Mother (1996) DVD ~ Richard Assad  (47)  $9.98

Heaven Can Wait DVD ~ Warren Beatty  (37)  $9.98

Death Becomes Her DVD ~ Meryl Streep  (103)  $6.99

Real Life DVD ~ Albert Brooks  (16)  $17.99

Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World (WS) DVD ~ Conrad Bachmann  (76)  $17.99

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Albert Brooks proves there's laughs after death with this almost heavenly comedy--almost heaven as in Judgment City, where recently perished Daniel Miller (Brooks) learns whether he is worthy of advancing to a higher plane of existence or will be sent back to earth for another incarnation.

His fate will be determined in a very special trial, during which scenes from his life are replayed on a giant screen. "Isn't it realistic?" a judge asks. "It makes some people nauseous." While the steely prosecutor (Lee Grant) will try to prove that Daniel failed in life to face his fears and insecurities, his glad-handing, reassuring defender (Rip Torn) will argue on behalf of this hapless "little brain" (a Judgment City term for residents of earth).

As Woody Allen did for the future in Sleeper, so does Brooks create an original vision of the afterlife. In Judgment City, white-robed residents can eat as much as they want without guilt or fear of gaining weight. They can also visit the Past Lives Pavilion, where they are greeted by a hologram of--who else--Shirley MacLaine.

Daniel finds himself touched by an angel. Meryl Streep gives an enchanting performance as Julia, whose exemplary life is in stark contrast to his. During her trial, the court watches in rapture as she saves not only children, but a cat from a burning building.

Daniel and Julia are a match made in Judgment City, but first Daniel must summon up the courage to express his true feelings for her, or she will surely advance without him.

Defending Your Life is Brooks's most ambitious film and, with Mother, his most accessible. --Donald Liebenson

From The New Yorker
The setting of Albert Brooks's disappointing new comedy is a place called Judgment City, which, according to this picture, is where people from Southern California go after death. Here recently completed lives are examined and evaluated, in a formal proceeding something like a trial: if the defendant wins the case, he moves up the cosmic ladder to a higher form of consciousness. The hero, Daniel Miller (Brooks), a yuppie adman who met his untimely end in a brand-new BMW, naturally believes in upward mobility; in death, as in life, he wants to impress the higher-ups and get that promotion. Although this sounds like an ideal setup for Brooks's kind of comedy, the film is mild-mannered and blandly whimsical, and its rhythms are sluggish. The humor doesn't have any satiric edge, because the character Brooks has written for himself isn't the egotistical, grotesquely needy baby boomer he played in his three previous movies. Brooks is celebrating qualities he used to satirize, and there's something smarmy about his attempt to turn himself into a lovable schlemiel-to cast a warmer, more flattering light on the self that his other pictures mercilessly exposed. Also with Meryl Streep, Lee Grant, and, as the hero's lawyer, Rip Torn, who periodically energizes the movie with some lunatic courtroom theatricality. -Terrence Rafferty
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World / Defending Your Life (Double Feature) DVD ~ Defending Your Life $11.69

Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World (WS) DVD ~ Conrad Bachmann  (76)  $17.99

Mother (1996) DVD ~ Richard Assad  (47)  $9.98

Heaven Can Wait DVD ~ Warren Beatty  (37)  $9.98

Real Life DVD ~ Albert Brooks  (16)  $17.99

› Explore similar items : Movies & TV (28)

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