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 …

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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 …

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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 …

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Bicentennial Man

Director : Chris Columbus
Writer : Isaac Asimov, Robert Silverberg, Nicholas Kazan
Robin Williams - Andrew Martin
Embeth Davidtz - Little Miss / Portia
Sam Neill - Sir

In one off Isaac Asimov’s three autobiographies, “I, Asimov”, he states that the second best story he ever wrote was “Bicentennial Man”. I am a big Asimov fan and have read every novel he has ever written, but “Bicentennial Man” was one of his short stories and not being a fan of the genre, I never got around to reading it. When I first heard that a “Bicentennial Man” movie was being made, I was excited by the prospect and put it high on my list of movies to view.

Then the reviews came out.

“Bicentennial Man” was panned by just about every reviewer and fans in the Asimov news group seemed to universally hate it. Suddenly, it wasn’t a “must see”, and I postponed viewing it until this weekend, when it finally on appeared on cable.
So is it as bad as everyone said it was?

Well, not really but I think the director made three big mistakes that turned this movie in to something less than what it could have
been. I’ll discuss those mistakes shortly, but first a summary of the story.

“Bicentennial Man” is the story …

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