Favorite Movie to star a MITM Star

[glm1234]

i know a game which frankie does the voice of the character its domino in 102 dalmations. i didnt know he done the voice until i played it.

[Richiepiep]

I watched The Kid with X-ray Eyes with Justin in it, just because it was Justin, but also because some 'official' reviewers apparently liked this movie. I thought it was laughably bad, with tasteless jokes and a really terribly handled plot only believable to 6-year-olds I guess, but even that may be an insult to this particular age group.

Miracle in Lane 2 was one I liked mainly for Frankie's acting, but as a movie it was too clichéd for me, which is a pity, because it could have been treated with a little more spunk and edginess. It had a bit too much Disney written over it - it was a Disney release.

I finally watched My Dog Skip today because we had a cable blackout, and I couldn't watch TV, use my phone or the Internet!

Now, there's an example how sentimentality, well-worn gasp-and-tearjerker effects and gushing romantic music can actually add up to something very watchable and moving, when the subject is treated lovingly with a clear empathy and vision. Great acting from the whole cast, subtle and very convincing playing by Kevin Bacon and Diane Lane as the parents, but Frankie and the Jack Russell terrier(s) from Frasier really steal the show here. Beautiful, fluent, crisp and glowing cinematography, a great musical score and a wonderful sense of period detail. The two commentary tracks on the DVD, one by the director, and one shared by Frankie and the animal trainer, are very interesting.

Director Jay Russell (not a terrier) convincingly conveys how much he liked the book and how it was his pet project, and it shows! A labour of love as they say.

I have yet to see Big Fat Liar, which is sitting on my hard disk.

Rich

[Emily1714]

Yes, I watched the movie The Heavenly Kid(and I even bought it on Saturday) just because Jane Kaczmarek is in it.

[Richiepiep]

Yes, I watched the movie The Heavenly Kid(and I even bought it on Saturday) just because Jane Kaczmarek is in it.

I don't know 'The Heavenly Kid' - yet!

I've just put up some pictures of early appearances by Jane in the movie 'Vice Versa' (1988) in our Gallery, and there's some from 'Falling In Love' (1984) coming up! That's a great movie, though the focus is completely on the two stars, who actually fall in love, Meryl Streep and Robert De Niro. Jane plays Robert's wife. Yes, the snag is they're both married. See attached picture as an 'appetizer'.

See this link:

Gallery -> Jane -> Movies

Rich

[zachman93]

My Dog Skip was excellent, but other than that I've never really been awed by a MitM-cast-containing movie. In the handful of roles I've seen Eric in, he may have been good but he was always a very one-trick character acted well - and there's nothing wrong with that, but I hate to watch a movie that I normally wouldn't for it.

[Richiepiep]

I've finally gotten round to watching Big Fat Liar. I really liked the initial premise of the movie and the first 15 minutes or so. The idea of a inveterate teen liar, who at long last gets into big trouble, and then has to prove against all odds that his tall tale of a stolen script is genuine, and redeem himself in the process, is a good one. Frankie, as always, is engaging, lively, charming and versatile, and he's well matched with Amanda Bynes.

When I watched the opening sequences, I decided this was not supposed to be a slapstick farce (where everyone is racing around like frantic fools, knocking over and throwing stuff), or an absurdist comedy (where anything might happen, from, say, talking llamas to breakdancing nuns), but a story-driven comedy with some believability to it, some sort of Ferris Bueller take-off, which I could appreciate. I always have this notion that even in comedy, a story should stay true to its own premise and should stick to what is imaginable within its context.

Frankie may play a highly skilled cheat, but he's still a young teen, and the scenes at school and at home are true to that. That's why I got hugely disappointed by the plot development. When I saw the silly scene of Amanda's older movie brother dressing up like a girl to prove to his senile grandma that he was his sister, I got my doubts, but I really thought the movie took a wrong turn when a taxi driver (Scrubs' Donald Faison) mistakes Frankie in his slacker gear for some wealthy fur distributor, just by telling him he's the guy on the sign he's holding up.

This crossed the line from Frankie being just a fairly ordinary kid to some super-con man/whizkid on an equal footing with adults. Apart from the fact that more and more plotholes got in the way, this continues when we see Frankie and Amanda running around on the studio lot, snooping around and bursting into offices, private property and other buildings with perfect ease, sabotaging cars and messing about with computers like seasoned professionals in a farcical series of events that my movie guide rightly calls 'inane antics that quickly wear thin and will only prove riveting to the preteen crowd'.

I thought this was a let-down and a sell-out, not to mention some sequences (as in most teen comedies, I must admit) whose sole purpose seemed they were put in and edited to match some song being plugged on the soundtrack. Turning to the online cast and crew list of IMDB, I noticed that this was the brainchild of Dan Schneider, responsible for countless fairly simple-minded, farcical Nickelodeon fare like iCarly, Zoey 101 and Drake & Josh, so I guess this is all I should have expected and all I could have asked for. Technically speaking, the movie is impeccable, running very smoothly, with a high-gloss look to it.

Still, I think it's a pity to see capable actors under-used in this way, and an audience which can be called discerning and reasonable mature being short-changed. Of course, it all had to end on very a moralistic note, there was no escaping that obligatory element either. Yes, I guess I'm perhaps too old for this, but I do think it's bad underestimating your viewers, even if they're young teens. MITM always took its audience seriously with its intertwined plots, and story twists and asides adults would really enjoy as well.

[PeterU]

Great review of Big Fat Liar, Richie.

I saw it some months back, so I don't remember all the details now -- but I have to agree with you, the first 'act' of the movie felt like it was setting itself up to be more serious than it ended up being. It built up an expectation -- you thought it might have been better than originally expected -- then never lived up to that!

[Richiepiep]

Thanks, PeterU!

You know, I had some second thoughts about this review, because I thought I'd been too harsh on it. It's well-made, fast-paced, largely mindless, easily forgettable entertainment, but still a lot better than what, say, European countries could come up with in this genre.

It's just that I don't normally like frantic, formulaic chase comedies, with kids outsmarting adults acting like morons, unless it's really over the top and imaginative. I mostly prefer character-driven or plot-driven stuff with some authenticity to it, like you could imagine this happening to you or the characters in the given situation.

It's just a pity that to most teen stars nowadays, two avenues appear to be open to star in movies or TV: standard silly comedies (the Nickelodeon template), or standard romcoms. I think that's why a lot of these young idols call it quits after a while, because it stereotypes them and doesn't challenge them, and why audiences quickly tire of another fresh but largely interchangeable bunch of faces. I think that's mostly true of what Frankie, Justin and Christopher got offered over the years.

[Ollie]

I watched 'Puff, Puff, Pass' otherwise known as 'Living High' for the reason that it had Christopher Masterson in it. I thought it wasn't a bad movie, it didn't have much of a plot but it was a funny enough comedy.

I know it isn't a movie but I found out recently that Jane Kaczmarek does the voice of Judge Constance Harm (the strict woman one) in the Simpsons, which is a nice reminder of her because I realise now every time I see one of the episodes with her in.

[PeterU]

I watched one of the episodes of The Simpsons with Jane as Constance Harm in it, but I have to admit, I probably wouldn't have noticed it was her doing the voice had I not known ahead of time!