Thoughts on 'Step Up,' 'Phat Girlz' and 'Finding Home'
Burbank, California—As the busy summer season comes to a close, a couple of movies missed my notice. The awful Step Up is a huge step down, which probably won't hurt its box office tally. For a genre that peaked decades ago with Fred Astaire's delightful dance pictures, it is hard to imagine a lower status.
That's not charismatic lead Channing Tatum's fault and his good looks and sincerity are a big part of Step Up's appeal. Tatum's moves—it can't truly be called dancing—are physically demanding and he shows he knows how to do an exercise on the floor, but this hip hop twist on a Fame-like performing arts high school slips into an inner city Boys Town and, lacking anything original, it buckles and folds. Tatum has presence, but he ought to set his sights higher and stop mumbling yo-this and yo-that. Let's hope his future lies in more dimensional roles—and better movies.
Another urban cliché, Phat Girlz, starring the oversized Mo'Nique, is unbearable, even on DVD and with nothing else to do. An opening montage cuts to obese Mo'Nique trying on various clothes that don't fit, while she makes fun of people for being trim and attractive. By the time the racist barbs attacking interracial couples start flying, it's time to reach for the remote—and it's time to eject when she makes fun of O.J. Simpson's dead ex-wife, murder victim Nicole Brown Simpson. Fox ought to be embarrassed they made this garbage.
Finding Home, a 2005 release directed by Lawrence Foldes, is a much improved pick for home entertainment. The modest, sleepy affair is the story of a young woman (Lisa Brenner, Heath Ledger's lover in The Patriot) who unravels past mysteries at a lakeside bed and breakfast in Maine. The slow-moving tale is far from perfect, but it holds. Both the scenery and the soundtrack are beautiful, and the best reason to watch is the cast, which is itself an admirable achievement.
Only in Finding Home will one rediscover the late Jason Miller—the young priest in The Exorcist—in his last role, Justin Henry (Dustin Hoffman's and Meryl Streep's son in Kramer Vs. Kramer), Louise Fletcher (Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) and the always compelling Genevieve Bujold (Anne of the Thousand Days, Coma). Seeing such sharp actors in good performances is its own reward.
Music Notes
The Hollywood Hills inspired Tony Lucca's latest album, Canyon Songs, a collection of personal, soft rock songs that's easy on the ears. In ten tunes that please a variety of tastes, the t-shirt and blue jeans singer-songwriter—a former Disney Channel Mickey Mouse Club Mouseketeer—strums his acoustic guitar in clean arrangements and croons about girls named Julia and Sarah Jane and "The Hustler, the Widow and the Boy from Detroit." Lucca's Canyon Songs are definitely worth a listen.
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• Scott Holleran's Past Columns
Related Links
• Finding Home on DVD
• Singer Songwriter Tony Lucca Official Web Site
• Tony Lucca's Canyon Songs on CD
That's not charismatic lead Channing Tatum's fault and his good looks and sincerity are a big part of Step Up's appeal. Tatum's moves—it can't truly be called dancing—are physically demanding and he shows he knows how to do an exercise on the floor, but this hip hop twist on a Fame-like performing arts high school slips into an inner city Boys Town and, lacking anything original, it buckles and folds. Tatum has presence, but he ought to set his sights higher and stop mumbling yo-this and yo-that. Let's hope his future lies in more dimensional roles—and better movies.
Another urban cliché, Phat Girlz, starring the oversized Mo'Nique, is unbearable, even on DVD and with nothing else to do. An opening montage cuts to obese Mo'Nique trying on various clothes that don't fit, while she makes fun of people for being trim and attractive. By the time the racist barbs attacking interracial couples start flying, it's time to reach for the remote—and it's time to eject when she makes fun of O.J. Simpson's dead ex-wife, murder victim Nicole Brown Simpson. Fox ought to be embarrassed they made this garbage.
Finding Home, a 2005 release directed by Lawrence Foldes, is a much improved pick for home entertainment. The modest, sleepy affair is the story of a young woman (Lisa Brenner, Heath Ledger's lover in The Patriot) who unravels past mysteries at a lakeside bed and breakfast in Maine. The slow-moving tale is far from perfect, but it holds. Both the scenery and the soundtrack are beautiful, and the best reason to watch is the cast, which is itself an admirable achievement.
Only in Finding Home will one rediscover the late Jason Miller—the young priest in The Exorcist—in his last role, Justin Henry (Dustin Hoffman's and Meryl Streep's son in Kramer Vs. Kramer), Louise Fletcher (Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) and the always compelling Genevieve Bujold (Anne of the Thousand Days, Coma). Seeing such sharp actors in good performances is its own reward.
Music Notes
The Hollywood Hills inspired Tony Lucca's latest album, Canyon Songs, a collection of personal, soft rock songs that's easy on the ears. In ten tunes that please a variety of tastes, the t-shirt and blue jeans singer-songwriter—a former Disney Channel Mickey Mouse Club Mouseketeer—strums his acoustic guitar in clean arrangements and croons about girls named Julia and Sarah Jane and "The Hustler, the Widow and the Boy from Detroit." Lucca's Canyon Songs are definitely worth a listen.
$
• Scott Holleran's Past Columns
Related Links
• Finding Home on DVD
• Singer Songwriter Tony Lucca Official Web Site
• Tony Lucca's Canyon Songs on CD
