Year: 1999

We’ve all heard of a thing that is greater than the sum of its parts. But can a thing be less than the sum of its parts? That’s how I feel about The Out-of-Towners, which should be less forgettable than it is. It has King Tut and Basil Fawlty and a Kid in the Hall, fer pete’s sake, and yet two days later I can barely recall it.

Disney hasn’t had much of a track record lately when it comes to live-action films — its latest, My Favorite Martian, is a forgettable mess, strangely full of both preschooler toilet humor and situations way too risque for young eyes. So how delightful it is to find that Mighty Joe Young is a family movie in the old style — it’s Brothers-Grimm scary but not bloody or overly violent, it doesn’t offer a single fart joke, and you won’t need to cover the kids’ eyes during the love scene, which consists only of a sweet, romantic kiss.

I remember seeing the trailer for Snake Eyes in the theater last year and feeling as if it gave the whole movie away. So I was delighted to find the theatrical trailer right there on the Snake Eyes DVD — I could watch it again before the movie and check my suspicions against the actual film. So I did.

Like last year’s Wag the Dog, EDtv sets out to spoof the media and inadvertently ends up lampooning the public that consumes the media’s products. Genial and laid-back where Dog was biting and sarcastic, EDtv nevertheless raises many of the same questions Dog did — questions to which no one, on- or offscreen, seems to have the answers.

It’s hard to know what’s most offensive about True Crime. The undisguised misogyny? The ridiculous plot? The over-the-top performances from actors who should know better? The lack of a single character who isn’t a stereotype? Or the fact that the same man, Clint Eastwood, who made the subtle and original Unforgiven is also responsible for this claptrap?

Out of Sight is a lot of fun, and forced me to revise upward slightly my middling opinion of George Clooney. Pair him with Jennifer Lopez again, and I’ll be real happy.