A Siskel or Niebuhr review, pet detective Jim Carrey on the loose in Africa in Ace Ventura When Nature Calls.
Emma Thompson stars as an unconventional artist named Carrington.
And Annette Benning captivates Michael Douglas, who just happens to be the American president.
Song plays.
The White House is the single greatest home court advantage in the modern world.
I learned that one the hard way.
Michael Douglas is the President of the United States and a widower and Annette Bening is
the Washington lobbyist who catches his eye and his heart in the American President.
It's one of five new movies we'll review this week including Jim Carrey in the new Ace
Ventura Adventure and Emma Thompson as an unconventional British artist and we'll take
a look at a surprising scene that was clipped out of the cult movie Clerks.
I'm Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun Times.
And I'm Gene Sisko of the Chicago Tribune.
Our first film is The American President and it's a flat out winner.
One of the year's best.
A terrific old fashioned entertainment with a thoroughly contemporary screenplay by Aaron
Sorkin who can write dialogue with the very best and I just have to credit him first.
What a writing job.
The American President is a glorious romance set in the White House as the widowed President
of the United States convincingly played by Michael Douglas takes a liking to a feisty
environmental lobbyist played in a dazzling performance by Annette Bening.
She's just questioned his commitment to the environment and he's invited her into his
office for a chat.
Mr. President what you saw in there was nothing more than vanity run amok.
I was showing off for a colleague who doesn't think very much of me.
It would be a real injustice for you to hold the G.D.C. accountable for my behavior today
on top of which I am monumentally sorry for having insulted you like that.
Are you under the impression I'm mad at you.
Another solid character in this wonderful story the Chief of Staff and the President's
best friend from college well played by Martin Sheen.
What would happen if I called Sidney Wade and asked her to be my date at the state dinner
on Thursday evening.
You're not serious.
Don't I sound serious.
President can't just go out on a date totally infatuated with her and Benning makes you
see why he calls her up for a date the first one he'll have in his three years in office.
That's it.
That's why I was calling Sidney Sidney Congress doesn't take this long Mr. President you have
asked me to join you in representing our country.
I'm honored I'm equal to the task I won't let you down sir.
Is Sidney this is just dinner we're not going to be doing espionage or anything.
And then there is the first date again smart writing and Annette Benning is absolutely
luminous.
Do I date a lot.
Yeah.
No.
How about you.
Me.
Well lately I seem to be going out on a lot of first dates.
Well then you're experienced at this.
Oh yeah.
You didn't ask me anything.
How are we doing so far.
It's hard to say at this point so far it's just your typical first date stuff.
Damn and I want to be different from the other guys.
The American president is very smart and quite credible about politics as the president finds
himself suddenly under attack from the Republican senator running against him played by Richard
Dreyfus.
Networks and newspapers like ratings and circulation for all the bitching we do about liberal bias
in the press when it comes to a good character debate.
The press is an unwitting accomplice director Rob Reiner deserves a lot of credit because
at a time when we're all very smart video wise about the White House and press briefings
everybody watching CNN and C-SPAN we've he has created a film that feels real and never
glitches and Michael Douglas is at the top of his contemporary man form.
All in all the American president is a glorious old fashioned yet sparkling new entertainment.
I can't recommend it any higher.
I thought it was terrific when I wasn't laughing I was smiling right and then there were the
heart tugging moment it's very hard to make a good love story it's really hard to make
a good comedy it's really hard to make an intelligent movie and it's almost impossible
these days to make a good political picture and Rob Reiner has done all four.
This is a terrific movie well the other picture I mean people thrilled to Apollo 13 and said
you know this is the kind of entertainment that Hollywood can make best.
Well this is the other kind too yeah and we haven't had one quite like this in an awfully
long time.
I haven't I kept saying how great Annette Benning looks and I don't mean it just as
a comment on her physical beauty.
This is coming out of her soul personality and that's why the president is attracted
to her.
She is really something in this film.
You know Rob Reiner's last movie was North and that selection of the worst of the year.
I said I hated it I hated it I hated it it's nice the Reiner's next film I can say I loved
it.
Okay next movie and our next movie is Kicking and Screaming by a talented 25 year old writer
director named Noah Bomback.
The movie examines in close and loving detail a group of campus friends who are getting
too old to stay in college and don't know what else to do.
There's not much of a story in the film instead it wants to be a slice of life a record of
friends who are clinging uneasily to the small talk and camaraderie of the campus.
The movie stars Josh Hamilton as a recent graduate from the English department and Olivia
Dabo as his girlfriend who is leaving for a year in Europe.
I told you I was quitting you didn't pay any attention you're a foul-weather friend Grover
you're not interested in me unless I'm suffering like you you're like a child sometimes.
Yeah but if I was a child you'd find that endearing.
Another member of the crowd played by Chris Eichmann has started dating a local teenager
played by Cara Buono.
I like birthdays I'm gonna be 17 tomorrow and I like that 17 wow.
So now you can read 17 magazine and finally get all the references.
This is a key scene in which a separation at an airport provides a reminder that soon
they will all be forced to go their separate ways.
This is useless we just have to walk away like mothers in nursery school.
I saw this movie just a week or so after I'd spent some time at my own alma mater the University
of Illinois for four days and walking through campus town and drinking coffee in the student
union I found myself looking around for the ghosts of my old friends somehow I thought
they ought to all still be here hanging out waiting for me to rejoin the conversation
and that is exactly the feeling the kicking and screaming captures.
The undergraduate years are a wonderful time when you make new friends and try out new
ideas but sooner or later those years have to end.
By positioning this movie just at the moment when his characters are arriving uneasily
at that idea Noah Baumbach has made a perfect little work of social observation.
I liked it too and I think you're right that there is something there is a tension here
that's not apparent but you gradually realize that everybody is sputtering they know they've
got to move on and we you know we hit that point many times in our lives this one is
clearly marked for everyone after college but so that's the tension and will they get
off the dime as they must it's a good observation.
I mentioned that the movie doesn't have a storyline and it can't have a storyline because
the storyline would indicate a motivation and a direction and the whole point is they
don't know what the end of the story is because they don't know what they're going to do so
that lack of a storyline creates the tension.
It's a good picture coming up next he's one of the hottest stars around Jim Carrey stars
in Ace Ventura When Nature Call.
Ace Ventura Detective how are you this afternoon?
Alrighty then.
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This white devil thing has gone far enough nobody messes with the do.
All righty then that's Jim Carrey as ace Ventura pet detective on assignment in Africa for
the sequel to one of the most surprising smash hits of recent years.
Carrey playing a deliberately offensive goof while I started enjoying his humor in pictures
like the mask and dumb and dumber which came later.
I hated the first ace Ventura film and his new one ace Ventura when nature calls is only
twice as good and you know what two times zero adds up to ace has been asked to come
to Africa to help locate a missing sacred bat.
The one we're here to find Mr. Ventura didn't say anything about a bat.
What's the difference?
Have you ever seen that?
They're hideous.
I just beat the eyes of a huge grotesque wings.
And here's a tired old scene as ace now with the tribe eats something he doesn't recognize.
This fruit paste is delicious and the pottery is lovely.
It's made from guano.
That sounds so familiar bat droppings.
More dismal humor ace talking with his pet monkey.
And my instincts tell me we're getting closer.
I can feel it.
I can feel it like it's right in my neck.
Why doesn't this ace Ventura work?
At least for me it's not for the lack of Jim Carrey trying but he doesn't have a single
compelling person or animal to respond to in when nature calls.
Not one.
The tribal characters are cartoon oafs, the white men are stooges, like everyone else
in the movies Jim Carrey works better with a real script and some worthy enemies.
I laughed a couple of times at his silliness but hardly enough to recommend ace Ventura
when nature calls.
Well I don't agree with you that it's better than the first ace Ventura movie.
I gave that one thumbs down but I thought it was richer and had more incident and more
characters and more plot and more stuff in it than this one which seems real thin as
if they were really depending on Jim Carrey to save the day.
Well there isn't a whole lot here but I mean he has this story that he goes on and I mean
it's all the recycled African tribal stuff and you've seen it all before.
You sure have and you're tired of it too.
When we come back Emma Thompson stars in Carrington, the story of a British painter who fell in
love in a very unconventional way.
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Who on earth is that ravishing boy?
Here we go.
That's an early scene from Carrington, a subtle and unusual love story about the life long