Can Jack Black redeem himself from Nacho Libre?

I hope this upcoming movie is good. The thing that makes me the most excited about it right now is its website. See if you can figure out which movies are spoofed in the layout (one of them I can't figure out yet). To see a different layout, click "You Name It, We Shoot It" in the top left corner.

Palm Beach Story

Well, it's been forever since I posted, but I'm finally back into the swing of things and have actually seen a few movies recently, rather than just spending my time catching up on work and old episodes of House, M.D. This week, I actually managed to make it to a great movie theater, The Brattle Theater here in Cambridge. The Brattle doesn't play as many old movies as I'd like (although I'd highly recommend Evil Dead 2, playing on Halloween!) but it's a nice little indie place. And over the past few weeks, they've had a series that has made up for their usual lack of old movies. They even played a Buster Keaton film. And I got to see a Preston Sturges film that I'd never even heard of: The Palm Beach Story.

Basically, all you have to know about the plot is this: it's ridiculous and far-fetched. The characters are absurd, and some of them don't make any sense at all. And overall, the movie is excellent.

The movie begins with a married couple, Tom (Joel McCrea) and Gerry (Claudette Colbert), who love each other but have no money. Gerry decides to leave Tom to try to get them the money they need by capitalizing on her looks. And, if you grew up ever watching the cartoon cat and mouse namesakes of this pair, you can guess what happens next: Tom follows Gerry, and escapades abound. Gerry snags an extremely earnest and extremely rich man, and Tom accidentally gets snagged by the rich man's man-crazy sister. In the end, though, everyone settles down happily through some unabashedly stupid plot twists ("That's a whole other plot entirely" says Tom when a couple of twins pop into the story to save the day.)

In the grand tradition of screwball comedy, though, nothing needs to make sense, because everyone is having too much fun. There are some unexpected hilarious lines ("That's one of the tragedies of this life - that the men who are most in need of a beating up are always enormous."), and some similarly unexpectedly amusing (and amusingly-named) characters, like the Weinie King and the Ale and Quail Club, which is comprised of a bunch of rich millionaires who like to get drunk, sing, and hunt, no matter the circumstances. The only bad thing about this movie is that I've now had "A-Hunting We Will Go" in my head for the past couple days....

An incredibly fun 3 Stars.