Jobyna Ralston, SuperSweet

I love Jobyna Ralston. Jobyna had a natural sweetness and tenderness that worked perfectly in Harold Lloyd's sensitive, romantic comedies. I do not know how to express my feelings for the lovely Ms. Ralston. She was a very special girl, the kind of girl you want to know from her head down to her toenails. No, wait, that's a lyric from Rick James' "SuperFreak." Actually, Jobyna was in no way a superfreak. She was not, by any means, a very kinky girl. She was very much the kind of girl you take home to mother. She would never let your spirits down. That girl was pretty wild now. Sorry, that's "SuperFreak" again. Anyway, Jobyna was great. Ow, girl!

Danny McBride: The Confident Fool

Harold Lloyd was the go-getter for the Jazz Age. Joe E. Brown was the go-getter for the Depression Era. Danny McBride is the go-getter for the End Time.

Classic comedy is filled with humble jerks. But Harold Lloyd did something different with the perennial comedy fool - he gave him confidence and drive. Lloyd came to represent the All-American go-getter - ambitious, determined, enthusiastic and industrious. He was a Horatio Alger character, a down-and-out boy able to achieve the American Dream of wealth and success through hard work, courage and determination. He was able to rise from a humble background to life of respectable middle-class security and comfort. Lloyd's message was that a man could achieve amazing feats if only he believed in himself. Confidence was strength. Confidence was, in and of itself, an achievement. In Girl Shy, Lloyd must acquire confidence to resolve his shyness and stuttering. In Grandma's Boy (1922), Lloyd relies on a magic charm given to him by his grandmother to gain courage and confidence. The importance of confidence comes up in many of Lloyd's films.

During the 1920s, Lloyd's upbeat demeanor and confidence were inspiring to American audiences. But some, including biographer Annette D'Agostino, believe that Lloyd's popularity declined in the early thirties because the Depression-weary public no longer believed in the American Dream. These people waiting on bread lines rejected Lloyd's optimistic lessons of success.

It was at this time that Joe E. Brown took the Harold Lloyd formula and transformed the go-getter character into something new. His was a tougher character for a tougher day. The character could, at times, be an arrogant jerk. Brown's first big hit was Elmer the Great, where he played irascible, conceited pitcher Elmer Kane. Kane was modeled after baseball pitcher Dizzy Dean, who enjoyed bragging about his prowess on the mound. Dean once said, "Anybody who's ever had the privilege of seeing me play knows that I am the greatest pitcher in the world." When a reporter challenged him about his bragging, he replied, "It ain't bragging if you can back it up."'

Now, long after Lloyd and Brown, film fans have been introduced to Danny McBride, who believes as Lloyd that confidence is the key to success and believes as Brown that there's nothing wrong with being an arrogant jerk. Except, truth be told, McBride is a lot more arrogant and jerky than Brown ever was. What might this new comedian say about America and what we, as its citizens, have become?

McBride made his debut in Foot Fist Way (2006) playing Fred Simmons, a fourth-degree black belt in Taekwondo who runs a smalltown dojo. Marc Mohan, movie critic with the Portland Oregonian, wrote, "Simmons instructs his charges. . . in the five pillars of his chosen martial art: Courtesy, Self-Control, Perseverance, Integrity and Indomitable Spirit. These also serve as chapter headings for the film — and Simmons has very little success in his own life abiding by them."

Simmons seems to be trying to outdo W.C. Fields when he beats up a little boy in a taekwondo match. He comes across as creepy while making a pass at a young woman who has come into his office to sign up for classes. Robert Wilonsky, movie critic for the Village Voice, wrote, "Turns out Fred's more loathsome than laughable. . . There's something real about Fred — and something real nasty about him, too, something that lingers after the movie's choked a few laughs out of an audience that won't know whether to pity or punch him."

Simmons is only sympathetic because other characters in the film are even worse than he is. Wilonsky wrote, "He considers himself a warrior; meanwhile, the world is kicking his ass left, right, and sideways." Simmons tells his students that they cannot be soft. He castigates a student for being "weak as hell." He says, in no uncertain terms, that weakness is "disgusting." In his mind, a person needs to stay strong to deal with the challenges of the world. "This world is a dark, dark forest," he tells a young student. "If you open up a man and look into most of their hearts, you'll find disgust and evil. . . Your own parents - your mother and father - would slice your throat just to get ahead. And if you find a wife, you watch her - you don't believe a single word she says - because, at the core, people are shit." Simmons sees the need to be aggressive and confident to raise his status in a society that only respects power and success. He has to fight hard unless he wants to end up as just another punching bag. And he may just be right.

Simmons repeatedly refers to the confidence problems of his student Henry, who can sometimes be seen standing in a corner staring nervously down at his shoes. He warns Henry that his confidence problems are a weakness to be exploited. Henry has come to Simmons after being beaten up by bullies. Under Simmons' instruction, he gains confidence and learns fighting skills, which allow him to beat a surly opponent in a match. It seems, in this context, that confidence is a positive thing. Henry's story arc is much like Harold's story arc in Grandma's Boy.

Simmons falls apart when his wife walks out on him. Holding back tears, Simmons looks into the mirror and reassures himself that he is "cool." Still, Simmons later breaks down crying in front of his class. When his wife comes back to him, he tells her, "I know I may seem like the strongest man you've ever known. . . but the fact is that I'm penetrable. . . I have a human heart ticking under here." Simmons, pouty and doughy, looks like a big lost kid as he says this. He does not look particularly strong by anyone's standards. He only looks silly.

At his introduction in The Freshman, Harold Lamb is looking in a mirror and practicing football cheers. Harold, like Simmons, believes that it is important to put a good face before the public. He looks into the mirror to see what other people will see and he makes sure to perfect his look and manner. He looks in the mirror, too, to give himself encouragement.

Harold, who is getting ready to go to Tate University, feels that he can be popular at the school by mimicking someone who has, himself, managed to become popular at the school. He imagines himself as Chester A. Trask, a student voted the most popular man on campus. Harold also looks to the example of Lester Laurel, the star of the movie College Hero. Besides picking up fashion tips from Laurel, Harold adopts this little dance that Laurel does whenever he meets someone for the first time. Harold seeks success by pretending to be someone else. He will eventually take up football to be like Trask. In this way, he is not much different than Simmons. Simmons emulates B-movie action star Chuck "the Truck" Wallace, who he has seen in the Seven Rings of Pain movie trilogy, and it is to be like Wallace that Simmons has taken up martial arts.

Harold arrives at Tate University. The college, while not a dark forest, is still not the most cordial environment. The first students Harold meets are eager to play pranks on him. The students buddy up with him planning to "ride him." Harold's belief in himself leads him to make wrong assumptions about people and makes him vulnerable to the whims of these pranksters. He imagines himself to be a great guy so, in his mind, it's no wonder these students take an instant liking to him. His confidence, his eagerness and his outgoing personality will manage, in the end, to lead him into an embarrassing situation.

Harold is never seen in a classroom for the entire film. He never encounters a professor. That is because this film is not about education. It is, essentially, about Harold trying to attain social status in his new community.

I see a similar pattern in the story of Harold Lamb and the story of Fred Simmons. Harold is betrayed by his idol, Trask, who participates in the pranks. Simmons is betrayed by his idol, Wallace, who has sex with Simmons' wife. It is darkest before the dawn for both men. Harold suffers the humiliation of losing his pants at a school dance and then finding out that he has been the laughingstock of the school. Simmons suffers a bloody and humiliating beat down by Wallace.

Harold shows at this time that he, too, is penetrable. When his landlady's daughter Peggy holds her arms out to him, Harold falls into her lap and cries helplessly. Peggy tells him, "Stop pretending, Harold — be yourself! Get out and make them like you for what you really are and what you can do!"

Harold was a likable character and audiences had no problem rooting for him, but the self-aggrandizing social climber certainly has a dark side. Harold, with his confidence and ambition, isn't all pleasant and well-meaning. He desires the adulation of the masses. He envies Trask when he steps off a train and has a crowd of cheering students surrounding him and patting him on the back. His ultimate goal is to displace Trask as the most popular man on campus.

Confidence is, to an extent, about self-absorption and believing that you are superior to others. It's about thinking that you should get the job, the girl, the opportunity, because no one else deserves it like you do. In the end, it is Harold who is the hero of the football game, not Trask. It is Harold who spectators surround and cheer. In the same way, spectators surround and cheer Simmons when, at the end of Foot Fist Way, he beats Wallace in a board breaking demonstration. In the end, there can be only one "most popular man." In the end, there can only be one winner.

Believing you have unique abilities is the same as making claims to superior importance, which is to make yourself arrogant. If confidence and arrogance are different, they are not different to a great extent. The line, as they say, is thin. And thinking that you are better than others can offend other people. This mean that confidence, by itself, can be an obnoxious trait. George Carlin did a funny routine criticizing the "self-esteem movement." He pointed out, "Extremely aggressive, violent people think very highly of themselves. Sociopaths have high self-esteem."

Eastbound and Down, Danny McBride's new series for HBO, features McBride as down-and-old baseball pitcher Kenny Powers. Powers is arrogant, foul-mouthed, angry, impulsive, malicious, rude, and obnoxious. He's Elmer Kane on steroids, literally. Powers has been thrown out of baseball for drug use, racist comments, declining performance, and generally boorish behavior. One fans accuses him of "ruining baseball." Powers, looking to regroup, goes back to his hometown in Shelby County, North Carolina, to live with his older brother and teach physical education at the community high school.

Powers, undeterred by his setbacks, refers to himself as a "Goddamn champion" and a "bulletproof tiger." Others, though, describe him as a "big baby," an "asshole," a "piece of shit" and a "bagful of mashed up assholes." But self-image, which is what drives Powers, is all that matters to him. In his narration, Powers provides his ultimate philosophy: "I'm the man who has the ball. I'm the man who can throw it faster than fuck. So that is why I am better than everyone in the world. Kiss my ass and suck my dick, everyone!" It ain't bragging if you can back it up, except that Powers can no longer back it up. Powers started out with legitimate abilities - he could throw a ball at a speed of 101 mph. But that was all he was ever able to do and he is unable to even do that anymore. All he has left is his confidence, which he is determined to cram down people's throats.

Powers is an appallingly bad house guest, which is apparent as soon as he sits down with his brother's family for dinner. Powers laughs uproariously upon learning that his two-year-old niece Rose was named after Kate Winslet's character in Titanic. He pokes one of the other kids at the table. "What's his name," he asks, "fucking Shrek?" Later, Powers sits in the living room downing an uninterrupted series of beers and arguing loudly with a hooker on his cell phone about the amount she wants to charge him for a blowjob.

That's a picture of Rose to the left. The fact that Powers can use such harsh language around this sweet little tot does not say much about his character.

Simmons seems to look down on his brother's middle-class lifestyle. Middle-class is too smalltime for this success-obsessed character. We might assume that Harold Lamb was only after that life of respectable middle-class security and comfort, but it should be considered that Harold Lamb was an outgrowth of Harold Lloyd, who ended up an extremely rich man with one of the most lavish estates in Hollywood. How popular did Harold Lamb really want to be?

Peggy's advice to Harold was to "make them like you for what you really are and what you can do." This is definitely not how it works in Simmons' world. First, success is no longer about being liked. Success is about indulging in hot babes, fast cars, and as much cocaine as a person can stuff up their nose. In a competitive environment, where success is at stake, the motto is, "I'm not here to make friends." Second, it is not always about what you can do as it is about what people think you can do. It is not about belief in your genuine and measurable powers, but driving yourself to success with force of will and false beliefs. But wasn't that also true of Harold Lloyd's characters? In The Freshman, the coach sees promise in Harold not because of how fast he can run or how far he can throw the ball but he sees promise in him for the simple fact that this freshman has "spunk." He has this spirit, this determination, this force of will. Harold, himself, expects to instantly win friends with a little dance and the force of his personality. In Grandma's Boy, the hero's belief in himself is false because this so-called "magic charm" that his grandmother has given him is really a handle from an old umbrella. The hero beats up a burly, murderous tramp in this film based on blind, possibly misguided faith in himself.

McBride has received a great deal of support from comedy heavyweights Will Ferrell and Ben Stiller, both of whom have flexed their comedy muscles in similar territory. Ferrell has played a number of arrogant jerks in Anchorman, Talladega Nights and Blades of Glory. Stiller, when not playing anxious and awkward boobs, has done well for himself playing arrogant jerks in Zoolander, Dodgeball and Tropic Thunder. The stakes are higher when it comes to the success of these characters, who tend to be rich celebrities with little interest in a middle-class lifestyle. The fact that these characters are suddenly so prevalent and so popular has to say something about our current culture.

Harold Lloyd endorsed the American Dream in his films. Danny McBride shows that, seventy years later, the American Dream has produced greed and excess and obnoxious jerks.

The Great Stoneface

The Importation of Comedy Teams

Current comedy teams in America, including Little Britain, Flight of the Conchords and the Mighty Boosh, all come from foreign shores. It is truly an import crisis, worse than Japan surpassing the United States as the largest car producing nation in the world.

I find it interesting how these comedy teams name themselves. They don't subscribe to the old vaudeville tradition of taking the comics' last names and putting an "&" sign in between. I wonder what Abbott & Costello would have called themselves if they were around today. I doubt they would have been as endearing if they had called themselves something like the Great Confusion.

The Mighty Boosh, whose series is set to air on the Cartoon Network's Adult Swim, had its origins in England. But, despite a lifetime spent in London and Leeds, the comedians still display the influence of classic American comedy teams, including Hope and Crosby and Abbott & Costello. The Mighty Boosh consists of Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding. Barratt, as Howard Moon, is self-deluded, boastful and paranoid. He is contrasted well by Fielding, who plays his dim-witted, happy-go-lucky partner Vince Noir.

The team had an obvious fascination with the Abbott & Costello sitcom in their first season, at which time they imitated Abbott & Costello's habit of coming out in front of a theater curtain to introduce segments of the show. They also had a bizarre cast of supporting characters like Abbott & Costello. Bud and Lou had an ape named Bingo. Howard and Vince had an ape named Bollo. The disturbingly odd and chubby Bob Fossil was the show's equivalent of Stinky.

The first season episodes, as formative as they are, are not among the series' strongest. The only stand-out episodes of the season are "Charlie" and "Hitcher." But then, in the second season, the duo took flight with their own version of the Road movies. Like Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, they portrayed vain entertainers engaged in a perpetual battle of the egos. They were obsessed with knowing who was better looking, who was more talented, and who could better attract the ladies. They ended up in surreal situations in exotic locales - the Artic Tundra, the Desert of Nightmares, Black Lake. In one episode, they got marooned on a desert island. The whole time, they have to contend with a creepy merman, a Yeti, an evil sultan, and a demon. In the Road movies, Hope and Crosby also had a wide variety of adventures. They treked through through the jungles of Madagascar, frolicked on the fictitious tropical island of Kaigoon, met beautiful princesses, used a stolen map to find a secret gold mine in Alaska, and embarked on hazardous deep-sea dive to retrieve a chest of priceless jewels.

Some fans of the the Mighty Boosh have expressed disappointment with Season Three episodes, which tie the pair to a boutique and feature less otherworldly adventures. But these episodes are more driven by the characters, which Barratt and Fielding have been able to develop more fully, and the stories are generally more satisfying.

Before closing, I would also like to praise one foreign comedy team that never managed to make it to the U.S. A recent British comedy series Black Books featured a perfect comedy odd couple - foul-mouthed, misanthropic, alcoholic bookstore owner Bernard Black (Dylan Moran) and his mild-mannered, eager-to-please, chronically abused assistant Manny (Bill Bailey).

Battling Romeos

For his first movie in five years, writer/ director James L. Brooks is looking to cast comic actors Owen Wilson and Paul Rudd as two men vying for the affections of Reese Witherspoon. Comedy situations built around romantic rivalry are not at all appealing to me. I don't know, maybe I see this as lazy storytelling. A writer puts two guys in an empty room. All he needs to do to stir up conflict is have a pretty girl walk into the room. Big deal. Writers have known for centuries that having the hero battle an evil opponent to win a lady's favor instantly brings together romance, action and adventure. The Farrelly Brothers took the romantic rivals concept to such an extreme in There's Something About Mary (1998) that this should have been the romantic rival comedy that ended all romantic rival comedies. But, I guess, Hollywood never tires of the concept.

I got my 14-year-old son, Griffin, to sit down with me and watch the DVD American Slapstick 2. It was hard to explain to my son the many unfamiliar items, customs and habits that came his way watching this collection of silent comedies. At one point, I had to explain to him the reason that people were at one time willing to crowd together at a lunch counter. A Woolworth's lunch counter has been preserved in the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of American History. Maybe, I could take him to see that some day.

Then, my son asked me why women are so mean in silent comedies. The question, I believe, had to do with the troublesome romantic rivalries that were at the core of many of the comedies. Often, the heroine does not acknowledge the rivalry, as if blissfully unaware of the havoc she is stirring up around her. Other times, she is a fickled individual who encourages the rivalry, reveling in the notion of two men battling fiercely to win her. This woman, whether insensitive, fickled or malicious, doesn't seem to be worth all the fuss.

My son's question came directly after we had watched a Sennett comedy called Be Reasonable. In Be Reasonable, Billy Bevan and Mildred June meet up at the beach, where June accepts an expensive pearl necklace as a gift from Bevan. June's dog, Fifi, chases a ball out into the surf and gets pulled into the undertow. Bevan tries to dive off the pier to rescue the dog but he misses the water and dives headfirst into the sand. Meanwhile, lifeguard Harry Gribbon dives into the water and carries out the dog. At this point, June's affection shifts to Gribbon. Bevan is unable to squeeze himself between June and Gribbon. When June cuddles up next to Gribbon on a blanket, Bevan asks her to give him the necklace back. June holds onto the necklace tightly. "It's mine," she insists. This leads Bevan to burglarize June's home to get back the necklace. Bevan, in the end, gets chased by an army of police officers.

On the same disk was Call the Wagon, another comedy that deals with courtship and romantic rivals. Dick (Neal Burns) wants to propose marriage to Mary (Charlotte Merriam), the daughter of a rich businessman, but he finds himself competing with a mob of suitors. Walking into Mary's home, Dick confronts four eager suitors packed together on a sofa. The men are waiting while Mary gets ready in her bedroom. Dick decides to get rid of these other guys by getting the maid's help to play a prank. At first, the maid (Babe London) passes through the parlor pretending to be bringing Mary false teeth in a glass of water. When she comes through a second time, the maid drops hair extensions, which she also mentions belong to Mary. The idea that Mary is not all that she seems to be sends her suitors scrambling for the door.

Dick, as the last suitor standing, is free to propose marriage to Mary. Mary, though, has learned about Dick's prank and is determined to get back at him. After accepting his marriage proposal, Mary sits down on the sofa with Dick and asks him if he minds her making herself comfortable. She proceeds to pull off a wig. Then, she pretends to be plucking out a glass eye. Finally, she acts as if she is yanking out false teeth. She has one eye squeezed shut and her teeth drawn back behind her lips to make herself look like a toothless, one-eyed hag. Merriam plays this scene perfectly. Maybe it's just me, but I still find Merriam adorably cute without her curls, her smile or her right eye.

Dick pretends to be insane to get out of marrying Mary. But Mary is not finished getting revenge on him. She lays a live electrical wire on a chair just as Dick is about to sit down. While Dick is hopping around from the effects of the voltage, Mary calls an insane asylum to have caretakers come to drag him away.

Dick isn't the most sympathetic character in the comedy, but this cruel treatment doesn't seem to be something he deserves. Mary could have avoided Dick's pranks if she fairly evaluated one suitor at a time.

For something to be funny, it has to be relatable. Personally, I have never had to compete with a villain to persuade a woman to go out on a date with me. All this boy has ever had to do is turn on the Balducci charm and wait a few minutes for the magic to happen. I don't mind admitting that I have been influenced by romantic heroes of the movies. To start, Barrymore taught me that a man with a great profile should never miss an opportunity to show it off. So, when sitting down with a woman, I make a point to turn my chair sideways so that the woman is better able to see my rugged brow, my classical Roman nose and my modelesque cheekbones. I then work the muscles in my face to create the cocked eyebrow and sneering lips that made Clark Gable so irresitable to women. I squeeze my chin to create a cleft like the one that Kirk Douglas had as he charmed the likes of Lana Turner and Kim Novak. I relax my eyelids to make them as seductively droopy as James Dean's eyelids. You want to see how it looks when I put it all together.

Yeah, that's the kind of movie star looks that I have. Chill, ladies, there's enough to go around for everyone.

Leaving my personal experiences out of it, I have to wonder if the genre conventions that surround these comically heated rivalries can be found in the real world. I know that competition for a mate has historically led to some great fights. This is something that presumably went on as far back as the caveman days. But what about today? Last July, the New Hampshire Union Leader printed the story "Camping trip turned deadly for romantic rivals" about a local man beaten to death at a campsite. The police were able to determine that the killer got rid of the man upon learning they were both interested in the same woman. He punched the man repeatedly, kicked him once he got him on the ground, and finished him off by smashing him in the head with a rock. Last October, All Headline News released the story "Teen Disfigures Romantic Rival's Face With Brass Knuckles" about an 18-year-old girl arrested for beating and disfiguring a 17-year-old girl's face with a pair of brass knuckles in a dispute over a boy. I guess, courtship is not all flowers and candy. It can, at times, involve outrageous, if not comical, violence.

It would seem more reasonable for rivals to act civil towards one another until the fair lady decides which one of them she likes better. In Dear Ol' Pal (1923), best friends Paul Parrott and Snub Pollard become interested in the same girl (Marie Mosquini). They are concerned about competing fairly to preserve their friendship, but they still keep getting mad at each other and exchanging blows. It's a confused state of affairs, which the friends have trouble working out. Mosquini becomes surrounded by flames in a burning building while the pair are trying to decide who should be the one to rescue her.

A more modern twist on this situationally awkward brotherhood can be found in Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008), the plot of which involves composer Peter Bretter (Jason Segel) losing his girlfriend Sarah to self-involved British-rocker Aldous Snow (Russell Brand). Bretter and Snow, as Parrott and Pollard, become pals. The two men engage in male-bonding while sitting on surfboards out in the ocean. Snow compliments Bretter's music. Bretter tells Snow, "Fuck, you're cool. It's hard to say because I hate you in so many ways but, whatever, I know what Sarah likes about you." The two men commiserate about Sarah's flaws. They end up developing a bromance. It is hard to imagine Harold Lloyd taking screen time to develop a friendship with his romantic rival. If you put Lloyd and his rival on the beach with surfboards, it wouldn't be long before the two of them were having a surfboard competition. In the end, neither Bretter nor Snow is interested in dating Sarah, who suffers the indignity of being dumped twice on the same day. Bretter calls Sarah the devil before he storms off.

A woman can, indeed, look like the devil sitting at the center of these unreasonable rivalries.

Confessions of a Ledge Climber

Isla Fisher is getting good reviews playing a pretty but klutzy magazine writer in Confessions of a Shopaholic. Fisher deals with pratfalls and tear-away dresses. She gets involved in a slapstick battle when a sale of designer boots erupts into a full-blown riot. Lisa Schwarzbaum calls Fisher "a fabulous acrobat of physical comedy." Nathan Rabin of The Onion praises her "gift for slapstick." Todd McCarthy of Variety writes glowingly of her "irrepressible comic personality." John Anderson of the Washington Post is pleased by the "incredibly sweet and frazzled" character she brings to the screen.

A number of critics have compared Fisher to Lucy. Comparing a pretty, pratfalling actress to Lucy is nothing new. Critics said that Shelley Long was Lucy. Critics said that Jenna Elfman was Lucy. Critics said that Téa Leoni was Lucy. Frankly, it benefited none of these actresses to be given standing with Lucy.

Schwarzbaum went further back in movie history to find a more appropriate comparison for Fisher. She found that Fisher, who "combines dizzy feminity and no-nonsense verve," is a classic screwball heroine in the tradition of Carole Lombard. Lombard, who started out working as a bathing beauty for Mack Sennett, was in fact an attractive actress adept at physical comedy.

Still, I would like to go back even further to find a precedent for Fisher. I would like to go back to silent comedies. Comediennes in silent comedies tended to be eccentric characters in grotesque make-up. Louise Fazenda, playing a quirky country bumpkin, was all spit curls and pigtails wrapped up in a calico dress. Dot Farley had buck teeth. Gale Henry was as drastically thin as Olive Oyl. Alice Howell wore a tall frizzy hairdo like the Bride of Frankenstein. But, during this period, at least one actress was able to perform physical comedy while remaining pretty and captivating. This one popular comedienne was more realistic than a cartoon character and prettier than a monster. Her name was Dorothy Devore. Devore was a determined go-getter in the mold of Harold Lloyd, except a curvier mold.

Unfortunately, only a few of Devore's comedies are available on DVD. These comedies, including Know Thy Wife (1918), Getting Gertie's Goat (1924) and Hold Your Breath (1924), are charming and entertaining. Devore looks, at times, like a wind-up toy - a tiny, energetic lady carried off hurriedly by shuffling feet. Hold Your Breath, the most outstanding of the group, features Devore pursuing a monkey out on the ledge of a high-rise building to retrieve an expensive bracelet. Let's see Isla Fisher fall through an awning and dangle from a fire hose like Devore does in this film.

Let others call Isla Fisher the new Lucy or the new Carole Lombard. I hereby dub her the new Dorothy Devore.

A Moron's Hitchcock

In Eagle Eye, terrorists use sophisticated computer hacking to take control of electronic networks. These bad guys, in their concerted attacks, implausibly operate automated cranes and set off power lines. Caught in the middle is a copy store clerk who has no idea what is going on. The film seems to be an attempt to update the Hitchcock innocent-man-on-the-run thriller, but it comes out looking like a crazy house mirror version of North by Northwest.

Unfortunately, director D.J. Caruso shows no finesse when it comes to pacing. He never holds a shot long enough to build suspense. The film, as cluttered and noisy as it is, never gives the audience the chance to worry about what's going to happen next. It's all explosions and car crashes. Addison Engelking, movie critic for the Memphis Flyer, referred to Caruso as "a moron's Hitchcock." Hitchcock preferred to ratchet up the tension by showing the ticking timebomb hidden underneath the table. The bombs in Eagle Eye don't tick, they just go boom. Oh, wait, a bomb hidden inside a necklace is introduced late in the film. By then, though, I was too shell-shocked to care. Besides, the fact that the the bomb won't be activated until a little boy blows a "high f" on his trumpet is an absurd idea that belongs in an episode of Get Smart. Engelking points out that the film has nothing in it like North By Northwest's famous crop-duster scene, which is made suspenseful by the "long, still shots of Cary Grant in the middle of nowhere."

It makes it even worse that the main characters in the film are shallow and unsympathetic. Hitchcock was not at his strongest when it came to character development, but he was at least able to rely on actors like Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart to bring established personas to his films. Shia LeBeouf doesn't bring much of a character to this film. He's a testy young man with daddy issues. His emotions range from nervous to very nervous to angry to very angry. He's not a guy I'm cheering on to defeat the mysterious terrorists.