“The Perfect Game” (Three Stars)
U.S.; William Dear, 2010 (Image)

        I admit it. I’m a sucker for inspirational sports movies. And this account of the historic 1957 Little League champions from Monterey, Mexico — a warm-hearted picture directed by William Dear (Harry and the Hendersons), written by the book’s author W. William Winokur, and starring Clifton Collins Jr.  as the manager, Cheech Marin as the team’s priest, and Moises Arias, Jansen Panatierre, Ryan Ochoa and Jake T. Austin among the boy players (with cameos by Lou Gossett, Jr., Frances Fisher and others) — got my “Hoosiers” juices running. For all the movie’s sometime clichés, it’s a story worth telling and seeing.   

Extras: Commentary by director William Dear; Featurette; Trailer.

　
The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard (One and a Half Stars)
U. S.; Neil Brennan, 2009 (Paramount)
Will Ferrell may be working too hard, selling too hard. This particular producer-chore for George Bush’s walking nightmare and doppleganger, is awful, awful. Watch Hard, Fall Hard. The usually funny Jeremy Piven, trying misguidedly to follow in the footsteps of Used Cars‘ Kurt Russell, stars as a super car dealer gun-for-hire named Don Ready, nicknamed The Goods, and hired to save James Brolin’s closeted, ailing dealership from the predatory clutches of the bank and his competitors.
 
A lot of good actors and comedians are sunk in this — not only the miscast Piven, but Ving Rhames, Ed Helms, Jordana Spiro and Charles Napier (playing the kind of guy, who might show up at a town hall political meeting with an Uzi) and Ferrell himself, who does a skydiving scene with a non-existent parachute. That pretty much sums up the movie too, which is a clunker of clinkers. Trust me..

“The Perfect Game” (Three Stars)
U.S.; William Dear, 2010 (Image)

        I admit it. I’m a sucker for inspirational sports movies. And this account of the historic 1957 Little League champions from Monterey, Mexico — a warm-hearted picture directed by William Dear (Harry and the Hendersons), written by the book’s author W. William Winokur, and starring Clifton Collins Jr.  as the manager, Cheech Marin as the team’s priest, and Moises Arias, Jansen Panatierre, Ryan Ochoa and Jake T. Austin among the boy players (with cameos by Lou Gossett, Jr., Frances Fisher and others) — got my “Hoosiers” juices running. For all the movie’s sometime clichés, it’s a story worth telling and seeing.   

Extras: Commentary by director William Dear; Featurette; Trailer.

　
“Coming to America”/”Trading Places” Comedy Double Feature (Three Stars)
U.S.: John Landis, 1988/1983 (Paramount)
Two of Eddie Murphy’s better comedies, both directed by hang-loose helmer and directorial party guy John (Animal House) Landis.

 
Also: Trading Places (U.S.; John Landis, 1983) Three Stars. Saturday Night Live vet Murphy was never better than in this Rich Man/poor man swap comedy in which Murphy plays a street guy who trades places with rich boy (and fellow SNL vet) Danny Aykroyd, as part of a nature-vs.-nurture argument between billionaire buttinskies Don Ameche and Ralph Bellamy. (See above.) With Jamie Lee Curtis as a well-stacked hooker, Jeevesian butler Denholm Elliott, Alfred Drake, Jim Belushi, and U. S. Senator Al Franken, of Minnesota, with his old SNL partner Tom Davis. (Well, Okay: Murphy is better in Beverly Hills Cop.)
 

Four Film Favorites: The Dirty Harry Collection (Blu-Ray) (2 discs) (Three and a half Stars)
U.S.; Various directors, 1971-83. (Warner)
I know what you’re thinking. Did he fire six shots or only five? Well, to tell the truth, in all this excitement, I kinda lost count myself. But, being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world and could blow your head clean off, ….
“Dirty Harry” Callahan, 1971
Those of us who think Clint Eastwood is a first rate actor as well as a great producer-director have 1971’s Dirty Harry (and many others actually) to offer as evidence. Could anyone have played that part — the foul-mouthed, rebellious, short-fuse cop Harry Callahan — better? (Including the actors to whom it was offered before C. E.: John Wayne, Paul Newman and Frank Sinatra?) Only Eastwood‘s Man With No Name (in the Leone films) has more charisma in this type of role; only George Carlin has a dirtier mouth.
The follow-ups in the series are a mixed bag, mostly good, and you’re better off with one of the sets that has all five Dirty Harries, including The Dead Pool, which has, after all, a cast that includes Liam Neeson, Patricia Clarkson and Jim Carrey. But Sudden Impact (Go ahead. Make my day.) is another classic. And they all have their moments. Like this one:
…You gotta be askin’ yourself one question: “Do I feel lucky?” Well, do ya? Punk?
 
Included: Dirty Harry (U.S.: Don Siegel, 1971) (Four stars). Best of the bunch: a genuine cop-noir masterpiece. The movie where Clint chases a Scorpio killer in San Francisco (Andy Robinson) and recites the italicized speeches above and below, twice. With Harry Guardino, John Vernon, Reni Santoni and John Larch.
 
Magnum Force (Ted Post, 1973) (Three Stars). Maybe to spike complaints that the first movie’s Harry was a vigilante cop and perhaps a fascist, this one has Harry going up against a cell of vigilante cops in his own PD. A good one: John Milius worked on the script, and the cast features Hal Holbrook, Mitchell Ryan, David Soul and Robert Urich.
 
The Enforcer (U. S.: James Fargo, 1976) Two and a Half Stars. The weakest Dirty Harry movie in my opinion, even though it introduced, as Harry’s first female police-partner, Tyne Daley, later the lady cop of “Cagney and Lacey.” With Guardino and Bradford Dillman.
 
Sudden Impact (Clint Eastwood, 1983) (Three and a half stars). The darkest and most violent of all the Dirty Harrys, with Harry going up against a female serial killer and rape avenger played by Eastwood’s long-time lover and frequent ’70s costar Sondra Locke. (Yeah, I know: It ended badly.) The second best Dirty Harry, co-starring Pat Hingle, Dillman and Michael V. Gazzo as a very unlucky Mafioso.

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