9/24/06---Couple of movies to recommend

Lord knows that its been probably around a year since I did a movie review--so I thought I'd let you know about a couple of old favorites that you can find on DVD and watch at home....both are absolutely top notch.

1) The Sure Thing--John Cusack is one of my favorite actors.  He's one of those guys who's movies are almost always good--and if there not, he's interesting in his role.
Sort of like a less popular Johnny Depp.  Back in 1985, John was a relatively unknown teenager from Illinois who had gotten a nice reaction for his role in "16 Candles" as one of the two brothers who bet Anthony Michael Hall "floppy discs" that he couldn't get Molly Ringwald's underpants.  But I digress.  Here you absolutely lights up the screen as a college freshman at a northeastern school who gets a phone call from a buddy, who's going to school out in California and advises him that he's gotten a lead on a "sure thing".  Its one of those things that maybe only men understand.  Cusack then heads out on a cross country trip to see his buddy and the title character.  Its one part "It Happened One Night" and one part "Taming of the Shrew".  Cusack is terrific as always and is ably assisted by Daphne Zuniga (never better than here), Anthony Edwards (pre-Top Gun, Revenge of the Nerds & "ER"....and with a full head of hair!),
Tim Robbins (hilarious in a small but crucial part) & Nicollette Sheridan, incredibly good looking and vapid--all at once--but a fine performance.  This is a great date movie.  Grab some popcorn, turn off the phone....and enjoy.  ****

2) Best in Show--I'll be the first to admit that it might be helpful in your enjoyment of this movie if you're a dog owner.  Or maybe a dog lover.  Or maybe even one of those people who talks to your dog like their a human.  Or treats them like a human.  You know the type--or maybe, you ARE the type.  Christopher Guest and many of the same faces that brought you "Waiting for Guffman" and "This is Spinal Tap" are here again in this side-splitting tale of competition run amuck at a national dog show.  You are introduced to the owners, the dogs, the hotel clerks....you name it.  And all of them seem to have...well....a slightly quirky side to them, shall we say.  One of the really great things is that Guest could've written the best part for himself, but he probably has the least interesting character in a movie full of them.  Eugene Levy & Catherine O'Hara play a couple from Florida--he literally has two left feet and she keeps running into men that she, well.....that she used to date (that's a nice way of putting it).  Michael McKean & John Michael Higgins are a hilariously over-the-top gay couple, Jennifer Coolidge
plays the wife an elderly millionaire who seems a little too close to her dog trainer (Jane Lynch).  Parker Posey & Michael Hitchcock play the "parents" of a neurotic Weimarainer, who's visits to the shrink reveal way more about the couple than we probably needed to know.  Finishing of the cast is Fred Willard, in what might be the performance of a career, as the network announcer who's sort of winging it in broadcasting the dog show.  The movie is worth seeing just for Willard's performance.
Luckily, there's a lot more to it than that, which is why I give it  ****1/2

Later,
Jeff