My November 2007 Viewings

Includes my personal ratings.
Recommended DVDs in bold.

He Died with a Felafel in His Hand 11/30/07 (C)
Ballykissangel 3:3 11/29/07 (B)
Ballykissangel 3:2 11/27/07 (B)
Monk 1:4 11/26/07 (B)
Boston Legal 3:6 11/26/07 (B)
Blue Man Group: The Complex Rock Tour Live 11/23/07 (B)
Hairspray 11/21/07 (B+)
Danny Deckchair 11/19/07 (B)
Ballykissangel 3:1 11/19/07 (B)
Dogville 11/19/07
Looking for Kitty 11/14/07
Blow Dry 11/14/07 (B)
Lonesome Jim 11/14/07
You Kill Me 11/09/07 (C)
Road to Redemption 11/09/07 (C)
Reign Over Me 11/09/07 (B+)
The Wendell Baker Story 11/06/07 (B)
Zodiac 11/04/07 (B)
A Good Woman 11/02/07 (C+)

Danny Deckchair (2004)

Up, Up and Away!!!

Written by "Lawnchair Larry" Walters and based on his own experience, this is a film about overcoming boredom and finding your right place in life.

Danny Morgan (Rhys Ifans) is a cement maker who is unhappy with his life and tired of being put down by his rather uppity live-in girlfriend Trudy (Justine Clarke). He has a little fantasy about drifting away to a new life and one day buys a bunch of helium balloons and attaches them to his deckchair during a barbecue party (throw another shrimp on the barbi!).

Unfortunately, his friends lose hold of the chair and Danny sets off on a ride across Australia which creates quite a media stir when he can't be tracked.

One night in a flurry of fireworks over a small town in the outback, Danny's balloons are punctured and he comes down in the trees in Glenda's (Miranda Otto) back yard.

Glenda befriends him and introduces him around town where he is instantly liked and he embraces the community. He even becomes involved in a political campaign.

Meanwhile, his girlfriend back home is falling for a handsome and popular reporter (Rhys Muldoon) who is covering the story but when Danny's balloons are discovered and his location reaches the news, Trudy comes to the town to "reclaim" him. But Danny is a changed man. Will he return to his home with Trudy and have her respect now and perhaps a chance at a more prestigious career?

Directed by Jeff Balsmeyer.

Rated PG-13 for sex-related situations.

Blow Dry (2001)

"Mum! Dad's cutting!"

Once upon a time . . . hairdressers Phil (Alan Rickman) and Shelley (Natasha Richardson) Allen and their hair model Sandra (Rachel Griffiths) battled it out at hair design competitions. But that was long ago and ended when the marriage and their business broke up because Shelley and Sandra became romantically involved.

Now Shelley runs her styling shop with Sandra and Phil runs his barber shop with their son Brian (Josh Hartnett) in the same small English town of Keighley. Shelley and Phil haven't spoken to each other for 10 years, since the breakup, and Shelley has just discovered that her cancer has metastisized.

When Keighley wins the bid to host the spectacular annual British Hairdressing Championship, Phil's old nemesis Ray Robertson (the delightfully evil Bill Nighy) comes to town and baits Phil to drop the barber shears and return to styling for one last time in this competition to prove which one of them is really the best.
Phil resists but Brian urges him to give it a go if Phil can put together a team of stylists and their own hair model.

Can Shelley and Phil drop their distance and come together for their son? Will Sandra resume her part of the team as the hair model? Will Brian escalate his childhood crush on Ray Robertson's daughter Christina (Rachael Leigh Cook)?

Wild times ensue and one wonders if they can pull it off despite the challenges in this charming comedy about love and family and acceptence directed by Paddy Breathnach.

Model Heidi Klumm appears as a hair model. Also appearing are Rosemary Harris and Hugh Bonneville.

Rated R for some language and brief nudity.

Reign Over Me (2007)

The Power of Grief

Despite success as a dentist and family man, Alan Johnson (Don Cheadle) feels empty and can't quite determine why. Even is wife (Jada Pinkett Smith) and daughters notice and it threatens both his career and his family.

Quite by chance, Alan runs into his old college roomate, Charlie Fineman (Adam Sandler), who he hasn't seen in years. But resuming the friendship is a difficult thing. Charlie is completely drawn into himself and acts almost autistic since the death of his wife and children in the 9/11 terrorist attack. He has no need to work due to the government money given to the survivors of those who perished in the attack, so he spends his days alone, sometimes riding his scooter around Manhattan, especially at night.

Alan keeps knocking hard to get in as he sees that Charlie is in desperate shape. He solicits the assistance of a shrink (Liv Tyler) in trying to help Charlie. In the process, Alan identifies his own priorities and his own attitude improves.

While it's difficult to view a film that hinges on the deaths of 9/11, this is a worthy, albeit sometimes uneven, film directed by Mike Binder.

Terrific soundtrack includes Bruce Springsteen, The Who, Pearl Jam, and The Fray.

Rated R for language and some sexual references.

The Wendell Baker Story (2005)

An Earnest Man

Wendell Baker (Luke Wilson) is a good man. Really a good man. He just happens to break the law in his efforts to help people. When he's paroled after serving time for his latest escapade -- making ID cards and drivers licenses for illegal aliens from his trailer in south Texas -- he finds that his girlfriend Doreen (Eva Mendes) is finished with him.

Devastated and longing for her, he goes to work in the "hotel industry" and is under the direction of two sleazy nurses at a boarding home for the elderly. The nurses, Neil King (Owen Wilson) and McTeague (Eddie Griffin), are not only sleazy -- they're totally corrupt and running a nasty scam on the residents.
When Wendell finds out, he teams up with two of the residents (Harry Dean Stanton, Seymour Cassel) to bust the scam in return for the men helping him win back his beloved Doreen.

There's nothing terribly deep here, folks, but it is entertaining and there are no car chases or violence or gratuitous acts -- just some fun with a little moral conscious thrown in.

And it's a real Wilson Brothers project. Not only do Luke and Owen star in the film, but Luke wrote the screenplay and also co-directed with brother Andrew Wilson. Their Mom also served as set photographer.

Rated PG-13 for some crude and sexual humor and language.

My personal rating: B.