Review: "Our Brand Is Crisis"

Forty years ago we made movies like "The Candidate" about well-meaning people who get sucked up into the dirty tide of electioneering that comes with democracy. Ours was portrayed as a corrupt system with political operates whispering dark counsel into candidates' gullible ears.

Now we've moved on from idolizing the candidates to embracing the mercenary advisers themselves. Dark money? How about dark Hollywood.

"Our Brand Is Crisis" is based on a documentary of the same name made a decade ago based on the true story of some veteran American political operatives, including Clintonistas Bob Shrum and James Carville, who were recruited to help a candidate for President of Bolivia. They made a bunch of money and their guy won the election, but not much changed in the poverty-stricken South American country.

Instead of paunchy middle-aged guys going south of the border, it's a wan but steely woman named Jane Bodine, aka "Calamity Jane" for her tendency to blow things up with her erratic behavior. It's a showcase role for Sandra Bullock, who is the best thing about the movie, along with Billy Bob Thornton as Pat Candy -- love that name! -- as her slithery nemesis.

They're also about all that works about the film. The pair like to sidle up to each other in the middle of campaign events, softly and delicately threaten each other and the opposing candidate, and then walk off with the upper hand. Candy even takes the hotel room directly opposite Jane's so he can intimidate her, leering at her and even putting his hand down his pants to adjust his package.

Jane was the best of the best but hit a string of failures, most at Candy's hands, and gave up the political racket six years ago to make pottery in a cabin in the mountains. She gets recruited by Ann Dowd and Anthony Mackie as Nell and Ben, who need help because their guy is down 28 points, and alsy because they want someone to blame if they don't win.

The problem is the candidate, Castilla (Joaquim de Almeida). He's a symbol of the oligarchs who have ruled the nation but are resented by the mostly poor and uneducated indigenous people. Castillo actually briefly was president 15 years ago, and is mostly remembered for having the police open fire on protesters. He's arrogant, aloof and resentful -- of his upstart opponent, Rivera (Louis Arcella), but also at having had to bring in Americans.

Our crew slowly brings things around, through a combination of negative campaigning and teaching Castillo to push the idea that the country is in crisis. Of course, Candy's got a few tricks up his sleeve, and the underhanded plays go back and forth.

Directed by David Gordon Green ("Pineapple Express") from a script by Pete Straughan ("Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy"), "Our Brand Is Crisis" has the classy veneer of an awards contender. It was produced by George Clooney and partner Grant Heslov, and Straughan is one of their go-to screenwriters.

The film's main problem is trying to do too much with too little.

For awhile it's a character study of Jane, who's so checked out when first arriving in Bolivia that she throws up at her first meeting with the candidate. Then it seems to want to be about the fraught relationship between Jane and Candy, which contains a dangerous undertone of unacknowledged sexual attraction. Then there's Jane's approach to Castillo, which zigzags from dismissing him as a total loser to seeing him as her last hope for redemption.

Scoot McNairy, one of my favorite character actors working today, is ill-used as a self-deluded media flack. Zoe Kazan turns up as LeBlanc, Jane's pet opposition research whiz kid.

The movie leaves the politics as vague as possible, only alluding to the IMF as a playing card to be dealt and shuffled as the need suits.

Bullock and Thornton have a lot of snap in their shared screen moments, but they're fleeting and ultimately lack any real meat. "Our Brand Is Crisis" needed a rethink from the grass roots on up.

Review: "Minions"

I don't think there was a soul alive who watched the original "Despicable Me" and didn't think to themselves, "Man, they should give those goofy little yellow sidekicks their own movie."

So now they have, and "Minions" is exactly what it's cracked up to be: 91 minutes of CGI slapstack, sufferable cuteness and incomprehensible minion-babble. Though it might try the patience of parents here and there, it's colorful, fast-paced and amusing. It's got the formula for keeping kiddies entertained on a hot summer day down pat: three parts cartoonish violence, one part gratuitous adorableness, one and a half parts making fun of grownups, and a scoop of gastrointestinal humor.

Frankly, if your little kid isn't left giddy by this flick, you might want to keep an eye on him.

This is essentially the minions' origin story, aka the tale of their life pre-Gru, the nefarious, redeemable villain with the long schnoz and inexplicable Slavic accent voiced by Steve Carell in the "Despicable" movies. We learn that they are not, in fact, the laboratory concoction of a mad scientist, Gru or otherwise, but a natural life form that evolved long before man and whose entire evolutionary purpose is to find the biggest villain available and serve him/her/it.

A witty opening credit scroll shows them evolving from single cells to amoebas to sea critters and so forth, always latching on to something bigger and toothier to fawn over. Alas, their bumbling assistance tends to lead to the demise of whatever "big boss" they're currently serving, a fate that eventually leads them to a long, lonely existence languishing in a frozen cave.

Eventually, hero-myth candidate Kevin resolves to go out in the world and seek a new villain. He's joined by Bob, a young minion -- he still carries a teddy bear -- with more determination than skills, and Stuart, the resident guitar player and cool dude.

The running joke with the minions is that they're virtual carbon copies of each, with a pill-shaped yellow body, no detectible noses, ears or reproductive organs, a scattering of coarse black hair and one or more googly, goggled eyes. There's not a huge range in personality or intelligence, either, though they seem to have no trouble telling each other apart.

Anyway, the trio make their way to Orlando, Fla., for Villain-Con, an annual gathering of baddies, and encounter Scarlet Overkill, the greatest of them all, and become her henchmen on a trial basis. They're assigned to steal the crown of Queen Elizabeth, and various hijinks ensue.

I should mention this takes place in 1968 London, so everything's very Mod with tight pants, period rock music and an Austin Powers vibe.

Co-director Pierre Coffin helmed the "Despicable" films with Chris Renaud, who opted to go his own way with the forthcoming "The Secret Lives of Pets." Here Coffin is joined by apprentice Kyle Balda, with a screenplay by Brian Lynch.

Coffin also provides all the chirpy voices for the minions, with the help of some intricate sound mixing. As you'll recall they speak in their own distinctive, nonsensical language with a smattering of recognizable words in English, Spanish and French. This results in one scene where Bob, having been temporarily granted an auspicious perch, delivers a rousing speech to a huge crowd of Brits, who are completely bewildered, but pleased.

The rest of the voice cast is quite good, led by Sandra Bullock as Scarlett, who really stretches vocally to capture her character's high highs and dastardly lows. Jon Hamm plays her lackadaisical husband/hanger-on/gadget guy, Michael Keaton and Allison Janney voice a pair of familial robbers, Jennifer Saunders is the queen and Geoffrey Rush is our helpful narrator.

"Minions" isn't a particularly ambitious animated film, especially compared with superior fare like "Inside Out." It's forgettable, but fun, and I can think of worse ways to spend a little time and money.

Video review: "Gravity"

Despite being only 91 minutes long, “Gravity” is a bona fide cinematic epic, a film with a big story and jaw-dropping special effects. Seen in IMAX or on a big screen, it was an engrossing adventure, part thrill ride and part sobering drama.

But how will “Gravity” fare on video, where even the largest flat screen TV can’t match the big canvas of a movie theater? We’re about to find out.

My take is it’s still a thoroughly engaging experience, but a more intimate one. No, the heart-churning sequence where the Hubble Telescope is taken out by space debris doesn’t carry quite the same weight when you’re not enveloped by those images and sounds. But the scenes where it’s just Sandra Bullock trapped in her spacesuit, frantically huffing away her last few breaths of oxygen, become even more gripping.

Story-wise, it’s essentially just a tale of survival. Ryan Stone (Bullock) is a medical engineer and novice astronaut, while George Clooney plays Kowalski, a glib veteran. They’re the only two left alive when their shuttle and the telescope are destroyed, and must make a desperate attempt to reach a nearby station before it, too, is turned to fragments.

Big screen or TV, “Gravity” boasts a whole lot of heft.

Extra features, which are the same for Blu-ray and DVD versions, are somewhat disappointing. There are three making-of featurettes, titled “Gravity Mission Control,” “Shot Breakdowns” and “Sandra’s Surprise!”.

You also get a short film by screenwriter Jonás Cuarón, “Aningaaq,” and a public service documentary, “Collision Point: The Race to Clean Up Space,” narrated by Ed Harris.

Movie:

Extras:

Review: "Gravity"

Everyone knows they're going to die, Dr. Ryan Stone muses during a rare peaceful moment in "Gravity," but it's an odd thing realizing that your death will happen today -- in the next few minutes, most likely. This gripping new science fiction dramatic thriller is the story of one woman accepting, and then rejecting, the embrace of her impending doom.

Director Alfonso Cuarón, who co-wrote the screenplay with his son Jonás, uses state-of-the-art cinematic technology to make a very old-fashioned type of movie. It's classic "you are there" filmmaking, in which the audience is inserted right into the harrowing action, experiencing it unfold from the perspective of the characters as it happens.

The characters aren't very deeply drawn, because they're mostly there to serve as a stand-in for the people watching. Stone, played by Sandra Bullock in a mesmerizing turn, is something of an enigma at the start -- a medical engineer given a crash training course by NASA to fix a faulty computer on the Hubble telescope. By the end of her journey we don't know too much more about her than when we started, other that her resignation has turned to resolve.

Using a mix of CGI and live-action shots, Cuarón creates a landscape in space hundreds of miles above the surface of the Earth that feels genuine, both in its eerie beauty and its utter lethality. A thoughtless mistake can quickly result in a horrible death, made even more dreadful by the knowledge that it will occur in total silence, since sound doesn't transmit in space.

Watching entire space stations rendered into dust without any corresponding sound effects somehow makes it even more terrifying.

It seems as if Cuarón's camera is roaming freely through this space, so occasionally it is very far away from Stone and Matt Kowalski, the savvy veteran astronaut played by George Clooney. Other times we're right up in their faces, or even seeing things from out the claustrophobic viewport of their helmets.

Likewise, sometimes we're assaulted by the sounds of a Stone's heavy breathing as she rapidly consumes her precious oxygen, or by the musical score by Steven Price. The voice of mission control (Ed Harris) soon fades away completely, though Stone and Kowalski still keep transmitting as if they can be heard.

Ostensibly it's in case they do manage to get back into contact with those on the ground, but we get the sense their self-narration is mostly for posterity.

Things are set into motion mere minutes in, as a cascade of destroyed satellites creates a minefield of debris. Their space shuttle is shattered and the rest of the crew killed, and Stone is sent tumbling off into the darkness of night. Kowalski is a jabber and a teller of tall tales, but his bravado is comforting to the withdrawn, clinical Stone, and when they're separated she begins to panic.

I can't go into all the different legs of Stone's arduous journey to find a way back safely to Earth, since it would spoil your experience. Suffice it to say it makes "Apollo 13" look like a cakewalk. Stone must leverage her meager skills as a space voyager against her analytical mind, learn to risk all instead of playing it safe, and improvise on the fly.

Watching "Gravity" is much more a visceral experience than an intellectual one. The movie grabs you by the chest and sucks the air out of your lungs, and while you're sitting in the theater it's an utterly immersive experience. I'm just not sure if it's the sort of film that lingers in your brain for months and years afterward.

Still, I'd be lying if didn't call this one of the best films I've seen this year, because it is.

Review: "The Heat"

Is "The Heat" anything more than the familiar zany buddy cop genre we've seen dozens of times, but with the estrogen switch flipped?

Not really.

But Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy are immensely likeable performers individually. And when you throw the hot-and-cold mixture of their two well-drawn characters together, the combustibility is hard to deny.

"Bridesmaids" director Paul Feig is reunited with supporting player McCarthy, who earned a rare Oscar nomination for a comedic role. She's moved into the big leagues now, and pairs nicely with fellow A-lister Bullock.

What I liked about their cinematic combination is the give and take they exchange so freely. There's nothing forced about their chemistry together. Usually with the male versions of this sort of thing, it's easy to point out the alpha dog. Here, the stars are generous in sharing the screen, and the laughs.

And there are plenty of laughs in "The Heat." In factor, several scenes are the most uproarious I've seen at any movie this year. An overnight bender in a Boston dive bar just keeps going on and on, reaching a new level of hilarity just when you think the roll must peter out.

Bullock is Sarah Ashburn, a by-the-book FBI agent who doesn't play well with others. It's not that she doesn't try -- she's easily the best agent in the New York City office. It's just that, as her boss (Demián Bichir) puts it, she displays an "aggressiveness and competitiveness" that is off-putting to her mostly male colleagues.

If Ashburn has a passive/aggressive issue, then Mullins is nothing but belligerence. A Boston police detective, she terrorizes criminals and other law enforcement officers with equal verve.  She dresses like a roadie and swears like a sailor with Tourette's.

In the real world Mullins, whose antics include pulling her gun on a nurse who asks her to turn off her cell phone in a hospital, would be drummed out of the force in a week. But here she's so angry and feral, even her captain submits meekly to her bullying.

Ashburn gets sent to Boston to track down a big lead on a drug kingpin, and her fashionable stilettos are soon stepping all over the toes of Mullins' shabby boots. Reluctantly they agree to team up, though the trail of clues plays second fiddle to the testy dynamic between them.

At first it's about Mullins trying to get the prim Ashburn to loosen up, which leads to a screamingly funny bit where they sabotage her all-business suit to come up with a hoochie outfit to lure a suspect at a nightclub.
Their dance moves are, well, epic.

Slowly the spotlight shifts over to Mullins' family, which is an unholy wreck. Her junkie brother (Michael Rapaport) is in jail -- courtesy of his cop sister -- and the rest of the clan blames her for his troubles. It's a screeching caricature of the Boston blue collar class, but still wicked awesome.

Screenwriter Katie Dippols, a TV scribe making her feature film debut, knows just how to tailor the yucks to her two leading ladies' personas. Structurally it's a bit unsound, with too many dead spots scattered throughout. You could easily make the movie 20 minutes shorter, and better.

But even if "The Heat" treads overly familiar ground, these ladies still bring the funny with both barrels blazing.

Video Review: "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close"

"Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" is probably the most disrespected film ever nominated for a Best Picture Oscar.

This challenging drama was directed by high-toned director Stephen Daldry ("Billy Elliot," "The Reader") and adapted from Jonathan Safran Foer’s best-selling novel by screenwriter Eric Roth ("Forrest Gump"). Despite that prestigious pedigree, and the presence of major stars Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock, "Loud" barely received a theatrical release. And reviews generally ranged from indifferent to openly hostile.

Me? I rushed it into the #3 slot on my Top 10 slot at the last minute.

Those lambasting the film seem to regard it as cynically manipulating the decade-old tragedy of 9/11, as a young boy searches the city of New York for clues to a game he played with his father, who died in the World Trade Center. I think these critics erroneously tried to force the label of "the definitive 9/11 movie" on the film, when really it's more a ruminative tale about a very specific, very unusual child.

As played with devastating effect by newcomer Thomas Horn, Oskar Schell is a brilliant but shy boy, possibly autistic, whose only substantial human relationship was with his dad (Hanks). When he dies, Oskar doggedly pursues the mystery behind one of the puzzle-like adventures his father would concoct for him, mostly as a ruse to force him to interact with other people.

As he traipses all around New York, encountering strangers and learning to come out of his shell, Oskar retraces the steps of his family life, and discovers that the mother he’d always kept at a distance is anything but uncaring. It’s a bracing, sad and joyous journey.

Video extras are pretty good, but not spectacular. The Blu-ray/DVD combo comes with a digital copy of the film and several featurettes.

The heart of the package is a making-of documentary that includes substantial participation by Daldry, his cast and crew. Other mini-documentaries focus on the search for an actor to play Oskar – Horn was, astonishingly, a total novice – and the lasting impact of 9/11 10 years later.

One of the more original pieces is a featurette about Max Von Sydow’s Oscar-nominated turn as a mute stranger who wanders into Oskar’s life, directed by Von Sydow’s own son.

Movie: 3.5 stars out of four
Extras: 3 stars

Review: "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close"

"Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" is not the story of a conventional Everyman as a child -- Oskar Schell is no Everyboy.

No, Oskar is an extraordinary lad -- a smart, painfully shy boy. His only really deep human connection is with his father (Tom Hanks), who recognizes the specialness of his child not as a disadvantage to be regretted but an opportunity to draw him closer and nudge Oskar toward a rich life shared with others. Thomas Schell was a failed biochemist who became a jeweler, but whose real occupation was a Biblical sort of shepherd, tending to a flock of one.

But the elder Schell dies in the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center, and Oskar is left utterly alone. True, his mother (Sandra Bullock) is technically present, but Oskar correctly labels her an absentee parent. That's the sort of kid Oskar is: he knows what an absentee parent is, and he's hurting so badly inside he lashes out at his mother by telling her to her face that she's a failed mom.

"Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" is based on the novel by Jonathan Safran Foer, adapted for the screen by Eric Roth ("Forrest Gump") and directed by Stephen Daldry, who has made four feature films, all of which I've loved ("The Hours," "The Reader" and "Billy Elliot" are the previous three.)

It is not a movie that consciously tries to be "the" film about 9/11 -- what Oskar refers to simply as "The Worst Day." But in its stark exploration of wrenching loss and the capricious way human lives collide with each other, it best captures the emotional vacuum felt by an entire nation more than 11 years ago, and to a lessening degree since.

Oskar's father often assigned adventurous tasks, or "expeditions" to him. Ostensibly scientific undertakings, they were really exercises designed to force Oskar to interact with new people and explore the real world around him. Precocious and earnest, Oskar recognizes the true meaning of these assignments, but still tackles them with enthusiasm because he so adores his father.

Shortly before his death, Oskar's dad set before him the grandest expedition of all: discovering the mythical 6th borough of Manhattan. This mission takes on new meaning when the boy discovers a key hidden inside a vase in his father's untouched closet. Unmarked, with only the cryptic word "Black" printed on a piece of paper, Oskar concludes this clue must unlock the puzzle of Thomas Schell's death.

With great deliberateness, Oskar sets out to the far reaches of New York City, attempting to interview every person named Black to see if they know about the mystery of the key. Since Oskar suffers panic attacks at the mere prospect of mass transit, he will walk everywhere he needs to go on his free Saturdays. He calculates it will take him three years, which in his unadorned narration Oskar recognizes is his way of extending the time he gets to spend with his father, or at least his fading memory.

With such a non-traditional protagonist, I was not surprised to learn that Thomas Horn, the amazing young actor who portrays him, came to this film project in an atypical way. This is his first acting credit of any sort; he was discovered after winning a tournament of "Teen Jeopardy" at the age of 12. Like Hailee Steinfeld in "True Grit" or Haley Joel Osment in "The Sixth Sense," this is the sort of performance that feels almost ethereal is its ability to tap such emotional depths and complex inner thoughts in one so young.

Other able performers turn up in supporting roles. Viola Davis plays the first woman Oskar encounters in his travels, one who has suffered her own recent loss. Jeffrey Wright plays a businessman mourning the death of his own father. John Goodman is the security guard at Oskar's building who trades good-natured insults with him. Max von Sydow turns up as the mysterious, silent man living as a renter in his grandmother's apartment right across the way, who takes an unexpected role in the boy's quest.

Bullock's role as the distraught mother struggling to come to grips with her son's odd acting out would seem to be a thankless one, but later on she shines a new light on their relationship that shocks even  young Oskar.

"Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" hasn't been in the conversation of the best films of the year, but it deserves to be. It's a viscerally enthralling story about a singular boy trying to find his place in the world when his only anchor is ripped away. What a journey -- Oskar's, and ours.

3.5 stars out of four

SAG awards are Oscar harbinger

A week ago, I wrote in this space assessing how much the Golden Globes are an indicator of the Academy Awards. Short version: Not very much.

Last night's Screen Actors Guild Awards, though are different. Unlike the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which is basically a phantom organization, the SAG is the powerful actors union. Like the Producers Guild, Directors Guild and Writers Guild, these groups' awards are notable because of the overlap with Academy voters.

People who are members of one of these guilds are often (though certainly not always) also voting members of the Academy. The SAG awards are especially notable because actors make up the largest voting bloc of the Academy.

So as the guild awards go, so often go the Oscars.

There wasn't too much surprise in last night's awards: Jeff Bridges won Best Actor for "Crazy Heart," Christoph Waltz took supporting actor for "Inglourious Basterds," Mo'Nique won supporting actress for "Precious."

At this point, those three should be considered heavy favorites to win the Oscar. Colin Firth didn't get a lot of traction for "A Single Man," mainly because few people saw it. And everyone loves George Clooney in "Up in the Air," but I think there's a sense floating around that he was playing a version of himself -- or at least his star persona.

Whereas Oscar voters love to award actors (actresses, not so much) lifetime achievement awards. So, often a respected actor will take home the statue for a movie most reasonable people would agree is not their best work. Thus, Paul Newman finally won for "The Color of Money" and Al Pacino for "Scent of a Woman" -- fine movies and fine performances, but hardly the pinnacle of their careers.

Essentially, there's a movement underway pushing the idea that it's Jeff Bridges' time. I don't mind, since in this case I think "Crazy Heart" does represent some of his finest work.

The real surprise was Sandra Bullock winning Best Actress for "The Blind Side." Her SAG win is starting me to changing my mind that she can't win the Oscar.

Unlike the Globes, the SAG awards and Oscars don't split up the acting category into dramas and comedies/musicals. So the fact that Bullock won over award favorite Meryl Streep is an indication of genuine respect for Bullock's performance. I think we could dismiss her Globe win to her film's excellent box office performance -- the Globes are the epitome of favoring the most popular over the best films. Not SAG.

The other big contender, Carey Mulligan, appears to be sliding. Not very many people saw "An Education," which was a critical darling. And given Mulligan's youth and inexperience -- "An Education" represents her first starring role -- there may be a willingness to view an Oscar nomination as its own reward for a rising star. Even Hilary Swank, who seemed to come out of nowhere a decade ago to win for "Boys Don't Cry," had headlined a couple of small movies prior to that.

This is one occasion where it helps to be the established actress in her 40s rather than the ingenue in her early 20s.

Personally, I still think Streep gave the best performance of the year. But it's starting to look more and more like Bullock's turn in "The Blind Side" has come out of nowhere to take the lead.

Review: "The Blind Side"

I suspect that "The Blind Side" has been Hollywooded up. But the result is such a genuinely touching and sincere movie, audiences won't mind.

The film is based on a football book by Michael Lewis that mostly concerned itself with the evolution of the left tackle into one of the key player positions in the modern NFL. Writer/director John Lee Hancock -- who made the excellent baseball movie "The Rookie" -- uses Lewis' source material for sentiment rather than smash mouth action.

"Blind Side" tells the true story (with a few details changed) of Michael Oher, a black street kid who was taken in by a well-to-do white Memphis family. Through their help and his own perseverance, he gets his life in order, starts to make decent grades at school, and draws national attention for his raw prowess on the football field.

The Touhy clan is one of those Southern families where the mother hen, Leigh Anne, rules the roost. She's played with spit and verve by Sandra Bullock. When she spots her son's gargantuan schoolmate walking in the freezing night rain, she insists that her husband Sean (Tim McGraw) pull over and they put him up for the night on their couch.

As sure as sunshine, the boy everyone calls "Big Mike" is soon living with them, and eventually becomes part of the family. Michael -- who speaks few words, but says enough to convey that he doesn't like being called "Big Mike" -- is played by Quinton Aaron in an understated but emotionally rich performance.

Michael has been abandoned by virtually every person he's ever known; his father was murdered, and his mother is a vagabond drug addict. So when he's brought into this supportive environment where the worst misbehavior consists of eating Thanksgiving dinner in front of the TV, it seems strange and disquieting to him.

Michael's relationship with young S.J. Touhy is a hoot, with Jae Head stealing scenes left and right as the tiny brother.

At one point the Touhys hire a tutor named Miss Sue (Kathy Bates) to help Michael with his grades, and she confesses to them that she's a Democrat. "Who'd have thought we'd have a black son before we knew a Democrat?" Sean ponders. It's a humorous comment on how people, even good ones, reflexively insulate themselves from those who are different from them.

The football stuff comes fairly late in the movie's game. Although the coach of the school -- which is private, Christian and lily-white -- had pushed to enroll Michael, he must work until his grades are good enough to play.

Despite Michael's mammoth size and natural athletic ability, he struggles at first on the gridiron. The coach (Ray McKinnon) dubs him a marshmallow. But Leigh Anne knows that the man-child's instincts are protective rather than aggressive. When Michael is moved to left tackle, whose job is to guard the quarterback's blind side, he soon becomes an unstoppable force that draws the attention of college coaches across the nation.

We know the story turns out happily, since the real Michael Oher was drafted in the NFL's first round this past summer and can be seen starting for the Baltimore Ravens on any given Sunday.

But knowing the outcome doesn't diminish the emotional punch. Like drawing up a football play, it's the execution that really matters, and "The Blind Side" snaps to smartly.

3 stars

Review: "The Proposal"

"The Proposal" starts out as a really great screwball comedy, with Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds trading fast-paced zingers with enough snap and zest to make one recall "His Girl Friday." Then, inevitably, it contracts a case of the sappies and gets all serious and gooey, and lines up all the clichés of the romantic comedy, and hits them like tripwires.

Bullock plays Margaret Tate, the boss from hell, who clocks around her New York publishing office in high heels that herald doom on the march. Indeed, the cubicle worker drones send text alerts that pop up on every computer when she's on the move, warning "the witch is on her broom," so they can duck for cover.

It would be the duty of Margaret's assistant, Andy Paxton, to inform her about nasty messages like that, if he weren't the one sending them. After three years of mindless toadying, he's desperate to be promoted to book editor.

So desperate, in fact, that when Margaret curtly informs him that they're going to be married, he goes along with it. It seems she's a Canadian with immigration problems, and unless she gets hitched, and soon, she loses her job and her home. Andy extracts a promise to be promoted, so both of them look upon it as a mutually beneficial business arrangement.

Until, that is, they fly up to visit Andy's parents (Craig T. Nelson and Mary Steenburgen) in remote Sitka, Alaska, to play up the charade for an immigration investigator who smells fraud. Of course, while basking in the glow of Andy's good-hearted family -- not to mention forced to share a bedroom -- they suddenly realize that they are, in fact, in love.

Ugh.

Now, it is a long-standing Hollywood tradition to make us believe that a man and woman can fall in love in a matter of days. But frankly, Margaret and Andy are so much more entertaining when they hate each other, that when they start to exchange doe-eyed stares, it's a comedown.

Especially with so much delicious repartee flying, courtesy of rookie screenwriter Peter Chiarelli. I loved the moment when Margaret first sees Andy's parents' palatial home, and accuses him of being "an Alaskan Kennedy." Another funny bit is when they're boning up on personal information a couple should know about each other, and she quizzes him what her allergies are, and Andy immediately comes back with: "Pine nuts -- and the full spectrum of human emotion."

Director Anne Fletcher also does a wonderful job of staging a delightfully daffy scene where they catch each other in the buff. With so many movies using naked men for comedic purposes lately, it's nice to see Bullock get in on the nude (well, nude-ish) escapades.

There's plenty more funny stuff going on, including the town's lone Latino who moonlights as its only male stripper, and Betty White as Andy's rambunctious grandmother, who knits fertility quilts and performs Indian chants in the woods.

If only "The Proposal" had stuck to its excellent comedy instincts, and shunted the lovey stuff aside, it would have audiences begging to say yes.

2.5 stars