July movie reviews

HAIRSPRAY. Tracy Turnblad is in high school in 1962 Baltimore. She has the sunniest personality, and wants nothing more than to dance on Baltimore's version of American Bandstand. But she can't get selected, because she is a big girl, and the snotty station manager (Michele Pfeiffer) won't hear of it. The black kids can't dance, either, except on the once-a-month "Negro day". So Tracy starts agitating to integrate the show. This movie is based on the Broadway musical that was based on the original 1988 John Waters movie. Most of the movie is upbeat musical numbers, and I smiled through the entire thing. It's also very, very funny. Relentlessly upbeat, you'd have to be a complete cynic to not enjoy this. Also starring Christopher Walken, John Travolta, and Queen Latifah, with cameos by Jerry Stiller (who was in the original movie) and John Waters himself.

TALK TO ME. This bio-pic stars Don Cheadle as Petey Green, who was a Washington DC disc jockey during the 1960's and 70's. The program director of a failing radio station met Petey when Petey was in jail, and Petey finagled his way into a job at the station when he got released from prison. And he was good at it, not so much smooth talk as straight talk, which was perfect for the era. Unfortunately, the program director had bigger dreams for Petey, even though Petey would have been perfectly happy remaining a DJ 'til he died. Their conflict over settling for doing what one does best vs striving to achieve more is an unusual one for an American film. I doubt anyone who wasn't in DC at the time would know of this guy, but he certainly was a big personality, and his story is unusual, so it's a reasonably interesting movie.

SICKO. Michael Moore takes on the American health care insurance industry. The first half of the movie isn't so much about how often Americans don't have insurance, but about how the insurance companies for people who do have coverage do everything they can to not pay beneficiaries. Then he delves into how other countries (Canada, France and Cuba) are so much better off than us. There isn't a lot of analysis, Moore makes no attempt to provide any balance, and you couldn't come up with a new policy based on the movie, but it sure is entertaining. And the kicker at the end with a bit about a Michael Moore-hating blogger is priceless!

1408. John Cusack stars as a hack writer, putting together guidebooks on haunted hotels. One day he gets a postcard from the Dolphin Hotel in Manhattan, with just a note "don't stay in room 1408". So he insists on doing just that, even though hotel manager Samuel Jackson tries to convince him not to, even showing John proof of all the people who tried to stay the night in the room and died. So then Cusack spends a night in hell, and he can't escape. This is a good psychological horror story with some excellent visuals. Based on a Stephen King short story, this doesn't have quite the great ending that CARRIE did, for example, but it's fun enough.

RESCUE DAWN. Christian Bale is Dieter Dengler, who joins the Navy so he can fulfill his childhood dream of flying. It's 1966, and he is send on the secret bombing runs in Laos. He gets shot down of his first flight, and must escape the brutal camp where he and a few other prisoners are being held. Dieter is an interesting person, almost naive, but I thought this movie was standard prisoner of war escape stuff. I may have been disappointed in this because I saw the original Werner Herzog documentary based on this guy's life (LITTLE DIETER NEEDS TO FLY), and it was so astonishing that I found this version of his story more Hollywood and less compelling, even though it too was done by Herzog. Rent the documentary.

YOU KILL ME. Ben Kingsley works for his Polish mob family in upstate New York, as a killer. They need him to kill a Irish mob competitor (Dennis Farina), but Ben gets drunk and passes out. Since his alcoholism is affecting his work, the family sends him to San Francisco to go to AA and get straightened out so he can go back to work as a hitman. In SF he meets Tea Leoni, who finds him fascinating, and they start going out. This is a very black comedy, not a lot of belly laughs, but enough for a positive recommendation.

LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD. John McClane (Bruce Willis) is back. This time he is told to go pick up a computer geek (Justin Long). The FBI wants to interview the geek about a computer glitch. The geek is only a small part of a huge plot (of course) to disrupt U.S. financial markets, traffic, and utility services. The bad guy (Timothy Olyphant) told the government to take precautions, but they didn't listen, so what does he do? Not only does he decide to prove the system's weaknesses, he also turns into a cold blooded killer. And of course, it's really all about the money in the end. Anyway, lots of chase and action scenes while Bruce tries to protect the geek (who can help the government thwart the bad guy.) Some scenes were fun, but unfortunately, I found the last big action sequence to be so preposterous (not that action scenes are all that realistic in general), that for me, the movie ended with a thud. The basic plot was OK, though. I guess I have just seen too much of this type of movie. Critics generally are liking it.

RATATOUILLE. Remy the rat has a developed sense of smell and taste, and unlike his rat family, discriminating tastes. He even watches cooking shows. When he ends up in Paris, he becomes a surrogate cook for a bumbling dishwasher. Together they can make the restaurant a success, but of course a nasty critic and an evil chef competitor threaten them. This is another movie that critics generally like. I thought it amusing at times, but too long. Not to mention the idea of rats in the kitchen just grosses me out, no matter how cutely they are drawn.