Fever Pitch

Drew Barrymore : Lindsey
Jimmy Fallon : Ben

Fever Pitch, the latest effort by the Farrelly brothers, is somewhat disappointing. It’s a story about a woman Lindsey Meeks, played by Drew Barrymore who meets a man Ben, played by Jimmy Fallon, who appears perfect in just about every way. Things are going well in their relationship until Spring rolls around and Lindsey discovers that Ben is an obsessed Red Sox fan.

The Farrelly brothers have attempted to mix romantic comedy with Red Sox obsession and the results are luke warm. The romantic comedy part of the movie never really takes off in part because the script was lacking but also because Barrymore and Fallon have very little chemistry together. I never once was convinced that these two people were really in love.

On the comedic side, the movie also suffers. It appears the Farrelly brothers attempted to “clean up their act” to appeal to a more mainstream audience and lost something in the process. Gone are the strange characters and offensive sight gags so prevalent in their other movies, and in their place are jokes and characters more fitting for a network sitcom. This is a real let down because the Farrelly’s are at their best when they are pushing the envelope.

The movie was pleasant enough and there were a few really funny moments, but it …

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Cinderella Man

Directed by Ron Howard
Russell Crowe : Jim Braddock
Renée Zellweger : Mae Braddock
Paul Giamatti : Joe Gould
Craig Bierko : Max Baer
Paddy Considine : Mike Wilson

Cinderella Man is the story Jim J. Braddock a down on his luck, depression era boxer who looses all of his money in the stock market and faces the end of his boxing career due to a string of bad fights.

Braddock, played by Russell Crowe, is a good man. He and his family, like so many others during the depression, have hit bottom through no fault of their own, and are struggling just to survive the times. Braddock does his best to take care of his family, taking temporary work when it’s available, but no matter how hard he tries, things keep spiraling downward.

When it appears that he’s hit bottom, he is given one last chance to make it as a boxer and with everything he cares about on the line, he makes the best of the opportunity by winning the fight. His comeback serves as inspiration for many down on their luck Americans, who rally behind him as he goes on to win additional fights. His resurgence, leads him to a match against the heavy weight champion Max Baer, a larger then life brutal figure who was famous for killing …

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The Closer

Brenda Leigh Johnson : Kyra Sedgwick
Will Pope : J.K. Simmons
Captain Taylor : Robert Gossett
Agent Fritz Howard : Jon Tenney

The Closer, a new police drama on TNT, is about a police detective Brenda Leigh Johnson who transfers from Atlanta to LA to head up a special unit handling sensitive high-profile murder cases.

The first episode introduces us to Johnson and lets us know about her talents and quirks. Johnson, it appears, is a world-class interrogator but has some severe personality problems. Her first day on the job she introduces herself to her colleges by barging onto an crime scene, taking over the investigation and treating all of the other detectives on the scene with total contempt.

Johnson’s underlings, not appreciating her methods, all request transfers that she handles in a sensitive fashion by one by one dropping their transfer requests in the trash. She obviously has never read Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People”.

Throughout the rest of the commercial free hour episode Johnson continues to offend and intimidate all, but slowly wins the respect of her people, because she proves to be so very good at her job.

The case under investigation, involves a murdered women, a missing high tech genius, believed to be the murderer, and his “emotional” platonic lover, a young Catholic women. The case is …

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Bones

Dr. Temperance Brennan : Emily Deschanel
Special Agent Seeley Booth : David Boreanaz
Zack Addy : Eric Millegan
Dr. Jack Hodgins : T.J. Thyne
Angela Montenegro : Michaela Conlin
Dr. Daniel Goodman : Jonathan Adams

Bones, the new Fox mystery starring Emily Deschanel and David Boreanaz, is based on a series of books by forensic anthropologist Kathy Reichs. I’ve never read any of the books by Reichs so I really can’t judge how the books have translated to the TV series, but I will give you my first impressions about the show itself.

The pilot episode introduces us to the characters of Dr. Temperance Brennan and Special Agent Seeley Booth as they attempt to determine what happened to a girl whose decomposed body was found in a pond in Arlington Nation Cemetery.

The show opens with Brennan arriving home from a trip to Guatemala and being held at the airport so that Booth can attempt to convince her to work on a case with him. The two have worked together before and apparently things did not go well because Brennan wants nothing to do with Booth. He continues to work on her and she finally agrees to work with him only if she is allowed to fully participate in the case.

Breenan and her team arrive at the pond, gather the necessary evidence and …

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Batman Begins

Christian Bale : Bruce Wayne/Batman
Michael Caine : Alfred
Liam Neeson : Ducard
Katie Holmes : Rachel Dawes
Gary Oldman : Jim Gordon
Cillian Murphy : Dr. Jonathan Crane
Tom Wilkinson : Carmine Falcone
Morgan Freeman : Lucius Fox
Directed by Christopher Nolan

I kept hearing that the latest version of the Batman saga, Batman Begins, was Batman done right. The movie, for the most part, has been getting rave reviews and since I’m a fan of comic book based movies I figured I’d give it a try. My take on it is that the movie is good, but not the great movie that everyone would have you believe that it is.

The movie can be split into three parts, the first part shows us the origins of Batman, the second part demonstrates the logistics of becoming a super hero and the third part is a classic good guy versus bad guy action flick.

Unless you’ve been living on another planet you’re probably aware that the seeds of Batman were planted when young Bruce Wayne witnessed the murder of his parents at the hands of a thief. After his parents death, Bruce grows up under the tutelage of the family butler Alfred, but is an angry, despondent young man who blames himself, in part, for the demise of his …

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