Fired! (Shout! Factory)

You probably know her from TBS’s old “Dinner and a Movie” nights, but after this documentary, you will know her as the woman Woody Allen fired–and I’m pretty sure Annabelle Gurwitch is fine with that.

In one of the most brilliant “making lemonade from lemons” creative moves I’ve ever seen, Gurwitch overcame the humiliation of being fired from a play by Woody–which is reennacted hilariously in the first moments of Fired!–to tell the stories of famous people and ordinary people alike being let go, laid off, downsized or down right fired.

Over the course of the documentary, viewers are privy to hilarious stories of firings from random, but recognizable celebrities like Illeana Douglas and even Anne Meara (a.k.a. Ben Stiller’s mom).

Then, after some lessons in economics from Ben Stein (Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed), Gurwitch works in the reality of our economy today and the massive layoffs at factories, like General Motors in  Michigan. Her timing for the film couldn’t have been better.

I, myself, was moping around the house depressed and hopeless after my own nightmare layoff when I happened to catch the film on Showtime.  Watching it in my robe and Ugg boots at one in the afternoon was better than therapy and more effective than any pill (both of which I had already tried).

Fired! will make you laugh, but most of all, if you have recently been laid off or otherwise shown the proverbial door, it will make you feel human again.

rice rating: rent it and love it

Note: Fired! is being shown on Showtime and Sundance, can be purchased at Amazon.com or rented from Netflix. Netflix.

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Angels and Demons (Simon & Schuster)

With the movie hitting theaters on May 15th, there is still just enough time for you to enjoy Dan Brown’s best (and first) Robert Langdon mystery as it was meant to be enjoyed: on the printed page.

Angels and Demons (2000) is not only meant to be read before the controversial DaVinci Code, it actually–when read first–makes its famous sequel seem like tired seconds. (And don’t even get me started on how anti-climactic The … Code was in comparison to the cries of heresy it riled among my people.)

Now, given the number of copies both books have sold, it’s tough to find someone in America who has not read at least one Brown novel.  The downside of this is that–much like the Twilight series, which I’ll begrudgingly admit to loving at a later date–any book that attracts the masses is not typically going to garner any Nobel Prize for literature.

Kids, it just isn’t.

With that said, Angels and Demons will get its hooks into you if you let it, and by the time Robert Langdon reaches the Vatican City you won’t be able to put it down. Don’t let the fancy scientific mumbo-jumbo in the beginning scare you off, even if it does make you giggle.

This novel is full of brilliant plot twists, amazing descriptions of actual places (real statues, real churches), fascinating stories of the papacy, and thrill after thrill.

[Note: Are there some lies in there about the Church and history? Stretched truths to make the novel more exciting? Of course. Cry me a river, that's why it's on the fiction shelf at the library. Just remember that the next time you're at a dinner party and you are tempted to utter anything that begins with "Did you know ... " and ends with "I read it in a Dan Brown novel."]

The bottom line is that if you are the one person left alive who has not read a Dan Brown novel, this is the one to start with. And, if you like to read the book before seeing the movie, you are running out of time. Get off your duff and go buy this book already.

Start it tomorrow and you’ll be done with it by the weekend–or Dan Brown will give you your money back.

(I made that last part up.)

rice rating: buy it and sell it later

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The Parent Trap (Disney)

In light of Natasha Richardson’s untimely passing, I decided to highlight one of her films.

Why 1998′s The Parent Trap (Special Edition)? Because I have seen it approximately 15 times–give or take.

It’s one of my daughter’s favorite movies, it’s Lindsey Lohan’s best work (tough to hit your career peak in grade school), and Richardson is absolutely luminous in her role as Dennis Quaid’s long lost love.

She’s playing second-fiddle to a 12-year-old (Lohan is freakishly incredible at playing the polar-opposite twins), and yet Richardson shines playing Elizabeth James, a beautiful English fashion designer who has lived with her father, her butler and only one of her daughters, since divorcing her husband over a lovers’ quarrel.

Elizabeth isn’t a very complex character–it’s a Disney movie, after all–but when she ditches her high class suits for country duds (much like her counterpart Maureen O’Hara in the 1961 original) viewers can’t help but fall in love with her just like Quaid’s adorable bachelor Nick Parker. (BTDubs, Quaid’s cute as a button, but he’ll never hold a candle to Brian Kieth–that’s all I’m sayin’.)

Every time I see Nick and Elizabeth lock eyes in the wine cellar, my heart skips a beat. Her radiant face is the perfect canvas for the emotion of the moment, and when she tears up, I tear up too.

Every stinking time.

Is it Oscar-worthy? Hardly–and don’t worry, because no one in 1998 thought it was either. But it’s a great little romance every fan of the original should see. (Just don’t say I didn’t warn you: There will be no “Let’s Get Together Yeah, Yeah, Yeah” song and dance.)

Richardson, of course, earned praise for many other more important roles (like Sally Bowles on Broadway’s Caberet, for which she won a Tony); but still, I like Elizabeth James. Elizabeth is good and kind and has just a tiny streak of sass, and I would imagine that Richardson did too.

rice rating: buy it and love it

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