Just Wright

Posted on September 14, 2010 at 8:07 am

If you’ve seen the trailer, you know exactly what’s coming here, but there’s nothing wrong with that. After all, you know what’s coming when you combine eggs, flour, sugar, and vanilla to make a cake, and you still enjoy eating it. It is as predictable as, well, you’d expect, for a movie cake made from the Ugly Duckling crossed with Cinderella and a little bit of Taylor Swift’s “You Belong With Me” must be. But appealing performers, a heart-warming story, and some genuine on-screen chemistry make this movie the best romance of 2010 so far.

Queen Latifah plays Leslie Wright, who has a weakness for fixer-uppers. She drives a banged-up car. She buys a house that needs a lot of work. She works in rehabilitation as a physical therapist. She takes in Morgan (Paula Patten of “Precious”), a friend who has no job or family. Leslie is comfortable with who she is and it may be in part the ease she projects on dates that keeps her in the friend zone. She just feels too safe.

Leslie is a big Nets fan. One night, after a game, she sees the team’s star, Scott McKnight (rap star Common) at a gas station trying to figure out how to open his gas tank. They hit it off and he invites her to his birthday party. Leslie brings Morgan, who is going after her dream of being married to a player in the NBA the way Sir Edmund Hillary went after Mount Everest.

It works at first. But when Scott is injured and needs physical therapy, he gets a chance to discover what we’ve known all along, and not just because she is being played by the movie’s star and producer, that Leslie is a very special woman. The plot has the standard ups and downs but an always-likable cast keeps us rooting for Scott and Leslie to realize what we’ve known from the gas station — that they are just right. Common is not an actor, but like most musical performers he has superb timing and the on-screen confidence to let us see Scott thinking. It is his willingness to be quiet on screen that establishes Scott as a sincere and decent man who loves to play basketball and is committed to his team but never lets the glamor go to his head. He has some moves in the basketball scenes and a bunch of real-life athletes show up to give the game scenes some authenticity and make Common’s acting skills look Oscar-worthy by comparison. The lovely Pam Grier and Phylicia Rashad play the moms and both create real characters who are warm, smart, strong, and loving.

Queen Latifah is also completely at ease on screen and she is utterly endearing as Leslie, a woman who knows who she is and just wants someone who can understand how much she has to give. The film doesn’t think it needs to start with the couple disliking each other; it is captivating that Leslie and Scott instantly like each other as friends. The connection is so strong that we look forward to seeing them discover it for themselves. When they sit down together at a piano, we know they will be in tune. And knowing it only adds to our pleasure in watching it unfold.

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The Back-Up Plan

Posted on August 24, 2010 at 8:00 am

This movie’s best use could be population control. No one who sees it will want to get pregnant or raise children. It could also be used to show aspiring screenwriters what not to do.

Other than that, I can’t think of any reason not to ship it back to the studio and recycle the film stock. If you were planning to go see this film in theaters, I hope you have a back-up plan.

Zoe (Jennifer Lopez) has decided that not having a man in her life should not mean she does not have a child in her life. So, she goes to a doctor (Robert Klein) to get artificial insemination. And that very day, she meets Stan, a guy who could be The One (bland Alex O’Loughlin).

It could have worked. But instead of giving any thought to the interesting possibilities of the story, it is just another boneheaded replay of the dumbest sitcom pregnancy and parenting cliches. They scrape the bottom of the barrel and then they dig a little deeper. Zoe barfs. She gets super-hungry. She has hormonal swings. She gets depressed about getting fat. She worries that he won’t love her any more. And the costume designer seems to have been heavily influenced by “Flashdance.” Lopez’s bare shoulder appears so often it deserves its own trailer. O’Laughlin’s bare chest is so crucial to his performance it deserves an agent.

Meanwhile the movie wastes the time and talent of two brilliant comic actresses in supporting roles, Jennifer Elise Cox (unforgettable as Jan in the Brady Bunch movies and in one of the funniest scenes ever on “Will and Grace“) and Micheaela Watkins (Hoda Kotb and the blogger on “Saturday Night Live”). The adorable Melissa McCarthy (“Gilmore Girls”) and the very funny Anthony Anderson are stuck in roles with lines that pull them down like quicksand. Only Linda Lavin (television’s “Alice”) manages to maintain some dignity as Zoe’s Nana, engaged for decades (and if you guess her fiance is “Happy Days'” Mr. C., Tom Bosley, you are correctamundo).

There isn’t one fresh or believable or even sympathetic moment in the whole mess. Zoe and Stan are supposed to be endearing. She left her successful corporate job (with plenty of money socked away) for a cuddly little pet store and is so tender-hearted that her own pet is a dog who needs to have his back half supported on wheels. Stan lives on a farm, makes cheese, and is studying to get his college degree. But these are check-lists. They don’t add up to personalities. The movie clearly thinks these people are far more appealing to each other and to us than they really are. If first-time director Alan Poul and screenwriter Kate Angelo want us to care about these characters separately or as a couple, it might make sense to give us some reason to believe that they have the ability to care about anything other than themselves.

For one thing, this is a movie about pregnancy in which no one much likes babies or children. Zoe has a friend who repeatedly claims to hate her four children and shows no sense of responsibility or affection for them. Stan has a friend who describes parenthood as: “Awful, awful, awful, awful, and then something happens. And then awful….” Zoe goes to a single mother’s group with one member who insists on having the entire group in the room as she gives birth in a kiddie pool. Her grimaces and grunts are supposed to be funny. So is a dog chewing up a pregnancy test stick. So is a single mother who insists on breast-feeding a three-year-old. So is the water breaking in the middle of a conga line at a wedding. Not, not, not, not, not. At the exact moment we should be saying “Awwww….” we are thinking about calling Child Protective Services. Or Audience Protective Services.

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The Last Song

Posted on August 17, 2010 at 8:15 am

Miley Cyrus shows us how her reach exceeds her grasp in “The Last Song,” an attempt to move past Hannah Montana. She has become Disney’s most valuable property through the force of her personality, comic timing, and way with a pop song. But pop princesses grow up, though usually not quite as quickly as they want to. And valuable properties are hard to turn down. So when one of the world’s biggest superstars-turned-brand wants to make a grown-up movie, she gets her way.

That is why “The Last Song” plays like a check-list of everything a 17-year old would like to make as an antidote to the perpetually sunny Hannah Montana rather than a movie that works. After the sugary Disney Channel hijinks, she gets to play something a tiny bit edgy, a sulky teenager with a pierced nose, sent to live with her estranged father for the summer. Nicholas Sparks, for the first time adapting one of his own books, supplies his brand of synthetic syrup — broken hearts must find love amidst devastating losses, preferably through some exchanges of mail, all of this near a body of water with a beach.

Cyrus plays Veronica (Ronnie), a recent high school graduate who is so angry at just about everything and everyone that she is refusing to go to Julliard in the fall even though she is so talented that they accepted despite her refusal to play the piano. They just knew how great she was and accepted her anyway. Her mother (Kelly Preston) drops her off with her little brother Jonah (Bobby Coleman in the film’s most natural performance) at their dad’s beach house. Jonah is thrilled to be there but Ronnie is still angry with their father (Greg Kinnear as Steve) for leaving them and refuses to have anything to do with him as she had refused to read his letters.

Ronnie meets a cute guy named Will (Liam Hemsworth) and they bond over protecting a nest of sea turtle eggs. A falling-in-love montage is quickly followed by a trying-on-clothes-in-the-vintage-shop montage, which at least has the advantage of giving us a break from the dialogue and plot developments. But before long, the screen is littered with complications as Will and Ronnie have to cope with divided loyalties and then with something much more serious.

It’s all pretty enough, and Sparks is an expert at manipulative melodrama. Cyrus has a likable, unforced screen presence but does not have the training or focus to make Ronnie real or show us any change more significant than the switch from black to pastels and the disappearance of the nose stud. The screenplay feels episodic and scattered, like a collection of discount greeting cards. And the movie feels like a very expensive screen test for a star who needs to learn that sitcom skills are not enough to make a movie drama work.

Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!

Posted on July 19, 2010 at 8:00 am

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for sexual content, some drug references, and language
Profanity:	Brief strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Social drinking, drunk driving, smoking, drug humor
Violence/ Scariness:	Comic slap
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	2004
Date Released to DVD:	2004
Amazon.com ASIN:	B00005JMYL

This week’s release of “Ramona and Beezus” made me think of the movie where I first noticed two of its stars, Josh Duhamel and Ginnifer Goodwin:
This cute romantic comedy is better than it needs to be, thanks to the talents of three up-and-coming stars, impeccable comic timing from the supporting actors, and a director (Robert Luketic of Legally Blonde) who knows how to make it all as shiny as a new copper penny.

The set-up is taken from Cinderella, with the part of the fairy godmother played by the internet.

Kate Bosworth plays Rosalee Futch, a sunny check-out girl at a Piggly Wiggly grocery store in a small West Virginia town. Her best friends are Cathy (the terrific Gennifer Goodwin of Mona Lisa Smile) and Pete (Topher Grace of “That Seventies Show”).

Rosalee wins an online charity contest for a date with movie superstar Tad Hamilton (Josh Duhamel). She is whisked away to Hollywood for a stay in a luxury hotel and a glamorous evening with the man of her dreams, or at least the man who plays the man of her dreams.

Tad is better at playing an all-American boy next door than being one. As his agent (or is it his manager — they’re both named Richard Levy) says of one tabloid photo: “Congratulations! You’re actually drinking, driving, smoking, leering, and groping at the same time!” They set up the charity contest in order to create a more wholesome image for Tad.

Tad is charmed by Rosalee’s unpretentious goodness, and he follows her back to West Virginia, interfering with Pete’s plans to declare his feelings for Rosalee.

It is impossible to believe that Pete and Rosalee could have existed for five minutes in the same town without its being clear to both of them and everyone in the county how they felt about each other. But this is a fairy tale, with Rosalee the kind of girl who is so innocent that she not only wears her retainer on her big date; she takes it out at the table when it is time to eat. And Bosworth and Grace almost make us believe that they are simply just too adorable to figure out that they should probably be dating. Pete has a tiny bit of ironic self-awareness (he threatens to tear Tad apart with his bare hands “…or with vicious rhetoric!”) that keeps things from getting too sugary. And Duhamel is simply terrific as Tad. He has all of the confidence, charisma, and screen power to make us believe that Tad is a movie star. But he also manages to show us Tad’s uncertainty, insecurity, and dim sense that Rosalee does have something worth wanting. The tough part is making that work in a romantic comedy without making it too broad or too deep. We want to care about Tad, but not too much. Duhamel gets it exactly right.

Nathan Lane and Sean Hayes as the two Richard Levys and Gary Cole as Rosalee’s starstruck dad (watch his t-shirts) lend additional snap to the story. Kathryn Hahn contributes a lovely performance as a bartender who is smitten with Pete and Ginnifer Goodwin is adorable as the best friend. It may be romantic fluff, but it is brightly done and all-but-irresistibly cute.

Parents should know that the movie includes some strong language, drinking and smoking (scenes in a bar, character drinks to drown his sorrows), drug humor, brief barf and toilet humor, and sexual references and situations. But the movie has a positive message about sexual values, as Rosalie’s decision not to have sex with Tad is an important part of his developing respect for her and wanting to get to know her better.

Families who see this movie should talk about the ways we think about celebrities. Why was it so easy for Rosalie and Cathy to think that they knew what Tad was like? What is Tad really like? Did some of Rosalie’s goodness “rub off” on him? What will be different for him? Why was it so hard for Pete to tell Rosalie how he felt?

Families who enjoy this movie should see the classic musical Bye Bye Birdie about the havoc brought to a small town when a rock star arrives to get “one last kiss” from a randomly chosen fan (played by Ann-Margret). Mature audiences will also David Mamet’s trenchantly funny State and Main about a movie company’s effect on a small New England town.

Grease: The Singalong Version!

Posted on July 11, 2010 at 12:06 pm

It’s the one that you want!

You probably already know the words, but it’s great to see them up on the big screen and it is really fun to sing along. For just one moment, we’re all students at Rydell High.

Tell me more!

Check here to see where it is playing and order tickets online as many shows are already sold out. If your city is not on the list, demand it!

NOTE: “Grease” was rated PG when it first came out, before the introduction of the PG-13 rating. It is now rated PG-13 for sexual content including references, teen smoking and drinking, and language. Parents should know that the themes include a possible teen pregnancy and the movie suggests that the way to get a boyfriend is to act like a tramp. This is all presented in a heightened, parody tone but it may be disturbing to younger audiences.