Duets (Hollywood) : Six unlikely characters pair off into three duos in this unintentionally drippy and drowsy theatrically released movie-of-the-week-movie about companionship and karaoke. Crooning absentee father Rick (Huey Lewis), who makes his living going from karaoke gig to karaoke gig, and simple-minded daughter Liv (Gwynneth Paltrow) meet for the first time at Liv’s mother’s funeral in Las Vegas. Trod upon traveling salesman Todd (Paul Giamatti) freaks out over frequent-flyer miles, gets a taste of beta-blockers and karaoke, and hits the road, where he picks up escaped convict Reggie (Andre’ Braugher) and they bond in a karaoke bar in Texas. Basic underachiever Billy (the sexy and scruffy Scott Speedman) catches his ex-lesbian girlfriend cheating on him with his male business partner and leaves Cincinnati in the cab he co-owns. Scuzzy singer Suzi (Coyote Ugly’s Maria Bello) hitches a ride west with Billy, financing auto paint-jobs and hotel rooms with her fellatio skills. The three couples meet in Omaha to compete for the $5,000 purse being awarded to karaoke championship finalists. While there is something thrilling about hearing Paltrow sing “Bette Davis Eyes” on-screen, and her duet with Lewis (on Smokey Robinson’s “Cruising”) is pleasant enough, one has to wonder whether there is enough interest in karaoke (and unlikable characters) to warrant two hours of sing-along. On a scale of 1 to 10: 3.5
The Watcher (Universal) : This suspenseful, but bogus serial killer thriller goes over the edge a few too many times (and I’m not talking about the on-foot chases across the rooftops of Chicago, either), never really finding its footing. After pursuing maniacal murderer Griffin (Keanu Reeves) around Los Angeles to no avail, hardened, migraine-cursed cop Campbell (James Spader) relocates to Chicago. Naturally (or unnaturally), Griffin follows Campbell and brings his evil ways to the Second City. What follows is a “horrible game of cat and mouse,” in which most of society is partially implicated for being so gosh darn unobservant (as Griffin tells Campbell, “we’re all stacked on top of each other, but we don’t see each other anymore”). Campbell joins the Chicago Police Department’s investigation and pursuit of Griffin (the yin to his yang), and the movie becomes more and more improbable as the body count increases. Poor Marisa Tomei has the thankless job of playing Polly, Campbell’s tough-talking, but sensitive shrink, thereby attracting the unwanted attention of Griffin. Some of the bizarre dream/ flashback footage and the serial killer plot may appeal to the moviegoers who made The Cell a box-office hit. Those are the people to watch. On a scale of 1 to 10: 4
Nurse Betty (USA Films) : Director Neil LaBute goes Hollywood with his latest movie and lives to tell about it. After witnessing the brutal scalping and slaying of her cheating, mullet-wearing, used-car selling and clandestinely drug-dealing husband Del (LaBute regular Aaron Eckhart), while watching her favorite soap opera, diner waitress Betty (Renee Zellweger) loses touch with reality and gets in touch with her fantasies. In a state of deep shock, Betty believes that the character of Dr. David Ravell (Greg Kinnear) is real and that they were once romantically involved. Like Dorothy Gale, Betty leaves small town Kansas and heads west to her own Oz, California, to find the mythical hospital where her lost love works. She is being pursued by the town’s sheriff (Pruitt Taylor Vince) and a reporter (Crispin Glover), as well as the two men (Morgan Freeman and Chris Rock) responsible for her husband’s murder. Along the way, Betty successfully brings an assortment of characters, as well as the audience, into her fantasy world. Zellweger once again proves herself to be one of the great actresses of her generation, and the supporting cast (including the brilliant Allison Janney) provides the highest form of entertainment for moviegoers starved for something funny, thought-provoking, and escapist. See Nurse Betty for what ails you. On a scale of 1 to 10: 9
Psycho Beach Party (Strand Releasing) : Why isn’t this movie adaptation of Charles Busch’s wacky stage play funnier, campier, kitschier, more over the top, and just flat out gayer? As parodies go, Busch’s askew vision of beach/surfer flicks crossed with horror/slasher cinema gets some of it right (including the period choreography, costumes, goofy lingo, and sexual tension), but there’s still something lacking. Is the cast of mainly TV-star actors, including Thomas Gibson as surfer god Kanaka; Nicholas Brendon as Northwestern U. psych-major dropout Starcat; Matt Keeslar as “foreign exchange student” Lars; Beth Broderick as the overprotective mother Mrs. Forrest; Lauren Ambrose as the morbidly psychotic schizophrenic Chicklet/ Florence/Ann; and even Busch himself as career-oriented and love-scorned detective Monica Sharp, to blame for holding back or not being given enough to put forward? Or is inexperienced director Robert Lee King, whose previous work consisted of two “shorts,” at fault? Busch adapted the screenplay, so one would hope that he knew what he was doing. Whatever the case is, during a cinematic summer where gay sensibilities ruled the multiplexes, Psycho Beach Party is kind of a party-pooper. On a scale of to 10: 5.5
Cecil B. Demented (Artisan Entertainment) : At the glamorous, fundraising Baltimore premiere of her movie Some Kind Of Happiness, a “teenage gang of cinema terrorists” led by outlaw movie director Cecil B. Demented (Stephen Dorff) commits “the big snatch” and kidnaps Honey Whitlock (Melanie Griffith) a bitchy, past-her-prime Hollywood actress, “in the name of underground cinema.” Director John Waters, who was once considered something of an “outlaw” filmmaker himself before his movies (including Polyester, Hairspray, and Pecker) became accepted by mainstream audiences, seems to be saluting himself. Unfortunately, the salute is rather limp. However, the movie within the movie comes close to capturing the level of the bizarre and grotesque he achieved with his early work, something with which Waters has only flirted in recent, albeit better, movies. The assembled cast of young actors, including Dorff as the “prophet against profit”; Alicia Witt as Cherish, his porn star leading lady; Adrian Grenier as the junkie leading man; and Jack Noseworthy as the hair stylist ashamed of his heterosexuality; give appropriately over-the-top and outrageous performances that recall the actors in early Waters films such as Pink Flamingos. Surprisingly, it is Griffith’s performance as the bitchy, past-her-prime Hollywood actress that is the most revealing, exhibiting a side of the actress (a sense of humor) that I had previously considered to be nonexistent. If only the whole movie was as funny and clever as the opening credits. On a scale of 1 to 10: 4.5.
The Way Of The Gun: Ryan Phillippe and Benicio Del Toro play Parker and Longbaugh, respectively, two men who have “stepped off the path,” and are, therefore, leading their lives as a crime duo. Sitting in a sperm donation clinic, the pair overhears someone talking about an obstetrician, a wealthy couple and the pregnant surrogate mother who will be getting a million dollars in cash on the day that she delivers the baby. They devise a plan to kidnap the woman named Robin (Juliette Lewis), who is protected by two bodyguards (played by Taye Diggs and Nicky Katt). Needless to say, the plot thickens so many times it’s almost impenetrable. There are family connections and surprising romantic allegiances and almost as much talking as there is gunfire. It’s hard to believe that Christopher McQuarrie, who wrote the Oscar-winning screenplay for The Usual Suspects, is responsible for this complex and perplexing mess. There are moments, however, such as the bullet ballet of the kidnapping, with its cars and carnage choreography, when the movie seems to be aimed in a different direction. What seems to have started out as a commentary on guns, ends up making more of a statement about the function of cellular telephone technology. At least a couple of the characters, including Parker, get their anti-gay slurs out of the way early in the movie so as not to distract from the gun violence. On a scale of 1 to 10: 4.5
Coyote Ugly (Touchstone Pictures) : You’d never know from seeing the ad campaign for this rip-roaring, high-kicking, hair-tossing, “Flashdance cocktail” of a movie that it is really an old-fashioned Hollywood love story that owes more to A Star Is Born than it does to Showgirls. Jersey girl Violet (the alternately perky and pouty Piper Perabo) leaves home and her widowed toll-collector father (John Goodman) for the big bad city, in this case an overly unrealistic Hollywood version of gritty Manhattan. Once there, she hopes to get her big break as a songwriter, but not until she overcomes her paralyzing stage-fright. To help in her socialization she gets a job as a bartender in a bar that is every straight man’s (and perhaps a few lesbians’) dream tavern, where the all-female runway-model-gorgeous bartenders break into elaborate dance routines atop the bar. She also meets a mysterious young Australian man (Adam Garcia), who believes in her, and gosh darn it, she triumphs! On a scale of 1 to 10: 3 (Wide release)