Word: answerability
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Since then, eccentricity has become the norm. The characters might be two people who hate each other and thus are bound to fall in love, as in The Ugly Truth, or strangers with complementary needs, as in The Answer Man, or, for a change, folks who seem simpatico but have trouble becoming a couple, as in (500) Days of Summer. What the new films share is an aim to evoke familiar laughs and perhaps a climactic tear. That's the difference between an action movie and a comedy: the first makes you gasp, "I've never seen that before...
...Answer Man, which was called Arlen Faber when it showed at Sundance this year, has more going for it. Jeff Daniels plays the long-ago author of a spiritual best seller, Me and God, who's since become a recluse in the most photogenic part of Philadelphia. He crawls out of his shell to meet a single-mom chiropractor (Lauren Graham), befriend a recovering alcoholic (Lou Taylor Pucci) and make a public display of vulnerability - all staples of the genre, as is the plangent piano score that indie films employ to tell viewers what to feel. (Sometimes watching a sweet...
...facial muscles. With Daniels (The Squid and the Whale) and Pucci (Thumbsucker) joined by Kat Dennings (Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist) and Olivia Thirlby (Snow Angels), the movie is like a convention of appealing indie stars. Writer-director John Hindman mostly gives them room to breathe, and The Answer Man is likable because it doesn't try too hard to be. (See pictures of LIFE's best celebrity covers...
Visit RottenTomatoes.com for reviews of The Answer...
...week when he said that the National Health Service was preparing for a worst-case scenario of 65,000 deaths from the flu next winter. To prevent hospital overcrowding, the NHS is planning to allow people who think they might have swine flu to call a telephone line and answer a few questions; those whose answers indicate they might have it will be allowed to receive the antiviral Tamiflu or have a "flu friend" pick it up for them. (The system is available only in England for now - sorry, Scotland.) (See the top five swine...