Authenticity and the occasional peak moment aside, this desperately droll, almost unconscionably aimless piece of celluloid doesn't feel at all sired by a filmmaker like Lee. In truth, it just feels like a string of sour notes, all played off key. All the actors - and why so many talented performers signed on to be in this film I'll never know - do their best to master both the accents and dialect of these grizzly Civil War Missourians. Seems like most of the film finds the characters wandering about, growing up, killing, accepting donations from civilians, talking around the fire, plotting - - - all well and good, but my God, have we never seen these things committed to celluloid?  Are we not inundated with the whole "boys at war, but much too young" bit? This tired, almost unbearably repetitious period drama never quite gets off the ground. In fact, for the brief moments that it does manage to become interesting, we end up watching Jewel showing Tobey Maguire how to care for children and make love - - - and to tell the truth, she doesn't exactly have the range of an decent actress. Deservedly buried in the multiplexes and on video (and oddly enough situated between , 'The Ice Storm' and 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon', the director's best films) .

All singing, all dancing - all bad review garnering? Huh? Branagh's return to the feathery pleasantness of his 'Much Ado About Nothing' score is absolutely breathtaking. His actors are all so in possession of the craft - many of them look as if they've had it in them for years, with no Shakespearian outlet in sight (especially Nathan Lane). Branagh's staging of the songs, all made to look like circa 1940's, is sugar sweet entertainment. Little differs in my observation than when viewed last July. I was smitten once again. Oh yes I was.
the original review

Still in possession of all of my senses - though a film hyped to death tends to suffer even in my glassy eyed stare - I was in awe of how well 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' stands up to a second viewing. Not simply because the martial arts sequences you already know are breathtaking are a blast to witness again (plus, you know when they're coming, so there's a level of suspense created in a re-visitation), but the sheer joy, again, of being plunged into a world of an almost entirely "entertainment" purpose. Yeah, sure, Lee was concerned with sharing his culture with a mass American audience in a way they would honor - but really, do the people who actually watch films give a straw about something like that? We want to see the tone, the world, the story, the characters and most of all - - - we want to know that we mean something to the filmmaker. Where a lesser director would have undersold the interim and beefed up the martial arts in hopes to at least win the subtitle hating crowd (as we pesky, bratty Americans tend to be) - - - Lee pays ample attention to both sides of the coin, so interested in the narrative twists that, at one point, a misstep cripples what was a grand momentum. No matter - - - stuff like 'Star Wars' and the Indiana Jones films are full of little mistakes. What counts is how alive and kid-o-centric you feel when you exit the double doors leading out of the theater and into the parking lot. 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' enchants our very minds and energizes us. It's a cineaste's dream come true: duality of speed and intellect, nailed well.
the original review

How lovely to experience a movie about potent, unadulterated good-heartedness. I could watch 'The Straight Story' once a week if they let me - - - just to get my head centered in pure, blissful goodness. Nevertheless, the plight of Alvin Straight to rejoin his brother Lester in Wisconsin is a wonderful yarn - - - and one told well. Where Lynch begins the film in an almost teasing manner (that shot of the obese neighbor sunning herself, rising to get more fattening snack cakes - and missing a loud fall, presumably Alvin's - and returning to sun herself once more, stuffing her face to the last), he expands his usually obtuse and (quote) "bizarre" technique to fit this gentle heartland road movie (perhaps the only film in recent memory that can be called a road movie without fear of repercussions from me, the ubercritic) in a beautiful, graceful - almost entirely departing skill. What I really love about the film is how good it makes me feel as I watch it, which I'm willing to attribute, almost entirely to the powerfully simple and narcotic performance by the late Richard Farnsworth, whom we wish to emulate after turning the film off. Like the lovely Pvt. Witt in 'The Thin Red Line', Alvin Straight seems to be the old-fashioned brand of do-gooder that  made films like 'Mr. Smith Goes to Washington' and 'It's a Wonderful Life' so important to us. Funny how nobody picked out the Capra-esque joy of this story (it's not as if Capra was filled with a totalitarian sense of sickly sweet themes, he had his share of the darkness - 'You Can't Take it With You', case in point). And finally, a nod to the cinematographer, brit Freddie Francis. If not for his quiet landscapes (that swell over Angelo Badalamenti's kind, catchy score), the film wouldn't have that awesome, broad scope that makes one man's journey seem all the more personal in the face of the endless universe.

Tons of brilliant gags aside, this Buster Keaton feature has all the makings of a great short: it is about two times too long. No matter, even a repetitious film from the great comedic master seems like a late gift from a cinema God in these hard times. The story is the same: Ronald (Keaton) is after the hand of Mary (Anne Cornwall), but she is unimpressed with how meager his physique and bank book appear. In addition, the high school brute has become the college bully and Ronald can't seem to dodge him (especially since they are roommates and the Dean has taken a liking to Ronald). In playing several sports, the predictable gags are often thwarted with clever, off-the-cuff theatrics, the kind Keaton is best at. Often, the stringy composition of the film as a whole is weighed rather heavily as it contains such short-film-hatched-as-a-feature gimmicks as abrupt closure, obviously unimportant (at least to the story at hand) expository inter title dialogue and the occasional too-long-gag that you can even see Buster fighting to muster through. Never mind all that, though: a genius like this warrants those films that you know are flawed but you can't help delving into for the pure joy of the best scenes. Nobody earns that right in the field of comedy like Buster Keaton. Nobody.

Coen. Coen Bros. Coen Brothers' follow-up to 'Fargo'. "Huh?" Yeah, that's right. In pure disheveled plot capability and ultimate observation of the most tragicomic (some just plain comic) of circumstances, this is decidedly the most fun Coen adventure since 'Raising Arizona' (only to be scraped on the underbelly very lightly by the great - but desperately episodic - 'O Brother, Where Art Thou?' just two years later). All the critics who had called it a low mark - or a lofty fluff-fest - where would your critical ability have been the day you attended the screening? Easily defining the Coen world from minute one, 'The Big Lebowski' gives us one of the most prolific fictional indolence ever to grace a screen: Jeff Lebowski: "The Dude". A strange marijuana cult following erupted as well as I well know, working till the witching hour nearly every summer night at Video Update - where the stoneballs come out of the woodwork in the dark. (And you know - sometimes 'Half Baked', 'Dazed and Confused' and all the Cheech and Chong adventures were out.). Any who, always had a soft spot for this one. Funny as all hell and once more, as 'O Brother' borrowed the basic character scale (two dummies and one smart guy - or something quite like it - make that three dummies), it seems to shine even brighter now that a round, Coen-sized repertoire exists for us to forage and - surprise, surprise, 'The Big Lebowski' still holds up pretty well among their other so-called "masterpieces". The dude abides.

Last time I wrote about this, when I saw it in the theater, I criticized Woody Allen for adding himself into the movie - - - almost, I thought, at the film's exxpense. Further from the truth this could not be. Honesty be revealed, I like Allen in it too much to imagine him outside of the film's world. Penn, too, is a miraculous actor in another strange and difficult role that seems more like roustabout nut jobbing than actual acting. Nevertheless, as all the acting is great and the music is spectacular, what, you ask, preceded the three star review? Perhaps its the dry, purposefully episodic (it still doesn't work, however) structure. Maybe its the long, sympathetic closing shots that annoy me - tone should be something kept consistennt, methinks (and I bet I'm not alone in voicing that sentiment). On the whole, this is a grand entertainment with a fierce, entirely irresponsible character holding the movie point blank from start to finish (sort of like 'The Big Lebowski' in that way, isn't it?). Though the gel starts to crackle from separation - and the fishy idea that Allen loves this character he created a little too much - - - 'Sweet and Lowdown' is more the first part of its title than the second.
the original review

One of Allen's hallmarks of the now bygone last decade was this little treasure, a collection of show tunes nicely nestled into the usual Woody Allen narrative about rich folks, love and shrinks. What makes this so much fun is the utter flight to fantasy Allen is willing to make. Instead of coming to any big conclusions - like some of his films in the early part of the decade did - he scraps any succinct conjunction between reality and philosophy and truly (for once), just truly connects with the inner pulse of his tone. The film feels like a Woody Allen film, it looks like a Woody Allen film - - - and strangely enough, even with the songs written by dozens of other artists, it sounds like a Woody Allen film. The songs actually feel like they should be there. Thought an experiment by many, I think it was more of a longtime project Allen had envisioned, backburnering it until the right note in his career was prepared. Considering the way the decade turned out - some good, some bad - I think this one is a timely and sparkling jewel in his career. Pure joy. (See also, Kenneth Branagh's 'Love's Labour's Lost', a film that does the same thing with show tunes and Shakespeare).

Director Kore-eda understands the challenges which arrive when one blurs the line between loss of another and loss of nostalgia. The grasp of death's mystery - and the ultimate obsession which befalls Yumiko (Makiko Esumi, in a stunning performance) - is felt as genuinely and powerfully as in his 'After Life'. Kore-eda creates visually succinct, fascinating, personal films that are among the most absorbing I've seen a Japanese director conceive since, perhaps, Kurosawa. This film has about five or ten shots, mid third act, that are absolutely breathtaking - and earned. As a parent, as a husband and as a human - - - 'Maborosi' is the first great film I've seen in the new millennium. In fact, its one of the best film experiences I've ever had.

They say it was something like twenty-five years in the making (I guess that's why the since dead Vincent Price can still lend his silky voice) and that Disney may have had a hand in the burial, loss and undeniable head-scratching that took place as Williams, reportedly not one for deadlines, labored in love over the film's handsome, intricatly detailed backgrounds, exceptionally imaginative character animation techniques and a snazzily more rewarding vision of Arabia in the time of magic lamps and such. Entertaining, funny and often mind-blowing, 'The Thief and the Cobbler' blends the attitudes of three animation decades into a full-blown, sprawling portrait of late sixties/early seventies hallucinogenic fantasy etchings, the imagination and textual prowess of the eighties and the technological leaps of the decade in which it was released. As an animated kids movie, it succeeds (though I doubt my four year old got nearly as much out of it as myself), and as a work of substancial merit filmwise, 'The Thief and the Cobbler' is one of the most original works of long-awaited, heavily borrowed (think: Disney: 'Aladdin') mainstream animation I've seen to date.

Yeah, there's an almost beach novel typicality to the story of not-yet-Agent Starling (Jodie Foster) being called upon during training to handle a real mission ("Hey, let's see how she plays it out", you can imagine FBI director Scott Glenn saying when no one is looking). Almost immediately - - - and in nice simultaneous reconciliation to the aforementioned leap of implausibility, the character of Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) is introduced and quickly becomes an exercise in gigantic leaps of character sketch from first appearance to gruesome climactic escape to the chilling play on words he fades out with (until the sequel is released February 9, of course). A magnetic acting explosion, Hopkins is always known for turning in pleasurable, exciting displays of thespian bang - - - but this, his most famous role by far, incorporates a mixed bag of his career into that range of psychopath: the eventual flip side to (or, if you're thinking of 'Nixon', the extreme version thereof) every character he has ever sunk his gnashing, slurping bicuspids into. Watching him - - - and watching the carnage alluded, set design copping plot line involving Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine) is a pissing contest: Which one has the pitch blackest? Is it Lecter's polite, patient psychiatrist who paints from memory views in Florence and later, cuts open a policeman and displays his body in crucifixion style? Is it Bill's skin suit wearing, messy apartment having self, upstaged only by the creepy mausoleum like corridors of his basement, where he conceals his female victims? There's no point in deciding - - - they're both riveting, fascinating entertainment. And yeah, Foster's plight turns out to be great, too.

Laying inspired groundwork for a talent like the prolific Woody Allen doesn't seem like something that would be a hassle to watch. 'Bananas' isn't exactly cumbersome - it never really reaches the pitch its oddball choose-your-own-adventure whims float it - but the one-liners (written and fired in the same manner as his hilarious, consistently funny first feature 'Take the Money and Run') are the seamless grease to this slowly distracting machine. As a new product tester in New York who falls for a girl who is politically active in a Latin American dictatorship called San Marco, Woody Allen has a more familiar ring to his neurotic nerd linger bit than he did in 'Take the Money and Run'. On the other hand, since this premise is far more ambitious - he ends up running San Marco - the basic idea of Allen as a dimwitted failure who falls ass backwards into power and success isn't quite of a contrast that makes it as funny as it would seem a few films later - - - or even today. Nevertheless, as he's sporting a beard late in the film to be the dictator and finally, defending himself in a court case the United States has brought up against him as a "subversive" (you see, there is a message in this lampoon) - - - we see the slap sticky Woody Allen overpowering the intellectual side, which cheerfully resigns. There needed to be a couple of em' like this. All the quasi-brainiac/psychiatry- obsessed/waning libido action wouldn't seem quite as sweet, now would it? 'Bananas' is funny. And even though its a ripening treat that you know will get better with age, you eat the damn thing up anyway, right? Fast as you can.

Channel 12 claptrap that works because Christopher Walken and Susan Sarandon were such great actors even in 1980 - when they were both sorta nobodies (all right! I remember that Walken won an Academy Award! So what? So did 'Forrest Gump' - anybody remember that steaming pile of mush? Back in line!). A story about an introverted orphan who can only express himself as a character in a play, it turns ultra creepy when Robert Ridgley is revealed to be the director of these plays. I just can't watch him without being wierded out at this point. Anyway, the whole thing has an amazing amount of brevity for something associated with American Playhouse, Masterpiece theater, etc. Admiration - but not too much - goes out to this adaptation of a Kurt Vonnegut story.

As a film about time - ripe with little gimmicks I'm not going to dare to reveal, 'La Jetee' is far superior to its re-make of a counterpart, 'Twelve Monkeys'. On the other hand, as a short science fiction film made in the sixties - with still photographs and voice-over, mind you - it stands up so beautifully in the new millennium as a distinct understatement of a world we all expect to live in - or expect to come about - some day. Had wanted to see it for some time and now that I've seen it twice, back to back, I think I need to see it again. Nice marketing scheme, too - am I right?

Oh, this again. The cut eyeball movie. The only surrealist film I'm likely to see before I die (we'll see, everybody keep checking up on me...). I like it because its pure in its symbolic filmmaking. I find it to be a little bit too much at times (really, the guy dragging the piano and the monk to a rape doesn't quite cut it with me) - - - but, then again, Bunuel was never knoown for his precision or closure of the logic circle. I think, also, I'm sick of seeing it in film classes and hearing people understand what's going on. Real blast to the ego.

What's fascinating about 'Ocean's 11' is just how much of a precursor to 1960's filmmaking  it is. These aren't terribly literate films (on top of that, we are talking about a Rat Pack entry), often they're a draw for a reason lost in the film's length - or overcompensation in the face of thiss valuable detail. Not terribly accessible to viewers of this era at all, I'm afraid: We've seen men  plot - believe it or not, they were better looking, cooler men than these - and we've seen Casinos robbed before. WWhat separates - and recommends - 'Ocean's 11' is the certainty in which it prevails and the meticulously unstated information the film expects us to assume and apply. Even films as dry as this one (for at least the first hour, it is bone dry), even with as many as 12 or 13 characters on screen at a time, these films don't often feel their note and pitch in how little they say about something so complicated and involved (like robbing five casinos simultaneously). The heist sequences aren't very thrilling - they have an exhaustive measure of elements to them that still seem too little - but they have so much swirling around them that, like the scenes of the men plotting the crime, information itself can be taken for granted, as long as the film does exactly what we expect it to. (Doesn't this sound like a dismal way to pace or present a motion picture?) By the ending, we're ready to throw in the towel when 'Ocean's 11' fires one more round, one we're not expecting: Irony. After that, all that's left is to re-make it. Enter Steven Soderbergh (December 2001).

'Book of Life' is a return - a departure of a resurgence that makes Hal Hartley into one of the few directors alive who can take hold of a past stylistic attempt - which failed - and breath a different brand of life into it - and nearly succeed. Essentially a revamped pseudo serious comedy (like 'Amateur'), this digi-millenial tale of Jesus Christ wussing out at the last minute and the devil breathing multiple sighs of relief under a barfly, bad ass facade, turns the straight edge Hartley had attempted before in a more profitable direction. He aims his presentation towards his signature style, and it works - nearly. The hurdle, at least one of them, was probably the actual conception and release of 'Henry Fool' in 1998. In 'Henry Fool' - a good film - Hartley discovers a diametric opposite, yet creamy member of the crew: Thomas Jay Ryan. As the only actor I've seen successful flow with Hartley messiah Martin Donovan (no pun intended, though he does play the Christ character), Ryan is a wonderful edition to the Hartleyan galleria (as is James Urbaniak, also a 'Henry Fool' alumni - under used in this film). Step for stepp, anyone could hold these female positions (I miss Adrienne Shelley, though - both Parker Posey, in 'Henry Fool' and PJ Harvey, in this, feel hopelessly under par). Ryan, as Donovan has for years, now feels necessary to the process. And thank God. What makes 'Book of Life' teeter on the smug side of life and come out less than pretentious is how much it feels like a throwback to the enjoyable craft Hartley embodies in his use of all the old tricks: actors leaping into frames with declarative sentences, consistent sound emanated from the use of one, single band, visual murk - deep blacks and deeper characters. This is the most Hartleyan Hartley since 1992's 'Simple Men'.

I guess as a seventeen year old, it just about bored me ("This lady made 'The Piano'?!", I remember thinking). As a twenty-one year old, the melodramatic ooze of Henry James is almost well hidden under the veneer of James' focal point: the study of an independent woman (Isabel, marvelously played by Nicole Kidman) who doesn't really want to be tied down to a man - - - and the imminent pitfalls she encounters when she does tie herself down with John Malkovich, who actually gives the film's best performance. Its still off - - - not as much as pretentious stuff like 'Holy Smoke!' or even the overrated 'An Angel at My Table' - - - but as a dust flavored period piece, it almost meets the dead pulse that Campion would have to employ to tone down her rabidly anti romantic sentiments. Again, how did 'The Piano' get to be so romantic, passionate and, well, brilliant?

So, on one of my rare flirtations with the "commentary track" option on the all heavenly DVD player, I've stumbled upon one which actually makes a good film even better. Having absorbed the "Christopher Guest Trilogy", as it were (rounding out the trio are 'Best in Show' and the far superior 'Waiting for Guffman'), coming back to the original phenomenon is always a treat - - - or so I thought. Having viewed it last may, I was appalled at how one note and intermittent it seemed in comparison to the mockumentaries actually directed by Guest. Seeing this one with his ever dry wit, combined with the sheer idiocy sans apology of his cronies, McKean and Shearer, I think its the closest we'll come to seeing the film had he actually helmed the bastard. Waxing poetic about all sorts of things (mostly making glib remarks regarding manipulative tricks employed by Marty, the director of the documentary (played by Rob Reiner) and Ian, their manager), it is more of a "memory lane" type of journey than a usually informative commentary. This is what makes it so on target. It gives the genius behind this film, now 17 years in the can, a chance to roll back up to the lens and revisit - - - and actually create more jokes, puns and other strange occurrences of humor. What may appear repetitious can be attributed to the source material. The film itself, even at a scant 83 minutes, always felt stretched out and overplayed. Hearing the commentary, it almost adds another dimension - - - perhaps a dimension that would properly incorporate itself into a "master version" of the film. The idea behind this type of concept release being that you watch the film once, chuckle at it - and take it back for a spin with the guys lampooning themselves lampooning rock n' roll. One step further and it's gold, man.

"Did you say ten pounds? That's a bargain, I'll take one" - Nick Moran says to comrade in arms Jason Statham. Pretty much every inch of 'Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels' one hundred eight minute running time is spent providing the audience with such a bargain. You won't need your brain - even though there are too many characters to keep track of, too many plot lines running at once and far too many words you'd have trouble deciphering even if you were British. In fact, it seems that the idiot proof filmmaking of Guy Ritchie (which spread to this year's 'Snatch', in fact) is geared only to meld cheap entertainment with quick-witted genre coolness. I adore watching this film because it is funny, though I know it has no bearing on any kind of actual quality and I continually re-rent it because, frankly, it's a helluva a gas to intake. What holds the film's sputtering camera angles still, though, is its lack of transition, continuity - - - basically all the rules Ritchie is breaking, do in essence run both ways: they wreak havoc with the film's overall coherence and blow-by-blow focus, and they leave it free to roam about and have a bit of fun on the uptake. Feels like a student film that wasn't exactly storyboarded or scripted before it was conceived - but came out as good as a film with no preparation could. Goofy, amoral twentysomethings are fun to watch, particularly Moran, who is easily the biggest thing/presence missing from 'Snatch'. Every once and awhile, we like to see these young hoods envisioned in a light, comical manner. Ritchie, without being any kind of major talent, provides us with that opportunity.

I liked this one a whole lot more this time around. First of all, besides the inclusion of "Livin' Man", a song that adds to the flavor of the stew immeasurably (where did they dig it up, I wonder?), the imagery is much more potent than I remember. The meandering felt more solid to me this time around, as this is a story about time. Enrico (a Frenchman) completely nails the downer, looming, forlorn - almost hung over tone of Bierce's story. Exquisitely shot (as the angles all match appropriate chemistry between story allusion and adaptive interpretation), this feels less like the Civil War and more like an independent "occurrence", universalizing the nature of Bierce's story (this, I'm sure, has a ton to do with it being a French film and not an American one). Everything in place, though still far from matching the all-inclusive, brilliance and effectiveness of the story - to the point where it still would be less recommended to even make the damn thing in the first place - there are enough things done skillfully to recoup this short, from my perspective, after a second screening.

This one has sound that feels like it was recorded at Spinal Tap's "11" volume, the sound of crickets at night, sound that doesn't go with the film in the least. From there, I'd move to just how much of a home movie it is: it is beyond yellowing, underdeveloped, over directed, over-shot and edited in a manner far too choppy for the occasion. An obvious black and white commentary on formality and the contradictions which lie in Southern culture, this adaptation of the Ambrose Bierce short story has the Confederates behaving one notch above the ape species. As it proceeds, sparingly and poorly staged, the only thing that saves it is the way our lead actor wraps his tongue around Bierce's great, cocky prose. Dialogue which, by the way, is wasted on the Southerners - as well as the audience - because Barron hasn't taken the time to draw any kind of depth in the rebels. He's simply made them unable to distinguish between intelligence and cockiness. Painful to sit through, to say the least.

You pretty much ought to expect any short film that opens with a smoldering U.S. flag to be painfully lacking in subtlety. Dialogue like: "(reflecting) My brother. (looking him straight in the eyes) But always closer to you" pretty much confirms such lack of nuance. A bold, blunt, (also) yellowing four o'clock midday of a movie, the menacing (and probably accidental) Seventies' visualization is utterly wasted as the film follows a character who is obviously looking for something - even though he's just supposed to be wandering - and ends without a conclusion (following the fold of a wifty, half- completed rest of the film).

The soppy, dated melodrama of Joel Schumacher's Brat Pack idealization (though a better film featuring most of these actors would certainly be the legendary 'The Breakfast Club') is certainly entertaining, even though it doesn't feel like it took more than a day and a half to write. Nothing happens that isn't foreshadowed by a mile, no one escapes without dealing with conflict in a roundabout way and everyone learns (gulp) "the lesson of a lifetime". What escapes from the extremely low expectation fulfilling exploits of these seven college grads is the fiery performance and wonderful characterization of Rob Lowe's Billy, a drunken frat boy who can't seem to let go of the "out-of-hand" ways he wasn't ready to shuffle off. Admittedly, this is a character who would work in a number of scenarios - a drunken husband who can't keep a job down or stay faithful is, to put it mildly, a mythic character - but something about how candid and consistently dark he is (amidst some pretty unrealistic and goofy situations the other characters march around in) makes him stand out. Film is missing the presence of Brat Pack-er Molly Ringwald who was probably too young to play any of these parts, but remains the most interesting female of the bunch. Mare Winningham and Demi Moore (especially), really don't belong here with the likes of Estevez, Nelson, Sheedy and McCarthy.

I find it interesting that McCarthy can appear one year after completing the after college era 'St. Elmo's Fire' - - - and play a high school senior. In fact, neither he or James Spader look remotely as if they'd be near a high school. Ringwald, as always, is lovely. One of those actresses that can convince us of her young persona in several films - and you get mixed up because of just how convincing she really is. Jon Cryer is especially annoying as "Duckie", her overbearing best friend. In fact, the love from across the tracks theme all but smolders itself as the script can't seem to keep consistent economic status matched with behavior; instead opting to throw childish, expository - almost black and white - acts of wealth or lack thereof in place of actual character arcs. Never mind, though - the film isn't the least bit interesting or illuminating as a high school saga and even as a fable in itself, everything falls either too perfectly or too unevenly through the cracks. Not necessarily unpleasant from start to finish (there are some nice scenes between McCarthy and Ringwald), but certainly not of the screwball caliber that 'Sixteen Candles' attained or the drama caliber of 'The Breakfast Club'. Being skillful at any sort of attachment from the audience requires first, a willingness for the writer to embrace his or her characters. Most of the film feels cold and unsympathetic towards both the rich and the poor - which is extremely limiting.