Movie Times

New York, NY -- March 8, 2010 -- Professor Richard Brown at NYU is a world-class movie expert. But I think I know more about marketing.

Pretty presumptuous.

Richard and I go back 20-plus years when I took his class "Movies 101". Unfortunately his wife has taken a dislike to me because of my divorce from Louise. Twenty-five years ago! But I still go to his class. He's a really smart guy and I like him.

This weekend my sister Dixie and I went together to see two screenings: "Green Zone" with Matt Damon, directed by Paul Greengrass, the dynamic team that brought us the "Borne" series. This one is set in the aftermath of the war in Iraq. A chancey subject. Not at all a popular theme. Damon plays an army chief warrant officer whose men risk their lives to check out reported sites of weapons of mass destruction.

But there ain't done. And Damon is ticked!

Greengrass could have pulled it off if he'd offset it with enough action-adventure scenes. And there were plenty. But not enough. The political rhetoric was laid on waaaay too thick.

About midway through, I leaned over to Dixie and said, "This has taken on a political screed." And so it had. But when it wasn't lecturing us, it was pretty entertaining. I am reminded by the late Sam Goldwyn's famous statement, "If you want to send a message, call Western Union." So I boldly (and probably naively) predict a lukewarm box office. And it's a pity because it has a pretty good cast. In addition to Damon, there's Greg Kinnear as a Pentagon policy whore telling Damon to hush up about not finding any WMDs. And Brendan Gleeson as the CIA Station Chief who tells Damon sotto voce, Of course there's no WMDs! We already looked.

See? It had the promise of being a highly relevant, money-making movie. But Greengrass lost sight of one thing: it has to be entertaining. And it wasn't.

"City Island" is another film on which Richard and I differed. (And no, it's not just so I can get even with his wife.) It's a comedy, altogether different from "Green Zone". But similarly I think it has limited commercial promise.

It's a comedy that just isn't very funny.

It also has the promise of success: Julianna Margulies and Andy Garcia. They're both great. It was set on a little-known actual small island on Long Island Sound. It's a comedy of errors that eventually comes to a resolution and the stripper daughter reconciles with her family and the unknown child from another coupling is accepted into the family 20-odd years later and Garcia's wife realizes he isn't running around on her at all but he's secretly taking acting classes. There now! You now know the whole plot. Hahaha. Very funny. Save yourself the $9.50 plus popcorn and Coke.

At the Sunday morning screening, the director-screenwriter Raymond DeFelitta joined the 250 attendees for a discussion with Richard.

I didn't say a word!

Copyright 2010 James C. Lewis