America's Sweethearts

"America's Sweethearts" is a romantic comedy that also parodies the film industry and was co-written by Billy Crystal. If you watched only the first five minutes of it, you'd figure all that out for yourself.

It's certainly a romantic comedy because it features Julia Roberts. She's allegedly a supporting character here, playing Kiki, the personal assistant (and sister) to Hollywood's biggest star, Gwen Harrison. But since Gwen Harrison is self-centered and virtually unlikable, and is played by Catherine Zeta-Jones (whom you know is NOT a "romantic comedy" actress), you know it will be Kiki whose love life is most affected.

And whom will she fall in love with? Well, Eddie Thomas, of course. Eddie (John Cusack) was Gwen's husband for several years and co-star for even longer, but they've been separated for 18 months. In that time, he's gone off the deep end and is seeking spiritual counseling, while she is seeing a Spaniard named Hector (Hank Azaria) and has made two unsuccessful films on her own.

Now, Eddie and Gwen's last film together, "Time Over Time," is about to be released after a long delay. The slimy studio head (Stanley Tucci) is convinced it will flop unless audiences believe there's a chance their beloved Eddie and Gwen will reunite in real life, too. So he recruits top publicist Lee (Billy Crystal) to organize a press junket that will make the entertainment reporters and film critics think a reconciliation is afoot -- and also distract from the fact that they haven't seen the movie yet, due to the peculiarities of the crazed, obsessive director (Christopher Walken).

The press junket is the target of the most satire. This is where media types are shmoozed and entertained for a weekend at some lush hotel, mingling with the stars of the film and getting ridiculously superficial, carefully orchestrated five-minute interviews with them. Oh, and maybe they watch the movie, too, ideally after they've been stupefied with glitz, glamour and food.

And how do we know it's Billy Crystal at the script (along with Peter Tolan, who wrote for "The Larry Sanders Show")? Because of the cornball shtick, the set-up/punch line rim-shot-style jokes, stuff you'd hear a two-man comedy team doing in the Catskills. It's funny stuff, usually, with a few solid one-liners and many snappy bits of banter. Everyone's a comedian in this world.

The only significant drawback, apart from some cheap laughs half-way through with a misleading surveillance camera, is the finale. It's too silly, too crazy and too unreal, and is a poor match with the generally smart material that precedes it.

Still, this is a perfectly good Billy-Crystal-written-romantic-comedy-that-parodies-Hollywood. It meets its goals well enough, though it certainly doesn't strive for much extra credit. It's just funny enough, just romantic enough and just satiric enough to be worth watching.

Mona Lisa Smile

You are in for a good time if you go to see "Mona Lisa Smile," particularly if you enjoy films about cold, catty women who lie constantly. (Don't worry; what few men there are in the film are dishonest, too.) If you like the dour, porcelain-faced Julia Stiles, you will be pleased to know she appears just as humorless and grumpy here as she typically does, and if you are a fan of Julia Roberts' huge, horse-like head and her equally equine braying laugh, rest assured both are in large supply. Rather than shooting the film for the wide screen, they had to shoot it extra-tall, to accommodate Roberts' elongated melon.

It might be unprofessional of me to judge an actress solely on her face, but I counter that it is equally unprofessional for a good actress like Julia Roberts to act in such warmed-over cliché-fests as this. I do not mind her gaping, toothy maw when it is the source of strong, intelligent dialogue, but when all that emanates from it is verbal tedium, my mind wanders and I begin to contemplate whether it would be possible to fit both of my hands inside her mouth. (I believe it would. If I ever meet her, I will try.)

Horseface plays Katherine Watson, a "bohemian from California" (we're told) who, in 1953, gains a position as an art history professor at ultra-conservative Wellesley College. Only girls go here, and all they want to do is kill time before they're married, at which point they'll slack off in their studies and start pumping out babies. Katherine is appalled and begins whinnying her disapproval however she can, though as a bohemian from California -- she went to Berkeley!!!!!!!!!! -- there is only so much she can get away with before the administration turns its watchful, dyke-y eye upon her.

This film is a lot like "Dead Poet's Society," except crappy. It's one of those flawed-mentor, you're-teaching-them-but-they're-really-teaching-you, see-the-world-through-new-eyes kind of claptraps, with every element of the plot foreseeable even by the dumbest of viewers. Katherine's generic romance with a caddish professor played by Dominic West barely even tries to be interesting, much less unpredictable.

Making matters worse is the utter unlikability of almost every character. Roberts' performance is the acting equivalent of sitting at your desk and shuffling papers all day to look busy when in fact you are playing Tetris. She apparently fooled director Mike Newell ("Four Weddings and a Funeral"), but she's not fooling me! I know slacking when I see it. Julia Stiles continues her unbroken streak of exclusively playing frigid harpies, and even Kirsten Dunst, for whom I have great personal affection, comes off badly as an attitude-heavy student who gets married and lives to regret it. The only characters I liked were Ginnifer Goodwin as a less-pretty student with a spunky personality, and Marcia Gay Harden as a tamped-down but genuine professor. Everyone else is fake, bitter and unpleasant, if they have even those many attributes; many are simply "types" pasted onto the faces of actresses.

The film was written by the duo of Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal, whose last two projects together were "Planet of the Apes" (2001) and "Mighty Joe Young" (1998). This was their first non-monkey-related film in quite some time, and perhaps they had forgotten how to write for human beings. The women here are either stone-cold man-haters or man-hungry ditzes. Both types exist in life, of course, but the fairer sex has other variations, too, and it might have been well to explore some of them, particularly in a film aimed at female viewers. If women wanted to consume entertainment that takes a dim view of womanhood, they could stay home and watch any reality TV program. Why should they go out and pay for it?

THE DVD

Why these two forgotten Julia Roberts films have been packaged together, I don't know. Obviously there is the Julia Roberts connection, but the movies are so different in tone, style and content that I can't imagine anyone who likes one also liking the other.

Each disc is housed in its own thin Digipak-style plastic case, and the two cases come in a cardboard slipcover. Altogether, it's about the same width as a regular single-disc DVD.

No new extras or special features were created for this "double feature" edition; everything here is the same as what was included on the films' original, separate DVD releases. So if you already own both movies, there would be no reason to buy them again (though it's probably only the most avid Julia Roberts buff who already owns BOTH of them).

VIDEO: "America's Sweethearts": You can watch it in anamorphic widescreen (2.35:1) or in for-suckers-only full screen. There are optional English and French subtitles. The picture is pristine, and the 2.35:1 presentation -- somewhat unusual for a comedy -- feels big and exciting.

"Mona Lisa Smile": Anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1), with optional English and French subtitles. The film's "look" is captured nicely in the DVD transfer, the dull browns and earth tones of the 1950s appearing rich and full, the way they were meant to.

AUDIO: "America's Sweethearts": Dolby Surround and Dolby Digital 5.1 are your English options; if you find yourself speaking French, you can hear the movie that way, also in Dolby Surround. All the options are well-mixed and clear. There aren't a lot of sound effects or music in the film, but the dialogue sounds crisp.

"Mona Lisa Smile": Dolby Digital 5.1 in English, or Dolby Surround in French. The film's musical score is one of its better attributes, and it sounds beautiful on the DVD, perfectly balanced with the dialogue.

EXTRAS: "America's Sweethearts": There are five deleted scenes (5:28 total), each introduced and explained by director Joe Roth (who confirms a sad fact of Hollywood movie-making: Directors often cut scenes simply because a test audience didn't like them, without regard for their own vision). One scene with Hank Azaria and a floozy in a bathtub is amusing; two others with Christopher Walken are vintage Walken weirdness; the others are negligible.

Theatrical trailers for "America's Sweethearts," "My Best Friend's Wedding" and "The Mask of Zorro" are included, as are filmographies of the director and central cast.

"Mona Lisa Smile": No commentaries or deleted scenes, but there are a few featurettes. One is called "Art Forum" (6:32) and it has various cast members talking about art, and what art is, and stuff like that. They're really stretching to find some content here.

"College Then and Now" (14:38) is more cast and crew interviews, this time discussing the differences between women in college in 1953 and today. Some interesting statistics are included -- the average age women got married then was 21, now it's 28 -- but it's mostly people stating the obvious about how women's roles were different in the 1950s.

"What Women Wanted: 1953" (10:39) discusses the beginnings of the Women's Movement. More filler.

Do you like music videos combining Elton John and clips from "Mona Lisa Smile"? Then you're in luck! "The Heart of Every Girl" (3:54) is just such a music video, and it's included. It's not a bad song, actually, very bouncy and fun, though the video itself is strictly standard-issue. It's followed by a bit of an Easter Egg: a one-minute ad for the film's soundtrack.

There are also theatrical trailers for "Mona Lisa Smile," "13 Going on 30," "Spider-Man 2," "Big Fish" and "Something's Gotta Give," and filmographies for the director and cast.

IN SUMMARY

Put simply, these movies don't belong together. "America's Sweethearts" is a Hollywood satire in which Julia Roberts is merely part of the ensemble; "Mona Lisa Smile" is a period piece where Roberts is front and center. "America's Sweethearts" is by far the better movie -- "Mona Lisa Smile" is insufferable -- and in my opinion, there's no reason to buy this double-dip.

(Note: Most of the "movie review" portion of this article comes from the review I wrote when the movie was released theatrically. I have re-watched the film in the course of reviewing the DVD, however.)