D.C. MOVIE GUYS

MOVIE REVIE: “HITCH”

Throughout the ages one of the most difficult questions facing mankind-and
men in particular-has been, “How do you win a woman’s love?” In our
increasingly fast paced society, just getting a woman’s attention, much less

her affection, has become a cause celebre. It souldn’t be surprising that
bookstores do a brisk businhess in the dozens upon dozens of books that
profess to have the secret on how to woo the right partner. In “Hitch”, a
new romantic comedy, star Will Smith plays a guy with all the answeers and a

lot of satisfied clients.

Smith is Alex Hitchens, a freelance “consultant” who helps men sucessfully
travel the path to true love once they’ve found a woman they’re interested
in. Hitch gives them hints on everything, from what moves to make on the
dance floor to how to listen effectively. He’ll even break down the magic
of a first kiss, explaing just how far to go to avoid being conidered a wimp

or a wolf. Once love is in the air, Hitch moves on to his next needy
client.

When a slightly nerdy, nervous accountant named Albert (Kevin James of TV’s

“King of Queens”) finds himself falling for a beautiful jet-set heiress his
firm advises, he seeks out Hitch for help in winning her heart. At the same

time. the “date doctor” finds himself in need of some advice himself when
Sara (Eva Mendes), an agressive newspaper gossip columnist, comes into his
life. Can Hitch overcome his own relationship hangups to make a complete
connection with Sara? And what will happen when, while trying to discover
just who the new guy in the heiress’ life is, Sara also finds out
what Hitch does for a living?

Director Andy Tennat does a nice job of keep screenwriter Kevin B isch’s
light as air script moving briskly along. Both men benifit greatly from
tthe talent and chemistry of the lead actors. Smith is his usual clever and

silky smooth self as Hitch. He also adds an extra dimension to the character

by revealing moments of genuine vunerablity in the character’s make up.
James displays real potential for movie stardom as Albert, investing him
with a genuine decency that has the audience rooting for him from his first
appearance on screen. Mendes is smart, sexy and sophisticated, a character
who moves beyond the customary girlfriend slot in the movie. Smith and
James, in particular, are a very funny team.

Though it feels a tad too long and seems to chase its own tale a bit in its
final act, “Hitch” turns out to be light hearted fun that delivers plenty of

well earned laughs. Do stick around for the final pre-credit sequence; it’s
a real hoot. All in all, “Hitch” is a great gift to love and laughter and,
after the first few weeks of the new movie year, it’s also a very welcome
sight for some very dreary eyes.

MPAA RATING: PG-13 for profanity and mild sexuality.
JOE’S RATING: THREE AND A HALF STARS.

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Bride & Prejudice
Directed by Gurinder Chadha
Now wedded to a 2/11/2005 nationwide release
3.5 *
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a great story can be told again and again in a variety of fashions. Following on the heels of last fall’s curry-spiced Vanity Fair, Jane Austen gets the full Bollywood treatment in Bride & Prejudice, a sumptuous musical treatment of the story of the marriage-minded Bennet sisters.
Transported to contemporary India, Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is translated to the Bollywood musical genre with extraordinary fidelity to Jane and no loss of humor in this comedy of madras manners. The Bakshi family contains a grandchildren-obsessed matriarch, a long suffering father (Bend it Like Beckham’s Sikh daddy Anupam Kher), and several extremely vivacious and eligible daughters led by Lalita (Aishwarya Rai). Lalita is not as marriage-minded as her sisters, not even when Balraj Bingley (Naveen Andrews) shows up with his friend Will Darcy (Martin Henderson—presumably Mark Darcy is still busy romancing Bridget Jones). An insufferable prig, our Lalita decides to take him down a peg while showing off her beloved India. And if Mr. Darcy cannot stand Mr. Wickham, then Wickham must be prime marriage material, if not for her then perhaps for one of her sisters…
Coming on the heels of her indie success Bend it Like Beckham, director Chadha (who made such a terrific feature debut with Bhaji on the Beach) shows no signs of letting up here. She makes the well-known and oft-told story seem both fresh and familiar. Moreover, she imbues the Bollywood dance numbers with enough spirit and drive that it should sustain the fans of the genre while attracting even those who find the music in your average Indian film to be as engaging as strangling the cat (the sound not the result).
Henderson (as the single man in possession of a large fortune who must be in need of a wife) is more impressive than he has been in the likes of The Ring or Torque and although he is no Colin Firth, who is? Former Buddha of Suburbia Naveen Andrews has too little screen time as Darcy pal Bingley. Andrews’ career may not have gotten the deserved boost that playing Juliette Binoche’s love interest in The English Patient should have delivered; maybe this movie will do something for him.
The real find here is former fashion model turned Bollywood icon Ash (Aishwarya Rai’s nickname) as Chadha’s Lizzie. At ease with the melodrama, comedy, and the musical numbers (especially the opening number which introduces the audience to her little stretch of the raj and a girls only bit to the song “No Life—Without Wife”), her abilities as a performer dwarf even her quite impressive beauty.
It is a pity that the folks at the Disney Corp. are not as impressed as the audiences that have seen the movie. Originally slated for distribution last year, but delayed (possibly due to the current contretemps going on between the Miramax creative team and the Disney corporate masters) until now. Under the old plan there was the possibility that end of year awards might spur word-of-mouth and produce an art house breakout hit similar in fashion and results to Beckham. However, now the movie is being dumped into theatres a month prior to its DVD release and there is almost no chance for expansion beyond its opening locations.
And that is a shame because filmmaker Chadha has come up with a very interesting blending of the entertainment of the land of her heritage and the art of her adopted homeland where she now works. And Bride & Prejudice is very entertaining means of uniting them.
–Bill Henry

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Ong-Bak
Directed by Prachya Pinkaew
Invading selectively nationwide 2/11/2005
2.5 *
I am not a big fan of the average Asian martial arts movie for the same reason that I am not a big fan of most modern so-called horror films. It may not be illegal to make a good horror movie, but it certainly seems so of late. When any genre caters only to the lowest common denominator of fans, it does not have long to live. And when even the artists of a genre feel they have to dumb down their work, it is time to break out the garlic and wooden stakes.
For those who find that the Asian action films they have seen of late have wandered too far a field from the likes of Bruce Lee and John Woo and is now dominated by historical costume epics who hobble along on the twin crutches of wire fu and endless CGI effects, may find a small respite in the Thai import Ong-Bak. It may not be the dawning of a new day in action movies, but it is at least a more realistically grounded movie that would be more in keeping with the work that Bruce Lee would have continued to produce had he survived.
Set in contemporary Thailand, the Ong-Bak is the head of a Buddha statue stolen from a rural village the week before an important celebration. The elders know that the thief is a former local who now works in the Bangkok underworld (and had earlier made a rebuffed cash offer), but luckily the village does have one earnest young fellow, Ting (an actor named Phanom Yeerum here billed as Tony Raa), who is dispatched to recover the Ong-Bak before the festival is ruined (and one presumes from the weeping and wailing of the superstitious peasantry that the hamlet will soon follow). The lad has been trained in the martial art of Muay Thai (which, for all I know, could translate as “the strangled duck”). Unfortunately, he has been sworn by his teacher never to use this knowledge (hey, stupid, here is an idea, if you do not want someone to fight, do not show them how).
This pledge lasts about two minutes after he arrives in Bangkok and contacts a former country rube turned city slicker, Hum Lae, who has renamed himself George and left behind his priestly studies for life as a small time grafter. But once he sees Tony fight (typical martial arts moves with an emphasis on thrown elbows and knees to chests—the guy fights like a power forward), George is convinced that he can make some money off his comrade while Tony only cares about reuniting the Ong-Bak with his stonily enlightened body.
Now unlike certain world renowned religious personages whom I could name, I am not close, personal friends with the Buddha and possess only a passing knowledge of his philosophy. However, I feel on pretty safe ground in thinking that he would not be all that flattered at the substantial casualty list rolled up in Ong-Bak to recapture a stone effigy (and only the head at that—these crazy villagers still own a Buddha that is over 90% complete).
Storytelling is not screenwriter/director Prachya Pinkaew and co-screenwriter Panna Rittikrai’s long suit. The fight sequences are often haphazardly linked by the explication. One particularly troublesome moment comes when Ting loses a fight. Unfortunately, the scene where he agrees to throw that one was dropped from the print somewhere on the trip over the Pacific.
However, the fighting is spectacular, if somewhat monotonous and badly lit (the bad lighting allows them to stick a wig on one early antagonist and send him back out again—one can almost see the producer saying, “Don’t worry all those Anglos look alike.”). While any of the thunderous blows should incapacitate rather than simply stun, this does not make Ong-Bak’s fighting different from any other Hong Kong action picture (or many Hollywood ones). The acrobatic moves of Raa are so amazing that a dozen plus times, director Pinkaew runs them again in slow motion. If only the rest of the movie was as fine as the fighting.
In the three decades since the death of Bruce Lee, each new martial arts star has been hailed as the next Bruce Lee and so far none of them are. Whether Ong-Bak begins a cycle of Thai martial arts pictures, only time will tell. But there have been less promising starts.
–Bill Henry

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Pooh’s Heffalump Movie
Directed by Frank Nissen
Previewing its DVD opening in theatres nationwide 2/11/2005
2 *
By the standard of Walt Disney Corp.’s Winne-the-Pooh movies, Pooh’s Heffalump Movie is Citizen Kane. The trouble is that standard is no standard. Typical of the most recent series of Pooh chapters is 2003’s Piglet’s Big Movie. Echoing the episodic nature of both A.A. Milne’s books and the first movie, Piglet’s movie was little more than a series of vignettes with a framing device. Most unforgivably, Piglet’s Big Movie was a greatest hits compilation (a clip show repackaged as a new movie)—a real rip-off. And in the “insult-to-injury” category, that movie concluded with a horrifying close-up of a live-action Carly Simon singing her Piglet song. With her surgically-altered face pushed into the camera, the audience is forced to endure the previously beautiful Ms. Simon with her face drawn into a rictus grin looking most like a particularly enthusiastic candidate to play the Joker’s wife (or the actual Joker). At the screening I attended, children screamed to their parents to “Make the scary lady stop yelling.”
An until now unseen mythical creature of the Hundred Acre Wood, the heffalump was thought to resemble a stuffed bear’s ass sticking out of a large jar of “hunny.” As seen here, the beast resembles Dumbo’s drunken hallucinations. One morning when confronted by mysterious tracks, the usual gang (Winnie-the-Pooh, Tigger, Rabbit, and Piglet) decide that the footprints were made by a heffalump and so begin an “exposition” to find and capture the beast. Deemed too dangerous for Roo, he is sent back and in the usual fashion of Pooh adventures, it will be Roo who will persevere and will discover not only a heffalump, but also a little message about something we call tolerance.
But to the movie’s credit, it is derivative rather than xeroxed. Although the movie still retains far too many Poohish elements that make the movie unendurable for anyone over the age of six on even the most blustery of days, the improvement over the most recent Pooh movies is substantial.
And best of all, Carly Simon’s participation is limited to the soundtrack.
–Bill Henry

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MOVIE REVIEW: “A LOVE SONG FOR BOBBY LONG”

The new John Travolta film, “A Love Song for Bobby Long”, surprised me on a
couple of levels. On the pne hand, I was surprised by how unconvincing
Travolta was in the title role. On the other, I was pleased by how
skilfully the rest of the cxast and the filmmakers won me over during the
cpurse
of the story, getting me to care about the fate of these familiar, but
intrriguing characters and the overall movie.

Travolta, his hair dyed white and with a slow shuffle in his gait, is BobbY
Long, a former university professor of English literature. He spends his
days drinking heavily and singing old blues songs. He sharea a ramshackle
house with his former studentr and close friend Lawson, a house he claims
has been left to hiom and Lawson by a deceased female friend. When the
woman’s estranged daughter Percy (the radient Scarlett Johansson) arrives,
Long declares the trio were wiled the home to share equally. With great
mistrust at first, the trio eventually form a slightly disfunctional family,

a family whose bonds are tested when a secret comes to light.

First time screenwriter/director Shainee Gabel is somewhat let down by
Travolta, who never nails his Southern accent consistantly and simply looks
too energetic to be totally believeable as a man crippled by guilt and
booze. Gabel’s pacing is also a bit off, as the movie ambles along. But
strong supportring work by Johansson as Percy and newcomer Gabriel Macht as
Lawson, brings the movie’s emotion closer to reality and makes the sense of
family bonding take hold.

All in all, “A Love Song for Bobby Long” may not be everybody’s tune, but
it’s final steps are as graceful as any I’ve seen in recent, big budget
films.

MPAA RATING: R for profanity, brief nudity, sexuality and scenes of heavy
drinking
JOE’S RATING:TWO AND A HALF STARS.

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