Al Pacino and Michelle Pfeiffer are the short order cook and waitress in a New York diner in Garry Marshall's romantic drama. The stars ensure that it's at least watchable, but the chemistry between them is nowhere near as intense as it was in Scarface, a few years earlier.
After the steamy funk of Boogie Nights and the Aimee Mann tearjerkers of Magnolia, PT Anderson's new film basks in heady strings and wonky harmoniums, scored by regular collaborator Jon Brion. It's deliberately dizzying and disorientating, and not always pleasurable. But the borrowing of Nilsson's "He Needs Me" from Altman's Popeye, sung with sugary desire by Shelley Duvall, is inspired. Waiting to interview Anderson in a hotel lobby recently, I congratulated Emily Watson on her singing of this. It's the only thing I've ever said to Emily Watson.