OUT TO SEA

title: OUT TO SEA

year: 1997

cast: Walter Mathau, Jack Lemmon, Hal Linden, Brent Spiner

rating: ***1/2

Nifty follow-up (not sequel) to GRUMPY OLD MEN with the dynamic-duo Walter Mathau and Jack Lemmon playing, you got it, old codgers, this time posing as employed dance-partners on a cruise ship for wealthy old lady passengers: a sort of tricky Three's Company style of "don't get caught" ruse comedy. Mathau's character is an endearing gambling slob and Lemmon is a shy, passive neat-nick... sound familiar? There's a few runaround cons involving poor folks pretending to be rich then realizing they don't need money for love. The trickery and hijinks will keep you mildly entertained, which is all this movie asks for. The scene-stealer, though, is jerky antagonist Brent Spiner as their boss, seeming a cross between Peter Sellers and a human rodent.

THE ODD COUPLE 2

year: 1996

rating: *

The sound of a trumpet played by a pro: rich, vibrant, and beautiful. The sound of the trumpet's mouthpiece, no matter who's playing it, sounds like a... raspberry. That's exactly what this film, the sequel to the symbolic "trumpet" THE ODD COUPLE, is. Plot has Felix Unger (Lemmon) and Oscar Madison (Matthau) on a car trip to the wedding of Oscar's son and Felix's wife. Neil Simon throws in all the road-comedy cliche and then some - basically everything you saw in TRAINS, PLANES AND AUTOMOBILES but without the humor. Well there's humor but it isn't funny. The main problem is, Felix isn't really a futz and Oscar isn't really a slob... or maybe we just can't tell because they're on the road overcoming "obstacles" instead of living together. The duo are hardly at ODDS because they're in the same boat (car) and have to rely on each other: thus killing the premise of not getting along because of contrasting personalities. A better idea for a sequel would have been: Oscar and Felix living in a rural town spending idle time ice-fishing and then fall in love with a woman who... oops, that's been done (GRUMPY OLD MEN). Really though, all joking aside... this could very well be the worst sequel ever made.

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."

THE SUNSHINE BOYS

title: THE SUNSHINE BOYS

year: 1975

cast: Walter Matthau, George Burns

writer: Neil Simon

director: Herbert Ross

rating: ***

Neil Simon stage play adaptation about two retired codgers who were once vaudeville performers with a chance to do one of their skits on a prime time variety show... if only they can get along long enough to do it. Walter Matthau is the grumpy lead whose acting is good but borders on a performance: at times you can tell he's acting. George Burns, playing his age, is the mellower of the two and the role fits him to a tee. Richard Benjiman, as Matthau's agent and nephew, does everything he can to get "Lewis and Clark" together for the show... it will help his career and perhaps give Matthau some dignity. But Matthau wants nothing to do with Burns and vice versa. By the time we see them auditioning and then performing their skit the film has pretty much run its course. Matthau's character is a little too neurotic and you just want him to go away. The skit involving a doctor (Matthau), a tax collector (Burns), and a busty blonde (Lee Meredith) seems like a mediocre SCTV bit and leaves the viewer wondering why they were popular in the first place. But Neil Simon's dialog flows neatly and the transition of stage play to film is well balanced by director Herbert Ross. And keep an eye out for F. Murray Abraham, years before he kills Mozart, as an edgy auto mechanic.