Sticks of Fire: a Tampa blog

Johansson Descends Into New York Nanny Hell

The Nanny Diaries

(PG-13; 105 minutes)

Did you know that rich New Yorkers can be totally self-centered snobs? Ridiculously trendy idiots who ignore their children and treat household servants like, well, servants?

No? Then you’ll find “The Nanny Diaries” to be a revelation.

If on the other hand, you already suspected that Manhattan’s Upper East Side is populated by snooty twits, then this not-so-fierce satire will come off as an amusing trifle with one magnificently over-the-top performance.

No, it’s not by Scarlett Johansson. The sensuous beauty seems slightly miscast as a timid Jersey girl who comes to the big city seeking a position worthy of her freshly minted college degree. She winds up stuck in a nanny job because … well, she’s desperate, passive and not very confident.

But at least this puts us in the home of the film’s walk-off star. Laura Linney is terrifically exaggerated as the incredibly thoughtless, rude, self-indulgent clod who hires the young woman and immediately starts treating her like dirt.

This chilly boss has a son who’s starved for attention, a husband (Paul Giamatti, looking silly as a pompous, adulterous exec) who ignores them both and a social schedule that seems to take up all day, every day. Linney steals this show with her hysterics, her rationalizations and her generally deranged manner.

But the rest of this extended sketch is too contrived to cherish. Heartthrob Chris Evans plays the “unattainable” dreamboat (the boss forbids her employee to date) and singer Alicia Keys shows serviceable chops in the traditional best-friend role.

Aside from a few well-aimed jokes, this mild-mannered modern fairy tale is mainly for hard-core Johansson fans. Hey, she always looks good, even when she’s trying to be frumpy.

We give it a C.

Sam Jackson Slugs It Out With Himself

Resurrecting the Champ

(PG-13; 111 minutes)

Samuel L. Jackson can do anything. Well, almost anything.

He couldn’t make box-office hits out of “Snakes on a Plane” or “Black Snake Moan.” But he seemed to have fun filming them, and his performances in both were enjoyably campy.

Jackson does serious stuff, too. In “Resurrecting the Champ,” he makes us care about a homeless stumblebum — an alcoholic ex-pugilist with no friends and a foul smell.

Jackson has the dubious title role in this intriguing, realistic drama from director Rod Lurie (”The Contender”).

Sarcastically dubbed ”The Champ” by abusive local bullies, this guy is accidentally discovered by a struggling sportswriter at the local paper. Josh Hartnett (”Pearl Harbor,” “The Black Dahlia”) brings heart to the role of a reporter who needs a good story. When he learns that his local trash-picker is a once-famous fighter, he believes he has the sports scoop of the year — or at least a human interest piece that will salvage his career.

Based on an L.A. Times magazine article, “Resurrecting the Champ” is a story of faith and redemption. But it’s not the story you expect — it takes odd twists and even asks us to ponder the nature of fame and personality while we follow an unlikely tale.

Set in Denver, filmed partly there and partly in Calgary, this modest drama gives Jackson a chance to capture and hold an audience with sheer character strength and naturalistic humor. He may be a faded fighter, but his charisma still packs a wallop.

We score this round a B.

Bean’s Silly Pantomime Earns Chuckles

Mr. Bean’s Holiday

(PG; 86 minutes)

English comic actor Rowan Atkinson has played a lot of characters (our absolute favorite is the one in 1989’s “The Tall Guy”). But he’s best known for a durable creation called Mr. Bean. A TV series, an animated kiddie show and a previous feature (”Bean”) helped establish the gawky, mostly nonverbal clown as an idiot supreme — a nincompoop with attitude.

Atkinson brings back Bean in “Mr. Bean’s Holiday,” an obvious allusion to “Mr. Hulot’s Holiday,” the 1953 Jacque Tati classic. The formats are similar, but Bean’s repertoire is, shall we say, far less subtle than his French predecessor’s.

This “Holiday” is pure slapstick. It’s stupid stuff but you’ll laugh anyway. Like silent masters Chaplin, Keaton and Lloyd, Atkinson relies on elaborate set-ups, loony body language and facial contortions (he has a wonderfully homely visage) to deliver one visual smack in the head after another.

He wins a raffle and heads to the south of France. So much for plot. Oh, yeah, he winds up being falsely accused of kidnapping — this is after he loses his money, passport and train ticket — so he’s sort of a clueless fugitive with a juvenile sidekick.

Bean barely speaks English — his vocalizations are guttural growls and grunts for the most part – so he’s totally lost in France. Some joke. The sight gags are the ones that work best. We like his walk to the beach in Cannes and his inadvertent editing of a pompous director’s new work. (Willem Dafoe is a grandly counterintuitive choice to play the self-appointed genius.)

While Atkinson’s Bean isn’t our favorite film funnyman, we have to admit he made us chuckle a lot in a fast 86 minutes. Even better, my mom cackled delightedly through the whole thing, and that’s worth something extra. So we give this silly man a C+.

Fantasy epic follows fan-friendly rituals

Stardust (opens Aug. 10)

(PG-13; 128 minutes)

A young man on a quest joins forces with the sweet-tempered human incarnation of a fallen heavenly body in “Stardust,” a mildly satiric fantasy about magic spells, wicked witches and the power of love.

Seemingly aimed at the audience that made hits out of “Harry Potter,” “Narnia” and “Lord of the Rings,” this edgy fairy tale is set in the late 19th century but strives for the timelessness of those other epics.

English actor Charlie Cox has the central role of Tristan, a boy on the verge of manhood who has a serious crush on beautiful Victoria (Sienna Miller), who seems way out of his league.

These folks live in a quaint kingdom called Stormwood. It lies next to an enchanted forest that all residents are forbidden to enter. In a prologue, the audience learns of Tristan’s secret roots on the other side of the wall that divides these territories.

Stormwood is apparently ruled by ruthless killers who would assassinate a son or brother while seeking power. This leads to a goofy joke in which deceased siblings become black-and-white ghosts who comment on the other characters’ actions. It was funnier in “Beetlejuice,” but this film can use all available comic relief.

Another, more pertinent plot gets rolling when Tristan learns he can win Victoria’s hand by bringing her a star from the forbidden land nearby. This “star,” we soon learn, has reddish-blond hair, a slender figure, an injured foot and a bad English accent. Claire Danes plays the fallen star, Yvaine, and she becomes Tristan’s unlikely ally.

But you can’t have a magic fairy tale without scary opponents. Michelle Pfeiffer leads this delegation. She plays a gleefully evil sorceress who summons all her strength to change from a hideous hag to a magnificent beauty. The makeup is impressive, but Pfeiffer’s performance is even more so as she plots against Tristan, Yvaine and everything decent. It’s a grand performance — the best such work since Anjelica Huston starred in “Witches.”

Sad to say, Robert De Niro takes a pointless minor role as a swishy pirate captain. He must have thought his grandkids would like it. Peter O’Toole’s cameo is shorter and less appalling.

Even so, “Stardust” delivers enough vibrant effects and magical mystery to please fans of the genre.

We give it a B-.

Movies, movies, and movies at BobRossMovies.com

Clothes are cute, comedy’s lame in tweener-doll idiocy

Bratz: The Movie (opens Aug. 3)

(PG; 95 minutes)

If you’re a doll-loving girl age 8 to 14 (you all read us, don’t you?) and you’ve had Bratz in your toy trove, this movie is made for you.

Everyone else, run away.

“Bratz: The Movie” is a mindless but cutely clothed pastiche of other teen and tween flicks. With its high-school setting and a plot about cliques, snobbery and idiotic regimentation, it artlessly steals slices from ”Clueless,” “Mean Girls,” “Bring It On” and “Legally Blonde,” without offering improvement on any of them.

Four cute unknowns — Nathalia Ramos, Janel Parrish, Logan Browning and Skyler Shaye — star as BFFs who discover that in high school, your lifelong buds become less important than your individual interests. One girl’s a cheerleader, one’s a science nerd, one’s an athlete and the fourth is a very shy singer.

As they face the horror of growing apart, they face a common enemy. The campus queen is a blond witch named Meredith Baxter Dimly, played as an empty-headed, egomaniacal sadist by Chelsea Staub. This girl is so spoiled that she wins the Carry Nation High School talent contest every year — mainly because she gets to select all the other entrants. You can see where this will end up, but it’s a painful process unless you are just fascinated by fashion.

Friendship is the noble value being pushed here, but it’s done so superficially that the message is buried in upscale rags and flatlining jokes.

We give it a D.

See BobRossMovies.com for better movie ideas.

The Bourne Ultimatum (opens Aug. 3)

(PG-13; 111 minutes)

The pulse-pushing tension starts early and never lets up. “The Bourne Ultimatum” completes a thrill-flick trilogy on a dizzying but satisfying note, with amnesiac super-agent Jason Bourne racing from Germany to England to Spain, Morocco and the good old USA on a deadly quest to learn his true identity and find out who messed up his memory. And why.

Matt Damon continues to impress as a stone-faced killer who senses that he was once a relatively normal young man in the service of his country.

Too bad he was working for a renegade agency run by shadowy, sinister bureaucrats. David Strathairn (”Good Night, and Good Luck”) steps in as the latest power-monger to put Bourne on the double-secret hit list. You’ve seen it a hundred times: The bad boss mutters to his minions, “I want him dead. Now.” Or words to that effect. We love watching an actor of Strathairn’s caliber play the calm manipulator who gradually loses control as his schemes misfire, backfire or simply decompose in the face of Bourne’s masterful evasions and counterattacks.

Sure, Bourne has lost his identity. But he hasn’t lost a bit of the deadly training he got from his ruthless spymasters. He can outfight, outrun and outsmart whatever murderers the villain sends after him.

Whenever some supervisor learns Bourne’s location, and the order is given to “lock it down” or “form a perimeter,” we know that our hero is going to find a way out. The fun is watching the spectacular chases (car and foot), the bone-crunching fistfights and the way Bourne manages to be witty without cracking a smile.

Two women provide much-needed assistance. Joan Allen and Julia Styles return from previous installments as CIA types who sense that their bosses are up to no good.

The series’ last chapter is also its fastest, nastiest and most nerve-wracking. That’s a good thing: Director Paul Greengrass, who directed “The Bourne Supremacy” and who got news of his Oscar nomination for “United 93″ while shooting ”Ultimatum,” knows how to make any scene look real — even when our brains tell us we’re seeing pure spy-genre inventions. He uses crazed camera moves, impossible angles and dazzling editing to involve the audience — at the risk of causing vertigo among the unprepared. A percussive score enhances the action.

Grittier than James Bond and just as tough, Jason Bourne might not be quite finished with his adventures. One possible title: “Three Is Not Enough.”

We usually avoid ultimatums, but this one merits a big B+.

You can always find more movie madness at BobRossMovies.com

Sandler plays it safe with mainstream “gay” humor

I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry (opens July 20)

(PG-13; 115 minutes)

In a country where gay people are still fighting for basic civil rights, there’s a surprising amount of mass-market love for tame little comedies that make light of the issue.

With goofy-guy superstar Adam Sandler in a lead role, “I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry” stands to become the latest example of how we seem so much more tolerant with our movie choices than with our real-life views.

A rough remake of a 2004 Australian effort called “Strange Bedfellows” that went straight (so to speak) to video in this country, “Chuck and Larry” gets its laughs from the notion that two rugged dudes might have to fake a homosexual relationship when they’ve been known for years as heteros.

This tame, sitcom-style piece works from a thin premise indeed. It seems that Larry Valentine (Kevin James of TV’s “King of Queens”) is a widowed New York City firefighter with two youngsters to care for. A quirk in regulations denies the kids a stake in his insurance protection unless Larry has a spouse — or a domestic partner.

That brings in Sandler as Chuck, Larry’s longtime best buddy and an incurable womanizing bachelor.

You can see the jokes coming from three theaters away. The two rugged firemen figure no one will find out about their well-intentioned scheme — but that’s before a weasely city inspector (Steve Buscemi, a champion in the weasel department) starts investigating their case.

The results are sporadically amusing, thanks to James’ sturdy earnestness, Sandler’s studied sweetness and a gala supporting cast including Ving Rhames as a closeted type, Dan Aykroyd as the fire station captain and Jessica Biels as the woman who thinks Chuck is gay and so doesn’t mind letting him rub her bosom to make sure “they’re real.”

You’ve heard of safe sex. This tepid mainstream exercise is safe comedy. Wake us when Sandler dares to play a guy who really is gay.

We give this phony partnership a C.

As always, you can get your film fix at BobRossMovies.com.

Hairspray

(PG; 117 minutes)

Just when we thought the old-fashioned musical comedy was a dying genre, here comes “Hairspray.” Based on the Broadway play that was inspired by the 1988 John Waters comedy (Waters has a clever cameo in the new film), it’s a high-energy charmer that works on every level.

The songs are snappy, the dances delirious, the performances praiseworthy. There’s even a plot that bears a message without preaching. (This is a worthy tradition: Remember the tolerance pleas built into “South Pacific” and “The King and I.”)

The central character — a tubby teenager with an incurably cute case of dance fever – is supposed to be an unknown, and 18-year-old Nikki Blonsky fills the bill and then some. Built like a fireplug, moving like a firestorm with rhythm, Blonsky portrays indomitable Tracy Turnblad, the Baltimore high-schooler who would rather dance than study. She prefers hanging with black hipsters in detention than sucking up to the smug racists in charge.

The story centers on a local teenage rock ‘n’ roll dance party show — think small-time “American Bandstand” — that features tame tunes and well-dressed kids. Michelle Pfeiffer, as the bigoted TV station manager, is an outstandingly surly back-stabber, determined to keep her daughter (Brittany Snow) in the show’s forefront while limiting the city’s black teens to occasional appearances on “Negro Day.” The year is 1962, and unfortunately this parody is not at all far-fetched.

Of course, the audience roots for Tracy to break the barrier somehow, and her triumph is as satisfying as it is unlikely.

Getting there is all the fun. The “Hairspray” Broadway score gets a lively workout here — the music almost never stops — and the songs are the catchiest to come on screen in years.

The first-class cast includes Amanda Bynes as Tracy’s best bud (and Allison Janney as the girl’s uptight mom), Christopher Walken (a song-and-dance veteran) as Tracy’s slightly loony dad (he boasts of owning “the Taj Mahal of joke shops”) and a magnificent Queen Latifah as Motormouth Maybelle, who owns an R&B record store and becomes a musically gifted civil rights leader.

The most problematic casting is also the film’s most famous star: John Travolta plays Tracy’s, um, overweight mother Edna. Following drag queen Divine in the original movie and gay icon Harvey Fierstein on Broadway, Travolta bears up adequately under a ton of fat-suit makeup and he uses his dancing experience to fine effect as the story progresses. But he’s the only one in the show determined to affect a strong “Bal-mer” accent, and it’s disconcerting. A minor quibble.

Director Adam Shankman, previously known for directing dreck such as “The Pacifier,” “The Wedding Planner” and “Cheaper by the Dozen 2,” surprises us pleasantly, sustaining a deliriously zippy pace while filling the screen with quick sight gags and colorful compositions.

The music and comedy come together without a let-up. It’s the only movie so far this summer that made us smile nonstop for two hours.

That’s why we give it an A-.

More movie fun at BobRossMovies.com

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

(PG-13; 139 minutes)

The fifth Harry Potter movie mixes the dark downside of adolescence into a whirl of monsters and magic. Daniel Radcliffe, as young master Potter, continues to age gracefully in the role — if you can say that about an actor who was 12 when the first film came out and will be 18 on July 23.

In the latest installment, the heroic wizardry student gets his first kiss (and his first romantic disappointment) while bracing himself and his trusted classmates for an epic battle against the ultimate villain — a super-powerful sorcerer with a deep, not yet fully explained connection to Harry. That would be Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes in hideous reptilian makeup), who has scant screen time but whose evil influence pervades the plot.

A spooky opening sequence — in which Harry violates a cardinal rule in order to save an innocent boy from a pair of ghastly, computer-generated Dementors — tells us right off that this piece of Potter-y is going to spend a lot of time in horror-flick mode.

Indeed, Harry figures pretty quickly that the malevolent Voldemort is back in action. But no one in authority at his Hogwarts school or the ruling Ministry of Magic believes him. Well, no one except maybe the good headmaster Dumbledore (Michael Gambon), who finds his position threatened by the film’s most notable new character.

Her name is Dolores Umbridge, brilliantly played by Imelda Staunton. (If you haven’t seen her in “Vera Drake,” put it on your Netflix queue now.) Ms. Umbridge (great name, isn’t it?) wears girly pink outfits and she giggles incessantly. But under that affable exterior beats the heart of a tyrant — a compulsive control freak determined to keep Harry and his cohorts from exercising any free will.

Director David Yates (who has already been hired to direct the next installment as well) maintains a brisk pace. He has to: The longest Potter novel has been cut and crammed into one of the series’ shortest movies. If you aren’t a Potter aficionado, the speed might be blinding. But it’s also entertaining, as Harry, Hermione, the Weasley boys and their upstart army do battle against some truly terrifying creatures and spells.

A roll-call of British stars keeps this costume-fantasy-epic impressive on a human level as well. Gary Oldman, Jason Isaacs, Brendan Gleeson and Alan Rickman lead this pack. We always liked Robbie Coltrane’s Hagrid character, but he only shows up briefly.

Potter fans ought not be disappointed, and the clueless muggles among us should be able to find the fun in the tale even if they missed the first four chapters. Is that possible?

We give this rising “Phoenix” a B.