What the Flick

Finally, a nonromantic comedy that's funny and understands the meaning of comic timing, though aren't all movies with "devil" and overpriced luggage in the title just destined to set up the giggles? I'm talking, of course, about THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA, a fashionlicious film based on the book of the same name. I'm not sure if the best part about DEVIL is the story, the over-the-top fashion, the danceable soundtrack, or the highly fabulous...

Yes, it's true. In THE LAKE HOUSE, Keanu Reeves (playing architect Alex Wyler), best known as NEO from THE MATRIX (in itself perhaps best known for Neo's classic flat line reading: "Whoa."), actually does some emoting, and it's good. Good. Alex is a frustrated architect, looking to fix up a glass house on Lake Michigan that his famous architect father (Christopher Plummer) designed when their family was happy and whole, as a way of retrieving something from his past. And then Alex finds a letter in the mailbox...

Well, of course, it's SUPERMAN RETURNS, which flew into my life over July 4th weekend. At once original and an enjoyable homage to the Christopher Reeve SUPERMAN movies, this new Supe had me at times wistfully thinking of those memorable moments between Reeve's Man of Steel and Margot Kidder's Lois Lane (S: "Don't worry, I've got you, miss." LL: "You've got me? Who's got you?"). And, really, no one will ever be a better Lex Luthor...

Those Australians have struck again... with a screening of LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE, a Sundance favorite that is now my favorite comedy of the year (thanks, Australians in Film). Really, I have not laughed as hard as I did in the third act of this movie in a long, long time. But before we get to that point, there's a lot to take in, as Albuquerque's Hoover family loads into the old VW bus...

Remember when Keri Russell cut her hair in the 2nd season of FELICITY, and it was major cultural news? No? Oh. Well, I do, and so of course when she popped up earlier this summer in MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 3, I couldn't help but notice that her hair looked awesome. And the movie? Not so much, but not awful, either. Directed by FELICITY, ALIAS, and LOST creator JJ Abrams, M:I3 ...

GREENFINGERS... is probably the best movie you've never heard of produced by Trudie Styler (Mrs Sting to you). It stars Clive Owen as a hardened prisoner whose life is changed by a garden. It's one of those based on a true story, quirkly feelgood Brit films that also stars Helen Mirren. Clive is just one of the most manly men around (did you see him in King Arthur?), making almost anything he's in worth it, but this transcends its Clive-itude to be a fine movie on its own.

BRIDE AND PREJUDICE... a second effort from the director of BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM, this singing & dancing take on the classic Pride & Prejudice sets the story in Amritsar, India, where the Bakshi family's 4 daughters must be married off... according to their mother. Enter handsome American Mr Darcy (Martin Henderson), and the wealthy Bingleys, Indians who live in London. Sparks fly between Lalita (Aishwarya Rai) and Darcy, while her older sister falls hard for Mr Bingley (LOST's and Barbara Hershey's Naveen Andrews) and vice versa. It's more light-hearted and Bollywood lovable than full of deep emotion, but this story is evergreen. Of course, lately I love everything Indian so much that I don't even care that my dentist's answering service is in Bangalore, but I found this a fun movie for a hot summer night.