In Movie News

I saw Little Children over the weekend. Liked it a lot. It’s a hybrid of Happiness and Peyton Place, but without Happiness’s super-icky cringe-inducing stuff. Not that I didn’t like Happiness, but that movie was definitely not for everyone. It was barely for anyone. Little Children is much easier to recommend. It’s funny and a melodrama at the same time.

A connection to Happiness (a tribute, perhaps) was the appearance of Jane Adams, Queen of All Losers from Happiness. Once again poor Jane is thrown into a date from hell, this time with a convicted child molester. How many times do I have to pity that woman. Some day she’ll make a movie where she’s happy and normal. Maybe. This being said, the movie does make the child molester a very sympathetic character, despite his creepiness. And he's played by Jackie Earle Haley, how cool is that?

Also, I saw a trailer for a gambling movie called Lucky You. My ears perked up. I was happy to hear that someone has finally used Lucky Town, an overlooked but terrific Springsteen song in a movie. The movie looks just okay, but the song sounded grrreat.

Also, saw the trailer for Rocky Balboa. I duly noted it was called Rocky Balboa not Rocky XV, or whatever number they are at. Rocky XV would've invited nothing but ridicule, but this title is meant for us to look at Rocky in a serious way. Will this work? Oh yeah, I'm feeling more hi-brow already. Nobody loved the original Rocky more than I did. The new one looks a lot like the original Rocky, which, go ahead and sneer if you must, was a really good movie. Too bad that there are a hundred other stupid Rockys between the first one and this one because I'm betting that if only these two existed, they would be terrific together. Of course, Stallone would be a much poorer man, but maybe he'd still warrant a modicum of respect instead of being a joke. A really wealthy joke.