[8] Writer/director Alexander Payne (Election, About Schmidt) takes us on a trip through California wine country with two middle-aged college buddies in Sideways, based on a novel by Rex Pickett. Paul Giamatti plays a divorced junior high school teacher suffering from depression and anxiety whose dream of becoming a published author is about the only thing keeping him going. Thomas Haden Church is a somewhat …
[5] Jean Harlow and William Powell star in this romantic comedy about a Broadway singer who impulsively marries a wealthy playboy (Franchot Tone) before realizing her true love is really her long-time agent (Powell). Powell’s droll, sardonic humor fits Reckless nicely, but Harlow isn’t quite charismatic enough to make her part work. It doesn’t help that her character is a singer and a dancer — …
[6] Robert Williams stars as a scrappy newspaper reporter who falls in love with a socialite (rising star Jean Harlow) who drags him kicking and screaming into hoity-toity upper-class society. But after numerous dinners and parties, awkward relationships with ‘the help,’ and one too many comparisons to a bird in a gilded cage, Williams begins to wonder if his marriage is worth the upheaval in …
[4] Chevy Chase and Bevery D’Angelo return as the Griswolds from the first Vacation movie, this time dragging the kids (recast Jason Lively and Dana Hill) on a whirlwind European tour. Perhaps due to intense acrimony between Chase and director Amy Heckerling (Fast Times and Ridgemont High), or perhaps due to a simply less funny script co-written by Robert Klane (Weekend at Bernie’s), European Vacation …
[7] Chevy Chase stars as a husband and father determined to take his family on the vacation of their dreams, cross-country to an amusement park called Walley World. But the trip is fraught with wrong turns, wildlife, hillbilly relatives, and perhaps more than anything else, Chase’s stubborn unwillingness to accept defeat. Vacation is a great star vehicle for Chase’s brand of oblivious humor. Writer John …
[6] After seeing trailers for this movie, I decided I didn’t want to feel stuck in a jelly bean tornado for a whole two hours and fifteen minutes. But for whatever reason, I finally decided to take a chance on Lilly and Lana Wachowski’s big-budget, big-screen adaptation of a Japanese cartoon. It’s just as ugly as I expected, but under that garish surface, there’s a …
[4] Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman play terminally-ill cancer patients who decide to make one last go at their ‘bucket list’ — a list of things to see and do before they die. I usually trust director Rob Reiner (When Harry Met Sally, The Princess Bride) to deliver the goods, but this one’s a misfire for me. The opening act is naturally a sad one, …
[7] Steve Martin and Queen Latifah star in this farcical comedy about a prison escapee who elbows her way into an uptight lawyer’s life so he can help her overturn her wrongful conviction. Most of the laughs in Bringing Down the House come from the black/white culture clash, as Latifah tries to make Martin ‘cool’ and Martin tries to help Latifah pass through racist white …
[8] Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck star in this lively screwball comedy from director Howard Hawks. Cooper is working on a new encyclopedia with seven other scholars when he realizes the group is woefully uneducated in the world of contemporary slang. So he hits the streets to research and stumbles upon a wisecracking lounge singer named Sugarpuss O’Shea, played by Stanwyck. He invites her to …
[5] Cyndi Lauper and Jeff Goldblum star as New York psychics tricked by Peter Falk into locating a lost Incan city for treasure hunters that wish to harness it’s mystical powers. Vibes is sort of a paranormal mystery, sort of a comedy, sort of an adventure, and sort of a love story. As a tonal mish-mash, it doesn’t succeed as well as, say, Ghostbusters, but …
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