Balls of Fury - Review

There are a few surprises in Balls of Fury. For instance it’s not the direct rip-off of Dodgeball that you might expect it to be, and the sport of ping-pong is more exciting to watch than you’d think. But the jokes are stale and the movie’s best moments come courtesy of Christopher Walken who, let’s be honest, gets bonus points just for being Christopher Walken.

The film stars a relatively unknown comedic actor named Dan Fogler. Calling him a comedic actor may however, be somewhat generous. Dan’s comedic repertoire consists mostly of being fat and sweaty, and that stops being funny after about five seconds. Fogler plays disgraced former child ping-pong champ Randy Daytona, and the once great kid ping-pong player he was has grown up into a hairy mess. For rather stupid reasons he’s recruited by the FBI and asked to infiltrate the ping-pong tournament of a notorious criminal named Feng. He agrees, since Feng is the man who killed his father or something.

Doesn’t matter. The result is that Randy is teamed up with a loser Mexican FBI agent (George Lopez), a blind master ping-pong instructor named Wong (James Hong), and the master’s super-hot niece Maggie (Maggie Q). Together they travel into Feng’s lair and then we’re treated to 90 minutes of gags designed to poke fun of Wong’s blindness. Yep, most of the movie’s jokes have nothing to do with ping-pong. Instead the film is scene after scene after scene of Wong walking into things, falling over, and pointing in the wrong direction. This is a one-joke movie, and it’s a joke that’s been done dozens of times before in movies a lot funnier than this one. Personally, my favorite incarnation of the hapless blind sidekick bit was in Robin Hood: Men In Tights, in which Robin’s trusty blind sidekick Blinkin ends up dueling a stone column to the death.

Chris Walken plays the movie’s villain and while funny, would been funnier if I hadn’t seen him playing this same character in The Rundown. Walken’s performance, as usual, boils down to him parodying himself. He’s not playing a guy named Feng, he’s playing a Christopher Walken playing a guy named Feng, and that’s funny because, well, he’s Walken. It’s entertaining even if it is recycled.

The weird thing is that I found myself wishing they’d drop all pretense of doing comedy and simply shown us more ping-ponging. Like all Americans, I find table tennis incredibly boring, but director Ben Garant shoots it in a way that actually makes hitting a tiny white ball across a kitchen table strangely exciting. If only he’d been able to work that same kind of magic on Balls of Fury’s lifeless, derivative script.

Hairspray - Review

Hairspray is a lively and enjoyable adaptation (or as director Adam Shankman calls it, a "re-invention") of the Tony-winning Broadway musical, itself a singing-dancing remake of the 1988 John Waters film. While the source material has always seemed like a bit of a curio, its themes of inclusion, equality, and embracing the new and different provide a strong jumping-off point here. The mega-success of the stage production made a big-screen version inevitable and, despite a plot that still teeters from marginal to meaningful, this latest incarnation has much to recommend.

Set in 1962 Baltimore, Hairspray tells the fable-icious story of Tracy Turnblad (Nikki Blonsky), a chubby, ebullient, exceedingly confident teen who's got the music in her—as well as the dance moves. When she finally lands the chance to shake it up on the local American Bandstand-like "Corny Collins Show," big-little Tracy becomes a hometown sensation. She also gives the show's main dancer Amber Von Tussle (Brittany Snow) some stiff competition, especially when Amber's dreamy boyfriend Linc Larkin (High School Musical's Zac Efron) begins to have eyes for the plucky, dance crazy Ms. Turnblad.

Tracy's laundress mother, the bashful and obese Edna (John Travolta, in a role always played by men) and her dad Wilbur (Christopher Walken), a sweet, joke-shop proprietor, quickly adjust to their daughter's newfound fame, as does Tracy's best pal, Penny Pingleton (Amanda Bynes). Only Velma Von Tussle (Michelle Pfeiffer), the gloriously evil manager of the station that airs the show, is irked by the Tracy factor, and tries her best to get Tracy out of the picture—and insure daughter Amber's coveted place as Miss Teenage Hairspray.

But when the bigoted Velma decides to cancel the dance show's monthly "Negro Day" (segregation's still going on), which is hosted by record shop owner Motormouth Maybelle (Queen Latifah) and features Maybelle's smooth, hot-hoofing son Seaweed (Elijah Kelly), Tracy helps lead a protest march against the station, gets arrested, and becomes something of a fugitive. It's here the movie (as did the original) loses steam, till the infectious final number "You Can't Stop the Beat" reunites the whole cast for a wonderfully rollicking, smile-inducing finale.

Shankman (Bringing Down the House, The Pacifier), who directed from a script adapted by Leslie Dixon, keeps the energy bubbling throughout, filling the screen with vibrant colors, constant movement, and a great deal of joy. He choreographed as well, and, despite moments when it feels like there's simply not enough room on the screen to contain it all, the dance numbers are uniformly terrific. All the leads get their moment in the singing spotlight, with Blonsky's upbeat opener "Good Morning Baltimore" and love paean "I Can Hear the Bells," Kelley and Taylor Parks' (who plays his kid sister Inez) "Run and Tell That," and Queen Latifah's moving "I Know Where I've Been" among the other standouts penned by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman.

Kudos also go to costume designer Rita Ryack for her diverse, eye-popping array of '60s clothes and to production designer David Gropman for recreating the look of the era with more smarts and less kitsch than one might expect. Hair designer Judi Cooper-Sealy also had her work cut out for her, and she delivers tenfold.

The large cast, also including James Marsden as glib TV host Corny Collins, Allison Janney as Penny's bible-toting mother, and Jerry Stiller (who played Wilbur Turnblad in the first film) as big-gal dress shop owner Mr. Pinky, gives their all, with a special shout out to Pfeiffer, a hilarious Bynes, and vivacious newcomer Blonsky. John Waters and the original Tracy, Ricki Lake, also pop up in amusing cameos.

As for Travolta, he's game and quite funny in the wacky part, but aside from looking pretty odd (even for a middle-aged man in fat lady drag); he doesn't always cut loose enough to make the character his own. And why is he the only one to attempt a Baltimore accent? Let's just say, his Edna Turnblad is a far cry from the career-making studs he played in Saturday Night Fever and Grease. But that's show biz.