RV

This movie hasn't been well-received by most critics, and to be truthful, it's nothing special. And yet, it's no worse than many other summer fun movies. It's no There's Something About Mary, but it's no Dumb and Dumberer, either.

Robin Williams plays a marketing man working for a major soft drink company run or owned (it's not clear) by a major schmuck. His job takes him away from his family more than he and his wife would like. The result: resentful and rebellious kids. (This, strangely despite the fact that mom is a full-time homemaker.)

His family consists of an annoying son (Josh Hutcherson) who is into rap music, a disturbingly jail-baity daughter played by (I'm not kidding with this name) "JoJo Levesque," and a wife, played by veteran actress Cheryl Hines. JoJo was only fifteen when RV was filmed, but she was playing a girl about to go to college at the end of summer (age=17?). Normally, actresses play younger than their chronological age, not older. Now, she has a great figure and in some of the clothing she wore, nipple bumps were evident. She also has a pronounced "hourglass" figure. Ms. Hines also is well built. In short, Robin appeared to have a Penthouse Pet of the future for a daughter and a Penthouse Pet of 20 years ago for a wife.
By the way, "JoJo" was in another movie recently, Aquamarine, where her supposed lack of development compared to more popular girls was part of the story.

Anyway, they (the family) are planning on a Hawaiian vacation, but Robin's boss requires Robin to help pitch an Odwalla-like natural beverage company to sell out and become part of the major soft drink company.

In order to vacation with his family and still make the presentation, he cancels the Hawaiian vacation and rents a large RV trying to convince his family that a road trip to Colorado (where the presentation will take place) is actually better. He doesn't explain that he's actually doing this so he can be there for the presentation at a time when they had been planning to be on the beach in Hawaii, which further incurs resentment since his family feels they are being hijacked into a vacation they don't really want.

Along the way, they meet a cheerful and positive family. The husband and wife are played by Jeff Daniels and Kristin Chenoweth. They have a son and daughter who are appropriately aged for Robin's family (coincidence? I think not). We learn later on that Robin's family finds their positivity annoying mostly because of their own family's unresolved issues.

Much of this movie is predictable: You know that the family's issues will be resolved and that they will grow closer. The annoying Jeff Daniels family will prove their salvation and prove to be true friends. Robin will leave his company if the choice is between his job and his family.

Even though it's a formulaic movie, a lot of movies are, especially summer movies.

While it won't be mentioned at Oscar time, for what it is, it's not such a bad movie.

2046

I've been waiting for this movie for months based on the previews. I knew it was a sequel to In The Mood For Love, a previous movie made by Director Kar Wai Wong, but I couldn't figure out how the sci-fi aspects hinted at in the previews could possibly intrude into a story as earthbound as In The Mood For Love.

As it turns out, the movie shifts around in time and has certain stream of consciousness aspects as real events mix with scenes from the sci-fi novel the protagonist (Tony Leung) is writing, which is interwoven with fictional characters and situations and situations and women from his own life.

Speaking of women, this movie features three of the most beautiful and well-known Asian actresses. I'm speaking of Gong Li (Raise The Red Lantern, Farewell My Concubine), Maggie Cheung (In The Mood For Love, Hero), and Ziyi Zhang (Couching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; Hero; House Of Flying Daggers).

In The Mood For Love took place in a Hong Kong boarding hotel where the Tony Leung character lived in room 2046 and collaborated on a sci-fi story with a woman (Maggie Cheung) he loved but could not have.

Now a sleazy, cynical guy with money problems, he went back to the hotel to rent room 2046, but ends up taking 2047 because 2046 is being renovated. He decides to stay in 2047 and a beautiful young woman (Ziyi Zhang), who is also the hotel owner's younger daughter, moves into 2046.

We witness his dalliances with the hotel owner's younger daughter and older daughter (Gong Li) as well as flashbacks to his earlier affair.

As his meandering and irresponsible life both helps and damages the women he encounters, scenes from his novel interweave and the female characters appear in 1960's wardrobe and wardrobe from the future.

Now, as to the title. Not only is 2046 a room number but it's the title of his sci-fi novel in progress (though the title changes to 2047 when he collaborates with the Ziyi Zhang character).

If you like linear plots and tied up loose ends, this movie won't be for you. But if you like mystery, intrigue, and gorgeous visuals, not to mention stunning Asian women, I can recommend this movie wholeheartedly.

Transporter 2

There are so many ways to start this movie because there are so many things to say about it. I think I'll begin with a digression.

The Transporter is one of the best action movies of all time. The charismatic Jason Statham (Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels and The Italian Job, among others), established himself as a leading man and something of a martial arts star with well-choreographed fight scenes.

It was that rare movie that bucked the general flow of movies from comic books. I don't know of a comic has resulted from The Transporter but it doesn't really matter: essentially it was a cartoon.

In this movie, Frank Martin, ex-special forces guy with a love of fast cars, returns doing what he does best: getting something or someone from point A to point B as quickly, recklessly, and dangerously as possible. He's the best of the best, and as lethal as he is behind the wheel, the bad guys had better seek cover when he gets out of his car, because he really knows how to fight!

The influence of Jackie Chan is evident here, because many of the fight scenes involve acrobatics and the creative use of props to defeat anywhere from one to a dozen opponents. Of course the difference is that Jackie Chan really does it, and while it seems Jason Statham does almost all of the fight scenes himself, creative cutting and special effects are obviously involved as well, whereas when Jackie does it, he really does it. No matter, you're not thinking about that while you're watching the movie.

I mentioned that the previous movie was essentially a cartoon, and this one ratchets up the cartoonishness even further with stunts that are not just hard to believe, but which are literally impossible. Just to take one example, knowing that there is a radio-controlled bomb magnetically attached to his car, Frank drives one side of his car up a ramp (funny how ramps seem to be wherever needed in action flicks), forcing his car in to a flying 360. While passing under a cast iron hook on a heavy chain, the car flies just perfectly relative to the chain to knock the bomb off before it explodes.

This is just one of many examples of impossible stunts in this movie.

Back to the car for a second. Having traded in his BMW for an elegant and sexy Audi A8 W12, a 12-cylinder 420 horsepower sedan that manages hit all kinds of objects, to be hit by numerous bullets, and to plow through a masonry and concrete wall without getting so much as a scratch on the bumper. It's an impressive car and, especially in the beginning, this movie takes product placement re: automobiles to a whole new level. Audi will be selling lots these because of this movie.

Here is the story in a nutshell. Filling in for a friend, Frank Martin is now in the states acting as transporter and bodyguard for a young boy whose father (Matthew Modine) happens to be the Federal Drug Czar. Frank has actually developed a soft spot borh for the boy and for his frustrated and unhappy mom (Amber Valletta of Hitch and What Lies Beneath). As this job is winding down, he accepts the task on his day off of taking the boy to his pediatrician's office, which unbeknownst to him has been taken over by kidnappers working for a vicious international criminal.

Leading the kidnapping crew is the criminal's psychopathic girlfriend, who makes a rather peculiar-looking nurse in her red platform shoes and with makeup seemingly applied with a trowel. When Frank notices blood seeping out from under the door of a closet in the doctor's office (the real doctor and nurse, now dead, were stashed there) he really realizes something is amiss and goes about getting the boy out of there, with limited success. The rest of the movie is pretty much about carrying out his promise to protect the boy, and we all know that when Frank makes a promise, you can bank on it.

Transporter 2 is, if anything, even better than it's predecessor, which had a couple lulls in it. No lulls here, though like all action movies it tends to unravel somewhat at the end, but even so it's the best action movie in a while. Even the recent Batman movie doesn't even come close.

Not a "chick flick" by any stretch of the imagination, if you're looking for best popcorn movie around, most likely this is it.

November

November stars Courtney Cox and has Ann Archer as a supporting cast member, but they are the only "name" actors in the film.

If you like style over substance, this is a good movie. If not, it's the pits.

Ms. Cox plays a female instructor of photo arts who is coming home from dinner with her boyfriend and feels a hunger for chocolate ice cream. She sends him into the neighborhood convenience market to buy some for her and while she is in the car distracted by loud music from the car's radio, and by reading an artsy-fartsy tabloid, he is shot to death in a robbery.

Shortly thereafter, while viewing some student slides, a slide appears which seems to have been taken during the robbery, for there is the store and there is the car with her in it. Scary shit! What does it mean?

Unfortunately, this is one of those movies that not only doesn't answer ANY of your questions, but in which you know seem to know less and less as time goes by until at the end, you're unsure of anything.

Was the boyfriend killed or was she killed with the movie as her dying thoughts? Or, alternatively, were they both killed in the robbery? How can a photo on her wall before the crime occurred have been taken from the crime scene?

I could go on...

This is one of those movies that seems like an art school student's class project. Today, too many students waste their time and talent on that school of art which has given up producing art with a value based on beauty or idea or even utility and instead has decided to toy with the public by giving them puzzling art. Art whose sole raison d'etre is to confound and annoy.

The movie seems to have been shot in a combination of camcorder video and 16mm or even 8mm film. Don't expect Hollywood production values! Instead, expect it to look "arty." And it does. LIke I said, style over substance.

The Cave

I'll admit up front that I don't generally enjoy movies set in caves, mines, or any other kind of subterranean location. That's part of what I dislike about this one, but only part.

Actually, this movie is a mess. Sloppy cinematography, sloppy editing, bad special effects and computer graphics. The acting is not exactly Oscar caliber, but it's no worse than your average horror flick and perhaps a tad better.

I go back to the setting. What's wrong with an entire movie set in a cave is that the surroundings are so different from what we know, totally lacking in the geometry of our everyday world, that it's very disorienting. Momentary disorientation can be useful to a director. When it permeates the whole movie, you start to get a headache.

Combine that with lots of shaky camera shots, intentionally out-of-focus shots, shots aimed away from the action (to make us guess or imagine what's going on) and if you're anything like me, you'll be seriously considering giving up and leaving the theater, considering the cost of the ticket a write-off.

On the plus side (and one does have to reach to find plus signs here) is that the movie features not just one, but two gorgeous actresses: Lena Headey as the staff scientist (cave expert) and Piper Perabo as the sexy and tomboyish member of the dive team.

In most of these movies you know early on who is going to be gone by the end of the movie. This is one area where the movie has surprises, which I won't get into.

As for the standard goners in these films, they tend to include any black man in the movie, any nerd, and if there is more than one female, their chances of being eliminated are in inverse proportion to their beauty (the less attractive, the more likely to be monster food.

One exception to this rule is that any slut in the movie can't be alive at the end, either. In the most stereotypical of such stories, it is usually the handsome leader of the group and the sexiest chick who come out with their skins. Someday I hope to see one where the last ones standing are the black guy, the team's computer nerd, and the most beautiful girl.

At any rate, don't hurry to your theater for this one. If you must see it, wait for it to go to video, probably next month.

The Great Raid

I'm a big fan of Benjamin Bratt but I fear the day when he's paired up with Lou Diamond Phillips because it may be hard to tell them apart!

This is a dramatic movie that mixes drama with documentary aspects. As it begins, we are told/warned that it was "inspired" by actual events. I fear this word "inspired" because what it means is that the makers of the movie gave themselves a lot of latitude to change the characters and facts for dramatic and artistic purposes.

What can't be doubted, apparently, is the fact that the event that inspired this movie is the most successful rescue operation of American troops from a prisoner of war camp. Successful in terms of the number of prisoners (511) and in the lack of casualties on the American side (1 killed, and several wounded).

I think one of the things that is covered by the "inspired" designation is the required love story between the highest ranking US officer and a nurse he had a "thing" for and whose officer husband is now dead. While they never meet, she working in the Philippine resistance and helps smuggle medicine and other necessities to him for the men in the camp. She loves him as well and, apparently, only after the war will they be able to be together.

The setting is the end of the war in the Pacific (WWII of course). With General Macarthur leading a successful assault on the Japanese on the Islands, it's estimated that the camp will be overrun by Americans in as little as five days. Since the Japanese have accomplished horrific mass executions of prisoners in other camps, it's deemed essential to liberate these prisoners before that can happen.

Bratt, a Lt. Colonel who leads the newly-formed Army Rangers, gives the planning of the attack to an underling Captain (James Franco). The attack will involve moving on the camp through the jungle and somehow moving their team across a huge grassy clearing during the daylight hours so that they can conduct the attack as dusk turns into dark.

This is one of the better war movies I've seen in a while, though it's certainly no Saving Private Ryan. It's a guy movie, primarily, though I'm sure many of the gals will sympathize with the love story. Definitely recommended as a good popcorn movie.

The Skeleton Key

This occult thriller centers on a young nursing student who is tired of working for a heartless hospice business and so accepts a job as a live-in caregiver for a mute and largely paralyzed stroke victim (John Hurt).

To be accepted for the job, she has to deal with the thinly-veiled doubt and hostility of the man's wife, ably played by the veteran actress Gena Rowlands. Morally supported and championed by the family's handsome young attorney (Peter Sarsgaard) she is accepted and begins her job in this old southern home which looks something like a scaled-down plantation mansion, complete with columns on the front porch, a brick wall, and a wrought iron gate.

As she performs her duties, she has lots of spare time and rather impolitely starts wandering into parts of the house which one would think are none of her business, such as the attic. There she encounters a locked door which starts shaking as though someone on the other side wants to get out.

When she eventually does get into this room, it turns out to be what her young black girlfriend tells her is a "hoodoo room." We are told that "hoodoo" isn't to be confused with "voodoo." The latter is an actual religion, the former is the practice of casting white and black magical spells.

This sets of the mystery of the story: Why is there a hoodoo room in this house? How much does the wife know about it? Does it have anything to do with the husband's affliction?

She finds out that in the past, the owners of the house at that time had a pair of servants who practiced hoodoo, and who were lynched on a day when the owners' two children disappeared.

Naturally, as with any movie like this, it has a twist ending. And like almost every thriller, it tends to fall apart at the end, with people we thought of as good being evil and people turning out to be not at all who we thought they were. And of course there's the standard running and hiding and attacking.

As you may have guessed, if this is the sort of thing you like, you'll probably like it. It's certainly not the worst of the genre while it certainly can't claim to be the best. It fails by comparison with last year's Hide and Seek, but it's certainly far better than such recent films as House of Wax and Dreamcatcher.

The 40-Year-Old Virgin

Steve Carell is hardly new to acting for a wide audience. He's been in well over 20 movies and TV series since 1991. You may remember him from Anchorman, Melinda and Melinda, The Office (TV), and Bewitched, not to mention his ongoing role as a correspondent on TV's The Daily Show. However, this is his first major role as the lead character and not merely a cast member in an ensemble.

Carell plays a 40 year old man with a secret, and you don't need to guess what it is if you know the title of the film. When his secret slips out to his buddies, they vow to help him get his dipstick wet without the aid of K-Y Jelly or Astroglide.

All of these guys profess to know the ways of women and seduction and give him one bit of bad advice after another. (The one exception, possibly, is the "Just ask question...women love to talk about themselves" advice, which leads to two hilarious bits with a very sexy Elizabeth Banks (Spider-Man, Catch Me If You Can, Sea Bisquit, Spider-Man 2, Heights, to name a few recent roles).

Some of their advice is good, though, and should be borne in mind by male audience members who seem to have trouble landing girls, such as the advice to get rid of some of the boyish posters for lame bands and the numerous action figures (still in the original packaging of course), which are scattered throughout his apartment.

In the meantime, he has a chance encounter with the owner of a local small business named "We Sell Your Stuff On EBay" who actually shows some interest in him, since she gives him her card and invites him to visit. This character is played by Catherine Keener, who despite being in her 40's manages that klutzy, warm, and homely sort of charm that some people possess.

While the boys are dragging him into clubbing situations and buying a hooker for him (who turns out to be a transvestite), he slowly warms to the Keener character, although he does have to overcome the resistance of her older daughter. How he charms her is one of the better scenes in the movie.

This movie is quite funny though it really does earn its "R" rating with foul language and even fouler sexual references (I certainly heard a few new terms). The opening scene, in fact, shows how shuffling to the bathroom with a morning boner. Some people may even feel a bit uncomfortable due to their empathy for Carell's character, who he plays as an extremely sincere guy who'd make a great dad.

I think most people will enjoy this film. If you're not such a person, I think I've given you enough clues here to stay away from it. Me? I found it quite enjoyable though of course, like most comedies, it probably won't be remembered at Oscar time.

Asylum

Part gothic romance, part thriller, and part cautionary tale, this is the story of a woman, bored in her marriage, whose weakness sets of a tragic chain of events.

Set in Britain in the 1950's, Natasha Richardson plays Stella, the wife of a psychoanalyst hired by an insane asylum. Her marriage is a bit iffy and we get strong hints that she has spoken and behaved in ways in the past that have not much helped her husband's career.

She has a 10-ish boy she obviously loves dearly.

And yet...she finds herself strongly attractive to a trustee inmate, Edgar, repairing their house's greenhouse. Resisting her impulses at first, and after dancing with him at the Asylum Ball (a mixer involving both the Asylum's staff and inmates), her interest in him grows so intense that one afternoon she sneaks off to the greenhouse and without even uttering a word makes her body available to him.

Bear in mind that by now she has heard Edgar's story, that he murdered, mutilated, and beheaded his wife.

Edgar is the pet patient of the impeccably dressed elderly psychoanalyst, Peter (Ian McKellen) who competes with her husband for the position of Superintendant of the Asylum.

One day, Edgar wanders into their home after Stella's mother-in-law takes the boy on an outing. Having forgotten something, the mother-in-law returns home with the boy in tow. The boy stumbles upon Edgar in the act of escaping and once on the road again mentions it to the mother-in-law, who stops the car. Edgar, who has secreted himself in the car's trunk uses this moment to exit the car and make good his escape.

Stella is now in disgrace and vows to recommit to her marriage and family. However, she receives a message from Edgar and begins visiting him in his lair in London. Eventually, she gives in to his entreaties to move in with him, so she abandons her husband and child and moves to London to live with him and his assistant/roommate.

The nasty, jealous side of Edgar's nature comes out as the bloom wears off of her relationship with him, he beats her badly, and now Stella is trapped in another unsatisfying relationship. Luckily, the police finally catch up with her and she is sent back to the Asylum where she once again recommits to the marriage.

Unfortunately, her husband has been relieved of his position and now they shall have to move to Wales, where he has obtained another job.

After a while, Edgar figures out where they are and gets in touch with Stella. This is where I would have ended the movie (after he finally murders her and possibly her entire family as well) but the movie isn't finished just yet and the rest of the film has a rather "tacked on" feeling to it that struck me as a flaw.

In her younger days, Natasha Richardson was one of the great English screen beauties. Today, she's still attractive in a MILFish way and we see her in several scenes where she's either nude or clad in garters and stockings. Not half bad!

As is typical of British films, the acting is fine. It's the story that sucks. Even so, the movie is worth seeing if only as a cautionary tale to writers and directors of the future to try to know when the story is over.

Saint Ralph

Ralph is a young student in a Catholic school in Hamilton, Ohtario, who has two main problems: 1) authority figures and 2) his mother is dying of a brain tumor. He needs a miracle to help him with 2).

He has other problems, too, a main one having a big crush on a lovely girl student who seems headed for life as a nun and being known throughout school as the kid who was caught wanking in the swimming pool while he peeked through the half-open door of the girls' locker room, thus forcing the school to drain the pool and scrub it down.

His mom then slips into a coma.

When he hears that "only a miracle" would save his mom and then is told that it would be a miracle for him to win the Boston Marathon, his duty is clear: He must win the marathon so that his mother may live.

Against the wishes of the principal of the school, the stern Father Fitzpatrick, and with the aid of the friendly and helpful former runner Father Hibbert (Campbell Scott), a sympathetic nurse who has had experience working with athletes (played by the underappreciated Jennifer Tilley), and the spiritual assistance of his lady love, he sets about becoming a world-class athlete...and succeeds!

Does he win the marathon? You can either see the movie or check the record books, but you won't hear it from me, not just to be difficult, because this isn't really what the movie is all about.

This is a great date movie with plenty of appeal to both males and females. Adam Butcher as Ralph is very good as are all of the supporting performers in this fine movie which is as much a comedy as a sports story.

Murderball

If you think you know quadriplegics, this movie will probably show that you don't.

This documentary follows the US Quad Rugby Team, sometime world champs, through about three years of competition.

With a soundtrack often supplied by, surprisingly, Ministry, this movie is fast-paced, dramatic, and often funnier than even the better comedies playing against it in other theaters in the multiplex.

Much of the drama surrounds the fact that their main competitors, the Canadian team, is coached by a man, Joe Soares, who once was a lead player on the US team. He's viewed as a traitor by the US players but he feels he was robbed by not being allowed to become the coach of the US team. Not wanting to leave the game, he gladly accepted the challenge of coaching the Canadians.

Every good team has at least one player who is the engine of the team by playing well and playing hard in a "take no prisoners" fashion, and on the US team this person is Mark Zupan, who is so fascinating and charismatic that I think that eventually he may be cast in fictional movies. As for the Canadians, Soares seems to perform that function, but we learn much less about the Canadians than the Americans.

Neither Zupan nor Soares can be described as "pleasant" people, especially Soares, who almost goes out of his way not to be pleasant. Nevertheless, they are both admired and respected for their prowess.

The movie moves from competition to preparation for the next one, to that competition and prepping for the next one, and so on until the final showdown at the 2004 Olympics in Greece.

The glory of winning and dealing with loss are always themes in movies about sports, and this one is no exception. The one thing you may come away with from this movie is an understanding that just because someone is in a wheelchair and is dealing with impaired physical functionality, it doesn't follow that they compete any less strenuously than "normal" people.

Junebug

A beautiful and sophisticated Chicago art dealer, Madeleine (Embeth Davidtz of Thirteen Ghosts, Mansfield Park), and her boyfriend Johnny (Alessandro Nivola of Laurel Canyon and Jurassic Park III) trek into the Southeast so she can attempt to convince a backwoods folk artist to let her represent him.

While there, they visit her family, which has many of the stereotypical traits we associate with small-town America. The supporting cast in this movie is great with a strong-willed simple-minded mother, a quiet and gentle father, an angry disturbed brother, and his good-hearted airhead wife Ashley played by Amy Adams in a performance will no doubt be opening doors for her all over the film industry.

This is a city mouse/country mouse story in which the sophisticated Madelaine must find ways to relate to people who find it almost unbelievable that she was born in Japan and is well read.

She means well and puts up with Ashley's brutal motormouthing, the brother's brooding hostility (which it turns out is founded on his lust for her), and the subsurface contempt felt for her by her boyfriend's mother who, apparently, has seen it all (all that really matters anyway) and thus knows all.

A subplot develops when the folk artist threatens to leave her for a New York dealer, forcing her to decide how to divide her time and attention between this family whose hearts she sincerely wants to win and her financial interests as a dealer.

Everything comes to a head in a crisis when birth time arrives for Ashley. Lots of things get sorted out, Madeleine's values come into sharper focus, Johnny sees her more clearly just as she has, through seeing him interact with his family and community, learned much more about him. The other characters (with the exception of the possibly mentally-disturbed brother) become more understandable as well.

The last scene as Madeleine and Johnny return home in their car may seem a little weird and may run counter to what one might expect, but perhaps that's one of the glories of this little masterpiece of the slice-of-life style.

Four Brothers

This is a revenge story pure and simple. Four men who were raised as foster children by the same mother return for her funeral. She was shot in what at first appears to be a neighborhood convenience store robbery, but which, upon closer inspection, looks more and more like a "hit."

The main gimmick of this film as that the brothers, who she took in as juvenile delinquents because no one else would have them, are mixed races with two of them white and two of them black, and yet they feel like brothers and have all the love and conflicts that real brothers-in-blood might have.

Considering the rather fabricated premise, the lead actors (Mark Wahlberg, Tyrese Green, Andre Benjamin, and Garett Hedlund) generate believable chemistry as they investigate their mom's death, determine it was a murder, and hunt down the men responsible for her death.

It is set in Detroit in winter but was actually filmed mostly in Ontario, Canada, a city with neighborhoods and industrial areas very similar to those of Detroit.

No Oscar nominations will come from this movie but it's an above average thriller and while not perhaps a great "date movie," it's certainly a good afternoon popcorn movie.

The Aristocrats

There's a joke which apparently has mainly been told among comedians. A typical version goes like this: A group walks into a talent agent's office. It consists of a father, a mother, a teenage daughter, and a sub-teen boy, plus a small dog. There are variations on the group in different tellings but the father and mother tend to remain stable. Sometimes it's two daughters. Sometimes the dog is a horse. Sometimes one or two grandparents are added into the mix.

The father says to the agent, "We'd like you to represent us," to which the agent replies "Tell me about your act." The father says, "Well, we're a family act." The agent stops him and says, "I don't handle family acts." "But we're a very unusual act," says the father. "Okay," says the agent, "tell me about it" (or sometimes, "show me").

At this point either the father either describes the act or the family demonstrates the act. What's funny about this joke are two things: the act itself is totally and outrageously repulsive in every conceivable way, which may involve sexual perversions (running from shit eating to bestiality), sexual fetishes, torture, violence, with even murder mixed in, along with other audience offenders including ethnic slurs and racism.

Then, once the description or act done, the agent says "That's interesting. What do you call your act?" Here is where the second humorous point comes in: The father then dramatically and haughtily says "The Aristocrats!"

You may have heard buzz or have expectations from previews that this movie is 70 or 80 comedians and/or actors retelling the joke. Not true. The classic joke itself is told all the way through only several times. Most of the movie involves the huge cast of comedians and actors commenting on the joke, telling particularly juicy variations on the "act," musing on how to tell the joke most effectively, and so on. So, don't expect to be laying in the theater aisle breathless throughout the whole movie, though it does have its moments of hilarity. Often, people on the screen are laughing when the audience is not.

There are times when almost all the women in the audience are laughing and the men are not, and vice versa.

One thing this movie (and the joke) does, then, is to help everyone in the audience analyze their own values regarding what is appropriate to laugh at, where good taste lapses into bad taste, and what one's tolerance is for offensive and "gross" humor.

Red Eye

It turns out that Wes Craven is a great director of straight thrillers involving nothing supernatural or horrific.

Rachel McAdams (Mean Girls, The Notebook, Wedding Crashers) stars as a flying-phobic hotel desk manager who encounters a charming and handsome guy (Cillian Murphy) while waiting for a delayed flight. You may remember Murphy from his roles in Girl With A Pearl Earring, 28 Days Later, Cold Mountain, and Batman Begins.

When, to her surprise and delight, she finds he owns the seat next to hers on the plane, it seems at first that their flirtation may continue, except that he soon reveals himself to be a terrorist with cohorts holding her beloved father (Brian Cox, the sole "big star" in the movie) hostage under threat of death if she doesn't change the room arrangements of the Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security (including his wife and small children) to make it easier for all of them to be assassinated in a rocket attack.

After several attempts to short-circuit this plot are thwarted, she finally makes the change with the help of her assistant, played by Jayma Mays in a delightful performance sure to get her noticed.

Many critics have criticized the last act of the film which takes place off the plane, but what the seem to forget is that virtually all thrillers fall apart at the end. You can't keep suspense going forever, so of course the film lapses into chases and fight scenes. What else could it do?

McAdams and Murphy turn in very good performances. Ms. McAdams is a very rapidly rising star not just due to her beauty (beauty being common in Hollywood), but due to her engaging personality and acting skills.

I found this movie to very interesting and exciting. Don't listen to critics who pan it: it makes for an enjoyable afternoon or evening entertainment and is a great date movie.

Broken Flowers

The latest effort by master director Jim Jarmusch.

Bill Murray once made a living by chewing the scenery on Saturday Night Live and in screwball comedies such as Meatballs, Caddyshack, and Stripes, then took on comedy roles of more complexity and intelligence in movies like Groundhog Day, Rushmore, and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.

Somewhere in there, Murray started handling roles that could actually be called serious, such as when he played Polonius in the recent reworking of Hamlet or when he played Ed Harris, the emotionally lost cynical movie actor revitalized by a chance (and totally chaste) encounter with a 20-ish girl (Scarlett Johansson) in the sublime Lost In Translation.

In my own pantheon of movies, Lost In Translation is so high up on the list that I can't help but compare Broken Flowers with it. Looked at that way, it is a disappointment. Both movies leave you with questions at the end, but somehow this technique works far better in Lost In Translation. When the ending comes to Broken Flowers, I saw moviegoers looking at each other wondering if perhaps the last reel had been forgotten...but no...the credits are rolling, aren't they?

This is not to say it's a bad movie. It's far better than many of the movies showing in moviehouses concurrently. And it does have one scene which will cause a lot of buzz and will likely give one of the supporting characters a huge career boost. More on that later.

The story is about a man we are told is a wealthy computer entrepreneur. Presumably, he sold his business and made a lot of money. So...why does he live in a decidedly middle-class neighborhood. His house is no mansion and the interior bespeaks a man of tacky taste.

It starts with his current girlfriend (Julie Delpy who is on the screen for not much more than two minutes) leaving him. At the same time, she hands him the mail which has a mysterious pink letter envelope in it. After she leaves, he opens the letter which informs him that the anonymous writer, one of his former girlfriends, had a boy by him who is now 19 and may be looking for him. According to the writer, she has not given out any specific info about him to her son, but she says he's a bright and resourceful boy and there is some chance he'll figure out where our protagonist (named Don Johnston, which has him correcting people who call him "Don Johnson" several times in a repetition joke).

Since "John" equates to "Juan" in Spanish, his name bears a certain similarity to "Don Juan" as well, and we are led to believe that Don has been a ladies man and womanizer, although there's very little evidence of this charm in the movie (one of its several flaws).

His neighbor, Winston (Jeffrey Wright), is intrigued by the situation and becomes a junior gumshoe doing basic research to track down Don's girlfriends. Eventually, he cajoles Don to go on a Quest to discover which of the women in his life made him a father, and thereby to track down his son.

His first visit is to Laura (Sharon Stone) who isn't home when he arrives. He is invited into their living room by her aptly named daughter, Lolita (Alexis Dziena), where probably the single most memorable scene occurs as she later walks into the living room to answer her cell phone, surprising Don by being dressed in her birthday suit. This is full frontal nudity lasting several seconds that will probably boost sales of the eventual DVD by several percentage points. Ms. Dziena is a very well formed female with really nice tan lines. While maybe not a star-making moment, I'm sure important people have been writing down her name and the she is suddenly being considered for quite a few roles that were out-of-reach before. A very smart move on her part and on the part of director Jarmusch.

I won't describe the other visits except to tell you what you'll almost certainly hear as a complaint from anyone else who's also seen the movie, which is that his search is fruitless. This isn't really much of a spoiler, since this isn't where the movie ends and the quest for the boy is a classic Maguffin (aka McGuffin) anyway. (A Maguffin is something a story is built around but which has no real relevance to the plot.) In the end, the movie isn't about the quest for the boy, it's a character study of a man forced to confront the debris left in the wake of his bachelorhood.

On his return, he sees a boy first in the airport and then near a cafe in town. This may be his son and I'll leave the story there, though as I said earlier, this is not a movie with pat answers to that question, and this is not really what the movie is about anyway.

While this is neither Murray's nor Jarmusch's best effort, it's still a rather good film. As far as Jim Jarmusch goes, I'd recommend you see some of his better efforts: Down By Law, Stranger Than Paradise, Mystery Train, Night On Earth, and Ghost Dog: The Way Of The Samurai come to mind.