Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 44

8E DETROIT FREE PRESSFRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 1996 'Dear God' ought to be in the dead movie office w'wyw'T n. ww i HU'- 7 4 J' S. BY HELENE LORBER Free Press Staff Writer Things would seem to be looking up for letter carriers. First "II Pos-tino" gets a raft of Oscar nominations by depicting a lovelorn Italian mailman. Now comes "Dear God," which reveals the sweethearts behind the surly, Uzi-wielding image.

Well, maybe, but they're not looking too far up. Maybe about mail-slot high, knee level or so. Because even though this movie draws heavily on Christmas goodwill, it's pretty much lacking in the holiday spirit It starts out with some promise, with Greg Kinnear playing Tom Turner, a charming con man. No Cary Grant-type rogue he; a big score is cadging cab fare at the bus station. He gets busted while trying to scam some Scandinavian tourists at the Hollywood Christmas parade.

The judge gets Tom a job at the post office and promises Tom'll stay out of jail if he can manage to work there for a year. Tom winds up in the dead letter office in the company of classic misfits: a burned-out lawyer (Laurie Met-calf), a disappointed jazz player (Ros-coe Lee Browne), an aspiring soap star Gon Seda) and Tim Conway, doing his Dorfdest to portray a letter carrier booted off his route for biting a dog. Their job is to sort undeliverable mail to Elvis, the Easter Bunny and God. Tom inadvertently mails his 'Dear God' out of 4 stars Rated PG; cartoonish violence wages to one of God's correspondents, and when the word gets out that her prayers were answered, it all snowballs. Snowballs melt fast in LA, and "Dear God" gets pretty soggy and limp.

The dramatic tension allegedly comes from the evil postmaster bringing our heroes to justice for opening the mail, a federal offense. Yet even the massing of thousands of those little Jeeps in support of the accused isn't exactly uplifting. Among the halfhearted subplots are Tom's relationship with his blind mother and his courtship of a cook of cutely named food like Catcher in the Fries. The movie's one saving grace is its portrait of an off-kilter LA. For example, the grand marshal of the Christmas parade is tada! Tony Danza.

A vapid, long-legged blondnewscaster prances along a narrow ledge as she earnestly relays post office developments; that may be a dead-on portrayal, but we're used to grittier types here. Also mildly entertaining are the many bizarre cameos, including Elvira, Ellen Cleghorne, Jack Klugman, Coolio, Christopher Darden and Larry Miller. Even so, deliver us from "Dear God." 1,1 From left: Patrick Van Horn, Vince Vaughn, Jon Favreau, Ron Livingston and Alex Desert in "Swingers." Rat Pack meets Generation in 'Swingers' 1 'Ml, By Terry lawson Free Press Movie Critic Imagine and this may take a little straining a remake of the Rat Pack classic "Ocean's 11," codirected and cowritten by Quentin Tarantino and Albert Brooks, and youll have a good mental picture of "Swingers," a comedy that will test the irony quotient of even the most dedicated Gen-Xer. Both a hilarious homage to phony cocktail culture and a hipster, twister turn on the ancient game of love, "Swingers" is, to co-opt its own highest compliment, "the money." "Swingers" announces its intentions with its title sequence, a snapshot tour of faux martini bars and deliberate dives set to the tune of Dean Martin's version of "You're Nobody Till Somebody Loves You." Telling any pal who'll listen just what a big nobody he is doomed to be is 1 waitress; Mike ends up crying on the shoulder of a woman who dresses up as Dorothy from "The Wizard of Oz" at the MGM Grand. As "Swingers" moves through the hip Hollywood club and party world of women who smoke cigars and men who pretend not to notice, each of Mike's friends takes a shot at getting him back in the game.

Charles (Alex Desert), a fellow New York actor transplant reduced to auditioning for the part of Goofy at Disneyland, assures him that the pain eventually goes away, but then you miss the pain as much as you missed the lover. Sue (Patrick Van Horn), whose father is said to be a major Johnny Cash fan, tells him that it's all about self-confidence, that he just doesn't realize how "money" he actually is. "Swingers," of course, knows that the talent of the way Murray, as motivational speaker Jack Corcoran, inherits the elephant from his circus clown father maybe it was a similar exercise in character building. Now, on to Murray: He undoubtedly understands that although some of us view him as the only surviving "Saturday Night" alum worth paying attention to and continue to be amused at his snarky, hipper-than-hip shtick, others find him gratingly smug. With no showcases like "Groundhog tucked away for a rainy day, he may have seen "Larger Greg Kinnear plays a con man in trouble with the law in "Dear God." 'Larger Than Life' wastes and his elephant costar her own; the other is a Hollywood agent (Lois Smith) who can always use another highly trained elephant Both are in California; Jack and the elephant are on the East Coast So begins Jack's long journey of self-discovery, which seems to take at least as long as Hannibal's trek across the Alps.

By the time it is completed, Jack has learned forgiveness and compassion. And the elephant has learned to never take her agent's assurances that the script problems can be worked out during shooting. Among the completely uninterest 'Swingers' out of 4 stars Rated language, sexual situations Mike Peters (Jon Favreau), a would-be comedian and actor who lost his New York girlfriend when he moved to Los Angeles six months earlier and can't get over it Given the job of forcing him to get over it is his dedicated posse. The absurdly confident Trent (Vince Vaughn) takes the Sinatra role. To him, all pretty women are "babies" and are there for the plucking.

He advises Mike to drop the "puppy dog-sensitive" thing and, as encouragement, bullies him into an impromptu trip to Vegas. Vince scores a cocktail larger Than Life' out of 4 stars Rated PG; vulgar language tent director who is not exactly in demand. Maybe he wanted to work with an elephant Maybe he's just afraid to say no to pal Murray. Maybe he just needed the work. He is dismissed with a reprimand.

As for Blount who presumably inherited the story from other writers BIT Second Meal (Not. 4th Only) WHOLE SLAB OF RIBS BROASTED OR BAR-B-Q CHICKEN FOR 2 (Dine In Only) OPEN 11-10 FBI. SAT. 11-11 ing and unlikely characters they encounter on their trip is an overcaffein-ated, conspiracy-crazed truck driver named Tip, who is played by Matthew McConaughey. He took the job before he won the lead in "A Time to Kill" and became the Next Big Tiling.

A consequence of that: In an attempt to salvage the movie and its dismal commercial prospects, McConaugh-ey's one annoyingly unfunny scene has become a series of hyperkineti-cally unfunny scenes. The elephant, at least, could claim contractual obligations. Cars v-or Resorvattons Hequired Walled Lake, Ml 810-960-9440 WINDSOR 1 "money" is just a state of mind; indeed, to the movie's remarkably clever director Doug Liman and Favreau, who also wrote the very funny script, everything is a state of a mind, an ironic illusion designed to help them avoid a relationship-less, jobless reality that is low on Sinatra-style romantic fantasy and gin-soaked olives. Liman and Favreau are also smart and ironic enough to acknowledge their own Sinatras, specifically Tarantino (a scene in which the guys stroll into a club in slow motion is the funniest parody of "Reservoir Dogs" yet) and Scorsese, whose famous back-door nightclub pan from "Good-fellas" is beautifully recreated. "It took four days to light that scene," says one of the gang, knowingly.

"Swingers" is a movie made by, and for, people who know too much. Bill Murray Than Life" as a way to soften his image. Or maybe he just likes the smell of elephant, the way some people swoon for gasoline or paint thinner. That would make some sense because "Larger Than Life" is almost as cloying as Vera the elephant, the legacy of the father Jack never knew. In debt for $35,000 to the lawyer who handled the estate, Jack needs to sell Vera to the highest bidder.

One is a San Diego zookeeper (laneane Garofalo) who wants to send Vera to Sri Lanka to live among Allen Park -Southfleld Rd. Bloomfleld Woodward Av. Dearborn Michigan Ave. Eastpointe 8 Mils Madison Hgts. -14 Mile Rd.

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Hall Rd. Date 2j BY TERRY LAWSON Free Press Movie Critic "Larger Than Life" is an utterly mirthless movie about a man who inherits an elephant, and it begs only one question: What were they thinking of? The "they" in question, leaving the hapless elephant out of it for the moment, would be Bill Murray and director Howard Franklin. Roy Blount who is usually referred to as a humorist, is the screenwriter, so lets put him on the stand, too. First we look at Franklin, a compe- I ith Anniversary Special: 12 DETROITNORTH mmiiTiilfill' I I I II I HHMII1M II IHH'II 1 AREA 1 ALL AREAS 1 i 1 Illl.H If innii in ((. hf.

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