Scoop (2006) * * *

Directed by:  Woody Allen

Starring:  Woody Allen, Scarlett Johansson, Hugh Jackman, Charles Dance, Ian McShane

Within the soul of Woody Allen must lie a love for murder mysteries.    He has made several films involving "the perfect murder" and others in which an unlikely suspect is accused of being a murderer.    Scoop is a little of both.     In Scoop, Allen and Johansson are on the trail of a dashing, wealthy son of a British lord who surely doesn't fit the profile of a serial killer.     But recently deceased reporter Joe Strombel (McShane) materializes from the dead during the magic act of Splendini aka Sid Waterman (Allen) and informs him that this man Peter Lyman (Jackman) is indeed the notorious "Tarot Card Killer".    Determined to gain one last byline from beyond the grave, Strombel also materializes to a college student journalist named Sondra Pransky (Johansson) to deliver his scoop.    Sondra meets up with Sid and the two ingratiate themselves with Lyman to find out what's what. 

At first, Sid believes Peter to be innocent while Sondra doubts his innocence.   In a major lapse of journalistic ethics, Sondra sleeps with Peter and falls for him.    He is rich, handsome, cultured, and charming, so this is natural.     Once Sondra falls for Peter, the roles are reversed, with Sid believing in Peter's guilt while Sondra thinks he is innocent.     There are strange goings-on that either link Peter to the crimes or could be easily explained away as coincidence.     In a deft piece of acting by Jackman, who plays Wolverine so often it takes a moment to get used to him out of the costume, he doesn't tip his hand either way and either upholds or confounds expectations, depending on whether you think he's the murderer.

Allen and Johansson make an odd comic couple, but they have an easy chemistry despite their ages.    Johansson previously starred in Allen's Match Point (2005) and would again in 2008's Vicky Cristina Barcelona and fits quite nicely into Allen's world of insecurity, paranoia, and quirky insights into human nature.    She almost adapts Allen's witty verbal style.   Allen has the knack for finding actors who can inhabit his own screen persona almost as well as he does.    Allen has a few gems of his own while working the room at one of Lyman's parties.   ("Did you hear about the Polish carpool?   They meet at work,")

Sid and Sondra are not the greatest sleuths in the world, but stumble upon the truth anyway, which includes a nice payoff stemming from Peter saving Sondra from drowning in a swimming pool.    Scoop isn't deep, but light as a feather.    It isn't among the greatest Allen comedies, but even Allen's mid-range stuff is more intricate and funnier than some other director's best efforts.     We go along with a story that may seem pedestrian on the surface, but is weaved in a way only Allen can tell it.  

Coming to America (1988) * * * *

 

Directed by:  John Landis

 

Starring:  Eddie Murphy, John Amos, Arsenio Hall, Erik La Salle, Louie Anderson, James Earl Jones,

Shari Headley

 

Coming to America is a warm romantic comedy which maintains its laughs with ease throughout.    When it focuses on the laughs, it is really funny and really inspired.    When it is focusing on its love story, it remains fresh even if the story itself is by its nature predictable.     Coming to America and Bowfinger are the Eddie Murphy movies which showcase his tremendous talents to the fullest.    He plays a mere dual role in Bowfinger, while tackling four roles in Coming to America and even more in The Nutty Professor movies.     Maybe by the time he made Bowfinger he was just plain worn out. 

 

In Coming to America, Murphy is Akeem, a prince in the fictional African country of Zamunda in which elephants freely roam the palatial grounds and he is bestowed a life of such luxury that by the time he turns 21, he still had never tied his own shoes before.     His father, King Joffa (Jones) says, "I tied my shoes once.   It was an overrated experience."     Akeem is bored with his life of privilege and even more with his future bride prospects, whom are trained to follow his every command.    Akeem seeks a bride whom he can love and loves him for himself, so he travels with his manservant Semmi (Hall) to America to search for his bride.    Where to search when in America?    Why Queens of course.    While there, he hides his true identity while wooing the daughter of a fast-food franchise operator (Amos).    To get closer to Lisa (Headley), Akeem and Semmi take menial jobs at the restaurant,  which disgusts Semmi.   ("I haven't had a manicure since we left Zamunda.")

 

Hall is no slouch in the roles department, playing four distinct roles himself here.     What is so fun about this is how much Murphy and Hall makes these people into unique characters, all of which are funny themselves.     The multiple roles never seem like a stunt and they are weaved seamlessly into the story.    Murphy's innate charm is in full effect as Akeem, who takes satisfaction in working for his money and even more satisfaction in winning the affections of Lisa.     Lisa has a boyfriend, the insufferable Darryl (La Salle), who is the heir to the Soul Glo Jheri curl fortune and isn't far from his own collection of activators.     As night follows day, Darryl will be dumped and Lisa will fall for Akeem, while believing he is a fast food employee and not a wealthy prince.    It also follows that Lisa will learn of the deceit, which is the type of roadblock a potential couple will overcome in comedies such as this one.    Although, let's be honest, learning to accept Akeem as a wealthy prince wouldn't exactly be considered a roadblock by most women.    

 

There are numerous laughs in Coming to America, including one which ties into Murphy's Trading Places (1983) that comes as a hilarious surprise.     These days, movies are so inundated with in-jokes that in-jokes themselves are no longer jokes or surprising.     You almost wait for one to appear.    But, Coming to America uses its laughs wisely.    It isn't a free-for-all.    All of this has a consistent tone and, to my recollection, there are no bodily functions or fluids flying around, unless the count the milkshake Darryl flippantly throws to Akeem.  

 

And when the happy ending arrives, it is well-earned even though we expect it because the movies works so well in making us laugh and then care.  

 

 

 

 

Hollywood Ending (2002) * * *

 

Directed by:  Woody Allen

 

Starring:  Woody Allen, Tea Leoni, Mark Rydell, Treat Williams, George Hamilton, Tiffani Thiessen, Debra Messing, Jodie Markell, Mark Webber

 

Val Waxman (Allen) is a movie director assumed to be long past his prime.    He needs a hit desperately to keep working, so his producer ex-wife Ellie (Leoni) finds a modestly budgeted commercial project for him to direct.    Val is not the studio head's (Williams) first, second, or even fifth choice to direct the movie, but he is engaged to Ellie and wants to please her.    There is soon a twist, which is most always the case in a Woody Allen film.    Val is soon stricken with psychosomatic blindness.    It's tough to direct a movie you can't see.  Val, knowing this is his last shot, fakes his way through a hectic set with executives, gossip columnists, and a Japanese cameraman who can't speak English and has no clue what Val's "vision" for the film is, all lurking around. 

 

Hollywood Ending is not a Woody Allen film with deep meaning or deep insights.    It is mostly fun and satirically works its way through some Hollywood targets.    Allen has a lot of material to work with.    Is the movie significant with a greater view into a director's soul?    No.  It is a story of an aging director trying to make a film with a serious handicap.   There is a love angle.  Val is still in love with Ellie, who is exasperated by her kvetching ex-husband but may still have feelings for him.   Hollywood Ending was made in a period of Woody Allen films in which his leading lady was about thirty years younger than him and we somehow buy the romances anyway.     Like Helen Hunt in Curse of the Jade Scorpion and Tracey Ullman in Small Time Crooks, Tea Leoni is plucky and not a pushover, but ultimately has a sweet spot for Allen and his myriad insecurities.

 

With help of Val's eternally optimistic agent Al (Rydell-a fine movie director in his own right) and a helpful translator, Val is able to almost go through work each day with his secret undetected.    No one seems to find it odd that Val doesn't look people in the eye and is led around by Al, the translator, or Ellie herself eventually like well...a blind man.     The dailies are never shown to us, but others who manage to see them are aghast.    Allen is wise not to belabor this point by showing us the terrible finished product, which would cause the movie to lapse into slapstick.     Leave that stuff to Ed Wood.    

 

I've never made it a secret that Woody Allen is my favorite director and screenwriter.    I've never witnessed an artist move so comfortably between genres and create such a vast array of unique entertainments.     Allen makes you feel, laugh, and think.     He has a knack for finding a germ of an idea and expanding it to its fullest comic possibilities.     A lesser director would have shown Allen tripping over things and bumping into walls.     A lesser writer would have taken the easy way out.    Allen prefers to play the situation intelligently, which makes it all the more satisfying. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Lost City of Z (2017) * * *

Directed by:  James Gray

Starring:   Charlie Hunnam, Robert Pattinson, Sienna Miller, Tom Holland, Angus MacFadyen

Walking into The Lost City of Z, I expected an action adventure reminiscent of an Indiana Jones movie.    The title all but promises that.     What the movie delivered was a thoughtful depiction of a career British military officer's obsession with finding a lost civilization in the early 20th century South American jungles.     It is easier to project outward conflicts than inner ones, but The Lost City of Z presents the inner conflicts of Col. Percy Fawcett (Hunnam) with more conviction than the battles with his family which he must leave for sometimes years at a time in his quest. 

We sense Col. Fawcett's biological clock ticking in the film's opening moments, in which he tells his wife Nina (Miller) how is the only major in the British Army without any medals on his lapel.    He feels unaccomplished despite his successful military career.    Fawcett wants to be remembered for something and stumbles upon it during a surveying expedition through the Amazon jungle.    Accompanied by veteran aide Henry Costin (Pattinson), his crew is ravaged by malaria, fatigue, and locals who rain arrows down on them as they helplessly travel the Amazon.    And let's not forget piranhas.  

Fawcett accidentally happens upon artifacts which suggest a lost civilization that once occupied the Amazon.     Is there enough evidence to convince his government to finance further expeditions?    Is there really even a lost city to be found?     Does Fawcett even care?     He digs in like a tick to raise money to return to the jungle, which results in more illness, death, and no discoveries.     Soon, his obsessive quests are put on hold for World War I, in which Fawcett is blinded temporarily by chlorine gas attacks during the battles in the trenches.

Throughout the twenty plus years in which Fawcett puts his desire to find Z (as he calls his lost city), he alienates his children and at times his more than understanding wife.     She suggests going with him to South America, but the jungle is no place for a woman.    Heck, there is little evidence that the jungle is any place for a man either.     Sickness and death do not discriminate.     Sienna Miller played a similar role (which has been pointed out in every review I've read for this film-so why not one more time?) in 2014's American Sniper.    In that film and here, she pleads with her husband to stay home once in a while and be with the kids.    It is one note, but she plays it effectively.    

Charlie Hunnam taps into a universal desire to do something special and then goes further to show us the depth of that desire.     We see a man torn between his destiny and his love for his family, which usually comes in second to the former.    We also see a forward thinker who doesn't see the jungle natives as savages, but as valuable resources in his discovery.   Hunnam presents a strong, multi-faceted Fawcett forever at war with himself and the elements, while Pattinson continues his run with offbeat supporting roles which stretch his talent far beyond his Twilight days.    I admire Pattinson's decision not to rest on his laurels and take on challenging work.    

Those who watch The Lost City of Z expecting another Raiders of the Lost Ark action bonanza will be disappointed.     But, don't dismiss the film just yet.     You may miss out on a movie which is still a very worthwhile journey into hell on Earth and the hell of one's soul.  

Snatched (2017) * *

 

Directed by:  Jonathan Levine

 

Starring:  Amy Schumer, Goldie Hawn, Ike Barinholtz, Christopher Meloni, Wanda Sykes, Joan Cusack, Tom Bateman, Oscar Jaenada, Bashir Salahuddin

 

Snatched presents us with a more tolerable Amy Schumer than showcased in 2015's Trainwreck.    That Amy Schumer sank the movie.    Here, we see someone more likable and more insecure who isn't too cool for the room.     She engages our sympathies.    So much so that I wished she had a different script to work with, one which doesn't ungainly squeeze a kidnapping subplot into a movie about a mother and daughter who don't get along as they should.    

 

The first ten minutes or so of Snatched sets up rich comic possibilities which the movie abandons once it hits South America.     Emily Middleton (Schumer) is fired from her job in a clothing store, is dumped by her wannabe rock star boyfriend and is thus without a companion for her impending vacation to Ecuador.     Desperate and stuck with a non-refundable trip, she begs her prudish mother Linda (Hawn) to go with her and not necessarily because she loves her mother's company.

 

Linda prefers to read a book in her hotel room, while Emily hooks up with a hunky British guy (Bateman) who sweeps her off her feet.    But the courtship is simply a ruse to lure Emily and Linda from the confines of the resort and kidnap them.    The leader of the kidnappers is the slimy Morgado (Jaenada), who demands $100,000 from Emily's agoraphobic brother Jeffrey (Barinholtz-in a funny performance).     Jeffrey responds by contacting a very unhelpful State Department employee (Salahuddin) whose utter unwillingness to do anything also results in laughs.  

 

Schumer and Hawn have an unforced chemistry, although Hawn's face moves considerably less than it did when we last saw her in 2002's The Banger Sisters.     I also liked Christopher Meloni as a rugged, intense American adventurer who helps the ladies while channeling his inner Michael Douglas a la Romancing the Stone.     He walks, talks, and sounds like a guy who has seen too many adventure movies.

 

The laughs aren't frequent, however, and there are long stretches when we wonder where this kidnapping movie came from.    The earlier scenes worked better.    It would have been fun to watch Emily's and Linda's relationship evolve from awkwardness to understanding without bogging itself down with the kidnapping plot that feels like a movie hedging its bets.     I didn't hate Snatched as much as I felt it could have been more.   

 

 

The Family Man (2000) * * * 1/2

Directed by:  Brett Ratner

Starring:  Nicolas Cage, Tea Leoni, Jeremy Piven, Harve Presnell, Saul Rubinek, Josef Summer, McKenzie Vega, Don Cheadle

Jack Campbell (Cage) is about to board a plane to London to undertake a business internship.   His college sweetheart Kate Reynolds (Leoni) begs him not to go and instead start their life together.   Jack assures Kate that he will return in one year and everything will be okay.    Fast forward to thirteen years later, Jack is a wealthy investment broker closing a multi-billion dollar merger on Christmas Eve.    He and Kate had long since broken up, but Jack has a sexy girlfriend, lives in a sleek Manhattan apartment, and figures he doesn't need anything more out of life.    He learns over the course of The Family Man that he is wrong.  

Jack encounters a guardian angel named Cash (Cheadle) on Christmas Eve, who in return for Jack's assistance in a confrontation at a convenience store, offers him a glimpse into the life he forsook when he boarded the plane to London thirteen years earlier.    Jack wakes up the following morning not in his apartment, but in a suburban New Jersey home with two children and married for many years to Kate.    Jack remembers his former life also and he needs plenty of adjustment to his new surroundings.    He longs to return to his life as a wealthy broker, but instead is relegated to being a sales manager at his father-in-law's tire store.    He sees a bottle of scotch in his desk drawer and says, "You must have needed this every day of your life,"    He settles into his new life kicking and screaming at first, but soon finds he realizes how empty his life was.  

The Family Man sounds predictable and trite with the usual payoffs you can see coming a mile away, but the movie is sweeter and more moving than that.    It is chock full of touching moments as Jack fills in the blanks as to how he arrived at this alternative reality.    For Kate and everyone else, life proceeds happily and modestly.    For Jack, such modesty takes acceptance and understanding.   ( "I work eight hours a day selling tires at retail.   Retail, Kate," )    Yet, he falls in love with Kate all over again and his kids for the first time.    In an interesting twist, the oldest daughter Annie (Vega) realizes that this Jack is not really her father, but someone just occupying his father's body.     Instead of underlining this development to death, Annie quietly assists Jack in adjusting to his surroundings.

Cage excels here as a man who undergoes true changes.    The movie never handles things in a sitcom manner.     It reveals small truths and doesn't end neatly and tidily, but with a glimmer of hope that Jack may still get to experience this life with Kate.    Leoni is grounded, fiesty, and convincingly steadfast in her love for Jack and her life.    Her performance is the glue that keeps the movie from splintering off into silliness.   The only quibble I would have is how the ending isn't tidy, but I guess it isn't meant to be.  

Watching the film again recently, I understood just how many powerful moments the movie contains. The one that choked me up the most was the scene in which Jack understands that, in his new reality, he returned home from London the very next day and began his life with Kate.     Judging by the coziness and warmth we feel for the Campbell family, we are glad he did.  

WarGames (1983) * * *

Directed by:  John Badham

Starring:  Matthew Broderick, Ally Sheedy, Dabney Coleman, Barry Corbin, John Wood

WarGames was released in 1983, when the home computer was not common and the threat of nuclear war was still very common.     The movie is like a time capsule, but yet remains timely.     WarGames is about paranoia and the fear of computer glitches threatening our personal and national security.     David Lightman (Broderick) is a computer genius who underachieves at school, but that's ok, he can hack into the school's mainframe and change his grades.   (Broderick's Ferris Bueller did the same thing in 1986, only he changed his number of absences).    

One day he sees an ad in a magazine for a video game company and uses his telephone modem to hack into the company's system to find "the really good games".    There is one:  Global Thermonuclear War, which he plays and chooses to be the Soviets since they seemed to have a larger nuclear weapon collection.     However, this causes David to somehow accidentally link up to the nation's central nuclear defense computers, and the possibility of starting an actual nuclear war becomes very real.     The game seizes control of the defense computers and within 72 hours will be able to figure out the top secret launch codes to our country's nuclear missiles.    

The feds soon track down David and bring him to NORAD to determine if he is indeed a Soviet spy or a kid who stumbled across an unintended glitch in the system.    How and why the nation's central computer defense systems are linked to a video game company advertising on the back of a magazine is never explained fully, but that's okay too.     The events for a well-crafted, suspenseful thriller are in motion.     When I first saw the film in 1983, it presented one further scary possibility in which we found ourselves in a nuclear war with the Soviets.     Watching the film again recently, the fears of computers being used to enable identity theft and threaten privacy still remain.     Even with the focus on North Korea's nuclear program in the news, the possibility of a nuclear war remains remote, if not extinct. 

WarGames leads to a simplistic, yet relevant conclusion which captured the Cold War sentiments of both the Soviets and the United States.     Nuclear wars have no winners because everything will be destroyed and the remaining population which survived the blasts will soon die of radiation poisoning anyway.    No one benefits.    But both sides knew this, but kept the scant likelihood of nuclear attacks in the nation's subconscious until the threat of such attacks became like crying wolf.     Within a few years, both sides reduced their nuclear arsenals and by 1991, the Soviet empire collapsed, thus ending the Cold War.  

As far as WarGames itself, it remains implausibly entertaining and thoughtful.    The Soviets are unseen, but just the idea that they are out there gives the film a villain.    NORAD's top brass, led by John McKittrick (Coleman) are not malevolent.    They just want to find out what happened and why.    The fact that they suspect innocent David of something more devious makes us root for David to escape and find out the truth for himself.      WarGames manages to hold up fairly well for a movie made only 34 years ago considering the huge leaps in technology and a shifts in ideology which define our society today.