Rating: 
Summary: They're Singing in the Desert of missed opportunities.
Review: If you can watch America's Sweethearts without getting too upset that the film dares to update and recycle Singing in the Rain by adding elements of Blake Edwards' S.O.B. and Carrie Fisher's and Mike Nichol's Postcards from the Edge, you'll find a enjoyable cast, some funny scenes and many missed opportunities that would have made a better film then the one you are watching. As in Singing in the Rain the plot of America's Sweethearts centers around a famous movie couple that splits up and for the sake of the studio and it's film gets them back together to at least act nice to each other for the benefit of the press and public. There's a somewhat mousey 'other' woman that blossoms and a key scene centers around the screening of the film.
Julia Roberts was reportedly paid 20 million dollars and she is good in a large supporting role. Jones really seems to enjoying herself, but unfortunately the script over-sells her spoiled actress character more than it has to. The film is set up well, and the cast is willing and able to deliver what is necessary which consists of good comic timing and charismatic appeal. Unfortunately the film decides to spend too much time setting up it's premise and then goes after some rather crude and fairly obvious jokes. A vicious dog that absolutely insists on sniffing crotches is not something particularly original--but the film wants you to think it is. Several jokes about penis size culminate in a scene where the jokes become the focus of the film's biggest scene. Penis jokes aren't new, fresh, or that interesting even when they are as funny as they are here, and to make them the focus of the film's biggest scene, not only disappoints and makes the film impossible to think of as charming , but reeks of the worst kind of desperation. It's as if Howard Stern suddenly made an appearance as Buttman. Not what a romantic comedy or a satire on Hollywood needs. Even if you are amused you know the laughs were cheap and came at the expense of creating a fresher, better written scene. It's the kind of miscalculation that is all over this film. Some scenes work pretty well, others are funny but feel shoved awkwardly into the film and others waste some very capable talent. When Alan Arkin first briefly shows up as a Psychiatrist/self-help guru and then puts a nice spin on the character he is playing, it's fun. But he comes back for one more reprise that's over-done and ruins the joke completely by making sure everyone in the audience gets it - - as in poke you in the ribs and make sure you didn't miss it.... Get it... get it? Billy Crystal's affection for Catskill comic roots is over represented here. Billy we like you, and some of your jokes are funny--the first time. Now if anyone on this planet can make Penis jokes funnier than Hank Azaria can, I am not aware of it. His supporting role as a Latino lover is laugh out loud funny. Never mind that he looks nothing like a Latino lover, his ridiculous accent and go for broke characterization are funny. Unfortunately, they are funny in the kind of outrageous, over-the top manner that is misused in the film. The film wants to be both a charming familiar romantic comedy at times and also an outrageous and sharp satire of Hollywood, spoiled stars and phony press junkets. Blake Edwards already tried to give us an outrageous farce of how phony Hollywood was with his too noisy and slapsticky S.O.B. and we also had Mike Nichol's deliver a better expose of bad Hollywood manners and star abuses in "Postcards from the Edge." The pokes at spoiled stars, media whores and star fawners are not stunning inside revelations which haven't been explored before. Most people know how spoiled stars are and how phony the Hollywood media machine is. There's nothing daring in 'exposing' this stuff to the audience. What would have been daring is if they had concentrated more on the details that are less familiar to the audience but the film does not want to risk being too inside---not when they've bankrolled the film with expensive stars. What a glorious missed opportunity the press junket scenes were since just a few months ago some marketing folks at a major studio were exposed manufacturing phony critics and false quotes to sell movies with. Tsk tsk. IMAGE AND SOUND The film is presented in both a panned and scanned full screen presentation and an anamorphic 2.35:1 widescreen version. The print transfer is good but the film is not visually very exciting and some scenes are innocuously lit. If you ever want a clear reason why widescreen versions of films are preferable to panned and scanned ones just take a look at the first few minutes of this film in the widescreen and then watch it in the panned and scan version. Characters are actually cropped out of shots and the whole mood created by a slo-mo shot is ruined in the pan and scan version. Outside of three trailers there are 5 pretty entertaining deleted scenes from the film available with or without introductions and commentary from director Joe Roth. Most of these scenes would have just about guaranteed the film would have been slapped with an R rating. FINAL WORD: America's Sweethearts starts out with a great deal of promise and then catapults any charm and subtlety it captures with large steeping doses of crude humor and obvious satire. However because it's a PG-13 film (though probably should have been R) every element of where this film goes is compromised. And how vicious can a film about Hollywood really get when it's produced and made and stars Hollywood folks who want to keep working in the system anyway? Some of it is very funny, and the stars charisma though wasted is still enjoyable to watch. Lower your expectations, expect some crude humor and have fun with the film if you can. RATE THIS ONE 2 1/2 STARS. Christopher Jarmick, is the author of The Glass Cocoon with Serena F. Holder a critically acclaimed, steamy suspense thriller.
Rating:
Summary: Not believable
Review: I love Billy Crystal - so I couldn't wait to see this movie. Boy was I disappointed. While all the actors are fantastic, Julia, Katherine, Billy, Hank, and John, I just didn't believe the story. Katherine's character was so ruthless, I didn't believe that John's character could ever like her, much less love her. And, they didn't develop the relationship between him and Julia's character enough to make that believable either...
Witty writing, but the story wasn't enough to make me want to watch it again!
Oh well...I'll just stick with When Harry Met Sally, and City Slickers!
Rating: 
Summary: Something's Missing
Review: I really wanted to like this film due to the incredible cast. Julia Roberts, Billy Crystal, John Cusack, and Catherine Zeta Jones. But something was missing and that would be excitement and hoping one feels when watching a romantic comedy. This is not even a romantic comedy but more of an attempt to show the world how shallow celebrities and Hollywood is. John Cusack is one of the most charming and likeable actors and he is resorted to a role that makes him seem pathetic. The beautiful Zeta Jones is a high profile celeb witch and yes she plays the role very well but I hated her character and was sick of all her of complaining. She lacked the poise and grace that she usually has when seen at awards shows. Billy Crystal is just annoying as the agent trying to get the 2 back together. The only saving grace is Julia Roberts. She is as charming as ever and I really cared about her and hoped that in the end she would win in the end.Hank Azaria, Seth Green, and Christopher Walken are great in their supporting roles and were far more interesting then the leads. A predictable story and unlikeable characters make this film something is wasn't suppose to be. It should have been a feel good romantic comedy that turned out to be an annoying, unsympathtic film that tried to bank on it's first class cast.
Rating:
Summary: FAIR AT BEST ROBERTS TAKES BACKSEAT WHICH HURTS FILM
Review: "Americas Sweethearts" is a bland romantic comedy. John Cusack has no presence on screen and is unbelievable as Catherine Zeta Jones husband in Hollywood, and is more unbelievable as a love interest for Julia. Julia is also unbelievable as a previous overweight person who Cusacks character never looked at twice until she lost weight. (How shallow.). The only good and funny scene in the movie is when Julia Roberts character after finding out Cusack won't confess his undying love for her to Zetas shallow character she goes on an eating binge at the hotel restaurant. This is when the movie finally focuses on Julia, and the movie begins to pick up speed, however it goes right back to the main characters of Cusack and Jones who can't carry a picture on their own. The movie is poorly written, very un-funny, and just sits there like a dead noodle. This is definitely Julia Roberts weakest films since "Mary Reilly" which I think is stronger than this mess. Julia Roberts needs to be the star in her films she is a strong presence like in "Notting Hill", "My Best Friends Wedding", "Erin Brockovich", etc., if she is a minor character they need stronger stars to carry the picture, and Cusack and Jones are not it. Billy Crystal should of thought a lot longer about casting this film before getting it started. This is the first Roberts vehicle not to gross $100 million + at the box office in quite a long time, it grossed around $93 million, and with ticket prices sky rocketing it just shows that this film failed in Roberts territory. A definite dud. 2 stars because Julia appears in it.
Rating: 
Summary: All-Star Cast in Witty, Wacky Farce!
Review: America's 'Favorite Screen Couple' (Catherine Zeta-Jones and John Cusack) has a new film coming out, but everything is in chaos! She's divorced him and shacked up with a lisping Hispanic lothario (Hank Azaria); he's hit the skids in a BIG way, and ended up in a bizarre self-help clinic run by a blithely unaware guru (Alan Arkin); and the whacked-out director (Christopher Walken) is refusing to allow anyone to see the film, holing up in the Unibomber's wooden shack! The frazzled studio chief (Stanley Tucci) turns to his world-wise publicist (Billy Crystal) to do spin control, and everything hinges on how far Crystal, and his 'Ace in the Hole', Zeta-Jones' sister (Julia Roberts), will go to keep 'America's Sweethearts' together for the international press premiere weekend! While this synopsis sounds complicated, the film's tone is light, and the plotline serves more as the basis for a hilarious string of one-liners than as an update of 'The Bad and the Beautiful'. The entire cast sparkles, particularly Cusack and Azaria (who literally steals the film's climax!) Die-hard Julia Roberts' fans may be disappointed that she isn't the focus of the film, but she fits quite well into this top-notch ensemble cast. Two quibbles about the DVD edition; first, there aren't a lot of 'extras' (the film deserves a 'making of' documentary, and director's commentary, at least); and the encryption of the DVD may make it impossible to play on some DVDs (why all DVDs aren't universally compatible, yet, I'll NEVER know!) For these reasons, I'm giving this film 4 stars, instead of 5. If you are a fan of witty comedies that rely more on crisp dialogue than potty humor to make you laugh, or are a fan of any of the film's stars, you're in for a treat! 'America's Sweethearts' sparkles!
Rating:
Summary: very bad romantic comedy
Review: The question before us is this: how does one take an all star cast - a veritable who's who of today's top screen personalities, including Julia Roberts, Billy Crystal, Catherine Zeta-Jones, John Cusack, Hank Azaria, Stanley Tucci, Christopher Walken and Alan Arkin - and produce a film as thoroughly inept and wretched as "America's Sweethearts"? I'm not sure I have the answer to the question, but I am certainly willing to take a crack at formulating some possible explanations. Perhaps the fault lies in the thoroughly insipid and inane storyline, which might actually have provided the pretext for some pretty sharp satire - if only the filmmakers had known what they were doing. In this fictional Hollywood, Gwen Harrison (Zeta-Jones) and Eddie Thomas (Cusack) have been America's favorite couple both on screen and off for a number of years. Their movies are almost guaranteed to be sure-fire box office bonanzas - until now that is. Just recently, Gwen has moved in with a Latin actor named Hector, bringing to an end not only the famous marriage but also the lucrative career of the once-happy couple. Eddie has spent the last year at a Zen-type meditation retreat, trying to come to terms with all that has happened. Meanwhile, the studio is worried about how to promote the soon-to-be-released final film to feature the defunct couple, the solution being to get publicist Lee Phillips (Crystal) to gather everyone involved in the making of the movie together for a press junket at an out-of-the-way hotel in Nevada with the express purpose of convincing the public that there is some chance that the estranged divorcees might be contemplating a reconciliation. As I stated earlier, the plot could provide some juicy fodder for satirizing the workings of the movie industry, but writers Billy Crystal and Peter Tolan have failed to provide even a modicum of wit for the occasion. It's awfully hard to identify with or be charmed by characters who are either self-centered and whiny (Gwen) or wimpy and whiny (Eddie). We really don't like either of these people and, frankly, when we see them together, we don't believe for a second that the movie going public would be as enamored of them as the people in the movie we are watching keep telling us they are. We also don't swallow the fact that Gwen's sister, Kiki (Roberts), would put up with her spoiled sister's tyrannical manipulations for two seconds let alone her whole lifetime. When Eddie and Kiki finally wake up to the truth about Gwen and begin to discover the romantic attraction that exists between them, we feel like we are already five narrative miles ahead of them - a position one doesn't want to be in when the need for audience identification with the characters is as crucial as it is in a film like this one. Most of the attempts at humor in the film are obvious and crude, whether they involve Hector's insultingly contrived Spanish accent, a scene of a dog nuzzling Phillips' crotch, or a juvenile masturbation gag involving Eddie lurking outside Gwen's hotel room. Even the film-within-a-film, when it is finally unveiled to us, is a total letdown. Although Walken brings a cleverness and energy to his overwritten role of the film's eccentric-genius director, the movie that he finally unspools for the curious press and studio onlookers involves humor of only the most obvious kind. That leads to a final confrontation scene - in which the characters act out their little real life drama for the benefit of the dumbfounded and aghast audience - that is utterly idiotic, inane and unbelievable. Crystal's performance as the nervous-Nelly publicist involves little more than nonstop dithering in the form of cynical quips and wisecracks. It is grating and annoying from start to finish. Only Julia Roberts manages to register as a likable person now and then - but even she can do only so much in a role as shallow in its conception as this one is. To say that "America's Sweethearts" is one of the worst romantic comedies of the past several years would be to belittle it. Considering the pedigree of so many of the people involved in its making and the expectations that inevitably go along with that pedigree, "America's Sweethearts" is one of the worst romantic comedies of any number of years.
Rating:
Summary: America's Sweethearts Is Fine, But We've Seen It All Before
Review: With every romantic comedy that Julia Roberts comes out with, you
pretty much already know what it's going to be like and how it's going to end. Well, surprise ! surprise!, this one is no different than any of the others. We've seen this movie done a hundred million times before, and better, but it is still a decent, pleasant little film. Billy Crystal(who also wrote), stars as a publicist who tries to bring a seperated superstar Hollywood couple back together again for the premiere of their new movie. Catherine Zeta Jones and John Cusack are the bickering exes. Julia Roberts is Catherine's once overweight(Ha!) sister. Naturally, Roberts and Cusack begin eyeing each other and realize what was there in front of them this whole time. Are you shocked?. Uh, no. The movie isn't as over the top and screwball as it could've(and should've)been. There a number of good scenes and solid laughs. But, sadly, they don't come often enough. Crystal himself gets many of the best jokes. If you were the writer, wouldn't you write yourself some good doozies?. Seth(I'm Everywhere)Green also shows up as Crystal's assistant. The best part of the whole cast is Christopher Walken, who plays the new film's eccentric, oddball character. Chris Walken playing an eccentric oddball?. Get outta here!. He also has one of the film's best gags involving the unabomber's old wood shack. All in all, this is a nice, slickly produced film. It's been done before, but, if you like these kinds of movies, then it's pretty nice. Not bad, but not great. Julia Roberts would be wise to steer clear of romantic comedies for a while. Cusack is a stand out. I gave it three stars, but it's more like two and a half stars.
Rating:
Summary: Hank Azaria should act in more movies
Review: Here's a Hollywood film that I enjoyed when I saw it, but in retrospect, was only slightly better than the others. John Cusack is awesome, and I've always loved his movies, since the classic 80's comedy Better Off Dead, and more than ever, after one of my all-time favorite comedies, High Fidelity. Julia Roberts cancels out John Cusack. Catherine Zeta Jones is neutral. And Billy Crystal puts the movie in qualitative debt. Luckily, there is Hank Azaria (Tuesdays With Morrie, Mystery Men, The Birdcage, Quiz Show, The Simpsons, and voice of Venom on the 1990's Spider-Man TV show) to put the movie above the mediocre standpoint. His Spanish sleazeball with a lisp is hilarious, and practically makes the movie, along with the lead actor, John Cusack. There's not much depth to this movie, but it's fun for a while, I guess.
Rating: 
Summary: Worst comedy of 2001
Review: Being a fan of Julia Roberts, ever since she won a well-deserved Oscar for her stunning performance in "Erin Brokovich," I made a point of seeing it. Bad mistake. The movie is basically about a obsessed Hollywood superstar (Catherine Zeta-Jones), her put-down sister (Roberts), and the superstar's ex (John Cusack). Their faithful publicist tries to reunite them briefly for the release of their new movie and chaos ensues. What made "America's Sweethearts" so unappealing is the thin, watered script that Billy Crystal himself had wrote it, intending it to be a romantic comedy. What he didn't know was the uneven emphasis he put on romance and irritating comedy that the stars have to act out, without thinking about putting sharp one-liners and not just sight gags. The result is an irritating mess, and only minorly amusing (I put emphasis on minorly) and one of the worst Julia Roberts movies of 2000, not to mention John Cusack's and Catherine Zeta-Jones's too. What I'm looking forward is the "Ocean's 11," which will be more than likely be another Oscar-winning role for even George Clooney or Julia Roberts once again, that it was directed by Oscar winning Steven Soderbergh for "Traffic" and "Erin Brockovich." My advice for any movie lover: Skip this horrible film, unless you're a die-hard Roberts fan. It's guaranteed to leave you with a migraine.
Rating:
Summary: Decent ROM-COM but check out the soundtrack
Review: The movies somewhat formulaic and perhaps a tad dissapointing considering the fine ensemble cast but it's entertaining enough. Julia Roberts and John Cusack are as reliable as ever and Billy Crystal occasionally sparkles, while Catherine Zeta-Jones is required to do nothing but look good and whine a lot. This isn't a great film but it is a reasonable, fun, undemanding romantic comedy. It isn't Shakespeare but you get what it says on the box. Not one for my collection but it was a decent enough night at the movies and would make a good rental to snuggle up to with the one you love. It also boasts an excellent and eclectic soundtrack, with great contributions from the likes of Kelly Levesque, Clara's Star, Mark Knopfler, James Newton Howard, Scapegoat Wax, Invertigo and Franky X Perez. If you liked the movie you'll love the soundtrack. Okay, so it also has Geri Halliwell and The Corrs but all can be forgiven with the inclusion of the song "Falling In Love Again" by Anika Moa. What a beautiful song. I had to buy the album just to hear this one song again. So who is Anika Moa? Apparently she's a twenty one year old half Maori singer songwriter from New Zealand with a number one album called "Thinking Room"! What talent at such a tender age. Her albium's not available outside of the southern hemisphere so far but I've managed to import a copy and well worthwhile it was too. My favourite tracks so far are "Youthful" and "Mother", as well as "Falling In Love Again" which is included on the America's Sweethearts soundtrack (and is apparently about returning to New Zealand). Rent the movie, buy the soundtrack, then listen out for Anika Moa, a star in the making...
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