Self-esteem is a terrible curse on the human ego; it can force us to make incredibly poor choices, even when it takes the form of perfectionism. Jessica Stein, our heroine, suffers from that affliction and developed it early in life–her mother reminds her of the time in fifth grade when she dropped out of the lead role in a play simply because the boy playing opposite her wasn’t good enough. We see so many examples of that including one scene at a dinner party when her boss Josh (played so well by Scott Cohen) throws it right in her face by calling her after she complains that the only dates she gets are with “freaks and morons.” Couldn’t it be, he asks, that the problem is with her and not the men?

Kissing Jessica Stein (2001) is an entertaining look at single life in New York City at a time when the phrase “lipstick lesbian” was on, well, everyone’s lips. And so Ms. Stein, a cute bundle of energy played by Jennifer Westfeldt, takes a stab at the same sex, answering a personal ad from Helen (Heather Juergensen). At first repelled by her own inclination, she relaxes just enough to talk with Helen, then to kiss, then after weeks of kissing, to move on.

But while Jessica’s happier by the day with her romantic life, she still can’t bring herself to let anyone else in on the secret, always introducing Helen as her friend and making excuses for their being together. Until an unmentioned wedding brings the water to boil and the two break up. This is a romantic comedy, though it drips with political overtones, so the couple comes out of the closet and makes up–they even move in together. But there’s a reason for the term lipstick lesbian, which truly does capture the Jessica character so well, and she really wants no more than a best friend. Helen, turns out, truly is lesbian and she soon finds a better match.

In some ways this movie, which was written by Westfeldt and Juergensen, is obviously the work of inexperienced writers (it is the only produced screenplay by either), with desired plot points simply occuring more or less as needed without proper development. The direction by Charles Herman-Wurmfeld was also a bit simplistic, and also not surprising as it was his first feature film, though it did lead to better things as he was picked to direct Reese Witherspoon in the just released Legally Bonde 2. Reminds me of Damon and Affleck writing Good Will Hunting as way to get good parts for themselves.

Soctt Cohen does a really good job as the main heterosexual male. Such as the look on his face when he finds out the truth about the two women, immediately after telling Jessica how he (in so many words) loves her! I knew he looked familiar and, sure enough, a bit of peeking uncovered that he played the despicable cop Harry Denby on NYPD Blue a few years ago.

Could be that Westfeldt and Juergensen are busy doing, say, stage work but I’m quite surprised after seeing Kissing Jessica Stein that neither has done another piece of significant movie work since. Westfeldt has a role in a movie that screams “direct to cable” coming out later this year in which she shares the screen with top names like Tori Spelling and Malcolm McDowell, with not even that much shown in IMDB for Juergensen. Surprising.

Recommended

Jerry Bruckenheimer knows how to make big budget action movies (though he’s as fallible as the rest of us humans, demonstrated by this weekend’s Bad Boys II) and he tackled the what the heck is this supposed to be about challenge of a Disney ride in fine fashio when he put together Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.

Sure Bruckenheimer had help from director Gore Verbinski (though this was certainly Verbinski’s first action film) and writers Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio (whose experience in animated films probably came in very handy), all three did very nice jobs, but I can’t imagine this being the same film with someone else as producer.

What a fun film this is! Orlando Bloom (Legolas from Lord of the Rings) and Keira Knightley (yes, the hottie from Bend It Like Beckham, who is starting to blaze in the career department) do a fine job as the couple that ought to be together. Johnny Depp is truly an excellent actor and brings out surprising depths in what could have been a sleepwalking role. Geoffrey Rush leads the bad men, though I don’t always find him as attentive to the emotions of the part. Jack Davenport (who’s delightful in the British sitcom Coupling) plays Bloom’s rival for Knightley’s affections, as commander of the local detachment of the British Navy, while Jonathon Pryce was another ‘in it for the money’ players as her father and governor of the colony.

For an action movie, there’s a refreshing avoidance of blood for the most part and even depth. Verbinski and his SFX department created some really nice sequences with the ships and kudos to the costumers! Elliot and Rossio came up with a smart story, an actual plot, that even incorporates some small touches of the actual Dsiney park ride. Not that there’s been much competition but I’d have to say this is one of the best old time pirate movies in the modern (post-1970) era.

Definitely recommended

From the Wayback Machine (Turner Classic Movies, actually) we had 1942’s This Gun for Hire queued up on TiVo. This film noir thriller is most notable for giving Alan Ladd his big break after a decade of bit parts and hanging around. He matched with Veronica Lake and their chemistry was easily noticed, leading to several further teamings though the ’40s in such hits as The Blue Dahlia.

The other memorable character in Gun was main bad guy Willard Gates (though no one called him Bill), played by Laird Cregar. Cregar was a large man (I was strongly reminded of David Schramm who played Roy on the TV show Wings) and this film was more or less than midpoint of his short career as he died three years later when his body couldn’t take an intensive diet; here he gives a performance that’s a sinister combination of creepy and enticing, nearly trapping both Ladd and Lake in his web.

In the end, of course, all the bad guys die and the good guys kiss. Okay, the good guys are Lake and her fiancee/police detective who’s investigating the case (a very young Robert Preston) but this was 1942 Hollywood and moral ambiguity was considered very bad for the box office. Preston wasn’t really there during the filming, if you know what I mean, looked like he was getting fed his lines from someone standing just offstage. Tully Marshall had a nice supporting role as an ultra-cranky war criminal corporate chietain, which resonated nicely with recent real life events.

While I enjoyed the movie, I didn’t care much for whatever director Frank Tuttle contributed–give credit to Graham Greene, who wrote the novel on which the movie is based–but to be fair Tuttle’s bread and butter were apparently musical comedies and the producers must have thought that he was a good choice since Lake had to sing two or three numbers to be convincing as a nightclub singer/magician.

Moderately recommended

Upfront I’ll admit that I like the branch of science fiction known as alternative history. So even though I haven’t read Alan Moore’s graphic novels, I was still looking forward to The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. And I wasn’t disappointed–this movie was a blast.

The alternative here is that quite a few fictional heroes are real people. Except for the ones who are vampires, although there’s only one in the movie and she’s a longtime hottie, Peta Wilson. There’s Sean Connery leading the way as a very old yet still spry Alan Quartermain, Jason Flemyng as Dorian Gray (his famous portrait not only prevent shim from aging, it prevents him from being damaged or killed as well, except…), Captain Nemo, Jeckyll/Hyde, and the Invisible Man. Plus the bad guy is from one of the all time great detective series–there seems to be some effort to keep his identity underwraps as even IMDB does not properly credit him, so I won’t spoil that revelation here.

Connery is essentially the same age as my Dad (who, have no doubt, I love very much) and even though I realize that judicious editing, stunt doubles and other bits of movie magic were employed, he still kicks butt! LOL. I mean, Connery is the League member who in the end must face off with the prime villain in manual combat at the end and he gets the job done. We saw the movie with Lord B (who did not enjoy it, silly man) and he pointed out that Jeckyll/Hyde essentially serves as a primordial Hulk without the green (or the ability to leap three miles in a single bound, though that wouldn’t have been useful here anyway).

I like the work director Stephen Norrington has done, good pacing, good framing, just dark enough (though at times the action moved so quickly that the darkness got a bit in the way). James Robinson wrote a nice adaptation and compared too many bloated action films (why is The Hulk well over two hours long?), this one ends well before your ass is in pain. Watch out for a sequel, if the box office take is strong enough, as the ending certainly left that as the clear expectation.

Recommended

This one had been on the To See list for weeks now and we were glad to have an opportunity this afternoon to see it. Bend It Like Beckham is an English film about Jesminder, the daughter of a Sikh family who idolizes David Beckham and is actually a decent footballer herself and her fight to gain acceptance of her desires by her parents.

A major subplot is the impending marriage of Jesminder’s sister and this, along with the heavily Indian cast, made me compare Bend to Monsoon Wedding, which I didn’t care for at all. Fortunately, this film is much better and the actors’ accents much more easily understood.

Parminder Nagra plays Jesminder and easily carries the weight of the film, well supported by Keira Knightley as the girl who recruits her to the soccer team and becomes, briefly, a romantic rival. Interestingly, though they both play the equivalent of high school seniors, Nagra was 26 at the time of filming and Knightley only 18. Nagra will next be gracing America with her presence in the TV series ER when the new season opens while Knightley will be all over the multiplexes this week as Orlando Bloom’s love interest in Pirates of the Caribbean.

Since I’d never heard of writer/director Gurinder Chadha before, I chalked up a bunch of poor transitions and editing choices to this being a first effort, but looking him up on IMDB showed this isn’t the case. Oh well. Seems to have done a better job on the script than direction but still adequate, including the climactic action cutting between a soccer match and an extremely energetic dance at the sister’s wedding.

Coming of age tales are quite common in movies and novels but can still be done well, as this film demonstrates. On the other hand, Hollywood turns out dreck like next week’s How to Deal and last year’s Scooby-Doo. Good to know that gems in a class with, say, American Graffitti are still being made.

Highly recommended

What a blast! This was a fun, wink at the audience, trash ourselves kind of movie with plenty of sexy bodies of both genders to fill out the slack. Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle has what it takes in a Summer movie, unlike, say Matrix: Reloaded or The Hulk: put the featured attractions on the screen and skip the rehash of Philosophy 201.

Sure most of the eye candy is barely-clothed women, especially the Angels and Bad Angel Demi Moore, but there are some hot guys; the script even uses Alex’s (Drew Barrymore) predilection for bad guys to pick out targets. Terrific soundtrack, with a nice mix of current and classic tunes, lots of dancing especially from Natalie (Cameron Diaz), and an explanation of how Bernie Mac and Bill Murray came to be brother Bosley’s. Eye twisting stunts but thankfully, except for some wire work, few special effects–there’ve been quite enough unnecessary impossible visions this Summer.

Best of all, writers John August and Cormac and Marianne Wibberly keep the plot simple and moving towards the climax. The few subplots, like Alex’s inadequecies and assassin’s target Max, are short and work to support the main story. Now don’t get me wrong, Full Throttle isn’t literary quality cinema, it’s a campy and fun, get out of the house and enjoy a couple of hours movie.

Recommended

A lightweight outing from 1985 featuring Hugh Grant, The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain is the story of “the first mountain in Wales” and depends for whatever plot energy it might have upon an understanding that the Welsh still resent being considered part of England. Apparently.

This is a period piece set in 1917 when almost all the men in Britain of fighting age were either off fighting World War I, home injured, or dead. Grant plays a junior government cartographer supporting his brassy senior in surveying the heights of Wales. In the first village they come to, that which they have always believed to be a mountain falls short by 16 feet and is fated to be marked on maps as just a hill. A clear insult to their virility from bossy Englishman!

The movie overall reminds me of plenty of other films like Local Hero, The Seventh Stream, and Waking Ned, only not nearly as well done. Very cute idea, I suppose, but the romance that’s supposed to drive Grant’s character to the necessary conclusion is forced and neglected–when he first kissed Tara Fitzgerald I couldn’t understand why, or at least why she responded with so much passion, since the set up was not nearly sufficient.

Grant was coming off his first big hits, Sirens and Four Weddings and a Funeral, and one wonders if the accompaying publicity work and/or notoriety were getting inside his head because his energy level is quite far down the scale from those efforts. Perhaps he was attempting to ‘act’ and show he didn’t always play the same character each time out. Colm Meany, with a juicy role as the only healthy young man in the village to service all the lonely ladies, does somewhat better but not up to his work in, say, The Snapper or The Van.

Not recommended

The Man is keeping the brothers and sisters down but never fear, Undercover Brother and the Brotherhood are on the job. Mr. Feathers thinks he can stop a brother and Sistah Girl from defeating The Man’s plot to brainwash all brothers and sisters, but not when White She Devil makes it a threesome. Especially not in this funny flick, sort of a black Matt Helm to Mike Myers’ Bond update.

Eddie Griffin has the title role, and a ‘fro to go with it. Aunjanue Ellis plays Sistah, Chris Kattan is Mr. Feather, and Denise Richards is White She Devil (yup, that’s the actual character name and Mr. Feather introduces her as “Black-man’s Kryptonite”). Really good casting and a bunch of decent actors in supporting roles (Chi McBride, Dave Chappelle, Neil Patrick Harris, and Billy Dee Williams), not to mention a really funky soundtrack.

Malcolm Lee, Spike’s cousin, directed and does a reasonably good job here. It’s his second film in the chair as he also wrote and directed 1999’s The Best Man. John Ridley (Three Kings) wrote the script based on an Internet cartoon he created–the cartoon can still be seen on the Urban Entertainment website.

Definitely Recommended