives. Worse for Peter is that she has traveled with her new English rock star boyfriend, Aldous Snow (Russell Brand), who is so amiably self-absorbed, it’s impossible to dislike him.

Though the same can’t fully be said for Sarah, it’s to Stoller and Segel’s credit that they don’t demonize her. Sarah is a handful, sure, but when the movie allows us to view Peter through her eyes, it’s easy to see why she lost interest in him. After all, for the last year of their relationship, he had turned into such an unmotivated slacker, it’s clear that Peter first lost interest in himself.

Saving him from that fate is Mila Kunis’ Rachel, the beautiful hotel clerk Peter falls for during his stay in paradise, and who ignites in him a sense of meaning and creativity. Lifting him and the film higher are appearances by Jonah Hill of “Superbad,” Paul Rudd as a weed-smoking surfing dude, and Bill Hader as Peter’s bizarre stepbrother. While none of this is as riotous or as raunchy as “Virgin” or “Knocked Up,” the fact that “Sarah Marshall” is a kinder, gentler sex comedy is nevertheless what sets it apart.

Grade: B-

The Savages: DVD Review (2008)

“The Savages”

Follows a fractured family standing at the intersection of death and dementia.

Laura Linney is Wendy Savage, a difficult, struggling playwright living in New York City who has a cat and a ficus tree that she loves, and a mate (Peter Friedman) 13 years older than she who is physically available to her, though not emotionally--he’s married.

Wendy’s brother Jon (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is a frumpy theater professor living in Buffalo, NY, and he has problems of his own, not the least of which is his fiercely competitive relationship with his sister and his own inability to create a meaningful relationship.

It’s how these two must come together and deal with their abusive, distant and ailing father Lenny (Philip Bosco) that turns this shattered family inside out with guilt, rage and grief over the course of several weeks.

Excellent performances mark "The Savages," with Linney and Hoffman each navigating characters who could have become unlikable had they not been shaded with nuance. They’re damaged people, yes, but they are only savages by name.

Read the full, unedited review here.

Rated R. Grade: B+

View the trailer below:

Juno: DVD, Blu-ray Review (2008)

“Juno” DVD, Blu-ray

Ellen Page is Juno MacGuff, a precocious, ultra-hip 16-year-old high-school student who makes the decision that she's going to put an end to her virginity and have sex with the shy but bright Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera).

On a sad-looking, dilapidated chair, they have their moment, which initially appears unremarkable until two months and four days later, Juno realizes just how remarkable it really was.

Faced with the news that she’s pregnant, this wise-cracking kid now must decide whether to abort the child or offer it up to parents who might come to love and nurture it, such as wealthy suburbanites Vanessa (Jennifer Grant) and Mark (Jason Bateman)?

From Diablo Cody’s sharp, Academy Award-winning script, Juno eventually finds herself dealing “with things way beyond my maturity level.”

As her hormones rage and her belly balloons (“I’m a planet!”), her emerging vulnerability takes the movie down a notch from the quirky humor it favors during its electric first half. As such, it becomes more human and real--and easily one of last year’s best films.

Read the full, unedited review here.

Rated PG-13. Grade: A-

Pecker: Movie, Review

Saddled with more than just an unfortunate name

Written and directed by John Waters, 87 minutes, rated R.

(Originally published 1998)

The very title of John Waters’ latest comedy offers the critic a wealth of unusual possibilities, somewhere in which is a line that must not be crossed. Still, there is that provocative title, that nagging word, and the sound of that word, that tends to cause an immediate, uncomfortable stir whenever spoken, however sheepishly, in mixed company.

Indeed, to the uninitiated, the uninformed, saying: “I saw John Waters’ ‘Pecker’ last night and I couldn’t stop laughing” appears to be in extremely bad taste, a line not merely crossed, but leaped over while ringing bells, waving flags and blowing whistles.
C’est la vie.

“Pecker” is a campy, comic delight.

In the film, Edward Furlong is Pecker, a young photographer who allegedly earned his peculiar nickname because, as a child, he pecked at his food. (Sure. And the popular strip club Hooters got its name because the place is frequented by owls.)

Pecker takes photos of everything, and since this is a John Waters’ film, everything means the bizarre: Two rats having sex in a trash can, the private parts of butch lesbian strippers, a talking statue of the Virgin Mary, and even his younger, sugar-addicted sister, Little Crissy (Laren Huilsey), who is so strung out on candy, she easily could be the poster child for Ritalin.

As Pecker sees it, art is everywhere and he gleefully snaps photos of his girlfriend Shelley (Christina Ricci), his kleptomaniacal best friend Matt (Brendan Sexton III), and deep inside The Fudge Palace, the local gay bar where his sister Tina (Martha Plimpton) works as a strict, take-no-prisoners emcee.

Eventually, of course, Pecker’s life changes as only John Waters could change it for him: A New York art dealer (Lili Taylor) happens upon Pecker’s photos, loves his work, and immediately signs him to a show at her Manhattan gallery. It’s an official stamp of approval that brands Pecker as a major new artist--but at what cost? As all of the New York art world begins clamoring for Pecker, Waters introduces his film’s true purpose: To skewer modern art and its patrons while also highlighting how fame and fortune can corrupt.

Aesthetic pretension has long been an easy target, but in Waters’ capable hands, it makes for a film that is often very funny. Indeed, “Pecker” finds its director exactly where he belongs--deep inside the toilet bowl of life he continues to plunge from Baltimore. His latest may not be as outrageous as “Pink Flamingos” or “Polyester,” but it does take risks that push it far and away from the mainstream arena he courted somewhat unsuccessfully in “Serial Mom.”

For Waters, “Pecker” is divine.

Grade: A-

Penelope: Movie Review (2008)

A Babe in pig's clothing

Directed by Mark Palansky, written by Leslie Caveny, rated PG, 90 minutes.

Mark Palansky’s “Penelope” is the movie in which Christina Ricci is saddled with the face of a pig. More specifically, the wrinkled snout and little floppy ears of a pig.

But don’t cry for Penelope just yet.

While everything else about her face suggests something of a pig hybrid, Ricci’s Penelope appears just human enough to see how beautiful Penelope would look if her wealthy family hadn’t been cursed by a witch so long ago. The good news? That curse can be lifted, though it’s going to be a struggle.

Written by Leslie Caveny, this uneven yet affable fairy tale does a few key things right, starting with getting Ricci back onto the screen in a starring role.

Audiences will see a lot more of her in the upcoming “Speed Racer” movie, which already has the fan boys buzzing and which might restart her career in a big way. But right now, in this much smaller movie, it’s swell to be reminded of how special Ricci is and how necessary it is to have her working. As any fan of “The Opposite of Sex,” “The Ice Storm,” “Pecker,” “Anything Else” and “Monster” knows, there are few others who can tap into the quirky absurd like Christina Ricci.

She’s also one of the very few people who could have played this role well, which is more difficult to pull off than it appears. To succeed, Ricci had to put on a snout every morning, face her part-pig face, and play the part straight, even while so many around her were setting the screen afire with camp.

Chief among those culprits is Catherine O’Hara as Penelope’s well-coiffed, well-meaning yet damaging mother Jessica, who is so personally humiliated by Penelope’s physical appearance, she unwittingly has harmed her daughter’s self-esteem by pushing so hard for her to break the curse. To do so, it’s imperative that Penelope meet a suitor of similar class who is willing to marry her. Trouble is, that’s proving difficult to do, especially since every man who lays eyes on her ends up throwing himself out a window.

Not so for James McAvoy’s Max, a shady gambler who initially is hired by tabloid journalist Lemon (Peter Dinklage) to trick Penelope into having a photo snapped of her face, but who nevertheless comes to feel something for her that is real and meaningful.

Too bad he blows it--and when he does, wounded Penelope decides she’s had enough. Wrapping a scarf around her face, she sets out for the first time into the outside world (in this case, London), where she comes upon a whole host of characters, including sketchy Annie, who is played with brassy slyness by one of the film’s producers, Reese Witherspoon.

Not all goes well in “Penelope.” The uneven use of accents is distracting (at the very least, shouldn’t the English-born Penelope and her mother have English accents and not American accents?), McAvoy is a greasy disconnect and the plot is a predictable, straight shot to the end.

But plenty does go well here. As you’d expect, O’Hara is a hammy, chaos-creating treat, Witherspoon is likable in a small role, and then there’s Ricci, on whom so much of the movie rests. If it didn’t sound condescending, it would be nice to say to her, “That’ll do, pig. That’ll do.” But you get the point.

In this movie, she reminds us why she matters, and why it would be nice to have more of her, please.

Grade: B-

Leatherheads: Movie Review (2008)

Knuckle heads

Directed by George Clooney, written by Duncan Brantley and Rick Reilly, 113 minutes, rated PG-13.

In the wake of “Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day” and now the new George Clooney movie “Leatherheads,” there's the sense that history might be repeating itself. Both films are revisionist screwball comedies that work hard to capture the look and feel of another time while also reflecting elements of our own time.

Given the current mood of the country and how it has been dampened by the state of the economy and the war abroad, Hollywood appears to be on the verge of returning to a period when movies offered such zippy, Depression-era entertainments as “Twentieth Century,” “It Happened One Night,” “Bringing Up Baby” and “His Girl Friday.”

In theory, this isn't a bad idea, but Hollywood still might want to rethink it. What “Pettigrew” and “Leatherheads” underscore is the challenge of taking yesterday's period comedies and updating them for today's audiences. In each case, sometimes the movie works (usually when the farce is muted), and other times, it just feels forced (usually when the farce is amplified).

From a script by Sports Illustrated reporters Duncan Brantley and Rick Reilly, “Leatherheads” is set in 1925, around the time when professional football was starting to take hold. This is Clooney's third film as a director, and what it suggests is that he's a good student--in this case, one who apparently took notes while shooting 2000's “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” with the Coen Brothers.

Like that movie, “Leatherheads” has a similar off-beat charm and it's shot with the same rich honey tones. The one notable flash of color is its female lead, the very blonde and red-lipsticked Renee Zellweger, whose Lexie Littleton, a reporter for the Chicago Tribune, is charged to seek out the truth about Carter “The Bullet” Rutherford (John Krasinski), Princeton's star football player who may or may not be the former war hero he claims to be.

It's while Lexie is researching Rutherford's past that she connects with Clooney's Jimmy “Dodge” Connelly, who is the captain of the Duluth Bulldogs, a scrappy football team comprised mostly of blue-collar men happy to be earning a modest living while playing the sport they love.

Intent on lifting their exposure to the collegiate level, where upwards of 40,000 fans gather for each game, Dodge meets with Rutherford and his sleazy agent, C.C. Frazier (Jonathan Pryce), in an effort to convince Rutherford to join their team. For a steep price, Rutherford agrees to does so--and ticket sales soar. Meanwhile, a romantic triangle develops between Lexie, Rutherford and Dodge that can only end in the two men coming to fisticuffs while Lexie must face the ramifications of getting her story.

The film's premise is familiar but promising, so much so that you wish Howard Hawks had been alive to navigate those scenes in which the movie lurches unsuccessfully into slapstick. With all the mugging taking place, Clooney himself nearly gets mugged--he's a director more suited for drama (“Michael Clayton,” “Good Night, and Good Luck”) than he is for comedy. That said, the film's cast is strong, the script is likable and Clooney does have chemistry with Zellweger, who once again shines in a period piece. Along with Krasinski and Pryce, she proves invaluable in helping Clooney turn “Leatherheads” into a reasonably good time at the movies.

Grade: B-

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day: Movie Review (Text and Video)

It's a miracle she made it through it

Directed by Bharat Nalluri, written by David Magee and Simon Beaufoy, 92 minutes, rated PG-13.

The first third of “Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day” is so irrepressible, there’s no keeping the damn thing down. The direction, staging and acting are so high strung, there’s every indication that its main character, a failed governess named Guinevere Pettigrew (Frances McDormand), might be found dead from exhaustion by the end of the it--right along with the rest of the characters.

Pressed to capture the tone of screwball farce, everyone involved goes out of their way to do so, straining the movie’s seams in ways that can be off-putting in the face of such excess.

And then there’s a shift.

Working from a screenplay David Magee and Simon Beaufoy based on Winifred Watson’s 1938 novel, director Bharat Nalluri eventually allows his romantic comedy to settle into itself. The over-the-top energy he favors at the start is dropped several notches, where it achieves a less stagy feel. Characters come into their own. The film never shakes the formula it courts, but it still becomes more enjoyable as it unfolds.

Set on the eve of war in 1939 London, the film follows Pettigrew, a disheveled, out-of-work mess whose luck appears to have run dry until the day she meets Delysia Lafosse (Amy Adams), an American singer and wannabe actress who is busy juggling the affections of three men in an attempt to climb to the top.

First up is Phil (Tom Payne), a wealthy young producer whose father owns the theater at which Delysia is trying to land her first major acting gig. Second is rich Nick (Mark Strong), who lends Delysia his swank apartment while he’s away on business and who owns the cabaret at which Delysia performs with her boyfriend, Michael (Lee Pace), a struggling pianist whose love for Delysia in genuine. Trouble is, Delysia is such a cheerful little climber, she doesn’t believe that love is what she needs at this point in her life. Certainly, it isn’t as important as the critical and financial success she craves.

Enter Miss Pettigrew, a moral force who knew love once and lost it. She’s so desperate for a job, she wedges herself into Delysia’s life as her social secretary and then becomes her unwitting guide to what matters in life. Over the course of one day, the two change each other profoundly, with Pettigrew gently guiding Delysia toward the one man who should matter most in her life, while Delysia ushers Pettigrew into another world--one in which high fashion matters and dramatic makeovers can take place.

It certainly does for Pettigrew, who is scrubbed from head to toe and catches the eye of lingerie designer Joe (Ciaran Hinds), whose relationship with snarky Edythe (Shirley Henderson) is on the rocks. Since Edythe isn’t about to lose Joe, and particularly because she knows a few secrets about Pettigrew, complications thicken for all as the movie mounts a climax that’s at once airy and serious.

The air belongs to Adams, whose Delysia bounces through the movie until the ramifications of her selfish behavior stop her cold. Adams is very good here, somehow making Delysia likable in spite of her willingness to repeatedly hurt Michael.

As for McDormand, it’s through her nuanced performance that Nalluri strikes his best observations about the meaning of love and friendship in middle-age. In the frenetic early scenes, when she’s asked to be a vehicle for comedic farce, she gives it her best shot and is as good as she can be given the weaker material. But it’s at the movie’s end, when she’s called upon to act and touch you with the truth, that she is at her best, stepping outside the film’s limitations and creating a better movie in the process.

Grade: B-

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day: Movie Review (Video)

Kate & Leopold: Movie, DVD Review (2001)

Oh, those helpful time portals

Directed by James Mangold, written by Mangold and Steven Rogers, 114 minutes, rated PG-13.

(Originally published 2001)

James Mangold’s romantic comedy "Kate & Leopold” stars Meg Ryan as Kate McKay, a quirky ad exec with an impish smile and a ditzy demeanor who could cute her way out of a mugging.

Ryan is cynical here and less high strung than she’s been in previous films, but whether that’s because she’s bored with being adorable or because her character makes a living hawking low-fat butter substitute to weight-conscious women, is up for debate.

The film opens with Kate’s ex-boyfriend Stuart (Liev Schreiber) taking photos at a swanky party being thrown to celebrate the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge. Not a re-opening of the bridge, mind you, but the actual opening. Apparently, Stuart’s found a time portal hovering atop the bridge, took a leap of faith and zipped back to 1876.

Now recording his 19th-century visit with a digital camera, Stuart is having a great old time in newer New York until Leopold, the dashing Duke of Albany (Hugh Jackman), spots him at the party, chases him into the streets--and conveniently slips back to the 21st century with him.

Since the film is called "Kate & Leopold," it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that it’s only a matter of time before Leo meets Kate and shows her what’s missing in her life: good breeding, good manners and apparently a broad chest.

Undermining the film’s engaging lightness and superior production values are lapses in logic and a mangling of history. In one scene, Leopold humiliates Kate’s boss by setting him straight on Puccini’s "La Boheme," which didn’t appear until 1896. In another scene, he inexplicably knows the words to "The Pirates of Penzance," which was written in 1879. Later, he mentions Jack the Ripper, who left his marks in 1888.

Lucky for Mangold that he has Jackman, who carries the picture, and a fun supporting turn from Breckin Meyer as Kate’s equally quirky brother. Otherwise, without them, “Kate & Leopold” wouldn’t have had a spittoon to spit in.

Grade: C+

Bad Company: Movie, DVD Review (2002)

Bum movie

Directed by Joel Schumacher, ritten by Jason Richman and Michael Browning, 111 minutes, rated PG-13.

(Originally published 2002)

Another week, another nuclear weapon, another dirty Hollywood bomb. Ka-fizzle.

This time out the film in question isn’t “The Sum of All Fears” but Joel Schumacher’s “Bad Company,” an appropriately titled comedic thriller that doesn’t star Ben Affleck as the hotshot on which our national safety and security hinges but, alas, on the comedian Chris Rock.

Allow me to wipe that tear from your eye.

Produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and written by Jason Richman and Michael Browning, “Bad Company” is a mismatched buddy movie that asks audiences to suspend disbelief to such an absurd degree, they might hang themselves trying.

Originally set to hit theaters just weeks after Sept. 11, “Bad Company” was swiftly shelved and its release date pushed back until June 7, which just happens to be the very week the official clean-up ended on what was once the World Trade Center Towers.

No, Disney’s Touchstone Pictures can’t get a break with this film--and, considering their movie is all about mining laughs from a plot to blow up Manhattan, they don’t deserve one.

In the film, Anthony Hopkins is Oakes, a gum-snapping, toothpick-chewing CIA agent eager to prevent a Yugoslav terrorist named Dragan (Matthew Marsh) from purchasing a nuclear weapon from a Russian Mafiosi named Adrik Vas (Peter Stormare).

His key man in the operation was Kevin Pope (Rock), a refined agent posing as an antiques dealer who’s life is snuffed early in the film. For Oakes, tracking down Kevin’s twin brother, Jake Hayes (Rock), to complete the deal, isn’t the problem. Instead, the problem rests in getting him to do the job competently--which, ironically, can also be said for director Schumacher.

Paired with Bruckheimer (“Pearl Harbor,” “The Rock,” “Armageddon”), for whom subtlety and character development are clearly as important as plausibility, Schumacher delivers a film that’s peppered with jump-cuts, explosions, car chases and some pseudowitty banter between Rock and Hopkins--all of which might have been fine had the film only backed its action with a story that wasn’t riddled with holes and with a sense of excitement that was reasonably fresh.

Schumacher does neither, but he does prove the rule--you really are as bad as the company you keep.

Grade: D

Drillbit Taylor: Movie Review (2008)

Who's screwing who?

Directed by Stephen Brill, written by Kristofor Brown and Seth Rogen, 102 minutes, rated PG-13.

Stephen Brill’s new comedy, “Drillbit Taylor,” knows a few things about bullies, most of which we already know--all of which bear repeating.

For instance, the movie understands that for the most part, the average bully is a weak little miscreant whose fists and tough talk, when pressed into a corner by the real thing, pack the punch of a feather. On the other hand, it also knows that not all bullies are created equal and that some are so sociopathic, drastic measures must be taken to get them under control.

What measures? When school administrators aren’t willing to protect those being bullied, protecting yourself can take some doing, even if the methods for promoting change can be extreme.

Witness, for example, what happens to bespectacled Wade (Nate Hartley), heavy-set Ryan (Troy Gentile) and stunted Emmit (David Dorfman) when they are targeted by the bully Filkins (Alex Frost) during their first days at high school. For no reason other than the fact that these kids aren’t conventionally hip, Filkins makes it his mission to make their lives miserable.

Along with his cruel sidekick, Ronnie (Josh Peck), Filkins terrorizes the boys, so much so that they decide to pool their money and hire a bodyguard. After a string of amusing interviews with people they can’t afford, the person they choose is the homeless huckster Drillbit Taylor (Owen Wilson), who tells them what they want to hear (“I’m an ex-Army Ranger”), but who only is here to scam these kids out of their allowances.

Still, as Filkins’ violence escalates, Drillbit predictably softens and decides to help these kids learn to fight for themselves. The problem is that he isn’t exactly adept at teaching anyone how to fight, which leads to all sorts of complication best left for the screen.

While the movie shares much in common with Judd Apatow’s “Superbad,” there’s a reason--Apatow produced “Taylor,” which mirrors Apatow’s “Knocked Up” in that it also stars his real-life wife Leslie Mann. Here, Mann is an English teacher who develops a crush on Drillbit when he infiltrates the school as a substitute teacher. Mann is one of the best comic actresses working, but here, she’s sorely underused.

Fortunately, the same can’t be said for Hartley, Dorfman and the very likable Gentile, who rise above the so-so material and make it a lot funnier than it might have been otherwise. As for Wilson, he’s good, coming through with exactly the sort of safe performance you expect from him, and yet in spite of the movie being named after his character, “Drillbit Taylor” oddly could have done without him. The movie succeeds because you pull for these three picked-upon kids, who give the movie an energy and an edge that Wilson fails to match.

Grade: B-

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The Girl Next Door: Movie, DVD Review

Letting the boy next door dream

Directed by Luke Greenfield, written by Stuart Blumberg, David Wagner and Brent Goldberg, 97 minutes, rated R.

(Originally published 2004)

Once upon a time in Hollywood, the girl next door was a beacon of domestic purity. Sure, she was sexually chaste and not nearly as hot as the trampy bad girl down the street. But she wore her values like a badge and she had a fresh, virginal charm that was as crisp as her pleated skirts. She may have had competition, but in the end, she always got her man.
Now, in these looser, post-feminist times, it’s safe to say that the girl next door isn’t exactly who she used to be.

In the new comedy, “The Girl Next Door,” she’s become Danielle (Elisha Cuthbert), a good-natured porn queen eager to quit the biz. For the women’s movement—or for what’s left of the women’s movement—I’m not sure this would be considered progress, but that’s up for debate.

Danielle’s ticket out of the satin sack rests in high school senior Matt (Emile Hirsch), a bright yet unpopular kid who must go through his share of growing pains before he can come to terms with his own unusual fate: The first love of his life happens to be an adult cinema superstar who’s no stranger to, oh, say, several dozen strangers. And how do you explain that to mother?

As directed by Luke Greenfield from a script by Stuart Blumberg, David Wagner and Brent Goldberg, “The Girl Next Door” is a coming-of-age movie that borrows liberally from one of the most influential films of the genre—“Risky Business.”

While that movie looks comparatively tame in the 21 years that have passed since its release, “Girl” is rated R for good reason. It does indeed plunge into the porn business— with all that implies—and as such, it isn’t exactly suited for teens, in spite of the fact that it’s being marketed to them.

The cast is better than the plot, which involves Matt falling hard for Danielle and then, with the help of his two friends, Eli (Chris Marquette) and Klitz (Paul Dano), getting involved with her pimp (Timothy Olyphant) as he tries to lure Danielle back into the business. What follows is a predictable, straight shot to the end, with Greenfield somehow managing to strike a tone that’s almost sweet before he turns the whole thing sour with a handful of final, implausible twists.

No matter. “The Girl Next Door” is a well-acted, adolescent fantasy for bookish boys who, like their jock counterparts, also must contend with their hormones. This is their outlet and it’s reasonably satisfying. Let the boy next door dream.

Grade: C+

Laws of Attraction: Movie, DVD Review

A misdemeanor

Directed by Peter Howitt, written by Aline Brosh McKenna and Robert Harling, 90 minutes, rated PG-13.

(Originally published 2004)

Sometimes in the movies, the laws of attraction can only lead to a misdemeanor.

You know it when you see it. Either not enough attention was paid to the script, the situations are rife with implausibilities, or there’s no chemistry between the primary love interests.

All of that’s true in “The Laws of Attraction,” a thin romantic comedy from director Peter Howitt (“Sliding Doors,” “Johnny English”) whose likable co-stars are so poorly mismatched, they can’t save the picture from being a disappointing piece of middling mediocrity.

As written by Aline Brosh McKenna and Robert Harling, the film stars Julianne Moore and Pierce Brosnan as Audrey Woods and Daniel Rafferty, two good-looking, high-powered divorce attorneys who have never lost a case, have nothing but initial malice toward each other, yet who naturally enter into a relationship because the movie requires them to.

The film wants to recall George Cukor’s “Adam’s Rib,” the superior, 1949 classic starring Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy as married attorneys fighting opposing sides of a murder case. Genuine sparks flew between those two real-life lovers, but in “Attraction,” which swirls around a star-studded divorce trial, Moore and Brosnan bring the sort of heat you’d expect from two flirting first cousins fresh out of a southern backwater.

The film is something of a throwback, lamely trying for the same sort of rapid-fire dialogue that ignited the works of Cukor and Billy Wilder, but which doesn’t work here. The writing is too wordy, the wit is too strained, and the resulting movie comes off like an awkward museum piece.

But not a total failure. “The Laws of Attraction” is peculiar in that works best if you view it along its periphery--its supporting cast is so strong, in fact, that they generate what interest the movie has.

Frances Fisher, in particular, is especially strong and funny in her scene-stealing turn as Audrey’s mother, Sara—a hip, 57-year-old woman still keeping it real with the help of a little Botox, an unruly workout routine, and frequent fat injections in her lips. She’s loose and appealing, but never comes off as caricature. Better yet, she looks as if she came to have fun, which is key, helping her to get the biggest laughs in the movie.

Also giving the film a boost are Parker Posey as dazed, combative fashionista Serena and her punk rock husband, Thorne (Michael Sheen), who wears more eyeliner than a ‘30s movie starlet. Together, they’re sleazy, unbridled animals, trying their best to tear up a movie that would have been completely neutered without them in it.

Grade: C-

New York Minute: Movie, DVD Review

Please--just jump

Directed by Dennie Gordon, written by Emily Fox, Adam Cooper and Bill Collage, 85 minutes, rated PG.

(Originally published 2004)

The Dennie Gordon movie, “New York Minute,” stars those billion dollar Barbies Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, whose previous forays into film include the straight-to-video favorites “So Little Time—Boy Crazy,” “Billboard Dad,” “Double, Double, Toil & Trouble” and “So Little Time—The Wheelchair.”

I’d love to tell you what all of them are about—especially that last one (does an Olsen get hurt?)--but when it comes to the Olsens, I’m as clueless about their body of work as they are about what it takes to make a film that deserves a theatrical release.

No doubt, there’s something about these 17-year-old starlets that has struck a chord with tweens and teens around the world. And really, you have to hand it to them. They started in the business the moment they sprung from the delivery room, and they’ve somehow kept it going in spite of the odds stacked against them.

Good for them.

What’s not so good for us is this movie of theirs, in which the twins find themselves in so many pratfalls and jams—most of which are ripped from famous scenes in other movies, particularly “There’s Something About Mary” and “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”—that the film is merely a compendium of other movies, with the Olsens trying to tart up their wholesome images in the process.

In the movie, Mary-Kate and Ashley are twins Roxy and Jane, respectively, who have grown so far apart, they’ve pointedly become opposites. Roxy is the wild one who plays drums in the bogus-looking band with the weak beat and bad vibe. She attracts trouble like a Jackson.

Jane is the prim, humorless geek trying to get a scholarship to Oxford while overcompensating for their mother’s death. She’s annoyingly rigid, a flavorless lollipop with no center, which of course means she’s going to get one here.

When the girls inadvertently miss school because Roxy wants to be an extra in a music video, truant officer Max Lomax (Eugene Levy) gets on the case in an effort to give them detention. How’s that for an element to drive the plot? Also humiliating himself is Andy Richter as Bennie Bang, a Caucasian who thinks he’s Asian and thus speaks with the sort of accent some will consider borderline racist. He’s here because of a music piracy angle that involves a hairless dog that swallows a valuable and illegal computer chip. The girls have the dog in their possession, but we’ll leave it at that.

Currently, the Olsens have such a clutch of ongoing projects and side ventures—their cosmetic line, their clothing collection at Wal-Mart, their music career at Columbia Records, and their creepy action figure line, which makes them look like Gollum from “The Lord of the Rings,” only with better clothes and hair--this movie feels too much like another pit stop along the way to another project.

It’s product for the sake of product, another way to feed this curious cash cow. To say it’s slight and dispensable is to be kind, but why start now?

Grade: D

Pieces of April: Movie, DVD Review

Katie Holmes, unrecognizable

Written and directed by Peter Hedges, 80 minutes, rated PG-13.

(Originally published 2003)

Peter Hedges’ "Pieces of April" is set during Thanksgiving, a time when Hollywood’s most dysfunctional families tend to come together to carve the turkey and, you expect, each other’s throats.

That’s just the case in "April," a slight, quirky film filled with just enough familial woes to make it interesting even though it occasionally falls short of expectations.

The movie scores for one good reason--Patricia Clarkson’s sharp, Academy Award-nominated performance as Joy Burns, the beleaguered mother of three fighting the last stages of cancer. Joy is losing the battle, but what she hasn’t lost is her sense of humor or her biting wit, which are exactly what keep "Pieces of April" together even when it threatens to fall apart.

In the movie, Joy agrees to embark on a road trip with her husband, Jim (Oliver Platt), son Timmy (John Gallagher Jr.), daughter Beth (Alison Pill), and failing mother, Dottie (Alice Drummond), so they can be in Manhattan with eldest daughter, April (Katie Holmes), for Thanksgiving dinner.

The problem is that nobody here especially likes April (Katie Holmes), a tattooed mess who lives in an East Side slum with her boyfriend, Bobby (Derek Luke), and who has long been the family disappointment.

From Hedges’ own script, the movie overcomes the undercurrent of death tugging at its periphery thanks to Clarkson’s Joy, whose prickly observations keep the laughs coming and the sap at bay. Too many ancillary sidetrips pull you out of the core story. Still, those moments are tolerably brief, and the film’s climatic moments, caught in snapshot repose, are indelible, with a lasting power that comes from all that’s not said as this damaged family tentatively reconnects.

Grade: B

The Whole Ten Yards: Movie, DVD Review

Squawks like a chicken

Directed by Howard Deutch, written by Mitchell Kapner and George Gallo, 99 minutes, rated PG-13.

(Originally published 2004)

It's still early in the movie season and surely other stinkers will punch it from its low perch. Still, so far this year, worst movie honors go to Howard Deutch's "The Whole Ten Yards," which doesn't go a foot before it falls into a shallow grave of its own making.

The film is a lazy, dumb, irrelevant sequel to 2000's "The Whole Nine Yards," which was good for what it was. It took a tired genre - the hitman comedy - and manufactured from it a funny farce. The movie took risks, the dialogue was reasonably clever and the actors seemed to be having fun, which was key.

Not so here.

As directed by Deutch from a screenplay by Mitchell Kapner and George Gallo, "The Whole Ten Yards" gathers together most of its predecessor's cast and puts out a contract on their careers.

The story is strictly business as usual, with former hitman Jimmy "The Tulip" Tudeski (Bruce Willis) now living in Mexico with his chickens, his denial, his bunny slippers, his mullet and Jill (Amanda Peet), who has become an emotionally unbalanced hitwoman unable to score a direct hit.

One of the gags is that Jimmy has become a house husband, the Martha Stewart of the Mafia set. Another gag is that in spite of shooting so much weaponry in his youth, he can't seem to get Jill pregnant because he himself is shooting blanks. Isn't that hilarious? That's the film at its best, folks.

Also unfunny is Matthew Perry's overbearing pratfalls as Oz, the Montreal dentist who gets mixed up again with Jimmy and Jill after a Hungarian gangster named Lazlo Gogolak (Kevin Pollack) kidnaps Oz's wife, Cynthia (Natasha Henstridge), so he can get to Jimmy through Oz.

That sounds like a setup for a relatively straightforward plot, but the execution is so frenzied and muddled - and so sloppily edited - that Perry's character speaks volumes when he starts exclaiming about how confused he is by how everything turns out. Trust me on this - we feel his pain.

Movies like "The Whole Ten Yards" are product for the sake of product - Hollywood at its worst. They're so excruciatingly unstimulating and banal, so cynical in their unflattering view of what audiences will accept as entertainment that you sit there not only amazed that people are getting paid millions to put this junk onto the screen, but also regretting that you got suckered by their punch.

Grade: F