Off the beaten track: Work and steroids

LOOKING TO ADVANCE IN THE WORK PLACE
"The Promotion" has been drubbed by many critics, most of whom saw it as lifeless and laughless. Such appraisals aren't entirely without merit, but this comedy from Steven Conrad, who wrote the screenplay for Will Smith's "The Pursuit of Happyness," deserves credit for trying to be about something, namely the downside of competition in the workplace. Set mostly in a mid-sized supermarket, the movie puts one in mind of an old joke:

Question: "Why are the battles in academia so vicious?" Answer: "Because the stakes are so low."

In this deadpan comedy two schlubs vie for the position of general manager at a new supermarket. Seann William Scott tries to put Stifler (the unashamedly crude character from the "American Pie" movies) behind him. This time out, he's Doug, a nice guy who wants a promotion from the supermarket chain that employs him. Doug looks like a "shoo-in," but doubt arises when a Canadian (John C. Reilly) arrives to compete for the same job.

Conrad, who also wrote the screenplay, keeps his movie on a narrow track. The characters engage in paltry acts of aggression, sometimes reversing course for moments of shared desperation. Both men have major emotional investments in landing a management job. Scott's Doug tells his wife (Jenna Fischer) that the promotion is a sure thing, and commits to buying a house. Reilly's Richard is a recovering alcoholic who wants to prove that he can handle maturity.

All of this points to a comedy that finds modest amounts of humor in a dreary work environment while also showing that there's dignity in being what Doug calls "a good grocer." It's nice to see Scott extend his reach, and Reilly always finds some depth in his characters, but two downtrodden men don't make for the liveliest of comedies. As a result, "The Promotion" comes close to defining what's meant by a minor movie. Very minor.

TO JUICE OR NOT TO JUICE
If you're looking for something a little different this weekend, you may want to try "Bigger, Stronger, Faster," a documentary about steroid use and the all-American desire to be...well...bigger, stronger and faster.

Body builder Christopher Bell -- who doesn't juice -- explores steroid use among competitive athletes, but his film lifts the most weight when it deals with Bell's family, a couple of brothers who use steroids to advance careers in power lifting and professional wrestling.

Despite some sad emotional moments and Bell's anti-drug tilt, the film isn't a total diatribe against steroids; it's a thorough look at a hot topic, and some of Bell's interviewees see nothing wrong with making drugs an acceptable part of sports.

Funny and personal, "Bigger, Stronger, Faster" entertains and informs. The movie may also leave you wondering what kinds of discussions went on among the somewhat conflicted members of the Bell family after they screened the film. But, hey, that might be another documentary.

"Kung Fu Panda" kicks hard at box office

Summary: Po, the lumpy hero of "Kung Fu Panda," and his buddies have reason to celebrate. They're box-office champs.

Moviegoers this weekend showed welcome discernment, pumping more money into "Kung Fu Panda" ($60 million) than into Adam Sandler's "You Don't Mess With the Zohan" ($40 million). Meanwhile, "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" ($22.8 million) crept back in front of "Sex and the City" ($21.3 million), last weekend's big winner.

Gas may be heading toward $5-a-gallon, home sales may be slumping and unemployment may have topped five percent, but Hollywood continues to rake in the bucks. Look for "The Incredible Hulk" to score big next weekend, continuing the trend and again proving that economic hardship can be a boon for industries specializing in escapism.

For this week's figures head to Boxoffice Mojo.

I will mess with the Zohan

Summary: I didn't get paid to see "You Don't Mess With the Zohan," but I went anyway. Why waste my time? It's a question you might well ask, assuming that you're of sound mind and well past adolescence. I went for two reasons: First, I'm teaching again in the fall, and "Zohan" is the kind of movie my students likely will have seen. Second, I'm on a mission: I'm trying to figure out exactly why Adam Sandler has such a successful movie a career. And, no, after more than 20 movies, I'm still not confident I have the answer.

"Zohan" seems to be getting what I would call "tolerant" reviews from critics, assessments that rank in the two to two-and-a-half star range. Roger Ebert, who awarded the movie three stars, says he found himself enjoying much of it, although not without feeling some shame. Writing in The New York Times, A.O. Scott finds that "a lot of the crude bodily-function jokes are actually pretty funny, not least because they are supplemented by more hummus-based humor than you might have thought possible." (Sandler even brushes his teeth with the stuff.) Claudia Puig, writing in USA TODAY, offers this: "If one-note jokes that drag on too long or are worked into the ground aren't enough to trigger comic nausea, then perhaps the myriad uses of hummus will do the trick in 'You Don't Mess With the Zohan.' The running hummus gags are an illustration of what is both right and wrong with this broad satire, which is sometimes funny, but ultimately disappointing."

OK, you get the idea about critical buzz -- not that it matters when it comes to Sandler, who's able to tap into his audience's loyalty with the directness of an addict finding a vein.

The idea (and, yes, I use the word loosely) behind "Zohan" -- that Palestinians and Israelis can get along if they unite against the real enemy, a capitalist who wants to build a mall in Brooklyn -- might be less sophisticated than any you'll find in "Kung Fu Panda," but the humor is considerably more gross, beginning with a scene in which Sandler -- as the fabled Israeli counterterrorist Zohan -- flips a fish in the air and catches it in his butt crack.

But here's the twist: Zohan is a lion that wants to lie down with the lambs. He's tired of killing, and wants to become (ready for this?) a hairdresser. That's the movie's take on an outrageous conceit, that an Israeli macho man might want to enter a line of work that's stereotypically associated with gay people. To achieve his dream, Zohan fakes his death, and heads for New York, where most of the story unfolds.

Part of Zohan's machismo involves his very large genital package, which protrudes through Sandler's costumes throughout the movie, a softball sized bulge. Can you imagine if the joke were reversed? That would be true daring, a comedy about a man whose equipment screamed out for enlargement. But that's not the Sandler way, so when Zohan lands a hairdressing job -- in a salon owned by a Palestinian woman (Emmanuelle Chriqui)-- he begins servicing the salon's aging clientele. He becomes a stylist and a sex machine for seniors.

Maybe part of Sandler's popularity has to do with the fact that the audience senses he's a good guy. In any case, he's nothing if not loyal, and this time, he renews his working relationship with director Dennis Dugan, who took charge of such Sandler comedies as "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry," "Big Daddy" and "Happy Gilmore." He also makes room for old pal Rob Schneider, who plays a Palestinian cab driver. He also teams with Hollywood hotshot Judd Apatow ("Knocked Up" and "The 40 Year Old Virgin"), who's listed as one of the movie's co-writers and who reportedly made uncredited contributions to the script of "The Wedding Singer."

I've often been put off by Sandler's approach, in which a late-picture show of decency serves as an apology for all the proceeding vulgarity, and I laughed exactly twice during this overly long comedy. The crowd at a preview screening, which laughed more, provided me with at least one heartening thought: Sandler's audience probably qualifies as the ultimate "Sex and the City" antidote, a group that revels in a movie's lack of style and sophistication, greeting each new gross-out as if it were the answer to a prayer.

Which leads me to something I'd pay to see: Zohan burying a pair of Carrie Bradshaw's Manolo Blahniks in a great big mound of hummus. Hey, even I can dream.

"Kung Fu'' pandering -- to the kids

Summary: What is it about little kids and slapstick? The most fun I had at "Kung Fu Panda" involved listening to little ones enjoy themselves as the Panda character -- voiced by Jack Black -- tripped over his own feet or got smacked around by others. Although "Kung Fu Panda" hardly qualifies as a classic slice of animation, it's likely to hit (no pun intended) the spot with youngsters who are susceptible to broad humor -- and, you know what, that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Dreamworks has put together a stellar voice cast to launch its foray into this summer's animation sweepstakes. In addition to Black, you'll hear Dustin Hoffman, as the sagacious Master Shifu, a diminutive creature who's assigned the task of training Black's character, the bumbling Po, a panda whose father expects him to enter the family's noodle business. The movie makes fun of the fact that Po's dad is a goose, but, like much about this movie, silliness trumps sense.

Genetic challenges aside, Po has bigger dreams than those of his father. As a major kung fu fan, he hopes that the can join the ranks of the Furious Five: Tigress (Angelina Jolie); Viper (Lucy Liu); Crane (David Cross); Mantis (Seth Rogen) and Monkey (Jackie Chan).

The plot is just what you'd expect. Po learns that he must fulfill his destiny by becoming the long-awaited Dragon Warrior, a journey that leads to a face-off with the evil Tai Lung (Ian McShane). We know Tai Lung is no good because he speaks in precisely the kind of booming, amplified voice that's required of all animated bad guys, evil in an echo chamber.

Mixing bromides, cartoon antics and nicely drawn backdrops, "Kung Fun Panda" should score with kids who, unlike many of their adult caretakers, probably care more about pratfalls than plot.

Maybe it's all part of the training that kids receive for what's generally known as " later life." At some point, the battering ceases to be cartoonish, taking on more tortuous mental and emotional dimensions. Hopefully, today's little ones -- who by then will have grown -- still will be able to laugh.

An Israeli movie that eschews politics

Summary: Finally, an Israeli movie that isn't preoccupied with tensions in the Middle East. In "Jellyfish," directors Etgar Keret and Shira Geffen present a small, emotionally elusive movie that follows its characters through a variety of life-altering situations. Keret and Geffen are to be congratulated for not allowing the movie's more fanciful elements to undermine its quiet intelligence.

It's telling that Keret and Geffen, who are married, have said that they view their movie -- developed by Geffen from one of her short stories -- more in terms of poetry than plot. (Read an interview with them in "Filmmaker.")

Here's a quote from that interview in which Keret explains why the couple initially had difficulty finding a director for Geffen's script: "Traditionally, Israeli films are hyper-realistic, they almost always deal with an important issue, which could be the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the memory of the Holocaust, the kibbutz and its success or failure. This is the way that you make a film in Israel, and anything that is metaphorical [is not understood]," said Keret.

"Jellyfish," which demands to be taken metaphorically, revolves around three stories: A bride and her new husband (Noa Knoller and Gera Sandler) are forced to alter their honeymoon plans when she breaks her leg at the wedding reception. Instead of lolling on a gorgeous Jamaican beach, they're stuck at a two-star Tel Aviv hotel. In another of the movie's stories, a waitress (Sarah Adler) loses her job and finds herself in charge of a mysterious girl who emerges from the ocean. Additionally, a Filipina immigrant (Ma-nenita De Latorre) takes care of a disagreeable elderly woman and dreams of rejoining her young son at home.

"Jellyfish" is the kind of small movie that catches you unaware. At first, I thought it might be a trifle precious, a movie steeped in the doldrums of arty passivity, but I got caught up in its odd rhythms, and began to see that Keret and Geffen -- whose film won the Camera d'Or at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival -- were interested in running their fingers across the texture of lives that seem disassociated from the ordinary stream of things.

For the record, Keret's novella, "Kneller's Happy Campers," became the basis for director Goran Dukic's "Wristcutters: A Love Story," which was released in 2006. "Jellyfish" is, I think, a better and more deeply felt film.

Carrie Bradshaw kicks sand in Indy's face

Summary: What's the world coming to anyway? Samantha Jones put a whoopin' on Indiana Jones this weekend, thus proving...er...who knows what? According to Boxoffice Mojo, a Web site devoted to tracking the numbers, "Sex and the City" slipped $55.7 million into its Louis Vuitton purse, beating "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," which added only $46 million to its coffers.

This weekend's chick-flick triumph will surprise no one who attended a showing of the movie on Friday. If you did, you would have seen an outpouring of 20something women so large its latte consumption could induce a global coffee drought. Many dressed for the occasion, donning their idea of Carrie Bradshaw-like frocks and turning opening day into a national event, a party for the show's eager legion of fans.

The day prompted questions: When's the last time you saw a woman wearing a cocktail dress at a movie? When precisely did Carrie Bradshaw become a role model? How did all these women get the afternoon off from work?

Turns out "Sex and the City," a big-screen continuation of the popular HBO series, is more than a movie; it's a phenomenon. I left a 2 p.m. Friday showing at a downtown Denver theater only to find a long line of women waiting for the 5:30 p.m. show. They were lining up about an hour ahead of time. The atmosphere outside the theater was giddy and a little strange, as if the world suddenly had sprouted hundreds of Carrie Bradshaw wannabes, women who had joined forces to celebrate a show that had given them six years worth of heated water-cooler conversation. All the evening shows already had been sold out.

The movie? It was like watching a full season of the show compacted into a sometimes numbing two and half hours, a protracted bore that rehashed a question I thought the TV show already had answered: Will Carrie find lasting happiness with Mr. Big (Chris Noth)?

No matter. For all its apparent savvy and ground-breaking sexuality, "Sex and the City" remains a contemporary reworking of a standard fairy tale, a Cinderella story about a writer who hopes to find happiness with a Wall Street prince charming. Of course in this case, the glass slipper is very self-consciously replaced by Manolo Blahnik.

It's not exactly a guy thing, and the guys who attended may have felt a little left out, as if they'd won a date with Sarah Jessica Parker -- the actress who helped turn Carrie into a brand -- but were cropped out of all ensuing pictures. (Photos of the theater crowd courtesy of my wife, Sandra Kaplan; and, no, she didn't like the movie, either.)

I'm thinking there might not be much difference between the folks who wear Spock ears to "Star Trek" movies and the women who did Carrie numbers for "Sex and the City." I wondered whether at some not-too-distant point in the future, "Sex and the City" conventions might dot the American landscape. Enthusiasts could again dress the part and meet such stars as Kristin Davis, who plays Charlotte York, or Kim Cattrall, who portrays the massively horny Samantha Jones. These roles may turn into unexpected careers.

I confess: I watched the TV show, but I thought most seasons were better than the movie, which didn't have to be especially good. It just had to be, an excuse for pent-up, Cosmopolitan-fueled love to burst into the marketplace over a warm weekend in late May -- just like that, as Carrie might say.

Whatever it all means, "Sex and the City" did, of course, beat "Indiana Jones" at the box office, leaving us to speculate that the only use the "Sex and the City" crowd might have for Indy's patented bullwhip would be as a present for Samantha. I'm sure she'd figure out something creative to do with it.

Indian Jones: Regio del Teschio di Cristallo

Summary: I saw "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" in Italian in a mostly empty theater in Pisa. It wasn't only the tower that was leaning that day; my spirit often began to list as the movie hit a variety of unexpected dull spots.

No, I didn't understand every word, but I certainly was aware that there were talky scenes and a plot too silly even to qualify as amusingly preposterous. The Italian dubbing (whoever did Indiana Jones sounds more mellow than Harrison Ford) probably took a little something away from the movie, but let's be real: The only reason to see a movie such as this is for the thrill and fun of the action. A couple of the big chase scenes deliver, and there's even a bit of brilliance in the opening, but overall, this edition of "Indiana Jones" hardly seems worth a 19-year wait.

Here's what you might learn if you watch the movie dubbed into another language:
-- Harrison Ford doesn't have much going for him by way of facial expressions; he looks as if he's tired and you may find yourself wondering whether he really wanted to revisit this role.
-- Cate Blanchett (as a Soviet bad girl) is worth watching in any language.
-- Shia LaBeouf doesn't really translate into Italian.
-- Updating Indy to the 1950s produced some interesting early effects. (A shot of Indy -- his body silhouetted against the mushrooming backdrop of a nuclear bomb blast -- resonates, yesterday's hero facing a new, untamed force.
-- The action set pieces are best when they're given a comic spin, which they mostly are.
-- Some of the effects don't look especially real.
-- Given all the time the actors spend underground, the guy who had the cobweb concession must have made out like a bandit.

Is there more to ponder here? Not much. I enjoyed watching the movie in Italian, and read enough about it afterward to convince me that I didn't need to see it again in English. "Indiana Jones" may be making a ton of money, but for me, it's basta! Enough already!

One more thing: Above, a look at the interior of the Odeon in Pisa, where "Indiana Jones" was playing on several screens, each named for a different Italian city. I saw it in the Venice auditorium. Each ticket comes with an assigned seat. I attended an early afternoon showing, which is one of the reasons the theater was relatively empty. Big screen, decent projection, plush seats. Fine place to see a movie with the added feature that the restrooms are located in the back of the auditorium. I guess it says something about "Crystal Skull" that I didn't notice anyone heading for the bathrooms during the show.

Getting ready to return to U.S.

Trying to figure out an Italian keyboard is not the easiest thing in the world, so I am going to keep this brief and avoid contractions. Almost done with Italian journey. Checking news on the Net, I noted that director Sydney Pollack had died of cancer at age 73. Sad news. More about Pollack, a true journeyman, later. He visited Denver a number of times, often in conjunction with the Starz Denver Film Festival. In his later years, Pollack seemed to produce more than he directed, but he had a sure hand, and was able to express himself across a wide variety of genres. He was a director who definitely knew how to serve the material, not himself.

Down from the mountains -- but only briefly

Summary: Took the train to Florence today in search of some big-city life. I had no time for the abundant cultural sights, many of which I've already seen, but few of which I've exhausted. Instead, I had a nice lunch and strolled through the city before taking the train back to Lucca, a much less frantic -- if less significant -- city.

Meanwhile, I've been reading very mixed reports about the new edition of "Raiders," which premiered at Cannes, so I feel less deprived by being in the Tuscan hills where people seem more interested in food, wine and beautiful vistas (not necessarily in that order) than in the latest Hollywood release.

Lucca, by the way, boasts several venues for movies, all of which are playing Italian films -- or so I'm told. I don't know if any of these films are any good, but it's encouraging to see Italian theaters that haven't entirely been taken over by American releases.