Reviews

The first half of the film is funny albeit silly and light, a reversal of "Liar, Liar". (Instead of one person being unable to lie, everyone but the main character is unable to lie.) I was beginning to believe the film was going to be a one-joke premise, but right in the middle it tackles some edgy theological issues and gets some heft. I wish it had gone there earlier, or even been the whole film. That would've been some gutsy comedy. Still, the romance between Gervais and Garner is sweet. She's surprisingly funny. It would've been an easy role to phone in, but I never once doubted her sincerity or her naiveté. Rob Lowe also shines playing the good-looking jerk. (Can anyone play that role better?) The film would've been five stars if it had been 100% religious satire and not just a romantic comedy, but I still enjoyed it enough to recommend it. Keep a sharp eye out for Edward Norton and Phillip Seymour Hoffman in cameo roles.

Although it's as well made as the other PBS reality shows, this one was disturbing. Many of the hardships imposed on the Hymers are by design, not circumstance. A committee of seven or eight experts privately judges them in a star chamber and decides how strict rationing will be and how much they will be fined for infractions. Watching the children go hungry while the experts debated how much to cut the food budget bothered me. The Hymers live more like lab rats than adventurers. It's also hard to get worked up about how much wartime Brits suffered from rationing since it was nothing compared to the hardships undergone by eastern Europeans, Asians and even their own soldiers. The show was simply too narrow in scope and sinister.

"Forget Paris" is on Richard Roeper's list of the 40 worst movies he has ever seen (p. 64 of "10 Sure Signs That a Movie Character is Doomed"). He must not have been able to take Billy Crystal as a romantic lead, because I thought the film delivered everything it promised. Crystal is funny. His friendships are genuine. It was fun seeing all of the big-name basketball stars playing themselves. Having the whole story told in flashback by his friends worked. And most of all, Crystal and Winger had chemistry. I thought the film dealt with modern relationship problems smartly and truthfully, and despite what Richard Roeper thinks, I thought the pigeon scene was funny. I'm not sure why Roeper was so down on this film, but what can you expect from a guy who makes a list called "5 Reasons why George Bailey isn't such a wonderful guy in 'It's a Wonderful Life'", then lists all of the things he does when he's having his breakdown! Sheesh.

I thought this was pretty boring. Anyone expecting to see "The Devil Wears Prada" will be disappointed. Anna Wintour comes across as a tough, businesslike lady but not much different from anyone else in a high power job. Her editor, Grace Coddington, is far more interesting because she's involved in the creative end, but nothing about the documentary or the fashion industry fascinated me. Wintour says she thinks people are intimidated by fashion because it scares them, but what's really disgusting is that so many people strain to touch the hem of her garment in order to know if they have good taste. I'm glad clothes aren't dull, but the film failed to draw me into this world.

A fantastic film which tells a far more important story than that of Oskar Schindler, "Amen." should be required viewing in every high school history class. It's well acted, beautifully filmed, and tells an almost completely forgotten story exceptionally well. Kurt Gerstein races around like Kevin McCarthy in "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" trying to tell the world about the horrors he has seen, but he is met with denial, incomprehension, and a maddening lack of urgency from the Catholic church. His moral burden is unbearable, yet everyone tells him, "What do you expect me to do?" We are forced to stand in Gerstein's shoes and ask, "What would I have done? Should I walk away with clean hands or should I stay and be 'a witness in hell', as Gerstein puts it?" What about the Pope and other people he approaches? Could they have seriously made a difference in the middle of a war when everyone was fighting to survive? Or did everyone already know what was happening and not care, as Gerstein's best friend believes? The film would make an exceptional centerpiece for an ethics class.

"Hester Street" isn't wide in scope, but it's an authentic close look at the most American tale of all: immigrants in America. It drew me in completely. The black, white and sepia colors, the authentic Yiddish, the costumes, the accents, pulled me into this simple, but intensely human story. Carol Kane is wonderful as the emotionally abandoned Gitl. If we didn't feel her pain, the story would've sunk into tawdry melodrama. The production detail is fantastic, and Doris Roberts shines in the dramatic role of her career. Don't miss her insightful and intelligent discussion of acting (and living) in the extras. "Hester Street" is a must see for anyone interested in the immigrant experience.

"The Man From Earth" is equal parts sci-fi and equal parts psychological study. Listening to John Oldman's tale is fascinating, but the heart of the film is the effect it has on his listeners. Do they go along for the ride? Are they angry? Are they offended? Are they scared? How would you react if you were in that room? How would the story Oldman tells change your life? Is he telling the truth? Is he cruel or just crazy? Whether you're into his incredible story or whether you side with one of his friends or whether you love a mystery, people looking for an original movie with intelligent discussions and no explosions will find the 90 minutes well spent.

I didn't care for this. They changed the story too much. The biggest problem is that Perseus is not a hero. He's not fighting to save Argos or Andromeda. He's just a vengeful punk with an Aussie accent. "G'day, Zeus". Every one of his traveling companions is more heroic than he is, particularly the dutiful soldier, Drago. The whole "war against the gods" made no sense either. The filmmakers wanted to make the story about men learning to do without gods, which I can appreciate, but if men toppled Zeus's statue and were ripped apart by harpies five minutes later, that war would be lost before it began. Neither side is sympathetic. The gods are arrogant, petty tyrants, and the Argosians are ingrateful, power-hungry narcissists. Medusa was cool, but Perseus discovers how to defeat her by accident, not through his own cleverness. The Kraken was fantastic, but Perseus comes so late, he almost needn't have bothered. (Not that anybody cares, but Zeus didn't cheat Hades out of being god of the sky. After the titans were defeated, Zeus, Poseidon and Hades drew lots for their domains.) Io doesn't belong in the story at all, and what were those jinn guys made of tree bark? But the chief problem was Perseus. His courage comes from vengefulness. His strength comes from Zeus. There was nothing heroic about him at all.

Just a lot of fun to watch, "Charlie the Lonesome Cougar" proves that story is everything. You don't need great actors or great sets or special effects if the story is good. The wildlife footage is amazing. Watching real animals behave naturally is far more entertaining than nine out of ten CGI movies with their anthropomorphic animals speaking with movie star voices. If you're looking for family entertainment that will expose your kids to real animals in an entertaining story, you simply can't go wrong renting this film. It's one of Disney's all-time best. (Basically, anything narrated by Rex Allen is good.)

By gosh, this is a silly movie, but if you're willing to buy into the premise, it delivers on its promise. It only confirms my theory that good fantasies have just one big "what if", and the story flows (semi)logically from there. The animated sequences work, and the actors give it their all. I've seen more talented people give worse performances in better movies. Carole Cook, especially, has the thankless task of having an emotional scene with a cartoon fish, but she serves it up...I mean, she performs it well. People changing into animals is an old mythic motif, and it is a great hero story. If you have small kids, they will probably enjoy it.

It gets interesting toward the end, but on balance this movie is too stupid to be endured. The introduction says that more of the story is true than you can imagine. Well, I went in expecting 5% to be true. If 10% is true, that's an increase in truth of 100%. That's how you lie with statistics. According to a short documentary in the special features, there really was a First Earth Battalion which explored the military potential of the paranormal, but the movie's story is a bomb. Ultimately, it's about Ewan MacGregor's spiritual journey. He's a lost soul. He runs into a shaman who may or may not be crazy. He follows him into the wasteland where he meets both the Yoda and the Darth Vader of this "force". They achieve a minor victory, if you can call it that, and MacGregor comes to appreciate the group hug, spoon bending, drop acid, listen to some Boston, Mother Earth ethic. It was stupid, and I didn't care.

The film is uneven in places. Tom Arnold is not a great actor. He and Richard Edson do not make a great comedy team, but the film works because of the chemistry he has with the kid, Eric Gores. Roger Ebert said he didn't know until the film was over whether or not Gores really had cerebral palsy. You should not know going in because it makes a big difference. The opening blurb says that it's mostly true, which is true, but not in the way that most true films are true. ("The Kid and I" IS "True Lies".) The featurette about how the film came about is great. Overall, I agree with Roger Ebert: the film accomplishes what it set out to do. I recommend it. It would also be a stretch to call it PG-13. I've seen far grittier fare on network television.

The music and the beautiful look of the film pull it above average...barely. The plot is a mix of 20's musical and 50's teen drama. Apollonia Kotero breezes into town with a roll of cash and a dream to be a singing star. She's attracted to Prince, but thinks the somewhat sleazy Morris Day might be able to help her more. Prince's character, the Kid, is James Dean with a guitar, the leader of the pack. He even rides a motorcycle. He's selfish, brooding, playful, mean, androgynous and bottling up a whole lotta pain. (Everything women with mother complexes want, right?) The film doesn't have any genuine emotional depth until Prince opens his soul and performs the title song 90 minutes in. Apollonia is stunning to look at, but it's Morris Day who nearly steals the film. He's funny, and he's the only character who knows what he wants and how to get it. I think the film will be 9 stars for Prince fans. Right around five for the rest of us.

If you can identify with one of the characters or recognize people you know or can look back on a similar experience you've had and laugh, it's probably hilarious. Apart from that, it isn't funny. If deprogramming gay kids is a joke, then Cathy Moriarty's character should've been the butt of it, but she isn't. She's just a creepy, homophobic fascist who never gets any comeuppance. The deprogramming camp is centered around a cartoonish, pink-and-blue, nightmare house. It's meant to exaggerate the bizarre fantasy of turning gay kids into Barbie and Ken, but that doesn't make it funny. The romance between Lyonne and DuVall is good, but except for the fact that they're lesbians, it's standard "wrong side of the tracks" boilerplate. A film on such a serious subject should've either been a merciless satire or a gut-wrenching drama, but this is neither. I think the story is too personal to have crossover appeal for anyone who hasn't lived it.

"Bicentennial Man" is hard to endure. It's "Heartbeeps" meets "A. I." with a gallon of syrup on top. It poses the question, "When is a robot human?" The answer is, "Right out of the box." Not for one moment does Andrew, the robot, seem anything less than human. Schmaltz goes supernova as Robin Williams plays yet another man-child who shows humanity the way through two hours of puppy dog innocence. It's a patronizing performance in a patronizing film accompanied by a lot of violins. The worst of the old after school specials weren't this bad. "I, Robot" (or certain episodes of "Star Trek: The Next Generation") would be a better rental choice. At least you'd get some exciting action.

"Black Snake Moan" is about the blues, baby. Those low down, beat down, "Sweet Jesus, I hurt" kinda blues. I believe it was Craig Brewer who said in the extras that the film is like a blues album. It isn't so much about the story as it is about the feelings, the hurt that people carry with them and strive so hard to share...or forget. Not that the plot isn't interesting. It's a hard driving story. Brewer puts us right in the cauldron where blues was born. Jackson and Ricci deliver intense performances. (It's probably the performance of Ricci's career.) Don't let the cheesy, 70's, sexploitation, film poster put you off. "Black Snake Moan" is an original emotional ride with plenty of knockout music and memorable characters.

I eventually got into the story. It takes awhile to get going. The first hour is a Jewish mix of "Mulan" and "Beauty and the Beast". ("Oy, such a little town, a qviet village.") It picks up significantly when Mandy Patinkin appears, but the plot only gets interesting when he asks Yentl, who he thinks is Aschel, to marry his former fiancé. That's when the drama and comedy really start. The music is OK. I only recognized one song, and that's because it appeared in an episode of "The Simpsons", but the film is lush and colorful. Streisand does a wonderful job putting the viewer in the shtetl and the Talmudic Academy. If you allow the beauty of the picture to carry you through the first hour, "Yentl" becomes a satisfying experience with great performances from Streisand, Patinkin and Amy Irving.

"The Scout" works for me every time. Albert Brooks is at the top of his game as Al Percola, the sad-sack scout who finds he has King Kong on a leash in baseball phenom Steve Nebraska, an undiscovered talent who is just a few pitches shy of a full count. The role of Nebraska is perfectly suited to Brendan Fraiser, who inhabits the role as much as someone can inhabit a wheel of Swiss cheese. Nebraska's relationship with Percola plays with real sincerity, and Diane Wiest polishes up her role as Steve's shrink into a small gem. Even better, except for a single expletive and a single sexual reference, there is nothing preventing this from being a G-rated picture. (I'm sure they were both thrown in so that the movie wouldn't be.) If you're a baseball fan, an Albert Brooks fan, or just someone who has tried to help a youngster maintain focus, you'll probably love "The Scout".

If you're a teen or a monster fan of Molly Ringwald, this is a ten-star film. If you were in high school when Reagan was president, it's only six stars. The performances are great, and Hughes scripted a smart, funny comedy, but I'm too old for this stuff. I'm too old to care about "wrong side of the track" romances (unless they're written by Shakespeare) and dating across cliques and teen fashion. I cared 40 years ago. I don't now. The best part of the film is Jon Cryer's breakout performance as Duckie. He's five times more original than any other character in the movie, and Cryer commits to him totally. He juggles Duckie's pain (the worst) and his antics and his feelings with sensitivity and sincerity. He's the best part of the film, although I must add that Duckie's resolution is pure b.s. While for me it has lost one or two stars, for anyone living it now, "Pretty in Pink" is still a fantastic movie.

In light of the many fabulous Marvel Universe movies that have been released since 2010, "Iron Man 2" is part of the bottom half. Still, it's quite a good movie, even though it can be hard to follow. There are a lot of plot lines: the Whiplash line, the obligatory evil capitalist line, the relationship with Pepper Potts line, the impending mortality line, the unresolved father issues line, the battle with Congress and the military line, and the Nick Fury agent of S. H. I. E. L. D. line. Whew! A slightly simpler plot might've made this a better film, but I understand you need a richer tapestry once the foundations of the characters have been set. The biggest improvement they could've made was giving Mickey Rourke a bigger part. He's squeezed tightly by the rest of the story, but "Iron Man 2" is much better than 95% of the sequels out there.

The question is not, "What are the 12 Monkees?" The question is, "How long of a mind trip can you stand?" because that's the central experience of the film. It has a great look, a fascinating premise, good performances, a great mystery, but if you don't like having your imagination slapped around for two plus hours, you won't like it. Bruce Willis plays a convict from the future who is sent back in time to get information on a virus which will virtually wipe out the human race. Unfortunately, time travel leaves him so disoriented that he ends up in an insane asylum, the one place in the world where people are trained to not believe crazy stories and to lock up those who tell them. I can't even begin to describe his travails except to say that he experiences a tilt-a-whirl of confusing images, parallel experiences and mixed messages. (It's not David Lynch confusing, but it's close.) There is an eventual payoff, which you will either love or loathe depending on what you expect from movies. The film is a little long, as almost all of Gilliam's films are, but it's a riveting story. You will either step off the carnival ride saying, "That was fun" or "I never want to do that again."

Everybody should ask themselves that once in a while. "The Family Man" does a good job answering, "What if I'd married my old sweetheart?" It's a great premise. (Nicholas Cage himself has made two movies based on it. This one and "Peggy Sue Got Married".) I would've given "Family Man" more stars except for a couple of things. The first hour or so is well-worn territory. The "What the heck is happening? Who are you again? This can't be real. I'm not who you think I am. Why don't these people recognize me? I want my old life back!" stuff is well done but so familiar. The second half features many outstanding emotional scenes between Tea Leoni (who I love now, by the way) and Cage, but there is too much of it. There is a lot of sentimentality and not enough real plot. The film starts to drag. I was most interested in seeing Cage's relationship with his daughter, who recognizes that he's not her real dad. The same "what if" premise was done with greater effect in "Me, Myself, I" with Rachel Griffiths, but that had some laughs. If you prefer sentiment, "The Family Man" is a better choice.

If you want to see a movie about a guy being kicked in the nards for 100 minutes, then this is the film for you. Larry Gopnik has every problem imaginable. His wife wants to take him to the cleaners in a divorce even though, by her own admission, he has done nothing wrong. Someone is trying to sabotage his chances for tenure. His kids are whiny brats. His loser brother sleeps on Larry's sofa when he isn't draining the puss from a cyst in his neck. Larry is intimidated by his neighbors. And on top of everything, the people whose job it is to help him, his rabbis and his attorney, are only capable of wasting his time and charging him out the wazoo. If this had been the first 10 minutes of an Albert Brooks comedy, that might've been OK, but I've just described the entire movie. He suffers a setback. He looks for guidance. He gets none. By the Coen's admission, even the opening short story has no direct bearing on the film. Watching "A Serious Man" is like watching a man fall down a cliff face for two hours. It's a complete waste of time.

"Moving Midway" is a must see for anyone with southern roots or anyone interested in the South, whether in reality or in popular culture. The director, Cheshire, has made a fascinating film about the South, race relations both past and present, genealogy, history, lost relatives, pop culture and one pretty amazing feat of engineering. Through the context of moving the family home, Cheshire touches on all these themes with sensitivity and intelligence. His relationship with his long-lost, black cousin is part of the dialogue on race that so many politicians call for these days. I can't add more except to say that "Moving Midway" is about a heckuva lot more than house moving, and I'll never forget it.