America's Sweethearts (2001)

People are voting emotionally.

Overrated

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Movie publicist Lee Phillips (Billy Crystal) tries to juggle a crazy director who is holding the movie hostage, and the breakup of the movie's two stars. Eddie Thomas (John Cusack) is terribly jealous of Gwen Harrison (Catherine Zeta-Jones)'s relationship with the weird voiced Hector Gorgonzolas (Hank Azaria). Her last two movies without Eddie has bombed. Lee has to organize a movie junket without anybody seeing the movie. Meanwhile Gwen's dutiful sister Kiki (Julia Roberts) is slowly falling for Eddie.The script written by Billy Crystal, and Peter Tolan takes a few pokes at the movie business. It has a little fun. Billy Crystal is pushing hard for the material. Hank Azaria is doing another stupid voice and is all the more annoying for it. Cusack and Zeta-Jones have little chemistry or great rom-com chops. But there is one thing above all else that annoyed me the most. I cannot buy that Julia Roberts is the ugly duckling. They try to explain it away with her 60 lbs weight loss. Quite frankly, Julia and Catherine operate in the same area of acting. Julia may be slightly better, but this movie needs two women at the opposite ends. Julia can't really pull this off no matter how charming she is. Now if there is a fatter Julia Roberts with 60 lbs on her, she may be great for this role.

The opening scene alone is worth renting this movie for. That's all I'll say about that. I love movies where a standard formula is put in TILT mode, and America's Sweethearts is off-center enough to make it more than a standard "chick flick." The story starts with Lee Phillips, who has just been fired as the publicist for Kingman studios. The breakup of Eddie Thomas and Gwen Harrison, a movie star married couple, has put a dent in the studio's revenue. As he's cleaning out his desk, the head of the studio, Dave Kingman, calls Lee down to the screening room. It seems the director of Eddie and Gwen's final picture, the eccentric (to put it politely) Hal Weidmann, is holding the movie hostage, not letting anyone see it until the upcoming press junket promoting the film. Kingman begs Lee to put together the junket, and keep the press distracted by making it appear the Eddie and Gwen are getting back together again (Lee gets his job back if he's successful). Meanwhile, Eddie is still obsessed with Gwen, even though Gwen has moved onto this Spanish boy toy named Hector. Gwen has continued to make movies on her own, unsuccessfully (as we find out in an amusing scene with her on Larry King's show). Then there's Gwen's ever-suffering but loyal sister/personal assistant Kiki, who helps Lee convince Gwen to appear at the junket.All this is the setup for the aforementioned junket, which is where most of the movie takes place. Roger Ebert, who has been to a million of these things, didn't think the movie did enough to lampoon these kinds of press events, but to the average person who isn't part of the press, it did just fine in skewering the media culture. In fact, the movie does a good job making fun of the shallowness of the industry in general. Lee pulls one publicity stunt after another, usually at the expense of Eddie and Gwen. In one telling scene, after Lee releases some embarrassing information about Eddie to the press, Danny asks him, "Don't you like Eddie?" Lee says he loves Eddie, but, "You're not here to love anybody. You're here to promote a movie." There's also the love triangle which develops between Eddie, Kiki, and Gwen. Even though Eddie's still obsessed with Gwen, he discovers he has feelings for her sister.What makes this movie really work are the performances, which are top notch all around. All the actors involved seem to be having a lot of fun with the material. Catherine Zeta-Jones always plays the shallow, cold-hearted biotch to perfection (as she also does in High Fidelity and Intolerable Cruelty), but her comic timing has never been better than here. John Cusack always does very well playing likable, off-center characters who are on the brink of insanity, and he doesn't disappoint in this movie. As Kiki, Julia Roberts shows off her comic timing as well, particularly with her facial expressions, which are subtle and effective. Stanley Tucci and Christopher Walken are both perfect in their roles as the psychotic studio chief and mad genius movie director, respectively. Ditto the brilliant Alan Arkin as the "wellness guide" at the holistic retreat where Eddie went after his breakup with Gwen and subsequent breakdown. And Billy Crystal shows once again that he's one of the finest comic actors of his generation (he also co wrote the story and screenplay). Rounding out the performances are Hank Azaria, who's a bit too over the top as "the other guy" Hector (the exaggerated lisp was a bit much), and Seth Green as Lee's eager assistant Danny.The end is somewhat predictable (boy ends up with the right girl after pining for the wrong one), but it's the clever and off-center way that the movie gets to that point (with some biting satire along the way) that makes America's Sweethearts several cuts above your basic romantic comedy. It's a chick flick that both of you can enjoy. 8.5

Yet another movie where the script is unfortunately not able to carry the spectators interest for the whole period. Or, in other words, an idea is not enough and the result is disappointing. Having Americas hottest couple breaking up, putting the question "Will they get together again?" and enrich this plot with some characters that should appear quite overdone but in reality are likely to be even more strange is funny for the first 20 minutes. After that: "Blah, blah, blah" and you have to wait literally until another 50 minutes are gone before there's another gag worth mentioning. The end is screwed up with an idea of a film in the film that is even worse. Sorry, it just doesn't work. Unfortunately there are also not the actors best performances to see so why go and watch this film? Take my advice: Spend your time on some other activity.

To be honest, I felt "America's Sweethearts" could have been a complete disaster. The acting is not real good overall, some of the characters (particularly Catherine Zeta-Jones') can be real annoying at times, and the plot was as predictable as they come. I could call just about every scene before it happened, and I was usually right. Nevertheless, the humor in the film (especially from Billy Crystal) saved the film from utter destruction. Even in a lesser film such as this one, Crystal can still make me laugh. For example, take one of my favorite quotes from this film ("Rule #1: Always take credit for what you've done" "Rule #2, before you take credit, make sure the person actually likes what you did.") That's about as funny as the film gets, which is really not too bad. The wisecracks here and there and Hollywood-related jokes make up for some of the poorly-done romance scenes in the film. We honest are not really able to care enough about the characters to make this a good romantic comedy. The ending doesn't leave the audience with a sense of joy like films such as "You've Got Mail" and "The Parent Trap" do. However, since I laughed a few times, I'll admit it wasn't too bad. As far as a Julia Roberts film goes, it's inferior to "My Best Friend's Wedding" but slightly better than "Runaway Bride." Not highly recommended, but it might make a good date film if you don't take it too seriously and set your expectations way low.**1/2 out of ****