Keeping Up With the Steins
While it barely registered a blip on the box-office radar, Keeping Up with the Steins is the kind of good-natured, above-average comedy that's guaranteed to thrive on DVD. It's the bloated economics of Hollywood (and the constant pressure of box-office performance) that forced this movie into undeserved obscurity; now viewers have a second chance to discover the heartfelt dilemma of Adam Fiedler (Jeremy Piven), a Hollywood agent who wants nothing more than to give his son Ben (Daryl Sabara, from the Spy Kids movies) the lavish bar mitzvah he rightly deserves. Trouble is, Adam's archrival and former business partner Arnie Stein (Larry Miller) has already thrown a spectacular bar mitzvah for his own son, and Adam's now feeling intense pressure (from only himself, of course) to keep up with the Steins. As Adam plans an epic scale bar mitzvah to end all bar mitzvahs, director Scott Marshall (nephew of Penny) makes good use of his comedic pedigree, casting his own father (veteran comedy director Garry Mashall) as Adam's estranged father Irwin, who's been living on an Indian reservation with his younger girlfriend Sacred Feather (Daryl Hannah, nicely cast). The younger Marshall also indulges plenty of one-liners and sight gags (not to mention the questionable inclusion of his father's bare backside), but with a likeable supporting cast including Jami Gertz and Doris Roberts, Keeping Up with the Steins stays warmly true to its family values, minus the ostentation that Adam originally thought was important. As comedies go it's hardly original, but it's a welcomed alternative to the frat-boy crudeness we've come to expect from Hollywood.--Jeff Shannon
