Another Movie

I knew I left one out yesterday! "The Secret Lives of Dentists" was marred by one terrible defect: Campbell Scott's cheesy mustache. I mean it! It distracted me to the point that I could barely concentrate on the movie. Every 5 seconds I kept wondering, "What were they thinking with that thing?!" In fact, it made me think less of his character, who was supposed to be a very loving dad who fears he's losing his wife, played by Hope Davis (they're both dentists, whence comes the title). The gimmick in the movie is that Denis Leary, who plays his usual surly type of character in the role of a dissatisfied patient. He keeps reapparing in Scott's imagination, giving him advice about what to do about his wife (Leary wants him to ditch her, or at the very least confront her; Scott doesn't want to risk losing her and the family). There's a great sequence that every parent can relate to: each member of the family gets the stomach flu, one after the other. Scott trudges through the house zombie-like, holding the youngest child (who just threw up on him), fetching ginger ale for the others, bringing barrels for them to throw up into, etc. I liked this movie—it stopped short of being great, though, and I blame the mustache at least in part.