Shameless Self Expression

David Strathairn attends his 45 th high school reunion and becomes curious as to what happened a guy named Swede Levov after running into his younger brother (a dreadful Rupert Evans) at the reunion. Swede recently passed and Evans tells Strathairn the tragic tale. Ewan McGregor plays Jewish-American ‘Swede’, married to a stunning former beauty queen (Jennifer Connelly), and father to a rebellious daughter (Dakota Fanning) who gets caught up in the anti-Vietnam War movement of the late 1960s. Molly Parker plays a well-meaning but seriously misguided psychiatrist.   First-time director Ewan McGregor doesn’t make it easy for himself by tackling the Pulitzer Prize-winning work of Philip Roth with this 2016 drama. Unfortunately, Ewan really isn’t up for the task with this extremely silly film full of absolutely dreadful dialogue and unconvincing performances. Adapted by John Romano ( “The Lincoln Lawyer” , the infamous “Cop Rock” ), in terms of plot and themes there’s some inter...

Big-hearted John Ritter and his wife Amy Yasbeck (whose heart is considerably smaller) adopt young Michael Oliver from Gilbert Gottfried’s adoption agency where the juvenile devil has been traumatising the staff of nuns. Ritter, whose disreputable businessman father Jack Warden is a cold-hearted jerk, wants to do everything right with ‘Junior’ that his father did wrong with him. Junior however, is a malevolent little turd who lives almost solely to cause mischief and has been pen-pals with a psycho dubbed ‘The Bow Tie Killer’ (Michael Richards). Every now and then a film comes along that apparently I shouldn’t like because it’s considered trashy or puerile or just plain low-class.   Screw everyone else, “Problem Child” is a perfectly fine, amusing film and you’re all just plain wrong about it. This one’s underrated and I say that knowing that Gilbert Gottfried is in the cast and the first pee joke is mid-opening credits. Directed by Dennis Dugan (who has helmed way too many Ad...