Fun with Dick & Jane
This film, ‘Fun with Dick & Jane’, was originally
made in 1977, and starred a young and lovely Jane Fonda with
a ruggedly handsome George Segal. As a pair of upwardly-mobile-young-professionals,
who hit a rocky financial crisis, and turn to armed-robbery
as a means of support, Fonda and Segal hit a nerve with a
monetary stressed American public, and the movie was a resounding
success at the time. Now, almost 30 years later, director
Dean Parisot has judged that the moment is right for a timely
re-make. Parisot’s acumen is spot on for America’s
current financial situation pretty much resembles the late
1970’s, and no doubt this re-make will enjoy the same
popular success. Apart from changing some aspects of the plot,
to off-shore computerized banking, the storyline more-or-less
follows the original, but is just set in a present-day American
Suburban Society. The major change with this version of the
film, however, is that it has become a vehicle for the talents
of Jim Carrey. Where Fonda and Segal acted as a team, and
shared the gags, Carrey, as is his way, tends to hog the limelight
throughout the movie. But, that is not to say that Tea Leoni
does not give him a good run for her equal billing. Leoni
is a shrewd actress, and she knows when to pull back and when
to let fly with her own brand of incandescent humor. Funny
enough, together, they make a very likeable and appealing
couple, who, once overcoming their initial apprehensions,
take to a life of crime with much gusto. Director Parisot
keeps a firm grip on Carrey’s shenanigans, and manages
to extract from him a somewhat controlled performance, which
doesn’t distract too much from the movie’s message
that the America Dream can very easily turn into the American
Nightmare.
Rumor has it...
Director Rob Reiner’s credits are very impressive. They
include the movies ‘This is Spinal Tap’, ‘When
Harry Met Sally’, ‘Postcards from the Edge’,
‘Misery’, ‘The American President’
and ‘Ghosts of Mississippi’. Although he displays
a deft-hand at drama and suspense Reiner is probably best
known for his fluffy and highly entertaining romantic-comedies.
His latest movie, ‘Rumor has it…’, is another
piece of romantic soufflé, but, this film will have
great appeal to movie-buffs for it has a very intriguing premise.
Rumor has it that the characters in the 1967 movie ‘The
Graduate’ were actually based on a real-life Pasadena
family, and, when Jennifer Aniston returns to California to
attend her sister’s wedding, she decides to get to the
bottom of her family’s secrets, for she has long suspected
that she might have been adopted or could have been illegitimately
conceived. Once and for all she wants to know just what happened
after Katherine Ross ran-off with Dustin Hoffman at the end
of ‘The Graduate’. Her enquiries rattle the skeletons
in the family’s closet and they, in-turn, lead her to
an aging Lothario who could possibly have slept with her mother,
and her grand-mother, and now has his sights set firmly on
her! This sort of nonsense is like water off a duck’s
back for Jennifer Aniston, and she swans through the movie
with much élan. Kevin Costner reveals his rapidly receding
hairline and appears much at ease as an aging lover approaching
his use-by date. Shirley MacLaine is the well-matured ‘Mrs.
Robinson’ who has nothing holding her up but a Bourbon
bottle. Meanwhile, director Reiner has much fun blending Fact
and Fiction and Rumor, and, though the movie doesn’t
quite go the full distance, for most of the time it is an
entertaining escapade.
Garam Masala
Does anyone remember a 1960’s stage-farce called ‘Boeing-Boeing’?
In 1965 it was adapted into a movie to bolster the flagging
career of Jerry Lewis, who was trying to go it alone without
Dean Martin. For its time it was a reasonable piece of sexist
comedy that kept Lewis’ star shining, then the play
and the movie faded into well-deserved oblivion. Anyway, the
Bollywood production company Venus Entertainment, and their
director Priyadarshan, obviously hope that we have all forgotten
‘Boeing-Boeing’, for they revive a version of
it as an extremely gaudy Bollywood movie entitled ‘Garam
Masala’. When a good for nothing handsome hunk called
Mac (Akshay Kumar) finds himself in possession of an empty
flat he immediately arranges for three gorgeous airline hostesses
to rendezvous there with him. Their various flight schedules
insuring that the girls never meet. All this, of course, has
to be kept secret from Mac’s fiancée, with the
help of his jealous buddy Sam (John Abraham). Naturally enough
the airline company shakes-up the girls’ schedules,
and one sunny-day all pop into the flat for a stop-over, along
with Mac’s fiancée who is paying a surprise visit.
After much door-slamming and other such farcical nonsense,
the movie resolves itself into an inevitable happy-ending,
but, this is not before it occasionally veers-off, in typical
Bollywood style, into a series of over-produced production
numbers that have no bearing on the plot. Surprisingly enough
the movie is occasionally humorous, and the cast all work
their butts-off to make the most of the antiquated comedy,
but, at 2 hours and 20 minutes, it does push tolerance levels
somewhat. There are two ways of approaching this movie: One,
fast-forward through the songs and just enjoy this film version
of an old stage play, or, two, click the ‘Songs Only’
option in the ‘Special Features’ menu provided
on the DVD Disc and treat yourself to some outrageous non-stop
musical numbers in sumptuous Indian style.
Envy
It is extraordinary that Academy Award winning director Barry
Levinson could make such a pile of rubbish as this 2004 film
‘Envy’. Jack Black invents the Vapoorizer, a spray
that literally makes dog-poo vanish, and his best-friend Ben
Stiller goes nutty through envy as he has to watch Jack get
richer and richer. The film is childish and idiotic and it
is a shame that Jack didn’t invent a spray that would
make this movie disappear. God only knows what Rachel Weisz
is doing in the movie. Obviously she wasn’t an Academy
Award winner herself then, and would have done anything for
her big break.
