Joan Rivers sure is a piece of work

Rivers has accumulated a staggering file of jokes.

I’ve known people who are aging but can’t seem to let go of the selves that they used to be. I’m thinking particularly of journalists who hang on to their jobs, not because they have anything compelling to say or because they love the “action,” although there is something obviously addictive about the day-to-day pulse of a newsroom. I’m talking about something else: Need. I’ve known older journalists who need to be in print, maybe as a way of affirming their existence. I have a byline, therefore I am. Something like that.

Obviously, that kind of need causes many to overstay their welcome. I thought about that while watching the new documentary Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work. Rivers, captured for one year at the age of 75, hasn’t lost much off her fast ball, but that’s not the issue: She needs to perform. She needs it so much that she takes jobs she wouldn’t have touched during her prime-time days as a groundbreaking female comic.

And she did break ground. Comics such as Moms Mabley and Phyllis Diller preceded Rivers, but in the 1980s, when Rivers hit her stride, female comics were still something of a rarity. Beyond that, Rivers wasn’t afraid to use the F-word or to make jokes about sex. She was nobody’s idea of a happy homemaker. She’s still not.

At the age of 75, Rivers’ expansive repertoire includes a joke about anal sex. In another off-color bit, she talks about how her daughter turned down a $200,000 Playboy offer to show her breasts. Using a graphic expression, Rivers says she thought her daughter should have doubled the price and shown everything.

There’s something almost nymphomaniacal about River’s need to get laughs, which she admits springs from a mixture of insecurity and anger. The need to be noticed and the need to express mingle in a cocktail that results in an after-taste that’s both pathetic and admirable. When it comes to laughter, Rivers’ insatiability takes over. You admire her perseverance but feel a tinge of embarrassment about the way she continues to be obsessed with a career, which – in her case – has become inseparable from herself.

Like most comics, Rivers hardly serves as a model of contentment. She has had her share (maybe more) of plastic surgery; she’s lost a husband to suicide; she has a spiky but enduring relationship with her daughter, Melissa, She’s been hot and not. She’s sold jewelry on TV, and makes no bones about her need for money. If Rivers has a motto, it might be something like, “I’ll do anything. Just pay me.”

There always has been something garish and inappropriate about Rivers, like a dirty-mouthed Hadassah lady who has gone irredeemably rogue.

That kind of combativeness reeks of defiance, but there’s more to Rivers than earned outrage. Rivers is so driven to perform that she thinks of her entire life as a performance. She sees herself as more actress than comedian. No wonder her day (and the film) starts with a heavy application of make-up, shown by directors Riki Stern and Annie Sundberg in a series of shocking close-ups.

Then there’s River’s New York apartment, which is decorated in a style that might be called Jewish palatial “This,’’ Rivers informs us, “is how Marie Antoinette would have lived if she’d had money.”

Rivers is funny.

She’s also brave. At one point, Rivers allows the filmmakers to show her trying out a joke about Michelle Obama. She says Jacqueline Kennedy became Jackie “O.” Should we think of the equally elegant Michelle Obama as “Blakie-O?” Rivers’ staff rightly steers her away from a joke that’s both racially and comically off the mark.

On stage, Rivers rarely misses a beat. Her timing seems better now than it did in her early days, shown by Stern and Sundberg in a variety of clips from TV appearances with Johnny Carson and other TV hosts.

I don’t know if Rivers’ mind runs deep, but it’s difficult to take your eyes off her. She evokes mixed reactions, like riding to a train wreck in an elegant dining car. She’s unashamedly addicted to luxury. At a Thanksgiving dinner in her apartment, she tells the assembled guests that each time she gets into a limo, she thanks God for the privilege. She means it.

As revealed in the film, the thing that Rivers fears most is an empty date book. She’s not filling her later years with ladies luncheons and card games. For Rivers, a full date book means work. Gigs. The grind of travel. The backseat of another limo. A good day is a day without pause for reflection, say a morning and afternoon of promotional appearances topped by a stand-up gig, either on TV or in a club.

When many bullets are fired, not all of them hit the mark, and Rivers has had her share of disappointments. An autobiographical play receives unkind reviews in London after its debut at an Edinburgh theater festival in Scotland. It’s not clear whether anyone asked, but Rivers refuses to take the show to New York for fear of getting clobbered. Thick as Rivers skin is, she’s not prepared for a drubbing similar to one she took for a New York stage appearance earlier in her career.

She probably was right to worry about a New York critical reception. Writing in the Guardian, Brian Logan began a review of Rivers’ strangely titled Joan Rivers: A Work in Progress by a Life in Progress thusly:

“To accuse Joan Rivers of ego is like complaining that the Pope is Catholic. It comes with the territory. But even by her standards, this is a remarkable exercise in self-mythologising.” In the film, Rivers mixes ego with awareness. She knows, for example, that there will be endless plastic surgery jokes at a Comedy Central roast; she’s sick of them, but reassures herself about participation because the money is good.

Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work doesn’t qualify as a definitive piece of portraiture. You won’t learn that Rivers graduated from Barnard College, where she studied English literature and anthropology. (She’s often filmed in front of shelves lined with books, and you get the impression that she’s read them.) She doesn’t discuss things she’s previously written about, bulimia and attempted suicide. Her appearances as a Red Carpet commentator at awards shows gets short shrift.

I suppose that a documentary such as Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work can seem like one more expression of boundless vanity. “I’ll show you some unflattering moments, so long as you keep looking.” That sort of thing. But Stern and Sundberg get what they came for – a revealing portrait of a woman who has gone where few women before her attempted to go, and where few people of any gender have enjoyed real success.

Odd, too, because you’d hardly expect this directing team to be intrigued by a woman who believes a victory on Donald Trump’s Celebrity Apprentice might be just the thing to revive a fading career. In previous films, Stern and Sundberg dealt with genocide in Darfur (The Devil Came on Horseback) and a man who spent 20 years in jail for a rape and murder he didn’t commit (The Trails of Daryl Hunt).

But Stern and Sundberg are intrigued by Rivers, and so are we. Although it’s not the least of reasons to see this film, Rivers comedy prowess claims a surprising low position on the list of things that make A Piece of Work so damn compelling.

Stern and Sundberg leave us with a telling portrait of a woman who absolutely refuses to go gently into any good night. Seen in that light, Rivers is fighting a battle she – like everyone else – can’t win.

Still, you get the idea that when Rivers does arrive on the other side, she’ll take a first-things-first approach to the transition. She’ll put on make-up, find the best plastic surgeons in the afterlife and look for an audience. On film, Rivers doesn’t talk much about her attitude toward death. I’m guessing, though, that nothing would appall her more than the idea of eternal rest.

'Metropolis' again -- only more complete

C.A. Rotwang with his most famous creation.

Why watch Metropolis, the Frtiz Lang silent classic that debuted in Berlin in January of 1927? Yes, the film has historical importance vis-à-vis cinema in general and German Expressionism in particular. And, yes, Lang created a futuristic vision that impresses, even in a time when computer-generated imagery has become so common we hardly give it a second thought.

And, yes, buffs and general audiences alike can appreciate the operatic grandeur in Lang’s depiction of a society divided into two distinct classes: an uber-strata consisting of people who live in airy skyscrapers and enjoy the advantages of civilized pursuits and an underground class of workers, who spend the miserable currency of their lives keeping the engines of Metropolis running.

Several months ago, I was asked to write a piece about what it takes to criticize films. I plan to do that, but a newly minted reconstruction of Metropolis offers a starting point. Want to be a film critic? Learn as much as you can about film history by building up the catalog of films you carry around in your mind.

Metropolis is as good a place as any to start. Although the movie hardly qualifies as arcane, the new restoration – including 25 minutes of never-before-seen footage – marks a significant contribution to the archival endeavors of those who labor to ensure that future generations can encounter as much of their cinematic heritage as possible.

Fair to say that when it debuted, Metropolis probably felt as encompassing to bygone viewers as a movie such as Avatar felt to today's audiences. And Metropolis – coming earlier in history – is more of a groundbreaker in terms of set design, effects a-- nd lighting. That’s not to say that the film doesn’t look and feel a bit dated.

But that’s not really the point: The point is to try to see Metropolis as it might have appeared to people in 1927, to return to a time when cinema more readily inspired a sense of wonder, when movement could seem truly magical. Early on, it was clear that film not only could replicate reality, it could re-imagine and expand it.

This edition of Metropolis is more fleshed out than previous efforts, relying on use of a 16mm negative found in the Museo del Cine in Buenos Aires in 2008. That negative yielded a longer version than previously had been available. The movie, which runs about two and a half hours, includes summations of material that still might be missing, conveyed with intertitles that fill in blanks in the narration. (The restoration was done in Germany by the Murnau Foundation.)

Lang’s story focuses on Freder (Gustav Frohlich), the son of Joh Fredersen (Alfred Abel), the man who runs the city of Metropolis with an arrogance and aloofness that might shame even the haughtiest of aristocrats.

One day, Freder – who initially seems little more than a happy fool – sees a beautiful woman (Brigette Helm). Stricken, he follows her into the underworld, where he’s appalled to learn how the other half lives. Helm’s Maria, a saintly figure, preaches to the downtrodden masses, offering them hope, and Freder comes to see himself in the role of The Mediator, someone who can bridge the gap between society’s brains and the brawn it takes to make things work.

Add to this, the evil C. A. Rotwang (Rudolf Klein-Rogge), an inventor who creates a robot to service his sick, romantic dreams. He’s also seeking revenge on Joh Fredersen for taking the woman he loved. We also meet the sinister Thin Man (Fritz Rasp), a fixer type who does Joh Fredersen’s dirty work.

As critic David Thomson points out in his invaluable New Biographical Dictionary of Film, the most memorable aspect of Metropolis centers on Lang's frightening images of crowds. Early on, we see a shift change at an underworld factory. Masses of anonymous workers, all in uniform, lumber through the gates of the factory, marching slowly in step, an army of the living dead. It doesn't take much imagination to see this lockstep walk of doom as a foreboding of some of the worst moments of 20th Century history.

Individuality was not a God-given right or even a part of one’s genetic inheritance. It was something bestowed by economics, notably the privileges that accrued to those who lived in the above-ground splendor of this futuristic city, often indulging their taste for salacious pleasures and frivolous diversion.

Some of Metropolis’ images portray people in the underworld as if they were cells swarming madly through a body that cared nothing for their welfare. Lang captured the climate of dehumanization that became apparent during the First World War and which would be augmented as the century ripened.

So what am I saying here? I’m saying that a work such as Metropolis presents us with a splendid opportunity to discover the vision of a master filmmaker at a time when a total vision of society seemed more possible. Metropolis wasn’t just a city; it was the world as Lang saw it, complete with images that must have terrified its maker as much as they inspired him to look for ways to unshackle ordinary people from the oppressor’s yolk. Did he really understand how this might be accomplished? Probably not.

But we don’t look to Metropolis for answers to political questions. We look because we need to remind ourselves that filmmakers can be wild visionaries and that this is not a new phenomenon; it’s deeply embedded in the history of the medium. Consider Metropolis, which will be released on DVD later this year and which is working its way around the country in theatrical release, a preview of coming attractions for other visionary efforts in which directors reach for spectacle and meaning. Blade Runner often is mentioned as one of Metropolis’ many dystopian heirs.

In reporting about the restored Metropolis, The New York Times noted that the movie long had been treated as an early example of big-screen science fiction, but that the new edition feels different. To my eyes, it seems more interested in the mechanics of betrayal than other versions I’ve seen, notably the 1984 edition in which music producer Georgio Moroder tried to give the movie a contemporary music beat.

Lang, of course, had a long career. M (1931) – the director’s first talking picture – remains a harrowing and essential work of German and world cinema. In 1933, Lang fled the Nazis to work in America. He adapted to life in Hollywood with such wonderful movies as You Only Live Once (1937), The Woman in the Window (1944) and Scarlet Street (1945). But Metropolis remains a motion-picture landmark and now it can be seen in a way that's probably closest to what the director intended.

Metropolis also embodies one of the contradictions that make cinema so vibrant: It sweeps us into an alternate universe, even as it reminds us that movies can redirect us back toward harsh realities.

For much of Metropolis, Lang put fantasy at the service of images that are both hellish and magnetic, which leads us to an uncomfortable conclusion about a work the late New Yorker critic Pauline Kael -- in a phrase that could be applied to life itself -- called “a wonderful, stupefying folly.”
At its best, Metropolis is a grandly mounted vision of utter despair.

Vulgar humor -- but with a bit of a twist

Jonah Hill meets a rocker played by Russell Brand.

Get Him to the Greek may be an anomaly among comedies. The movie might actually be better when it's at its most serious. This ragtag gagfest about a rock-loving schlemiel (Jonah Hill) who's sent to London to escort a fading rocker (Russell Brand) to a 10-year anniversary concert at Los Angeles' Greek Theater has some daring moments.

A semi-parody about the excessive rock lifestyle, the movie also makes room for a moment in which Brand's Aldous Snow confesses to the kind of bone deep loneliness for which there's no cure. The moment isn't played for laughs. In addition, the awkward moments when Snow convinces Hill's Aaron Green and his live-in girlfriend (Elizabeth Moss) to participate in a threesome look like ... well ... what they are, part of an incredibly uncomfortable experiment.

Director Nicholas Stoller (Forgetting Sarah Marshall) makes Get Him to the Greek a richer dish than you'd normally expect from gross-out comedies, but doesn't neglect the kind of humor that's designed to draw a crowd. A running joke has Aaron repeatedly throwing up on himself. And there are other gags involving various body parts, including an airport scene in which Aaron is asked to stash drugs in a very uncomfortable place.

Oh well, you've seen these kinds of comedies before. You will see them again. The one thing Hollywood prizes as much as money might be vulgar humor.

Brand, who played a similar role in Forgetting Sarah Marshall -- the character even had the same name -- has the debauched rocker routine down cold. And Hill, who also appeared in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, does the job you'd expect from a chunky comic actor, who, in this case, plays an avid employee of a record company that's presided over by the maniacally dictatorial Sergio Roma (Sean Combs in a scowling one-note performance).
I don't know how he did it, but Stoller persuaded New York Times Nobel Prize winning columnist Paul Krugman to appear in a cameo, which becomes funny only if you realize how inappropriate Krugman's presence in such a movie is.
But ... and here's the key question ... is Get Him to the Greek uproariously funny7
Not entirely. It has laughs, of course, but I didn't find it fall-down funny, so I'd tag the movie as a medium-grade comedy with some unexpected flourishes and a willingness to shed comedy for moments that are more serious than sentimental.

As with many comedies, a bit of the movie's success depends on the audience with which you see it. I saw it at a preview screening where the audience laughed, but created little spark. Failure of the audience? Failure of the movie? A little of both?

If you really want to know how funny you think a movie is, see it by yourself or at a matinee when the auditorium is relatively empty. But that's not the way comedies are meant to be seen, you protest. You're right of course, but you'll get a purer idea of whether a movie makes you laugh when the guy in the next seat acting as a laugh track.

Those who pay attention to such things will be interested to see two TV performers in totally different lights. As mentioned, Moss -- who portrays an insecure creative type on Mad Men -- plays Aaron's girlfriend, a doctor who's in the middle of a grueling residency. Rose Byrne, who appears as Snow's ex-girlfriend, is familiar to those who've been following Damages. Of the two, Byrne shows the most range as the massively slutty but irresistible Jackie Q.

So apologies. Another mixed review, but at least this one is for a movie with a few interesting wrinkles, not the least of which is Aaron's dawning realization that the quickest way to challenge one's love for music is to land a job in the industry.

'Splice,' the experiment fizzles

Is this what they mean by designer genes?

Say this about Splice; it's not your average evening at the multiplex. This biologically based thriller promotes a strange form of uneasiness, the kind of queasiness that results from watching the creation of life in all its slimy, uncontrollable splendor.

In the world of Splice, life becomes a lab creation. Thanks to gene splicing, the research team of Clive and Elsa (Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley) invent a creature they later name Dren, which is nerd spelled backward.

Dren's creation follows on the heels of another startling invention. At the movie's outset, Clive and Elsa put a new form of life on display, naming their genetically engineered creatures Fred and Ginger, indistinct blobs that look nothing like their elegant namesakes.

Perhaps taking its cue from its artificially bred creatures, Splice feels fresh and unfamiliar - at least in the early going. But director Vincenzo Natali provides some early clues that his creation might not be able to sustain its novelty.

At one point, Clive - tormented by ethical issues and fearful that things are veering out of control -- suggests that maybe the best thing to do is put an end to Dren, who in her early stages looks reptilian and ... well ... flat out ugly, a little bundle of slime, bone and ligature. Don't fret; she becomes more exotically beautiful as the movie progresses.

"Wait,'' says Elsa, "There's still a lot we can learn."

Yeah, like how to come up with a better line of dialog.

Faulty dialog or no, Polley's Elsa stands as the movie's most interesting character. She pushes Clive to intensify their research. She urges him to forget company rules. (Of course they work for a corporation with an eye on the bottom line.) Elsa wants Clive to defy conventional morality, and she begins to treat the fast-maturing Dren as if she were her child. When Brody and Polley relate to the problems caused by having a new species around the house ... er ... lab, the movie plays like a whacked-out take on bringing up baby.

Had Natali pushed a little harder in this direction, he might have made the hippest, funniest movie of the year, a biological comedy that in itself could have qualified as a new species of movie.

Tonally, though, Splice veers all over the place, verging from funny to tense to a little scary. And as much as the movie seems to want to step onto the cutting edge, it gets mired in concerns that border on sci-fi generic: What are the moral obligations of scientists when it comes to genetic research? How far should men and women go in tampering with life? Are Clive and Elsa just plain loco?

Mixed as its achievement s are, Splice keeps us off balance, looking a little ludicrous here, a little eerie there, a little serious on a third glance. Natali probably could have stabilized things had he given his characters more background. As it stands, Clive is just an ordinary dude who happens to know a lot about genetics. Elsa has a more intriguing past. Turns out her mother was insane and abusive.

Brody does as much as he can with an underdeveloped character with a fondness for plaids; Polley manages the movie's most suggestive performance, and three cheers (or maybe two-and-half) for the designers of the creature that grows into Dren, played as a big-eyed adult by Delphine Chaneac.

At its best, Splice mixes creepiness and craziness in its big-screen Petri dish, but its best doesn't go quite far enough. In the end, Natali abandons psychology, inquiry and weird trickery for a more conventional series of "thrills," most of which are telegraphed by the time they roll around. Too bad.

A small, but telling slice of New York life

$200 jeans? Not for this kid.

I know the character Catherine Keener plays in director Nicole Holofcener’s Please Give, a New York based drama that revolves around an apartment occupied by a sour old woman. I’ve met Keener's character in real life – and if not her, a damn close facsimile.

Keener’s Kate is a conscience-stricken New York woman who’s overwhelmed by a mixture of guilt and compassion. She’s uncomfortable giving her teen-age daughter $200 for designer jeans as long as homeless people wander the streets. She feels guilty about the way she earns her living, which involves buying furniture for the mid-century modern shop she and her husband own. She buys cheap and sells dear. That bothers her. So does the fact that she shows up at a time when bereaved people are trying to unload the stuff their recently departed parents held dear.

Kate lives in a world of pain, but an element of selfishness infuses her agony. She uses pain to wall herself off from others and to deny life’s simpler pleasures. She suffers from a kind of middle-class paralysis in which nothing satisfies -- and nothing changes.

To make matters worse, Kate and her husband Alex (Oliver Platt) are waiting for the woman next door (Ann Marie Guilbert) to die so that they can acquire her apartment, breakdown a wall and buy themselves more breathing room.

Of course, both Kate and Alex know that there’s something unforgivably ghoulish about pinning their hopes for expanded comfort on the death of a neighbor, even one who’s so foul tempered, it’s possible that no one will mourn her passing.

I’m not a died-in-the-wool Holofcener fan. I didn’t go wild over Friends with Money or Lovely and Amazing, but Please Give doesn’t seem to be trying so hard for relevance. A relaxed, life-sized strategy allows Holofcener to hold up a mirror to lives that may be nothing like our own, yet remain entirely recognizable.

The movie mingles the story of two families. Kate, Alex and their perpetually irritated teen-age daughter (Sarah Steele) are brought into contact with Mary (Amanda Peet) and Rebecca (Rebecca Hall), the granddaughters of the embittered woman next door.

The woman’s granddaughters react to her in different ways, Mary with undisguised contempt; Rebecca with dutiful concern. Holofcener, who also wrote the script, eventually reveals the motivation behind the behavior of each of the granddaughters, who – in lesser hands – might have seemed like refugees from a sitcom.

Here, all the characters are fleshed out in ways that make them funny, alarming and human. Peet’s Mary gives facials at a spa and catches Alex’s roving eye. Rebecca ‘s a tech who administers mammograms. Holofcener opens the movie with shots of a variety of breasts being measured and analyzed. Possible bad news lurks ominously in the background.

Despite its bland and forgettable title, Please Give stands as a wonderfully acted slice of life among people whose problems may not be quite as momentous as they think. Funny as it can be, Please Give also is laced with the sadness of characters whose lives never feel quite complete. Most of them know little comfort in their own skins.

Sound familiar? I don't mean you, of course. I'm just saying.

Please give opens in Denver Friday.

My meeting with Dennis Hopper

Dennis Hopper on the road in Easy Rider.

I met Dennis Hopper -- who died Saturday at the age of 74 -- once. It was at some bygone Denver International Film Festival, where Hopper turned up, probably to receive an award. The thing I remember most about Hopper was that he was wearing a blue pin-striped suit that made him look more like a banker than an easy rider. By this time in his life, Hopper had put drinking and drugs behind him. He was clean and sober. Very clean.

I was a little intimidated because I was one of a handful of critics who hadn't gone wild over Blue Velvet, a picture in which Hopper played the purely evil Frank Booth. Prior to meeting with Hopper someone had told me that he was upset about the way I'd reviewed Blue Velvet. I figured if Hopper had a bone to pick with me, he wouldn't be shy about saying so. Reticence was not a word normally applied to Hopper.

Besides, if you review movies and do interviews, you have to be prepared to confront those you've criticized. I won't lie, though. Although my objections to Blue Velvet had nothing to with Hopper's acting, I was nervous.

So, there in the crowded lobby of a downtown Denver hotel was the rebel, the renegade, the man himself.

I did a double take. Instead of a ferocious madman, Hopper looked as if he were getting ready to attend a conclave of investment bankers. He'd obviously turned some kind of page in his life.

Right away I told Hopper I'd heard that he was upset that I had given Blue Velvet a negative review, and, if so, I'd be happy to talk about it with him. Was it true?

He shook his head, signaling that he wasn't angry. I felt better even though I didn't think Hopper was about to become my new best friend. But then he surprised me even more.

"You know,'' he said softly, almost to himself. "I'm not sure I even know what I thought of that movie."

That's an honest response or maybe Hopper was just being gracious. Ever since that day, though, I've had a soft spot in my heart for a guy who could go so far over the top with a performance, you felt as if the only possible reaction was to look up and wave goodbye.

So bye, Dennis. You left some exceptional work (Colors behind the camera and Hoosiers in front of it) and some exceptionally weird work (Apocalypse Now and, of course, Blue Velvet). You went from being a rebel who sometimes seemed the indulgent and self-pitying artist to a disciplined guy who survived a business that has killed off lesser men. That's a whole lot of something, even if we didn't always know exactly what.

'Prince of Persia:' No royal treat

A prince and a princess ride out of a video game.

Movies based on video games seem like such a demonstrably bad idea that you wonder why any self-respecting filmmaker would try to make one. Maybe it's because the checks clear or maybe actors and directors are seduced by the challenge of seeing how far they can get when it comes to building stories around the prominent features of a popular game.

The makers of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time -- director Mike Newell, a trio of screenwriters and fabled producer Jerry Bruckheimer -- get further than you'd expect with a sand-swept adventure that uses new-fangled CGI technology to revive old-fashioned moviegoing pleasures, not exactly a novel ambition, but one that's serviceable. I thought I detected evocations of Lawrence of Arabia in Harry Gregson-Williams' score, and at times, I almost felt as if I were watching a real movie. Swords, sand, sandals and a little exoticism go a long way.

The problem with Prince of Persia, which stars Jake Gyllenhaal as a commoner who becomes a prince, rests squarely on its script. Video games presumably come equipped with a rooting interest; the player hopes he or she beats the odds. Prince of Persia leaps from set piece to set piece without really giving us a good enough reason to invest in the outcome. The plot revolves around a dagger with magical powers. Used correctly, this dagger can turn back the clock, a feat shown by Newell in a series of stuttering images that don't exactly qualify as astonishing. It feels as if the movie has hiccupped.

Maybe none of that matters; Prince of Persia tries to trample criticism by bombarding us with the usual blend of dizzying, over-edited action, a ton of British accents (even Gyllenhaal tries one) and no truly engaging characters.

Let me revise what I just said about the lack of engaging characters. One character, a disreputable gambler who organizes ostrich races, provides a bit of fun. Alfred Molina's Sheik Amar brings more life to the screen than all the other actors combined. Molina makes a strong impression, even though the writers have saddled his character with a contemporary, Tea Party take on government and taxation.

That's not the only attempt to add contemporary gloss. It seems that the Persians were tricked into invading the city of Alamut with a familiar lie. The place supposedly was harboring weapons that could be used against Persia. Guess what? The invasion turned up no WMDs or whatever such weapons should be called in this quasi-mythical, artificial environment.

You can tell a movie is in a bit of trouble script-wise when actors are forced to provide large junks of expository dialogue, which happens here on occasion. If you really want to know more about that dagger, you'll have to see the movie. I've already pushed the eject button on the major elements of the plot. Know, though, that although there's a genre-appropriate lack of subtlety here, you may not find an equivalent amount of fun.

Did I mention that Ben Kingsley is in the movie? If not, it may be because he doesn't make that much of a mark as the brother of the king who adopts Gyllenhaal's character early in the movie.

I'd say the verdict is still out on Gyllenhaal as an action hero. He looks swarthy, and he leaps about with conviction, but he can't quite muster the leading man charm that distinguished Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones. Gyllenhaal's paired with Gemma Arterton, last seen in Clash of The Titans. She's attractive, and the two of them whip up enough on-screen chemistry to keep things percolating while themes of brotherly love, loyalty, royal betrayal, true love and the fate of all mankind bump up against one another.

Newell, who directed Donnie Brasco and Four Weddings and a Funeral, may seem an unlikely choice for a large-scale fantasy, but he also directed Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and several episodes of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles.. He does well enough with this trumped-up material.

No need saying more. Prince of Persia provides medium-grade entertainment with lots of fiery special effects and no apparent purpose other than to sell tickets to those who need a fix before the next action-oriented wannabe blockbuster comes along.

'Sex' lands in the wrong city

The women of Sex and the City hit the road.

I'll try to do this without introducing a spoiler. There's a point in Sex and the City 2 at which one of the characters indulges in a forbidden kiss. I knew the moment that kiss arrived, the audience at a preview screening would gasp as audibly as if it had just learned that the government had decided to confiscate every pair of Manolo Blahniks in North America.

You get the idea. Sex and the City 2 is a chick flick on steroids - or is it estrogen? Whatever the hormonal enhancement, this exaggerated and cartoonish feature has wandered a long way from the HBO series that initiated the craze. What once seemed hip and knowing now seems spectacularly contrived. What was funny now feels forced, and the series' open-minded attitude toward sex has turned into parodic pandering, most of it focused on the insatiable carnal appetites of Samantha (Kim Cattrall).

Even on the small screen, Sex and the City walked a fine line between timely observation and superficial fluff, but the line seems to have been irrevocably crossed with a sequel that takes the familiar quartet of New York City women to Abu Dhabi, where they indulge their taste for excess along with disturbing amounts of cultural insensitivity.

The United Arab Emirates isn't the first stop made by a movie that never should have left Manhattan. That honor goes to Connecticut, where the women assemble for a gay wedding of two familiar characters (Mario Cantone and Willie Garson). The wedding is staged with hammy flare that includes a stereotypical double whammy: an all-male chorus and Liza Minnelli. This lengthy set piece has a tolerably silly gloss, but the movie quickly abandons itself to a recitation of Shrek-like woes.

Last week, Shrek Forever After introduced us to an ogre in mid-life crisis. In Sex and the City 2, the women also are wondering what's become of their old selves, with the exception of Samantha who's too busy fretting about becoming an old self. She's 52, and flooded with enough creams and hormones to require a dispensation from the FDA.
Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) -- a.k.a. Our Lady of the Garish Outfits -- has just written a marriage book called I Do, Do I? She's also wondering whether her marriage to Big (Chris Noth) can sustain the romantic sparkle that for so long characterized their relationship. As it turns out, Big is pretty much like every other guy; he likes to come home from work, sprawl on the couch and watch TV.

Charlotte (Kristen Davis) worries that her husband (Evan Handler) might have his eye on the voluptuous, braless Irish nanny who takes care of their two kids. Charlotte's also exasperated. She always wanted kids, but her two youngsters are more demanding than she could have imagined.

For her part, Miranda (Cynthia Nixon), a high-powered attorney, is working for a chauvinist who doesn't value her opinions. Work isn't fulfilling; she's not cut out for full-time motherhood. What's a woman to do?

What all the women do is join Samantha on a trip to Abu Dhabi, which is being paid for by a wealthy hotel owner who thinks that Samantha might be able to help give his hotel a higher profile.

Sex and the City 2 contains a few chuckles, and the lavishness of the women's Abu Dhabi hotel digs - each has her own butler - offer pleasures akin to a trip to a luxury spa. To the extent that the Abu Dhabi scenes are rich with poolside luxury and sumptuous meals, the movie works as a fantasy travelogue.

But luxury only goes so far, and Sex and the City 2 -written and directed by Michael Patrick King -often makes the women seem dumber than trendy. The way Samantha operates in Abu Dhabi is out of sync with how a savvy PR woman would behave if she were in pursuit of a client. Samantha now seems charmless, a woman with a purse full of condoms and an eye for bulges in the bathing suits of young men.

I had an odd thought while watching what I once regarded as an amusing - if generally inconsequential -- look at a certain kind of New York City lifestyle. I kept thinking about Abbott and Costello movies with titles such as Abbott and Costello Go To Mars or Abbott and Costello in the Foreign Legion. Or more generously, the Bob Hope/Bing Crosby road movies. These stock entertainments put familiar characters into unfamiliar situations, banking on past affections and letting the chips fall where they might.

That kind of approach might have worked here if so much of the script hadn't presented these women in such sorry, superficial lights. When Carrie learns that The New Yorker has panned her latest book, I found myself cheering the unseen critic.

The movie, which lasts nearly two- and a-half-hours, probably will rake in enough money to keep its creators from having to shop at thrift stores. Sex and the City is more than an entertainment; it's a phenomenon, and it inspires women to dress up before they buy tickets. Who would have guessed that high heels and showy dresses could be accessorized with giant tubs of popcorn?

I suppose it's harmless fun, but Sex and City used to make room for glimmers of dramatic truth. Now, it's about massaging the fantasies of an audience that probably won't object to the fact that only Cynthia Nixon's performance seemed to be grounded in any sort of reality, that doesn't care whether the moments of female empowerment are so blatantly engineered they play like political lip-syncing and that's happy to watch a quintet of costume designers try to out-silly one another.

As for me? Well, I'm with Big on this one. Forget the sparkle, baby. Pass the remote

'Shrek" loses a bit off the old ogre fastball

For Shrek, domestic bliss isn't all that it's cracked up to be.

Shrek Forever After is being billed as the final installment of this financially lucrative but artistically faltering series. The addition of 3-D doesn't do much to elevate this helping of Shrek, and the movie fails to reach the levels of enjoyment that marked the first (and still best) of the bunch.

By now, the irreverent approach to fairy tales has lost much of its freshness, and the mix-and-match post-modernism of the series - Pinocchio is liable to pop up alongside the Three Little Pigs -- has gone a bit flat, as has Shrek's life.

It's that life - mired in the monotony of domestic routine - that provides the story with its springboard. It seems that Shrek (Mike Meyers) has become a middle-class, middle-aged guy. He and Fiona (Cameron Diaz) have three kids, triplets. Donkey (Eddie Murphy) is still around, as is Puss in Boots (Antonio Banderas).

Shrek also has become a show business fixture. Crowds of adoring fans long to hear him roar; they love his signature yowl. Shrek's a cuddly staple of the pop-cultural scene. His home, once a forest sanctuary, has turned into a tour stop. It's enough to drive an ogre crazy.

In an effort to escape the middle-age doldrums, Shrek deserts his family during the kids' birthday bash. He races off to the woods, where he encounters Rumpelstiltskin (Walt Dohrn), a conniving fairy-tale figure who's clearly up to no good.

In the Grimm fairy tales, Rumpelstiltskin bargained with a miller's daughter who was trying to spin gold from straw. In this version, the dwarf bargains with both Fiona's parents and with Shrek, offering each of them a much-cherished prize - at a price, of course.

All of this leads to Shrek veering off into an alternate version of his life in which his "ogreness" is restored. Of course, there's that price. Fiona no longer recognizes our big green hero. To further complicate matters, she has assembled a group of ogres to fight Rumpel. Poor Shrek. He must figure out how to return home and reclaim the life that, as it turns out, wasn't so bad after all. Or as a friend used to say, Shrek -- like all wayward movie heroes -- is left to overcome his bitterness and re-discover the true meaning of Christmas, so to speak.

The movie's 3-D underscores the fact that the franchise has reached the point where it needs add-ons to prosper, and prosper it probably will. By now, Shrek has become both an entertainment and a pop-cultural obligation. Turnstiles will spin.

But even the addition of flying witches can't quite get Shrek airborne. He's not only middle-aged, but also middle-of-the-road. The movie seems less a tribute to the anarchic spirit in which fairy tale wisdom once mingled with cartoon chaos than a monument to itself.

Say this, though, the filmmakers provide an affectionate farewell to characters who've earned a place in the animated landscape, and, viewed as a whole, the Shrek franchise must be credited with inspiring a fair amount of creativity and humor. It's probably accurate to say that this final chapter, though suffering from a case of the blahs, will do little to change the generally favorable impression that will keep the Shrek movies circulating on DVD for some time to come - if not forever after.