America's Sweethearts [Region 2] | Julia Roberts, Billy Crystal

America's Sweethearts [Region 2] | Julia Roberts, Billy Crystal | Enchanting!

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America's Sweethea...

	America's Sweethearts [Region 2] Julia Roberts, Billy Crystal average customer review:based on 125 reviews view larger image
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For Comedy Lovers

This guilty pleasure has the consistency of cotton candy and is every bit as delightful. Those who would put it under the microscope, as if it were The Bicycle Thief, Battleship Potemkin, or Day For Night, really could benefit from a week off - this is a screwball comedy for heaven's sake. And what fun it is.

Consider the dream cast, Julia Roberts (seriously threatening to act), Billy Crystal (borsht belt not yet dead - just not feeling so well), Catherine Zeta-Jones (superb - her best performance ever), John Cusack (always on time), Hank Azaria (fantastic), Stanley Tucci (consistently funny), Christopher Walken (marvelous as a deranged lunatic - typecasting?), Alan Arkin (still at it, terrific), and Seth Green (impeccable as a sleazy studio hack). The script is by Billy Crystal and Peter Tolan.

For Crystal, who has spent his entire life in show business, these red carpets are very well worn and familiar, which makes it easy for him to set up smart and often biting jokes lampooning celebrity superficiality, falseness, backstabbing, and profound insecurity. That he and Tolan were unable to create a credible plot to hang these jokes on, like ornaments on a tree, would be a problem if the film had aspirations other than to amuse - as it is, the trip itself provides so much fun that the lack of destination, or even a reason to get there, is not terribly consequential.

The credit for this goes to a series of marvelous performances, led by Catherine Zeta-Jones who plays a gloriously narcissistic movie star. She inhabits this role so unapologetically that you can almost see her wink at the camera as if to say, "Yes, I know I'm playing myself, and you know it too." Julia Roberts, playing her wallflower sister, is funny casting at the very least. Remarkably, she gives the film one of its only sincere and stirring performances. The reliable John Cusack is likeable as a dazed celebrity struggling to juggle dualities, torn between two sisters, movie star smile barely concealing a disintegrating personality. Hank Azaria, as the staggeringly dim Latin lover Ms. Zeta-Jones has picked up for the moment like a glossy magazine, is so good that he practically walks off with the movie in his brief scenes.

Everything about the film is false, a false romance between "America's Sweethearts" holds a studio together, the press is invited on a junket to promote a movie that doesn't exist; indeed, part of the film's comedy and pleasure is that it rewards our most wicked suspicions about Hollywood. Ultimately it's your choice. You can watch a depressed Swede play chess with a guy in a Speedo and a cape, or you can watch Catherine Zeta-Jones fire off zingers penned by a latter-day Henny Youngman. Either way, it's pretty funny.

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Enchanting!

It is no surprise why Billy Crystal is one of America's Sweethearts, because we in America just love him. I really wish that this movie could have had a little less of Julia Roberts and John Cusack, and a little more of Billy's shenanigans like he does so delightfully during the Oscars. Maybe he could have sung a few songs about Catherine Zeta Jones (and even made silly references to how old her husband--Michael Douglas--is), and done a snappy little dance. That would have made this movie slightly more enjoyable.

But even though they didn't do that, I would pay money to see Julia Roberts fall in love with anything--even a plate of yams--because she is just so down-to-earth. In real life I just know she's like any other normal person, because that's what she says to the paparazzi all the time. This is clearly the role that everyone will remember her for.

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Slick, sharp, smart and funny!

I loved it. I saw it a year or so ago, loved it then, bought a copy and just finished watching it a 2nd time. I think it's one of the cleverest comedies I can remember seeing. It is as the acerbic virulent reviewer below me said predictable. In this case, so what. And what else could you expect from the plot (that he didn't already divulge) given the characters and the situation? I would love to know how much Billy Crystal did on the script, I didn't know he was a witty person. And I never liked him before this movie, but I thought he was droll and subtle and perfect in this movie. One glitch. What would Eddie have ever seen in Gwenn? That one was a little hard to swallow. Sigh. But no matter. And (rare for a comedy these days or any days), it was actually witty. It was funny. It made me laugh out loud. All the actors were in top form. The situations and conversations the writers devised for them were original and I thought hysterical. I highly recommend this comedy to anyone who thinks he might like it.

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One of my Favorites!!

I know that alot people scarcely remember this movie, some may even want to forget that it exists, but this is a WONDERFUL movie! No, it's not perfect, the plot is so-so and the movie chugs along at a somewhat slow pace, but the one-liners and the cast are so great, that how can you NOT like this movie? John Cusack, Julia Roberts, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Billy Crystal, Seth Green, Stanley Tucci, Hank Azaria, and Christopher Walken are part of this amazing cast and together they make up a wonderfully light-hearted little romantic comedy.

Crystal plays a wise studio exec who is getting fired from his job by the head honcho, Dave Kingman (Tucci), to be replaced by a kid who doesn't know much about the movie business (Green). Kingman wants one last favor: to reunite the ultimate Hollywood couple for one last junket, one last premiere, so he can make his millions off their movie. No junket, no money! It's Crystal's job to get them back together one more time. Big problems arise when trying to do this. Gwen (Zeta-Jones) wants nothing to do with her now-crazy ex-husband (Eddie) who is now living in a mental institution. But she knows that foregoing this junket could ruin her career, so she enlists her sister Kiki (Roberts) to help pull it all together. Eddie is still hung up on his ex-wife, until he begins to see Kiki in an entirely new way.

Lots of funny lines in the movie. Very dry comedy, not quite your typical romantic comedy. Lots of colorful characters, no questions are left unanswered, so take a glimpse into what Hollywood is probably like, direct from Billy Crystal himself (he co-wrote the movie, afterall!) RECOMMENDED!!

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