I NOW PRONOUNCE YOU CHUCK AND LARRY
Starring Adam Sandler, Kevin James and Jessica Biel; Written by Lew Gallo, Barry Fenaro, Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor; 115 minutes; Rated PG-13 [for crude sexual content throughout, nudity, language and drug references]

Anyone who cringed upon hearing the log line of the new comedy starring Adam Sandler and Kevin James — “Two straight New York City firefighters pretend to be a gay married couple in order to receive domestic partner benefits from the city” — need not keep an eye out for the rainbow flag flying at half-staff. They pull it off in a thoughtful and sensitive way, with and despite a little help from their friends.

Adam Sandler, hero to homophobic frat boys everywhere, stepping up and showing heart and kindness is pretty huge, the kind of grand gesture that countless college dissertations at some date future will mark as key in our advancement as a caring society (or some such). As a bonus, the movie is moderately entertaining, even if it is occasionally unfocused and unable to reconcile the message with its method of delivery. Sandler curbs his extra-Y “yelling guy” persona and turns his character, Chuck Levine, into a guy who overcompensates for his gentle side by availing himself to countless women. This latent softness makes him receptive to the experience of marrying his friend Chuck, if only as a favor, and letting his perception change as they encounter prejudice and hatred that is still so engrained in the culture. Sandler and Chuck both stand up in defense of non-straights of all stripes, and it is a pretty bold move.

Studio Universal also makes a bold move in deputizing Oscar-winning Sideways scribes Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor to make sure that Barry Fenaro’s screenplay would play better than the “Golden Girls” scripts that he is best known for. While the pairing is occasionally awkward, with bits obviously written for the Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore Sandler of old clashing with the more serious tone of the character-driven story, it ultimately comes off as more than just schtick. This is despite Sandler cling-ons David Spade, hamming it up as a cross-dressing gay man, and Rob Schneider as an Asian justice-of-the-peace who makes Mickey Rooney’s buck-toothed, bespectacled landlord in Breakfast At Tiffany’s racially sensitive by comparison.

Sandler and James have a great, Odd Couple rapport, though Sandler goes a bit too ga-ga for Jessica Biel (The Illusionist), who plays Chuck’s and Larry’s lawyer [insert clever aside about Jessica Biel being so much of a woman that she can turn gay men straight.] Dan Aykroyd’s omniscient fire chief is a bit forced, and Steve Buscemi’s A.R. fraud investigator is a little too one-note, but in all, the cast meshes effectively, with each other and with the story (and Ving Rhames is a riot as a stoic firefighter).

Is the movie guilty of trading in clichés and stereotypes? Certainly. But rather than pegging this as a hallmark of lazy writing, consider that using those clichés and stereotypes the way they are used here (Rob Schneider excepted) is a way of confronting them and taking power away from them, and that the wide audience that this is intended for does not speak any other language right now. In this light, Sandler and James succeed admirably, even if their giant leap for gay mankind could have been a little funnier.•••

NO RESERVATIONS [PG]
The popular 2001 German comedy (the words “German” and “comedy” being used together intentionally) called Mostly Martha has gotten its inevitable American makeover, and unlike retools of recent foreign hits like Shall We Dance? and The Grudge, this one hits the (Deutsch) mark. Catherine Zeta-Jones (Ocean’s Twelve) plays Kate, a top New York City chef whose structured life is thrown into chaos when her orphaned niece, Zoe (Abigail Breslin), comes to live with her. Add to the craziness an attractive, eccentric assistant named Nick (Aaron Eckhart), and…can you say, “Love (and the smell of meat) is in the air?” The film is fairly well layered, from first-timer Carol Fuchs’s screenplay (adapting Sandra Nettelbeck’s) to Zeta-Jones’s and Neverwas star Eckhart’s PG-rated sexual tension. Oscar-nominated Little Miss Sunshine star Breslin wows again, turning scenes on just a look or a seemingly effortless cry. Just like in Like Water For Chocolate or Babette’s Feast, the screen radiates with sumptuous dish after sumptuous dish (none of which are available even at the most upscale of concession stands), so foodies especially are apt to go a little loopy for this appealing, multi-course entertainment. –Elizabeth Meyer

RESCUE DAWN [PG-13]
Revered German director Werner Herzog reworks his own 1997 documentary Little Dieter Needs To Fly in this solidly made straight survival narrative. In it, Christian Bale (The Prestige) plays Dieter Dengler, a German-born American pilot flying secret missions over Laos during the Vietnam War. Like he did in The Machinist (2004), Bale slims down to look the part of a starving P.O.W., though co-star Jeremy Davies has him beat in the skin-and-bones department. As usual, Herzog masters the location — in this case, the jungles of Thailand — and never for a minute lets us think that we’re not waist-deep in overgrowth and desperation. New Batman Bale is transformative, Davies (Solaris) is crazy unhinged and Steve Zahn (Sahara) skillfully mixes comedy and pathos as another fellow prisoner. Herzog infuses the Viet Cong camp with menace while he ekes out a grain of hope for Dengler, who, at times, seems like he is surviving only on the adrenalin of the American Dream. While Herzog’s film will never serve as a travelogue for Southeast Asia, it proves that after over forty years and dozens of films, he can be as sharp and relevant now as he ever was. –Robert Newton

WHO WILL SAVE YOUR SOL?
Talking with Sunshine director Danny Boyle
Interview by Robert Newton

Danny Boyle really knows how to get people talking. Whether he is creeping us out with dead babies crawling on the ceiling in a junkie’s waking nightmare in Trainspotting, scaring the hell out of us in the apocalyptic ‘nad-blow 28 Days Later or pondering the innocence of childhood so simply and beautifully in Millions, his efforts never pass quietly as footnotes. Now, in Sunshine, the 50-year-old English director (who once turned down a chance to direct an installment of Harry Potter) takes on another genre — science fiction — with a story by frequent collaborator Alex Garland about a mission to jump-start our dying sun with a bomb the size of Manhattan. Boyle never loses sight of the “what if?” of any story fantastical or mundane, and always follows it up with the kind of detail that makes the worlds in which he plays so believable and complete. That dedication and vision is in full effect here.

“I prefer not to hamper around stars egos and not work around star schedules,” Boyle says of his non-celestial employees. “I’d rather take a bit less money and create a world of extreme scenarios, in which the individual within it is trying to remain sane. That’s what appeals to me.”

The cast, which includes the regal Michelle Yeoh, the chronically pretty Cillian Murphy and rugged Sudbury native Chris Evans, hailed from all over the globe, so Boyle had to affect some kind of familiarity between them, all within the budget and shooting schedule.

“We put them in student housing for two weeks, and through a mini training camp,” Boyle explains. “We had to make it seem like they’d been together for 16 months, so you pummel them with information and experience until the ‘actor’s bubble’ bursts. It was quite claustrophobic, with the same actors on the same sets for so long, but we had no problems.” (more…)

A CRUDE AWAKENING: THE OIL CRASH [NR]
This latest offering from European journalists and filmmakers Basil Gelpke and Ray McCormack explores the phenomenon of “Peak Oil,” which refers to the theory that the discovery of new oil sources has dried up while at the same time the demands of a booming global economy are becoming ever more voracious. The film’s opening quotation, “Oil is the Excrement of the Devil,” backed by a pretentiously menacing Philip Glass soundtrack, is a little misleading. What follows is not a pseudo-scientific portrait of post-petrol Doomsday, but a multi-leveled series of interviews with sources as varied as the former acting Secretary General of O.P.E.C., a retired British petroleum geologist and an ex-CIA adviser from the Bush Administration. They explain how oil has instigated wars since World War II, how the reserves reported by the Middle East are politically not geologically grounded, and how the impending crisis could affect the lifestyle we take for granted in the United States. The talking heads are cleverly interspersed with images from informational films and advertisements from the 1950’s and Koyaanisqatsi-like time-lapse footage of crowded freeways, but for those who like more “info” in their serving of “info-tainment,” the complete interviews can be found in the Special Features menu. –Chris Mellen

CASHBACK [R]
While there may never be an adaptation of J.D. Salinger’s slacker manifesto Catcher In The Rye while the reclusive author is still alive, there are films that come close to capturing its vibe, and this is one of them. Sean Biggerstaff, who as a teen played Oliver Wood in the first two Harry Potter films, is brilliantly manic as Ben Willis, an insomniac supermarket employee grieving over his recent break-up. Biggerstaff plays Ben as a very dry Ferris Bueller, and writer-director Sean Ellis, whose short film version of this expanded feature was nominated for an Oscar in 2004, makes it all play like a wry, British Clerks. There is a touch of sci-fi fun here, too, with Ben’s apparent ability to stop time for everyone but him making for some very fun scenarios, not to mention some very hot ones. Ellis nails the creative process (Ben is an aspiring artist), and makes the insanity of the creative mind live and breathe, a task sometimes compared to teaching a schnauzer to repair a carburetor. Profundity and visual splendor in a lovely unassuming, micro-budgeted package. –Robert Newton

RENAISSANCE [R]
While former video game designer Christian Volckman’s animated sci-fi noir may set out for Blade Runner heights of greatness, it only manages the tone and not the substance. The story takes place in 2054, when the citizenry is carefully monitored and an ever-present company called Avalon trades on the world’s hunger for youth and beauty. While Volckman’s choice to shoot entirely in black-and-white (save for a too-sparing splash of color) may have been rooted in wanting a Sin City like starkness, it, combined with the lack of definition, is distracting. The characters are not particularly likeable, and the voice cast, including Daniel Craig, Catherine McCormack and Romola Garai, is pretty dull. Fans of anime may find it mildly interesting, and sci-fi nuts in search of a minor thrill may find it adequate, but neither is the ringing endorsement that the film needed to make it a must-see 21st century Akira. –Klaus Hummersumpf

NEVERWAS [PG-13]
Like The Prince Of Tides and The Fisher King crossing the Bridge To Terabithia, this fairy tale for grown-ups overcomes its obvious execution with a fantastic cast. Aaron Eckhart (No Reservations) plays a shrink who secures a job with the head of a mental institution (William Hurt) to solve a personal mystery involving a late, great writer (Nick Nolte). Jessica Lange, Vera Farmiga, Michael Moriarty and Alan Cumming — all in supporting roles — almost overstuff the drama, making it difficult to focus on any one story thread. However, it is obvious that writer-director Joshua Michael Stern, making his debut as a director here, really has a passion for storytelling and magical worlds like Narnia, and his cast — especially Brittany Murphy (as an old friend of Eckhart’s) and McKellen (as a delusional mental patient) — throw their hearts fully into Stern’s loving ruse. –Elizabeth Meyer

THE HOST [R]
The coolest giant monster movie since Godzilla hit the screen 50 years ago comes from South Korea, a nifty little low budget number about a river dweller mutated by chemical pollution.

NOMAD: THE WARRIOR [R]
While Borat made buffoons of Kazakhstanis, Sergei Bodrov’s action-packed epic makes heroes of them, as a young man fulfills his destiny to unite three warring tribes.

THE NUMBER 23 [R]
Jim Carrey plays a guy who becomes obsessed with the number 23 in Joel Schumacher’s convincing psycho-thriller.

SLOW BURN [R]
Ray Liotta stars as an aspiring politician who gets mixed up with the pretty (and dangerous) Jolene Blalock in this uninspired clone of The Usual Suspects.

ZODIAC [R]
Panic Room director David Fincher makes easy work of Robert Graysmith’s books about the infamous and enigmatic serial killer in San Francisco in the ’60s and ’70s.

[10] THE CONTRACTOR [10]
[9] DEAD SILENCE [9]
[8] NORBIT [8]
[7] BREACH [7]
[6] BRIDGE TO TERABITHIA [6]
[5] BLACK SNAKE MOAN [5]
[4] GHOST RIDER [4]
[3] THE ASTRONAUT FARMER [3]
[2] THE LAST MIMZY [2]
[1] SHOOTER [1]

Source: Video Business

HAIRSPRAY
Starring Nikki Blonsky, Zac Efron and John Travolta; Written by Leslie Dixon; Based on the screenplay by John Waters; Music and lyrics by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman; Directed by Adam Shankman; 117 minutes; Rated PG [for language, some suggestive content and momentary teen smoking]

From the very first scene, newcomer Nikki Blonsky, as pudgy teen Tracy Turnblad, beams with the kind of smile-bringing energy that this adaptation of the Tony-winning 2002 Broadway musical trades on throughout. Sure, the movie is an adaptation of a show adapted from a movie, but the result has actually purified its entertainment value, as this is one super-fun trip back in time.

Set in Baltimore in 1962, the movie tells the story of Tracy as she realizes her dream of dancing on “The Corny Collins Show,” a local version of “American Bandstand.” Tracy is initially treated with disdain for not conforming to the slender and leggy image of the American teenage girl, but soon wins over her peers and her audience with her constant sunshine. She discovers a far more serious injustice, though — that all the black kids who want to dance on the show have to do so on the once-monthly “Negro Day.”

Indie vanguard John Waters, who once tested the boundaries of bad taste with infamous flicks like Desperate Living and Pink Flamingos, proved that he could adapt his style when studio New Line released his family-friendly non-musical Hairspray in 1988. The movie, while lighthearted and kitschy, was lacking something, as it occasionally relied too much on good cheer to propel it from scene to scene. When it was retooled for Broadway, the spackle that filled those gaps was the songs by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman. Their precise and carefully crafted numbers were not only a loving tribute to the catchy, Brill Building sound that characterized JFK-era American pop music, but also infused the story with a more urgent drive. Director Adam Shankman (Bringing Down The House), anticipating the pitfalls of a translation like this, has amped things up by putting even more dancing in the movie than was seen on stage. This kinetic bent never lets things get stale, helping the music and the characters shine through in every scene.

The biggest character, of course — theatrically and girdle-wise — is John Travolta’s Edna Turnblad, Tracy’s size 60 mother. While he is all woman (under 30 pounds of padding and an accent that sounds like Carol Channing by way of Dr. Evil), others carry the film. The lovely Blonsky, who was scooping ice cream at a Cold Stone Creamery before she was cast, is the most delightful of the bunch, followed closely by Amanda Bynes (She’s The Man) as the perpetually punished Penny Pingleton, Tracy’s best friend. Bynes’s innate comedic skills serve her well. The keen casting continues with Allison Janney (”The West Wing”) as Penny’s fundamentalist mother, Christopher Walken as Tracy’s jokester father, Wilbur, and Michelle Pfeiffer as the TV station’s shallow, racist programming director Velma von Tussle. And it doesn’t end there. James Marsden (X-Men) is the perfect Corny, and the dreamy Zac Efron takes two steps up from Disney’s High School Musical, smartly channeling Elvis Presley and Conrad Birdie as the dreamy Link Larkin. Queen Latifah (Last Holiday), as radically regal Motor Mouth Maybelle, makes a great counterbalance to all the innocence, boasting the best musical number in the whole film, the gospel-inspired showstopper, “I Know Where I’ve Been.”

Even with the entire male demographic excised, this is the kind of movie that has, well…legs to carry it well beyond the end of the summer season. It is sweet and punchy cute with the kind of positive messages that movies seldom risk offering. It is the type of pure summer refreshment that anyone can bring their mom or their grandmother to see without fear of offending or boring them (even though the fear of needing an usher to help pry tired feet from the sticky floor still remains).•••

SUNSHINE [R]

How does that famous movie tag line go again? “In space, no one can hear you let out a disappointed sigh when the third act of an otherwise great science fiction film plays out in an embarrassingly trite manner?” Or something like that.

First off, let us define “science fiction.” Sorry to say, Jed-Heads, that the Holy Trilogy you have been worshiping since Star Wars dazzled your young imagination in 1977 is not science fiction, at least according the the purists (it is fantasy that takes place a long time ago). Sci-fi is speculative fiction based on current technology and trends, in which case, 28 Days Later creator Danny Boyle’s latest qualifies. In the film, which is set 50 years in the future, the crew of the deep space vessel Icarus II must deliver an explosive payload to our dying sun to re-ignite it (take that, Al Gore). Naturally, unfortunate obstacles challenge the crew and threaten the mission. This grand suspension of disbelief is where Boyle succeeds wildly.

The set-up and the build are masterful. Boyle gets us to believe everything, even if we don’t fully understand the mechanics of it (it is slightly more complicated than bringing a giant set of jumper cables). The production design by Mark Tildesley (Code 46) is gorgeous and completely natural, and Boyle’s cast is superb, from slightly creepy pretty boy Cillian Murphy (Red Eye) as the ship’s pragmatic physicist (and Earth’s biggest hope) to Malaysian beauty Michelle Yeoh (Memoirs of a Geisha) as its overemotional botanist. Swarthy Kiwi Cliff Curtis (Live Free Or Die Hard) is great as the muscle, but it is Sudbury’s own Chris Evans who really stands out. Unlike movies like Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, in which he just wears a costume and recites lines, he shows off his chops again, like he did in the addiction drama London. Characters prove their mettle through action, and Evans gets to prove the most here. Actually, it is through the crew of Icarus II that Boyle and frequent collaborator Alex Garland add so much believable detail and prove themselves. Everybody on the ship does something essential to the long journey, and we can easily see how they live, interact and conflict.

Then comes the climactic third act, where things go badly for the crew…and for us. This is where Boyle stumbles, with a polar shift in tone that betrays all the hard work he has done until then. The smart and meticulously crafted scenario he spun becomes half forgotten amid the noise and haste when the action devolves into a grating Shining in space no better than the clunky Event Horizon. Anyone who saw the first Star Trek movie (or even the wan Lost In Space) knows generally what kind of Citizen Kane-like irony awaits the crew when they finally find the presumably lost Icarus I.

Still, it is not a total loss. If Boyle continues exploring the “what if” in movies like this and 28 Days Later, he will find that balance between character, story and technology to make the kind of science fiction movie that converts the dismissive viewer who lumps all sci-fi in with laser guns, giant robots and big-heads in shiny suits.•••

Sunshine opens on July 27th. Read our interview with director Danny Boyle in next week’s issue.

LA VIE EN ROSE (EMI Classics, $18.98 SRP)
Legendary French torch singer Edith Piaf comes to tragic life in this beautifully remastered collection of The Sparrow’s hits, making up the soundtrack to Olivier Dahan’s biopic. While the eleven tracks here are by no means comprehensive, songs like “L’Hymne à L’Amour (The Hymn of Love),” “Rien de Rien (Nothing of Nothing)” and “Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien (No, I Do Not Regret Anything)” very fairly represent this Gallic Garland’s style and flair, with the occasional comic accent breaking up the epic gloom. (It is an énigme des âges why only the English version of “La Vie En Rose” is included here.) The value of this disc to the soundtrack collector is threefold, as Christopher Gunning’s suitably lush and moody orchestral score is included, too, with four Piaf interpretations (three of them by gifted mimic Jil Aigrot) added to the mix, as well. An essential disc for the cultured film fan. –Elizabeth Meyer

La Vie En Rose opens at the Ciné Art at Showcase North on Friday, July 20th.

YIPPIE FOR HOLLYWOOD!
‘West Wing’ creator pens Chicago 7 script for Spielberg
by Robert Newton

This week, Hollywood studio DreamWorks SKG (the “S” standing for Spielberg) announced a three-picture deal with “The West Wing” creator Aaron Sorkin, in which the Emmy-winning writer will pen three scripts. The only one of the three that was officially announced is The Trial of the Chicago 7, about the trial of the seven defendants (originally eight) Vietnam War protesters charged with conspiracy, inciting to riot and other charges related to violent protests that took place in Chicago during the 1968 Democratic National Convention. After Black Panther Party activist Bobby Seale was given his own trial, the remaining seven defendants indicted on March 20, 1969 were David Dellinger et al — Jerry Rubin, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, John Froines, Lee Weiner and Worcester’s own Yippie mastermind Abbie Hoffman.

“It’s really befuddling how so many people seem to be doing a project on The Chicago Seven,” notes Hoffman’s brother, Jack, pointing out the increased interest by mentioning the documentary Chicago 10, which played at Sundance this year.

While all seven defendants were found not guilty of conspiracy — “Most of the indicted hardly knew each other and could never even agree where to have lunch, let alone fashion a conspiracy,” says Hoffman — five were convicted of crossing state lines with the intent of inciting a riot. Each of those five (with Froines and Weiner having been completely acquitted) were sentenced for five years in prison and fined $5,000, with the convictions reversed in 1972 in appeals court.

As much of a circus as the trial was — Seale was bound and gagged and the irreverent Abbie suggested to the judge that he try LSD — it was an important one.

“It was one of the most important trials of the 20th century,” Jack Hoffman says, “second only to the Sacco and Vanzetti trial. It was certainly more political than Sacco and Vanzetti, which was more racist and prejudicial.”

While Abbie, whose life was dramatized in the 2000 biopic, Steal This Movie, died by his own hand in 1989, his spirit carries on, with docutribe filmmaker Michael Moore bearing his mischievous but socially conscious torch as of late.

“Moore’s [unauthorized] trip to Cuba while making Sicko was for publicity’s sake, and he knew he’d get in trouble for it,” Hoffman opines. “It was an Abbie trick all the way, and it was terrific.”•••

Sebastian Junger’s book The Perfect Storm, about doomed Gloucester fishermen, became a best seller in 1997, a hit movie in 2000 and now, in 2007, an official part of the language. “Perfect storm,” meaning “a critical or disastrous situation created by a powerful concurrence of factors,” joins other movie-related words like “Bollywood” (regarding the prolific Indian movie industry) and “DVR” (an acronym for any Tivo-like “digital video recorder”) and roughly 100 other neologisms of all sorts in the ginormous 11th edition of the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate® Dictionary, in bookstores this fall.

“People make up words in a number of ways,” said John Morse, president and publisher of Merriam-Webster Inc., from the company’s headquarters in Springfield, Mass. this week. “Perhaps the most popular method is to blend two already-existing words to form a new one-like combining ‘gigantic’ and ‘enormous’ to make ‘ginormous.’ We’d been monitoring the written evidence of the word for some time, and the result of the 2005 survey was further proof that ginormous was becoming a serious candidate for entry in the dictionary.”

Some other non-movie words that made the cut for this edition are “telenovela” (a brain-killing soap opera produced in and televised in or from many Latin-American countries, omnipresent across network WUNI), “sudoku” (a time-killing Japanese number puzzle, omnipresent across subways and commuter rail lines) and “IED” (an acronym for “improvised explosive device,” a soldier-killing roadside hazard which is, tragically, omnipresent all across Iraq).

For a sampling of Merriam-Webster’s latest dictionary entries and their definitions, visit their invaluable word resource website at www.Merriam-Webster.com.•••