AQUAMARINE / Elizabeth Allen (2006)
February 10th, 2006 by Scott Marks
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Aquamarine (2006)
Directed by: Elizabeth Allen
Written by: John Quaintance, Jessica Bendinger
Genres: Teen Comedy, Mermaid, Family, Fantasy
Cast: Emma Roberts, Joanna ‘JoJo’ Levesque, Sara Paxton, Jake McDorman, Arielle Kebbel, Claudia Karvan, Bruce Spence, Tammin Sursok, Roy Billing, Julia Blake, Shaun Micallef, Lulu McClatchy, Natasha Cunningham, Dichen Lachman, Lincoln Lewis
Aspect Ratio: 1.85 : 1
What do you get when you cross a female Spin and Marty with Flipper? Well, aside from an aneurism there’s Aquamarine.
In the worst tradition of sixties live-action Disney comes this flimsy kidpic about a mermaid who aids of a couple of teenage girls (Emma Roberts and JoJo Levesque) after a storm plants her in their beach club swimming pool. In order to establish Emma as the nerdier of the two girls, she wears Coke-bottle glasses which magically vanish after the first scene. Stretch Reese Witherspoon on a rack until she morphs into Paris Hilton and you’ll have Sara Paxton as the title character.
Aqua instantly falls for Raymond (Jake McDorman) and has three days to get him to proclaim undying love before her father forces a return home. According to this film, a mermaid may only sport human legs during daylight hours and even a drop of water will turn her back. This doesn’t stop her from taking a paddle boat ride.
Badly directed and hideously photographed, if the goal is to egg on retardation in your children, Aquamarine comes highly recommended.
Rating: 
Filed Under Reviews, Theatrical
THE PINK PANTHER / Shawn Levy (2006)
February 9th, 2006 by Scott Marks
The Pink Panther (2006)
Directed by: Shawn Levy
Written by: Len Blum, Steve Martin
Genres: Comedy, Crime, Mystery, Remake
Cast: Steve Martin, Kevin Kline, Jean Reno, Emily Mortimer, Henry Czerny, Kristin Chenoweth, Roger Rees, Beyoncé Knowles, Phillip Goodwin, Henri Garcin, William Abadie, Daniel Sauli, Jean Dell, Anna Katarina, Nick Toren
Aspect Ratio: 1.85 : 1
Running Time: 91 min.
Always the first to carp about remaking good movies, imagine my shock and glee to report that, while it doesn’t come close to matching the madcap majesty of Blake Edwards’ best, the laughs were consistent.
Blake Edwards masterminded the popular series in 1963 and wrote and directed all but two of the seven sequels. Mr. Edwards is credited, but had no hand in PP ‘06’s creative process, which is probably a good thing. The first four Panther films were all artistic and financial successes. Peter Sellers was peerless as the ridiculously self-confident, selectively-thinking inspector. When he died in 1980, Edwards refused to let Closeau go with him. The series hit rock bottom with the ghoulish Trail of the Pink Panther that resurrected Sellers through outtakes and deleted scenes from previous versions. Subsequent attempts to pumpfresh life into the franchise proved unwatchable.
Steve Martin and co-writer Len Blum (Stripes, Private Parts) designed a prequel and instead of simply tracing the original, PP 06 gets its laughs by playing off its predecessor’s strengths. PP 63’s funniest gag, in which Sellers topples after resting his palm on a whirling globe, is given an almost equally rib-tickling spin. Seller’s fractured French accent is present, but his habit of turning “gold bowls” into “gild balls” is only once hinted at as Martin forges his own inappropriate inflections.
Next to Sellers, one the Panther films most essential ingredients is tortuous physical pain inflicted upon any and all characters, and there is no shortage of it here. Inspector Closeau was born hot on the heels of From Russia with Love’s release and the Kennedy assassination, and at their best, the series captured that shadowy transition period between Camelot’s innocence and the aggressive cynicism of 007. (A pistol marked “Sleeping Darts” has campy exposition written all over it.) The filmmakers acknowledge Closeau’s sixties box office rival by casting recently spurned 007 suitor Clive Owen as tuxedoed secret agent 006. Of the four replacement Closeaus (Alan Arkin, Ted Wass andthe indefensible Roberto Benigni also had their turns) Martin is the George Lazenby of the bunch. (From where I come from, that’s a compliment.) He obviously has profound affection for and appreciation of Edwards’ blueprint, and both his performance and screenplay pack a lot of laughs.
Not all of it connects. The third act gags become more disjointed and the curtain joke needed work. Director Shawn Levy is content to have fun. Second unit Paris looks lovely, but too often his pace and timing lag behind Martin’s performance. Think of all the brilliant comedians forced to work with lead-footed directors (A. Edward Sutherland, Norman Z. McLeod and the appropriately named Sam Wood come to mind) and you’ll realize that Martin & Levy are just another example of the actor as author.
I warn you, if you have zero tolerance for slapstick stay home and enjoy King of Queens. If you don’t go in expecting the robust flavor of the originals, this taste of pink might just tickle your nose.
Rating: 
Filed Under Reviews, Theatrical
AMERICAN PIE PRESENTS BAND CAMP / Steve Rash (2005)
February 9th, 2006 by Scott Marks
American Pie Presents Band Camp (2005)
Directed by: Steve Rash
Written by: Adam Herz, Brad Riddell
Genres: Tenn Comedy, Sequel
Cast: Eugene Levy, Tad Hilgenbrink, Arielle Kebbel, Jason Earles, Crystle Lightning, Jun Hee Lee, Matt Barr, Chris Owen, Lauren C. Mayhew, Angela Little, Rachel Veltri, Timothy Stack, Ginger Lynn Allen, Russell Howard, Carla Alapont
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Running Time: 94 min.
The fourth installment finds all the stars from the first three (unless you count Chris Owen, the “Screech” in the woodpile) conspicuously absent. Although the trailer played my local multiplex, the finished product went direct-to-video in an unrated, seven-minute longer version.
With Seann William Scott moving on to better projects (The Dukes of Hazzard, Ice Age 2) and bigger paychecks, it didn’t take the producers too long to come up with a Stiffler, Jr., Steve’s younger brother Matt (Tad Hilgenbrink). Matt’s opening salvo consists of coating the graduation band’s instruments with pepper spray so they’ll break out crying. It climaxes when a traveling curtain falls and reveals a bare-assed Stiffler wiping excess pepper liquid from his crotch. Matt is condemned to band camp where he’ll spend the summer (and remainder of the film) playing practical jokes on younger kids and fall in love with a counselor. Who knew that ninety-four minutes could be so long?
Matt’s tomfoolery borrows liberally from the Girls Gone Wild template. Go on-line, stock up on as much spy gear as possible and outfit the girl’s shower room. The rich dialogue offers up such witty bon mots as, “Are you an a**hole? You’re hairy and you smell like shit.” Arielle Kebbel is too adorable for the producers to ask to disrobe. That might has made it worth recommending.
Steve Rash used to be a reliable source of entertainment. The Buddy Holly Story holds up quite well and I don’t care what you say, “Can’t Buy Me Love” is a very enjoyable teen comedy. As it, this is worse than Jenny McCarthy’s Dirty Love, and that could be the most insulting thing I have ever said about a movie.
Rating:
FREEDOMLAND / Joe Roth (2006)
February 8th, 2006 by Scott Marks
Freedomland (2006)
Directed by: Joe Roth
Written by: Richard Price
Genres: Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Cast: Samuel L. Jackson, Julianne Moore, Edie Falco, Ron Eldard, William Forsythe, Aunjanue Ellis, Anthony Mackie, LaTanya Richardson, Clarke Peters, Peter Friedman, Domenick Lombardozzi, Aasif Mandvi, Philip Bosco, Fly Williams III, Portia
Aspect Ratio: 2.35 : 1
Running Time: 113 min.
Freedomland was written by Richard Price. He’s an old hand at this sort of tough, urban drama (Bloodbrothers, The Wanderers, Clockers), in addition to scripting one-and-a-third-and-a-quarter softer projects (The Color of Money, Life’s Lessons and the Michael Jackson music video Bad) for Mr. Scorsese.
Here is one time you’ll complain about Price reduction.
A disoriented white woman (Julianne Moore) stumbles out of a park and into a poor black neighborhood claiming to be a victim of a car-jacking. (Did someone order a Crash-lite?) Routinely tough-but-tender detective Samuel L. Jackson fields her account of an African American thug forcing her from the vehicle. As almost an afterthought, she informs Jackson that her four-year-old son is still in the car. In the grand tradition of Flight Plan, we spend a good chunk of the film trying to decide whether or not she’s certifiable and what, if anything, happened to the kid.
If only the real police worked as fast as Revolution Studio’s art department. Within minutes of the kid’s disappearance, colorful “Have You Seen This Child” fliers literally litter the streets. Joining Jackson on the hunt is Edie Falco playing a mother who heads up the local missing children’s watchdog group. Given the backstory concerning her character’s tragic loss of a child, I was flabbergasted by her selfish pleas with Moore to confess in order to “put my heart at rest.”
The title refers to an abandoned, and painfully metaphoric, foundling asylum that could not help but work better on the printed page. On screen, it resembles Berlin after the war and offers director Roth countless camera set-ups. Coming from the man who brought us Christmas with the Kranks, there is little surprise that the film attempts to establish suspense through hand-held camerawork and machine-gun edits.
If ever a film cried out for a low budget and a cast of relative newcomers in order to succeed, it’s this one. Instead, let’s once again trot out professional victim-for-hire Julianne Moore to emote her heart out. A superb actress, her patented suffering routine this time becomes insufferable. Even his Jedi affiliation can’t sour me against Sam Jackson. Technically, his line-readings (and cocked porkpie hat) are flawless, but is Sam conscious of the slop he’s spewing or was he struck dumb by all the zeros on his paycheck?
About ten minutes prior to the final fade, numerous false endings, including a prolonged confession scene to explain everything to character and audience alike, kick in. File this as another cobblestone in that well-intentioned road to hell.
Rating:
Filed Under Reviews, Theatrical
FIREWALL / Richard Loncraine (2006)
February 8th, 2006 by Scott Marks
Firewall (2006)
Directed by: Richard Loncraine
Written by: Joe Forte
Genres: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Cast: Harrison Ford, Paul Bettany, Virginia Madsen, Carly Schroeder, Jimmy Bennett, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Gail Ann Lewis, Robert Patrick, Robert Forster, Alan Arkin, Matthew Currie Holmes, Candus Churchill, David Lewis, Zahf Paroo, Pat Jenkinson
Aspect Ratio: 2.35 : 1
Running Time: 105 min.
Kidnapping goes high-tech and petrified action hero Harrison Ford is again given an opportunity to display his A-to-B emotional range. Not only did Blade Runner prove that there was plenty of room (and need) for quality science fiction in Lucas-Land, it also presented Ford with his most challenging and convincing part to date: a robot.
Firewall is basically The Desperate Hours updated for the computer set. Ford plays a high-powered banker whose family is held hostage and will not be released unlesshe agrees to electronically siphon millions to an offshore account. According to the script, all you need to become a highwayman on the Information Superhighway is an iPod and a crucial part from a fax machine.
Ford is fitted with electronic surveillance equipment, so the e-crooks can monitor his every move, and sent off to work where his actions puzzle co-workers. It doesn’t help that the day before, a goon from a collection agency showed up demanding $95,000 for on-line gambling debts. Through it all, Ford staunchly displays two modes of expression: pained and more pained. There is a scene early on where Ford sits in a boardroom with Robert Patrick, Robert Forester and Alan Arkin and I couldn’t help but wonder if these three superior actors goofed on Harry when he got up to go the bathroom.
As the leader of a gang of articulate, well-groomed and family-friendly urban terrorists, Paul Bettany is the type of villain you don’t take seriously until he makes an example of one of his mates. All I could think of while watching his performance was how superb Alan Rickman was when given a similar character in Die Hard. Virginia Madsen probably netted more from this film than it cost to make Sideways. It is disheartening to see such a talented actress being given so little to work with.
Ford is rapidly approaching Charles Bronson territory. The studios he aligns himself with may be more prestigious and their level of technical expertise strictly first cabin, but the decayed formula smells just the same. Not unlike Bronson, Indy Solo is a theorem; if there was no Harrison Ford, one would have been invented. He’ll be 65 when Indiana Jones strikes back next summer with one last last crusade. (Raiders of the Lost Bladder?) If Spielberg’s smart, he’ll amputate Ford and reattach Sean Connery.
The last twenty minutes of Firewall provide non-stop guffaws. Ford’s scenes opposite a dog would make Lassie leave home. When all is said and done, the film presented one burning question: Why kidnap the family pet? I can understand holding a sick kid hostage. How else is beginner screenwriter Joe Forte expected to shamefully wring bargain basement pathos? Surprisingly, the reason Fido goes along for the ride is actually substantiated. Too bad when it comes down to execution, the filmmakers who roll over and play dead.
Rating:
Filed Under Reviews, Theatrical
HELLER IN PINK TIGHTS / George Cukor (1960)
February 2nd, 2006 by Scott Marks
Heller in Pink Tights (1960)
Directed by: George Cukor
Written by: Walter Bernstein, Louis L’Amour
Genres: Adventure, Drama, Romance, Western
Cast: Sophia Loren, Anthony Quinn, Margaret O’Brien, Steve Forrest, Eileen Heckart, Ramon Novarro, Edmund Lowe, George Mathews, Ed Binns, Warren Wade, Frank Silvera, Robert Palmer, Leo V. Matranga, Cal Bolder, Taggart Casey
Aspect Ratio: 1.85 : 1
Running Time: 100 min.
A throwaway line in the New York Times yearend DVD roundup set me thinking. Critic Dave Kehr was pleased to see that Paramount Home Video finally released George Cukor’s neglected Heller in Pink Tights and referred to it as “Hollywood’s first gay western.” Since it was a slow week at the movies (you already know what I think of Big Momma’s House 2 and Nanny McPhee), I decided to riff on Kehr’s insightful comment and direct my readers attention to this delightful footnote to the gay old west.
By 1960, Cukor had amassed a reputation as a “woman’s director” (even though he coaxed equally sterling performances out of Cary Grant, Spencer Tracy, James Mason, Alec McCowan, etc.) who wasn’t crazy about leaving the safety and comfort of a studio backlot. Which Paramount genius decided to assign an urban(e) intellectual brimming with taste and refinement a Louis L’Amour pulp oater to adapt? Cukor was a team player and knew that the best way to turn the situation to his advantage was to book passage for a couple of his gay caballeros on the stage to Cheyenne. Gene Allen was a former L. A. cop Cukor took a liking to and put to work. According to co-author Walter Bernstein, Allen “was of a considerably developed aesthetic sensibility. He looked like a cop, talked like a cop, but Cukor was able to see what he had to contribute.”
For years, Cukor had been coaxing portraiture and landscape photographer George Hoyningen-Huene to move to Hollywood where, according to biographer William A. Ewing, “(Cukor) believed Huene’s refined talents would be appreciated.” The Russian aristocrat brought his idiosyncratic stylistic sensibilities to several of Cukor’s pictures (most notably the radiant A Star is Born). An uncredited Allen oversaw the camera setups while Huene, billed as both “Color Coordinator” and “Technical Advisor,” rode herd over set, exterior background and costume design.
Sophia Loren (in a blonde wig) plays the beautiful headliner of a theatrical troupe that always manages to stay one hoof ahead of the sheriff and make it across the state line. Company manager/boyfiend/co-star Anthony Quinn is forced to take on notorious killer Steve Forrest to help circumvent the savages between Cheyenne and Bonanza. Unbeknownst to Quinn, Forrest won Ms. Loren in a poker game and he’s just accompanying them long enough to collect his property. Heller doesn’t offer much in the way of an original storyline, but we’re not in this one for its plot.
This is a triumphant example of style as (not over) subject. Hollywood morays being what they were would never have allowed implicit gay content, yet as director Todd Haynes notes, “Homosexuality, while behind-the-scenes, was indeed evident in the making of the films…While thematically restricted, a gay or ‘feminine’ aesthetic was free to pervade the profuse visual style: the clothes, the colors, the lavish décor.”
Ions ago I attended a screening of a vintage three-strip Technicolor print and if I blink hard enough, the vibrant colors come back in a form reminiscent of an acid flashback. Even on television, the shot of Loren greeting the townsfolk by raising a black dress (with lavender piping) and lilac petticoat to expose her high button shoes and horizontally-striped purple stockings is a textured Technicolor extravaganza. Later on, the Indians ransack the ensemble’s two wagons transforming their campground into an orgy of iridescent fabrics set flapping against a goose-down snowstorm.
I briefly met Mr. Cukor at the 1977 Chicago International Film Festival. Favorite moment: In a flash of blinding ignorance, emcee Roger Ebert dared to utter the words Star Wars in the presence of The Master. When asked what he thought of the film Cukor grumbled, “Star Wars? What the hell do I care about Star Wars?” I told you the guy had taste! Too bad Heller suffered a near-similar verdict. When it was over, I walked up to him and asked if he would be gracious enough to sign my Heller one-sheet. “Where the hell did you get this thing?” He found a blank spot on the enormous poster and signed his name as if he were endorsing a check. “Terrible movie. It was a mistake. Did you know that Hoyningen-Huene worked on it? I’ll be goddamned if you’ll find a picture with better color!”
Tags: Anthony Quinn, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, Film, Gay, Gay Cowboys, George Cukor, HELLER IN PINK TIGHTS, Movie, Movie Review, Review, Sophia Loren, Western
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