by CHRIS BARRY, MATTHEW HAYS, KEVIN LAFOREST and MARK SLUTSKY

Jiminy Glick in Lalawood

What’s hilarious about Jiminy Glick, Martin Short’s jolly fat fellow with the erratically pitched voice from Comedy Central’s Primetime Glick, is how he makes the usually hyper-polished and antiseptic celebrity interview format implode. Unlike other press junketeers, who are all about kissing movie star ass, Glick is bored, disrespectful and generally incoherent—he goes against the whole prepackaged marketing game that is show business.

The filmmakers had the good idea to have Jiminy Glick go to the Toronto International Film Festival and, by shooting much of the movie during the fest, they were able to get spontaneous red carpet cameos from Jake Gyllenhaal, Susan Sarandon, Kiefer Sutherland and others. Martin Short also called in favours from Steve Martin (his Three Amigos! co-star) and Kurt Russell (his Captain Ron co-star), who appear in longer sit-down interviews.

The filler scenes with Glick’s burping, farting, chain-smoking, pill-popping wife Dixie (Jan Hooks) fall flat, but I did love Short’s impersonation of David Lynch, who pops in through the film to ramble on about “the darkness of the unknown” and people going onto “a dark road” that “drives the innocent to corruption.”

Jiminy Glick in Lalawood is probably not worth seeing in theatres, but it’ll be good for a few laughs on DVD or when it inevitably shows up in heavy rotation on Comedy Central. (KL)

House of D

Writer/director/star David Duchovny claims it only took him six days to write the script of this film, which, actually, sounds like a bit of a stretch. I would have figured a talent like Duchovny could’ve fired off a hackneyed piece de caca like this in no more than half a day. Ouch!

Sure, it’s not the worst movie you’re likely to see this spring, and its sentimentality might even get to you on a day when you’re feeling a little maudlin or forgot to take your anti-depressants. But ultimately the story here is so thin that it’s hard to really care much about any of the characters.

Anton Yelchin does a pretty good job of playing a 13-year-old Duchovny, grappling with the death of his father and the effect his passing is having on his mother. His best bud is Robin Williams, who plays a retarded guy with a large, constantly erect penis who also happens to be the assistant janitor of Yelchin’s school. No kidding. Told as a flashback, House of D is Duchovny’s coming-of-age story, that of a smart Greenwich Village kid who has to grow up quickly when a tragic series of events force him to re-evaluate his existence. Throw in Erykah Badu as a convict in solitary confinement, who sends the kid advice out of her second-storey cell window, and you’ve got one big, unbelievable mess of a movie. Which is kind of too bad, given that with a little more effort House of D might have been a half-way decent melodrama. As is though, it’s best avoided. (CB)

Kingdom of Heaven

Medieval geeks are undoubtedly polishing up their armour for this, an epic battle movie about religious wars, in particular 12th-century nastiness between Muslims and Christians. Kingdom of Heaven certainly bears the name of someone who usually delivers the period battle goods: Ridley Scott.

Sadly, though, this pretty picture doesn’t live up to Gladiator status. Instead, we get all sorts of brooding and posing, a rather thin storyline and scenery-chewing acting by thespians who have been waiting for an excuse to go overboard their entire lives (shame on you Liam Neeson and Jeremy Irons).

But even putting snotty film critics aside, Kingdom of Heaven doesn’t work. Lower-IQ Braveheart fans will also feel duped: the battle scenes take way, way too long to happen, and when they do, they are brief. For Christ’s (or Allah’s) sake, if you’re going to give us mindless violence, go for it—but Scott has managed to give us all of the mindlessness with not nearly enough of the violence. Couldn’t we have seen a few more gruesome beheadings? Did you spend so much on CGI that you had to skimp on blood packs? Honestly, what are depraved filmgoers supposed to do these days?

Finally, lobby groups have already expressed their concerns about how Muslims are portrayed in this movie. They don’t fare too badly, but what with so much savage swordplay, no one comes across as particularly pleasant. The real cowards, of course, are the studio executives, who can’t see fit to explore the contemporary situation in the Middle East for fear of offending someone or stumbling upon something resembling the truth. (MH)

The Year of the Yao

At 7-foot-5, Chinese transplant Yao Ming is the tallest basketball player in the NBA. The number one draft pick of the 2002/2003 season, when Yao arrived in Texas to play for the Houston Rockets, the 20-year-old giant barely spoke any English; it was a case of culture shock, to be certain. The Year of the Yao follows the player’s first year in the NBA, following his ups and downs in the highly competitive and aggressive word of American b-ball. The movie’s narrated by Colin Pine, Yao’s interpreter, who was as much a rookie as his famous client when he started—you can see just how nervous he is when they first meet, and at the shaky first press conference.

Yao and Pine’s relationship is actually the most interesting part of this movie, which feels more or less like a great big puff piece. It’s even shot in the TV aspect ratio, which makes you wonder what exactly it’s doing in theatres, and why it’s 90-minutes long, for that matter. Really, The Year of the Yao is for die-hard basketball fans only. The story has maybe about 30 minutes of interest to an outsider; after that it’s a long repetitive slog—the phrases “the intense pressure” and “huge expectations” are invoked about three times per minute. Along the way there are some tantalizing bits, like the too-brief window into Chinese basketball culture (someone estimates that China has as many basketball fans as the U.S. has… people!), but if a feature-length version of a Sports Illustrated article isn’t your thing, stay away. (MS)

THE YEAR OF THE YAO, JIMINY GLICK IN LALAWOOD, KINGDOM OF HEAVEN AND HOUSE OF D OPEN FRIDAY, MAY 6

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