Hot Rod

HOT ROD is horrible, terrible movie. Even by the low, low standards of in-flight movies, this picture has the opposite of its intended effect: it makes time drag. When Isla Fisher and Will Arnett are in your movie and you don't know how to make (or let) them be funny, you have failed.

Here's the pitch: Rod is a pathetic loser who wants to (a) be a stuntman, (b) earn the love and respect of his stepfather, and (c) land the girl next door, but without too much sloppy kissing. First off, I've had it with "pathetic loser" quasi-retro-style teen comedies. Movie industry, accept that you will never, ever top SUPERBAD (I hear they've added more hops!) and move on. Second, I've had it with "comedies" that are just about people acting ridiculous, instead of people acting like people. Third, how is it possible that Fisher and Arnett have been reduced to dull, lifeless ciphers? I wouldn't have believed if I hadn't seen it. I'd have preferred not to believe it.

If you happen to be stuck on an airplane sometime in the next few weeks and this comes on, read SkyMall instead. It will be funnier.

Balls of Fury

Remember Maggie Q, the single best thing about MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE: 3? She was so striking in that red dress that, when she turned up in BALLS OF FURY, I decided to write my review as if BOF were a Maggie Q vehicle, as if hers was the only story being told. But you know what? BALLS OF FURY taught me that a little Maggie Q goes a long way. 15 seconds of her in a red dress may capture the imagination, but twenty minutes of her in bikini-style workout gear only makes us realize that she has the body of a malnourished teenager. Combine that with an on-screen personality that, while pleasant enough, isn't particularly interesting, and it wasn't long before I was wishing that she'd get off the screen so Christopher Walken could have more time to camp it up.

BALLS OF FURY is broad comedy, not a deep one. It's a collection of gags slapped on to an ENTER THE DRAGON chassis, and that's fine, if you're ok with 86 minutes of "Ping Pong is a Silly Game" gags. I was sufficiently ok with it to chuckle now and then, occasionally smile, and otherwise lose track of time. Christopher Walken appears to be having a great time delivering a bad Christopher Walken impression, it's always fun to spend some time with James Hong and Terry Crews, and some guy named Thomas Lennon steals the show as a pompous German antagonist.

I could see stopping on BALLS OF FURY if I'm clicking through the channels on a hotel tv some night, but I couldn't see going out of my way for it again. Your mileage may vary.

Dave

While DAVE may, technically, be a romantic comedy in that it's romantic and everything turns out right in the end, it isn't particularly funny. It's, well, it's congenial and comfortable, like a golden retreiver that puts its head on your knee, looking for a scratch behind the ears.

DAVE stars the eminently likeable Kevin Kline as the titular character, a regular guy who doubles for the President on the fateful night when the Chief Executive goes down with a brain anyeurism. Before he really knows what's happening, he's been pressed into service as a stand-in President by marvelously evil Chief of Staff Frank Langella (in a career-resurrecting performance). Wouldn't you know it, Dave's a better president than the President. Add in some domestic conflict with an estranged first lady (Sigourney Weaver, excellent as usual), some fuzzy politics about full employment, and some wonderful character moments with Charles Grodin as a small-time accountant who advises his friend to "Get out of here as fast as you can," and you have a congenial, comfortable romantic comedy that's as warm as as pair of good slippers.

DAVE works for many reasons, not the least of which being the balance between Kline's charm and Langella's menace. Kline's one of the most likeable actors working today, and he uses that likeablility to make us buy speeches and moments that we'd reject from a lesser actor. Langella strikes just the right chord of menace for a romantic comedy - scary enough to create dramatic tension, yet not so evil as to blow the film's mood. It's great work, well directed by Ivan Reitman, and the whole thing is a pleasure to watch.

As far as romantic comedies go, it's a classic.

Idiocracy

IDIOCRACY is a one-joke movie. It's a pretty good joke, and I know this because watched IDIOCRACY in three parts, as dictated by the events of my day. Each time I started (or returned to) the movie, I laughed out loud the first two or three times I got the joke. Then, however, I settled in and hummed along, reasonably amused and a little uncomfortable, until the next interruption (or the end of the film). When you tell the same joke over and over, that's about the most you can hope for.

Here's the joke: the main characters are surrounded by stupefyingly idiotic people. That makes for funny situations at first, but eventually we viewers come to accept the stupidity and move on. If humor lies in the gap between observation and apprehension, IDIOCRACY makes the gap so small that there's no room for a belly laugh.

Here's the setup: Owen Wilson and Maya Rudolph, two extraordinarily average people, are sent into the far future. Once there, they discover that Will Durant was right - the future does belong to the fertile. America's smartest people have underreproduced, while the dullards have multiplied like - well, in creator Mike Judge's estimate - dullards. People of the future are so dumb, so boorish, so easily led, that they dismiss as "faggy" any speech that makes even the most remote sense. They water their crops with sports drinks because they've been told that plants need electrolytes, then wonder why nothing will grow when it's routinely doused with sugar and salted water. They're so dumb that IDIOCRACY has no internal logic because the systems needed to keep this civilization limping along could not have been designed or maintained by this civilization's own members, nor could this civilization have protected itself from smarter, hungrier, more aggressive civilizations. But we're not supposed to pay attention to any of that. We're supposed to laugh down our noses at the inflated stereotypes that Judge trots out before us, even as we meditate on the decline of our own civilization. And we do laugh, at least at first, but then the joke gets old.

While viewing IDIOCRACY, I felt a growing unease. I'm wrapped pretty tightly in the cocoon of my particular class - so much so that I have very little contact with the class that Judge sees taking over world. Is it possible that people who could be the seeds of IDIOCRACY's comic exaggerations actually exist in any significant numbers? Is America really a "Divorce Court" and "Jerry Springer" kind of place? While watching the film, I couldn't decide whether Judge cruelly misrepresents lower-middle America or I am out of touch.

Regardless, I could decide this: IDIOCRACY can be a pretty funny movie, depending on how you watch it. I recommend short, controlled bursts.

Speedy

Harold Lloyd's last silent picture, 1928's SPEEDY, is an enjoyable romp through a New York City that we'll never see again. From Penn Station to Yankee Stadium to Times Square to Coney Island, SPEEDY crafts an adventure both fascinating and funny.

In SPEEDY, Lloyd's a well-meaning chap who can't seem to hold a job for very long. That's ok, because he's a resourceful sort and he can be counted on to come through when the chips are down. The first half of the film has him bouncing from job to job but, once he finds himself in the second half, he enlists all his powers and all his friends in service to rescuing his father's business.

SPEEDY works because Lloyd is such an agreeable fellow, and because he makes full use of New York City in the film. It's practically a travelogue for another time, and it even features a brief role for the Babe himself, Babe Ruth as a man who absolutely has to get to Yankee Stadium on time.

SPEEDY didn't make me fall off the couch, but I found it funny, warm, and good use of time. Enjoy.

Blackballed: The Bobby Dukes Story

I hated every frame of BLACKBALLED: THE BOBBY DUKES STORY. In fact, I couldn't get through it. When the movie hit 45 minutes without eliciting even the faintest trace of the beginning of the uptick of a grin, I ejected the thing, put it in its envelope, and dropped it in the mail.

BLACKBALLED is the kind of movie that hates its characters, hates its subject matter, and hates you, the viewer. The movie's about a disgraced paintball champion who returns to his old stomping grounds a decade after his shaming event. His friends loathe him and his enemies loathe him. I find nothing funny in loathing and found nothing funny here.

BLACKBALLED looks and sounds cheap. Its characters don't work. Nothing about it is funny. Someone should have shot it through the heart.