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Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Summer Catch (2001) [PG-13] **

Ryan Dunne (Freddie Prinze Jr.) has lived his whole life in the town of Chatham, on Cape Cod, nurturing his dream of becoming a major league baseball pitcher. Each summer as the Cape Cod summer league starts, college players from around the country arrive in Chatham, Wareham, Hyannisport and the other resort towns, filling out the local teams, rooming with local families, and hoping to be seen by the professional scouts who come to the games. Ryan played baseball at Boston College and Framingham State College, washing out of both. This is his last chance, and he's been offered a pitching slot on the Chatham A's. But Ryan took his mother's death very hard; his father Sean (Fred Ward), his brother Mike (Jason Gedrick) and his coach (Brian Dennehy) all wonder whether he still has the drive to succeed.

One day, while mowing lawns for his father's landscaping company, Ryan spies the gorgeous Tenley Parrish (Jessica Biel), who has just graduated from college, is home for the summer, and wants to be an architect. Ryan is instantly love-struck, although this seems unlikely since he must have observed Tenley every summer for the past six years, while mowing her family’s lawns. Tenley falls equally hard for Ryan, although they barely know each other and are from different social and economic strata. We’re never told, but perhaps Tenley is secretly rebelling against her wealthy, controlling father (played by Bruce Davison), who has other plans for her. In any case, from this point on the story's plot is fairly predictable, although Ryan and Tenley's relationship isn't developed very well.

Freddie Prinze, Jr. is a one-expression actor; he has virtually no romantic chemistry with Jessica Biel, although it's not for her lack of effort. Comic relief is provided by Ryan's groupie girlfriend Dee Dee (Brittany Murphy), his catcher from USC, Billy Brubaker (Matthew Lillard), and the virginal Mickey (Wilmer Valderrama), but Ward, Dennehy and Davison are all underutilized or forced into stereotypical roles. Summer Catch is a boring imitation of Bull Durham; don’t waste your time on it. 

Labels: baseball, comedy, drama, romance
Internet Movie Database
Metacritic 21/100
RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=32, viewers=52)

Monday, May 16, 2011

The Majestic (2001) [PG] ***

A film review by Claudia Puig, USA TODAY, on December 24, 2001.

The Majestic is named after a dilapidated movie palace that the movie's stars, Jim Carrey and Martin Landau, renovate and reopen. If only they had managed to overhaul this overly sentimental movie while they were restoring things.

Both Landau and Carrey deserve better material. Carrey is miscast as Peter Appleton, a '50s-era B-movie writer who is blacklisted, loses his identity after an accident and discovers his inner integrity after being embraced by the kindly denizens of a California town. When Carrey breaks into an aw, shucks smile, you can spot the maniacal trickster lurking beneath the bland demeanor that the part imposes on him. It's not that he should star only in wild-eyed comedic roles. He was superb as Andy Kaufman in Man on the Moon and well cast as the goofy but well-meaning dupe in The Truman Show. But those films had an edge that allowed Carrey to vent his darker, unpredictable side.

One hopes that this is a temporary deviation for Carrey and that he hasn't decided to follow in Robin Williams' sappy footsteps. Both men have a witty cynicism that has worked well in more complex material.

Once in town, Carrey's character is spotted by Harry Trimble (Landau) and mistaken for the son he lost in World War II. With little memory of his own past, Peter begins to believe he is the prodigal son and gives no more thought to his Hollywood problems.

The McCarthy era has been depicted more convincingly in other films. Peter's banal work would have been unlikely to call attention to him, much less inspire the scrutiny of commie-baiting witch hunters.

Further straining believability, the cops sent to arrest Peter for failing to testify before a government committee stage a dramatic face-off right on Main Street. And the confrontation just happens to fall on the day that his accident-induced amnesia clears, the same day as Landau's funeral. Meanwhile, the flag-waving townspeople who had embraced him all turn on him as one. Even his brainy blonde love interest, Adele (Laurie Holden), can't resist doing her own preaching.

Director Frank Darabont, whose The Shawshank Redemption was a better example of his talent, sought to make a Frank Capra-style feel-good picture. But he produced a pale imitation that challenges credulity and tries too hard to win our hearts with schmaltz.

Labels: drama


Monday, May 9, 2011

Kate & Leopold (2001) [PG-13] ****

A film review by James Berardinelli for ReelViews.net on Dec. 31, 2001.

For co-writer/director James Mangold, Kate & Leopold marks a change-of-pace. Mangold, whose previous efforts (Heavy, Copland, Girl Interrupted) have been dark, serious, and broody, has allowed himself to lighten up considerably this time around. Although he might not seem to be the perfect choice to direct a Meg Ryan romantic comedy, he proves himself up to the task. (Perhaps he viewed it as a challenge.) Kate & Leopold delivers the kind of warm, familiar mixed brew of romance, humor, light drama, and pleasant character interaction that has made many of Ryan's similar endeavors successful box office performers. There's nothing surprising about this movie, but it does what it's supposed to do, allowing us to leave the theater with a warm glow and a pleasantly satisfied feeling. Cynics, anti-romantics, and tough guys will, of course, despise it. Your appreciation of the Meg Ryan romantic comedy canon will be a good indicator of how you will react to Kate & Leopold.

In an attempt to add some freshness to the romance, Kate & Leopold throws a little science fiction flavoring into the cinematic stew. As it turns out, however, while this aspect of the film spices things up, it doesn't lead to anything ground-breaking. The Twilight Zone is kept at bay. It's more of a means to create a fish-out-of-water subplot than to investigate the paradoxes of time travel. But, as movies like Just Visiting have emphasized, the comic potential of placing a man from the past in our present isn't as great as one might expect. And perhaps Kate & Leopold's twist might have seemed more original if it hadn't been employed so recently in another motion picture. Brad Anderson's 2000 feature, Happy Accidents, paired Marisa Tomei and Vincent D'Onofrio in the tale of a man who came back in time to fall in love. In Kate & Leopold, the time traveler is from the past, but there are similarities. And, in both cases, the love story aspect works better than the science fiction one.

Leopold, the Duke of Albany (Hugh Jackman), lives a life of privilege in 1876 until the night when he spies a stranger in his uncle's house. He pursues the man and ends up in 2001 New York City, in the apartment of Stuart (Liev Schreiber), his great-great-grandson. When Stuart is involved in an elevator accident that lands him in the hospital before he can send Leopold back to 1876, the Duke comes under the care of Stuart's ex-girlfriend and downstairs neighbor, Kate (Meg Ryan), and her actor brother, Charlie (Breckin Meyer). Kate knows the truth about Leopold, but doesn't believe it, and she bears her obligation of looking after him like a burden - until she realizes that he would be the perfect spokesperson for an advertising campaign her marketing company is working on. Suddenly, hard-bitten, unromantic Kate and Leopold, the psychotic escapee from a Renaissance Fair, are spending quite a bit of time together and falling in love. But there's an obvious problem in the form of a 125-year age gap.

Despite not having made a romantic comedy since 1998's You've Got Mail, Ryan slides smoothly into the part, exhibiting all the facial quirks and personality tics (not to mention the general luminosity) that have made her so popular over the years. Her opposite, Hugh Jackman, is guaranteed to make female viewers swoon. With an on-screen persona not unlike that of Rupert Everett in An Ideal Husband, Jackman's Leopold proves to be the perfect man - suave, handsome, intelligent, caring, capable, and a great dancer. In supporting roles, Liev Schreiber and Breckin Meyer provide most of the comic relief. Other secondary performers include Natasha Lyonne as Kate's assistant and Bradley Whitford as her boss.

One could argue that the dialogue in Kate & Leopold is a cut above that from many of Ryan's previous romantic comedies (except perhaps When Harry Met Sally…), but if this film is relying on its occasional zingers and smart bits of conversation to get bodies in theater seats, it's in trouble. People will go to see Ryan, who's as cute at age 40 as she was in her late 20s, and Jackman, who continues to prove that his range extends beyond that of playing Wolverine in X-Men. The chemistry between these two bubbles pleasantly. There's no powerful sexual attraction, but this movie is more about innocent romance than passion, so it works. Like most of Ryan's films, Kate & Leopold succeeds as a diversion (although, at two hours in length, it's too long). It is cinematic cotton candy - insubstantial perhaps, but ultimately sweet and pleasant to the taste. [Berardinelli’s rating: *** out of 4]

Labels: comedy, fantasy, period, rom-com-faves, romance, sci-fi, space-time