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CITY BY THE SEA Grade: C- By Rachel Deahl Review Film Critic Click for the Official Site Director Michael Caton-Jones' new drama appropriately begins with an epitaph to the titular town in which it's set. The opening statement describes the once booming seaside town of Long Beach, a vacation community just beyond the grim reach of Manhattan. So dubbed "the city by the sea," this Long Island town has since become a run-down, dilapidated wasteland. For Caton-Jones that image of erosion and breakdown is a central one, as everything in "City By the Sea" hinges on the notion of good things gone bad. But for all its neatly packaged symbolism, this Robert DeNiro vehicle is little more than a compulsory tale of loss and redemption; even though "the city by the sea" can't be saved with a good ol' fashioned Hollywood ending, the people in its film can. Based on an article that appeared in "Esquire" Magazine in 1997 called "Mark of a Murderer", City By the Sea tells the true story of a celebrated New York City homicide detective investigating a murder in which his estranged son is the chief witness. Shamed by the notorious conviction of his own father, De Niro's world-weary Vincent LaMarca has separated himself from his notorious family name by maintaining an exemplary record on the force. Now living in Manhattan with a long-term girlfriend (Frances McDormand), Vincent's former life as a failed husband and errant father are all but a distant memory.
But, when the top cop begins investigating a case in which his son Joey (James Franco) is involved, he's unwillingly drawn back into a past he's continually trying to forget. Now he must face the son he hasn't seen or spoken to in over 14 years, as both a cop and a father. Caton-Jones, who's built a career out of making watchable but unmemorable fair like "This Boy's Life" and "Rob Roy," has a strong and compelling story here, but is finally unable to do anything notable with it. Disregarding the onslaught of coincidences which propel the action forward (the most outstanding being that, out of all the cops in the NYPD, LaMarca is assigned the one homicide his kid may have committed), "City By the Sea" has a strong hook with its tale of an embittered father and son who hate each other as much as they need each other. From the outset it seems like Caton-Jones also has fertile ground to work in a strong angle about two men with separately haunted pasts. As James Franco's sunken-eyed junkie wanders the dilapidated alleys of Long Beach, the pressing notion that this town, like its prodigal son, is a mere shadow of its former self never leaves the screen. But the over-arching parallel between the internal and external setting quickly turns into a trite best of times/worst of times motif and Caton-Jones has little more in the way of notable undercurrents and backdrops. Shot on location in Asbury Park, N.J. (chosen for its own history as a former beach resort which has now become seedy and run-down), you can almost hear the strained chords of a Bruce Springsteen song trying to push through in "City By the Sea." Springsteen, who grew up in and around Asbury Park and dedicated one of his first albums to the crumbling Garden State town, sings over and over again about decaying dreams and American values. And, no doubt, the LaMarcas would be a classic Springsteen clan - honest, blue collar, hard-working folks whose lives took a wrong turn somewhere along the way. Unfortunately, for all its visual posturing, Caton-Jones' film never achieves the heartbreaking clarity that Springsteen hits on time and again, a clarity that lays bare what it means to ache, to be young, to be alone and to be forever lost in the past. STEALING HARVARD by: Rachel Deahl Click for the Official Site For all the eager fans who can't bear to wait for the release of "Jackass: The Movie" (and yes, that really is coming down the pike), idiots everywhere can rejoice in the numbskull glow of the Tom Green spectacle, "Stealing Harvard." While MTV is entirely to blame for the former, we can only hold the vacuous network partially responsible for the latter; MTV had nothing to do with the production, creation or distribution of "Harvard," but it did give Tom Green a career and that, in and of itself, is an act which should not go unpunished. So if MTV isn't the culprit here, who is? Blame could be placed on any number of shoulders: director Bruce McCulloch could be held responsible since, well, he is the director; screenwriter Peter Tolan could be targeted for penning such an abysmally unfunny and idiotic script; or star Jason Lee could shoulder some of the backlash for his wooden performance (whether he is, in fact, reading all his lines off a teleprompter remains to be seen). But even with all of these possible scapegoats, no one can really lay claim to this film more than Tom Green. Seemingly a vehicle to showcase the Canadian's inane ramblings, "Stealing Harvard" is a smorgasbord of soliloquies about nothing delivered by the former Mr. Drew Barrymore. Leslie Mann, Jason Lee and Tom Green in Columbia's Stealing Harvard - 2002 Photo: Melissa Moseley Green, who gained notoriety for the bizarre brand of gonzo humor he displayed on his self titled MTV show, is known for being a prankster quick to inspire laughter as easily as disgust. Green has always traded on his bad taste and willingness to cross any line for a joke-popular segments on his show involved numerous cruelties executed at the expense of his friends and family. (In one now-infamous stunt, the shock comic posted his best friend's phone number in a digital billboard over Times Square.) But, if anything, the one thing that made "The Tom Green Show" fun, and funny, was it's public access, "Wayne's World," feel. Supposedly discovered on Canadian public access, Green's most successful sketches involved him interacting with strangers or giving his soft-spoken parents, or best friend, a hard time. A strange blend of Andy Kaufman and candid camera, Green's formula was a limited one that revolved around staged stunts with the right foil. In other words, what was good about Tom Green, and what made his act funny, was precisely the fact that he wasn't a celebrity. The post "Tom Green Show" Green, the man who's been given feature film roles and even feature films (writing and directing "Freddy Got Fingered"), is a much more grating incarnation of the troublemaking man-on-the-street we saw on MTV. In "Stealing Harvard" Green proves just how ingratiating he can be. As Duff, the white trash, beer-drinking, idiotic best friend to Jason Lee's average Joe hero, Green peers awkwardly through Stephen King-like spectacles as he spouts gibberish in time which is always seconds off its intended mark. Inspiring a desperate feeling of discomfort, the only joke Green seems to be playing is one on us, one in which he reiterates, with every line he utters, just how ungifted a comedian he is. Aside from its canned plot about a do-gooder (Lee, proving he can only play self-absorbed, fast-talking Kevin Smith alter-egos) who turns to a haphazard life of crime to win his niece the tuition she needs to attend Harvard, "Stealing Harvard" thrusts much of its comedic hopes on Green's inadequate shoulders. If anything positive is to emerge from the ashes here, it will be the death toll of Tom Green's tenure in Hollywood.
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