A Fish Called Wanda

Charles Crichton (and uncredited John Cleese), 1988 (8.5*)
A sparkling comedic cast help push this heist satire over the top into rarified waters. There aren’t many crime comedies worth watching more than once, this is one of them.

John Cleese (of Monty Python and Fawlty Towers fame) plays a judge who falls for the wiles of American con-artist Jamie Lee Curtis, who seduces him to order help pull a con on some British partners in crime (without Cleese’s knowledge). Her supposed brother, but partner in crime, is brilliantly played to mucho laughs by an Oscar®-winning Kevin Kline. He is really her dumb boyfriend, whose recurring line is “Don’t call me stupid!”, because he is the proverbial knot-on-a-log thick.

They enlist the aid of inside man Ken, played by another former Python member Michael Palin, with a wonderful stutter (“Ka-ka-ka-Ken!”), who’s a doting owner of an overloved pet fish named Wanda, hence the title. Yes, there's often offensive humor in this, but it's still sedate compared to Python, no gushing arteries or chunk hurling here.

Some of the best stuff to come from the Python group, likely because the Jones-Gilliam silliness is tempered by the veteran direction of master British director Charles Crichton, who directed the classic The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) bw.

Read more...

Witness For the Prosecution

Billy Wilder, 1957, bw (8.3*)  bw

This is my second favorite film of an Agatha Christie story (this was a short story, not a novel), after And Then There Were None from French director René Clair. I believe this story is unique for her, as it's a legal film, with the entire story unfolding in a courtroom, but it still has the Christie touch, meaning an unexpected plot twist that most can't see coming.

An excellent cast makes this film better than it would have been from the story alone. The impeccable Charles Laughton, a two-time best actor winner, here an aging attorney recovering from a near fatal heart attack, agrees to defend Leonard Vole (Tyrone Power) in a murder case, in spite of the fact that his wife, Marlene Dietrich, is going to be a witness for the prosecution. Dietrich turns in one of her best dramatic performances, relying on acting in this film, not her beauty nor her sultry singing.

Though not one of Wilder's best (perhaps a little too 'Hollywood'), such as Sunset Boulevard, Stalag 17, Some Like It Hot (perhaps if it had started with an 's'), or The Apartment, it's still a very good mystery, and a good courtroom drama, and Wilder's only work with Laughton or Dietrich. Fans of Christie, or Laughton, who was one of the best actors ever on film, will not be disappointed.

Nominated for 6 Oscars® (Picture, director, actor for Laughton, supporting for Elsa Lanchester, who won the Golden Globe), 5 Golden Globes, and 5 other awards, and ranked #129 on the IMDB top 250, with a rating of 8.4, the same as I gave it - not quite as high for me as And Then There Were None.

Wilder is one of the great directors, here's a small list of his best films:
The Front Page, Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard, Lost Weekend, The Spirit of St. Louis, One Two Three, Ace in the Hole, The Seven Year Itch, Sabrina, The Apartment, Some Like It Hot, The Fortune Cookie.

Read more...

The Last Seduction

John Dahl, 1993 (8.5*)
Excellent crime story, a modern noir in which a wife from hell steals a lot of drug money from her husband and leaves him a cryptic note (she can write backwards and upside-down both!) that basically says 'adios' and she leaves town. When she stops driving, she immediately hooks up with a new lover who's just hanging out in a bar she visits, and sweeps him into her web of deceit and intrigue. Meanwhile, the husband is not only angry, but is not giving up easily, hiring detectives and joining the chase for his money.

Linda Fiorintino became an overnight sensation for her sly, subtle, seductive performance as the wife, in a performance that pre-dates Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct. In spite of her lack of ethics, you have to admire her gutsy, sophisticated manner. In many ways she's reminiscent of young Lauren Becall in To Have and Have Not. Definitely R rated for some pretty adventurous sex scenes, especially one outside on a chain-link fence. This film is a throwback to the great film noir of the 40's.

Read more...

Micmacs

Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2009, France (8.8*)
aka Micmacs à tire-larigot
A wonderfully inventive and constantly surprising comedy film from Jeunet, director of the more famous Amelie, and the epic and beautifully shot war-romance A Very Long Engagement, his previous film (2004). The story begins with a soldier being killed disabling a land mine. His young son sees the logo of the arms manufacturer in an army photo of the site. Now an adult, Bazil, comically played by Danny Boon, is a video store clerk who takes a bullet in the head in a bizarre crime accident when a shootout occurs outside his shop. Doctors can't remove the bullet, but Bazil is given the spent cartridge, so he now knows the ammo maker as well.

Bazil becomes a street performer and beggar, and decides to seek revenge on the two companies, but doesn't know how. He meets a wonderful group of eccentric castoffs through a pardoned criminal named Slammer (Jean-Pierre Marielle) who have a hidden fortress (called 'Micmacs à tire-larigot') inside a junkyard - a group that fixes and recycles various items discarded by society. This makeshift family takes him in, and also takes on his goal.

With the help of a contortionist, Elastic Girl (Julie Ferrier), who sometimes hides in the refrigerator, a human calculator (Marie-Julie Baup), an inventor (Michel Crémadès), a 'mama cook' (Yolande Moreau), a human cannonball (Dominique Pinon) and others, they devise a long, complex, Rube Goldberg-like plan, which often requires a "Plan B" as things often go awry.

This film often surprises and never follows a straight path anywhere, and is quite unlike any other film - think Terry Gilliam (Brazil, Time Bandits, Fisher King) meets Cirque du Soleil, yet it never takes itself as seriously as either of those. Jeunet, in an interview on the dvd, says that "Micmacs" is an invented word that means "shenanigans". He spends two years on average making a film, and it shows in all the little details you can spot in a world that always seems a little off from reality, as if you're seeing the world through circus-tinted glasses. He says he includes every little inspiration he gets from reality, logging them all on a computer, and part of this came from the tv-series "Mission Impossible".

Sadly, we need more inventive films like this one, which borders on fantasy, yet delivers a seemingly straighforward plotline that has one cheering it's eccentric gang of societal castoffs as they take on major worldwide arms dealers. Jeunet is establishing himself as one of the most visually unique directors in the world, perfect for a new millenium.

Read more...

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Milos Forman, 1975 (9.2*)
Best Picture (AA, BAA, GG)
This excellent filming of hippie author Ken Kesey's novel of a brash mental patient, played by Oscar® winner Jack Nicholson, was the leading Oscar® winner for 1975 (five overall), winning best picture for producers Saul Zaentz and Michael Douglas, the actor. The novel arose out of Kesey's own experiences at a mental institution where he worked in California in order to gain access to the drugs after LSD was made illegal by the FDA.

Nicholson's character McMurphy, who pretends madness to get out of prison work so he's really an intelligent schemer, becomes the leader of the other patients in their fight against a dictatorial nurse Ratched, perfectly played by previously unknown Oscar® winner Louise Fletcher, who uses her position to terrorize and maintain harsh control over a band of frightened yet safe patients, many of whom undoubtably could be released after more humane treatment. She seems to derive sadistic satisfaction in keeping the 'inmates' (as they are not treated like patients but criminals) both unbalanced and cowering in fear.

Though not a pleasant film to sit through, it makes positive statements about individual freedom and dissent at a time when the U.S. was heavily oppressed by the Nixon regime which was suppressing student anti-war protests and usurping individual Constitutional rights in order to maintain fascist control over all facets of American life by some die-hard right wing conservatives, most of whom had supported Sen. McCarthy in his anti-communist with hunts in the 50's, a committee on which Nixon himself had served. This is not a film for the squeamish, as it accurately shows how electric shock, heavy anti-psychotic drugs, and lobotomies are routinely used as punishment to control unruly patients.

Nicholson showed what an explosive actor he could be as well as giving voice to the complaints of the average citizen when faced with authoritarian control over their daily lives. As such, this film makes the most American of statements, that sometimes the only recourse is to organize people and stand united against tyranny together. The excellent screenplay adaptation, which condenses a longer novel into its essential elements, also won Oscars® for authors Bo Goldman and Lawrence Hauben.

Director Milos Forman, also an Oscar®-winner for this, and later for Amadeus (in 1984), came here to escape communism in Czechoslavakia, then under Russian control. There he made more light-hearted and comedic films, such as the hilarious Fireman's Ball (at which nothing goes according to plan, not even the beauty pagent, in which there are no contestants so the elderly firemen drag unwilling girls off the dance floor), so he injects much humor in the early minutes of this much more serious film. Also nominated for Oscars® was the terrific supporting performance of Brad Dourif, the cinematography of Haskell Wexler and Bill Butler, editing of Chew, Klingman, and Kahn, and the music of sometimes Rolling Stones member Jack Nitzsche.

Filmed for just over 4 million, it grossed 112 mil in the U.S. alone. Cuckoo's Nest also won six British academy awards, or BAFTA's, and 28 awards overall. The awards page at IMDB

On a personal note, I've had a hard time putting together a review of this film, as my own father was diagnosed schizophrenic during the Korean War, his second war as a navy aircraft mechanic. He was flown back to a V.A. hospital, and also given electroshock treatment and reduced to a shell of his former self, never again being able to use his engineering degree and reduced to doing menial jobs until his death at 46 from cancer, likely caused from witnessing atomic tests in the Pacific from the decks of U.S. ships without any protection. After the diagnosis, he was discharged from the navy and my family never received any compensation from the government, so it's hard for me to join the flag-waving patriotic bandwagon no matter what war we wage.

Note: Kesey's own LSD-driven lifestyle was the subject of Tom Wolfe's excellent novel The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, in which Kesey and his band of Merry Pranksters drove around the U.S. in their bus freely giving out acid when it was legal. The psychedelic bus' destination was labeled as "Further", and Wolfe's novel is a touching ode to a bygone era of freedom, self-expression, and naive optimism.

Read more...

Chaos

Coline Serreau, 2001, France (9.1*)Serreau, brilliantly weaves a complex tale of crime, friendship, romance, and revenge using one of the most engaging scripts (which she wrote) in recent memory. To say this is also an archetypal women's lib film is an understatement. A middle-class married couple on their way to a dinner witness the beating of a prostitute on the streets and don't help her. The wife, perfectly played by Catherine Frot, investigates out of guilt and begins to unravel the story of the young woman from her beginning in a male-dominant culture to her present life in Paris.

Serreau never lets the viewer tire as the film flawlessly shifts gears in a complex spiral until we not only get the complete background story but are propelled forward into a totally unexpected future involving all the main characters she introduces. This is one of the few films I've wanted to stand up and applaud when done, or at least give Serreau an imaginary high five for superb craftmanship throughout.

Winner of four international awards, two by stunning newcomer Rachida Brakni as the prostitute. Along with Diva and La Femme Nikita, the best of modern French crime cinema.

Note: on the dvd cover it says "think Run, Lola, Run meets Thelma and Louise", which basically means action-packed, but this story and screenplay are much better than those, even though nothing moves as fast as Run Lola (which is appropriate, as she's running more than not)

Read more...

The Fortune Cookie

Billy Wilder, 1966, bw (7.8*)
Ok, maybe not Wilder's best comedy, but it may well be the best performance by Walter Matthau, earning him a well-deserved Oscar® for supporting actor, after mostly undistinguished minor dramatic roles. This is also his first teaming with Jack Lemmon, as he plays the shyster lawyer brother-in-law of Lemmon's sideline football cameraman for CBS, injured on a punt return by Boom Boom Jefferson (Ron Rich). You can see the ambulance-chasing wheels turning in Matthau's every move as he seeks to extract a huge financial award from the insurance company for Lemmon's faked back injury.

For his part, Lemmon has to play mostly straight man with morals to Matthau's oily smooth orchestrations as nearly all the comedy comes from the parody of lawyers without any scruples when money is involved. The funniest scenes are when Wilder parodies our overly litiginous society, all the lawyers are hilarious caricatures of men with nothing but dollar signs in mind. The more serious issues injected here, such as Boom Boom's alcoholism, dampen the comedic flow somewhat and keep this from being as funny as it could have been.

Wilder is one of the great directors, here's a small list of his best films:
The Front Page, Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard, Lost Weekend, The Spirit of St. Louis, One Two Three, Ace in the Hole, The Seven Year Itch, Sabrina, The Apartment, Some Like It Hot, Witness For the Prosecution.

Read more...

The Major and the Minor

Billy Wilder, 1942, bw (7.6*)

This pleasant pastry is master director Billy Wilder's first as a director after several successful screenplays, with Ninotchka probably the best known. In the screwball tradition pioneered by Ernst Lubitsch, whom Wilder knew and admired, Hawks, Capra and others, this preposterous story has a thirty-something Ginger Rogers try to pass as 12-yr old Susan "Susu" Applegate in order to get a half-fare train ticket back home to Iowa from New York. On the train, she hides from the conductor in the sleeper berth of military major Ray Milland, who is not really a comic actor, on his way to a military academy though he'd rather be somewhere close to the impending war.

This plot is the perfect sitcom idea, even though it borders on tipping the prurience scale as Milland lets what he thinks is a 12 year old girl sleep in his cabin and hang out with him for several days, in spite of his fiance's suspicions that all is not as it seems. Of course, everyone falls for Ginger, including the 400 cadets at the academy, and of course Ginger slowly falls for Milland and is of course jealous of his fiance.

Not Wilder's best, and perhaps squeaky-voiced and petite Jean Arthur would have been a better choice for this role, but still a classic screwball comedy and one worth seeing. It's obvious that Wilder wanted to please the studio and audiences in his first film as director. He would, of course, soon shock the film world with the radical classics Double Idemnity, Sunset Boulevard, and Stalag 17 - and would make better comedies in Sabrina and Some Like It Hot, but this film is still a must for Wilder, Rogers, and screwball comedy fans alike.

Read more...

The Talented Mr. Ripley

Anthony Minghella, 1999 (8.1*)
This was the second film version of Patricia Highsmith’s novel Mr. Ripley, the first being Rene Clement’s 1961 French film Purple Noon. In this more sinister version from director Anthony Minghella (The English Patient), ‘frat boy’ Tom Ripley is played by Matt Damon, going out of character. Tom is in Europe with his childhood friend Jude Law, trying to earn money from Law’s father back in the states if he can convince Law to give up his playboy ways and come back home and do something productive. Ripley has no money and is dependent on this bonus, until then he’s living off of his friend, hence his dilemna. He also finds himself falling for Law's girlfriend, played by Gwyneth Paltrow. Philip Seymour Hoffman adds a lot to this version as Law’s friend Freddie. There are some unforeseen plot twists I can’t mention – but this version changes the story a little, and is a more menacing and disarming version. Fans of the book or crime and suspense films should watch both filmed versions, perhaps this version first.

Read more...

Purple Noon

Rene Clement, 1961, France (7.4*)
This French film was the first cinematic version of Patricia Highsmith’s novel Mr. Ripley. The blue-eyed matinee-idol Alain Delon plays Tom Ripley, who is in Europe with a childhood friend, played by Maurice Ronet. Ripley is there at the hire of his friend’s father to convince him to quit his bohemian ways in the Mediterranean and come home. Since Ripley has no money of his own, he’s living off of his friend, hence his dilemna. There are some plot twists that I won’t spoil, but I think I prefer the remake with Matt Damon, which is a more menacing and diabolical version. This version is sunnier and shot like a romantic comedy, I’m sure to add to the disarming and shocking nature of the crime, but I sometimes feel like I'm on vacation. Fans of the book should watch both films, perhaps the remake first, then the earlier version.

Read more...

Nine Queens

Fabian Bielinsky, 2000, Argentina (7.6*)
The title of this Argentinian con artist story refers to a sheet of nine stamps of Queen Wilhemina of Germany, now worth a small fortune, and a small-time con artist who has a chance for a big score. He runs into a street criminal after losing his own partner in crime (who disappeared) and the two pair up "for a day". Suddenly each is contributing their time and some of their own money in a high stakes game to sell some expertly counterfeited stamps to a millionaire. Gorgeously sexy Leticia Brédice provides some romantic interest, but the story here is the intricate plot, reminiscent of David Mamet's con artist films House of Games and The Spanish Prisoner. So if you like heavy plotting with little action, this is for you.

Read more...

Hard Eight

Paul Thomas Anderson, 1997 (8.3*)
A superb cast makes this small indie film a big surprise winner. John C. Reilly, always excellent and an Oscar nominee for Chicago, is a casino newcomer, spotted by seasoned veteran Philip Baker Hall, in his best performance. He shows Reilly how to use the casino perks to rack up free meals and rooms, and other inside info on being a professional gambler. Gwyneth Paltrow even took a supporting role in this due to the excellent Anderson script, who also wrote and directed Boogie Nights. This could be the most revealing look at gambling and casinos on film, definitely from an experienced gambler perspective.

Note: I lived in Las Vegas once for a year, and craps (dice) was the only game where I could regularly win real money - hard for them to cheat you when YOU hold the gambling device itself! (forget ALL card games) A 'hard eight' is simply double fours, which pays ten for one if you hit it, so a $5 bet pays you $50 - and believe me, there are dice rollers out there who seem to ONLY throw doubles, with them you simply bet ALL the hard ways (4,6,8 and 10). I made $1000 off one of them once in about 20 minutes, so did his two buddies, and when he quit, so did I. You look for shooters like that... and you always quit after a hot run, "take the money and run".

Read more...

The Spanish Prisoner

David Mamet, 1997 (8.0*)
This is another Mamet con-artist crime classic, like House of Games. Campbell Scott (son of George) has created a valuable formula for a company, who then becomes the target of corporate espionage. Steve Martin has an interesting straight part here, but its hard to describe this film without giving anything away; suffice to say that if you like intellectual puzzle crime stories with twists and turns rather than gunplay, this will be a very rewarding film for you. Some of the acting lacks intensity, but its not that style of film, this is more like a long, slow crime you can savour.

Read more...

Boiler Room

Ben Younger, 2000 (7.7*)
Ranking right up there with Wall Street, this is another expose of stock market scams and capitalist ripoffs commonly employed. The term refers to a stock brokerage that pressures its clients to buy stocks they want to push, some of which don't even represent real companies. Some are nothing more than signs stuck on doors of empty warehouses. We are reminded of the electronic sales company Crazy Eddie's, which had government auditors counting empty boxes as valid inventory when it went public as a 'high flying stock'.

Giovanni Ribisi stars with some buddies who are new to the industry, and soon find that the stock market isn't exactly what they thought it was. Rather than real investment deals like the big boys, they are constantly pressured to sell hot air to naive investors who don't have a lot to lose, and certainly no extra capital. Not big budget like Wall Street, this small indie film is still a must for stock traders.

Read more...

Catch Me If You Can

Steven Spielberg, 2002 (8.6*)
This amazing true story is also a very entertaining combination of comedy and drama. The story is about one of the most amazing and elusive con artists in our history, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, who was able to pose as an airline pilot (not to fly but to get free travel in the cockpits of other airlines), head of the emergency room of an Atlanta hospital, and a master forger of all types of documents. Without giving any spoilers, the story involves the various cons used while Tom Hanks and the FBI gradually gathers a huge list of crimes while trying to identify and find him.

Read more...

Body Heat

Dir: Lawrence Kasdan, 1981 (8.5*)
Kasdan updates the film noir genre with a plot also based on legal moves and technicalities. Kathleen Turner provides the romantic heat in one of her best, most seductive parts. William Hurt is probably a little bland in his role as the lawyer Ned Racine, more than willing to bend a little for his desires, as she’s married to local millionaire Richard Crenna. Look for Ted Danson as a police detective, ‘sorta friend’ of Ned the lawyer, who inexplicably dances around onscreen like Gene Kelly – you can’t tell if he’s making a play on his name, showing off his Broadway chops, or Kasdan is having him say something about the plot without words. This one has more twists than any highway in Florida, where this takes place, causing more sweat than any film in memory.

Read more...

The Lady Eve

Dir: Preston Sturges, 1941, bw (8.5*)

This is one of the original con artist films, as Barbara Stanwyck and her scheming father, Charles Coburn, as good as ever, decide to bilk gullible and nerdish capitalist Henry Fonda, aboard an ocean liner. The pair steals the comedy, which also throws some good lines to William Demerest ("she's the same dame, I tell ya!"). Of course, it wouldn't be a classic bw comedy unless the lead stars become romantically involved. The terrific story has some twists and complexity that made it stand out from others of its era. One of the best from the heyday of Preston Sturges.

Read more...

Trouble in Paradise

Dir: Ernst Lubitsch, 1932, bw (7.8*)

This comedic heist film introduced what became known as "The Lubitsch Touch", his particular style of comedy, later brought to Ninotchka, The Shop Around the Corner, To Be or Not To Be; however Paradise remained his favorite of his own works (so far, I agree with him). Herbert Marshall plays a lovable theif, Miriam Hopkins his pickpocket sidekick (and wannabe mate), and Kay Francis a perfume heiress (can you say "Chanel"?) that he runs across with the intention of robbing. However Francis hires him as her secretary, much to Hopkins jealous chagrin, and the trouble has just started in paradise. If you weren't a Kay Francis fan before, this should make you one, she's very seductive.

Made before the ridiculous Hays Code, intended to enforce some fascist idea of "decency", which then banned this film 3 yrs later and for 30 yrs or so; seeing the sly sexual ennuendo today and how tame it was makes you wonder just what they were trying to protect audiences from. (Meanwhile gangster films gunning people down with Tommy guns was apparently ok, after all, we were all planning another great war and we don't want to discourage rampant killing, we just don't want them to have sex afterwards.)

Read more...

Paper Moon

Dir: Peter Bogdanovich, 1973, bw (8.2*)
Classic 30’s style screwball comedy, filmed in black and white by Bogdanovich. The casting coup was nine-yr old Tatum O’Neal as father Ryan O’Neal’s newly-orpaned "maybe" daughter, who go off on a con artist spree across Missouri, and she ended up being the youngest winner ever of a competetive Oscar, getting the Supporting Actress award, even though she was definitely a lead actress. Madeleine Kahn was also nominated for a true supporting role, as a "would be" matchup for dad, whose scene stealing "maid" was unknown actress P.J. Johnson. A fun story, told in classic style. "They don’t make em like this any more."

Read more...

The Grifters

Dir: Stephen Frears, 1990 (9.0*)
Based on a novel by Jim Thompson, and scripted by crime author Donald Westlake, this is a crime thriller about a trio of con artists (aka "grifters"), Angelica Huston, who fixes odds at racetracks for the mob, her son John Cusack, and a expert grifter he meets (and desires), Annette Bening. This is the best of its type, blending a 40’s style noir novel into an 80’s style film, with superb acting all around.

Read more...

House of Games

Dir: David Mamet, 1987 (9.1*)
Just about the perfect con-artist film. Mamet’s wife Lindsay Crouse plays a psychiatrist who writes books, and lets a client know she’s doing one on con-games and their perpetrators. She is then swept into their world by Joseph Mantegna, and gets far more than she bargained for. That's Ricky Jay doing the card tells, technical advisor for Mamet on his con-artist films, and usually given a part. This complex thriller gets you deeper and deeper into the plot until there’s barely room to get out. My favorite script of Mamet's.

Read more...

Double Indemnity

Billy Wilder, 1944, (9.0*)

AFI Top 100

Wilder's dark, erotic crime film is considered the birth of film noir, or "night film", a crime film using mostly scenes shot at night or in dark interiors, and whose lead character is usually criminal himself. The plot concerns a wife, Barbara Stanwyck, who hires an insurance salesman, Fred McMurray in an abrupt career defying role, to kill her husband for the insurance, double the amount if its an accident. Of course, the two set off sparks onscreen, and the implication, done through smoking after just a kiss, is that they are having an adulterous affair as well. McMurray took a part turned down by more famous actors, who didn't want to play a homicidal adulterer onscreen, while Fred saw a chance to escape typecasting.

Edward G. Robinson was also persuaded to take a rare supporting role, as an insurance investigator in McMurray's company, likely due to the strength of the script, by Wilder and pulp novel author Raymond Chandler, hired for his underworld dialogue. The two mixed like oil and water, as Chandler was an introverted alcoholic, while Wilder was an extrovert who needed people. He later penned The Lost Weekend as a critique of Chandler's lifestyle. Robinson nearly steals the movie, this would have been an excellent chance for the motion picture academy to have awarded him a supporting actor nomination at least, as he was never once nominated for an Oscar®.
7 Oscar® nominations, no wins

Quote: That's some ankle bracelet. [after one of the greatest entrances in cinema history]

Wilder is one of the great directors, here's a small list of his best films:
The Front Page, Sunset Boulevard, Lost Weekend, The Spirit of St. Louis, One Two Three, Ace in the Hole, The Seven Year Itch, Sabrina, The Apartment, Some Like It Hot, Witness For the Prosecution, The Fortune Cookie.

Read more...