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This is a truly charming romantic comedy. Janeane Garafolo stars as a radio talk show vet, who gives out advice on the air about how to treat and take care of your pets. She's great with animals, but has trouble with people, especially trying to find a decent-relationship-with-a-man-type people. Then one day on her talk show, she receives a call from a man (Ben Chaplin) who is having major trouble with his dog. She calmly talks him through getting his dog to relax, and as an outcome Chaplin becomes smitten with her voice. He asks Garafolo if he can meet her and perhaps go on a date. However, Garafolo feels that if she meets him in person, she'll just be rejected by him as just another Plain Jane. So, she gets her model friend (Uma Thurman, doing a bit of a Goldie Hawn) to fill in the physical parts of her relationship with Chaplin. Chaplin falls in love with Garafolo's voice and Thurman's body, leading to some hilarious predicaments.The story is kind of predictable, but the three stars (Garafolo, Chaplin and Thurman) rise above the usual cliches and add some new spark and witty dialogue. It's influence comes mainly from Cyrano De Bergerac, with a touch of Beauty and the Beast. It does have some sappy moments, but mostly it's a great date movie and a snappy comedy to boot.
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It looks like Hollywood has invented a new formula for films. The Jim Carrey formula, which like most film formulas, gets incredibly boring time after time. In this sequel to the surprise smash hit, Ace (Jim Carrey) journeys to Africa, looking for a sacred bat the likes of which will keep two warring tribes from slaughtering each other. Like the first film, Carrey causes his own assortment of mayhem as he searches for the animal.At first, Carrey's rubber-faced antics were funny and original. Now it seems everybody is trying to go for Carrey's Dumb and Dumber formula, unsuccessfully most of the time, and Carrey is just playing the same character over and over again. If that isn't boring, I don't know what is. The jokes in this one are mostly leftovers from the first film. Many of them are too mindlessly gross to even describe. From what I hear, Carrey is trying to do something different with his brand of comedy in his up-coming film The Cable Guy. But once again, from the promotional clips I've seen it looks like the same old, same old. I do intend to view The Cable Guy and perhaps I will change my opinion, but this strikes me as the type of stuff that nearly brought down Robin Williams!
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Based on the popular comic strip about the world's richest kid, there could never be a more non-energenic kids film than this. Macauley Culkin (14 at the time) is desperately trying to hold on to his former cuteness, but fails miserably. If you really care to know about the plot, I will tell you that it involves an attempt to take over the Rich family's wealth and power. This campaign is promoted by a sneaky-weasel-of-a-businessman (John Larroquette, who never looked more bored).A waste of a good cast (Laroquette, Edward Herrmann as Richie's Father) and a real over-all bow-wow-yawn. Culkin has his formula as well, but it was used up a long time ago. If you want to enjoy the character of Richie Rich more, I suggest you buy one of the comic books. At least, you'll be getting your money's worth.
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Rock video parodist "Weird Al" Yankovic stars in his own feature film as the manager of a low-budget TV station, who hits it big with his truly bizarre and unconventional programs (including the hilarious "Gandhi II"). But mean old J.R. Fletcher (Kevin McCarthy), owner of one of the biggest TV stations in town, doesn't like the competition. He decides to use every devious and dirty trick imaginable to shut down Yankovic's operation.Funnier than you'd expect and if you're a fan of Yankovic's Doctor Demento sense of humor, you'll love this. It's not perfect, but there are plenty of great moments, many of them provided by Yankovic himself. But some of the best moments come from hilarious early performances by Fran Drescher (The Nanny) as the station's newscaster, and Michael Richards (Seinfeld) as a janitor-turned-TV star. Not great, but good enough to go out and rent.
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