Bovie Movie

British theatre director Sam Mendes made an astonishing film debut with this sublime black comedy about midlife crises, starring Kevin Spacey and Annette Bening as a bored couple in suburban America. The sexually frustrated Bening begins an affair with estate agent Peter Gallagher; Spacey, meanwhile, fantasises about Mena Suvari, a teenage friend of his daughter’s. Their disparate needs make for a comic tragedy of misunderstanding that combines acute observations with side-splitting scenarios. This truly outstanding film (on which Steven Spielberg acted as an uncredited producer) deservedly picked up a clutch of Oscars, including best picture, best director and best actor for Spacey. 

Comedian Adam Sandler apparently made this comedy for his late grandmother, because his father told him she “would’ve liked it”. Indeed, what better way to honour granny than to remake her favourite film, Frank Capra’s Mr Deeds Goes to Town? Well, the moral of this short story is that good intentions don’t make good films. Sandler takes on the Gary Cooper role of the country bumpkin who inherits a business empire, goes to the big city and becomes the unwitting target of a scandal-seeking reporter (Winona Ryder) trying to get the goods on him, as well as a scheming executive (Peter Gallagher) who’s just trying to get the goods. Whereas Cooper was an everyman, Sandler is just the man in the street, and director Steven Brill is no Capra — he has replaced wit with smut and sentiment with saccharin. Even the most indulgent grandmother would have to pass on this travesty of an American classic. 

This warmly engaging and winning romantic comedy has plenty of novel twists and witty turns. Sandra Bullock is sensational as the lonely Chicago subway clerk, who poses as the fiancée of coma victim Peter Gallagher after saving his life, much to the thrilled amazement of his family and the yearning of his sceptical brother, played by Bill Pullman. This smartly scripted Cinderella love story is crammed with charm and the expert direction of Jon Turteltaub (National Treasure) hits all the right emotional buttons. 

Held together by stylish direction from William Malone, some genuinely nasty jolts and a keen sense of genre history, this big-budget remake of the 1958 classic compares favourably with the original. (Though it’s a pity this version lacks the fabulously tacky “Emergo” gimmick that showman William Castle sold his version on — a plastic skeleton flown over the heads of the audience!) The simple plot has theme park developer Geoffrey Rush (here doing a creditable Vincent Price impression) offering a group of strangers $1 million to spend the night in a supposedly spook-infested Art Deco asylum. Malone captures the essence of the 1950s fright-fest while updating the shocks with computer effects and grisly gore, and there’s not one hint of the epic misjudgements made by that year’s other remake of a horror classic, The Haunting.