Reel Thoughts: ABBA-cadabra!

If you don’t like ABBA, you have Australia to blame for their resurgent popularity. Would the Swedish pop group have had such a comeback without Toni Collette’s marriage-obsessed Muriel’s Wedding and the ABBA-riffic Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert? Why, even the Broadway posters for Mamma Mia! were a direct rip-off of Muriel's.

Of course, once it opened, Mamma Mia! became a worldwide sensation, easily one of the best “jukebox musicals” of all time. The reason it succeeds onstage, even in fickle Las Vegas where it has outlived about a half dozen other Broadway imports, is that the wafer-thin story is just framework enough to hang ABBA’s infectious hits. On the other hand, it doesn’t feel like a tired retread of what it’s celebrating, like All Shook Up did.

The film version is extremely exciting, mostly due to its all-star cast and spectacular Greek locations. Opened up and blown up on the big screen, some of what works on stage feels flat on film. The other problem is that now, you really get the chance to hear the lyrics, and it reminds you that English wasn’t really ABBA’s first language. No amount of song selling on Christine Baranski and Julie Walters’ parts will improve the inherent silliness of “Chiquitita”; and much as I adored Meryl Streep’s heartfelt rendition of “The Winner Takes It All”, after the fourth repetition of the same lyrics, you start to feel a little bad for her -- let the poor woman finish the song, already!

The story of Mamma Mia! takes place on a magically beautiful Greek Island where Donna (Streep) is running an inn and preparing for her daughter Sophie’s wedding. Sophie, played with charming sweetness by Amanda Seyfried, is determined to have her father give her away, despite never having met him or even knowing his name. Reading her Mom’s diary, she narrows it down to three men with whom Donna “dot, dot, dotted,” and Sophie invites them all to her wedding. Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth and Stellan Skarsgård play the prospective papas, while Baranski and Walters play Donna’s best friends and former back-up singers (when they were “Donna and the Dynamos”).

The film is set to every ABBA song you’ve ever heard, and a few you haven’t. Donna and Sophie bond while confronting the past, and everyone finds love in one way or another. My favorite thing about the film and show is the way it focuses on the middle-aged women and their supportive friendship. The music may not always be equal to the quality of the people singing it (especially Streep), but everyone is clearly having a ball, and you will, too.

UPDATE: Mamma Mia! is now available on DVD and Blu-rayfrom Amazon.com.

Review by Neil Cohen, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and Phoenix's Echo Magazine.

Men on Film: On the Other Hand, Death - A Donald Strachey Mystery

Today, we have a special double feature review for you today of On the Other Hand, Death, directed by Ron Oliver, premiering tonight on here! TV.

Reverend's Review by Rev. Chris Carpenter, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and the Orange County and Long Beach Blade:

After being subjected to hunky but straight private investigators on TV for decades (perhaps most notably Magnum, P.I.), we finally have our own, openly gay mystery-solver! His name is Donald Strachey, and he's played by hottie Chad Allen (currently on stage opposite Valerie Harper as Tallulah Bankhead in Pasadena Playhouse's Looped). Strachey's latest adventure, On the Other Hand, Death, debuts tonight on here!, American's premium gay television network.

This is actually the third filmed Donald Strachey mystery, after Third Man Out and Shock to the System. A fourth, Ice Blues, will premiere this fall. I haven't seen the previous movies and so was unfamiliar with the character, who is featured in a series of novels by Richard Lipez, under the pen name Richard Stevenson.

The plot of On the Other Hand, Death is pretty standard stuff for the genre: someone is terrorizing homeowners in an effort to get them to sell their lucrative property as part of a big-money scheme. Even Scooby-Doo has covered this territory. What is unique here isn't only that the investigator is openly, unapologetically gay (and is married to his partner, an amusingly buttoned-up New York State Senate staffer played by Sebastian Spence), but the victims are a lesbian couple.

Margot Kidder of Superman fame plays high school guidance counselor Dorothy, and Gabrielle Rose (a veteran of numerous TV series including The L Word and Eureka) plays her longtime companion, Edith. It's always great to see Kidder, although she makes some disappointingly stereotypical choices -- including wearing all-flannel and foregoing make-up -- in playing a "butch" lesbian woman. Rose gives the best, most nuanced performance in the film as a woman hiding a secret from the past.

Consistent with the genre, there are many suspects with secret pasts and motivations. One is a teenager struggling with his sexuality, although he serves more as an opportunity to plug a real-life GLBT organization, the Trevor Project, than as a significant plot device. The Trevor Project is mentioned repeatedly, as is Dorothy's mantra "We don't pick our fights; our fights pick us." As a result, they can't help but come across as heavy-handed.

Still, On the Other Hand, Death provides a great opportunity to snuggle on the sofa with your honey for 90 minutes and realize P.I.s on TV have come a long way since The Rockford Files.



Reel Thoughts by Neil Cohen, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and Phoenix's Echo Magazine:
Out actor Chad Allen probably never expected to be the here! network’s Jessica Fletcher, but then again, the kind of scrapes he gets into would never have happened on Murder, She Wrote. Allen plays Donald Strachey, a happily partnered private eye who upends stereotypes while solving crimes having to do with outing, ex-gay therapy, and now gay hate crimes and the challenges of GLBT teens, especially in conservative small towns.

Strachey’s husband, New York State Senate staffer Tim Callahan (Sebastian Spence), is contacted by an old flame who has returned to Albany to help his old high school counselor. Dorothy, played wonderfully by the wry Margot Kidder, and her terrified partner Edith (Gabrielle Rose) have been plagued by increasingly violent attacks on their farmhouse ever since Dorothy came out.

In addition, Dorothy finds herself having to defend herself from a vicious band of parents who don’t want her advising their children. The film does a nice job of publicizing the Trevor Project, a valuable resource for gay teens who are contemplating suicide. One of the possible suspects in the latest string of hate crimes may be the father of a boy who Dorothy was helping. As Donald delves deeper, however, he finds that some people may stop at nothing if it means putting money in their pocket, even murder.

Allen plays Strachey with a cool demeanor that makes him a great gay character. He’s completely trusting in his husband’s love and fidelity, even as Andrew, the old flame, seems to be stirring the pot romantically, playing them both against each other. Kidder has grown into such a warm, comfortably gruff older woman; she really makes Dorothy both a force to be reckoned with and a person you would want to protect.

The mystery has enough twists and surprises to keep you totally engaged, while the film feels like a rich, satisfying novel brought to life. If you don’t have here!, then watch for the film to come out on DVD later this year.

UPDATE: On the Other Hand, Death is now available on DVDfrom Amazon.com.

Reel Thoughts: Stuck You

If you’re looking for a creepy, affecting suspense movie and The Happening’s just not happening for you (with good reason), check out the tabloid-riffic film Stuck. Based on a real event that occurred in Fort Worth, Texas, Stuck tells the terrible tale of what happens when a basically good but weak-willed woman (Mena Suvari, in scary cornrows) hits a downtrodden homeless man (Stephen Rea of The Crying Game).

Over-the-top horror director Stuart Gordon (Re-Animator) follows the trend of David Cronenberg (Eastern Promises) and Wes Craven (Red Eye) in directing more mature projects, while still maintaining his wicked sense of humor.

Suvari plays Brandi, an ambitious working class nursing home attendant. Her nasty supervisor (played by Carolyn Purdy-Gordon, the director’s wife) dangles a promotion in front of her, but when Brandi drunkenly plows into a homeless man named Tom (Rea), she makes a horrible decision. Tom is stuck in her windshield, but rather than call an ambulance, Brandi leaves him in her garage to die, hoping to dispose of his body. Tom comes to, only to realize that he needs to free himself or be killed off.

Stuck’s lurid premise is elevated by its intelligent examination of the various conditions and events that shape each person. Brandi is not evil, but her self-preservation instinct is definitely out of whack. Tom, on the other hand, is the product of our sinking economy, a scary reminder that anyone can become homeless (but hopefully not wedged in some crazy girl’s windshield). Stuck is a well-paced suspense film with depth, disguised as an exploitation flick.

UPDATE: Stuck is now available on DVDfrom Amazon.com.

Review by Neil Cohen, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and Phoenix's Echo Magazine.

Reel Thoughts: It's M. Night Shyamalan's Happening and I'm Not Freaking Out

The best thing I can say about The Happening is that I never saw director M. Night Shyamalan in one of his increasingly obnoxious "performances" in his latest film. It’s a cautionary tale about an attack on the Northeast US of unknown origin. Is it a neurotoxin like Sarin gas launched by terrorists? Is it an isolated event in New York City? Or is it something more primal? Whatever the case, it seems to make people kill themselves. It’s an interesting premise, but like most of Shyamalan’s later work, it’s marred by bursts of pretentiousness, bad acting and irrational plotting.

The opening feels like a direct rip-off of the chilling first chapter of Stephen King’s novel Cell -- a peaceful morning in Central Park turns deadly. Mark Wahlberg is miscast as a sensitive high school science teacher who flees Philadelphia with his wife (Zooey Deschanel), friend (John Leguizamo), and his friend’s young daughter. As the attacks increase, the film plays like a low-wattage War of the Worlds, from which it borrows liberally.

To be fair, Shyamalan crafts some shocking and satisfyingly creepy scenes, including a gruesome discovery in Princeton, NJ (which feels lifted from The Sixth Sense), and the viewing of a cell phone video taken at the Philadelphia Zoo (which echoes a similar scene from Signs). The biggest reason The Happening fails is because, in this paranoid post-9/11, Inconvenient Truth-informed era, the response to this threat from people and the authorities is completely unrealistic. People would react as if a "dirty bomb" had been dropped, barricading themselves in large shelters and fleeing in panic, like in the films Cloverfield, I Am Legend, The Mist and the flawed-but-intense Right at Your Door, which were all much better at showing an unstoppable menace.

You have to wonder if Shyamalan even knows human beings -- his dialogue and the performances he draws from Wahlberg and Deschanel feel like something a vaguely humanoid alien would create with limited interaction with the race. The truly spooky sequences make me sad that the film’s not better. The Happening is better than Lady in the Water, but only in the same way that the Hindenburg disaster was better than the Titanic.

UPDATE: The Happening is now avaiable on DVDfrom Amazon.com.

Review by Neil Cohen, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and Phoenix's Echo Magazine.

Reel Thoughts: Missed It By That Much

Like a lot of films "based on TV shows", Get Smart can stand on its own as a spy spoof, but not so well as a remake of the original. While I loved Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway, they weren’t Agents 86 and 99, unless they reused the numbers at CONTROL.

Set in the present day, but acknowledging the original show by way of a display at the Smithsonian of Cold War-era artifacts, Get Smart is almost more like a Mission: Impossible parody with passing references to the Don Adams comedy. Carell’s Maxwell Smart is, well, smart, but also a crack analyst for CONTROL. Hathaway’s 99 is a butt-kicking super-agent who has no time for a klutz like Max. Of course, they end up paired together on a desperate mission to save the U.S. from nuclear attack.

James Caan shows up as a Southern doofus of a President not unlike Dubya, while other characters from the original show are re-imagined (Bill Murray, Bernie Koppel, Patrick Warburton, etc.). Duane “The Rock” Johnson is sexy and fun as superstud Agent 23, displaying some good comic timing. Alan Arkin is great as the Chief, but it’s really Carell’s show, and he’s pretty hilarious throughout.

The film drags a bit, but at least Terrance Stamp is on hand as an evil KAOS mastermind. His deadpan delivery is priceless. Get Smart is not the smartest comedy of the summer, but it’s a worthwhile distraction from the burning heat.

UPDATE: Get Smart is now available on DVDfrom Amazon.com.

Review by Neil Cohen, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and Phoenix's Echo Magazine.

Reel Thoughts: The Lady from Shanghai

Neil Cohen concludes his whirlwind visit to New York with a trip out to the Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor to take in a performance of the latest from a true gay icon:

Much like the fabulous production of The Lady in Question Bay Street produced last summer, Shanghai Moon promises to be a unique chance to see the sublime Charles Busch and Julie Halston in one of Busch’s best shows. Not only is it beautiful out on the tip of Long Island, but Busch’s take on a 30's melodrama, all about a fallen lady who comes under the spell of the mysterious Orient, is hilarious yet faithful to its cinematic sources. Shanghai Moon also features one of my favorite urban legends come to life about the dangers of ordering food for your dog in a Chinese restaurant.

You’ll have to hurry to catch this summer’s show (now playing through June 29), as Busch will be coming out west to star at the La Jolla Playhouse in the world premiere of his new show, The Third Story, in September.

For more pre-Tony fun, be sure to check out Playbill.com's two-part look at just how the show is put together, plus the two-part finale of the Cubby Bernstein YouTube saga, with special guest stars Patti LuPone and Cynthia Nixon.

Reel Thoughts: Musical Youth

As we continue our countdown to this Sunday's Tony Awards, Neil Cohen takes a look at last year's Best Musical:

Every decade needs its angry youth musical, it seems. Typified by Hair in the 70’s and Rent in the 90’s, the cast is usually made up of fresh young talent who don’t have much Broadway experience, and the music is very pop or rock oriented. Spring Awakening (at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre) is a worthy New Millennium successor, as it tackles themes like sexual awakening, adult oppression and indifference, suicide and peer pressure.

The score by Duncan Sheik is energizing and the cast is uniformly talented. I especially enjoyed seeing Christine Estabrook (Mrs. Huber on Desperate Housewives) playing the numerous adult women -- she is an excellent comedienne who knows how to change moods on a dime. Tony nominee Jonathan Groff will soon be starring in Hair, but owns his role as the sensitive bad boy Melchior. His co-star Blake Bashoff (who inherited the Lyle Lovett hair, seen in the ads, from now departed Tony winner John Gallagher Jr.) shows up the musical’s main shortcoming. Namely, you never quite buy him as a real person, so his fate is strangely unmoving.

Based on the late nineteenth century play by Frank Wedekind, Spring Awakening tells the stories of a number of German students who discover their budding sexuality (and homosexuality in one case), but are destined to have their desires beaten out of them by uncaring adults. Songs like “Mama Who Bore Me”, “The Bitch of Living” and the self-explanatory “Totally F*cked” give voice to the teenagers protesting their unfair world. Is it telling that I much preferred Cry-Baby’s witty lyrics and rockabilly exuberance to Spring Awakening’s non-stop teen angst?

As a Spring treat, here's the original Awakening cast performing on last year's Tony Awards. This year's Tony Awards will be broadcast live from Radio City Music Hall this Sunday on CBS. Whoopi Goldberg will host, and scheduled presenters include Alec Baldwin, Gabriel Byrne, Kristin Chenoweth, Glenn Close, Harry Connick Jr., Laurence Fishburne, Richard Griffiths, Laura Linney, John Lithgow, Liza Minnelli, Mary-Louise Parker, Mandy Patinkin, David Hyde Pierce, Daniel Radcliffe, Brooke Shields, Marisa Tomei, Lily Tomlin and John Waters.

Reel Thoughts: Harvey's Affair

Neil Cohen reports on the latest from the Great White Way as we continue our countdown to this Sunday's Tony Awards:

Even factoring in nostalgia for a simpler time, the plot of A Catered Affair (now playing at the Walter Kerr Theatre) doesn’t cry out for a musical version. Eager to impress others, Aggie, an otherwise loving mother (Faith Prince), wants to give her daughter a huge wedding, no matter what the financial and emotional cost. Harvey Fierstein wrote the book and a juicy role for himself as gay Uncle Winston, but his Torch Song Trilogy-worthy reaction to being excluded from the big day is totally anachronistic for a homosexual in the 50’s. Tom Wopat is honest and moving as Aggie’s beaten-down husband; Prince is touching in a rare serious role, making you care about her rather than judge her actions. The music and lyrics flow melodically and smoothly, but are utterly plain and unmemorable. Still, any reason to see Mr. Fierstein should not be missed.

Prince and Wopat are both Tony nominated for their performances in Affair, and Prince will perform a song ("Vision") on the Tonycast this Sunday. Usually, only the nominated musicals and revivals get a moment in the nationally televised spotlight, but in a break from tradition, this show and two others (The Little Mermaid and Young Frankenstein) will be featured. Sierra Boggess will perform Mermaid's signature tune, "Part of Your World", while Megan Mullally will sing "Deep Love", her paean to monstrous genitalia from Young Frankenstein.

And speaking of Young Frank, that mostly-Tony-snubbed tuner: Broadway scuttlebutt has it that the show is hurting for cash and, as a cost-cutting measure, is slashing all the lead actors' salaries in half. I guess those $450 seats aren't selling so well, are they Mel?

Reel Thoughts: November Reign

Our Neil Cohen, freshly returned from NYC, continues our countdown to the Tony Awards this Sunday with another review of what's new on Broadway:

Written by David Mamet and starring Nathan Lane, November (currently at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre through July 13) features a lot of creative profanity and a Tony-nominated turn by Laurie Metcalf (Roseanne). Lane plays a lame duck president who has never met a scandal he couldn’t get involved in; it’s almost election time, and he’s also called upon to choose the White House turkey to pardon, when gay marriage rears its timely head.

Absolutely hilarious and utterly forgettable, November is Mamet-lite, and a star turn for master comedian Lane (even if he was rude to my niece when she asked for his autograph!). Metcalf, as Lane’s lesbian speechwriter, also gets to shine, especially in her wedding whites.

In related news: in addition to performances by the nominated musicals and revivals, this Sunday's Tony Awards telecast will also feature special salutes to the long-running musicals Rent and The Lion King; the former honoring its closing this fall, the latter celebrating its tenth year on Broadway. (How is this related to November? Well, you do remember who played the meerkat in the Lion King movie?)

Reel Thoughts: Broadway Baby

Our Neil Cohen recently paid a visit to the Big Apple, and he naturally took time to take in some theatah ... so, to count down to the Tony Awards next Sunday, here is his first of five reviews of some of the current offerings on the Great White Way and beyond:

Any show that wheels a boy in an iron lung across the stage during “The Anti-Polio Picnic”, waving an American flag and shouting “I sure wish I’d gotten that vaccine!”, has both the earmarks of a John Waters movie and my undying love! Cry-Baby (currently playing at the Marriott Marquis Theatre) may not have Johnny Depp, but it has hands-down the hottest dancers doing the best choreography I can remember. Listen to the Tony voters, who nominated it for Best Musical, and get ready to have a great time.

The show has changed a little since I saw its debut in La Jolla last year, with the addition of a couple of songs in place of others, but I didn’t really notice. James Snyder is fine in the title role, a rockabilly heartthrob with a soft spot for good girl Allison Vernon-Williams (Elizabeth Stanley). In a town without pity like Baltimore circa 1954, however, this boy getting this girl is going to take a lot of work. The marvelous Harriet Harris (Desperate Housewives) plays Allison’s disapproving grandmother, and she brings down the house with her confessional number “I Did Something Wrong … Once”, while Alli Mauzey, as Cry-Baby’s crazy stalker Lenora, truly owns the show when she lets loose with Waters’ favorite number, “Screw Loose”; it’s like “Patsy Cline Goes Psycho”, and I can’t wait for the cast album to hear it again.

Allison’s “Squeaky Clean” boyfriend Baldwin is played to perfection by blond cutie Christopher J. Hanke. The bravura second act jailhouse number “A Little Upset” is a high-octane, hyper-masculine treat, complete with convicts tap-dancing with license plates for shoes! The rest of the cast, bad girl Mona, Dupree, Hatchet-Face and the Whiffles are perfect, but it is those amazing, often shirtless dancers who’ll make you cry for more! It’s the Drapes versus the Squares ... and we’re the winners with Cry-Baby!

In related news, the Cry-Baby dancers will be on view at the Tony Awards this Sunday doing their show-stopping "A Little Upset" production number, while "Fanadus" everywhere will rejoice as Cheyenne Jackson takes center stage to belt out "Don't Walk Away" from Xanadu.

Reel Thoughts: From Russia With Love

It was really nice of Steven Spielberg to provide me with my next Halloween costume! Cate Blanchett as Dr. Irina Spalko, in a gray jumpsuit and sleek black bob, is ready-made for drag impersonation, even without her "moose and squvirrel" Natasha accent! She’s just one reason to love the latest Indiana Jones chapter, but not the only one. Harrison Ford is virtually resuscitated as an actor by donning the fedora and whip, and I can just hear fiancée Calista Flockhart saying, "Honey, bring HIM to bed with you tonight!" Ford’s having a ball, and it’s great to see.

The story of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull will not surprise anyone who grew up watching those cheesy "documentaries" like Chariot of the Gods?, which is emblematic of its not-very-challenging reach. Set in 1957, the film finds Indy an older but not much wiser professor who gets caught up in Commie hysteria when he is kidnapped by Russians and taken to Area 51 to help them steal a crystal skull with psychic properties. Blanchett’s Dr. Spalko is a fabulous but underdeveloped expert in mind control, and she is convinced that the skull holds the secret to a new level of warfare. Jones is also called upon to save an old friend by a young greaser named Mutt, played by it-boy Shia LaBeouf. The single-minded story takes them to South America where they seek out the fabled city of El Dorado and also Mutt’s missing mother, who ends up being a familiar face.

Crystal Skull is a fairly entertaining chapter in the saga, with funny and exciting action sequences, but like its star, it doesn’t strain itself too much. It’s great to see the old faces and achieve some closure to certain characters, but if you’re hoping for some unforgettable images like melting Nazis, pulsing hearts ripped from chests, or even a little Cole Porter crooned in Mandarin Chinese, you’ll be disappointed. The ending is a letdown, given the dramatic climaxes of the previous films, and Spielberg messes up by not using Blanchett and her character’s "powers" more. Still, it does have a warm, cozy coda that serves as a nice final image to the saga, and guess what, not an Ewok in sight!

UPDATE: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is now available on DVDfrom Amazon.com.

Review by Neil Cohen, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and Phoenix's Echo Magazine.

Reel Thoughts Interview: That "Garcia" Guy

Little Somerton, Arizona, a dusty town not far from Yuma and the Mexican border, played host to a favorite daughter filming a very personal story, How the Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer. Much like Falling for Grace and Bonneville, Georgina Garcia Reidel’s film is an independent labor of love with some impressive star power. America Ferrera, Elizabeth Peña and Steven Bauer, along with the enchanting Lucy Gallardo, all bring to life the story of three generations of women searching for love and sex in a small town where nothing happens.

It’s a quiet, languidly paced character study where the heat, longing, and desire for something more are palpable. Bauer, the Cuban-born actor best known for sizzling performances in Scarface and Thief of Hearts, plays Victor Reyes, the comically macho town lothario and video store owner. He catches the eye of lonely mother (and butcher shop owner) Peña, at the same time as her mother (Gallardo) is striking up a friendship with benefits (free driving lessons) with her gardener, and her daughter (Ferrera) is exploring her sexuality with the new bad boy in town.

Bauer is a true contradiction to his swaggering action star persona. The grandson of a German concert violinist (who escaped the Holocaust) and an opera singer, and whose parents fled Cuba as Castro took over, Bauer is a talented musician who is constantly playing guitar or singing when not acting. He loved working on Garcia Girls and can’t say enough great things about the experience of making the film, the people in Somerton he met, and his excitement that Reidel’s film is finally getting distribution and recognition, three years after it garnered a Grand Jury Award nomination at the Sundance Film Festival.

"For some reason, I have a real affinity for the desert and I just loved that small town feel in Somerton and Yuma," Bauer explained. I was able to speak to him right before he left for the International Women’s Film Festival in his hometown of Miami to show the film.

NC: How was it being this huge burst of testosterone among all those women?
SB: Well, that was fun, that was really fun. Needless to say, I was flattered and honored to be chosen by Georgina for that part, and I just had to try to be humble (laughing), just try to retain some humility and not get too carried away there. It really was a great time, and all of the actors were really into the piece. We were all supporting Georgina in her first feature. I’m just so excited that it finally got distribution. It’s been an uphill battle for her. I don’t know if America’s burst of stardom had anything to do with it …

NC: What did you base Victor’s swaggering machismo on?
SB: Oh, gosh. You know, I’ve known guys like that. I’m always observing types, especially men, and the different form and variety of game that men have in dealing with the opposite sex. God, this is a particular type, because he’s a married man who’s not giving up his day job (laughing), he’s the married guy who still wants to be in high school and is just trying to put as many notches on his gun as possible. And he’s got a way of doing it, because obviously he has a radar for the ones who are vulnerable. It’s a social comedy so it’s not written quite that cruelly, but he’s not the nicest person in the world. I tried to play him with some humor. I did approach it, the arrogance, that he considers himself one-of-a-kind, so unique that "no one can resist me". I thought that would be kind of funny without playing the character too clownish or too much of a stereotype. I tried to be a little subtle with it.

NC: Yeah, your body language was so great.
SB: Oh good, you picked up on that. I liked the way the scenes were cut. And of course, Elizabeth and I had great chemistry together. Every time they yelled "Cut!", everybody was laughing. We’re playing it seriously and I’m swaggering, and the director is cracking up. She was going, "Oh my god, you’re so sleazy! You’re such a creep! You’re such a creep!" I had to tell them to stop making me laugh. It was really fun doing it!

NC: Your pictures from Sundance show you with this big warm smile, but your characters are usually these tough military types. Which one’s closer to you?
SB: (Laughing) I’m that warm person. That’s me. I was raised in a very loving family, so when I came to Hollywood, it was quite a culture shock for me. I really had to learn the way of the world quickly.

How the Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer opens today in limited release.

UPDATE: How the Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer is now avaiable on DVDfrom Amazon.com.

Interview by Neil Cohen, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and Phoenix's Echo Magazine.

Reel Thoughts: Mother Issues

Helen Hunt (who also co-wrote, produced and directed) stars in Then She Found Me as April, a New York schoolteacher who all at once loses her husband (he runs back to his mother) and adoptive mother, and is confronted by the birth mother she never knew she wanted to meet.

Bernice Graves (Bette Midler) is a loud, overbearing local talk show host who claims that Steve McQueen and she were April’s birth parents. April’s brother (Ben Shenkman from Angels in America) tells her to be careful, and she also finds herself in a lovely relationship with a pupil’s father (Colin Firth). To say all doesn’t go as planned is an understatement.

Hunt is very endearing and she guides her cast well through novelist Elinor Lipman’s comic but serious twists and turns. Midler is a welcome burst of energy as the woman who could either be April’s "fairy godmother or wicked witch". Matthew Broderick plays a variation of his slimy boss character in You Can Count on Me, which Then She Found Me resembles in tone. It’s a sweet and unassuming film with rich characters you’ll want to seek out and find.

UPDATE: Then She Found Me is now available on DVDfrom Amazon.com.

Review by Neil Cohen, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and Phoenix's Echo Magazine.

Reel Thoughts: School Daze

It’s a sad comment when a serious-minded film harkens back to last year’s horrible Sandra Bullock stink bomb, Premonition, but The Life Before Her Eyes does just that. Despite stellar performances from everyone in the cast, confident direction by Vadim Perelman, and beautiful cinematography, Life (in theaters now) is a long lead-up to a colossal cheat that utterly ruins all that came before it.

Evan Rachel Wood and Uma Thurman both play Diana, a high school girl who survived a horrifying school shooting and, fifteen years later, must deal with the guilt of having lived when others died. Wood and Eva Amurri (Susan Sarandon’s daughter) are wonderful as polar opposites -- the bad slutty girl and the good Christian girl -- and their friendship grounds the film for most of its length. Thurman is given the harder role of playing a shell-shocked mother trying to make it past the worst kind of anniversary. Despite having the life she always wanted, with a handsome older husband and adorable child, Diana can’t forget that she heard the school shooter say he was coming to school with a gun ... and didn’t say anything.

I was thoroughly engrossed in the story’s ruminations on the choices we make and how people change from their "young and wild" days, but only when I thought it was leading to a satisfying ending. Unfortunately, Perelman rewards your attentiveness with a slap to your face, one that starts to sting more the longer you reflect on what it does to the mystery you invested so much time in unraveling. I’m also bothered by the fact that we know what Thurman looked like at Wood’s age, and the latter actress would not have grown into the former.

Perelman’s The House of Sand and Fog was a much better film, and this one certainly looks gorgeous, but coming on the heels of the Virginia Tech and Columbine shooting anniversaries, The Life Before Her Eyes is more like The Tacky House of Smoke and Mirrors.

UPDATE: The Life Before Her Eyes is now available on DVDfrom Amazon.com.

Review by Neil Cohen, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and Phoenix's Echo Magazine.

Reel Thoughts: Marshall Thrillin'

The Judd Apatow comedy express hit a pothole with Owen Wilson’s Drillbit Taylor, but happily, it’s right back on its filthy, hilarious way with Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

Written by and starring Jason Segal, the movie tells the sad sack story of musician Peter Bretter, whose entire life revolves around his TV star girlfriend, Sarah Marshall (the gorgeous Kristen Bell). When Sarah dumps him for vacuous British rock star Aldous Snow (Russell Brand, in a scene-stealing performance), Peter is inconsolable. Adding to his misery is the fact that he’s still the "composer" for her hilariously lame crime drama. After hitting rock bottom in the dating world, Peter decides to go to Hawaii, only to find that Sarah and Aldous are staying at the same resort. Luckily, at the front desk he meets Rachel (Mila Kunis, miles ahead of her That 70’s Show persona), who is funny, beautiful, down-to-earth and best of all, able to comp him a mega-expensive suite to preserve his dignity.

What follows is the film that Ben Stiller's The Heartbreak Kid should have been, with Peter subjected to all sorts of humiliations on his way to true love (and a Dracula musical starring puppets … don’t ask!), filled with an endless supply of hilarious supporting actors like Jack Brayer (30 Rock), Bill Hader (SNL and Superbad) and especially Paul Rudd. Perhaps they could have ended the parade before adding Jonah Hill, who is wearing out his welcome faster than Jack Black and Carrot Top combined, but that’s just quibbling.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall is sharp, surprising, and not afraid to cross "man comedy" boundaries, including an entire break-up scene played with Segal in the nude. Suffice it to say, Segal doesn’t have to worry about shrinkage, even if he’s a shower and not a grower. A lesser man definitely would have shied away from doing the "full monty" (perhaps Segal was just doing a tribute to Julianne Moore’s "carpet matches the drapes" scene in Short Cuts). The film could use tighter editing, but when you’re laughing this hard, who cares? You won’t be forgetting Sarah Marshall anytime soon!

UPDATE: Forgetting Sarah Marshall is now available on DVDfrom Amazon.com.

Review by Neil Cohen, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and Phoenix's Echo Magazine.

Introducing: Our Own Men on Film

I am thrilled to announce the addition of two new contributors to these here parts, both of whom will be bringing you their views and reviews of all the latest and greatest on film and DVD right here at Movie Dearest:

• Reverend's Reviews by Chris Carpenter: Chris currently writes about film and spirituality for the Orange County and Long Beach Blade. Prior to that, he served as film and theatre critic for The Catholic Sun in Phoenix, Arizona for nine years. Chris is an ordained Catholic priest and author of the book Father’s Flicks.
• Reel Thoughts by Neil Cohen: Neil has been the film and stage critic for Phoenix's Echo Magazine for the past fourteen years. Previously, he and a certain someone (yours truly) contributed to the late lamented Phoenix Resource magazine. In his spare time, he is an extremely talented actor, playwright and Shiba Inu owner.

Both Chris and Neil have been dear friends of mine for many a moon, and I am very excited and proud to share their wit and wisdom with you all.