Mississippi Burning - *****

If you look at any film guide from the period, Mississippi Burning usually rates about 3 out of 5 stars. I'm not sure why this film, which was nominated for a number of Academy Awards (including a win for best cinematography), was generally though of as just a bit above average by most critics.

Whether it was the controversy over liberties with history (as the director often points out, it's a dramatization based on real events with fictitious characters, not a documentary), or it just got lost in the crowd in a year that also gave us Bull Durham, Die Hard, Rain Man, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and the even bigger Willem Dafoe film, The Last Temptation of Christ, but whatever the case, it was clearly an oversight as Mississippi Burning is now, justifiably considered a classic.

There are many strong performances here, including Brad Dourif as a racist deputy, and Frances McDormand as his wife, but the film hangs on the two key leads played by Willem Dafoe and Gene Hackman, two actors who can almost always be counted on to deliver electrifying performances.

The film deftly weaves almost every emotion in the book together in a tale about the FBI's investigation of the murder of Civil Rights activists in 1964 Mississippi. It is a detective story a little reminiscent of the 60s film In the Heat of the Night, with a northern detective paired with a (in this case former) Southern Sheriff, but in this case the tale is rooted in truth. Where it takes liberties with the facts, it does so in the interest of conveying the emotions of the time, and thus remains a relevant and powerful piece of film making.

Madhouse - ***

Madhouse is like every other Vincent Price horror film, which is to say it has a mediocre script buoyed by Price's performance, meaning on a scale of 1-10 it would rank about a five or six.

But, Madhouse has a couple extras going for it that make it just a tiny bit more enjoyable. First, Price's co-star is the one and only Peter Cushing, and the scenes they share are excellent, even when they aren't talking about anything consequential.

Second is the gimmick that Price and Cushing are playing aging horror movie actors, in other words, characters like unto themselves. This not only adds believability, but allows the producers to throw in a bunch of clips from old Vincent Price films as if they were showing clips from his character Paul's past work. For the horror movie buff, that means the chance to pick out actor and movie references throughout.

If you've seen no other Vincent Price horror films, I wouldn't recommend starting with this one - not just because it's not one of his best, but also because the funnest part of this movie are its references to all his other movies. In other words, watch this after you've seen the best of his 50s and 60s work.

The Royal Tenenbaums - *****

Before The Royal Tenenbaums was even made, I knew that Wes Anderson was a unique voice on the cinematic landscape, even if I wasn't quite sold on the cult popularity of Bottle Rocket and Rushmore. To me it seemed that Anderson was mixing a certain amount of populist storytelling with an obvious use of kitschy retro styling in a calculated-to-appeal to Generation Y approach that I found simultaneously entertaining and eye-rolling.

But then came The Royal Tenenbaums, and everything just clicked. Despite all the accolades for later efforts (like the recent Grand Budapest Hotel), The Royal Tenenbaums, to my mind is Anderson's greatest film creation to date.

A lot of the credit goes to the ensemble cast. In Luke Wilson, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ben Stiller, Angelica Huston, Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Danny Glover, Alec Baldwin, and especially lynchpin Gene Hackman (who is always outstanding in every role he plays); Anderson has assembled a cast of some of the most underrated dramatic actors in Hollywood around the turn of the millennium - either because they were still up-and-coming, or in the case of the more seasoned veterans, largely overlooked actors whose greatest successes were from the 70s and 80s. In both cases, the talent was eager to prove themselves, steal scenes and chew the scenery, which works well with Anderson's everybody's-quirky-and-nobody-is-the-straight-man type storytelling.

But The Royal Tenenbaums hits what Bottle Rocket and Rushmore were aiming for. By acknowledging from the start that the titular Tenenbaum family is not normal, the lack of a straight man in a major role as a point of reference does not hinder this film the way it does with those prior films.

Like all Wes Anderson films, The Royal Tenenbaums demands that the audience sit tight, give up control, and observe events as they are spoon fed, the story by a narrator (in this case the affable Alec Baldwin). But if you are prepared to accept that, it can be quite engrossing for all its contrived glory.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier ****
Captain America: The Winter Soldier may not be the perfect Marvel movie, but it is the best of this year's crop, and possibly the best solo Marvel superhero (non-team) movie so far.

Why? Because Captain America: The Winter Soldier has learned what all superhero films should learn - that the superhero doesn't make the movie, it should first be a good story - science fiction, mystery, thriller, whatever - and then the superhero should be placed in that story. Too often superhero movies are simply 'origin' stories for the superhero and they fight a supervillain - the end. Captain America: The Winter Soldier is actually a thriller, specifically, a spy thriller (ala James Bond), where the protagonist happens to be Captain America. That's the difference, and what a difference it makes.

Could it be better? Yes, there's still a lot of room for improvement here. Robert Redford appears as a member of a covert organization (SHIELD) that is compromised from within (hmmm... where have we seen this before *cough* Three Days of the Condor... *cough* Spy Game), and from the get-go, you just know he's going to turn out to be the bad guy, but O.K.

Also the 'comic book physics' get pushed a little too far at times. Captain America should be able to do superhuman things to a point, but he really isn't Superman, just an augmented human. Not only are some of the things a little too physics defying, but by making him such an uber-badass all the time it tends to paint him into a corner. For example, at one point he surrenders when he's surrounded by a group of armed men pointing guns at him. That makes sense. But what doesn't make sense is why he's surrendering to a group of armed men pointing guns at him this time, when all throughout the film he's taken on groups of them, including an aircraft shooting at him - with him just dodging the bullets, and now suddenly he thinks he can't do it again, despite having done it just an hour ago?

But those things can be overlooked given the smooth forward momentum of the entire story. Large parts for Nick Fury, Black Widow, and Falcon also really enhance the feeling that is a story about a world of super spies (Hell, even Batroc 'zee leeper' makes an appearance as a terrorist), and not just a Captain America saves the world type 'superhero' film.

That does mean sacrificing a little of the patriotic American-centric nature of the character (hey, you knew they were going to do that anyway, given the reliance of the studio on foreign market success), but at least it does include some commentary on the state of the U.S., with a subtext hinting at the NSA bulk data collection, and the controversial drone program downplayed but evident.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier has raised the bar a little for superhero movies going forward, let's see if its successors are up to the challenge.

The Wicker Man (2006) **
(and also ****)
I've given this film both a two star rating (and that's being generous) for overall quality, and also four stars for kitschy fun, because this attempt at remaking the 1973 cult classic of the same name goes so badly off-track that it becomes one of the most unintentionally hilarious bad films of the past decade.

Hollywood remakes in general tend to go poorly, especially remakes of classics, but there are so many missteps here it boggles the mind. The original was an English film and contrasted a believable stiff-upper-lip modern Brit encountering a pagan cult still practicing ancient Celtic rites in the remote islands off the coast of Scotland. As such, it was completely believable. This version however decided to relocate the cult to the U.S. of course, which automatically stretches the credibility. But not somewhere in, say, New England, oh no, it was set in the islands of the Pacific Northwest, a place Hollywood loves to shoot for budgetary reasons.

But taking the ancient Celtic cult about as far away from the British Isles as possible in the U.S., save maybe Alaska, was just the beginning. The lead role was given to none other than Nic Cage, whose (ahem) limited acting range have helped make bombs out of a lot of other genre pictures. Here Cage does not disappoint, turning in a performance so wooden that you might think the title refers to his character.

Cage plays police officer Edward Malus, who goes to the island to investigate the disappearance of a girl who looks identical to a girl who he failed to save in a car crash a few months earlier. Despite near constant flashbacks, to that scene, it's never explained, with even such details as who was driving either vehicle left completely unresolved.

These annoying, persistent flashbacks aren't the only intrusive and unexplained scenes though. Soon Malus starts having flashbacks to things that never actually happened in what is obviously a desperate attempt by the filmmakers to inject some sort of visual shock value into the otherwise lifeless film. In one particularly funny sequence, Malus rescues a drowned girl only to flashback to not having rescued the drowned girl, before flashing back to having rescued the drowned girl, before showing in the present that he hasn't in fact rescued anyone - all through a series of jump cuts. Despite this and other attempts at shock value, this PG-13 film is actually tamer, with nothing to rival the pagan debauchery of its predecessor of more than 30 years!

Eventually Malus actually has to don a bear costume (that is funnier than the 'pagan' outfits Dan Akroyd and Tom Hanks wear in the comedy remake of Dragnet) in order to infiltrate one of the cult's sacred rites.

There's so much more I could go into, but I'm going to leave it at that and say grab some beers and some buds and check this out (the theatrical version is preferred over the 'unrated' version for maximum lulz), you will be rolling on the floor with laughter before the first ten minutes are up!

The Artist *****

It's kind of ironic that a tale of the Golden Age of Hollywood like this could only be made outside of Hollywood today - by the French no less.

But it kind of makes sense, when you think about it. It's a day and age where Hollywood is only interested in producing enormous budget tent pole films; and Hollywood doesn't seem to have a lot of respect for its own history, judging by all the sequels and reboots that care more about CGI than story.

The French however have a long history of appreciation for the art form of cinema (they can after all make a strong case for having originated the medium). And that appreciation shines through in spades in the film The Artist.

The Artist tells the story of two actors, one seasoned leading man 'George Valentin', and the other rising starlet 'Peppy Miller', in the early days of motion pictures. The two have a rocky romance complicated by the fact that the man's career is thrown into a tailspin with the advent of 'talkies' just as the woman's begins blossoming. No doubt inspired by similar events in the lives of real stars of the silver screen.

But, The Artist, does more than tell a story set in that time period, it actually adopts the style of the period, being entirely black and white and with musical accompaniment replacing dialogue. More than that, though, the film actually emulates the storytelling form of the period, there is a human-ness in Jean Dujardin's George Valentin that is reminiscent of the kind of character Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton might play, a good-natured fellow buffeted by fate.

The Artist is one of the best films about the Golden Age of film ever produced, and is highly recommended.

The Cider House Rules - ***1/2

The Cider House Rules got a lot of attention, both positive and negative. But in order to fully evaluate the film we have to first eliminate the two most extreme groups who praise or deride the film.

Every artist has a legion of fans who extol the virtues of everything related to said artist, regardless of the actual quality. Such is the case with novelist John Irving, who also wrote the screenplay, and whose fans overwhelmingly embrace the film as a masterpiece.

On the other end of the spectrum lie the radical detractors, mostly pro-life advocates who believe the film endorses a pro-abortion position, though that point is highly debatable.

Once these two groups have been discounted, audiences are still divided, and rightly so. The film is in fact a touching coming-of-age story set in wartime New England. But it is also true that the film is contrived, melodramatic and highly overrated.

Ultimately, The Cider House Rules is a good, though not outstanding film where plot and theme take a backseat to romance and sentimentality. If you think that sounds like something you'd like, you're probably right. If on the other hand you think that sounds too sappy for you, you're also probably right.

The Deep End ***

Let's get one thing straight right off the bat, 'The Deep End' is a thoroughly average thriller of the sort you've seen dozens of times: person A gets killed; person B may or may not have done it; person C blackmails person B. In fact I would have totally skipped this movie entirely if it wasn't for a curious thing I noticed, namely average movie goers generally didn't particularly like the film very much, yet critics were generally pretty positive. That disparity interested me, and so I gave it a watch.

The most obvious reason for the praise is the presence of film critic darling Tilda Swinton, who in fact was nominated for a Golden Globe for this film, and it's easy to see why - she definitely carries the film as the blackmail victim. Any average actress in that role and I probably would dock it at least half a star. But there are also a few small things that distinguish this thriller from the rest of the pack - not by much, they are small things after all, but nevertheless worth noting.

First is the art direction. The whole film is blue. I mean very blue. The lighting is blue. The sets are blue. Everyone dresses in blue, and most of the props are blue. It's a little like a Picasso painting from his blue period. As you might expect, there are some notable exceptions, custom chosen to stand out against all this blue. One is the blackmailer's car, a bright red Chevy Nova, and the other is a bright red coat worn by Swinton. What exactly the filmmakers were trying to communicate through these motifs I'll leave it up to you to decide, however the film at least deserves some credit for it's aesthetic sensibilities.

The other thing that's noteworthy, and probably what makes the film see much more average than it probably did at the time, is that the whole blackmail scheme revolves around exposing Swinton's son not only as a potential murder suspect, but also as being gay. It's pretty clear that in the days of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' that would've packed a greater punch. But it's almost hard to see this movie even being made nowadays - the murder/blackmail scheme may be timeless, but the closeted homosexual twist really isn't much of a twist. And given that most audiences saw this on video (it only did modest box office), chances are this too accounts for some of the disparity in ranking.

I can't complain; predictable though it sometimes is, the dramatic talents of not only Swinton, but the supporting cast as well, make for entertaining viewing.

10 Things; 15 Years Later ***1/2

One of the trends during the 1990s was movie studios making films based on the classics, especially Shakespeare (possibly because they'd run out of reliable new material). Bringing films like Clueless, Emma, Romeo + Juliet and others to a new generation of teens, who may or may not be familiar with the source material. And just to broaden the appeal, most were heavily retro-80s in style - perhaps an attempt to keep the John Hughes teen-machine running after that bankable director's retirement from filmmaking.

One of the most memorable of this crop of hybrid1980s-meets-pre-20th Century Literature was 10 Things I Hate About You, an adaptation of The Bard's The Taming of the Shrew, starring two hot up-and-coming actors, Julia Stiles and Heath Ledger.

It's now 15 years later, Stiles has settled into a comfortable if less stellar than anticipated career as a working actress, Ledger rocketed to stardom and then self-destructed a half dozen years ago, and the 80s are now a solid quarter century behind us. So how does the film hold up? Pretty good actually. Surprising for a fluffy romantic comedy aimed squarely at a teen audience. Thank the material, the filmmakers, the talent, whatever, but what should have been a disposable, trendy, adolescent confection still manages to charm, despite the obvious contrived nature of getting a story based on medieval marriage customs to work in a modern context.

Stiles and Ledger are both playing the stand-offish cool kid here - which is a nice twist from the one heart-on-their-sleeve, one hard-to-get matchmaking these films usually have. The film plays it's humor cards in a light-breezy way, never trying to beat you over the head with the jokes, and the music, mostly by third wave ska and pop bands covering 70s and 80s songs (another 90s trend), is infectiously fun.

10 Things I Hate About You may not be the high art people think of when they think of Shakespeare, but it is greatly entertaining, and remember that really was old Bill's intentions after all.

Four Lions  ***1/2

Needing neither big budget production values, art direction or set pieces, nor requiring expensive gear to produce, the mockumentary has seen explosive proliferation recently as the gateway to entry for beginning filmmakers. Fortunately, as long as one has good writing and onscreen talent, it's very hard not to make a mockumentary that's will be seen as at least passably good by those who enjoy the genre.

One of the more amusing ones in recent years was Four Lions. The film depicts the misadventures of four incompetent Islamic jihadists. Imagine This is Spinal Tap except the story follows terrorists rather than a heavy metal band, and you have a pretty good idea of what the movie is like. While the film is never quite as funny as This is Spinal Tap (really, what is?), when it hits the mark, it really hits the mark. Minor spoiler: the terrorists plan to bomb a marathon prefigured the actual Boston Marathon bombing by a few years! It is a tad dated (it was made at a time when Osama Bin Laden was still at large), but worth a look if you can appreciate good dead-pan black humor.

Lone Survivor ****

Look, there are no surprises here. Even if you have no knowledge of the events experienced by the members of SEAL Team 6 in Afghanistan, you can pretty much guess what happens to them from the title what happens, and given that there is only one marquis 'name' star, you pretty much know who's going to be the last one standing at the end of the film. But what an intense journey it is! The film chronicles the true story of a group of Navy SEALs and their ill-fated mission. The tension never stops, and if you can deal with it (it's quite graphic), it's worth seeing.

The Amityville Horror ****

Beginning with William Castle's Rosemary's Baby in 1968, the B-movie studios discovered they could compete with Hollywood's big studios by supplying relatively low cost horror films in the Satanic/demonic possession vein as suspense is cheaper than special effects, and audiences were hungry for horror. By 1979 that had led to American International releasing The Amityville Horror.

For my money, the original Amityville Horror is better than the oft-cited 'best horror movie of all time', The Exorcist. While it shamelessly rips-off The Exorcist, it doesn't rely as heavily on shock value for instead building suspense in a day-by-day narrative that feels like it's leading to impending doom.

To be sure, there are a number of things that just don't work. Like a lot of haunted house type horror stories, it utterly fails when the entities so closely associated with a physical structure seem to be able to do things like affect cars on the road miles away, or attack people through phone lines (yes, it really happens in the movie).

And The Amityville Horror not only rips off The Exorcist, it also rips off The Shining, as male lead James Brolin slowly undergoes a mental and physical transformation similar to what Jack Nicholson's character experiences in The Shining.

But if you're going to steal, steal from the best, and what The Amityville Horror takes from other films it spits back with enough scares of its own to make it one of the most memorable horror films from a decade known for them.

Bottle Rocket ***1/2

A lot of people dismissed Bottle Rocket when it came out back in 1996, and to be fair, it was pretty easy to dismiss a cast of then-unkowns, and a young director making a quirky crime comedy-drama. In the years following the success of Pulp Fiction's release in 1994 there were literally scores of quirky crime comedy-dramas, and by 1996 when Bottle Rocket came out, audiences had become pretty jaded on that formula.

But writer/director Wes Anderson went on to excel at the quirky comedy-drama, producing a string of critically and commercially successful films about oddballs. Given such a distinguished track record, I felt it was time to go back and take a look at his first film, which I remember think was O.K., if a little contrived upon initial viewing.

I must say this is one film that has actually aged pretty well. After roughly two decades, it still maintains a sort of innocent charm. Owen Wilson (who co-wrote), and his brother Luke, and Robert Musgrave, play 3 would-be heist men, planning to make it big with a pre-planned 40 year criminal career. Trouble is they have no idea what crime actually entails, and are pretty incompetent at it.

So, after revisiting it 18 years later I have to say I still find it kind of contrived, but I feel it's entertaining and holds up well. A charming and witty little indie, worth checking out.

April Fool's Day **1/2

Proving that there's a slasher film to be found in every holiday, the makers of Friday the 13th also made April Fool's Day.

During April Fools Day weekend,  a bunch of teenagers spend their spring break in a mansion on an island off Cape Cod. But once the final ferry leaves, they find themselves stuck when one of them has a pretty sick sense of humor.

Pretty much this has all been done before, but there's enough freshness here to keep genre fans happy - seeing a slasher film set amongst the preppy Nantucket set is at least novel - but those who aren't fans of this particular subgenre of horror film are likely going to be repulsed by the gore and bored by the lack of character development. Although, to be fair, for it's genre and vintage, you could do a lot worse.

Machine Gun Preacher ***1/2

Here's a different kind of action film. Gerard Butler plays Sam Childers, a real life preacher who rescued children in war-torn Sudan.

The film opens with Childers' release from prison, he immediately returns to his outlaw biker lifestyle, drinking and doing drugs, committing armed robbery and other crimes, until he reaches out to Lynn, his born-again girlfriend for help. She takes him to be baptized in her church. Soon, he is on the straight-and-narrow, and goes from day laborer to owning his own construction company and building a family with Lynn.

One day Sam decides to join a church mission to Uganda, where he befriends soldiers of the Sudanese People's Liberation Army, and convinces them to take him north into Sudan. What he witnesses there profoundly affects him and he creates his own ministry in the U.S. and builds an orphanage in Sudan, fighting off two different invading armies simultaneously.

One of the great things about Machine Gun Preacher is that it doesn't whitewash or sanitize Childers. He's shown as a drug abuser, single-minded, unsympathetic to others points of view, a dangerous criminal, an abusive husband and an absentee father among other things, but he's also shown as a man of tremendous compassion, a strong if selective moral code, and a loyal and courageous altruist.

Childers' actions and methods are hugely controversial, both among Christians and humanitarians in general, but it is his unwillingness to wait on talking heads and diplomats to put an end to genocide, and his willingness to kill to protect the defenseless that makes Machine Gun Preacher so compelling.

Theater of Blood ****

In a modern twist on Phantom of the Opera, Vincent Price plays a Shakespearian thespian who returns from the dead to kill the critics who humiliated him.

Overall, it's pretty much an attempt to mine the The Abominable Dr. Phibes formula all over again, with Price's mad actor knocking off the critics in gruesome ways (this time inspired by Shakespeare plays), and staying one step ahead of the police. Truth to tell, it can get pretty contrived in spots, but overall, it's one of Price's best b-movies, rivaling The Abominable Dr. Phibes itself, primarily because it plays to Price's persona - the role actually requires a hammy performance, and that is something Price can provide in spades.

Definitely recommended for genre film fans in general, and Vincent Price fans in particular if for no other reason than to see Price take such glee in answering his critics through the role.

Mesrine: Killer Instinct

Mesrine: Killer Instinct is the first of a two-part story about the life and times of French gangster Jaques Mesrine. These two French films have been compared to Scarface (the 1983 Al Pacino one), for their depiction of the rise and fall of a violent criminal, but unlike Scarface, Mesrine: Killer Instinct is based on actual events that Mesrine wrote in his biography of the same name.

The story begins in Algeria where Mesrine, serving in the French army, is first exposed to killing, and the place where he claims he developed the 'killer instinct' referenced in the title. Upon his return to Paris, he falls in with organized crime figure Guido (Gerard Depardieu), pulling burglaries and armed robberies in the 1960s, until he's caught and sent to prison. Upon his release he travels to Montreal where he befriends a Quebec separatist and a female criminal. The three, led by Mesrine begin a crime spree that will soon make headlines.

Mesrine: Killer Instinct is a great fast-moving crime drama that is every bit as good as just about any true crime film Hollywood has ever put out, and is definitely worth your time. The cinematography is great, with some cinema du look influence evident, but not so much as to take away from the true-crime expose feel, and a fantastic performance by Vincent Cassel as Mesrine.

Central Station (****)


Central Station is a fairly simple story with some very complex emotional content. Isadora is a retired schoolteacher who makes money writing letters for other people in the central train station of Rio. One day a woman writes a letter to the father of her son saying that the boy wants to see him. Minutes later she is run over by a bus leaving the boy, Josue an orphan.

Josue continues to live in the station, stealing what he needs to eat. At first neither Isadora nor Josue wants anything to do with the other, but their mutual need brings them together. Eventually the two set out to find Josue's father in a far off town. On the way Isadora (who is also an orphan), and Josue deal with their abandonment issues and slowly form a bond.

The thing about Central Station is that there is something very real about it. The film shows life as harsh and unpredictable, but it also shows how adaptable humans are.

The Mirror ('Zerkalo')

The Mirror ('Zerkalo')

Soviet-era Russian cinema is difficult going even in the best of situations - leaving aside all the abstruse symbolism and propaganda (which I've previously mentioned in my reviews of Soviet cinema in general, and Andrei Tarkovsky films in particular), Russian cinema, follows the European tradition of cinema as art (as opposed to entertainment), and the French auteur theory whereby film is crafted by a single individual (the director), but in the case of the Soviets, goes a step further - since all film is essentially government funded under communism, and bearing no capitalist need to be successful in the marketplace, or editorial oversight (save perhaps the need to conform to Party ideologue standards), tends to elevate the merely pretentious to outright self-indulgent proportions. Nowhere is this more evident than Tarkovsky's ЗEPKAЛO, a semi-autobiographical film about Tarkovsky's childhood including snippets of poetry, mixed black and white photography, and the utter lack of any narrative flow or even an overarching theme.

As with all Tarkovsky films, the real highlight here is the photography, which is often stunning. In particular, the burning of a barn and lots of long takes and slow dolly shots. But pretty pictures alone do not a good movie make and the film, already difficult to follow for its intensely personal subject matter, is made worse by lots of flashbacks, including flashbacks-within-flashbacks. Couple that with all the usual nonsensical Tarkovsky motifs, such as objects falling from tables and wind blowing underbrush and whatnot, and you have a film that is beautiful but kind of devoid of meaning for anyone who is not Andrei Tarkovsky.

Mansfield Park

Coming in mid way through the Jane Austen revival that began in the mid 1990s with Persuasion, Mansfield Park is another joint production of the BBC (this time with Miramax). As with most of these joint UK/US productions, it has all the budget of a Hollywood film, combined with the authentic British locations, resulting in a lavish and immersive cinematic experience.

As with all Austen adaptations, you pretty much know what you're going to get - a plucky female challenges the status quo in 19th Century England. And, sure enough, Mansfield Park delivers exactly what you expect.

Where Mansfield Park departs from what you'd expect, is where it departs from the source material, most notably in a fairly obviously grafted-on condemnation of institutionalized slavery (something that was only passingly referred to in the book), but even so it's blatant humanitarian message does little to undermine, and perhaps even enhances the otherwise fairly lightweight girl-bucks-the-system romance.