Big Momma’s House

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:17 am

This is less a movie than a string of skits based on one concept — Martin Lawrence in a fat suit and a dress.

It’s a great concept, crossing two terrific movies: “Stakeout” and “Tootsie,” with a little bit of “Mrs. Doubtfire” and “Some Like it Hot” and “Little Red Riding Hood” thrown in.

Malcolm (Martin Lawrence) and John (Paul Giamatti) are FBI agents trying to track down Lester (Terrence Howard), a bank robber who has escaped from prison. They set up a stakeout across the street from the home of “Big Momma,” the grandmother of Lester’s former girlfriend Sherry (Nia Long). Sherry arrives just as Big Momma leaves town, so Malcolm, a master of disguise, puts on a fat suit and a flowered housedress and is there to greet Sherry and her son Trent with open arms.

It’s a promising premise. But instead of a script, we get a series of situations, strung together in a lackluster story that underuses its three talented stars. Big Momma has to deliver a baby! Big Momma kicks butt at karate class and on the basketball court! Big Momma can’t cook! Big Momma sings in church! Sherry gets scared by a thunderstorm and crawls into bed with Big Momma! Oh, and by the way, Malcolm has to struggle with his feelings for Sherri because he thinks she was Lester’s accomplice and besides, he starts off the movie explaining that a wife and family are just a distraction for a lawman.

It’s a shame, because Lawrence (who also co-produced) is one of the funniest and most talented people around, and he does marvels at times in this movie. Even under all that silicone, he is able to use his eyes and body to hilarious effect. And even under all that broad comedy, he shows us a potential for tenderness and heart so enticing that we wish for more. Nia Long, so marvelous earlier this year in “Boiler Room” has sweetness, toughness, and humor, and it is always a pleasure to see Paul Giamatti, quickly becoming a top character actor.

Lawrence the producer should do better for Lawrence the performer. The script is very weak, relying heavily on bathroom humor, jokes about sexy old people, and “Big Momma’s” highly un-grandmotherly feelings for Sherri. Inconsistencies of plot and character keep the audience from connecting to the material.

Parents should know that the movie contains a lot of sexual humor and potty jokes. There is brief nudity, including the real Big Momma’s backside. Violence includes a menacing bad guy, characters in peril, fighting, and gunplay.

Families who see the movie should discuss Sherri’s mistake and how she handled it, stereotypes of the elderly, how we decide whom to trust, and the way that families support each other through bad times. The role of the church is nicely handled. Families with older children who enjoy this movie will also enjoy “Tootsie,” “Stakeout,” “Some Like It Hot,” and Lawrence’s “Blue Streak.”

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The Blair Witch Project

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:17 am

More conceptual art and marketing phenomenon than movie, “The Blair Witch Project” is poised to become the most profitable movie of all time. Directors Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick have learned from canny film- makers like Val Lewton and Alfred Hitchcock — people are much more scared by what they don’t see than by what they do see. The film-makers made a virtue of having no budget for special effects, and left everything to the audience’s grisly imagination. Like some sort of cinematic Rorschach test, as we watch this movie, we are each scared by whatever lurks in our subconscious. The movie’s plot is simply summarized: three film students go into the woods to make a movie about a local legend and never come home. A year later, their footage is found, and what we see is supposed to be what they left behind. Knowing the end from the beginning, the audience is left with 70 minutes of growing dread as the three students become increasingly more panicky and the events turn increasingly more creepy. Then it is over.

Teenagers have always loved scary movies, from the old William Castle movies up through “Nightmare on Elm Street,” “Scream” and “I Still Know What You Did Last Summer.” On one level, they provide peer bonding — you have to be friends with someone you grabbed in a moment of terror and it is fun have that shared experience. On another level, there is something cathartic for teenagers about seeing this graphic representation of an uncontrollable id on the loose. It is important for parents to remember that tolerance for scariness is highly individual, and, especially for teens and younger kids, highly suggestible. In concrete terms, there is nothing really scary in this movie, and parents who do not object to profanity should not have a problem with allowing a kid who really wants to see it to go. They should make sure that those who do see it know — promotional tricks to the contrary — that it is entirely manufactured and fictional. And parents should not hesitate to provide cover to kids who seem uncertain about going, to give them the luxury of saying, “I really want to see it, but my parents would KILL me, and they are even scarier than the Blair Witch!”

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About Adam

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:17 am

It begins as a sweet, simple love story. A flirtatious waitress named Lucy (Kate Hudson) falls for a man named Adam (Stuart Townsend). All the other men in Lucy’s life pursued her, but Adam lets her take the lead. Once she does, he is charming to her family, and a thoughtful and romantic boyfriend. She proposes to him in front of a restaurant full of people, including her whole family, and he accepts.

For most movies, that would be followed by “the end” and the credits. But this one is just getting going. The clock turns back and we see the same set of events through the eyes of Lucy’s siblings, all of whom have romantic problems for which Adam seems to provide the ideal solution. Lucy’s sister Laura (Frances O’Connor), a graduate student, dreams of a man with whom she can share the poetry that is so meaningful to her. Their brother David is about to explode with longing for his girlfriend, a virgin who says she wants to stay that way. And another sister, bored with her marriage, would like some excitement. Somehow, Adam provides it all, and then some.

It is fun to see what is going on behind the scenes of the original story, and there are some sly parallels, as when different family members hear different stories about Adam’s fancy car. The story could be cynical — after all, it is about betrayal, deception, and infidelity. But Adam’s ability to go straight to the heart of each person’s desire gives it a whimsical, almost magical tone that keeps it as light as a bubble. Hudson has less of a star turn than she had in “Almost Famous,” but she is bewitching, especially when she sings the standards that provide a nice ironic counterpoint to the various love stories.

And love stories they are — Adam is not manipulative and indeed might think of himself as happily manipulated by others. He is not trying to do anything but make everyone happy, and he has such a knack for it that even the audience cannot help being a little charmed.

Parents should know that the movie has strong language, and fairly explicit sexual references and situations, including infidelity and (unconsummated) homosexual feelings. Characters drink, sometimes to excess, and they smoke. There are some tense scenes, but no violence.

Families who see this movie should talk about how Adam figured out what each member of the family wanted, and how the various secrets and lies around his involvement with each of them might create problems in the future. They might also want to talk about times when they have felt pressure to be something different in order to make someone happy.

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy “Local Hero.”

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The Gunfighter

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:17 am

Plot: Jimmy Ringo (Gregory Peck) is the fastest gun who ever lived, which makes him a target for every young man who wants to prove himself. On his way to Cayenne, Ringo stops in a bar. A “young squirt” taunts him, and Ringo makes every possible effort to placate him, finally asking the young man’s friends to make him stop, but finally he pulls his gun on Ringo, who kills him. Even though everyone saw that it was in self- defense, the witnesses tell him to move on. The dead man had three brothers, and “they won’t care who drew first.”

The three brothers come after Ringo, but he is waiting for them, and he takes their guns and sends their horses back to town, telling them to go back on foot. But he knows that they will probably follow him instead, and that once he gets to Cayenne, he will only have a brief time to do what he has in mind.

He gets to Cayenne, and is surprised and pleased to find his old friend Mark Strett (Millard Mitchell) as the sheriff. Mark tells him he will have to leave; even though Ringo does not want any trouble, and has not committed any crimes, trouble will come looking for him, as there are too many young men who will risk everything to be able to claim the credit for killing Ringo. Ringo wants to see his wife Peggy and their child. Mark knows where they are but won’t say. He does agree to ask Peggy if she will see Ringo, and tells Ringo to stay put, under the care of the sympathetic bartender (Karl Malden).

Ringo stays quietly in the corner. But every one of the boys in town plays hookey to peer in at him through the saloon window. And the local “squirt,” hot-headed Hunt Bromley (Skip Homier), comes after him. Ringo scares him off with a bluff. But Jerry is across the street with a rifle pointed out the window, sure that Ringo must be the one who killed his son. And the three brothers have found horses and guns and are approaching fast.

Peggy at first refuses to see him. She finally agrees, and when he says he wants to settle down in a place where no one knows him, she says if he can do that for a year, she will join him. He spends some time with his son, and prepares to leave, happy at the thought of his new life. But Hunt is waiting for him, and shoots him in the back.

As Ringo dies, he says that he drew first. He doesn’t want Hunt hanged. He wants him to suffer as he has suffered, knowing that wherever he goes, there will be someone who wants to be known as the man who shot the man who shot Ringo.

Discussion: This is really a Western version of the story of King Midas. Ringo’s wish came true, but at a terrible price. There was a time when he could think of nothing finer, nothing manlier, than being known as the fastest gun in the West. We see a glimmer of that again, when he asks what Jimmy (who does not know that Ringo is his father) thinks of him. When he hears that Jimmy admires Wyatt Earp, he can’t help telling the boy that he is far tougher than Earp. Yet now Ringo is tired. He knows that every moment he will have to watch for someone trying to kill him (as happens throughout this movie), and that someday someone will be a little less tired (or, as happens, a little less honorable) than he is.

It provides a good opportunity for a discussion of notions of manhood and courage, along the lines of the moving speech by Charles Bronson in “The Magnificent Seven.” Ringo would trade all of his fame for the chance to live with his family, as shown most poignantly when he shares a drink with a young rancher. Ringo is more successful with his intelligence than his speed — he is able to avoid shoot-outs with the brothers, with Jerry, and in the first encounter with Hunt. He arranges to have money paid to Peggy without giving away their connection, and thinks of a plausible reason to tell Jimmy why he wanted to see him so that he doesn’t have to tell him the truth. His innate decency and sense of justice are shown in his dealings with Jerry, his dreams for a life with Peggy, and especially in the scene in which he talks to the ladies of the town, when they do not know who he is. His pleasure in being able to have a moment’s interaction with people who are not either terrified, angry, or trying to shoot him is very moving.

This is also a good movie about the consequences of our choices. There are so many movies about redemption and triumph that it is automatically branded an “adult western” when a gunfighter doesn’t shoot the bad guy and ride off into the sunset. Unlike Alan in “The Petrified Forest,” who dies to help someone else, or Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid , whose death at the end of the movie only brightens their legend, Ringo chooses to tarnish his legend as he dies, to curse Hunt to the same fate that he suffered, and possibly also to give little boys and young squirts less reason to try to be like him.

Questions for Kids:

· Why does every town have a “young squirt” who wants to prove he is faster than Ringo?

· Why doesn’t Mark carry a gun?

· Why does Ringo insist that he drew on Hunt?

· Why was Mark able to get away and start over, when Ringo and Buck were not?

· Why does Peggy call herself Mrs. Ringo at the end?

Connections: One of the three brothers who come after Ringo was played by Alan Hale, Jr., who went on to play the Captain in the television show “Gilligan’s Island,” and was the son of Alan Hale, Little John in “The Adventures of Robin Hood.”

Compare Ringo’s final decision to the one made by Jimmy Cagney in “Angels with Dirty Faces.” A tough criminal on death row, he is asked by his lifelong friend, a priest, to go to his death a coward, so that the boys who look up to him will not want to follow his example.

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A.I.: Artificial Intelligence

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:17 am

Cross “2001” with “ET” and “Blade Runner” and throw in some “Pinocchio,” some “Wizard of Oz,” some “Velveteen Rabbit” and a touch of “Our Town,” and you might have some sense of what to expect from “A.I.” It is an ambitious, complex, provocative movie that is likely to lead to more late night college dorm debates than anything since the ones about “2001’s” monolith and the ape throwing the bone.

The movie is about David, who looks like a 12-year-old boy but is really a “mecha,” a highly developed robot. It is set in the world of the future, when the polar ice caps have melted and cities have been flooded. Population is strictly controlled, and robots that look and act like humans perform almost every service. Dr. Hobby (William Hurt) decides to take robots a step further and develop the first robot that can feel love. One of his employees, Henry (Sam Robards) is chosen to be the beta tester. Henry and his wife, Monica (Frances O’Connor), have a son, Martin, who is critically ill. At first, Monica is horrified by the idea of “adopting” a mechanical boy, but her need for love is so overpowering that she initiates the sequence that will bind David irrevocably to her forever. He immediately changes from a pleasant if emotionless toy into a child whose mother is his whole world. He loves, which means that he is needy, jealous, and He thinks like a three-year-old, calling for his mommy and wanting her all to himself.

Martin gets better and returns home. He and David are jealous of one another, and when Monica believes that David may be a threat to Martin, she sets him lose in the woods. David is determined to find the Blue Fairy who can turn him into a real boy, as she did with Pinocchio, because he thinks that will make it possible for Monica to love him. In the woods, David meets up with other abandoned mechas, including a robot gigolo named Joe (Jude Law). As he searches for the Blue Fairy, he sees disturbing sights: a gladiator-style demolition derby where people pay to see the destruction of mecha, a decadent city reminiscent of the place where Pinocchio turned into a donkey, and a flooded metropolis where David meets someone from his past. Wherever he goes, he tries to become real, so he can return to his mother as someone she can love.

Developed by Stanley Kubrick and completed by Steven Spielberg, this is a two-part invention of a movie that owes both its strengths and its weaknesses to the collaboration between two men of such prodigious talents and such different, even opposing sensibilities. Kubrick is the master of the cool image; Spielberg the master of the warm feeling. The juxtaposition of their influence is particularly apt for this story of the struggle between heart and brain, not just on the part of the mecha, but on the part of the orga (humans) as well.

Parents should know that the movie is rated PG-13 for some sexual references (Joe is a robot created to have sex with women, a crude joke about the equivalent for men) and some violence (mecha are destroyed, critically ill child, characters in peril). Children may also find the theme and some of the situations disturbing and may also be unsettled by the open-ended nature of the story, which leaves many questions unanswered. It will be most suitable for teens, who may enjoy debating some of the issues of love, vulnerability, the nature of humanity, the future of the human race, and even the meaning of life.

Families who see this movie should talk about whether what David feels is love, and Dr. Hobby’s real reason for creating him. Is there any way to make a robot “real?” If the movie is about making a machine that can feel, why is the title “Artificial Intelligence?”

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy Blade Runner (for older teens and adults, due to violence and dark themes). They might like to read the Karel Kapek play, “R.U.R.,” which coined the term “robot” and raises some of the same issues. They might like to take a look at this site about the famous Turing Test developed by computer pioneer Alan Turing to determine whether a machine could think. Turing said that a machine could be considered intelligent if it could fool a person into thinking that he or she was communicating with another person.

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