Hey folks, Harry here... Well seems like we have another lackluster weekend of film to look forward to, unless you are in one of the cities that MADE is expanding to. I managed to wrench my back fairly seriously so I'm laid up for a week and a half... missing all these films and having to resort to astral projection in order to see any films... But ya know... I don't think I'm missing much. In a strange way, I'm praying to the Ape gods to save the summer for me. I want PLANET OF THE APES to just lay waste... sigh... I hope...
Harry,
Tonight I went out and saw an advanced screening of America's Sweethearts. I hadn't heard many opinions about the film yet... I figure we'll be flooded with opinions on Friday, but here is mine now...
America's Sweethearts is a bit a messy attempt at an old fashioned comedy, with much more crotch-based humor than Preston Sturges would have ever allowed. But, of course, imagine if Sullivan's Travels was directed by the guy responsible for producing Tomcats...
The story involves a press junket being run by Lee (Billy Crystal, also a co-writer with Peter Tolan) for the film Time Over Time, directed by Hal (Christopher Walken, in a maxi-cameo), who is holding the film hostage, refuses to let producer Kingman (Stanley Tucci) see the finished project until the press is allowed to see it at the press junket. Walken, playing some sort of cross between Stanley Kubrick and Hal Ashby, and looking like Joe Eszterhas, gets big laughs despite the fact that he has very little to do.
Kingman had fired Lee, but rehires him in desperation for the press junket. It is Lee's responsibility to get the two stars together for the junket... Eddie Thomas (John Cusack) and Gwen Harrison (Catherine Zeta-Jones), the aforementioned "America's Sweethearts," having starred in about half a dozen films together, and they are married in real life... only, the marriage is on the rocks, Gwen now has a Latino lover, Hector (Hank Azaria), Eddie is accused of having tried to kill her, simply for having driven a motorcycle through the front window of the restaurant she and Hector happened to be eating at, Gwen last few films have bombed, and Eddie is holed up at some spiritual resort, receiving treatment from a counselor (Alan Arkin) whose advice only leaves Eddie more confounded.
Lee gets the two stars to the press junket at a remote hotel in Nevada with the help of Kiki (Julia Roberts), Gwen's sister and personal assistant. Kiki waits on Gwen hand-and-foot, and still harbors feelings for Eddie after a one-night fling months before at the beginning of the break-up... back in the days when Kiki was 60 pounds heavier.
So, you get the idea... Gwen wants a divorce, Eddie wants Gwen back, Kiki secretly wants Eddie, and Lee just wants something that will stir the press up into a frenzy. I'm tired of describing the plot. This movie's plot is just an excuse to string together the jokes, and that's what the film boils down to... a lot of good jokes, and nothing else.
The thing is, they could make me laugh, but they couldn't make me care. This movie is far too glib to be endearing. In the past, we have seen that some Hollywood romantic comedies can actually stir up some honest emotional reactions. Groundhog Day. My Best Friend's Wedding. The Family Man. But America's Sweethearts never really finds an emotional base, it's characters never transcend their stereotypes, the characters hardly connect with each other on any sort of emotional level.
In fact, on of the weakest points of the film is the way in which the story stumbles between characters, never weaving them together properly. Billy Crystal starts out in the first act as the orchestrater of the events, and then recedes into the background when the whole love story kicks in, popping up only occasionally to either incite problems, such as when he leaks a tape to the media of Eddie allegedly masturbating outside Gwen's cottage, or to offer witty remarks disguised as sage-like advice to the romantic leads.
The casting also poses a problem. You have a love story about two famous movie stars and the girl nobody knows, and you have three movie stars playing the parts, and the girl nobody knows is played by te biggest star of all, Julia Roberts! It is impossible to suspend what we already know about these people, to pretend that Cusack and Zeta-Jones are playing movie stars and that Roberts is playing the behind-the-scenes girl. The movie would have benefited from having a less recognizable actress in the part of Kiki.
And on another note, why is it nowadays, that whenever there is a film-within-a-film, it is always so purposely bad? In & Out, Bowfinger and Notting Hill all did the same sort of thing where they turned it into a joke, as if it's a commentary that what Hollywood makes is always crap... but the fact is, I don't believe these filmmakers have the creative energy to come up with a great film idea to be the film-within-a-film. That, or they just want to save those ideas to pitch later on. Please, someone tell me a movie I can watch in which the movie they are making actually looks like a movie I would willingly pay to see.
So, anyways, America's Sweethearts is a harmless film, there are amusing moments, despite taking place in under-developed situations, and occasional spots of clever dialogue delivered by underdeveloped characters... And the resounding moral... are you listening, girls? If you lose 60 pounds, you will find love... yawn. What would have been much more intriguing is if Kiki has gained the 60 pounds in the time in between... That would have been something much more thought-provoking and original... but it certainly wouldn't have sold tickets, and definitely wouldn't have sold popcorn, and with certainty, this film is all about that. Do whatever it takes to get people to see a movie. It's just as shame that 'doing whatever it takes' doesn't mean making a great film.
This is TheKeenGuy.
