Sondheim has always been fairly unsentimental about cutting his own work, or reframing it. (See: the London production of Follies, the revised version of Merrily We Roll Along.)

IMDB on the ultimate magical negro:

In director Robert Benton's Feast of Love, Morgan Freeman is once again playing another variation of his previous role as God. "Just once, it would be great to see him play a spiteful neurotic or a selfish bastard," Carina Chocano remarks in the Los Angeles Times. Stephen Holden in the New York Times says that Freeman "has a role he could act in his sleep." Lou Lumenick in the New York Post comments that Freeman "has devoted entirely too much of his screen career to selflessly helping white folks." Most critics have gagged on the movie. Lumenick calls Feast of Love "diabetes-inducing." Liam Lacey in the Toronto Globe & Mail suggests it's "like a buffet of contrivance." And Michael Phillips in the Chicago Tribune uses this analogy: "This feast is more like an artfully arranged appetizer plate."

But I still love him, somehow. Cuba Gooding doesn't wear it as well, but then again, Morgan hasn't played mentally handicapped, has he?

I was never going to see this movie, but I love The Rock, so I like the reviews:

One thing that most critics appear to agree on: If Disney's game plan was to make The Game Plan a movie that would appeal strongly to kids 15 and younger, it succeeded. Jane Horwitz writes unenthusiastically in the Washington Post: "It is an amiable enough movie and ought to give warm and fuzzy amusement to kids 8 and older, even as it will appear utterly contrived to adult eyes." The film stars wrestler-turned-actor Dwayne The Rock Johnson, who draws polite applause. David Germain of the Associated Press says that "Johnson combines an effective mix of swaggering charm, cluelessness and childish enthusiasm." Gene Seymour in Newsday asks, "Why isn't Dwayne Johnson a big star by now? The camera loves him. He's funny, self-deprecating. ... It could be that he hasn't quite found the right vehicle to drive home his persona." This movie may not be that vehicle, either. As Robert W. Butler notes in the Kansas City Star: "Johnson pretty much drips on-screen charisma, but he can't overcome the banality of The Game Plan, a comedy so formulaic and uninspired that you'd swear you've seen the movie before." And Elizabeth Weitzman in the New York Daily News concludes her review of the movie by remarking, "The only mystery, in fact, is why Johnson chose to make this film in the first place. He could be -- should be -- one of the biggest action stars of the era. Instead, he's wasting his talents on one mediocre movie after another."

We are going to see Itty Bitty Titty Committee this weekend because we are stereotypical gay girls. [link]

I do love the The Rock. My reaction to the commercials for this one has totally been "Man, I wish that looked like a better movie."

I think that movie looks adorable! I'll probably only see it someday on TV, but still.

Game Plan just looks like that movie. I want to see The Rock beat the shit out of stuff, but it's not like I've seen his last two action movies. Maybe this is all my fault.

The whole reason Doom was so much better than it had any right to be (not that it's good) was The Rock.

Well, and Karl Urban.

I remember being in a room with somebody from Universal who told me Doom was their real baby as it was better than Serenity. My soul died a little in that moment.

"Just once, it would be great to see him play a spiteful neurotic or a selfish bastard,"

Yeah, he did that in Stephen King's Dreamcatcher and that godawful Chain Reaction movie with Keanu Reeves. Not encouraging me to see him try it again if it comes bundled in movies of that quality. Freeman is kind of an American Michael Caine, always turning in great performances that are the best parts of about 10 different crappy movies a year.

I just finished watching Zodiac. i kind of loved it. people really are the scariest thing about living in this world, aren't they?