IN THE STICKS:  In the same week in which Marlon Brando is quoted in Time Magazine as thinking that Frank Oz wanted to stick his puppeteering hand up his rectum for better control, a broomstick is in the news as well.  It seems that the British White Witches are upset because Harry Potter is riding his broomstick with the brush in the rear, not the front.  Of course, any witch knows that the brush goes in front!!!  DUH!!!  The most ironic part of the story is that the BWW rep claims he could fly… only CAA won’t let him.  Funny… Marty Scorsese said the same thing.  (In this case, CAA is the Civil Aviation Authority in Britain.)  The full wire story is here.

HOW MANY BLONDES DOES IT TAKE TO WRITE A MOVIE COLUMN?:  There is an all-media screening of Legally Blonde on Wednesday.  But I couldn’t wait.  (Actually, a 13-year-old girl name Margueritte couldn’t wait.)   But the trip to the multiplex was not without its charms.  No one will ever put Legally Blonde up in the pantheon of great comedies.  There are plot holes, the first act is too long, the third act too short and Aussie first-time feature director Robert Luketic has a long way to go before he could be considered a good director.  (His DP, Tony Richmond, is usually quite good, sometimes even great.  But this film is an inconsistent mess visually.  Jennifer Coolidge will lose roles because of how cruelly they treated her face in this film.  And there’s no way of knowing from here whether Richmond wasn’t taking care of Luketic or whether Luketic demanded flawed work from his cinematographer.  But we have a better idea after Luketic’s second feature, which he will definitely get soon, after Legally Blonde makes $80 million… oops, getting ahead of myself.) 

All that said… Legally Blonde is obvious, simplistic and silly… and a hell of a lot of fun.  Reese Witherspoon is, on a certain level, playing against type.  If you read the screenplay about the Hawaiian Tropic girl turned legal student, she would not be the first name to come to mind.  (Jennifer Love Hewitt could have made a real movie career out of a role like this and Denise Richards, if she had been able to play the sweetness, could have had a career revival.)  Every time there is a line about Ms. Witherspoon’s character’s “big boobs” or head turning looks, this writer, as sexy as he finds R.W., had to shake his head.  Cute and charismatic, yes.  Drool inducing, no.

Regardless, Witherspoon turns the trick (so to speak).  Her Elle Woods is so alive, except for a small portion of the film in which she should already be well past her ex-beau, that the film rings true.  And she brings such an underlying sweetness to this queen of conspicuous consumption that it is impossible not to root for her.  Even when you see the joke coming from half a mile away, you want to laugh. 

(Note:  When some of you wrote in to tell me that I was being too demanding of Pearl Harbor or The Fast and the Furious or A.I. or whatever, remember that I took this film and Cats & Dogs, as examples, on the level in which they were intended.  The difference, to me, is that these films fulfilled their objectives without forcing me to forgive too many sins or too much artistic failure.)

Selma Blair is back to being “The Less Attractive Girl,”  but turns in a nice job with a completely thankless role.  Luke Wilson does his charming thing… need to get him a role with a little more juice.  Victor Garber and Holland Taylor are two great actors who make it through the film without doing too much, positively or negatively.  And Ali Larter… Ali Later… geez!  Why isn’t Ali Larter a movie star like Julia Stiles is a movie star?  This girl eats the camera.  She is just dead sexy.  And smart.  And a little tough.  And she can act.  So, what’s the problem?  This is a good role for her.  Maybe if someone remade Body Heat on a college campus, she’d be one of the five biggest female stars.  But instead, here she is, playing a small role in another actress’ movie.  Maybe she needs to do some art films.  Maybe she hasn’t taken Stiles’ risks.  Maybe Kevin Smith will help her turn the corner.  The girl is a freakin’ movie star, I tell ya! 

Anyway… Legally Blonde is not a great movie.  But it is light, airy, dumb fun.  And aside from Shrek, it’s easily the best comedy of the summer so far.  The film will be lucky to open to $15 million.  But I suspect that word of mouth and repeat teen girl business could take it to the $80 million mark before it’s all done domestically. 

COULDA RENTED A VIDEO:  In a town called Nasik, in the north of India, in a small house, a woman strangled herself to death with a saree.  (“So saree… I’m saree… please accept my ap-ol-o-gy…”)  Why the deadly fuss?  He husband was late, ruining their plans to go see the Bollywood blockbuster, Gadar.  The film, which I don’t think is pronounced like the American colloquial “gay-dar,” is a typical Bollywood romance set in 1947.  So, you see, suicide was the only option.  David Manning was heard to say, “This Film Is So Great, If You Miss It, You’ll Want To Kill Yourself!!!!”  (The wire story is here.)

DUUUU-DE!!!:  The L.A. Weekly has a really interesting issue on the stands right now, taking a look at drugs in America from a wide variety of P.O.V.s.  But for this column, one story stood out, Paul Cullum’s look at the history of drug use in the movies.  Read it here.

JUST WONDERING:  Did I mention that I rented Dude, Where’s My Car? and laughed my uptight ass off?

WATCH IT!:  A good story in USA Today today about the growing exhibition empire of Phillip Anschutz and what it may mean to exhibition overall in the next decade.  Read it for yourself right here.

READER OF THE DAY:  The J Cracker writes:  “Not sure if anybody wrote you about Li's new Kiss of the Dragon.  But I think you'd be very surprised.  I thought it was very well done actually.  I'm a big Luc Besson fan and I'd bet that you'd think he did more than simply write and produce this movie.  It LOOKS like a Luc Besson movie.  In fact the flick feels like a weird kung fu fusion of his two earlier movies, La Femme Nikita and Leon: The Professional.  The locations, setups, and feel will definitely remind you of his earlier work.  Don't get me wrong.  KOTD doesn't have the emotional impact of those earlier movies.  This is a pure action movie.  But on that level it's great.  And say what you will about some of the dialog scenes in it's middle.  What with Jet Li just learning English and Bridget Fonda's work in general.  But KOTD was entertaining enough that It never took me out of the movie.  And of course Tcheky Karyo as the bad guy certainly helps to keep things moving.  If you get a chance DON'T pass this one up at the theater.  I think you'd find it to be a nice surprise after all the letdowns this summer.”

Not Even A Branch sent this in:  “I think the reason you asked what the point of Baby Boy was is because

you missed it. Of course Jody is immature and unmotivated. That's the entire point of his character (that's what "baby boy" means), and the point of the film is seeing whether or not he will grow up and take responsibility like a man. Perhaps this struck a chord with me, since I'm about the same age as Jody and I too am still living at home.

I don't think we're SUPPOSED to like Jody. He's not a bad guy, but he's not a clean cut good guy either (like Cuba Gooding, Jr's Tre in Boyz). In that respect he's a much more interesting character than any lead in any of Singleton's films. In general the characters in the film are fascinatingly complex and interesting (any one of them could indeed have been the lead of the film). Baby Boy may lack the urgency of Boyz (and I don't think it's quite as great a film either), as well as its scope, but it's a different kind of film. Besides, few films in the last twenty years have had as much impact as Boyz did. You can't just try to duplicate that, and I doubt Singleton was.  I wish Sony hadn't dumped this into theaters when they did, because it deserves to be the film everyone's talking about, not Spielberg's failed attempt to be Kubrick.”

E ME:  Lots of boys, baby and otherwise, one dead woman and female careers in flux… whaddya think?