December 22, 2004

Do you ever feel like you have nothing significant to say about something?

That's how I feel about Meet The Fockers.

You'll laugh… Dustin Hoffman steals the show… Streisand is the best she's been in a long time, following Streep's Adaptation lead of being sexy and charming over 50… Stiller's story is utterly uninvolving and irrelevant to your enjoyment of the film… the Heat-esque showdown scene between DeNiro and Hoffman is missing and the script was never clever enough to understand that the great story here was the disinterest of the parents in their children who are just fine on their own… hiding DeNiro in a motor home avoided the conflict from where the only real humor could come… the trick would have been a 2nd act transformation of DeNiro into a sexy senior, thus enraging Pam (Teri Polo) who isn't as over her childhood values as she thinks and thus raising the stakes for Greg (Stiller) so that he could do more than be a milquetoast who is embarrassed by his parents…

But anyway…

Manohla Dargis got it so right (she's been on a streak of perfect clarity lately) that I feel like it's been said. Read her.

"Like the first film, the new one hinges on the well-traveled idea that there's something comic about being Jewish in America."

"Mr. De Niro, who wads his face up into a knot of disgust that never loosens, has been saddled with a dull new sidekick in the figure of a toddling grandson (Pam's nephew), which may explain the disgust. Certainly, Mr. De Niro looks as if he'd rather be cuddling a porcupine. Mostly, though, the doting-grandfather routine is beside the point of the new film."

"Meet the Parents" mined the funny-Jew stereotype to the edge of offense, partly because there was never any question that Greg would triumph. The filmmakers don't work the clichés as hard here, partly because though it's easy (and perhaps inviting) to put Mr. Stiller through the wringer, it's impossible to imagine Ms. Streisand and Mr. Hoffman, whose careers are triumphs over noxious stereotypes, submitting to such nonsense."

"Ms. Streisand hasn't been called on to deliver an immortal or even interesting performance, but she is a pip to watch."

"Mr. Hoffman serenely wanders about as if he were padding around his living room, slipping away with the movie without breaking his smile or stride. He's a masterly thief."

You'll laugh at the film. See it. Enjoy it. But read The Man first.

READER OF THE DAY: THE BB MAN writes: "I'm sure I won't be the only one telling you this, but the one movie this summer that you are severely underestimating is The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Do you not realize how truly beloved these books are? This has the potential to be one of the biggest movies of the summer, and you are calling it a cult-classic wannabe? That remark really pissed me off."

E-ME: Every movie is a wannabe until it happens. The book is clearly a classic. But for every Harry Potter there are eleven Pet Sematarys... or in the case of a film that I quite loved, but did no business, Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas. No?