OUCH!!! That really stings! Well, geekettes all ol' Father Geek can say is Capone is not prone to rash judgements, if he takes a baseball bat to something it usually deserves it...
Hey, Father Geek, or whoever the hell is running things out there. Capone in Chicago here with not so much a review but a warning. I know most readers of this site couldn't give two shits about this film, but in case I'm wrong....
Since the new comedy HANGING UP is being marketed directly at women, I won’t even address the male readers at this point: STAY AWAY FROM THIS!!! Women of the world (especially blonde-haired women) should rise up and unite against this asinine and inexcusable pile of junk. Massive walkouts should be organized; women should dye their hair dark brown or jet black in protest. Better yet, just do everything in your power to keep this crap from making any money; send a message that films that have a large number women in them should have some semblance of intelligence. And the strangest things is, some of the actresses in this film have made careers out of playing smart and savvy women who (in the case of Diane Keaton especially) changed the way women were portrayed on the screen. There’s not anything resembling a story here. Keaton, Meg Ryan, and Lisa Kudrow plays sisters and daughters to Walter Matthau, who is dying of some unnamed disease. (Although from the looks of things, he may be succumbing to a terminal case of liver spots.) All three women have fairly successful careers, although from the way these characters are written I doubt any of them could fill out a job application. There’s a lot of yelling, giggling, and frustrated hair pulling (especially by Meg Ryan, who did it seven times by my count in one three-minute scene. Does Meg Ryan know any other way to express emotion as an actress but tugging at her hair?) There’s also an abundance of cell phone calling, receiving, and disconnecting (thus the film’s clever title). Screenwriter Delia Ephron (who also wrote the equally vapid YOU’VE GOT MAIL and the almost unwatchable MICHAEL) tries in the most obvious manner to draw parallels between the physical act of hanging up a phone and disconnecting yourself from the things that are bringing you down. HANGING UP doesn’t even deal with death and dying in a serious manner. It jumps from goofy, pointless encounters between the sisters to what are supposed to be moving moments with Matthau dying. What results is a schizophrenic film where the emotions don’t feel genuine. I won’t ruin the ending, but it wouldn’t be ruining anything to say that a bevy of predictable and vapid “I’m sorry’s” and “I love you's” are labeled out in hefty portions. Everybody gets their moment of reconciliation and redemption and justification. Directors and co-star Diane Keaton has actually made some decent movies in the past, including one of my favorites from about five years ago called UNSTRUNG HEROES, but here she shows no visual flair as she did in that film or any real feel for how to direct a comedy. At this point you may want to say to me, “But you aren’t a woman and you don’t have sisters.” True enough, but if that’s what it takes to enjoy this movie, I’ll live. Besides,I don’t think this film show us real women; these are “characters” with “annoying but loveable quirks.” Or at least that’s what the people that made this film have convinced themselves of.
Love and tearful sobby kisses,
Capone
