Appaloosa

I was all ready to like APPALOOSA. It starred Ed Harris, Viggo Mortensen, Renée Zellweger, and Jeremy Irons in a throwback Western that promised vistas, gunfights, and romance. But the opening voiceover sounded like it was written in a self-actualization seminar, clobbering the Western mood before it could even get rolling.

Once past the voiceover, APPALOOSA tries to be the Bollywood production of Westerns. It throws in everything it can think of, from scheming ranchers to jailhouse watches to raiding injuns to barfights to showdowns on Main Street. Hell, I'm surprised they didn't throw a production number in there. Thing is, there's so much going on that it detracts from the major throughline. Actually, now that I think about it, I'm not entirely sure what the major throughline is.

There's a good movie buried somewhere in APPALOOSA, but writer/director/star Ed Harris wasn't willing to kill his babies to find it. Too bad. We could have been spared the film's maddening "tell me, show me, then tell me again because I must be an idiot" narrative style in favor of "show me and let me figure it out." Here's one Western that could've used a man of few words.

Bee Movie

BEE MOVIE is an abject failure.

Well, at least as far as I'm concerned. My 8-yr-old watched it twice. Just when I start to think I'm giving that kid a proper education.

Here's a movie with offputting animation, a dull story, and precisely zero funny lines. OK, there's one, but it was a lawyer joke that I couldn't even laugh at for fear my wife would slap an injunction on my butt. It's about a bee who gets a tryout with his hive's elite pollen gatherers, then goes on to become something of an insectoid César Chávez. Oh, and he also falls in love with a human woman, played by Renée Zellweger. Now, if there's one actress on Earth who can sell a woman falling in love with a bee, it's Zellweger. But I still couldn't buy it.

BEE MOVIE does have one thing going for it, and that's Ray Liotta. But not even he can smear enough honey on this picture to make it sweet. Pass this one by.

Leatherheads

It took me a while to warm up to LEATHERHEADS. I thought George
Clooney was trying too hard to be Cary Grant. I thought Renée
Zellweger was trying too hard to be Jennifer Jason Leigh trying to be
Katharine Hepburn. And I don't care about the early days of football.

But about twenty minutes in, someone said something that made me
smile. Then someone else said something that made me chuckle. Then I
laughed into my fist at 2:00 am in the middle of coach on a Gulf Air
flight from someplace nice to someplace lousy. And I just kept
laughing. Yep, that's how good this movie is. It's the kind of movie
that'll make you laugh even if you're watching it on a postage stamp
LCD in coach on a redeye. Clooney, Zellweger, and the supporting cast
grow on you, and before you know it you're bopping along with the
cadences of their wonderfully written and delivered dialogue.

Aw, hell, even the sight gags work.

I understand why LEATHERHEADS didn't open big, as I doubt the "witty
wordplay and football" demographic is large enough to guarantee large
crowds. But this is a film that should do well on video, as people
like me tell their friends it's worth queuing up. And I'm telling
you, it is. LEATHERHEADS is smart and sharp and funny. Just give it
a little time to grow on you.

Shark Tale

SHARK TALE is a horrible trainwreck of a movie, a “family film” that’s too adult for kids and too childish for adults.

Will Smith plays a fast-talking loserfish who takes advantage of a misunderstanding to convince everyone that he’s a shark slayer, a protector of the reef. Robert De Niro plays the Godfather Shark who is unamused by this upstart, and away we go. I could see the concept having a certain appeal for film buffs, but who really wants to show their 8-yr-old a scene of two thugs torturing a hapless victim, no matter how many in-jokes are crammed in?

Cinderella Man

I enjoyed CINDERELLA MAN. Though I'm now comfortably ensconsed in the upper middle class, I grew up poor. Consequently, I have this constant sense that the wolf is always at the door, that my fortunes could shift in an instant and before I'll know it it'll be all I can do just to feed my family. CINDERELLA MAN's first act was all my fears played out before me, and I couldn't help but empathize with the Braddocks' plight.

Once I bought Braddock, it was easy to buy the rest of the movie, a process aided by the film's excellent photography and production values. I rooted for these people, I booed the delightful Craig Bierko, and I lost track of time for a solid two and a half hours. Consider me a satisfied customer.