Fever Pitch
July 6th, 2007
Barely acceptable even by the extremely formulaic conventions of the romcom. As if it wasn’t insult enough that in the stateside adaptation, Nick Hornby’s soccer obsession morphed into Red Sox fandom, it’s now demoted to “what’s wrong with this guy” plot hurdle to be taken by lovers Drew Barrymore and Jimmy Falllon. The movie’s at its best (and that’s not saying much) when he’s charming her in act I; all the disappointment over the missed Yankees game or whatnot is ever so much chaff.
What I fail to understand is why anybody would want to mistake these bundles of clichés shoehorned into a preconceived plot for real people. It’s one thing to use cardboard stiffs as an excuse for popcorn action, but shouldn’t a love story center on more or less recognizable, likable, lifelike characters? Instead we get the one-trait-per-person cartoons that, at least since Sex in the City, somehow pass for urban realism but in truth offer less depth and verisimilitude than your average Marvel superhero book. And doesn’t the “comedy” half of it at least suggest the occasional joke?
Fever Pitch. Bobby and Peter Farrelly, 2005. *
Bad News Bears
November 13th, 2006
Trying to catch up with Linklater. His big-budget movies usually retain enough character to make them worthwhile (cf. School of Rock), but this remake rides almost entirely on Billy Bob Thornton’s recycled Bad Santa shtick, and it’s not enough. The kids are bland, the pacing’s off, and the movie fizzles. The best I can say about is that it taught me more about baseball than all 16 hours of Ken Burns, but that’s not saying much.
Bad News Bears. Richard Linklater, 2005. **
[tags]richard linklater, film, children, baseball, sports, 2 stars, billy bob thornton[/tags]
