Michael J. Fox Takes a Major Detour in Doc Hollywood

The first man I ever had a crush on was Michael J. Fox. When I was a kindergartener, I never tired of watching him on Family Ties – with a very goofy expression on my face, I’m afraid. By the time I dove into the Back to the Future franchise a few years later, my enthusiasm had dimmed to a more respectable level, but I’ve always enjoyed Fox’s performances, so I’m surprised I never saw Doc Hollywood until this year.

In this 1991 movie based on the book by Neil Shulman and directed by Michael Caton-Jones, Fox plays Dr. Benjamin Stone, a hotshot physician on his way to L.A. to begin a promising career as a plastic surgeon. After he takes a wrong turn, Benjamin wipes out on the highway, landing in the sleepy town of Grady. His car’s a shambles, and so is the picket fence that the judge built with his own two hands. While he waits to regain his wheels, Benjamin must serve the sentence the judge hands down to him: 32 hours working as a doctor in the town’s clinic.

What this movie reminded me of right off the bat was Cars, the Pixar film about a self-absorbed racecar who blunders into a small town, makes a mess and, in the process of cleaning it up, learns the value of a simple life and genuine friendships. It’s pretty clear from the beginning that this movie has the same general arc. Benjamin doesn’t think much of Grady at first. However, as he treats its residents, he gradually comes to feel real affection for them – and especially for Lou (Julie Warner), a strong-willed single mother who drives the town ambulance.

The romantic storyline is fairly sweet, a typical tale of two seemingly very different people learning that they actually have more common ground than they realized. It’s made more entertaining by the presence of a large pig that gets passed around town as payment for various services rendered and ultimately helps Benjamin win the approval of Lou’s young daughter. Woody Harrelson’s turn as the not-as-dopey-as-he-seems Hank Gordon, who has his own romantic designs on Lou, is fun as well.

However, it’s the town as a whole that really serves as the movie’s heart. While Benjamin falls in love with Lou, he also becomes enamored of the way Grady’s residents live. It’s funny to see David Ogden Stiers, usually so uppity, as Nick Nicholson, the folksy mayor of Grady. Yes, he is in a leadership position, but he is very much a down-home kind of guy and the chief proponent of the town’s charms. While others extend a temporary welcome, it’s plain that Nick would be happy to have Benjamin stay. Less gracious is Dr. Hogue (Barnard Hughes), the cantankerous physician currently serving all of the town’s residents on his own.

From the surly nurse to the humble, illiterate family whose letters from a long-winded relative become a favorite entertainment, the people of Grady gradually open their hearts to the doctor, and he does the same as kindly widows push food upon him and the mayor entreats him to at least stay for the town’s big festival. Benjamin is starting to feel at home, but his destiny lies on the opposite coast on the sunny streets of Los Angeles. Or does it?

While there is some profanity, as well as a bit of nudity that surprised me but helps establish the remote setting, it’s generally a pretty mild PG-13. Hence, I would term this a cute and mostly family-friendly movie about a young man’s deepening sense of community and compassion. I may not swoon for Fox anymore, but Doc Hollywood aptly demonstrates just how charming he can be.

TRON Is Intriguing But Disorienting

I’ve been hearing a lot about TRON, the geeky Disney cult classic whose sequel is about to hit theaters, and I decided that it was high time to familiarize myself with the first movie. It seems a little odd to me that I never watched it, as extensive as my Disney viewing has generally been, but it wasn’t a movie that ever really had much of a pull on me. It seemed a bit too... technological. Still, I was curious to check it out, which Dad and I did this past rainy Saturday afternoon. Since he teaches computer programming, I thought the movie would probably make more sense to him than to me, but ultimately both of us found it pretty disorienting.

Jeff Bridges stars as Kevin Flynn, a brilliant programmer who has been denied credit for his work. After his program starts to go haywire, he finds himself sucked into it, rather in the manner of Fantastic Voyage. Instead of being inside a person, he’s inside a program, and it’s up to him, along with some intrepid helpers, to get things running smoothly again. I’m mostly familiar with Bridges from later movies, where he always looks pretty scruffy and weathered, so it was interesting to see him here, so youthful and with a Steve Gutenberg-esque twinkle in his eye. He makes a good leading man and plays well opposite Bruce Boxleitner as Alan Bradley, whose in-program counterpart is Tron. As Tron, he’s pretty dashing and heroic, but I prefer the rather bumbling Alan with his gargantuan glasses. Cindy Morgan is a valuable ally to both as Lori / Yori, Alan / Tron’s spunky love interest.

The world within the computer program is very visually striking. When my dad went to rent this, the clerk warned him not to expect much in the way of special effects. What was cutting-edge at the time looks pretty dated now. I didn’t mind it in terms of looking cheesy, but the visuals actually kinda gave me a headache after a while. However, there are aspects of this world that look very cool, including the light cycles, whose geometrically precise races with each other remind me of the cellular automata programs Dad used to spend so much time working with. I also loved the appearance of the water that the characters inside the program drink to replenish their strength.

The world within the video game is dark and oppressive, which is mostly a reflection of the evil master control program that has overtaken it. I was intrigued when I saw that David Warner was in this movie, as his warm, humble Bob Cratchit is my hands-down favorite ever, while he convinced me of his range by completely repulsing me in Titanic. His role here is rather like the latter, and his icy delivery is mesmerizing. As performances go, I was also impressed with Barnard Hughes as Dr. Walter Gibbs, a kindly scientist whose video game counterpart serves as a guardian keeping riff-raff out, and Dan Shor moved me as Ram, a zealous idealist for whom Flynn’s presence represents a profound affirmation of all that he holds dear. There are some interesting philosophical ideas brought up throughout the movie, and Ram is at the heart of many of them.

While I liked several of the characters and found the premise intriguing, I found that more often than not, I didn’t have a very clear idea of what was happening and why. I found it hard to follow, with a whole lot of wandering around down dark corridors in a strange half-light. I knew what the ultimate goal was, but I didn’t really have a handle on the steps of the process. So for me, I liked the general plot and individual moments, but I had a hard time staying engaged.

I’m glad I watched TRON, and after seeing the trailer on the big screen when we went to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I last night, I’m jazzed to see TRON Legacy. I just hope I find it a little easier to tell what’s going on.

There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays in A Hobo's Christmas

The other night was a snowy November evening. Though Thanksgiving was still a week away, it felt like the perfect time to officially break out the Christmas movies, so when a friend proposed one of her favorites, A Hobo's Christmas, Mom and I readily agreed. Neither of us had heard of the 1987 made-for-TV movie before, so we were especially keen to give this unfamiliar story a shot.

Will Mackenzie, who has worked primarily in television, directed this feel-good film about Chance (Barnard Hughes), a hobo who, after 25 years riding the rails and avoiding direct contact with his son Charlie (Gerald McRaney), decides it's time to try to heal the rift. Chance pulls into Salt Lake City with his traveling buddies and convinces them to stay on with him at the local mission while he tries to reconnect with Charlie for Christmas and bond with the grandchildren he's never met.

Above all else, this is a father-son story, and Hughes and McRaney play their parts marvelously. Hughes, who I was pleased to recognize as the kindly but addled Father Maurice in Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit, is enchanting as the weathered traveler who's always glad to help a stranger but has too long run from those he loves most. Meanwhile, Major Dad veteran McRaney (who also played John Denver's stern father in Take Me Home: The John Denver Story) turns in another solid performance as a caring but distant paternal figure.

Charlie works long hours, so he's not home with the kids as much as he would like, nor does the widower trust himself to fall completely in love again, though all signs seem to indicate he has found a new soulmate in the lovely Laurie (Wendy Crewson), who has been offered a hard-to-resist job in another state. But it's Chance who really gets under Charlie's skin, and all those years of bottled-up bitterness spew forth in unexpected ways, especially as he watches young Kathy (Jamie Sorrentini) and Bobby (Harley Cross) fall in love with the grandfather who doesn't seem capable of staying in one place for any length of time.

The production values on the movie aren't all that great, but that's generally to be expected of a made-for-TV movie, so I wasn't distracted by a few rather clumsy exterior shots. The children's performances aren't exactly noteworthy, but they play well off of Hughes, and it's in the moments of grandfatherly storytelling that we get the best sense of who this man really is. While they don't come into the movie that much, Chance's roving buddies are fun characters, each with tales of his own to tell. Cantankerous Cincinnati Harold (William Hickey) is the most prominent of these; his Scroogish behavior from the beginning suggests that a transformative subplot may be in store for him.

It may not be as well-known as the specials that get replayed year after year, but this movie captures the spirit of the season better than many I've seen. A Hobo's Christmas is a quiet, simple film emphasizing the idea that it's never too late to make a new beginning, and there's no better time to try it than Christmas.

Whoopi Robes Up Again for a More than Satisfactory Sequel

Shortly before I went into sixth grade, my mom and I went school shopping. We made a day of it, with lunch at Chuck E. Cheese’s and then a movie. As I recall, our intention was to see Three Ninjas, but the showing was sold out, so we examined our options, and I suggested Sister Act. Mom was dubious; she didn’t know much about it, and she suspected I might find it boring. But we gave it a shot, and rarely have I found a movie so engaging and entertaining. Just a year later, a sequel arrived. There’s always something lost with a sequel; much of the power of surprise is gone. You basically know what to expect at this point. A first film may sweep you away, but a sequel rarely will. Sister Act 2 failed to enthrall me the way the first did, but as sequels go, it was incredibly well done in spite of the similarities in plot to its predecessor.

The beginning of this movie finds Delores van Cartier (Whoopi Goldberg) enjoying greater success as a lounge singer than ever before, thanks to her unlikely star-making stint as choir director for a fleet of cloistered nuns. Her habited buddies, Sisters Mary Robert (Wendy Makkena), Patrick (Kathy Najimy) and Lazarus (Mary Wickes), corner her after one of her shows and entreat her to return with them to their current residence, a parish in charge of St. Francis Academy, a school catering to inner city students. A now gentler Mother Superior (Maggie Smith) greets her upon her arrival and begs her to join the teaching staff as a music instructor, to which Delores reluctantly agrees. Once again she must go in cognito in order to deceive the school administrators, but this task isn’t so difficult now that most of her friends know who and what she really is.

The basic plotline is very similar to the first, though there’s far less at stake for Delores this time around, and the tensions between her and school principal Father Maurice (Barnard Hughes) and superintendent Mr. Crisp (James Cogburn) are nothing compared to the frosty relationship she enjoyed with Mother Superior in the first film. Delores has changed, so her motivations are different in this film, and her character doesn’t have much room to evolve. But once again she finds herself in a position to save a struggling organization by taking a ragtag group and turning them into a world-class choir.

Personally, I identify more with nuns than rowdy teens, so I preferred when the focus was on the Sisters. Delores had a difficult task in whipping them into shape, but they were ready and willing to participate. The complications arose much more from Mother Superior’s disapproval than the nuns themselves. Here, Delores’ first job is to command her students’ respect, and it’s not easy. Once she does, though, she still has her work cut out for her in teaching them how to work together and believe in themselves. Several students stand out: “Amahl,” (Ryan Toby) who is extremely passionate about his African heritage and who overcomes his timidity with an exhilarating solo much as Sister Mary Robert did in the first film; “Sketch,” (Ron Johnson) a gentle soul who is a talented artist but who always sleeps through class due to long hours working after school; and “Frankie,” (Devin Kamin) a wannabe rapper with his own theme song. Most prominent, however, is Rita (Lauryn Hill), who possesses an extraordinary voice but has a crummy attitude fostered by her mother (Sheryl Lee Ralph), who refuses to foster her daughter’s dreams of singing professionally. Her mother comes across as a bit too severe here, ordering her to quit the choir because “singing does not put food on the table;” after all, it doesn’t take food off the table, either. In fact, Rita seems to have been completely uninterested in school up to this point, but the choir provides her with motivation. I would think a mother would be more supportive of her daughter’s talent, but I guess she’s just seen how hard it is to bring such dreams to fruition and doesn’t want Rita getting hurt.

When Father Maurice announces that the school will be closing at the end of the year, the students rally under the nuns’ enthusiastic suggestion that they enter the singing contest that this academy has won in years past. Their efforts are complicated by Father Maurice’s caution and near-sabotage by dour Mr. Crisp, who stands to gain quite a bit from the destruction of the school. The last-minute efforts to thwart those plans are an amusing side-plot involving the monks who also teach at the school. They don’t have quite as much to do as the nuns, but these men add a lot to the film. I especially like curmudgeonly Latin teacher Brother Thomas (Brad Sullivan), Mary Lazarus’ counterpart, and gentle, gregarious math teacher Brother Ignatius (Michael Jeter), who combines the best qualities of Mary Patrick and Mary Robert.

The ending is fairly predictable, but the kids’ grand musical number is impressive nonetheless. I can’t help but recall The Sound of Music while watching the musical competition, and I’m happy to embrace any film that makes me think of that classic, which may qualify as my all-time favorite. Of course, it also reminds me of Sister Act. In the end, this sequel is not quite as funny, creative, or surprising as that was, but it comes awfully close.