Frasier: And the Dish Ran Away with the Spoon, Par

Intrepid Pictures

Year Released:

2007


MPAA Rating:

PG-13


Director:

Robert Ben Garant


Writers:

Thomas Lennon, Robert Ben Garant


Cast:

Dan Fogler, Christopher Walken, George Lopez, Maggie Q, James Hong, Terry Crews, Robert Patrick, Diedrich Bader, Aisha Tyler, Thomas Lennon.

Look, I laughed —

laughed

– a good four or five times during

Balls of Fury

. Big, dumb, moronic guffaws. I'm not proud of it, but there it is. And before I recount the many, many things wrong with this movie, I should note those few things it got right. For the undemanding fan in the depths of August, five laughs in 85 minutes might be worth a ticket. You can boost that count even higher if you think that fat guys are inherently funny or that Christopher Walken should dress in Gary Oldman's old Dracula getup more often. If none of that appeals to you, however, then

Balls of Fury

is more apt to be a tedious drag than a guilty pleasure.

For starters, it does very little that 2004's

Dodgeball

didn't do 40 zillion times better: start with an odd quasi-sport that no one takes seriously, elevate it to

Rocky

-esque proportions, and add a few funny people to make the material sing.

Dodgeball

used pointed jabs at ESPN-style pomposity for its laughs, coupled with some very funny send-ups of various plucky underdog clichés.

Balls of Fury

, on the other hand, trumpets the overall concept while ignoring the specific details. The game in question is Ping-Pong, which here becomes an underground death sport akin to the kung-fu of

Enter the Dragon

. That, for all intents and purposes, is the only joke. The plucky underdog comes in the form of Randy Daytona (Dan Fogler), disgraced former Olympian who now plies his skills as a novelty act somewhere in the ninth circle of casino hell. Then FBI agent Ernie Rodriguez (George Lopez) recruits him to participate in a secret table-tennis tournament TO THE DEATH, hosted by the infamous Feng (Walken), whom the feds want to nail for a number of unspecified crimes. How Daytona's participation will get them their man is a little fuzzy, but that's less important than facilitating the age-old satire of training scenes, Yoda-esque pontification, and colorful opponents standing between Daytona and his destiny.

Fitful moments of amusement occasionally escape the proceedings, as director Robert Ben Garant finds concepts that play off our expectations enough to winnow out a snicker or two. Other elements, however, straddle the line between deliberate and inadvertent humor, such as the fact that the tournament's "exotic" locale is clearly the Universal backlot (painfully obvious to anyone who has ever taken the tour). The remainder of the gags simply shoulder too much weight — slight and threadbare to start with, then pushed much farther than they should in hopes of filling up enough screen time to reach feature length. For example, Daytona's ubiquitous Asian sensei (James Hong) is blind: a concept good for a few cheap laughs of the talking-to-walls-and-bumping-into-things variety. Nothing award-worthy of course, but a veteran showbiz trooper like Hong can work it reasonably well. The only trouble is that

Balls of Fury

never lets it go. So we get a few blind-guy jokes too many… then

way

too many… then so many that each new one elicits active groans of agony. Similar flogging accompanies the dubious ideas of Ping-Pong players as overhyped bad-asses and the James Bond silliness of Feng's secret lair. They water the already thin soup down to unpalatable proportions.

The cast is equally overloaded, depending more on physical appearance and a willingness to look foolish than any comedic skills. Fogler displays some decent instincts (he's won a Tony award, so there's street cred there), but Garant relies primarily on his doughy figure and ability to shriek like a girl rather than his timing or delivery. Lopez has a very funny bit in the bathroom to cover up a lot of sleepwalking, while Walken's performance redefines the term "phoned-in." The funniest cast members actually lurk further down the food chain: Aisha Tyler makes a passable impression as Feng's chief assassin (including one scene involving palace concubines that marks the film's modest highlight) and Jason Scott Lee proves a decent sport as one of Daytona's early rivals. Heroine/love interest Maggie Q is on much shakier ground, but she looks damn good in a sports bra, and with material this weak, such an asset should not be lightly dismissed.

Enough of it works well enough to let me merely dismiss

Balls of Fury

instead of actively loathing it the way I probably should. Unfunny comedies are the saddest of all bad films because you can't even laugh at them properly. Garant manages to keep that pathetic fate at bay (though only barely at times), and a project so problematic could do worse than the TBS Saturday afternoon standby it is most likely destined for. Anyone expecting more has far too much optimism for this time of year, and far too much faith in a film aiming as low as it possibly can.

Balls of Fury

is bad, but it's not

really

bad, and I suppose that's a victory of sorts… the kind its characters would take without hesitation.

Review published 08.29.2007.

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Back in 1945, a Rita Hayworth melodious called Tonight and Every Tenebriousness saluted England’s famed Windmill Theatre, the only venue to offer nights performances during the chaos and terror of the London Blitz. Legend has it that consideration a daily fall of Nazi bombs, the theater never closed, and its defiance—along with the vaudeville-style entertainment it provided—helped boost both civilian and military morale during a very dark era. The film, however, neglects to divulge whole vital fact—that a honest hundred of the Windmill’s female dancers appeared on stage evident naked. That’s opportunely, naked.

American censorship, of order, prohibited Tonight and Every Night from depicting—much less addressing—this provocative angle of the Windmill’s olden days. But 60 years and a one of social revolutions later, director Stephen Frears dares to lift the cover (not to mention the blouse, skirt and undergarments), allowing us to peek at bottom the Windmill during its heyday and gaup its buxom showgirls. Mrs. Henderson Presents chronicles the theater’s evolution as it profiles the eccentric and rude impresario who set the sexy wheels in motion.

And we thought all Brits were prudes.

Recently widowed and loath to teeter in mourning, dowager Laura Henderson (Judi Dench) searches as a service to a stimulating and amusing pastime to fill her solo hours. She impulsively decides to ace in the sensational milieu, and in 1937 leases the Windmill Theatre with the intent of producing smart vaudeville revues. She hires the feisty Vivian Van Damm (Bob Hoskins) to manage the staff and mount the shows, and, like a couple of titans, the two clash. Vivian demands complete creative control, but the spoiled, scatterbrained Mrs. Henderson can’t deny meddling in every aspect of moving picture. Brisk business greets the initial shows, but when other music halls copy the Windmill’s novel constitution of round-the-clock performances, interest wanes. Without a creative gimmick to boost ticket sales, the theater faces closure.

Mrs. Henderson’s brainstorm, however, saves the day. “Let’s have in the altogether girls,” she suggests with a mischievous shine. And when the clothes come off, the patrons go about a find back, and the Windmill years again becomes the heroine of London village. War, however, brings with it a new set of challenges, and the German bombs rock not no more than the theater’s foundation, but also the origination of Laura and Vivian’s relationship.

More a light-hearted comedy with musical interludes than a unambiguous historical drama, Mrs. Henderson Presents still marvelously recreates wartime London and captures the period’s theatrical flavor. The nudity, like it was at the time, is tastefully presented. Forget any go-go notions; the naked girls remain statuesque and motionless throughout the tuneful tableaux, which resemble scaled-down versions of Busby Berkeley’s outrageous cinematic fantasies. Frears, however, isn’t afraid to linger on the female form, but does so in an artistic, pretty than lewd, fashion.

Sarcastic repartee abounds in Martin Sherman’s cursive writing, and the interplay between the weird span of Dench and Hoskins is often delicious. Dench seems to fondness portraying the brusque, frequently annoying Mrs. Henderson, and it’s a action towards to see the actress display her saucy side. Whether she suitable an Oscar nomination for such a breezy role remains open owing careful thought, but, as always, Dench is an unqualified delight, and easily steals focus in every scene in which she appears. Hoskins makes a proficient defeat as the exasperated Van Damm, who comes to grudgingly admire Mrs. Henderson despite his abominate of her pompous personality. Christopher Lodger also shines in a funny curdle as a priggish ministry legal who reluctantly green-lights the risqué revue. His tea-time colloquy with Dench at hand the female genitalia is without a doubt the movie’s comic highlight.

A scarcely any flamboyant and sincere scenes punch up the second half, but unfortunately, Mrs. Henderson Presents never rises above a lightweight lark. There’s nothing predominantly wrong with that, but considering the illustrious casting and director, we somehow expect a more substantive, meaningful mist. Like the Windmill’s patrons, we may be attracted to Mrs. Henderson Presents because of its well turned out, supple, unclothed bodies, but in today’s tolerate world, such titillation is no longer enough.

The Movie

There’s goofy and there’s boring and then there’s Memory, a movie that…

But wait. Let me start again.

Starring Billy Zane in the leading role…

Yeah, that’s it. Nothing against Mr. Zane on a personal level, but if you’re watching a movie in which BZ has the lead role … odds are you’re watching something very cheap, very goofy, and very boring. Ironic that a flick called Memory would be so instantly forgettable, but let’s hear it for B-movies that pretty much review themselves.

Zane stars as a scientist who specializes in Alzheimer’s Syndrome, but after he inhales some voodoo dust while visiting a near-dead patient in a Brazilian hospital (don’t ask), he returns home to discover that his dreams have been invaded by a serial killer from three decades earlier. Oh, and Dennis Hopper and Ann-Margret stop by (briefly and listlessly) to earn a quick paycheck.

Based on a novel you’ve never heard of and directed (drably) by the guy who wrote The Medallion, Memory is more a “psychological thriller” than a horror movie, in that it deals with dreams and memories and lots of amorphous blather instead of anything that comes close to the doorstep of “SCARY.” The thing feels like something produced for basic cable, only not one of those rare cable movies that’s not, y’know, good.

Popcorn porn movie

Zane wood-walks his way through the exceedingly predictable proceedings (he really is a more entertaining performer when he’s allow to camp it up) while salvos of obvious clues and repetitive dreamscapes wander cluelessly across the screen. By the thing lurches to its woefully obvious finale, you’ll be knee-deep into snoozeville, leaving someone else to turn off the TV and wonder why in the hell you rented a Billy Zane movie in the first place.

Walt Disney has gone a crave way towards tightening the leisurely, adventitious adventure of Alice in the wonderland of her inventiveness. He has dropped some characters and sequences in the interest of a well-advised picture, but the deletions are not missed.

The Mad Hatter, the March Hare, the Caterpillar, the Cheshire Cat, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, the White Rabbit, the Walrus and the Carpenter, the Queen of Hearts and other remembered characters are enchantingly projected as Alice strolls through her dream world to the accompaniment of ballads and musical nonsense.

Young Kathryn Beaumont enchants as the voice of Alice, Ed Wynn (Mad Hatter), Jerry Colonna (March Hare), Richard Haydn (Caterpillar, a particular standout in his smoke-ring alphabet scene with Alice), Sterling Holloway (Cheshire Cat), Bill Thompson (White Rabbit), Pat O’Malley (Tweedle Twins) and Verna Felton (Queen of Hearts) are among those whose tonal tricks help sell the pen-and-ink people.

1951: Nomination: Scoring of a Musical Picture

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

A short documentary about a dynamic and aggressive head shaven 53-year-old
Catholic born Australian, Robina Courtin, who has been a Tibetan Buddhist
nun in America for the last twenty years. It is directed with passion,
love, and devotion by Amiel Courtin-Wilson — Robina is his aunt.

Robina speaks her mind and is not afraid to use flowery language,
as she openly lets the viewer see her without any disguises and how she
arrived at this path. She dated blacks as a young lady in the 1960s, was
always outspoken, and left Australia in 1967 to live in London and New
York for eight years. Robina got involved with hippies and then became
radicalized and joined the black and feminist revolutions. When helping
someone move a car, it accidently ran over her foot and a friend suggested
she go to a Buddhist retreat for rest.

There Robina found what was missing from her life and studied with
a Tibetan lama until she became a nun. She learned how to control her crazy
energy, and learned that she previously blamed everyone else but herself
for the faults of society. Buddhism made her look inside herself for the
truth, and helped her realize her potential and not to waste her time trying
to change the outside world.

Polar opposites watch

Robina is the editor of a Buddhist magazine called Mandala, and teaches
the dharma at the center she lives in and her teachings also take her across
the country. Not withdrawn from society, Robina goes to restaurants and
sometimes to the movies with friends. Through interviews with friends and
family members, we trace her life and forceful personality. Robina even
brings up that she hated her father as a girl because of his sexual tendencies
(though he never had sex with her) toward her and her sisters. She corresponded
with him until he died in 1969 as a lonely man, and she expresses compassion
for him.

The most exciting part of the film is her visit to a Kentucky prison,
where she counsels some hardened Death Row inmates and gets them to express
their thoughts and feelings. Robina relates best to them because she feels
their pain and their need for some light and warmth, and is never afraid
of being with these murderers.

As a quick look at Robina’s life it doesn’t ask any hard reporter
questions, as we are instead treated to a rare individual who found what
she is looking for in life and is happy to share this with others. But
we don’t really know her as well as we could have if the filmmaker could
have been less in awe of his subject and more focused in probing her thoughts.
On the surface level this is a fine looking character study of an unusual
woman, but it would have been good to let more daylight in about the teachings
of Buddhism.

In a nearby (sort of) galaxy, a approved school breakout unleashes razor-toothed fuzzballs who naturally head for planet Blue planet.

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Surprisingly unvarnished tribute to the unsung women and men who perform stunts in Hong Kong movies. Compact-frail-to-be Michelle Khan (who actually did break into movies doing stunts) plays Ah Kam, an outsider from mainland China who braves her retreat into movie occupation, bungles an matter with a businessman and winds up confronting the triad gangsters who have killed her mentor (Hung). Not one of Hui’s personal films, but transparently on the level. Khan did her own stunts and broke a stage during production.

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In this stretch romance based on Agnes von Kurowsky’s diary account of her short-lived linkage with a young Ernest Hemingway, the future novelist is injured while working appropriate for the Red Mongrel in Italy in WWI. Upon entering the polyclinic, the tactless American falls in love with Agnes, his angelic sister, and vows to take off her be hung up on him in return. Adapted from the 1989 novel, ‘Hemingway in Love and War,’ the film chronicles the events upon which Hemingway based his own tale, the 1929 work of art ‘A Farewell to Arms.’

“Lonesome Dove” (1989) was limerick of the two best Western mini-series ever brought to small screen–the other being “Centennial” (1978). So naturally CBS had to capitalize on the show’s success, cranking out the only-okay “Return to Lonesome Dove” (1993), the atrocious “Lonesome Dove: the Series” (1994), the barely so-so “Lonesome Dove: the Outlaw Years” (1995), and now this clunker of a prequel, “Comanche Moon.”

I don’t grasp what’s more surprising, that CBS decided to breathe life into the franchise after a 13-year hiatus, or that a teleplay from Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana (”Brokeback Mountain”) is by turns so yawningly and laughably contaminated.

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I’ll tell you right now, I couldn’t abscond it because of this unscathed series. The reviewer for Breed described “Comanche Moon” as being “tedious, at times cartoonishly bad,” and I couldn’t put it better. Some of the lines are enough to make you laugh out loud, and the characters come across so unintentionally funny that it goes way beyond campy into the realm of discomfort. You get a mind-numbing common sense that you’re just wasting your in the good old days b simultaneously if you watch another minute of this “serious” Western.

From the beginning view, where men plod along on horseback in winter, the snow looks fake and zero looks all that cold. Disobedient acting, and despite location Santa Fe filming, decayed staging. Uh-oh, you think. And definite enough, it gets worse. Unrivalled this column of Texas Rangers is a dandy who says things like “If purely we were in Brazil, where the fer-de-lance lives,” every line coming out of his express more magisterial and cartoonish than the anterior to one. It’s as if president Simon Wincer (who know doubt was) didn’t have on the agenda c trick the heart to tell Val Kilmer that it was a prequel to “Lonesome Dove” they were filming, not “Blazing Saddles.” Kilmer is the chief offender here, but you have to after all is said reproach the direction and a casting yell that must play a joke on read, “Wanted, people to play on-the-top cowboys and Indians.” At bromide point, as this column of Rangers moves over and done with a Sioux encampment, a chief says to one of his braves, “Call killed your brother. I pass on him to you.” After this Godfatheresque line, you almost expect him to add, “Let him sleep with the fishes,” thought the nearest river is four-feet deep at best, and covered with ice.

Whether it’s smooth-old cowboys who seem like actors in hats so big-brimmed you sight how they keep their balance or making out-hungering for women who say things like “Come to my parlor” or lay on a southern accent mark so stiff that it seems with a cranky community theater output of a Tennessee Williams frisk, there’s enough depraved acting to fill one of those hats. And with so much caricature, it’s no knock someone for a loop that the leads are also tinged with hokum. The original “Lonesome Dove” gave us Robert Duvall as the peaceful-going, philosophical Gus McCrae and Tommy Lee Jones as the stoic, humorless Woodrow F. Call. Those were big shoes to fill, and while there are moments when Steve Zahn quickly taps into the character of Gus that we saw in the original mini-series, ultimately he’s as bad as Karl Urban, whose version of Woodrow F. Call lacks more than luster.