This romantic comedy by John Hamburg (Safe Men) is hampered by the kind of overacting that the cast seems to enjoy more than the audience (Alec Baldwin’s unexpected turn as a Jewish blowhard is an exception until it loses force to choppy continuity). The hit-or-miss humor is pitched uncertainly between Woody Allen (Jennifer Aniston’s an Annie Hall figure to Ben Stiller’s cautious insurance executive) and the Farrelly brothers (more scatological jokes than you can shake a toilet plunger at); the worst fake accent in movie history (Hank Azaria as a French scuba instructor) and strident overreaching by Philip Seymour Hoffman both appear to be Hamburg’s fault. But it’s only 90 minutes long. PG-13. (JR) Read more
The first feature (1997, 115 min.) by the singular South Korean filmmaker Hong Sang-Soo, who professes to be more interested in charting the shifting attitudes of his characters than in telling stories. The characters in this film include an aspiring novelist, the movie box-office cashier who supports him, the married woman with whom he’s been having a long-term affair, and the woman’s husband, who sells water purifiers. I can’t fathom what the title has to do with any of this, but Hong has a way of depicting sex realisticallycompletely without sentimentality, romanticism, or eroticismthat is peculiarly his own. In Korean with subtitles. (JR) Read more
Klaus Kinski and Josephine Chaplin star in this 1976 item by Jesus Francoone of the worst and most prolific filmmakers who ever lived, with a specialty in gore, and therefore a standard cult reference. 88 min. (JR) Read more
