'SNL' actors try the big screen
By Bruce R. Miller Journal staff writer | Posted: Sunday, September 07, 2008
If you're a big fan of "The Big Lebowski" (and who doesn't like The Dude?), you'll want to check out the 10th Anniversary edition.
Filled with lots of extras, it peels back more than a layer of the goofball movie and shows what the Coen Brothers were like before they turned darker-than-dark with "No Country For Old Men."
Interestingly, the Jeff Bridges film has inspired graduate theses, whole books and a revival of the Munsingwear men's underwear line. The film doesn't have the edge of "Fargo" or the Looney Tunes quality of "Raising Arizona" but it does get plenty of laughs (thanks to John Goodman) and demonstrates why the Minnesota-born Coens are always worth watching.
If you're not a fan of "offbeat," you're not going to like "Lebowski." But if you crave quirks, this is your film in more ways than one.
It knows the strike zone and hits it. Repeatedly.
Also: 'Baby Mama'
Amy Poehler and Tina Fey know how to give birth to big laughs.
Unfortunately, they're not even midwives to many in "Baby Mama," a semi-intelligent look at surrogate motherhood.
Fey plays an organic foods executive who hears the tock of her biological clock. When fertilization doesn't work out, she decides to hire a woman to carry her child. Enter: Poehler, a tough-talking vessel who's in it for the money. When Poehler's boyfriend splits, she decides to move in with Fey. The two make a great odd couple, but writer/director Michael McCullers doesn't have the kind of lines that would make them feel at home.
On "Saturday Night Live," the two were comedic thoroughbreds. Here, they're like horses tethered to the gate.
Steve Martin turns up as a New Age disciple, Greg Kinnear checks in as a potential love interest and Sigourney Weaver has a funny bit as an older-than-average mother. But they, too, lack the kind of script that would make "Baby Mama" pregnant with possibilities.
Martin is -- dare we say it? -- boring as the ponytailed head of Fey's company. He tries to send up corporate kooks but can't find the loose thread needed to make his character unravel. Weaver, however, just replays beats from "Working Girl" and finds the hook.
Several "SNL" vets play bit parts, suggesting this was a collaborative effort. Had McCullers let them contribute to the script, it might have been. All too often, the stars look like they're not quite sure of the lines they're saying.
When Poehler takes Fey "clubbing," we see a bit of the wackines of "30 Rock." Fey knows how to do physical humor (and get a laugh from looking bad) but she shouldn't have to scour the streets just to get a smirk. Poehler doesn't wait. She tosses in asides and gets the kind of response that says she's not going down without a fight.
"Baby Mama" could have been a good film; it's just a so-so one.
Also:
Film: "14 Women"; "Child's Play"; "Cool Hand Luke"; "The Fall"; "The Fast and the Furious"; "Fist of Legend"; "Heckler"; "House of the Dead"; "How the West Was Won"; "National Lampoon's Homo Erectus"; "Netherbeast Incorporated"; "Pumpkinhead"; "Son of Sam"; "Taking 5"
TV: "Grey's Anatomy," season four; "In Treatment"; "Medium," season four; "Smallville," season seven; "Ugly Betty," season two; "Wings," season seven
Filled with lots of extras, it peels back more than a layer of the goofball movie and shows what the Coen Brothers were like before they turned darker-than-dark with "No Country For Old Men."
Interestingly, the Jeff Bridges film has inspired graduate theses, whole books and a revival of the Munsingwear men's underwear line. The film doesn't have the edge of "Fargo" or the Looney Tunes quality of "Raising Arizona" but it does get plenty of laughs (thanks to John Goodman) and demonstrates why the Minnesota-born Coens are always worth watching.
If you're not a fan of "offbeat," you're not going to like "Lebowski." But if you crave quirks, this is your film in more ways than one.
It knows the strike zone and hits it. Repeatedly.
Also: 'Baby Mama'
Amy Poehler and Tina Fey know how to give birth to big laughs.
Unfortunately, they're not even midwives to many in "Baby Mama," a semi-intelligent look at surrogate motherhood.
Fey plays an organic foods executive who hears the tock of her biological clock. When fertilization doesn't work out, she decides to hire a woman to carry her child. Enter: Poehler, a tough-talking vessel who's in it for the money. When Poehler's boyfriend splits, she decides to move in with Fey. The two make a great odd couple, but writer/director Michael McCullers doesn't have the kind of lines that would make them feel at home.
On "Saturday Night Live," the two were comedic thoroughbreds. Here, they're like horses tethered to the gate.
Steve Martin turns up as a New Age disciple, Greg Kinnear checks in as a potential love interest and Sigourney Weaver has a funny bit as an older-than-average mother. But they, too, lack the kind of script that would make "Baby Mama" pregnant with possibilities.
Martin is -- dare we say it? -- boring as the ponytailed head of Fey's company. He tries to send up corporate kooks but can't find the loose thread needed to make his character unravel. Weaver, however, just replays beats from "Working Girl" and finds the hook.
Several "SNL" vets play bit parts, suggesting this was a collaborative effort. Had McCullers let them contribute to the script, it might have been. All too often, the stars look like they're not quite sure of the lines they're saying.
When Poehler takes Fey "clubbing," we see a bit of the wackines of "30 Rock." Fey knows how to do physical humor (and get a laugh from looking bad) but she shouldn't have to scour the streets just to get a smirk. Poehler doesn't wait. She tosses in asides and gets the kind of response that says she's not going down without a fight.
"Baby Mama" could have been a good film; it's just a so-so one.
Also:
Film: "14 Women"; "Child's Play"; "Cool Hand Luke"; "The Fall"; "The Fast and the Furious"; "Fist of Legend"; "Heckler"; "House of the Dead"; "How the West Was Won"; "National Lampoon's Homo Erectus"; "Netherbeast Incorporated"; "Pumpkinhead"; "Son of Sam"; "Taking 5"
TV: "Grey's Anatomy," season four; "In Treatment"; "Medium," season four; "Smallville," season seven; "Ugly Betty," season two; "Wings," season seven
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