Hugh Grant Is DEFINITELY Off The "Hate" List Now With Music And Lyrics!

The Good: Good acting, Fun story, Excellent execution of plot, Fun characters
The Bad: Predictable and simple
The Basics: In a fun, if standard, romantic comedy, a washed-up pop star is given the chance to make music again and finds himself paired with a reclusive and reluctant poet.


For quite some time, I could not stand Hugh Grant. I wasn't too keen on Drew Barrymore either. Barrymore got off my list of actors I wouldn't watch fairly quickly, but I held onto the whole "Hugh Grant What's My Appeal?" joke from Family Guy. Then Grant was good in About A Boy (reviewed here!) and I cheered for him in Love Actually (reviewed here!). With Music And Lyrics, Grant is officially off my "tired of" list and into the category where I see his appeal.

'80's pop star Alex Fletcher, of the group Pop!, has volunteered to participate in a reality show for has-beens and finds himself regretting it. Enter Sophie, a young woman who enters Fletcher's life to water his plants. When Alex's agent, Chris, gets Alex a potential gig writing for one of the hottest pop stars in the world, Alex finds himself with a problem; when he was in Pop!, he wrote the music, while his partner, Colin, wrote the lyrics.

As it turns out, Sophie is quite the gifted lyricist and they soon begin to write music and songs together in a wholly predictable turn of events. So far from his previous limelight, Alex soon illustrates a complete willingness to sell out and fold, which Sophie immediately resents. And what looked like a promising relationship begins to crumble. Fast.

From the opening moments of Music And Lyrics, the film is fun and fairly obvious. Opening with the music video for Pop!'s biggest hit, "Pop Goes My Heart," writer-director Marc Lawrence recreates the schmaltz and utter cheesiness of '80's pop culture perfectly. Not just the hair and wardrobe, but the story style music video combined with the color scheme and the whole way everyone moves makes the viewer instantly believe in the nature and caliber of the group and Alex as an artist. And for those who did not live through the '80's, this sets the mood perfectly. (In the DVD bonus features, there is the unbroken music video and wonderful commentary featuring the behind-the-scenes production of the music video.)

So, from the beginning, Alex is a pretty obvious character, followed around by his agent. As far as the story goes, this puts a significant burden on the character of Sophie. Instead of being starstruck by Alex (one of the two obvious permutations for her character) - a role instead embodied by Sophie's sister Rhonda - Sophie enters the narrative as a young woman with significant damage in her past. Left by a prominent professor who used her story as a career-launching novel, Sophie is hesitant to write anything. Much of the early half of the film involves Alex simply drawing Sophie out of her isolation and reticence and that works nicely as one of the few things that sets Music And Lyrics apart from virtually every other romantic comedy.

And the film is funny, but it does not try so hard to be obviously funny, leaning more toward a dry wit throughout the film and highlighting the romantic aspects of the romantic comedy instead of the comedic ones. As a result, much of the film is produced with a real sense of being tongue-in-cheek, like the pokes at teen pop divas as embodied by Cora. Marc Lawrence wrote the script with a brilliant sense of character in keeping Alex entirely aware of his status as a fallen idol and thus keeping his willingness to sell out at the drop of a dime front and center.

Hugh Grant rises to the occasion beautifully to sell the role. Like his performance in American Dreamz, he plays a disgruntled member of the entertainment community who is displeased by his place in it. Grant is wonderful here in that niche, but he adds more heart to the role, making it distinctly different from the more smarmy performance in American Dreamz. Grant leads the cast with his performance in a way that makes his character breathe but never seem to overpower anyone else who is on screen with him.

Most often, he shares the screen with Drew Barrymore. Barrymore again reaches her potential by playing a somewhat eccentric, insular young woman and those types of roles seem to suit her well. The problem for Barrymore in Music And Lyrics is that we've seen that style performance from her before. She's good at it; it made her performance in Ever After (reviewed here!) something different from what she had done before and her performance in 50 First Dates (reviewed here!) plausible (the the very least). In this film, she simply stays in the niche she pioneered for herself several films ago. In other words, she does not so much give the audience anything new as she does provide them with more of the same to enjoy.

And because Music And Lyrics is not terribly serious or sophisticated fare anyway, it works out just fine. Marc Lawrence, though, gives better than drivel - which is more than most romantic comedy writers do. In Sophie he provides a chance to explore the difficulties of trusting people which is a topic seldom tackled seriously in romantic comedies. Lawrence does it well and his insistence on a slow evolution for Sophie raises the script and what is shown on screen up above the average film, even if barely.

But most of all, Music And Lyrics is just a fun film. On DVD it comes with some commentary, trailers, the music video and a decent commentary track that is almost as enjoyable as the regular film. Anyone who likes a decent romantic comedy and anyone who has a secret passion for the 1980's will find something to enjoy in this film.

For other works by Marc Lawrence, check out my reviews of:
Did You Hear About The Morgans?
Miss Congeniality
The Out-Of-Towners
Forces Of Nature

7/10

To check out how this film stacks up against the others I have reviewed, check out my Movie Review Index Page where the reviews are organized from Best To Worst!

© 2012, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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The Out-Of-Towners Rapidly Runs Out Of Humor

The Good: It's a chance to see Steve Martin.
The Bad: It's not funny, it goes nowhere.
The Basics: So completely unfunny as to not be worth your time, The Out-Of-Towners is truly disappointing.


For those who follow my reviews, I know I tend to "grade" fairly hard on comedies. Part of my reasoning for actually having standards when it comes to rating comedies is: 1. Continuity (a level of trust that my ratings are generally being rated on the same scale to one another) and, more importantly for this argument, 2. Rewatching. Comedies suffer more than any other genre upon repeated viewings. It's hard to find the same thing funny after five viewings, much less twentieth (which is the estimated number of times I've seen The Usual Suspects, reviewed here!). The thing is, great comedy will be entertaining upon repeat viewings. There are some comedies that succeed in being so original or so funny that they may be viewed or listened to on many occasions and still be found to be as enjoyable as the first time.

The Out-Of-Towners is not one such film.

On the most important front, it's not funny. I didn't laugh a single time during viewing the film. That's sad because it was only this morning that I saw a preview of the movie that made me want to see it. Actually, as far as that goes, all of the moments that come closest to humor are in the preview. If you happen to rent Payback (reviewed here!), odds are the tape will have the preview for The Out-Of-Towners. Enjoy it; there's not much in the film to enjoy.

The Out-Of-Towners follows Henry and Nancy Clark on their first trip together alone (without their children) in twenty-four years. The mild mannered Ohio couple take to New York because Henry has a job interview there. When their flight is rerouted to Boston, they're forced to attempt to get to New York City using other means that we, the viewers, are supposed to find funny. Once in New York, we are supposed to be amused by the problems at the hotel (including a cross-dressing hotel manager), in Central Park and on the lawn of an estate. The film leads up to the actual interview.

Along the way, Henry and his wife argue and reconcile about problems in their lives including Nancy's knowledge that their daughter dropped out of college, Henry's unemployment and other nuggets that challenge the their relationship. While these would usually be a plus in most films, the attempts to be funny override so many of the attempts to build characters that by the time they get around to building character, I didn't care. That and I was so sick of Goldie Hawn's whining (which, to her defense, was in character of Nancy).

In short, the characters in The Out-Of-Towners are terrible. It is impossible to become emotionally invested in either of the Clarks because they are so unlikable as to be unwatchable. Part of the problem here is in the use of the talent. The Out-Of-Towners has three real talents in Goldie Hawn, Steve Martin and John Cleese. None of them are used well.

Steve Martin's performance "reads" like an extended Saturday Night Live sketch. One of the bad ones. One of the ones that made the producers wince over the idea of the series being released in its entirety on DVD. And John Cleese uses none of his spontaneity, charm or innate wackiness in his role as the hotel manager. Cleese could be swapped out for a comatose Chevy Chase and still get the same comedic effect.

The only plus side I could find to this film was that it was in good taste. The actors are making a genuine effort, but it's not working. The script isn't funny, so it's hard for the actors to fill the characters with more than there is. In this case, there's so little to work with that not even Steve Martin and John Cleese can make it work. It's pretty sad.

So, if you can find something funny in The Out-Of-Towners, let me know, but at this point, it would take quite a lot for me to sit through it again for you to prove your point.

For other works with Mark McKinney, be sure to check out my reviews of:
The Kids In The Hall - Season 1
The Kids In The Hall - Season 2
Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip

1/10

For other film reviews, check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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Absolute Worst Bet For Any Weekend: Did You Hear About The Morgans? Is Just BAD!

The Good: It DOES end!
The Bad: Not funny, Very predictable character arcs, Terrible acting, Lame plot
The Basics: Dreadfully unfunny, Did You Hear About The Morgans? is a stiff comedy without any humorous moments, which fails to do anything new.


Every now and then, I encounter something that is very pure. I have an experience that is so great or so bad that it leaves me with little to write objectively about. If it is a good experience, I can simply gush about the experience, but I end up feeling stupid and repetitive. On the converse, when something is so bad, I sometimes get to feeling I am kicking it when it is down when I begin to critically analyze it. Did You Hear About The Morgans? falls into that second category. The film is homogeneously bad, which actually leaves me with very little to write about it. And rather than be creative, I want to write one sentence and let that be the ultimate review of this film. That line is:

I did not laugh a single time during Did You Hear About The Morgans? That is all.

Paul and Meryl Morgan have lost the passion in their marriage. While they are very successful in their respective careers, they have no real love for one another and they do not communicate with each other. So, as they move toward their inevitable divorce, they begin to drift and make plans apart. But the demise of their marriage takes an odd turn: one night while out they become witnesses to a mob murder and they suddenly find themselves the targets of a trained assassin! The FBI, needing their witnesses to survive, relocates the Morgans to Wyoming.

Once in Wyoming, Meryl and Paul discover they can do nothing but wait for the FBI to apprehend the contract killer and for the murderer to go to trial. This means they must give up their New York City technologies and lifestyles and learn the slower pace of the Midwest. And under those conditions, their marriage suddenly gets new life.

What to say about Did You Hear About The Morgans? The film is not funny, not clever, not original, nor is it a showcase of the talents of any of the people involved. Hugh Grant is particularly stiff as Paul Morgan and he lacks any sense of his comic timing which made him famous or worth watching in other productions. Similarly, Sarah Jessica Parker can hardly be said to be acting as she is once again playing an uptight New Yorker who is busy beyond belief and entirely superficial. Hers is evidence of good casting more than anything like good acting.

As for the character development, I struggle not to say "there is none." There is character development: the protagonists are not in the same place at the end of the film that they are in the beginning. But the arcs are disgustingly predictable from the overwhelming sense of conflict at the beginning to the forced shared menace/conflict to the mutual frustration in Wyoming which helps bring Paul and Meryl together. The only thing more canned than the regular characters is the appearance of the generic sidekicks in Wyoming in the form of Clay and Emma Wheeler. They serve as guides to deliver the unfunny punchlines ("x doesn't work out here, neither does y") which the viewer sees coming miles away.

And the whole team of FBI agents and U.S. Marshals is comprised of people who could not possibly have made it to where they are supposed to be. And while middle America might be thrilled that there's a movie where their good ole ways are the cure for the Eastern Liberal quandaries of Paul and Meryl, the truth is no one is made more fun of than those same middle Americans in Did You Hear About The Morgans?

I went into this film having seen only a single preview, which didn't impress me and the full film completely lived down to the expectations from the trailer. Hasn't the whole "fleeing from the trained killer fish-out-of-water" comedy been done before? It has and the fundamental problem with Did You Hear About The Morgans? is that it is done again without anything new, original or even a decent sense of humor to it. Instead, this is a particularly droll comedy and the punchline is only on the viewer and the joke is that the studio got your eight bucks if you watch this.

On DVD, Did You Hear About The Morgans? includes the usual bonus features: deleted scenes, a commentary track, and trailers. I could not force myself to watch any of them, I cared so little about this movie.

For other comedies, please check out my reviews of:
Couples Retreat
Excess Baggage
Valentine's Day

0/10

For other movie reviews, please consult my index page!

© 2010, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.


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