Movie Review Moon

Moon (2009) 

Directed by Duncan Jones 

Written by Nathan Parker 

Starring Sam Rockwell, Kevin Spacey, Kaya Scoledario, Benedict Wong, Matt Berry

Release Date July 17th, 2009 

Published July 17th, 2009 

While the obvious influence of Stanley Kubrick's 2001 is a worthy subject in relation to the sci fi flick Moon the film has an unspoken subject that I find much more interesting. In the ways in which the plot machine of Moon plays out, without what one might expect, it acts as an anti-thriller. Moon sets up a very particular idea that invites a kind of M. Night Shyamalan style twist and then goes about avoiding it at all cost. In doing so the film attempts a cooler than thou attitude toward Shyamalan's populist twisty thrillers and Moon comes off pretentious for the effort.

Moon stars Sam Rockwell as Sam Bell, the lone worker on a base on the dark side of the moon. Sam is a handy man for a self contained machine that harvests Helium 3 from the moon surface. If something breaks down ol' Sammy runs out and fixes it right up. Sam is near the end of what is supposed to be a three year contract and looks forward to returning to earth and the wife and child he left behind.

Why Sam left a budding family back on earth for an empty shell on the moon for three years is one of the intriguing questions that Director Duncan Jones and writer Nathan Parker pose in setting up what one might quite fairly assume is a major twist to come. Whether that twist arrives or not is honestly debatable.

The storytelling style of Moon is muted to the point of whispering. Kevin Spacey gives voice to the Hal-esque computer Gerty, somehow not a cool acronym, and his soothing tone matches the overall tone of Moon, a movie that is quiet with a purpose. The quiet is meant as a near silent rebuke to the noise of almost all modern science fiction and while one can appreciate the gesture, Moon grows so quiet at points that one longs for Bruce Willis to fly by on an asteroid and liven things up.

The thriller aspect of Moon, which kicks in with the introduction of a second Sam Bell in the space station, is played as a knock on the twisty thrills of M. Night Shyamalan. The two Sam's begin a simultaneous search for answers and the audience is led to believe a major revelation or twist is in the offing. I don't mind having my expectations upended but what does happen should be better than what I predicted or hoped for.

The ungainly confused ending of Moon, some would call it open ended but they are only justifying enjoying it, fails to critique Shyamalan's admittedly stale twist endings and especially fails to top them. For all of Shyamalan's failures his jolty endings to The Sixth Sense and Signs remain classic shockers. If you want to take them on you'd better damn well have a better idea. Moon, sadly, does not.

Moview Review Monsters

Monsters (2010) 

Directed by Gareth Edwards

Written by Gareth Edwards

Starring Scoot McNairy, Whitney Able 

Release Date December 3rd, 2010 

Published March 11th 2011 

To the list of the great overlooked movies of 2010 add “Monsters” a clever sci fi affected romance come road movie; a first feature from British director Gareth Edwards. With elements of “District ..9,”.. “Cloverfield” and “Jaws,” “Monsters” is the kind of first feature that ensures a long and fruitful career for its creator.

Set in the future, in Mexico, “Monsters” tells us that a NASA probe seeking proof alien life forms on a planet called Europa, crash landed on its return to earth and spread debris over Northern Mexico. Amongst the debris apparently was the alien life form which spread over a wide area that has become the infected zone.

In Mexico, Caulder (Scoot McNairy) is an American photographer on assignment from a major news organization. His goal is to capture on film one of these amazing, allegedly destructive alien creatures. However, Caulder's assignment is interrupted when his boss forces him to accompany his daughter Sam (Whitney Able) to the coastline where a boat will take her back to America.

Naturally, these two will bond but as played by newcomers McNairy and Able the romance evolves in subtle and natural ways. Director Edwards, who wrote the script and handled the special effects, takes great care to give equal weight to the burgeoning romance and the sci-fi plotting and each serves to give weight to the other.

Shot on a budget of around 500 grand, “Monsters” has surprisingly strong special effects. The creatures glimpsed mostly at night, glimmering like the floating creatures in Cameron's “Avatar” and walking with a realistic feel of the Prawns in “District ..9.”.. It's a remarkable achievement and one that deserves more acclaim than the film has thus far received.

At heart, “Monsters” is an exceptionally human story. Caulder and Sam are archetypes of characters we've seen before but director-writer Edwards gives his unknown actors enough room to move within these characters that they become real and highly sympathetic. The love story is underplayed yet quite compelling as the obstacles that emerge between the two are overcome by circumstance and real emotional bonding.

”Monsters” has an ease to it that other similar films fail to create. By forgoing the need for gratuitous carnage, a temptation most other films cannot escape, “Monsters” feels more genuine and the little carnage there is has meaning and sorrow attached to it.

It's a shame that “Monsters,” along with another film arriving on DVD the same day, also with a very different approach to a sci-fi plot, “Never Let Me Go,” was so badly overlooked. These are the kinds of daring approaches to genre movies that need our encouragement and reward our investment of time and money.

Movie Review Monsoon Wedding

Monsoon Wedding (2001) 

Directed by Mira Nair 

Written by Sabrian Dhawan 

Starring Naseeruddin Shah, Lilete Dubey 

Release Date November 30th, 2001 

Published November 30th, 2002 

For those who don’t know what Bollywood is, you're not alone. Until last year's Oscars when the film Lagaan received a Best Foreign Film nomination and news organizations began running news stories about India’s filmmaking machine, I thought Bollywood was a misprint. In reality, Bollywood is the name of India’s film industry which turns out more films every year than even Hollywood. Most Bollywood movies are musicals, in which characters and dialogue are secondary to lavish production design and bring-down-the-house broadway style musical numbers.

Indian director Mira Nair bucks the musical trend of her Indian brethren with American style narrative-based films that allow Indian actors to carry the day. Her most recent film, Monsoon Wedding is a joyous tribute to her family and heritage that combines classical Bollywood elements with her Americanized narrative style.

Monsoon is the story of an arranged marriage between Aditi (Vasundhara Das) and Hemant (Parvin Dubas) and the chaos that surrounds it. Aditi’s father Lalit (Naseeruddin Shah) is attempting to plan the wedding in the midst of running out of money and dealing with an incompetent wedding planner named Dubey (Vijay Raaz), who has no idea what anything actually costs until he finishes doing it. 

Dubey is also involved in a romance with Lalit’s maid Alice (Tilotama Shome), a romance that must be kept quiet out of fear of being fired. Aditi has even more problems having only agreed to the arranged marriage because her current lover won’t leave his wife. Aditi still has feelings for him even as her wedding is only two days away. Drama also surrounds Aditi’s cousin Ria (Shefali Shetty) and a family friend who, it is inferred, may have done something to Ria when she was a child.

As the film goes on music is weaved throughout, but not Broadway style sing and dance numbers, rather a heavy dose of Indian pop tunes which are surprisingly good even if you don’t understand the language. The songs are as much a part of the film as the actors, and while they don’t tell the story, the songs give the film its light airy tone.

While Nair focuses on storytelling, she does indulge in classic Bollywood production design. Bright lavish colors and even a dance number. These things are not out of character, they are a traditional part of an Indian marriage.

I am curious about how much of Monsoon Wedding is an insight into the real lives of Indian people. As I previously mentioned, Nair has an Americanized way of telling a story, which some Indian critics say doesn’t reflect real Indians. Rather odd criticism from critics who most often enjoy lavish musicals where characters break out in song for no reason. Somehow I doubt Lagaan or any other traditional Indian film is a real reflection on Indian life.

The same criticism was leveled by French critics towards the French romance Amelie. French critics felt that Amelie was too American to be a real French film. Accurate or not, Monsoon Wedding does at times feel a little Hollywood, or as Indian critics politely put it, too westernized.

Monsoon Wedding is very reminiscent of another wedding-based movie, Nia Vardalos My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Both films share the themes of marriage and family, though in Greek wedding the bride and groom choose each other, in Monsoon Wedding the marriage is arranged. Surprisingly though, the arrangement of the marriage isn’t much of an issue. Both Aditi and Hemant accept that this is part of their heritage and while the lives they have lived to this point have been entirely separate they see a future together. Arranged marriage or not you can see through pride and cooperation that this marriage has as much a chance at lasting as any. It may not be sexy, but what tradition is.

Movie Review Kingdom of Heaven

Kingdom of Heaven (2005) 

Directed by Ridley Scott

Written by William Monahan

Starring Orlando Bloom, Eva Green, Jeremy Irons, Edward Norton, David Thewlis, Liam Neeson

Release Date May 6th, 2005

Published May 5th, 2005 

When Ridley Scott announced he was taking on a crusades era epic, red flags went up all over the world. Given the current sensitivities in the middle east and the constantly inflamed situation on the border of Israel and Palestine specifically, a film about the crusades made by westerners seemed like a bad idea. That film, Kingdom Of Heaven, is now complete and it is indeed controversial, but not in the way we thought it would be. Instead of offending believers in Islam, the film goes out of its way to be fair to all sides which actually worked to offend many christians. You just can't win.

Orlando Bloom is the star of Kingdom Of Heaven as Balian, a blacksmith who we meet at the lowest point in his life. His son died shortly after birth, which led his wife to take her own life. His own priest is quick to remind him that because his wife committed suicide she will not go to heaven. It is at this lowest point that Balian's father Godfrey of Ibelin (Liam Neeson) returns with an offer of salvation, comes to the holy land, inherits his kingdom and helps King Baldwin maintain the tentative peace that has followed the third Crusade.

Balian is reluctant but eventually circumstances conspire to send Balian to the holy land. Along the way Balian's father is mortally wounded leaving Balian his title, Lord of Ibelin, and the charge to defend the people of the kingdom at all cost. Balian soon arrives in the holy land after surviving a nasty shipwreck, and is taken to meet King Baldwin (Edward Norton, hidden behind a metal mask) who immediately recognizes the good in Balian and entrusts him with defending the kingdom alongside his chief military officer Tiberius (Jeremy Irons).

The biggest threat to peace in the holy land is not the Muslim leader Saladin (Ghassan Massoud), who is portrayed as a reasonable and peaceful leader. The threat comes from inside King Baldwin's court, his sister Sybilla (Eva Green)'s huband Guy De Lusignan (Martin Csokas) commander of the Knights Templar, the Vatican's own order of Knights, intent on forcing all non-christians out of the holy city of Jerusalem. King Baldwin has managed a shaky peace but he is dying, the king has leprosy, when he is gone Sybilla will be queen and De Lusignan king.

This is the point in which the plot takes a disastrous turn. Balian is given an opportunity to kill Guy De Lusignan and marry Sybilla. The two have, by this time, fallen in love but Balian chooses not to and thus dooms the kingdom to a war with Saladin and his army of more than 200,000 soldiers. Though Balian, Tiberius and the soldiers in their charge refuse to fight, De Lusignan goes ahead with the attack and it is left to Balian to defend the innocent people left behind when the new king's army is destroyed.

One of my biggest pet peeves about movies is when the entire film rests on one obvious decision that if made correctly would negate the rest of the film. Balian's decision not to let Guy De Lusignan be hanged as a traitor, which he is, is the single dumbest decision he could possibly make. He knows that by deciding to spare him he is making him the new king and that thousands will die because of it. Balian's decision only offers the film the opportunity to continue, if he makes the right decision, the movie is over.

Is this linked to historical accuracy? No! In reality Balian never fell in love with or had an affair with Sybilla. The romance is a construct of director Ridley Scott and screenwriter William Monahan and they nearly try to pin the entire plot of the film onto one. The romance crumbles under the weight of the plot that hangs on it. Neither Orlando Bloom or Eva Green sparks in the subplot.

What is worse is that the romance is clearly a marketing decision and not a creative decision. The only reason Sybilla and Balian get together is because all ancient epic movie hero's have doomed romances. Brad Pitt's Achilles in Troy had Polydora, Russell Crowe's Maximus had Connie Nielsen's Lucilla and most recently Colin Ferrell's Alexander had Jared Leto's Hephaistion.

As for the action, I was one of the rare detractors of Ridley Scott's Oscar winning epic Gladiator, and the same problems that plagued that film plague Kingdom Of Heaven. CGI Hordes clashing on the battlefield gets real old real fast without a compelling story and dialogue as a backup. Gladiator, however, did have one thing going for it and that was the magnetism of star Russell Crowe, Kingdom Of Heaven is not as fortunate.

Surrounded by an extraordinary supporting cast, Orlando Bloom fades into the background never emerging as a believable action hero. When called upon to deliver a rousing speech near the end of the film, he sounds more like the petulant child he played in Troy than the inspiring hero that Russell Crowe brought to Gladiator. Bloom may have packed on 25 pounds of muscle for this role but nothing can make this guy look tough.

Liam Neeson in particular makes Bloom look bad. Neeson blows the kid off the screen with his stature, gravitas and poise. When Neeson leaves the movie you are sad to see him go. Jeremy Irons and the voice of Edward Norton are equally more compelling than Mr. Bloom. Finally putting his blustery scene chewing to rest, Irons delivers a weary but knowing performance and Mr. Norton though hidden behind a horrible metal mask cannot mask his natural actorly charisma.

With its plot construction problems and desperately inept lead, the least Ridley Scott could do is deliver on the controversy we were promised when the New York Times began floating the script around to religious experts and historians. Instead the film is even handed to a fault. There is the minor matter of the Vatican's own army portrayed as thuggish glory hounds fighting for riches instead of god, that is a little controversial but it's too weakly played to really resonate in the kind of controversy you remember and talk about after the movie.

No, in fact there is little to remember or discuss about Kingdom Of Heaven, another mundane exercise in Hollywood spending and marketing.

Movie Review: Crash

Crash (2005) 

Directed by Paul Haggis

Written by Paul Haggis

Starring Ludacris, Lorenz Tate, Brendan Fraser, Sandra Bullock, Shaun Toub, Matt Dillon, Thandie Newton, Terrence Howard 

Release Date May 6th, 2005

Published May 5th, 2005

Paul Haggis showed the depth of his talents as a writer with his Oscar nominated script for Clint Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby. The natural progression of any filmmaking career has lead Mr. Haggis out from behind the computer keys to behind the camera directing his first feature. Working from his own script, Mr. Haggis has crafted Crash, an intricately plotted and engrossing drama about the futility of violence, the helplessness of anger and the politics of race.

As two well dressed young African American men, Anthony (Rapper, Ludacris) and Peter (Lorenz Tate), walk down an affluently appointed street in Los Angeles discussing race, they are the only black faces to be seen. Even as they dress and act like they belong here, Anthony can't help but note the most minor of slights from the lack of good service in the restaurant they just left to a rich white woman (Sandra Bullock) who crosses the street with her husband (Brendan Fraser) when she see's them.

Anthony asks Peter what makes them so different from all these white people aside from race? They provide an answer to his question by summarily bringing out guns and stealing the couple's SUV. This act touches off a series of events that envelopes a pair of cops played by Matt Dillon and Ryan Phillippe, a detective and his partner played by Don Cheadle and Jennifer Espisito, a locksmith and his family (Michael Pena) an Arab family headed up by Farhad (Shaun Toub) and a black married couple played by Terrence Howard and Thandie Newton.

When Sgt. Ryan (Dillon) and his rookie partner Hanson (Phillippe) get a call that a car jacking has taken place nearby, Ryan pulls over the next similar looking car he sees. Despite the fact that the SUV is clearly not the one they are looking for (Hanson points out that the license plate is different) Ryan stops it anyway after seeing the driver, Cameron (Howard), black. The stop is marked by Ryan harassing Cameron's wife Christine (Newton) over the weak protest of Hanson. The incident is devastating to Cameron and Christine's marriage.

Peter happens to be the brother of police detective Graham Waters (Cheadle) who, as a result of the carjacking, is brought to the attention of the L.A District Attorney Rick Cabot, the victim of the crime along with his wife, Jean (Again, Brendan Fraser and Sandra Bullock). Cabot wants a black detective on the case to avoid accusations of racism and he wants Detective Waters specifically.

Meanwhile Jean at home alone is absolutely freaked out by the incident and has had the locks changed. Unfortunately when her husband sent for a locksmith (Michael Pena) he did not know he was a tattooed inner city Latino, something his wife notes immediately in accusing the man of wanting to change the locks in order to return later and rob her. For his part the locksmith is good hearted family man who has struggled to get out from under this sort of cultural bias all his life.

When the locksmith accepts one more late night job at the grocery store before heading home we get a very tense scene between he and the shop owner Farhad (Shaun Taub) an Iranian immigrant who speaks very little English. What was a simple misunderstanding due to the language barrier very nearly turns violent and leads into yet another scene at the locksmith's home that may be the strongest moment in the film when you yourself see it.

The links between all of the various characters in Crash are tenuous in terms of actual interaction. However in terms of themes, race and racism, they could not be more strongly connected. So bold are the themes and the characters that you can forgive the often forced attempts to connect them physically in the same scene or plot strand.  

Crash is akin to Paul Thomas Anderson's extraordinary 1999 ensemble drama Magnolia. Both films share a reliance on chance and fate and sprawling casts of well known and respected actors. Crash Director Paul Haggis eschews Anderson's esoteric flights of fancy-- there are no frogs in Crash-- but both films pack an emotional punch that will leave the theater with you. Crash is hampered slightly by not having Magnolia's extravagant run time of three plus hours, for at a mere 93 minutes the film has far less time to establish its characters.

Haggis makes up for this by creating dramatic scenarios that are harrowingly tense and emotional. The scenes involving Michael Pena's locksmith and Shaun Toub's Iranian shop keeper are an extraordinary example of Mr. Haggis's ability to craft confrontations that provoke fate without entirely crossing that thin line between dramatic realism and fantasy.

Crash is ostensibly about racism but it goes much deeper than that into an examination of the psyche of a broad expanse of people displaced emotionally by tragedy, by violence, by hatred and more importantly by chance. Chance is the strangest of all, the way people are sometimes thrown together in situations they never could have imagined. Chance breeds fear but it can also breed love. You can meet your end by chance or meet your destiny. Crash is all about chance encounters, people crashing into one another and the way their lives unfold afterwards.

A brilliant announcement of a new talent arriving, Crash brings Paul Haggis from behind the writer's desk and into the director's chair in the way that Paul Schrader broke from his roots of writing for Martin Scorsese to direct his first great film American Gigolo. Like Schrader, Haggis will continue writing for others (he and Eastwood are collaborating once more on the upcoming Flags of Our Fathers), but with Crash, Mr. Haggis shows where his future really lies.

Movie Review Sahara

Sahara (2005) 

Directed by Breck Eisner 

Written by James V. Hart, Thomas Dean Donnelly, Joshua Oppenheimer

Starring Matthew McConaughey, Steve Zahn, Penelope Cruz, Lambert Wilson, Rainn Wilson, William H. Macy 

Release Date April 8th, 2005

Published April 8th, 2005

Author Clive Cussler had vowed never to work with Hollywood again after what they did to his 1982 novel Raise The Titanic. That film was a massive commercial and artistic failure and Cussler was devastated. 23 Years later Cussler has finally returned to Hollywood and once again he has been disappointed. Sahara, based on Cussler's 1994 best seller that continues the adventures of Cussler's signature action hero Dirk Pitt, once again has Cussler fighting Hollywood in court while a movie based on his work stinks up theaters.

Matthew McConaughey stars in Sahara as Dirk Pitt, oceanographer and adventurer. Part Indiana Jones and well... part Indiana Jones, Dirk Pitt seeks buried treasure and occasionally prevents a global ecological disaster. His latest adventure has him and his sidekick Al (Steve Zahn) chasing the legend of a civil war ship stocked with gold that somehow floated from the Carolinas to the Sahara desert.

Parallel to Dirk and Al's adventure is that of a World Health Organization doctor Eva Rojas (Penelope Cruz). The doc is following a virus across Africa and crosses paths with Dirk when she is attacked on the beach by thugs trying to keep her from the source of the outbreak. Dirk saves her life and flirts up a storm and the adventure begins again.

The remaining plot revolves around the virus which is linked to a wealthy industrialist in the middle of the desert, Massard played by Lambert Wilson. The industrialist is dumping nuclear waste with the help of a warlord, General Kazim (Jude Akuwidike) who is involved in a civil war with a group of peasants apparently named after an American car, Tuareg. Dirk and co. must stop the nuclear waste, punish the industrialist and fight Kazim and maybe find the civil war ship that was nearly forgotten amid the goofy environmental plot.

Matthew McConaughey is the ideal actor for this material. With his movie star looks, oozing charisma and quick wit, he is a classic heroic leading man. Teamed with Steve Zahn as his comic sidekick and Penelope Cruz as his eye candy love interest, you have the pieces in place for a solid B-movie adventure. Unfortunately something is lost in the translation of this terrific team of actors into a coherent and entertaining action picture.

That missing element that would turn Sahara into a good movie from a mediocre rehash of action cliches is Director Breck Eisner. Directing as if he were stuck in neutral, Breck Eisner stifles the good things about Sahara, the amazing cast, with bad editing, bad pacing and a bad script penned by old friends of his rather than trained screenwriters.

Given Breck Eisner's industry credentials, you know who his father is, the adaptation of the script by his good buddies T.D Donnelly and Josh Oppenheimer seems like the whim of a charlatan. Who is going to stop the son of one of the film industry's top executives from making a movie, even if he wants to chuck the script in favor of a rewrite by his friends. Clive Cussler's worst nightmares come true in yet another adaptation that makes his already over the top brand of action novel look ridiculous.

The one truly enjoyable aspect of Sahara is the camaraderie of the cast who seem to really be having a good time. So what if the film makes absolutely no sense, the actors are all good looking, funny, charming and they are clearly having a blast. It's like watching a group of friends on the most unique vacation video in history.

Not everyone is in on the fun. Poor Lambert Wilson, The Merovingian from The Matrix sequels, is left with the worst part in the film. As the bad guy he is required to act with the least amount of motivation, logic and most of all the least amount of fun. Where Wilson clearly relished his badness in Matrix Reloaded, he seems in pain in Sahara delivering his haughty threats through gritted teeth, his French accent barely concealing his contempt for the words in the script.

The term Deus Ex Machina is latin and means a contrived plot device in a play or novel or in the case of Sahara, the entire plot of a film. Deus Ex Machina is how all of the lead characters in Sahara are able to adapt the exact knowledge needed at exactly the moment it is needed. Or how characters previously unavailable arrive just in time to make dramatic rescues or add a suspenseful twist. Whether Clive Cussler's novel rested so much on contrivance I don't know, I never read the book, but the film Sahara relies on contrivance in nearly every scene.

Deus Ex Machina is forgivable in small doses, but not when it makes up the entire film!

How acrimonious is the relationship between the makers of Sahara and writer Clive Cussler? There is still litigation pending over the changes made from Cussler's book to the movie. Cussler was given assurances by the producers that he would be able to veto any changes he did not agree with. That agreement was made before Breck Eisner came aboard as Director.

Having never read the book Sahara I don't know how extensive the changes were, but given the flaws littered throughout the film version, I would tend to side with Clive Cussler. Sahara it seems did not turn out the way anyone could have reasonably wanted it to, but for Clive Cussler it is now twice that he has felt such extensive disappointment.

Movie Review: Fever Pitch

Fever Pitch (2005) 

Directed by Peter Farrelly, Bobby Farrelly 

Written by Lowell Ganz, Babaloo Mandel 

Starring Jimmy Fallon, Drew Barrymore, JoBeth Williams

Release Date April 8th, 2005 

Published April 7th, 2005 

Peter Farrelly is a huge Boston Red Sox fan and has been since he was a kid growing up in the tiny state of Rhode Island. When he and his brother, and producing partner, Bobby moved to Los Angeles Bobby became a Dodger fan and Peter remained loyal to the Sox. Through Bucky Dent in '78, Buckner in '86 and Bret 'freakin' Boone in 2002 Peter lived and died by the Red Sox.

So it must have been an extraordinary experience for Peter when while shooting his latest film Fever Pitch ,a romantic comedy about an obsessed Red Sox fan's first real relationship, that he was allowed to shoot the movie in and around Boston and in the cathedral of Fenway park and all while the real Red Sox were making their historic run to break Babe Ruth's curse. Call it fate or serendipity or just dumb luck, not only was Peter Farrelly on the field when the Sox won the series, he shot a terrific movie while he was there.

Fever Pitch stars Jimmy Fallon as a lifetime Red Sox fan named Ben. His uncle took him to Fenway as a 7 year-old kid and he's never left. Inheriting his Uncle's season tickets right on the first base line Ben has developed a second family with the other lifetime Sox fans and been there through the hard times. Ben's apartment is a shrine to his obsession filled to overflow with memorabilia, jerseys and posters.

Naturally, women have tended to find Ben's Red Sox passion a bit of a turn-off.  He's never had a serious relationship that lasted past Spring training. That changes however when he meets Lindsey (Drew Barrymore) a just reached thirty workaholic who thinks she can take Ben's Red Sox fandom in stride if he can accept how much she works. Lindsey, however, greatly underestimates just how obsessive being a Red Sox fan can be, especially when the Sox are in the playoffs.

Drew Barrymore could do this material in her sleep. While Reese Witherspoon and Meg Ryan openly campaigned to be the new Julia Roberts, Drew has crafted the most Julia-esque career. A career filled with solid light hearted romantic comedies that make big money. The Wedding Singer, 50 First Dates, and Never Been Kissed are not ground breaking cinema but they are solid mainstream entertainments that showcase her unique brand of sweet, slapstick goofiness and innocent sexuality.

As for Jimmy Fallon, he has not exactly set the world on fire in his few attempts at big screen stardom. In fact, after last years atrocious action comedy Taxi I wanted to set him on fire. In Fever Pitch Fallon greatly improves over that performance (how could he not?) thanks mostly to the believability and heartfelt acting of Drew Barrymore and the pitch perfect script by the Farrelly Brothers.

Fever Pitch is superbly crafted to grab both male and female audiences with its perfect mixture of light romance and sports fanaticism. To even the appeal of the film between men and women, the Farrelly Brothers have even toned down their usual brand of gross out humor for a more traditional form of romantic comedy. This is a more mainstream, less abrasive comedy than anything the Farrelly's have done before. Don't worry though, the brothers have not forgotten the hardcore fans.

In Fever Pitch the Farrelly Brothers have replaced their usual brand of gross out humor with Three Stooges style light violence; no one really gets hurt but it looks like it. Lindsey gets beaned in the head by a foul ball, one of Lindsey's friends is slightly hurt when Lindsey drops her while she is climbing a rock wall in a gym and, in the films, climax Lindsey plays cat and mouse with Fenway security after dropping off the centerfield wall. These moments of cartoon paroxysm are sprinkled throughout Fever Pitch just to remind you that this is still a Farrelly Brothers film.

The script is based on a novel written by Nick Hornby about an obsessive soccer fan. All the Farrelly's had to do was take out some of the drinking and all of the riots, change sports and move it to Boston, the one place in America where Baseball obsession could come close to the kind of loyalty shown by British soccer hooligans. Then they added some of their trademark over-the-top humor and a nearly perfect mainstream comedy is born.