An Anonymous Love Letter Has the Whole Town in a Tizzy

In a tiny town in New England, a love letter arrives in a bookstore. It’s addressed to no one and signed from no one. The first woman to see it assumes that it’s for her. Later, the letter passes into other hands, and each reader makes the same assumption, with the result that there’s a lot of love in the air in Loblolly by the Sea. Could unlikely relationships spring from this catalyst? And where did it come from?

This is the premise behind Peter Chan’s The Love Letter, written by Maria Maggenti. Early on, the film makes a visual reference to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and the plot reminded me a bit of that, with this letter causing everyone to fall for each other instead of magic potions. Just reading those intense words has a strange effect on each recipient. It makes them feel appreciated and validated. It causes them to look at others in a new light.

I love the cozy setting of the movie. This is a picturesque little village, and cinematographer Tami Reiker consistently brings out its beauty. I often found myself wanting to step right into the screen, whether it showed the sunny streets or the charming bookstore where much of the movie takes place. The dialogue mostly matches up with that innocent small-town feel; there’s scarcely any profanity, though one self-referential slur surfaces and two characters drop an f-bomb, each of which feels totally out of place.

While most of the dialogue is pretty clean, it’s generally not that interesting. The best bits involve lusty, perpetually late bookstore employee Janet (Ellen DeGeneres), who has a tendency to prattle amusingly about inane topics, and quiet, good-natured firefighter George (a sadly mustacheless Tom Selleck), who frequents the shop. DeGeneres and Selleck easily give the most engaging performances in the movie, and their characters feel much more real than the others.

Kate Capshaw, who also produced the movie, is Helen, the emotionally repressed bookstore owner. I know she’s acting detached, but it was the actor as much as the character that felt stiff and uninteresting to me. She spends most of the movie with a bit of a grimace on her face, and at several points, she seems to forget her lines. Her delivery is just off, and it doesn’t help that a lot of her dialogue isn’t very good to begin with.

A similar complaint could be applied to Tom Everett Scott, who made such an adorable lead in That Thing You Do!. Here, as bookstore employee Johnny, he’s still cute, but his personality is less attractive and his performance is often wooden and lacking energy. Julianne Nicholson is a little livelier as Jennifer, the last of the bookstore crew, but there’s an abrasive edge to her that gets wearying after a while.

Other characters come and go, and seemingly insignificant interactions lay the groundwork for the ultimate revelation of who wrote the love letter and why, but the ending still felt somehow tacked-on and unnatural to me. The letter doesn’t get passed around town as much as it could, and after the first reading, in which Helen hears everyone she meets reciting bits of the letter as she tries to figure out who might have written it, the constant repetition of its lines gets tedious. Frankly, it’s really not that thrilling a letter, and anything so generic that anybody in town could think it applies to her or him obviously doesn’t contain a lot of specific personal sentiment.

Ultimately, then, this movie didn’t really deliver for me, in either the romance or the comedy department. There were moments I thought were sweet and moments I thought were funny, but mostly I found it rather dull and clunky. It did make me want to visit New England, and it did serve as a reminder that making assumptions can lead to absurd consequences. But if you write this Letter off, you won’t be missing too much.

101 Dalmatians Meets Air Bud in Air Buddies

A few months ago, I watched Snow Buddies, the most recent in a series of films that started with Air Bud. While that first movie and its immediate sequels are about an unusually athletic golden retriever, the focus shifts to his pups in Air Buddies. Although the original dog remains involved, this might almost be called a new series. Though Snow Buddies stands fairly well on its own, Air Buddies, which I saw the other day, is the movie that establishes the personalities of the pups, so if you're inclined to watch the Buddies film, it's probably best to start with this one.

Air Buddies introduces viewers to Buddy (Tom Everett Scott) and Molly's (Molly Shannon) brood, which includes spunky Rosebud (Abigail Breslin), messy Mudbud (Spencer Fox), gluttonous Budderball (Josh Flitter), athletic B-Dawg (Skyler Gisondo) and meditative Bud-dha (Dominic Scott Kay). As the movie begins, the five rowdy pups are causing big headaches for their owners and especially their long-suffering nanny. It's time to break the pups up, and so begins an extensive process to find perfect new owner for each of the puppies. Though young Noah (Slade Pearce) is reluctant to let the puppies go, his dad (Richard Karn) is sure the time is right. The pups have similar reservations, however, and when the list is completed, they decide to run away rather than be split up.

In the process of running away, they meet up with a pair of goony thieves sent to kidnap Buddy. So it is that they inadvertently lead their parents right into the thugs' trap, leading to a story that in many ways mirrors 101 Dalmatians, with the pups in pursuit of the parents instead of the other way around. (The debt this movie owes to that animated classic is acknowledged in a scene at a drive-thru theater in which 101 Dalmatians is playing.) The stakes are lower in this case, since the would-be possessor of Buddy wants him to amuse his son, not to turn him into a fur coat. The only moderately frightening villain is the thieves' boss, Selkirk Tander (Holmes Osborne), who threatens to feed his lackeys to his tiger if they fail in their mission, but that never feels like a very real possibility. Denning (Paul Rae) and Grim (Trevor Wright) are every bit as ridiculous as Horace and Jasper, though they lack those great English accents. Rest assured, though, they take more than their fair share of pratfalls as they struggle to carry out their task.

Director Robert Vince shares writing credits with Anna McRoberts and Phil Hanley, and none of them have too much to brag about, since most of the dialogue, especially that delivered by the puppies, is pretty groan-worthy. All of the pups seem like they're trying too hard to sound hip, which results in some of what they have to say sounding dated after just a couple of years. Denning and Grim, meanwhile, are hopelessly dim, though this does make for a lot of laughs as long as you don't dwell on their inordinate foolishness.

Interestingly, my favorite characters in Snow Buddies were the sheriff and his canine deputy, and that's the case here as well, though they are different characters. In this case, they're played by Patrick Cranshaw and Don Knotts, both of whom capped long careers with this film. Knotts voices a bloodhound named Sniffer, who has a more active role in tracking down the pups' parents than his boss does. While both are comical characters, they also bring a sense of wisdom and integrity to the movie. I also enjoyed the always-amusing Wallace Shawn in his voice role as a take-charge billy goat who helps the pups, and Michael Clarke Duncan is appropriately imposing as a mentorly wolf who guides them in the last stage of their journey.

Air Buddies is not a great movie by any stretch. It's derivative, corny and filled with juvenile references to bodily functions. But kids who can't get enough of movies about puppies will probably enjoy it, and long-time fans of Knotts or Cranshaw may be interested in seeing their final roles. It's not up there with 101 Dalmatians, but anyone who likes that movie is likely to get a laugh or two out of this harmless kiddie flick.

"You Gotta Be Quick With Me! I'm From Erie, PA!"

I was browsing through the cast page of a Lord of the Rings website recently and was disappointed to discover that whoever compiled the list of film credits for each actor neglected to mention Elijah Wood’s role as Huck Finn, the character with which I always identified him prior to LotR. Now he is most widely recognized for portraying one of the greatest characters in British literature, but I would have thought one of the greatest characters in American literature would have been worth mentioning as well. My disillusionment was further exacerbated when my scanning of Liv Tyler’s bio revealed another glaring omission: That Thing You Do. For some reason, this family-friendly flick about a group of guys who hit the big time with a catchy tune seems to be one of Tom Hanks’ most forgotten films. I consider it nothing less than my civic duty to protest.

And why is that? Because America’s favorite Guy Next Door decided to make a movie set in my own little neck of the woods. Heck, I took piano lessons at the very college where the fellas get their first big break in a local talent show. I attended the high school of the same name. I’ve got a personal connection to this movie, even if Hanks declined the offer to premiere it in Erie at the newly built Tinseltown, at the time one of the largest movie theaters in the country. Even if none of the filming was actually done in Erie either. Even if most of the cast members have probably never been to Erie and have no interest in ever checking it out. Doggone it, it’s about hometown pride! Besides, it’s a pretty great movie too.

When Art Garfunkel ventured to Erie back in 2000, he caused the audience momentary confusion when he brought up “the O-nee-ders,” the butchered pronunciation of the name the band in the film chooses for itself. Once we caught the allusion to That Thing You Do, Garfunkel went on to tell us how he liked the film because it reminded him of his early days in the music business, ramming around England with Paul and singing in the streets while their friend Kathy collected money. There certainly is an air of youth and innocence about this film, which takes place during the same general time when Art and Paul were starting out. But this little band wasn’t destined to have quite the same shelf life. The film chronicles the fictional foursome’s roller coaster ride from obscurity to stardom and back again.

The key player in the film is Guy Patterson (Tom Everett Scott), a likable young man who bears a remarkable resemblance to Hanks. Passionate about music but always butting heads with his father, he drowns his dreams in the drudgery of tending the family store until a stupid prank leaves the percussionist of a local band incapacitated. The band members just happen to be friends of Guy’s and happen to be playing a big talent show at Mercyhurst College that night, so they convince him to fill in. As it turns out, Guy does for the soon-to-be-named-Oneders what Ringo did for the Beatles, taking the band to a level it could not have achieved with its old drummer. His fast-paced percussion turns That Thing You Do from an insipid wannabe ballad into a catchy up-tempo number. It really is an enjoyable song, though we probably hear it one too many times in the course of the film. It was one of the first songs my brother learned to play on the guitar. It’s easy to imagine such a tune rising through the ranks of the pop charts.

The film’s focus remains largely upon Guy, but it follows the whirlwind success of the Oneders, who soon become the Wonders to avoid confusion. Its other members include Jimmy (Jonathan Schaeck), the arrogant songwriter and bandleader; his long-suffering girlfriend Faye (Tyler); the future GI bass player (Ethan Embry); and Lenny (Steve Zahn), the lovable goofball with the maturity of your average 6-year-old. We watch them soak up the thrills from winning a talent show, landing local gigs, and recording a single to hearing their song on the radio for the first time, setting off on a nationwide tour and landing a spot on a show of the Ed Sullivan variety. They are soon joined by Mr. White (Hanks), a no-nonsense manager who puts them on the road to mass exposure but knows that an implied “One-Hit” will soon precede their group moniker. He’s a savvy character, with maybe just a touch of cynicism, but he’s pretty classy nonetheless and serves as a good mentor for Guy, who’s left holding the drumsticks when the band crumbles around him.

Despite the untimely demise of the Wonders, the film is primarily a light-hearted romp through a more innocent time, a clean comedy with a touch of romance and plenty of good music to help it along its way. At its core, it’s a tribute to all those corny pop groups of the Sixties who may not have lasted long but sure had a good time getting to the top. And hey, it starts out in Erie. Who could ask for anything more?