storytym

I wanted to like this movie, and hoped for some interesting comedy drama. But it was incredibly disappointing. Interestingly, the plot is quite similar to the book "The Corrections," where siblings (one of whom is a professor), have to deal with a father with dementia. But where that book has all sorts of drama, morbid humor, and heart-tugging emotion, this movie flat-lines. The trailer indicates there's some droll humor and an intriguing relationship between the siblings. But other than those excerpts, there's not much here to respond to. There are no twists or complications to speak of, and the relationships grow tiring after a while. A self- congratulatory ending doesn't help either. What could have been a compelling story ends up being just another nail in the coffin of Hollywood releasing adult dramas. Skip this.

I went into this documentary (on the Trio Channel) with some suspicion. What could it say that hasn't already been said about the glut of Awards Shows?

The answer: plenty.

There's some wonderful history here, some intriguing factoids, and very very funny bits. It's great to hear from both the people that make awards shows, and the people that cover them. The program does a very thorough job of tracing how awards shows have always been intended to paint their sponsoring academies or foundations in a good light, and how the fake prestige of those academies was ignored starting in the 1970s with awards shows designed just to get ratings.

Things I especially liked: It's funny watching Joe Pesci go off on an interviewer at the DGA Awards, and some of the sound-bites from red-carpet celebs are very witty. And the sequence on how publicists control the red carpet was awesome, as was the footage of celebrities hogging gift bags at the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards.

Things I didn't like: the title's kind of lame, and it might have been tighter at 60 minutes instead of 90 minutes. But overall, a very good doc.

If you can find this on Trio before it totally goes off the air, watch it. Maybe it'll show up in libraries too.

I can't believe some posters are waxing nostalgic about this movie.

It stinks.

When Neil Simon is funny, he's pretty funny.

When he's off, it's excruciating to watch, and man is he off on this. I saw it when it first came out, and it seemed hopelessly dated then. I can only imagine what a relic it is now.

Yes, Chevy Chase and Goldie Hawn were good in FOUL PLAY, but that had a great script going for it. This absolutely, positively does not.

The jokes fall flat, the scenarios are strained beyond belief, and it just comes across as a bit of Hollywood hopelessly detached from reality.

In fact, it might just be worse than MODERN PROBLEMS or UNDER THE RAINBOW.

Watch this at your own peril, unless you want to see Exhibit #A in Chevy Chase's unprecedented run at picking awful scripts.