DICKIE ROBERTS: FORMER CHILD STAR
RATING: PG-13
STARRING: David Spade, Mary McCormack, Jon Lovitz, Craig Berko, Alyssa Milano, and Rob Reiner
DIRECTOR: Sam Weisman
PRODUCERS: Adam Sandler and Jack Giarraputo
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Fred Wolf
WRITERS: Fred Wolf and David Spade
DISTRIBUTOR: Paramount Pictures
GENRE: Comedy
INTENDED AUDIENCE: Teenagers and adults
SUMMARY: David Spade plays the title role in Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star about a hapless 35-year-old actor who desperately wants to jump-start his career. Abandoned by his mother who ditched him when his TV show was cancelled, Dickie thinks that if he can only get an audition for Rob Reiner’s new movie, he can become famous again. Reiner, who plays himself, tells Dickie, however, that, since he missed out on his childhood, he’s no longer normal enough for the part. Undeterred, Dickie thinks he can win the part by paying a normal family to let him stay with them for a while.
David Spade is not the most realistic of actors, and this movie plays like a series of not-always-funny brief incidents. There are some hilarious and touching moments, however. Parts of this movie show viewers that fame is fleeting and that love and family are more important than career. Other parts of the movie contain mostly light foul language, crude humor and other objectionable elements.
CONTENT: Lightly moral worldview where family is extolled above career and fame, mixed with some Romantic qualities, politically correct elements where "prudes" are mocked in a lightly flippant way and biological father is a villain because he neglects family, is rude to his wife, leers at another woman, and eventually abandons family; about 18 obscenities, one strong profanity, 12 light profanities, obscene hand gestures; some slapstick violence; woman in lingerie and upper male nudity; alcohol use.
LOST IN TRANSLATION
RATING: R
STARRING: Bill Murray, Scarlett Johansson, Giovani Ribisi, and Anna Faris
DIRECTOR: Sofia Coppola
PRODUCERS: Ross Katz and Sofia Coppola
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: Francis Ford Coppola and Fred Roos
WRITER: Sofia Coppola
DISTRIBUTOR: Focus Features
GENRE: Comedy
INTENDED AUDIENCE: Older teenagers and adults
SUMMARY: Lost In Translation stars comic actor Bill Murray as Bob Harris, a popular movie star who arrives in Tokyo to shoot a series of whiskey commercials. Harris feels completely out of place among the Japanese, however. Worse yet, jet lag has brought on an unquenchable bout of insomnia, so he spends his time swimming in the pool, watching TV and drinking in the bar. Harris finds a companion in Charlotte, a young woman also suffering from insomnia whose husband is working feverishly on a long photo shoot with some rock stars. Harris and Charlotte find they share a wry, slightly cynical approach to the crazy people and situations around them, but their affair remains unrequited.
The most entertaining parts of Lost In Translation are when Bill Murray applies his usual understated comic approach to the people and situations around him. The movie lacks a dramatic premise, however, that carries the story through to a convincing, captivating climax. Also, although the movie does not endorse adultery, it flirts with the subject.
CONTENT: Humanist worldview about an unrequited relationship between two people married to others, including woman visits pagan Buddhist ritual performed in Japanese and gets nothing out of it; six obscenities and two light profanities; brief slapstick violence as woman falls and rolls around on floor; implied adultery, married man kisses married woman goodbye and whispers something unheard in her ear; upper and rear female nudity; alcohol use; smoking; and, married leads are emotionally estranged from their families.
