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Morning News

On the Big Screen: 'Meet the Family' Has 'Perfect Premise'; Spike Lee's 'Bamboozled' an 'Angry Movie'; 'Tigerland' 'Really Works'

Aired October 6, 2000 - 9:45 a.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Several new movies making their debut on the big screen this weekend. One of them is the new comedy, "Meet the Parents." It stars Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro. A quick sample right here now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "MEET THE PARENTS")

BEN STILLER, ACTOR: And we thank you, oh, sweet, sweet, Lord of hosts, for the smorgasbord you have so aptly lain at our table this day, and each day, by day, day by day.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HEMMER: Pretty good stuff. Peter Travers, "Rolling Stone" magazine.

Good morning, Peter. Happy Friday.

PETER TRAVERS: Hi. Hi, Bill.

HEMMER: It's a comedy. How'd it go?

TRAVERS: It's really funny.

HEMMER: Yes?

TRAVERS: In fact, it might be the funniest movie that's out there, you know?

HEMMER: Really?

TRAVERS: And that's because the premise of this movie is that Ben Stiller, who's a Jewish male nurse, is going to meet the father of the woman he loves, and that father turns out to be Robert De Niro, who would scare any of us to death. I mean, imagine just going into a house. To top that, De Niro is playing an ex-CIA guy. He's an expert in psychological profiling. So imagine what's going to go on. He hooks this guy up to a lie detector to find whether he's good enough for his little girl. Just the perfect premise.

HEMMER: Yes, I've seen that in the previews. It looks a lot -- a little bit, anyway, "Something About Mary." Is it anywhere close?

TRAVERS: It's a little bit like that. It's...

HEMMER: It seems like a physical comedy, anyway.

TRAVERS: The physical comedy is there, but the verbal comedy is there. And to watch De Niro with that cat. I mean, he's in love with this cat that he has. That's all I'm saying to you, Bill -- fun.

HEMMER: All right, good stuff there.

"Bamboozled," a Spike Lee film. You find this controversial. Tell us about it.

TRAVERS: I find it, as everyone would, wildly controversial, because Spike Lee, you know, he's not that kind of guy that just lays back. In this movie, he wants to say to us that television is now doing the same kind of racist stereotyping they did back at the beginning of the century when there were minstrel shows. And he does it by creating a show that's going to show on TV that deals with people in a watermelon patch wearing blackface. And he's saying, look, you think that doesn't exist anymore? You think that can't happen here? Well, look at what you see around you. Look at the kind of movies that Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence make. He's angry. Spike is mad.

HEMMER: You say an angry movie, huh?

TRAVERS: A very angry movie, and a really good movie until it finally forgets to be funny at all and goes off the rails and starts speaking to us like it's in a bully pulpit somewhere. That's too bad because Spike Lee likes to shoot himself in the foot. I don't know why.

HEMMER: OK, next movie, "Get Carter," a remake of a 1970 film. You have two issues here. No. 1, first tell us about it. I know you haven't seen it. And then tell us about your issue with the PR department for this particular film.

TRAVERS: Yes, nobody has seen "Get Carter" because the studio, Warner Bros., has decided not to show it to anybody. It's a remake of a 1970 movie with Michael Caine, and this time it has Sylvester Stallone in it. The studios, more and more when they know they have a turkey, are not screening it for critics because they think the movie will open without people hearing any of this bad word.

So I'm saying to you, people, when you see no review of a major movie that's opening that weekend, that's its own review. That means that this thing is really to be avoided.

HEMMER: All right, come on back and tell us about that one.

Quickly, though, "Tigerland." It's going to be out soon. It has a bit of a Vietnam theme. First time in a while we've seen a film such as this, but it takes us through Louisiana to get us to Southeast Asia. How so?

TRAVERS: It really does, because it's a training camp in Louisiana in 1971 that's set up to look exactly like Vietnam. And here's another major studio movie that's cutting back on stars, cutting back on any kind of technical expertise and trying to get to the guts of something.

HEMMER: So it works?

TRAVERS: Joel Schumacher, who directed it -- it really works -- this the guy who did the "Batman" movies, who's working small, working tight and doing a really good job with it.

HEMMER: All right, we're 2-2 in our four films this week.

TRAVERS: Pretty good.

HEMMER: Peter, thanks.

TRAVERS: Thank you, Bill.

HEMMER: Peter Travers, "Rolling Stone" magazine. Thank you. See you next week, all right?

TRAVERS: All right.

HEMMER: Good deal.

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