Cynics have suggested that Hollywood loves no subject more than
itself. And Reel Paradise proves that you don’t need a big studio—or
even the pretense of fiction—to make a self-important movie about
movies. In Steve James’ new documentary, an independent film producer
searches for the most remote movie theater in the world, then decides
to run it for a year. He moves his wife and two children—about as
enthused as their romantic-comedy counterparts might be—from suburban
New York to rural Fiji, where he begins to hold free screenings at an
abandoned theater. The locals are delighted; a film crew captures it
all.

That life-is-beautiful vibe lasts for just about a half-hour. James,
director of 1994’s Hoop Dreams, showed up for only the final month of
John Pierson’s 2002 project, and he doesn’t shy away from footage
proving that, by then, the sheen had worn off the idea of a
for-the-people cinematic heaven. Pierson is introduced as a goofy movie
buff, the enthusiastic backer of such once-unknown auteurs as Spike
Lee, Michael Moore, and Kevin Smith, whose View Askew helped finance
the doc, and whose Chasing Amy Pierson helped finance. The producer
discovered the 180 Meridian Cinema, a one-house on the island of
Taveuni, for an episode of his late-’90s TV show, Split Screen, in
which he set out to visit the most far-flung theater he could find.

He’s shown shrugging off annoyances such as the constant filthiness
of the venue and an unreliable projectionist. (“Domingo’s drunk,”
reports a kid sent off to find the employee.) And he beams when he
needs to stop a horde of children from running into the theater when he
opens its doors, talking giddily about how profound the moviegoing
experience can be—even when the bookings are Hollywood dreck such as
Bringing Down the House or stupidity-celebrating crowd favorite
Jackass: The Movie.

Pierson doesn’t stay goofy for long, however. Reel Paradise soon
veers into reality-TV territory, becoming more about the Pierson clan
than the producer’s experiment. We see Pierson screaming at his
landlord when the family’s apartment is robbed and bitching about
disorganization and apathetic attitudes on the island. His gee-whiz
attitude toward his overenthusiastic and restless audience quickly
turns into such Hollywood-worthy tirades as “This is the bullshit I
can’t take. Get in or get out!”

James also devotes a lot of time to the Piersons’ bratty kids,
showing 16-year-old Georgia ignoring her parents’ rules and 13-year-old
Wyatt opining that independent films are box-office suicide because
they’re so boring—though the boy is vindicated when a program of
student films results in walk-outs. Both mouth off. Though Pierson and
his equally no-nonsense wife, Janet Pierson, do sometimes get
frustrated with their children, the parents’ commentary about any given
situation usually runs along the lines of “We love how strong and
stubborn they are!” John’s blather about how he believes Wyatt is
“going to do great, great, great, great things” is particularly
blinkered.

Although James’ glimpses of the Piersons confronting Fijian culture
can be compelling—clergy at the local Catholic church briefly accuse
him of undermining the islanders’ spiritual lives—the director gets so
wrapped up in the family’s self-involvement that all else seems
forgotten. It’s fun to see the Fijians drown out comedies with their
laughter, less fun to see Apocalypse Now get a similar (if more
subdued) reaction. It’s telling that only Wyatt questions Pierson’s
showing of the latter; both the producer and his director seem to have
little real interest in probing the sociological significance of this
vanity project.

Perhaps that’s because there’s little of consequence that results
from Pierson’s year in Fiji: He came; he showed movies; he left. The
Fijians stayed—and, at least according to Reel Paradise’s overlong,
voyeuristic 110 minutes, stayed about the same. James tacks on a quick
statement from Pierson at the end, about how the communal viewing of a
good film can feel like “a cure for all that ails you.” But like the
documentary itself, Pierson’s project doesn’t suggest anything too
meaningful: It was just something to do.

Dreamer, its subtitle tells us, was also “Inspired by a True Story.”
Much like Reel Paradise, this DreamWorks production about a little girl
and a special horse is slow-moving and treacly, and—unless you actually
buy that bit of marketing flimflam—it yields no surprises.

The real career of comeback mare Mariah’s Storm wasn’t quite as
dramatic as that of Sonador (Spanish for “Dreamer”), the thoroughbred
who injures her leg during a race in writer-director John Gatins’
interpretation of events: The actual horse has had a better run as a
breeder than a racer. But please—this is a kids’ movie.

In the film, trainer Ben Crane (Kurt Russell) wants to put Sonador
to sleep. But because his young daughter, Cale (Dakota Fanning), has
come to work with him that day, he decides to buy Sonador from her
heartless owner (David Morse) and nurse her back to health on his farm.
Cale gets attached to Sonador—her opening voice-over laments that her
family’s is “the only horse barn in Lexington, Ky., that doesn’t have a
horse”—and when her novelty pet heals more completely than anyone
expected, Cale becomes convinced that Sonador can become a winner again.

Dreamer is Gatins’ first go as a director, but his writing
credits—Summer Catch, Hard Ball, and the slightly less maligned Coach
Carter—should signal more discriminating parents to distract their kids
some other way, at least until the DVD comes out. The sugarcoated
script, in fact, can be summarized with the following awful dialogue:
“You don’t care about anyone—horses or people!” “You lied to me!” “She
wasn’t just some horse, she was our horse!” The most wince-worthy line
is delivered by Ben’s wife (played by the obviously adrift Elisabeth
Shue), with “That little filly is the best thing that ever happened to
us!”—though a close runner-up is the ridiculous “Remember dreams, Ben?”
Throughout, John Debney’s generically inspirational score swirls.

Dreamer is marginally complicated by some cookie-cutter daddy issues
involving Ben’s distant, fellow-horseman father (Kris Kristofferson) as
well as by the Cranes’ continual lack of cash, but none of it is
terribly realistic. Show me an impoverished, suddenly unemployed animal
trainer who turns down $100,000 to avoid hurting his daughter’s
feelings and I’ll show you a man inspired by a true story.

With Russell’s Southern accent fading in and out and Shue present
only to dispense nonsense, Fanning is, as usual, the best part of the
movie. She’s even refreshingly allowed to act like a smiley little
girl—until the script once again turns her character into the most
adult child ever. Sonador’s road to recovery teaches wee Cale—and
subsequently your children—about the rush not merely of winning but
also of betting, which is no small part of Dreamer’s finale. If Fanning
had known how to read a racing form—I mean, script—before, she might
have avoided this loser.

copyright 2005 movie-babe.com

Everyone knows that the ideal ’50s housewife reared her children,
kept a spotless home, pampered her husband, and was perfectly pressed,
coiffed, and made-up while doing it all. But according to The Prize
Winner of Defiance, Ohio, this suburban legend also managed one other
feat: instantly defusing her spouse’s alcoholic rages, with a quip, a
bright smile, or, when things got especially tense, maybe a flung bowl
of Jell-O.

As portrayed in writer-director Jane Anderson’s debut feature film,
this type of woman—forever to be played by Julianne Moore—is plucky,
yes, but also a bit psychotic. Moxie is one thing. But laughing in the
face of a desperately self-hating man when he’s drunk? Moore’s Evelyn
Ryan does just that—and more: She ignores him while giggling with the
kids, condescendingly but chirpily says, “Yes, I can hear you!” when he
freaks about not being listened to, and dismisses him with “Really,
where do you come up with these things?” when he hisses out what he
thinks her problem is.

Such moments aren’t emphasized in Prize Winner, but they do make the
apple-cheeked Evelyn just a mite harder to buy as an example of human
perfection. The film is the true tale of Evelyn Ryan, a mother of 10
who kept her household afloat by obsessively entering jingle contests
that awarded big bucks or prizes. The script, adapted by Anderson from
a book by Evelyn’s daughter, Terry “Tuff” Ryan (here portrayed as a
teenager by Ellary Porterfield), strains mightily to at least justify
Evelyn’s sometimes shabby treatment of her husband, if not excuse it
entirely.

While husband Kelly (Woody Harrelson), a former singer forced to
punch a clock after an accident ruined his vocal chords, spends every
paycheck on alcohol, Evelyn wins the cars, cash, and supermarket sprees
that allow the couple to buy their first home and keep food on the
table. There’s not much more to the plot than that. Of course, Evelyn
keeps a stiff upper lip while suffering—through Kelly’s tantrums,
through the lack of sympathy for her plight from policemen and even
members of the clergy, through her inability to attend a weekly
out-of-town gathering of other jingle-happy housewives (led by Laura
Dern’s chipper Dortha Schaefer) because of Kelly’s refusal to drive her.

Cinematically, Prize Winner is pure sunshine, as bouncily stylized
as the wordplay in Evelyn’s jingles. (Sample line: “My
frisk-the-Frigidaire, clean-the-cupboards-bare sandwich.”) Moore
sometimes addresses the camera directly as her character provides
narration, often while standing next to herself; there are frequent
whimsical touches such as Evelyn’s riding an envelope as she explains
the judging process of her contests, and backup singers who appear
whenever Evelyn or Dortha are sharing their jingle entries. Period
print ads brightly decorate the opening credits; the soundtrack
includes such saccharine ’50s pop songs as “Bye Bye Blues” and “I’m
Sitting on Top of the World.”

Of course, it’s all presided over by Moore’s preternaturally
cheery—and, after very similar turns in Far From Heaven and The Hours,
now probably rote—domestic goddess. Mercifully, just when Evelyn’s
strenuous smileyness and prim reserve start seeming ludicrous, she gets
to show a human side. Moore, as ever, expertly portrays her character’s
cracking façade. Evelyn’s is a quietly tearful desperation; even her
gut-wrenchingly sudden breakdowns are remarkable for their restraint.

If only Anderson had the same discipline. But soon after Prize
Winner finally counters its gimmickry with a dash of realism, the film
goes past the expected last-act feel-goodness with an appearance by the
actual Ryan children, in a move that’s blatantly tear-jerking and
borderline maudlin. You get the feeling that the real Evelyn, never one
to go for the obvious in her craft, would not approve.

Domino Harvey took a less shiny but no more realistic approach to
unruly men. At least that’s the case in Domino, Hollywood’s sorta-true
version of Harvey’s model-turned-bounty-hunter story. For example, when
a couple of grifters take off with her and a classroom full of other
toughs’ money instead of delivering a bounty-hunting-for-dummies
lecture, the wispy Domino flies out a window, hurls a knife into their
windshield, and shrieks, “Where the fuck do you think you’re going?
There are people in there expecting a seminar!”

It’s a line that not even Uma Thurman could pull off. But attempted
by ingénue Keira Knightley, it’s downright laughable. Luckily for
Knightley, though, it’s the only moment that her casting as Domino
feels very, very wrong. Under heavy makeup and studded punk-whore wear,
she’s as good a stand-in as any young, pretty actress—because between
Tony Scott’s infuriating direction and Donnie Darko auteur Richard
Kelly’s script (with a story credit going to Steve Barancik, who penned
an earlier draft), the movie is less a look at the life of the real
Domino Harvey than it is an excuse to deliver another taxingly edgy,
needlessly complicated variation on the crooks-and-guns theme.

Domino gets the most interesting part of the story—why Harvey, the
recently deceased daughter of actor Laurence Harvey, turned her back on
a career as a Ford model to catch criminals—over with quickly. Sure,
she’s shown playing with nunchucks as a sullen teenager, then punching
her way out of a sorority as a sullen co-ed. And her dad died when she
was young, along with her goldfish, so she learned to be cold. But the
closest thing we get to a reason for Harvey’s transformation is a shot
of a catwalk with the words “I am bored” appearing next to a model.
Then the bloody rampages begin.

It’s not the only time Scott, whose last effort was 2004’s Man on
Fire, throws words onto the screen, and each time is more random than
the last. Mostly, they’re bits of dialogue spelled out as the line is
being said, though for variety, sometimes they’re an echo instead.
Knightley provides a voice-over that’s occasionally fuzzed out to sound
as if she’s, well, phoning it in. And as if all of these puzzling
touches weren’t enough, Scott went the extra mile to ensure his movie
was unwatchable: Between the constantly moving camera, dizzying
in-and-out zooms, and bizarre flashes that accompany both ultraviolent
busts and scenes from Harvey’s childhood, Domino is such a mess
visually that it almost doesn’t matter whether the script is any good.

For the record, it’s not. Once Domino earns the respect of
partners-in-thuggery Ed (Mickey Rourke) and Choco (Edgar Ramirez) after
that knife-throwing incident, she joins them on their assignments,
leading to a project in which lots of money, some “sassy black women,”
and a few mobsters’ sons are involved. The success of the team and the
novelty of a gun-toting Barbie gets it a reality show. Worst of all, in
the last chapter of this seemingly endless two hours, romance absurdly
blooms. You’d laugh, if only your head didn’t hurt so much.

copyright 2005 movie-babe.com

Let me tell you from experience: When restaurant workers struggle to find the humor in their soul-sucking jobs, they’re not thinking about genitals. Yet those are the primary obsession of writer-director Rob McKittrick’s debut, Waiting…, a behind-the-kitchen-door comedy as funny in concept as it is painful in execution.

The film takes place in the chain restaurant Shenaniganz, a clear Bennigan’s ripoff, as Monty (Ryan Reynolds), a sarcastic longtime server, trains Mitch (John Francis Daley, also in TV’s similarly themed Kitchen Confidential) on his first day. The most important thing Monty teaches Mitch isn’t about customer service, though the newcomer does get to watch the team treating a bitchy customer’s steak with dandruff, snot, and groin sweat. No, instead Mitch learns about “the Game,” a pastime of male Shenaniganz employees (who, horrifyingly, include Luis Guzmán) that involves getting another dude to look at your package, then kicking him in the ass. Strategies of how to accomplish this—as well as frequent actual attempts—dominate the script, along with Monty’s obsession with underage girls.

Alas, there’s also some heart to go with all the balls, as community-college-student Dean (Justin Long) gets depressed about his employment and starts rethinking his immediate future, which not-so-tantalizingly includes the possibility of becoming the restaurant’s assistant manager. Dean’s quandary is a sincere one, but unfortunately
most of Waiting’s 93 minutes is spent on pure stupidity
and raunch: Guzmán’s cook screwing the hostess in the
bathroom, the kitchen staff continuously dropping food on the floor,
the busboys (including MTV freak Andy Milonakis) getting high all
day. Reynolds, as usual, is wasted, as is Anna Faris and the rest of
the largely unknown female cast. To be fair, McKittrick at least gets
some of the details right — the lingo, the jaded veterans, the binge
drinking that tends to take place after physically punishing shifts
with no breaks. Spend some time with this crew, though, and it won’t be long
before you start thinking about booze, too.

copyright 2005 movie-babe.com

If for no other reason, admire In Her Shoes for this: Perhaps for the first time in a gooey family film, the introduction of a grandma actually improves the story. Shirley MacLaine plays Ella, the grandmother who grown sisters Maggie (Cameron Diaz) and Rose (Toni Collette) never knew was still alive. For the first half of Curtis Hanson’s film (adapted by Erin Brockovich scribe Susannah Grant from Jennifer Weiner’s bestselling novel), the focus is on the two only-in-fiction siblings, who are such opposites that they seem to have been born to different families. Rose, a little tubby, a little plain, is a lawyer who does everything right. Maggie, a lot thin, a lot gorgeous, is a perpetually unemployed party girl who, naturally, does everything wrong. Maggie moves in with Rose; they clash, eventually so badly that Maggie heads down to Florida to find Ella, evidence of whose existence she discovers while snooping in her dad’s desk for cash.

In Her Shoes becomes less clichéd once Ella enters the picture, with the story morphing from the tired-if-charged fighting-sisters plot into a more intricate one involving the girls’ dead mother and their father’s complicated relationship with Ella. Even Maggie is allowed to be more than just a wild child, and Diaz does a surprisingly competent job of garnering a little sympathy for a character who’s hitherto been a contemptible brat. Less believable, or even necessary—really, how many members of a family undergo massive life changes at once?—is Rose’s transformation, though Collette, as always, gives a solid performance. MacLaine, however, is the star here, a powerful but never overwhelming presence whether Ella is proving herself sharper than anyone in her retirement community or stronger than Maggie’s scorn. Ella’s developing bond with her adrift grandchild is the most interesting part of In Her Shoes’ story, but not quite interesting enough to justify its 130-minute unfolding. Though the movie is never quite boring, it’s never terribly funny or touching or sad, either—even when everything starts falling into place as neatly as the passed-around shoes that fit all the women in the family. If you really want to shed a tear over Grandma MacLaine, you’re better off waiting for Terms of Endearment to hit AMC.

copyright 2005 movie-babe.com

There are two advantages to setting a
movie starring Jessica Alba and Paul Walker in and around the ocean:
1) Both look impossibly buff in bathing suits and 2) They don’t have
to do a whole lot of acting while underwater.

Though Into the Blue
kicks off with a rather harrowing plane-crash sequence, the rest of
its nearly two hours is pretty much as bad as you’d expect a movie
directed by the Blue Crush guy (John Stockwell) and written by the
Torque guy (Matt Johnson) — who gave him another job? –  would be.
Alba and Walker play Sam and Jared, poor Caribbean-based divers in
love. Poor, that is, until Jared’s obnoxious but aptly named lawyer
friend Bryce (Scott Caan) comes to town, along with a  slutty blonde
(Ashley Scott) he picked up the night before and access to a yacht
and swanky beachfront property. Both come in handy to help Sam and
Jared’s quest for underwater booty, while the quest itself comes in
handy to show Alba’s booty underwater. They find stuff, of course,
that’s precious; then they find stuff that’s illegal, then there are
drug lords and killer sharks and double-crosses and murders and
whoops, there’s Alba’s ass again.

For all the drama thrown into the
mix, Into the Blue is a big, muddled bore. Near its eagerly awaited
end, Bryce and Jared have this exchange: “I screwed up.” “No, I
screwed up.” Kids, kids. You all screwed up.

copyright 2005 movie-babe.com