Lee-Evans Movie Reviews

Not really on a parrallel with Norman Bates, but most certainly believable in all respects.

A chilling account of a creepy but outwardly affable Christie, excellently portrayed by Richard Attenborough and John Hurt's fittingly daft and dim Timothy Evans in post war London.

The acting is well supported with bleached, drab colours and the grim surroundings of Rillington Place (the real tenament was knocked down but the producer's used the other side of Rillington Place's cul-de-sac to film the exteriors.)

The most terrifying and gripping scene is where Timothy, in a state of utter confusion, is thrust from a waiting room to his place of execution. I cannot adequately describe how very saddened and affected I was by this scene - almost to the point of shouting "No!" at the scene.

A physchotic thriller with very, very real acting - you'll be rivetted by both Richard and John.

I had always wanted to see this movie, thinking for some reason it was a spy movie. John Hurt has been in so many spy movies and I just thought....well. Bought the movie, settled down with a cup of coffee and was mesmorized by the performances and the subject.

Beautifully done. Beautifully calm and understated. If this had been a USA movie there would be drum rolls and trumpets blaring. Contorted faces and overplayed.

A tortured subject of murder but beautifully acted and directed.
See it.

It's that rather horrible moment in this excellent but severely depressing movie about mousy murderer Mr. Christie when the blame [and subsequent punishment] falls on the somewhat dim and innocent lodger. An extremely depressing study of this serial killer, excellent realized by the underrated Richard Attenborough in an Award winning performance. The young John Hurt [pre- 'I Claudius'] plays the innocent lodger [says so much about the British system of justice!].

The movie deserves much better - should be restored to DVD.

Director Richard Fleischer captures the gloomy anonymous terraced houses perfectly - gray and drab, yet always fascinating - "Keeping up Appearances?" - Not! Norman Bates was never like this!

Companions? "Young Poisoner's Handbook"; "The Krays" as well as the excellent "Let Him Have It"

Funny Bones is not for everyone. Though Jerry Lewis and Oliver Platt are known stars, the material in this film is an unusual place for stars like these to end up. This odd little film is about risk, love, life and death. It is about a disappearing culture, and a comment about a new generation trying to find passion and purpose in the shadow of an imperfect generation before them. It speaks about the death of the theater and the passing of a simpler and perhaps funnier time. While Funny Bones is often funny, it's also quite tragic, very dark and often surreal. Lee Evens steals the show and Oliver Platt is the perfect foil to play against a giant like Jerry Lewis(Some old vaudevillians also put it some awesome cameos). Funny Bones is worth the watch.
It's worth the price of admission just to see this awesome cast.

"Funny Bones" is one of those movies that you have to be talked into viewing and then you wonder why you waited so long to check it out. Peter Chelsom's 1995 black comedy begins with a failed drug deal and a pair of feet washing up on shore. Tommy Fawkes, played by Oliver Platt, wants to be a successful standup comedian but his Las Vegas debut is a complete disaster, due in no small measure to the "help" provided by his father George, who was once a famous comedian himself and who is played by Jerry Lewis in what proves to be one of his best roles (stop with the jokes, the man is very good in this film). Because of the drug deal he flees back home to the English seaside town of Blackpool, a place that just happens to be full of retired music-hall performances (what we Yanks would call vaudevillians). Tommy needs better material or perhaps a partner. What he finds is Jack Parker (Lee Evans), who is pretty funny for someone who has, um, serious problems. Tommy and Jack have a series of comic misadventures involving Tommy's father, the mayor of Blackpool, an art collector, some French sailors, and in the end discover a secret that provides a rather unexpected bounced to the end of this film. "Funny Bones" is a nice little film with an excellent supporting cast that fails to be conventional. Check it out and pass the word along.

This movie veers brilliantly between the joy of comedy and the pain that lies just beneath its surface. It gets messy at times, but only because it sets high expectations for itself. It's a movie that will pop into your mind later, both for its humor and its poignancy.

Oliver Platt and Lee Evans were new to me in this one, and give dead-on performances. Evans produces two of the best comedic scenes I've ever watched, and the movie has several glorious set pieces. Make no mistake, though: this is not a comedy overall. It is a character-driven drama with soaring moments of slapstick and vaudeville. The grim moments mentioned in other reviews are disturbing, but provide counterpoint to the humor. In tone, this movie is similar to the Coen brothers' movies- eclectic, moving, and funny. At ten bucks it's a fantastic bargain.

Funny Bones is not for everyone. Though Jerry Lewis and Oliver Platt are known stars, the material in this film is an unusual place for stars like these to end up. This odd little film is about risk, love, life and death. It is about a disappearing culture, and a comment about a new generation trying to find passion and purpose in the shadow of an imperfect generation before them. It speaks about the death of the theater and the passing of a simpler and perhaps funnier time. While Funny Bones is often funny, it's also quite tragic, very dark and often surreal. Lee Evens steals the show and Oliver Platt is the perfect foil to play against a giant like Jerry Lewis(Some old vaudevillians also put it some awesome cameos). Funny Bones is worth the watch.
It's worth the price of admission just to see this awesome cast.

"Funny Bones" is one of those movies that you have to be talked into viewing and then you wonder why you waited so long to check it out. Peter Chelsom's 1995 black comedy begins with a failed drug deal and a pair of feet washing up on shore. Tommy Fawkes, played by Oliver Platt, wants to be a successful standup comedian but his Las Vegas debut is a complete disaster, due in no small measure to the "help" provided by his father George, who was once a famous comedian himself and who is played by Jerry Lewis in what proves to be one of his best roles (stop with the jokes, the man is very good in this film). Because of the drug deal he flees back home to the English seaside town of Blackpool, a place that just happens to be full of retired music-hall performances (what we Yanks would call vaudevillians). Tommy needs better material or perhaps a partner. What he finds is Jack Parker (Lee Evans), who is pretty funny for someone who has, um, serious problems. Tommy and Jack have a series of comic misadventures involving Tommy's father, the mayor of Blackpool, an art collector, some French sailors, and in the end discover a secret that provides a rather unexpected bounced to the end of this film. "Funny Bones" is a nice little film with an excellent supporting cast that fails to be conventional. Check it out and pass the word along.

This movie veers brilliantly between the joy of comedy and the pain that lies just beneath its surface. It gets messy at times, but only because it sets high expectations for itself. It's a movie that will pop into your mind later, both for its humor and its poignancy.

Oliver Platt and Lee Evans were new to me in this one, and give dead-on performances. Evans produces two of the best comedic scenes I've ever watched, and the movie has several glorious set pieces. Make no mistake, though: this is not a comedy overall. It is a character-driven drama with soaring moments of slapstick and vaudeville. The grim moments mentioned in other reviews are disturbing, but provide counterpoint to the humor. In tone, this movie is similar to the Coen brothers' movies- eclectic, moving, and funny. At ten bucks it's a fantastic bargain.

Like some of the other reviewers, I have seen this movie countless times. Based on the novel 'Finding Maubee' it weaves a richly textured mystery/drama. Throw in the lush setting of Port Antonio, Jamaica and a lively reggae soundtrack and you have the perfect escape vacation movie. Just pop this movie in, grab a mixed rum drink, and get ready to be transported. Top notch performances are delivered by EVERY actor and actress involved. There's just a genuine "feel good" element to this movie that makes you want to watch it again and again. Strangely enough, it is still a little known and little appreciated piece of movie magic. Don't miss out!

FBI trained Chief of Police Xavier Quinn (Denzel Washington) has a few problems on his hands. A wealthy off-islander has been left in his own hot tub "to boil a little." It looks as if Quinn's childhood friend is the culprit, Quinn's "having a little trouble at home these days" with his wife who is auditioning for the local night spot, and various women want his body... so do less beautiful visitors to the West Indies, equipped with guns and silencers and writs. And he's forgotten to pick his young son up from school.

My teenage son wore out a VHS copy of this film listening to Denzel play the piano ("I woke up feeling so bad, you know I laid right back down again"--Taj Mahal), my husband and I wore out a second for the thrilling murder mystery and the magnetism of the star. Lush, seductive, and fast paced, the music is terrific, the setting is exotic, and the action and sexual tension never let up to the last scene.

This movie instantly became one of my top three favorite movies of all time. I went on Amazon.com the day after I saw it and ordered myself a copy, I simply had to have it. I could tell right away I was going to watch it over and over and over..

First of all, and of supreme importance, the writing is excellent. The first few times I watched it I kept on finding more and more wonderful nuances. There is even a story within a story. There is so much more to this movie when you keep your ears pricked and your expectations high.

The camera is magical, and seems to capture the very essence of each scene. The cast is brilliant -- practically everyone can act, and act well (except for the Lizard-Fish). The soundtrack rocks with sweet old school reggae (this is a 1987 movie, after all).

Denzel Washington plays an overworked, righteous and heroic chief of police, endowed with a highly accurate intuition and overflowing with charm. Ladies, he is hot. His best friend, Maubee, is the prime suspect in a murder that makes no sense. Add to that suspicion and conspiracy and a ten thousand dollar bill, and you have a mystery sleeper that keeps you guessing and entertains consistently. Great for any audience.

The dialogue is rhythmic, musical -- the Jamaican accents are rich in variety, pleasing to the ear, comprehensible, and believable. Even Denzel's accent leaves nothing wanting.

I've lost count of how many times I've watched The Mighty Quinn solve this mystery while juggling his personal obligations. You will not regret getting this movie.

This movie is impeccably crafted, written, performed, and directed. It's impossible not to be drawn in emotionally. Both HOW GREEN and Ford's pervious film, THE GRAPES OF WRATH, are realistic depictions of the effects of severe economic and social conditions upon a family. But while GRAPES centers more on the social conditions, VALLEY focuses primarily on the family itself. Indeed, it mourns the loss of family unity. The legendary Irish-American Ford was known for his gruff, crusty exterior, but pictures like this one show his sentimentality and his belief in the basic values of human life.

HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY is about a large, close-knit family, the Morgans, in a small Welsh mining town. The family is headed by a firm father and a gentle, wise mother, and comprises six sons and one daughter. The five grown sons are, like their father, coal miners, and it is their hope that the sixth son, sensitive and intelligent Huw (Roddy McDowall), will become a scholar. It is through Huw's eyes that the story is told. He looks back as an older man and reflects on his family, his valley, and its people.

He grows up in a time of change, watching in confusion as a secure way of life is altered for the worse by mine owners who overwork the mines and alienate the miners, leading his brothers to call for unionism, a concept which his father abhors. This is the central decision from which the other threads of this compelling story evolve, and the film is ultimately a beautifully moving drama, one of the best films about family ever made.

There is a genre of films whose underlying theme is the continuity of the family. In such movies, the family unit is placed at the dramatic center, often facing challenges from the external world that threaten the solidarity of its internal cohesiveness. Such a film is HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY, which traces the evolution of one middle class Welsh family over a period of many years. The narrator is an adult whose memories of his youth form the basis of the film. Huw Morgan (Roddy McDowell) recalls his life beginning when he was about thirteen. What he sees and relates is not only the changes that his family goes through, but he also notes the symbiotic interaction that society has on them. At the start of the movie, life for the Morgan family is pleasant. The family unit is cohesive, loving, and disciplined. His father Gwilym (Donald Crisp) controls them with a stern but loving hand. His mother Beth (Sara Allgood) is the loving mother who seems to spend most of her time as an eternal washerwoman. He has five older brothers and a sister Angharad (Maureen O'Hara), who silently loves the unapproachable village vicar Gruffydd (Walter Pidgeon). Soon enough, a changing society exerts a corrosive effect on the Morgans. The villain is not any one person, although the mine owner has been unfairly castigated for that. Rather, the creeping evil is a changing society that slowly is evolving from an agricultural base to a mechanized one. Workers at the mine are being downsized so they strike, and this strike sets is motion other wheels which further flatten the once strong solidarity of the Morgan family. The Morgan sons quarrel with the father over the strike and move out of the house. The daughter Angharad loves the vicar Gruffydd, who must reject her because of his clerical collar, so she is pressured into a loveless marriage with another. And there are several tragic accidents at the mine that are fatal for some of the male Morgans. While all this is going on, Huw sees the changes and feels the pain of their consequences. His schooling is a disaster as he is beaten mercilessly with a cane by his teacher. He suffers but does not know how to reconcile his suffering with the words of patience doled out by the vicar. There is no traditional happy ending, except that some of the Morgan family adjust to changes in their macrocosmic and microcosmic universe. Huw hears the words of endurance and tries to live by their meaning. At the end of the film, Huw is now an adult, with an adult's vision, but it is not clear if the joy he feels at the telling of his story is the joy only of joyous memories or the clarity of vision that his youthful pentitences have so painfully taught him.
HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY was a deserved winner of an Oscar for Best Picture. Donald Crisp won Best Suporting Actor for his role of the crochety but understanding Gwilym Morgan. What this movie suggests is that the inspiration one needs to overcome adversity need not be found only in the wisdom of others. Sometimes, it can be found within one's own heart. Huw Morgan found that out even as a child.

Frankly, I had forgotten how excellent this film is until seeing it again recently. (It was selected to received the Academy Award for best film, instead of Citizen Kane and the other nominees.) The impact on me of a film at a given time is almost wholly dependent on how accessible I am when seeing it. I first saw How Green Was My Valley as a child and then again several years later. Probably because since then I have become a father and then a grandfather, I am much more appreciative now than I was before of what director John Ford achieves in his portrayal of a Welsh mining town and of a specific family there which struggles so courageously to enable one of its own, not only to escape from the mines but from the limits of a culture (albeit loving and supportive) to fulfill his human potentialities which would otherwise be denied. The film covers a 50-year period as an adult Huw Morgan recalls it (he is played by Roddy McDowell), with the primary focus on his ordeals as the youngest of several children. Donald Crisp received an Academy Award as best actor in a supporting role as Morgan family's patriarch. Many believe this is Ford's best film and I would be hard-pressed to disagree with them. It really has everything. With Philip Dunne's screenplay based on Richard Llewellyn's novel, How Green Was My Valley combines superior acting and cinematography with Alfred Newman's complementary musical score. For me, this film's greatness is found in its graphic portrayal of hardship and despair in a bleak mining town which are offset by a proud family's enduring faith in Huw and their determination to protect and support him. Ford affirms their essential dignity with a respect and admiration he invites us to share.

This movie is impeccably crafted, written, performed, and directed. It's impossible not to be drawn in emotionally. Both HOW GREEN and Ford's pervious film, THE GRAPES OF WRATH, are realistic depictions of the effects of severe economic and social conditions upon a family. But while GRAPES centers more on the social conditions, VALLEY focuses primarily on the family itself. Indeed, it mourns the loss of family unity. The legendary Irish-American Ford was known for his gruff, crusty exterior, but pictures like this one show his sentimentality and his belief in the basic values of human life.

HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY is about a large, close-knit family, the Morgans, in a small Welsh mining town. The family is headed by a firm father and a gentle, wise mother, and comprises six sons and one daughter. The five grown sons are, like their father, coal miners, and it is their hope that the sixth son, sensitive and intelligent Huw (Roddy McDowall), will become a scholar. It is through Huw's eyes that the story is told. He looks back as an older man and reflects on his family, his valley, and its people.

He grows up in a time of change, watching in confusion as a secure way of life is altered for the worse by mine owners who overwork the mines and alienate the miners, leading his brothers to call for unionism, a concept which his father abhors. This is the central decision from which the other threads of this compelling story evolve, and the film is ultimately a beautifully moving drama, one of the best films about family ever made.

There is a genre of films whose underlying theme is the continuity of the family. In such movies, the family unit is placed at the dramatic center, often facing challenges from the external world that threaten the solidarity of its internal cohesiveness. Such a film is HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY, which traces the evolution of one middle class Welsh family over a period of many years. The narrator is an adult whose memories of his youth form the basis of the film. Huw Morgan (Roddy McDowell) recalls his life beginning when he was about thirteen. What he sees and relates is not only the changes that his family goes through, but he also notes the symbiotic interaction that society has on them. At the start of the movie, life for the Morgan family is pleasant. The family unit is cohesive, loving, and disciplined. His father Gwilym (Donald Crisp) controls them with a stern but loving hand. His mother Beth (Sara Allgood) is the loving mother who seems to spend most of her time as an eternal washerwoman. He has five older brothers and a sister Angharad (Maureen O'Hara), who silently loves the unapproachable village vicar Gruffydd (Walter Pidgeon). Soon enough, a changing society exerts a corrosive effect on the Morgans. The villain is not any one person, although the mine owner has been unfairly castigated for that. Rather, the creeping evil is a changing society that slowly is evolving from an agricultural base to a mechanized one. Workers at the mine are being downsized so they strike, and this strike sets is motion other wheels which further flatten the once strong solidarity of the Morgan family. The Morgan sons quarrel with the father over the strike and move out of the house. The daughter Angharad loves the vicar Gruffydd, who must reject her because of his clerical collar, so she is pressured into a loveless marriage with another. And there are several tragic accidents at the mine that are fatal for some of the male Morgans. While all this is going on, Huw sees the changes and feels the pain of their consequences. His schooling is a disaster as he is beaten mercilessly with a cane by his teacher. He suffers but does not know how to reconcile his suffering with the words of patience doled out by the vicar. There is no traditional happy ending, except that some of the Morgan family adjust to changes in their macrocosmic and microcosmic universe. Huw hears the words of endurance and tries to live by their meaning. At the end of the film, Huw is now an adult, with an adult's vision, but it is not clear if the joy he feels at the telling of his story is the joy only of joyous memories or the clarity of vision that his youthful pentitences have so painfully taught him.
HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY was a deserved winner of an Oscar for Best Picture. Donald Crisp won Best Suporting Actor for his role of the crochety but understanding Gwilym Morgan. What this movie suggests is that the inspiration one needs to overcome adversity need not be found only in the wisdom of others. Sometimes, it can be found within one's own heart. Huw Morgan found that out even as a child.

Frankly, I had forgotten how excellent this film is until seeing it again recently. (It was selected to received the Academy Award for best film, instead of Citizen Kane and the other nominees.) The impact on me of a film at a given time is almost wholly dependent on how accessible I am when seeing it. I first saw How Green Was My Valley as a child and then again several years later. Probably because since then I have become a father and then a grandfather, I am much more appreciative now than I was before of what director John Ford achieves in his portrayal of a Welsh mining town and of a specific family there which struggles so courageously to enable one of its own, not only to escape from the mines but from the limits of a culture (albeit loving and supportive) to fulfill his human potentialities which would otherwise be denied. The film covers a 50-year period as an adult Huw Morgan recalls it (he is played by Roddy McDowell), with the primary focus on his ordeals as the youngest of several children. Donald Crisp received an Academy Award as best actor in a supporting role as Morgan family's patriarch. Many believe this is Ford's best film and I would be hard-pressed to disagree with them. It really has everything. With Philip Dunne's screenplay based on Richard Llewellyn's novel, How Green Was My Valley combines superior acting and cinematography with Alfred Newman's complementary musical score. For me, this film's greatness is found in its graphic portrayal of hardship and despair in a bleak mining town which are offset by a proud family's enduring faith in Huw and their determination to protect and support him. Ford affirms their essential dignity with a respect and admiration he invites us to share.

Even if you're not a big baseball fan, this good-natured comedy should still grab you. Ray Milland stars as a mild-mannered, but all-American college professor who has a secret passion for baseball, and gets a little nutty every Spring, when the season starts up. His twin passions -- baseball and chemistry -- collide when he accidentally invents a substance that repels wood... just the thing to use if you want to become a major-league pitching star overnight, and rake in the big bucks when every pitcher you come up against gets dusted when you use the super goo.

What's weird about this Truman-era film is that Milland is never confronted as being a fraud or a cheat, even though he's obviously behaving unethically and taking unfair advantage of friends and foes alike. He's worried about getting caught by his fiancee (the reason he's trying to raise the money is so he can settle down with her), but when he becomes a national sensation, everybody jumps on the bandwagon and becomes a fan, including her sports-hating father, the campus dean. But nobody ever ever discovers his secret and delivers a big lecture telling him it's not right to cheat, etc. etc., and Milland makes it through the season with his fraud undetected. Setting ethics aside, the screwball elements of this film are quite enjoyable, and even if you're not a big sports buff (I'm sure not) it's a lot of fun. Recommended!

Ray Milland was a rather underrated actor who was equally adept at comedies as he was in dramas. Here, Milland shines as a professional scientist-turned-baseball-wizard in a side-spitting comedy that has since become a minor classic. Valentine Davies, who wrote the marvelous script for MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET, came up with another winner here. Ray is a mild-mannered chemistry professor in love with the lovely Jean Peters. Milland's meager salary won't suffice in supporting her however, and he keeps putting off marriage. While developing a bug repellant for trees, he invents a solution that repels any kind of wood it comes in contact with. Being an avid baseball fan, Milland concocts a clever scheme to earn additional money...There are many hilarious moments in this little gem, such as Paul Douglas mistaking the solution for hair tonic - his hair does the St. Vitus dance when he uses a wooden brush to comb it! The hilarious scenes in the baseball fields are terrific because the special effects appear completely natural.

Any baseball fan will love the humor in this baseball yarn about a professor who develops a "potion" that when applied to the ball repels wood (bats). A true diamond gem !!

. . .well, you know, A CHRISTMAS STORY. And that, my friends, is where we all go wrong when we see a flick that's closely related to what's now a family classic. This movie is not nearly as sophisticated as it's predecessor and we can pick it apart for all it's worth just because it's so different. Personally, I'd like to have seen Darren McGavin play the Dad again but hey, Grodin holds up well and if seen as a separate movie on it's own, it has lots of funny vignettes that are all in Shepherd's stories. I thought the funniest scene was when the Bumpus's come dancing over to their horrified neighbor's house. This is a very funny FAMILY picture that can be watched with no qualms about language, subject matter and yet, it's an adult's view of growing up in the 40's. Don't let cynical naysayers keep you from trying this SMALL CLASSIC.

My kids and I loved the prequel to this, A Christmas Story, and My Summer Story is certainly different, but all in all, it's a wonderful, funny, quirky, film. The reviews quoted here don't do it justice. This is one of the few movies I can watch with the kids almost as often as they watch it, mostly to see Mary Steenburgen throwing the gravy boats, and seeing the little brother catching and eating his goldfish..."a man gets to eat what he catches!" says Dad, played by Charles Grodin. It's a great movie moment. I think I'm going to have to buy this one.

I thought this was better than "A Christmas Story". My daughter and I laughed all the way through. Mary Steenbergen is perfect as the mother and the story is even better. I loved the nostalgia.

. . .well, you know, A CHRISTMAS STORY. And that, my friends, is where we all go wrong when we see a flick that's closely related to what's now a family classic. This movie is not nearly as sophisticated as it's predecessor and we can pick it apart for all it's worth just because it's so different. Personally, I'd like to have seen Darren McGavin play the Dad again but hey, Grodin holds up well and if seen as a separate movie on it's own, it has lots of funny vignettes that are all in Shepherd's stories. I thought the funniest scene was when the Bumpus's come dancing over to their horrified neighbor's house. This is a very funny FAMILY picture that can be watched with no qualms about language, subject matter and yet, it's an adult's view of growing up in the 40's. Don't let cynical naysayers keep you from trying this SMALL CLASSIC.

My kids and I loved the prequel to this, A Christmas Story, and My Summer Story is certainly different, but all in all, it's a wonderful, funny, quirky, film. The reviews quoted here don't do it justice. This is one of the few movies I can watch with the kids almost as often as they watch it, mostly to see Mary Steenburgen throwing the gravy boats, and seeing the little brother catching and eating his goldfish..."a man gets to eat what he catches!" says Dad, played by Charles Grodin. It's a great movie moment. I think I'm going to have to buy this one.

I thought this was better than "A Christmas Story". My daughter and I laughed all the way through. Mary Steenbergen is perfect as the mother and the story is even better. I loved the nostalgia.

. . .well, you know, A CHRISTMAS STORY. And that, my friends, is where we all go wrong when we see a flick that's closely related to what's now a family classic. This movie is not nearly as sophisticated as it's predecessor and we can pick it apart for all it's worth just because it's so different. Personally, I'd like to have seen Darren McGavin play the Dad again but hey, Grodin holds up well and if seen as a separate movie on it's own, it has lots of funny vignettes that are all in Shepherd's stories. I thought the funniest scene was when the Bumpus's come dancing over to their horrified neighbor's house. This is a very funny FAMILY picture that can be watched with no qualms about language, subject matter and yet, it's an adult's view of growing up in the 40's. Don't let cynical naysayers keep you from trying this SMALL CLASSIC.

My kids and I loved the prequel to this, A Christmas Story, and My Summer Story is certainly different, but all in all, it's a wonderful, funny, quirky, film. The reviews quoted here don't do it justice. This is one of the few movies I can watch with the kids almost as often as they watch it, mostly to see Mary Steenburgen throwing the gravy boats, and seeing the little brother catching and eating his goldfish..."a man gets to eat what he catches!" says Dad, played by Charles Grodin. It's a great movie moment. I think I'm going to have to buy this one.

I thought this was better than "A Christmas Story". My daughter and I laughed all the way through. Mary Steenbergen is perfect as the mother and the story is even better. I loved the nostalgia.