Life or Something Like It ***
Directed by: Stephen Herek
Written by: John Scott Shepard (story and screenplay), and Dana Stevens (screenplay)
Starring: Angelina Jolie, Edward Burns and Tony Shalhoub
Rated PG-13 (language, I guess.)

I’m not who this movie is aimed at. I think I might have missed the point of the movie since I was stuck wondering how an alternachick who was big into Social Distortion wound up being a reporter with a Type A personality.

Regardless, the movie isn’t terrible by any stretch of the imagination, mostly because of the skill of the three principle actors.

Lanie Kerrigan (Jolie) is a news reporter (mostly puff pieces) for a Seattle TV station. One of the major networks is interested in seeing what she can do on their morning news show, AM USA. To help her gain some cred in the industry, her boss has her do location shoots with Pete (Burns). Lanie doesn’t like Pete, and Pete doesn’t like Lanie. (Yeah, right. To quote Pete’s sound-man, “Why don’t you to get a room already?”) One of the location shoots is about a homeless clairvoyant named Prophet Jack (Shalhoub). Pete knows him because Jack picked some good stocks that Pete made some money on. During the piece, Jack predicts that the Seahawks will beat the Broncos 19 to 13, that it will hail the next morning, and that Lanie will die next Thursday. Lo and behold, the Seahawks win, it hails and... heh, heh, heh.

Honestly, it’s a pretty lightweight chick flick. Yeah, yeah, live every moment like it will be your last, we’ve all heard that plenty of times before. But, I thought the more interesting question that the movie posed was, “How far do you follow your dreams? What sacrifices do you want to make? When is enough enough?” Of course, you know the answer that this story has already, but it’s an interesting question nonetheless.

At first I thought that Life or Something Like It was directed by the same guy who did Hi Fidelity. I was wrong. I should really do better research, but, hey, that’s what The Internet Movie Database is for. Stephen Frears directed Hi Fidelity. Stephen Herek directed Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure and Mr. Holland’s Opus. Not a particularly notable director (i.e. one with an identifiable style like Tim Burton or Steven Spielberg), but not one worthy of hatred (i.e. Joel Schumacher (Batman Forever and Batman and Robin)).

Angelina Jolie is crazy. At least as crazy as her husband, Billy Bob Thorton. But, just like her husband, she can act like nobody’s bidness. She does some incredibly subtle facial work that is just perfect. It doesn’t hurt that she’s very attractive, as well. Ed Burns kept enough of New Yawk to make Pete believable, and he has the right degree of ‘ruggedness’ to woo the ladies in the audience. And Tony Shalhoub is, while not a fantastic character actor, is a good enough actor to play nearly any role. In fact, during my vacation (Yes, there actually WAS a reason I didn’t review The Scorpion King), I had an accidental Shalhoub mini-fest, watching Spy Kids (one of the best family movies made in the past decade) and The Man Who Wasn’t There (an excellent piece of noir by the Coen Brothers that no one saw). In Spy Kids, he played an evil henchman to Alan “Best Character Actor in The Bidness” Cumming’s Floop, and in The Man Who Wasn’t There, he played a high-priced lawyer.

Now, if you’ll look at the beginning of this review, I mentioned something called Social Distortion. What the heck is that? One of the reasons I went to review this movie, for one thing. Social Distortion is an amazing band led by Mike Ness. Their sound is like if a punk band had traveled back in time and recorded albums for Sun Records. They do a superb cover of Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire”. One of their songs, “Story of My Life” is featured in a key scene of the movie, and Angelina Jolie wears a SD T-shirt very, very well. That song is the high-point of the soundtrack, at least for people of my demographic. Hence my confusion – bands like Social Distortion aren’t the first choice of the image conscious. You’re not going to be one of the cool kids in high school if you listen to them, and you won’t hear them at parties. Unless you go to some really cool parties. It’s listened to by misfits. And, the movie does indicate that Lanie used to be a misfit, but then something happened. What, exactly, that thing was isn’t explored, and I wish that it were.

If for no other reason than to get more Social Distortion played in a movie.