Tag Archives: Rain Phoenix

Brad reviews HITCH (2005), starring Will Smith and Kevin James!

Posted on by Bradley Crain

I guess you can call this the holiday season of love for me, as I turn my attention today toward the 2005 romantic comedy HITCH. Will Smith stars as Alex “Hitch” Hitchens, a somewhat legendary and highly discreet consultant based in New York City. His specialty… helping less than perfect, even slightly awkward, men win the hearts of beautiful women. His methods are very effective, but he only works with men who are genuinely in love and not just chasing a one-night stand. His latest lovelorn client, the sweet and clumsy tax accountant Albert Brennaman (Kevin James), is smitten with a famous heiress named Allegra Cole (Amber Valletta), a client of the tax firm he works for. As Hitch works his magic for Albert, he also meets the cynical, but extremely beautiful tabloid journalist Sara Melas (Eva Mendes). Hitch finds himself falling for Sara at the same time that she’s on the trail of an urban myth of a “Date Doctor,” mistakenly believing that he is exploiting the emotions of women in the city for his own personal gain. When Sara and Amber discover who Hitch really is, will the guys’ true love win the day, or will the ladies believe it was all just a sleazy, manipulative setup?

HITCH is one of my favorite romantic comedies, and I watch it every year, usually multiple times. I’m a romantic at heart, and I really enjoy a film that plays with the idea of characters who truly care about, and respect, each other. This dynamic plays out through several different relationships. My favorite is the genuine friendship that develops between Hitch and Albert Brennamen. Hitch recognizes the sincere feelings that Albert has for Allegra, and he then goes all in to help him win her heart. While Will Smith is effortlessly charming and in peak movie star form, unsurprisingly, the character I identify the most with is Kevin James as Albert. His character is so sweet and earnest in his pursuit of Allegra that you just can’t help but pull for him. Balance that part of his character with James’ excellent physical comedy, whether it be his natural clumsiness or his unfounded confidence in his dance moves, and James gives the performance that takes this movie over the top for me. When teaching Albert the dance moves that he should stick with when he’s out on a date with Allegra, Hitch utters the line, “Don’t you bite your lip. Stop it!” It was that moment when I realized that, like Albert, I never dance without biting my own lip!

While the fraternal love between Hitch and Albert is my favorite relationship in the film, I also like the romantic relationship that develops between Hitch and Sara. I appreciate the way both characters step out of their comfort zones and risk their own hearts for each other. This is not easy for either of them, as Hitch’s charm and confidence actually masks deep insecurities based on his past relationships. Sara, on the other hand, has allowed herself to become very cynical towards all men, building walls so tall that no man can climb them. The fact that they truly open themselves up to each other, even if there are some serious complications along the way, gave me a strong rooting interest in their happiness.

The last performance I wanted to highlight in HITCH is that of Jeffrey Donovan, who plays sleazy narcissist Vance Munson. Munson tries to hire Hitch to help him get a vulnerable woman into bed, and in a moment of pure audience satisfaction, he pays the price for his disrespect. About the time I watched HITCH, Donovan was starring in a T.V. series that I really enjoyed called BURN NOTICE. I’m a big fan of Donovan, and he’s perfect here as a man you love to hate. In a movie full of likable characters, Vance Munson was a needed counterpoint, and his A-hole character really stands out.

No movie is perfect, but if you’re in the mood for something that’s lighthearted, funny, and makes you want to fall in love, then HITCH is about as close as it gets.

Film Review: To Die For (dir by Gus Van Sant)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1995 satire, To Die For, is a very clever film about some seriously stupid people.

Of course, you could debate whether or not Suzanne Stone-Maretto (Nicole Kidman) is actually dumb or not.  Suzanne may not know much about anything that isn’t on TV but she does have a natural understanding for what makes a good story.  She knows exactly the type of story that the public wants to hear and she does a good job of faking all of the right emotions.  As she proves throughout the course of the film, she’s also very good at convincing people to do stuff.  Whether it’s convincing the local television station to put her on the air as a weather person or convincing two teenagers to murder her husband, Suzanne always seems to get what she wants.

Of course, what Suzanne really wants is to be a celebrity.  She wants to be a star.  As she explains it, that’s the greatest thing about America.  Anyone can become a star if they just try hard enough and find the right angle.  If the film were made today, Suzanne would be a social media junkie.  Since the movie was made in 1995, she has to settle for talk shows and murder.

So maybe Suzanne isn’t that dumb but her husband, Larry (Matt Dillon) …. well, if we’re going to be honest, Larry’s more naive than dumb.  He’s the favored son of a big Italian family and it’s obviously never occurred to him that a woman would possibly want something more than just a husband and a lot of children.  He thinks it’s cute that Suzanne’s on TV but he’s also fully convinced that she’s going to eventually settle down and focus on starting a family.  It never occurs to him that his wife would be willing to sacrifice him on her way to stardom.

Of course, if you really want to talk about dumb, just check out the teenagers who Suzanne recruits to kill her husband.  They’ve been appearing in a documentary that Suzanne’s been shooting.  The documentary’s title is “Teens Speak Out,” which is something of an ironic title since none of the teens that Suzanne interviews really has anything to say.  Lydia (Allison Folland) is just happy that the “glamorous” Suzanne is pretending to care about her.  Russell (Casey Affleck) is the type of grinning perv who drops a pen just so he can try to get a peek up Suzanne’s skirt while he’s on the floor retrieving it.  And then there’s Jimmy (Joaquin Phoenix), with his flat voice and his blank stare.  Jimmy is briefly Suzanne’s lover before he ends up in prison for murdering her husband.  It doesn’t take much to convince Jimmy to commit murder, either.  Apparently, all you have to do is dance to Lynard Skynard while it’s raining outside.  Media interviews with Lydia, Jimmy, Suzanne, and Larry’s sister (Ileana Douglas) are sprinkled throughout the film and Jimmy continues to insist that he will always love Suzanne.

As for Suzanne, she’s got stardom to worry about….

Though the subject matter is a bit familiar and the film, made before the age of Twitter and Instagram, is a bit dated, To Die For‘s satire still carries a powerful bite.  One need only watch A&E or the Crime and Investigation network to see that Suzanne was absolutely correct when she decided that killing her husband would make her a star.  If To Die For were made today, you could easily imagine Suzanne leveraging her infamy into an appearance on Dancing With The Stars and maybe Celebrity Big Brother.  At the very least. she could get her own house hunting show on HGTV.  Delivering her often sociopathic dialogue with a perky smile and a positive attitude, Nicole Kidman is absolutely chilling as Suzanne.  Meanwhile, Joaquin Phoenix’s blank stare will continue to haunt you long after the film ends.

And speaking of endings, To Die For has a great one.  You’ll never hear Season of the Witch the same way again!

Cleaning Out The DVR: O (dir by Tim Blake Nelson)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

(Lisa is currently in the process of cleaning out her DVR!  This could take a while.  She recorded the 2001 high school film O off of Cinemax on July 6th.)

Tell me if this sounds familiar.

O (Mekhi Phifer) is one of the only black students attending an exclusive high school in South Carolina.  Despite a past that involves petty crime and drugs, O appears to have his life on the right track.  As the captain of school’s basketball team, O is the most popular student at his school.  Everyone looks up to him.  Everyone wants to be him.  He’s even dating Desi (Julia Stiles), the very white daughter of the school’s very white headmaster (John Heard).  At a school assembly, Coach Duke Goulding (Martin Sheen) describes O as being like a son to him.  When O is awarded the MVP trophy, he shares it with his teammate, Michael Cassio (Andrew Keegan).

Watching all of this with seething jealousy is Hugo Gaumont (Josh Hartnett).  Hugo is a teammate of O’s.  In fact, he even thought that he was O’s best friend.  That was before O shared his award with Michael.  Making Hugo even more jealous is that he happens to be the son of the coach.  For every kind word that Duke has for O, he has a hundred petty criticisms for Hugo.  Whereas O has overcome drug addiction and is proclaimed as a hero for doing so, Hugo is secretly doing steroids, trying to do anything to improve himself as a player and hopefully win everyone’s love.

So, Hugo decides to get revenge.  Working with a nerdy outcast named Roger Calhoun (Elden Hansen), he manipulates O into thinking that Desi is cheating on him with Cassio.  He also tricks Cassio into getting into a fight with Roger, leading to Cassio getting suspended from the team.  To top it all off, Hugo gets O hooked on drugs, once again.  Finding himself consumed by a violent rage that he thought he had under control, O starts to obsess on determining whether or not Desi has been faithful to him…

If that sounds familiar, that’s because O is basically Othello, transported to modern times and involving privileged teenagers.  Even though the whole modernized Shakespeare thing has become a bit of a cliché, it actually works pretty well in O.  Hugo’s obsessive jealousy of the “cool kids” feels right at home in a high school setting and director Tim Blake Nelson and writer Brad Kaaya do a fairly good job of transporting Shakespeare’s Elizabethan melodrama to the early aughts.

(Actually, O was filmed in 1999 but it sat on the shelf for two years.  After a spate of school shootings, distributors were weary about releasing a film about high school students trying to destroy each other.)

Admittedly, O has its share of uneven moments.  Martin Sheen, playing the type of role that always seems to bring out his worst instincts as an actor, goes so overboard as the coach that he threatens to sink almost every scene in which he appears and Rain Phoenix is miscast as Hugo’s girlfriend.  Even Julia Stiles struggles a bit in the role of Desi.  However, both Mekhi Phifer and Josh Hartnett are perfectly cast as O and Hugo.  Phifer brings just the right amount of arrogant swagger to the role while Hartnett is a sociopathic marvel as Hugo.  Tim Blake Nelson’s direction is occasionally overwrought, relying a bit too heavily on a groan-inducing metaphor about taking flight and claiming the spotlight.  However, both Nelson and the film deserve some credit for not shying away from directly confronting and portraying the source material’s cultural and racial subtext.

O is hardly perfect but it is always watchable and, at its best, thought-provoking.