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Must See Movie...

Best movie of this year hands down!

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

Take a lot of talented and funny actresses, put them in a set up that should work and then sit back and wait for laughter. That was the plan anyway. Sadly it doesn't work and this film is poor, often coming off as a cheaper version of Sex and the city without the bite.It's talky, it's glib, it's a lot of old nothing really, with some scenes not feeling linked despite being straight after each other. The two girls (and Diane Keaton) try their best but come on, they must know it isn't working.The only bright spot of the film is Walter Matthau, who sadly makes his last appearance on screen before his death. Sadly he can't elevate this film but does have some smart lines and still manages to act his co-stars off the screen. We miss you Walter.

Telemarketer irritation--that's the feeling I had when I watched Hanging Up, an almost cartoonishly clichéd "woman's movie." Diane Keaton's direction of this mess is so incompetent that I hope she never stands behind a camera again. The movie fails on every level--it bored my wife and daughter (and it's only because I'm anal about finishing movies that I sat through 95 minutes of Hell; they went to bed).This was Walter Matthau's last movie, and it hurts to see such a premiere talent being wasted (although his toupee looks as if it could live on). Meg Ryan appears to have lost weight for Hanging Up (if that's possible) and seems to be carrying the mass of the world on her shoulders, physically dissipating in front of our eyes while wearing one paper-thin muscle shirt after another. Looking scrawny and bra-less isn't appealing to anyone.Okay, enough for the nastiness. This really is a waste of film stock. Whatever BIG messages it has about sibling rivalry and familial relationships and keeping your accident from your insurance company are lost in Keaton's attempt to play cute and/or sweet (the dog and the pill; the Iranian mom).The movie's called Hanging Up. My suggestion is to take the phone off the hook before the opening credits.

I have seem some awful films before (House of the Dead, Battlefield Earth et c), but Hanging Up was by far the worst movie ever. I will willingly watch any movie, Lifetime movies included, over Hanging Up. It was by far the most excruciating experience of my life. I wanted to die; suicide was an option somewhere around 15 minutes in. Half way through the movie I was convinced that Hell would be a blessing in comparison. I urge everyone to buy a copy of this movie and destroy it so that there won't be a singe copy of this available, thereby saving the future generations of America. Everyone who played a part in this movie, especially Meg Ryan, should be brought up on war crimes for taking part in Hanging Up.

HANGING UP (2000) *1/2 Meg Ryan, Diane Keaton, Lisa Kudrow, Walter Matthau, Adam Arkin, Cloris Leachman, Jesse James, Edie McClurg.When did Nora Ephron lose her razor sharp comic bile and effervescent wit? I'd be hard pressed to guess at her debacle at directing the laugh free `Mixed Nuts' that made her directing debut practically inauspicious. Since then she has rehashed `When Harry Met Sally.' (one of my all time favorite comedies) AND `Sleepless In Seattle' (with 1998's `You've Got Mail' which was a rehash of `The Shop Around The Corner') and I've also noticed her comedy flair has gotten a nasty streak of meanness throughout. Her latest offering is a joint effort with her sister Delia (based on her autobiographical account of their colorful screenwriter father) that quite frankly is a mirthless, `dramedy' (a term I never wholeheartedly embraced; sounds freakish don't you think?) about three sisters approaching middle age and enough dysfunction for several sitcoms to trudge through.Eve, Georgia and Maddy (Ryan, Keaton - who directed this mess, and Kudrow, respectively) are the squabbling sisters who all seem attached by some sort of metaphorical umbilical cord (i.e. the phone) who are at constant odds with each other and themselves in midst of a family crisis: their randy, colorful alcoholic screenwriter father Lou (the film's saving grace Matthau, who gives a heartfelt turn in a too-true-to-life interpretation of a life fully lived) whose mental decline is only preceded by his physical one: he's slowly dying.But it seems that Eve, a professional party planner married with a son, is the only one who recognizes this in spite of her hectic pell mell existence and clumsiness (i.e. accident prone to a fault) she does the only reasonable alternative: she puts their dad in the hospital after an attempt in a nursing home that only offered disastrous results.Georgia is a power hungry magazine magnate busy putting her self-congratulatory 5th anniversary edition of her eponymous zine to bed while her ditzy younger sis Maddy is trying to maintain a role on a soap opera with middling results.The film suffers many things, largely a decent script with a peppering of listless one-liners that fall flat or the hackneyed long-in-the-tooth premise of a dying loved one's pleas for his children to love one another (a noble theme true but here it feels like pulling teeth with no ether!) The other sin in the golden rule of comedy is there is nothing likable about the `realistic' account of one family's attempt to deal with a crisis. All three sisters are sooo annoying and whining and ultimately uncaring that when they finally get together by the film's inevitable climax it feels contrived and completely unconvincing. Why should we care about any of these characters in the first place? They're all too wrapped up in their ME ME way of life that it's actually repulsive.Matthau, with his basset hound's face in the comedy visage of Mount Rushmore, delivers a fine professional turn and I hate to say this but the fact he has been facing some hard times with his health only adds another layer to his role that raises the film a half star just for his casting.There are so many unanswered questions I hope the three other stars may consider on their next feature film. For Ryan - who I absolutely adore except here she is given the thankless task of being the glue here - When are you going to do a comedy with your meant-to-be older sister/mother Goldie Hawn, who she seems to be channeling obviously in her one-too-many scenes with a behemoth St. Bernard (shades of `Seems Like Old Times'); for Keaton - who will forever be Annie Hall to me - When did you stop being funny? Perhaps the second `Father of the Bride' flick? And finally to Kudrow - who's always solidly funny - When oh when are you going to stretch again and do another character (i.e. `The Opposite of Sex' in which she was deliciously snippy) and not another variation of your classic airhead Phoebe from `Friends'? These unsolved mysteries are now at Robert Stack's disposal.