The Fabulous Baker Boys

Year 3, Day 7 - 1/7/10 - Movie #737

BEFORE: This time Jeff Bridges carries over, getting 20 years younger and thinner in the process, and trading his guitar for a piano...

Already this year I've covered hangovers, wild times in Vegas, government conspiracies, press junkets, country music tours and time in rehab - jeesh, what a week!

THE PLOT: Frank and Jack Baker are professional musicians who play small clubs. They play schmaltzy music, but times are changing and dates are becoming more difficult to get so they add a female singer.

AFTER: I figured this would be your typical love triangle situation, but it wasn't. One brother is married, and the other isn't, so that made it a lot more complicated, in a good way.

What I said yesterday about "Crazy Heart" also applies here - you punch in, play your music, work hard, stay clean, and you get to do it again tomorrow. But the amendment here is that the situation lasts until you decide you don't want to do it any more, or until a co-worker comes along and shakes up your routine, and you re-evaluate your career.

Again, it seems like the stars actually performed the music, those were their real vocals, and at least partially real piano-playing, though some stand-in keyboarding by Dave Grusin was used.

Featuring one of the better "bad audition" montages I've seen - right up there with the singing Hitlers one in "The Producers".

Also starring Beau Bridges (last seen way back in "Charlotte's Web", but most familiar to me as Earl Hickey's dad on "My Name Is Earl"), Michelle Pfeiffer (last seen in "The Russia House") with a cameo from Jennifer Tilly (last seen in "Liar Liar").

RATING: 6 out of 10 fruit baskets

Crazy Heart

Year 3, Day 6 - 1/6/11 - Movie #736

BEFORE: Robert Duvall (in a small part here) carries over from last night's film, as does the theme of an aging country singer - plus both films won the Oscar for Best Actor. Yes, I've been planning this linkage for a while...

THE PLOT: A faded country music musician is forced to reassess his dysfunctional life during a doomed romance that also inspires him.

AFTER: Who knew that Jeff Bridges would someday resemble a paunchy version of Kris Kristofferson? I found this to be something of a mix of elements from "Tender Mercies" and "A Star Is Born" (minus Streisand, of course). Again we've got an aging, hard-drinkin' country music man, with an estranged child and a history of failed marriage(s) - but he's still performing and writing songs, and (eventually...) trying to get himself clean and sober to deserve the love of a younger woman.

But then the movie takes a bit of a left turn - Bad Blake (Jeff Bridges, last seen in "The Men Who Stare at Goats") has a pupil/rival - Tommy Sweet, who seems to have surpassed his mentor in popularity, but still feels like he is indebted to him. The love/hate relationship/rivalry between them is very intriguing.

The songs here are quite good - who knew that Irishman Colin Farrell could speak and sing with a country accent? But I don't really see what all the fuss was over "The Weary Kind", which won the Oscar for Best Original Song - I thought others like "Fallin' & Flyin'" and "Somebody Else" were better. ("I used to be somebody...Now I'm somebody else" - classic C&W, and quite relevant to the theme of the movie.)

"Fallin' & Flyin'" is also a great, perhaps inadvertent metaphor. Because if you think about it, you can't fly without falling, and vice versa - and until you hit the ground, you might not be sure which you're doing.

It's somewhat refreshing to see the life of a semi-famous singer portrayed with some very accessible elements. Like any other job, if you show up, work hard and stay sober, with a little luck things might start to go your way - but really, all you've achieved might be the right to wake up the next day and do it all again. You deal with your addictions and any emergencies the best you can, and if you're lucky, you find friends and family will help get you through it. Inspiring in its own way, and the first solid win of the year.

Also starring Maggie Gyllenhaal (last seen in "Stranger Than Fiction")

RATING: 7 out of 10 flaky biscuits

Tender Mercies

Year 3, Day 5 - 1/5/11 - Movie #735

BEFORE: I'll get back to movies about actors in a little bit, but for now, here come some movies about musicians.

And Birthday SHOUT-Out #2 goes to Robert Duvall, born January 5, 1931. Happy 80th, Bobby D.! (last seen in "Four Christmases")

THE PLOT: A broken-down, middle-aged country singer gets a new wife, reaches out to his long-lost daughter, and tries to put his troubled life back together.

AFTER: This is a simple film that proves you don't need car chases and explosions to entertain. However, the flip side of that is, some people like car chases and explosions, and might regard this film as quite boring. After all, it's just about an old man trying to stay sober and put his life back together.

And like last night's film, it's about people who were damaged by their old relationships or lost loves finding each other and learning to love again - but the concept works so much better with an aging country singer than with some young Hollywood stars.

What forces bring these lost souls together? Why do they get a second chance, when others don't? What does it take to keep on going? While the movie may not have all the answers, at least it's not afraid to ask some of these questions.

A note about the music, and I'm not a fan of country so it might be tough for me to judge - but Duvall proved to be a very competent singer. The songs he sang, like "It Hurts to Face Reality" and "If You Hold the Ladder (I'll Climb to the Top)" seemed excessive corny and maudlin - maudlin fits the setting, but corny is inexcusable. I much preferred another song in the film that Duvall did NOT sing, called "I'm Drinkin' Canada Dry" - because at first it sounds like it's a song about ginger ale, then you realize that no, the singer actually intends to keep drinking until Canada runs out of alcohol. Nice play on words there.

Also starring Betty Buckley (last seen in "The Happening"), Tess Harper (last seen in "No Country For Old Men"), Ellen Barkin (last seen in "Man Trouble"), Wilford Brimley (last seen in "Cocoon: The Return") and one of my favorite character actors, Lenny Von Dohlen.

RATING: 5 out of 10 truck stops

America's Sweethearts

Year 3, Day 4 - 1/4/11 - Movie #734

BEFORE: Julia Roberts is the link from last night's film, and this film kicks off a chain of films about fame and performing (actors, musicians and such) - which is a topic I covered last January, but a new crop of films on the subject has appeared on the list since then. Hollywood just loves making movies about itself...

THE PLOT: A movie publicist deals with the messy public split of his movie's co-stars while keeping reporters at bay while a reclusive director holds the film's print hostage.

AFTER: This is a movie that works in very broad stereotypes - actors are all self-obsessed neurotic egomaniacs who are only concered with their looks and their public images. OK, so they got that one right. But film directors here are all demented experimental auteurs, publicists are all smiley-slimy weasels, and studio executives are spineless worrywarts. Hey, some of my friends work as publicists!

And I'm trying to reason out the romantic quadrangle represented in the film - we see the fractured remains of a relationship between two actors, one who's moved on and one who hasn't. And the actress has a sister, so we're led to believe (in standard rom-com formula) that a newer, better relationship can be forged from the remnants of the old, volatile one that ended. Just get single person A together with single person B, and everything else will fall into place, all past grievances will be forgotten, and the birds will start singing again.

But when you scratch the surface, it all starts to fall apart. What if person A doesn't like person B? Here that's a given, but it ain't necessarily so. It's like the writer forgot to tell us WHY persons A + B are right for each other, aside from the fact that they're together in the same place, a true relationship of convenience. And we're supposed to believe that Julia Roberts' character is a truer, more sincere person than her sister - why? Because she's not an actress? Because she's a former fatty? Again, I'm not sure I'm following the logic that someone failed to supply me with.

The only thing that really rang true here was the actions of the publicist character - because he's ready to exploit whatever situation comes up. If the actors are dating, he was ready to exploit that angle. If the actors were fighting, he would leak a different tape to the press. And if there was a fist-fight in a restaurant, well, that's publicity gold right there. Contemptible, yes, but probably accurate.

Four movies in to the new year, and I'm still looking for some sympathetic characters, someone I can get behind. Mostly it's been people only looking out for their own interests, or crazy loons. I've often said that there's no such thing as sane, just five billion forms of crazy - but it would be nice to get back to movies where I care about the protagonists.

Ah well, some films are bricks and some films are the mortar, and this one is clearly the latter. I picked it to bridge the two topics anyway...

NITPICK POINT: A film director would never, ever be allowed to screen a film for the press without getting approval from the studio. Any studio executive worth his salt would at least demand to see a rough cut. I don't care if your name is Coppola or Scorcese, this would immediately get you removed from the film. Simply put, the studio has every right to see how their money is being spent.

Also starring John Cusack (last seen in "Serendipity"), Catherine Zeta-Jones (last seen in "Ocean's Twelve"), Billy Crystal (last seen in "Mr. Saturday Night"), Seth Green (last seen in "It"), Hank Azaria (last seen in "Heat"), Stanley Tucci, Christopher Walken (last seen in "The Dead Zone"), with cameos from Alan Arkin (last seen in "Mother Night"), Rainn Wilson (last seen in "The Rocker"), Larry King, Eric Balfour, and Byron Allen.

RATING: 3 out of 10 softball questions

Conspiracy Theory

Year 3, Day 3 - 1/3/11 - Movie #733

BEFORE: First trivia night of 2011, and the event was located in the East Village - so I took a walk through my old stomping grounds around NYU. It's strange to look around a neighborhood I lived in from 1986 to 1989 and realize that my favorite pizza place is now a falafel shop, that restaurant I once met a date at is now (shudder...) a Starbucks. The comic shop on St. Mark's is still the same, in fact I think they're still trying to sell the same faded comics I saw in their shop over a decade ago...

After trivia we went out to Crif Dogs, a little place that makes deep-fried dogs wrapped in bacon, topped with things like avocado and sour cream...yum! And the place has a secret bar only accessible by a "Get Smart"-style phone booth. We had fun watching dozens of people try to get in (they probably saw the bar profiled on the Food Network) but they were almost all turned away, I guess they didn't have reservations. It's not a secret bar if everyone knows about it, people...

THE PLOT: Jerry Fletcher has conspiracy theories for everything, from aliens to political assassinations. One of his theories finds itself to be accurate - but which one? Some dangerous people want him dead and the only person he trusts is that woman he loves but does not know.

AFTER: Happy birthday to Mel Gibson, born January 3, 1956 (and last seen in "Lethal Weapon 4"). My first Birthday SHOUT-out of the year, and a controversial choice... Did someone ever take clips from his movies, like the ones here where he's spouting nonsensical theories about world politics, and mix them up with his drunken cell phone rants, to see if anyone can tell the difference? At the age of 55, he's close to transitioning from crazy drunk boyfriend to the sort of old man who yells at kids (and Jews) to stay off of his lawn.

Unfortunately I think I'd find that more entertaining than this movie - the pieces might have been all there, but they just didn't come together for me. The "Geronimo" reference didn't seem to make sense - heck, almost everything didn't make much sense, even the parts that were supposed to.

Far-fetched, too - a few too many coincidences to make the plot appear even close to plausible. And then there was some kind of explanation as to WHY the crazy cab-driver is the way he is - but I didn't really understand it. I sort of liked him better when he was just your average NYC crazy cab-driver.

Maybe I'm just burned out on crazy government agency plots after watching last year's spy-films marathon. But the group here is some kind of ex-CIA splinter group that all the other spy groups steer clear of? Can't all of our country's secret spy organizations learn to work together or at least get on the same page?

NITPICK POINT: At a key moment in the film, a character gets a cell phone call while standing on a NYC subway platform. Cell phones have NEVER worked while underground or on the subway - and thank God, because it's the only place I can get away from overhearing yappy people having annoying, pointless conversations. (not mine, of course - all of my cell phone calls are essential and quite entertaining...)

Also starring Julia Roberts (last seen in "Charlie Wilson's War") and Patrick Stewart (last seen in "X-Men Origins: Wolverine")

RATING: 3 out of 10 combination locks

Honeymoon in Vegas

Year 3, Day 2 - 1/2/10 - Movie #732

BEFORE: Well, of course, what comes after a bachelor party in Vegas? I've been waiting for a premium channel to run this film so I can get a good copy of it, but it's not on their radar, so I've got to watch on crappy old VHS. Old school. This is my first celebrity birthday near-miss, since Nicolas Cage's birthday is on January 7. Sorry, Nic, couldn't be helped.

THE PLOT: A commitment-challenged man finally decides to tie the knot in Vegas, but a wealthy gambler arranges for the man to lose $65K in a poker game and offers to clear the debt for a weekend with his fiancée.

AFTER: This is sort of a low-rent version of "Indecent Proposal", no? A rich, influential man (a gangster in this case) takes advantage of a poorer couple so he can put the moves on the woman of his choice. (OK, technically this movie was released first, but Hollywood is notorious for releasing films from competing studios with the same premise...)

This shows what Nicolas Cage (last seen in "Face/Off") was like before he became all moody and introspective, and also shows that Sarah Jessica Parker was kind of hot before she started playing all neurotic on HBO.

Also, this film shows that movies will forever be divided by whether they were made before or after the explosion of mobile technology - the plot is all about the couple being separated, with no way of getting in touch with each other or knowing what the other is doing. Young kids will watch this film and wonder why they don't just call each other's cell phones, or at least send a text message or two. And why does a guy let a cab driver take him on a wild-goose chase around Hawaii - doesn't he have GPS or Mapquest on his phone, and why didn't he just Google the address he needed?

NITPICK POINT: How did Nicolas Cage's character start a poker game with $1,000 in chips and end up losing $65,000? In order to bet $65,000 he had to HAVE $65,000 - and if he had it, how did he end up owing it? I'm sure they let him win so he'd build up a pot, but how could they be sure he'd risk it? They didn't explain the mechanics of this very well. And if they extended him credit - well, I've got no sympathy for someone who bets money he doesn't have and then loses it.

NITPICK POINT #2: If the gangster's wife died from skin cancer, and he's still missing her, why is he so keen on doing outdoor activities like scuba diving and hiking, apparently without sunscreen for him or his date? Didn't he learn a lesson?

This is a good companion piece for "The Hangover", because it's just as outrageous, in that the situations are equally unlikely. As we all know from movies, anyone who comes to Vegas engaged soon breaks up, and anyone who comes to Vegas single risks being in a quickie marriage that they don't remember. I'm sure the Vegas tourism board has a few problems with the way the city is depicted in films. And Elvis impersonators might take issue as well.

Also starring James Caan (last seen in "Misery"), with cameos from Pat Morita (last seen in "Spy Hard"), Anne Bancroft, Peter Boyle (last seen in "Where the Buffalo Roam"), Seymour Cassel (last seen in "Colors"), Tony Shalhoub (last seen in "The Siege") and Ben Stein (last seen in "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed"). Oh, and current radio superstar Bruno Mars played the child Elvis impersonator...

RATING: 5 out of 10 limousines

The Hangover

Year 3, Day 1 - 1/1/11 - Movie #731

BEFORE: A little something for everyone who partied too hard last night - some of whom were walking down my block at 4 am...and "WHOOO!!" to you too, people. This is the film from the last year or two with the biggest buzz, and the most glaring omission from my viewing schedule so far, except maybe for "Avatar".

THE PLOT: A Las Vegas-set comedy centered around three groomsmen who lose their about-to-be-wed buddy during their drunken misadventures, then must retrace their steps in order to find him.

AFTER: It's a shame I waited so long to see this, because it was so popular and I've already read so much about it, and seen so many clips, that viewing it is almost an afterthought.

When I was a kid, I loved the movie "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" - not just because it starred every 1970's comedian under the sun, but because I hadn't yet learned to hate slapstick comedy. (I enjoyed the Stooges and Abbott & Costello too, but never really glommed on to the Marx Brothers) It's a comedy about people racing across the desert to claim a dead man's fortune, and along the way they lie, cheat, steal and blow things up, doing whatever it takes to get there first - putting the "mad" into "madcap".

When I think about a film like that, I realize that "The Hangover" cheated. There, I said it - by showing us only the day AFTER the crazy bachelor party in Vegas, with three men who don't remember what happened, we're left to imagine the craziest night we can, and our mind races to fill in the gaps (how DID the chicken get in the hotel room?). The filmmakers know they're facing an uphill battle - there's no montage of crazy behavior that can possibly match what's in each audience member's imagination - not without getting an "X" rating, anyway. Plus each person probably brings something different and uniquely wild to the table, anyway.

I've got some other nitpick points, but I can't really get into them without spoiling the ending - though I felt that a lot of the comedy was kind of forced, like the whole movie was trying just a bit too hard. They could have done a lot more by doing a little less, I think. I wonder how the Vegas tourism board feels about this film - considering their "What Happens in Vegas" campaign. Do they feel this went a bit too far, showing a lot of crazy behavior that they actually DON'T want to encourage?

While there is a somewhat redeeming message of friendship, with a "Leave no man behind" attitude, I can't really call that a heartwarming sentiment. Real friends probably wouldn't let friends get so out of control, right? Reminds me of the saying, "Friends will bail you out of jail, but true friends will be sitting next to you in the cell saying 'That was fun!'" but I think there really should be some limits on what constitutes fun. My first bachelor party was a night of bowling, and the second time around, I didn't even have one. Call me an old fogey, but I've never had a wild night that I didn't remember. I do like my beer, but I always find my way home after a beerfest without getting into further trouble.

Starring Bradley Cooper (last seen in "Yes Man"), Ed Helms (last seen in "Meet Dave"), Zach Galifianakis, Justin Bartha (last seen in "National Treasure: Book of Secrets"), Heather Graham, Mike Tyson, Jeffrey Tambor (last seen in "Superhero Movie"), Ken Jeong (Senor Chang from NBC's "Community"), with cameos from "Daily Show" veterans Rob Riggle and Rachael Harris, comedians Bryan Callen and Matt Walsh, and Dan Finnerty (the guy who sang "Total Eclipse of the Heart" in "Old School", good to see him again).

RATING: 6 out of 10 security cameras