30 Apr 2008

Nuggets of Wisdom: "Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay"

By Mike Schulz

HAROLD & KUMAR ESCAPE FROM GUANTANAMO BAY

We've thus far managed to survive without sequels to Citizen Kane and Battleship Potemkin and Intolerance, so I'm not sure the world really needed a follow-up to Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, 2004's ne plus ultra of gross-out stoner comedies. Yet it's clear that we could've done a helluva lot worse than Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay, a take-a-hit-and-miss effort in which, compared to its forebear, the highs are no higher, the lows are a tad lower, and the intentional stupidity is again tempered with bursts of shockingly subversive wit. As sequels go, it's no Godfather Part II, but it ain't Godfather Part III, either.

11 Jun 2002

"Wedding" Shows Deft Touch with Romantic Comedy: "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," "Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood," and "Undercover Brother"

By Mike Schulz

MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING

In the first 20 minutes of the romantic comedy My Big Fat Greek Wedding, there's a scene so simple it feels revelatory. Our heroine, Toula (Nia Vardalos), is a 30-year-old waitress in a diner owned by her Greek-with-a-vengeance parents, and has always been, as she describes herself, "a frump" - plain, bespectacled, overweight, and sadly single.

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