pkarnold

The first thing I noticed in this film was the farmhouse, a caliche road, and the mailbox--and I knew it was rural Texas. Then I noticed a couple of uncles sitting on their front porch with shotguns, and a young teenage boy not knowing exactly what to think. I was hooked immediately when flipping through the TV channels and seeing Secondhand Lions.

This film was made in Pflugerville, a suburb northeast of Austin, and of course there is a rural road, a farm house, and stock tank (pond). It was the first thing that caught my attention, and it felt like Texas. And then there was Michael Cain and Robert Duval playing characters in Texas. I've seen this movie five times or so, and it is not difficult to imagine Robert Duval playing a character from Texas. However, Michael Cain, well if his Texas accent wasn't perfect, his character was perfectly played! And as brilliant as Cain might have been, Robert Duval was just as good as Robert Duval can be, and that's about as good as it gets. Cain plays Garth, and Duval plays Hub and the 13-or 14-year-old Walter is basically dumped with the uncles by his mother one afternoon. The uncles aren't happy about the situation. Walter's not happy about the stranding with the uncles. But the audience is in for a treat as this story develops.

While Haley Joel Osment played a believable Walter, and Kyra Sedgwick was also excellent as Mae the mom, the movie's writer and director Tim McCanlies has to be given credit for a realistic setting, and an amazing story that allows character development, and what might be a pretty bad situation, child abandonment with strange relatives, to become a wonderful story.

Yes, Cain and Duval play curmudgeonly uncles, but they also play loving and caring uncles who grow so close to Walter, they try to figure out how to protect him from his irresponsible mother. Work in some traveling salesmen, that occasionally succeed in getting past the shotgun blasts from the front porch, to sell garden seeds (in a variety of packages, but only corn grew), or to sell a sickly lioness, and this plot is wonderful.

The lioness is nurtured back to health by Walter, but one day she escapes and heads into the garden of fully grown corn. I probably would have named this movie "Lions in the Cornfield," because that is an extremely strong image from this movie, and seeming ridiculous situation. But Secondhand Lions actually uses the symbol of the uncles as aging, yet protective lions who have had better days, and Jasmine the lioness, to communicate all that is quirky and good in life.

As strong as Duval and Cain may be in their acting roles, the story is equally as idealistic in siding with right, and opposing evil. When a movie is idealistic, and believable, and fun, I can't help but give this film a solid recommendation (9 of 10 stars).

There are occasions when I like a sequel more than the original. Be Cool is one of these. I liked Get Shorty, but it was a little disturbing with some of the violence. I honestly think that Be Cool is much funnier. One way I know I like a movie is if I am channel surfing and I see a movie I know and I stop to watch it again. Well, I did that with Get Shorty the other night, and I realized I like Be Cool better.

I think the main reason is the comic performances by actors like Vince Vaughn, who plays a bumbling, silly gangster wannabe (Raji). He is hung out over the edge of the building and he tries to spell his name and can't do it and that cracked me up. I also like Cedric the Entertainer who plays a movie producer (Sin LaSalle) with hired gangster enforcers that he has to tell to be quiet in his upscale neighborhood because they're playing their SUV stereos too loud.

Dwayne Johnson (The Rock from WWE) plays a recording star-wannabe/enforcer for the Vince Vaughan character, and is very funny. Robert Pastorelli gets a fun appearance as a mafia assassin (Joe Loop), and chokes to death eating a ham and coleslaw sandwich as Vince Vaughan tries to intimidate him with a red aluminum baseball bat.

So maybe I'm the only person that liked this movie, and the comic memories it has for me. Just to give you an idea of other sequels I like better than the originals there's Die Hard II, and Star Trek II.

Add in another good comic performance by Andre' Benjamin (Dabu) and I must say this is a funny, enjoyable movie at least for me. Perhaps people don't like this movie because it seems like John Travolta (Chili Palmer) is pretty much a straight man for Vince Vaughn, Cedric the Entertainer, and Andre' Benjamin, but hey you don't have good comedy without a good straight man. And here's my spoiler, I liked the ending, and the unique way the credits were rolled.