Guaranteed to stoke your recession-wracked class envy into a raging bonfire, "Bride Wars" concerns two lifelong
friends, played by Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway, whose competing weddings, mistakenly scheduled for the same day
at Manhattan's Plaza Hotel, turn bride-to-be against bride-to-be.
The timing of this picture's release is unfortunate, as is the picture itself.
Now, the target audience may disagree with me. (The combined international gross for last year's "Made of Honor" and
"27 Dresses" was $266 million, not counting DVD sales and rentals.) But "Bride Wars" really does not capture the mood
of the moment.
It comes from a different time, a different planet. Watching the characters flit from Vera Wang fitting to
wedding-planner meeting, you may feel like forcing these two to do a few hundred hours of community service at
a homeless shelter.
The best Depression-era movies macked on extreme wealth while needling its privileged economic royalty.
"Bride Wars" barely rouses itself to deliver a joke, and its sense of upper-middle-class privilege feels smug.
Liv (Hudson), the rich lawyer, is meant to be the less initially sympathetic one, whose boyfriend (Steve Howey) is
Patience and Understanding incarnate. Emma (Hathaway) is a heavily enabling middle-school teacher whose live-in
boyfriend (Chris Pratt) seems nice enough at first, although certain intolerant mutterings suggest that Emma might
be better off with some dreamboat-in-the-wings on the order of Liv's brother (Bryan Greenberg).
Both ladies are supposed to be 26; they act like they're 11.
After an intimidating consultation with the doyenne of New York wedding gurus (Candice Bergen) they're mistakenly
double-booked, and neither backs down, and they spend fully half the movie playing humiliating pranks on one another.
Surreptitiously Emma keeps sending Liv chocolate and cookies so she'll be too fat for her wedding dress. (Har.)
Liv switches spray-tan colors on her former pal so that she turns a burnt orange. (De-har.)
Half the comedies made in Hollywood are based on the premise of boy-men acting like idiots.
Switching the gender and toning down the vulgarity to a PG level offers only change, not improvement. I cannot
believe the "Bride Wars" script was written by a "Saturday Night Live" actress/writer (Casey Wilson) and a fellow
improv-based performer (June Diane Raphael), although I can believe that the co-writer of "Saving Silverman" (Greg
DePaul) worked on it.
Director Gary Winick did nicely by the recent "Charlotte's Web," but he shoots this material like a mid-'90s sitcom
on the WB. Filmed mostly in Boston, the film has the advantage of a fine cinematographer, Frederick Elmes, who has done
fantastic work for, among others, David Lynch. Here, though, he's stuck with drab hotel interiors and toothsome close-ups
of the stars.
Hathaway in particular deserves better.
After rising to the challenge of "Rachel Getting Married" and,
earlier, helping to make "The Devil Wears Prada" such a savvy surprise, watching her struggle with this bourgeois hack-work is sort of depressing.
Bride Wars Movie Trailer
Anne Hathaway and Kate Hudson hit New York for the premiere of their chick-flick 'Bride Wars,' and open up about why it's important to have best girlfriends.
"Bride Wars" Movie MPAA rating: PG (for suggestive content, language and some rude behavior).
Running time: 1:30.
Starring: Kate Hudson (Liv); Anne Hathaway (Emma); Kristen Johnston (Deb); Bryan Greenberg (Nate); Candice Bergen (Marion); Steve Howey (Daniel); Chris Pratt (Fletcher).
Directed by Gary Winick; written by Greg DePaul, Casey Wilson and June Diane Raphael; photographed by Frederick Elmes; edited by Susan Littenberg Hagler; music by Edward Shearmur; production designed by Dan Leigh; produced by Julie Yorn, Hudson and Alan Riche. A 20th Century Fox release.
This charmless film concerns two lifelong friends, played by Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway, whose competing weddings, mistakenly scheduled for the same day at Manhattan's Plaza Hotel, turn bride-to-be against bride-to-be. Half the comedies made in Hollywood are based on the premise of boy-men acting like idiots. Switching the gender and toning down the vulgarity to a PG level offers only change, not improvement. Hathaway in particular deserves better material.
Based on a book by Bishop T.D. Jakes, this film is a faith-based love story, secondarily about God's role in the care and feeding of an L.A. couple's turbulent marriage. Thanks to Morris Chestnut, whose warm, easy screen presence was an asset way back in "Boyz N the Hood," and to Taraji P. Henson, a by-the-book scenario (described by screenwriter Brian Bird as "sort of a male version of the film 'Waiting to Exhale'") ends up being pretty entertaining.
The misadventures of a lovable Labrador retriever frame this sweet, surprisingly moving chronicle of a young couples
struggle to simultaneously build a family, advance their careers and maintain their sanity. Owen Wilson plays journalist
John Grogan, whose popular 2005 memoir spawned this film, and Jennifer Aniston plays Jenny, his wife. Dog lovers will
laugh delightedly for the first hour and spend the second hour weeping openly.
This is a tall tale of a man aging in reverse while bobbing serenely on lifes unpredictable seas. The colorful supporting
characters spill their guts to the wonder of nature played by Brad Pitt, as he begins his life a very old man, ages into
late-middle age, ripens into well, Brad Pitt, then embarks on the big fade into childhood, infancy and check-out time.
This film spends 105 minutes grappling at the edge of camp, cheap laughs and cliches. Yet the way it is handled by
director Darren Aronofsky and especially by Mickey Rourke, who really should get an Oscar for his portrayal of Randy The Ram
Robinson, a steroid-addled sweetie in tights, it stays honest and keeps on fighting.
Valkyrie, a plot to assassinate Hitler, stars Tom Cruise as Col. Claus von Stauffenberg, a cultured aesthete who turned
against his supreme commander. Cruise is not bad, but he cannot suggest the aristocratic hauteur or the steely authority
needed in this role. Going into this film, you know how things are going to come out. Still, with actors as good as Tom
Wilkinson, Bill Nighy, Thomas Kretschmann and Kenneth Branagh in key supporting roles, this ensemble piece avoids the
usual action-movie triumphalism.
Adam Sandler plays Skeeter, a hotel handyman under the thumb of the owner (Richard Griffiths) and manager (Guy Pearce). Skeeter and his sister (Courteney Cox) grew up in a motel bungalow court, and Skeeter longs for a crack at running the hotel that's built on the site. While Sis is away, Skeeter must baby-sit for his niece and nephew, and the adventure stories he spins become fantasy vignettes that somehow manage to improve his disappointing life. It's an adequate idea, dutifully delivered.
Kate Winslet stars in the film version of the Bernhard Schlink novel about a 15-year-old West German boy who, in 1958,
embarks on an affair with a 36-year-old trolley conductor with more on her mind, and in her past, than she admits.
The novel was hugely popular as well as controversial worldwide
Jim Carrey plays a loan officer who cannot get out of his self-pitying rut three years after a breakup. Then he encounters a self-help guru (Terence Stamp, in his first genuinely funny screen appearance) who challenges
his followers to say yes to every single thing that comes their way.
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Will Smith plays an IRS agent who has committed a terrible deed and appears to be investigating the cases of a carefully selected group of people, including a seriously ill heart patient (Rosario Dawson) and a blind pianist (Woody Harrelson).
This earnest, emotional film is a mixed but pretty interesting bag, though its G rating may mislead some parents into taking 4 or 5 year-olds to it, which could lead to some freakouts. Much of the movie, based on a Newbery Medal-winning book, has a grim narrative.
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Bride Wars stars Kate Hudson & Anne Hathaway.
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