July 19–26, 2001

movie shorts

America’s Sweethearts

By the time John Cusack gets beaned in the crotch with a cactus, you know you’re in trouble — and you may be feeling a little beaned yourself. There’s certainly nothing subtle about America’s Sweethearts, which takes aim at such doublewide targets as movie-star vanity and the unctuous, glad-handing press. Set at a press junket for a would-be blockbuster which has disappeared along with its wild-eyed hippie director (Christopher Walken), the film (directed by Revolution Studios head Joe Roth, who last took a spin behind the lens with Coupe de Ville ) follows the attempts of a ruthless publicist (Billy Crystal) to keep the press occupied by drumming up rumors of reconciliation between the film’s once-married but now-estranged stars (Cusack and Catherine Zeta-Jones). Cusack, who is miscast so often they’ll have to find another word for it, is at sea in his sticky surroundings, while Julia Roberts — as CZJ’s sister, personal assistant and JC crush-haver — flitters her hand and grins like some kind of Julia robot. The gags are so toothless that even such professional glad-handers as Byron Allen and Patrick Stoner take "shots" at themselves — though Stoner makes a point of saying his character’s fake name so you’ll know it’s not really him. The Hollywood types are at worst vaguely daffy and a little self-obsessed, not a venal, corrupt, craven, backstabbing, soulless sociopath among them. At least, not onscreen.

—Sam Adams

(Ritz 16)