Movie Review The Grand

The Grand (2008) 

Directed by Zak Penn

Written by Zak Penn

Starring Cheryl Hines, David Cross, Richard Kind, Woody Harrelson, Ray Romano 

Release Date March 21st, 2008 

Published May 5th, 2008 

Zak Penn crafted the detailed and clever scripts for the X-Men flick directed by Brett Ratner. A comic book nut, Penn was in his element and will hopefully show the same talent in his script for the upcoming Incredible Hulk redux. Moving into the realm of directing, his talent seems somewhat less pronounced. The new comedy The Grand features an exceptional comic cast but too often feels like something Christopher Guest thought of and cast aside.

The Grand is a mockumentary that follows the progress of several different players in a 10 million dollar Las Vegas poker tournament called The Grand. Jack Faro (Woody Harrelson) is a legend on the Vegas Strip. Not for his card playing or the fact that he owns a casino, the Rabbit's Foot, but rather for his copious consumption of drugs and alcohol.

Oh and I neglect to mention Jack's 75 ex-wives. Sprung free from a two year stint in rehab, Jack needs 7 million dollars or he loses his casino to mogul Steve Lavish, an eccentric billionaire played by Chris Guest regular Michael McKean.

Facing off with Jack in the tournament are a collection of veterans, sharks and internet novices with their own unique histories and agendas. Lainie Schwartzman (Cheryl Hines) is a champion player looking to win The Grand for the first time. With her nebbish husband Fred (Ray Romano) and their three kids in tow, Lainie is a favorite to win. As is Lainie's brother Larry (David Cross). Though Lainie has more often than not beaten her brother, he remains a top player. Together they have weathered the creepy, intense competitiveness of their father (Gabe "Mr. Kotter" Kaplan) that has left them both a little emotionally crippled but great card players.

Then there are the legends. Dennis Farina looks every bit the Vegas veteran who longs for the days when mobsters busted knee caps and poker victories came with complimentary hookers. His old friend, The German (Werner Herzog, yes THE Werner Herzog) is an equally ruthless player who travels with a cadre of small animals, one of which he murders everyday to keep his instincts sharp. The wildcards in this multi-million dollar tourney are an internet poker amateur named Andy Andrews (Richard Kind) and a socially inert savant named Harold (Chris Parnell).

6 of these players will be at the final table playing for the big prize and we are told by director Zak Penn that the game being played is for real. The Grand is credited as written by Penn and pal Matt Bierman but according to Penn the actors improvised all of their dialogue based on character sketches and a barebones plot. The final card game is in fact a real game with the outcome determined by actual hands of cards between the actors. Each of the actors then delivers on whatever is expected of their character according to what the cards do for them. It's a unique idea and lends a bit of suspense to scenes that could have been quite predictable.

Other than that final hand however, The Grand remains nothing more than a clone of Christopher Guest only slightly more subdued. A talented crew of comics and actors fumble their way toward jokes, occasionally finding them, more often earning a laugh for the fumble as for the found humor. The Grand isn't bad really. The actors are fun and the poker setting is strong even as the competitive poker trend ticks down its 15 minutes of fame. I can give it a partial recommendation on the strength of a really good cast but keep your bets low on this hand.

Movie Review: Waitress

Waitress (2007) 

Directed by Adrienne Shelley

Written by Adrienne Shelley

Starring Keri Russell, Jeremy Sisto, Cheryl Hines, Andy Griffith, Eddie Jemison, Lew Temple

Release Date May 2nd, 2007

Published May 2nd, 2007

Any murder is a tragedy but circumstances make some seem more tragic. The circumstances surrounding the murder of Adrienne Shelley are made more tragic by the completion of her very first signatory film Waitress. This lovely, thoughtful, warm and poetic effort starring Keri Russell and Nathan Fillion as star crossed lovers with a tart center gives the context of true tragedy to Shelley's death.

That some monster has robbed the world of such a wondrous, beautiful soul makes us all a little lesser. I can only assume that Waitress scratched the surface of Adrienne Shelley's talent and that thought is terribly sad. We can now only take comfort that while she was here. Adrienne Shelley and her art, her film,  made the world a little better place.

Jenna Hunterson (Keri Russell) is beautiful, whipsmart and the best darn piemaker you can imagine and yet, you would not want to be her. Jenna is married to Earl (Jeremy Sisto) a nasty lout whose needy, jealous nature is not merely irritating but dangerous. He wasn't like this when they were first married but since then he has become unbearable and Jenna wants nothing more than escape.

She has a plan. Using tips she has been hiding from him, Earl usually forces her to give him all of her money, she plans on sneaking off to a local pie contest with a pretty nice grand prize, enough money for Jenna to leave Earl for good. Unfortunately, there was that night, not long ago, where Earl got Jenna drunk and she made the mistake of sleeping with him.

This, unfortunately leads to Jenna getting pregnant; a development that makes getting away from Earl more difficult and more important. Along with the pregnancy, Jenna gets a new doctor, Dr. Pomatter (Nathan Fillion) a fumbling, good natured, handsome sort who takes an immediate liking to Jenna and especially to her pies. Unfortunately, Dr. Pomatter is also married but that doesn't stop them from entering into a passionate affair that could change both their lives or not.

My description is deliberately offbeat because nothing about Waitress is in any way typical. Written and directed by Adrienne Shelley, Waitress is a character piece centered on this strong, smart, sassy young woman whose self analysis is as tart as her pies are sweet. Keri Russell invests Jenna with an inner strengtht that expresses itself with a hardcore self analysis.

When Jenna meets Dr. Pomatter it is not a typically passionate love at first sight situation. Rather, it is a slowly revealing affair of comfort and convenience. Jenna finds genuine caring for the very first time and seeing someone show her love without conditions attached awakens something within her that may allow her to become a good mother.

Jeremy Sisto as Earl gives Waitress a dark edge necessary for keeping the material from becoming too sweet or light. Sisto evinces a malevolent air with the way he breathes in short angry bursts and his constantly wounded speech that begs and warns Jenna to love him with dark urgency. This is a revelatory performance for Sisto who has been good in other movies, like May and the little seen TV show Kidnapped, but never as good as he is in Waitress.

The other scene stealer of Waitress is the legendary Andy Griffith. As the curmudgeonly pie shop owner Joe, you never really believe that he is the ornery old coot that he claims to be but it's fun listening to Andy Griffith try and seem nasty. It's part of the character that he is downbeat and easy to anger but his interaction with Jenna is pure and caring. This would be a lovely coda to the career of Andy Griffith, a performance that deserves serious Oscar consideration.

Casting a pall over Waitress is the murder of writer-director Adrienne Shelley. Her murder in her home in New York City was sad before Waitress was released, now we can see that it was a true tragedy. A tragedy for lovers of great art everywhere. Watching Waitress you can see the pure soul of an artist and the talent of true auteur.

Adrienne Shelley had so much talent and so much promise. Waitress is a masterpiece of tone, of offbeat characters, romance and humor. The film is insightful and soulful with a great heart. Few filmmakers, male or female, have made films with such depth and understanding of human nature and the needs of the heart versus the needs of practicality and reality.

My sadness over Ms. Shelley's death is matched only by the joy her movie gave me. Everything about Waitress is just delightful from the pitch perfect performance of Keri Russell to the beautiful pies that pop up as a foodie Greek chorus echoing the thoughts of Jenna as she deals with pregnancy, infidelity and her bastard husband.

At the end of the second act of Waitress Jenna and Dr. Pomatter have what Jenna describes as a perfect day. I won't go into the details because I want you to experience it for yourself, but I will tell you that these scenes capture the kind of romantic longing that some say film cannot capture as well as other artforms. If this series of scenes does not stir your soul, you simply don't have one. There is more beauty in ten minutes of this movie than in a dozen paintings, photographs, poems or symphonies.

There is no such thing as a perfect movie, but Waitress, for me, is nearly perfect. A delightful romance with wonderful characters, great humor and a great big heart. The joy it gives is underscored with tragedy because of the death of Adrienne Shelley but if she was destined to make one movie in her life, she really made it count.

Waitress is a smart, sassy, funny and sad love story about one woman coming terms with life and happiness on her own terms. That sounds cliche in description but to watch Waitress is to be touched by it and I definitely recommend that. You must see this movie.

Movie Review RV

RV (2006) 

Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld

Written by Geoff Rodkey 

Starring Robin Williams, Cheryl Hines, Jeff Daniels, Kristen Chenoweth, Josh Hutcherson

Release Date April 28th, 2006

Published April 28th, 2006 

Robin Williams stopped being cool around the time he cleaned up and got off drugs. That is a horrible thing to say but it's true, his maniac comic genius was fueled by cocaine and though at times it was too far out it was often remarkably, vibrantly, brilliant and he has only rarely captured that brilliance since getting cleaned up.

I'm glad he got off drugs, it saved his life. And that maniac part of Williams is still there occasionally, especially in his most recent comedy special on HBO in 2003. In movies those occasions of Wiliams' brilliance have become few and far between. Reduced now to the neutered family comedy genre like his once brilliant colleague Eddie Murphy, Williams stars in R.V, a mainstream machine meant to convert safe forced comic melodrama into cash.

In R.V Williams stars as Bob Munro, father to two ungrateful kids, daughter Cassie (JoJo Levesque) and son Carl (Josh Hutcherson) and husband to a loving stay at home wife Jamie (Cheryl Hines). Sad that his family has grown so far apart that they watch TV in four different rooms and I.M each other that dinner is ready. He launches a plan to bring the family close again.

Canceling a planned vacation in Hawaii, Bob puts the vacation funds into renting an R.V for a cross country family camping trip. What Bob doesn't mention to the family is that part of the trip includes a stop in Colorado for a business meeting.

If you guessed that along the way the family reconnects, lessons are learned and hugs shared, congratulations, you've seen a movie before. Predictable doesn't begin to describe the plot of R.V. Golly do you think Bob's secret business meeting will drive a wedge in the family? Do you think that maybe that weirdo family headed up by the mugging duo of Jeff Daniels and Kristen Chenoweth will turn out to be good people and great friends?

Garsh!

Director Barry Sonnenfeld has hit a rather unexpected career low. After Get Shorty and two pretty good Men In Black movies, Sonnenfeld seemed to have a golden touch. However, having been away from directing since the last Men In Black film, Sonnenfeld's golden touch has turned to lead. Lead that Sonnenfeld and Williams use to pound home every predictable slapstick joke.

As much as I dislike R.V I must admit to a few laughs all of which come from Williams whose hard work does occasionally wring laughs from this lame script. That hint of mania behind William's eyes is still there and when he isn't suppressing it in an ill-fitting dyspeptic character like Bob, he can't help but let loose a few non-sequiturs. Robin Williams is a comic genius. That madness is still there just below the surface. That madness that makes him a brilliant, at times uncontrollable comic whirling dervish, still simmers inside him. Movies like R.V do not bring out his best side but when he finds the right project he will back.