30 May 2003

With none of the cheap look I bemoaned upon seeing Monsters, Inc. or the frenzied action that disappointed in Toy Story 2 , Finding Nemo takes clown fish Marlin (Albert Brooks) on a journey from happy suburban homeowner (an anemone off the coast of Australia) with a loving wife (Elizabeth Perkins) and 400 eggs ready to hatch to—courtesy of a barracuda’s attack which leaves his wife dead and 399 of the eggs destroyed and him a hovering, protective father reluctant to let his son, Nemo (Alexander Gould), go on the first day of school—a desperate father swimming after the boat from which a diver has plucked Nemo up with a net. With the help of blue tang Dory (Ellen DeGeneres) who claims she has a short-term memory retention problem, he makes his way past three sharks barely into their 12-step program to convince themselves that fish are friends, not food, avoids getting creamed by the falling submarine, and in general manages to squeak through one peril after the other until the whole ocean is buzzing with his quest. Meanwhile, in a dentist’s office in Sydney, Nemo is getting to know his compatriots in the aquarium including a scarred Moorish idol, Gill (Willem Dafoe) who constantly calculates the possibilities for escape. Oh, just go already! It’s terrific!

100 minutes.

28 May 2003

When a pal and I settled in to a shoebox-style movie theater (the AMC Eden 2 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania) over 9 years ago and took a chance on a little something called Ace Ventura Pet Detective, the movie’s tone started with Jim Carrey’s brown-uniformed delivery person mistreating a package all the way to its destination and built from there to a sustained nuttiness not easily forgotten. The release of Ace Ventura When Nature Calls showed that recapturing that tone wasn’t a simple matter. And having suffered through Kung Pow: Enter the Fist (courtesy of that unnamed colleague) allows me to say that Steve Oedekerk doesn’t know funny. Nevertheless, with Tom Shadyac at the helm (like he was for Liar, Liar) and two others responsible for the story, Oedekerk’s contribution is, with any luck, small. But the fact that Carrey’s character this time around—Buffalo, New York field reporter Bruce Nolan who’s pushing 40 and always assigned to the soft, human interest stories—lacks any semblance of ethics dulls the comedic possibilities. Consider that once Bruce has attracted the attention of God (Morgan Freeman) by excessive whining once he’s fired for losing it on-camera upon learning that someone else got the anchor position at the station, and has obtained the powers of the deity on such a flimsy basis, his first impulse is to boost his career potential by having a K-9 patrol dig up a famous body (curiously in one piece after many years) and guiding a meteor to crash to the ground behind the chili cook-off. Actually, that’s his second impulse; his first is to boost his flagging relationship with his long-suffering girlfriend Grace Connelly (Jennifer Aniston, no stranger to the ethically challenged role) by adjusting both her physique and the Moon’s orbit heedless of the consequences. Indeed, there are no consequences, for Grace never goes shopping for new clothing (surely the dress she wears for the night she thinks she will get proposed to deserves to be special? and fit her?) and an isolated televised report of tidal waves in the Pacific basin is easily dismissed. A few smile-inducing moments here and there, absolutely (Freeman delivering a line from an earlier Carrey movie in particular), but with Bruce’s transformation from desperate career climber to sensitive companion remaining wholly unmotivated, the character arc is unsatisfying. And, shouldn’t it be criminal not to have house-trained the dog before it got so big?

100 minutes.

26 May 2003

I admonished myself some time ago to stop listening to my colleagues but I weaken from time to time. In a world where airplanes never need refueling, where contractors building huge underground installations leave no tracks, and where iron can be extracted from blood with none of that pesky binding energy problem, the angst of a few young adults and children can hardly make claim on my patience. Even if they are mutants. Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, and Brian Cox make a few chewing motions for their paycheck. And about 22 seconds of Rebecca Romijn-Stamos as Grace (a human who looks remarkably like herself) hardly makes up for it.

133 minutes.

25 May 2003

Another long-delayed release with vaguely sleazy subject matter (high schooler seduced by AP English teacher! actress was only 15 at time of filming!) offered an opportunity to check out the Landmark Theatres Bethesda Row. Does the life of Meg (Agnes Bruckner) have to be so horrible? Not only are her parents divorced, but her father can’t stand her mother and only takes custody of her and the younger sister a few times a year, her mother works two jobs and goes to school at night, and, oh, yeah, by the way, the little sister’s going insane. I smell a writer’s trick to soften up the audience for the inevitable. Fortunately enough, that scene takes its time in showing up. Despite her utter inarticulateness otherwise, Meg has managed to create a poem which inspires her AP English teacher (David Strathairn, no stranger to the rough role with the abusive husband in Dolores Claiborne) to suggest she enter a contest which could lead to the finals in Florida and a college scholarship. Unfortunately, Meg makes a few too many wrong choices (stealing from her job, antagonizing her mother to the point of getting evicted, falling in with the no-good, parole-violating Pat) to make her succumbing to the teacher’s advances in a shore-side cottage in Florida a cause for sympathy. Apparently, I have seen Bruckner before (in Murder by Numbers and The Glass House) and while she’s cute, that’s about it right now.

87 minutes.

24 May 2003

Paul (Vincent Lindon) and Hélène (Catherine Frot) are busy people, always in a hurry. Maybe that is why their Parisian apartment has so many clocks. As they rush to yet another social appointment one evening, and a young woman runs into their car windshield pleading for help, Paul’s first impulse is to lock the doors. Only after the three thugs have thoroughly beaten the young woman and left does Paul grab a few tissues and get out… to wipe the windshield. Then it’s off to the car wash. Can’t get the police involved, you know. Hélène’s conscience bothers her, however, and she tracks down the hospital where the woman ended up, in a coma. Catherine discovers that Noémie (Rachida Brakni) is a prostitute who remains in danger because she controls a great deal of money somehow and resolves to protect her, even if it means not answering her husband’s continuing series of voice-mail messages demanding that his suit be ironed for their next dinner engagement or not paying attention to which high-drama roommate her son Fabrice (Aurélien Wiik) is loving this week. The comedy, already fairly broad with its portrayal of demanding but helpless husband (whose avoidance of his mother is an epic unto itself) and two-timing son, just gets more so as Hélène proceeds to dispatch one of the thugs and helps Noémie escape the others. Then the movie takes a detour, somewhat like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon did, to catch us up to date on Noémie’s story. Turns out Noémie is really Malika, the product of a French two-timing father and a shamed Algerian mother, who ran away from the dock where she was supposed to be shipped off for marriage to a tooth-checking Algerian and mistook the generosity of Touki (Ivan Franek) who quickly sent her off to a training house for raping and heroin addiction. But her keen instincts and access to Apple iBooks allowed her to learn the stock market and target really rich clients… The message gets really hammered hard as Malika tries to save her younger sister Zora (Hajar Nouma) from the same fate. With the film’s tone still hovering in the complicated scam movie where everyone gets their just desserts zone, there is a satisfying resolution that teaches father and son a lesson or two.

111 minutes.

23 May 2003

An homage to the lower Manhattan of 1962, with heart-warming shots of the Pan Am building and other landmarks notwithstanding the winking impossibility of Grand Central Station being across the street from the United Nations. Barbara Novak (Renée Zellweger) is newly arrived in town to promote the imminent publication of her self-help book advising modern women to use chocolate as a substitute for love and to indulge in sex just like men do. The managing board of the publisher, all men in fear of the patriarch (Tony Randall), find the message tough to accept, but her editor Vicki Hiller (Sarah Paulson) is hopeful. As the book’s sales take off around the world (with a bizarre Latin-alphabet dust cover for the Russian market) Novak is the toast of the town. Meanwhile, Peter MacMannus (David Hyde Pierce), editor-in-chief at Know magazine, is desperate for copy from his star writer, Catcher Block (Ewan McGregor). When Catcher’s randy ways (including among others stewardess Gwendolyn played by Jeri Ryan) prevent a normal interview, Block resolves to trick Novak into falling in love with him (or some idealized version of who Barbara might fall for). As it happens, Peter has had his eyes on Vicki all along, but lacked the fortitude to pursue her. With a swap of bachelor pads, and some encouragement from Catcher, the pursuit may begin. Although their use is lamentably authentic for the period, the false eyelashes Zellweger wears threaten to overpower her cheeks. And she’s saddled with an expository burden about two-thirds of the way through the film that Patrick McGoohan would have found challenging. Still, a pleasant enough diversion without too many anachronistic vehicles in the stock footage of New York City streets.

100 minutes.

05 May 2003

Ok, I could not resist the #2 movie in domestic box office receipts this past weekend but thanks to the boom-and-bust cycle that the rollercoaster theatrical exhibition industry is in right now I got a completely private screening in the largest house in the theater. What was the tipping point? Learning that the animated interludes where a cartoon Lizzie says one thing while the real Lizzie (Hilary Duff) does the opposite, an important part of the television series I still do not admit to watching, were included notwithstanding their utter absence from the trailer, and learning that Duff also played the brunette pop star Isabella for whom Lizzie is confused by an adoring Roman populace. The action picks up with zero exposition in Lizzie’s bedroom where she is lipsynching to some useless song while her brother’s camcorder-equipped remote control toy collects embarrassing footage. With her clumsiness and inexperience at public speaking destroying her junior-high graduation ceremony (if she’s so unpopular, how did she get the office of secretary/treasurer in the first place?) Lizzie is quickly off on a school trip to Rome for 2 weeks where she will remain oblivious to the stirring desires of long-suffering Gordo (Adam Lamberg) and meet the male half (Yani Gellman) of a famous pop duo whose invitation to fill in for his missing partner Isabella culminates in a showdown on stage in the Coliseum. Yeah, that Coliseum. Oh, sure, never has so much been spent on such piffle, but without the sexual element that dogged Britney Spears’ character in Crossroads the tone is upbeat and the final reversal satisfying. A few bits of kitchen logic regarding the quick purchase of some tickets for international travel and the sound board mix settings needed to expose the real lip syncher peek through but everyone looks well-fed, the cars are suitably different, and the ending isn’t cloying. I’d advise mother Jo McGuire (Hallie Todd) keep an eye on that Melina Bianco (Carly Schroeder) character, she looks to have a hidden agenda.

93 minutes.

02 May 2003

I went in with diminished expectations (remembering Best in Show 2 years ago and Waiting for Guffman even earlier) but feared the consequences of choosing the Disney alternative. (Honest. Until I read that page in the Hollywood Issue of Vanity Fair, I had no idea she was fifteen.) I found the latest production from director Christopher Guest and his writing partner Eugene Levy to include many of the same elements, Fred Willard out of control among them, as the earlier efforts. A famous producer of folk music has died, and his surviving family put aside their differences to put on a memorial concert reuniting his most famous acts. Each group has an outlandish backstory, naturally. The New Main Street Singers is reconstituted with a color-worshipping ex-adult actress (Jane Lynch) and her loving husband, for example, and the ever-chirpy Sissy Knox (Parker Posey, her character’s seedy past illustrated with some photograph so old it makes me want to see Party Girl all over again) and some Hispanic fellow who never gets a chance to speak on camera (it’s a big cast). By the time the concert is going out live on the Public Broadcasting Network under the guidance of a Yiddish word-dropping producer (Ed Begley, Jr.) the ear of the songwriters for the music has turned it around, and Michael McKean’s embarrassments on Star Trek Voyager and The X-Files are all forgotten. The original music from Harry Shearer and an off-screen Annette O’Toole and others was good enough to play on Mary Cliff’s Traditions , after all.