Stan & Ollie

First Hit: This is an outstanding, beautiful, love story about how two men spent their lives together making audiences laugh.

Like a married couple, Stan Laurel (Steve Coogan) and Oliver Hardy (John C. Reilly) spent years of their lives together. In that time together, their bond of respect and friendship developed while on the road doing shows and making films making people laugh.

This film begins with the men doing a scene for a movie in their heyday. They are kibitzing in a trailer talking about the number of marriages Oliver had, all the money he had to give to these ex-wives, and his love for the ponies. The scene they shoot is one of their favorite dance routines, and it is a sight to behold.

Stan, on the other hand, was always working, writing, and thinking of gags for the duo to use in their films or stage act. As they enter the set to shoot a scene, Stan wants Oliver and himself to start their own production company because they do all the work and manager-producer Hal Roach (Danny Huston) and the film company is making all the money. Stan can get out of his contract, but Oliver cannot. They split up.

We see a brief scene where Oliver does a movie (“the elephant film”) with someone else.

The film then shifts to sixteen years later, and they are in their sixties. Their old movies still show in theaters, but few people see them, and they receive no royalties for their work. They both need money and Stan, who has never stopped working, is attempting to get financing together for a Laurel & Hardy film version of Robin Hood. To help them finance the film and to demonstrate their draw, they decide to tour England, Ireland, and Scotland to drum up interest. The hope is that the possible financier will see them in a London show.

The tour starts slowly, and they play tiny second-rate houses, stay in second-rate hotels, and the crowds are small. However, the people who do come to the shows, love them. Harry Landon (Richard Cant), their tour organizer decide they have to do some promotional newsreels. So, the film shows them promoting their shows and all of a sudden, the theaters are packed and their playing in front of audiences of 2,000.

When they reach London their respective wives, Lucille Hardy (Shirley Henderson) and Ida Kitaeva Laurel (Nina Arlanda) show up to see the big show in one of London’s most prominent theaters.

Lucille and Ida are a hoot together and separately as they are very different people and care about their husbands differently. However, the tour has been tough on both, especially Oliver. His weight challenges his heart, and his ability to move has been difficult. Then the underlying animosity, because Oliver did a film without Stan, comes out in a public argument.

Oliver has a mild heart attack and decides to retire. Stan tries to go on with a British replacement, but he cannot, it’s not Oliver, his partner, friend, and original cohort.

As the film winds up, Stan and Oliver do one more show and do their dance routine, it is sublime and brought such joy to my heart watching them.

Reilly was amazing. His expressions and ability to be Oliver Hardy was beyond anything I thought he could do. I was transported to 1957 as a little boy laughing out loud watching Laurel and Hardy on our black and white television. Coogan was equally fantastic as Stan Laurel. His routines, the one with the egg, were sublime. Arlanda and Henderson, Laurel and Hardy’s respective wives, were hilarious. I loved watching them snipe at each other and then, when watching their husbands’ last show, holding hands. Huston was superb as Hal Roach as was Cant in his role. Jeff Pope wrote a divine script. Jon S. Baird took this script and these amazing actors and made superb, finely crafted film.

Overall: I thoroughly enjoyed watching this film and would watch it again.

Bridget Jones's Baby

First Hit:  Occasionally funny but generally slow and simply didn’t work.

The very first film of this series, Bridget Jones’s Diary, was fun and it worked in many ways. Being introduced to Bridget Jones (Renee Zellweger), a woman who struggles with her weight, is lonely and falls in love with two men. The second was somewhat more of the same; but by this film, the main thing we’ve dropped from the plot is the weight although there are references to weight in the film.

Another constant in the previous films are her two love interests Mark (Colin Firth) and Daniel (Hugh Grant). However, because Grant dropped out of project, he's referenced in a plot device funeral. Here Bridget is successful at her job as producer of a television program. She is celebrating her 43rd birthday and ends of doing it alone in her apartment. She goes to Daniel's funeral and runs into Mark.

A few days later, her coworker Jude (Shirley Henderson) decides to take Bridget to a rock-in-roll festival where she happens to fall into bed with Jack (Patrick Dempsey) and they have a sexual evening. Running into Mark again at a Christening, she has sex with him as well. Having sex with two different men in a short period of time (within a couple weeks of each other), she becomes pregnant and doesn’t know who the father is. That is the plot of this film.

Jones is pregnant, she’s going to keep the baby, she doesn’t know who the father is, and she may lose her job at work. Generally, this plot has a bit of interest but the execution is mediocre. At the end of the film a newspaper article comes up stating that Daniel is still alive, God I hope this doesn't mean there is another film planned.

Zellweger seemed out of place and unengaged in the part. Dempsey seemed to put the most energy into his part although there didn’t seem to be chemistry between him and Zellweger. Firth did well by keeping his stogy, disengaged self in tack. Henderson was delightful and carried her scenes well. Jim Broadbent as Bridget’s dad was his wonderful self and Gemma Jones as Bridget’s mum was good. Emma Thompson co-wrote and also played Bridget’s physician in a wry manner. The other co-writers were Dan Mazer and Helen Fielding. Overall the script was not very strong because it was more rehashed material, although the overall story idea could have been interesting. However, this film is too long and falls apart because of less than engaged acting and lapses of interesting direction by Sharon Maguire. For instance, the scenes of Mark and Jack carrying Jones to the hospital weren’t funny and could have been cut.

Overall:  Despite some funny moments, this film didn’t work and wasn’t worth the price of admission.