Swing Vote (2008)

Read the DVD Review


Director:
Joshua Michael Stern


To precocious twelve-year-old Molly Johnson (an impeccable Madeline Carroll), voting is not only an optimistic privilege but it’s also an American citizen’s “civic duty.” However, to Molly’s under-achieving father whom — for the zero parenting he offers — she fittingly calls Bud (Kevin Costner), voting in America simply risks the chance that you’ll wind up on the fast track for jury duty. Unfortunately for Bud, along with making the family budget and packing his daily lunch, Molly registered her father to cast his vote, aligning him as a political “independent” since she proclaims that “the two-party system neglects the working poor.”

While Lou Dobbs would no doubt beam with pride, Bud struggles to make sense of his daughter. This is especially the case when — in equal fascination of the electoral process as well as her tie-in school project — Molly reveals that she took the trouble to fill in her parental political questionnaire for Bud because she wanted to make him “sound smart.” Despite his protests and canned statements that voting is useless, Molly demands that her father meet her at the polling place after school with a peck on the cheek and a warning to Bud, namely, “screw this up and I’m leaving you.”

And while Molly has a fruitful day delivering a beautifully worded political essay and ends up on the news after local Texico, New Mexico reporter Kate Madison (Paula Patton) decides to feature it in the evening broadcast, Bud’s prospects that day are far less successful. With incriminating footage that depicts Bud ruining more of the eggs than he’s able to neatly package in the plant where he works — not to mention the fact Bud hasn’t punched in on time in six months and proceeded to take thirty-one sick days — before he’s officially laid off, his boss and former high school friend asks him to give him one good reason not to let him go. Foreshadowing his inability to make a decision which will propel the rest of Swing Vote's plot, needless to say Bud can’t offer him any explanations.

Later, predictably forgetting his promise to Molly until it’s nearly too late, Election Day ends on a far stranger note after a bizarre computer error concerning Bud’s vote makes the results of the day — already in a deadlock for the presidency — all boil down to whom Bud will vote for ten days later when, by oath, he swears he must recast his vote. Literally holding the fate of the government in his hands as his vote will decide which candidate earns swing state New Mexico’s five electoral votes and ensures him the presidency, Bud is overwhelmed by the media reaction as every major outlet from MTV to CNN to the BBC sets up a stakeout right outside his trailer. And just as quickly, political organizations start flooding into the tiny town that — before the gaffe — had been so inconsequential it wasn’t even on the state map.

However, the story really heats up when both candidates journey out to try and win over Bud by any means necessary. Pulling out all the stops and White House goodie bags he can carry, the first of the two competing front-runners, the favored Republican incumbent President Andrew Boone (a pitch-perfect Kelsey Grammar) arrives in Texico complete with the aptly named Martin Fox, his amoral strategist, in tow (Stanley Tucci). Also vying for Bud’s ear — or rather his vote — the earthy Democratic challenger Donald Greenleaf (Dennis Hopper), who along with his campaign manager Art Crumb (Nathan Lane) promises a racially blind, all inclusive “rainbow” White House, pack up their “Truth Train” and “Operation Real Deal” to make the long trek to the desert. Although the Dems learn that — while they can’t even begin to compete with Air Force One — their secret weapon is none other than Willie Nelson, who was the subject of a tribute band that Bud had played in before his rhythm section ended up in the slammer.

In an effort to better understand Bud, the candidates and their smarmy managers resort to shameless pandering, insincere flattery, and manipulation, including letting the dimwitted, perpetual beer drinker win at poker or using cue cards to make small talk with Bud about fishing. Most memorably, this results in a wonderfully hilarious speech by Grammar likening his role as commander-in-chief to that of a quarterback, breaking foreign policy down with the aid of football terminology. Grammar nails every scene he’s in and nobody plays a buffoon or the prototypical blue collar American male quite like Kevin Costner, although he’s essentially recycling the far more likable characterizations he crafted in Bull Durham and Tin Cup.

However, by making our lead character such an idiotic Homer Simpson-like oaf, we’re laughing at Bud rather than with him throughout the film’s entirety. And far more often than I felt empathy for him, I was surprised to find myself actually loathing him numerous times throughout because of his complete inability to see beyond himself and understand not just the gravity of the situation but recognize how it’s all affecting his daughter. Speaking of which, as Molly, the young Madeline Carroll completely steals the film and our hearts in the process, especially in a scene wherein she shows far more worldliness and morality than her father ever could, while breaking down in tears in front of her classroom, telling white lies in order to make her father sound like he actually cares about the country he’s living in and his fellow Americans.

For a comedy, Swing Vote is a bit more melancholic than perhaps director Joshua Michael Stern, along with his co-writer Jason Richman, had planned since there’s nothing funny about child neglect; but they try to keep the satire swinging along with the mystery of Bud’s vote and make great use out of their supporting players in the process. As the candidates begin to address Bud directly in a series of new political ads, suddenly Costner’s Bud becomes his very own Truman Show, being followed and analyzed around the clock in every journalistic medium. Although quality wise, Swing Vote is less like Truman Show and more like EdTV.

However, hilarity ensues as the candidates embrace political flip-flopping as the Republicans suddenly promote gay marriage and environmental protection with the Democrats tackling illegal immigration and embracing the pro-life movement simply because the inarticulate Bud misspoke a few times while being interviewed by the beautiful local, ambitious newswoman Kate Madison. In an underdeveloped subplot, Madison, who shares a bond with Bud’s brainy daughter, must reconcile her ethics with her desire to get ahead in the business, seeing Bud’s story as the ultimate break in getting the hell out of her tiny town and station run by George Lopez in order to follow in the footsteps of idols like Paula Zahn.

With the inclusion of an “everyman” and a “reporter with a conscience,” Stern reaches to emulate the type of underdog film that Frank Capra perfected with Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. And while the performers elevate the material, Stern forgot the fact that what made Capra’s films such a success is they delivered us a hero we could root for and one whom - despite not being the smartest - had a heart as big as the White House and therefore endeared us to him from the get-go. Predictably, Costner’s Bud has a wake-up call late into the film but it’s rushed and protracted — crammed into the last twenty minutes, making it pay off less than it could have had we seen glimmers of his goodness earlier on.

While it’s not as cynically intelligent as Wag the Dog or Bulworth, nor as paranoid as the underrated Man of the Year, there’s no doubt this film plays much better during this particular election year with audiences growing weary of endless coverage of the candidates and outrageous accusations and distracting spin. Despite this, Swing’s sound bites and satire get awfully repetitive in the last hour of the film’s surprisingly lengthy running time.

And similar to the way that the issues a voter cares most about are often neglected as soon as their candidate hits the Oval Office, on my way out of Stern’s film I felt like I’d just voted again. For instead of contemplating any food for thought by recalling some truly terrific scenes and stellar performances, I wondered what would have happened if the film hadn’t been ultimately overshadowed by such an inconsistent screenplay. Now that’s something that calls for a re-vote or at least, in the case of Swing Vote — political comedy reform.

WALL-E

Director:
Andrew Stanton

Although most of us run from fix-ups, even if they are preferable in my humble opinion to speed-dating, matchmaking websites, and singles bars, imagine what a tough sell it would be to try and set up a friend like WALL-E. The pitch would have to be well-rehearsed but would most likely go something like this: “I know this great guy. Well, he’s self-employed which in our technology driven society is really impressive… oh, well, technically he’s in waste allocation, actually. He loves movies—Hello Dolly is his favorite and he listens to show-tunes all day. Yes, I’m sure he likes females. Other hobbies? Well, he collects things… oh, um sporks, Rubik’s Cubes, bras, bowling pins, Zippo lighters. Personality? Well, he’s someone of few words, kind of a loner… no, actually, he doesn’t really have any friends but you just know he’s one of the good ones. Wait-- where are you going?”

Needless to say, if WALL-E lived in today’s society and not seven hundred years in the future, he’d be the prime candidate to star in a modern remake of the Ernest Borgnine classic Marty. If you know, it was animated by those wizards at Pixar who by now probably have so many awards that they could possibly build an entire studio out of gold. There’s just something instantly huggable about the titular lead character in their latest film WALL-E that turns viewers into the office busybody, the over-eager relative or worse, those smug married friends who all just want to see this adorable Waste Allocation Load Lifter: Earth-Class robot find himself a nice robotic girl already. And while we’re at it, hopefully a fellow movie buff unafraid of director Gene Kelly’s less-than-stellar 1969 Barbra Streisand film Hello Dolly and someone with whom WALL-E can roam his bleak, deserted, overwhelmingly trash filled, sundrenched and beige version of Earth set seven hundred years in the future where rampant consumerism and greed have taken the color out of everything with nary a blue sky, crystal clear lake, or flower, and one in which humankind abandoned years earlier to live blissfully ignorant, fat and happy reaping the benefits of virtual reality in space.

Far from the upbeat setting one would anticipate from the studio of Walt Disney, there’s still something surprisingly sweet, infectious, and romantic and quintessentially uplifting in its forty minute opener. And although the movie is preceded by Presto, another ingenious new short film from Pixar, it’s superfluous as the studio may have been better off dividing WALL-E into two distinct longer length short films as while the second half—despite making excellent points likening it in some critical circles to an adolescent version of An Inconvenient Truth—is shockingly bleak in its unflinching presentation of a man-made consumer driven dystopia that, while the youngest audience members won’t pick up on its true political mores, ages six through ten may be a bit too bothered by what they’re facing onscreen.



Still, it’s an outstanding and vital achievement and I can’t praise the first half enough as in contrast to its futuristic setting, WALL-E feels anachronistic yet welcomingly old-fashioned, nostalgic, wondrous in its simplicity like an animated silent film, introducing us to its oddball, outsider loner WALL-E who dutifully goes about his days compacting trash into manageable small square shapes, with absolutely zero company save for his tape recorder filled with love songs and the comforting images of Hello Dolly that delight him in the evening when he retreats to his hideout with whatever pieces of human loot he’s found that day. Therefore, when a ship arrives dropping off the sleek, blue-eyed, pristine, curvier, female robot Eve, WALL-E is determined to put his best battery forward, in making the ideal computerized first impression, yet he’s taken aback by her mission-oriented, lethal personality, shooting things at will which theoretically would have sent most men running, yet WALL-E’s off-the-charts loneliness and instant attraction causes his operating system to run wild with romantic imagery. Soon Louis Armstrong sings “La Vie En Rose” while he works to subliminally gain her interest, creating a self-statue of himself, worshipping her from afar until intimacy is sped up when he must pull her to safety to avoid a violent dust storm and sweetly, like a teenage boy on a first date, he tries to figure out the best way to inch closer to Eve and is delighted when she seems to share his Dolly enthusiasm.

Unfortunately their romance is cut short when her goal is reached and she must return home with WALL-E impulsively becoming a harmless stalker-bot, hitching a ride on her ship, only to discover life as a “foreign contaminant,” on a space station where former Earthbound humans have turned into helpless blobs living in beach styled recliners, their every whim catered to by technology, and a lifestyle best surmised by the company that sponsors it-- Buy ‘N Large. Although in his quest to win Eve’s heart or rather her memory card, WALL-E becomes the unwitting hero to help restore Earth to what it once was, but this gloomy Aldus Huxley, Orwellian like glimpse of the future and dark tone complete with allusions to everything from I Am Legend to Blade Runner to 2001: A Space Odyssey makes a complete one hundred and eighty degree turn from the way the film began and while Pixar still stands above and beyond others in offering intelligent, contemplative, and gorgeously sophisticated animation, when reviewed as an entire picture, WALL-E feels glaringly uneven and surprisingly dissatisfying with its ugly final act, despite an obligatory happy ending, yet in its brilliant opening which just consisted of WALL-E and Eve, what they managed to create is the best proof of their perfection as a studio since Finding Nemo.

Still, for younger audiences, I would recommend Kung Fu Panda, before suggesting you bring the tykes to WALL-E, with the fear that for those who are able to get the admittedly highly important politically implications that seemed inappropriate given its target audience, it may cause nightmares about an uncertain future reminiscent of the cold war scares faced by elementary school children of the baby boom generation. However, for those looking for something heartfelt and genuine, I can’t think of a better and more surprising (and therefore impressive!) date movie—far superior to the by-the-numbers rom-coms of 2008 so far—than the first half of WALL-E.

So in the end... I guess I believe in cinematic speed dating after all.

Just Add Water

Director: Hart Bochner

Speaking as someone who doesn’t even have power windows let alone a GPS directional system, I’ve graduated from the headache inducing cumbersome maps with size nine font and an overreliance on geometry to the friendlier, although sometimes erroneous MapQuest directions. And, while it’s always nerve-wracking to venture out on my own-- armed with a terrific mix CD or programmed iPod and a questionable cheat sheet from a computer website to get myself where I need to be-- I love taking in the scenery as I go. Not only am I constantly amazed by the homogeny of mini-malls, fast food places, and chain stores, but it’s always intriguing when I get out of the cityscape and drive through one of those under-populated desert ghost towns where you only see one main grocery store with a mostly vacant lot, a few scattered shops including the obligatory gas station and then one small community of homes amidst an unforgiving, desolate backdrop, where it’s quiet for miles and... when global warming is at its worst, it climbs to an extreme one hundred and thirty degrees. As I whip by in air-conditioned luxury, knowing it’s just one numeric direction on my MapQuest list, the writer in me wonders what life is like in one of those sleepy towns.

In Just Add Water, writer/director Hart Bochner’s unrelentingly dark yet sweet and sour flavored comedy, we have the opportunity to find out as we meet our unlikely sad sack hero Ray Tuckby (Nip/Tuck’s Dylan Walsh), who lives in the bleak town of Trona, California where the toxic waste poisoned soil caused the river to be diverted as most citizens including the law enforcement all jumped ship (or rather town), and a group of unruly young meth lab running punks including Justin Long and led by the particularly vile Dirk (Will Rothaar) purchased up all the property they could get their greasy hands on to run the show as greedy landlords, shutting off the electricity (and therefore air conditioning) when one of their residents blows their welfare checks and forgets to pay up, or threatening to harm Ray’s son if they’re not granted a new five dollar toll for driving down a public street.

Needless to say, life in Trona is miserable and for Ray it’s no exception with a shut-in wife who coupon clips and as Ray soon learns has a devastating secret all her own along with Eddie (Jonah Hill), an aimless son who keeps reminding his father that he’d like to visit a hooker for his belated graduation present, although really-- when all is said and done-- he realizes that he’d rather be a proper boyfriend to the lovely R’Ch’lle (Anika Noni Rose).

With more family drama piled on early in the film via a medical emergency that—in predictable dark comic fashion—ends with shocking laughter in a questionably tasteless confrontation, it seems that the only ray of light for Ray himself comes from his daily trips to the local market when he gets a precious few uninterrupted minutes with the girl he’s loved since grade school-- the sweet, adorable checkout woman Nora (Tracy Middendorf). However, as we all know—one of the greatest obstacles of finding love is timing—it’s not enough that you meet someone you’re compatible with, what’s more, you need to be fortunate enough that when the feeling goes from one-sided to mutual, you’re both free.

Lucky for Ray, he’s released from the old ball-and-chain but true to the film’s sardonic nature, his decoupling occurs in one of the most emasculating ways. Thus after Ray’s life is turned upside down and he finds himself single again, he tries to build up enough courage to give in to the crush he’s harbored for nearly two decades and Walsh’s scenes with Middendorf provide a much needed earnest and romantic relief to the otherwise dire film where the overwhelmingly unlikable characters and situations threaten to destroy any hope of finding humor in the outrageous situations that grow much more dismal as it continues.

Yet, thanks to a great, understated turn by Walsh whose quintessential good guy everyman we’re rooting for from the start and an amusing smaller role from Danny DeVito as the new Chevron station independent operator, this otherwise lackluster, below average comedy which initially made me recall the horrors of DeVito’s Drowning Mona and Death to Smoochy, becomes surprisingly watchable Saturday afternoon fare—especially one that would be much more enjoyable after days of endless rain has left one longing for the type of sun they can’t avoid and for which they would love to trade in order to Just Add Water in Bochner’s desolate, downbeat depiction of Trona, California.

The Final Season

Director: David M. Evans

Typically film critics rail against the perils of predictability and contrivances in contemporary cinema, yet a different attitude seems to be adopted by most when it comes to the All-American genre of underdog sports film that never seems to go out of style. As San Francisco Chronicle writer Mick La Salle wrote, citing the similarity of the genre’s offerings, “Funny thing about theses sports movies. They’re all the same. They’re never bad… they’re rarely exceptional. In fact, their appeal may be their sameness.”

The Final Season is such a case—a warmhearted, inspiring film that despite its modest production values, works the same way that chicken soup does when one has a cold, or mashed potatoes and/or macaroni and cheese do after an awful day—it’s a film that comforts, nourishes, goes down easily and doesn’t ask too much in return. Similar to the quintessential underdog he played in Rudy (one of the best sports films of the 90’s), Sean Astin pulls double duty as both producer and star in this true story, playing unlikely high school baseball coach Kent Stock, who, at the tender age of twenty-four after just two months of assisting the legendary Coach Van Scoyoc (Powers Boothe), finds himself taking over the Norway High School team.

After winning nineteen straight state championships under Van Scoyoc, the small Iowan community with a population of 586, that-- as the townspeople state-- grows baseball players similar to the crops on their farms, must come to terms with bureaucratic changes all made under the guise of “progress” that mandates that the Norway High School Tigers will be playing their final season before merging with the larger Madison High School.

As illustrated in the film, the vindictively villainous School Board President Harvey Makepeace (Marshall Bell) fires Coach Van Scoyoc out of petty spite and, in the hopes of sabotaging the team’s last competitive year, replaces the coach with the impossibly young, earnest Stock whose only experience heading up a team on his own was as a girl’s volleyball coach.

While the primary focus of The Final Season is on the development of the team and interplay between the Norway community, other subplots are introduced and, despite engaging us from the outset, are given little time to satisfactorily develop such as a terrific storyline about a rebellious Chicago teen played by Forbidden Kingdom star Michael Angarano whose widowed father (Tom Arnold) drops him off with his Norway grandparents in the hopes that the change of scenery will turn the young man around.

Angarano, who has some great scenes that beg for more exploration including a few confrontations with the film’s most valuable player, Powers Boothe, is shortchanged by the film. Yet these few time-wasting subplots aside including a likable turn by Rachael Leigh Cook as Stock’s love interest, The Final Season is further proof of director David M. Evans’s love of America’s favorite pastime following his terrific family classic The Sandlot, which he’d also penned.

Another solid and slightly above average entry into the overcrowded underdog sports genre, the film manages to further compel audiences with its timely storyline of small communities like Norway becoming ghost-towns when economic and political issues force them to close their schools, leading to devastating effects as businesses follow suit, which is something that seems to be hitting us yet again in the wake of our struggling economy.

Music Within

Director: Steven Sawalich

Like most children, Richard Pimentel’s earliest dream was to become a superhero. Little did he realize that this goal would manifest itself in a rather unusual way when, as an adult, Richard discovered the superpower of being able to read conversations from one hundred feet away. Although it wasn’t a power that he’d stumbled on accidentally like the ones which defined Spiderman or The Incredible Hulk, similar to those heroes, it was one that came with a price, however in the eyes of a society that likes to turn a blind eye to the disabled (no pun intended), the price he paid was far more difficult than scaling walls or turning green. For Richard Pimentel, the price for his superpower was his hearing.

After a tragedy ridden childhood, Pimentel (Ron Livingston) found his calling as one of the most naturally gifted members of his high school debate team in the 1960’s. With a gift for memorization and a theatrical stage presence, Pimentel’s goal to receive a college scholarship was dashed when Professor Ben Padrow (Hector Elizondo) informed him that, although talented, he was insincere and needed to go out, experience life and earn a unique point of view. Still reeling from the news, impulsively, Pimentel enlists in the service only to find himself stationed in Vietnam where after an incoming explosion, he manages to escape with his life but with his hearing forever damaged. Now plagued with the high pitched ringing of unceasing tinnitus, Pimentel learns that he’s lost half of his hearing in the upper register. It’s due to this disability and the lack of preparedness by the powers that be that tell Pimentel that they can’t authorize his hard earned GI funds to send a deaf student to college and paint a bleak picture for the veteran of a friendless future and a warning that if he miraculously graduates, they wouldn't be able to place him in a job.

Doom ridden predictions be damned, Pimentel enrolls in college and on his path to graduation, he befriends another outsider in the form of Art (Michael Sheen), a witty man with a genius level I.Q. who, due to a cruel twist fate, is wheelchair bound and afflicted with cerebral palsy. The two embark on both a fast friendship as well as a quest to participate in the life that 1970’s American society seems all too ready to exclude them from which is evidenced in a heartbreaking scene as they’re kicked out of a pancake restaurant for breaking what Pimentel calls the “ugly law” a.k.a. the intolerance of able-bodied citizens to share public space with those who are "deformed or diseased." Later, Pimentel’s quest turns much more political, ambitious and proactive as, on behalf of not only himself, Art and fellow disabled Vietnam vets (suffering from both physical and mental impairments), he gets a job in a government agency cold calling businesses from the local Portland phone book in order to help other disabled citizens find jobs. Word reaches the governor who quickly asks Pimentel to create a program that will pave the way for employers to train and hire disabled persons and soon, Pimentel’s landmark professional guide makes him one of the most actively sought authorities on the matter and also helps lead to the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1990.

While legendary film critic Roger Ebert faulted the film’s assertion that just one man was responsible for the ADA with his worthy and correct articulation that Music Within’s “hero stands for countless others," the film is first and foremost a biopic of one man’s struggles and successes so it’s on that level which made it a success for this reviewer. In addition to offering viewers yet another depiction of the tremendous range of actor Michael Sheen (star of Blood Diamond who also portrayed Tony Blair in The Queen and The Deal), it will be especially surprising to fans of Livingston’s Office Space and Sex and the City to see the typically comedic actor in a new light.

Winner of the Audience Award at the 2007 AFI Dallas International Film Festival, director Steven Sawalich’s moving film does admittedly suffer from a predictable script filled with action that is “accompanied by some very deliberately programmed and too obvious period music,” (John Anderson, Variety). Yet, perhaps in the wake of increasing numbers of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with physical and mental disabilities, despite the film’s contrivances, it’s the type of quintessential underdog movie that inspires audiences rather than divides them and given the timeliness of the content, it’s hard to find fault with that.

Of Mice and Men

Nominated for the 1992 Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival, Pulitzer Prize and Oscar winning writer Horton Foote adapted John Steinbeck’s 1937 classic novella Of Mice and Men for the second and far superior cinematic interpretation from director/producer/star Gary Sinise. As he notes on the DVD, Sinise, who had first seen the play as a 16 year old at the renowned Minneapolis Guthrie Theatre, acquired the rights from Elaine Steinbeck while performing in the Broadway version of The Grapes of Wrath. After a breakneck year of planning, including solidifying the script which was approved on the spot by MGM studios, production was underway.

Having taken part in the play twelve years earlier at the Steppenwolf Theatre, Sinise once again tackled the role of the protective George Milton. In one of his smartest moves as a filmmaker, Sinise reunited with his Mice costar John Malkovich for his pitch-perfect characterization of the mentally challenged Lennie Small in the heartbreaking tale of two close friends who travel together during the Great Depression while working on California ranches as they try to save enough money to buy their own farm and secure a piece of the American dream.

Nearly as vital and timely as it was in its first printing given the state of our questionable economy with frequent discussion of recession, Sinise’s film has also stood the test of time with its painstaking attention to detail in bringing Steinbeck’s vision to life. And perhaps it's even more accessible thanks to Foote’s augmentation of his lean and muscular writing by adding more emotion to the tale in order to enrich Steinbeck’s theme of loneliness.

In addition to being controversial for conclusions made regarding disabled individuals such as Lennie, Steinbeck’s novel also caused a feminist outcry as female sexuality leads to the men’s undoing, in the form of the flirtatious wife of their boss Curley (Casey Siemaszko). However, in the 1992 version both of these oft debated characterizations are deepened without losing any of Steinbeck’s intent. In the DVD interview, Sinise argued that one of the most important things he wanted to address in the movie was the treatment of Curley’s wife by humanizing the woman (played by the lovely Sherilyn Fenn) and emphasizing her loneliness being the only woman on the ranch without a soul to talk to. In doing so, he considerably plays up audience sympathy as opposed to the book’s depiction of her as a dangerous, aggressive symbolic villain. In addition, as Sinise shared, this change of developing Curley’s wife into a fully realized character makes the film’s memorably shocking ending all the more tragic. Additionally, in my view, it makes her yet another one of the many lonely outcasts that populate Steinbeck’s world, inviting the audience to draw greater parallels between her character as well as the others, especially Lennie who is painted as the ultimate outsider, given his childlike innocence that’s contrasted with his dangerous strength and overwhelming size.

While it’s Malkovich that ultimately steals the film, I was especially touched by Sinise’s characterization in depicting George in a tenderer fatherly manner, and after viewing the film a second time around, began to realize that in truth, he had the more difficult role. Not only does George serve as the negotiator of both Lennie’s optimistic fairy tale like hope for a better future and the harsh realities of the ranch but he also served as the glue in the relationships with every character in a way that had me recalling William Hurt’s underrated, similarly all-encompassing role in Children of a Lesser God. While George is nowhere near as flashy or memorable as Lennie who holds our hearts for the entire running time, it’s ultimately George who serves as the contemplative stand-in for the audience as he’s the one we’re constantly judging throughout the movie.

Seeing the two great actors working together at the peak of their careers makes Of Mice and Men all the more precious and it’s this immediate bond the two share that wins us over from the start. This relationship is definitely heightened by Foote’s script which, under the guidance of Sinise who wanted to make his own Scarecrow like “buddy movie” (for lack of a better phrase), allows the two not only to shine but invites Steinbeck fans to look even deeper into the novella. And perhaps it's this more than anything that should be the true test of the success of adapting literature in whether or not it inspires us to go back to Steinbeck’s novella to compare and contrast while appreciating the similarities and differences of each instead of just choosing one over the other. In that regard and so many others, Sinise's Of Mice and Men is an overwhelming success.

Falling For Grace

Original Title:
East Broadway

Director:
Fay Ann Lee

As a child she was shunned from the cool cliques due to her fate as the self-described “nerdiest girl in PS 1” and unhappily saddled with the name Yip-Han as the first generation American-raised daughter of two South Chinese immigrants. Yet the young heroine of Falling For Grace begins to assert her independence firstly when she controls the checkbook as the only English speaker in her home and secondly when she discovers the lovely Grace Kelly on television.

Thus she reinvents herself to become something quite close to the Philadelphia socialite turned princess as an adult. Quickly we meet up with Yip-Han 2.0, now renamed Grace Tang (Fay Ann Lee) as she continues to dutifully look after her beloved parents with subzero refrigerators and cell phones they’re unable to use. Likewise, perhaps culling from her checkbook balancing childhood, she’s since become a successful investment banker in a top Wall Street firm where she and her best friend/coworker Janie (Margaret Cho) try to maneuver their way through the male dominated concrete jungle.

Still intrigued by high society in her Grace Kelly inspired quest, the perpetually Coke drinking and Dunkin’ Donuts eating adorable Grace crams for a cocktail party mixer to impress the well-to-do blue bloods and become a member on the Metropolitan Opera Junior Committee by having her good friend and cabbie quiz her on opera trivia.

However, any attempt to impress with musical knowledge is long forgotten when her name is overheard and our bubbly heroine is mistaken for well-known but illusive designer Grace Tang whose Manhattan boutique Shanghai Tang has become as coveted as Marc Jacobs to the very women with whom she’s hoping to get acquainted.

Caught up in their fawning and admiration, their mistake is never corrected at the party and before Grace’s mistaken identity can be rectified, she is later stopped on the street by one of the women’s fiancés she’d met during the mixer, Andrew Barrington Jr. (Gale Harold).

As the handsome New York golden boy, Andrew forgoes his parent’s wishes to live a life of class and privilege by trying to make a name for himself crusading on behalf of the mistreated sweat shop workers in Chinatown in his position in New York’s attorney general’s office. And upon seeing our heroine a second time, he takes an immediate interest in Grace and their tangible chemistry grows considerably as they become tentative friends before romance enters the equation.

While admittedly the film was creatively influenced by her love of romantic comedies such as The Truth About Cats and Dogs, Pretty Woman and Working Girl, theatre and television star Lee jokingly told Phoenix Film Festival audiences her initial inspiration was “lack of work." After she'd had great success starring in Broadway’s Miss Saigon before being relegated to roles such as maids and nurses in television, Lee ultimately decided that since nobody was writing for Asian American females, she would do so herself.

Referencing the recurring theme from the aforementioned comedies she enjoyed of “underdogs trying to find acceptance in a world where they don’t quite fit in,” Lee’s production notes continued by invoking Working Girl, noting, "There were simply no Asian Tess McGills in our cinematic catalogue that I can think of. So, when I decided to pen my first screenplay, I wanted to create the Asian 'Tess.'"

The film, which took four years to raise enough money to produce, went through numerous versions that originated with a first draft of the delightful and winning script penned by first time filmmaker and the film’s star Fay Ann Lee, which was written ten years earlier by Lee in a screenwriting class. Later, guided by her own instincts as well as those of her talented mentor Jim Taylor (Sideways), she rewrote more than seventy pages before final production.

Featuring a terrific performance by Christine Baranski as Andrew’s overbearing mother, which seems to provide further proof that Baranski has cornered the market in playing uptight WASPs married to men who tie sweaters around their necks, Lee's film is also strengthened by the rest of its stellar cast. In deciding to make the Asian family in the story as authentic as possible to try to bring something new to the romantic comedy format, Lee cast actors who all spoke the same dialect to heighten the familial intimacy.

While some critics have likened Falling For Grace to My Big Fat Greek Wedding and admittedly, it does at times feel like a predictable yet sunny hodgepodge of several romantic comedy plots, I greatly admired Lee’s choice in Grace to, unlike the family in Greek Wedding, honor her family by presenting audiences with one that undeniably loves and fights for one another as opposed to just dishing up one sitcom ready one-liner after another that makes fun of the family’s ethnicity instead of embracing it.

Lee’s affection for her characters definitely shines through and it’s the little details in their relationships and the terrific stars including Elizabeth Sung (as her mother), Clem Chug (as her father) and the charismatic Shanghai Kiss star Ken Leung as her brother that help move the plot along even though we ultimately know where it’s headed.

The type of feel-great romantic comedy we need this spring after months of dark plots filled with vengeance and blood, Falling For Grace, which opens soon in limited theatrical release here in Arizona at the renowned Camelview 5 Harkins Theatre, seems destined for word-of-mouth success as it’s the kind of movie you’ll immediately want to recommend to others. Perhaps more importantly, it's another fine example of women wearing numerous hats as directors, writers, producers and stars to bring their cinematically independent visions to life.

View from the Top

Director: Bruno Barrreto

Had it been made in the 1960’s, Brazilian director Bruno Barreto’s View from the Top would have made the perfect vehicle for either Doris Day or Sandra Dee. This mindlessly frothy bit of fluff centers on Academy Award winner Gwyneth Paltrow as Donna Jensen, a young woman from the southwest who, after getting dumped in a birthday card from boyfriend Marc Blucas decides she needs to make a drastic change in her life. Inspired by a book written by Sally Weston (Candice Bergen) that urges women to fulfill their dreams, Donna, who has never traveled in her life let alone set foot on an airplane applies for a position as a flight attendant on a thankless, seedy commuter flight with vinyl, suggestive uniforms that could double as stripper apparel. Content to start somewhere, she learns the ropes quickly and soon, along with her friends Sherry (a hilarious Kelly Preston) and Christine (Christina Applegate) applies for work at Sally Weston’s employer Royalty Airways.

Surviving off-the-wall training from Mike Myers who, as Leonard Maltin noted seemed as though he was playing a character from an entirely different film, the bright, optimistic Donna is disappointed to learn that instead of receiving an assignment on an international flight, she’s been stationed at their commuter hub in Cleveland. Although, as we learned from Tina Fey’s 30 Rock, the “Cleve” has some high points and in View they come in the form of adorable Mark Ruffalo, a law student who Donna inspires while dating. Eric Wald who completed View from the Top in his UCLA MFA screenwriting program owes much to the escapist works of Day and Dee from the past. However, instead of putting an edgy or satirical spin on the genre such as was done in Down With Love, Wald sets his film in modern times and although it’s refreshing to see such a hopeful and innocent work, View from the Top suffered the after-effects of 9/11 when Miramax, concerned that audiences wouldn’t want a carefree airline comedy pushed the release from its intended ’01 although back to ’03 when the re-cut version debuted to horrendous reviews. While the film would no doubt have benefited from a hipper style of humor such as found in the similar Romy & Michelle’s High School Reunion and you’re sure to forget it by the time you hit eject, View from the Top is harmless, feel-good fun.

21

Director:
Robert Luketic

Although I’m not one for gambling, blackjack is the type of game that can even make someone like me-- who earned her one and only grade of D in Math 90 and fulfilled her baccalaureate math requirement by knitting a scarf and writing a physics paper on string theory-- feel like a mathematical wizard. One only needs to count to 21 after all and if you can handle basic addition, you can play the game, but after hearing about the group of math geniuses from M.I.T. “Who Took Vegas for Millions” in the subtitle of Ben Mezrich’s nonfiction work Bringing Down the House, I realized that mastery of the game is best left to the experts and those who no doubt have never heard of math at the 90 level. While I didn’t have the opportunity to read Mezrich’s popular book, (caught up as I was in learning to knit), I received a crash course in the events in Hollywood's big screen adaptation called 21 directed by Robert Luketic.

The film stars up-and-coming talent Jim Sturgess (a.k.a. the dreamy lad from Across the Universe) as M.I.T. senior Ben Campbell who excels in his studies and extracurricular technology activities with his two best friends. Until he meets Professor Rosa (Kevin Spacey who also served as a producer on the film) Ben’s only experience with gambling is hoping for a long-shot full ride scholarship to cover the $300,000.00 price-tag of Harvard Medical School and feeling an attraction for his beautiful and far less socially awkward classmate Jill Taylor (Kate Bosworth). That all changes when he’s granted access to a group he mistakes for a math club as Rosa coaches his brightest students including Bosworth, Aaron Yoo, Liza Lapira, and Jacob Pitts in the legal yet morally gray and incessantly frowned upon skill of counting cards in blackjack to take advantage of the game’s weakness which is that it can be beaten by the chosen few prodigies with the skills and time.

Employing a system of gestures and innocuous words that double for the table's count when it heats up or cools down, the team travels to Las Vegas on weekends where the nerdy kids become high rollers in casinos, suites and nightclubs. Dividing itself in half, the group consists of those who play the minimum and signal (mostly the women who unquestioningly abide by Rosa’s sexism) and the two “big players,” including Pitts’ Fisher who has begun to grow an ego and the newest participant Ben who, after initially turning down the opportunity, lets his hormones do the talking when Taylor pays him a visit at his after school job where he’s been granted a promotion to $8.00 an hour.

Although Mezrich’s book took place in the 90’s, Luketic’s film which is loosely based on the source material in a script by Peter Steinfeld and Allan Loeb is set in present day where the hangers-on from the criminal traditions of old Vegas are finding themselves exceedingly pushed out by computer technology along with the sort of Disney World for adults that sin city has become. To this end, the film introduces Cole Williams, played by a fierce Laurence Fishburne as a security expert who uses his own card counting skill to catch scheming gamblers and finds his attention being drawn to the new casino wiz kid, Ben Campbell, playing under an assumed name who is beginning to find he’s changing with each successive win.

As scripted, the likable but bland Campbell is easily dominated by the more involving characters and I found myself wanting to know more about the females who play for a professor who tells Campbell “I don’t trust the girls." More specifically, in the case of Bosworth’s Taylor, her character's own heartbreaking experiences with the game were begging to be explored in greater detail, if only to inject a bit more emotion into this tale of logic driven, left brain geniuses.

While there are some major plot contrivances and dubious twists near the end of 21, it’s such a high energy and fascinating film which admirably makes intellect (instead of gambling) seductive that we’re willing to forgive a few instances of disbelief especially in the character of Spacey who seems a bit hard to believe, yet because it’s Spacey delivering these lines with crisp precision, we’re riveted all the way.

Bigger than the Sky

Director: Al Corley

According to Bigger than the Sky's wildly charming and popular star of Portland Community Theatre, Michael (John Corbett), rule number one for his profession is to “never tell anybody in the theatre anything you don’t want everybody else to know.”

Having been a part of the theatre world both as a student actor and later as an employee, it’s a lesson that kept repeating itself again and again as it seemed like everyone from the costume designers to the ticket sellers knew precisely what was happening in everyone’s private life, thanks largely in part to the countless hours actors spend in the theatre where gossip is tangible and relationships begin casually and end messily in love triangles and even infidelity.

The rule of never telling anyone in theatre anything was discovered by Peter Rooker (Marcus Thomas) much too late after the mild-mannered man whose girlfriend has left him and taken 95% of the furniture in their home with her, finds himself intrigued by the local theatre which is holding auditions for a production of Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac. Feeling stuck in his dead-end job with a condescending bully of a boss, Peter embarks on a depressing visit to the self-help section of his local bookstore where he's so drawn to the classic play that he impulsively goes to the open audition. After he begins feeling completely overshadowed by his scene with Michael, Peter is questioned about his life and reasons for auditioning off the bat by the unusual and inquisitive director Edwina (Clare Walters).

Later, shockingly cast as Cyrano thanks to his honesty, Peter finds himself overwhelmed by the theatrical process as he’s taken under the wing of Michael and also Michael’s beautiful on-again/off-again girlfriend Grace (Amy Smart) who, until finding herself the target of Peter’s affections, hadn’t considered taking part in her pact with Michael to have an open relationship.

Quickly and admittedly predictably, the film which was written by Three to Tango screenwriter Rodney Patrick Vaccaro begins to mirror Cyrano de Bergerac with Peter as the unlikely hero who falls for Roxanne (Smart’s Grace) from afar while knowing full well that Christian (Corbett’s Michael) is a far more better suited rival for her heart. With a whimsical and overly theatrical structure that at times makes it seem a bit like a fairy tale, Vaccaro’s script which he inexplicably felt was a straight comedy according to most critical reviews, is at its best when it’s being played as an homage to theatre by providing wonderful supporting roles for Sean Astin as the cocky actor Ken Zorbell, Astin’s mother Patty Duke in two quirky roles, and a lovely turn by Allan Corduner as Kippy, the unofficial godfather of the Portland Community Theatre.

The film gains much needed spirit and warmth from the charismatic turns by one of my favorite and most reliable scene stealers John Corbett and by Amy Smart who is becoming a promising actress to watch. However, despite a genuinely touching ending that reminds viewers just why we love theatre, one of the biggest problems of the film lies in the main character, which should be the opposite goal of any work purported to be a version of Cyrano. Although Peter is supposed to be a bland character, based on Marcus Thomas’ largely ineffective and vapid portrayal one can’t help but question if the fault came from the writing, direction or miscast actor, and this does greatly affect one's reaction to the film.

For two better modern updates of Cyrano, there’s no beating Steve Martin’s script and performance in Roxanne or the inventive reverse gender approach from writer Audrey Wells in The Truth About Cats and Dogs. Perhaps in a subtle attempt by the studio to make up for the dull main character, intriguingly yet sadly, the manipulative DVD box for the film focuses on the star quality of Corbett and Smart and provides renters with a summary that mistakenly leads one to believe that Corbett’s Michael is the lead, with virtually no reference to Thomas’ Peter Rooker.

Under the Same Moon

Foreign Title:
La Misma Luna
Director:
Patricia Riggen

Think of it as August Rush flavored neorealism in the wondrous crowd pleaser Under the Same Moon that, in its Sundance Film Festival premiere, received a standing ovation from the audience. Making her feature film debut, director Patricia Riggen, working from a script by “Go, Diego! Go!” writer Ligiah Villalobos follows Carlitos (Adrian Alonso), a young, precocious boy who, just after his ninth birthday decides to make the risky and increasingly dangerous illegal journey from Mexico to East Los Angeles on his own in order to reunite with his mother (Kate del Castillo). After a rocky start hiding in the vehicle driven by college students America Ferrera and Jesse Garcia, he soon makes the unlikely acquaintance of Enrique (Eugenio Derbez), who like the elderly woman in Salles’ Central Station, is a rough around the edges, grumpy sort who finds their heart melting around the adorable child.

While it’s the gifted young Alonso who captures the affection of the audience from the get-go, it’s ultimately Derbez who is the film’s most valuable asset, turning in a tough, convincing and layered performance that may have easily ventured over in the land of camp or as a one-note portrayal. The travels of Carlitos are intercut with the story of his struggling single mother Rosario, who, beautiful and hardworking, cleans houses for wealthy white employers to try and give her son a better life and has come to the crossroads of her life in trying to figure out if she should return home or make her citizenship legal by marrying the handsome and sensitive Paco (Gabriel Porras) who has long had a romantic interest in Rosario.

With plenty of dramatic heartbreak and missed connections along the way, Under the Same Moon, much like its tiny hero Carlitos, journeys onward to an emotional conclusion guaranteed to make even the most hardened viewer blink back a few tears. While there’s a definite political undercurrent to the topical tale of illegal immigration in Riggen’s film, it’s never heavy handed and takes the lofty stance of character driven plot to illuminate the struggle and even for those who may disagree with the border crossing, one cannot deny the relatable story of a child going to great lengths to reunite with a mother who in return has gone to great lengths to take care of her son.

Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who!

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Alternate Title: Horton Hears a Who!
Directors: Jimmy Hayward & Steve Martino

“I meant what I said, and I said what I meant. An elephant’s faithful one hundred percent,” so goes the famous quote from Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hatches the Egg that seems to be even more poignant when scripted for actor Jim Carrey as he lends his vocal talents to bring children’s literature’s best loved elephant to life in Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who! From the same studio who created the family films Ice Age and Robots, Blue Sky Studios of 20th Century Fox, directors Jimmy Hayward and Steve Martino craft not only the best adaptation of Dr. Seuss brought to screen thus far but also the best family film of 2008 as of this review.

For years, I’ve been wondering if I was simply growing too impatient with animated features, having found myself bored by critical smashes such as the overly long Pixar hits The Incredibles and Cars and struggling to stay awake during films such as Curious George and Bee Movie and although there’s been a few notable exceptions (Surf’s Up, Over the Hedge), I’ve found myself steering clear of animation. However, it wasn’t until I saw Horton Hears a Who that I fell back in love with the concept of bright, magical animated family films that manage to blend positive messages with high flying entertainment and quality humor that gave at least this viewer the same kind of amazing theatrical experience that I had while seeing Finding Nemo or the Toy Story films years earlier.

While on one hand, the film, like several animated works filled with A list stars for better or worse (which take jobs away from voice-over actors), has a boast worthy roster that comprise a comedic dream team in the form of not only Carrey but also Steve Carell, the legendary Carol Burnett, Seth Rogen, Will Arnett, Amy Poehler and Isla Fisher, I found myself forgetting the magnitude of the stars after only a few lines by each were uttered as admirably they began to ham less and instead preferably stick with telling the terrific tale.

For those who, like myself, barely remember the book, I’ll bring you up to speed—moments into the film we meet our unlikely elephant hero Horton who hears a noise coming from a tiny speck on a clover flower, only to discover that he’s listening to residents of the tiny universe Whoville or more accurately, the mayor of Whoville (Steve Carell). Eventually concluding that “a person’s a person, no matter how small,” Horton tries to save Whoville by bringing the flower to a place where it will be protected from outside forces such as the disbelieving kangaroo (Carol Burnett) who feels Horton is becoming a dangerous agitator that must be stopped and hires the Russian vulture Vlad (Will Arnett) to do just that.

Touching, beautifully animated, fast-paced (refreshingly just 88 minutes) and undeniably heroic, Horton Hears a Who is the type of film that will entertain adults just as much, if not more than children as I found myself laughing frequently throughout by the increasingly wild situations and characterizations by the cast.

Note: The book, which was published in 1954 sent some readers and journalists looking at Seuss’ work as a political allegory and in a fascinating sidebar “Who are the Whos?” by Entertainment Weekly’s Adam Markovitz (3/21/08, p42) chronicles three takes on the work, including the two likeliest which saw it as first a look at postwar Japan (which Seuss has admitted) and secondly as yet another 1950’s artistic offering that echoed the political climate of America during the devastating McCarthy hearings.

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The Real Dirt on Farmer John

Director: Taggart Siegel

Having received my baccalaureate degree at Prescott College, named the “greenest” school in the country by Time Magazine, I know firsthand that those of us who are interested in organic foods, recycling, alternatives to oil, and all things green are usually labeled hippies. However, in Farmer John Peterson’s case, it’s a hippie come full circle in documentarian Taggart Siegel’s film which chronicles the man from his beginnings as a true farmer heading up the ten year artistic commune experiment “The Midwest Coast” in Illinois to barely surviving the crushing loan crisis and vanishing of farms in the 70’s and 80’s up through current day which finds his farm the headquarters of “Angelic Organics” as Peterson works with over 12,000 families, provides shelter and work for persecuted refugees from foreign lands, and offers as he says a “beautiful reuniting of people with the source of their food.”

However, in this five time festival award winning documentary given a tremendous vote of confidence when Al Gore called it “unbelievably special,” Peterson, writing and narrating the film himself is neither a folk hero or an everyman, as we realize just moments into the film seeing him tasting his soil to check on the rich quality, donning feather boas and costumes of glitz and glamour to heighten his occupation which he considers theatrical. Lamenting the fact that in his rural community he’s not welcome because he’s “a little different,” Peterson shares the history of his life and the farm which has been in his family for generations over scenes of gorgeous family videos which begin in the 50’s when his mom Anna brought home a video camera. In addition, he candidly shares the tragedies of losing his father and also the loss of 328 acres of land during the tumultuous era of loans and President Reagan where housing communities flourished and concrete was “poured in the good land,” as one farmer stated while he and his neighbors began losing their possessions and legacy in auctions.

Peterson who wrote a successful play as catharsis about the experiences he and his neighbors lived through that he was unable to tour throughout the country since he was told that he seems like a flagrant homosexual in need of reprogramming despite a series of romantic relationships throughout his life with beautiful brunette women soon found himself the target of vicious rumors and most likely arson as neighbors began to call his peaceful artistic commune Satanic and spread tales of drug trafficking and animal sacrifices. Driven away from his home to his favorite retreat of Mexico, he decided to give farming a more serious second try in the early 90’s with a loan from his supportive mother and a decision to grow his crops organically which resulted in trials and tribulations including eighty to ninety hour work weeks.

A fascinating and arty portrait of the life of a most unforgettable farmer, The Real Dirt on Farmer John takes a little while to get viewers hooked but gets far more compelling as it goes on charting the struggles and successes in this “epic tale of a maverick Midwestern farmer,” to quote the DVD description. While in the words of Kermit the Frog, for hippies that garner raised eyebrows from the masses like John Peterson, “it’s not easy being green,” for those with an interest in learning where their food comes from, Farmer John’s dirt is a great place to start.

Young at Heart

Alternate Title:
Young @ Heart
Director:
Stephen Walker

As someone who has the song “London Calling” currently set as her cell phone ringtone, it only took a few bars of The Clash’s “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” to get my head and feet moving right from the start of the infectious documentary Young at Heart. Recalling that the last time I’d rocked out in a theatre was in the far less crowded press screening of Sweeney Todd where I doubt that any of the critics could have picked me out of a lineup, I self-consciously looked around the jam-packed theatre this time and saw that I wasn’t the only one going into concert mode—others were getting into the film, including a man in a wheelchair whose head was banging even harder than mine and an elderly woman who was moving her arms and dancing in her seat. While it can be argued that this is the most expected reaction to British punk of the 70’s and 80’s, it’s a far more surprising reaction when the entertainers performing it in the documentary are chorus members in their 70’s, 80’s and even 90’s. As a widow enunciates, “Darling, you’ve got to let me know,” we sense that she means it and thus begins former BBC documentarian Stephen Walker’s crowd pleasing film which earned him the Audience Award for Best International Feature at the Los Angeles Film Festival.

Little Miss Sunshine, Sideways and Juno film studio Fox Searchlight Pictures definitely has another smash on their hands and I sense that this will be another one of those people mover word-of-mouth documentary hits like March of the Penguins, Super Size Me, or Mad Hot Ballroom that get people not only recommending the film to their friends but coming back to experience it again. Funny, sharp and at times heartbreaking, narrator and director Stephen Walker introduces us to the Young at Heart chorus which started in 1982 as an act that performed vaudeville songs until someone performed Manfred Mann’s “Do Wah Diddy Diddy” and the rest was history. From The Clash (which one band member called Crash) to Radiohead, the Sex Pistols, and others, the Northampton, Massachusetts group led by their patient yet strict and supportive music director Bob Cilman has traveled across Europe to play for the King and Queen of Norway and performs regular sold out shows in their hometown as well as wherever they have a prospective audience such as the local prison. Though the health problems of the performers abound with some having survived numerous heart attacks, cancers, spinal conditions and other major setbacks along with the constant reality that losing members due to serious hospitalization and even death is a recurring struggle, the chorus carries on as Walker documents their two month preparation for a new concert. Although Sonic Youth’s “Schizophrenia” which prompted some Young at Heart members to shove earplugs and tissues into their ears seems like it will be the toughest one to master for the members, who mostly prefer classical, showtunes and opera, Cilman gives them their trickiest challenge yet with the rousing toe-tapping, hand-clapping Allen Toussaint number “Yes We Can Can” which uses the word “can” 71 daunting times.

Documenting his “twenty-four new grandparents” every step of the way from their home lives to car rides with questionable driving to the rehearsal hall where some fall asleep during the now required three practices per week, Walker’s compelling film is quietly moving and when we lose two members late into the picture unspeakably sad, yet it’s a touching affirmation of life and dedication or as one member says determination to keep their mind active since they’ll lose it if they don’t use it. While their versions probably aren’t what James Brown or the Talking Heads had in mind when they first set pen to paper or pick to guitar, the clever interpretation by Cilman and his singers bring unexpected humor, warmth and new meaning to some of the compositions such as The Ramones’ “I Wanna Be Sedated,” David Bowie’s “Golden Years” or at their most heart-wrenching Coldplay’s “Fix You.”

It’s the beauty of the numbers and the clarity and quality of the voices that make audience members forgive some of the film’s shortcomings such as perhaps invading the privacy of one gravely ill member in particular a bit too much or not offering much in the way of background on the chorus, how the members are chosen, or much in the way of logistics instead preferring a natural, organic approach. Overall, it’s a remarkable achievement for the filmmaker of course, but more than that for Bob Cilman and the Young at Heart chorus.


Note: This review is dedicated in loving memory of my recently deceased Professor C.B. who was the first professor I ever had both when I took a kid’s college course at eleven and also when I officially enrolled five years later. C.B. managed to inspire everyone whose life he touched with his humor, passion, and humanitarian service. It was C.B.’s encouragement and support that inspired me to take my writing more seriously and I can still hear his Bostonian accent calling me “Jennifaux” and telling me to always keep writing and to never listen to anyone who tells me my sentences are too long. Thank you, C.B.

Drillbit Taylor

Director: Steven Brill

Although the screenplay is credited to writers Seth Rogen (Knocked Up) and Kristofor Brown, the story for the newest offering from producer Judd Apatow was also credited to Breakfast Club and Sixteen Candles writer/director John Hughes, who using the pseudonym of Edmond Dantes collaborated on this surprisingly cute offering from director Steven Brill. After having penned the three Mighty Ducks films before moving on to direct the uneven Adam Sandler comedies Little Nicky and Mr. Deeds, Brill does a great job of navigating Rogen and Brown’s alternately funny and heartfelt comedy about the horrors of high school that finds a trio of bullied kids looking to hire a bodyguard on the cheap to protect them from the daily beatings and humiliations they’ve come to expect in the hallways, bathrooms and grounds of their high school.

Eager to make an impression, adorably scrawny and insecure Wade (Nate Hartley) who struggles against his hyper masculine stepfather and brawny stepbrothers at home, decides that he wants nothing more than to be popular and obtain a girlfriend in his high school and he begins plotting out his proactive strategy with fellow geek Ryan (Troy Gentile), an overweight student with a passion for rap who has decided that he will go by the "lady-friendly" nickname of T-Dog. Unfortunately, the two make the spontaneously disastrous decision to wear the same shirt on the first day of school and after Wade intervenes in trying to stop two horrifying bullies from shoving young, small Emmit (David Dorfman) into a locker, they’ve not only inherited a new sidekick in Broadway t-shirt wearing Emmit (fond of Cats and Rent) but also in becoming the frequent targets of the merciless duo of villains that seem to allude the awareness of the clueless school faculty including their principal (Stephen Root). When desperation leads them to outsource protection, homeless army veteran and full time schemer Drillbit Taylor (Owen Wilson) arrives on the scene first with the intention of swindling the boys to earn enough cash to go to his desired destination of Canada who begins to realize he may be actually starting to care for the three lads, not to mention their gorgeous English teacher Lisa (Leslie Mann).

Although some of the dialogue and the violence near the end of the film felt a bit like overkill, I found myself surprised by the fact that I enjoyed the innocuous Taylor far more than I thought I would, despite being the first to admit that it falls into numerous films of the same underdog paradigm of most of the frat pack comedies of Will Ferrell and company over the last few years by Apatow but also the same Curly Sue, Home Alone and Ferris Bueller anti-authority works of the ever-talented Hughes as well. While the previews make the film appear that it’s Wilson’s show all the way and that the success of Drillbit Taylor depends solely on Wilson, similar to the way his films like You, Me and Dupree were marketed, the three young stars all manage to not only steal our hearts but also remind us of the dangers of high school and burden of bullies that overwhelmed us in our own educational career… that is, unless you were the ones doing the terrorizing.

I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With

Director:
Jeff Garlin

In order to get out of yet another physical education requirement in college, I halfheartedly signed up for the most convenient health class that would fit into my schedule. Enrolled in Foods and Nutrition, I found myself growing even hungrier day by day as our obsessive teacher railed against the perils of entrees overflowing with fat and sugar and like a preacher, going off on tangents including only one I still remember to this day which is her belief that in order to solve America’s obesity problem, we should find a way to stop emotionalizing food. From comfort food, to chocolates on Valentine’s Day, to cookies at Christmas, to countless dinners on first dates, she warned that as long as we made food a part of a bonding ritual to get closer to another person, we were going to grow larger. While on one hand, she may have had a point, on the other, despite the discomfort most of us feel about the nerve-racking first date dinner audition, she failed to recognize that not only is getting to know someone fun but in doing so, sometimes it’s nice to share food as well or as Curb Your Enthusiasm star Jeff Garlin put it in his newest film, sometimes we just want someone to eat cheese with.

Part Italian, I’m a cheese lover from way back whether it is cooked into dishes like ziti or piled onto pizza, the title instantly attracted me and after watching the entire movie, I can happily say that the charms of the entire film go way beyond its cute title. Previously known to me as Jeff, one of my favorite Curb characters who as Larry David’s agent/loyal sidekick has a laid back manner and willingness to go along with whatever ridiculous situation the two find themselves in, no questions asked, Garlin makes us forget that more scheming character within minutes of Cheese but keeps one important trait and that is his willingness to let others shine and go along with the given situation. Possibly indicative of his own background working on Second City, Garlin’s character James may be our main character but is consistently upstaged by the rest of the cast. However, he’s the heart of our film as, in an update of the classic Oscar winning Marty, to which Cheese makes several references, we follow the thirty-nine year old struggling actor who works on Second City while looking for his big break, living with his mother (Mina Kolb) and trying to meet a nice woman.

Overweight and frustrated, James is the type of character who would’ve driven my Nutrition professor nuts with his nightly ritual of going to the local mom and pop market to buy snacks filled with sugar and fat such as his beloved rice pudding from a shopkeeper who, like a bartender to an alcoholic, always wants to cut him off. Prone to leaving his Overeaters Anonymous meeting (of which he is the only male) during the final silent meditation and hanging around with his scene-stealing best friend Luca (David Pasquesi), things begin looking up for James when he meets the wacky, hot, ice cream server Beth (Sarah Silverman) who teases James with ice cream delights and a trip lingerie shopping as they embark on an awkward courtship. While Silverman’s Beth is arguably the most enticing yet maddeningly odd girl James has probably ever come into contact with, he also meets cute with Stella, a like-minded jazz fan and teacher (Bonnie Hunt), who may be better suited to the self-loathing James.

Far from having everything work out in a predictable manner, the freewheeling Cheese, although written by its star Garlin, feels refreshingly improvised and inspiringly natural in even the most ridiculous situations and not only will it make Garlin’s Curb fans look at him in a new light but it’s also great date fare for those of us who, like James are also looking for someone to eat cheese with. And as Larry David might say, that’s “pretty, pretty, pretty good” indeed.