Houston Rockets Victory Ride

Fool's Gold

There's no question Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson have chemistry, they just don't display same in Fool's Gold. Individually they have some strong work on their resume. Take McConaughey in Sahara, an amusing actioner not to mention the all time classic Dazed and Confused, and Kate Hudson in Almost Famous, a role that propelled her career as strongly as the boost Ellen Page got from Juno. Only they aren't the kind of talent that can save a turkey, think Alex and Emma.
Fool's Gold sits lower on the lame movie totem pole than such recent flatliners as Mad Money or 27 Dresses. I've heard others call Fool's Gold Romancing the Stoner as if it even rated enough smarts to be compared to that uncalled for 80s success.
McConaughey and Hudson play a couple about to divorce. Living in a tropical paradise (Caribbean, no pirates, some buried treasure) has kept their marriage afloat but the honeymoon comes to an end when McConaughey sinks their boat while diving in crystal blue waters searching for, you guessed it, fool's gold. Hudson works on Donald Sutherland obscenely large boat, and Sutherland's daughter (Alexis Dziena) is a spoiled brat who nonetheless provides some semblance of sex appeal that's broadly missing from the rest of the film.
What makes the whole thing so bad is that it could have been so much better. A side plot has McConaughey dealing with thugs with the promise of violence. But when a henchman finally dies the moment seems too comic to take seriously. Fool's Gold wastes the talent of Ray Winstone making the audience think he might be a foil to McConaughey. So Andy Tennant directs the movie like it's supposed to be an Into the Blue (Paul Walker and Jessica Alba) skin diving style thriller only it's not, and the jokes aren't funny. Perhaps the most confounding aspect was the preview audience eating it up like a sugar free Valentine's cupcake.

Wild West Comedy Show

I cannot believe that the complete title of the film is Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show: 30 Days & 30 Nights - Hollywood to the Heartland. But I can believe this film functions like a true documentary - the film chronicles all 30 days and shows the male bonding that occurs between the participants. If the film just concentrated on the comedians' act then Wild West Comedy Show wouldn't be worth recommending based on the comedy material alone.
Vaughn is a guy's guy and he comes through for his fellow travelers when they need emotional support. The tour's road manager is Peter Billingsley - briefly the child star of A Christmas Story - but also a life long friend with Vaughn since they appeared together in a CBS Schoolbreak Special: The Fourth Man. When they show a clip of that 1990 show, where Vaughn tries to stop school buddy Billingsley from taking steroids the laughs are there, they are heartfelt. Not so much with the laughs elicited from the comedian's dick jokes.
True to its docu origins Wild West counts down every engagement and the film does find a proper sense of closure. There are moments that show some of the man comics in a shitty mood after the are told they have to go make a media appearance in support of victims of Hurricane Rita (pic was lensed in late 2005). Perhaps not oddly there is a Houston connection in the fact that while the Wild West traveling show played Austin, Dallas, and had to cancel shows in Louisiana and Beaumont, Houston was nowhere on the tour schedule. Well at least the film made it to Space City.