Thumbnail Movie Review XXI

Title: Rat Race

It stars Rowan Atkinson, John Cleese, Whoopi Goldberg, Cuba Gooding Jr. and Amy Smart.

A Las Vegas casino tycoon (John Cleese) sets up a race from Las Vegas to Silver City, New Mexico for two million dollars in prize money. Needless to say, the chosen participants have quite a time of it.

Ok for a bit of Saturday evening silliness, but it's one of those films that makes me think the stars had bills to pay and nothing better to do lined up. There's one notable sequence with the punch line, "You should have bought a squirrel." Amy Smart deserves special mention for her role as a helicopter pilot with a score to settle.

MMI. 112 minutes. Canadian PG rating.

The Electronic Communication Minefield

There’s an inherent difficulty in composing email, or posting a comment to a blog; one never knows if a certain turn of phrase or attempt at humour or irony might be misinterpreted and give inadvertent offense.

Regrettably, I appear to have made myself persona non grata at an American gentleman’s website by just such a blunder. I’m quite baffled and discomfited by it, but I guess it’s best just to put it behind me, and be more circumspect in future.

Thumbnail Movie Review XX

Title: Separate Tables
Black & White

It stars Rita Hayworth, Deborah Kerr, David Niven and Burt Lancaster.

Several residents of the Beauregard Hotel are forced by circumstances to come to grips with their inner demons, their metaphorical 'chains' and their isolation.

The film is a time machine that transports the viewer to a lost civilization; the one that I was a seven-year-old boy in. Fine performances by all in a finely crafted story but be warned -- people in the movie smoke anytime, anywhere they feel like it.

MCMLVIII. 100 minutes. Canadian PG rating.

First Senior's Moment

It's said that there's a first time for everything. The truth of that was brought forcefully home to me at a movie theatre's ticket counter a few years ago.

I'm a huge fan of Johnny Cash, so in 2005 when the biopic "Walk the Line" was released, I took my wife with me to see it.

We got up to the ticket counter; the ticket lady looked up at us and said to me, "One adult, one senior?"

[!?]

For a long moment, I just stood there while my internal dictionary flipped open to the page with the word 'dumbfounded' on it and read the entry to me.

The ticket lady caught on that she'd launched me into a state of perplexity and quickly apologized, explaining that she can't win for losing -- some people get upset if they're not offered the seniors' price without asking for it. I told her it's ok, I just had never been taken for a senior before [that I knew of, at least]. I bought two adult tickets and we proceeded to see the movie, which was excellent.

The incident puts me in mind of that Emile M. Cioran quote, "If we could see ourselves as others see us, we would vanish on the spot."

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Thumbnail Movie Review XIX

Title: You, Me and Dupree
American comedy

It stars Owen Wilson, Kate Hudson, Matt Dillon and Michael Douglas

Newlyweds Carl and Molly (Matt Dillon and Kate Hudson) find themselves with a houseguest, Carl's slacker buddy Randy Dupree (Owen Wilson). Their lives will never be the same again.

Much better than it sounds. A fine bit of Saturday evening silliness. Owen Wilson and Kate Hudson both have what I call the 'Johnny Carson effect'; their mere presence on the screen brightens up one's life. Michael Douglas is excellent as Carl's manipulative father-in-law, Mr. Thompson.

MMVI. 110 minutes. Canadian PG rating.

Thumbnail Movie Review XVIII

Title: Fantastic Mr. Fox
Animated

It stars George Clooney (voicing Mr.Fox), Meryl Streep (voicing Mrs. Fox) and Bill Murray (voicing Badger).

Foxes gotta do what foxes gotta do.

I had hoped to really enjoy this movie, but didn't. The animation style, the voices, just about every aspect left me cold. The device of substituting "cuss" for the f-word wore very thin very quickly, and when I heard the phrase "cluster cuss", my thought response was, "Oh, why don't you just cuss right cussing off."

MMIX. 87 minutes. Canadian PG rating; be sure to cover your kids' eyes when there's smoking.