‘House’ is cute and amusing while ‘Canyon’ annoys

‘Bringing Down the House’ does just that

A tax lawyer starts up a conversation with “lawyer-girl” in an

online chatroom. One chat turns into many. She sends him a picture

and they make a date to meet. He’s expecting a slender blond

reporter. So when a black ex-convict shows up on his porch, things

get a bit messy. She needs his help, but he wants her gone. The only

problem? He desperately needs her help too; he just doesn’t know it

yet.

“Bringing Down the House” is billed as a comedy headlined by Steve

Martin with a little help from Queen Latifah, but it should be the

other way around. Martin is the stodgy one that balances his time

between funny and annoying. Latifah, though, shines through each

scene and plays a dozen different roles. Together they are a force to

be reckoned with.

The story is a bit far-fetched, but “Bringing Down the House” is

also cute and amusing. So maybe an ex-con who swears she didn’t do

the crime is a strange house guest, but there have been worse. And

Martin’s tax lawyer probably wouldn’t last a minute in the midst of a

gang, but that’s the beauty of it. The movie takes all the

improbabilities and makes them happen. It gathers the stereotypes of

society and bashes them on the head.

Since the movie does touch upon almost every stereotype

imaginable, some people might be offended at one time or another.

Remember, though, this is a comedy, and no harm actually came to any

of the characters. If politically correct dictums do not run your

life, go see “Bringing Down the House.” It causes just enough

laughter for a good time, but leaves room to enjoy a bit of popcorn,

too.

* MELISSA RICHARDSON is a Costa Mesa resident and a junior at UC

Irvine.

A less than grand view of ‘Canyon’

I can’t pinpoint why exactly, but “Laurel Canyon” annoyed me to no

end. Perhaps it’s the depiction of the “sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’

roll” lifestyle that seems such a crashing bore. If it weren’t for

the knockout performance by Frances McDormand, I would have hated it

completely.

Written and directed by Lisa Cholodenko (“High Art”), this film is

centered around four very lost souls.

Sam (Christian Bale) is a glum, joyless medical student with an

equally humorless and controlling fiancee Alex (Kate Beckinsale). The

opening sequence tells you all you need to know about this couple.

Sam accepts an internship at a Los Angeles psychiatric hospital,

and the plan is for them to fly out from back East and stay at his

mom’s empty house in Laurel Canyon. Sam has a complicated

relationship with his mother, a legendary rock producer, and

describes her as “psychotic,” which could explain his fear of

expressing any emotion in his life, lest he be labeled as out of

control.

When they arrive at the house they find Sam’s mother, Jane

(McDormand) smoking a bong with a rock band headed up by her much

younger lover Ian (Alessandro Nivola). It seems that Jane gave her

beach house away to the lover she just broke up with, and she and the

band are staying at the house while they try to come up with a hit

song for their next album.

Inexplicably, Alex finds herself drawn to Jane’s hedonistic

lifestyle (although I’m sure it must be fascinating to her after

working on a dissertation on the sex life of the fruit fly). Sam is

drawn to a beautiful fellow student Sara (Natasha McElhone, with an

unfathomable accent) who has the hots for him. Ian has the hots for

Alex, and is inspired to write an extremely bad song that plays

endlessly over the closing credits.

The best moments belong to McDormand, in a role about as far

removed from the part of Marge Gunderson (“Fargo”) as you can get.

Her Jane is tough, vulnerable, sexy and makes no apologies for who

she is.

Someone should apologize to her for not giving her a better movie.

* SUSANNE PEREZ lives in Costa Mesa and is an executive assistant

for a financial services company.