Movie Review: The Women

The Women (2008)

Directed by Diane English

Written by Diane English

Starring Meg Ryan Eva Mendes, Annette Bening, Debra Messing, Carrie Fisher

Release Date September 12th, 2008 

Published September 13th, 2008

George Cukor's The Women from 1939 is an undeniable classic of wit and feminine mystique. For years many of Hollywood's top actress's including Julia Roberts when she was the biggest star in the world, have dreamed of getting a remake done. It wasn't until uber-producer Diane English, best known for TV's Murphy Brown, put the pieces together that something finally got done.

It should have remained a dream.

Meg Ryan stars in The Women as Mary Haines a rich housewife who devotes her life to her daughter and the many charities she funds. Mary's friends are a devoted lot. Sylvia (Annette Bening) is a high powered magazine editor on the verge of being fired. Debra Messing is the perpetually pregnant Edie. And Jada Pinkett Smith is Alex a character who covers all of the multicultural bases for the movie by being an african american lesbian.

None of these characters has much of a life beyond my one line description of them. The plot revolves around the friends' discovery of Mary's husband's mistress played by the sultry Eva Mendes. Eventually, the friends tell Mary who leaves her husband and finds a life on her own.

And that's pretty well it. If I am to venture a guess I think the movie is meant as a comedy. I didn't laugh much throughout so it's difficult for me to say. I did little much of anything during The Women a movie that was rendered completely unnecessary with the creation of Sex and the City. Carrie and her friends are the logical extension of Cukor's original premise and because it was a TV show it was allowed to be even more in depth and probing of these characters.

No, Sex and the City did not feature an african american lesbian but Samantha had a dalliance with a multi-culti lesbian character. The Sex and the City movie further pushed The Women into the realm of unnecessary by taking its well rounded characters to the big screen, the change in format and the title being the only things that made Sex and the City much different than The Women.

Sex and the City is funnier, sexier, smarter and more caring than this remake of The Women. With Sex and the City out there, it is a wonder why Diane English and Meg Ryan pushed so hard for this film to be made. Was it jealousy? Hubris? Did they think they could do this premise better than Darren Star and company?

Well, they didn't. Skip The Women. Get Sex and the City on DVD.

Movie Review Searching

Searching (2018)

Directed by Aneesh Chaganty

Written by Sev Ohanion, Aneesh Chaganty

Starring John Cho, Debra Messng 

Release Date August 31st, 2018

Published August 30th, 2018

2018 has seen some remarkable experiments in form. Steven Soderbergh’s ingenious thriller Unsane was filmed on multiple IPhones and crafted one of the most exciting and suspenseful movies of the year. And, the movie we’re talking about today, Searching, from director Aneesh Chaganty, ranks right alongside Unsane as a terrific experiment in form and as a thriller. The film was shot entirely from the perspective of a computer monitor. That sounds as if it would be a tough watch but Searching is so much better than you think it is.

Searching stars John Cho as David Kim, a devoted father and a recent widower. David dotes on his daughter, Margo (Michelle La), mostly via video chat and social media messenger. Margot is an overachiever, or at least that’s what David believes. Soon he will come to find he doesn’t know his daughter as well as he thought he did. Searching is not just an experiment in form, it’s a challenging subject for parents who might want to take a closer look at their kids on social media.

After some mundane exchanges about taking out the garbage and money set aside for piano lessons we get to the meat of the plot. Margot is supposed to be studying late with friends but then, she doesn’t come home. We see, in the middle of the night, David gets a pair of skype calls from Margot but he misses them, he’s asleep. When he wakes and calls Margot, she doesn’t answer and when he finds she’s not at school, he calls the police.

So much of Searching is just John Cho’s worried face and it is a testament to his charisma and star power that Searching is so compelling. Cho’s frantic expression is engrossing and his search for clues is our search for clues. Instead of being over his shoulder as he searches, we’re in his computer following the evidence that he gathers via Margot’s computer, her social media, her bank account and her phone.

The mystery of Margot’s whereabouts is riveting and the shooting style, that inside the computer screen looking out of perspective, feels urgent and exhilarating. It’s exactly what you and I would be doing in the same situation. Scouring social media, opening our kids computers and digging through their email for any digital trail they may have left. What David finds is what any of us might find if we investigated a typical teenager and the mystery of whether Margot ran away or was kidnapped raises the stakes throughout the story as evidence tips one way and then the other.

Searching is one of the least talked about success stories of 2018. The film was made for a budget of $1 million dollars and the film grossed over $70 million dollars, making it one of the best return on investment movies of the year. That the film also happens to be a tremendous work of art makes Searching truly admirable. And, now that the film is available on Blu-Ray and DVD it should only become more successful.

Indeed, television may add a dimension to the movie in some ways, making the experience more intimate, like looking at your own computer. The theatrical experience of Searching worked but this is one of the rare movies where home video may enhance the experience. That’s saying something considering Searching is already a really great movie. I can’t recommend it enough for the high level mystery and John Cho’s brilliant performance.

Searching should inspire modern filmmakers to take more chances with form. This film and Unsane are rare among modern movies, taking advantage of modern tech to create a whole new genre of movies that I expect is still in infancy and will only become a bigger genre over time. Unsane will likely be the more influential of these movies but Searching demonstrates boundaries in form that can be pushed and that will undoubtedly have a legacy.

Movie Review Nothing Like the Holidays

Nothing Like the Holidays (2008) 

Directed by Alfredo De Villa 

Written by Allison Swan, 2 other screenwriters

Starring Luis Guzman, John Leguizamo, Debra Messing, Alfred Molina 

Release Date December 12th, 2008

Published December 11th, 2008 

I have nothing really interesting to observe about Nothing Like The Holidays. I watched it with my friend and fellow critic Linda Cook and after it was over, instead of talking about it, we immediately started talking about Frost/Nixon, Doubt, Rachel Getting Married and other such movies that still have not come to our neck of the woods.

There is nothing horribly wrong with Nothing Like The Holidays. It's just that, I watched it and when it was over it fell almost completely out of my consciousness. Now, as I sit down to write about it, it's a struggle to remember salient plot details for a description. IMDB reminds me of the actors and the roles they played but I cannot remember who was who and why without checking the reviews from other critics. What more is there to say?

Nothing Like The Holidays is a Christmas movie about a Puerto Rican family in the Humboldt Park neighborhood in Chicago. I could write lovely little things about this melting pot of a neighborhood but that would involve little about the movie I am supposed to be writing about.

I could dwell on the racial aspects of Nothing Like The Holidays but I think equality calls on me to treat this movie as I would any other holiday movie and not single out the Latino aspect as something special, though historically, sadly, it is notable.

It is notable, though the film's content, characters, and humor is far from notable. Mostly because I have forgotten about it. If this review seems overly hateful, it's not intentional. Nothing Like The Holidays isn't a disaster. It's just wildly mediocre and entirely forgettable.

Movie Review Open Season

Open Season (2006) 

Directed by Roger Allers, Jill Cullen

Written by Steve Bencich, Ron J. Friedman, Nate Maulden

Starring Martin Lawrence, Ashton Kutcher, Gary Sinise, Debra Messing, Jon Favreau 

Release Date September 29th, 2005

Published September 30th, 2005

Sony Pictures Animation is brand new to the computer animation game. Their first feature Monster House, with producer Robert Zemeckis, was a fun, clever, kid friendly concept that would have benefited from a better release date. The second feature from Sony is equally as fun, though not quite as clever, and shows that Sony may be the first big studio animation arm to be truly competitive with Pixar in terms of creating fully integrated animated films with appeal beyond the child audience.

Monster House is a better, more accomplished example of the quality of Sony's work, but the new animated picture Open Season has just enough quality work to show Sony's potential.

Martin Lawrence gives voice to Boog in Open Season, a bear who has been domesticated. Living in the garage of a caring forest ranger (Debra Messing); Boog has his TV, nine square meals a day and he's even learned how to use the toilet. His domestic bliss is upended when he meets Elliott (Ashton Kutcher). Poor Elliott has been captured by an evil hunter (Gary Sinise) and strapped to the hood of the hunters truck.

Boog, on a day in the city with his forest ranger pal, see's Elliott and helps him escape. Elliott, thinking he has made a new best friend forever, follows Boog home and entices him out of the garage for a night on the town. The two end up vandalizing a mini-mart, an offense that causes the local sheriff to force the forest ranger to release Boog into the wild.

Never having had to survive on his own, Boog finds his new life in the forest to be, pardon the pun, un-bear-able. So, with Elliott's help, Boog tries to find his way back to the garage. Along the way he earns the ire of almost every other creature in the forest, especially after he crushes the local beaver dam and flushes everyone into the valley where hunters are awaiting the opening of hunting season.

Part of the strategy of Sony Pictures Animation is working with talented artists with great track records. On Monster House they worked with a rookie director, Gil Kenan, but backed him up with the proven talent of producer Robert Zemeckis. On Open Season Sony worked with director Roger Allers who directed the all time animated classic The Lion King.

Open Season does not compare with The Lion King in terms of the quality of its storytelling but the animation of Open Season is at times the equal of any and all of the great animated pictures, digital or otherwise. The forest landscapes of Open Season are absolutely gorgeous which is strangely at odds with the otherwise mundane  talking animals storyline. The animation tends to overwhelm a story beneath the dignity of the artistry of the animation.

Not that the story of Open Season isn't cute or funny, it is, but the grand animation of Open Season would be better suited to a more dramatic feature, ala The Lion King.

Part of the fun of Open Season is the voice work of Martin Lawrence and Ashton Kutcher. These two actors, who have struggled mightily in their live action work, are dynamic vocalists in Open Season. Lawrence does a terrific job of channeling the child-like innocence of Boog and combining it with an attitude of entitlement of a very spoiled child. As Boog becomes more mature, Lawrence channels his usual bravado and good humor into Boog to great effect.

Kutcher is a natural for voicework. He is naturally over the top and exemplifies boundless energy, as he so often showed on That 70's Show. Elliott, like TV's Michael Kelso, is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he has a big heart and that comes through in his voice. He just wants to be liked, he just wants to make friends and in that sense he is very reminiscent of another beloved animated sidekick Eddie Murphy's Donkey from the Shrek movies.

If the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals made an animated feature, I'm guessing it would look alot like Open Season. The film is like PETA propaganda. The hunters are mouth breathing morons and seething villains who hunt for the joy of the kill and not merely for sport. The animals are, of course, cute and smart and essentially more human than their human counterparts.

I am a little concerned about one thing about this animated tale of a grizzly bear who is kept as a pet. There was a documentary last year called Grizzly Man in which a man named Timothy Treadwell failed to understand how dangerous the grizzly bear truly is. Treadwell convinced himself that the bears were his friends, he even named them like pets. Timothy Treadwell died, eaten by his pals the grizzly's. Parents, be sure to make your children understand that Grizzly bear's are not pets.

If Sony Pictures Animation is going to compete with the gold standard set by Pixar they will need to do a little better than Open Season. That said, Open Season; in its lovely animation and wide appeal story, does demonstrate the potential of Sony's animated arm. Working with talented directors like Roger Allers is definitely a sign of the commitment of the company to the quality of their work.

The kids will love the talking animals and the adventure stories and mom and dad won't be bored thanks to the remarkable animation that often invites audiences just to gaze at it forgetting for a moment the mundane story.

Movie Review: Along Came Polly

Along Came Polly (2004) 

Directed by John Hamburg

Written by John Hamburg 

Starring Ben Stiller, Jennifer Aniston, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Debra Messing, Hank Azaria 

Release Date January 16th, 2004 

Published January 15th, 2004 

2004 is shaping up to be a big year for Ben Stiller. He has 3 films coming out in just the first five months of the year and is directing another. With Starsky and Hutch due in March, his much delayed teaming with Jack Black in Envy pushed to early Spring and a just-begun multi-episode stint on Larry David's HBO series “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” Stiller is going to be everywhere this year. His first film of the year, the romantic comedy Along Came Polly with Jennifer Aniston, gets 2004 off to a good start.

In Along Came Polly, Stiller is Rueben Feffer, an expert in risk management. Ruben's job as a risk evaluator for an insurance company has taught him to be quite cautious in everything he does. Cautious even in his personal life which has caused him to settle down with Lisa (Debra Messing) for what seems like a safe, life-long commitment. However, on their honeymoon in St Barts, the couple meets a French scuba diving instructor named Claude (Hank Azaria in a stellar cameo). Of course, Claude and Lisa end up in bed together, discovered by Rueben while doing it with their scuba gear still on. No one does this kind of indignity quite as well as Stiller, who is to humiliation what Jack Benny was to being a tightwad.

Returning home, Rueben is consoled by his friend and former child star Sandy (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) who tries to raise his spirits by taking him to a party. At the party Rueben runs into Polly Prince (Jennifer Aniston), a girl he went to junior high with and who now works as a cocktail waitress in between flights of fancy that have taken her all over the world.

Rueben and Polly are totally opposite personalities, Rueben is uptight, neurotic and fearful while Polly is adventurous, carefree and owns a ferret as a pet. However, like any man who sees an opportunity to be with a beautiful woman, Rueben puts aside his fears of spicy food, salsa dancing and ferrets. Of course, all of which leads to numerous comic foul-ups where his fears get the best of him. 

Once again, Stiller's talent for taking the worst that life can give him makes these varying humiliations terrifically funny. Even the awful bathroom scene after Rueben has suffered through dinner at an Indian restaurant and the spicy food has caused his irritable bowel syndrome to act up. Ugh!

The problem with Stiller's performance in Along Came Polly, as funny as he is, is that we have seen him do variations on this same character plenty of times. Rueben is essentially just an extension of the character he played in last years Duplex who was an extension of Greg Fokker in Meet The Parents (Not so coincidentally, Parents and Along Came Polly are both written and directed by John Hamburg). Further still, those roles were basically toned down takes on Stiller's role in There's Something About Mary. Stiller's act is still funny in Along Came Polly but it is growing a little too familiar and tiresome.

As for Jennifer Aniston, she once again shows why she is the Friend most likely to breakout as a bigtime film star. She's got it, acting chops and comic timing. Her role is surprisingly small as the film makes room for a number of supporting characters. Her Polly has little interaction with the supporting characters which makes her feel as if she were in a slightly different film. Unlike Cameron Diaz in the very similar There's Something About Mary, Aniston's Polly is played straight, above all of the humiliating gross out gags. Polly is central to the plot but is outside much of the humor of the film.

The best parts of the film are the supporting roles played by Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Alec Baldwin and Hank Azaria. These three terrific actors are in place to put Stiller in the most humiliating situations possible and they do their jobs well. Azaria is especially funny in his small role. Carrying his best accent since his gay Puerto Rican is The Birdcage, Azaria walks nude on the beach, murders the English language and as he should puts Stiller's Rueben in the most humiliating situations possible.

The supporting players, as good as they are, do however expose one of the films main flaws. Writer-Director John Hamburg can't decide on a comic tone. The script attempts to combine over-the-top slapstick, gross-out humor with a realistic romance. The over-the-top elements pull you out of the realistic story, rendering it less believable, especially at the end when the film wants you to get emotional about whether the romance will have a happy ending.

It's difficult to criticize a film that is as funny as Along Came Polly. The cast is terrific and there are a number of funny gags. Still, the romance never feels real because, as written, it gets stepped on by the slapsticky, gross-out humor. Thus we are left with a series of comic skits tied together loosely by a romance that is only in place to give the jokes context. I can kind of recommend Along Came Polly but with a slight reservations. 

Movie Review Hollywood Ending

Hollywood Ending (2002)

Directed by Woody Allen 

Written by Woody Allen

Starring Woody Allen, Tea Leoni, Treat Williams, Mark Rydell, Debra Messing

Release Date May 3rd, 2002 

Published May 2nd, 2002

Being from the Midwest, Woody Allen's humor is somewhat lost on me. Allen's humor is at times very specific to New Yorkers, which can be a turn off to Midwesterners like myself. In his latest film, Hollywood Ending, Allen isn't too New York. Oddly enough, the lifetime New Yorker is too Hollywood. 

In Hollywood Ending, Allen is Val Waxman, a washed-up former Oscar winning director now working on TV commercials in Canada. Val's luck is about to change with a little help from his sympathetic ex-wife Ellie (Tea Leoni). Ellie is now a Hollywood producer and is pushing her studio head fiancee (Treat Williams) to hire Val for a movie called "The City That Never Sleeps." Val is not an easy sell for the studio as he has a history of being difficult including outrageous demands of time, money and even daylight. After some prodding and a meeting with Val, the studio reluctantly agrees to hire him with the caveat that he can be fired at any moment.

So excited is Val at landing the job that he loses his sight. Val suffers from psychosomatic blindness. So, Val should probably drop out of the picture until he gets his sight back, but on the advice of his agent Al (Mark Rydell) he stays in the picture even though he thinks he should quit.

Val: "Don't you think people will notice a blind director?"

Al: "What? Are you kidding me? Have you seen these movies today?"

Allen has some terrific moments of physical comedy, built around his being blind and attempting to negotiate the movie's set. With the help of an on-set translator (Barney Cheng), hired to help Val communicate with his Chinese cameraman, Al and Val try to make it seem like everything is fine so that Val doesn't get fired. Eventually Ellie discovers Val's secret and then she too tries to help him pull it off.

The cast is rounded out by Debra Messing as Val's ditzy girlfriend and George Hamilton as a vapid movie producer. The cast is good as is most of Allen's script, but Hollywood Ending is troubled by a tendency to be too Hollywood. A lot of the film's humor is aimed at the film industry, which is a ripe place for satire. However, it is at times a little too inside the industry. Jokes about agents and references to the director's guild will be lost on casual film fans.

Allen still has a great ear for dialogue and his classic self-deprecating humor is well in place, but Hollywood Ending is just not funny enough. While Hollywood is a wonderful source for satire (see David Mamet's hysterical State & Main), Hollywood Ending just doesn't have enough good jokes. The humor is scattered throughout and in fact the film is funnier in scenes between Allen and Tea Leoni as they rehash their failed marriage. Allen is indeed a funny guy, maybe someday all of us will get the joke.

Movie Review The Mothman Prophecies

The Mothman Prophecies (2002) 

Directed by Mark Pellington 

Written by Richard Hatem 

Starring Richard Gere, Laura Linney, Will Patton, Debra Messing 

Release Date January 25th, 2002 

Published January 25th, 2002 

The words "based on a true story" have a way of stirring up controversy in Hollywood. Case in point A Beautiful Mind, where a few seemingly minor factual omissions have fueled all sorts of critical rants. Now comes The Mothman Prophecies based on the 1975 book of the same title by John Keel who investigated paranormal activity in the small town of Point Place, West Virginia in 1966.

The paranormal activities were said to be the multiple unrelated sightings of moth-like creatures including one by the author himself. Thus the "based on a true story" credit at the beginning of the film has elicited skepticism and even laughter from some reviewers, myself not included. Not that I believe in these supposed moth-like creatures, I just found the film itself to be so entertaining I don't care if it's true or not.

Richard Gere stars as Washington Times reporter John Klein who, with his wife Mary (Debra Messing), is involved in a car crash which both survive but leads to the discovery of Mary's brain tumor. The tumor is terminal and soon enough Mary passes away, but not before she draws pictures of the moth-like creatures which she claims caused the accident. Months later while driving to an assignment, Klein gets lost and winds up in Point Place, West Virginia where under very strange circumstances he is accused of stalking a local man named Gordon (Will Patton). Klein is released after meeting with the sheriff Connie Parker (Laura Linney) who explains that Gordon has been acting strange since experiencing strange visions that Klein finds are quite similar to those described by his wife. Gordon isn't the only person in town to have these visions and Klein decides to stick around to investigate.

The story is somewhat superfluous, but the first rate cast improves it greatly. Gere is especially good using his trademark stoicism to great effect as his character begins to meltdown. Laura Linney shows herself to be the heir apparent to Meryl Streep in the versatility department, and Will Patton continues to show himself to be the "go-to" character guy who can play anything and make it believable.

Let us not forget director Mark Pellington, whose supreme pacing and great eye for exciting visuals keeps the film moving at an entertaining clip that keeps the audience off balance all the way through. True story or not,The Mothman Prophecies is an entertaining story and that is what counts.