EXPORTING RAYMOND: to Russia with Phil

One of the world's great and enduring mysteries is why some comedy crosses international borders while some other humour gets turned back by immigration. Why do the French worship Jerry Lewis? What is it that the Albanians love about Norman Wisdom? Why are the Russians so enamored of Louis de Funes?

EXPORTING RAYMOND doesn't set out to answer these imponderables but it does offer a sharply observed lesson in how difficult it can be to export a smash hit comedy show to another culture.
When Sony decided to sell 'Everybody Loves Raymond' to Russia in 2009 the show's creator Philip Rosenthal went with them to Moscow to oversee the translation of his show. He imagined that Russian tv executives would welcome the input and insight of the man who invented the multi-Emmy award winning sitcom in adapting his scripts into something appropriate for Russian audiences. How wrong could he be?
EXPORTING RAYMOND follows Rosenthal on his bewildering, frustrating and richly funny encounters with Russian tv directors, scriptwriters, actors and a spectacularly humorless head of comedy, none of whom have any interest in what he has to offer. Rosenthal's interaction with these disparate characters and his observations on the peculiarities (to the outsider) of the Russian way of doing things reveals an unexpected talent as a comedian. As the creator of and writer for 'Everyone Loves Raymond' I took it for granted that he'd have a good sense of humour but I hadn't expected him to be quite so good at delivering the material to camera, both in words and glances. He plays the part of the hapless stranger in a strange land to perfection, part Woody Allen and part Louis Theroux, and while the film is billed as a documentary at times it feels more like a mockumentary in the style of Christopher Guest's 'Best in Show', 'Waiting for Guffman' and 'A Mighty Wind.'
It's really not that important whether you're a fan of 'Everybody Loves Raymond.' This is a story as much about culture clash and getting lost in translation as it is about that particular tv show. And if you're looking for clues to that great mystery about comedy this is a very entertaining place to start your search.

THE HANGOVER II: gave me a thumping headache

Do you remember the incredibly positive word of mouth surrounding the release of 'The Hangover' in June 2009? The film raked in almost $45 million on its opening weekend and for a couple of months it was the must see movie. It seems like everyone who saw it loved it and told their friends to see it.
Ok, now fast forward two years and the eagerly anticipated release of THE HANGOVER II. The gang of overgrown adolescents we'd grown to love were back in a crazy new adventure. On the back of that excitement the film did double the box office business on its opening weekend, but where was the positive word of mouth? Where were the glowing reviews? The only people I remember talking up the film were the cast members on the promotional circuit.
No one else is gushing about THE HANGOVER II because it's a godawful, cynical, calculating, lazy and unfunny film. It is to 'The Hangover' what 'Blues Brothers 2000' is to 'The Blues Brothers.'
Working on the basis that if it was funny the first time it'll be just as funny the second time, director Todd Phillips and his 2 co-writers have simply extracted all of the elements that made the first film so entertaining and transplanted them into a new setting. Instead of Las Vegas, Nevada it's Bangkok, Thailand providing the backdrop for the eve of wedding misadventures of Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms) and Alan (Zach Galifianakis).
I'm not trying to argue that part 2 is a carbon copy of the original because that might suggest some time and thought went into careful crafting an exact replica. Part 2 doesn't even aspire to those heights. It's nothing more than a tired retread of part 1. And the constant reference by the characters to events that happened in the original only serves to remind us how good the first film was compared to this soulless sequel.

BAD TEACHER: is bad and not in a good way

'Bad Boys', 'Bad Girls', 'Bad Lieutenant', 'Bad Santa', and now BAD TEACHER. Am I the first to detect a new (albeit incredibly slow moving) genre in Hollywood film making? The juxtaposition of the word bad with a profession, job title or gender opens the door to a universe of possibilities all involving a character who, at the outset, behaves badly or performs their job badly but through a process of self discovery and internal growth develops into a good - insert job title/profession/ gender here - by the story's end.

If I were cynical about the Hollywood movie-making process I might add Bad Film to the list of possibilities but so far the movies falling within this newly identified genre have - for the most part - been at least halfway decent. I thought 'Bad Santa' was overrated but I really enjoyed 'Bad Girls' so I approached Cameron Diaz's new comedy BAD TEACHER with an open mind.
She plays Elizabeth Halsey, the world's least dedicated junior high teacher. Despite her obvious passion for drinking, drugs and swearing and her equally obvious absence of dedication or commitment to even the most basic responsibilities of the position, she's hired back to the Chicago area school she quit, after she's dumped by her wealthy fiance when he gets wise to her gold-digging ways.
Faced with the hideous prospect of a lifetime's drudgery as a wage slave she sets her sights on ensnaring new teacher Scott Delacorte (Justin Timberlake) who just happens to be heir to a family fortune. But she faces unexpected competition for his affections from irritatingly perky fellow teacher Amy Squirrel (Lucy Punch).
And so the scene is set for Diaz to trot out her patented brand of distinctly unladylike ladette behaviour. Everything short of belching goes in her efforts to raise a laugh by confounding our expectations about how a beautiful young woman should behave. Trouble is she's done most of it before in films like 'There's Something About Mary', 'My Best Friend's Wedding' and 'Shrek 1, 2, 3 etc' so it's really not a surprise. There are a few laugh out loud moments but mostly it's occasionally mildly amusing with long stretches of nothing to hold the attention. Diaz does her best with a woefully inadequate script but her character is so unlikeable that there's no reason to invest any empathy in her or root for a happy ending for her.
Timberlake demonstrates real acting ability, confirming that his highly praised performance in 'The Social Network' wasn't a fluke, and there's a perverse pleasure to be had in speculating how awkward it was for ex-girlfriend Diaz to work with him after he reportedly pulled the plug on their relationship.
BAD TEACHER is not bad enough to be terrible but it's definitely more 'Bad Santa' than 'Bad Girls' and that's not good.

THE NIGHT WALKER:: Babs has fallen asleep and she can't wake up!

For me the high point of THE NIGHT WALKER was Barbara Stanwyck lying in bed and screaming "I can't wake up! I can't wake up!!"  I know how she felt. This 1964 horror is a nightmare for pretty much everyone involved - the cast and the viewers.

Stanwyck's final cinematic release is a huge disappointment. It's not even Joan Crawford in 'Trog' bad - it's just bad. 'Trog' has undeniable camp appeal but this is a third rate piece of schlocky junk with no redeeming value other than Stanwyck's presence. She holds on to her dignity and gives a typically professional performance but it's so sad to see her reduced to this.
She plays Irene Trent, a wealthy woman increasingly terrorised by a series of nightmares involving her blind, jealous husband who was recently killed in a explosion at their home. These night terrors also feature a handsome mystery man who initially fulfills some of her romantic fantasies before he too starts menacing her.
Understandably concerned that she's going mad she turns to her late husband's lawyer (Robert Taylor) for help, but is he really the comforting presence he appears to be?
The convoluted plot is considerably more ridiculous than this brief summary might suggest, and so full of holes it's incredible that the whole thing doesn't just collapse in on itself. The reason for watching is not to be entertained by the story but to gawp at Stanwyck and Taylor - former husband and wife - reunited for the first time since their divorce 12 years earlier.
Stanwyck reportedly continued to carry a torch for her former matinee idol ex even after he had remarried and had 2 kids, but she succeeds in keeping whatever flames may still have been burning well hidden during their scenes together. Taylor looks like an older, heavier set version of his earlier pretty-boy self now deathly dull and middle aged. He plods through his scenes like a man who's idea of bliss is sitting in a wing back leather armchair smoking a cigar and reading the Wall Street Journal.
Producer-director William Castle was the man responsible for bringing together the former love birds and exploiting the interest in their public reunion. By 1964 he had became infamous for a series of low budget horror movies which peddled lurid special effects, silly gimmicks (like wiring up the seats to give cinema-goers a mild shock) and over the hill film stars. Taylor and Stanwyck were but his latest prey, to be sandwiched inbetween a couple of shockers starring the aforementioned Miss Crawford (they play like 'Citizen Kane' compared to her final film 'Trog' which - amazingly - he was not responsible for).
Anything Stanwyck appeared in is worth watching simply because she's in it, and she is always a compelling presence regardless of the material, but THE NIGHT WALKER tested my loyalty. I'm glad I stuck with it but let it now never be mentioned again.

DESERT FURY: Technicolor me bad

I came for the cast and stayed for the Technicolor. DESERT FURY is an initially overwhelming visual experience which almost makes up for the increasingly soggy storyline.
The impact of the opening scenes is the visual equivalent of a smack in the face. The colours are so vivid, and the colour composition of each frame so artfully designed that the effect is akin to 3D without the need for glasses. It's a stunning sensation that I do not recall experiencing with any previous Hollywood film made in colour.
It's a darn good job there's so much to look at because it rapidly becomes clear that the story is a drag - an overheated melodrama about tough guys, bad girls and even badder mothers who are all so intertwined that I soon lost track of who felt what about who and who had done what to who.

Lizabeth Scott - the poor man's Lauren Bacall - is the focus of all the raging hormones. She's the bad girl who might be good if only someone would show her some genuine love. She's never had it from her casino owning hard-as-nails, selfish mother Mary Astor; she won't take it from local deputy sheriff Burt Lancaster (sporting an unfeasibly large amount of hair on his head), and she fools herself into believing she's going to get it from gangster John Hodiak. Passions are heightened by the relentless heat of the sun beating down on the scene of the action, the small desert town of Chuckawalla, Nevada.
Released in 1947 DESERT FURY was only Lancaster's third film and it does little to build on his initial impact with 'The Killers' and 'Brute Force.' His is the least interesting of the three main characters yet he still manages to turn in a more convincing performance than Hodiak, whose success as a leading man remains one of the great mysteries of 1940s cinema. Scott had just more film than Lancaster under her belt but had already perfected the slightly schizophrenic good/bad girl persona she was to play out repeatedly in the following decade.
The real reason to tune in - other than the sumptuous Technicolor - is fourth billed Mary Astor sinking her teeth into the part of a butch mother from hell. Sadly she had already begun her slow steady descent from leading lady to leading lady's mother to bit parts, but she gives the role her all, effortlessly running rings around her fellow cast members, and reminding everyone(to no avail, alas) just what a great actress she was.
Even she though, can't save DESERT FURY from turning into an interminable hour and 36 minutes. With it's early promise, stunning use of colour and the presence of Miss Astor this is definitely a case of the parts being greater than the whole.

AGAINST THE CURRENT: just go with the flow

2009's AGAINST THE CURRENT is a gently-paced exploration of one of life's biggest questions set against the natural splendour of the Hudson River in New York State. The scenery is so spectacular that at times it threatens to overwhelm the story.

Joseph Fiennes stars as Paul Thompson, a mid 30s New Yorker still struggling with a tragic loss five years after it happened. He decides to do something big to give his life some meaning, and settles on swimming a 150 mile stretch of the Hudson River from Troy to the Verrazano Bridge at the mouth of New York harbor. He persuades an old schoolfriend, Jeff (Justin Kirk) and Liz (Elizabeth Reaser) a schoolteacher he meets in bar where Jeff works, to join him as his support crew, operating the boat which'll escort him on his quest. Once they've signed on he reveals he plans to complete the swim by August 28 - a date which has very special and ominous significance for him and Jeff.
AGAINST THE CURRENT is ostensibly the story of Paul's journey and of the friendship which develops between Liz and the two men, but the real star is the Hudson and the scenery on either river bank. Many visitors to New York City have no idea of the incredible natural beauty and the tranquility that exists just a few miles up-river of the city that never sleeps. Writer-director Peter Callahan makes sure his camera drinks in the view, with long lingering shots of hills and mountains and woods and peaceful small towns and mansions nestled among the trees.
The one jarring note in the entire trip comes when the trio stop off for the night at the home of Liz's mother, who lives close to the Hudson. Mom is played by Mary Tyler Moore in one of those cameos by a big name who wants the kudos that comes from 'stretching themselves' by appearing in an art house production. I'm sure the production was equally happy to have her presence as a selling point but it's a distraction. I found myself focusing on her miraculously taut 73 year old face and eyes so disturbingly large they give ET a run for his money and wondering "what has she done to herself?" rather than the story.
The ending, when it arrives is strangely anti-climactic but also entirely fitting. Absorbing and leisurely AGAINST THE CURRENT will either hook you or bore you to tears. It's a film whose impact depends entirely on the mood of the viewer and their willingness to let themselves go with the flow.

THE LONELINESS OF THE LONG DISTANCE RUNNER: the angriest angry young man

THE LONELINESS OF THE LONG DISTANCE RUNNER has much to say about class and alienation in early 1960s Britain and they can all be summed up in one moment which encapsulates the contradictions of the subject matter so powerfully it sent shivers down my spine.

The inmates of Ruxton Towers Borstal are being 'entertained' with a concert staged by a small group of well-meaning but hopelessly inappropriate amateur performers. Having endured a bird caller and excruciatingly off-key light opera the vicar asks the audience to join him in singing "that fine old hymn you've heard so often in chapel 'Jerusalem." It's a hymn so inextricably bound up in notions of empire, patriotism, authority and everything else that the inmates have no use for that I expected to hear a silent response, but as director Tony Richardson's camera pans back and forth across the audience every member is not only singing lustily but is also word perfect. And no one more so than the protagonist, Colin Smith (Tom Courtenay)whose rebellious contempt for the established order has landed him in the borstal.
Smith is not a particularly exceptional youth. Growing up the eldest son in a working class family in 1950s Nottingham, his experiences have given him a very bitter view of life and he's determined not to follow in his father's footsteps, working as a factory labourer for £9 ($15 approx) a week and dieing prematurely and painfully from cancer largely unloved by a wife (Avis Bunnage) who's already got her fancy man lined up and ready to move in. Smith knows what he's against but not what he's for, other than committing petty crimes and romancing Audrey.

When he lands in Ruxton Towers the Governor (Michael Redgrave) finds that something positive for Smith to focus on - cross-country running. Smith shows a natural talent for the discipline and the Governor wants to use it to win the challenge cup when a team of his borstal boys takes on a team from a nearby public school. The Governor's an old school man who believes that hard work and discipline can turn his charges into productive members of society and his patronage elevates Smith to a new status among his fellow inmates, but it's not clear whether the troubled young man has genuinely bought in to the Governor's philosophy on life.
It would be easy to see the Governor as a relic of the pre-war past, impotently railing against the advances in his profession which now dismiss his approach as hopelessly outdated and ineffective but it's nowhere near as simple as that. Director Richardson and writer Alan Sillitoe have created a far more complex world which acknowledges that the Governor's authoritarian paternalism is no longer relevant but also recognises that there's no immediately viable alternative available when all that the next generation (Smith) has to offer is negativism. And while the film is certainly on Smith's side it's as critical of the shortcomings of the working class as it is of the upper class.
As representatives of their respective socio-economic categories, Redgrave and a very young Courtenay are superb, demonstrating a subtle understanding of Sillitoe's writing and the complexities it encompasses.
The kitchen sink drama style of British theatre and cinema in the late 1950s and early 1960s produced a glut of angry young men. Courtenay's Colin Smith is perhaps their most effective representative making THE LONELINESS OF THE LONG DISTANCE RUNNER a truly compelling and thought-provoking piece of cinema.

THE LINCOLN LAWYER: a highly polished turd

2011's THE LINCOLN LAWYER is a bright, shiny, glossy and completely hollow viewing experience.
This is not a film, it's a product devoid of a heart or soul or any other organ vital for sustaining life.

Sure it's packed with stars - Matthew McConaughey, Ryan Phillippe, William H.Macy, Marisa Tomei, John Leguizamo - but they're not exactly red hot A-listers and none of them display much more than the very faintest traces of conviction in their performance. Everyone here is on autopilot, going through the motions in a story that plays like a cut-rate John Grisham courtroom drama.
McConaughey is Mick Haller, a slick LA lawyer who runs his business out of the back of his Lincoln town car. He specialises in representing different clients at different courthouses all across the city on the same day which would suggest none of them gets his full attention, but that doesn't appear to have dented his reputation as an effective legal counsel.
When he's hired by a wealthy young realtor (Phillippe) accused of beating a prostitute almost to death he has visions of a big payday, but the deeper into the case he digs the more connections he makes with one of his previous cases where he unsuccessfully represented a poor Hispanic man charged with a very similar crime.
Not only are none of the cast able to breathe any credible life into their characters, but the story they're trying to tell is shallow, superficial and laden with plot twists that you will see coming.
The only real surprise here is that I was able to care less about what happened than the cast were.

CITY OF FEAR: a hair-raising thriller in the city of angels

"He's one man holding the lives of three million people in his hands" declares LA Police Chief Jensen (Lyle Talbot) rather ominously.

And what hands, attached as they are to the most disturbingly hairy pair of arms it's been my misfortune to see in a long time. It looks like actor Vince Edwards has two particularly thick and bristly doormats strapped to his biceps. The first time they appeared I thought his upper arms were heavily tattooed, which would have been in keeping with the character he's playing. Vince Ryker is a ruthless murderer who's just busted out of San Quentin and, at least according to cinema convention, convicts have a penchant for tattoos. What they don't have a penchant for, more surprisingly, is a haircut.
If you thought prisoners were forced to keep their hair short while behind bars then you've clearly not been studying cons from San Quentin. There's almost as much hair on Ryker's head as there is on his upper arms, and the stuff on his head is shaped into a quiff that would make Elvis jealous.
Where - you may be wondering - is all this fascination with Mr Edwards body hair leading us? To Los Angeles is the answer, in the company of a steel thermos flask with an unscrewable lid that Ryker has stolen from the prison hospital during his jailbreak. He thinks it contains a pound of pure heroin which he can sell to finance his fugitive lifestyle. What's actually inside is highly radioactive Cobalt 60 and, despite the unremovable lid, it's slowly poisoning him (while leaving every one of his hair follicles untouched). What's worse is what it could do to the population of LA if he ever manages to prise it open. Can the cops track him down before he turns the City of Angels into the world's largest cemetery?

1959's CITY OF FEAR has recently been released by Columbia as part of a 'film noir classics' DVD box set but it's really a crime thriller laced with Cold War nuclear annihilation paranoia. And it's a tight one at that, clocking in at just 75 minutes, which might lead one to presume that there's not a wasted minute, but surprisingly there is or - more accurately - there are. Plenty of them. Reportedly shot in just 7 days it appears to have been edited in 7 minutes by someone who was continually distracted by phone calls. There are endless, pointless shots of people doing stuff or just standing around which do absolutely nothing to advance the plot or add to the sum of our knowledge about what's going on. Some actually detract from that knowledge as I wasted precious minutes trying to figure what that last meaningless sequence meant.
Edwards is suitably animalistic as the protagonist no-one is rooting for, but the best entertainment is provided by veteran low budget film actor Talbot and John Archer as the only two senior police officers in LA, exchanging hackneyed cop dialogue in claustrophobic offices and barking orders like "get me a car!" into the intercom.
Not a classic by any stretch of the imagination, CITY OF FEAR is not even a particularly great B-movie but it's definitely worth a watch if you've not got anything better to do.

CONAN O'BRIEN CAN'T STOP: making lemonade out of a $32 million lemon

I learnt three important facts from watching this 2011 documentary:
1. Conan O'Brien needs a lot of make-up to look even halfway decent on tv.
2. Every word that falls from Conan O' Brien's lips is hilarious if you work for him.
3. Conan O'Brien really can't stop.

The tv talk show host puts the Energiser Bunny to shame with his relentless energy. The man is perpetually in motion and always eager to slot even more work into the already crowded schedule of his first ever stand-up comedy tour of the US and Canada.
The "Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on TV" tour was his response to last year's late night tv fiasco which resulted in his departure as host of NBC's 'The Tonight Show' (with a $32 million pay-off) after refusing to move to a midnight start to make room for a new show starring his predecessor, Jay Leno. Director Rodman Flender went along for the ride, recording the creation, planning and presentation of the live show and reportedly amassing some hundred and forty hours of film which he miraculously succeeded in cutting down to the eighty nine minutes presented here.
Kaleidoscoping so much material into such a short running time necessarily involves leaving out a lot of stuff, and Flender has chosen to concentrate on the back stage action, so anyone hoping to see large chunks of Conan's show will have to wait for another DVD. The camera catches Conan in the kitchen with his wife, in his home office looking for inspiration with his team of writers, and in soulless rehearsal halls testing out the material and auditioning dancers - the Cocettes. Then it's off on the road, opening in Eugene, Oregon before criss-crossing North America by bus and private jet for an endurance-testing 32 dates. Along the way Conan seizes every opportunity to make more work for himself, adding in extra shows, introducing acts at Bonaroo, and insisting on greeting the crowds of fans waiting at the stage door, then climbing onto his tour bus and complaining about the endless demands on his time.
Through it all O'Brien comes across as understandably angry over his treatment by NBC and Leno's behaviour, driven to reconnect with the audiences and applause that was his right as a tv talk show host, arrogant and funny. He's not as funny as his entourage thinks he is but there are a few laugh out loud lines and other moments that'll make you smile. The arrogance is mostly kept in check but there's flashes of entitlement, and cruelty towards the lesser beings whose function is to service him.
As a behind the scenes snapshot of a very specific moment in US pop culture, and an (apparently) candid look at one of the biggest names in tv entertainment (at least he was in 2010) CONAN O'BRIEN CAN'T STOP is well worth the investment of 90 minutes of your time. But don't invest money in purchasing this film because it's something you'll be happy to watch once and equally happy never to watch again.

NO LOVE FOR JOHNNIE: a heady brew of politics and sex from a bygone age

If you can get past the truly terrible title you'll discover an interesting 1961 drama that is both an echo of a bygone age and also truly timeless in the themes it touches on.
The wonderful Peter Finch stars as Labour MP (Member of Parliament) Johnnie Byrne. Newly re-elected to Parliament and now a member of the governing party he's tipped for a government post and is miffed to find he's been overlooked. Adding to his professional disappointment are personal woes - his wife Alice chooses this moment to tell him she's had enough of their loveless marriage and is leaving him. And so, at a time when Johnnie should be feeling on top of the world he finds himself friendless, alone and vulnerable in London. After a brief drunken fling with a neighbour (Billie Whitelaw) he finds himself falling hard for Pauline (Mary Peach) a fashion model young enough to be his daughter, and starts neglecting his Parliamentary duties to spend every possible moment with her.
NO LOVE FOR JOHNNIE is intended as a portrait of an ambitious, ruthless and self-centred man willing to sacrifice relationships and principles in his efforts to get ahead, and plenty of characters in the film spend a lot of time saying this about and to Johnnie (The Prime Minister's private secretary tells him "You're the most unmitigated grasping and self-important bastard I've ever met") but Johnnie never really displays these negative qualities in an abundance deserving of the reputation. For all his supposed self-serving behaviour he's still an anonymous backbencher passed over for government office and stuck in a spectacularly unrewarding marriage. If the intention is for the audience to feel contempt for this character it fails because the overwhelming sensation is of pity. Johnnie's blundering attempts to connect with someone, his besottedness with a woman half his age, his half-hearted participation in an abortive back bench revolt, and his disinterest in constituency affairs hardly makes him a monster even if we disapprove of his attitude and approach.

But while I'm not convinced that this aspect of the script works it's still a very watchable film, and Finch delivers a performance thoroughly deserving of the 1962 BAFTA for Best British Actor. Byrne is a totally believable, fully-formed character loaded down by a lifetime of accumulated flaws and failings that combine to create a mid-life crisis from which he desperately tries to salvage himself. The political manoeuvrings at Westminster and back in Byrne's Yorkshire constituency contribute hugely to the presentation of Byrne as a fully rounded figure, and add fascinating colour and depth to the story.
Given the real life scandals that have erupted in British politics since the film's release in 1961, Byrne's misdemeanors now appear pretty tame but that aura of a lost world just adds to the charm. This is a definite must-see movie for anyone who's serious about film.

LEBANON PA: a big screen canvas but a small screen painter

Writer-director Ben Hickernell's 2010 LEBANON, PA uncomfortably straddles the line between serious drama and Hallmark movie of the week. It wants to be the former but is too often the latter, and makes it all too easy to forget that this is a film shot for cinema release not cable tv.

The story is typical movie of the week fodder - a man at a crossroads in his career and personal life who travels from his own environment to somewhere close to the polar opposite and finds himself - sometimes reluctantly - involved in the lives of others and confronting (also sometimes reluctantly) serious issues of life, love and happiness. At the end of it all he has a better idea of who he is, has affected change in some of those he's encountered in his journey, and has got his 

head in a place where it seems appropriate to drive off into the future.

Josh Hopkins is Will, the mid 30s Philadelphia advertising executive to whom all of the above happens.The trigger is the death of his estranged father, shortly after his long term girlfriend walks out on him. Will makes the drive west from Philly to Lebanon to arrange his dad's funeral and clear out his house. It's just a 2 hour journey into the heartland of Pennsylvania, but for Will it's like a voyage into the unknown, from the vibrant, bustling and most 21st century big city to a quiet, rural small town seemingly still mired in the 1950s. He's initially charmed by the slow-paced allure and friendly locals but soon discovers the downsides to living in an environment where everyone knows everyone else's business. He learns these unpleasant realities through his friendship with the teenage daughter (Rachel Kitson) of his neighbour who confides in him that she's pregnant, and his burgeoning relationship with local schoolteacher Vicki (Samantha Mathis), who also happens to be married.
The film really has nothing new to say about these entanglements nor the culture clash that occurs when big city meets small town, and neither the cast nor the director have the skill to avoid playing them out in an emotionally manipulative style reminiscent of the aforementioned Hallmark movie of the week. This unwelcome sensation is enhanced by excessive lighting which makes most scenes appear too bright and too glossy. I'm all for presenting small-town Pennsylvania in an attractive light (Lebanon is less than 140 miles from my adopted hometown of Lock Haven, PA) but for all its charm I know its never that shiny.
LEBANON PA's early promise of having something worthwhile to say about life, death and the whole damn thing but yields too soon to a story that's formulaic and unrewarding. You'll come to be entranced and (may) stay to be disappointed.

CONFIDENCE: more twists than a Chubby Checker convention

Think 'The Usual Suspects' meets 'Ocean’s Eleven' meets 'Pulp Fiction' and you’ll be halfway to appreciating just how good this film is.
CONFIDENCE doesn’t claim to be the most original crime thriller ever, but it is much more than just another smart-alec example of the genre.
The unfeasibly photogenic Edward Burns stars as Jake Vig, king of the scam artists. He and his crew of polished professionals have just hustled thousands of dollars out of an unsuspecting small time crook, but when the victim and one of his gang turn up dead, Jake realises they must have upset someone pretty big.
That someone is eccentric L.A. crime boss Winston King (Dustin Hoffman). “The King” abhors violence unless it can be used to get him what he wants, and he makes it quite clear he’s less than delighted with Vig’s little stunt. Vig refuses to be intimidated, but offers to repay him by pulling off the biggest swindle of his career.
The scene’s set for a con so complex it requires your full and undivided attention if you’re not to be scammed yourself, and even then I can’t make any promises.
When a glamorous pickpocket (Rachel Weisz), a ruthlessly determined FBI agent (Andy Garcia) and 2 crooked LA cops are added to the mix, Vig rapid realises that just maybe this is a scam too far.
What makes CONFIDENCE so enjoyable is the cast. After a string of unsuccessful romantic comedies, Vig is the role Burns was born to play, while Hoffman oozes sadism as the scumbag crime boss, gnawing at the scenery but managing to stay just this side of overacting.
Garcia’s gamble of playing against type as scruffy and seedy more than pays off, while Weisz acquits herself well in her first big Hollywood movie, seductive and sassy, and delivering a far more credible American accent than many other British thesps.
If you’re a sucker for film noir laced with humour, CONFIDENCE is right up your dark, rain drenched alley.