Movie Review This Means War

This Means War (2012) 

Directed by McG 

Written by Timothy Dowling, Simon Kinberg 

Starring Reese Witherspoon, Tom Hardy, Chris Pratt 

Release Date February 17th, 2012 

Recent to DVD the comedy “This Means War” is a criminally banal comedy starring three exceptional young stars in the hands of a competent but unimaginative director. The story of two spies using their skill and advanced technology as they compete for the heart of the same woman wastes three terrific stars and a solid premise on a series of mild and predictable gags.

Lauren (Reese Witherspoon) has had no luck with men. She moved to Los Angeles to with a man who dumped her soon after she arrived. Since then she has become focused on her job as a product tester and put seeking love on the back burner. Unfortunately for Lauren, her pal Trish won’t let her forget about love; eventually signing her up for online dating.

Through the love seeking website Trish meets Tuck (Tom Hardy), a kind and handsome travel agent. On the same day as her first date with Tuck she also meets FDR (Chris Pine) a jerky ladies man who tries to put the moves on her in a video store. What Lauren doesn’t know is that Tuck and FDR are friends and partners and spies. Soon, the smitten spies begin to compete for Lauren’s heart using the resources at their disposal to gain an intelligence advantage.

The idea of two spies using their spy craft to woo the same woman is wonderfully novel. Unfortunately, director McG doesn’t do anything unpredictable with this idea. Every beat, every joke, every turn of plot in “This Means War” is easy to predict. The plot gives you a great deal to work from and challenges the filmmaker to do something that audiences don’t expect and McG simply never does it.

With these three stars it is inexcusable that “This Means War” is so achingly mediocre. Tom Hardy and Chris Pine are evolving into major movie stars with Hardy starring in “Warrior” and “Inception” and Pine having given new life to Captain Kirk in “Star Trek.” And then there is Reese Witherspoon, arguably the easiest to like actress working today.

Witherspoon is the bright light of the modern romantic comedy. Her unique beauty and quirky approach to generally predictable material never fails to bring something interesting to the table. Even in “This Means War” Witherspoon’s charm is hardly dampened. Unfortunately, even Witherspoon’s charm can’t escape a plot so heavy handed and rote.

It’s not that McG is a bad director; the film is good looking and the story, such as it is, keeps a solid pace. The story logic is as strong as it is novel but the premise needed a touch up. We know from the marketing that these two guys are spies and she doesn’t know it so the film needs to find unique ways for the spies to use their craft. All we get from “This Means War” is people watching other people on hidden cameras.  

Surely there is more that could be done with spies than background checks via the internet and hidden webcams. Sadly, “This Means War” lacks the imagination to come up with anything more. It’s fair to assume that the filmmakers were relying on the stars to sell what they couldn’t but even stars as attractive as these can’t make nothing into something.

In the end what’s really hard to watch about “This Means War” is how truly mediocre it is. The film is well crafted and the stars are attractive but that’s not enough to get the movie past merely watchable. It would be easier for me to dismiss “This Means War” if it were truly bad but the film lingers in memory because it is so remarkably banal; a fact that is almost more offensive than if the film simply stunk. 

Movie Review Home Again

Home Again (2017) 

Directed by Hallie Meyers Shyer 

Written by Hallie Meyers Shyer 

Starring Reese Witherspoon, Nat Wolff, Jon Rudnitsky, Pico Alexander, Lake Bell, Michael Sheen, Candace Bergen

Release Date August 29th, 2017

Published August 28th, 2017

Home Again is a vacuous and inane movie that is otherwise an inoffensive and forgettable romantic comedy about characters who have no problems. It’s the kind of vacuousness that you would think even Hollywood would be tired of by now and yet there still seems to be an appetite for it. I think it’s called lifestyle porn, wherein the poor watch movies like Home Again and fantasize about the architecture and accoutrements without a care for whether or not the characters’ lives are worth enduring.

Home Again makes for fine lifestyle porn if not an actual movie. It’s all very pretty and pretty empty. The film stars Reese Witherspoon as the mother of two daughters who has just fled her marriage to a rock promoter in New York, played by Michael Sheen, for her late father’s home in Los Angeles. Her life is upended like a bad CW show when she has a near one night stand with a much younger man who her kooky mom (Candace Bergen) invites to live in her guest house along with his two pals.

The three guys are Harry (Pico Alexander), Teddy (Nat Wolff), and George (Jon Rudnitsky), three aspiring filmmakers. Harry is the impossibly handsome… director? Yeah, the super-handsome guy is the one who plays the director. I’m not saying directors can’t be handsome, but it was a curious choice in the casting here to take the relatively unknown but super-handsome Pico Alexander and cast him as the artistic visionary and have the much more well known and slightly less handsome Nat Wolff play the movie star.

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

Movie Review: Your Place or Mine

Your Place or Mine (2023) 

Directed by Aline Brosh McKenna 

Written by Aline Brosh McKenna 

Starring Reese Witherspoon, Ashton Kutcher, Jesse Williams, Zoe Chao, Tig Notaro

Release Date February 10th, 2023 

Published February 13th, 2023 

The slapdash, clumsy and derivative new romantic comedy, Your Place or Mine still manages to have moments of grace and genuine romance. It's a shame the movie is so dedicated to playing the rom-com greatest hits that it cannot fully take advantage of the few good moments. No, sadly, the latest effort from the generally quite good writer-director Aline Brosh McKenna is by far her most mundane, by the numbers effort. Despite a pair leads with decent chemistry, Reese Witherspoon and Ashton Kutcher, Your Place or Mine falls well short of rom-com greatness. 

In Your Place or Mine Reese Witherspoon is Debbie and Ashton Kutcher is Peter. We meet them on the first night they hooked up, 20 years ago, following a game of poker. Shortly after that, Peter told Debbie that they should not be together as he's bad at being in relationships. Somehow, they remained not just friends but best friends and went on with their lives. Each gave up their dreams, her to be a book editor and him to be an author, and found vague levels of success in other endeavors. She's an accountant for her son's school and he's a movie conception of a consultant, the nebulously defined but wealthy kind of fallback character job that hack screenwriters assign so as not to have to spend time on backstory. 

A clumsy opening series of scenes sets in stone the very obvious arc of this already quite obvious romance. Debbie needs to loosen up and have some fun, Peter needs to learn how to be responsible to others and become selfless. Commence the deus ex machina. The brilliant Rachel Bloom drops in from a completely different movie and sets the plot in motion by not being able to watch Debbie's son, Jack (Wesley Kimmel), while Debbie was set to go to New York to see Peter and take a course to advance her accounting career. 

Knowing that his friend is counting on this class in New York, Peter decides to get on a plane and go to L.A and watch Jack while Debbie stays at his place in New York. While in New York, Debbie befriends the best character in Your Place or Mine, Peter's ex-hook up, Minka, played by Zoe Chao. To say that Chao steal the movie is an understatement. She's the character with the most personality, the most organic growth, and all of the best jokes in the movie. She befriends Debbie as a sort of mini-deus ex machina as it is her job within her subplot to get Debbie to find Peter's book and give it to a sexy book editor, played by Jesse Williams. 

Williams is obvious roadblock between Debbie and Peter's happily ever after. He offers her an alternative romance with someone she is more obviously compatible with. But, we already know where this is headed and the movie doesn't give Williams much to play to turn his role into anything more than a speed bump on the way to the obvious conclusion. It's incredibly disappointing to watch these terrifically talented people acting out a script that is the bare minimum of effort and confounding why someone as talented as Aline Brosh McKenna fell back on so much lazy screenwriting. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review: Wild

Wild (2014) 

Directed by Jean Marc Vallee

Written by Nick Hornby 

Starring Reese Witherspoon, Laura Dern, Thomas Sadoski 

Release Date December 3rd, 2014

Published December 1st, 2014 

I fell in love with Cheryl Strayed in "Wild." As played by Reese Witherspoon as a lost soul with her heart on her sleeve, with those big, beautiful, Reese Witherspoon eyes, it's nearly impossible not to fall for her. Add to that a highly compelling journey through rain, snow and creepy backwoods hunters, and you have the makings of awards-worthy entertainment.

Strayed was a troubled woman, especially in the wake of her mother's death. She began using heroin and sleeping around, and it cost her marriage. To right her ship and get clean, she chose a measure nearly as extreme as her attempts at self-destruction. In 1995 Cheryl set off to hike from Mexico to Canada: the Pacific Crest Trail. 

The film begins with Cheryl, who never has been much of a hiker before, building a comically over-sized pack that other hikers nickname “The Monster.” Watching Witherspoon struggle to stand under the uneasy weight of her pack is quite funny but also rather poignant. Cheryl put nearly her entire body weight on her back, a perfect symbolic representation of the emotional baggage she was attempting to shake on this journey. 

I love stories about compassion, and this is indeed a deeply compassionate story, filled with characters who come to admire and assist Cheryl as she makes her incredibly challenging journey. Pruitt Taylor Vince is up first as a rancher who gives Cheryl a place for a warm meal and a hot shower after she's found herself in the middle of nowhere with the wrong kind of cooking torch. Vince comes off as a creep initially, but soon becomes Cheryl's first new friend on the trip. 

Tracking her progress and sending care packages is Cheryl's former husband Paul (Thomas Sadoski). The relationship between Cheryl and Paul is moving, even though Paul is only a minor character in the story. The letters he sends Cheryl during her journey and the flashbacks to their time together while she was falling apart are powerful and evocative of two people who love each other but can't take the hurt anymore. 

The story of "Wild" is exceptionally well-told thanks to director Jean-Marc Vallee ("Dallas Buyers Club"), writer Nick Hornby, and cinematographer Yves Belanger. Many will argue that it’s easy to make the Pacific Crest Trail look beautiful. But it’s the way in which Belanger captures Witherspoon against that beautiful background that makes it stand out. The film was shot almost entirely in natural light, with a handheld camera but without the usual clumsiness of a handheld. 

Witherspoon is remarkable in "Wild." She gathers the contradictions of Strayed -- her wounded pride, her deep well of grief and her surprising grit -- into one of the most compelling and entertaining performances of the year. 

It's nearly impossible not to fall in love with Cheryl Strayed. I dare you to try. 

Movie Review: Vanity Fair

Vanity Fair (2004) 

Directed by Mira Nair

Written by Julian Fellowes

Starring Reese Witherspoon, Eileen Atkins, Jim Broadbent, Gabriel Byrne, Romola Garai, Bob Hoskins

Release Date September 1st, 2004 

Published September 1st, 2004 

In its day, William Makepeace Thackeray's Vanity Fair, written in 1847, was a witty and scathing rebuke of the British society in which it was set. In the ensuing 157 years, even as society in Britain and elsewhere has changed, the wit of Thackeray's words has remained and Hollywood has taken notice more than once. First adapted in 1935 in the very first film ever in Technicolor, Thackeray's novel was renamed for its heroine Becky Sharp and won an Oscar nomination for star Miriam Hopkins.

The book found its greatest exposure in the mini-series format where it has been adapted three times. Because of the large number of characters, subplots, and endlessly witty dialogue exchanges the mini-series seems to be the truly ideal format for this story. A perfect example of that is the latest film adaptation of Vanity Fair by Mira Nair and Oscar-nominated screenwriter Julian Fellowes which evokes the images of the story but has no time for the depth and breadth of it.

Reese Witherspoon takes on the difficult role of Becky Sharp, the razor tongued social climber who in the book is not the most sympathetic creature. In the film, after a little back story about how Becky was the orphaned daughter of a starving artist sent to live and work in a finishing school, we find Becky taking advantage of the one friend she has made in her life Amelia Sedley (Romola Garai). In this scene at least Becky seems genuine, if a bit devilish towards her ex-schoolmates and teachers.

Becky is leaving the school to join Amelia and her family for a week before she begins life as a governess for Sit Pitt Crawley (Bob Hoskins). In the week with Amelia's family, Becky hopes to take advantage of her friend’s kindness and find herself a way into high society. Becky's chance opens up when Amelia's brother Jos returns from his military post in India. Jos is shy, overweight and easily mislead, the perfect patsy for Becky who would marry anyone to get into high society.

Unfortunately for Becky, Amelia's fiancé George Osbourne (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) is far savvier than Jos and helps the fat man see through Becky's scheming. With no fiancé to help her climb the social ladder, Becky is off to the home of Sir Pitt Crawley where a whole new scheme must begin. It doesn't take someone of Becky's street smarts long to insinuate herself into an important position in the Crawley household. She makes an especially strong impression on the most important Crawley, Sir Pitt's sister Miss Crawley (Eileen Atkins) the one with all of the family's money.

Miss Crawley and Becky are fast friends as both have a quick and savage wit. Miss Crawley claims to detest the class system and any system that would place her dull witted clan ahead of someone like Becky simply because of breeding. However Miss Crawley's true feelings are tested after Becky elopes with Sir Pitt's youngest son Rawdon (James Purefoy) who was Miss Crawley's favorite and the one most likely to inherit the family fortune.

This is a lot of plot and I have not yet mentioned Rhys Ifans as Major Dobbin and Gabriel Byrne as Steyne both of whom are pivotal in the book but get a bit of a short shrift due the films 2 hrs 17 min. runtime. Even the plot I have already described is embellished a bit on my part from what I know from reading the book. Having read it, I can fill in the gaps that Ms. Nair and Mr. Fellowes rush over in order to get a more salable runtime.

Clearly there was some sort of studio mandate on runtime because there is simply no other way to make sense of the cuts made by the talented director and writer. People who have not read the book will often be left wondering what just happened as the plot points are introduced and left behind in mere moments as the narrative jumps ahead years in leaps and bounds. Important plots about deaths, births and cross-continental moves are left on the cutting room floor leaving the audience unsatisfied, with little to no catharsis or consideration.

To be fair Thackeray wasn't much interested in catharsis as he was in the witty, sexy, and devilishly clever banter of his characters, especially Becky Sharp. At the very least in the book, you have Thackeray as narrator offering some commentary on these life-changing events, usually with a very witty aside. There again points to another problem with the film, it lacks Thackeray's voice which is the books true source of humor. Like the cattiest of gossips, Thackeray's narration let us inside the thoughts of each character and spelled out important motivations.

The filmmakers rely heavily on their actors to deliver the characters inner lives and while this is a talented group of actors who communicate insight, intelligence, and humor the audience members aren't mind readers and the filmmakers can't just assume people will get it. That is unless you read the book then maybe you do get it. Maybe the film’s biggest issue is the way Thackeray's biting satire has been softened to appeal to a more mainstream audience.

That appeal to the mainstream extends to the casting of Reese Witherspoon as Becky Sharp. Ms. Witherspoon is a terrific actress who has the perfect face to play Becky Sharp, with that devilish glint in her deep-set eyes and that hint of a snarl in her smile she evoked my vision of Becky. The problem is her star power and presence overwhelms the lesser-known cast members that surround her. In scenes where the film shoehorns in the subplots about Romola Garai's Amelia or Rhys Ifans as Dobbin we are left wondering where is Becky. Also to accommodate someone of Ms. Witherspoon's obvious likeability, many of Becky's sharp edges have been softened so as not to offend her fanbase.

The only cast member that is able to make a real impression outside of Ms. Witherspoon is Eileen Atkins as Miss Crawley, probably because she is the only character other than Becky allowed to employ Mr. Thackeray's wit. Other characters make strong impressions in the book but have no time to do so in this film and may hav been better off left on the cutting room floor. More focus on Becky and her plot would seem to be the only way to make this film work.

Ms. Nair nails the period in her direction and embellishes it with the Indian imagery that she is known for from her wonderful Bollywood movie Monsoon Wedding. Thackeray himself was born in India and includes a number of references to British military outposts in that country and how the culture was part of the zeitgeist of the time amongst British aristocrats. That zeitgeist is well captured in a scene that wasn't in the book, a dance scene in which Becky and other high society woman perform a traditional Indian dance for the King of England. For a film budgeted at a mere 35 Million dollars this a lavish production.

The crux of the problem with Vanity Fair is a war between the filmmakers and the producers with Ms. Nair and the creative team looking to do a faithful adaptation and producers fighting to make the film more commercial. The many compromises made along the way, run time, casting amongst others, are obvious and distracting. The films ending is definitely a victim of these compromises as it comes completely out of left field and depends on one credibility testing bit of luck and timing.

Vanity Fair was supposed to signal the beginning of the Oscar campaign season. However when the film missed its original fall 2003 opening and was dropped into the first week of September, many in-the-know Academy watchers threw up red flags. Our suspicions were correct, Vanity Fair is unlikely to challenge for any of the major awards at the end of the year. Compromise, it seems, is not always a good thing. 

Movie Review: Water for Elephants

Water for Elephants (2011) 

Directed by Francis Lawrence

Written by Richard LaGravanese

Starring Reese Witherspoon, Robert Pattinson, Christoph Waltz, Hal Holbrook

Release Date April 22nd, 2011

Published April 21st, 2011

It would be easy to write off "Water for Elephants" as a soppy, sappy chick flick on sight of its romantically lit poster and based on the female following of star Robert Pattinson. Easy, but a real shame to do so. Though "Water for Elephants" does have elements traditionally assigned to a chick flick it happens to also be an exceptionally entertaining, at times thrilling drama about circus life in the 1930's and three arresting characters; four if you count the elephant.

Riding the rails

In an old man's flashback to 1931 we meet Jacob played by "Twilight" star Robert Pattinson. On his final day at Cornell University's veterinary school Jacob is informed that his beloved parents have been killed in a car accident. Jacob's father had mortgaged everything to pay Jacob's tuition so, with his father's death went the house Jacob grew up in. With no family and no home Jacob hits the road and seeing a train in the middle of the night he hops a ride.

As older Jacob (Hal Holbrooke) tells it he's not sure if 'he chose the train or the train chose him' either way, Jacob seems to have been destined to come aboard the Benzini Brother Circus train where he gets work as a roustabout until his veterinary skills are discovered by the circus owner, August (Christoph Walz) who hires Jacob to tend to the animals, especially the horses used by August's wife Marlena (Reese Witherspoon).

Forbidden love

You know from trailers and commercials that Jacob and Marlena are destined to fall in love and that August does not take well to being cuckolded. What you don't know until you see "Water for Elephants" is what an elegant and often thrilling journey it is getting to Jacob and Marlena's love affair and its tragic and romantic aftermath.

"Water for Elephants" was adapted and crafted by screenwriter Richard Lagravanese, Oscar nominee for "The Fisher King," and unlikely director Francis Lawrence whose previous credits include the post-apocalyptic blockbuster "I Am Legend" and the comic book adaptation "Constantine." This unlikely team is somehow just right for the detailed period love story of "Water for Elephants" as Lagravanese found the humanity of the characters and Lawrence mined the period detail of Sarah Gruen's novel for a surprising visual feast.

Aiding Lawrence was the team of cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto (Brokeback Mountain) and longtime Terence Malick partner, production designer Jack Fisk. Together this trio transports us back to the 1930's with astonishing period detail. The visual splendor of "Water for Elephants" is the kind of unexpected pleasure usually reserved for late in the year, Oscar contending releases.

Pattinson and Witherspoon have spark

The three main cast members of "Water for Elephants" each brings a unique magic to their performance. Robert Pattinson, though not the most emotive actor working today, has a presence that is both leading man handsome and yet character actor unique. His Jacob is a great deal like his Edward from Twilight or his romantic hero from Remember Me, a rebellious with a tendency for finding trouble as a way of defending the people he cares about.

Pattinson and Reese Witherspoon have a strong romantic chemistry that is well communicated in looks and a meaningful caress. Both actors also have great chemistry with the film's fourth lead, Rosie the elephant played by Tai the elephant. Witherspoon spent three months prior to filming "Water for Elephants" working with Tai and attending circus camp so that she and Tai could deliver a believable team performance.

Ringmaster Christoph Walz

Christoph Walz is the scene stealer of "Water for Elephants" in a role that is every bit as compelling as his Oscar winning turn in Quentin Tarentino's "Inglorious Basterds." Walz's August is unquestionably the bad guy but the layers that Walz brings to the character beyond his abusiveness are fascinating examples of show and don't tell. In the way August speaks we find a man desperate for acceptance in a world harsh to immigrants. In his bold style of dress you find a man struggling to be seen as successful even while his circus is failing and his wife is beginning to stray.

These subtle character touches are part of the joy of "Water for Elephants" which also has compelling suspense, romance and grandeur. While a period romance based on a literary source starring a teen idol definitely screams chick flick, those who write off "Water for Elephants" as such will miss out on a highly compelling and well acted drama that is more than worthy of the modern movie ticket price.

Movie Review: Four Christmases

Four Christmases (2008) 

Directed by Seth Gordon 

Written by Jon Lucas, Scott Moore, Matt R. Allen, Caleb Wilson, 

Starring Vince Vaughn, Reese Witherspoon, Mary Steenburgen, Jon Favreau, Tim McGraw, Sissy Spacek

Release Date November 26th, 2008 

Published November 27th, 2008

It's just not that funny. I watch and I want to laugh. I feel for that tickle at the back my throat. I try and force it a few times. It just doesn't come. You know why? Because, Four Christmases starring Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon just isn't funny. The trailer was funny. I laughed a few times during the two and a half minute teaser.

I watched the movie, nothing. No laugh. Not even a chuckle. I sighed deeply once and it could have been mistaken as a laugh. But no. The movie isn't funny.

Brad (Vaughn) and Kate (Witherspoon) have been together for three years with no want for marriage or children. They really aren't keen on family at all. Thus why every Christmas they lie to their families and escape to some exotic isle. This year, they are off to Fiji until weather grounds their plane and they are captured on TV being forced to stay in country.

Plot forces require that each of four parents, now all separated, see the same news report and press the guilt button. Each parent will be visited and each will bring about a new kind of torture.

Robert Duvall and Sissy Spacek are Vaughn's parents while Mary Steenburgen and Jon Voight act as Witherspoon's sires. Each offers opportunities for laughs and yet none provide. Director Seth Gordon assigns each of these legendary performers a personality but forgets to offer any plot assistance.

Duvall is a bully, as are the assigned brothers Jon Favreau and Tim McGraw, randomly assigned as cage fighters. Are you laughing yet? Spacek is a space cadet who has married again to one of Brad's friends (Patrick Van Horn in a 'hey that guy was in Swingers' cameo'). Are you laughing now? How about if mom and new boyfriend repeatedly mention their sex life? Nothing?

Steenburgen, as Witherspoon's Kate warns us, is a cougar. She immediately is welcoming to Brad, willing to humiliate her daughter to make Brad ever more uncomfortable. Ha! No. Yeah, me neither. What if I throw in the fact the cougar mom is also a jesus freak and is dating a pastor played by Dwight Yoakam? What if the pastor forces Brad and Katie to play Mary and Joseph in a church pageant? Still nothing?

Finally there is Jon Voight who apparently said no to his assigned persona. Instead Voight plays benign presence to play against the craziness of everyone else. It works only to highlight the irritating, over the top absurdity of the other characters. But atleast Voight doesn't embarrass himself, which is I'm guessing, his goal for this role.

Seth Gordon is a comedically tone deaf director who pays off would be jokes two minutes before they actually happen. Truly, if you cannot see these 'jokes before they actually happen you may be having a stroke, seek medical help. Predictability is a sin that few can be forgiven for. I expect it from say, The Transporter where I would be disappointed if Jason Statham didn't drive fast and blow stuff up good.

I doubt the makers of Four Christmases put even that much thought into making this movie. They merely manufactured an idea. Cut characters out of a book of personality traits, filmed them and assembled them in number order. Whether the result was funny or even modestly amusing not so much a concern as getting the Christmas set film into theaters by the holidays to capitalize on tired, turkey and shopping attled masses seeking mindless distraction.

Say, I can recommend this movie. If you are in a tryptophan coma or blinded by the blue light special, Four Christmases is playing in a theater where you can sit in peace and quiet and not be bothered for 90 minutes.

Movie Review How Do You Know?

How Do You Know? (2010) 

Directed by James L. Brooks

Written by James L. Brooks 

Starring Paul Rudd, Reese Witherspoon, Owen Wilson, JackNicholson

Release Date December 17th, 2010 

Published December 17th, 2010

George (Paul Rudd) is an honest guy, he prides himself on that; too bad for George that his father Charles (Jack Nicholson) is not an honest guy. Worse yet for George, his dad is also his boss and his dishonesty now has George facing the prospect of a healthy prison stay. The how and the why are not well spelled out but we do know George is very likely to be indicted soon.

Lisa (Reese Witherspoon has just gotten some bad news of her own. She's just been cut from the US Women's Softball team and now must enter the real world of jobs and other such things. Cushioning the blow is a frivolous relationship with Matty (Owen Wilson) a multi-millionaire major league ballplayer with monogamy issues. Sure, Matty is no good cheat but he is sweet and surprisingly honest about his proclivities.

These two downtrodden people, George and Lisa stumble over one another amidst the chaos of their lives and after an awful sort of date, she's seeing Matty still, they seem to part ways for good. Ah but this being a romantic comedy we know a chance encounter will reunite them and when that chance comes indeed the romance begins.

Where is all of this going you might wonder, I know I did. Well, keep wondering; veteran writer-director James L. Brooks has a lot of ideas going into the romantic comedy “How Do You Know” but not much of an idea where any of it should go. We know he likes these characters and he and this terrific cast are good at getting us to like these characters but there really isn’t much beyond that likeability.

The trouble comes with Nicholson and Wilson's supporting characters. Both are more colorful and humorous than the two leads. They are the one's driving the story for the two leads who seem only to react to what they do instead of reacting to each other. It's not that Rudd and Witherspoon lack chemistry, they are cute together, rather it's that they aren't as interesting as Nicholson and Wilson who have more to play with in the colorful 'bad guy' roles.

Bad guys are a stretch, they are merely less restrained by the morality of right and wrong. They are roguish and their willingness to ignore the rules is more interesting than Rudd's scrupulous good guy and Witherspoon's needy mess. Unfortunately, even as they are more interesting they also lack emotional heft because their bad deeds are portrayed as charming and carry no real stakes.

”How Do You Know” could use some stakes. There seems to be nothing really on the line for these characters. Sure, George could be going to jail but it never really seems likely that will happen. The payoff of George’s possible indictment is handled in a most unbelievable fashion but it does lead to one of Jack Nicholson’s biggest laughs ever, one he earns with just a flicker of his face.

It’s not that “How Do You Know” is a bad movie, the actor’s involved are far too enjoyable for this to be a bad movie. It’s just that it’s not a very good movie. The story carries no stakes and the narrative is flabby, carrying a lot of unnecessary supporting players who, though almost as charming as the leads, add little to the story. Katherine Hahn is wonderful as Rudd’s assistant/best friend and Mark Linn Baker is funny in an odd way as one of Nicholson’s cronies but the film pauses to give both time that could have been better spent tightening up the main story.

My guess is James L. Brooks fell in love with a lot of the superfluous laughs these characters earn in “How Do You Know” and lost track of the fact that the overall story was weak. Sure, he finds the laughs, he finds the heartfelt moments but they are all just pieces that fail to create a complete puzzle.

I can recommend “How Do You Know” for the less discerning fans of romantic comedies and of these charming actors but you have to keep the expectations low. “How Do You Know” is not as sharp as James L. Brooks’ “Broadcast News” or as endearing as “As Good As It Gets” but it has a number of strong moments, a few big laughs and a cast filled with charmers.

I wanted more from “How Do You Know,” a more satisfying emotional payoff would have been nice, but on deftness alone it gets by for a partial recommendation.

Movie Review Just Like Heaven

Just Like Heaven (2005)

Directed by Mark Waters

Written by Peter Tolan, Leslie Dixon

Starring Reese Witherspoon, Mark Ruffalo, Jon Heder

Release Date September 16th, 2005

Published September 16th, 2005 

A romantic comedy that marries elements of the music of the Cure with the romance of The Ghost and Mrs. Muir has far more ambition than anything that genre has seen in a long while. Throw in that it's directed by the director of Mean Girls and Freaky Friday and stars Reese Witherspoon and you have an absolutely can't miss formula.

Just Like Heaven is very much a formula picture but it's the best version of that classic romantic comedy formula than anyone has made since Tom and Meg last embraced.

Reese Witherspoon stars in Just Like Heaven as Dr. Elizabeth Masterson, a resident at a San Francisco hospital with zero social life. 24 to 36 hour shifts are nothing new to Elizabeth, nor is falling asleep in her lunch. But despite her dedication one cannot help but notice the twinge of loneliness in her eyes as her  co-workers discuss family and friends. Not that Elizabeth does not have them.  She simply has no time to spend with them.

Finally, after getting a much sought after promotion, Elizabeth gets a night off. She is on her way to her sister Abby's (Dina Spybey), for dinner with her family and a blind date. Unfortunately, Elizabeth never makes it to dinner that night. After assuring Abby she was on her way, Elizabeth crosses the path of an oncoming truck and suffers a major accident.

Cut to three months later and the story shifts to David Abbott (Mark Ruffalo) a widower searching for a new apartment. Fate leads David to choose the apartment that once belonged to Elizabeth and, to David's frightened surprise, is still her spirit's home. At first it's an occasional run in here and there that David thinks could be just a misunderstanding or voices in his head as he has been drinking a lot recently.

Soon it's clear that this is all for real and David and Elizabeth set out to find out just what happened to her and in the process they fall madly in love. There's more to the plot than my description states but I don't want to spoil the fun. If you've read a number of reviews already you probably know the twists and turns but I'm still not going to spoil them myself.

Living man falls in love with a ghostly girl is not an original plot but I doubt it's ever been as wonderfully entertaining as it is in Just Like Heaven. Reese Witherspoon and Mark Ruffalo have chemistry to burn as the man and his ghost and director Mark Waters have just the right touch of classic romantic comedy and modern movie magic. Waters is quickly becoming a master of light hearted material mined for big laughs and a tug at the heartstrings.

Waters is absolutely blessed in the casting of Just Like Heaven, not only with his terrific stars but in the supporting cast, which features Donal Logue, Dina Spybey (who happens to be the director's wife), and the brilliant Jon Heder who combines just enough of his iconic Napoleon Dynamite with a relatively normal looking character to deliver some of the film's best moments.

The script by Peter Tolan and Leslie Dixon is based on a novel by Marc Levy called "If Only It Were True" which was actually optioned by producers even before it was published. With the paucity of new and different ways for romantic comedy couples to meet, it is rather cute finding one where a live guy falls for a seemingly dead girl.  At the very least it is refreshing.

As put in play by Mark Waters and his excellent team, including Tolan and Dixon, cinematographer Daryn Okada and production designer Cary White, this concept comes magically and romantically to life. The characters are smart and wonderfully likable and the San Francisco locations, including screenwriter Dixon's own apartment standing in as Elizabeth and David's apartment, are gorgeous. The filmmakers could cut back on the fake smoke and soft lighting that creeps in a few too many times but overall the attention to detail is lovely.

I absolutely must praise the film's soundtrack headed up by Composer Rolfe Kent and Cure singer Robert Smith. The soundtrack features The Cure's original "Just Like Heaven" and a lovely cover by Kate Melua. I've never been a big fan of cover tunes but the soundtrack overflows with good ones from the title track to Kelis covering the Pretenders' "Brass In Pocket" to Bowling For Soup's very funny take on "Ghostbusters".

The soundtrack also features Beck, Pete Yorn and original recordings from Composer Rolfe Kent, who was nominated for a Golden Globe last year for his work on the Sideways soundtrack.

Despite the live boy/ghost girl approach, Just Like Heaven is still a traditional romantic comedy and as tired as that genre is this film has none of the lethargy or stagnation that most recent romantic comedies suffer from. That has everything to do with this exemplary cast. Reese Witherspoon is back after dipping into the Oscar bait in Vanity Fair. She has fully inherited the romantic comedy crown from Julia Roberts and has become the rare actress to receive bigger billing than her male co-stars.

Mark Ruffalo continues to show astonishing range by choosing unique material. He was last seen as a gritty cop chasing Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx in Collateral. Before that he made another bubbly effusive romantic comedy, the candycoated 13 Going On 30. That film was not as smart or well made as Just Like Heaven, but both showcase Mark Ruffalo's quirky approach to the genre. Ruffalo treats even the lightest material with an actor's eye toward motivation and logic. He has a natural approach to the material that refuses to be manipulated by the plot.

Napoleon Dynamite's Jon Heder has been hyped prominently in the film's marketing and though his role is not as big as it may seem from the commercials and trailers, Heder nevertheless makes a great impression. Playing an oddball bookstore employee with empathic powers, he can sense the presence and feelings of ghosts.  Heder does not so much shed his Napoleon-ism as play to it and then away from it. This character is smarter and more stylish but retains the endearing oddness of Napoleon.

There are plot holes in Just Like Heaven as there are in any typical genre picture. The key to overcoming those holes is to create characters who can see audiences past any illogic simply with their appeal. Witherspoon, Ruffalo and the amazing supporting cast with their easy rapport and synergy completely gloss over any logic problems or editing missteps, allowing the audience to rejoice in the magic realism and the sheer joy of romance.

I despise the term chick flick! The simpleminded anti-feminism of the phrase grates me. It's a term people use to simply dismiss a film that they have not seen. What a shame because films as funny and well crafted as Just Like Heaven deserve the widest possible audiences they can get. With so few good movies made every year, to dismiss a movie simply for its surface is such a waste.

Movie Review Inherent Vice

Inherent Vice (2014) 

Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson

Written by Paul Thomas Anderson

Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Josh Brolin, Katherine Waterston, Owen Wilson, Reese Witherspoon, Benicio Del Toro, Martin Short, Jena Malone

Release Date December 12th, 2014

Published December 10th, 2014 

Professor Matthew Strecher defines magic realism as "what happens when a highly detailed, realistic setting is invaded by something too strange to believe." In the case of the movie "Inherent Vice '' Doc Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix) is that thing that is too strange to believe. Doc is a doped up Los Angeles Private Detective who stumbles on a massive government conspiracy involving drugs, the feds, the Justice Department, the mob, black power and white supremacists and all of it tied to his ex-ol lady Shasta Fay (Katherine Waterston). 

Putting together the pieces at the center of the conspiracy in "Inherent Vice" is like listening to a stoner tell you his theory about the Kennedy Assassination, it sounds completely plausible but the story teller is a tad unreliable. The conspiracy in "Inherent Vice" breaks down like this: the government works with drug dealers who introduce dope into the hippie communities of Los Angeles, get them hooked and then use government subsidies to build facilities to help clean up dopers who want to get clean, all the while brainwashing the soon to be former hippies to send them back to society as upstanding citizens. 

The term vertical integration gets dropped more than once in "Inherent Vice" and it refers to a rather devilishly ingenious bit of business. Think of a sugar company that also sells toothpaste, or what if the tobacco companies began opening cancer treatment centers. Here, drug dealers run rehab clinics that are a government front for converting hippies from drug addicts back to upstanding citizens. It sounds rather outlandish but as posited by director Paul Thomas Anderson, based on the novel by Thomas Pynchon, it plays out in a way that's quite believable as something that may have in fact taken place in 1970. 

The last person anyone would believe could uncover such a massive conspiracy is Doc Sportello. He is the perfect catalyst for this story because he simply doesn't seem like he could function on a daily basis, as high as he is, and yet he's quite competent and even insightful in uncovering what he seems to uncover. And yet he's not the most reliable witness as he literally has a magical voice in his head, Sortilege (Joanna Newsom)-her name is literally Latin for 'Magic'- who acts as our narrator and the curator of Doc's memories which slowly, hazily begin to form this conspiracy into a believable, even logical form. 

If you met Doc and he attempted to tell you this story about the government, drug dealers, the mob. white supremacists and black power, you would never for a moment believe him and that's kind of the point. The plot, the conspiracy, it's all very believable but Doc isn't. Doc invades this conspiracy, invents it before our eyes simply by witnessing it and yet we can't really believe much of any of it because Doc is the one telling the story. That's a remarkably devilish narrative trick and one Paul Thomas Anderson pulls off with great style and panache. 

The setting for the conspiracy is very real but that Doc Sportello, of all people, would be the one to uncover it is simply too impossible to believe. No matter how many times Doc turns out to be right about something we're still talking about a guy who's been stoned for years and has a magic voice in his head. How wonderful it is for this conspiracy to pulse with such life and then have a character like Doc, our hero, be the one who compromises its very truthfulness. In another movie this would be played as tragedy as an innocent character becomes disillusioned by events out of his control. 

Doc is far too gone to be disillusioned, the moment he finds a piece of the conspiracy that he can chalk up as a win and walk away, he takes it. That minor victory comes in the form of Coy Harlingen (Owen Wilson), a former doper who was being used by the government to turn up hippies to be reformed in dope clinics run by drug dealers. Rescuing Coy is the one thing Doc manages to accomplish in the film and for him that will be enough of a happy ending. Doc, you see, is as aware as everyone else that he's neither reliable nor believable enough to tell this story and have anyone believe it. 

Did you know that 'Inherent Vice' is an insurance industry term that refers to a hidden defect in a physical object that causes it to deteriorate because of the fundamental instability of its components? That's a pretty great description of who Doc is to us, the audience for his story. Doc, because of his years of drug use, is fundamentally an unstable and thus unreliable narrator of events. Sure, the story is sound, even logical, but because it's Doc telling the story we can't help but be skeptical. 

That's part of the genius of the movie, we love Doc and we're wildly entertained by his journey but we don't take any of it very seriously because it's Doc. Paul Thomas Anderson thus gets to lampoon early 70's corruption without the hassle of an actual target for rage or disillusionment. We get all of the fun of being a cynic while also being stoned out of our heads enough not to get down about it. 

Movie Review Penelope

Penelope (2008) 

Directed by Mark Palansky 

Written by Leslie Caveny

Starring Christina Ricci, James McAvoy, Catherine O'Hara, Peter Dinklage, Richard E. Grant, Reese Witherspoon

Release Date February 29th, 2008

Published June 25th, 2008

The Wilhern family has been cursed for generations ever since a great uncle impregnated and abandoned a commoner who subsequently killed herself. That girl's mother happened to be a local witch who placed a curse on the family. It would be visited on the first daughter born to a Wilhern woman. She would be born with the features of a pig.

Decades and generations passed with the lucky births of only male children until Penelope was born. Born to Catherine and Franklin Wilhern in 1970's London, Penelope immediately became an urban legend and journalists crawled through the walls in attempts to get a photo of the pig girl.

One of those reporters was Lemon (Peter Dinklage) who lost an eye to Catherine when he leapt from a kitchen bread basket attempting to get Penelope's photo. The family was forced to fake Penelope's death in order to give her a peaceful upbringing. Now, with word that the curse could be lifted if someone of similar lineage were to fall in love with Penelope, the girl with the pig nose is eager for love and marriage.

With the help of a matchmaker, Wanda (Ronnie Ancona), Penelope and her mother have vetted almost every blue blood in the country including a venal shipping heir, Edward Vanderman (Simon Woods) who was so frightened by her features that he leapt through a window. He was the first of her many suitors to escape without signing a confidentiality agreement. He immediately went to the police who threw him in jail for a night.

Eventually, Vanderman ends up with Lemon and the two conspire to expose Penelope. They hire a down and out member of the extended royal family, Max (James McAvoy) to seduce and photograph Penelope. The plan goes awry when Max actually falls for Penelope sight unseen and decides it best to leave her alone. Heartbroken, Penelope runs away from home and finds a whole new life. There is a good deal more to the story but I will leave to seee the movie yourself to find out. 

First time helmer Mark Palansky has a talent for good natured whimsy. With a top notch cast he creates a group of pleasant characters who are easy to like and root for. Christina Ricci is particularly winning in the lead role while Reese Witherspoon shines in her brief role as Penelope's first real friend. Ricci has a remarkable talent for playing lovable oddballs or dyspeptic, disaffected ingenues and her vast range is great help to Penelope.

That said, the whimsy of Penelope belies an all too light approach in the end. Yes, the movie is a modern fairy tale but even fairy tales have a lesson to impart or something that makes them memorable beyond being good natured. Penelope is so gentle and pleasant that it becomes cloying. The light hearted sweetness overflows what little good there is in Penelope. It's a shame because Christina Ricci could have done much more with this role if the film had been more ambitious. 

Movie Review Rendition

Rendition (2007)

Directed by Gavin Hood

Written by Kelly Sane 

Starring Reese Witherspoon, Meryl Streep, Jake Gyllenhaal, Peter Sarsgard, Alan Arkin

Release Date October 19th, 2007

Published October 18th, 2007 

Those who advocate intelligence gathering techniques that extend beyond our constitution have a compelling argument. They cite intelligence gathered by extraordinary measures that have saved lives and how men who are truly bad guys have received the treatment they deserve for the things they did. This argument holds sway until you hear from Arizona Senator John McCain, a real life torture victim.

Senator McCain, a right wing, pro-war hawk opposes any action that associates America and torture. McCain's point is that torture simply doesn't work. That a tortured man will tell you anything you want to hear. The movie Rendition makes McCain's point in dramatic fashion as it tells the interlocking story of how torture effects the lives of so many different people in so many different ways.

Jake Gyllenhaal stars in Rendition as Douglas Freeman a CIA pencil pusher who finds himself thrust into the job of case worker in northern Africa following a terrorist attack. His new job will be to observe the tactics of a man named Abasi Fawal (Yigal Naor), tactics that are considered torture under American law. It will be Abasi who will attempt to glean information from the latest subject of what American law refers to as Extraordinary Rendition.

On his way home from a business trip in South Africa, Anwar Al Ibrahimi (Omar Metwally) is detained by police and then the CIA. It seems that he has received calls on numerous occasions from a terrorist named Rashid, calls he claims to be unaware of. Al Ibrahimi was returning home to Chicago where his very pregnant wife Isabella (Reese Witherspoon) and his six year old, American born son are waiting for him.

When he doesn't return and somehow disappears from the flight log, Isabella travels to Washington where an ex-boyfriend, Alan (Peter Sarsgard) works for a Senator (Alan Arkin). Using his connections, Alan finds out as much as he can about Anwar's disappearance. The trail leads all the way to the head of the CI, Corinne Whitman (Meryl Streep).

Those are the main players in Rendition and their relative positions. Where director Gavin Hood moves them from there is quite compelling and heart rending. Running parallel to this main story is the modest love story of Khalid (Moa Khouas) and Fatima (Zineb Oukach), the daughter of Abasi Fawal, the lead torture expert.

The melding of these two stories is where Rendition struggles and becomes sluggish and where director Gavin Hood employs a narrative trick that will irritate many in the audience as much as it did me. There is a moment, and I won't go into detail, late in the film where the timeline shifts and what we get is a scene that lets the air out of what was an electrically charged and tense series of scenes.

From this point on the films dueling stories become fractured and I was left struggling to connect these stories at all beyond the most tenuous of bonds.

A man, if tortured long enough, will tell you anything you want to hear. Whether what he says is true or not, doesn't matter to the torturers whose reward is for information. The truth is someone else's business. Rendition is extraordinarily powerful in bringing home the same message that Senator John McCain has always talked of, how torture simply doesn't work. Indeed, as the film states plainly, if you torture one man you create ten more who will rise up to fight back to protect them, or rescue them.

According to the Bush administration, Americans don't torture. No, we don't. By laws installed during the Clinton Administration, we hire less reputable countries to torture on our behalf. Ah, but Rendition doesn't let us off so easily that a liberal like myself can be satisfied with the answer that our policy of rendition is simply wrong. The lead torture expert in the film is portrayed as a good man who loves his family and believes he is doing the right thing.

Meryl Streep's CIA agent may be cold hearted and portrayed as something of a monster but her point about the lives she believes have been saved by information gathered through extraordinary rendition is powerful and logical. With the blinding certainty of a zealot, not unlike a certain President of the United States, she sees only the possibilities of this practice, not the collateral damage to our national conscience.

The love story between Khalid and Fatima is used to illustrate what some experts would call blowback. Militarized by the torture death of his brother, Khalid is enticed to become a suicide bomber. Fatima becomes his reason to live and there is a good deal of emotion invested in this subplot. It might have been more powerful without director Gavin Hood's narrative cheat late in the film that sucks all of the suspense out of the movie.

Yet another film in this early Oscar season, like The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford, like Michael Clayton, Across The Universe or Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Rendition is a film with Oscar pretensions that falls just short of expectations. A grand cast of Oscar nominees and winners, compel us from beginning to end but narrative trickery and a strung together plot; let the air out of what should have been a potboiler of real emotion and suspense.

Movie Review Legally Blonde 2 Red White and Blonde

Legally Blonde 2 Red, White and Blonde

Directed by Charles Herman Wurmfeld 

Written by Kate Kondell 

Starring Reese Witherspoon, Sally Field, Bruce McGill, Jennifer Coolidge, Bob Newhart, Luke Wilson

Release Date July 2nd, 2003 

Published July 4th, 2003

The first Legally Blonde was a hit completely out of left field. Arriving in July 2001 in the midst of the big time summer blockbusters, it was allowed to fly under the radar and surprise audiences with its ebullience, humor and especially its charismatic star Reese Witherspoon. Prior to Legally Blonde, Witherspoon gave off the aura of an indie actress without a hint of Julia Roberts.

Now with Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde only Julia can match Reese paycheck to paycheck. Unfortunately, with that stardom comes consequence. That meant that this sequel, even opening against the blockbuster Terminator 3, would not fly under the radar and would arrive to the kind of scrutiny the first film was lucky to have avoided.

When the first teaser trailers for Legally Blonde 2 landed in theaters back in January they were met not with the fondness that the first films DVD release met but with a cringing unease. As much as I liked the first film, the teaser trailers hints that Elle Woods would be going to Washington seemed to strain my goodwill. Of course, it didn't help that Witherspoon's follow up to Legally Blonde was the god-awful Sweet Home Alabama. So with all this cynicism I wasn't looking forward to Legally Blonde 2.

We pick up some two years after the original left off. Elle Woods is now a successful Boston attorney planning the wedding of the century to her Harvard professor fiancé Emmett (Luke Wilson). She is also planning on being promoted to partner in her law firm until her wedding plans come into conflict with her career. After Elle decides she would like to invite the mother of her pooch Bruiser to her wedding she finds that mom is a test animal at a research lab that happens to be one of her clients. When she asks that the firm ask the client to quit testing, the head of the firm fires her.

Of course this is the same Elle Woods who managed to graduate Harvard law school when everyone in the world said no, so of course this won't stop her. With a new political consciousness Elle leaves Boston for Washington D.C to work for Congresswoman Rudd (Sally Field), who happens to be a former member of Elle's sorority. Once in Washington, Elle is met with the same skepticism she faced at Harvard as her new colleagues quickly dismiss her blondeness and pep.

Just like in the original, it doesn't take long for Elle to win over her new co-workers and soon she is hard at work on her animal rights bill. With the help of a know it all doorman (Bob Newhart in a welcome cameo), Elle learns the secrets of the Congress members she needs to get her bill passed. Using her few connections and her unique sensibility for schmoozing, Elle wins over another former sorority sister turned crusty congresswoman and a right wing NRA Southern Republican (Bruce McGill) who also happens to be a real dog lover.

The film plays out in the same underdog style as the first film with our ever optimistic heroine confounding her cynical opponents with her kill'em with kindness attitude. That is the great thing about this character, no matter what is in front of her she is unrelenting in her sweetness and optimism. In any other character that much glass half emptiness would become grating but as played by Witherspoon, Elle Woods has a sense of self and unique understanding of people that disarms even the most cynical of onscreen opponents and audience members.

The script however, written by Kate Kondell and Down with Love scribes Eve Ahlert and Dennis Drake is even thinner than the original. Providing mere context is not enough to justify this film’s over the top flights of fancy. including a cringe inducing dance sequence and yet another uncomfortably unfunny turn by Jennifer Coolidge as Elle's pal Paulette. Her tight outfits and Tammy Faye Baker makeup look as if they are about to explode at any moment and her numerous non sequiturs painted as jokes are more creepy than funny.

The thinness of script in the first film was easily forgiven because of Witherspoon's whirlwind performance, so winning that it nothing else mattered. In Legally Blonde 2, Witherspoon has to use all of the goodwill developed in the first film to cover this script and she almost does it. Unfortunately, Witherspoon is saddled with one of those lame endings in which the hero gives a speech that wins everyone over to her side and saves the day. The speech is hokey, beyond anything you have ever heard and blows what little chance the film had of succeeding.

There are a couple good laughs in Legally Blonde 2 and yet another star turn by Reese Witherspoon who earns every dollar of her reported $20 million dollar price tag. She's so good I can almost recommend Legally Blonde 2. Almost.

Movie Review Sweet Home Alabama

Sweet Home Alabama (2002)

Directed by Andy Tennant 

Written by C Jay Cox 

Starring Reese Witherspoon, Josh Lucas, Patrick Dempsey, Candace Bergen, Fred Ward, Jean Smart

Release Date September 27th, 2002

Published September 24th, 2002 

In Legally Blonde, Reese Witherspoon showed herself to be the romantic comedy heiress apparent to Julia Roberts. With her perky good looks and sugary sweetness offset by a wonderfully mischievous smile it was impossible not to fall in love with her. Witherspoon brings those same qualities to her latest film, Sweet Home Alabama, but under the direction of Andy Tennent the same qualities that made you love her in Legally Blonde make you loathe her in this dense retread of every romantic comedy ever made.

In Alabama Reese has one of those great Hollywood lives where everything is perfect: perfect job, perfect friends, perfect man, just perfect. As Melanie Carmichael, Reese is a New York fashion designer about to marry the son of New York’s Mayor. Patrick Dempsey plays the perfect guy, Andrew, just going through the motions playing the same role Bill Pullman played in Sleepless in Seattle. No matter how good a guy he is, the trailer has already explained his fate.

After Andrew asks Melanie to marry him, Melanie has to go home to Alabama to take care of the small detail of her current husband Jake (Josh Lucas). In flashback we are treated to the scene when Jake and Melanie fell in love, they were struck by lightning as the shared their first kiss. Watching this scene my eyes rolled so far back I could see the dull faces of the people directly behind me. You can say I’m cynical but haven’t we seen this exact seen or something very similar at least a thousand times? Melanie and Jake’s bad sitcom style arguing is just one of a million tip offs that they will back together at the end of the film.

Having returned to her home town for the first time in 7 years Melanie takes time to revisit her old friends including Bobby Ray (Ethan Embry) who has a secret only Melanie knows about, the kind of secret that stereotypical southerners don’t react well to. There is also Melanie’s former best friend Lurlynn (Melanie Lynskie) who now has three kids including a newborn she takes to the bar as so many southerners are prone to do. Let us not forget Melanie’s parents Fred Ward and Mary Kay Place, who don’t so much fit into the role of stereotypical Southern parents that everyone in the audience assumed they would be.

So golly, do you think Melanie’s unusual southern friends and family will clash with her high class New York would be in laws?

Poor Candace Bergen, this wonderfully talented Emmy winning actress is stuck with the film's most thankless role. As the ever scowling and disapproving mother-in-law, Bergen is never allowed to smile, never allowed to joke. The purpose of Bergen’s Mayor of New York and mother of the groom is to be the bitch so at the end of the movie she can get her comeuppance in what is supposed to make the audience cheer.

That is the essence of the problem with Sweet Home Alabama, every scene has been filmed with the purpose of exerting a particular response from the audience. It is as if every scene in the film was individually test screened by demographic to make sure it illicited the correct audience response.

Like a romantic comedy machine, Sweet Home Alabama grinds through it’s mechanical plot, perfectly calibrated to meet exactly what the audience expects. The film is so predictable even lines of dialogue can be anticipated. Scenes are setup ten to twenty minutes ahead so, rather than watch the movie, I was sitting and waiting for the expected payoff and like clockwork I didn’t have to wait long for it in exactly the way I expected.

Sweet Home Alabama is the latest film to exhibit my biggest movie pet peeve. A film based on seemingly intelligent characters making intensely dumb decisions because if they didn’t, there wouldn’t be a movie. Not a frame of film goes by that Melanie doesn’t have an opportunity to solve all her problems with one intelligent decision. One line of intelligent dialogue and problem solved, movie over.

Sweet Home Alabama is an awful film and I had very low expectations for this film. I expected to laugh a couple times, fall in love with Reese Witherspoon again and leave the theater with a smile on my face. Instead I walked out depressed after seeing a film that illustrates everything that is wrong modern Hollywood film-making. This is yet another film that had a poster before it had a screenplay. A film where marketing execs made the creative decisions and hired creative people to carry out the vision of the publicity department. Director Andy Tennent was likely instructed to simply make Reese look cute and hope that the writers might squeeze in a sight gag or one liner somewhere, spoiler alert: they didn’t.

To steal a line from my hero Roger Ebert I hated, hated, hated this movie. This film does not improve upon the sight of a blank screen viewed for the same length of time. I still love Reese Witherspoon, but only because I watched Legally Blonde. Had I not, I might curse her for having made this film. Hollywood has no shame churning out the same drivel month after month. And I know what you're saying and yes I shouldn’t act so surprised but I honestly believe that there is art out there somewhere, Sweet Home Alabama dims that hope slightly but that dream is still there.

Movie Review The Importance of Being Earnest

The Importance of Being Earnest (2002) 

Directed by Oliver Parker 

Written by Oliver Parker

Starring Rupert Everett, Reese Witherspoon, Colin Firth, Frances O'Connor, Dame Judi Dench

Release Date May 17th, 2002

Published May 17th, 2002 

When considering the works of Oscar Wilde one should wonder what this most quotable of writers would say of our current culture. Wilde believed that art should not be popular, and when you consider modern American cinema you might say that we have achieved Wilde's belief. Indeed art in modern American cinema is not popular. Popular as defined as gaining widespread viewership and appreciation. Think of the best filmmaking in this day and age, the most artistic works are very often the least seen. Such is the case with the most recent of Oscar Wilde's works adapted for the screen The Importance Of Being Earnest, artistically brilliant but by previous definition not popular.

The film was adapted and directed by Oliver Parker who previously adapted Wilde's An Ideal Husband to great artistic and little popular success. Parker here re-teams with his Ideal Husband star Rupert Everett, who takes the role of Algernon. One of those brilliant cads who seems to have endless charm and wit yet never a job or responsibility. Algernon's closest friend is Earnest or rather Jack depending on who he is speaking to. Earnest-Jack is played by Colin Firth as an English nobleman who keeps up the appearance of class by taking the name Earnest when in the city and the more respectable name of Jack when at his country estate. Complications arise when as Earnest he meets the woman of his dreams Gwendolyn (Frances O'Connor). Gwendolyn knows him only as Earnest and has a particular affinity for the name that makes confessing his real identity very difficult.

Back at Jack's country estate his new ward Cecily (Reese Witherspoon) is nursing a small crush on the man she only knows as Jack, that is until a visit from Algernon. Of course this too has complications as Jack has warned Algernon to stay away from the country house and especially Cecily. So while Jack is in the city trying to win the hand of Gwendolyn, Algernon travels to the country to meet Cecily. Of course he cannot go as Algernon because the staff would send him away so HE takes on the name Earnest and poses as Jack's brother. Meanwhile Jack as Earnest is trying to convince Gwendolyn's mother Lady Bracknell (Dame Judi Dench) that he is of proper breeding to marry her daughter. Unfortunately his family history is conspicuous at best.

Well everyone knows where this story is going as similar more recent stories have populated films for years. With Oscar Wilde it is never about where the story is going but how it gets there. Getting there in a Wilde story is all about witty repartee and The Importance of Being Earnest overflows with quotable dialogue and farce. Dame Judi Dench especially gets on with the witty dialogue, it seems every line from her character is memorable. Indeed each character's dialogue is so good the story becomes superfluous.

Director Oliver Parker perfectly captures the spirit of Wilde's text, just as he did in An Ideal Husband and he surprisingly tops that film’s sly humor. The performances by Colin Firth and Rupert Everett are superb, especially Everett who seems to have been born for this material. Reese Witherspoon puts on a strong English accent and wears it well. She has a couple of brilliant scenes with Frances O'Conner, likely the funniest in the film.

If I had any complaints about the film they would be that the story goes beyond meaningless. There really is no meaning in the film whatsoever, which may actually have been Wilde's aim, but it strikes a false chord. In fact at the very end of the film Wilde's dialogue calls the whole film’s story into question with a subtle reference to the film’s title that implied an entirely different story altogether. To explain it would ruin the surprise, but it was a reference that in Wilde's time was a scandalous aside despite now having less meaning and impact. See it for yourself if you can figure out the meaning let me know.