Serendipity (2001)

Directed by Peter Chelsom. A lot of today's movies feature main characters with clear personality disorders who are portrayed simply as very focused on something they want. Simply put, Hollywood is oblivious to narcissism. They think it's a virtue.

And actually there is some great older cinema that portrays narcissism with verisimilitude. One of my personal favorites is a 1946 Warner Bros. effort entitled "The Big Snooze." In this color film, a hunter named Elmer Fudd wants nothing more than to feed his family while a egotistical rabbit needs not only to protect himself physically but to gratify himself emotionally by inflicting pain on Fudd, with no sense of empathy or awareness of Fudd's physical limits.

"The Big Snooze" uses the personality disorder suffered by the rabbit (a cartoonish character named "Bugs Bunny") as its source of comedy, which distinguishes it from contemporary films such as 2001's "Serendipity." "Serendipity" stars John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale as two people ("Jonathan" and "Sara") so destined to be a couple they treat the people they are engaged to instead like crap. The movie suggests that Beckinsale's fiancee deserves it because he makes New Age music, kind of like Yanni. This is played for laughs as a matter of assumption, not because anybody says or does anything funny.

Jonathan and Sara are not happy with the people they plan to marry but stay in those engagements because nothing better seems around the bend. Still, as their respective wedding days approach, they research and scheme finding each other -- their preferred mates. Once clues are unearthed and fate or destiny or whatever seems sealed, they make like Bugs Bunny and dynamite the hell out of the unsuspecting fools wasting time with them.

See this movie with someone you love and then minutes afterward leave them for someone prettier.

Paper Heart (2009)

Directed by Nicholas Jasenovec. This is one of the best movies I've seen in a long time, heavily influenced by a bunch of movies I'm not all that wild about. I'm not sure this movie could have come together if it wasn't for those Charlie Kaufman movies that are designed to fuck with your head, like "Adaptation" and "Eternally No Oscar for Jim Carrey's Spotty Record." Actually, it has as much in common with Larry David's "Curb Your Enthusiasm."

The key difference between "Paper Heart" and any of what may or may not be its influences is that it features sweet, kind characters ruminating on sweet, warm feelings and very real fears.

For a complicated flick, it's relatively easy to describe. Actor Charlene Yi presents a documentary about love and relationships that is interspersed with improvised scenes recreating her real-life courtship with fellow actor Michael Cera. The arc of the story is Yi getting over apprehensions toward giving of herself emotionally, accepting her own femininity, and commitment in general.

The whole thing is ridiculously entertaining despite an undeniable self-conscious artiness that is completely excusable because it works.

If it sounds like your bag, don't put off seeing it.

Taking Woodstock (2009)

Directed by Ang Lee. You gotta be fucking kidding me. What a complete disaster this thing is. What the hell was Ang Lee trying to achieve here? I hardly know where to begin here.

First of all, what some people may not be aware of is that this is based on a true story. The star of this film is Demetri Martin, who plays Elliot Tiber, the man who wrote the original book "Taking Woodstock." The book is Tiber's memoir of his role in making the festival happen: providing his parent's run-down local inn as a base of operations to organizers and as head of the local chamber of commerce, supplying them with their critical event permit. Sounds like dry stuff, but it's not -- Tiber was central to the event from soup to nuts.

But it wasn't interesting enough to Ang Lee to not turn the whole damn thing into a melodrama you'd never believe is based in reality. Lee opens the Sixties Hippie Cliche triptik and dumps so many props and costumes onto the highway it becomes hard to tell whether he truly believes that is what the country looked like back then or if he thinks the audience will simply forget when the movie takes place and needs to be reminded with road signs for peace and love every 50 yards.

As if that's not enough, there's the obligatory First Acid Experience scene, complete with the hippie couple who assures Tiber it's gonna be great and the camera tricks that recreate what he's seeing and feeling. What the...?

And then there's wooden-headed homage to the original Woodstock concert movie where the screen splits into individual windows and to show different views simultaneously. But it's done simply to wink to the audience members who'll recognize it, nothing more. There's no fresh take on it, no new twist, no irony, no multiple plot lines to follow. In contrast, have a look at 1979's "More American Graffiti" for a real homage and leveraging of this device.

I swear I am not making up that famous festival organizer Michael Lang is portrayed as riding a white stallion. This is just part of the parade of quirky characters intended to color the movie with, I don't know, either the free spiritedness that defined the time or to show that Woodstock was not solely marked by greed or youthful idealism or naivety as it seems alternately to be portrayed by the media.

This may be the fatal flaw of "Taking Woodstock" -- if it's point is that Woodstock was not any one thing and that people should not try to pigeonhole it as such, it succeeds mainly as seeming confused and wishy-washy.

Brüno (2009)

Directed by Larry Charles. Sacha Baron Cohen is an important comedian because his comedy doesn't play everywhere. It's just not for everybody. So-called taboos are a myth if everyone is on the joke; this is why the Ku Klux Klan and Hitler aren't taboos. So it's always bullshit when somebody sticks a guy in a Klan hood or a Hitler wig in a movie and a critic calls it unbridled, shocking or taboo.

But "Brüno" is just too goddamn smart to be for everybody. How on earth could an arena full of rednecks lured in to see a free mixed-martial arts exhibition called "Straight Dave's Man Slammin' Max Out," complete with free t-shirts and no evident corporate sponsorship, NOT be waiting for the bottom to drop out of the whole event? But they are oblivious to the fact that they are objects of Cohen's satire and critical to the definition of his taboo.

While Cohen's "Borat" took on issues of racism, war and anti-Semitism, "Brüno" splits its time between the cult of celebrity and homophobia. If "Borat" was a perfect 10, "Brüno" scores a strong 8.

The Parent Trap (1961)/(1998)

Directed by David Swift (1961), Nancy Meyers (1998). This was not a particularly good movie in 1961 and it's a much worse movie in 1998. But the weird part is that the weak parts of this movie are not the ridiculousness of the premise -- which in case you didn't know involves an incredibly creepy premise in which a divorced couple has secretly divides their identical twins as if they're flatware or towels. I'm an advanced movie-lover, so I'm willing to work around this. The problem ends up being that the pacing drags, the characters are one-dimensional and the dialog is dry as a bone. In a way, it's strange that such a daring premise can command such a bland movie. This is a screwball comedy with no screwballs or comedy. It's tragic.

Here's what the 1961 version does have going for it: Haley Mills. At 15, she was a great actress, playing the two different identical twin characters in this (one a tomboy, one a cultured socialite, blah blah blah) with subtle distinction. While "The Parent Trap" does cry out for some broader plotting and dialog, it's not from her. The twins should be the smart center with a lot of broad insanity around them. Mills holds up her end of the bargain, but the rest of the flick never really catches fire until it's worn out its welcome in what feels like a fourth act.

The '98 re-make was not intended to be a a vehicle for Lindsay Lohan, who had not yet become star when it was made. Disney clearly had faith in her, though especially in retrospect it's unclear why. She hasn't exactly proven herself a bankable star nor an impressive talent, and looking at this movie it's not as if there's any impressive acting or charisma there to mislead anyone. Are there no talented kid actors out there or are the idol-makers at Disney so arrogant that they figure they can just pull anyone off the street and make them a star?

All I'm saying is that a misstep has clearly been made when Dennis Quaid is the most charismatic actor in a remake of "The Parent Trap."

She's All That (1999)

Directed by Robert Iscove. Somehow when fresh-faced teenagers make the movie where first the boy and girl don't like each other but then they do, it's a little bit more charming. It's sort of a shame that not too long after this these two sweet kids dropped off the face of the goddamn earth.

I mean, that's not entirely true. Freddie Prinze Jr. made a couple of live action Scooby Doo movies and then a bunch of junk animated films, and Rachael Leigh Cook became a secondary character actor. And maybe that's just fine. It's sort of nice to see a couple of talented people find their place, get in it and crank out good work rather than insist on hanging around insisting on being the Kate Hudsons and Zac Efrons.

So I saw this because, in the wake of the "Beth Cooper" debacle I was curious to see a teen romantic comedy that I remember liking. The good thing about this is that many of the kids in it are likable, smart, kind and not cartoon characters. The bad thing about it is that a lot of them are the opposite and now I'm too old to remember if this is accurate or not.

By the way Kevin Pollak is awesome in this.

I would like to know what movie started -- and I'm guessing it's some John Hughes piece of garbage -- the teen movie convention that the foe must be flanked by a pair of wingmen, or in this movies case, women. They're always like the henchmen in an old episode of the Batman TV series. Their IQ is about half of the main foe, they wear a uniform that's a slight variation on hers, and they repeat the last couple of words of everything she utters. It's only worth doing if you have exceptional character actors contributing real yuks. Otherwise, can it.

The Proposal (2009)

Directed by Anne Fletcher. I have this theory that as actresses get more plastic surgery in an effort to achieve some ideal set of features and cranial symmetry, they also homogenize their future filmographies.

I can't prove anyone in Hollywood has had plastic surgery but I firmly believe that Sandra Bullock, Kate Hudson, Renée Zellweger and Meg Ryan all have because they both look insane and seem to make a lot of movies where first they don't get along with some guy and then fall in love with the guy.

I also have a theory that these actresses suppress rage and are sub-consciously attracted to scripts in which head trauma is inflicted on the characters played by their male co-stars. This is why these so-called romantic comedies are always filled with a lot of pratfalls, which to a certain extent is a good thing, because the more of this stuff can be quick-cut into the preview, the better chance there seems to be of the flick doing well.

Anyway in "The Proposal," Sandra Bullock doesn't get along so well with Ryan Reynolds until she does, when they fall in wuv, and there's a happy ending. What I will say for this movie is that I enjoyed how it couldn't decide if the Alaskan town Ryan Reynold's character was from should be a rural fishing town, much like the sort one would expect to find in Alaska, or a quaint little outlet shopping village, nothing like you would expect to find in Alaska and actually quite a bit like you would expect to find in Provincetown, Massachusetts, where this was filmed.

Also, I'll say this for Sandra Bullock, she didn't look have as scary in this as she did in the preview for "All About Steve" that me and Karen saw the other night, in which she actually looked like a female impersonator. Meaning she looked like one of those chicks you might see in a bar and think, I don't care how good looking she almost is, she looks like she has a penis. Which now that I think about it makes me wonder, just who is this "Steve" that movie is "all about?"