Mr. 3000
REVIEWED 09/04, © STEPHEN BOURNE
www.ofrb.gov.on.ca | www.rcq.gouv.qc.ca


REVIEW:

Nine years after the Milwaukee Brewers major league baseball club's infamously bombastic powerhouse batter Sam Ross (Emmy-winning comedian Bernie Mac; 'Mo' Money' (1992), 'Bad Santa' (2003)) finds out that three of the three thousand hits that he's since based his reputation and entrepreneurial retirement on were mistakenly counted twice, this forty-seven year-old laces up for spring training and returns to the game - much to the chagrin of this year's players, its quietly surly longtime coach Gus Panas (Paul Sorvino), and many of its dwindling local fans - in order to win back his legacy and secure his prized standing at Cooperstown, New York in the National Baseball Hall of Fame alongside such greats as Babe Ruth and Jackie Robinson, under a flurry of skeptical media scrutiny in this surprisingly worthwhile comedy from director Charles Stone III.

Unlike 'Mr. Baseball' (1992) or 'Major League' (1989), this evenly paced tale of redemption marvelously succeeds in being more than merely a clichéd one-joke offering or an updated retooling of 'The Bad News Bears' (1976), as Mac works at giving a paying audience a fully interesting, oftentimes hilarious, complex human character stepping back in to his former life of glory but from a slightly more mature standpoint. You see this outwardly brash egocentric's mindset slowly change; as he realizes the error of his former ways through seeing the similar grand standing of young hitter T-Rex Pennibaker (Brian J. White; 'Me and Mrs. Jones' (2001), 'The Movie Hero' (2003)) and understands his true feelings for former girlfriend, ESPN reporter Maureen Simmons (Oscar-nominated Angela Bassett; 'Malcolm X' (1992), 'Masked and Anonymous' (2003)), on this last pitch for a second chance at greatness. 'Mr. 3000' is definitely the type of movie that stands firmly on the notion that the journey is far more captivating than the (in this case) unexpected results, and that's what makes this hundred and thirteen-minute screening such a far superior piece of pure entertainment from beginning to closing credits. Not in the hopeful yet melancholic way that 'The Natural' (1984) is, or even in how 'Bull Durham' (1988) relentlessly pokes fun at the game's roster of assorted oddballs. Sam Ross is clearly a guy whose Legend in his Own Mind attitude makes you love to hate him at first, until you quickly see him systematically reclaim his childhood love for the game and his determination to make things right - in his own street savvy but awkwardly funny way. Sure, there were moments when I felt as though I should have brought along a reference copy of noted father of American Baseball, Alexander J. Cartwright's (1820-1892), 1845 Knickerbocker Rules and its subsequent changes, but the game's somewhat esoteric technicalities don't really get in the way of thoroughly enjoying this runaway hit. It's also great to see a lot of cameos from recognizable commentators, including a couple of wonderfully self-effacing moments featuring Tom Arnold.

Check out this thoroughly entertaining, irreverent sports comedy for a lot more than pinch-hit drama and locker room laughs. Good stuff.

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Mean Creek
REVIEWED 09/04, © STEPHEN BOURNE
www.ofrb.gov.on.ca | www.rcq.gouv.qc.ca


REVIEW:

"I'm a man who likes to follow through with what he's started." Those words hang like daggers over socially awkward, school playground bully George Tooney (Josh Peck; 'Snow Day' (2000); 'Spun' (2002)) in the small boat that he's been unsuspectedly tricked into by his recent victim Sam's (Rory Culkin; 'You Can Count on Me' (2000), 'Signs' (2002)) big brother Rocky (Trevor Morgan), as they and three others paddle down a lone stretch of an Oregon river towards George's awaiting fate. See, Tooney's been the bane of a lot of kids' lives over the years, and this Saturday-long faked birthday trip has been planned out by Rocky and his outcast buddy Marty (Scott Mechlowicz; 'Neverland' (2003), 'Eurotrip' (2004)) in revenge for mercilessly beating on Sam for innocently touching George's video camera one day. Marty's the man who likes to follow through - even after the rest of these conspirators change their minds, despite Tooney's relentlessly annoying behavior on board - but even he's capitulated to Sam's uneasy decision to call it off, before this fairly harmless schemed prank of childish humiliation suddenly goes terribly wrong during a heated argument while they're anchored above the churning under currents that serve to change all of their lives forever.

In talking about his inspiration for this fairly dour independent offering, first time writer/director Jacob Aaron Estes explained that he was interested in turning the subject matter inside out by examining bullies as three dimensional characters. In that respect, this surprisingly drawn out eighty-nine minuter does vaguely give a paying audience measured glimpses into the mindset of not only the obvious tormentor George, but of Marty's simmering need to constantly intimidate everyone around him, as well as supply slight insight into the lives of their victims. Unfortunately, Estes' examination doesn't really go deep enough to warrant any kind of sustaining interest. Leaving you sitting in the dark, patiently waiting for the horrible deed at hand to happen so that this picture can get to its eventual point. As it stands, the point ends up being a fairly pedantic character study of these teens and children as they individually deal with what has happened on that secluded bend of water while the entire structure falls apart at the seams. In a somewhat familiar way that 'The River's Edge' (1986) dealt with the same traumatizing theme, actually. However, these young actors aren't given much of anything to work with here as this story grinds to an agonizing halt long before the closing credits. No recognizable reasons are actually given to care about these kids in the first place, beyond whatever screen presence they've brought. Sure, there are a couple of good lines and a handful of scenes that spark interest, before all of those potentials for a far more captivating effort over-all are summarily tossed overboard by what appear to be less capable hands. As though this director was merely going on his assumptions about what seeing somebody die might be like and how that could effect those unintentionally involved, instead of working harder at giving these actors something serious and meaningful to filter into the camera lens. It feels unfinished. 'Mean Creek' simply isn't a convincing enough presentation of this gritty and ugly topic, irrevocably diminished by mediocre performances by an otherwise talented troupe.

I'm avoiding calling it an unequivocal turkey, but this unnecessarily boring cinematic endeavor is seriously undercooked and definitely could have benefited from a few more carefully researched pre-production rewrites.

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The Motorcycle Diaries
REVIEWED 10/04, © STEPHEN BOURNE
www.ofrb.gov.on.ca | www.rcq.gouv.qc.ca


REVIEW:

Long before Argentina-born medical school student Ernesto Guevara Lynch de la Serna (1928-1967) fled his dire political dabblings and unfulfilling jobs as a physician and travelogue writer in Guatemala for Mexico - where eventually meeting fellow exile Fidel Castro would plunge him into Guerrilla wars in Cuba, the Congo and Bolivia as the famed Ché Guevara - Ernesto (Gael García Bernal; 'Y tu mamá también' (2001), 'El Crimen del padre Amaro' (2002)) and old friend Alberto Granado (Rodrigo De la Serna; 'Nueces para el amor' (2000), 'Gallito Ciego' (2001)) joyfully straddled Granado's less than trusty 1939 Norton 500 motorcycle - christened 'The Mighty One' - and headed off on an eight thousand kilometre journey through Northwestern South America that would unceremoniously open their young eyes to the prevailing injustices of their time. Much to their chagrin, their planned four-month two-wheeled trek through Chile, Peru, Colombia and Venezuela ends up lasting over a year, from January 1951 to February 1952, and fills them with some larger than life anecdotes as supplies and cash quickly run out and they're left to mainly rely on Alberto's natural ability to tell tall tales in order to keep them alive and relatively out of too much trouble, finally beginning a three-week voluntary internship at San Pablo's secluded riverbank Leper Colony where Ernesto celebrates his twenty-fourth birthday, before parting ways in Caracas.

Well, regardless of what you may or may not feel about Ché almost forty years after summary execution at the hands of a Bolivian firing squad launched his name into the annals of contemporary Marxist martyrdom for some and a sustaining Capitalistic industry for others, 'Diarios de motocicleta' (its original Spanish title); based on Guevara's book 'Notas de viaje' first published in English as 'The Motorcycle Diaries: A Journey Around South America' in 1966 and Granado's novel 'Con el Ché por America Latina', director Walter Salles ('Central do Brasil' (1998), 'Abril Despedaçado' (2001)) gives a paying audience an incredibly captivating glimpse into the mindset of a naively sensitive man coming from his lower middle-class upbringing to pretty well discover how the real world works for those burdened by a life of poverty, political persecution and physical deformities. In actuality, this wasn't Guevara's first expedition into such strife in Latin America. However, Bernal's portrayal immediately gives you the impression that he went into this second adventure completely unprepared for what lay in store for these two wide-eyed travelers shown taking what clicks out as joyride break at the end of Ernesto's second year at school here. Not really a catalyst for anything depicted before they hit the open, meandering stretch of gravel and mud roads at the city limits. Leading you to feel as though you're not really sitting through a true accounting of that trip or this neophyte who would become the man, but instead invited to enjoy a vaguely metaphorical romp featuring any young man's realization of what lays beyond the horizon of his insular environment. 'The Motorcycle Diaries' probably could have easily dropped its dubious connection to Ché all together, and would still have been a worthwhile movie. As it stands, because this cinematic offering is attached to this particular historically controversial figure, it tends to buckle under the weight of hard fact and the packed theatre of visibly serious moviegoers I witnessed armed with obvious expectations that they were going to somehow come away with a Cole's Notes-like insight. Something that never seems to be screenwriter Jose Rivera's intent at all, until the closing scene punctuated by the real Granado's suspiciously contrived cameo. Don't get me wrong, this subtitled slice of life still hits the mark as being an often humourous and entertaining mature drama throughout. Take it as that, leaving histrionics safely in your bookcase at home, and you're bound to have a great time.

Check it out if you get the opportunity to spend time with this worthwhile independent offering of great acting and wonderful scenery, but you'll probably feel ripped off if you're hoping to discover any discernable pre-Revolutionary truths about Ché.

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The Machinist
REVIEWED 12/04, © STEPHEN BOURNE
www.ofrb.gov.on.ca | www.rcq.gouv.qc.ca


REVIEW:

Little more than a walking skeleton tightly wrapped in bleached, paper-thin skin, longtime National Machine factory worker Trevor Reznik (Christian Bale; 'Empire of the Sun' (1987), 'Reign of Fire' (2002)) believes there's a conspiracy brewing against him, after accidentally causing a lathe accident that horrifically mutilates a close co-worker (Miller, played by Michael Ironside; ('Starship Troopers' (1997), 'Maximum Velocity' (2003)). The signs are everywhere. In the accusing glares stabbing at him from the other men. From the unsympathetic manner of his new acquaintance, Ivan (John Sharian; 'Saving Private Ryan' (1998), 'Calendar Girls' (2003)). And, through the strange yellow note that suddenly appears on the kitchen refrigerator door of this dangerously emaciated and weary insomniac's stark one bedroom apartment. A childish hangman note done in black marker, with spaces for six unknown letters and room for a stick man to be drawn in dangling from a rope. Trevor's convinced that all of the clues are right in front of him. Right there, in front of his sunken eyes. He just has to think. Figure it out. Connect the pieces and solve the word game before it's too late. Get them, before they get him. Finish the hangman's word, now that two of the letters have been filled in by somebody. Maybe then things will get back to normal. Maybe then, Reznik won't have to keep turning to Stevie (Jennifer Jason Leigh; 'Road to Perdition' (2002), 'The Hudsucker Proxy' (1994)), a local prostitute, for some semblance of human comfort on the meter. This... this overpowering guilt and fear that haunts him might finally go away. Finally let him sleep. In peace. Let him date Marie (Aitana Sánchez-Gijón; 'A Walk in the Clouds' (1995), 'I'm Not Scared' (2003)), instead of just enjoying her company at the airport's Flyaway Café during her midnight waitressing shifts endlessly serving him coffee and pie. He just has to figure it out. Think. Ivan's the one who distracted him at work. Ivan scares him, but Trevor's convinced that Ivan knows more than he's letting on...

Aside from the obvious - joining the body modifying ranks of Tom Hanks ('Philadelphia' (1993)), and Robert De Niro ('Cape Fear' (1991)), reportedly losing sixty-three pounds from his already lanky frame in order to weigh in at 129 lbs for this rather meaty leading role - Bale pulls in an astounding performance throughout this oftentimes intensely creepy, English-language psychological thriller from Spain. Director Brad Anderson ('Next Stop Wonderland' (1998), 'Happy Accidents' (2000)) wonderfully minimalizes Reznik's already stark world, deftly revealing the systematic madness that ultimately grips this outwardly horrifying character. Sure, it's fairly obvious from the outset that the veil separating grim reality from tortured imagination has been punctured beyond repair, but Scott Kosar's impressively crafted screenplay captured through cinematographers Xavi Giménez's and Charlie Jiminez's almost surgical lens keeps a paying audience completely locked in to this story of acute paranoia and self-destruction from beginning to closing credits. You can't help but want to know what brought Reznik to this point, and how this small on-screen circle plays a part in his obsessive quest for answers and salvation. Surprisingly, this hundred-minute story itself is relatively simple. Thankfully, 'The Machinist' is cleverly fleshed out in an incredibly intelligent manner, carefully using non-linear editing by Luis De La Madrid when necessary and brilliantly letting the camera tell a lot of it with remarkably detailed scenes. Both serving double duty in moving the atmospheric plot line along at a sharp pace, as well as presenting everything that you need in order for the conclusion to make any sense. Even something as simple as the subtle use of the colour red is amazing here.

This nudity-tinged, R-rated film is an absolutely spine-tingling gem that's definitely well worth checking out. Probably before a meal...

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Meet the Fockers
REVIEWED 12/04, © STEPHEN BOURNE
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REVIEW:

Chicago Medical Center nurse Gaylord 'Greg' Focker (Ben Stiller; 'Reality Bites' (1994), 'Zoolander' (2001)) is having a great day. His and two-year fiancee Pam Byrnes' (Teri Polo; 'The Arrival' (1996), 'Beyond Borders' (2003)) airline tickets are bought and their travel bags are packed, and all lights are green for the first leg of their flight to Focker's family home via Pam's parents' place. Luck has shined on Greg's carefully planned schedule. That is, until they reach the suburban house of his soon-to-be father-in-law, Jack Byrnes (Robert De Niro; 'Casino' (1995), 'City by the Sea' (2002)), retired horticulturalist - read: thirty-four year CIA veteran. Then, as always, everything starts to fall apart. Starting with Jack's insistence that they all drive to the Focker's hundred year-old island paradise in his brand new, oversized motor home instead of flying. Followed by them bringing Pam's sister's precocious toddler Little Jack (played by Spencer and Bradley Pickren) along for the ride. It gets worse, as the Byrnes slowly realize that Greg has slightly fabricated his story about his playfully eccentric parent's, former lawyer/stay at home Dad Bernard 'Bernie' Focker (Dustin Hoffman; 'All the President's Men' (1976), 'Wag the Dog' (1997)) and home-based octogenarian sex therapist Roselyn 'Roz' Focker (Barbra Streisand; 'The Way We Were' (1973), 'The Prince of Tides' (1991)), and Jack then begins to suspect Greg has a fifteen year-old son from a teenaged tryst with the family maid. Jack's already seen how Greg handles being left alone with a kid, finding Little Jack glued to a bottle of rum and spouting an obscenity as the tot's first word. The Byrnes' Circle of Trust looks irreparably broken by a fairly big chink in the chain here. And, there's only one way to get to the bottom of it all: Sodium pentathol. What a stupid movie.

Admittedly, I wasn't a complete fan of 'Meet the Parents' (2000) - the first offering this sequel carries over from - but, at least that one had enough physical comedy to keep the story moving along. In 'Meet the Focker's', a paying audience is basically subjected to far less actual funny stuff while these stereotypes lope around like lampshade-wearing office party buffoons, repeatedly chewing out the same bland double entendres by the truckload. Sure, it's a rare treat to see De Niro and Hoffman play off of each other, and they do work at fleshing out their diametrically opposing characters throughout here. However, there really isn't much else beyond their disappointingly superficial results worth sitting through. Stiller is, well, Stiller the undirected star again. A kind of Gene Wilder lite: Less fulfilling, more bawdy. Taking a strange glee in lazily defaulting to the exact same brand of "Ooh, look at me, I'm making a funny face and, ooh, I'm talking in a funny voice, isn't that hilarious" boring schtick seen in pretty well all of his movies where the jokes become torturously scarce fairly quickly. When you see him pulling pratfalls for no reason, you know the picture's in trouble. Met by the wasteland of impatience chuckles and dying brain cells of ticket holders convinced this hundred and twenty-eight minute snooze fest might pick up the pace before the sweet release of its closing credits. With the remaining on-screen co-stars essentially standing around collecting a paycheque, waiting for a clue. John Hamburg's and Jim Herzfeld's aggravatingly disappointing script simply feels like it was written in point form on a rather small napkin. In invisible ink. With the glimmering hope that putting these proven actors together in front of a camera would somehow fill in all of the blanks. Well, hope must've taken a holiday here. This cast, while mostly extremely talented elsewhere, end up floundering around under director Jay Roach's ('Mystery, Alaska' (1999), 'Austin Powers in Goldmember' (2002)) visibly absent direction.

Even the brief real life Tom and Jerry Show, between the Byrnes' pernicious cat and the Focker's tiny dog already seen in the ads, puts the humans to shame in the laughs department. Awful.

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Million Dollar Baby
REVIEWED 01/05, © STEPHEN BOURNE
www.ofrb.gov.on.ca | www.rcq.gouv.qc.ca


REVIEW:

She found him where he always was: beating the odds by shoving coagulant and hard won tricks of the trade at some burgeoning fighter's deep impact facial wounds, under the evening ringside roar of a crowded boxing tournament match. This thirty-one year-old Southwestern Missouri girl named Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank; 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' (1992), 'The Core' (2003)), waitressing tables part time for some inner city LA greasy spoon, was convinced that her ticket to the big leagues started and ended with aged trainer Frankie Dunn (Clint Eastwood; 'Unforgiven' (1992), 'Blood Work' (2002)). Getting this grizzled warrior maker and Old School gym owner to take her on would be an impossible fight all on its own, but Maggie's entire life had been about fighting. Scrapping her way out of her white trash mother Earline's (Margo Martindale; 'Dead Man Walking' (1995), 'The Human Stain' (2003)) trailer park home, clawing every nickel and dime she earned into a mason jar until it was full enough to pay six months worth of time at Dunn's dim and ramshackle gym. Lacking everything except a relentless, unbridled passion for the sport - and with a little encouragement from Frankie's longtime friend and assistant Eddie 'Scrap-Iron' Dupris (Morgan Freeman; 'The Shawshank Redemption' (1994), 'Bruce Almighty' (2003)) - she would eventually change Dunn's mind. He would take her on, despite his gut instincts to the contrary, and meticulously hone her raw spirit into the rhythmic motion of an athlete. Even before he'd prematurely passed her off to a less than reliable manager, Frankie knew she had a shot at the title, stepping in to take her the rest of the way on his own. Nicknamed 'Mo Guishla' from Dunn's interest in the Gaelic prose of William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Fitzgerald and her growing series of killer first round knockouts would become legendary throughout her ranking a short two years later. That fact had already forced Frankie to up her standing to welterweight, inadvertently leading Maggie on an almost unavoidable path towards matching gloves against Germany's notorious champion, Billie 'The Blue Bear' (Four-time World Champion kick boxer and WIBF junior welterweight boxing champion Lucia Rijker; 'Rollerball' (2002)). A match that Dunn now wishes that he'd never agreed to. "Remember what happened to Axel," Maggie painfully breathes, citing her Daddy's decrepit old dog to her horrified manager now standing at the foot of her hospital bed. She had come this far, and had accomplished so much with her life, only to beg Dunn to do the unthinkable in her hour of desperate need. To destroy them both in one single act of compassion.

Wow. True to form, this incredibly outstanding drama based on the late Irish novelist Jerry Boyd's (1930-2002) - under the pseudonym 'F.X. Toole' - same-titled short story from his first and only compilation, Rope Burns: Stories From the Corner, published in 2000, delivers an extraordinary profile of these people and their individual stories. Sure, a lot of Canadian-born producer/writer Paul Haggis' ('Crash' (2004)) screenplay is reminiscent of 'The Shawshank Redemption' in its structure and the tone of this underdog's infectious enthusiasm in overcoming insurmountable odds. However, as with actor/director Eastwood's previous films - particularly 'Mystic River' (2003) - 'Million Dollar Baby' focuses on the residual effects of lives irreparably wounded by tragedy. He seems more interested in getting into the bones of these characters, digging out and examining the traumatized marrow that atrophies their otherwise pure belief in hope versus the brittle skepticism of a cruel and harsh world. And, in how that skepticism inevitably poisons everything it touches. The extreme emotions of swelling euphoria and bleak depression easily become tangible characters throughout this astounding hundred and thirty-seven minute, two-time Golden Globe winner and seven-time Oscar nominee. It's also great to see Eastwood and Freeman together on the big screen again, virtually reprising their off-the-cuff banter enjoyed in 'Unforgiven', while Swank deftly underplays her role in the long shadows of these two cinematic veterans obviously proving they're at the top of their game. Scenes with Ottawa's Jay Baruchel ('Almost Famous' (2000), 'The Rules of Attraction' (2002)) as the simpleton Danger Barch definitely lighten the greyness throughout as well. The only down side for a paying audience swept up in the momentum of this truly entertaining offering is that the wonderfully fresh story arc presented during the first three quarters does become overwhelmingly diminished by what plays out in the slightly overlong last quarter. Clearly, it's a memorable portion that will likely stay with you long after the closing credits, but it does tend to wallow without as much strength in dialogue or direction compared to the majority of what you've just sat through - or when matched with similar subject matter seen in such films as 'The Sea Inside' (2004).

Definitely check it out as a truly powerful and worthwhile screening, but be prepared for this masterpiece to suddenly shift gears into the depths of depression without offering up much of a satisfying ending.

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The Merchant of Venice
REVIEWED 02/05, © STEPHEN BOURNE
www.ofrb.gov.on.ca | www.rcq.gouv.qc.ca


REVIEW:

Swarthy young Christian Italian Lord Bassanio (Joseph Fiennes; 'Shakespeare in Love' (1998), 'Enemy at the Gates' (2001)) finds himself deep in financial debt and with a heart that's very much smitten. Of course, it would seem that love is in full bloom for all those intent on such passions. Bassanio's like minded friend Lorenzo (Charlie Cox; 'Dot the I' (2003)) has also gleefully fallen, for a Jewish lady named Jessica (Zuleikha Robinson; 'Timecode' (2000), 'Hidalgo' (2004)), after finding her lacy white handkerchief left for him on the street in passing, under the warm moonlight of the previous evening; Much to the chagrin of her father, the aged and maligned money lender Shylock (Al Pacino; 'Donnie Brasco' (1997), 'The Recruit' (2003)), who fearfully suspects that she might leave both his home and their faith for this foolish Gentile. All the same, as Bassanio privately confides his own rather dual need of Portia (Lynn Collins; '13 Going On 30' (2004)) to his close, long time friend and Venetian merchant Signior Antonio (Jeremy Irons; 'The Man in the Iron Mask' (1998), 'Being Julia' (2004)), "Sometimes from her eyes I did receive fair speechless messages." Ah, swoon. Affording a second, much closer interlude with this fair and wondrous and extremely wealthy object of his lustful and greedy desires must be accomplished, however far beyond Bassanio's meager means she is. Well heeled suitors from as far away as France, Germany and Morocco already line a path to her Belmont island estate, eager to test their luck and win Portia's hand in marriage by finding her small gilded portrait within one of three metal boxes, as dictated by her deceased father's will. Money is needed in order to win such a treasure. And so, Antonio - impressed to help by their loyal friendship and the chance to regain at least a fraction of his loans, yet also temporarily cash strapped from recently dispatching his cargo ships to Tripoli, the Indies, Mexico and to England - offers what credit he can in catering to Bassinio's opportunistic wants. Sending them both into that water bound city's walled and gated Jewish Ghetto. To Shylock. It's there that a wicked plot is hatched, almost certainly sealing an old grudge's satisfaction, as Shylock coyly agrees to give them three thousand ducats interest free for the same number of months if Antonio - who has publicly treated him like a ragged dog time and again - will pledge himself on Bassanio's behalf to the grim conditions set forth in that dimly lit house that knows no kindly gestures from its master.

Much of the contextual history underpinning screenwriter/director Michael Radford's ('Nineteen Eighty-Four' (1984), 'The Letters' (2002)) impressively opulent stage to screen adaptation is definitely noteworthy while sitting through this latest kick at the famous comedic tragedy of love and vengeance set in Italy. Scholarly volumes have been written, but bare with me for a moment: As one of William Shakespeare's (1564-1616) most historically contentious of his thirty-eight plays, The Comical History of the Merchant of Venice (c.1596) is a product of its suppressively exclusive, pro-Protestant Elizabethan England age. Regarding The Bard's uncharacteristically complex stock character of "Shylocke the Iew", this widely known role - still considered a derogatory epithet by many - was clearly inspired in part by controversial English dramatist Christopher Marlowe's (1564-1593) earlier 1589 play, The Jew of Malta, and provoked by the very public, true conspiracy trial and subsequent execution in 1594 of Queen Elizabeth I's (1533-1603) Portuguese Jewish-born physician Roderigo Lopez. Shakespeare's original play also seems suspiciously submerged in three Centuries of scandalously perpetuated, anti-Semitic British politics which had forcibly converted or expelled openly practicing Jews since 1290, until the mid-1600's. The stage presentation of Shylock in his obviously intended form is a nasty reminder of that sad legacy, sparking outrage from the Anti-Defamation League as recently as 1981 in their case against PBS' proposed nationally televised BBC version of it in New York. That's what I was referring to, regarding context. Thankfully, much of the relevant history is actually acknowledged and embellished upon in creating a thoroughly captivating interpretation of the roles, with Pacino rising to the occasion here as this picture's memorable star attraction by giving a paying audience a somewhat empathetic yet pernicious character tilting towards thunderous madness, spinning his pound of flesh pact with Irons' Antonio - based on actual 13th Century erroneous Blood Libel myth involving Jews ritually killing Christians during Passover - into a much larger, doomed retribution against the relentless boot heel of society. Shylock is shown more as an admirably wily businessman you nervously what to see successfully distort the law, during a time when everyone was a bigoted product of their era. Over-all, greed, lust, stupidity, hatred and revenge are shown as intrinsic human flaws that exist regardless of creed or nationality, while attempting to remain accessible and editorially true to the original manuscript's 16th Century prose and sub text. However, only so much retooling can be done, without completely changing the play's unforgivably cold judgment. The remaining cast and the crew of supporting players do pull in fairly good performances throughout as well, somewhat overshadowed by Pacino but showing obvious playful enthusiasm for their lines as their comparably fluffy sub plots play out during this hundred and thirty-eight minute screening.

As a richly embellished offering for contemporary, mature moviegoers that attempts to intelligently interpret Shakespeare's decidedly anti-Semitic play, 'The Merchant of Venice' is absolutely well worth checking out for the selectively brilliant acting and eye-popping art direction, but not particularly for its untempered and questionably perpetuated antiquated dogma.

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Man of the House
REVIEWED 02/05, © STEPHEN BOURNE
www.ofrb.gov.on.ca | www.rcq.gouv.qc.ca


REVIEW:

Texas Ranger Sergeant Roland Sharp (Tommy Lee Jones; 'The Fugitive' (1993), 'The Hunted' (2003)) is a tough, gruff, two buckled hard case law enforcer within reach of grabbing Morgan Ball (Curtis Armstrong; 'Revenge of the Nerds' (1984), 'Ray' (2004)) - his last solid lead nervously evading capture in the State's high profile case against enigmatic businessman John W. Cortland - when Ball escapes his and sniper-wounded rifle toting partner Margaret Swanson's (Liz Vassey) custody and is then silenced in a brutal back alley murder by a mysterious gunman who also clips FBI Detective Eddie Zane (Brian Van Holt; 'Black Hawk Down' (2001), 'S.W.A.T.' (2003)) at the scene. The trail goes cold and Cortland's trial is dismissed, but that homicide is unintentionally witnessed by five University of Texas Longhorn football cheerleaders who might be able to identify the tall or maybe short, dark or possibly light-haired with or without a goatee shooter, if they can mutually decide how he rates on the America's Most Wanted hottie meter. Bottom line is, a killer is on the loose in Dallas and these svelte and peppy school girls' lives are now in danger. Throwing Sharpe and young Rangers Holt and Riggs undercover on campus, and turning the sorority dorm of cheer squad captain Anne (Christina Milian; 'Love Don't Cost a Thing' (2003)), Barb (Kelli Garner; 'The Aviator' (2004)), Therese (Paula Garcés; 'Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle' (2004)), Evie (Monica Keena; 'Freddy Vs. Jason' (2003)) and Heather (Vanessa Ferlito; '25th Hour' (2002)) into a locked down safe house under constant surveillance, with Roland moving in as their new Assistant Coach until swift justice can be served. The rules: No cell phones, no pagers, no palm pilots or email, no unescorted contact with the outside world of any kind... and, put some more clothes on. However, Cortland's dirty tentacles reach deep, and he wants a safety deposit box key that should have been found on Ball's bloody corpse - as well as those pom pom waiving loose ends quickly eliminated. Zane also wants to know where the girls are holed up, and begins getting unusually close to Sharpe's unsuspecting daughter Anne, just as Roland lowers his stoic meticulous guard for the University's coyly interested English Literature professor Molly McCarthy (Anne Archer).

Well, this sporadically, potentially amusing comedy of errors sure isn't cinematic rocket science. Clearly, director Stephen Herek ('Holy Man' (1998), 'Rock Star' (2001)) is far more interested in setting up a series of silly and fairly staid punch lines throughout this ninety-seven minute popcorn flick than actually turning it into any sort of believable fish out of water cop story. Zane is never debriefed about who supposedly shot him, and the mere fact that nobody figures out these sassy white fringed witnesses are being hidden where they could easily be tripped over by even the most short-sighted of dim-witted bad guys (Ball is shot outside of a cheerleader competition, duh), pretty well tells you that there's not much in the way of intelligence weighing down John J. McLaughlin's and Scott Lobdell's trite little screenplay here. It's all about Jones having some fun with his big screen curmudgeonly persona seen in 'The Fugitive', 'U.S. Marshals' (1998) and 'Men in Black' (1997), while his young fluffy-headed, navel exposed co-stars incessantly wiggle and giggle for the camera throughout. The vacuum of working brain cells collectively doing little more than tenuously keeping this picture's ears apart is exasperating, frankly. To the point where Cedric the Entertainer's ('Barbershop 2: Back in Business' (2004)) ridiculously clumsy role as shady Pastor Percy Stevens actually becomes a memorable highlight during this disastrously stinky caper of familiar boring jokes, until the closing credits finally offer a paying audience sweet, sweet freedom and breathable oxygen. Yawn. Sure, the on screen chemistry between Jones and Archer is momentarily captivating, but it's never really allowed to mature beyond whatever these otherwise capable actors bring to the set as a dead end seguey back to the girls' deliriously enthusiastic, nauseating chirping. If you've seen the television ad or the movie trailer, you've pretty well seen whatever measurably worthwhile clips this embarrassing snooze fest has in store. Oh, how the mighty have fallen...

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Miss Congeniality 2
REVIEWED 03/05, © STEPHEN BOURNE
www.ofrb.gov.on.ca | www.rcq.gouv.qc.ca


REVIEW:

Deemed a liability as an undercover field operative shortly after her nationally televised appearance as memorable runner up in the Miss United States Beauty Pageant, New York federal agent Gracie Hart (Sandra Bullock; 'Demolition Man' (1993), 'Practical Magic' (1998)) is given no alternative but to be filed away as a faceless desk jockey or accept the bad publicity beleaguered department's glamourous PR job as The New Face of the FBI. Gracie's already dealing with her personal relationship falling apart, so she takes on the new profile and all of the perks that go along with it: A high fashion wardrobe and a hair and make up staff, an insightfully embellished autobiography book deal and several daytime TV guest appearances. All the same, there is a problem. Ten months in, all of the relentless doting and fussing that she has to endure from appointed consultant Joel Myers (Diedrich Bader) isn't too much of an annoyance. His trite pearl of wisdom that "People care about people who care about themselves," has definitely been helpful in her adjusting to this Barbie doll lifestyle. No, the problem is that Hart and her ornery, tough as nails security woman Sam Fuller (Regina King; 'A Cinderella Story' (2004), 'Ray' (2004)) don't get along. From the moment they first met at headquarters, they've continually managed to bug each other, argue, pick fights, throw tantrums, and generally get on each other's nerves without really trying to. As far as Gracie is concerned, Fuller needs to leave. Fuller wants to leave, but their Chief of Operations Supervisor has already made it perfectly clear that this is Sam's very last career-saving chance to stay with the FBI. So, grudgingly, they're stuck together. However, their petty rivalry quickly becomes the least of their concerns when two hired goons mercilessly kidnap Hart's friend and Pageant Queen Cheryl Fraser (Heather Burns) along with the show's emcee Stan Fields (William Shatner) in Las Vegas, and the Bureau's notorious odd couple are jetted in to help investigate. Much to the chagrin of Nevada COS Collins, who brings them up to speed and then just as readily blows them off over a case of mistaken identity, forcing Gracie to take matters into her own hands before the ransom deadline is up - or Sam puts her in intensive care...

Well, there's really not too much going for this long awaited Bullock comeback and sequel to the comparably superior comedy 'Miss Congeniality' (2000). First of all, it's not particularly as funny in the wild and zany sort of way that the ads attempt to lead you to believe it is. Director John Pasquin seems more interested in presenting a light hearted dramatic caper laced with soft chuckles for these vaguely quirky stereotypes to awkwardly bounce off of each other throughout. The story itself is pure, cheesy pretense, lazily cut and pasted from a festering glut of pedantic cop buddy flicks spooned fed to moviegoers for decades. In that respect, there's nothing new here except for a lot more fuscha and feather boas. Sitting through it, you can easily stave off boredom by playing a game picking out what previous Hollywood hits and misses this one seems to have borrowed its ideas from: 'Running Scared' (1986). 'Red Heat' (1988). 'Showtime' (2002). With shades of 'Connie and Carla' (2004) thrown in for a touch of emasculate flare. Shatner is, well, typical Shatner. Yawn. Strangely, if writer Marc Lawrence had simply replaced his lazy screenplay's half dozen recognizably self-conscious and hammy jokes with more character development and thoughtful dialogue, 'Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous' (its complete title) might have actually been a better, far more entertaining movie over-all. It wouldn't have been labeled a comedy anymore, but it's hardly that as is. The straight acting scenes are surprisingly better than they could have been if the primary roles had been cast differently. Bullock and King are immediately great to watch together here as the only truly captivating aspect of this hundred and fifteen minute feature - consistently forcing a paying audience to sit up and take notice - with their clearly impressive acting abilities and their natural screen presence keeping you from throwing your arms in the air and walking out for your money back. Enrique Murciano (as Jeff Foreman, their FBI escort in Vegas) also pulls in a pretty good performance, when he's not desperately trying to get a laugh. Still, what these three actors bring to the set really isn't enough to make this turkey fly. It's still a terribly missed opportunity and a talent wasting disappointment that's barely worth the stock its filmed on. Which is a huge shame. As well, Peter Menzies Jr.'s paint by numbers cinematography and Garth Craven's unsure editing both conspire to sabotage whatever brief enjoyment you might get out of it. You're better off steering clear of this one.

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Melinda and Melinda
REVIEWED 04/05, © STEPHEN BOURNE
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REVIEW:

A small circle of Manhattan friends' enjoyable evening over Bistro wine and polite conversation turns into a Tragedy versus Comedy debate when the table's two playwrights are encouraged to spin their own story from an anecdote regarding surprise dinner guest Melinda Robicheau (Radha Mitchell; 'Pitch Black' (2000), 'Finding Neverland' (2004)). On the one hand, tragically, this emotionally fragile woman's shattered life takes a deeper turn for the worse almost as soon as she quietly falls in love with aspiring Opera composer and charismatic pianist Ellis Moonsong (Chiwetel Ejiofor; 'Amistad' (1997), 'Love Actually' (2003)) - thanks to the wandering eye of her high school friend and music teacher Laurel (Chloë Sevigny; 'Trees Lounge' (1996), 'American Psycho' (2000)). On the other, comedic hand, tenuously married and barely working New York actor Hobie (Will Ferrell; 'A Night at the Roxbury' (1998), 'Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy' (2004)) falls in love with recently divorced next door neighbour Melinda, and ineptly wishes for an easy way to be with her without hurting his independent movie director wife Susan (Amanda Peet; 'The Whole Nine Yards' (2000), 'Something's Gotta Give' (2003)) - despite the fact that Robicheau has met somebody else. Two sides of the same coin, tossed into the air from everyday life, where these fictional personalities and their individual traits and foibles decide distinctively differing outcomes during this intellectual amusement...

It's clear that legendary, two-time Oscar-winning writer/director Woody Allen will never make a name for himself in the movie business. Of course I'm kidding. Only just, these days. Everything that's needed for this 2004 flick to be an absolutely enjoyable screening is there in one form or another. It's got a great cast of obviously enthusiastic talent, and two thoroughly intriguing plots told simultaneously throughout. Clean camera work, good editing, and strong pacing. Unfortunately, most of its fairly stilted and antiquated dialogue tends to sabotage this movie. 'Melinda and Melinda' quickly becomes a trite darling of unbelievably fake characters, primarily because what they're saying - and the way in which they say things - doesn't ring true for a contemporary paying audience sitting through this modern cinematic experiment of creative duality. It's almost as though Allen is mocking his (maybe) vacuously elitist class of fans who gobble up oftentimes strange million dollar words apparently torn from the pages of an Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966) novel, frankly. To the point where you almost want this to actually be a Period piece set in the 1930's, just so that Mitchell and cast quit sounding like a bunch of Off Broadway grannies putting on heirs over tea on stage for cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond's lens. Remember how puffy and wooden Donald Sutherland and Stockard Channing sounded in the comparably superior 'Six Degrees of Separation' (1993)? This script's patter is worse. Sure, Ferrell is afforded a couple of memorably funny, Woody-esque moments, but they're woefully brief and hardly enough to save this hundred-minute disappointment. Yawn.

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Millions
REVIEWED 06/03, © STEPHEN BOURNE
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REVIEW:

Transplanted from their small Manchester house to the nearby suburbs shortly after the death of their beloved mother, seven year-old Damian Cunningham (first timer Alexander Nathan Etel) and his older brother Anthony (big screen newcomer Lewis Owen McGibbon), nine, are still adjusting to their new lives with their hard working electrical engineer Dad, Ronnie (James Nesbitt; 'Waking Ned Divine' (1998), 'Bloody Sunday' (2002)). Anthony would rather just surf the web, but freckle faced Damian builds a sprawling cardboard fort out of the big boxes that had carried their belongings into this sleepy, newly developed community huddled beside the train tracks. It's there, on a particularly sunny day, while his rocketeering imagination was lost within those narrow and wobbling walls shaken by the roaring din of passing freight cars - and he was surprised by an unassuming visit from a less than pious, pot smoking St. Clare (Kathryn Pogson) - that something miraculous bounced from the sky and landed in Damian's lap. A gift from God, he thinks. A big, heavy black Nike duffle bag stuffed to the seams with cash, actually, a fortnight before Britain's E-Day marks that country joining Ireland, France, and several other EU countries in adopting the Euro as legal tender. And, even more surprisingly, this isn't another one of Damian's Christian Saints obsessed childish hallucinations after-all. Well, the St. Clare bit might have been, but the loot of crisply bundled tens and twenties, fifties and hundreds weren't. "Don't tell anyone, especially Dad. They'll take forty percent for taxes... that's almost all of it," Anthony warns as the two boys stash their newfound two hundred and twenty-nine thousand, three hundred and twenty quid under his bed before Ronnie hustles them off to All Saints Public School. At one Euro equaling sixty-seven English Pence, it won't quite be worth millions to them in two weeks when the banks change over, but that's still more money than these two wide eyed lads know what to do with. That is, if they can figure out a way to inconspicuously exchange it all before the Pound Sterling goes out of circulation. And, before the shadowy stranger who's appeared at Damian's fort figures out that they have something very big, very lucrative and very very stolen that belongs to him...

What an hilariously charming children's film this is. Director Danny Boyle ('Trainspotting' (1996), '28 Days Later...' (2002)) manages to immediately and seamlessly plunge a paying audience into Damian's fantasy world, where a small roster of Saints - from St. Francis (Enzo Cilenti) to St. Joseph (Nasser Memarzia) to the big man, St. Peter (Alun Armstrong) - drift in and out of this little boy's life much like in a fairy tale. I call it a fantasy world, but you're never really sure if he's simply imagining these holy visions or if they're actually appearing in front of him at various times throughout this delightfully clever ninety-eight minute 2004 Brit feature. Keep an eye out for St. Joseph's truly funny Nativity Play cameo. What's clear is that Etal carries his lion's share role with astounding versatility, never once betraying his character's contagious naivete. He's still a child who wants to be a good boy and help people, without having any real notion of what money is worth, unlike his slightly older brother who's sloughed off childish ways for a keen interest in the price of material things, amassing wealth and using the power of money to get what ever he wants. Even these two differing personalities are wonderfully played off of each other with a kind of delicacy rarely seen on the big screen. Awesome. Frank Cottrell Boyce's screenplay is packed with little quirks of wry humour, aptly spinning thoroughly spell binding sub plots for Nesbitt and Daisy Donovan (as his love interest and Christian Aid charity worker Dorothy) to sink their teeth into. Part classic Tim Burton imagining, part son of 'Brewster's Millions' (1984), 'Millions' is a completely enjoyable, family friendly romp that will have you chuckling to yourself long after the closing credits - whether you're a kid or a kid at heart. It's really that good, folks. Sometimes heartwarming, oftentimes delightfully goofy, definitely do yourself a huge favour and check out this freshly inspired cinematic gem as a fun matinee on a rainy day or as a memorably worthwhile rental that you'll likely want to keep.

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Mindhunters
REVIEWED 05/05, © STEPHEN BOURNE
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REVIEW:

The small, isolated US Government restricted island of Oniega stuck fifty miles offshore becomes the temporary weekend home of seven bright, highly skilled FBI profiler recruits during a mysterious training exercise summarily concocted by their brashly unorthodox Quantico trainer Jake Harris (Val Kilmer). Bobby Whitman (Eion Bailey), Vince Sherman (Clifton Collins Jr.), Rafe Perry (Will Kemp), Lucas Harper (Jonny Lee Miller), Sara Moore (Kathryn Morris), J.D. Reston (Christian Slater) and Nicole Willis (Patricia Velasquez) all have their doubts as they watch smudged grey skies slowly swallow up the shrinking, unmarked black chopper that had delivered them to this derelict Navy SEAL facility along with an unknown guest: Observing Philadelphia Police Detective Gabe Jensen (James Todd 'LL Cool J' Smith). Harris had given them the tour, showing them where to bunk down, and walking them through the crater-pocked zone of bullet riddled mannequins and artillery torn buildings known as Crime Town, USA, but he was less than forthright about their simulated mission or the fictitious UNSUB called The Puppetmaster they were supposedly there to hone their training on. Now, they were alone. On this desolate isle of stray cats and rusted machinery, forced to wait for something to happen. It did. Reston was killed before their eyes, exactly when the broken watch stuffed into the brutalized corpse of an unlucky feline hanged in their barracks' washroom had indicated. None of them could believe it. Was this some sort of sick joke? However, another watch quickly appears, signaling that there's no time for panic or wild speculations. One of them has been marked for death. With no way to call for help or escape, two more watches follow the gruesome murder of a second fallen comrade, plunging these remaining survivors into a fear-stoked race against time as The Puppetmaster systematically preys upon each one of them for his or her own insane amusement...

This decidedly gory contemporary retooling of the classic whodunit 'And Then There Were None' (1945) has apparently been floating around Hollywood for the past couple of years, before finally making it to the big screen in limited release. Director Renny Harlin does a magnificent job of maintaining a ruthless level of intensity throughout, wonderfully throwing a paying audience head first into this diabolical blood bath mystery with an astounding immediacy. Hardly any scenes are wasted during the first hour and a half of this hundred and six-minuter, as writer Wayne Kramer's delightfully tight screenplay hammers away at this doomed cast of excellently chosen players. Sure, Kilmer essentially plays a watered down version of his starring role in 'Spartan' (2004) for his somewhat extended cameo here. Morris and Smith easily pick up the slack, though, with this remaining crew pulling in equally extraordinary performances from the material they've been given to work with. 'Mindhunters' ends up being one of the few stories where a lot of character development that would normally be needed in order to instill lasting attention isn't really necessary for it to work over-all. Part of what makes it hugely fascinating for armchair sleuths is that you're forced to observe all of these strangers as though one of them could be the potential killer, without you having much to work with from the outset. Brilliant. The use of compressed time is also masterfully orchestrated throughout, continually keeping you on the edge of your seat as this steadily dwindling group fights to solve the clues and save their lives. It's also packed with whopping surprises - such as Slater's slightly cheesy yet brutally early demise - to ensure that figuring out this puzzle actually does happen near enough to the closing credits. Awesome. However, this is still an aggravatingly flawed movie at times. The cheap scares and its rather fluffy use of high tech hardware quickly becomes annoying. And, the conclusion does tend to smack of unbelievable pretense, heavily relying on your willingness to forgive a blatant lack of foreshadowing as the script suddenly loses interest in making any sense once The Puppeteer's identity is revealed. An entirely different, far more superior last act could have easily been concocted to replace the inadequately disappointing one that sabotages everything preceding it, frankly. All the same, this R-rated picture is still an incredibly worthwhile crime horror that's well worth checking out at the rental racks. Good stuff.

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Monster-in-Law
REVIEWED 05/05, © STEPHEN BOURNE
www.ofrb.gov.on.ca | www.rcq.gouv.qc.ca


REVIEW:

A few short months, and everything is all fine again. Noted Day Time talk show host - no, make that legendary, five-time Emmy-winning human interest celebrity and dignitary interview journalist Viola Fields (Jane Fonda) of course knew that she'd been completely, uncharacteristically unprofessional that day, months ago, on the air live and in front of millions of her loyal viewers. Attacking that illiterate, five million album-selling blonde bimbette singer on camera like that was totally undignified. She really should have waited until the commercial break before flipping out. However, all that was behind her now. Viola had made it through her therapy unscathed, unburdened by the network's totally premature decision not to renew her long standing contract, and free to spend quality time with her beloved son Doctor Kevin Fields (Michael Vartan), the brilliant surgeon. What fun they'll have. They'll travel the world together. Take that trip to Africa that she's been promising to do, and drop by old dear friends such as the Dalai Lama and the President of... well, any of the ones that matter, really. The important thing is that she and Kevin spend as much time together as a family as possible. It'll be good for him. It'll help clear his mind, and get this silly notion of his to, of all things, marry his young, good for nothing, gold digging and probably a drug addicted illegal alien, son-stealing and more than likely telling him that she's pregnant, little tart of a fling that Kevin's now dillusionally calling his fiancéé Charlotte 'Charlie' Cantilini (Jennifer Lopez), of all things. And, she's a Temp! The tramp probably doesn't even wear shoes. Blah. Viola's trusted assistant Ruby (Wanda Sykes) suggests starting a pet project to fill the hours and days of retirement, and Viola has the perfect pet project in mind: If she can't drive this Charlie girl away, maybe she can pull a few strings and drive her crazy, so that poor Kevin will finally see her for who she really is...

Wow. To anyone who's actually been paying attention lately, it's been obvious since the release of 'Jersey Girl' (2004) and 'Shall We Dance?' (2005) that Lopez has finally gotten back on the right path in honing her impressive acting abilities that began with an astounding breakthrough performance starring in 'Selena' (1997). Now, she's even better, effortlessly combining personable grace with freshly wry wit, and clearly having a blast with her wonderfully smart comedic role playing opposite Fonda's much-anticipated return to the big screen. Sure, the latter star's incredibly strong aptitude for on-screen hilarity seen several times in the past does shine through with sometimes overwhelming, scene stealing clout. However, the need for a paying audience to immediately recognize and continually acknowledge that aspect of maternal/cinematic intimidation is exactly the point. Brilliant. Much like the recently released 'Guess Who' (2005), this hundred and two-minute chick flick squarely deals with a decidedly selfish, overprotective parent in imaginatively funny ways, with writer Anya Kochoff's truly clever screenplay easily out pacing everything seen from this genre in theatres in recent memory. There are so many great moments here, with my picks being the pills scenario, and the outlandish Tibetan outfit scene. Better than awesome. Director Robert Luketic just winds up these strong willed women, and lets them loose in front of Russell Carpenter's camera to reap absolutely hilarious mayhem come the last act. Not quite a contemporary screwball comedy, 'Monster-in-Law' is still memorable as being extremely well balanced with good dramatic romance, lots of devious scheming, and over-the-top craziness, with Sykes and Elaine Stritch (as Gertrude, Viola's equally venomous mother-in-law) beautifully adding to the mix with their own blunt wise cracks. Well paced, superbly written and extraordinarily presented throughout, this one's definitely a resounding, superior offering that will more than likely become a favourite rental for movie lovers - many of whom have probably already seen it on the big screen. Do yourself a huge favour and check out this top notch comedy riot.

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Mémoires affectives
REVIEWED 05/05, © STEPHEN BOURNE
www.ofrb.gov.on.ca | www.rcq.gouv.qc.ca


REVIEW:

Sorry, it wasn't possible. As much as I honestly tried to thoroughly enjoy every bit of this three-time Genie-winning, subtitled 2004 Canadian feature, it just wasn't possible. Unfortunately, co-writer/director Francis Leclerc's hundred-minute, French language offering tends to uncontrollably meander while it follows the rather somber story of middle aged rural Quebec veterinarian Alexandre Tourneur (Roy Dupuis; 'Jésus de Montréal' (1989), 'Les Invasions Barbares' (2003)), a gaunt shadow and hit-and-run victim revived from a year-long coma to stumble around in an amnesiatic fog while attempting to reassemble his shattered, forgotten life. Yes, cinematographer Steve Asselin's exquisitely stark camera work is absolutely spellbinding throughout, easily evoking comparisons to some of the more haunting and chalky paintings by venerable artist Alex Colville, but even that oftentimes lushly desolate big screen canvas isn't enough to save Leclerc's and co-writer Marcel Beaulieu's overtly exasperating screenplay.

So, a paying audience is left drinking in these wonderfully powerful, stoic images - such Dupuis staring into the undulating black depths of a wintry mountain lake, as though he's poring through the jagged, jigsaw-like shards of his own broken memory for answers - awkwardly paired with rather clumsy dialogue and unsure pacing that quickly becomes aggravating and unnecessarily wasteful of everyone's time and energy. Disappointing. I'm still trying to figure out why this potentially extraordinary small drama suddenly detours into becoming a vacuously lazy thirty year-old murder mystery sparked by a laughably amateurish hypnosis session. Did somebody lose the only copy of the script's last two thirds amongst a pile of old Soap Opera teleplays minutes before shooting? Seems like it. Sure, Rosa Zacharie (as empathetic investigating police detective Pauline Maksoud) and Nathalie Coupal (as Alexandre's ambivalent ex-wife Michelle) clearly push their acting muscles and compelling natural screen presence to the limit, but their roles seem to largely be cobbled from ill-conceived pretense that offers them nothing particularly tangible to work with. It's shameful, really.

Quite frankly, you're far better off simply steering clear of this surprisingly poor, artful cinematic sleeping pill, unless you're a video camera buff who enjoys seeking inspiration in between naps at the movies.

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Madagascar
REVIEWED 05/05, © STEPHEN BOURNE
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REVIEW:

This hugely entertaining, eighty-minute computer animated treasure from Dreamworks and co-directors Eric Darnell ('Antz' (1998)) and Tom McGrath truly is an irreverently hilarious movie throughout. Partly a recognizably wry homage to such films as 'Zoolander' (2001), 'American Beauty' (1999), 'Cast Away' (2000) and 'The Planet of the Apes' (1968), as well as television's 'Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom' (1963-1988), co-writers Mark Burton's and Billy Frolick's screenplay beautifully realizes and builds upon the immediately captivating personalities of these four anthropomorphized New York Zoo animals. The story revolves around Alex (voiced by Ben Stiller; 'There's Something About Mary' (1998), 'Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story' (2004)) the spotlight hogging lion, Gloria the Hippo (Jada Pinkett Smith; 'The Nutty Professor' (1996), 'Collateral' (2004)) and obsessive hypochondriac Giraffe, Melman Menkowitz (TV's 'Friends' (1994-2004) co-star David Schwimmer), ending up crated up, shipped off and unwittingly beached 7558 nautical miles from their pampered Manhattan lives when their street smart yet cheerfully naive, monochromatic friend Marty the Zebra (Chris Rock; 'Lethal Weapon 4' (1998), 'Head of State' (2003)) takes a nightly stroll to Grand Central Station on his tenth birthday to see the wilds of Connecticut.

Them being stranded on Madagascar's tropical shore is a bit of a creative stretch - particularly considering it's erroneously presented as an unpopulated island inhabited by equally humanized lemurs - but, the sheer abundance of uproarious laughs doled out at a sharp pace quickly puts aside any grip of reality that a paying audience might cling to going in. Frankly, this picture's psychotic quartet of penguins and their deliriously bizarre, Three Stooges-like escape attempts to Antarctica easily steal the show here, with the delightfully smart dialogue bantered amongst all of these critters masterfully, relentlessly keeping you laughing out loud from beginning to closing credits. Kendal Cronkhite's art direction is superb, especially during the psychedelic steak sequences that also cleverly nod back to Charlie Chaplin's classic 'The Gold Rush' (1925). This really is a delicious Hollywood treat for avid moviegoers and cartoon connoisseurs of all ages. Remember the outstanding, high energy physical comedy of Disney's famed animated gems 'The Jungle Book' (1967) and 'Robin Hood' (1973)? Well, take that memorably side splitting mayhem and infuse it with the same sort of whiplash contemporary quips traded in 'Shark Tale' (2004) and 'The Incredibles' (2004), and you'll have a fairly good idea of how extraordinarily well crafted 'Madagascar' is. Yes, it does contain slightly sophomoric and thematically mature humour at times, but there really isn't anything here that parents of small children need to be too concerned about.

Absolutely check it out on the big screen, as possibly the finest example of thoroughly captivating, family-friendly entertainment released so far for this summer. Awesome.

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Ma vie en cinémascope
REVIEWED 06/05, © STEPHEN BOURNE
www.ofrb.gov.on.ca | www.rcq.gouv.qc.ca


REVIEW:

This 2004 Genie-winning, subtitled French Canadian biopic takes a surprisingly measured yet disjointed approach to tracing the life of singing sensation Alice 'Alys Robi' Robitaille (played by Pascale Bussières; 'The Blue Butterfly' (2004), 'Petites coupures' (2003)) - reportedly Quebec's first international star - during her stratospheric rise to fame and subsequent mental breakdown during the 1940's. While writer/director Denise Filiatrault (who also penned television's 'Alys Robi: The Broken Dream' (1994)) obviously takes great pains throughout this hundred and five-minute picture to illustrate Robitaille's institutionalized paranoia and madness, that aspect of this entertainer's experiences quickly becomes annoyingly detrimental to a paying audience's enjoyment of watching how a bright, precocious little girl from Saint-Sauveur repeatedly managed to be in the right place at the right time for her Latin-inspired vocal stylings to catapult her into virtually instant stardom at home, across Canada, and abroad. Robi resembled Rita Hayward and was a CBC radio personality who entertained the troops during WWII, toured the night club circuit across the Americas and the UK, and was primed to become the next starlet to take Hollywood by storm, before falling into career-destroying phobia and temporary obscurity in 1948. She's since penned two autobiographies, Ma Carrière, ma vie, and Long Cri dans la nuit: Cinq Années à l'Asile, published in 1980 and 1990 respectively.

Quite frankly, the only reason that the name Alys Robi rings any bells for me is thanks to the triviality that the Sico Paint Company rewrote her chart topping song Tico Tico as their advertising jingle in the 1990's. After sitting through this flick, I wasn't particularly inspired to remember anything else - despite a twinge that I should have on some level felt motivated to both mourn and celebrate this bygone trailblazing chanteuse. However, 'Ma vie en cinémascope' takes a decidedly lazy view of research, dialogue, plot development, and movie making over-all, so I don't feel too bad about remaining indifferent. The screenplay's focus seems brutally unsure as Bussières is left to pretty well do whatever she feels like, whenever whatever passes for a script runs out of information, and another flash of madness or the two unnecessary nude scenes nudge you closer to the sweet, sweet freedom of the closing credits. Unfortunately, the unfinished script and the flashes of madness rear their ugly heads quite a bit, but the closing credits take a very long time to eventually release you from this disappointingly dull, amateurish turkey. It's as though Alys was just another boring person with a nice voice and big ambitions, and that Filiatrault's apparent fascination with grey asylum walls, electro shock therapy, and surgical lobotomies far outweighed any serious interest in thoroughly fleshing out Alice's tumultuous path, her doting father Paul (Michel Barrette), or her primary infidelities - touring stage comedian Oliver Guimond (Serge Postigo) and popular band leader Lucio Agostini (Denis Bernard) - as sources for a potentially compelling story that probably could have told itself in a far more captivating and interesting manner if left alone. As it stands, the poorly cobbled cinematic album that is 'Bittersweet Memories' (its alternative English title) falls flat during the highlights that matter, detours greatly from bothering to give insight, and simply becomes little more than a blatantly sycophantic showcase for Bussières' wildly affected, unconvincing performance.

Do yourself a favour, save yourself the trouble of planning a trip to the theatre to see it, and wait a couple minutes for this vapid muddle to be mercifully edited down to an hour for TV.

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Mad Hot Ballroom
REVIEWED 06/05, © STEPHEN BOURNE
www.ofrb.gov.on.ca | www.rcq.gouv.qc.ca


REVIEW:

Young brothers Donnie and Michael play a rousing game of foozeball in their Bensonhurst rec room, while talking about girls and dancing and other stuff. Tara, 11, takes a breather from practicing her dance moves in front of the floor to ceiling bedroom mirror in her Mom's comfortable Tribeca, Manhattan apartment to talk about the boys at her school, PS 150. "They definitely think about girls," she adamantly concludes, taking a moment to check her make up. Cyrus, a short and precociously serious ten year-old sporting a frazzled mop of curly brown hair, can't seem to make eye contact with his slightly taller dance partner like his dance coach Alex Tchassov insists. "Dance is a dialogue," Tchassov patiently demonstrates to his openly shy and puzzled classroom of onlookers. Maintaining good poise while remembering which foot goes where and when is tough enough, without having to stare into the eyes of a strange girl or boy while holding their hands. However, this is what these kids have volunteered to learn how to do in their spare time at school. Since 1995, a growing number of New York Public Schools have offered dance classes to their students as (supposedly) an alternatively fun character-builder that leads to a series of judged competitions held before summer vacation. 'Mad Hot Ballroom' spotlights four distinctly different groups and their instructors, from flamboyant Yomaira Reynoso's and Rodney Lopez's championship contenders at Washington Heights' PS 115 to Tchassov's and Allison Sheniak's oftentimes enthusiastically struggling hopefuls at PS 150, to see just what it takes to get through the whole process. And, of making it through the city-wide quarter final and semi final rounds, before the remaining teams of giggly couples take their places, show off their best dance faces, and glide to the rhythm for the coveted gold trophy. Principal Verdemare of PS 112 sneaks into practice class and eagerly partners with a lone participant during the tango. "They don't have a Fred Astaire or anyone like that," Lopez quickly explains during an organizers meeting turned dance party. "It's important for the boys, especially if they may not have a male role model at home." The program seems to pride itself in keeping kids away from their harsh realities, potential drug abuse and conflicts with law enforcement, even though most of these prepubescents are keenly aware. However, that's little consolation to Tara and Cyrus when Sheniak, equally disappointed and on the verge of tears, tries to comfort their losing dance team after winning consolation silver ribbons only to watch the other schools be sent on to the next level...

By far, this 2005 Nickelodeon Movies co-production from director Marilyn Agrelo is probably the sneakiest documentary that I've seen so far. Ever. Sure, this surprisingly hollow crowd pleaser purposely taps into the enduring phenomenon of popular interest in dance, as seen from the success of many Hollywood musicals from the 1930's to the '50's, the 'Dirty Dancing' movies, 'Strictly Ballroom' (1992) and 'Billy Elliot' (2000), and 'Shall We Dance?' (2004), and brings it into the classroom at ground level. However, because it follows these young non-actors and their teachers through this supposedly unscripted journey, this hundred and five-minute slice of life feels more like a big screen offshoot of television's relentless glut of reality shows. Not a documentary, where a more concerted effort is normally afforded putting everything into tight context for a paying audience. This one doesn't do that, choosing instead to force you into becoming caught up in a kind of vicarious thrill usually experienced by parents of children performing on stage for the first time. You still don't know these kids by the time the closing credits roll. They're never really interviewed about why they've signed up for these classes, nor specifically asked what kinds of music or dancing or anything they individually might like to do. You see them gathered in small groups, either talking about boys and girls in urban contemporary life or repeating whatever they've heard about topics from the adult world. So, you're never really given any reason to care about them, or about whatever outcome transpires once the judges' final scores are tallied. Very little is shared about the background of this extra curricular program or the history of dance in general, nor are these instructors given the opportunity to tell you how and why they got into it to begin with. Weren't any famous dancers born in New York? Was Swing invented there? Where are all of the graduates from this ten-year program now? Shhh, it's not important, look and laugh at this or that kid's awkwardly adorable dance face instead. 'Mad Hot Ballroom' is basically superfluous TV filler - a vaguely personalized and positively-spun, possibly donation-inducing commercial featuring prepubescents learning how to two-step and swivel their hips to a Latin, Puerto Rican and bygone American beat - that's been questionably extended for the big screen as nothing more than purely trivial entertainment. I realize that I sound like an old curmudgeon nitpicking over semantics, but these points illustrate what's desperately wrong with this documentary that isn't really a documentary at all. It's sneaky. It relies on whatever natural instinct that you might bring to the theatre to unconditionally empathize with these tots. And, despite still containing brief moments of interesting candour, it's an entirely lazy piece of over-long cinematography that could have easily been a far more captivating, satisfying actual documentary if writer Amy Sewell had bothered to do a lot more research on the subject matter, and Agrelo had done more than what comes off as quietly sitting on the sidelines collecting a pay cheque 'til the wrap party.

Check it out if you're a public school teacher or an insatiable fan of dance (or both), but don't be surprised if that feel good, toe-tapping tingle quickly evaporates as soon as the tissue ad with the cuddly kittens on TV similarly tugs at your heartstrings.

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Mr. & Mrs. Smith
REVIEWED 06/05, © STEPHEN BOURNE
www.ofrb.gov.on.ca | www.rcq.gouv.qc.ca


REVIEW:

The first time they'd met, back in the ramshackle bar of an army raided Bogota hotel six years ago, secret hit man for hire John Smith (Brad Pitt) quietly fell in love with Jane (Angelina Jolie). He remembers. She was like Christmas morning. Pure. The sultry Colombian early sunlight washing over her in that weary bed. Her perfect body, her luxurious raven hair. Her lips full of kisses that still crackled across John's muscular frame, as he returned to their dilapidated suite with a meagre breakfast and his heart on a tray. Soon to be followed by a golden wedding ring, and a suburban New York Colonial home shared together in blissful matrimony. Sweet memories of a time before they began to drift apart. Now, they were embittered ash. "I guess in the end," he grits his teeth at her over the phone, speeding after her through brooding Manhattan streets under a grim pale moon, "you start thinking about the beginning." That was after the fourth time she'd tried to kill her increasingly disinterested husband John. Although, the first time doesn't really count, since Jane - also a highly trained, clandestine contract assassin living a double life - didn't know that John was the one interfering with her assignment to mercilessly terminate Ben Danz (Adam Brody; 'Never Land' (2000)), a heavily guarded Federal witness en route from the Mexican border. John was also hired to kill Danz. That was the day his life was turned upside-down. The day he realized that the hitter who left him for dead in that remote patch of desert was his emotionally distant wife Jane. Sitting across from her over a home cooked dinner would never be the same. Particularly after the second time she'd tried to kill him. The third time, trapped seventy floors above an unsuspecting construction crew, John was beginning to realize the seriousness of this predicament. He really was a marked man after-all. Was it something he'd said? Did he forget her birthday? Leave the toothpaste tube uncapped once too often? Chasing Jane home from the Downtown restaurant's blasted out husk in a stolen car on that chilled night, John heard her brutally cold answer on the phone. Reconciliation was out of the question, except at his funeral. One of them was going to die before this was over. He needed guns. Flowers won't fix it. Yeah, lots of guns...

Remember Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner relentlessly trashing their house and each other as venomous married enemies in 'The War of the Roses' (1989)? Well, imagine actor Sean Connery's James Bond and either Honour Blackman's Pussy Galore from 'Goldfinger' (1964) or Grace Jones' May Day from 'A View to a Kill' (1985) in that setting, and you've pretty well got the gist of this sporadically entertaining and fairly plodding, hundred and twenty-minute action/comedy from director Doug Liman ('Swingers' (1996), 'The Bourne Identity' (2002)). Sure, there are brief moments when this spuriously hyped disappointment feels as though it might become a rollicking fun sequel-in-spirit to the comparably superior 'True Lies' (1994), but so much of writer Simon Kinberg's ('xXx: State of the Union' (2005)) script plays out as vapid pretense attempting to justify a kind of realized metaphor for marital dysfunction gone bullet riddled and pyrotechnic that the story and any tangible character development seems lost or lazily concocted minutes before the camera rolls. It's not a spy movie, because there's no intrigue or real sense of over-all, high velocity pacing. The Smiths just so-happen to be spies, so that they can more readily get their hands on an arsenal of weaponry and ultra cool gadgets. It's not even a wry parody of the oftentimes emotional tailspin towards a charred crater of divorce, since this couple merely plays at being bored with their marriage - which they also pretend at. Even if Pitt's Smith had taken a slightly different tact, where he was actually overjoyed at the prospect of he and his wife finally having something in common, 'Mr. & Mrs. Smith' would have been a much more satisfying, hilariously oddball screening. As it stands, sitting through this flick is like brushing your teeth with shaving cream. It has the same minty fresh colour and consistency as the real McCoy, but, well, it just tastes wrong. What you're predominantly left with is paying witness to the undeniably charismatic screen presence of Brad Pitt ('Twelve Monkeys' (1995), 'Troy' (2004)) and Angelina Jolie ('Hackers' (1995), 'Taking Lives' (2004)), as they play with noisy toys and toy with exasperating double meanings while firing knowing winks at cinematographer Bojan Bazelli's fairly unimaginative lens throughout. Pitt's rather fawning Q&A with Ashton Kutcher transcribed in a recent issue of Interview magazine was a more captivating piece of cinephile porn that mercifully ate up far less time and money than this surprisingly wasteful star vehicle - even if, reportedly, Liman and film editor Michael Tronick hadn't awkwardly left a steamy love scene on the cutting room floor in order to secure this offering's teen-friendly PG-13 rating come opening day. Yawn. There was this small, critically acclaimed and Oscar-winning little film released a few years ago that you might have heard of called 'Prizzi's Honor' (1985), a deliciously dark comedy starring Turner and Jack Nicholson, directed by John Huston, that wryly dealt with the same theme of two killers who are lovers contracted to assassinate each other. That was an extremely enjoyable movie from beginning to closing credits. This isn't, except during the last half hour - around the same time that you notice you've fallen asleep from the waist down, as well as from the neck up - when the Smiths quit acting like trigger happy finger puppets and actually begin talking to each other in sentences longer than five or six words.

I suspect that even if you're a huge fan of "Brangelina"... uh, "Brannifer"... well, you know - in whole or in part - you're still probably better off renting this bloated snooze fest and reaping the benefits of having a fast forward button handy.

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Mysterious Skin
REVIEWED 07/05, © STEPHEN BOURNE
www.ofrb.gov.on.ca | www.rcq.gouv.qc.ca


REVIEW:

Brian Lackey (Brady Corbet) was abducted by aliens when he was a little boy. Twice. Once in 1981, after his Hutchinson Dolphins' little league ball game was rained out, when he was eight, and then another time, on Hallowe'en night in 1983. He remembers. Remembering it makes his eyeballs roll back into his head before he collapses, though. A total black out. Now grown into a bright, eighteen year-old young man, letting those suppressed lost hours trapped aboard a UFO slip into his impressionable consciousness still gives him nosebleeds. So, in his nightmares, Brian remembers laying on that cold dull, swirl-patterned floor without his clothes or his glasses as the blurry dark figures moved towards him and did things to his paralysed body. The aliens. Just like they show them on TV, with their dark liquidy eyes and the slender fingers that wouldn't stop touching him. Brian's dream journal is full of pieces of the puzzle that make up his sometimes confusing abduction memories. His writings and his drawings fill his bedside diary. Each part that becomes clearer haunts him and frustrates him even further. They make him want to keep to himself, stay in his room, and just shut off from the world. To just block it out completely. However, he wasn't alone. Neil McCormick (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) was also there with him and the monster that first time. Then-eight year-old Neil was that children's baseball team's winning slugger. He vaguely remembers Brian as one of many, but Neil - now a teenaged male prostitute working this small rural Kansas town's playground park notoriously cruised by lonely Gay clients - remembers a lot silly things from his formative years. His mother's endless parade of boyfriends. Playing video games and going to the movies. Repeating funny swear words into a microphone, and posing for Polaroids of him laughing at the man touching his lips. Neil remembers that he was their coach's favourite, and recalls that the first man he had ever kissed would have been a gorgeous male centrefold if any from Mrs. McCormick's poorly hidden treasure of dirty magazines had featured him. Breath taking memories of him as an eight year-old, laying on that cold dull floor without his clothes on, surrounded by kaleidoscopic swirls of spilled cereal. Those eyes. That touch. Fond times for Neil. Terrifying times for Brian, who eventually realizes that Neil holds the key to him finally making sense of his recollected alien abductions towards some semblance of closure. However, McCormick has already dusted this small town from his heels, soaking in the big city Nineteen Nineties with his longtime best friend Wendy (Michelle Trachtenberg) in New York City, and isn't due back until Christmas.

Whoa. Based on Gay Erotic novelist Scott Heim's 1995 book, this incredibly well paced and highly demanding 2004 Art Film from writer/director Gregg Araki ('Nowhere' (1997), 'Splendor' (1999)) about victims of pedophilia oftentimes resembles the surprising dramatic power of 'Midnight Cowboy' (1969) and the seamless examination of 'A Home at the End of the World' (2004), but unfortunately seems to take a particularly nauseating delight in shocking/boring a paying audience with simulated scenes of pornographic sex. Television's '3rd Rock from the Sun' (1996-2001) co-star Joseph Gordon-Levitt ('10 Things I Hate About You' (1999), 'Treasure Planet' (2002)) pulls in an absolutely phenomenal performance here as numbly self-destructive eighteen year-old male prostitute Neil McCormick, filling the screen with a relentlessly captivating gloom that Araki masterfully deconstructs as this ninety-nine minuter clicks along. Full marks also go to Chase Ellison ('Scenes of the Crime' (2001)) for his brilliantly realized role as eight year-old Neil experiencing his early homosexuality being horribly poisoned and exploited by his predatory little league coach - played with astoundingly evil believability by Bill Sage ('Boiler Room' (2000), 'Stray Dogs' (2002)). These three actors easily make 'Mysterious Skin' a potentially important big screen offering on the same level as 'The Woodsman' (2004) that, in part, carefully drags a paying audience into this wince-inducing world of irreconcilable child abuse. That is, to the detriment of Brady Corbet's ('Thirteen' (2003), 'Thunderbirds' (2004)) well done yet vaguely interesting and already fairly watered down co-starring lead as straight teen Brian Lackey desperately trying to find closure over two instances of missing hours from his young childhood, that self preservation has confused with his belief that he was abducted by extra terrestrials. Yes, it's definitely a tough movie to sit through because of its graphically sexual subject matter - whether you enjoy Gay Cinema or not - and some of the same-gender aspects that do transpire have been far more cleverly presented in such offerings as 'Monster' (2003) and 'Bad Education' (2004). Although, the part where Neil has his dubiously "safest encounter ever" with an AIDS infected client in New York is truly outstanding. However, the problem with this flick is that Araki's otherwise extraordinary screenplay becomes unnecessarily enamoured with the gratuitous visual specifics of adolescent McCormick's stock and trade, forcing cinematographer Steve Gainer into using a series of annoying contortions and poor compositional solutions in order to avoid showing too much of things between consenting adults that don't really help the story at all, and forgets about fully fleshing out the characters of its impressive cast of supporting players that includes Michelle Trachtenberg ('EuroTrip' (2004), 'Ice Princess' (2005)) as Neil's cautiously empathetic longtime best friend Wendy, Jeffrey Licon's fashionably faddish wannabe lover Eric, and Elisabeth Shue ('Leaving Las Vegas' (1995), 'Hide and Seek' (2005)) as Mrs. McCormick.

This feature definitely has its moments of obvious genius throughout, but its strange need to further sexualize the already controversial subject matter of pedophilia with scenes flirting Gay porn tends to undermine the real drama's seriousness and the absolutely superior efforts from this outstanding main cast.

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My Summer of Love
REVIEWED 07/05, © STEPHEN BOURNE
www.ofrb.gov.on.ca | www.rcq.gouv.qc.ca


REVIEW:

Coldy dumped by her much older boyfriend Ricky (Dean Andrews) mere minutes after their quick throes of passion in the back seat of his Renault, Lisa's (Nathalie Press) summer was turning out to be a disaster. Her ex-con brother Phil (Paddy Considine) - who insists on calling her Mona on account of a tired childhood joke - had already turned their deceased parents' English valley pub into a religious centre for Born Again believers to congregate and celebrate the Almighty Jesus Christ, relentlessly attempting to convert her with their endless chants of reverie floating up through her second floor bedroom's floorboards. Lisa's Honda motorbike didn't even have an engine in it, so escape seemed hopeless. However, there was Tamsin (Emily Blunt). They'd met on the side of the road the other day, with green eyed brunette Tamsin trotting past on a white horse while Lisa lay in the ditch's tall grass staring aimlessly through her long auburn hair at the cruelly happy skies. The hilltop manor shrouded in ancient ivy and a forest of unkempt shrubbery resembled an enchanted palace nestled beyond the unassuming stone entrance, and the simple thrill of stepping into that world delighted Lisa as she followed sweetly melancholy cello music up the wooden staircase into Tamsin's awaiting sanctum. She was like a princess locked in a cloud of quiet sadness that only Lisa could empathize with. They were kindred spirits. Sharing the intensity of their thoughts over red wine and Edith Piaf. Slowly coiling themselves around each other, feeling their warmth and tasting their sweet kisses as the dusk blanketed their bodies in its cool mist of uninhibited dreams. Lisa felt special with Tamsin, comforting her against waves of tears that reduced this rich school girl to loud sobs over her sister Sadie's horrible anorexic death. Lisa protected her, teaching Tamsin's adulterous father a harsh lesson that the two girls had laughed about all the way back to their secret hideaway of love under Tamsin's soft burgundy bed sheets. Lisa loved Tamsin. They were going to be together for the rest of their lives, and run away together to anywhere in the world that their beating hearts desired. However, this wondrous fantasy that had brought them closer to a blissful reality that Lisa had always yearned for suddenly felt poisoned by Phil's presence. Tamsin seems to fancy him as well. Letting him touch her lovely neck with such corruptible tenderness that only Lisa should be allowed to do. He was a fraud and they knew it. She hated her brother. Why was this happening to her?

Based on erotica author Helen Cross' 2001 novel, this 2004 effort from Polish-born Brit writer/director Pawel Pawlikowski ('Last Resort' (2000)) is a surprisingly interesting, character-driven film. Sure, it's bloated with endless scenes of these two wayward rural English girls lazing around and living in their own little fantasy world of girlish banter and sexual experimentation, but Pawlikowski's screenplay presents it all in a crisp, economical fashion throughout. He evades any real sense of boredom rising up from a paying audience by allowing the story arc enough space for sparks of wonderfully candid moments to peek in and keep you involved. Cinematographers Ryszard Lenczewski and David Scott's artfully stylish camera work also pulls you in, as Nathalie Press's ('Wasp' (2003)) Lisa and first timer Emily Blunt's Tamsin slip further into a kind of misguided romance that you instantly know from the moment they meet will end in tears. The synth band Goldfrapp's haunted soundtrack is also incredibly impressive. 'My Summer of Love' is a bit like watching the gorgeous horror of a crystal chandelier shatter to the floor in slow motion. Every extended minute seeing it slowly twist in doomed free fall builds your anticipation and dire need to turn away, but you can't help but marvel at it. The way the sunlight hits each dew drop prism, frame by frame. How its sparkling surface of gossamer scales rolls and ripples in an aching vacuum of space. Seeing those first few delicately cut pieces sharply impact against that hard surface, pulverizing into small explosions and fountains of sparkling dust. And then, witnessing more of its fragile translucence tumble down, pouring over itself and disintegrating in a visually poetic destruction. The experience becomes something far more captivating and memorable than the event itself. This eighty-six minute independent-looking movie is very much like that. Yes, it's an Art Film, and yet Pawlikowski deftly manipulates your anticipation of what happens next at every stage. Making it more than merely a self-gratifying stage-to-screen-like dalliance or nudity-tinged After School Special. How far is Lisa willing to let her emotionally awkward neediness consume her reasoning? When will her Born Again ex-con brother Phil (Paddy Considine; 'In America' (2002), 'Cinderella Man' (2005)) veer from the righteous path towards temptation and his former malevolent ways? Is Tamsin merely toying with them both out of patronizing boredom or is there something more simmering beneath the surface? You can't look away.

Press and Blunt are truly astounding here. Obviously, 'My Summer of Love' won't be everyone's cup of tea, but if you're looking for something off-beat and visually rich, definitely check it out.

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Must Love Dogs
REVIEWED 07/05, © STEPHEN BOURNE
www.ofrb.gov.on.ca | www.rcq.gouv.qc.ca


REVIEW:

Eight months after her bitterly sudden divorce, Bay Berry Pre-School teacher Sarah Nolan (Diane Lane) is still hurting and miserable and single. She's actually gotten used to living like a neurotic old cat lady without the cats, rambling around her house in her bath robe when she's not at work, and eating dinner alone, over the kitchen sink, habitually staring blankly into space while barely noticing that her food has flavour. Existing. Ugly. Just wanting her former, nowhere life back, because at least there was some sense of comfort in its loveless familiarity. Her family can't stand to see her this way, with each concerned sibling helpfully presenting her with glossy hard copies of potential suitors downloaded from the internet for her to consider. Sarah's eldest sister Carol (Elizabeth Perkins) goes a step further, creating a somewhat fairly slightly truthful online profile for her that features her high school graduation photo taken well over half a lifetime ago. Christine (Ali Hillis), Nolan's younger sister, eagerly brings over some "boob shirts" to freshen up Sarah's dismally frumpish wardrobe, as well some great dating tips torn from Sports Illustrated magazine - apparently also the reigning authority on lonely heart forty year-old women hesitantly sent back onto this particular kind of playing field by their meddling relatives. Who knew? With his divorce papers finalized by the sharp, swift pen of his estranged ex-wife, emotionally adrift boat craftsman Jake Anderson (John Cusack) was free to sink deeper into the kind of obsessively depressive funk that only a steady diet of the screen classic 'Doctor Zhivago' (1965) could console. That forty year-old epic of doomed love lost forever in Technicolor bleakness was somehow reassuring. Life defining. Chilly. Charlie (Ben Shenkman), Jake's best friend and lawyer, gave up trying to cheer him up by setting him up with loose women in the real world, or those intriguingly wholesome bisexual Asian nubiles advertising themselves on the web. They apparently like fly fishing. Jake wouldn't bite, but he did eventually give in to checking out one rather dated photograph taken from a relationship site that Charlie had suggested. Sarah wasn't sure if her instant attraction for him was an honest feeling or a desperate urge. He was recently single and tall enough, ruggedly good-looking in the puppet closet and had a great butt - uh, great sense of humour - but, Bobby (Dermot Mulroney) was the parent of one of her students. She couldn't date him. It would be wrong. Dating a complete stranger who could be an escaped convict or worse surfing the 'net would be more appropriate. No, Bobby was there and available and interested, but this Jake person who'd answered her online ad might show more promise than the last three guys. Besides, he says he loves dogs.

Adapted from writer Claire Cook's 2002 novel and apparently inspired by the ghost of Jane Austin's prose and the glaring success of 'Bridget Jones's Diary' (2001), this rather fluffy and pedantic romantic comedy feels awkward. It's like a poorly rehearsed stage play bubbling with potential, where all of its starring starving actors are just so happy to have paying jobs for a while that they tend to ruin it by over emphasizing every facial expression and hammering out their dialogue as perky clipped verses as ways of somehow proving that they deserve and appreciate the pay cheque. Frankly, 'Must Love Dogs' suffers a lot from these irritating spasms of nervous fakery throughout the first two thirds of its dragged out, ninety-eight minute run time. Forget about the delightfully romantic 'You've Got Mail' (1998) and think more along the lines of the disastrously affected 'Alex & Emma' (2003) or pretty well any recent Woody Allen flick, were the performers in those movies seemed reduced to being little more than first role amateurs feeding off of scripts that looked as though they tasted like broken glass swept up from a dusty Pantomime. It's actually painful watching Diane Lane ('Judge Dredd' (1995), 'Under the Tuscan Sun' (2003)) and John Cusack ('Grosse Pointe Blank' (1997), 'Runaway Jury' (2003)) struggle to intellectually squeeze into their cheerily babbling "gee, this mid-life crisis of being Forty Something and single in the New Millennium is great fun" oafishly fragile theatrics as divorced pre-school teacher Sarah Nolan and divorced boat maker Jake Anderson slowly realizing that they're right for each other. Or, maybe not... or maybe so. Oh dear, this love stuff is so terribly, hopelessly confusing. Groan. Sure, two-time Emmy winner turned film writer/director Gary David Goldberg ('Dad' (1989)) does load up his supporting cast with an impressive roster of talent that also includes chick flick regular Dermot Mulroney ('My Best Friend's Wedding' (1997), 'The Wedding Date' (2005)) and Toronto's Christopher Plummer ('The Sound of Music' (1965), 'Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country' (1991)), and the story does offer up a wealth of cleverly chirpy quips and a wonderfully irreverent glibness regarding online dating that's actually the best part of this entire effort, but the over-all picture takes too long to settle into itself and, as a whole, doesn't hold together well. The play acting squelches any sense of tangibly empathetic personality for these two primary lonely hearts, so you're left sitting in the dark enjoying the nowhere banter, patiently waiting for its tired hand of predictable twists and woe-is-me games to finally toss you a satisfying treat. It does, sort of, but 'Must Love Dogs' sure makes you heel, sit, roll over and beg for it.

Check it out as a second or third choice rental to snuggle up and chuckle along with, but really only if your favourite video store has run out of the much funnier romantic celluloid romps that you already know are worth seeing again.

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Murderball
REVIEWED 08/05, © STEPHEN BOURNE
www.ofrb.gov.on.ca | www.rcq.gouv.qc.ca


REVIEW:

Like a solemn ritual held in his small and sparse apartment, former Austin, Texas High School Football player Mark Zupan suits up for the day's game of Murderball. This modern day gladiator sharply and silently pulls the black pads over the dark tattoos of gnarled thorns that dangerously coil around his muscular arms. His piercing eyes narrow and the reddish hairs of his overgrown goatee seem to bristle as an electrified intensity washes over his young face. He is a lion in its prime. This is his time. In the arena, with his fingers wrapped around the ball as he thunders past his opponents for a winning goal, Zupan is Team USA's most intimidating Quad Rugby champion. The 2002 Wheelchair Rugby World Championship in Stockholm, Sweden is in the past. Just like the horrifying accident that had snapped Mark's spine half a lifetime ago, rendering his legs useless and the motor functions in his arms measurably weakened, that heart pounding final match against Team Canada doesn't matter anymore. All he sees is Athens, legendary home of the Olympics, and the gold medal that he and his team mates plan to bring home from the 2004 Paralympic Games. Team Canada's brutally competitive coach, formerly acclaimed US Murderball athlete and childhood polio survivor Joe Soares, also hungers for the mother lode in Greece. Stockholm was going to be Joe's triumphant departure from this raucous sport that has filled his family household's trophy wall, but a renewed obsession grips his disciplined mind with a fiery passion that promises to rocket his impressive team of aggressive quadriplegics towards the shadow of the Parthenon and the eternal flame of glory. He is a lion, still very much in his prime. This is his time. There is no room for failure, as the Games draw closer. The tournament in Vancouver will decide the ranking of this long standing border war. The other countries vying for top standing have all sent their best to face the Americans and the Canadians. They are worthy opponents, but Zupan sees them as mere stepping stones as his modified chair slams through whatever gauntlet gets in his way. His dream will not be scuttled. All that Soares sees is Team USA: His old team that kicked him out in 1996, stealing his rightful victory in Australia. He will not let it slip away from him again.

Acknowledged as being inspired by co-director Dana Adam Shapiro's 2002 MAXIM Magazine article citing that year's Wheelchair Rugby World Championship turned grudge match between Canada and the United States in Stockholm, this oftentimes incredibly captivating documentary begins by recapturing the raw, aggressive adrenaline rush of that story before focusing more thoroughly on Team USA's small band of players and the brutal toss-and-slam game's larger than life characters all vying for position at the 2004 Paralympics in Athens, Greece. Wheelchair Rugby - also known as Quad Rugby - was originally called Murderball: Part contact football, part indoor hockey that's played on a basketball court with a volleyball by teams of four physically disabled players each equipped with little more than modified chairs used as squat bumper cars, reportedly invented in Winnipeg, Manitoba by wheelchair athletes Duncan Campbell, Gerry Terwin, Chris Sargent, Randy Dueckand and the late Paul Joseph LeJeune (1955-1997) as a fast paced, no holds barred Rugby-style sport for functional quadriplegics. According to the Canadian Wheelchair Sports Association, only three countries - Canada, America and Great Britain - participated in Quad Rugby's first International Tournament held in Toronto in 1989, rapidly growing to become a full medal event sporting challengers from around the world at the 2000 Sydney Paralympic Summer Games - itself first organized in England by ex-patriot German neurologist Sir Ludwig Guttmann, OBE, CBE (1899-1980) in 1948 for WWII veterans surviving spinal cord injuries. Much of that intriguing homegrown history is overlooked during this otherwise wonderfully realized eighty-eight minute, two-time Sundance Film Festival winning US production from Shapiro and cinematographer/co-director Henry Alex Rubin, but the intensifying border rivalry is made crystal clear as these two opposing North American champion teams prepare to win gold in Athens. 'Murderball' is actually a series of well-told story arcs running parallel to each other on the big screen. You're given the big picture of the game presented as a a kind of high velocity indoctrination screening for existing and potential fans of this over-all unfamiliar sport, dropping you into the thick of things as a spectator and then slowly pivoting around to Motocross survivor Keith coming out of intensive therapy keen on signing up at the end. You're also given the human side, as Rubin's lens intimately reveals the personal lives and individual backgrounds of these US players unofficially led by brazenly tattooed rebel poster child Mark Zupan from Austin, Texas, and that of Portugal-born former American Wheelchair Rugby champion turned hotheaded Team Canada coach Joe Soares ravaged by polio as a child. Their opinions are wonderfully candid and bluntly tinged with a simmering rage expressed within and beyond their explosively raucous chariot-like sparring matches of machismo, with Soares' bullying his crew from the sidelines easily standing out as a crisp case study of an intense competitor vicariously avenging his being cut from the US Paralympics team eight years earlier. Arrogant egos and jock bravado are at a premium throughout. Sure, vaguely manipulative contrivances do begin to creep into the equation, such as when the ten year-old truck accident that damaged the motor reflexes of Zupan's arms and hands and has left his legs useless is repeated towards a redemptive tale introducing his former High School Football team mate and estranged friend Chris Igoe - the driver of that pick up truck who walked away physically unscathed on the night of that terrible accident - however, these potentially aggravating dramatic asides click along at an economical enough pace that avoids overwhelming a paying audience's enthusiasm for the game and enjoyment of this flick.

Definitely check out this well-crafted documentary as a worthwhile rental for sports fans looking for real stories of true champions.

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March of the Penguins
REVIEWED 08/05, © STEPHEN BOURNE
www.ofrb.gov.on.ca | www.rcq.gouv.qc.ca


REVIEW:

Antarctica wasn't always a glacial desert scarred by icy winds that petrify this land of deadly solitude. Thousands of years ago, it was a lush tropical forest. Full of life, before the continents shifted and the inhabitants of this polar mass either left or died from the cold that had destroyed their paradise. However, it's believed that one tribe stayed. Whether it was their stubbornness, or a belief that the sudden drop in temperature was temporary, the Emperor Penguin still makes the annual migration from his home in the Southern Seas to the ancient breeding grounds nestled seventy miles inland. It's a pilgrimage made on foot for this flightless bird, as their long meandering caravan marches single file towards that distant destination of convergence to find a mate and to create new life. This is a story of love. For Centuries, the Emperor Penguin has been draw to this remote and desolate place, miraculously finding it across the shifting ice that erases all familiar landmarks, as though navigating its terrain by the sun or the stars or by some powerful unseen force. This vast canyon is where their own life began. For those who have just matured, this will be their first step into parenthood. For others, this might be their last. After an intricate ritual of gestures and calls, each female will find their one true partner. The number of males has always been fewer, so her choice is a delicate process that sometimes erupts into a contest against other females vying for a suitable mate. The males don't seem to mind, preening themselves until a decision is finally made. As the dwindling May sun's light trickles across their silvery dark grey plumage, an air of immediacy blankets this pool of loosely huddled black and white coloured bodies bracing for the harsh Southern Hemispheric winter that looms on the frozen horizon. A single fragile egg is the result of their brief coupling, and each pair carefully practice the age old dance that will transfer their unborn chick from the warmth of its mother's belly to be incubated by its father for the next two long and gruelling months against the elements that can kill within seconds. Both are fatigued and hungry, but it's the mother who must first make the arduous journey back to the sea to rebuild her diminished body weight. She must leave her young with the male she has chosen. She must trust that he will protect their baby and keep it from harm's way until she can return to see her newborn hatchling for the first time.

One thing immediately becomes apparent while sitting through this oftentimes desperately boring eighty-five minute documentary from debuting French writer/director Luc Jacquet narrated in this version by Morgan Freeman. That is, the Emperor Penguin - the largest of this flightless monochromatic family of aquatic birds, typically growing to four feet tall and having a reported lifespan of approximately twenty years - has really, really ugly scaly feet. However, the most noticeably aggravating aspect of 'La marche de l'empereur' (its original title) is in how Freeman's flighty, unnecessary narrative attempts to relentlessly wax poetic about this otherwise magnificent, mostly docile creature, while the film leads a paying audience down a rosy path of nature as comforting allegory for moral human values. They're called a tribe here. Creepy. You're told that Emperor Penguins are monogamous during and after mating season. That their entire existence revolves around feeding deep underwater, retracing their arduous migration on foot, and enduring harsh sub-zero climate for the sole purpose of breeding as soon as they reach adulthood at age five. You see them wait for each other for months at a time, sticking to rules learned by rote or perish. Both parents take turns in raising and somewhat protecting their single offspring while one or the other adult returns to the icy sea to fill its empty gullet because penguins haven't invented picnic baskets or anchovy pizza delivery or ice drilling tools - yet. Jacquet's need to overtly anthropomorphize these live untamed animals leads you to believe they're possibly capable of such advancements after thousands of years of waddling to and from their ancient Antarctic breeding grounds and shivering against the frigid wilderness with an egg or newborn coddled between their legs, but the simple reality is that they're just big dumb birds with shrimpy wings. And, very ugly feet that you're forced to look at close-ups of a lot. Yes, I'll admit that I was skeptical about this surprisingly acclaimed, ultimately artsy turkey before going in. Not so much because it basically looks like a prolonged updated television special from one of its co-production companies, National Geographic, but because I'd read that the screenplay was based on a story by its writer/director. Screenplay? Story? uh. They're penguins. How much of a script do you need before pointing a camera at them, Luc? It seemed pretentious. It is pretentious, where boredom quickly settles in soon after the opening credits that pan across yet another iceberg that looks a lot like the last dozen shown under differing sunlight, and you end up hoping to hear someone off-camera quickly whisper, "Okay, release the penguin eating things on my mark," Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom-style, just to kick start the slothful pacing. You eventually see one Leopard Seal and one unnamed predatory bird suddenly appear, attack and vanish here. You see one chick that wandered off during a blizzard lay frozen dead, because Little Billy Penguin didn't heed his doting mother's warning. I'm not saying they don't have feelings. However, it's almost ecclesiastic as presented here, all neatly sanitized, humanized and veiled in stern dogma, scored with heartstring arousing music for easy consumption by its intended pandered crowd. Yeesh.

Quite frankly, 'March of the Penguins' (its North American title) made me feel as though I was reliving a screening held in my old Public School Biology class that I'd already slept through most of once already, so I'd say that unless you're an avid theatre seat eco-tourist - or you really need a reminder to check your own toenails more often - you're probably better off straying from the flock and veering clear of this reportedly popular yet strange and largely unimpressive cinematic bird.

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Me and You and Everyone We Know
REVIEWED 09/05, © STEPHEN BOURNE
www.ofrb.gov.on.ca | www.rcq.gouv.qc.ca


REVIEW:

Ever-hopeful performance artist Christine Jesperson (debuting Miranda July) sits in her fuchsia bedroom, staring intently at the plain and pale pink shoes standing on the edge of her lonely bed. There is something there. Inspiration floating over them. She can see it. She can tune in. Feel it. Christine smiles at the wonderful contrast that the black marker letters she draws makes against the soft vinyl toes of her newly bought shoes. Richard Swersey (John Hawkes) was right. He's a good man and a good shoe salesman. They don't rub against her ankles like other shoes have. They caress her feet. Warmly. Gently. He has such gentle eyes. Sad, but kind. Her video camera quietly purrs with contentment in her hands, capturing the shoes as they magically transform into art on the floor below. Into puppets. Symbolizing something more. Reflecting Jesperson's first contact with Swersey. The shoe on her left foot wears three letters, YOU, and the shoe on her right foot wears two: ME. ME slowly slides towards YOU, and YOU turns away. ME tries again, affectionately touching YOU, hoping for the same in return. YOU slightly flinches and shyly accepts ME, and then suddenly turns away from ME again. Why did he tell her to get out of his car? Why did he ruin the magic? They had just spent their entire lives together, in love, married, with kids, aging together and then dying, while walking side by side along that short block from the shopping mall to the street corner. It felt good. It had felt right, seeing her smile given back to her as a gift by his. Them sharing that moment. That playful connection. "This could be like the after-life," Christine had said to Richard, hopping into his passing car a few minutes afterwards. He'd gone cold. Cruel reality. The moment had passed. This pair were supposed to be together, but YOU had turned away from ME. The camera stops. And, the shoes go back to just being plain and pale pink shoes from a box.

This indie gem emerged from the 2005 film festival circuit with a Sundance Special Jury Prize win for originality of vision, as well as four awards from Cannes. Writer/director/co-star Miranda July's first big screen effort and debuting role as emotionally erratic performance artist Christine Jesperson obsessively stuck in unsure love with fragile dreamer and shoe department clerk Richard Swersey (John 'Hawkes' Perkins; 'The Perfect Storm' (2000), 'Identity' (2003)) is definitely an artful and measurably eccentric cinematic experiment throughout. There's a richness of vulnerability that saturates virtually every scene, briefly punctuated by wonderfully insightful dialogue that masterfully draws in a paying audience. Just the sidewalk scene - where, having just met, Christine and Richard walk a playfully imaginative time line as a couple together - is well worth the price of admission. The juxtaposition of this man who's desperately trying to control his fractured feelings and this woman who lives to express hers with abandon from the fringes of normalcy is absolutely brilliant. 'Me and You and Everyone We Know' doesn't end there, though. It's really five small intertwining stories with this awkward romance leading the way. Love or its substitute in the wake of trauma seems to be the central theme in most of them, with the outstanding efforts from Miles Thompson ('Thirteen Conversations About One Thing' (2001)) and Brandon Ratcliff ('Breathe' (2003)) easily shining through as young brothers Peter and Robby Swersey, each stumbling upon fairly distorted reflections of adult intimacy while their parents' month-old separation settles down. Yes, the cringe meter slides into the red zone a couple of times during eleven year-old Radcliffe's surreal chat room skits, and I'm pretty certain that I could have lived a lot longer before sitting through sixteen year-old actors Natasha Slayton (television's 'Brother's Keeper' (1998-1999)) and Najarra Townsend ('Menace' (2001)) simulating vaguely off-screen fellatio for cinematographer Chuy Chávez camera, playing sexually curious under-aged schoolmates Heather and Rebecca inspired by a perverted neighbour. Full marks also go to Carlie Westerman ('A Cinderella Story' (2004)) as kitchenware hoarding Sylvie dreaming of becoming a June Cleaver-like grown-up, unlike her own single mother. Mesmerizing. It's still an Art House film that requires a little patience, but over-all, this is brilliantly realized R-rated offering is a surprisingly unique and entertaining treasure with fresh performances from this ensemble cast that will likely stay with you long after the closing credits.

Definitely check out 'Me and You and Everyone We Know' as a delightfully quirky and beautifully artistic snapshot well worth seeing on the big screen.

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My Date With Drew
REVIEWED 09/05, © STEPHEN BOURNE
www.ofrb.gov.on.ca | www.rcq.gouv.qc.ca


REVIEW:

Between jobs and with $1100 burning a hole in his pocket, twenty-seven year-old Hollywood-based pilot television game show winner Brian Herzlinger (as himself) decides to reach for the impossible: To go on a date with People's Choice Award winner, three-time MTV Movie Award and Blockbuster Entertainment Award winner, and the Hasty Pudding Award Ceremony's 2001 Woman of the Year recipient, actress and producer Drew Blyth Barrymore, famous half-sister of John Blyth Barrymore ('Nocturna' (1979), 'Hybrid' (1997)). Daughter of Television Walk of Famer (7000 Hollywood Boulevard) John Drew Barrymore (1932-2004) ('Quebec' (1951), 'The Clones' (1973)) and Jaid Barrymore ('Irreconcilable Differences' (1984), 'Funny Valentine' (2005)). Granddaughter of Silver Screen legends John Sidney Blyth "The Great Profile" Barrymore (1882-1942) ('Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' (1920), 'Bulldog Drummond's Peril' (1938), Motion Picture Walk of Fame (6667 Hollywood Boulevard)) and Dolores "Goddess of the Silent Screen" Costello (1903-1979) ('The Toymaker' (1912), 'The Magnificent Ambersons' (1942), Motion Picture Walk of Fame (1645 Vine Street)), as well as grand-niece of Motion Picture Walk of Famer (1500 Vine Street) Helene Costello (1906-1957) ('Captain Barnacle's Baby' (1911), 'Lights of New York' (1928)). Great-granddaughter of Silent Film star and Motion Picture Walk of Famer (6516 Hollywood Boulevard) Maurice "The Dimpled Darling" Costello (1877-1950) ('Adventures of Sherlock Holmes' (1905), 'Tin Pan Alley' (1940)) and Mae Costello (1882-1929) ('One Good Turn' (1913), 'The Money Mill' (1917)). Great-niece of Lionel Blythe Barrymore (1878-1954) ('Friends' (1912), 'Key Largo' (1948), Motion Picture Walk of Fame (1724 Vine Street)) and Oscar-winner Miss Ethel Barrymore (1879-1959) ('None But the Lonely Heart' (1944), 'Pinky' (1949), Motion Picture Walk of Fame (7001 Hollywood Boulevard)). Goddaughter of renowned New York Actors Studio director Israel Lee Strasberg's (1901-1982) ('The Godfather: Part II' (1974), '...And Justice for All' (1979), Motion Picture Walk of Fame (6777 Hollywood Boulevard)) widow Anna Mizrahi Strasberg ('Riot on Sunset Strip' (1967), 'Qualcosa di biondo' (1984)) and Oscar-winning director Steven Spielberg ('E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial' (1982), 'War of the Worlds' (2005), Motion Picture Walk of Fame (6801 Hollywood Boulevard)). Yes, that Drew Barrymore ('Altered States' (1980), 'Curious George' (2006)). 1995 Playboy magazine centrefold and former spouse of Pembroke's Tom Green ('Charlie's Angels' (2000), 'Bob the Butler' (2005)), with her own Motion Picture Walk of Fame star at 6925 Hollywood Boulevard, mere blocks from that of famed comedian Louis Francis Cristillo 'Lou Costello' (1906-1959) ('One Night in the Tropics' (1940), 'Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy' (1955)) - no relation, apparently. Audrey Hepburn (1650 Vine Street)... Pee-Wee Herman (6562 Hollywood Boulevard)... Charlton Heston (1620 Vine Street)... nope, no star for Herzlinger on the Walk of Fame, nor is he on a list of any film credits. It doesn't matter. Brian's been a fan of Drew's ever since they were both kids, when he was a bonafide member of her official fan club - the pink envelopes and child celebrity photo from which he still keeps in the old bedroom drawer at his politely skeptical parents' house. Nobody believes that this lovable nobody will succeed, but aided by his co-director friends Jon Gunn and Brett Winn - and their sparsely willing network of Tinseltown connections that scrounges up the help of Nicole Kidman's former assistant Kerry David and Julia Roberts' half-brother Eric Roberts - this neophyte Casanova is determined to ignore every obvious obstacle that includes Barrymore's engagement to hunky Brazilian-born The Strokes drummer Fabrizio Moretti to make his ultimate dream date come true...

Quite frankly, this delightfully quirky documentary from co-director/star Brian Herzlinger could have very easily been something cobbled together by a Reality TV scriptwriter inspired by 'Win a Date With Tad Hamilton!' (2004). 'My Date With Drew' follows its somewhat dishevelled protagonist on his fairly disorganized quest to not only meet but go on an actual date with famed actor Drew Barrymore, primarily fuelled by Herzlinger's life long adoration for this popular screen idol and his uncanny ability to excite others with his infectious enthusiasm along the way. In some respects, this ninety-minute 2004 picture feels like a Drew Barrymore movie, along the lines of 'Never Been Kissed' (1999) and '50 First Dates' (2004), but at the same time retains a freshly unscripted quality that makes the entire effort extremely captivating and enjoyable throughout. Herzlinger's too much of a cluelessly neurotic dreamer playfully enamoured by the Barrymore quote, "If you don't take risks, you'll have a wasted soul," to label him a creepy stalker. So, a paying audience can't help but cheer him on against every hurdle that he continually stumbles into between Day One and his deadline a month later. Through one of several opportunistic meetings using the premise of 'Six Degrees of Separation' (1993) as the flick's game plan, he chats with actor Eric Roberts ('The Pope of Greenwich Village' (1984), 'National Security' (2003)), who suggests he get a personal trainer, and Corey Feldman ('The Goonies' (1985), 'The Lost Boys' (1987)) who once dated Barrymore. Herzlinger hires a Drew Barrymore look alike, and sets up a practice date with that stand-in, only to become horrified while reviewing that footage by how inept he looks in reality. He ropes in those on the periphery of stardom, and turns the entire journey into a series of captivating anecdotes that completely holds your attention. The film capitalizes on the fact that every guy has dreamt of dating someone beyond their social sphere, be it the prom queen or a super model, and gives life to that fantasy as a fun romp. It's so humourously charming that it doesn't really matter if he succeeds or not. Some of the best scenes here are when Herzlinger faces blunt truths, such as his dwindling finances and his lack of access or self-confidence, brilliantly captured on their video camera - due back at the local Circuit City when its thirty-day money back warranty runs out - by co-directors/co-stars Jon Gunn and Brett Winn. Still, I would've liked to have seen more contextual background that didn't just gloss over Barrymore's career and status. This crew takes for granted that you can immediately empathize with his intense need to sip wine with this particular unattainable beauty and not, say, his leggy neighbour. However, they're minor flaws.

Definitely check out 'My Date With Drew' as an incredibly worthwhile romantic comedy of eccentric errors. Good stuff.

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