We've Seen It All Before

So why aren't I watching Dub the Shrub's press conference, you must be asking? Why should I? He's only going to insist that everything is going fine in Iraq and that he knows just what he's doing. Either I'm crazy, or that means there must be a method to the madness in Iraq. And although I have doubted my sanity on occasion (I supported Gary Hart for President once), I don't think I'm crazy.

Anyway, here's some more news on the upcoming Nia Vardalos movie Connie and Carla; Vardalos and Toni Collette play women who witness a mob hit and pretend to be female impersonators to avoid trouble with the gangsters. Wait a minute; haven't we seen a plot like this before? In a little Billy Wilder movie called Some Like It Hot?

A director of Wilder's skill may be able to make a movie like this that isn't a complete ripoff of either Some Like It Hot or Victor/Victoria, but alas, Connie and Carla didn't have a Wilder or even a Blake Edwards at the helm. (Nor a Jack Lemmon in it either, but that's another post.) The director of "Connie and Carla" is a fellow named Michael Lembeck. If the name sounds familiar to you, it's because he played Max on the sitcom "One Day At a Time" in the seventies, and more recently he's directed several episodes of "Friends" (which, coincidentally, has already wrapped up for good, its few remaining unaired episodes awaiting transmission). With "Friends" passing into television history, Lembeck clearly wants to progress to bigger and better things, but chances are he'll end up being just another television director who chokes when moving to the big screen.

This does not look good . . ..