Movie review by Greg Carlson

Shrewdly, Saturday Night Live head writer and Weekend Update anchor Tina Fey insisted on adapting Rosalind Wiseman’s non-fiction book “Queen Bees and Wannabes” without a phalanx of more “seasoned” screenwriters to offer their guidance and support via unnecessary rewrites, deletions, and additions.  Scripts by committee often yield disastrous results, and while Fey doesn’t have a feature film track record, her solo writing proves to be consistently sharper, funnier, and more intelligent than virtually everything else that is supposed to pass for comedy at the multiplex.  With “Mean Girls,” it is immediately clear that she will be invited to write more movies.

While “Mean Girls” never erupts with the kind of vicious satirical edge that made its psychological predecessor “Heathers” one of the greatest teen movies ever made, it still manages to outpace all the other recent films aimed at the youth market.  This is not to say that “Mean Girls” lacks chops in the social commentary department – on the contrary, its observations on the cruel high school caste system are nearly always astounding in their authenticity and acute in their familiarity.

Lindsay Lohan, directed once again by “Freaky Friday” helmer Mark Waters, plays Cady, a smart home-schooler whose researcher parents raised her mostly in Africa.  After relocating to the Chicago area, Cady is eager to try out the public school system, but learns immediately that everyone is divided into cliques of varying power and popularity.  Just when she seems poised to give up, Cady is adopted by a pair of colorful, interesting, outcasts.  Janis (Lizzy Caplan, calling to mind a young Janeane Garofalo) and Damian (Daniel Franzese) provide Cady with a brand new education: the finer points of the school’s social pecking order.

The most potent and poisonous crew in the student body, dubbed the Plastics, is a terrible trio accomplished in the art of backstabbing, manipulation, and mind games.  Leader Regina (Rachel McAdams) parcels out her favors and insults in equal measure to fawning subordinates Gretchen (Lacey Chabert) and Karen (Amanda Seyfried).  Urged by Janis to infiltrate the shrill tribunal in order to set up sweet revenge for a junior-high-era falling out that severed the one-time friendship between Janis and Regina, Cady finds herself not only welcomed into the Plastics’ inner circle – she discovers that it is a pretty good place to be.

Fortunately, the remainder of “Mean Girls” takes almost all the right turns, and the presence of Fey (as a weary math teacher), as well as other SNL associates like Tim Meadows, Amy Poehler, and Ana Gasteyer, assists the delivery of the keen dialogue.  Lohan is well-cast as the central character, and the other actors in the teen roles turn in impressive performances.  Peripheral “mathlete” Kevin Gnapoor (Rajiv Surendra) is so funny in his scenes, one wishes he had been given a much bigger part to play.  The movie breaks a little sweat trying to push the theme that teenagers should be nicer to one another (not likely to happen), but one can hardly blame Fey for giving it a shot; her quirky, detailed observances are savvy, skillful, and so on the mark that she deserves a little time to get serious.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

It is too darn bad that “13 Going on 30” didn’t explore the meatier psychological dimensions of making a leap from gawky teenager to older high-fashion hottie in the blink of an eye. Body switching comedies have run the gamut from graceless (“Like Father, Like Son”) to great (“Big”), but the central tenets of the genre – including the mantra that you should always be happy to just be yourself (yawn) – are worn-out shoe leather. It certainly helps this time that the footwear belongs to frolicsome Jennifer Garner, but the odor emanating from “13 Going on 30” will remind most audience members of smelly gym sneakers.

In 1987, teenager Jenna Rink (Christa B. Allen) dreams of infiltrating the most popular clique of girls at her school and gaining their friendship and acceptance. Naturally, this will mean compromising her own ethical values (writing homework reports for the snotty crew) and alienating her closest, true-blue pal Matt (Sean Marquette), the boy next door who loves Jenna with the sort of devotion one typically doesn’t see in thirteen-year-olds. When her birthday party blows up in her face during a cruel game of “seven minutes in heaven,” Jenna wishes away her childhood, and with the assistance of some magic dust (don’t ask), finds herself all grown up and inhabiting the bod of lithe Garner.

Most body switch flicks spend generous amounts of time wringing comic mileage out of grown-up actors pretending to be kids (or vice versa, if Judge Reinhold will pardon the pun), but “13 Going on 30” is almost weirdly content to let Garner settle into the clunky machinery of the plot without so much as a trip to FAO Schwarz. Thankfully, director Gary Winick includes at least one amusing set-piece, and the office dance party that goes from deadly dull to deliciously fun (courtesy of the choreography from Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video) stands as one of the few moments not devoted to some frightfully lifeless nonsense about redesigning the magazine where the suddenly-grown up Jenna works.

The older version of Matt is played by Mark Ruffalo, whose effortless charm goes a long way to making the movie bearable. Sure, it’s a little weird, and possibly a tad creepy, that Ruffalo’s 30-year-old Matt ends up romantically involved with Jenna – who maintains her 13-year-old persona even though she has grown-up curves. Far too much of “13 Going on 30” relies on the familiar obstacles that get in the way of true love: Matt is engaged to another woman, and the adult version of Lucy (the leader of the popular girls that ruined Jenna’s birthday bash), now Jenna’s pal and co-worker, is quick to sabotage Jenna’s best efforts to become a good person.

Screenwriters should be banned from writing any more movies that include scenes where a character is literally decked out in tux or gown before realizing that he or she is getting hitched to the wrong person or for the wrong reason. Cathy Yuspa and Josh Goldsmith, the scribes who cribbed anything resembling good stuff from “Big,” are guilty of this and many, many other narrative misdeeds throughout the course of “13 Going on 30.” At least the tunes – which include early to mid-80s classics like “Burning Down the House,” Jessie’s Girl,” “Crazy for You,” and “Love is a Battlefield” – are memorable, even if the film conveniently sidesteps using any major stuff actually released in 1987.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Upon completion of Quentin Tarantino’s sprawling “Kill Bill” epic, the initial reaction is that the severed halves should most certainly be stitched back together for maximum impact. “Kill Bill: Vol. 2” sets out to do several things QT purposefully absented from the first outing, and while he manages to succeed (often against the odds – no matter what his ardent fans argue), the movie only holds up if you have seen the first part. Because the intention was to make one film all along, it is difficult to criticize “Volume 2” on the grounds of its tone and story alone.

While “Volume 1” skirted cinema’s heavenly firmament in its colorful blending of samurai sword-crossers and yakuza yarns, “Volume 2” aligns itself primarily with the dusty trails of Sergio Leone’s turf. Like the first outing, “Volume 2” is structured in such a way that allows side trips and diversions, and the best of these concerns a flashback dealing with the Bride’s martial arts training under the painful tutelage of Pai Mei (Gordon Liu), a spry master with godlike powers. Tarantino provides a legitimate reason for the inclusion of the Pai Mei scenes, as the Bride’s intense schooling ends up saving her life (not once but twice).

The Bride continues her “roaring rampage of revenge” against the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, but along the way, Tarantino makes more than enough room for loquacious stretches of indulgent dialogue that simultaneously grind the film to a snail’s pace and delight viewers with their cleverness. David Carradine’s Bill, who spent nearly all of “Volume 1” waiting in the wings, makes up for lost time with several speeches of faux-prudence and contemplation. As windy as the bamboo flute he plays to accompany his tales, Bill emerges as an enigma: for all his talk, he reveals very little.

Because “Kill Bill” is structured as a revenge saga, much of its time is reserved for the wicked obstacles personified by Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah, seen in “Volume 1” as the ghoulish nurse who whistles the “Twisted Nerve” theme) and Budd (Michael Madsen), the remaining members of Bill’s death squad. The sequences concerning Budd are among the movie’s most puzzling: why would a retired, world-class assassin work in a pathetic strip bar out in the boondocks, suffering verbal abuse from his boss and mopping out backed-up toilets? Budd’s choice of locale sets the stage for a bone-crunching showdown in his dilapidated trailer home, and while the trashy setting was used to greater comic effect in the battle between John Goodman and Nicolas Cage in “Raising Arizona,” Tarantino clearly relishes watching his combatants bust through flimsy walls and crash down on cheap furniture.

By the end of “Volume 2,” the Bride’s name has been revealed (although Tarantino opts to eschew the inclusion of another flashback to thoroughly explicate the backstory), and the movie’s final scenes come full circle, mirroring the thematic underpinnings of the Vernita Green showdown at the beginning of “Volume 1.” Uma Thurman, whose physical poise and self-assurance in “Volume 1” is matched by emotional resonance in “Volume 2,” injects no small amount of verisimilitude into the more far-fetched elements of her character’s predicament. Tarantino probably overstates his case on the nature of motherhood, at least insofar as it receives superficial treatment until the endgame, but there is no denying that as a dimension of the story, it makes the whole “Kill Bill” universe a pretty interesting place to visit.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

A rip-off of “Risky Business,” one of teensploitation’s benchmarks, Luke Greenfield’s “The Girl Next Door” is a numb, queasy disaster. A comedy without any jokes, the film limps along interminably without ever disclosing anything interesting about the mannequins that are meant to be its primary characters. While the premise – high-school goody two-shoes falls for ex-porn actress house-sitting next door – has the makings of an interesting tale (imagine what Leos Carax, Francois Ozon, or heck, even Michel Gondry might have been able to do with it) nothing in the movie offers even the tiniest glimmer of intellect or emotion.

Pleasantly elfin Emile Hirsch plays the overachieving Matthew Kidman, a sexually frustrated (is there any other kind in movieland?) rule-follower with designs on both a major Georgetown scholarship and a future as a politician. Matt’s wildest fantasy appears to bear fruit when he window-peeps sexy Danielle (Elisha Cuthbert) undressing, and she catches him in the act. Danielle promptly rings Matt’s doorbell, introduces herself to his folks, and the next thing you know, she and Matt are cruising around in her adorable Volkswagen Beetle convertible. Because “The Girl Next Door” is supposed to be a teen-comedy, Danielle talks Matt into taking off his clothes and running through the neighborhood in his birthday suit. This was comical when Will Ferrell did it in “Old School.” It is not so funny this time.

Danielle and Matt begin an improbable courtship, and director Greenfield botches and mishandles nearly all of the expository scenes. Introducing the motif that Matt is prone to daydreaming and fantasizing, Greenfield fails to clearly distinguish between reality and fantasy – often leaving the audience wondering whether a particular event has taken place or has merely been imagined by Matt. This frustrating technique is compounded by the script’s essential deficiency: there is no good reason why Danielle would hook up with Matt so quickly (at one point, she rather weakly explains that she liked the way Matt looked at her). Rather than allow the two characters to share any meaningful dialogue, the movie is quite content to lob one pop-song-scored montage after another, perhaps assuming that maybe the target demographic won’t notice that Danielle and Matt don’t behave like real human beings.

Seemingly forever in search of a balance between titillating glimpses into the “glamorous” world of adult entertainment and a teenage male fantasy about rescuing a gorgeous starlet from her abusive past, “The Girl Next Door” has absolutely no idea what to do with its title character, and Cuthbert gets completely lost in the shuffle. One minute, she is a self-assured, been-around-the-block veteran who knows how to take charge of every situation. The next minute, she is an insecure victim of poor choices, essentially pimped by her “manager” (Timothy Olyphant, nearly reprising his role in “Go”). Sometimes, when the machinery of the plot is grinding toward some peak, she is entirely ignored.

“The Girl Next Door” is so inconsequential, it’s difficult to argue that it is even worthy of criticism. Still, the insensitive screenplay by Stuart Blumberg, David T. Wagner, and Brent Goldberg seems almost delighted to flirt with racism (in an unfortunate and unnecessary subplot involving a fundraiser for a Cambodian math whiz), homophobia, and sexism. Utterly stupid, ugly, and dispensable, “The Girl Next Door” causes one to long for the wit, charm, and warmth of “Risky Business.” And as far as eroticism goes, “The Girl Next Door” does not begin to approach Tom Cruise, Rebecca De Mornay, and a nearly empty train car.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

“Walking Tall,” director Kevin Bray’s remake of the popular 1973 film of the same name, is not likely to be nominated for any Academy Awards, but then it is doubtful that the filmmakers were thinking like Harvey Weinstein when the cameras were rolling.  Former pro-wrestler The Rock plays Chris Vaughn, a Special Forces veteran who returns home to the Pacific Northwest (British Columbia stands in for Washington) just in time to discover that his idyllic childhood community has been transformed into a nightmarish wasteland of drug abuse and economic hardship.

The original movie, which starred cult favorite Joe Don Baker as Sheriff Buford Pusser (the Tennessee lawman whose real-life exploits formed the basis of the story), evolved into something like a franchise, with a pair of sequels (Baker bowed out and was replaced by Bo Svenson), a short-lived “Walking Tall” TV series (also starring Svenson), and a television movie with Brian Dennehy.  Someone apparently balked at the notion of The Rock playing someone with the decidedly un-Rocklike handle Buford Pusser, which is a shame if only because it would have been amusing to see the hulking powerhouse answer to the moniker.

While The Rock continues to prove that he is genuinely charismatic and can easily hold his own on the big screen, “Walking Tall” is a great deal less intelligent than its leading man.  Director Bray chugs through the all-important fight and action scenes with workmanlike skill, but anything that requires subtlety or sensitivity ends up being hammered home like it was mere fodder for Vaughn’s massive cedar club.  Audiences will do well to stifle their laughter when they witness the ham-handed shots of young addicts leaving their babies unattended in order to score drugs (that this occurs in broad daylight, on streets bustling with activity, not only calls for The Rock’s trademark eyebrow-raise, it insists on ridicule from the audience).

Vaughn quickly reckons that his one-time buddy Jay Hamilton Jr. (Neal McDonough), now a sleazy, peroxide-drenched scoundrel, is behind the town’s downfall.  Hamilton sold the family mill – depriving folks like Vaughn’s hardworking father of employment – and opened an adult-themed casino in its place.  Even worse, Hamilton is peddling all sorts of illicit drugs to mere children, who have the audacity to smoke pot in public parks.  After consulting his goofball ex-con chum Ray (Johnny Knoxville, having more fun than then script affords his character) to confirm Hamilton’s devilry, Vaughn busts up the casino and ends up defending himself in court for his hot-headed actions.

Bray jumps immediately from the legal proceedings to Vaughn’s new role as sheriff, but nothing outside of the choreographed brawls is valued by the shallow screenplay.  When Vaughn’s old flame Deni (Ashley Scott) shows up to rekindle their romance, one begins to wonder why she was included in the story at all.  This is too bad, because Scott delivers a decent performance, and because any kind of emotional investment in the characters would have surely made the movie less boring.  The same thing goes for Vaughn’s family, who fade into the background when they should have provided the demonstrative ballast for the main character’s unorthodox decision to “take matters into his own hands.”  The Rock remains tremendously watchable, however.  Maybe his next one will be better.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Remaking the 1955 Ealing gem of the same name, Joel and Ethan Coen transplant “The Ladykillers” to their own unique universe: an anachronistic pastiche of old and new, symbolically summarized in the glorious strains of traditional gospel and thumping hip-hop that play on the soundtrack. Similar in many ways to the ridiculously sublime Coen movies that exult in their off-center senses of humor at the expense of everything else, “The Ladykillers” is already being called a “minor” Coen film (whatever that exactly means). In any case, one’s enjoyment of “The Ladykillers” will almost certainly depend upon whether disbelief can be suspended enough to give Tom Hanks room to do his thing.

Hanks inhabits a bizarre criminal who goes by the name G.H. Dorr, Ph.D. Purporting to be a scholar of dead languages and Renaissance music, Dorr rents a room from devoted churchgoer and widow Marva Munson (Irma P. Hall) in order to set up a caper that requires tunneling through the walls of Munson’s root cellar in order to pilfer a large sum of cash from a nearby riverboat casino called the Bandit Queen. Predictably, one of the movie’s most satisfying running gags is the sight of Dorr and his motley crew scrambling to pick up their antique instruments whenever Munson descends into their basement practice space.

Dorr’s companions in crime appear to be anything but master thieves. Mustachioed demolitions expert and irritable bowel syndrome sufferer Garth Pancake (J.K. Simmons) is nearly as loquacious as Dorr, and his ostentatious manner ideally matches his khaki safari jacket. Pancake takes an immediate dislike to Gawain MacSam (Marlon Wayans), the “inside man” who nearly derails the plot when his fondness for the round posteriors of female casino guests gets him fired from the Bandit Queen’s custodial staff. The remaining two crooks are as quiet as Pancake and MacSam are gabby: The General (Tzi Ma) likely honed his skills digging tunnels in Vietnam, and Lump (Ryan Hurst) is a mountainous cretin rather used to taking a brutal beating on the gridiron.

While the storyline of “The Ladykillers” follows a predictable path, it becomes clear that the Coens are only interested in providing a platform on which to stage their verbal pyrotechnics. Like their best films, including the underrated “Miller’s Crossing” and “Barton Fink,” “The Ladykillers” is consistently stunning in its appreciation of weird diction and ornamental erudition. While Hanks, in his KFC-style Vandyke and layers of capes and topcoats, gets the showiest role, all of the actors adopt cadences and rhythms that are dazzling to hear. The Coens have never been shy about profanity, and it should be noted that “The Ladykillers” favors torrential outpourings of what Dorr would most likely call the harshest of imprecations and maledictions. Many will find the variety of foul tongues comic, others will think them coarse.

Visually, “The Ladykillers” returns to the meticulous compositional palette that defined much of the filmmakers’ early work. Longtime DP Roger Deakins bathes the movie in a golden glow that often serves as an ironic counterpoint to the gruesome activities that pile up in the final act (the God’s-eye view of the ever-present garbage barge is surely the film’s slyest, most satisfying motif). Several of the film’s other fanciful touches (including the “Sullivan’s Travels”-esque device of a portrait that changes its expression nearly every time it is shown) also contribute to the farcical tone. The final impact of the Coen brothers’ painstaking eccentricity – ideally realized in the tidy inevitability of the conclusion – pays off for fans like the slot machines on the Bandit Queen.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Even positioned as an early entry, “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” is destined to be one of the best films of the year. The second collaboration between Gallic music video genius Michel Gondry (whose unbelievable clips for the likes of Daft Punk, the Rolling Stones, Bjork and the White Stripes almost literally burst at the seams with creative elan) and eccentric screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (who has also penned “Being John Malkovich” and “Adaptation” as directorial vehicles for Gondry’s fellow music video virtuoso Spike Jonze), “Sunshine” is a mind-bending tour-de-force of writing, directing, and acting that is both for and about the contents of one’s cranium.

While it resembles Kaufman’s other scripts in its concern for dexterous jumps in space and time as well as its preoccupation with mental interiority, “Sunshine” is far and away the most fully realized of the screenwriter’s filmed stories. While “Malkovich” hinted, often sardonically and skeptically, at the ruinous effects of misguided lust and unrequited love, “Sunshine” contains at its core a sweetly optimistic philosophy of the need for love and affection. Its protagonists deal with the full gamut of roller-coaster highs and lows, from the thrilling, endorphin-fueled rush of first attraction to the bitter resentment of turning into the boring couple you once pitied.

Jim Carrey easily betters his serious-minded turn in “The Truman Show,” displaying incredible subtlety and emotional restraint against the apparent odds. Cast partially, smartly against type as Joel Barish, a reserved introvert, Carrey is provided ample opportunity to demonstrate his remarkable psychological elasticity. At the very beginning of the movie, Joel meets aggressive free-spirit Clementine (Kate Winslet, completely smashing) on a train platform, and the déjà vu that accompanies their flirtations proves spectacularly ripe with layered meaning as Gondry and Kaufman catapult the audience an entire year into the relationship by the time the opening credits appear.

Once balance is temporarily regained, the immediacy of Joel’s situation reveals itself: post breakup, Clementine has hired Dr. Howard Mierzwiak (Tom Wilkinson) to have Joel entirely erased from her memory. Mierzwiak is the proprietor of Lacuna Inc., a storefront clinic with dubious medical credentials implied hysterically via the on-the-job incompetence and unethical behavior of memory-sucking technicians Mark Ruffalo and Elijah Wood. Devastated by Clementine’s harsh act, Joel signs up to undergo the procedure too, so that he can obliterate Clem from his own gray matter. Midway through the process, Joel realizes that he has made a mistake, and his efforts to hold on to experiences he shared with his sweetheart comprise the bulwark of Kaufman and Gondry’s fascinating head trip.

With the aid of Ellen Kuras’ perfect cinematography, which at times shoots blinding beams directly at the characters like cosmic flashlights or prison-tower searchlights, Gondry represents the multiverse of the mind with perfectly integrated special effects, many of them delightfully old fashioned. That having one’s memory eradicated carries with it unknown risks turns out to be only one of the movie’s concerns. By the time Gondry is deep into the labyrinth of Joel’s complex of synapses, the tone has shifted just enough to allow the audience to understand that losing the memory of a heartbreak will not really fix anything – it’s the pain that reminds us that we once had something real. Joel and Clem, desperately trying to outsmart the machinations of Lacuna’s extinguisher, make one of the most romantic pairs in recent cinema. They are, in fact, unforgettable.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Like Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s stunning “Amores Perros,” “City of God” embraces a sensational cinematic style – a tour de force of editing and camerawork complete with dizzying 360-degree tracking shots, split screens, handheld cinematography, bullet-eye-ricochets, and non-chronological storytelling. These moviemaking pyrotechnics are well-suited to the subject matter, an adaptation of a popular novel by Paulo Lins that chronicles the bleak fate of the inhabitants of Cidade de Deus, a government-sponsored housing project in Rio de Janeiro. Narrated by Rocket (Alexandre Rodrigues), a kid who sees news photography as his only way out of the ghetto, “City of God” is as beautiful as it is harrowing.

Co-directors Fernando Meirelles  and Kátia Lund smartly cast nearly every role with a non-professional (many of whom live in Cidade de Deus), and the result is a lean authenticity that merges fact and fiction, myth and reality. Because so many of the movie’s characters are young men pretending to be something or someone they are not, the performances appear effortless. Rocket, whose sweet nature and desire to avoid becoming a hood position him as an ideal observer, takes the audience back to the beginnings of major criminal activity in his world, when his older brother and two friends (who form the “Tender Trio”) graduate from holding up propane trucks to robbing a brothel.

Also involved in the brothel stick-up is Li’l Dice (Douglas Silva), a younger tag-along who turns out to be incredibly dangerous – both to his “friends” and to anyone he perceives as standing in his way. “City of God” jumps around in time, and Li’l Dice grows up to become Li’l Ze (the older version of the character is played by Leandro Firmino da Hora), a full-blown psychopath ready to kill over the tiniest provocation. Only Ze’s closest friend Benny (Phellipe Haagensen), an easy-going and likable hippie-type, manages to keep the cold-blooded enforcer in check.

Benny quickly emerges as one of the movie’s most charismatic figures. It nearly breaks your heart that this smart, kind-hearted teenager is just as comfortable around handguns and cocaine as he is hanging out at the beach and cuddling with his gorgeous girlfriend. Benny’s fateful decision to try to leave Cidade de Deus culminates in one of the film’s most dazzling sequences: a giant, strobe-lit, farewell dance party so packed with volatility and emotion the tension borders on unbearable. Even Carl Douglas’ goofy disco anthem “Kung Fu Fighting” manages to take on grand, sinister overtones via the expert direction of Meirelles.

Despite its decidedly grim tableau, “City of God” succeeds in part because of its stark sense of humor (established quickly in the opening, chicken-on-the-loose sequence and continued via Rocket’s witty, self-deprecating observations). Frequently employed to alleviate the misery of watching gangs of roving, trigger-happy preteens kill each other without mercy, the movie’s comic voice becomes its optimistic heart – sorely needed as the body count rises. Meirelles and Lund, however, never let the audience forget that the consequences of street life are devastating and real. The film’s closing credits even feature a curtain call in which the actors are juxtaposed with photographs of the real people upon whom their characters are based.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Following several successful pairings, Owen Wilson and Ben Stiller strike out in the big-screen adaptation of “Starsky & Hutch,” a name-only version of the 70s police series.  Directed by Todd Phillips, “Starsky & Hutch” is long on period detail and short on humor – a deadly equation considering the insignificance of the buddy-cop parody genre.  Wilson and Stiller were hilarious against all odds in “Zoolander,” and their effortless comic riffing seemed ideally translatable to another cartoon confection.  All the other elements for a sure-fire movie appeared locked into place: Snoop Dogg as Huggy Bear, and additional support from Vince Vaughn and Will Ferrell.  Too bad none of it works.

Phillips stumbles and trips through the obligatory exposition of the mismatched partners: in a slight inversion of the original personalities of the characters inhabited by Paul Michael Glaser and David Soul (who show up in a jaw-droppingly lame cameo), David Starsky (Stiller) is the by-the-book straight arrow and Ken “Hutch” Hutchinson (Wilson) is the on-the-take rule-bender, happy to rob Chinese bookies and lift cash out of the wallets of floating corpses.  Assigned to an uneasy partnership by Captain Dobey (Fred Williamson, flabbergasted), Starsky and Hutch quickly find themselves on the trail of big-time cocaine dealer Reese Feldman (Vaughn).

Feldman has figured out how to manufacture an odorless, undetectable type of coke, and he is eager to unload the product to the underworld of Bay City.  “Starsky & Hutch” lurches from one dull scene to the next, setting up a series of tiresome undercover operations that allow Stiller and Wilson to dress up like Hopper and Fonda in “Easy Rider” and try on other pointless disguises in their pursuit of Feldman.  At some point, the boys hook up with foxy cheerleaders Holly (Amy Smart) and Stacey (Carmen Electra), but Phillips is far more interested in mining the homo-eroticism of Starsky and Hutch’s love-hate coupling, and the women are treated as if they are only getting in the way.

Along with his team of screenwriters, Phillips strains to find one funny gag in the entire movie, but most everything fizzles out without ever really igniting.  “Starsky & Hutch” gives itself too much credit for being clever: the boys do a mime act that results in the death of a pony, Starsky accidentally gets high on his own supply and faces off against Har Mar Superstar in a disco dancing contest that goes on forever, and the iconic red-with-white-stripe Gran Torino barely breaks a sweat.

Nothing in “Starsky & Hutch” feels fresh or interesting, and the plot is so linear and lacking in the development of anything resembling character or subtext that one feels inclined to nod off several times throughout the bloated proceedings.  Packed with wall to wall AM staples, like the Carpenters, Dazz, Chicago, and Bill Withers, the soundtrack to the movie proves more enjoyable than anything that happens onscreen.  By the time the final credits roll, a weird feeling settles in that you cannot really remember anything about the movie, aside from its costumes and pop hits.  Audiences have come to expect more from Stiller and Wilson team-ups, and hopefully their next one will be a return to form.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

The newly minted Academy Award winner for Best Documentary Feature is Errol Morris’ “The Fog of War,” a thought-provoking character study of Robert S. McNamara, one of the best and brightest of his generation, and a figure who remains controversial to this day. Now well into his 80s, McNamara is remembered primarily as one of the chief architects of the Vietnam War, which he helped to orchestrate while serving as the Secretary of Defense. Morris spends plenty of time addressing McNamara’s decisions and mistakes while serving under Lyndon Johnson, but the far-reaching film also digs in to McNamara’s recollections of both World Wars (his earliest memories go all the way back to WW I), his tenure as president of the Ford Motor Company, and his relationship with JFK.

Eschewing any other talking heads in favor of solo, direct eye contact with McNamara (achieved via Morris’ Interrotron technique, which essentially involves the use of teleprompters reflecting video images of faces instead of text in order to create the illusion that the filmed subject is looking directly at you), Morris culled his impressively edited final cut from more than twenty hours of footage. McNamara is no stranger to media manipulation, and while the crafty elder statesman recounts horrifying descriptions of the Tokyo firebombing of WW II and the use of Agent Orange in Vietnam, he remains largely aloof, refusing at any point to apologize.

But then, what would be the point of an apology? McNamara, who chokes up several times in the course of the movie (when he describes the selection of Kennedy’s gravesite, for example), certainly reveals a sense of painful regret, particularly when he ruminates on “counterfactuals,” or the what-might-have-been scenarios preferable to the death and destruction resulting from combat. McNamara is always happy to scapegoat others, however, and hawkish General Curtis LeMay – who honestly does not require much assistance in being painted as a cold-hearted warmonger – takes the brunt of McNamara’s criticism in the recounting of WW II military strategy.

“The Fog of War” is a film that invites immediate comparison to the current military climate (although Morris had been planning the movie prior to the invasion of Iraq), but Morris covers plenty of other turf. Some of the most compelling moments deal with McNamara’s tenure as Ford Motor Co. chairman (the corporation’s first non-family member in that role, McNamara proudly notes). McNamara lays claim to the development of the seat belt, and the reenactment of Ford’s early, crude “safety tests” provides Morris with the golden opportunity to show slow motion shots of human skulls bouncing down stairwells. The images are simultaneously gruesome and hilarious.

Audiences unfamiliar with Morris might feel unsatisfied with the level of evasiveness the film’s subject is allowed (and clearly the film would have been much stronger had it included more details about McNamara’s personal life: the allusions to the sacrifices of his wife and children leave one hungry for more information). Morris, however, is a master provocateur, and relishes the nuances and ambiguities of complex questions. Along with the gripping interview material, “The Fog of War” contains a haunting score by Philip Glass, top-notch archival footage, and revealing declassified audio of Pentagon and White House conversations. So regardless of your take on McNamara’s relative level of truthfulness (or for that matter, Morris’ own agenda), “The Fog of War” is a worthwhile experience, and a must-see for 20th century history buffs.