Archive for September, 2001
84 – Rat Race
$2 million in cash. First one there gets to keep it all. No rules.
This movie’s most obvious ancestor is 1963′s It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, which was one of the earliest blockbuster, all-star-cast comedies. But it’s also inspired by the Cannonball Run movies and, of course, the Airplane! films, since it’s directed by Jerry Zucker, part of the nutty ZAZ team that brought us Airplane!, Hot Shots!, and Naked Gun!, to name three.
Eccentric casino owner Donald Sinclair (John Cleese) selects customers at random to meet him in his executive suite. He excitedly tells them all that he’s placed $2 million in a duffel bag in a storage locker in Silver Spring. He gives each team a key and tells them to go.
The teams include Nick Shaffer (Breckin Meyer), an up-and-coming nice-guy lawyer, and Tracey Faucet (Amy Smart), a helicopter pilot who joins Nick; Enrico Pollini (Rowan Atkinson), a narcoleptic Italian tourist; Vera Baker (Whoopi Goldberg) and Merrill Jennings, a recently reuinited mother and daughter; the Pear Family, headed by father Randy (Jon Lovitz) and mother Bev (Kathy Najimy); Duane and Blaine Cody (Seth Green and Vince Vieluf), two ne’er-do-well brothers; and Owen Pendelton (Cuba Gooding, Jr.), a disgraced NFL referee.
With many of these big-budget slapstick comedies, often there’s just a lot of slop with a few gems mixed in. But among the cast are some very talented comedic actors, and they’re given a wonderful script to work with. No, scratch that – these guys have FUN with this movie. And with a wacked mind like Zucker’s at the helm, you know you’re in for a treat.
There’s an encounter with an airborne cow. There’s a monster truck rally. There’s a busload of Lucille Ball impersonators – and they never break character! There’s an attack by a helicopter on an above-ground pool. There’s a Barbie museum – but it’s not the doll. And the pacing is like quicksilver, too. You’ve hardly caught your breath after one contestant’s experience when another one begins anew.
There aren’t any villains in this, except for Sinclair himself, and that means you can root for any of the teams to win. Happily, none of the actors takes the movie seriously, and that’s a huge asset. And while we don’t know any of the characters all that well, each has his or her own idiosyncrasies to build on. Atkinson’s narcoleptic will remind some viewers of Mr. Bean, who he played so well on British TV and on the big screen. He falls asleep in the hotel lobby, for crying out loud! How cool!
An engaging, gregarious cast and a crisp, drop-dead-hilarious script keep this movie moving gracefully. It’s a fine film for anyone, even the younger set.
Rat Race: 8
83 – The Family Man
Posted by frothy in Family Man on September 5, 2001
Hunker down, kiddies, it’s time for a two-hour schmaltz-a-thon. This movie not only tugs at your heartstrings, it rips the strings out and whips you with them. Subtlety ain’t this film’s strong suit.
Nicolas Cage plays a slick Wall Street powerbroker (the only kind in Hollywood, and probably real life as well) who has it all: money, money, money, and power. Jack Campbell’s lacking a family, but he doesn’t see that as a bad thing. He’s also driven, obsessed with improving the company he works for – he even schedules a “crisis meeting” on Christmas Day. This guy’s got balls, all right. He’s making loot hand over fist, and he’s probably on his way to an ulcer or a heart attack before he hits fifty.
On Christmas Eve, he gets a phone message from an ex-girlfriend (Tea Leoni). Years earlier, the two of them had made a decision crucial to their lives – he went to England to intern with a prestigious bank, and she went to one of the finest law schools in the country. This facilitated their breakup, but since Jack’s made out rather well in the interim, he pays the call little mind. Then that night, he stops by a convenience store to pick up some egg nog. An irate lottery player (the always reliable and watchable Don Cheadle) pulls a gun on the clerk behind the counter. Jack offers to buy the man’s lottery ticket in an effort to calm the situation, and even attempts to rehabilitate the hoodlum. “Cmon,” Jack tells him, “everyone needs something.” “What do you need?” Cash asks him. Jack considers the point, then replies there’s nothing he needs. “Ok,” says Cash, “but just remember, you got yourself into this.” Hmm.
The next morning, Jack wakes up in bed with the lovely, the delicious, the married-in-real-life-to-David Duchovny Tea Leoni. And he has two kids. And a dog. And whoa! This isn’t Jack’s life, is it? He doesn’t like kids! And here they come, bouncing on the bed he shares with Kate. It’s Christmas Day, after all. But Jack’s in shock. He panics, grabs the keys to their minivan (Hey! Where’s his Porsche?) and dashes off to the city. What’s going on?
Seems Cash is some kinda sorta angel or something (it’s never really explained), and he’s offering Jack a “glimpse” of what his life would have been like if he had stuck with Kate back in the day. Now, those of us who are of a certain age do wonder from time to time what life would have been like if different decisions had been made. Jack’s problem is that his wonderment is now his reality. And it’s most certainly not the reality he’s looking for! The Single Jack is a hedonist who recognizes only responsibilities to his job. The Married Jack pays more attention to his familial responsibilities.
So we have a general fish-out-of-water scenario. Jack knows he’s Single Jack, and naturally he has neither knowledge nor memory of life as Married Jack. He doesn’t know his friends, his in-laws, his co-workers (he works as a tire salesman!), nothing. He doesn’t even know where he lives! Ah yes, mad hijinks ensue. It’s like in that Jim Carrey movie The Truman Show – the audience is in on the joke, but the lead character has no idea. See Jack stumble over gettin’ jiggy with his wife! See him mumble greetings to friends he doesn’t know! See him stand with his mouth agape most of the time, trying in vain to absorb everything.
And, of course, see Jack wrap things up neatly. Too bad it’s a two-hour sojourn into schmaltz, though. The problem with the movie isn’t that it’s sentimental, it’s that it’s a preachy film, desperate to teach us that Marriage Is Good. And think about it – how many guys do you know are married to someone who looks like Tea Leoni (and is a nice person, too), who goes to work at a tire place with a song in their hearts, who has a loving family with two perfect kids? This life doesn’t exist, and damn this movie for making the married versus single issue seem so black and white. Single = bad, marriage = good.
The best sentimental films teach lessons with such subtlety that you don’t realize you’ve learned anything until well after the closing credits have rolled. The worst of these films takes a lesson that most people know anyway and proceeds to whack the living crap out of you with it. Ok, ok! I get it! Married life = good things. Got it, ok. And thankfully, Jack got it, too, or we’d still be watching this drivel.
The Family Man: 5
82 – American Pie 2
Posted by frothy in American Pie 2 on September 5, 2001
Raunch used to be so simple! You’d go see Porky’s, you knew you were gonna see some T&A. Oh, and maybe a small heartfelt lesson about how people are generally good, even those who are different from us, as long as we have the same goal of getting laid in mind. Those were such wonderful days!
Now, everyone’s more jaded, even (especially) the kids. You show a kid the shower scene from Porky’s, and he’ll love it, but I bet after the first few viewings it won’t be as much fun. Kids need something new all the time. Now, American Pie is an R-rated film, so at least the intended audience isn’t the teen crowd, exactly, but then neither was Porky’s (or any of its knock offs).
The cast from the original American Pie is reuinited. The time is now one year later, and the gang’s home from college for the summer. Jim (Jason Biggs) still has his sexual hang-ups. Remember Michelle (Alyson Hannigan), the band-camp girl? Jim went to the prom with her, and she didn’t talk to him after that. But don’t worry, she’s at band camp again and figures prominently in this movie. It seems Nadia, the exchange student whose escapades with Jim made the Internet, is back in the country and is ready to hook up with our hapless lead character. What to do! Jim still has no experience. The guys try to help him out by renting a lakeside cottage for the summer. Meanwhile, Stifler’s (Seann William Scott) still trying to hump everything in sight; Oz (Chris Klein) is remaining celibate while his girlfriend Jessica (Natasha Lyonne) is in France; Finch (Eddie Kaye Thomas) is still lusting after the legendary mother of Stifler, after their much-talked-about union at the party in the first movie; and Kevin (Thomas Ian Nicholas) is aching after his breakup with Vicky (Tara Reid). There have been no drastic character changes, either; everyone’s as you’d expect after a year of college. Which means, of course, that all the guys are hornier than a sex addict in a penny whorehouse. But that’s what drives raunch comedies – the testosterone of single-minded males.
As in real life, although the males in the movie have grown up, they still think like high school kids. (And someday this nubile cast will learn that that particular characteristic never really leaves the male of the species!) But while the theme of the movie is sex, sex, and sex, hidden under the layer of bombast and teenage oversexdrive is a theme of tenderness and fallibility. When kids graduate high school, they think they know it all. “Bring life on!” they chortle with glee. “We know it all!” But there’s a certain vulnerability that everyone feels at some point, and that’s the issue of sexual conduct for the first time. And here’s where American Pie 2 deviates from other raunch films. In those yesteryear movies, there was always tremendous pressure for one schlub to get lucky once and for all. I’m talking huge peer pressure! But in this movie, while all of Jim’s friends want him to get laid, they never, ever make him feel like he’s below average or beneath them because he’s not experienced what they have. And that, to me, makes this a very special movie – although, rest assured, it’s still as raunchy as the first one.
In addition, the ending is so unlike those earlier raunchfests that you actually sit there and admire the screenwriters for not, for once, pandering to the least common denominator.
But hold on! Don’t look at me like that! You’re thinking that if it has good intentions and good messages, how much fun could it really be? Trust me, if you enjoyed the pastry coitus in the first movie, you’ll get a kick out of Jim’s misadventures in this one, too. The writing is way above par for movies in this genre, and the cast is both lovely to look at more than capable in their deliveries and actions.
American Pie 2: 7
-
You are currently browsing the archives for September, 2001
People Had This to Say