Al Pacino is sometimes accused of chewing the scenery. But you know what? It can be great fun to watch Al chew the scenery. Pacino plays a lawyer who takes on the Maryland judicial system in this 1979 satire from director Norman Jewison. Click here to watch it for free.
© 2010-2026 grouchyeditor.com (text only)
by Nora Ephron
“I would rather have you laugh at me than feel sorry for me.” So writes Ephron at the end of Heartburn, her 1983 autobiographical novel about the breakup of her marriage to journalist Carl Bernstein. Funny, clever, and ever self-deprecating, Ephron’s humor does indeed cover up any traces of self-pity. She has the humorist’s gift for seeing ordinary incidents in extraordinary ways, and then putting that vision on paper. This is Ephron describing an embrace with her housekeeper: “Juanita gave me a big hug, which was awkward since she was only about four feet six inches tall, and a hug from her felt like the Heimlich maneuver.” Good stuff, that, but the book is also more than a bit sad.
© 2010-2026 grouchyeditor.com (text only)
Anderson Cooper is officially … everywhere: CNN, 60 Minutes, talk shows, New Year’s Eve specials. Try as I might, I haven’t really been able to ferret out anything truly despicable about the guy, but that does not mean that I want to see so damn much of him. Get out of my living room, Cooper, and take your girlish giggle with you.
*****
On the other hand, it seems obvious that the Salahis need some company, so I am pulling out my hide-a-bed, just for them. But tell that creep from Journey to buzz off.
*****
I watched a TV interview with a representative of Ducks Unlimited. Yes, my life really is that sad and pathetic. The rep was asked what attracted him to Ducks Unlimited (silly question) and he replied: “Something just snapped, and I became a water fowler.”
I could not let this kind of comment pass without some good-natured ribbing, so I Web-searched Ducks Unlimited, found it, and sent off an e-mail. I got this reply:
Hi [Grouch]
Welcome back to Minnesota. I appreciate your comment and wish I could have taken the remark back. To be clear, “you guys” is me. I was the dude that made the comment. Unfortunately, at that moment I didn’t represent the best of Ducks Unlimited or the great volunteers of Minnesota.
Thank you for the feedback,
Dave Flink/Minnesota State Chair/SCSU 1980
There are so many things wrong with this. Welcome back to Minnesota? What does that mean? And the guy apparently went to my college (SCSU). And he graduated the same year that I did. Do I somehow know him? Worse, does he know me? The lesson: Be very careful before you mess with Ducks Unlimited.
*****
CBS anchorman Scott Pelley has an unfortunate Ted Baxter thing going on. Like Ted, Pelley looks and sounds like he’s seated in front of a mirror, practicing his anchor voice.
*****
And you thought that Jay Leno has a gigantic chin?
*****
I’m not sure why the nude pictures of Scarlett Johansson are considered big news. She’s an attractive actress showing off her bare ass — like that’s never happened before.
*****
There must be a God:
*****
This is the kind of thing that happens to you when you live next door to a writer:
© 2010-2026 grouchyeditor.com (text only)
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These are a few things that Drive has going for it: 1) the hottest actor of the year, Ryan Gosling; 2) arguably the most promising actress of 2010, Carey Mulligan; 3) a director, Nicolas Winding Refn, who brings a distinctive European flavor to the project; 4) handsome production design and striking visuals.
None of that matters, because Drive goes nowhere thanks to a lackluster story and characters who are thinner than windshield-wiper fluid. It’s all very frustrating, because the film would seem to have so much potential. Yet once again, Hollywood puts polish and shine on a movie and neglects the most important element, good storytelling.
Gosling plays “the driver,” an enigmatic Steve McQueen type, a soft-spoken loner who is on the wrong side of the law but who harbors — you guessed it — a kinder, gentler side. Just in case we overlook this aspect of his personality, we are treated to scenes of Gosling watching cartoons with a kid. Somehow, I can’t picture McQueen taking time out in The Getaway to watch an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants.
The driver decides to bless a girl next door with his niceness, which leads to big problems. Mulligan, so good in An Education and in Never Let Me Go, has the thankless role of “the girl” in another example of lousy parts for women in Hollywood “A” movies. Mulligan plays a single mother (dad is in prison) whose main purpose in Drive is to cast sad looks at the men in her life: expressions of longing for Gosling, and looks of despair for her no-good husband, an ex-con called “Standard.” (I checked, but I could find no character in the film named “Automatic.”)
The supporting cast is also wasted. Bryan Cranston is the foolish sidekick whom any graduate of Movies 101 will tell you is expendable in a movie like this. Christina Hendricks looks fetching but comes and goes in no time at all. Albert Brooks, as a foul-tempered money man, is one of the film’s few bright spots. The undernourished plot is a heist-gone-wrong story that you’ve seen many times before.
Refn, who inexplicably took home a Best Director award from the Cannes Film Festival for this mediocrity, wants his film to be like Shane with car chases. Shane was cool and had lots of soul. Drive looks cool, but has no soul. Grade: C+
Director: Nicolas Winding Refn Cast: Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Bryan Cranston, Albert Brooks, Oscar Isaac, Christina Hendricks, Ron Perlman, Kaden Leos, Jeff Wolfe, James Biberi, Russ Tamblyn Release: 2011
Watch Trailers and Clips (click here)
© 2010-2026 grouchyeditor.com (text only)
by Kingsley Amis
Reading Lucky Jim is like watching a 1940s Hollywood romantic comedy, but with a British bent. The novel is polished, clever, amusing … and dated. I suspect that Amis’s tale of rebellious college instructor Jim Dixon had more resonance for earlier generations, although its puncturing of academic pomposity is a timeless pleasure. But speaking as a 21st century, American reader, I dare say that much of the book struck me as more peculiar than funny.
© 2010-2026 grouchyeditor.com (text only)
Believe it or not, I’ve usually seen the movies I select for “Free Flick of the Week.” That’s not the case this week, in which I’m plugging Brian De Palma’s 1976 thriller, Obsession. But I want to see it, because I love me some 1970s De Palma, and this Hitchcock tribute, in which Cliff Robertson (who died last week) plays a man who loses his wife and child to kidnappers, looks intriguing. So let’s all of us go here and watch it for free.
© 2010-2026 grouchyeditor.com (text only)
Maybe the bar has been set so low for horror-comedies that I no longer expect much from them, but heaven help me, I liked The Cottage. I liked it more than the Scream movies, which are often too cute for their own good. I liked it more than the camp classic Motel Hell, which doesn’t live up to its reputation.
The Cottage is engaging mostly because of its characters. When teens take a pickaxe in the skull in most horror spoofs, I tend to silently cheer. But in this film, I actually wanted the people to survive the inevitable carnage. (I won’t say whether or not they do.)
Bug-eyed Andy Serkis, who’s made a name for himself acting in motion-capture roles (Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Gollum in The Lord of the Rings), plays it straight as one of two bumbling brothers who make the mistake of kidnapping the foul-mouthed daughter (Jennifer Ellison) of a mobster. Reece Shearsmith, as the other brother, and Steven O’Donnell, as the mobster’s son, complete this Three Stooges redux.
The Cottage is a strange hybrid of genres. The first half of the story is a kidnapping caper; the second half is a bloody, stupid, and funny send-up of horror favorites like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Psycho. The last half of the movie, nonsensical as it is (how in hell does the story go from crime thriller to slasher flick?), is nevertheless the most effective. The killer, a deformed farmer, looks like he’s wearing a rubber mask and makes noises that seem filtered through … a rubber mask. If that sounds ridiculous, rest assured, it is.
But I liked the characters, I dug the tongue-in-cheek tone, and there were just enough creepy scenarios and amusing one-liners to keep me hooked. Says one bumbling brother to the uncooperative kidnap victim as they flee the deranged farmer: “This is the worst night of my life. Not only have I met you, I’ve stumbled into the only house in the country with someone worse than you.” Grade: B
Director: Paul Andrew Williams Cast: Andy Serkis, Reece Shearsmith, Steven O’Donnell, Jennifer Ellison, Logan Wong, Jonathan Chan-Pensley, Dave Legeno Release: 2008
Watch Trailers (click here)
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I’m no conspiracy buff and certainly no structural engineer, but it still seems odd to me — counterintuitive — that an airplane crashing into the upper floors of a skyscraper could bring the thing to the ground.
*****
“He’s got the weight of the world on his shoulders, quite literally.” — Piers Morgan, talking about Obama and proving that even the English don’t understand English.
*****
There is a TV ad for something called Micro Plus, a hearing-aid thing that supposedly lets you overhear conversations taking place at a distance. In the ad, a bikinied babe walks past two other women and knowingly smirks as one of the women says, “She has an amazing body!”
This gadget seems like a good thing, but what if you wear it, walk down the street, and hear: “Look at the pot belly on that loser!” or “Look — that guy has a brown spot on the seat of his pants!”?
*****
Dear Grouchy,
The Philadelphia Eagles have made dog-lover Michael Vick fabulously rich with a $100 million contract. Don’t you agree that it’s good to give people a second chance?
T. Woods
Florida
Dear T. Woods:
Everyone is in favor of giving people a second chance. But that isn’t the issue with Vick. The issue is awarding “second chances” that are lucrative beyond belief. There is a difference between being allowed to earn a living, and being handed the keys to paradise.
Grouchy
*****
I recently bashed Entertainment Weekly (again) for its politically correct agenda. Also recently, I championed the U.S. Postal Service, which is in danger of extinction. So what happens this week? You guessed it: My issue of EW got lost in the mail.
*****
So Oprah’s celebrity interviews are disingenuous? Why am I not surprised?
*****
Funniest show you never heard of: Hell Date. You haven’t seen it because 1) it’s on BET, and you’re white; 2) it went off the air in 2008. But hey, you can still catch reruns or see it on the Web. It’s funny. Unless it’s fake. I’ll have to ask Ryan O’Neal.
© 2010-2026 grouchyeditor.com (text only)
Most movies have a scene or two that stick in the memory. What I enjoy recalling about 1993’s In the Line of Fire is the sight of poor Clint Eastwood, 62 and not so spry, sprinting after the bad guy (John Malkovich) – huffing, puffing, running his old heart out. I must be a sadist. But this thriller about a Secret Service agent (Eastwood) racing to halt a presidential assassination is mindless good fun. Click here to watch it for free.
© 2010-2026 grouchyeditor.com (text only)
Men Behaving (and Dressing) Badly
Poor Bruce Jenner. We all know that his wife, Kris, wears the pants in the Kardashian-Jenner household, but this item in my local paper about daughter Kim’s wedding was simply too much:
I saw nothing about whether or not Wang also designed Bruce’s earrings.
*****
Gawker and The Huffington Post inform us that Fox’s Bill O’Reilly is just another aging cuckold. According to Gawker, O’Reilly was unable to satisfy trophy wife Maureen McPhilmy, who sought solace in the arms of a Long Island cop. Big Bill allegedly then pulled strings in an attempt to damage the cop’s career.
If you get your news from Fox, don’t hold your breath waiting for the all-spin network to weigh in on this story.
*****
Dear Grouchy:
Whatever happened to that story you promised about Arnold Schwarzenegger and a Japanese schoolgirl?
M. Shriver, Los Angeles CA
Dear M. Shriver:
Never let it be said that we here at The Grouchy Editor are slothful researchers. In our May 22 review, we incorrectly reported that embattled movie star/governor Arnold Schwarzenegger had once been photographed fondling an underage girl. Maybe that assertion was the result of, ahem, someone’s early-onset Alzheimer’s, or perhaps it was simply a case of overzealous journalism, but whatever the case, we’ve since located the photograph in question … and it is not of the former governor.
It’s an image of fellow action star Steven Seagal, who is captured getting his jollies at a smiling lass’s expense (the caption reads: “Feeling up a Nipponese schoolgirl!”). The photo was published in a 1995 edition of Celebrity Sleuth, and here it is. Our apologies to Arnold.
*****
I was channel surfing and landed on two hefty, middle-aged women discussing the economy — and it was so refreshing. No kidding. CNN anchor Candy Crowley (above left) and economist Christina Romer (above right) might not be typical TV eye candy (pun intended), but somehow I put a lot more weight (pun intended) into what these two were saying than I do when I’m forced to listen to the usual gang of pretty bubbleheads. You go, fat girls!
*****
So Obama caves, again, and bumps his Big Speech back a day to Thursday evening. This guy is like the smart kid who sits in class and has all of the right answers — but who then gets beat up by bullies and has his lunch stolen. Those of us who voted for him thought we were getting a guy with some balls, but we picked the wrong kid; we should have voted for the woman with balls.
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