She pushed the stack of three toward me. As wont, I examined the spines, then the covers, then the backs, discovering in short time the vanity inherent in my search for a connection between them. Insert look of confusion blended with failure, the verge of puppy dog eyes mirroring a prior inquisitive head tilt. Turns out, her answer had a sort of elegant simplicity to it: love stories. Fair nuff. In the words of Big Brother winner Dan Gheesling, “Let’s goooooooo!”
Whitney Houston had quite the voice and stage presence, making even the chewing gum essence of “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” somehow pop. And work. Sure, other efforts weren’t quite as successful (see as the misplaced attemptedly-muted bombast of “I’m Your Baby Tonight”), but her career had far more bright points than dim. At least when it came to singing.
Frankly, I didn’t think much of Ms. Houston’s performance here. Make no mistake, that doesn’t mean I’m out-and-out condemning it, but also nowhere near praising it. It’s just okay. It wasn’t her fault that the film didn’t work for me.
No, it was the production as a whole. Made in 1992, it reeks of its birth year: Lawrence Kasdan’s script drips with early-90s melodrama and out-of-place thriller elements, Andrew Dunn’s cinematography revels in the slightly soft-focused images and almost smoky atmosphere (more Count of Monte Cristo and Effie Grey than Crazy. Stupid. Love. and Bridget Jones’s Baby), and the editing somewhat appropriately evokes the era’s music videos, especially Michael Bay’s work on Meatloaf’s “I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)”. Watching this propelled me back to ’92, both sitting in theatres for films like Batman Returns and Basic Instinct (okay, I didn’t actually see the later on the big screen, but the point stands) and rocking TV shows like Beakman’s World and Batman: The Animated Series. You could just feel that special, early-90s something. Even the plot is emblematic of the time: Kevin Costner plays a hard-edged, straight-talking bodyguard/security expert who is hired by the entourage of a famous singer/actress to keep her safe from a crazy stalker.
What got to me, though, was how no one in her coterie seemed to take the situation all that seriously, save, like, one person. Meanwhile, this crazy person has been sending several threatening letters, threatening via phone calls, even breaking into her mansion and jerking one out on a bed she used as a prop in a music video. Worse, no one’s even bothered to tell her about all of this! And she’s got a young son living with her!
There’s weird plot turns as Costner and Houston fall for each other (in one of the stranger ways, if I may judge), Houston’s sister is a crazy person, a benign stalker is mistaken for the more dangerous one, and Houston finds herself in various precarious situations (the scene at a club where the crowd basically looks to be trying to make her into Davs from Shaun of the Dead comes almost out of nowhere, but at least fits into the theme of the story and propels the plot, so it’s got that going for it). As a romance, I just didn’t really buy Costner and Houston. Sure, they had some decent chemistry in a few scenes, but the sister’s turn as romantic red herring and the tense relationship between the leads in most scenes make the ultimate together-getting ring mostly hollow and contrived for me. Still, the film as a whole is pretty entertaining, just not something I’m likely to dive back into any time soon.
A bit rosier view comes from the next offering, despite a slightly darker subject matter (well, inasmuch as potential mental issues are darker than a ’90s-dripping assassination plot against an actress…).
Now this one and I have a minor bit o’ history. See, back in the early days of the 21st century, I was in high school. Plenty of that time saw me fawning over this or that actress, but one of the paramount one in my eyes was Kirsten Dunst. I remember seeing trailers for Crazy/Beautiful and marveling at her hotness (…or is it heat? Never really figured that out…). The story told in those trailers, one of across-the-tracks love, didn’t really appeal to me, what with my being stuck in the world of Halo and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Tombstone at the time. So my more hormonal impulses took a back seat to a prejudicial state of mind, and this status quo would be maintained for over a decade and a half.
And I find myself kinda pissed at my younger incarnation. Not only would I have found plenty of material to lust over, but I also missed out on a fairly good movie. The plot does indeed follow the romance between two high schoolers from opposite sides of the tracks — Dunst is the daughter of a senator, Jay Hernandez a hard-working but fairly poor student from the seedier part of L.A. — but the socioeconomic question is only half of the story, as Dunst’s mental state comes into the equation, as do issues of race, belonging, family, and responsibility. See, due to her mother’s death years ago and her father’s inability to properly connect with her, Dunst suffers from a form of affluenza, constantly shirking responsibility, doing drugs, and engaging in the sexual act. She’s seen as a drain on Hernandez’s shining potential, but he sees the true beauty in her. The two try to find a way to maintain some level of mutual happiness without their respective families tearing them apart.
Sure, there’s some mild teenage melodrama here, but the emotion shines through well enough to forgive it. Besides, who hasn’t been in a relationship, especially when they were older, that’s involved some major-league drama, eh? The acting is pretty solid, the script mostly so as well, and I never really found myself getting bored, an achievement for high school-centered love stories these days. The film has plenty to say about a variety of potentially touchy subjects, and it can be argued that many of them are too tiptoed-around, but it mostly paints an interesting and touching picture that studios usually shy away from, especially given the ages of the characters (if they were adults, they’d jump all over it, believe you me).
Studios have had no compunctions over the years, though, of dealing with the subject matter of the final film: celebrities and their romantic misadventures.
The story in America’s Sweethearts follows the on- and off-screen couple of John Cusack and Catherine Zeta-Jones (imagine a more fame-centric version of their tryst from High Fidelity) after their split. Audiences can’t handle them separate, and the two are having issues as well while negotiating their divorce. CZJ’s sister and assistant Julia Roberts (I will never call her Kiki…I can’t stand that moniker!) takes the brunt of things on her side, while Cusack wastes away on his own. Meanwhile, publicist Billy Crystal is hired to get them back together, if only temporarily, in order to market their last feature together, which is currently being held by the manic director (I love you, Christopher Walken). Over the course of the film’s collection of shenanigans, complications arise involving Roberts and Cusack, CZJ and her new beau, and the possibility of an actual reconciliation.
Parts of this film were kind to my brain. I thought the bit parts played by Alan Arkin and the aforementioned Walken were as entertaining and enjoyable as one would expect said actors to deliver. The soundtrack features some poppin’ tunes, including the Eagles’ “Witchy Woman” and Mark Knopfler’s “Gravy Train”. And, yeah, Julia Roberts is fairly charming in her role as a more down-to-Earth character than her sister. What kept me angry, though, was the script.
Apparently, the writers (including Billy Crystal!) had no idea what kind of comedy to go for: dialogue-driven wit, like Tarantino; character-driven story, like Bachelorette; or physical slapstick, like Jerry Lewis. Unsure, they tried a blend of all three, resulting in a confused pile of not-as-funny-as-it-should-be. For example, while Crystal is trying to coax CZJ into his plan, he is molested (no better word, trust me) by her Doberman; during this scene, Crystal tries to inject his signature one-liners to no avail, and goofy comedy music plays gleefully in the background, as though ’twere the damn ’50s. The dog even returns, out of goddamn nowhere, at the end to further torment Crystal, a turn that was not only vaguely telegraphed by the camera, but was also called by Yours Truly during the initial encounter…as a sarcastic joke! Other slapschtick pops up here or there, like with a bit with Cusack and a cactus (if you’ve seen a Warner Bros. cartoon, you likely know the punchline), a goofy codename bit between Crystal and assistant Seth Green, and a pratfall-style golf ball finding its way to Green’s head. These oddball antics don’t really fit in anywhere, even with the uneven style and occasionally-interjected movie scenes between Cusack and CZJ. Moreover, most of the jokes fall pretty flat, especially Crystal’s, which made me wonder every now and then whether or not Crystal was ever truly funny (something I shouldn’t be thinking, especially with the joy I found in City Slickers and When Harry Met Sally…).
Then there’s the acting. Apparently Joe Roth’s direction usually settled on “Just act, I dunno, funny!”, resulting in some flat and painful performances. As stated before, Crystal looks at his least funny ever, Stanley Tucci comes across as cartoonish as a studio executive, Hank Azaria is stuck in a watered-down version of his Birdcage mode as CZJ’s new beau, and Rainn Wilson’s reporter just comes across as awkwardly and mean-spiritedly sleazy. Usually these people tend to be funny (Wilson stands as a slight exception for me, but still), but here they just flutter about and fail.
Overall, this movie didn’t do much of anything for me. But I wanna use it as an example, if I may. I occasionally get people asking me why I watch certain movies or even whole genres, despite how bad or unappealing they seem. Well, it’s about horizon-expanding, really. Back in the day, when I was a wee lad, I never would have thought to look toward what I considered “girlie” things like romantic comedies and female-centered character studies. Nowadays, and sometimes with the help of people like Miss Cleo and her seemingly boundless collection, I see how close-minded that view was. I was missing out on classics like the aforementioned When Harry Met Sally… and Kiki’s Delivery Service and newer fun like Bachelorette and Pride and Prejudice. Without exploring, without testing the bounds of your personal taste, how do you know just how far they go? How do you know you’re not missing out on something truly special?
So, no, I didn’t like America’s Sweethearts all that much, but it was given a chance. It could have been something better. Just like The Bodyguard and Crazy/Beautiful, I wasn’t sure if I’d like it or not, and there was only one way to find out. We should all be so lucky to have resources like Miss Cleo and her ilk out there, willing to share their joys with the rest of us. If you know of one, or even if your library has a decent collection of whatever you haven’t tried before, get in there and utilize, people! See things beyond your self-made safety-entrenched blinders. You never know what’s gonna pleasantly surprise you and thereby change the trajectory of your life.
(Oh, and no, Miyazaki can’t help in changing my view of the name Kiki.)
Allusions of Grandeur 