Movie Reviews and News from Vince Patton

Posted on Sunday, March 20, 2005

Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous ... Flat and Unfunny

Sandra Bullock returns as Gracie Hart; a snorting tomboyish FBI agent, in this largely uninspired sequel to Miss Congeniality. The original, itself merely passable, was cornball fun that nearly satirized beauty pageants and their legions of fans while turning Gracie from a sad, lonely agent with a severly limited wardrobe to the beauty we all remember walking pefectly in sync to the Los Lobos and Tom Jones tunes "Mustang Sally" and "She's a Lady." With no pageant, no love interest for Sandra Bullock, and no Michael Caine to remind her of the finer points of personal styling this time around, the filmmakers unwisely focus our attention on a lame-brain plot involving a kidnapping and Hart's relationship with her over-aggressive bodyguard, listlessly portrayed by Regina King.

Preposterous plot points begin right from the opening scene. After being recognized by several people during a ho-hum bank robbery scene, Hart's superiors decide to reassign her to public relations, where she is relegated to representing the FBI at events throughout the country. When Cheryl Frazier, the winner of the Miss United States Pageant, and the emcee Stan Fields (William Shatner) are kidnapped, Hart's superiors think so highly of her new public relations skills that they send her, a crew of make-up artists and a personal stylist, and her bodyguard Sam Fuller to Las Vegas. The FBI brass instruct Hart to be the face of the bureau, while the local supervisor Collins (Treat Williams) manages the investigation.

Hart and her crew get closer and closer to solving the case while Collins and his team make one mistake after another. While in Las Vegas, Hart and her crew thwart several of Collins's attempts to send them back to New York, don disguises at a nursing home, engage in several punching matches at the airport, and take center stage at a drag show.

Miss Congeniality 2 has virtually nothing going for it. Lazily plotted, the film is never as funny or as clever as it should be. Marc Lawrence's script, which is chocked full of political correctness and strangely mean-spirited, is void of energy and direction. The actors lack chemistry; some even appear as though they're in another movie altogether. For all of its shortcomings, and there were plenty, the original had a certain charm and a saleable-enough concept that this lackluster sequel simply doesn't possess. Watching Michael Caine transform the stubborn Gracie Hart was one of the original's better plot points, but this sequel robs us by beginning its tale with a virtually transformed Gracie, who spends most of her time protecting herself from her own bodyguard. One remembers that there was a lot more to Gracie than fending off attacks from bodgyguards, but this script gives the character no additional dimensions and places her in one senseless situation after another.

The studio executives gambled on the genuinely likeable Sandra Bullock, the legendary Michael Caine, and Candace Bergen and William Shatner in wildly campy performances and won two summers ago. When they learned Michael Caine was a no-go on this production, they should have followed the age-old adage of "quitting while they were ahead."

Grade: D+

Content: Mild violence, a few sexual innuendos (PG 13)

Movie News and Notes

It's official. The rerelease of The Passion of the Christ tanked at the box office, earning only $223,789 on 957 screens or $234 per screen.

Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese (The Aviator) will team up again for The Departed. The crime story involves a mobster who goes undercover as a cop and a detective who infiltrates the mafia, with both men trying to flush out the other. The film also stars Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Anthony Anderson, and Ray Winstone.

David Fincher, the director of the imaginatively-shot thrillers Seven and The Panic Room, has been tapped for Benjamin Button, the story of a thirty-year-old woman who falls for a fity-year-old man who begins aging backwards. Eric Roth is set to write the screenplay.

Fresh off their effort in Collateral, Michael Mann and Tom Cruise will work together in The Few, in which Cruise is set to star as Billy Fiske, an American WWII pilot.

Critics are praising Millions, the new film from Danny Boyle (28 Days Later) about two brothers who find one million dollars.

Alexander Payne, writer and director of Election, About Schmidt, and Sideways, is set to direct Nebraska, a dramedy about a father who thinks he has won the lottery and asks his son to drive him from Montana to Nebraska to claim his earnings. Bob Nelson will write the script.

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Posted on March 13, 2005

The Aviator, the new film based on the book of the same title about the life of Howard Hughes, offers an insightful portrait of the billionaire who literally gave new meaning to the word eccentric. The latest film presents the former TWA CEO as a dashing, daring young business tycoon who frustrated everyone from his most loyal associates to Hollywood moguls and the women who starred in their movies to powerful U.S. senators -- all while living out some of life's biggest dreams with unbridled passion.

The surprisingly film-worthy depiction of twenty-five years of Hughes's life is expertly crafted by legendary director Martin Scorsese. Hughes's early adulthood is ripe material for an actor talented and charismatic enough to recreate the presence, charm, and wit of the young business tycoon, and Scorsese clearly has his man in Leonardo DiCaprio. Several years ago the director and actor teamed together for somewhat mixed results in Gangs of New York, but their collaboration here is far more effective. At a brisk two hours and forty-five minutes, The Aviator is masterfully edited and nearly perfectly performed by everyone from DiCaprio to the host of supporting actors and larger-than-life stars on hand for cameos. DiCaprio bings the same effervescent engergy to his performance here as he did in the breezy, broad Catch Me If You Can. Like Frank Abangdale, DiCaprio's Howard Hughes is a young, smart, fast-talking lad equipped with a roving eye for beautiful women and an appropriately different line for each of them. But the similarities between DiCaprio's roles end there. Hughes's obsessive compulsive disorder, which the film intimates he developed from his childhood, provides DiCaprio with an additional range of emotions to portray, and he does so with great skill and attention to detail. His disorder is manifested in his distaste for rare meats, occasional spells of paranoia, and his habit of washing his hands again and again. Scenes showing these behaviors range from the most comic to the most tragic.

The Aviator opens with a scene of Hughes's mother whispering words to him and flashes back to the scene, reminding us first that Howard never forgot his mother's words and second of the obsessive compulsive disorder that would render him a recluse for a few periods early in his life and for significantly greater parts of his later life. Many of us remember seeng pictures of the lonely, eccentric Hughes near the end of his life with long fingernails and long hair. The image is a far cry from the young man presented here. The Aviator enlightens and entertains us with a presentation of a man who bucked the Hollywood studio system with a maddening perfectionism and a peculiar fascination with female breasts that left leading members of the Motion Picture Association at a loss for words on more than one occasion.

Much of the film chronicles Hughes's early forays into the movie industry with Hell's Angels; his competition with Juan Trippe, the former CEO of Pan American Airlines; his storied romance with Katherine Hepburn; his wild-eyed pursuit of the elusive Ava Gardner; his televised showdown with a U.S. senator intent on helping Trippe gain even more control over the skies; and the joyous triumph he experienced after flying an airplane at record speed.

In addition to the film's lavish set and costume designs, the cinematography by Dante Spinotti is sublime. The film's 1930s and 1940s Hollywood parties and mansions are as grand as anyone could possibly imagine. The grass has simply never greener in the movies, the houses never bigger, the new airplanes never shinier, and the women never more beautiful.

Two of today's leading ladies portray vitally important women in the life of Howard Hughes. Kate Beckinsale, who portrays Ava Gardner, is luminous here. Cate Blanchett is Katherine Hepburn, the first love of Hughes's life. Although Beckinsale is less well known than Blanchett, her performance is a bit stronger. Blanchett is showy, occasionally sounding like Hepburn and incorporating the late screen legend's gestures, but ultimately only giving us a mild imitation of the Hepburn we remember. On the other hand, Beckinsale is sexy and sure of herself. She embodies Gardner and carries herself with just enough confidence and swagger to make us believe Gardner had the strength to keep the desperately pursuant Hughes at bay.

Other memorable performances include two by veteran versatile actors Alec Baldwin and Alan Alda. Baldwin is cool, menacing, and fat with greed and mischief as Juan Trippe, CEO of Pan American Airlines and Hughes's chief rival. Alda is mannered yet sly and calculating as the U.S. senator Trippe bribes to railroad Hughes into surrendering TWA's portion of the commercial airline business.

Throughout his acclaimed career, Martin Scorsese has produced and directed films with unmatched precision, perfection, and passion. As a director, Scorsese is never afraid to take risks, and here he and Leonardo DiCaprio have created a compelling portrait of a man whose precision, perfection, and passion allowed him to soar like an aviator. Hughes's flight to the top and his battle to remain somewhat close to it was as likely as it was unlikely. Although The Aviator provides us with a glimpse of the obsessive compulsive disorder that fills many of our memories about Howard Hughes, the film ultimately pays homage to Hughes by presenting us with exactly what we need to remember the billionaire's passion for being and creating the "wave of the future."

Grade: A-

Content: Slight profanity, brief nudity, sexual innuedos - PG 13


News and Notes

Christopher Nolan, who directed Memento and Insomnia, is at the helm of Batman Begins. The adaptation tells the story of how Bruce Wayne became Batman after his parents are murdered. The film stars Christian Bale (American Psycho, Empire of the Sun, The Machinist, Shaft, and Little Women), Michael Caine, Liam Nesson, and Morgan Freeman.

Million Dollar Baby screenwriter Paul Haggis will make his directorial debut with Crash. The drama about racism and politics in LA will feature an all-star cast that includes Sandra Bullock, Brendan Fraser, Don Cheadle, and Matt Dillon. The film is set to be released in June.

Terrance Malick, the enigmatic Harvard graduate whose Badlands, Days of Heaven, and The Thin Red Line are so highly regarded that they're shown in film school classes, will return with The New World. Colin Farrell, Christopher Plummer, and Wes Studi will star. The film is set to be released in October because Native American Day falls during the month and because Malick's track record guarantees that his film will be among the early 2005 Oscar favorites.

The Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson is set to direct the remake of King Kong, which will star Naomi Watts, Jack Black, and Adrian Brody.

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