This movie presents a common comedy formula often ensured to bring laughs but hardly do they ever and “Bringing Down the House” tackles the formula head-on: upper class white family is intruded by hip black person, hip black person lives with upper class white family, teaches upper class white father to appreciate kids and wife more and upper class white family grow to love hip minority. In a star vehicle of this kind I expected what I’d heard of “Non-stop laughs”; sure someone who watches comedies lately knows to never listen to hype, and boy was this film hyped.
Tag Archives: Comedy
Crush (2001)
Kate (Andie MacDowell) is a lonely respectable forty year old head mistress at a boarding school who gets together every week with her friends to tell horrible stories about their week and discover who is the saddest. Then Kate meets Jed an ex-pupil whom she begins to have an affair with. Soon the affair begins to turn into a relationship and she is no longer sad. Jed, her romance isn’t charismatic nor is he charming or likeable and is simply a one-dimensional character who we never get to know much of, so we never care when something happens to him.
Hey Arnold! The Movie (2002)
I’m a fan of the “Hey Arnold!” television animated series. I grew up with it. It’s one of Nickelodeon’s banner television shows about growing up. Sadly, what we see in “the movie,” is just a glorified three part TV special that’s mashed in to a movie. And it’s a god awful closer for such a great show. What the animated series thrived on was the large cast of magnetic characters from the neighborhood, but this fails to bring anything truly magnetic to audiences to watch. “Hey Arnold! The Movie” is a half-assed effort that does no justice all around to a truly entertaining cartoon. What many of the executives at Nickelodeon do with their products when making them into feature films is completely take away what made the cartoon so likable to begin with.
Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat (2003)
We received an onslaught of merchandising and advertising once this bomb was released, and the cat in the hat was literally everywhere you looked, an obvious sign of studios spending too much money on a crappy film, when it could have been spent on a better film. The filmmakers don’t call it “The Cat in the Hat”, they call it “Dr. Seuss’ The Cat in the Hat”, just to assure everyone this definitely is the book their children and their children’s children read. This is not, however, Dr. Seuss. It’s an embarrassment.
About Schimdt (2002)
Based on the novel by Louis Begley, Warren Schmidt is your average workaday middle-aged man with the nameless face who has just retired from his Insurance company after years of service. With an uncertain future ahead of him, he’s managed to evaluate what he’s done with his life. When his wife Helen suddenly dies, he begins to realize that maybe he hasn’t achieved everything he wanted in his life and seeks out to look for his soul once and for all and hopes to convince his daughter not to marry her fiancé. This film is such a real and breathtakingly down to earth portrait of a middle-aged man who’s reached the end of his road regarding life and accomplishments to reach. Prolific actor Jack Nicholson (nominated for best actor) who is at his best when he’s not being Jack Nicholson gives a melancholy excellent performance as the pathetic Warren Schmidt who basically takes life and family for granted.
Old School (2003)
What would happen if the guys from “Animal House” grew up into men with families and jobs but refused to grow up? Such is the rhetorical question posed to the audience in this charming frat house comedy intended for the young male audiences. Mitch Frank and Beanie are men who refuse to grow up and are terrified at the notion of moving forward in life and can’t deny the men they used to be despite the fact their wives try to change them into the men they used to be. Will Ferrell gives a hilarious yet subdued performance as Frank, once known as “Frank the Tank”; we never learn about their past exploits in college and whatnot, but somehow we get the sense of their past persona’s and it all comes out in the open as they open up a fake fraternity so Mitch can stay in his home due to new college campus laws.
Catch Me If You Can (2002)
To those who have said in the past that Spielberg, my hero, has lost it as a filmmaker, here’s mud in your eye. With his two most recent films (the great “Minority Report” which received mixed reviews, and the sub-par “AI: Artificial Intelligence” which bombed at the box-office) that weren’t up to his quality Spielberg comes out swinging with this breezy and light dramedy based on the book about real life con man and bank robber Frank Abagnale Jr., a man who before he was 18 made his way forging checks from Pan Am airlines, worked as a pilot, worked as a doctor, and then a lawyer leaving the authorities one step behind him until he was caught. This isn’t a love child of Spielberg who usually takes a personal investment in his many films with his tailoring and presence in the background but the quality isn’t diminished. The quality is in fact plentiful and flourishes throughout the entire length of the film.