Movie Review Eileen

Eileen (2023) 

Directed by William Oldroyd 

Written by William Oldroyd, Luke Goebel 

Starring Thomasin McKenzie, Anne Hathaway, Shea Whigham 

Release Date December 8th, 2023 

Published December 8th, 2023 

Someone is sitting in a car on the side of a lake with smoke filling the vehicle. Someone is apparently committing suicide by smoke inhalation. The scene shifts back in time, the owner of the car, whom you presume is the person committing suicide in the opening scene. We meet our main character, Eileen (Thomasin McKenzie) as she's in this same car, sitting next to this same lake but this time she's surrounded by other cars. She's alone in her vehicle while watching other cars where people are making out. She starts to touch herself but thinks better of it. Opening her car door, Eileen grabs some dirty snow and stuffs it down the front of her dress, seeming to quell her burning loins. 

Sexual repression and inexperience has a big role to play, or so you assume, in Eileen as our mousy protagonist comes out of her shell when basking in the glow of an older and more worldly woman. Eileen works as an assistant secretary at a prison somewhere in Massachusetts. Her days are the same, working, going unnoticed, suffering from sexual frustration, and going home to her drunk bully of a father, a former cop named Jim (Shea Whigham). Having been retired or fired from being the chief of police, he now spends everyday getting drunk and waving his service revolver around. 

Only Eileen appears capable of calming him down though her means of doing that is to fetch him a fresh bottle. Eileen's life is altered forever when she meets to the prison psychiatrist, Rebecca (Anne Hathaway, in full Hitchcock blonde mode). Rebecca seems to adopt the mousy and shy Eileen as the only person close to her in age and attractiveness. Eileen seemingly seduces the inexperienced Eileen who realizes that she doesn't mind having an older woman attracted to her romantically. This doesn't go anywhere but, it does provide motivation for a third act twist that's intended to be shocking but feels more random, as if the story needed to create drama that just hadn't emerged to that point. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Armageddon Time

Armageddon Time (2002) 

Directed by James Gray 

Written by James Gray 

Starring Anthony Hopkins, Anne Hathaway, Jeremy Strong 

Release Date November 4th, 2022 

Published November 10th, 2022 

Armageddon Time  stars Michael Banks Repeta as Paul, a young man in 1980 New York City attending public school. Paul comes from a Jewish background but his family has hidden that behind the name Graf. At school, Paul is unremarkable, a minor rebel who mocks his teacher. He finds a friend in Johnny (Jaylin Webb), a fellow outcast, a young black kid whose been held back at least once. Johnny is in trouble a lot, mostly because his teacher just assumes Johnny is the one causing trouble. 

At home, Paul has a loving, if somewhat angry family. Paul has somehow convinced himself that his family is rich though we can clearly see that there are middle class at best. Regardless, Paul takes liberties with his parents, especially by ordering take out even after his mother, Anne Hathaway, has cooked an expansive dinner for their entire family. His father, played by Jeremy Strong, is loving but can be overbearing and outright abusive. 

That abusive side comes out when Paul finds trouble at school. With Johnny, Paul is caught smoking marijuana in the school bathroom. Paul's father finds out and give his son a frightening beating with a belt in a scene that director James Gray is smart not to romanticize. Many of Gray's generation, my generation, as well, tend to act as if a father who beat their kids was a 'disciplinarian' and not an abuser. Gray and Jeremy Strong give the father character in Armageddon Time a more complex rendering as a man who loves his kids but also feels at a loss at how to care for them. It's clear he was also beaten as a child and he sees it as the only way forward as a parent. 

Paul gets pulled out of his public school and placed in a rich private school with the help of his benevolent and loving grandfather, played by Anthony Hopkins. At this rich private school Paul runs in the same circle as the sons of the Trump family. When they see Paul talking with Johnny at the gates of the school, their sneering racism causes Paul to pull away from his friend. At the urging of his grandfather, Paul tries to repair his friendship but his plan to do so only causes more problems. 

At his new school, the line between white and black, the privileged and the less than privileged, is brought into stark contrast when Maryanne Trump (Jessica Chastain in cameo), visits the school and delivers a speech. The speech is like a message directly to Paul, and thus to us, about where you stand and who you stand for. Will you be part of the future she proposes led by the rich elite, or stand with those in need of help. 

I think... honestly, I am not entirely sure what James Gray is going for overall. There are elements of class warfare, and something being said about white-privilege and the racial divide. That said, what point James Grey is trying to make is undermined by his storytelling choices. The lasting memory of Armageddon Time is that of a young black kid acting as a functionary in the coming of age of a young white kid. The young black kid has no life, no dimension, he exists to teach a lesson to our main character. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media. 

Movie Review: Bride Wars Starring Kate Hudson

Bride Wars (2009) 

Directed by Gary Winick 

Written by Greg Depaul, Casey Wilson, June Diane Raphael 

Starring Kate Hudson, Anne Hathaway, Chris Pratt, Steve Howey, Candace Bergen

Release Date January 9th, 2009 

Published January 10th, 2009 

Two best girlfriends go for each others throats after their weddings are booked on the same day. Some might say, big deal, share the day. But then you wouldn't have a series of scenes where the now former BFF's trade nasty pranks ending with one tackling the other from behind as she walks down the aisle. That is the nasty little premise of Bride Wars a dull witted new comedy that provides the latest evidence of the career devolution of the once radiant Kate Hudson.

Liv (Hudson) and Emma (Anne Hathaway) have, since they were little girls, always dreamed of June weddings at the Plaza Hotel in New York City. Emma has gone so far as to save from her teen years to now just to pay for her dream wedding, Liv is independently wealthy having grown up to be a lawyer. Now, both have met the man of their dreams and their dream weddings are approaching. 

Two dopey doofuses have sought the chance to marry our wedding obsessed heroes. Fletcher (Chris Pratt) has romantically pursued Emma and given her lovely surprise proposal. Poor, dummy Daniel (Steve Howey) is basically tricked into asking Liv to marry him following a mix up with a ring in their shared apartment. Both men are merely props in this story and neither prop is well used. 

Things are in perfect order for two dream weddings at the Plaza as a high profile wedding planner happens to have three openings in June, two on the same day, one 3 weeks later. While the girls think they have booked separate dates, the wedding planner botches things and the girls end up on the same date. And the hilarity begins..... or not.

Bride Wars is briskly paced and bubbly early on as we can sense the fun in this idea and the possibilities of these two talented actresses. But, it's not long before things begin to fall apart and once the girls have split up and are going after each other things turn from bubbly to brusque, from brisk to bludgeoning. I adore Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway but watching the nasty ways in which they attack each other in Bride Wars is unpleasant, 

Under the direction of Gary Winick, who brought much charm to Charlotte's Web and 13 Going On 30, Bride Wars is so childish I wanted to hire a babysitter. What the movie desperately needs to balance the lunacy of Hudson and Hathaway's antics is one adult character. When none emerge the movie flips and flops about in demonstrations of nastiness that even tweenage girls will find childish.

Anyone whose every tripped over the reality show Bridezilla on the We Network knows there are big laughs to rend from the idea of crazed women in search of the perfect wedding. That Bride Wars is incapable of finding any of those laughs shows just how wildly inept the entire enterprise is. Bridezilla is Kubrick-ian level cinema with the wit of a 70s era Woody Allen compared to Bride Wars. 

Movie Review Love and Other Drugs

Love and Other Drugs (2010) 

Directed by Edward Zwick

Written by Charles Randolph, Marshall Herskovitz

Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Anne Hathaway, Oliver Platt, Hank Azaria, Josh Gad

Release Date November 24th, 2010

Published November 25th, 2010

I have long believed that the best movies reveal something not just about the characters on screen but the audience watching them. The new romance “Love and Other Drugs” starring Ann Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal and directed by Ed Zwick has moments that reached into my soul and revealed things to me that I have been trying to hide. The movie is far from perfect but for a few minutes, “Love and Other Drugs” is very touching and for that it's worth the ticket price.

Jake Gyllenhaal stars in “Love and Other Drugs” as Jamie Randall a good for nothing horn dog who gets fired from his job for having sex with his boss's wife while the boss is in the other room. Based solely on charm and good looks Jamie falls into an even better job with even more promise of sexual conquest, working as a drug rep for Pfizer.

Drug rep, as we are informed, is the only entry level position with a starting pay in the six figure range. The job plays to Jamie's strength as it involves no skill other than being charming, the only real skill he has. With the help of his new partner Bruce (Oliver Platt), Jamie has only to get sales up a little and he will move on from the lowly depths of the Ohio River Valley to the big time in Chicago.

Jamie is on the fast track when he meets Maggie (Ann Hathaway) , a beautiful 26 year old artist/waitress with early onset Parkinson’s disease. At first she is the perfect woman, her disease makes her only seek a sexual relationship with little emotional involvement, seemingly Jamie's dream relationship. It doesn't take a rocket scientist however to figure out that eventually the heartless hound dog will fall for Maggie and she will push him away.

Director Ed Zwick, with script assists from Marshall Herskovitz and Charles Randolph, uses the bones of the book "Hard Sell: The Evolution of a Viagra Salesman" by Jamie Reidy to craft a love story about an emotionally stunted man who slowly evolves the soul he had buried so deeply within himself. It's a story that will be painfully familiar to a lot of men who have hidden behind charm in order to keep real feeling at bay.

Jake Gyllenhaal captures the emotionally stunted Jamie perfectly; hiding behind quick wit and a sheepish smile that hides a wolf's intentions. Jamie is constantly on the prowl until he meets Maggie who gives him exactly what he wants while telling him it's what he wants and with unintended consequence teaches him the well worn lesson 'be careful what you wish for.'

On the periphery of this love story is the story of the pharmaceutical business and its many disquieting practices. In this part of the story Director Zwick vacillates between wanting to damn and shame the industry and stay true to Jamie Reidy's book which is neither damning or shaming but merely observant and humorous.

Zwick includes scenes where Maggie takes a group of seniors to Canada in order to buy drugs. If this is meant as a stick in the eye to the industry it doesn't land because it doesn't seem to phase Jamie in the least as he ends up going on a trip with her that is only part of their love montage, that series of scenes set to a love theme that acts as shorthand for movie characters falling in love.

Was Zwick meaning to allude to the problems we all seem to have with Pharmaceutical companies these days or elude criticisms of those who would argue he did not damn and shame the industry enough? Whatever he was trying is the biggest failure of “Love and Other Drugs” as it merely seems a distraction from the film's more interesting elements, the lovely chemistry between stars Jake Gyllenhaal. 

These two wonderful actors bring out the best in each other. The scenes they shared, all too briefly, in “Brokeback Mountain” crackled with life and were sorrowful reminders of that film's tragic themes. In “Love and Other Drugs” Gyllenhaal and Hathaway lay each other bare literally and emotionally and let the audience in as if it were some sort of emotional three way. 

 Given Maggie's condition and her side gig taking seniors to Canada for drugs, one would assume the Pharmaceutical industry would be in for something of a beating in “Love and Other Drugs.” Instead, either Ed Zwick didn't really have the nerve for an indictment or didn't have the goods for a solid take down. Zwick force feeds the minor jabs at big pharma in “Love and Other Drugs,” they really weren’t part of Jamie Reidy’s book, as a way of satisfying those who would be upset about a love story in this setting that doesn’t address real concerns about drug companies and their supposedly unethical practices.

In the end, “Love and Other Drugs” is a good movie that gets in its own way trying to answer critics who may or may not exist. I'm sure someone might have attacked the film for ignoring the alleged abuses of the pharmaceutical industry but that should not have been a concern for Zwick and the creators of “Love and Other Drugs.” The point here is the love story and the good humor and watching a boy become a man under tough emotional circumstances.

The story of Jamie and Maggie on its own is worth the price of a ticket. The rest of “Love and Other Drugs” is unfortunately unfocused and greatly lacking. I recommend the film but with reservations.

Movie Review: Alice in Wonderland

Alice in Wonderland (2010)

Directed by Tim Burton 

Written by Linda Woolverton

Starring Johnny Depp, Mia Wasikowska, Helena Bonham Carter, Tim Pigott Smith, Anne Hathaway

Release Date March 5th, 2010

Published March 4th, 2010

The story of Alice in Wonderland is one of a teenage girl tripping down a rabbit hole into a magical land where adventure awaits. The sub-story however, is not onscreen but behind the scenes. It is an unfortunate story of a once promising filmmaker with the potential of a game changer but who sadly lost his way.

In Alice in Wonderland Tim Burton demonstrates that the promise he showed as a filmmaker who deftly combined unique characters with fabulous visuals has now devolved into a style over substance approach better at aping other storytellers’ visions but lacking what made their stories lasting and memorable.

The latest attempt to bring Lewis Carroll's wildest dreams to life stars newcomer Ali Wasikowska as Alice a teenage girl of privilege destined to marry a doofusy Lord (Tim Pigott Smith) and live out a sad existence as his concubine and servant. Naturally, Alice is non-plussed about this idea.

As Lord doofus ahem Lord Ascot goes to one knee in front of everyone they both know Alice runs off. It's not merely that she is horrified about getting engaged to such a dope, she also happened to see a strange looking white rabbit who seemed to be trying to get her attention. Following the rabbit, Alice finds herself at a rabbit hole which she falls into and winds up in Underland.

Underland is a magical, bizarre world of strange characters who act as if they know who she is, as if she'd been here before. Indeed she has but she doesn't quite remember it, even after being reintroduced to her friend the wild haired, hair-brain the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp) who informs her of a particularly dangerous destiny ahead of her in in Underland.

This is extraordinarily rich material for a visual artist like Tim Burton and he dives right in with broad strokes of CGI landscapes and eccentric makeup and costumes. As Burton did with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Sweeney Todd he takes his pal Johnny Depp dresses him in wacky costumes and hair and aims to set him loose in a crazy looking world.

The formula unfortunately has lost its flavor in Alice in Wonderland. Both Burton and Johnny Depp seem to have made Alice on auto pilot relying on the things they have done before to carry this film to completion while bringing little new effort to bare. Alice in Wonderland is a lazy, laconic knockoff of what Burton and Depp have done before.

The diminishing returns in the career of Tim Burton are one of the saddest stories to be told. After arriving with astonishing promise in the 1980's, Burton has spent the past decade repeating himself with less and less interest. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a movie I really liked but received much fair criticism. Sweeney Todd wasn't great but was at the least a bit daring in approach.

Alice in Wonderland is simply bad. The filmmaking is lax from the cheap looking CGI to the strangely muted colors. The pace is almost non-existent, the movie crawls from scene to boring scene relying on our familiarity with Lewis Carroll's story to keep us involved.

The 3D aspect of Alice in Wonderland is utterly unnecessary and only serves to bring forward unfortunate comparisons to James Cameron's Avatar which from a visual standpoint blows Alice out of the water, exposing the films sluggish CGI and weak 3D posing.

It is clear now that the reason Tim Burton retreads so many famous stories isn't a wont to bring classic literature to the masses but mere laziness. Famous source material allows Burton to focus on creating fantastic new worlds visually or at least that's the theory. 

In Alice in Wonderland however, the famous source material gives Burton the opportunity to relax and recreate the things he's done in previous works with little invention on his part. The approach extends to his star pal Johnny Depp whose lackadaisical Mad Hatter is a visual representation of the laziness of the director and indeed the production as a whole.

Alice in Wonderland is the first major disappointment of 2010, a lazy rehash of a well known story by a director resting on his reputation. It is heartbreaking to see what has become of the talent of Tim Burton. So much promise unfulfilled. We will always have Edward Scissorhands to remember him by but what of the future, duller, droopy remakes of other people's works with whatever existing tech best allows him to rest on his rep. It's just sad.

Movie Review Rio

Rio (2011) 

Directed by Carlos Saldanha 

Written by Don Rhymer, Jennifer Ventimilia, Sam Harper

Starring Jesse Esenberg, Anne Hathaway, Jamie Foxx, Jemaine Clement

Release Date April 15th, 2011 

Published April 15th, 2011

With a cast bursting with award winners and the winning team behind the "Ice Age" movies at the helm it can come as no surprise that "Rio" is a delight. Sweet, funny and heartfelt, this coming of age story about a bird learning to fly and falling in love for the first time is a wonderful bit of 3D animated fluff.

"Rio" features the voice of Jesse Eisenberg, "The Social Network's" socially awkward Mark Zuckerberg, as a socially awkward Blue Macaw named, aptly enough, Blu who lives in, of all places, Minnesota. Blu was poached at a very early age from his tree top home in Brazil. He fell off a truck in Minnesota and has since been raised by Linda (voice of "Knocked Up's" Leslie Mann).

Learning to Fly

Being domesticated left Blu with little need or want to learn how to fly. He's perfectly happy walking and leaping about Linda's house sipping hot chocolate and reading. Of course, Blu is in for a major life change and it comes in the form of Tulio (Rodrigo Santoro), a Zoologist from Brazil who implores Linda to bring Blu to Brazil in order to mate with another Blue Macaw named Jewel (voice of Ann Hathaway).

Once in Rio Blu meets Jewel and finds her less than friendly. Jewel is eager to escape, no matter what happens to the species or Blu but when both she and Blu are captured by poachers, including an evil Cockatoo named Nigel (Flight of the Conchords Jemaine Clement), she finds that she will be stuck with Blu for a while and his lack of flight will make their new unfortunate and unplanned adventure a bit more difficult.

Singing in Support

Rounding out the exceptional voice cast of "Rio" is Jamie Foxx as a soulful voiced Canary named Nico, Black Eyed Peas member Will I. Am as a Samba loving Cardinal named Pedro and George Lopez as Raphael a Toco Toucan who was once the bird king of Carnaval but is now a stay at home dad to 18 kids. Raphael becomes Blu's flying guru and with Nico and Pedro, the cheering section as Blu makes his awkward moves on the stubborn but sweet Jewel.

"Rio" is a gloriously fun, sweet and samba infused adventure that even the darkness of the 3D cannot manage to ruin. Though I imagine that the colors of Rio pop more in 2D and look much better, the 3D print I watched was lively and colorful enough to help me get past most of my reservations about 3D. The creative team behind "Rio," led by director Carlos Saldanha, doesn't overuse the stuff flying toward the screen in 3D effect and instead employ the best of 3D in the scenes soaring over the stunning animated cityscape of "Rio."

Feel that Samba Beat

The music of "Rio '' is like another character in the story with the Samba acting as the film's beating heart. Legendary Brazilian artist Sergio Mendes acted as the film's Executive Music Producer and with Carlinhos Brown crafted a score that is irresistibly danceable. Jamie Foxx and Will I. Am make a sensational musical team on the song "Hot Wings (Wanna Party) but it's Foxx who gets the movie's best musical moment singing the "Rio '' love theme.

"Rio" is a real treat. Bright, colorful, tuneful and funny, kids are going to flip for these terrific bird characters and mom and dad will enjoy the terrific music and the strong message of friendship, love and coming of age. The team behind the "Ice Age" movies, Blue Sky Studios, has another hit on their hands with "Rio."

Movie Review: Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day (2010) 

Directed by Garry Marshall 

Written by Katherine Fugate 

Starring Jessica Alba, Patrick Dempsey, Anne Hathaway, Queen Latifah, Ashton Kutcher, Jennifer Garner

Release Date February 12th, 2010

Published February 14th, 2010 

Garry Marshall, how do I loathe thee, let me count the ways. I have loathed every inch of film you have ever cut and print. Every word on the page of one of your scripts has been like a dagger in my chest. Your magnum opus Pretty Woman is one of the most loathsome, irresponsible and despicable fantasies ever crafted.

I still have nightmares of your attempt to make an S & M themed romantic comedy starring Dan Akroyd and Rosie O'Donnell. In all seriousness, which concentric circle of hell did you escape from? Mr. Marshall's latest bit of awfulness is arguably his most banal, rendered so by having so much star power you may be to blind to realize how you're being terrorized.

Valentine's Day is ostensibly about love and its many complications played out over the hallmark crafted Holiday. 20 or some odd number of characters each has an interconnected part to play in this series of failed single romantic comedies wrapped into one massive failure.

Among the glitterati to loan there sheen to Mr. Marshall's failed vision of comic romance are Ashton Kutcher as a flower shop owner and Jennifer Garner as, prepare for the surprising twist, the best friend he's always loved but didn't know it. He's just become engaged to Morley (Jessica Alba) who is carrying on an affair with her blackberry. Meanwhile the best friend is sleeping with a married man (Patrick Dempsey).

Don't worry, like all despicable married men in romantic comedies, he's leaving his fabulously wealthy wife and children to be with his poor school teacher mistress. I must say, I did marvel at Mr. Marshall's ability to cram that many well wrung clichés into one storyline.

There are several thousand other stars in Valentine's Day including Oscar winners (Julia Roberts, Shirley MacLaine), Oscar nominees (Anne Hathaway, Queen Latifah), TV stars (Eric Dane and Dempsey both from Grey's Anatomy, Kutcher and Topher Grace from That 70's Show) and even pop stars and Twilighters (Taylor Swift and Taylor Lautner as the most vapid characters in an entirely vapid movie).

There are still countless other well known people in Valentine's Day but who really cares. At some point we in the audience belong to some weird version of Hollywood census takers, right down to the questions of demography as many characters are defined by their race in the most statistical of fashion. 

To count the ways that Valentine's Day is offensive would actually take longer than my list of reasons for hating director Garry Marshall. The film isn't merely a recycling dump of romantic clichés; it's also a garbage dump of racial and sexual stereotypes. Oh. And don't even ask about sex because despite the theme, sex is purely something that exists the night before Valentine's Day and not the day of. 

Ludicrously awful, Valentine's Day attempts to mask the odor of it's inanity with a traffic jam of celebrity. The pretty people wandering in and out of the 50 or so failed movies jammed into this one movie fails to distract from the sheer brainless insipidity of Valentine's Day.

Movie Review: Colossal

Colossal (2017) 

Directed by Nacho Vigalondo 

Written by Nacho Vigalondo 

Starring Anne Hathaway, Jason Sudeikis, Dan Stevens, Tim Blake Nelson, Austin Stowell 

Release Date April 7th, 2017 

Published April 7th, 2017

As metaphors go, Godzilla has seen his fair share of interpretations. While most often Godzilla is a stand in for nuclear age mismanagement, the big guy has also been used to further environmental messages, anti-war messages and in his latest and most unique incarnation, in the comic-drama “Colossal,” Godzilla stands in for the emotional trauma people can inflict on others. As unique as “Colossal” is in the interpretation of the legendary movie monster it does adhere with the idea that the humans are nearly as monstrous as the monster we created.

Gloria (Anne Hathaway) is a mess. She has no direction, no job and few prospects. Oh, and Gloria has a serious problem with alcohol. Gloria’s issues finally come to head when her live-in boyfriend Tim (Dan Stevens) kicks her to the curb. With nowhere to go, Gloria returns to her childhood home, recently abandoned by her parents, and squats on mom and dad’s dime, eventually finding a job at a bar owned by her childhood friend Oscar (Jason Sudeikis).

I say that Oscar is Gloria’s friend but as the story of “Colossal” plays out the dynamic between Oscar and Gloria will evolve in some very unexpected ways. Unexpected is a hallmark of “Colossal” which comes to find that Gloria’s many, many issues have manifested through some sort of portal that links her thoughts and actions to a Godzilla like creature that wreaks havoc in South Korea each time Gloria goes a little too far in her self-centered partying.

This is no dream sequence in “Colossal.” The story here, crafted by veteran Spanish filmmaker Nacho Vigalondo, manifests Godzilla as a real monster that does attack South Korea and mimics the actions of Gloria who decides to turn her life around so that she can avoid killing thousands of people each time she gets drunk and rowdy. Oscar has his own connection to this unique manifestation but that would be far too spoiler heavy to reveal here.

“Collossal” is not at all the movie it appears to be in advertisements and trailers. The marketing for “Colossal” plays up the comic aspects of this story despite the comedy being almost incidental to the psycho-drama that the film becomes as it goes along. There is a darkness and complexity to “Colossal” that producers have apparently been attempting to hide from audiences on the assumption that people aren’t interested in a unique premise, they just want to think they are going to laugh.

As insulting as the marketing of “Colossal” unquestionably is, the film itself is rare and authentic, a work of a wonderfully inventive filmmaker. I am, in all honesty, not familiar with the work of Nacho Vigalondo. That said, “Colossal” is a fantastic introduction to a filmmaker with a unique vision and approach to storytelling. This is just the kind of original and exciting filmmaking that I hope we can encourage more of in the future.

Movie Review Rachel Getting Married

Rachel Getting Married (2008) 

Directed by Jonathan Demme

Written by Jenny Lumet 

Starring Anne Hathaway, Rosemarie Dewitt, Bill Irwin, Anna Deveare Smith, Tunde Adebimpe, Debra Winger

Release Date October 3rd, 2008 

October 15th, 2008 

I was not prepared for the emotional experience of Rachel Getting Married. After watching it for the first time in November of 2008 I was left raw and vulnerable and incapable of capturing the experience in words. The film worked me over and the experience is one of the most exhilarating and exciting moments I've ever had at the movies.

Directed by Jonathan Demme, Rachel Getting Married tells the story of a New England family in the midst of a storm of emotions. On the one hand, eldest daughter Rachel (Rosemarie Dewitt) is getting married in the family's long-time home and a guest list of family and friends is pouring out the windows.

On the other hand, youngest daughter Kym is leaving rehab after an extended stay, recovering from an addiction to pills and alcohol. Kym and Rachel have always had a complicated relationship, the kind that only sisters can have. They have competed, unwittingly, for their parents' attention their entire lives. Kym through drugs and antisocial behavior, Rachel by trying desperately to be the good daughter.

Mom and Dad are divorced. Mom, Abby (Debra Winger) has retreated from her daughters. Dad, Paul (Bill Irwin) has lived and died for every moment of his daughters lives to an uncomfortable degree. He's remarried to Carol (Anna Deavere Smith) who balances his doting with calm presence.

The action unfolds over three days and nothing you might expect to happen happens. Rachel Getting Married never takes the easy way out. It doesn't have major set piece moments that can tie up a good trailer or marketing campaign. What it has in abundance is truth. Truth in how families interact. Truth how small slights can escalate into lacerating arguments.

Truth in how tragedies never really leave us. This family in Rachel Getting Married has had a tragedy and when the film is over that tragedy lingers over each of them. That is not to say that the film is filled with doom and gloom. Far from it. In fact, for as much sadness and heartache as there is, there is also joy, much of it found in music.

In a wonderfully passive way we learn that much of both families blending in this marriage are musically inclined. There is someone playing an instrument somewhere in the background of most scenes and it's all rather incidental and not a greek chorus to underscore drama or meant to distract. It just sort of is there. Music is just part of the lives of these people.

Movies shot with a digital handheld camera can be distracting and disjointed for us in the audience. We were all raised on film and the mostly crisp clean images that film provides. DV can tend to be sloppy and in the wrong hands invite a queasy feeling in the audience as if the camera would stop moving around so much.

However, the DV really works here. It feels as if we are a member of this troubled but loving family. We are more than mere witnesses to their sadness and joy, we are made a part of it by this handheld style, as if we were running the camera.

It's a phenomenally underappreciated achievement, one that should have earned Jonathan Demme an Oscar nomination for Best Director. On the bright side, Jenny Lumet who wrote the absorbing, exhausting and cathartic screenplay was nominated and will likely win the award for Best Original Screenplay.

Lumet learned so much from her father, the legendary Sydney Lumet, that it really is no wonder she can write something as brilliant as this. She has an ear for dialogue, an ear for the way families speak to one another that few writers can match.

Listen to the way Rose Dewitt and Anne Hathaway talk to each other. The rhythm, the patter, the bracing insight and the quick painful insult. It's remarkable. Listen to the way Hathaway bites off her words, her inflections, the wounded animal way she has of speaking when offended or hurt. Much of it is Hathaway, some of it is Lumet, all of it is brilliant.

I could go on for days about why Rachel Getting Married is one of the best movies I have ever seen, but I think I need to stop gushing now. I will just say that no other movie in the past 12 months has impacted me more and stayed with me longer than Rachel Getting Married and I think if you give it a chance you will feel the same way.

Movie Review Serenity

Serenity (2019) 

Directed by Steven Knight 

Written by Steven Knight

Starring Matthew McConaughey, Jason Clarke, Anne Hathaway, Diane Lane, Djimon Hounsou 

Release Date January 25th, 2019

Published January 19th, 2019 

Serenity is a highly ambitious and deeply misbegotten attempt to make a modern film noir. Writer-Director Steven Knight has something going for him in Serenity but continues to undermine himself and his movie with bizarre choices that lead to an unsatisfying and almost laughable, laugh out loud conclusion. The film strands an incredible cast in what approximates a Shyamalan level of lunatic aspiration. 

Matthew McConaughey stars in Serenity as, no I am not making this up, Baker Dill. Baker is a fishing boat captain catering to tourists on a mysterious tropical island called Plymouth. Baker has a passion for fishing but specifically a passion for one specific fish, a giant Tuna that he has come to call Justice, and yes it is a heavily tortured metaphor. No points for guessing that as the film hammers the point into your brain pan. 

Baker is seemingly driven only by this giant tuna but lately other things have begun to permeate his consciousness. Specifically, Baker has recently been plagued by memories and visions of a son he left behind when he went to war in Iraq. Upon his return, his then girlfriend and the mother of his child, Karen (Anne Hathaway), has moved on and married another man and cut Baker out of her and her son’s life. 

Baker’s visions of his son are truly bizarre as he appears to be able to hear his son’s voice and vaguely communicate with him with some sort of water based ESP. In one of the film’s epically bizarre scenes, a naked Baker swims in the ocean with his also naked teenage son. Why? There is no good reason, it’s just something that director Steven Knight thought might communicate the strange, water based ESP thing I mentioned before. The nudity is an off-putting choice to say the least. 

Out of the water, Baker is approached by his ex-wife with a proposition. Karen wants Baker to take her husband Frank (Jason Clarke) out fishing and toss him to the fishes. In exchange, Karen is offering $10 million dollars and perhaps the chance to see his son again. Baker immediately rejects the idea despite Karen telling him that Frank has been abusive toward her and toward their son. After meeting the epically awful Frank, Baker still resists but will his psychic connection to his son change his mind. 

No, that last line is not me being snarky… well, not entirely snarky. The plot does legitimately turn on whether Baker’s fuzzy, incomplete, ESP connection to his son will cause him to accept the offer to murder Frank and it is as goofy as that sounds. There is a great deal more however to the connection between father and son including a looney final act twist that left me utterly gobsmacked. The ending of Serenity is surprising but not a good surprise, more of a WTF surprise. 

In an effort to take the classic noir thriller to a place that might appeal to the hip, modern, technically advanced older teen and twenty-something crowd, director Steven Knight has conceived a twist that is remarkably hokey and tone deaf. It’s the kind of twist that middle aged folks like myself laugh at and younger types will straight up ignore in the way you ignore grandpa’s less than helpful comments on Facebook posts. 

It’s a twist that works remarkably well at alienating audiences of all ages, uniting generations in eye-rolls of epic proportions and derisive laughter that will last till we reach the parking lot of the local theater. Honestly, I do admire the sheer madness of the twist attempted in Serenity but I can’t help but mock the result. The execution is so laughable and clumsy that jaw dropping exasperation can only evolve into giggles of sheer schadenfreude. 

I take no genuine pleasure in laughing at rather than with Serenity. These are a group of incredibly talented actors and a director I really do respect. Steven Knight directed Locke, an exceptional and experimental thriller that got the best out of the great Tom Hardy and demonstrated the talent for talking out loud to himself that would make Venom so sneakily entertaining. Knight knows how to make a movie. Serenity is merely an example of a hill too hard to climb to a destination that wasn’t worth climbing to. 

Movie Review: Becoming Jane

Becoming Jane (2007) 

Directed by Julian Jarrold

Written by Kevin Hood, Sarah Williams

Starring Anne Hathaway, James MacAvoy, Julie Walters, Maggie Smith, James Cromwell

Release Date August 3rd, 2007

Published August 3rd, 2007

The real life of legendary romance writer Jane Austen is shrouded by mystery and mostly lost to history. All that remains of the real Jane Austen are scraps of letters she wrote to her sister, most of which her sister burned at Ms. Austen's request. Also left is the one and only portrait of Jane Austen, a hand drawn caricature also done by her sister. That portrait remains a treasure in England where it hangs in the Jane Austen museum, the home of her brother where Jane wrote her masterpiece Persuasion before passing away at age 41.

Jane Austen remains a national treasure in England where her Pride & Prejudice has seen remarkable sales for over a century. The books many adaptations have won accolades, television ratings and banked large box office sums as well. Now comes an American attempt at telling the life story of this British legend. Becoming Jane stars American Anne Hathaway and posits a fictional romance in order to tell the story of Ms. Austen's inspiration for Pride & Prejudice.

This may sound like blasphemy to any Englishman with good sense, and indeed it may be. However, much of Becoming Jane is a splendid little trifle of a romance that is never dull and often quite enchanting.

Anne Hathaway, the gifted young star of the Princess Diaries and The Devil Wears Prada, takes on the challenging role of Jane Austen the author of such timeless romances as Pride & Prejudice, Sense & Sensibility and Persuasion. Becoming Jane is a fictional take on how Jane Austen was inspired to write her first masterpiece, Pride & Prejudice, and the decisions about love and family that would shape her too short life.

James McAvoy (Starter For 10) plays Tom LeFroy, a real life aquaintance of Jane Austen, though they were never romantically linked as far as any historian knows. In the fictional world of Becoming Jane, LeFroy is a boy lawyer living off his uncle, a judge, when he meets Jane, the eldest of the Austen sisters and the one required by family to marry above her station in order to keep the family solvent.

Jane's younger sister Cassandra (Anna Maxwell Martin) is already promised to a young man who will take over their father's church one day. Thus, it is left to Jane to make certain that her mother (Julie Walters) and youngest brother, a handicapped boy, are taken care of through her marriage. Jane however, refuses to marry without love.

Unfortunately, Tom is not of rich enough stock for Jane to marry. Being a young man in the law profession, it will be many years before he is solvent and able to take over the family fortune and good name of his uncle. Even then, he will need to be well married in order for his uncle to approve and their is simply no way that his uncle would approve of Jane, the peasant daughter of a church minister.

Thus the story of Pride & Prejudice played out in the life of Jane Austen. In reality, it is far more likely that Jane witnessed similar stories from afar or simply imagined the class warfare and invented her work. Historical fact however, is irrelevant to a light hearted, childish, Disney romance like Becoming Jane. This a simpleminded romance with only the goal of placing obstacles between two star-crossed lovers and hoping that we are compelled to ooh and ahh at their potential for life long companionship.

That Becoming Jane manages to be quite winning even as it tramples upon the real life story of a literary legend is quite a feat. Nevertheless, Becoming Jane is a real charmer.

Put aside for a moment the many blasphemies of Becoming Jane, such as a plot so easygoing and unpretentious that Ms. Austen herself likely would have trashed the paper it was written on. Forget the historical inaccuracies and the fake romance and the carelessness inherent in adapting the life story of a legend and then bending the facts of her life to the conventions of a typical romantic comedy.

Forget all of that for a moment, and understand that Becoming Jane may be an awful idea in theory, it is quite successful in execution. Anne Hathaway and James McAvoy spark a lovely little onscreen romance of salty banter, smoldering gazes and painful partings. Meanwhile, director Julian Jarrold keeps the mood light and airy but with a professional flair, with just a hint of the goofy vibe of his previous international success, Kinky Boots.

The Jane Austen cult is likely to revolt over seeing the life of their legend so simplistically drawn on screen and they have a point. Becoming Jane plays fast and loose with the life story of a historic literary figure. But therein lies the boldness of the enterprise. Their is a cheeky vibe to the lack of kneeling and bowing at the feet of legend and that gives just a slight spark to an already sparky, charming little romance.

For non-Austen-ites, Becoming Jane is just the kind of movie treat that goes down easy on a friday night.

Movie Review The Devil Wears Prada

The Devil Wears Prada (2006) 

Directed by David Frankel 

Written by Aline Bros McKenna

Starring Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt, Meryl Streep, Stanley Tucci, Adrien Grenier 

Release Date June 30th, 2006 

Published June 29th, 2006 

The Devil Wears Prada, adapted from the bestselling novel by Lauren Weisberger, wants desperately to be an urbane, witty combination of Sex In The City and the haute couture of a glossy Vogue magazine cover. More true to the film's nature however is a typical little fish, big pond story that combines elements of Cinderella and Mary Tyler Moore.

Anne Hathaway stars in Devil Wears Prada as Andy Sachs, a wide eyed midwestern girl in the big city of New York hoping for her big break in journalism. Landing a job at Runway magazine as the second assistant to the legendary Runway editor Miranda Priestley (Meryl Streep) is the kind of job that opens a lot of doors.

This, however. There are no typical assistants, assistant gigs. Priestley is a tyrannical slave driver with a withering gaze and a dismissive whispery voice that sets your teeth on edge, especially with her dismissive catch phrase "That's All" dropped randomly during any discussion.

At home Andy's life in the big city centers around the tiny apartment she shares with her boyfriend from back home Nate (Adrien Grenier, TV's Entourage). He is working his way to becoming a chef while watching Andy run ragged by her new job.

The thrust of the plot is seemingly predictable. Will the poor midwestern girl succumb to the glamor explosion of her new job at the expense of her midwestern values or will she be true to herself and her boyfriend. To the film's credit this very typical storyline does not play out completely as expected.

Director David Frankel and writer Aline Brosh McKenna cannot resist a few cliches along the way. Watch as the film trips along the edge of an old fashioned Hollywood values play as they position Andy's life choices. Andy can have the job and the glamor or the true love of her old boyfriend and all the pre-packaged old school benefits of marriage, kids and settled down 'bliss'.

For some reason Andy cannot have both. At 23 years old neither Andy's boyfriend nor her closest friends, played by Tracie Thomas and Doug Sommer, are unwilling to understand the sacrifices one must make in order to make it in a challenging field such as the one she has chosen.

The boyfriend and the friends bitch and moan about Andy changing into someone they don't know anymore. They even go as far as to condemn her when she accepts the chance to travel to Paris for a few weeks of work. I don't know about you but if a friend of mine were headed for Paris I would try and hide in their luggage rather than complain about it.

To reiterate, the film does not end with the old school values lesson. In fact the movie takes a wide left turn that Hays code era films never would have been allowed to take. Andy has a quickie relationship with a disingenuous newsman, played by Simon Baker, that is counter to her midwest values but that director Frankel does not play as corruption but rather as the choice of an independent minded woman.

Therein lies the problem with The Devil Wears Prada. The film is pushing two divergent messages at once. The old school idea that women are happier with relationships and kids than with a successful career and the idea that women can make independent choices that don't have to conform with old school values. The film wants it both ways, condemn Miranda for eschewing the classic homemaker idyll but celebrate Andy for being independent. The shifts in ideals never make sense.

The film in some fit of old school values rage wants Andy to choose the path of boyfriend and wedded bliss over career and glamor but then shows the career and glamor to be the more interesting and even correct choice, seemingly against the movie's own will.

Is Meryl Streep's Miranda Priestley an arrogant harridan deluded by her power? Yeah, but she also has great success and a serious belief in the integrity of what she does. Streep fights off any attempt to typically humanize Miranda choosing instead to have Miranda stay true to her driven hard nose self something the film then positions as her being unhappy.

Miranda however never really seems all that tortured by her life. She has a great life and while it may have cost her several husbands, she is a strong independent woman with little time for the trifling matters of the male ego. This is not something to lament, not in the post-feminism era. Miranda Priestley, despite her seeming loneliness, is a success story and for the film to try and portray it any other way is yet another nod to old school values.

The most important thing one needs to know about The Devil Wears Prada is that Meryl Streep reaffirms that she is an American treasure. Ms. Streep's performance is just spot on, perfect. Nailing Miranda's bitter aloof nature while never allowing her bitchiness to become a cliche. Streep gives Miranda fierce integrity even as the film tries to position her as an arch villain desperate in her loneliness and unhappiness. Ms. Streep will simply have none of it.

Watch Streep's final scene, played just with her face as she gives an approving Mona Lisa smile to the new independent Andy and then just as quickly returns to being typical Miranda snapping her driver to attention with a withering whisper. This is one of the most entertaining performances of the year and the second brilliant performance from Ms. Streep in a matter of weeks, she was exceptional in A Prairie Home Companion as well.

A film that desperately wants to be as hip and edgy as the haute couture it models fails because it lacks the originality of the clothes on its characters' back. The Devil Wears Prada is simply too conventional a fairy tale to be set in and around an industry, fashion, that while fatuous is often very original, forward thinking and ahead of its time. Mary Tyler Moore meets Cinderella as a plot is so mid-seventies.

On the other hand, Ms. Streep is so good I can give a partial recommendation to The Devil Wears Prada based on her performance alone. Just dim your expectations of the film and sit back and enjoy an American treasure at work.

Movie Review Hoodwinked

Hoodwinked (2006) 

Directed by Cory Edwards 

Written by Cory Edwards, Todd Edwards, Tony Leech

Starring Glenn Close, Xzibit, David Ogden Stiers, Anne Hathaway, James Belushi 

Release Date January 13th, 2006 

Published January 14th, 2006

The idea is pretty clever. Take a well known fairy tale, in this case Little Red Riding Hood, cross it with references to The Usual Suspects, Rashomon and Law & Order and make it a CGI-animated cartoon. Well not all good concepts make good movies. Hoodwinked, the result of this ingenious premise, is a hackneyed sub-Nickelodeon channel animated film that fails to deliver on its attractive premise.

Four characters, four different versions of the same event. A wolf (voiced by Patrick Warburton), a woodsman (James Belushi), a delivery girl named Red (Anne Hathaway), and Red's grandmother (Glenn Close) all arrive at grandma's house at the same time through a series of misunderstandings, miscommunications, and a major crime in which each is somehow a suspect.

The film unfolds as four separate flashbacks under a police interrogation by detective Nicky Flippers (David Ogden Stiers) and the chief of the forest, police chief Grizzly (Xzibit). The two were investigating the continuing disappearances of recipe books throughout the forest by a criminal called the "Goody Bandit." Each of the four principle characters has made themself a suspect, and their stories somehow have led them all to grandma's house.

I cannot say enough how intriguing the setup of Hoodwinked is. It's so intriguing that it's not surprising that creators Cory and Todd Edwards screw it up. The execution of the film's premise plays out in a fashion that is simpleminded and predictable. Granted this is a kids movie and thus cannot be made too difficult to follow, for fear of losing the core audience, but the simplicity undermines the interesting premise. This could be forgiven if the jokes in the movie were funny enough to justify the predictable setups, but hackneyed gags about grandma playing extreme sports fall desperately flat.

Maybe more egregious than screwing up the rich premise of Hoodwinked are the awful pop songs included to fill out the film's 82-minute runtime. Even with an interesting idea for a plot, Cory and Todd Edwards have little idea what to do with it. So in between the unfunny and predictable flashbacks they sandwich in awful original pop tunes that serve as inner monologues for the characters. The songs are more simpleminded than the rest of the script and are a trial to listen to.

It's tough to screw up a computer animated movie. Because the technology is often so impressive, many audiences will tend to forgive a bad CGI cartoon. However, as the technology has aged that impression seems to be wearing off and like the equally insipid Shark Tale, Hoodwinked cannot skate on its technology, which is even less inspired than that wretched godfather underwater cartoon.

The animation of Hoodwinked is similar to Nickelodeon's Jimmy Neutron, only more lifeless. The characters are bulbous and oddly rendered and look more like a really dull videogame and not a big screen movie. The animation reminded me of a videogame circa 1997, something played on Super Nintendo. This may be a function of the film's budget which was admirably small and independently financed. Nevertheless, the movie is unimpressive to look at.

Hoodwinked is a brutal trial of a kids' movie with all of the worst traits of the genre. Hackneyed simpleminded jokes, unimpressive animation, even the voice acting is underwhelming save for Warburton as the wolf whose sarcasm drips from every word even when he is attempting sincerity. Warburton's occasional presence is not nearly enough to rescue this slapped together mess of cheap animation. It's an inspired idea that goes nowhere and fast.

Movie Review: Ella Enchanted

Ella Enchanted (2004) 

Directed by Tommy O'Haver

Written by Laurie Craig, Karen McCullah Lutz, Kirsten Smith, Jennifer Heath, Michelle J. Wolf 

Starring Anne Hathaway, Hugh Dancy, Cary Elwes, Vivica A Fox, Minnie Driver, Joanna Lumley

Release Date April 9th, 2004

Published April 8th, 2004

You have to be a man very secure in his manhood to walk into a video store and rent a movie like Ella Enchanted. A lesser man would drag a child with them (niece, cousin, daughter, any girl under the age of 12). So on sheer manhood sacrificing, I deserve some respect. As a critic I say I have to watch it because it's there, but in all honesty I was kind of looking forward to the film. And no pervy insinuations about Anne Hathaway, I was intrigued by the film’s trailer and after seeing the film, I was right to get it.

Anne Hathaway, the rising star of The Princess Diaries (I haven't seen either PD films, this film was hard enough to rent), stars as Ella of Frell, a commoner who at birth is given a unique and horribly thought out gift by her fairy godmother Lucinda (Vivica A. Fox). The gift is obedience. Ella must do anything she is told to do by anyone.

The gift is obviously more of a curse, especially after Ella's mother passes away and commands her never to tell anyone about her "gift", she doesn't want anyone to use it against her. Years later, when Ella's father (Patrick Bergen) remarries to a harridan played by Joanna Lumley, a typecasting that Lumley may never escape, she brings along horrendous daughters who soon discover Ella's secret and begin using it against her.

Regardless of her curse/gift, Ella still grows up independently minded with a surprisingly political spirit. She leads protests on behalf of Ogres, Elves and Giants who have been enslaved by the evil King Edgar (Cary Elwes). Edgar is to give up the crown soon to his nephew Prince Char (Hugh Dancy). Think Prince Harry of England plus a rock star and you'll understand how much the girls of the kingdom love Prince Char. Ella however, as the plot dictates, isn't as impressed.

Ella and Prince Char are soon thrown together and it's dislike at first sight for Ella who believes the Prince is as evil as his uncle. The Prince is soon to win Ella over however and the two go on to fall in love. However there is still the problem of Ella's curse and the Prince's uncle who secretly plots to kill the Prince and remain king. The thrust of the plot is Ella's journey to find her fairy godmother and get her curse lifted and then save the Prince and get married, happily ever after, yada yada yada.

Simply take a little Cinderella with some cliffs notes Shakespeare and you can figure out where this plot is going. What works about Ella Enchanted, based on a popular book series by Gail Carson Levine, is the upbeat fairy tale style of the film. The film is bathed in a magical, pixie dust glow, saturated fantasy colors and modern touches for comic effect. There are malls, bicycles and modern politics. Don't worry it's all handled very lightly. All of it played for witty effect.

Director Tommy O' Haver crafts a wonderfully surreal fairy tale that evokes a live action Shrek in it's magic and whimsical fairy tale aesthete. O'Haver doesn't condescend to his young target audience, his musical choices, Elton John and Queen, are not known to younger viewers but are a treat to audiences who remember them. The songs are also weaved into the plot, the lyrics match the action onscreen, not an original concept but cleverly done.

Anne Hathaway has a terrific comic spirit that shows why those Princess Diaries movies have been so wildly popular. She is a tremendously likable presence onscreen. She is attractive with a mischievous glint in her eye. She has terrific comic chops and shows she's up for anything by singing two songs. Compared to contemporaries like Hillary Duff or the Olson Twins, she is a breath of fresh air.

The discovery here is Director Tommy O'Haver whose breakthrough feature Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss was a minor gem from 1998 that most people missed. O'Haver has a wonderful comic touch. This is material that could collapse if overdone but O'Haver never let's it get away from him. From the first frame the GGI kingdom grabs your attention, little comic moments float by as the camera floats to Ella's cottage for the first scene.

The Director really helped himself by filling his cast with talented supporting actors like Cary Elwes, who lends the film a little of that Princess Bride karma, Minnie Driver, and Parminder K. Nagra who is a little underused but terrific when she's seen. Hugh Dancy, in his first major role, holds his own opposite Hathaway whose presence could have overwhelmed a lesser actor. Dancy was unrecognizable in his small role in King Arthur so this film is the highlight of his resume.

For what it is, a kid's movie, a movie meant for young girls, Ella Enchanted ranks with the Pixar films in the way it provides thrills for audiences. Ella is not as funny or as artistically accomplished as Pixar's films or Shrek but by the lowered bar for family films that appeal beyond demographic boundaries, you can throw this film in the conversation with Nemo and the rest.

Movie Review Get Smart

Get Smart (2008) 

Directed by Peter Segal 

Written by Tom Astle, Matt Ember 

Starring Steve Carell, Anne Hathaway, Dwayne The Rock Johnson, Alan Arkin, James Caan, Terrence Stamp

Release Date June 20th, 2008 

Published June 19th, 2008 

Steve Carell's clueless guy act is beginning to wear thin. But, one last big shot of that persona isn't so bad. The cluelessness of this Carell character happens to be a necessity for the legendary character Carell is playing in Get Smart. In Get Smart, Steve Carell is playing Maxwell Smart the fictional center of the 60's TV show Get Smart whose best known for his bumbling, oblivious, cluelessness. So, one last time Steve Carell, throw on that blank mug, that beatific smile, and that air of unearned confidence and we will laugh along with you.

Maxwell Smart is Control's top analyst. His assessment of terrorist activities is beyond detailed. He knows what major terrorists take in their coffee. He hopes this attention to detail and hard work will earn him a promotion to field agent for Control in their continuing battle with CHAOS, the international terror group bent on global domination. Unfortunately for Max his promotion is denied until a CHAOS attack on Control leaves much of the agent roster dead. Now Max will have to go into the field and with the aid of Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway), he will be asked to track down the nuclear weapons obtained by CHAOS head Siegfried (Terrence Stamp), and his number 2 man Shtarker (Ken Davitan).

That Max and Agent 99 develop a flirtation and eventually a little romance is something you may initially reject, Carell and Hathaway don't look like a great match, but by the end of Get Smart I was not only believing in the romance, but actively rooting for it. It's one of a surprising many things that director Peter Segal gets right in Get Smart. Segal, a veteran of Adam Sandler features, has never shown much skill for good storytelling. In Get Smart however, Segal seems more assured, mature, and prepared. It helps to have strong special effects and a great cast that also includesAlan Arkin, Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson, and David Koechner, but Segal really does quite a good job directing this remarkable collection of talent. 

Having only seen a few reruns of Get Smart over the years I cannot claim to know the series in anything but the most vague terms. That said, of what I know of the show the new Get Smart hits a few of the right notes. Carell's Max hits the catchphrases, "Missed It By That Much" and "Sorry Chief", with precision. If Carell's Max is slightly less bumbling than Don Adams' original it's likely a necessity given the complex stunts and effects that far outstrip the far smaller scale TV show

Alright Steve Carell, now it's time for you to show us something. Get Smart was a lot of fun. Now let's find a new comic persona and do something different. It was a good run as the genial doofus, now I want to see something closer to your Little Miss Sunshine character, though less suicidal. It doesn't have to be too radical a departure, just something slightly less doofus. You've done well with the doofus thing, but now you can effectively leave it behind. 

At Least on the big screen, a couple more seasons on The Office is fine with me.

Movie Review The Hustle

The Hustle (2019) 

Directed by Chris Addison 

Written by Stanley Shapiro, Paul Henning, Dale Launer, Jac Schaeffer 

Starring Anne Hathaway, Rebel Wilson, Alex Sharp 

Release Date March 10th, 2019

Published March 9th, 2019 

The Hustle is a remake of 1988’s Dirty Rotten Scoundrels starring Steve Martin and Michael Caine. Scoundrels itself was a remake of 1964’s Bedtime Story starring Marlon Brando and David Niven. So yeah, this material has been traversed on multiple occasions and that’s not even accounting for the numerous movies that Bedtime Story was heavily influenced by. Con artists have long been figures of fascination at the movies as they provide a rich playing field for actors and screenwriters alike. 

The Hustle stars Rebel Wilson, Pitch Perfect’s Amy, as Penny, a boorish Australian con artist who uses a scam involving a sick sister, and a little bit of catfishing, to get men to give her the little amounts of money she needs to get by. It’s small potatoes and when she’s seemingly run low on gullible Tinder dates, she decides to give Europe a shot. Penny is headed to the French Riviera in hopes of finding a bigger game for her cons. 

On a train to a place called Beaumont Del Sur, Penny meets Josephine (Anne Hathaway), a fellow con-artist, though Penny doesn’t know that yet. Josephine has set up shop in Beaumont Del Sur for years, using its lavish, expensive hotels as her hunting ground for rich husbands looking for a good time on the sly from unwitting elderly wives. Josephine isn’t worried that Penny will provide competition, she’s worried that her clumsiness will scare away the bigger fish marks. 

When Penny proves herself to be a little more formidable than expected, Josephine takes her in and begins to teach Penny about higher level cons. A con-job, codenamed Lord of the Rings, is the centerpiece of this early portion of the second act and I really enjoyed it. All three movies, Bedtime Story, Scoundrels and The Hustle, feature this sequence and it proves to be a durable comic sequence, earning some unexpectedly big laughs. 

Unexpected laughs are a hallmark of The Hustle. The disjointed narrative of The Hustle, a series of setups and payoffs with a bare minimum of connective story tissue, works in spite of the structure. The laughs are so big and so often that I actually didn’t mind the obvious flaws in the structure. I somehow didn’t mind that The Hustle isn’t much of a traditional movie and is rather a series of gags, skillfully performed by the talented duo of Wilson and Hathaway. 

On most occasions a movie as faltering in structure as The Hustle would not work for me but I have a notable soft spot for Rebel Wilson. Few people in Hollywood make me laugh as hard as Wilson, who has become one of the most remarkably ingenious comedians on the planet in recent years. Her Isn’t it Romantic from back in February of this year remains one of the highlights of 2019 at the movies and Wilson makes it impossible for me to dislike The Hustle or dismiss it over some very noticeable flaws. 

Those specific flaws are embodied in the character of Thomas played by newcomer Alex Sharp. Sharp is central to the film’s third act and he’s completely overmatched in attempting to keep up with Wilson’s brilliant comic chops and Hathaway’s skillfully light touch comedy. I get that this part requires a performer who appears at a loss consistently opposite the brilliant cons on either side of them, but Sharp is an almost non-existent presence. Those who’ve seen Dirty Rotten Scoundrels know where his character arc is headed and I will tell you, Glenn Headly struggled to pull it off in Scoundrels and Sharp doesn’t even compare to her. 

The Hustle was directed by Veep veteran, Chris Addison. Addison has demonstrated a strong talent for gags on Veep and he shows that same flare for setup and punchline in The Hustle. The Hustle unfortunately doesn't have the advantage of being a weekly television series that can more simply perform setup and punchline and pick up narrative strands as needed. Characters have time to grow and for us to get to know them on television. The Hustle doesn’t have time to develop these characters or a deeper narrative, which necessitates the reliance on big gags over what makes movies great.

That said, the laughs in The Hustle are often so big that I can’t pretend I didn’t enjoy it. I can levy a number of complaints about the film, but what matters is that I laughed and laughed loudly and quite often at The Hustle. I can’t say my fellow critics who don’t care for The Hustle are wrong about the movie, they are right in many instances and complaints. I just happen to be in a position to be a great deal more kind about The Hustle due to my adoration for Rebel Wilson. 

Lower your expectations of an actual movie and get set for some funny set pieces and you can enjoy The Hustle as much as I did.