Reviews

An 8 out of 10 for me, an old-timer. And a 9 or 10 for pre-teen viewers.

For three years I was the program scheduler for Starz Kids, a movie and shorts channel devoted entirely to G- and extra mild PG-rated films. This means that I basically determined what went on the air and at what times of day. I hope that credential speaks for itself.

"Curious George" is, in my opinion – both as an industry pro specializing in content, and as the very involved uncle of two wonderful boys, ages 5 and 3 – one of the very best animated movies to come along in years.

I'll freely admit that I was drawn to the film because the animators made George so irresistibly cute, even more so than in the books, where he was still adorable. But what a breath of fresh air! First, and perhaps most notable, is that George doesn't need a voice. Like so much classic slapstick from the silent era, he elicits huge belly laughs from children and adults alike with nothing more than his physical comic antics. True, his actions are sometimes a bit fantastical, but there's no running commentary. He derives sheer joy simply from discovering new things in the world, much like so many small children who haven't yet been corrupted by the more anti-imagination media of today (video games, music videos, those hand-held devices that become mutated appendages, etc.). Every new discovery is magical, and brings a huge smile to his face just by its sheer newness. This is the same type of smile I see on children's faces that gives me some of my greatest joys in life.

So instead of sarcastic remarks, which I admit can sometimes be hilarious coming from cartoon animals, we get the same sort of innocent, sometimes mischievous, but always good-natured fun the books provided. And unlike much of the canon of Disney cartoons aimed at small children (and often, nowadays, their parents), no one dies in this film.

As for the human characters, they come off as endearing and genuine, especially the beleaguered Ted (the man in the yellow hat, now with an accompanying yellow jungle outfit) and his intended paramour, the sweet, understanding schoolteacher who takes her class on an inordinate number of field trips to the museum where Ted works. Their relationship is gradual and innocent, slowly building to their first kiss, which keeps getting interrupted by George's latest misadventure.

The voice cast is as ideal as any outside of Albert Brooks and Ellen DeGeneres in "Finding Nemo". Will Ferrell is excellent (four words I never thought I'd utter) as Ted, and Drew Barrymore perfectly cast as Maggie. Also ideally cast are Dick Van Dyke as elderly museum owner Mr. Bloomsbury, Eugene Levy as wacky mad scientist (a friendly one) Clovis, and David Cross as Bloomsbury's conniving son, a character drawn specifically to resemble Cross, who wants to turn the museum into a parking lot.

But the star, of course, is the ever-lovable, ever-hungry, ever-cooing title monkey. The filmmakers retained all of the character's sweetness and heart from the books, and while yes, the film is somewhat overrun with product placement (mainly from Dole, big shock), the end result is a children's' movie from a series of children's' books that plays to children, with their love of animals and physical comedy and their endless curiosity.

For my part, I laughed out loud repeatedly, and for an hour and a half, I was a little kid again. And even if parents won't get the same "adult" subtext they'll find in "Toy Story", "Nemo" and the like, the trade-off is 85 minutes of their time given to a movie they can truly be glad their kids are watching, laughing at and loving.

Sounds like a pretty good bargain in today's climate.

I'd looked forward to this one, as most attempts at satirizing Hollywood life in the last two decades, both from studios and indies, have ranged from mediocre to unmitigated disasters. This one offered Naomi Watts in a starring role, and I've adored her since "Mulholland Drive", both as a terrific, versatile actress and as an unqualified beauty (they all seem to come from Australia and the U.K. these days, don't they?).

Well, Ms. Watts does shine in the title role, and she's in every scene, but somehow the film still falls flat. I'm not a big fan of film-making on digital video -- it always comes across to me like I'm watching someone's home movies, an experience I should be paid for, not that I should have to pay for -- but I understand why it's done in certain cases. In this case, it was a mistake.

Writer-director Coffey appears to be going for verite-style realism (I'm assuming he's not so arrogant as to place himself in the uber-pretentious Dogme 95 school), but he doesn't seem to realize that in order for any film to work, the result shouldn't come across as a home movie or, in this case, a student film.

Too much time is spent on Ellie in her car, doing all the things that Angelenos do in their cars because they're just too busy to do them elsewhere (applying makeup, changing clothes, practicing their lines, and the universal asshole-identifier, talking on their cellphones) and too self-absorbed to care how it affects their driving or those around them. This works as satire for one scene -- the next four times it occurs it feels just like being stuck in a car behind one of these narcissists, and it's not an enjoyable feeling. There's a related scene about halfway through that's amusingly ironic, but not worth the endurance test.

Just as with the interior car shots, much of the satire is overripe, pushing the irritation factor of nearly every character to its limits, testing the thresholds of both humorous exaggeration and simple tolerance. No satire should leave you wanting to burn the characters and their milieu to the ground (apart from "Day of the Locust", in which Hollywood does in fact burn, deservedly, but in context).

(As an aside, and for a chuckle, this may be the first time Keanu Reeves isn't the most annoying element of a movie he's in. But then, he appears only as a member of his band Dogstar, playing in a club, and he has no lines.) The other key problem is often endemic to film satire: it moves at a snail's pace. Unless you're the rare individual who's both an struggling thespian in Hollywood AND a caring, thoughtful individual, you will probably find yourself yawning a lot more frequently than laughing during this 95 minutes.

For all its drawbacks, though, this is a showcase for Naomi Watts to show how versatile she is, with the verisimilitude of her having to switch between characters, accents, moods, etc. The overall comment, that she doesn't really seem to be herself very often and has no idea who that self really is within the realm of all her "performing," is funny and worth exploring, but Coffey (or someone else) needs a vehicle that's more engaging, clearer about its objectives, and at least somewhat watchable.

All the elements are there: Two privileged teens with a latent homosexual relationship commit murder for the thrill of it, and to see if they can outsmart the law. That's L&L, as told in "Compulsion", "Rope", "Swoon" and who knows what else. Add in an angst-ridden investigator (could still be "Rope"), make her a small-town detective with a sordid past that she's trying to escape, and throw in her green partner, with whom she has an uneasy, sometimes sexual relationship, and give their relationship some heavy-handed subtext as well. Any cliches jumping out at you yet? All it needs is for the boys to have neglectful parents and for the detectives to have a commander who wants them off the case and, oh, wait, we've got that, too!

People tell me I'm too critical of today's movies. I say filmgoers aren't critical enough. I still love movies, even some Hollywood output, but I really hate it when I can watch a movie and, without even thinking much about it, recite the "high concept" pitch that the writers or producers or whoever made to the studio exec. This is the tenth movie I've seen in 2002 that's been that easy, and the message it sends is that no one in Hollywood is even bother to THINK anymore, much less be creative. And Barbet Schroeder, God bless him, was at one time a genuinely creative director, turning "Reversal of Fortune" from a bland rehash of a story, to which everyone knew the ending, that had flooded the media a few years prior, into a compelling character study by making it just that. "Murder by Numbers", on the other hand, is a by-the-numbers character study with even its subtext having been co-opted from countless films noirs and 60s and 70s psychological drama/mysteries like "Peeping Tom" and "Klute".

Even Sandy as a cop was much more convincing as her typecast "lovable klutz makes good" character in "Miss Congeniality". She still shows promise as a dramatic actress, but she hasn't realized it yet. The teens are appropriately intense, but despite all the claims the film makes, they're really not that bright, and experienced homicide cops would definitely be smarter than they are here. In this way, the film even manages to co-opt from 80s and 90s teen farces.

Basically, there's nothing new here. And if the celluloid flophouses want four times as much as they did 20 years ago for me to sit my ass in their chairs, they better be prepared to offer more than a rehash of the same stuff I watched back then.

Deluise family affair is unfortunate load of babble, with dialogue so disjointed that film is difficult to follow even when events are clear as day; this is an almost completely amateur effort, with poor writing, direction, acting; showbiz farce doesn't succeed because it's even sillier than the industry it's trying to poke fun at (and anyone who's worked in the biz knows that's no easy task); every character is made to look foolish, with the leads having the most screen time/opportunity to look this way.

I don't know if this is the masterpiece of filmmaking its biggest fans make it out to be, but as a character study of people you wouldn't want to be but who are nonetheless fascinating for the way they approach they same dreams and ambitions we all have, this is the standard bearer (along with "Local Hero", probably the only character play of the 80's better than this one).

Malle's films have always been about character over plot, but this one brings his legendary sensibility for the genre, which draws a far larger mass audience in Europe than in N. America, to a uniquely American city. And this movie is precisely about America in 1978 (when it's set), approaching recovery from the economic miasma of the 70's and the political one of the 60's, struggling under Carter but seeing a light at the end of the tunnel that ultimately proved to be a false idol (the Reagan era).

As a nine-year-old growing up in Philly in 1977, I visited A.C. on Labor Day, right before the fall and subsequent "rebirth," when the boardwalk was about freak shows, frozen custard and pizza slices as big as your face for 55 cents (and salt water taffy, which remains a staple today), and the rest of the town was about poverty, unemployment and lost hope. All right before the town became "the Vegas of the east," full of casinos and glitter and development dollars that led to, today, a seaside slum no better, and in many ways worse, than it was in '77.

This film, released at a perfect time (1981), and today the perfect retrospective film, is about the transition from despair to prosperity, with those participating totally unaware of the even greater despair to come.

It's Atlantic City, and America, 1978-1982.

Sadly, this was Hal Ashby's final bow as a director.

The man who gave us "The Last Detail", "Coming Home" and "Being There" seemingly threw together this agonizing-to-sit-through hodgepodge of alcoholics, drug addicts and hookers that seems to work only as mind-numbing montage of film noir cliches. What makes it even more painful is that it's both very loud and very dull, and nothing makes any sense until the film reaches a conclusion so inevitable, you wish they would've gotten to it about 75 minutes sooner.

Lowbrow, Gen-X comedy is passable time killer. The owner and employees of a Los Angeles gourmet food delivery service pursue love, career ambitions and the ultimate joint during the course of a business day. Too many stereotypes, especially one of a young, gay man that is both offensive and really annoying, but sporadically funny and loaded with comical references and homages to classic films.

Cliche, misogynistic, very bloody -- only for hardened fans of the psycho-thriller. Ewan McGregor turns in his first disappointing performance, and Nolte seems more of a zombie than the corpses (this may have been a stylistic touch, but I'm more apt to believe his heart just wasn't in the role).

Haskell Wexler, a cinematographer by trade, practically invented the technique invented we know today as "cinema verite" with this striking drama that plays so much like a documentary, you'd never guess it was fiction without being told. It's less a story and more a voyeuristic look into the lives of ordinary people thrust into extraordinary circumstances, in this case reporters who are covering a political convention and other Chicago locals who are just minding their own business when the legendary riots break out at the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

Even more groundbreaking is the approach Wexler takes in framing the film's final scenes. He had ample warning that there would potentially be some unrest at the convention, so he decided to thrust his cast right into the thick of it, sending them to the foyer and front entrance of the Chicago Convention Center and the crew right along to film the events. No one knew exactly what would happen, making this perhaps the most creative and timely piece of "improvised" drama in the history of filmmaking up to this point.

Every documentary filmmaker who chooses to make his/her film about actions and events rather than simply a bunch of talking heads owes a debt to Wexler and his creative team on "Medium Cool".

Let's face it. Every documentary is biased. No matter how objective (forgive the situational wordplay) a documentary filmmaker wants to be in presenting his/her subject, he/she has a point of view, or else why bother making the film at all?

The problem here is not Michael Paxton's bias, although he is clearly an adoring fan of the writer/philosopher. The problem is that in painting a portrait of this equally celebrated and vilified woman, he never shows, and only barely tells of, the vilification. As a result, he doesn't give viewers, not even her most ardent admirers, reason to celebrate her.

The film mentions in passing some of her flaws as a person, and repeatedly talks of the criticism surrounding her ideas. But we never hear any of the criticism, any of the arguments against, anything at all to cast her in the light of "defender of the faith," or defender of anything at all, for that matter. She states her case time and again, in interviews, in excerpts from her novels and philosophical works, etc. But we're left with a feeling of "Great. Why should I care?"

Not many people will see this film -- 2 1/2 hour docs rarely draw the masses in theater, on video or anywhere else -- so I'll make a rather simplistic analogy. Think of "Star Wars". How compelled would we be to root for the good of the force if we hadn't heard Darth Vader expound on the power of evil (the Dark Side)? How can you convince anyone of any point, positive or negative, without at least presenting the counterpoint?

Viewers who already adore Rand will no doubt cheer this film. For them, it's very palatable candy. Her detractors shouldn't waste their time. But a documentary is supposed to educate viewers in some way, and the uneducated will get nothing more than a biography and an unquestioned statement of philosophy. That's not much for any doc, but especially for one this long.

Hope Davis as Erin is beautiful, sad, unfulfilled, recently dumped by her clueless socialist live-in boyfriend, and coping with the memory of her beloved father while living in the shadow of her overbearing mother. She smokes, she drinks, she's quick with a sarcastic one-liner. And, naturally, she's looking for love.

Alan Gelfant as Alan is pensive, rugged, ambitious, sensitive, dedicated to his budding career as a marine biologist, and coping with his father's failings while living in the shadow of his successful attorney brother. He smokes, he drinks, he's quick with a sarcastic one-liner. And, naturally, he's looking for love.

Erin and Alan are "perfect" for one another, so naturally, they keep missing opportunities to meet and fall in love. Isn't life ironic?

Here's another "quirky" attempt to cash in on the "Sleepless in Seattle" scenario (say that seven times fast) by having two "made for each other" characters walking the same streets, leading parallel lives, looking unsuccessfully for love, but only meeting at the end, and then only by happenstance. This one is a slight notch above last year's abysmally unfunny and uninvolving "Til There Was You", but only because the dialogue's a little better and the main characters aren't quite so cloying and uncharismatic (or in Dylan McDermott's case, plain unlikeable). Otherwise, this one is just as uninvolving, but as usual we get plenty of by-now cliché insights into the perennial difficulties of finding the right one in an urban environment populated with literally millions of wrong ones.

We young urban singles get the point, and so does everyone else. Our romantic struggles are not that interesting as entertainment. Can we move it along now?

Multiple Oscar winner, this is a fantastic political action drama about the efforts of a muck-raking journalist and a seemingly weak bureaucrat to get at the truth behind a major political assassination; major precursor of films like "The Parallax View" and "All the President's Men", showing the far-reaching consequences of a government cover-up. This is one of the best known French (though it was made in Algeria by a Greek director) films of the late 60s, and the first foreign language film ever nominated for a best picture Oscar the same year it was made, which exposed a much larger audience to the Greek military junta at the time, when it otherwise might have gone relatively unnoticed by a world so focused on the Vietnam War and the impact it was having domestically in the U.S. and politically around the globe.

Gong Li, China's top actress in the 1990s (deservedly so), plays a naive but determined innocent, a young married woman from a remote farming village who wants nothing more than to have the village elder apologize to her husband for kicking him in a fit of anger. The bureaucratic nightmare she endures, making repeated trips to "the city" to seek justice, exposes her to a system she didn't know existed, a completely convoluted and impregnable one that operates solely by standards and practices, totally devoid of compassion or an understanding of the people it governs.

This is a small film, an earlier work by master Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou (To Live, Ju Dou), but what really makes it work is Gong as Qiu Ju. Every effect of this effectless society registers on her face, mostly in the form of surprise at the promises unkept and disappointment at the lack of concern by officials who are supposed to be responsible to "the people." She makes us care deeply about Qiu Ju, even though we may not be able to identify directly with her circumstances, but even beyond this, she makes these provincial circumstances universal by being the everywoman, someone who just wants the people in charge to do what's right without it necessarily having any adverse impact on themselves. Gong's ability to inject political situations with sincere human emotion has made her an ideal representative of the message running through all of Zhang's films (she has appeared in several of them), but beyond this, she simply is a great actress who should eventually become as world renowned as Joan Chen once was.

What makes this film even more prescient is how well many Americans may identify with the nightmares presented by a government hierarchy overstuffed with "I just work here" bureaucrats. And the ending is infused with a poignant irony that will hit home with anyone who has, in their own lives, found that time heals all wounds.

A movie is shown on Italian TV, edited for time and content and butchered so badly even the characters in the film don't know where they end and the commercials begin. Incensed, the director hops a train to Rome to complain to the Italian Film Board of the mockery being made of his film. Unfortunately, his train arrives at the terminal in the film, and he becomes part of the ever-increasingly discombobulated action.

This is a comedic masterwork of satire, spoof and slapstick. While the film's title and the "film-within-a-film" are both take-offs on DiSica's classic "The Bicycle Thief", this is, in fact inspired by the best of Chaplin, Keaton and, in some ways, "Your Show of Shows". Director/star Maurizio Nichetti keeps the comic action going at a furious pace, never missing an opportunity to assault the film industry marketing hype and TV industry advertising joke he so disdains.

You won't want to think about the satire, though, while you're watching this. No matter how much you may hate subtitled films, this is a genuine riot, and you will not stop laughing.

Popular, often suspenseful, often entertaining courtroom drama is, ultimately, an unforgivable piece of pathetic manipulation. Loggia comes across best, but only because, as the screen's most convincingly cynical private dick in years, he doesn't believe ANYTHING being purported by ANYONE. Glenn Close's tough-but-naive defense lawyer comes off much worse, not only believing her client but falling in love with him (why is it Hollywood defense lawyers ALWAYS seem to run into this problem? -- is there not such a thing as a compelling enough case that it doesn't require an overbaked romantic subplot?). And Peter Coyote, one of our most underrated actors, shows here why he's so underrated -- his films rarely make money, but when they do, they're garbage like this. In the end, you'll be thoroughly satisfied with the final plot twist and resulting action, unless, of course, you make the mistake of leaving your brain in the "on" position while viewing the rest of the film.

Highly politically charged drama that, while biased, is extremely well-handled and one of the most intelligent films ever made. It contains almost no preaching, but rather follows a naive TV reporter who gradually comes to realize the threat presented by nuclear power plants, not because of an inherent danger, but because the purveyors are more interested in the bottom line than in the safety of those affected.

Many hated the film because they saw it as a political tract made by ultra-liberals like Jane Fonda and Michael Douglas, but if you view it simply as a drama, it's gripping, exciting, full of well-developed, distinctive characters and, ultimately, a truly suspenseful contemporary thriller that hits close to home.

Historical note: For some, especially those in the energy industry and inhabitants of the Harrisburg, PA metro area, it hit perhaps a little too close to home, as less than a week after this film was released, the devastating explosion at the Three Mile Island nuclear facility occurred.

Update, 04/08/2007: In the nearly a decade since I first wrote this critique, I've heard a lot of commentary on the film. One thing I think really needs to be noted is that this film is not the "ultra-liberal" anti-nuclear tirade that it's often tagged as being.

While the makers and stars are (or were) notable "Hollywood establishment" liberals, what this film attacks is not the very idea of nuclear power, but rather the idea of human greed, corruption and fallibility calling into question the potential hazards of something that nature has already made dangerous.

No one who accepts reality can argue the fact that human exposure to nuclear radiation is at least quite likely to be fatal. Close friends of mine who worked at a nuclear plant for several years even told me of their employer's official policy on the maximum "safe" exposure levels that its employees could handle.

You don't have to believe that corporations are inherently evil in order to accept that individuals, in pursuit of wealth and power, are greedy and often corrupt. And even if you refute that claim, you can't dispute that all humans are prone to make mistakes. When it comes to exposing innocent people to nuclear radiation, we can't afford any mistakes, and that, more than anything, is the argument this film seeks to make.

Condemn it if you must, but try to have a little perspective. We're currently engaged in a war whose ongoing results are quite different from those originally predicted, an incredibly costly war with no end in sight. And whether or not you feel the war was necessary to combat global terrorism, you can't dispute the reality that the length, the financial cost, and most importantly the loss of human life have all far exceeded the levels that the "experts" assured us of back in 2003. So even if no one involved is greedy or corrupt, "mistakes were made," and mistakes of a pretty serious magnitude, to boot. The same kind of serious mistakes, if allowed to arise in the nuclear industry, could render much of the earth's surface uninhabitable.

Groundbreaking drama of lesbian mother (Rowlands), happily sharing a home with her lover (Alexander) and their respective children. Rowlands' children were previously unaware of the sexual relationship. When the oldest son finds out, he leaves and moves in with his father, who then proceeds to initiate legal proceedings to win custody of the other children. Extraordinarily well-acted and directed, with very little sentimentality and virtually no political dogma. This film set the standard for mature, thoughtful presentations of homosexuality in everyday life, and every one of the players is exceptional. Oddly, this received very little backlash at the time it first aired, while today it would bring the pious out in droves to stage protests and boycotts. As the forerunner of a long string of films tackling the subject matter in the 80s and 90s, this is the film to look at to see just how far we haven't come.

Two hours worth of vintage special effects, the likes have which have never been placed on screen, are corrupted by screenwriters Michael Crichton (who authored the book) and David Koepp's refusal to incorporate anything remotely resembling a plot or characters. Crichton's book, which was tedious but rich with characterizations and scientific plausibility (without being overly technical) gives way to a script in which the characters have no personalities, the scientists have no backgrounds to bring them or their ideas to this point, and the dinosaurs are, for all intents and purposes, just THERE. You can say all you want about how wonderful it was be frightened to death by real-looking dinosaurs (would you really know one if you saw it?), but even "Land of the Lost," a 1970's Sat. morning live-actioner about a man and two children (his own) transported back in time and trying to survive amid free-roaming dinosaurs, had more of a plot than this garbage. And for all the hype about visuals, I, for one, would like to think we still go to the movies to be drawn into another world and other lives, not just an amusement park. Look for a few good one-liners out of Jeff Goldblum as chaos-theorist Ian Malcolm (allegedly based on at least one real-world ecologist), and completely lifeless performances from the otherwise reliable Sam Neill, Samuel L. Jackson and actor-turned-Gandhi-director Richard Attenborough, as well as non-actress Laura Dern. Just as a footnote: The "Jurassic Park" thrill-ride attraction opened at the Universal Studios theme park in Southern California in June 1996. A theme park is exactly where this whole "movie" really belongs.

I've seen nearly 1,200 movies, and this is my favorite. Not the BEST I've ever seen, but my favorite. Former Brooklyn junior high basketball coach-turned-delicatessen manager desperately wants to coach again. A small liberal-arts college in the Nevada desert wants him to build their team from nothing, for a salary of $60 for every game won. With the help of his playground-pickup-game teammate (New York Knick star Bernard King), he scours the streets for five great but undiscovered players. Then they go to Nevada, pick up a freshman quarterback in a school without football, and become an unbeaten sensation. Now the trick is to get nationally-ranked Nevada State (fictitious school filling in for UNLV) to play them in an exhibition game.

That's it; that's the plot. It sounds silly and contrived, like a T.V. sitcom meets an Horatio Alger story. So how come I loved it so much? How come in a list of favorites that includes The Godfather, All the President's Men, Sunset Boulevard and Rocky, this far lesser story of underdogs overcoming adversity is my greatest pleasure? Four things, I think: the characters are real, not cardboard cutouts, and they all have very real reasons for leaving New York for Nevada; Kaplan brings with him his "Welcome Back Kotter" sensibility for helping young people that everyone else has written off to achieve more than they ever thought possible; the film contains at least three hysterical AND original scenes, one of which would dubbed an all-time classic if 5 million more people had actually seen this film; and I'm not a sports fan, but the basketball games in this movie, especially the grand finale, are genuinely exciting. It's not ever going to make Halliwell's tome as a genre-defining classic. It may not even make your Saturday night video list. But it should.

Because it's real, it's fun, it's silly, and unlike more than half of what Hollywood feeds us today, it has a plot that keeps moving from the beginning to the end. And that's saying a lot.

Bo is Jane Parker, whose long-lost anthropologist father (Richard Harris, in the worst role of a very inconsistent career) is in Africa studying something or another. She tracks him down (how?) and he tells her of the natives' stories of a giant monster whose nightly howling can be heard throughout the jungle. Turns out to be the Ape Man himself (Miles O'Keeffe, who has the film's best dialogue), who rescues her from bad guys and falls in love with her, leaving them just enough time in this agonizing two hours to romp naked while a horny monkey looks on and cheers. Normally I'm very open-minded to varying opinions about any film, but this is the sole exception. This is the worst film ever made. If you don't agree, you haven't seen it. (Notes: Newsday called it "unendurable," which is the best one-word summary I can think of. The Maltin Movie Guide comments that they almost had to think of a rating lower than BOMB.)