CROSSING DELANCEY

Peter Riegert in Crossing Delancey Year: 1988 Rating: ***1/2

Peter Riegert is a brilliantly subtle actor; so much so you can't even notice anything brilliant at all... as in, there's no performance in his roles ranging from Tim Matheson's sidekick in ANIMAL HOUSE, or Burt Lancaster's Scotland-bound employee in LOCAL HERO... he simply IS the character...

Which means something two-fold since, as a perfectly normal, hard-working owner of a Manhattan pickle store, he's the last person that gorgeous Jewish single girl Amy Irving wants to date... especially because her own doting mother (and mom's doting friend) really, almost desperately wants the relationship to happen...

Amy Irving in Crossing Delancey

And, in-between this somewhat buried mainline, CROSSING DELANCEY gets a bit too artsy/progressive for its own good, particularly involving Irving's job as a book publisher's assistant having affairs (or near-affairs) with a pretentiously published author and an unhappily married man...

Then again, all these distractions (also including a handful of girl-friends that often seem like three characters in one) make the relatively few sequences with Riegert that much more important and effective, and even romantic... in a perfectly suited anti-romantic-comedy fashion, neatly towing the line of mainstream and art-house.

Amy Irving and Peter Riegert in Crossing Delancey

Peter Riegert in Crossing Delancey with Peter Riegert

FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL (1994)

The romantic comedy that made Hugh Grant a star both in England, where it was made in that country's quirky style, and America where it was a surprise smash hit, has a very different style of Grant's befuddled sarcasm...

Lacking the kind of edge and closure to one-liners (which there aren't many)... and for the most part his endearingly flaky persona has a plot-line all its own: to serve the female viewers, as this one's almost solely for them, a niche audience, before also relating to the guys who take the girls out, like NOTTING HILL, MICKEY BLUE EYES, MUSIC AND LYRICS, and a few others where Hugh stretched beyond the adorably vulnerable dreamboy...However the movie itself isn't squeaky-clean, and is a bit painfully stretched, especially the first wedding in which 35 minutes seems its own plodding 90-minute movie where the British characters, a collective of smug/judgemental friends serving their outlining more normal friends' weddings, are so quirky and offbeat there are few characters to balance them out, making their eccentric personalities roll into a one-note cliche...

Which improves as soon as the plot of Hugh Grant, basically in the same smitten-shoes that Emilio Estevez was in for the same actress, Andie McDowell, in ST ELMO'S FIRE... as in, both want her badly but some benign older guy's already got her... Yet Andie... always pretty... isn't all that great here, and hardly compels Hugh to pick up his game, with American Import written all over her comparably tame character to Hugh's zany friends that never stop talking...

 And perhaps that's the point: she was what he needed because he never had a few beats of silence now and again, for himself... But what WEDDING shapes into by the very end (a kind of THE GRADUATE for the 1990's) is a movie that's told well even when it's not as funny as it should be... with a primary character who both leads the story and watches others working hard (perhaps too hard) around him. Grade: B+

MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING 3 (2023)

There's a point in MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING 3 when, actually set in Greece this time... and right before a stranger's wedding... Nia Vardalos and John Corbett look at each other and realize, they need a vacation... together... away from everyone else...

Which might be the first time two main characters wanted out of their very own motion picture... and that's because they have very little to do with anything other than being parents of a college girl who's failing WHILE being pushed to date a mediocre dimwit college dude: neither interesting enough to be in a movie unless it was SUPPOSED to be about other people... and some of those people are also from the original... a romantic comedy that not only had an actual plot, but some tension and, what needs to happen in this particular comedy genre, an actual problem to resolve... which is completely missing here, and watching this bad sequel of a bad sequel... after a string of dead-end goofy-aunt jokes, cliche stereotypes, and some of the most awkward moments in cinema history... you too will need a vacation, and it's not even your movie. Score: 1/2

TICKET TO PARADISE (2022)

It's obvious that George Clooney and Julia Roberts feel more natural attempting intense scenes together than bouncing off each other in a romantic comedy fashion...

Yet there is little for them to smile about: Once married for five years, they've hated each other for twenty, and have a law school grad daughter who, on a tropical island vacation, gets engaged to a local... 

And the fiance is not only cookie-cutter perfect-looking (like Roberts convenient young French boyfriend) but he spouts Buddhist platitudes and is simply too good to be true... Never allowing Clooney or Roberts... whose plan is to break up the engagement while supposedly loathing each other in the process... to have a logical reason for wanting what's best for their daughter... After all, in this age of neo-feminism, having a young lady go from having a future as a high profile lawyer to following her man around in his native territory, it's surprising the writer backs the young couple more than the old, whose random personal bulwarks are both contrived and tiresome... Meanwhile Clooney and Roberts, for real life friends and past collaborators, have absolutely no chemistry together: Which does make their prior divorce seem more realistic... perhaps deliberately... only these two don't really seem to hate each other... In fact neither seem to realize the other's even around, leaving the audience to scratch their heads and wonder how (or even why) these people hooked up in the first place... or why on earth they'd ever want to be together again. Rates: 1/2

BOOK CLUB (2018)

Old age is handled funny in movies. These people have had children and grandchildren, and in this case, the generation that was all about sex during their Sexual Revolution, wind up acting like silly old folks who seem to be discovering sex, and, even though the movie is intentionally showing that they are in fact rediscovering it, they sound like 13-year-olds who've never had it at all...

In that, BOOK CLUB is not a bad film. That is, it's not completely unwatchable. It's an older persons' date flick that uses the niche of its four stars: Bergen a kind of strong lioness who is insecure deep down; Jane Fonda is basically the same thing but slightly more confident and experience up-front, and prettier now than Bergen, who looks her age the most here; Keaton's her usual quirky neurotic that Woody Allen invented for ANNIE HALL; and Mary Steenburgen is the least well-known and not an iconic actress like the others, and also, like Fonda, has aged nicely (and tap dances to rock music like MELVIN & HOWARD)...

Their men are paper mache and the book being read, Fifty Shades of Grey, is promoted in what seems like a 2-hour commercial masquerading as a rom-com.

But this propaganda fades out after the first act when the usual problems arise. Followed by a pat Hollywood ending. Either way, this is vapidly enjoyable viewing for those who aren't expecting anything actually good or solid. Let's call it, passable time-filling emptiness. Or as Woody Allen said (while married to Keaton) in LOVE AND DEATH: an empty void. MAINSTREAM GRADE CURVE: C

HEROES HAS RELOCATED

title: HEROES

year: 1977

cast: Henry Winkler, Sally Field, Harrison Ford, Val Avery, John Cassavetes, Ron Rifkin, Al Rubin

rating: **1/2

REVIEW HAS MOVED TO THE NEW SITE

YOU'VE GOT MAIL

title: YOU'VE GOT MAIL

year: 1999

cast: Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, Steve Zahn, Jean Stapleton, Dabney Coleman, John Randolph, Greg Kinnear, Parker Posey

rating: ***

Okay guys, if you really wanna pick up on a beautiful chick, one that looks like, say, Meg Ryan, trick her into thinking you're someone you're not on the computer via email, manipulate her mind and have her fall in love with the image of you as a writer sharing your innermost thoughts and daily routines after you, as your real self, shut down her family business and all her dreams along with it. Well, it worked for Tom Hanks, so why not? Pretty good chick flick overall, a remake of "The Shop Around the Corner" about two people who email each other without getting too personal; one (Hanks) owns a new big bookstore that sells discount books, the other (Ryan) owns a small old bookstore across the street that sells specialty books that cost a ton (still not sure if they're used or not); and as the Westerns say "There's not enough room for the both of us." The best moments are before Tom knows Meg's Meg as they're emailing back and forth, completely unaware of each other's identity and loathing one another in their business "non-net" lives. During the scam in which Tom manipulates Meg after finding out she's his web girl, things get too plot-heavy and complicated, and then at the end, after he comes clean, Meg falls in love much too easily. Hanks' performance is a bit constrained: he seems OVER the whole comedy thing at this point, which is kind of a bummer. I dug him in the eighties when he was lean and goofy, and not considered beyond such trivialities.

BABY BOOM

title: BABY BOOM

year: 1987

cast: Diane Keaton, Harold Ramis, Sam Shepard, James Spader, Sam Wanamaker, Victoria Jackson, Pat Hingle, Paxton Whitehead, Mary Gross

rating: ***

Classy late-eighties fare about a hard-driven business-woman played by Diane Keaton who has everything to gain in the corporate world until she inherits a baby, and then must juggle her executive life with that as a new, and quite reluctant, mother. After losing her yuppie boyfriend (Harold Ramis) and eventually her job (to an ass kissing weasel played by James Spader), she and baby move to a country home where the usual "nothing works in this house" havoc ensues, and she ends up making baby food with a plethora of apples in her spare time. Her hobby becomes a business and she's an overnight success, and then must choose between the simple life or returning to the big city. The best parts lie within the first half as she struggles with the baby, but the country story has its charm thanks to Sam Shepard as a genuinely nice Veterinarian providing a blossoming love story that never gets corny. Basically, it's a chick-flick that men won't mind being spoon-fed.

SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE

title: SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE

year: 2003

cast: Jack Nicholson, Diane Keaton, Amanda Peet, Keanu Reeves

rating: ***1/2

A pleasant surprise about two baby boomers, one a music producer playboy who only dates young girls - Jack Nicholson as himself with a different trade - the other an uptight playwright, Diane Keaton, who's thirty-year-old gorgeous daughter, Amanda Peet, is dating Jack and through miscommunicated fate all three are staying at Keaton's home for the weekend. Jack and the young trophy are about to have sex when he has a heart attack - after he's saved at the hospital, Diane Keaton is stuck with the chore of nursing him back to health. Keanu Reeves plays a doctor, sporting teenage-skater bangs and his usual dormant delivery - although his performance isn't that awful. Reeves, a fan of stage plays, has a crush on Keaton. But Jack and Diane (no this wasn't written by John Cougar) become an item and discover true love neither have experienced. This movie is wonderfully involving but then the last half hour, after the two leads break up, drags on and on. Basically a really nice symphony that doesn't know when to end. But for the most part, as far as romantic comedies go, this one is almost perfect.

HEARTBURN

title: HEARTBURN

year: 1986

cast: Jack Nicholson, Meryl Streep, Jeff Daniels, Stockard Channing

rating: *

In preparation for a movie about two successful Manhattan columnists who quickly tie the knot and have a string of marital problems, Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep rehearse random monologues written for their characters. That's what this movie seems like. The title is what it feels like.

WHATEVER WORKS

year: 2009

rating: *

A hotdog consists of rejected parts of a pig all thrown together and picked up off the butcher's floor. This is Woody Allen's hotdog. Many of the elements are borrowed from past films, like his fourth-wall-breaking first-person-narrating philosophy of life being meaningless and love being luck and everyone is dying and... all that stuff that was once entertaining when Woody Allen was younger, and funny. His patented neurotic-Jewish-Intellectual character is given to Larry David as a chess-instructing codger who marries a gorgeous teenager, Evan Rachel Wood. This entire concept is funnier than any line in the movie; not ha-ha but "Am I actually supposed to buy this" funny. And there are plenty of one-liners but nothing seems to matter: the characters all frolic stupidly before David so he can put them down. Proving again and again he's no Woody Allen. And as a writer, either is Woody Allen anymore.

HOUSE CALLS

title: HOUSE CALLS

year: 1978

cast: Walter Matthau

rating: ***

The main character, a newly widowed doctor whom every woman in town, young and old alike, is crazy about, must have been originally written with someone else in mind. Burt Reynolds perhaps. Walter Matthau, who looks a cross between Richard Nixon and Fred Flintstone, is the gigalo doc who makes a lot of money (perhaps this is the reason he's a chick-magnet: doctors were like rock stars in the seventies) and after shagging a bevy of young hotties meets a cold old sickle of a gal, british Glenda Jackson, who, despite spells of forced-smiles makes Nurse Ratched seem like Lambchop - and they have a romance that works despite itself (Bill and Hillary, anyone?). That is, until Matthau comprises their trust and has to win her back at the end. This is a decent romantic comedy made during a time when looks didn't matter, only story-line: the basic plot centering on a grade-b hospital run by senile Art Carney, while Matthau and fellow doctor Richard Benjamin try their best to keep it going... with the love story providing the base. You'll be entertained once you get past the fact Matthau is impersonating Cary Grant from the forties, somehow. Love is blind; as were most romantic comedies from the seventies: era of the "sensitive guy meets the hardened feminist with the heart of gold."

THREE MEN AND A LITTLE LADY

years: 1990

cast: Tom Selleck, Nancy Travis,  Steve Guttenberg, Ted Danson

rating: ***

THREE MEN AND A LITTLE LADY has our bachelors are now full fledged fathers living with the woman (the British actress who was impregnated by Danson), and the "little lady": the child from the first film now five years old. The sequel is mostly centered on Selleck's character (who's hairdo looks like a toupee-Frisbee) secretly in love with Nancy Travis, the baby's mom... and all the stuff he and Guttenberg (Danson is out of country but joins them eventually) go through to stop her from marrying the wrong guy in England... a conceited director who's phony and not nice to the little lady. The sequel is almost as good as the original in its own way, although things are reversed: the first film is best during the first half, and the second film is best during the second half (in England). Selleck finally wins Nancy Travis and they marry... a good thing because no child should be raised by three men who paint their images in a penthouse lobby.

MADE IN AMERICA

title: MADE IN AMERICA

year: 1993

cast: Ted Danson, Whoopie Goldberg, Will Smith, Jennifer Tilly

rating: *1/2

A truly bizarre and downright impossible to believe real-life love affair between then married Ted Danson and Whoopie Goldberg was the prelude to this romantic comedy about a young black girl who wants to find her real father, a sperm donor, and it turns out to be white obnoxious car salesman Ted Danson. Whoopie, as the girl's mother, spends half the film enraged that she was given a white man's sperm.The actors, including Will "I haven't become a big star yet but give me time" Smith, try WAY TOO HARD to make every moment hilarious, memorable and endearing. This is a convoluted mess that can be entertaining if you don't expect anything but mediocrity, or less.

STARTING OVER

title: STARTING OVER
year: 1979
cast: Burt Reynolds, Candace Bergen, Charles Durning
director: Alan J. Pakula
rating: *

James L. Brooks wrote the script and the guy who Hollywood (and many others) adored for "All the President's Men" directed. The pace is slow and the film is totally pointless. I have nothing more to say other than this movie's title is how you'll feel after the first fifteen minutes: like STARTING OVER with another movie... perhaps one about Watergate... or something. ANYTHING but this.

FAILURE TO LAUNCH

year: 2006

rating: **

The concept is good, if intriguing. A 35 year old guy (Matthew McConaughey) who still lives his parents, hence the title - "failure to launch" referring to leaving the "nest". But the film suffers from plot-amnesia, as we forget all about the concept very soon. The main character's not a pathetic guy who we can laugh at, or even laugh with. He's a perfect looking chap with a dream job and lots of beautiful girlfriends who basically has a really hard time with commitment - and the fact he lives with his parents is merely a way for boy to meet girl. His parents (Kathy Bates and Terry Bradshaw... talk about a mismatch!) want him out, and hire a young lady (Sarah Jessica Parker, basically doing what Jennifter Aniston does in every film... being herself) who's job is to help parents get their full grown adult sons out of the house (talk about a niche market!). The twist is that she has to make him fall for her and then he'll move out, or something. The funniest scene involves the main character getting bitten by a chipmunk, which has nothing to do with the plot... but what the hell, they had to get laughs somewhere. And hey, what's the plot again? I think a movie about slackers who can't "flee the nest" would be interesting, if done right. Or done at all. This movie doesn't even ATTEMPT showing us a character with real problems, or who is too lazy to live on his own. Instead we get a weak romantic comedy that goes in every direction, except an interesting one.

BLIND DATE

year: 1987

cast: Bruce Willis, Kim Basinger

director: Blake Edwards

rating: *

If you make a comedy where the funniest part is a Rick Dees radio bit played in the background, you're in big, big trouble. This is a tedious rollercoaster ride centering on a blind date between a yuppie (Bruce Willis) and a beautiful woman (Kim Basinger) who gets really weird when she's drunk. Everything goes awry for him while she remains untouched since she has no real purpose but to eventually drive this poor bastard's life down the drain. She has an ex-boyfriend (John Larroquete) who's stalking them and he adds to the chase. This is not only an out-and-out ripoff of Martin Scorsese's "After Hours" but feels like a dull neverending nightmare, one of those where every character exists to annoy you and you can't wake up. Awful. One of the worst movies ever made.

VICTOR/VICTORIA

year: 1982
rating: **

What a drag, pun intended... but the first hour is okay. Robert Preston is annoying as every single line seems like something from a stage play (his style), but Julie Andrews is interesting as an out-of-work American singer in Paris who, with Preston (her gay friend), ends up posing as a man dressed up as a woman - thus becoming a huge nightclub attraction. James Garner is a bigwig who falls in love with her: first thinking she's a she then finding out she's a him and his manliness is questioned. Once the "relationship" begins with Garner and Andrews, the film goes downhill... Once past the entertaining first half with Andrews and Preston struggling together, everything gets way too muddled. Blake Edwards has so many wheels turning in different directions the vehicle gets stuck in the mud.

SKIN DEEP

year: 1988

rating: **1/2

A scene involving two men running around in a dark room wearing glow-in-the-dark condoms fighting over a girl is quite hilarious and brings back THE PINK PANTHER style of slapstick that made Blake Edwards famous, but the rest of the movie, dealing with a bearded piano-playing playwright who's addicted to sex (John Ritter), is hit-or-miss and often gets weighed down by its own navel-gazing. John Ritter is able to display his subtle pratfalls and dry witty charm and is thoroughly convincing since he's had so much practice playing sex-starved men... although his character is much luckier than his "Jack Tripper" character. Overall it's not too shabby. Ritter fans won't be disappointed.

ROMANTIC COMEDY

title: ROMANTIC COMEDY

year: 1984

cast: Dudley Moore, Mary Steamburgen

rating: *1/2

I like Dudley Moore but how did he become a sex symbol? It seems in most of his movies in the early eighties he's playing a character who every woman on earth is dying for. I see a short funny guy with a penguin nose. And not only does he play characters who woman love, but the woman mention how "cute" he is. But when Burt Reynolds or Cary Grant are in their romantic comedies, no one really HAS TO say they're good looking. Anyway, this movie again centers on Moore as a forty-something guy going through a mid-life crisis who woman all adore. He's a playwright who's lost his touch and his partner, and gets a new partner in young budding Mary Steamburgen. They write a few plays, some hit, some miss. Mary ends up in love with Dudley, things get weird, and... oh it's just a lot of dialog and really no point at all.