Joe Keyes Movies

A thesp-turned-crook gets a chance at career in movies as well as crime scene investigation in this offbeat action comedy with nods to Raymond Chandler. Harry Lockhart (Robert Downey Jr.) is a struggling New York actor who high-tails it to Los Angeles. Once there, Lockhart winds up at the posh home of the aptly named homosexual private eye Gay Perry (Val Kilmer) amid a lavish Hollywood party, hoping to score a life-changing role in a Hollywood feature. Harry becomes reacquainted with Harmony (Michelle Monaghan), a girl he had a major crush on in his small-town Indiana high school, who may be a bit more interested in him now than she was years ago. He takes both her and her girlfriend home with him, but -- in a moment of drunken stupor -- accidentally sleeps with the wrong woman. Meanwhile, when a series of female bodies turns up across L.A., Harry slowly breaks into detective work, mentored by Perry. The biggest twist? Shane Black riffs Adaptation and other films by having Harry (via satirical narration) write the movie while he is living it. Harry assures the audience that unlike Lord of the Rings, this one won't have 17 endings. Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang marks the first directorial credit for Black, who created the Lethal Weapon franchise. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Mimi (Kathy Kinney) gives birth to her baby son, just as Drew (Drew Carey) emerges from his coma. Once the baby is home, he refuses to stop crying unless Drew picks him up. Real dad Steve (John Carroll Lynch) isn't too happy about this, and is even less thrilled about being exiled from his own house until he recovers from strep throat. As for Drew, he doesn't mind being a surrogate daddy--though he recoils at the prospect of having to hold the baby while it is being breast-fed! Meanwhile, Lewis becomes convinced that he isn't long for this world, which is the only logical reason that he has decided to wander around butt-naked. (Trivia note: Mimi's baby is named King Augustus Antonio Carey, or "Gus" for short--the result of a contest conducted over aol.com). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Director Carl Reiner, most closely associated with the homey values of situation comedies, shocked, surprised, and (in some cases) delighted his admirers with the jet-black comedy Where's Poppa?. George Segal plays Gordon Hocheiser, a New York attorney whose love life is constantly being sabotaged by his senile mother (Ruth Gordon), who constantly asks the question of the title. (She doesn't realize Poppa is dead). Every time Gordon has a prospective bride or lover lined up, Mrs. Hocheiser gums up the works with her insane behavior. The attorney at last finds a kindred spirit in the beautiful caregiver Louise Callan (Trish VanDevere), who has likewise been a victim of someone else's eccentricities (her first husband used the conjugal bed as his own personal toilet). When Mrs. Hocheiser chases Louise away like she has all the others, Gordon begins entertaining notions of killing his mother. In desperation, Gordon begs his brother Sidney (Ron Leibman) to take his mother off his hands, which leads to several comic vignettes in deliriously bad taste. The film's incest-themed original ending (trimmed from the video version but still included in cable prints) finds Gordon climbing into bed with Mrs. Hocheiser, only to be greeted with a "Here's Poppa." The celebrated "tush scene," wherein Mrs. Hocheiser bites Gordon on his bare backside while Louise looks on in horror, packed a real wallop back in the early '70s, as did a courtroom scene involving a disgruntled hippie (Rob Reiner) and a psychotic U.S. general who graphically describes his homicidal acts against the Vietnamese. Though Carl Reiner would continue to "push the envelope" in his later films (Steve Martin as a "poor black child"? George Burns as God?) he would never again attempt anything as risky as Where's Poppa?. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi