Sloke

I've never read the Harry Potter series, but many adults have told me they are worth a look. In fact, it's pretty remarkable how many post-teens are into this book series. It sort of left me wondering what was it about second childhoods, and how much clever people make by cashing in on them.

Watching this movie gives you a sense as to the deeper value of the Harry Potter series, though just a sense. The universe of Harry Potter, at least what's presented on-screen, is packed with colorful personalities, fantastic backdrops, and some very clever magical objects. At its center is a character that brings together the best of Luke Skywalker and Frank Merriwell, while recalling and reclaiming a slightly antique British identity in line with Victorian explorers and "Chariots of Fire." I think I get it now.

But this movie tries to do too much with the source material. Judicious editing would have been a good idea. As it is, the movie spends more than 2 1/2 hours giving lip service, and often not much more, to bits of business that seem pretty extraneous by the time the credits roll. Even the central plot elements seem tacked on and inadequately dealt with. What was Alan Rickman's character's place in the story? Did we really need to spend so much time with Harry's unpleasant uncle and aunt, given the fact they are gone and forgotten 20 minutes in? Doesn't any kid at Hogwarts feel the least bit jealous at all the attention the doting faculty spends on precious Harry?

The story also moves a wee bit too easily. No real challenges face our hero. Everything that happens to Harry happens with such minimum fuss and so much applause from the surrounding characters that it gets a bit tired, even if the actor playing Harry is good at remaining sympathetic and projecting wonder. By the end, when the solution to a crisis at hand is literally dug out of Harry's pocket, I sort of shrugged and thought to myself: Of course. It's Harry Potter.

I can't believe all these bookreaders, not to mention those kids running around with their brooms and glasses on Halloween, fell for such denatured yarn-spinning. There's something good at the core of the movie, and it's likely the vision of the author as presented in the novels, but it doesn't come across well here. The producer seems more interested in giving every beloved book nugget its own turn on screen than in telling an interesting story. You may go in in search of your inner child, but you'll end up just feeling 160 minutes older than when you went in.

There's a scene in "Riding In Cars With Boys" where Drew Barrymore delivers one of the most poignant scenes in hers or any other actresses' career. She sits in a fan-backed chair, a prisoner at her own wedding, her eyes like sponges registering all the hurt and anguish she is feeling from family and friends, all because no one really wants to be there, least of all her. For much of the rest of the film, Drew's Bev will alienate us with her selfishness, even cruelty, towards those who give her love, but we the audience never stop caring about her, because Barrymore never loses that core truth of the little girl trapped in the awfulness of her basic humanity.

"Boys" is reminiscent of another movie producer James Brooks had a hand in, "Terms of Endearment." In both, a complex tangle of interconnected relationships are worked out in a meticulous, unblinking way. There's humor and pathos served up in equal, occasionally simultaneous amounts, and some unpredictable twists that keep the audience on their toes.

But here's the thing: "Boys" actually earns its tears. The emotion and heartbreak here feels real, not piled on with a trowel as it was in "Terms." Sure, there's some business involving a child's tooth and some other business involving the Everly Brothers' "All I Have To Do Is Dream" where you can feel the strings being pulled. But it works, and there's no use trying to penalize the composer for writing an effective melody. No surprise cancer deaths, no convenient astronauts living next door. "Boys" is based on a true story, but anyone would recognize it for one even if it didn't say so in the opening credits.

Great acting all around, great '60s ambiance. Nice to see my home state getting some attention, but I'd have liked it had they actually shot some of the film in Connecticut, rather than New York and New Jersey. (Why was that, anyway? Union issues?)

I'm surprised to see this movie isn't scoring a higher IMDb rating, or isn't catching fire in a bigger way at the box office or critics' circles. It's a better movie than "Terms," which is not enough towards saying it's a great movie, full of the stuff of life, that will probably be bopping a lot of people over the head in its second go-round on cable and video. I'm just glad I got the chance to catch on to it early.

There hasn't been a decade since 1969 as loaded with classic Westerns as was that one year: "Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid," "The Wild Bunch," "True Grit," "Once Upon A Time In The West," and this one, the least appreciated but easiest to watch.

James Garner is such a comfortable onscreen presence, it's hard to appreciate all the fine work he does in this film. It's a clever comedy that is perhaps a bit too anxious to please, but can make you laugh all the same. The supporting actors are tremendous, too. It's funny to see Dern play such a naif, but Brennan has the best time of it. His expression when Garner sticks his finger in the barrel of Brennan's pistol is priceless.

No scorpion fights, no blown-up trains, no Italian dubbing or even Strother Martin. But I can't think of a better family movie, or just something to beat the blues.