The Day After Tomorrow

Grade: B-

New York is my favorite place in the whole wide world. It’s not just where I live, it’s truly the place I call home. From my days growing up on Long Island -- where I would lock the car door somewhere in the midtown tunnel and not unlock it until safely ensconced in a parking garage, to my 1,300 mile drive back from a brief move to Miami (what was I thinking?) – where I swear I heard Liza Minnelli singing the instant I saw the skyline for the first time in months, to when I finally succumbed and became an official Manhattanite over ten years ago, New York is my dream come true.

Why then, oh why, does it give me such spine-tingling pleasure to see the city that I adore catastrophically destroyed?

The city that never sleeps has been hit my meteors, decimated by tidal waves, blown to smithereens by aliens, even sealed off entirely and turned into a maximum security prison. And, so long as one stays away from any 9/11 imagery, you just gotta’ admit it’s fun to watch. For two whole hours, one is allowed to be politically incorrect and enjoy an epic disaster befall the big apple. Oh sure, the entire planet gets creamed as well, but watching Europe or Asia get blitzed just isn’t nearly as much fun somehow. Okay, okay, it’s kinda cool watching Los Angeles get slammed too, but there’s just nothing more satisfying than watching New Yorkers fight amongst themselves amidst the dawn of a new ice age.

It’s all incredibly dopey and cliché-ridden – from the teenager who just can’t confess his love for a schoolmate until he rescues her from certain death any number of times, to the doctor who stays behind despite almost certain death to protect the bald, cancer-ridden child whose parents have turned up AWOL, to the leader of the free world (this time a spot on Dick Cheney impersonator – what does it tell you that it’s the VP who’s in charge in this alternate universe?) who ignores the scientist’s ecological doom and gloom warning until it may be too late. Heck, they even stumble onto attack wolves. In New York City. Attack wolves.

It is also undeniably campy fun. Dennis Quaid and Jake Gyllenhaal (Taking a poll of all straight women, gay men, and bisexuals -- who would you sleep with first? Results to be announced next week) add just the right charming gravitas to keep the proceedings jocular yet ever somber (we’re talking about the impact of global warming, after all). While I still loathe most digitally produced special effects (texture, I want texture), there are enough serviceable and occasionally even really cool visuals to keep the blood pumping and the proceedings perfectly entertaining. And rest assured, if you go with the flow there will even be the requisite lump in the throat moments necessary of all such disaster flicks.

The summer has arrived.

More Movie Info: http://imdb.com/title/tt0319262/

Saved!

Grade: B-

Ebullient teenagers, all in matching t-shirts, clapping and singing in unison in praise of the Lord, a joyful troupe leader spurring them on.

“Let Jesus Bless You.” Clap clap. “Let Jesus Bless You.” Clap clap.

No, this wasn’t in the movie. It was on our way to the movie, in a pizza parlor on 54th and 8th. The look on the faces of my fellow Manhattanite sinners, simply trying to eat a slice in peace, was absolutely priceless. You can’t make this stuff up.

Lest this movie be taken on its face as simply a religious farce or satire, the voices of teenagers in pizza and Jesus rapture makes one question just how much of a send-up this all really is.

Sometimes on the edge but never over it, this often very funny movie is never quite as vicious as it could be, nor as biting as it should be. Walking a fine line as a campy indictment of religious fanaticism, well-meaning family drama, and ABC afterschool special, there manages to be a sincere if sometimes syrupy heart behind the Christian slapdown.

Mandy Moore continues to pleasure and surprise, here as the devoutly proselytizing little miss perfect one can’t help but loves to hate. Never so inhuman that she falls into caricature, she makes us believe true believers like this frighteningly do exist. Praise the Lord! The rest of the company add some reality into rather one dimensional characters, never taking the storyline too seriously and having some fun with the absurdity of it all.

Rock stars sing for the Lord, the righteous get knocked up, ministers get horny, gays get de-fagged, the bad-girl Jew rolls her eyes while the paraplegic takes it all in stride…the plea for tolerance and understanding gets more than a little preachy and drippy in the final reel, but there’s more than enough sacrament bashing and denomination deprecation to provide some genuine pleasure to us anti-organized religion types.

More Movie Info: http://imdb.com/title/tt0332375/

Super Size Me

Grade: B+

To celebrate my 40th birthday last year, I gave myself over to one of the biggest treats in my universe – I went to McDonalds. This is no joke. My partner had a Board meeting, and so, on my 40th birthday, I joyfully visited the Golden Arches. It was a close call between a Quarter Pounder and a Wendy’s Single, but ultimately Mickey D’s french fries carried the day.

If I had seen this movie before I started Weight Watchers some 16 months ago, I would be depressed verging on suicidal at the moment. As it is, I have learned two thoroughly horrifying facts. First, and I hope this doesn’t upset anyone too much – McDonalds is not terribly good for you. I know, I know, but they had documentary evidence and everything, so I sorta think it must be true. Second, and especially mortifying for anyone who’s enjoyed the number two combo as much as I have through the years – it is unbelievably disgusting to watch someone eating this glop.

More sweet natured, less caustic and biting than Michael Moore, New York filmmaker Morgan Spurlock puts his own life on the line, surprisingly literally, when he goes on a 30-day diet of McDonalds, McDonalds, and more McDonalds. The fact that he gains some weight is not terribly surprising, but the amount of flab he puts on, coupled with the changes in his cholesterol, triglyceride and blood pressure levels, his mood swings, heart palpitations and failing sex drive quickly turns this humorous romp into something far more serious and meaningful. By day 20 -- doctors, girlfriend and parents all expressing serious concern -- you’ll be finding yourself genuinely caring about this guy and wanting to plead with him to give up the quest and go healthy again.

There is much here that is not frankly a surprise, and there are some fairly standard documentary flourishes we’ve seen before – the executives who never return requests for an interview, the children who have no idea who George Washington or Jesus Christ are but who automatically recognize Ronald McDonald, the school nutritionists who try to justify the crap they’re feeding our kids. But Spurlock makes it all terribly funny and human, as we all sit there watching the movie and hoping that nobody around us notices the soda we’re drinking or the chocolate chip cookies we’ve smuggled into the theater (Um, that’s what we brought to the movie theater this afternoon. I chewed very, very inconspicuously.)

Let’s face it – most of us are pigs. Some of us are losing the bulge battle, some of us are in a perpetual state of dieting, some of us pray to our higher power for strength and recovery. And for those of us who don’t fall into any of these categories, and only eat for nutritional sustenance when they’re hungry, I kinda sorta hate each and every one of you.

More Movie Info: http://imdb.com/title/tt0390521/

Elaine Stritch at Liberty

Grade: D-

{Not to be confused with the Broadway show of the same name, taped for DVD release, which was extraordinary}

I adore Elaine Stritch. Her “Ladies Who Lunch” is a landmark, her “Broadway Baby” definitive. Her one-woman bio show, “At Liberty,” was wonderful at The Public, oddly even more triumphant on a bigger stage when she took it to Broadway. She fills any theater she’s in, and she deserves to be in a big, big theater.

I love the Pennebakers. Their documentary on the recording of the original cast album of “Company” is quintessential for theater queens everywhere , “The War Room” is perhaps the best insider documentary ever made of the campaign trail, “Moon Over Broadway” a hysterically vicious look at self-impressed divas and classy pros on the road to the great white way in an awesomely mediocre vehicle of a show.

What’s not to love about HBO original productions? “Sex in the City.” “Six Feet Under.” “The Sopranos.” “Angels in America.” Need I say more?

Then why does this documentary suck as big time as this one does?

Mayhap because it’s not a documentary at all, but merely portions of Ms. Stritch’s one woman show taped during its final leg in London, intercut with little more than what appears on most DVD featurettes. It appears as though the filmmakers spent a day with her in New York, a day with her in London, added some old photographs to the mix, and thought they had a movie. They don’t. The filmmakers even have the gall to include footage from one of their own prior documentaries in an attempt to fill out the vacuous goose egg they have arrived at here. Not only doesn’t the minimal new footage add anything to the proceedings, much of it also feels forced at best and disingenuous at worst. Any of us who follow the theater remember the drama surrounding Ms. Stritch’s Tony Award of 2002. We know how long she waited for this moment in the spotlight, were moved by how much the award meant to her, and were appalled and aghast when the music played her off before she could finish her admittedly long-winded acceptance speech. The newspapers were filled with backstage melodrama, how she tearily told reporters backstage that the experience was ruined for her, how she no longer wanted the award, how devastating it all was -- this is the larger than life stuff of Stritch legend. In the documentary, we see her win the award, we see her take the stage, we see the start of her touching acceptance speech…and we cut back to a clip of her in performance. Do the people who made this film even know who this woman is or what she does for a living?

On stage, Stritch’s talent explodes – she is a star, and her charisma, charm, guts and pathos flood over the footlights and envelopes the audience. The taped DVD of her one woman show doesn’t quite capture the magic, especially since she seems a wee bit tired and not utterly at her best. Still, for anyone interested in spending an evening with this galvanizing woman – and who in god’s name wouldn’t be – rent the DVD of the entire show and forego this chopped up, utterly pointless rehash.

HBO and the Pennebakers blew it big time on this one. Stritch’s life story deserves so very much more.

More Movie Info: http://imdb.com/title/tt0431034/