Field of Bad Fever Dreams

Last
night we watched "Fever
Pitch" the new comedy starring Drew
Barrymore and Jimmie Fallon and set against the backdrop of the Red Sox
run to
the World Championship.

Since the version we watched quite clearly said, "Review Copy," we guess we should review it, if only to maintain
some pretense of conventional journalism as part of our life-long quest
for legitimacy.

Basically, this movie is an almost complete
waste of time and hardrive space.  The location scenes around
Boston, which with the exception of one scene in Kenmore Square were
completely devoid of shots of any
of the stars, probably allowing them to be filmed weeks before or after
the real talent was in town, compared unfavorably with footage shot by
our Japanese students with hand-held digital cameras on their first day
in
the country.

The romantic story line, nerdy boy meets geek girl, overcomes an
annoying but not debilitating handicap (he is a fanatical Sox fan),
leading to a dramatic Fenway Park proposal, is so lame that it begs
for deletion, and yet is not bad enough to be camp or provide a satisfying
laugh.  Finally, the tacked-on ending was rewritten after the
Sox won the Series during the filming, in a form so transparent and
tacky
on
that
it detracted from our real memories of the blessed moment and turned
it into a crass commercial tagline attached to a shitbox vehicle for
two aging youth stars coasting on quickly diminishing career momentum.

Quite frankly, Drew Barrymore peaked in E.T., and her career trajectory
has been been downhill ever since. Admittedly,
she had a subsequent short but stimulating return to significance when
she showed some mature promise and exposed skin in Bad
Girls (1994).as the teenaged sexpot in a group of badass
women wranglers. But
of course,
she achieved
this
promising presence
by

playing on every existing twisted stereotype
and fetish of middle-aged, middle-class American males,
like Jane Fonda in Barbarella, but damn, did she ever look good in those
skimpy cowgirl corsets and lacy intimate wear. Like la Fonda, she
later
repented and tried to transition into
deeper roles and leftish political positions, As a result
of those doomed efforts and a bizarre marriage to certifiable madman
Tom Greene, her image instead morphed into slightly skanky eccentricity,
which she in turn tried to counter by fleeing into ever more ridiculous
romantic comedies.

The poor woman seems trapped by the public’s insatiable desire
to see her in cute dating flicks. Her "serious" movies
(like "The
Amy
Fischer Story" or "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind") have
been flops, pretty much, so far as we can tell.We hope she finds some
decent roles soon, as she is becoming
a one-trick pony
real quick, and it’s a disgusting, treacly trick at that.

Jimmy Fallon, meanwhile, has managed to prove he can do "serious" comedy
as well as the ridiculous SNL sketches like "Mango", and little else.
We doubt Chase, Akroyd, Martin, Meyers and Carvey are looking over
their
shoulders
at this rising young stud.

We would not recommend wasting your hard-earned money on this bomb
– it is sure to hit cable within months, where at least you can change
the channel when the nausea hits.