Movie Review: Boys On The Side (1995)

Genre: Dramedy  

Director: Herbert Ross  

Starring: Whoopi Goldberg, Mary-Louise Parker, Drew Barrymore, Matthew McConaughey  

Running Time: 117 minutes  

Synopsis: New York-based vocalist Jane (Whoopi Goldberg) is still pursuing a performing career despite the passing years. She decides to relocate to Los Angeles, and through a share-the-drive ad connects with Robin (Mary-Louise Parker), who is frail and wants to retrace a family road trip from her childhood. In Pittsburgh Jane and Robin rescue the bubbly Holly (Drew Barrymore) from an abusive relationship. The trio make it as far as Tucson, where health and law enforcement issues force them to settle down and explore their options.

What Works Well: There is enough character depth to create rich cross-currents of emotion, laughs, and tears among a trio of interesting single women. Jane is a headstrong black lesbian refusing to give up on a career in music, Robin is seemingly fragile and suffering from AIDS and the lingering trauma of a family tragedy, while Holly carries a perpetually positive attitude but is a magnet for the wrong kind of men. Matthew McConaughey augments the cast as a police officer who falls in love with Holly but also arrests her, and director Herbert Ross maintains balance between humour, drama, and a few off-the-wall surprises.

What Does Not Work As Well: Once the road trip yields to domesticity in Tucson, momentum stalls and edginess gives way to predictability. Robin gets involved in a tepid romance with a non-entity bartender (James Remar), a few secondary characters like Jane's friend Anna are victimized by editing, conflicts (including a privacy intrusion) are contrived, a courtroom showdown is half-baked, and the is-it-friendship-or-is-it-more tension between Jane and Robin is resolved by a sappy song.

Key Quote:

Jane: I'm not after you.

Robin: I'm not worried...Why?

Jane: Luck of the draw, I guess.

Robin: No, I mean... why aren't you after me?

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Movie Review: Firestarter (1984)

Genre: Science Fiction Horror

Director: Mark L. Lester

Starring: Drew Barrymore, David Keith, Martin Sheen, George C. Scott, Heather Locklear

Running Time: 114 minutes

Synopsis: Andrew McGee (David Keith) and his young daughter Charlene (Drew Barrymore) attempt to escape capture by government agents. Years prior in college, Andrew and fellow student Vicky (Heather Locklear) participated in a mysterious drug trial: Andrew developed the power to control others and Vicky the ability to read minds. Their daughter Charlene was born with pyrokinesis (the capacity to start and stop fires with her mind). Now government agents Hollister (Martin Sheen) and Rainbird (George C. Scott) want to capture Andrew and Charlene to militarize their powers.

What Works Well: The adaptation of Stephen King's novel offers an intriguing concept by evolving his ideas from Carrie with classic child-in-peril thrills. Nine-year-old Drew Barrymore has pouty presence, and director Mark L. Lester delivers the best moments by focusing on her fan-swept face as she expresses uncontrolled anger with heat.

What Does Not Work As Well: The plot is severely undermined by doofus bad guy behaviour, and momentum grinds to a halt in the second half as Charlene and her father are subjected to uncoordinated experiments reminiscent of low-budget mad scientist antics. George C. Scott resorts to chewing the scenery in the absence of any background context for his character's demonic obsession. The special effects are quickly repetitive.

Conclusion: Fire and fury without coherence nor control.



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Movie Review: Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind (2002)

A biography contaminated by an attention-seeking juvenile imagination, Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind undermines itself with frivolous distractions.

It's the early 1980s and Chuck Barris (Sam Rockwell) is despondent and holed-up in a New York hotel room, refusing to open the door for long-term girlfriend Penny (Drew Barrymore). He starts writing his memoirs, chronicling his often futile pursuit of women. By the late 1950s television is a burgeoning industry and Chuck conceives of The Dating Game, although the networks initially reject the idea. He finds domestic bliss with Penny but refuses to consider marriage.

Chuck's memoirs also contain a fictional narrative about his life as a CIA-trained Cold War assassin. Recruited by the mysterious Byrd (George Clooney), Barris is assigned targets in various European cities, and meets fellow agents Patricia (Julia Roberts) and Keeler (Rutger Hauer). When The Dating Game finally takes off, Chuck uses his chaperon cover to complete his CIA missions. An assignment goes wrong in West Berlin, but Chuck finds huge success with a string of tacky television shows.

Chuck Barris left an imprint on the world of cheap television catering to the lowest common denominator and helping create a foundation for the later abominations of reality TV. Despite a seemingly boorish and self-absorbed personality he may provide the basis for an interesting story, but it's not on display in Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind.

First-time director George Clooney adapts Barris' autobiographical book but keeps all the hokum about a double-life as a secret agent. Big chunks of the film are therefore preoccupied with an alternative fictional reality, but unlike compelling dramas like A Beautiful Mind, Barris' fantasies dangle as unaddressed vestiges of a troubled psyche, cratering his real story. Meanwhile, his actual life is dealt with in a perfunctory manner, Clooney and screenwriter Charlie Kaufman unable to colour in the man behind the garish shows.

Clooney overcompensates with an infusion of style, the assassination scenes underlining fictionality with a combination of absurd humour and film noir shadings. Meanwhile Sam Rockwell throws himself into the role, fractured and frenzied as it is, in a performance that cries out for more narrative depth and less superficial glitz. Julia Roberts and Rutger Hauer add star power but are wasted in stock secret agent characterizations.

Barris may have had a mind dangerous to himself and to unsuspecting cultural victims of his television shows, but his so-called confessions are best forgotten.

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Movie Review: Scream (1996)

A slasher horror comedy, Scream is a self-aware gore-fest exploiting its own genre for scares and laughs.

In the small community of Woodsboro, teenager Casey (Drew Barrymore) is harassed by a menacing phone caller with a love of horror movie trivia, and is then brutally killed along with her boyfriend Steve by an assailant wearing a ghostface mask.

Fellow high school student Sidney (Neve Campbell) is still recovering from the rape and murder of her mother a year ago and is now fending off the sexual advances of her boyfriend Billy (Skeet Ulrich). With the school community still reeling from the murder of Casey and Steve, Sidney starts to receive threatening phone calls. Billy is initially arrested as a suspect before being cleared.

Sidney is supported by her best friend Tatum (Rose McGowan), whose brother Dewey (David Arquette) is the Deputy Sheriff. Meanwhile ambitious television reporter Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) has her own theories about the murder of Sidney's mother, and starts hounding Sidney and her schoolmates. When the school is closed due to the proliferation of ghostface costumes, Tatum's boyfriend Stu (Matthew Lillard) throws a huge party, where the killer will again cause bloody chaos.

Mixing genuine slasher scares with sharp humour may seem an impossible task, but director Wes Craven goes back to his roots and conjures up an effective combo package. With the ghostface mask perfectly capturing a spirit of goofy evil, Scream is rarely only scary or just funny; it is often both, Craven creating a pretzel of laughs and gore. The Kevin Williamson script sets out to craft effective shocks while poking away at genre conventions (many invented by Craven), and the film crackles with the energy of twisted murders occurring in a meta milieu where the characters are active participants in celebrating quintessential horror movies.

Scream features dozens of knowing references to other slasher movies. The skillful opening scene sets the stage, the mystery caller emotionally toying with Casey but most tellingly challenging her to a horror movie trivia quiz with the prize of staying alive if she gets the answers right. Later, students supposedly traumatized by the killings converge at the horror movie section of the video store, while potential victims and suspects debate the genre rules and celebrate Jamie Lee Curtis as their scream queen heroine.

Williamson and Craven push ahead with a wild juxtaposition of horror inspired by art creating new prototypes. The teenagers watch Halloween at the climactic house party, as they themselves are being surreptitiously watched by a hidden camera planted by reporter Weathers. The kids who have sex are of course most at risk of dying, but once Sidney decides to take charge of her own narrative she starts to outthink the assailant, providing Scream with a welcome empowerment boost.

The film is packed with the madcap energy of secondary characters and side quests swirling around Sidney and her family. Her mom's death is the subject of Weathers' opportunistic upcoming book, while her dad incongruously becomes a prime suspect in the latest string of killings. Meanwhile Sidney is debating whether to have sex with Billy, a decision that suddenly carries existential consequences given that everyone knows the final girl is always virginal.

The game cast is led by the lively Neve Campbell and Rose McGowan, who both buy into the vibe and cruise through the butchery with bucketfuls of sass. David Arquette nails the insecure man unable to command respect despite his well-pressed uniform, while Skeet Ulrich adds a restless performance gripping the edge of instability. Henry Winkler is uncredited but appears in a significant role as the school principal, while Drew Barrymore finds an unlikely career highlight in her ten minutes of screen time.

The ending is over the top, the material almost running away from Craven. But by both celebrating and skewering well-loved franchises, Scream rises above the commotion.

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Movie Review: Bad Girls (1994)

A western with four cowgirls as the main protagonists, Bad Girls has a potentially intriguing gender-bending concept but nothing else to offer.

In the wild west, Cody (Madeleine Stowe), Anita (Mary Stuart Masterson), Eileen (Andie MacDowell) and Lily (Drew Barrymore) are friends and whores with hearts of gold having fallen on hard times through no fault of their own. When Cody kills a rough customer, the other three girls rescue her from a hanging and all four go on the run with Pinkerton detectives giving chase. Anita believes she may have a land claim in Oregon, and Cody offers to invest her life savings to help start a sawmill business on the property.

But the cash withdrawal transaction is interrupted by a hold-up committed by the outlaw Kid Jarrett (James Russo) and his gang, and he takes off with Cody's money while Eileen is jailed in the ensuing chaos. Cody and Jarrett share a history, and she is intent on tracking him down and reclaiming her money. Stranger Josh McCoy (Dermot Mulroney) is also interested in finding Jarrett for revenge reasons, while Eileen establishes a relationship with land owner William Tucker (James LeGros).

Bad Girls is an obvious attempt to recreate the appeal of 1988's Young Guns, this time with four photogenic women in the lead roles. Whatever the original intent, the production quickly ran into trouble. Original director Tamra Davis was fired a few days into the shoot and replaced by Jonathan Kaplan, the script was rewritten on the fly, and the lack of cohesion is painfully evident on the screen.

Stuck somewhere between a women's buddy movie and misplaced aspirations to mimic The Wild Bunch complete with a Gatling gun making a late appearance, Bad Girls gallops in quicksand: the harder the film tries to be meaningful, the quicker it sinks. The women are plastic characters provided with one-line backstories, and then left alone to look pouty pretty. The villain is straight out of those bad Spaghetti Westerns where the baddie laughs maniacally at...nothing in particular.

The plot has enough holes to make that Gatling gun proud, and the screenwriters are almost visible to the side of the action frantically dreaming up next morning's scene -- which of the woman shall we place in peril next?!

Given the creative carnage around them the four actresses do their best, but they are further handicapped by flawless hair, perfect make-up, flattering clothes and an apparent abundance of soap throughout: they are made to look gorgeous no matter what trouble they are in, undermining any pretensions of realism.

The energetic climactic shootout injects a sudden dose of adrenaline, but it's too late: by then the film's corpse is well and truly cold.

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Movie Review: E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)

A science fiction fantasy drama with humour and soul, E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial is the heartwarming story of pure friendship between a lonely boy and a marooned alien.

In a California suburb, a spacecraft carrying inquisitive and gentle extra-terrestrials arrives in a forested area for some floral exploration. But with humans closing in the aliens take off in a hurry, inadvertently leaving one member of the expedition behind. The stranded and scared visitor eventually makes contact with ten year old Elliott (Henry Thomas), a lonely boy who lives in a nearby suburb with his mom Mary (Dee Wallace), older brother Michael (Robert MacNaughton) and young sister Gertie (Drew Barrymore). Elliott is struggling to come to terms with his parents' divorce, and his father is absent and in Mexico with a new girlfriend.

Elliott is the only member of the family to notice unusual activity in the shed. At first startled, he patiently guides the extra-terrestrial into his room to care for it, then introduces the alien to Michael and Gertie. Elliott and the extra-terrestrial form a symbiotic bond where they share feelings and physical experiences, while. E.T. demonstrates extraordinary abilities to manipulate items, learn and communicate. With the adult world moving in and the health of both Elliott and the alien starting to deteriorate, E.T. has to find a way to call home and summon a rescue party with the help of Elliott, his siblings and their friends.

Directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Melissa Mathison, E.T. is a family-friendly classic about love prevailing despite all barriers. Unfolding from a child's height and perspective, and with no adults in any role of consequence, this is a story of a lonely boy finding elusive friendship with a most unlikely companion. Spielberg created a creature with looks that can only be admired by its own mother, and turned the expressive alien into one of the most loved and best known characters in movie history.

In 1977's Close Encounters Of The Third Kind Spielberg explored the mysterious forces that attract ordinary humans to extraterrestrials despite seemingly impossible distances and communication challenges. Close Encounters ended with the arrival of the aliens; E.T. starts with a much more modest landing, and but continues to explore the inherent kinship among beings.

Several themes course through the film. Fundamentally E.T. is about the ties that bind all living things, with children more open to perceiving the purity of love's natural power. An almost instantaneous and effortless sensory bond is forged between Elliott and E.T., and just as the alien has a life-boosting connection with nature, Elliott is compelled to free the frogs in his school science class. And with belief and togetherness all things are possible, as E.T. helps Elliott literally soar over his troubles.

Another forceful theme is the hesitancy of adults to believe in the unusual, and indeed their inability to see the obvious if it does not fit into preconceived notions. When young Gertie tries to introduce E.T. to her mom, Mary adult cannot pause long enough to notice the alien right in her kitchen. And late in the film when government-types in moonsuits (including Peter Coyote as the barely defined "keys" man) move in, they are next to useless in salvaging the situation, and just add to the the trauma of Elliott and E.T.

Spielberg weaves the concepts together in a package filled with wonder, curiosity, hope, humour, intelligence and plenty of tears activated by both sadness and triumph. He also creates images and catchphrases that are among the most well known and best loved, including the unforgettable flying bicycle across the gigantic moon and the heart wrenching quest of E.T. phone home.

The Extra-Terrestrial thrives in its home environment, but this friendship with earthlings will live in hearts and minds forever.

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Movie Review: 50 First Dates (2004)

A romantic comedy with a clumsy premise, 50 First Dates reunites Adam Sandler with Drew Barrymore, but is weighed down with thin material and too many juvenile elements.

In Hawaii, marine veterinarian Henry Roth (Sandler) is a renowned womanizer, carrying on quick affairs with ladies on vacation mode and dumping them with regularity. After a sailing mishap he washes up at a secluded beachfront diner and meets the attractive Lucy Whitmore (Barrymore). They chat and make a connection. Following up the next day, Henry is shocked that Lucy does not remember him. He learns that a year ago she was in a car accident, suffered a brain injury and is now unable to retain short-term memories. Every day for Lucy is a blissfully unaware clean-slate repeat of the day before her accident, orchestrated by her family and friends.

Henry meets Lucy's fisherman father Marlin (Blake Clark) and dimwit brother Doug (Sean Astin). They eventually start to trust Henry as someone who cares for Lucy, and he convinces them to try a new approach, allowing Lucy to watch a video every morning explaining her circumstance and then letting her live through a new but real present day. And every day Henry waits for Lucy to get over the shock and sadness and then proceeds to win her affection. But finding long-term happiness with someone who cannot build new memories will not be easy.

Sandler and Barrymore clicked in 1998's The Wedding Singer, and they do share a sweet chemistry and easy affinity. Her natural perkiness and his inexpressive confidence mix well at a comfortable rather than spark-inducing wattage, quite suitable for a romance that is more about building a relationship than the mindless pursuit of lust.

But unfortunately Sandler cannot help but populate too much of the film with low-brow humour to appeal to his core fan base. The numerous scenes with Rob Schneider as Henry's idiot friend, Sean Astin as Lucy's lisping and steroid-inhaling brother, and Lusia Strus as Henry's sexually ambiguous work colleague are as infantile as comedy gets, and appeal only to Sandler fans with a mental age of five and under. A large walrus and a small penguin also get plenty of screen time.

Although the best laugh does involve Barrymore, Schneider and a baseball bat, tellingly Barrymore barely appears in any of the scenes with the inelegant co-stars, as if Sandler was engineering two separate films at once, one full of shallow antics for the morons in the crowd, and another a romance for the couples. The many puerile moments both undermine the cuter romantic elements and reveal the shallowness of the available ideas. Stripped of the padding, 50 First Dates would barely find an hour's worth of material.

The parts of the film that do focus on the two central characters are merely adequate. Director Peter Segal nudges the back half of the story towards some modestly thoughtful scenes exploring how Lucy could be prodded to live in the present despite her condition. Barrymore is fine as the woman who has to re-learn about her life every morning, but Sandler brings little to the film apart from his stock lethargic persona. Neither character is provided with any sort of depth or backstory. Dan Aykroyd has a small role as Lucy's doctor, and Maya Rudolph appears in one scene.

50 First Dates holds some promise for a pleasant evening but turns out to be gawky, pimply and rather crude.

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Movie Review: Never Been Kissed (1999)

A back-to-high-school comedy of sorts, Never Been Kissed is a tedious non-event, attempting to sail on the charms of star Drew Barrymore but crashing on the shores of an infantile script.

Straitlaced and single, 25-year-old Josie Geller (Barrymore) is a copy editor at the Chicago Sun-Times, with ambitions to be a journalist. Her boss Gus (John C. Reilly) does not think she has what it takes, but the newspaper's eccentric editor-in-chief Rigfort (Garry Marshall) anyway assigns her to go back to her high school as a fake student and prepare an exposé about modern teenagers.

Josie returns to South Glen High School and is soon reliving the nightmare she experienced in her real life senior year, when she was a gawky unpopular girl. Just as awkward and clumsy this time round, Josie is shunned by the cool clique of girls consisting of Gibby (Jordan Ladd), Kirsten (Jessica Alba), and Kristin (Marley Shelton) but befriended by the nerds, including Aldys (Leelee Sobieski). When her naturally cool brother Rob (David Arquette) also re-enlists at the high school, he helps Josie turn the corner and become popular. As the prom approaches, the pressure increases on Josie to file her story, and she finds herself attracting the attention of handsome student Guy (Jeremy Jordan) and dishy English teacher Sam (Michael Vartan).

Never Been Kissed was the first feature film co-produced by Barrymore's Flower Films, an inauspicious if commercially successful start. It's difficult to understand what the film is trying to achieve. It does not work as a look back at a different era, since Josie is not so far out of high school for much to have changed. It does not work as a romance, with the relationship between Josie and Sam remaining tepid at best, and the film unwilling to delve into the complex waters of lust between teacher and student.

It does not work as a comedy or a parody. Scenes of Josie tripping over herself and spilling milk on her dress are painfully contrived rather than funny. And it certainly does not work as any form of exposé of high school life, the film losing all credibility by stretching it's already thin premise to have Josie's brother Rob also re-enlist in the same high school with no one the wiser, the equivalent of doubling down on a clearly losing hand.

And finally the "be yourself and be happy" message, delivered without irony, falls flat within the pervasive confirmation that the traditional high school ecosystem, consisting of cool kids, nerds, jocks, and in-betweens, is what it has always been, and is unlikely to change.

Director Raja Gosnell is left with the charisma of his star to trade on, and Barrymore gives it all she has, which is not nearly enough to save the movie. Barrymore does not convince neither as a stiff copy editor nor as a clumsy teenager, and is worse still in the over-the-top flashbacks to Josie's real high school senior year, where she portrays a ridiculous walking disaster built on out-of-date fashion and immature behaviour. John C. Reilly over-acts to distraction, while James Franco and Jessica Alba appear in fairly minor early career roles.

Stuck in the neutral gear of irrelevance, Never Been Kissed simply never gets going.

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The Movies Of Drew Barrymore

All movies starring Drew Barrymore and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)

Firestarter (1984)

Bad Girls (1994)

Boys On The Side (1995)

Batman Forever (1995)

Scream (1996)

The Wedding Singer (1998)

Never Been Kissed (1999)

Charlie's Angels (2000)

Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind (2002)

Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (2003)

50 First Dates (2004)

He's Just Not That Into You (2009)

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Movie Review: The Wedding Singer (1998)

A romantic comedy that finds the often elusive magical balance between love and laughs, The Wedding Singer is a lot of fun. Adam Sandler has rarely been better, and Drew Barrymore consolidated her comeback and relaunched her career with the approachable girl-next-door persona.

It's 1985, and in a smallish New Jersey town Robbie Hart (Sandler) is the go-to wedding singer, invited with his band to perform cheesy favourites and keep the merriment on an even keel as the nuptial celebrations get going. While performing at a wedding, Robbie meets sweet waitress Julia Sullivan (Barrymore), and they become friends. Kind hearted and sensitive, Robbie is devastated when he is stood-up at his own wedding. His bride-to-be Linda (Angela Featherstone), a rock chick who never grew up, decides that he is too boring and leaves him standing at the altar.

Julia is engaged to be married to the very wealthy Glenn Gulia (Matthew Glave). As a broken-hearted Robbie helps her with the wedding preparations, he realizes that her future name of Julia Gulia is just one problem. Robbie uncovers Glenn as a first class egotistical sleazoid who does not hesitate to cheat on his fiancée, and with no plans to stop his womanizing after marriage. In the meantime Robbie and Julia and beginning to fall in love, which is further complicated by the sudden re-emergence of Linda looking to win Robbie's heart back.

Tim Herlihy's screenplay is razor sharp and witty. Full of references to the more cringe-worthy cultural artifacts of the 1980s, The Wedding Singer is a love letter to the decade of Culture Club, Madonna-inspired fashion, Van Halen in their prime, a snarling Billy Idol, and Kajagoogoo. The soundtrack is brimming with favourites from the era, a perfectly awkward backdrop to the sweetly irresistible corn of obvious romance. Frequent Sandler director Frank Coraci sets an uptempo pace and otherwise keeps a light touch at the controls, yielding to the inherent power of a budding romance between two appealing leads.

The Wedding Singer mercifully abandons Sandler's more juvenile and crude tendencies. Here he is relatively subdued, mostly calm and intelligently funny, a character that is actually likable as an adult. Barrymore is cute, perky and adorable almost to a fault, and the chemistry with Sandler is almost instantaneous. The secondary cast does lack some punch. The supporting characters include Julia's cousin and Madonna wannabe Holly (Christine Taylor), and Robbie's best friend and local limousine-driver-for-hire Sammy (Allen Covert). Jon Lovitz and Steve Buscemi make uncredited cameos, and both shine bright in very brief appearances.

In a genre with few surprises and predetermined endings, The Wedding Singer deserves a toast for getting everything else right.

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Movie Review: Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (2003)

While the first episode of the unfortunate Charlie's Angels brand revival was almost tolerable, this truly unnecessary sequel is not. Full Throttle is one tiresome stuntfest, and at 106 minutes, it's about 101 minutes too long.

There is no plot, just a couple of bullet points on a greasy napkin: the Angels need to retrieve two titanium rings that together reveal the identity of every person ever placed in the witness relocation program. Cue contrived action sequences in Mongolia, on the motocross track, at the harbour, and at a Hollywood premiere of a fake movie called Maximum Extreme that sounds awful but still promises to be much better than Full Throttle. There is a minor complication related to one of the Angels revealing herself to be a protected witness originally named Helen Zaas, this being about the beginning and end of the wit on display.

Cameron Diaz, Lucy Liu and Drew Barrymore are back as the Angels, already going through the motions of wiggling their well-toned derrières in between the CGI sequences. Demi Moore is the main villainess, a former Angel gone bad, mainly because she believed herself too good to require teammates, although Moore's main motivation to appear in the film must have been to display her bikini body at age 41.

A parade of supporting performers including John Cleese (wasted), Shia LaBeouf (lost), Matt LeBlanc (clueless), Luke Wilson (ignored), Crispin Glover (underused), Justin Theroux (taking his role way too seriously), and Bernie Mac (as Bosley) get limited screen time in amongst all the computer processing power busy whirling away to create impossible leaps, jumps and somersaults.

The stunts are so over the top that they are much more laughable than thrilling, director McG losing control of the distinction between inspired and insipid, and going all out to prove that more is less.

Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle has the pedal on the floor, but the gear is firmly stuck in reverse.

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Movie Review: Charlie's Angels (2000)

The television series was a showcase for models trying to pretend that they were actresses representing women's emerging empowerment. The movie does away with any pretenses. Essentially a 98 minute music video that finds every excuse to fill the frame with the cleavage, rear-ends, and blowing hair of its leading ladies, Charlie's Angels is almost tolerable mainly because this film is honest about its intentions. Director McG also earns some points for stylish action sequences that effectively use slow-motion to highlight the depth of the stunts in the many one-on-one hand combat scenes.

The plot matters about as much as it would in a slickly produced rock video. Natalie (Cameron Diaz), Dylan (Drew Barrymore), and Alex (Lucy Liu) are detectives working for an agency run by the mysterious and rich Charlie. Their handler and only contact with Charlie is the hapless Bosley (Bill Murray). The Angels are retained by Vivian Wood (Kelly Lynch) to rescue her business partner and software wizard Eric Knox (Sam Rockwell), who has apparently been kidnapped by rival computer magnate Roger Corwin (Tim Curry). But the Angels soon realize that neither Vivian nor Eric are what they seem, and the hunters become the hunted as Charlie himself is threatened with violent and permanent retirement.

Diaz, Barrymore (who also helped to produce the movie) and Liu go through the film with a knowing smile and glint in their eye, confirming that they are not at all taking any of the silliness seriously, and they have fun flirting shamelessly with the cameras. Charlie's Angels hustles along from one contrived set-piece to the next, never losing sight of the prime objective, which is to place the Angels in as many figure-hugging outfits as possible before the bad guys are finally terminated.

Charlie's Angels is the equivalent of browsing a fashion magazine with a model staring out of every page: an icky mixture of the glossy and the vacuous.

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Film Review: He's Just Not That Into You (2009)

A group of several twenty to thirtysomething friends navigate the treacherous waters of relationships, dating and marriage in the internet age, where a multitude of communication options and modern day stresses only add to the already complicated and veiled signals that couples send to each other.

Sweet and honest Gigi (Ginnifer Goodwin) is desperately looking for a relationship, but seems to find all the wrong men and misinterprets all the signals. She turns to savvy bartender Alex (Justin Long) for advice on how to better understand men. Inevitably, Gigi is drawn to Alex, but is he interested in her or is he just being a friend?

Janine (Jennifer Connelly) thinks that she is happily married to Ben (Bradley Cooper). But in the midst of a home renovation project, he seems to have maybe secretly started to smoke against her strong wishes, and he maybe has also secretly started an affair with hot Anna (Scarlett Johansson). Can this marriage be saved?

Beth (Jennifer Aniston) and Neil (Ben Affleck) are the perfect couple, but they are not married, and he never wants to be, while she is longing to tie the knot. The relationship ruptures over this conflict. Can it be recovered?

Mary (Drew Barrymore), who works in marketing, is embroiled in the electronic dating age, and mostly meets, communicates and breaks up with men through various digital devices. She eventually connects with a client, real estate agent Connor (Kevin Connolly), who was one of the men to dump Gigi, and who is finding professional success by advertising to the gay community. Connor also thought that he could have a serious relationship with Anna, but she just wanted him as a casual friend. Can Mary and Connor hit it off?

Loosely based on the best-selling book by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo, and directed by Kevin Smith, He's Just Not That Into You is an enjoyable examination of age-old adult relationship issues with a modern gloss. The movie plays its cards well and feigns steering straight into pessimistic and cynical territory before turning sharply towards affirmation of some time-honoured values.

Smith finds the fine line where comedy is used to enhance and enrich rather than disrupt the narrative, while the excellent cast get into their characters and appear to park their egos at the studio door. The script by Behrendt and Tuccillo with help from Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein rounds out the characters and generally avoids both annoying cliches and contrived situations.

He's Just Not That Into You is a flighty yet fun film that's easy to get into.






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