"Oh, God!"

This is Part 1 of what I hope is an on-going series of film reviews. You know A.O. Scott's film picks at the nytimes.com?My reviews will be kind of like those where I review whatever random film I happened to have watched that week except I'm not going to record myself on video standing awkwardly in front of a wall or red velvet curtains looking like someone was about to walk in the room and decapitate me. By the way, has anyone followed A.O. Scott's physical trajectory over the past year and a half since he started doing those nytimes video shorts? When he started out he was super white and pasty with huge black bags beneath his eyes, wearing whatever wrinkled clothes happened to be lying nearest to him on the floor that morning. But within the past year someone must have stopped him in the hall at the New York Times offices and said something. I imagine the conversation went something like this:

NY Times Colleague: Hey, A.O....
A.O.: Hey, what's up?
NYTC: Hey man, awesome film review video.
A.O.: Oh, thanks man, that's really nice of you. You really liked it?
NYTC: (Pause) Yeah...it was...uh...
A.O.: What...is there something wrong?
NYTC: Uhm...no, it's just that...(looks around)...you look like shit.

Or something like that. Anyway, credit to A.O. for getting it together. Although, I have to say, I think A.O.'s shoddy appearance probably had more to do with the New York Times underestimation (and all of the newspaper business's underestimation for that matter) of people's desire/willingness to read/watch their news online. I don't think they had any idea that their little news videos would ever become a hundredth as huge as they are today. (Newspapers...we'll miss you...sort of).

Okay, back to the film review. For my first review...(drumroll)...I'd like to do "Oh, God!" Carl Reiner's 1977 film starring George Burns, John Denver and Terri Gar. Burns plays God and Denver plays the sweet supermarket manager whom he tries to convince to spread his word. Gar plays John Denver's wife who appears wearing a different super-tight pair of shorts or pants in every scene. I think this was her function in the film. They didn't even really pretend that Terri Gar was anything more than the smiling, blond tit and ass. She just was. And boy did she look great! You know, it occurred to me while I was watching this that Lisa Kudrow is basically her generation's Terri Gar - the goofy-yet-hot tall, skinny blond. (And then later that night I put on Lawrence of Arabia and thought about how Jude Law is his generation's Peter O' Toole and then I thought about how Hollywood basically operates on physical/character types which are repeated generation after generation, occasionally expanding into new types when the opportunity arises...I'm thinking, possibly, Arnold Schwarzenegger was a type-breaker, for instance....)

At the beginning of the film you think John Denver is horrible and that's why he never did any other films (besides the Muppets special) but he's actually pretty good. He's perfect for the role of a sweet, sincere everyman (who also happens to be your average non-believer...because obviously who isn't?) But the best part about this movie is the fact that it actually takes this scenario of God-returns-to-earth-to-spread-his-word-in-contemporary-America seriously. It would have been so easy to make a total farce out of this premise but they handled it really well. I was impressed.

Also, for some reason, the whole time I was watching the film I kept thinking it would be great to do a Japanese remake of it. I don't know why.

I give this movie three "YESSIR!"s. Wait, no, that's awkward. How about: I give this movie a big FAT LIP!?

No, here it is: I give "Oh, God!" a BIG SLAP ON THE NECK!!!