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Two summer movies not worth watching:
Little Man' and 'Clerks' hardly worth the wait in line
"Little Man" Running time: 90 mins. MPAA rating: PG-13
Grade: F
Let me save you the trouble of reading this entire review. "Little Man" is the worst movie I've seen this year. It makes "White Chicks" look like "Citizen Kane." "Little Man" is to comedy what Richard Speck was to nursing. It is, in case you haven't gotten the point yet, an insufferably horrible movie.
Using computer-effects, the head of Marlon Wayans is grafted onto the body of a midget in order for him to play the lead role as Calvin, a diminutive ex-con and jewel thief.
Calvin, just out of prison, takes on a job for a local gangster (Chazz Palminteri, phoning it in). For $100,000, Calvin must steal and deliver a diamond the size of a canned ham to the gangster. The heist is botched, and Calvin must stash the giant rock in the purse of a woman who is dining at a restaurant with her husband (Kerry Washington and Shawn Wayans).
The couple are arguing over whether to start a family. This gives Calvin the bright idea to pose as an abandoned baby in order to get into the yuppie couple's home and retrieve the diamond.
The couple, although upper-middle-class and college-educated, can't tell the difference between an infant and a middle-aged dwarf, so they take Calvin into their home. An hour and way too many fart jokes, booby-grabs and groin shots later, Calvin grows to love the family and ... aw, who cares? The plot is so retarded it makes Larry the Cable Guy sound like William F. Buckley. Avoid this movie.
(c) 2006 King Features Synd.,
Inc.
"Clerks II" Running time: 95 mins.
MPAA rating: R
Grade: B+
In 1994, "Clerks," a blackand white, vulgar, slacker comedy made on a budget of about a buck-oh-five, took the indie movie scene by storm and put director Kevin Smith on the map. Now, 12 years and seven films later, Smith returns to Leonardo, N.J., familiar stomping grounds of convenience-store clerk Dante Hicks (Brian O'Halloran) and video-store clerk Randal Graves (Jeff Anderson).
A decade hasn't changed them too much. They're both at the same jobs -briefly; but a fire that destroys the Quick Stop and video store forces the duo to move on with their lives. Unfortunately, the move is a horizontal one, as they both take jobs at Mooby's, a fast-food joint.
Flash-forward a year, and Dante is now engaged to a controlling rich girl named Emma (Jennifer Schwalbach), whose father is going to give Dante a job at his company in Florida. Dante is torn. His future with Emma will be a more affluent and comfortable one, but he is really in love with Becky (Rosario Dawson), the manager at Mooby's. Tomorrow he is leaving for Florida, and Dante must make a Life Choice. Golly. I wonder which one he'll choose? Hmmm ...
Fleshing out the cast are Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith as the ubiquitous Jay &
Silent Bob, and a loveably naive fundamentalist Christian named Elias (Trevor Fehrman) who is also a rabid "Lord of the Rings" fan. Also, just about every actor who's ever appeared in Smith's films makes a cameo (Ben Affleck and Jason Lee most notably).
Like all of Smith's films, the humor is sophomoric, vulgar and often based in comic/sci-fifandom. But what makes "Clerks II" different is that Smith is willing to ratchetdown the number of jokes in order to give the love story time to develop.
"Clerks II" is in many ways better than the original, and a lovely farewell to his View Askew New Jersey world.
(c) 2006 King Features Synd., Inc.
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