Classic Movie Review The Princess Bride

The Princess Bride (2017) 

Directed by Rob Reiner 

Written by William Goldman 

Starring Cary Elwes, Mandy Patinkin, Chris Sarandon, Christopher Guest, Wallace Shawn, Robin Wright, Andre the Giant, Billy Crystal Carole Kane

Release Date September 25th, 1987 

Published September 20th, 2017 

The Princess Bride is one of the most rewatchable movies in history. This rich, robust, and homey comedy never ages and never falters. Rob Reiner’s direction, aside from a truly terrible film score, is unassailable in every comedy beat. Then there is the absolutely perfect casting. Cary Elwes, Robin Wright, Mandy Patinkin, Andre the Giant, and each of the supporting players, from Chris Sarandon as the evil Prince, Christopher Guest as the evil six-fingered henchman, and Billy Crystal’s cameo as Miracle Max, could not be better.

This weekend, September 25, The Princess Bride turns 30 years old and I am happy to tell you that I have probably seen this movie more than 30 times in that 30 years. The film feels like home to me with these wonderfully erudite characters, their supreme code of conduct, and the wonderfully generous laughs. I can’t call The Princess Bride a perfect movie, once again I will mention that terrible film score, but it’s damn near perfection.

Westley (Cary Elwes) is a young farm boy in the employ of the family of Buttercup (Robin Wright). Though Buttercup attempts to annoy her farm boy with one silly task after another we are told in Peter Falk’s wonderful voiceover that Westley’s constant refrain, "as you wish," to each of her requests is his way of confessing his love for her. Eventually, Buttercup realizes that she’s been annoying him because she’s been trying to hide her feelings for him and the two fall madly in love just as Westley is about to leave.

Westley is to take to the seas to seek his fortune so that he may soon return and give Buttercup the life she richly deserves. Unfortunately, it’s reported that Westley’s ship was attacked by a pirate legend known as the Dread Pirate Roberts and he does not take prisoners. With Westley thought dead, Buttercup becomes distant and lonely and when the Prince (Chris Sarandon) arrives at her door wanting to make the most beautiful girl in the kingdom his future Queen she accepts knowing that she is only giving her body to the task but not her heart.

What Buttercup doesn’t know is that the Prince is merely using her and plans to kill her with his first plan to have her kidnapped and killed in the fields of the rival kingdom of Gilder. The princess’s captors are a wonderful comic mixture with the leader Vizzini (Wallace Shawn) claiming to be the smartest person in the world, while his henchmen, Inigo (Mandy Patinkin) and Fezzik (pro wrestling super-legend Andre the Giant) are the greatest swordsman and the biggest brut in the kingdom respectively.

Read my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal. 

Classic Movie Review Robin Hood Men in Tights

Robin Hood Men in Tights (1993) 

Directed by Mel Brooks 

Written by Mel Brooks, Evan Chandler, J. David Shapiro 

Starring Cary Elwes, Amy Yasbeck, Mel Brooks, Richard Lewis, Roger Rees, Isaac Hayes 

Release Date July 28th, 1993 

Published July 25th, 2023 

Mel Brooks has a generational impact. For many, their Mel Brooks movie experience began with The Producers and proceeded to Young Frankenstein and Blazing Saddles. My Mel Brooks experience, due to having been born late in the Gen-X generation, was a little different. My Mel Brooks movies were Spaceballs and Robin Hood Men in Tights. The earlier Mel Brooks classics came to me later. Thus, I think I hold both Spaceballs and Robin Hood Men in Tights in high regard because I simply saw them and fell in love with them first. 

This doesn't mean that I believe that Spaceballs and Robin Hood Men in Tights are better than the Brooks 1970s movies. It just means that I have a much softer spot for Brooks 80s period, one that many older Brooks fans do not share. Older fans of Mel Brooks have often stated that Brooks became a bit to reliant on referring to his past glory in the 80s and early 90s. They aren't entirely wrong. Both Spaceballs and Robin Hood Men in Tights rely heavily on referring to gags and characters that Brooks invented in his glorious 60s and 70s peak. 

That said, I still love Robin Hood Men in Tights and looking back on it 30 years after it was released, I was surprised to find that my love for the film is as strong as ever. Brooks' ingenious satire of Kevin Costner's dreary Robin Hood adaptation is also a loving homage to the original telling of Robin Hood on the big screen, that undertaken by the legendary Errol Flynn in the 1930s. Weaving nods to both of those Robin Hood stories, amid references to his own legendary canon, Mel Brooks created Robin Hood Men in Tights, a cocksure, headstrong comedy that stands on its own. Or was that the other way around? 

The brilliance of Mel Brooks is on display immediately in Robin Hood Men in Tights. Within moments of his credits sequence bursting on the screen with heroic music and the visual of fiery arrows being fired into the distance, Brooks begins breaking the fourth wall. The credits arrows have hit a nearby village, lighting the whole thing on fire as residents complain that this happens every time someone makes a Robin Hood movie. The very funny meta gag ends with the extras turning to the camera to tell Mel Brooks to leave them alone. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media

Movie Review Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1

Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1 (2023) 

Directed by Christopher McQuarrie 

Written by Christopher McQuarrie, Erik Jendresen 

Starring Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, Rebecca Ferguson, Esai Morales, Cary Elwes, Vanessa Kirby, Pom Klementieff, Shea Whigham, Henry Czerny 

Release Date July 12th, 2023 

Published July 13th, 2023 

I'd never heard the term Dead Reckoning before. In the opening minutes of the new Mission Impossible franchise entry, titled Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1, they explain the term in the most efficient fashion and it dawns on you just what a perfect title this is for this adventure. It's a little thing, but I absolutely love that level of attention to detail and I appreciated that the movie gave us this information not with a windy info dump but with an offhand comment that explains the context of the term. On a colloquial level, it very simply means to navigate based on limited information on your own location. 

That's a perfect metaphor for where the Impossible Mission Force, headed up by Tom Cruise's super-spy, Ethan Hunt, find themselves. They are navigating a world saving adventure plot with very little knowledge or where they are going next. Every little twist and turn of the plot, every development surrounding the McGuffin, is delivered with precision and in a way that only gives us and these wonderful characters, just enough info to take us the next step. That the McGuffin happens to be a literal Key is quite a fun and clever detail that, again, I absolutely love. 

Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning opens on a Russian Submarine navigating back to Russia after a very successful mission. This mission involved fooling the entire world's worth of submarines and military intelligence. The sub commander explains that his new sub was able to get within mere meters of the most advanced submarines and military ports in the world, completely undetected. It's a game changing piece of technology that would give Russia a grave advantage in any world conflict. I say that it would, if this sub didn't soon wind up at the bottom of the ocean. 

How it got there is the world altering mystery at the heart of Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1. Ethan Hunt has been given the mission of recovering to halves of a very special key. It's a key that unlocks control of a world altering A.I that may itself be the villain of this movie. With his newly reunited team, including Rebecca Ferguson as Ilsa, Simon Pegg as Benji, and Ving Rhames as Luther, Cruise's Ethan Hunt must recover a key but he doesn't know what this key unlocks or where the lock actually is. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Classic Movie Review The Crush

The Crush (1993) 

Directed by Alan Shapiro 

Written by Alan Shapiro 

Starring Alicia Silverstone, Cary Elwes, Jennifer Rubin, Kurtwood Smith

Release Date April 2nd 1993 

Published June 17th, 2023 

According to writer-director Alan Shapiro, The Crush, is based on a real life experience he had in which a teenage girl developed a fixation on him that became obsessive. This was an exaggeration to say the least. The original film, as shot and scripted by Shapiro even used the real name of the teenager, he claimed inspired the film. Naturally, because she is portrayed as a murderous nutjob in the movie, the real-life teenager sued Shapiro for Defamation of Character. The studio responded by clumsily changing the name of the main character via a comically bad piece of over-dubbing. 

It's doubtful that Shapiro's story actually happened as he characterized it. The reality appears to be that creepy studio executives were eager to make a thriller based on sexualizing a teenage girl and found Shapiro's very silly, self-aggrandizing script in a pile and saw potential dollar signs from the always lucrative creep market. The production of the film seems to back up that assertion as Silverstone had to dodge the attempts by executives to get her to do nude scenes and sexual scenes beyond what is in the final film. 

So insistent on a nude scene was one particular executive that a compromise was made. A body double stripped down for a scene showing off her backside in place of Silverstone's. Bear in mind, Silverstone was 16 at the time she made The Crush and the character in the movie is slightly younger than that. A mere 30 years ago, a Hollywood executive felt comfortable enough to ask a teenage actress to do a nude scene in a movie and became so insistent on the baring of teenage flesh in the movie that they had to compromise with an adult body double. That's just some of the super creepy backstory of 1993's The Crush. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media. 

Movie Review Blackberry

Blackberry (2023) 

Directed by Matthew Johnson 

Written by Matt Johnson, Matthew Miller 

Starring Jay Baruchel, Glenn Howerton, Cary Elwes, Rich Sommer, Michael Ironside 

Release Date May 12, 2023 

Published? 

Blackberry is a story of technology, hubris, and the ways in which the world has been brought together via technology but people remain, quite predictably, human. The story of the rise of the first trendy handheld communication device, Blackberry charts the astonishing growth and precipitous fall of a fad unlike anything before it. Blackberry became a staple of high class living in the early 2000s. The ubiquity of the Blackberry became a meme before memes were cool. No caricature of a businessman was complete without them holding a Blackberry. 

How the Blackberry thus came and went as a phenomenon is a ripe subject for a movie. After all, how does something as ubiquitous and beloved become ancient and nearly forgotten in the span of just over a decade? It's hard to quantify, even less than 20 years after the Blackberry, how big the Blackberry got and how quickly it fell out of fashion. There are few phenomenon's quite like it. Perhaps a reasonable comparison for modern audiences might be Tiger King. The famed Netflix series was the hottest thing in the world and by the time it came for a sequel, people had already forgotten the people involved. 

The Blackberry lasted longer as a product but as a pop culture staple, the comparison is pretty good. Both became afterthoughts quicker than anyone involved could have imagined. The Blackberry's remarkable fall has roots in the way modern IT has changed the landscape of innovation. Where in the early days of the industrial revolution the innovation life-cycle was decades, today, the innovation life cycle is measured in years. Things in today's IT world change so quickly that even beloved innovations can expect to be outmoded within three years. 

There's a reason why we are on the 14th generation of the IPhone in the 16 years since it was introduced by Steve Jobs and his turtle neck. Technology is now a shark that must swim even when it sleeps. The Blackberry story was the trial balloon of modern technology. Innovators need to look no further than the 2002 introduction of The Blackberry and that same product's obsolescence a mere 5 years later when the IPhone crashed the market. 

As charted in the movie, Blackberry, the writing was on the wall from the early days. Mike Lazaridis (Jay Baruchel), the brains of the operation, was always in over his head as his employees walked all over him and took advantage of his genial good nature and lack of social grace. It's no wonder now, with grave hindsight, that Lazaridis would fall victim to a hard charging snake like Jim Balsillie (Glenn Howerton). Lazaridis just wanted to make new, helpful technology, a noble pursuit. He needed a ballbuster like Balsillie to push him to deliver his best, and it worked, if only for a moment in the span of our new technological evolutionary cycle. 

The casting here in Blackberry is rather brilliant. Jay Baruchel, known as a waif and a shrinking violet, when he isn't an obnoxious denizen of a Judd Apatow film, is just the kind of guy who would get run over by a big personality like that of Glen Howerton. The former star of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia star has a loud and brash personality that befits a scruples free businessman chasing every dollar and imposing his will upon the geeks and nerds that exist under his weighty boot. The dynamic is familiar, a genius who doesn't want the hassle of leadership and a dictator who is hungry for power at all cost come together like halves of a whole. 

Full length review at Geeks.Media 

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: Comic Book Villains

Comic Book Villains (2002) 

Directed by James Robinson

Written by James Robinson 

Starring Donal Logue, D.J Qualls, Cary Elwes, Natasha Lyonne, Michael Rappaport 

Release Date September 3rd, 2002 

Published September 9th, 2002 

The comic book fanboy culture is ripe for satire. Such was shown in Kevin Smith's brilliant Chasing Amy. Comics aren't the center of that film but the scenes involving comics and the comic convention are comedic gold. Comic Book Villains aspires to tell the story of some serious fanboys but in reality it's a ridiculous farce with not one likeable character.

DJ Qualls stars as Archie, a comic fanboy who is beginning to grow out of his former obsession. Though he would never tell that to Raymond, his best friend and the owner of the most snobbish comic store in town, and proud of it. Raymond, played by Donal Logue, is the ultimate fanboy who won't speak to anyone who doesn't the names of the Fantastic Four, their alter egos, how they got their powers, which issue introduced what character and various other pieces of minutia someone with no friends and especially no dates would know.

Raymond's rivals in the comic biz are Norman (Michael Rappoport) and his wife Judy (Natascha Lyonne). Though they aren't comic book fans they know a quick buck when they see it.

The rivalry comes to a head when a 40-something collector kicks the bucket, leaving behind the ultimate comic collection. Raymond and Norman are each quick to pounce on the guy's clueless mom who never understood her son's obsession with those funny books. The mom is played by the venerable Eileen Brennen, and as she puts up with Raymond and Norman's incessant begging and pleading, she strikes up a real friendship with Archie who has been dragged into the mess by Raymond.

As the comic book war heats up both, sides begin to lose their grip on reality as they each plot a break-in of the old woman's house to steal the comics. Raymond goes as far as attempting to hire a hitman to kill the old lady and steal the comics.

The hitman is played by Cary Elwes and at the beginning, his character is the only sympathetic character in the film. He's a guy who's fresh from prison and looking to rebuild his life. Director James Robinson makes the hitman character both sympathetic and menacing which is supposed to prepare us for the film's climax. Sadly this fails as Elwes gets sucked into the plot's stupidity and is then crushed underneath it like all of the other characters.

Every character in the film is a complete moron, with the possible exception of DJ Qualls'sArchie who isn't as stupid as the other characters. Still, his character is just utterly useless. Archie narrates the story but is not really involved in it. He should consider himself lucky! Elwes, Logue, Rappaport and Lyonne probably wish their characters weren't involved in this ridiculousness but they are and they suffer greatly for it.

Writer-Director James Robinson has crafted a thoroughly unlikable film. Incoherent, ridiculous and endlessly stupid. The film is marketed as a comedy and you would think since it's about comic books, it would be, but it's not. In fact I'm not sure James Robinson intended to make a comedy. It seemed to me he was trying for drama and suspense. He failed miserably.

Movie Review No Strings Attached

No Strings Attached (2011) 

Directed by Ivan Reitman 

Written by Elizabeth Meriweather 

Starring Natalie Portman, Ashton Kutcher, Cary Elwes, Kevin Kline 

Release Date January 21st, 2011 

Published January 20th, 2011 

It's becoming a modern movie affliction; movies that are more ideas than movies. "The Dilemma" is a good example: How do you tell your best friend that his wife is cheating on him? Good idea but that was all anyone seemed to come up with and the film flailed about hoping the cast would find something funny to do. More often than not, the cast never found anything.

"No Strings Attached" is another example of this affliction. The idea is simple: Can two people have a sexual relationship without feelings getting in the way? And, much like "The Dilemma," no one really thought of anything more beyond that idea and thus stranded a charming cast, lead by Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher, in a plotless mess where only occasionally does someone find something funny to say.

Adam and Emma met briefly in Summer Camp as teenagers when an awkwardly distant Emma attempted to comfort a sad Adam and he offered a clumsy teenage come on. They met again in College at a frat party when Emma asked Adam to a family function that turned out to be a funeral. You know how you invite strangers on dates to funerals, so funny. And they met again one year later at a random farmer's market where Adam got Emma's phone number right in front of his girlfriend, because our main character is a total jerk. 

Much would seem to stand in the way of these two bad-timing having folks getting together but when Adam gets blitzed after his girlfriend leaves him for his TV star father (Kevin Kline, in a shocking cameo) he ends up naked on Emma's couch and eventually in her bed. Emma is now a medical resident working ungodly hours in order to become a doctor; she has little time for a relationship. What she does have time for however is hook ups and booty calls and lots of them. Yes, Adam is given what we are to believe is the dream relationship for all emotionally stunted men 'Sex Buddies.'

So why is Adam so miserable? It turns out, in what would be an interesting twist in a better and far more thoughtful and unique film, Adam is not the typical immature boy-man that he might seem. Too bad he has fallen for an emotionally walled off nut case that could only exist in the pages of an under-written romantic comedy.

The eminent critic Mick Lasalle of the San Francisco Chronicle made an interesting point about Ashton Kutcher and his movies. To paraphrase Lasalle: Ashton Kutcher's been in a number of bad movies but he's never been all that bad in those movies. Indeed, Kutcher is an appealing screen presence who delivers more than what is on the page to his characters. He just chooses some truly horrible movies.

"No Strings Attached" is a pretty horrible movie in which Ashton Kutcher is, as usual, not that bad in. Ashton gives the character charm and a soulful, puppy dog quality. The problem is that the rest of the film is such a shambles. Director Ivan Reitman and writers Elizabeth Meriwether and Michael Samonek seem to have an idea for a movie but fail to deliver characters whose motivations from scene to scene are consistent and instead they rely on hit and miss sitcom jokes that hang off of the film's premise.

Poor Natalie Portman is the biggest victim of the hit and miss style of "No Strings Attached." Portman's Emma is called upon to be an emotional disaster reeling from one motivation to the next at the whim of whatever comic notion struck director Ivan Reitman in the moment.

At one moment Reitman finds it funny for Emma to invite a strange man on a date to a family funeral. In the next she's giving her phone number to a guy in front of his girlfriend. In the next she seeks a purely sexual relationship. Then she gets drunk and jealous. Then she tells him to sleep with other women and then she's jealous again. Each time Emma is led to look like a fool because no one bothered to give her a back-story that might lend context to her oddball behavior.

Making matters worse in "No Strings Attached" is a sensational supporting cast that drowns in the wake of the creators’ lack of any clue what to do with them. Kevin Kline as Adam's father is a heedless hedonist whose love of drugs and sex is supposedly funny because he's old. That's the joke, he's old. I imagine that Reitman thought hiring Kevin Kline was all that he needed to make this character work and that's not an unreasonable notion, but even Kline's charm can't get around how misbegotten Reitman's direction of No Strings Attached is. 

Lake Bell plays Adam's co-worker who clearly has a crush on him. Here, the film adds a strange sort of cruelty as nice guy Adam is asked to flirt with Bell's Lucy while pining for crazy Emma. If Lucy were a bigger nutcase than Emma or maybe just mean in some way then his behavior toward her might be excusable. Instead, Lucy and Adam have an uncomfortable and brief courtship before she is shuffled off into another character's jockey send off. 

The brilliant Greta Gerwig from “Greenberg” is wasted in the role of Emma's best friend, sweetly paired off with Adam's best friend Eli (Jake M. Johnson) in one of the film's many thrown away plots. And The Office star Mindy Kaling is brought in to deliver a few tart one liners that sound as if she wrote them herself. Kaling's character exists only for one-liners and to her credit they are the funniest moments in the film. 

There are parts as well for rapper Ludacris, Cary Elwes, and Juno's best pal Olivia Thirlby but nothing really of note. It seems at times that everyone in the cast was hired to inhabit a type and then jokes were written to play off of that type and then everything was cut together with fingers crossed that something coherent would emerge. 

Sadly, nothing coherent does emerge from No Strings Attached aside from a continuing sense that Ashton Kutcher has talent and really poor taste in material. Like us, Kutcher saw the potential of the idea of No Strings Attached but like the rest of the cast he is left hanging by a creative team that failed to develop anything beyond a premise and a couple of good one liners.

One last note, some Oscar pundits have wondered aloud if No Strings Attached were bad enough to be Natalie Portman’s “Norbit,” i.e the film that some believe sunk Eddie Murphy’s chances of winning Best Supporting Actor for his excellent turn in “Dreamgirls.” The answer is a simple no: “No Strings Attached” is not as bad as “Norbit.” Indeed, few movies have ever been as bad as “Norbit.”

Movie Review Georgia Rule

Georgia Rule (2007)

Directed by Garry Marshall 

Written  by Mark Andrus 

Starring Jane Fonda, Lindsay Lohan, Felicity Huffman, Dermot Mulroney, Cary Elwes 

Release Date May 11th, 2007 

Published May 10th, 2007 

Director Garry Marshall has skated on the success of his hit 1990 romantic comedy Pretty Woman for more than a decade now. That film invented the idea of a 'hooker with a heart of gold.' For some reason people accepted this premise of a hooker who rises from the mean streets of Los Angeles to become the wife of a millionaire businessman. In hindsight, Pretty Woman is an objectionable fantasy that, if it didn't star the luminescent Julia Roberts it likely would have been seen for the ugly lie that it is.

This type of trash has been Marshall's stock and trade ever since. Check 1994's Exit To Eden which is a comedy about sado-masochism featuring Rosie O'Donnell and Dan Akroyd in bondage costumes and it is somehow not a horror movie. 1996's Dear God presented a group of banal mail carriers in a vaguely religious, deeply unfunny comedy. And 1999's The Other Sister was a romantic comedy about a pair of mismatched mentally handicapped people that is so insensitive that Roger Ebert described their depiction as being like trained seals.

Runaway Bride and the Princess Diaries movies were merely forgettable trifles, slightly less terrible than Marshall's other movies. And 2003's Raising Helen was yet another bizarre and objectionable premise. That one has a mother and father dying in a car accident and leaving their three kids in the care of the one person in their family least qualified to care for the children. Why did they do this? To teach this family member responsibility. If you think using your children to teach this lesson is a good idea, please consider not having children. Just to be on the safe side.

This brings us to Marshall\'s latest bizarre bad idea. Georgia Rule is a sitcomic take on some real issues. Issues like child sexual abuse, drug abuse and alcoholism. That it happens to star the troubled child star Lindsey Lohan is a strange and sad coincidence.

In Georgia Rule Lindsey Lohan stars as Rachel a troubled teenager who has been banished to her grandma Georgia's (Jane Fonda) home in Idaho for the summer. Rachel's mother, Lilly (Felicity Huffman), simply can't keep Rachel in line anymore and she hopes that her own mother's strict 'Georgia Rules' can straighten Rachel out. Things naturally get off to a rocky start. Rachel remains rebellious and incorrigible despite Georgia's constant prodding, though she does accept a job working for a local veterinarian, Simon (Dermot Mulroney), who once dated her mother.

She also begins a tentative romance with a young Mormon man, Harlan (Garrett Hedlund), who is preparing for a 2 year mission and an arranged marriage, something that somehow doesn't put off the sexually aggressive Rachel in any way. Rachel's behavior soon has Lilly coming back to town to sort things out and when she does secrets are revealed that no one is fully prepared to deal with.

Directed by uber-hack Garry Marshall, Georgia Rule is an offensively off-key disaster. It's a light hearted, light headed comedy that attempts to be an adult drama. Crammed into the seams of this ostensibly good natured family comedy are subplots in which Lohan performs oral sex on a somewhat unwilling Mormon, threatens to have sex with the boyfriends of all the girls in this small town, and attempts to sleep with Dermot Mulroney's Simon even though there is a question as to whether the Simon character may be either her real father and or in love with her mother. Ewww!

Then there is creepy Cary Elwes whose character is accused of sexually abusing Lohan's character from the time she was 12. This having happened while Felicity Huffman's Lilly was a useless fumbling drunk, which, as of the start of the movie we are told that she still is.

It\'s not unnatural that a movie would attempt to deal with such deep dark issues, the problem is in the approach. Garry Marshall's hacky, sitcomic approach to these serious issues undermines the drama and coats every scene in a creepy false veneer. Marshall tosses these issues into the movie, muddies the waters with them and then backs away for a light hearted moment and then dips back into the creepiness. Georgia Rule is a tonal train wreck.

Georgia Rule plays like a Todd Solondz movie directed by mainstream hack. At that time that thought occurred to me, I was honestly unaware that Garry Marshall was the director of Georgia Rule. Seeing his name in the credits at the end was a revelation. He perfectly fits my perception of just the kind of mainstream comic hack who should not visit Solondz style material.

Georgia Rule is bizarre, offensive, clueless, dunderheaded and foolish. Garry Marshall has always been a hack director but Georgia Rule is so wretched I had to even reconsider my feelings on the one movie of his I liked, Pretty Woman. In hindsight, Pretty Woman is nearly as repellent as Georgia Rule. The difference is that movie had Julia Roberts at her most appealing. Georgia Rule has Lindsay Lohan at her most troubled.

What is it about Garry Marshall that makes him try to turn everything into a pasty sitcom? It's bizarre how he tries to portray real life traumatic situations and stick them into his preferred context, the half hour comedy. Drug abuse, sexual abuse, alcohol abuse, Marshall puts these things into his movies and adds a metaphorical laugh track via his banal direction and inability to relate to these problems on a human level.