Dave

James Newton Howard's score starts off "Dave" with that certain "West Wing" sense of optimism. The music would be fitting for a president, except the president in this film doesn't seem to like Washington, his wife, or even his dogs as he throws the leash to the ground as soon as he's away from the cameras. Dave (Kevin Kline), however, is perfectly happy in his working-class job as the manager of a temporary employment agency and also a presidential impersonator, as he looks remarkably similar to the incumbent president. While Dave is sort of an everyday hard-working man like many of Jimmy Stewart's characters, Kline's portrayal of President Mitchell is reminiscent of Phil Hartman's impersonation of Ronald Reagan on "Saturday Night Live," at one moment smiling for the cameras and then ordering missiles to be dropped on the communists.

One day, a Secret Service agent (Ving Rhames) instructs Dave that the government needs his help. Dave is asked if he will assume the role as President Mitchell for the entire country while the President is busy; Dave can surmise that of course, the President must be doing some very top-secret duty if an ordinary man like Dave will temporarily assume the role of the presidency. And just like that, the President is gone, and Dave is acting. And Dave really, really likes being president.

But the President's top-secret duty is to carry on an affair with his secretary (Laura Linney). While doing so he suffers from a massive stroke, and now the President's Chief of Staff (Frank Langella) and speech writer (Kevin Dunn) have a bit of a problem. Dave is asked if he can stay on for a bit longer, to which he accepts, though hesitantly. But there are some ambitious reasons for such a move on the Chief of Staff's part; he desperately wants to be president himself, and he's "not going to let some Boy Scout" (the vice president, played by Ben Kingsley) take it away from him. (Langella played an infamous president on Broadway and film years later.) Langella is more terrifying than he was as Dracula when he gives Dave that icy stare to prod him how to behave in the White House.

Dave seems to be enjoying the job but is puzzled as to why the First Lady (Sigourney Weaver) hates him--the President--so much. Still, he will do what he can to make things right, and he starts by bringing some charisma and compassion to the job. With the help of an accountant friend (Charles Grodin) he manages to balance the budget so that funding for a homeless shelter can remain, setting up a conflict with his very mean-spirited Chief of Staff.

There are several humorous cameos in Dave, including Jay Leno, Arnold Schwarzenegger, the pundits of the McLaughlin Group, Chris Dodd, Tom Harkin, Paul Simon (the senator, not the singer), Helen Thomas (seventeen years before her comments on Israel resulted in the end of her career), Ben Stein, and Tip O'Neill. Also appearing is Oliver Stone, poking fun at his image as he explains to Larry King his conspiracy idea regarding the impostor president based on the shape of his chin.

This is a very enjoyable movie, well-thought despite its simplicity and some might say naiveté. Simplicity aside, this movie works because it celebrates the idea that not all politicians--dare it be said perhaps the majority of them--are decent, hard-working humans like the rest of us. Aside from that, it's also funny, as Kline knows how to hit the right notes, not being over the top but silly enough that he helps make this film very enjoyable to watch.

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A Fish Called Wanda

Many have noted filmmaker Errol Morris' article in the New York Times on anosognosia. Morris tells the story of David Dunning, a professor of social psychology at Cornell University, reading the newspaper to discover a bizarre story. The article was about a man named McArthur Wheeler who was arrested after attempting to rob two Pittsburgh banks. He attempted to rob the banks in daylight, but what really made the story unique was that Wheeler did not attempt to disguise himself. Wheeler was totally perplexed after he was arrested: "But I wore the juice," he insisted. As Morris writes, "Apparently, he was under the deeply misguided impression that rubbing one's face with lemon juice rendered it invisible to movie cameras."

Wheeler had been told of the phenomenon of smearing lemon juice on one's face to mask it from surveillance cameras. He was at least somewhat cautious, as he conducted a test to verify the results; indeed, the pictures showed no face. Perhaps it was because he had in fact mistakenly turned away from the camera just before it went off.

We have all heard of stupid criminals, but Wheeler takes the cake. Dunning suddenly realized something as he was reading the article. Perhaps Wheeler was not simply too stupid to be a bank robber, but instead was too stupid to realize that he was too stupid to be a bank robber. This is identified by Morris' article as anosognosia, which is when a person suffers from a disability but either is unaware of the condition or is unwilling to admit it exists. In the case of McArthur Wheeler, he was too stupid to realize he was stupid.

Many characters in "A Fish Called Wanda" probably have such a condition.

Written by John Cleese and directed by Charles Crichton, the film opens with three of its main characters: Jamie Lee Curtis as the title character (sort of), Michael Palin (an alumnus of Monty Python with Cleese) as a stuttering animal lover named Ken, and Kevin Kline as a maliciously-witted Otto, not daring to hide any compassion and instead horrifyingly staring at Ken's obvious stutter. "That's quite a stutter you've got there, Ken," he teases, interrupting his sentence with a chuckle. Otto also isn't afraid to mention to Ken that he once had a friend in the CIA who had a stutter which "cost him his life."

Wanda and Otto, with Ken and Wanda's boyfriend George (Tom Georgeson), rob a bank, then double-cross the ring leader while pretending to be brother and sister. They discover though that they too have been betrayed, as the stolen jewels have disappeared. Cleese himself then appears as a lawyer attempting to find some actual satisfaction in his life but instead is taken for granted by his wife and daughter. Cleese, as Archie Leach (Cary Grant's actual name), will be representing George at his trial.

Curtis is perfect at portraying such a seductive and funny character. And while it's reasonable to believe that perhaps Cleese's character would be the smart one of the group, he is the one who dances in the nude (while speaking Russian), only to discover a family walk in on him. Kline in particular is wonderful to watch. He is as animated as Chaplin and as fast as Keaton. Moment after moment, he shines. He is ready to assassinate Ken (regardless of the consequences), he loquaciously speaks Italian as he makes love, and he deeply inhales the leather boot of Wanda in the film's best fetish moment. He likes winning, too, and when he is challenged on the United States losing the Vietnam War, he shouts, "We didn't lose Vietnam! It was a tie!" His jealousy, his hatred of the Brits, his constant need to complicate things are all marvelously done by Kline. But as clumsy as Otto is, there is something deeply troubling him. To tie in the Morris-Dunning-Wheeler aspect, Otto is frequently called stupid, and his voice slows--"Don't ever, ever call me 'stupid,'" he warns. There is complexity here, yet Kline allows hyperbole without losing control, and there is an endless amount of stupidity with his character. For Kline's performance, he was awarded the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

There is a flaw with a certain scene involving a dog, and I stand with Betty White in the stance that violence against animals is not funny. (May Ms. White forgive me, for I couldn't help but at least smirk at such dark humor.) In a post-Capra era, though, this is one of the finest examples of slapstick humor the movies have seen.

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