Just Go With It

Last night in our summer movie marathon we continued on with the Adam Sandler comedy just go with it. Adam Sandler has taken a beating lately in the press and with recent movie reviews, most often deservedly so. This movie was a bit different however, it certainly was not an Oscar-winner, but it was an enjoyable flick.

In the movie Sandler plays Danny Mackaby a plastic surgeon. His office assistant is Catherine Murphy played by Jennifer Aniston. Catherine is a single mom with two children who is often the foil for Dr. Danny's sense of humor.

As the movie begins we see Danny has a young man about to be married to a woman who is marrying him despite not being in love with them because he is going to be a cardiologist, but at the same time is very mean about the size of his nose. After leaving her at the altar Danny goes out to drown his sorrows, and even with a nose that goes into a ZIP Code a day before he does he discovers that a wedding ring is a great attraction for a lot of women.

At a party one evening, Danny, now a successful plastic surgeon, meets a woman named Palmer a very attractive schoolteacher played by Brooklyn Decker. The evening takes off well for them and they end up together waking up in the morning on a beach. Palmer, however, discovers the wedding ring that Danny had in his pocket and assumes he is actually married. It turns out that she is the one woman who is not interested in dating married man because her parents had broken up due to such a fling.

This leads to Danny needing to convince her that he's not married, in fact is about to get a divorce. He convinces Catherine to play his soon-to-be divorced wife, and play it to the hilt she does.

Of course it would be a short movie if this is all that happened, so at the end of the evening Catherine takes a phone call from her children which of course leads Palmer to understand that Danny has children and changes her whole view about their potential relationship. What Danny has to do to convince her to continue dating him leads to the plot of them.

The cast is strong. Sandler is often likable even in his worst roles. Aniston, they'll getting older, will always look like a girl you wished you dated in high school. Nicole Kidman has a part as Devlin Adams Catherine's nemesis from college.

Dave Matthews, yes that Dave Matthews plays her husband. And of course for anyone who is seen the commercials for the movie when it was in the theaters Brooklyn Decker Pl., Palmer. Decker the supermodel married to tennis player Andy Roddick has a few noble scenes, mostly those scenes are when she is in a bikini. She plays Palmer, as a naive nice girl and surprisingly it's fairly believable in the role. But let's be clear, she is in the movie because of how she looks. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

Interestingly, in the movie Anniston's Park Catherine is played as an average girl, one then nobody really notices with her lab coat and glasses. When Catherine this roadster jump in the lake the look of surprise on Danny's face and seeing how attractive she is makes one wonder what he was seeing the whole time that we could clearly see from the beginning.

It does not take a genius to see where the movies going but it is still an enjoyable ride. A good movie for night when you don't want to think too much.

Hemingway and Gellhorn

This HBO biopoc centers on the relationship between Ernest Hemingway and Martha Gellhorn. Gellhorn was a magazine writer for Collier's in the late thirties and early forties, this being the time when magazine writers for these magazines were well known.

Meeting in Spain during the Spanish Civil War when she was writing for Colliers and Hemingway was gaining inspiration for what became his novel For Whom the Bell Tolls. Hemingway at the time was married but that did not prevent them from falling together. Over the next few years there relationship was one of fire. They covered the war in Spain, then the war in China. Later after they were married and with their relationship fracturing Hemingway got himself hired with Collier's, essentially taking his wife, Gellhorn's, job. Eventually Gellhorn stowed away on a medical ship and beat Hemingway to the front.

The relationship between the two is interesting, and I clearly love the writing of Hemingway but for me the stronger appeal of the movie was the scenes with the characters in Spain, China, the beaches of France and later in Germany.

Spain, always an interesting story for me. The communists were the freedom fighters, the fascists were helped by Franco and yet clearly the Americans were ambivalent at best about the outcome of the war. When Hemingway and Gellhorn met with Eleanor and later Franklin Roosevelt to extoll the cause of the freedom fighters they were believed to be fellow travelers.

The downside of this movie for me were the sex scenes. Clive Owen did a fine job as Hemingway. Nicole Kidman is attractive but some of these scenes were over the top. We are made to understand that the relationship is fiery and passionate, that they fight as hard as they love. I do not know that seeing Owen thrusting and Kidman naked is necessary. I am not a prude I just thought it was a little gratuitous.

The cast is stellar. Robert Duvall gives a magnificent performance as a Russian General, and Parker Posey plays Hemingway's soon to be divorced wife.

Watching the movie, one of Hemingway's cronies, Joris reminded me of the drummer from Metallica. That is what I said to myself, the dog, whoever was in the room. After the movie I looked it up and saw that it was Lars Ulrich. I had no idea that he acted.

Other notables in the movie Tony Shalhoub, Joan Chen As Madame Chiang ( a small but stunning performance) and Peter Coyote.

Worth ones time, wonderfully filmed. The problem is not with the movie, it was what it purported to be, I wanted it to be less about the relationship and more about the life and history they touched. Still a good movie