HOLLYWOODLAND
by
Gil Mansergh

The narrator said he was more powerful than a locomotive and able to leap tall buildings at a single bound, but actor George Reeves (TV's Superman) wasn't faster than the speeding bullet that ended his life. Ben Affleck is very good as the ersatz man of steel, and Adrian Brody is perfect as the dogged detective investigating the actor's supposed suicide in "Hollywoodland" a fictionalized investigation of the actor's death.

Directed by Alan Coulter, (fresh from HBO's "The Sopranos" and "Six Feet Under") the film's stylish recreation of the 1950's is it's greatest strength. Its doggedly slow, back and forth presentation from when Reeves was alive and well to after he was dead, is its greatest weakness. Opening like a flashback scene from TV's forensic detective shows, we enter a house, head up the stairs and into the bedroom where the body of a nude, middle-aged man is sprawled on the bed, blood spatters the wall and a Luger lies on the floor. "Suicide?" asks one of the detectives. "Looks like," is the answer. "I guess the bullet didn't bounce off this time," the detective says nodding to a photo showing Reeves in his Superman costume.

Then we follow a pinch-faced man (Larry Cedar) into a classic, 1959, stucco, wrought-iron-railinged and swimming-pooled apartment building where a septuagenerian muscle builder lifts weights on his balcony, and voyeuristic glimpses of other residents are provided by the noises coming through their open windows. Stopping at a doorway, the sounds inside are of a couple coupling, but the man keeps knocking and the door is eventually answered by a pretty blonde with her blouse unbuttoned and a tousle-headed man buckling up his pants. This is the apartment of Louis Simo, (Brody) a licensed private investigator more than willing to keep collecting $50 a day from a husband who is sure his wife is having an affair even though a week of surveillance says she is not.

Thrown a bone from a fellow detective, Simo tracks down George Reeves' distraught mother Helen Bessolo (Lois Smith), who has taken the bus from Indiana to find her son's killer. "I know my son. He starred in films with Clark Gable and Frank Sinatra. He would never take his own life." Of course the mother has, in a nutshell, described exactly why her son would commit suicide. Starting with a flourish as one of the red-haired Tarleton twins in 1939's "Gone With the Wind," Reeves went on to star in some forgotten movie serials and eventually became TV's Superman. Typecast, his extended part in "From Here to Eternity" was cut from the picture after screening audiences sniggered when they recognized Reeves without his cape.

Despite constant support from his pragmatic agent (Jeffrey DeMunn), Reeve's career was reduced to considering his becoming a professional wrestler. The only thing which kept the actor solvent, was his being a boy-toy for Toni Mannix (Diane Lane), a former Ziegfield girl with an open marriage to wealthy studio executive Eddie Mannix (Bob Hoskins). "If she's happy, then I'm happy," Mannix says about his wife's affair, and the three often went nightclubing together.

Lane has a great line when she picks up Reeves. "I only have another seven years before my bottom drops" she says, and that is just about how long the two last as a couple. "I need to go to New York," Reeves suddenly announces while packing his suitcase "My future is in New York." But when the actor returns he has a new girl on his arm. Leonore Lemmon (Robin Tunney) is a wannabe starlet who thinks Reeves made a ton of money as Superman, and the two live together in the same house that Toni Mannix bought for her lover. It is here that Reeves was found shot to death a few months later.

But who did it? Screenwriter Paul Bernbaum weaves factual research about the death with creative fiction. "There have always been three particular theories: (1) he committed suicide; (2) he was shot either on purpose or accidentally by Leonore Lemmon; and (3) he was murdered on orders from Eddie Mannix," Bernbaum says in the press notes. Unfortunately the screenplay's Rashomon-like reenactment of several possible death scenarios wears thin. It turns out that "who-done-it" is just a Hitchcockian "McGuffin," a plot device that really isn't that important. What works best is the disclosure of the off-screen personalities of the Hollywood characters with all their facades. "Hollywoodland's" most rewarding investigations are into the relationship between Simo and his ex-wife (Molly Parker) and Superman obsessed son (Zach Mills); the relationship between Eddie Mannix, his wife Toni, and his PR man (Joe Spano); the relationship between Reeves and Lenore Lemmon: the relationship between Reeves and his mother, and the relationship between what we see on the TV and movie screens, and ourselves.

Comments? E-mail gilmansergh@comcast.net
Hear Gil' "Cinema Toast" radio show 7:35 Thurday mornings on KRSH-FM 95.9

Gil Mansergh's Cinema Toast
NEW RELEASES 9/29/06

The Guardian (PG-13)
Kevin Costner, Aston Kutcher
Directed by: Andrew Davis
The helicopter versus ocean rescue sequences are as exciting as those in "Perfect Storm," but the in-between stuff (aka the plot) is so by-the-numbers predictible, that you might think it was a parody if it weren't so rah-rah Coast Guard sincere.
2 pieces of flippered hero toast

Open Season (PG)
Voices of Martin Lawrence, Debra Messing
Directed by: Roger Allers
The film makers apparently think the rhetorical question "Does a bear go potty in the woods?" should be taken literally. There seem to be more potty's per acre in this film than there are in Bodega Bay. This is another in a growing ensemble of sub-par computer animated tales about animals from different levels of the food chain not eating each other for 90 minutes just to gang up against humans.
1 and 1/2 pieces of bland toast

School for Scoundrels (PG-13)
Billy Bob Thornton, John Heder, Michael Clarke Duncan
Directed by: Todd Phillips
Someone must have thought that combining the director of "Old School," "Starsky and Hutch," and "Road Trip" with Billy Bob Thornton (from "Slingblade," "Bad Santa," and "Friday Night Lights,") and John Heder (from "The Benchwarmers," and "Napolean Dynamite") would result in a clever, and hilarious film. It doesn't. This tale of a hapless meter reader attending a motivation seminar to get a girl to like him is pathetic.
1 and 1/2 pieces of pathetic toast

The Science of Sleep (R)
Gael Garcia Bernal, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Alain Chabat, Jean-Michel Bernard, Emma de Caunes
Directed by: Michael Gondry
A surreal, unfinished, amateurish, brilliant, distressing, uplifting, artisic, out-of-control, deftly nuanced film from the man who brought us "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind." (at the Rialto in Santa Rosa)
3 pieces of dreamlike toast

This Film is Not Yet Rated (NC-17)
John Waters, Kevin Smith, Matt Stone, Kimberly Peirce, Atom Egoyan.Todd Solondz
Directed by: Kirby Dick
A entertaining and often insightful documentary about the super secrets of the people who form the MPAA rating board, and decide what films deserve a G, PG, PG-13, R or the dreaded NC-17.
3 and 1/2 pieces of man-behind-the-curtain toast


NEW on VIDEO & DVD

The Lake House (PG)
Sandra Bullock, Keanu Reeves, Christopher Plummer
Directed by Alejandro Agresti
Box Office: $52,280,027
Bullock and Reeves were much better riding a booby-trapped bus together. This time the brilliant Chicago architecture out acts the stars. Bullock's character moves into a beautifully designed house occupied two years ago by Reeves (or maybe he's the current resident and she's going to move in two years from now). A magic mailbox allows the two to communicate with each but we quickly realize we really don't care what they have to say.
1 and 1/2 pieces of Chicago-style toast



The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (PG-13)
Lucas Black, Bow Wow, Nathalie Kelley, Sung Kang, Brian Tee, Zachary Ty Brian
Directed by Justin Lin
Box Office: $62,494,975
Playing a testosterone-driven motorcycle racer, Zachary Ty Brian has doubled his size since he left the "Home Improvement" TV sitcom, but it doesn't matter. His character is just a setup to get Lucas Black shipped off to Japan where he can race bikes through Tokyo's neon-highlighted, rain-slick streets. As Tim the Toolman used to tell Zachary when he was little, the answer is, as always, "More power!"
2 and 1/2 pieces of sequel toast


Curious George (G)
Will Ferrell, Drew Barrymore, Joan Plowright
Directed by Matthew O'Callaghan
Box Office: $58,336,565
Visually the movie has captured H.A. Rey's drawings of George dunking himself into a pot of spaghetti or painting a fancy New York apartment to resemble the palm trees of his jungle home. But then, there is the voice of the man in the yellow hat. Never, did I ever think he would sound like Will Farrell. At least George remains voiceless. Little kids won't care about the voiceover anyway, and should like the gentle, slow pace.
3 pieces of curiouser and curiouser toast


The Notorious Bettie Page (R)
Gretchen Mol, Lili Taylor, Jonathan M. Woodward
Directed by Mary Harron (I Shot Andy Warhol, American Psycho)
Box Office: $1,374,990
A provocative exploration of sexuality, religion, and pop culture as Harron takes us into the tawdry world of famous 1950's pin-up girl/bondage icon Bettie Page. Mol is marvelous as the naive model although the film's approach that the photos are "innocent" may anger some people.
3 pieces of fetish toast

Gil Mansergh's Cinema Toast
NEW RELEASES 9/15/06

The Black Dahlia (R)
Josh Hartnett, Scarlett Johansson, Aaron Eckhart, Hilary Swank, Mia Kirshner
Directed by: Brian DePalma
A-list actors and director raise the bar on this one--perhaps a bit too far. Based on an Elmore Leonard novel about a real murder case, it wants to be this millennium's "Hollywood Confidential," but even doused in the director's signature gallons of blood, LA's most famous unsolved murder remains confusingly unsolved.
2 and 1/2 pieces of too many suspects toast

Everybody's Hero (G)
Voices of Jake Symanski, Jake T. Austin, William H. Macy, Robin Williams, Mandy Patinkin
Directed by: Christopher Reeve
Despite being the late actor's dream project, (with one of the voices provided by his late wife), this animated tale about never giving up feature's a talking baseball (voice of Rob Reiner) and Babe Ruth's lucky, talking, bat (voice of Whoopi Goldberg). But it can't decide if it's "real" (the scenes of Depression-era bread lines are accurate) or a cartoon (the boy hero bounces back without a scratch from numerous catastrophic accidents like he lived in Toontown).
2 and 1/2 pieces of well-intentioned toast

The Last Kiss (R)
Zach Braff, Jacinda Barrett, Rachel Bilson, Blythe Danner, Tom Wilkinson
Directed by: Tony Goldwyn
Based upon an Italian film, this attempt to resurrect the sincere quirkiness of "Garden State" tries too hard. Despite good performances by Braff as the soon-to-be-married-man, and Danner and Wilkinson as his fiance's parents, we don't really care much for these spoiled brats.
2 pieces of situation comedy toast

Boynton Beach Club (R)
Sally Kellerman, Joseph Bologna, Len Cariou, Brenda Vaccaro, Dyan Cannon
Directed by: Susan Seidelman
Titled "The Boynton Beach Bereavement Club" in film festivals, the name change symbolizes the uncertainty in the minds of the film makers. Trying to avoid the stereotypes of aging in movies like "Cocoon" or "Grumpy Old Men," they perpetuate others as these widows and widowers drop their pithy one-liners seemingly free of any chronic health or financial woes.
2 pieces of unintentionally ageist toast


NEW on VIDEO & DVD

Lucky Number Slevin (R)
Josh Hartnett, Morgan Freeman, Ben Kingsley
Directed by: Paul McGuigan
Box Office: $22,438,650
With a winning horse that keels over just before the finish line, and characters straight from the pulp detective magazines, this snappy, stylized (i.e blood-soaked), crime movie managed to pull the wool over this reviewer's eyes (and that's a good thing).
3 pieces of con-man toast


Goal! (PG-13)
Kuno Becker, Alessandro Nivola, Marcel Iures
Directed by: Danny Canno
Box Office: $4,205,160
Exciting sequences on the field, but this one will probably be remembered as the movie which introduced Gringo audiences to Kuno, the Mexican TV Matinee idol. (Or not as it turns out. With a just over $4 million in theater receipts, few people saw this one).
2 and 1/2 pieces of soccer ball toast

Gil Mansergh's Cinema Toast
NEW RELEASES 9/01/06

The Protector (R)
Tony Jaa, Petchthai Wongkamlao, Jackie Chan,
Directed by: Pracha Pinkaew
The fight scenes are bone-crushingly masterful, but they can't overcome the lame (or actually nonexistent) script about a Thai marital artist who travels to Sydney, Australia where everyone he meets seems to be Thai and has a phobia against actually shooting their guns.
1 and 1/2 pieces of violently unscripted toast

Crossover (PG-13)
Anthony Mackie, Wesley Johnson, Little JJ., Kristin Wilson
Directed by: Preston A. Whitmore
Basketball whiz kid wants to be a doctor so he picks his college for their premed classes while his buddy, (who went to jail for his doctor wannabe friend), just wants to win a street ball game and earn his GED. Only at the Roxy in Santa Rosa
0 pieces of unavailable for preview toast

The Covenant (PG-13)
Stephen Strait, Sebastian Stan
Directed by: Renny Harlin
Warlocks, evil force unleashed, fog, smoke, silhouettes, etc. etc. etc.
0 pieces of unavailable for preview and Gil doesn't see slasher movies toast

Casa de Areia (House of Sand)
Fernanda Montenegro, Fernanda Torres, Ruy Guerra, Seu Jorge, Luiz Melodia
Directed by: Andrucha Waddington
Northern Brazil's wind-driven sand dunes act like another character in this beautifully filmed and decidedly non-Hollywood movie about three generations of women (with Montenegro first playing the mother and then the daughter in different decades). Soon after arriving in this shifting landscape, males become scarce, and the women must rely on themselves for survival until an escaped slave becomes their servant and sometimes husband. Only at the Rialto in Santa Rosa
3 pieces of sandy toast

Hollywoodland (R)
Adriane Brody, Ben Affleck, Diane Lane, Bob Hoskins
Directed by: Alan Coulter
The narrator said he was more powerful than a locomotive and able to leap tall buildings at a single bound, but actor George Reeves (TV's Superman) wasn't faster than the speeding bullet that ended his life. Affleck is very good as the ersatz man of steel, and Brody is perfect as the dogged detective investigating the actor's supposed suicide.
3 pieces of super mystery toast



NEW on VIDEO & DVD

United 93 (2006)
David Alan Bashe, Richard Bekins, Cheyenne Jackson
Directed by Paul Greengrass
Box Office: $31,471,430
A raw, powerful, realistic, unflinching, passionate, and intensely humane recreation of the final minutes onboard United Airlines' Flight 93 (and in the control towers and command centers) on that fateful 9/11 morning.
4 pieces of heroic toast

Kinky Boots (PG-13)
Chiwetel Eljoifor, Joel Edgerton
Directed by: Julian Jerrold
Box Office: $1,692,769
Another of those "true stories" from the folks who brought us "Calendar Girls." This time, a shoemaker is going broke until a transvestite orders a pair of very fancy, thigh-high leather boots. Made with the same titteringly "non-offensive" sensibility that never admitted Mr. Humphries was gay on the "Are You Being Served?" TV show.
2 and 1/2 pieces of not too kinky toast

District B13 (R)
Cyril Raffaelli, David Bell, Tony D'Amario
Directed by: Pierre Morel
Box Office: $1,692,769
These gymnastic parkour experts really can leap tall buildings, fly through the air and take out the bad guys. Stylishly as excitingly as "Run Lola Run," with minimalist story line, street-smart violence and lots of fast cameras, fast people, fast action, in a fast (85 minute) movie
3 and 1/2 pieces of parkour toast

THE ILLUSIONIST
by
Gil Mansergh

Although movies were being shown 100 years ago, a much more popular form of entertainment was provided by the magicians and illusionists who traveled the vaudeville and lecture circuits throughout Europe and North America. A quick look at some advertising posters for these performers (at magicgallery.com) reveals that most were specialists. Professor Carmelli produced "apparitions instantaneous," Otto Fanta was a "billiard-ball experimentator and conjurer," Adelaid Hermann was "the Queen of Magic," The Great Houdini was an "escape artist extraordinaire", and Lord Alexander was "The Man Who Knows."

Vienna was one of the crown jewels for these magicians, and it is this city where "The Illusionist" takes place. We are introduced to a wood carver's son as he becomes friends with an aristocratic girl. The two like to run and hide from her caretakers and they turn a small cave into their secret hiding place. Captivated by her beauty and friendship, the boy designs and carves an intricate locket that can only be opened "by magic," and he presents this gift on the same day that he is prohibited from seeing her "ever again." And so, the boy leaves Vienna and travels the world leaning more an more about magic.

Fifteen years pass, and a man (Edward Norton) who calls himself "Eisenheim the Illusionist" begins giving performances at a Viennese theater. He is a masterful showman, bringing the audience to its feet, or eliciting a collective sigh of relief or an exclamation of delight. And although he makes objects float in thin air and and makes an orange tree with edible oranges appear from nowhere, his most impressive feats occur when he is seated, alone, on an empty stage. In time, his hand rises, a mist begins to form, and a human figure appears. Hazy at first, it soon becomes recognizable to someone in the audience. Then the figure and the audience member hold a conversation. Often as not, this conversation is about what it is like to be dead or what messages the apparition may bring from "the other side."

Eisenheim's fame quickly spreads, and soon, police inspector Uhl (Paul Giamatti) is watching the show. An amateur magician himself, Uhl hurries backstage after the performance to boldly ask the secret of the orange tree trick. "But if I told you that," Eisenheim says, "it would no longer be a secret." "But I'm very good at keeping secrets," Uhl replies. And, indeed he is, for Uhl is the chief investigator for Leopold (Rufus Sewell) the dissipated crown prince of Austria.

When Leopold learns of Eisenheim's skill, he decides to attend a performance himself and he takes Sophie (Jessica Biel) his beautiful fiancé along with him. When Eisenheim asks for a volunteer from the audience, the Prince cavalierly sends Sophie to the stage, where she is placed in front of a cheval mirror, wrapped in a crimson riding cloak, and hypnotized by the magician. Soon, to the delight and wonderment of all, Sophie's mirror image takes on a life of its own. It is only when she is revived that she realizes that Eisenheim is the sameboy she played with in the forest those fifteen years ago.

Loudly proclaiming that all the magician's secrets are a fraud which his superior scientific mind will be able to reveal, Leopold invites Eisenheim to a private performance at the palace. Once there, the magician borrows the Prince's jewel encrusted sword, balances it on its tip, and, reciting the tale of King Arthur, he tells one and all that only a true leader can grasp the sword and lift it in the air. Several men try and fail. Then the prince himself confidently steps forward. But, the sword will not rise off the floor with one royal hand---nor two, nor perhaps, at all, At the moment of greatest frustration, the sword slips free and the Prince has won. Or has he? "I want him ruined," Leopold growls at Uhl. "Investigate how he does it and then arrest him for fraud."

A birthday party-magician myself when I was in junior high, I appreciated how writer/director Neil Burger follows the magician's code and keeps how the tricks are done a secret. But I studied some of the great magicians of old, and the balanced sword trick was borrowed from the great French magician Robert Houdin (Houdini's idol and namesake). Enlisted by the French government to teach dissident Algerian leaders a thing-or-two about French power and wisdom, Robert Houdin offered a theater filled with Algerian Arabs the box of gold he placed in the middle of the stage. One after one, the strongest men tried to lift the box and claim the prize. After they all failed to pick up the box, Ropbert Houdin walked onstage and lifted the prize high in the air with just one hand. (I won't reveal the secret, but I can tell you not a single silk scarf or mirror was needed).

Like all magicians, Burger and his crew know how to play with the audience. Just when you think you know all the movie's secrets, there is a plot shift, and we are thrust into a murder mystery. Then duplicity, revenge and assassination plots begin to pit aristocrats against the commoners, science against magic, and tradition against tradition. Slowly, inevitably, the true hero of the story isunveiled. Watch Giamatti's performance carefully as Uhl takes a clue from Hercule Poirot (who, of course, is just a little idea in Agatha Christie's head at this time) and begins to "use his little gray cells" to uncover the magic of "who-done-it."

Comments? E-mail gilmansergh@comcast.net
Hear Gil's "Cinema Toast" radio show 7:35 Thursday mornings on KRSH-FM 95.9

Gil Mansergh's Cinema Toast

Following along with my fellow Argus Courier bloggers theme regarding "what I did this summer, you can check back to the blogs from 7/7 and 7/20 to read about my sojurn to the Canadian Rockies. But another thing that happened repeatedly this Summer (and late Spring) is that studios increasingly refused to offer pre-release screenings of new movies for criltics. Although studios say that it has nothing to do with fear of bad reviews, of the seventeen movies iln this category, only "Snakes on a Plane," received favorable reviews. (69% positive)*. The average critical assessment of the other 16 films in this category was a paltry 11.3%.*

Films Not Screened For Critics In 2006
------------------------------------------------
69% -- Snakes on a Plane
28% -- Silent Hill
27% -- Tyler Perry's Madea's Family Reunion
23% -- Phat Girlz
16% -- Grandma's Boy
15% -- Underworld: Evolution
11% -- The Benchwarmers
10% -- Ultraviolet
10% -- When a Stranger Calls
7% -- Date Movie
7% -- Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector
6% -- Material Girls
6% -- See No Evil
5% -- Doogal
5% -- BloodRayne
5% -- Stay Alive
0% -- Zoom"
*Source for percentages of national movie critics, rottontomatoes.com

NEW RELEASES 9/01/06

The Illusionist (PG-13)
Edward Norton, Paul Giammatti, Jessica Biel, Rufus Sewell
Directed by: Neil Burger
The introduction and coda of this film are trite, but most of the fillm is an extraordinary portrayal of "Is it real--or is it illusion." Giammatti steals the movie as the police inspector (in the employ of the crown prince) trying to discredit a magician whom he really admires. Great illusions and some magic secrets revealed.
three pieces of ethereal toast

The Quiet (R)
Elisha Cuthbert, Edie Falco, Camilla Belle, Shawn Ashmore, Martin Donovan
Directed by: Jamie Babbitt ("But I'm a Cheerleader")
The press kit says this is "an intense story about family secrets, friendship, trust, and betrayal where happy faces disguise ugly truths," but it is much more honest to say it is about father/cheerleader-daughter incest. The film makers can't seem to decide between serious or sleezy and the result is sadly unconvincing
1 and 1/2 pieces of "another cheerleader" toast


Trust the Man (R)
Julianne Moore, David Duchovney, Maggie Gyllenhall
Directed by: Bart Freundlich
With a great cast and advertised as a "sophisticated, unconventional romantic comedy" this turns out to be an unsophisticated, conventional situation comedy peopled with one-note carricatures thrust into contrived and unconvincing challenges. At the Rialto in Santa Rosa.
3 pieces of "teaching toast



Heading South (NR)
Charlotte Rampling, Karen Young, Menothy Cesar, Lys Ambroise, Louise Portal
Directed By: Laurant Cantet
Imagine a series of Harlequin Romance bookcovers, with beautifully aging women searching for life (and sex) in the ritzy beach hotel of 1970's Haiti. Like the real people in those PBS specials who chose to live in the past for a few weeks, these characters talk directly to the camera. Interesting, provocative, hedonistic performances, made stronger since intense poverty and Baby Doc's violence are just behind those palm trees. At the Rialto in Santa Rosa.
3 pieces of "juicy middle-age" toast


Half Nelson (R)
Ryan Gosling, Anthony Mackie, Shareeka Epps, Deborah Rush, Jay O. Sanders
Directed by: Ryan Fleck
He tries to remain enthusiastic in the classroom, but an inner-city junior high school teacher's world is crumbling. Discovered smoking crack by one of his girl students, the two begin an honest and inspirational friendship that goes in directions the audience doesn't expect. At the Rialto in Santa Rosa.
3 pieces of teacher toast

Note: Continuing the trend, two movies were not available to critics before their general release:

The Wicker Man (PG-13)
Nicolas Cage, Kate Beahan, Ellen Burstyn, Molly Parker, Leelee Sobieski, Frances Conroy
Directed by: Neil La Bute
Perhaps the studio wonks thought that releasing this during the Burning Man Festival made sense, but doesn't that mean a lot of people who would have paid to see this film will be out in the desert somewhere? Bigger question, why bother to do a remake of a British cult classic about a pig-headed policeman (Edward Woodward) journeying to an island where the inhabitants (Christopher Lee, Brit Ecklund, Diane Cilento) practice "the old religion," as a PG-13 rated movie. Does this mean all the "sky clad" dancers are wearing clothes?
unavailable for preview

Crank (R)
Jason Statham, Amy Smart, Jose Pablo Cantillo, Dwight Yoakum
Directed by: Mark Nevelldine, Brian Taylor
The hero is poisoned, and only has an hour left to live, and the studio hype says "there has never been a movie like this before." But I guess they forgot both versions of "D.O.A." (1949 with Edmund O'Brian as the dying man, and Pamela Brittan as his helpful secretary, and the 1988 version with Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan in the same roles).
unavailable for preview



NEW on VIDEO & DVD

Friends With Money (R)
Jennifer Aniston, Frances McDormand, Joan Cusack, Katherine Keener
Written & Directed by: Nicole Holofcener. (Lovely and Amazing)
Box Office: $13,296,135
In the Friends TV sitcom, I always used to wonder why the ones with a job and money, didn't seem to consider the difficulty of inviting their underemployed buddies to spend 3 bucks on a cup of coffee or fifty on dinner or several thousand to fly to Europe for a wedding. In this film, Anniston can't figure out how her buddies keep getting wealthier and wealthier while she lives paycheck to paycheck. She finally confronts her "friends" with the reality of the working poor.
3 pieces of women friends toast

Akeelah and the Bee (PG)
Angela Bassett, Laurence Fishburne, Keke Palmer
Directed by: Doug Acheson
Box Office: $18,811,135
Finally a spelling-bee movie that understands it's not about memorizing arcane words or focusing on the spellers' nervously contorted faces, it's about the concept that "Knowledge is power." Right on.
3 and 1/2 pieces of knowledge is power toast