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America's Sweethearts

America's Sweethearts

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Great Ensemble Film!!!
Review: Simply put, this movie is a nice enjoyable ride...Great performances by all. It's great to see an ensemble cast have a good time together...all to rare an experience in films today. Pop some corn, and have a great 2 hours!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Mega wattage
Review: This is the perfect cast. Who else could you want in a movie besides maybe tom cruis and brad pitt. The actors do a marvelous job (Catherine Zeta-Jones especially played her part of the obnoxious diva quite well) The script was flat and predictable...but who cares? The cast alone makes the movie worth the 2.50 to rent it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: AMERICA'S SWEETHEARTS
Review: AMERICA'S SWEETHEARTS - The illustration of a showbusiness marriage on the rocks. Eddie Thomas(John Cusack) and Gwen Harrison(Catherine Zeta-Jones) are the most famous couple, on and off screen. But their marriage breaks into pieces, because Gwen thinks Eddie is too dull. The break-up sends Eddie straight to a nuthouse and Gwen wants to go on with her life, but the audience cannot get over what she did to Eddie. Now, the last Eddie & Gwen movie ever is about to be promoted and the studio needs it to be successful. Lee Philips(Billy Crystal), the studio publicist, was hired to make people believe that Eddie & Gwen were back together again...so that they will go see that movie. But there are a number of things that go wrong at the press junket, like Gwen's new boyfriend, Hector(Hank Azaria) showing up, and Kiki Harrison(Julia Roberts), Gwen's sister and "abused" assistant, falling in love with Eddie.
A very funny story, very funny and great actors, lots of laughs......a must see and must have movie.... :-)))))

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A Heartfelt, But Silly, Film
Review: Entering the theatre for America's Sweethearts, I was ill equipped for the film that I was about to see. I anticipated a subtle, romantic comedy; I got a silly, character-driven film, and I'm not the least bit dissapointed. America's Sweethearts can at times be very heartfelt and sentimental, and then make an absurd 180 that turns to slapstick humor and likewise creates for a very lighthearted and fun film.

Perhaps the greatest asset from the script by Billy Crystal and Peter Tolan is their use of characters. None of the characters are simple; they all have their indiosyncracies that contribute to the greater plot and most occur quite successfully through the talented acting of the all-star cast.

The plot is flawed perhaps, only because the film concerns too little with the junket (or "hunket" as Hank Azaria hilariously phrases it) and also, and more dissapointingly, the main romantic relationship. I almost don't know where the time went, but the filmmakers could have afforded a little more screen time to these two areas.

All in all, though, any viewer is in for a treat, if they can manage to sustain themselves through some of the more sillier moments. It's a worthy film from some of Hollywood's best!

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Tries to hard, but falls flat (in every way) on it's face...
Review: I like John Cusack. I've liked him since Better Off Dead, Say Anything, and every other 80s movie he was in. His best characters seem to fall between hapless loser (B.O.D.) and nice guy with quirks (Grosse Pointe Blank, Say Anything). Here he tries to pull off a Blockbuster movie (it was not), by trading his tried-and-true characters for a boring and lifeless one.

I also like pre-Egotistical Blowhard Julia Roberts (before her coveted Oscar). She is simply not convincing as a homely underdog, and contrary to movie posters and trailers, has very little screen time. Catherine Zeta Jones is a fairly descent actress, as well, but is not quite suited for comedy. Her part as the wench would actually have been better played by Roberts, in my opinion.

Director Joe Roth said he wanted to make a movie like they used to - Some Like it Hot, His Girl Friday, etc. - where the characters play well off each other. I guess he though that he could buy the chemistry he wanted. Big egos together on screen sometimes work (Heat, The Score), but in this sorry movie, everyone seems to try to outdo the other. Some parts are funny, but the laughs were not consistent or lasting.

On a side note...this movie contains a surprising amount of crude humor, which Some Like it Hot and His Girl Friday successfully avoided.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Stars, satire (?) ........... script??
Review: A film with good potential, great stars let down by an appaling script. Hank Azaria and Christopher Walken gave good performances to squeeze an ounce of humour out of the film, and Julia Roberts was her usual self in the 'hopeless romantic cinderella' role she seems to have made her own.

I think this film fails to make its mind up whether it is a romantic comedy or a satire on the industry and as a result fails to be either. The film tries to deal with the issue of stars. It portray's Zeta Jones as the superficial, beautiful product of an industry and her sister, Roberts, as the human being. I think what the film is trying to say is that the two lead one life and this is the only way to lead a hollywood life. Roberts acting out the administrative work of Zeta Jones' life while Zeta Jones plays the PR side. In fact it is not a life as Roberts and Zeta Jones have no personal lives. Roberts only finds happiness when leaving her sister's side to be with Cusack. Its a story we've seen time and time again all the way back to cinderella.

I dont think the film explores enough the differences between a star and an actor. An actor is someone who acts for a living whereas a star is a manufactured product of a society and industry. We are shown however, how a director, working purely for the love of film, and an star, working for their own image, can conflict. This is a reality of hollywood and is explored shallowly in the movie. However there are no actors in the movie, only stars. Cusack does begin to see how superficial the life is but at the end of the day he is still half of hollywood's darling couple. The film gives little insight into the creation of a star as it begins when the characters are falling stars in need of saving their careers. To do this the film would have had to explored the characters early acting background i.e. before they were famous.

So does the audience get the stars it deserves? Well they certainly don't get the film they deserves after paying to get in. But to answer the previous question I think they probably do and this is something that is shown quite well in the films begining montage of a gwen and eddie filmography. This piece shows how the two are immortalised by the media to be the ideal couple that everyone should aim to be like, much like Cruise and Kidman were through the 90's.

The theme of love and relationships in this film is grossly mis-managed. What kind of message are we sending out to young women and girls when we show a slightly fat woman who cannot get herself a man or a life until she has lost weight or feminised in the audiences eyes? This suggests that Cusacks attraction to Roberts is purely physical which seemed to be the only attraction he had to Zeta Jones to. However this is probably a realism of hollywood realtionships.

There are two things I liked about this movie. One was the way in which the film explored the role of the management, PR men and publicists and the second the final press screening. The publicists in the film are shown as slimy and greedy. Even though this is stereotypical of the character type it reigns true in such a superficial industry. Secondly, how they managed to make the final press junket not completely predictable and bland is beyond me. However I have a feeling Azaria's obssession with certain parts of his body had something to do with it! The way in which the characters then play off each other in this scene is also good.

However overall I think the film was confused. With better scriptwriters, that won't waste John Cusack's talent, and a better narrative that isn't blatently obvious 2 minutes after the curtain is raised this film could have been, perhaps, mediocre at best.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Flat and Boring
Review: Flat, boring and completely unsympathetic romantic comedy that completely wastes the talent of everyone involved. Billy Crystal (who unfortunately wrote and produced) plays a publicity director at a major Hollywood studio who finds himself bound in problems when he is forced to reunite estranged Tom-and-Nicole-like couple Gwen Harrison and Eddie Thomas (Catherine Zeta-Jones, John Cusack) for a press junket of the last movie they've made together. Trouble is, they hate each other, and getting them in the same room again is going to be more difficult than it seems. Adding to the complications, Gwen's sister and assistant Kiki (Julia Roberts) has a bit of a jones for Eddie, Gwen is shacked up with a latino lover (Hank Azaria, doing a heterosexual version of his character in The Birdcage) with a real jealousy complex, and Eddie finds himself drawn to both women simultaneously without knowing which way to go. Despite all the witty lines and a few funny moments, there is not a whiff of inspired comedy in this insipid film, nothing important enough ever happens to chase away the utter boredom it pulls over you, and none of the star quality we've been seeing by Julia Roberts of late (even The Mexican was worth watching for her) is in evidence here. It is just not possible to enjoy a film full of such annoyingly selfish and inhuman people. To be avoided at all costs!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: America's Sweethearts
Review: A stella cast, America's Sweethearts illustrates the statement 'There's no biz like show biz?with precision. This is a movie where the division between what's real and what's not is made very clear through the usage of star stereotypes and qualities. It provides a behind the scenes look on how a studio sells a blockbuster to the press, and it goes into its extremes. Unfortunately, those of us who are 'star gazers?will find that we have been cheated on to a sense that our idols are not who we think they are. This is an interesting and humorous composition on the so-called 'glamorous business?

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Big disappointment!
Review: I think I laughed once during this entire film. If Hollywood thinks being selfish, shallow, and manipulative is funny, I've got news for them. It's not. It is very sad that Julia Roberts' character has to lose weight to be noticed by the man she loves - not to mention that her relationship with her sister is very pathetic. She (Julia Roberts) is the one redeeming character in this movie, but is not focused on enough. The trailer for this film suggested hilarity and sweetness - of which the film has neither. It is simply a sad commentary on Hollywood and is too realistic to be funny.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: This movie was so slow. The ending couldnt come fast enough.
Review: I had a hard time with this movie the actors were good. The show had nothing intresting in it. It was a movie you didnt mind getting up and taking a walk.the movie wasnt enough to keep me intrested.


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