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OTHER A & E STORIES - A little help getting into the music business - Latenight TV sucks - Featured Artist: Charles Bukowski - Who says misogyny, pugilism, and general excess don't make for good art? - Brian thinks you should... Stealing Harvard stole my $8.25! Brian Kerin A & E Editor Jason Lee (left) and Tom Green (right) discuss their plans in Stealing Harvard, in theaters now. In theory the idea was good; put the outrageously goofy Tom Green, with the always safe choice Jason Lee, get Bruce McCulloch from Kids in the Hall fame to direct, and you have got the makings for a comedy hit. So then, why was Stealing Harvard the worst movie to grace the big screen in a long time? I was not surprised to find that Lauren Michaels produced the film because it very much resembled one of those Saturday Night Live flicks that takes a hit character from the show and stretches it out over two hours with the same plot and the same ending every time. The plot in particular was especially thin. Here's the synopsis: John (Jason Lee) and Elaine (Leslie Mann) are trying to save up enough money to get married and buy a house. When they finally reach their monetary goal, a promise from John's past comes back to haunt him. A promise to his niece to fund her college career has left John with the bill after she gets accepted to Harvard. Subsequently, when John's wife Elaine uses all their savings for a down payment on the house he decides to get the money elsewhere. This is where Duff (Tom Green) comes into the picture. Duff is a high school friend of John's who still lives with his mother and owns his own landscaping company that gets its business by replacing live plants with dead ones. When John goes to Duff with his problem the pair becomes partners in crime. This premise has the potential to be extremely funny, but the writing never allows the actors to act. Tom Green in particular has the capacity to be really funny, but this movie just didn't give him room to work out his very non-traditional humor. In addition, Green and Lee's chemistry is really good together almost like they could be friends in real life. For the most part Stealing Harvard had its fair share of comedy bits. Elaine's father played by Dennis Farina does a good job of playing the angry father with his pit-bull sidekick that growls at John every time he is around. Also, lovemaking for John and Elaine is compromised when Elaine inexplicably cries during sex. There is also a funny bit later in the movie when Duff and the pit bull have a love scene in the back of Duff's van M'lady. Even with the handful of funny scenes the punctuated comedy is not enough to hold this film together. I want my $8.25 back as well as my two hours. © 2002 Shoreline Community College™