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ADAM N STEVE
In the '70s, a movie with this many famous faces—John Goodman, Marisa Tomei, Mary Steenburgen, Camryn Manheim, Sean Astin and half a dozen others—would usually signal a disaster flick. In this case, it's just a disaster. Co-writer–director Randall Miller has essentially grafted pointless celebrity cameos onto his own nostalgic 1990 short film about rowdy boys circa 1962 forced to attend cotillion and learning to like girls. Here, scenes from Miller's short become the rowdy boyhood memories of a dying car-crash victim (Goodman), whose chance meeting with an emotionally shut-off widower (Robert Carlyle) inspires the latter to attend dance classes, where, surprise, new love awaits with lonelyheart Tomei. It's all a treacly, shoddily assembled, underwritten mess: performances defined by pity, a score that won't stop soaring and lines like “This day was different from all the rest.” Especially bizarre is that Miller did his modestly amusing, colorfully detailed short no favors by diluting it with the new stuff, which, of course, hardly feels new. Dancing With the Stars is more life-affirming. (Robert Abele) (Edwards South Coast Village, Santa Ana; UA Marketplace, Long Beach)
