items tagged with About Schmidt

In a rather perverse bit of scheduling, at least for me, last weekend brought with it the area release of exactly zero debuting films, while this past weekend delivered six ... on the same weekend, I should add, that I had a lengthy road trip out of town and appeared in four performances of a local stage production. But I’m not one to complain. Onward!

SIDEWAYS

Alexander Payne’s Sideways is so chockfull of good humor and emotional accuracy that you leave the theater overwhelmed and a bit giddy; it feels like a movie that you, alone, discovered, and want to share with friends immediately.

SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE

In Something's Gotta Give, a sixtysomething womanizer, currently dating a twentysomething auctioneer (!), finds himself, for the first time ever, falling in love with a woman roughly his age, and – wouldn’t ya know it? – it’s his girlfriend’s mother! Has there ever been so High a Concept? A forced, jokey premise like this is usually enough to make me hide under my theater seat; it’s a situation so nakedly designed to provide good-natured chuckles and muffled sobs that a hardened cynic like me walks into the movie with all defenses immediately up.

BRINGING DOWN THE HOUSE

Since she executive-produced the film, I shouldn’t feel too badly for Queen Latifah in Bringing Down the House; she obviously knew what she was getting into.

ANTWONE FISHER

It’s a bit late, but it finally arrived. The closing of each year brings with it at least one touching, inspirational, triumph-of-the-human-spirit movie designed to make audiences weep and Oscar voters genuflect, while certain Midwestern film critics roll their eyes and wish they could throw things at the screen. (Previous examples: I Am Sam, The Hurricane, and Shine.) For a while, it looked like 2002’s might be About Schmidt, but the film barely qualified; it wasn’t incompetently made, and it did provide a few laughs. At last, though, we have a winner.