Get ready to sizzle with “One Hot Summer,” the story of a beautiful Cuban-American lawyer who is torn between her husband and an old boyfriend as she and her two best friends try to follow their hearts to love and happiness. The cast includes Vanessa Marcil, Casper Van Dien, and Jon Seda.
I have copies to give away! Send me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com telling me what you love most about summertime and you may be a winner.
NOTE: DVDs provided by the production company; all opinions are my own.
Nicholas Sparks writes the equivalent of comfort food, high-carb, low-nutrition, but sometimes it hits the spot. His stories usually feature relationships that are not just true and deep and loving but healing. And then, like ripping off a band-aid, he tears it asunder, but in a manner that demonstrates just how true and deep and loving and healing the relationship was but how ennobling as well. And there is usually some object of deep metaphoric and sentimental value.
Ladies, prepare your hankies.
This time, the author of “The Notebook,” “Message in a Bottle,” “Nights in Rodanthe,” “A Walk to Remember” and this spring’s “The Last Song” (starring Miley Cyrus) gives us John (Channing Tatum) and Savannah (Amanda Seyfried of “Mamma Mia!” and “Big Love”). She is a kind-hearted girl and he is a special forces soldier with some anger issues. They have some soft-focus moments on the beach in Charleston while he is on leave and she is on spring vacation. She is considerate to his socially impaired father (Richard Jenkins) and he is understanding with her autistic neighbor. Two weeks later, they are very much in love, and agree to write as he completes his last year of service, as they look forward to being together as soon as it is over. But 9/11 changes everything. As Richard Lovelace wrote almost 400 years ago, “I could not love thee, dear, so much/Loved I not honor more.” As wrenching as it is for both of them, they know his place is with his team, defending freedom.
But then, she writes a “Dear John” letter telling him that she is engaged. He is wounded, recovers, and returns to battle. When he finally sees her again, he learns that her choice was not what he thought.
Director Lasse Hallström (“What’s Eating Gilbert Grape,” “The Cider House Rules,” “My Life as a Dog”) keeps things from getting too syrupy and Tatum and Seyfried have a sweet, easy connection. Henry Thomas (the kid from “E.T”) has warmth and humor as the single father of the autistic boy. Richard Jenkins does what he can in the underwritten role of John’s father, whose reserve and awkwardness may be attributable to an autism spectrum disorder. We’re on the side of these undeniably decent and very pretty people. But there is nothing they can do to make the last third of the film feel emotionally or narratively believable. If at the end of the movie, you ask whether there was any other reason for a character not to provide more information much earlier and the only answer is that they had to find a way to fill the last 40 minutes of screen time, that is not going to work. And the sweetness of the original connection is dissolved in what feels like a trick.
Ladies and gentlemen, let the record show that the Twitter movie has arrived.
“Valentine’s Day” consists of a bunch of incidents and concepts and indications that in our omni-media world are taken for stories, though all of them would fit within Twitter’s 140-character limit. And it would take less time to list the people who are not in this movie than the people who are. The opening credits, with one name at a time, threaten to continue for the first hour of the movie. I’ll save time with this summary: just about anyone in Hollywood who has ever been described as cute or adorable is in the cast, with a full complement of Jennifers plus a Jessica, a Julia, a couple of Taylors, four Oscar winners, and a Queen.
Love, Actually-style — or, actually, Love American Style-style, this is a bouquet of skits that are variations on the themes of love — old, new, familiar, surprising, poignant, frustrating, and joyous. I do not use the terms “deep” or “unpredictable” or “witty.” Like a dime store box of valentine chocolates, it is not fancy, and some of the ingredients may not be ideal, but they are still tasty.
At the heart of the story is Ashton Kutcher as Reed, an idealistic and kind-hearted florist who starts off Valentine’s Day by proposing to his career-focused girlfriend (Jessica Alba) and is overjoyed when she agrees. As he goes on through his busiest day of the year, taking orders and making deliveries, he encounters many of the other characters observing the holiday in their own ways. A young boy needs flowers for the most beautiful girl in school. A doctor needs flowers for both his wife and his girlfriend.
Also — a teacher (Jennifer Garner) decides to surprise her boyfriend by flying out to see him. A young man newly in love and an older man married for decades must cope with disappointing revelations. A football player (Eric Dane) and a sportscaster (Jamie Foxx) think about what they are missing by being alone as a publicist (Jessica Biel) wonders if anyone is coming to her annual “I Hate Valentine’s Day” party with its ceremonial bashing of a heart-shaped pinata. A young couple finds that no matter how carefully they have planned their first sexual encounter, they cannot anticipate every problem. And a US Army captain (Julie Roberts) and a businessman (Bradley Cooper) seated next to each other on a 14-hour flight, talk about life and love and how precious the time we spend with those we love can be.
Some of the segments work better than others and a few sour moments intrude when the movie wants us as well as its characters to shrug off certain choices that to my mind are unsettling. The revenge of a woman who was cheated on is more creepy than vindicating. And I thought I made this clear, people: NO MORE RACING THROUGH AIRPORT SCENES IN ROMANTIC COMEDIES.
Director Garry Marshall keeps things moving so that by the time you realize one story is not working very well we are on to the next. He tosses in many bits of pop songs throughout just to make sure we don’t miss anything (the first-time couple drives off to “Feels Like the First Time,” get it?). There are too many participants for the performances to be anything but competent, though it gets some energy from sheer star power, especially from Julia Roberts, Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Garner, Topher Grace, Anne Hathaway, and Marshall perennial good luck charm Hector Elizondo. Taylor Swift clearly has some fun as half of a high school couple believably described as “full of promise, full of hope, ignorant of reality.” Distracting winks at the audience (Taylor Lautner’s character says he is uncomfortable taking his shirt off in public, we see a poster for Love, Actually, and in the closing credit sequence Roberts reprises some dialogue from the movie she made with Marshall, “Pretty Woman”), however, are just about always an acknowledgment that the movie needs some artificial stimulants to keep the audience feeling entertained. But watching pretty people fall in and out of love is not a bad way to spend a winter evening and there is so much going on that at least one relationship will touch just about anyone.
Swordfights and other violence, characters injured and killed
Diversity Issues:
A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:
1938
Date Released to DVD:
2002
Amazon.com ASIN:
B00005JKEZ
Errol Flynn is the definitive Robin Hood in this glorious Technicolor version of the classic story, one of the most thrillingly entertaining films of all time.
King Richard the Lion-Hearted, off fighting in the Crusades, has been captured and held for ransom. His unscrupulous brother John (Claude Rains) schemes to make sure Richard never returns, so he can take over as king. All of the knights offer their support but one, Sir Robin of Locksley (Flynn), who vows to raise the ransom money himself. He and his followers use Sherwood Forest as cover so they can steal from the rich and powerful to help the poor and raise the ransom money. They capture a group of travelers that includes the Sheriff of Nottingham (Melville Cooper), Sir Guy of Gisboume (Basil Rathbone), and the lovely Maid Marian (Olivia de Havilland), the King’s ward. Marian is at first scornful, but when she learns that Robin and his men are loyal to Richard, and sees how the Normans have abused the Saxons, she becomes sympathetic. In order to capture Robin, the Sheriff plans an archery contest, with the prize to be awarded by Marian. They know Robin will not be able to resist. He enters in disguise, but his superb skill reveals his identity, and he is caught and put in the dungeon. With the help of his men and Marian, however, he is rescued in time to help save Richard from John’s plot to have him assassinated.
In this story, Robin is the only one of the knights to stay loyal to Richard. Though he is a Norman, he is willing to lose everything he has to protect the poor Saxons. His loyalty is not limited to his own people; rather, he sees everyone who behaves justly as his people. “It’s injustice I hate, not the Normans,” he tells Marian.
Robin is not only the world’s greatest archer and a master swashbuckler. He has a complex and multi-layered character, revealed in his interactions with Marian and with his men. He has a strong and clear sense of fairness and honor. He is always respectful of those who deserve it, including the peasants. He is confident and direct, but also unpretentious and even irreverent. When he tells Marian that her manners are not as pretty as her looks, Prince John laughs that this is quite a contrast to Sir Guy, whose feelings for Marian leave him tongue-tied. In the scene where he meets Little John, Robin fights him for the right to cross the river first, just for the fun of it. When Little John wins, tossing him into the water, Robin is delighted. “I love a man that can best me!”
Robin is not especially concerned with goodness or piety; he even steals food from Friar Tuck. But with the poor and weak, he is gentle and considerate and he is, above all, loyal. When he finds that the people who appear to be traveling monks are loyal to Richard, he
says he will only take half of what they have. At the end, when the king asks him what he wants as a reward, all he asks for is amnesty for his men.
This is also a good movie to use for a discussion of what makes a leader. Robin’s confidence in himself inspires the confidence of others. In one of history’s finest pairings of actor and role, Errol Flynn brings his own assurance, grace, and passionate enjoyment to a part that added courage, integrity, and lively dialogue, creating one of the screen’s greatest heroes.
A movie’s premise can be implausible and still work. The audience does not have to buy into whatever it is that the hero and heroine are after long as we believe that the movie’s characters believe in it. But in “Leap Year,” the premise and its ensuing complications are so preposterous that it just can’t work, despite the best efforts of its adorable leads and postcard-pretty settings. It has become something of a tradition to lead off the year with a weak romantic comedy, and we can cross the 2010 edition off the list.
The ones to blame here are screenwriters Deborah Kaplan and Harry Elfont, also responsible for the mind-numbingly painful Surviving Christmas and Made of Honor. Once, many years ago, they made a fresh and endearing little film about a high school graduation party with a cast of promising newcomers and a soundtrack of unexpected treats. That was “Can’t Hardly Wait.” But since then, they have made one formulaic, synthetic failure after another.
Their first movie had heart. Everything since then has been about what can get studio approval. These are “elevator pitch” movies — the premise is based on a successful film and can be summarized in an elevator ride, and the deal-makers rely on established stars with a lot of appeal to make it work. Their last movie tweaked “My Best Friend’s Wedding” by making the BFF who wanted to stop the nuptials the guy. This one takes the idea of the glossy “French Kiss,” the classics “I Know Where I’m Going” and “It Happened One Night” and about two dozen other squabbling-couple-dealing-with-a-disaster-prone-journey movies and, as Woody Allen once said of his mother’s cooking, “puts it through the de-flavorizing machine.”
Amy Adams in full twinkle mode plays Anna. She is, predictably, uptight, a bit of a control freak, and dying to have her perfect-on-paper boyfriend propose to her. But alas, he gives her diamond earrings instead of an engagement ring, just before he leaves for a meeting in Dublin. When her ne’er-do-well father (John Lithgow) — can his unreliability be the source of her need to be in control? — tells her that in Ireland, women can propose on February 29, she decides that in spite of her lifelong fear of flying, she will pop over to Dublin to pop the question.
But of course the best-laid plans of perky heroines in romantic comedies always go wrong, and here enters the complication. Handsome bartender Matthew Goode, for reasons that are too dull to go into, agrees to get her the rest of the way to Dublin, and all of the predictable problems line up like an obstacle course between us and time to go home. Car problems. Party crashing. Having to pretend to be married. Some flickers of romance that are quickly crushed by some un-funny contrivances and pratfalls. Sigh. Sigh. Sigh.
-style, this is a bouquet of skits that are variations on the themes of love — old, new, familiar, surprising, poignant, frustrating, and joyous. I do not use the terms “deep” or “unpredictable” or “witty.” Like a dime store box of valentine chocolates, it is not fancy, and some of the ingredients may not be ideal, but they are still tasty.