TV on DVD: Ice Castles (2010)

Now Available to Own

“Toepick!” Although it isn't a true remake, you definitely get the sense that the figure skating favorite Ice Castles may have inspired one of my favorite '90s sports romantic comedies, The Cutting Edge.

In Edge, a beautiful diva and Olympic hopeful learns to trust her new partner-- a Midwestern hockey player suffering from an eye injury-- all the while falling in love with him as they double axle their way to the championships.

And while Edge was made roughly fifteen years later, it wasn't until I watched Donald Wrye's remake of his sentimental two-hankie classic Ice Castles that I discovered the echoes and influence between the works.

Essentially, in Castles we follow a beautiful Midwestern Olympic hopeful who must learn to trust her aspiring hockey player boyfriend after an eye injury, if she wants to have any hope of a career on the ice.

Obviously, the earlier work is played for inspirational tears and Marvin Hamlisch themed romance a la The Way We Were and it's still the type of "women's weepie" to be counted on for a good cry decades later whereas Edge is a slightly sexier yet still tame PG rated romantic comedy that happens to involve drama.

Yet the anger that D.B. Sweeney's visually injured hockey player had in Edge resonates with the hockey player boyfriend played by Rob Mayes in the 2010 Ice Castles, whether the screenwriters were aware of it or not.

Although it's a truly unnecessary remake since essentially the story is the same, save for a few edits here and there, all the same, it's an extremely polished, high quality production that excels on most levels, easily acing its technical criteria this time around. And it achieves these merits not simply because all of the classic components are still in place, considering they've employed the same director, an original screenwriter, used the Oscar nominated song, and choreographers just one degree away from the original but also because in 2010, they decided to hire a professional skater for the lead.

Able to ensure that we're not pulled out of the movie by cut-aways and stunt doubles, impressively, Ice Castles is authentic on and off the ice when it comes to the sport. Additionally, it's moved with the times and changes in the level of competition by casting skater Taylor Firth for her screen debut, which immediately adds credibility but also makes her much more fascinating to watch, given her fittingly guileless, natural approach.

The angelic looking Firth slips as easily into the laced up skates as she does into the Iowan accent of our main character who-- having skated since she could walk--, is plucked out of obscurity soaring through the air from her favorite skating pond in the woods to the fast-track to national competition when a high-powered coach offers to train her for Olympic glory.

Forced to separate from her widower father as well as her college hockey player boyfriend (Mayes), Firth travels to Boston where, predictably just when she's about to take off, tragedy strikes, necessitating our heroine to look “Through the Eyes of Love” one more time.

While undoubtedly, you'll be struck much harder if you haven't seen the original film, as-- perhaps tensed up so much expecting what would eventually occur-- I didn't require wads of tissues this time around, but it's nonetheless a tender, family friendly, and sensitive remake that proves that great stories never age.

Due to the minor changes this time around and the truncated running time to ensure that two time Oscar nominated documentarian Wrye's movie would fit the TV alloted slot, admittedly you do find yourself a bit fuzzy on the details. While in addition to the “making-of” featurette that includes an interview with the lead actress from the original and more comments by cameo Olympic Medalist Michelle Kwan, deleted scenes are also contained on the DVD release.

However, I couldn't help but think would've played better if they'd been edited back in the film itself as an extended edition DVD in the tradition of high profile made-for-TV offerings from the Disney Channel. Essentially, some plot points are rushed and others aren't well-developed at all and-- since 2010's Castles built up the boyfriend character to a more three dimensional effect-- the fact that it seems to be missing some important transitional sequences makes its flaws easily apparent.

Yet, technically, its superior cinema-level craftsmanship puts most family cable movies to shame with a nice blend of sophistication and intelligence in its handling of the subject matter. Moreover, its new release helps us recognize that every decade needs an opportunity to embrace the toepicks to be found in the oft-ignored genre of female underdog sports movies like Castles and Edge.

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FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

Get Smart

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Director: Peter Segal

When the first Get Smart poster hit the multiplex, it looked like Nick at Nite by way of Neutrogena with a jaw-droppingly gorgeous glamour shot of Anne Hathaway given a perfect salon blowout coupled with flawlessly air-brushed skin all but drowning out her film’s costar and lead actor, Steve Carell. Needless to say, this image went off like a fanboy bat signal in cyberspace signaling panic in those who cherished the clever humor and inventive James Bond inspired 1960’s television spoof created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry and immediately cried foul, bracing themselves for the worst as they nervously anticipated every new detail of the big screen version of Smart. The poster and reaction reminded me of the quintessential cinematically captured moment of advertising letdown in Cameron Crowe’s great Almost Famous wherein lead singer Jason Lee discovers that his band-mate, the impossibly pretty “Golden God” Billy Crudup has been featured in the foreground of the tour t-shirts, relegating Lee-- much like Smart’s Steve Carell-- as decorative background or as Almost’s Lee quipped, to his position as "just one of the out of focus guys.”

Granted, it seemed like an odd marketing strategy indeed in hoping to lure in ticket buyers to a comedy with a built in Baby Boomer and Generation X audience with Generation Y sex appeal and seemed like it would've been as out of place as if the poster for Charlie’s Angels had only featured Bill Murray’s face or Will Ferrell had been the only one on the DVD box for Bewitched, yet honestly, after seeing what the filmmakers did with the update of the classic series Get Smart, they may have made the right choice, given the fact that in a quiet, unintentional way, the twenty-five year old Anne Hathaway manages to steal the entire movie from her forty-five year old veteran comedic costar. And while her character’s Agent 99 was always the loyal, brainy, loving woman tirelessly “standing by her Max" in the original series, given Carell’s terrific talent and excellent source material, it really shouldn’t have been this way.

As a stark contrast to the suave, highly unbelievable James Bond, part of the show’s charm and in fact-- no doubt its very inception-- was to have a bumbling, klutzy secret agent who can never manage to work his high tech equipment including the running gags of the cone-of-silence and shoe-phones supplied for him in his work within the American spy agency Control. Yet in the update, Maxwell Smart a.k.a. Agent 86 (Carell) has been inexcusably transformed into a formerly obese and still emotionally scarred highly valuable pencil pusher, who-- as his chief and fellow Little Miss Sunshine costar Alan Arkin explains-- is Control’s best analyst with raw human data, deciphering a counter-agent’s productivity based on the number of carbs they eat or if they’ve spent the past few nights in marital discord sleeping on the couch.

The updated version of Max is still as accident prone as ever but now his eccentricities are dismissed as minor negatives overshadowed by the ultimate positive that he’s a man so good at his job in crafting reports that the chief can’t bear to think of promoting him to field agent. As a Get Smart purist, this is unacceptable on so many levels, but more than that, it literally destroys the film’s main source of comedy. And when the cone-of- silence, shoe phone gags or his memorable “Would you believe?” lines are inserted, they feel like they’re puzzle pieces that have been forced into weird alignment by over-eager children at a birthday party waiting for cake or worse, like they've been tossing those of us who enjoyed the show a few retro bones to play fetch with on a Nick at Nite styled scavenger hunt whereby the end of the running time, our checklist is mostly blank and what's more, all the cake has been eaten.

I’m all for reinvention and re-imagination rather than forgoing creativity for stale reproduction, but by not offering us anything intriguing about Max, it’s easy to get distracted by the supporting players including a hilarious, under-used, tongue-in-cheek Dwayne Johnson as the ultra hot Agent 23 who nonetheless manages to walk into a wall when checking out a perky receptionist but especially, the pitch perfect Hathaway as the film’s saving grace of 99—the gifted field agent grudgingly assigned to working alongside Max after Control is attacked by KAOS madmen led by a Beethoven obsessed Terence Stamp.

Perhaps predicting the audience’s discomfort in the twenty year age difference between the stars, the screenwriters work out a plastic surgery excuse to explain that they’re chronologically closer than one would think. However, it’s a wasted reason as once the two are together, the chemistry just clicks into high energy flirtation and fascination where age is a forgotten number allowing each one a chance to step back and let the other one shine, although in the case of Smart, diplomatically it seems like it’s Hathaway who’s trying to underplay and make her partner funnier but try as he might, Carell just isn’t given the benefit of quality material, making 99 the one for whom we’re continually rooting.

As an escape from the over-abundance of superhero films slated for release this summer and a surprising lack of good family comedies, no doubt Get Smart will reach its targeted generations of built in fans plus kids and grandkids and as it stands on its own, it’s passable but not worthy of a recommendation for those who know and love the show. Although the best result would be if it inspired unfamiliar audience members to track down old episodes of the series. Therefore, even if it took a manipulative air-brushed, magazine quality poster to get them to do that, then kudos to the publicity department at Warner Brothers for helping people learn how hip it is to Get Smart.

Sex and the City

Director:
Michael Patrick King

The poster says it all—a glamour shot of a contemplative, wised-up, possibly battle scarred Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) against a night background. She’s come a long way from the tutu, wandering through the sunlit streets in a toss between a ballerina’s grace and a tigress on the prowl. That was until cynical reality hit her in the form of a splashed puddle from a bus in the beginning of the television show’s timeless credit sequence that set up the sophisticated, randy, melancholy, witty and beloved award winning HBO series for its astronomically successful six season run. Yet in transferring the tale of single former love and sex columnist Carrie Bradshaw and her three best friends to the big screen, it’s evident fairly early on that the focus has changed considerably.

While it was always fixated on Carrie, there was never a shortage of compelling plots concerning the rest of the Manhattan quartet to elevate the series into a multilayered tapestry of humor, intellectuality and poignant truths. However, that’s quickly forgotten on the big screen as Carrie becomes not only the predictable leading lady but her cohorts are given so little to work with that they become as uninspired and clichéd as countless best friends in the romantic comedy genre, just there to offer a shoulder to cry on, try and deliver a well-timed joke, but never forget their place to stand in the background like a bridesmaid, never upstaging the bride on her big day.

Thus it’s only fitting that the film’s bride-like character becomes a bride as we check in with Carrie, five years after she went to Paris and got accidentally slapped by Petrovsky before the dashing, comical Big (Chris Noth) showed up, sold the key line, “I’m clocking this foreigner,” until Carrie tripped him in the hallway and they ended up falling on the floor and for one another (AGAIN) in a terrific series finale that’s quickly become one of the shows’ most memorable episodes. Now happily committed to Big whom we learn is really named John James Preston (after King’s favorite director Preston Sturges, creator of unforgettable comedies and also intriguingly the first kiss-proof lipstick which is no doubt a SATC staple), Carrie and the wealthy playboy decide unceremoniously in a nearly business mindset to wed before moving into their own corner of “real estate heaven,” namely, a breathtaking penthouse where the view is only outdone by the jaw-dropping, flatteringly lit, and highly organized racquetball court sized walk-in closet.

Obviously, Manolo Blahnik loving Carrie seems less intrigued by the prospect of a ring than the closet and before long, her wealthy, prim dark haired Grace Kelly like princess friend Charlotte (Kristin Davis) is lending Carrie her best gay friend Anthony (Mario Cantone) to plan the big day. While Charlotte is just as we left her, living a life of uneventful domestic bliss married to the good-natured Harry Goldenblatt (Evan Handler) complete with adorable puppies and a cute adopted Chinese daughter who, along with Harry and the puppies seem merely decorative, the tough-as-nails, heart attack waiting to happen, successful law film partner Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon) is stretching herself too thin in her married life to her own puppy dog husband Steve Brady (David Eigenberg) and son. When a predictable wrench is thrown into her marriage after the unhappily ignored Steve acts out on his dissatisfaction, Miranda is even less thrilled than we’d expect to be involved with Carrie’s nuptials but it’s Carrie’s maid of honor, the show’s saucy vixen cougar Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall) who coupled with countless frogs until she met her far younger, wart free, golden boy prince Smith (the dishy Jason Lewis), who we’re most stunned to see. Now living a largely hapless existence as a miserable stay-at-home manager to her actor lover in Los Angeles, Samantha is tirelessly devoted to her man yet finds her old urges haven’t disappeared with age when she begins obsessing about her lothario manwhore neighbor.

Rushing off to New York every chance she gets, Samantha and the girls pick up where they left off, yet instead of the fast-paced screwball laughs to which we’d grown accustomed, the sour tone of the Sex and the City movie is shockingly melancholic and while they’ve necessarily replaced the sex and single scene obsession of the show given their relationship status and maturity, by filling an exhaustive 145 minutes with endless fashion shows and product placements and using an uninspired Cinderella theme in lieu of the rampant feminism, it’s a more materialistic and less soulful version of Sex than one could possibly imagine. And even when writer/director Michael Patrick King tries to pen the required daring one-liner or raunchy hook-up, the execution feels sexless, clinical, cool and overwhelmingly tired, making me think that if the script itself had been a man, none of the foursome would have let him get past the first date.

With Carrie’s trio relegated to backup singers as Charlotte is prone to shrieking hysteria in virtually every scene, Miranda has grown even less cheerful, and Samantha is in desperate need of a hug, it pales in comparison to the six inventive seasons of the series. Although it was always a chicken soup show, making one feel better after a horrible date, breakup, or day at the office, and as a woman, I’m infinitely grateful for not only its existence but also that Hollywood actually released a film starring four women over the age of forty, in addition to Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, and Samantha, SATC’s dedicated fans deserve something much richer, vital and rewarding than what in the end feels about as deep as one of the latest new age self-help books such as The Secret, that hilariously Samantha Jones throws into the sand. Too bad it couldn’t have been the script! Needless to say, skip this and go back to your bookshelves to dust off the old DVD box sets.

City of Men

Director: Paulo Morelli

It’s said that the sins of the father eventually go to his son but it’s a trickier proposition when a person either doesn’t know who his own father is or has vague memories of a father who was killed when he was young and now must face his own identity as a father to his baby boy. In director Paulo Morelli’s cinematic follow-up to Fernando Meirelles’s masterpiece City of God, the two main characters find themselves in exactly these situations as they turn eighteen. After losing his son at a young age, Ace (Douglas Silva) realizes he must try and make amends to ensure that his son Clayton doesn’t grow up to repeat his mistakes coming-of-age without male guidance but barely able to take care of himself or his equally young wife, Ace struggles with responsibility and priority when he’s enlisted by his best friend Wallace (Darlan Cunha) to track down the father he’s never met in order to secure his identity and get a needed signature on his eighteen year old identification card.

Like City of God, City of Men, which is based on the critically acclaimed Brazilian television series recently released in the states on both DVD and through the Sundance Channel, is set in the low class slums of Rio de Janeiro although while God was set in the past, Men’s action takes place today as the children of their community hill align themselves with a local gang leader and are willing to take up arms and risk their lives to fight local gangs over territory. Although one doesn’t necessarily have to see City of God in order to appreciate its far more linear follow-up with an emphasis on sentimentality and a cleaner narrative than its flashier, edgier, father God, it’s fascinating to view it with the first grand scale work fresh in one's mind.

Although Men feels like an ideal companion piece to the first film, however despite some similarities in style and crew behind and in front of the camera, Men is a more audience friendly picture that will be able to attract those who may have run for the exits from the brutality and horror of the first film. Although, Men comes with a few contrivances and one predictable twist near the end, which reminded me that it was missing the impact of the first picture which, in its much louder way offered up a truer sense of the beating heart of Rio and one less carefully and deliberately presented to filmgoers as this more accessible work. However, this being said, it’s a great, great film in its own right and one that feels, similar to God years earlier, like the perfect antidote to the mindless and numb Hollywood manufactured orgies of violence and gore by never letting us forget that we’re not looking at just bored teens who turn to violence to titillate or shock, but teens who grew up with absolutely nothing and must find a way to fight to survive, to make tough choices and more importantly, discover how to take the lessons or lack thereof they learned from their fathers and apply them to the next generation.