My February 2006 Viewings

Includes my personal ratings.
Recommended DVDs in bold.

Separate Lies 02/27/06
Love Liza 02/27/06
The Weather Man 02/23/06 (D)
Word Wars 02/23/06 (C+)
Nine Lives 02/17/06
Sleepers 02/14/06 (A-)
The Hollywood Sign 02/09/06
Lemon Sky 02/02/06 (B-)

The Weather Man (2006)

The Forecast Is Bleak

The Weather Man should be retitled to Angst in Chicago -or- How Many Pained Facial Expressions Can Nicolas Cage Make?

I was in hopes this would be a good film but it was just too painful to watch a couple of good actors wasted in this rubbish.

Nicolas Cage plays a weatherman in Chicago but he isn't really trained for it and doesn't really like his job. He's lost his wife (Hope Davis) and has unrealistic expectations that it can be made right again. His two young teenage children are seriously messed up. He's a vast disappointment to his father (Michael Caine).

He is regularly pelted with fast food as he walks down the Chicago streets. He's in serious need of anger management therapy. He's chronically depressed and at a loss as to what he can do to make himself and those around him happy. And he just landed a job as the weatherman on a national morning news show out of NYC.

I was tempted to just give up on it several times but stuck with it to the end hoping the film would redeem itself. It didn't. Don't get me wrong. I appreciate dark humor and love movies with a warp but this doesn't pass either test.

Directed by Gore Verbinski.

Rated R for strong language and sexual content.

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viewed Feb-2006

Sleepers (1997)

Quality Cast, Gripping Story, Terrific Music

Four young boys are growing up in the mid-1960's in NYC's Hell's Kitchen. The boys -- Shakes (Joseph Perrino), Michael (Brad Renfro), John (Geoffrey Wigdor) and Tommy (Jonathan Tucker) -- aren't really bad boys, just kids living in a rough neighborhood. They fall under the influence of the 'hood's Mafia leader, King Benny (Vittorio Gassman) but also have a solid friendship with their neighborhood priest, Father Bobby (Robert De Niro).

When they're 14, a foolish prank costs an innocent man his life and they're sent away to reform school where they immediately become targets for the loathesome Sean Nokes (Kevin Bacon), a brutal guard who is the ringleader of a group of guards who molest and beat the boys.

Thirteen years later, all grown up, Tommy (Billy Crudup) and John (Ron Eldard) are Hell's Kitchen thugs while Shakes (Jason Patric) is a low-level newspaper employee and Michael (Brad Pitt) is an assistant district attorney. Their childhood friend Carol (Minnie Driver), now a social worker, is still loyal to all of them.

When Tommy and John encounter the despicable Sean Nokes dining at a local bar and grill, they take the opportunity to exact revenge upon him by murdering him in cold blood -- with four witnesses present.

Shakes and Michael conspire and hatch a plan to not only get Tommy and John off but also to take revenge on the other guards who Sean Nokes lead to ravage the boys when they were young.

While Michael arranges to take on the case to prosecute Tommy and John, King Benny hires an alcoholic, loser attorney (Dustin Hoffman) to defend the boys.

Will the plan work? Will Father Bobby aid the cause?

A masterful ensemble of actors. Directed by Barry Levinson who is known for his films about male bonding (Diner, Tin Men, Avalon, Rain Man). Fabulous music from the '60s and '70s. Haunting sets and cinematography

Bruno Kirby appears as Shakes' alcoholic father.

I highly recommend this one if you can handle the intensity. Be warned that it is long but can easily be viewed in two sections -- when the boys are young and then when they've grown up.

Two-disc set.

Rated R for language, graphic violence and two scenes of strong sexual content.

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viewed Feb-2006

Normal (2003)

Acceptance

What a tender, brave film.

Small town folks Irma (Jessica Lange) and Roy (Tom Wilkinson) Applewood, a devoted couple, have just celebrated their 25th anniversary when Roy faces the reality that he's has been hiding a huge secret all his life. He's a trans-sexual who desperately wants gender reassignment treatment and surgery.

In the process of coming to terms with this, they need to deal with their pubescent daughter (Hayden Panettiere), grown son (Joe Sikora), Roy's judgemental coworkers at the farm implement plant, and the intolerant rural church congregation who previously had adored and respected Irma and Roy.

The amazing nuances in Wilkinson's protrayal of Roy transforming himself into Ruth are incredibly powerful as is Lange's Irma who was at first shell-shocked, then confused and angry, and finally to the ultimate acceptance and return to loving this human being who she has shared so much with all her adult life.

The simplicity of the cinematography allows the story to be perfectly told through the very skins of Lange and Wilkinson.

Directed for HBO by Jane Anderson.

My personal rating: A