if i could talk to the animals

I probably first saw Kevin James in the Will Smith movie Hitch. It's a cute rom-com, and James was one of the brightest spots, as an awkward, but eager-to-love man who comes to "date doctor" Hitch (Smith) for help in winning the heart of the beautiful and famous Allegra (Amber Valletta).

I've since caught him in a variety of things — reruns of The King of Queens with the always-brilliant Jerry Stiller, and what has become one of my daughter's favorite movies, Paul Blart, Mall Cop. He is always appealing, even sometimes downright lovable, so I guess I have to count myself as a Kevin James fan.

Kate and Griffin trip the light fantastic

James is also a charter member of The Adam Sandler Movie Mafia, which includes friends and comedians Rob Schneider, Chris Rock and Steve Buscemi. In Grown Ups, it seemed like Sandler and James and Co. may have become a bit disillusioned with the making of movies and decided to just make a movie where a bunch of his friends go on vacation. As much as that's the shakiest of premises, it actually worked, because it was fun to go along for the ride with the guys and some equally funny gals, Maya Rudolph, Salma Hayek and Maria Bello. James brings that same "let's just have some fun" attitude to his movies. They know and we know that Sandler and James and Rock are multimillionaires, but somehow they are still able to connect with their audience and their regular-guy personas.

Zookeeper has been sold as a talking animals comedy for the kiddies, and it is — there is CGI and animatronics to make the zoo animals crack wise. But at its heart, Zookeeper is a rom-com. James has realized that romantic comedy is his niche and he's sticking to it. And he is usually a much more successful rom-com star than the more typical names that come up when thinking of the genre, like Jennifer Aniston and Anne Hathaway. Certainly his rom-coms have performed better at the box office. In the U.S. Hitch made over $177 million and Paul Blart made over $146 million. Aniston's Love Happens (22M+) and The Switch (27M+) and Hathaway's Love and Other Drugs (32M+) were lower performers. It's not a contest, and the ladies can sell tickets too, but James has proved that he brings strong rom-com box office.

In Zookeeper, James plays Griffin, the zookeeper at Boston's Franklin Park Zoo, who is beloved by everyone — his coworkers, his brother, and his charges, the animals at the zoo. Everyone loves him with one exception — Stephanie (Leslie Bibb), who he proposed to in an elaborate opening sequence complete with a sunset ride on a horse on the beach, where Griffin is emphatically and embarrassingly turned down. And then had to ride back across the beach, with fireworks blazing, a sobbing now ex-girlfriend, and a suddenly unnecessary serenading mariachi band.

Griffin has never gotten over Stephanie, and can't see his co-worker, the beautiful and intelligent Kate (Rosario Dawson), a vet and eagle expert, who is right under his nose. It's all standard rom-com stuff with a slight twist — the animals of the zoo have had enough of Griffin's schlumpy loser-in-love-and-life behavior and decide to coach him and help him win stephanie back. Of course that means that they also have to clue him in to the fact that they can talk.

Bernie and Griffin go out for a night on the town

The animals are voiced well, and the way they talk is technically well done, compared to earlier talking animal efforts like Look Who's Talking Now and Doctor Dolittle. Adam Sandler does a funny and almost completely unrecognizable voice as Donald the Capuchin Monkey. Other stand-outs include Sylvester Stallone and Cher as a lion couple and Jon Favreau and Faizon Love as two squabbling bears.

There are too many incidents of Griffin flying through the air to splat against something hard, but the kids in the audience all giggled, as did many of the adults. Watching Griffin and Kate try to make Stephanie jealous at his brother's wedding is one of the movie's high points, as they perform a spoofy Cirque du Soleil pas de deux. Also funny is Griffin's growing friendship with best bud Bernie (Nick Nolte), who happens to be a gorilla. Zookeeper is sweet and silly and fun. According to imdb, the next movie James has coming up is Here Comes the Boom. I bet there's some romance in it.

catching up with ... burlesque

A movie I missed in theaters but was intrigued to see was Burlesque. Seeing it now after watching Christina Aguilera weekly on The Voice was a bit surreal. Chistina's "persona" on The Voice is very similar to the character Cher plays in Burlesque, a mamma-hen to young performers. But Christina's styling on The Voice is so over-the-top burlesque glam. There seems to be some life/art crossover happening that Aguilera hasn't completely reconciled.

All that aside, she looks and sounds great in Burlesque, which is a also a very fun movie. The glittery eye shadow budget clearly was greater than the one set aside for the scriptwriter (actually writer and  director Steve Antin, who has also acted and is the brother of Pussycat Dolls founder Robin Antin). The plot strings together so many show-biz cliches that anyone in the audience could have written better dialogue for the actors in their sleep. But none of that really matters. Burlesque is about Cher and Aguilera getting to look fab and have fun a in a series of splashy musical numbers.

Christina Aguilera - Show Me How You Burlesque - Official Music Video - Burlesque Vidéo

The supporting cast is amazing. Stanley Tucci plays Cher's gay factotum, and as always, is just wonderful to have around. Kristin Bell plays the resident bad girl rival for Aguilera, and for some reason looks a lot like Parker Posey — was she the original choice for the character? She gets quickly shuttled into the background, as her story and her character is never a real threat to the main plot, which is about Cher maybe losing her burlesque club and Aguilera climbing to the heights of ... singing in Cher's burlesque club.

And that is where Burlesque gets all of its goofy charm and fun. Aguilera's Iowa waitress wants to leave her boring existence and go to L.A. She pounds the big city pavement for about one afternoon and then is attracted to the bright bulbs on the flashing "Burlesque" sign. Once inside, sipping a free drink from a cute bartender (love interest Cam Gigandet), her world is rocked. She turns to look at the girls lip-synching on-stage in their glittery eye make-up and their spangly costumes and watered-down Bob Fosse choreography and she is transported. She is in heaven.

It's this twist from the typical "I'm going to Hollywood and make it big" movies that makes Burlesque a little confusing, yet endearing. This girl doesn't have big career aspirations. She's got this amazing, powerhouse voice, and there are intimations that she could quickly move on to the big-time, but she never gives any indication that she is in the least bit interested in doing so. Its kind of refreshing. She just wants to sing and take her clothes off in front of an audience. It's weird, but it's kind of empowering, too.

Aguilera's character gets to sing and dance and wear a succession of amazing outfits and wonderful wigs. She also frequently daydreams, seeing herself in extravagantly staged burlesque numbers, belting out a song. In some ways the entire movie is one long fevered daydream of a girl from Iowa who can really sing.

The musical numbers are ridiculous and ridiculously entertaining, mining moves from music videos and old movies. The only sore spot was the criminal underuse of Alan Cumming, who could have really added something — at the very least one show-stopping musical number — to the movie. This is the guy (who I was lucky enough to see) who reinvigorated Cabaret on the stage. He could have taught them all to out-Fosse Fosse. The people behind Burlesque clearly are aware of this, as they stage one risqué background number with him and two girls, but it's frankly not enough.

Burlesque - You Haven't Seen the Last of Me. 

Cher gets a mid-movie number, "You Haven't Seen the Last of Me," which is lit beautifully, looking at times like a colorized BW clip. She has a nice rapport with both Aguilera and Tucci. The movie plot requires her to spend most of her time being pissed off about something, so her main expression is to purse her lips and then for scenes when she's really fed up, purse them some more, but she's Cher and she's fabulous and she should make more movies. But Burlesque belongs to Aguilera. Now if she could just start styling herself in her real life (or at least her role on The Voice) as she looks in this movie. One can dream.

la, la, la, yikes

What is it with the music industry and duets? Why do they keep foisting unlikely pairings on innocent ears? The local radio station that I listen to recently changed its format from a fun eclectic mix to classic rock, so I have been switching over to the pop/rock station when the umpteenth Zeppelin song is played during my morning commute. I know, I know, I could bring CDs or plug in the iPhone, but sometimes it's fun to hear something different, that I would never play. But not this morning.

My ears were assailed by this chestnut from Cher and Peter Cetera. It got me thinking about duets. How can some be so right and some be just so wrong? Cher should know how to sing a duet. I Got You Babe is a classic, I guess (and will probably turn up in rotation in that new station format - yikes.)

What about some other good cop bad/cop situations? Stevie Nicks is a good (and bad) example. Her work with Tom Petty on Stop Draggin' My Heart Around is great and even Whenever I Call You Friend can be a fun radio song. But Leather and Lace with Don Henley - not so much. Stevie seems to be having a bit of a renaissance lately, with rumors of Fleetwood Mac touring next year, and the internet passings around of footage of a recent performance. But when I think of Stevie (apart from her famous collaboration and relationship with Lindsay Buckingham) School of Rock's Joan Cusack being summoned by Jack Black to dance to Edge of Seventeen on the jukebox also comes to mind...