DVDs From the Library -City Island

City Island
Staring Andy Garcia, Julianna Margulies and Alan Arkin

I had seen this movie once before and forgotten it completely (that should say something about it right there!) Some friends visiting our house for dinner one evening raved about it and Lizzy asked me to find it for her. I searched through the dreaded Library bin. There it was!

I am sure this film will become a staple of the Lifetime Network in the future so I could have waited. It has all the earmarks of the films that play on that basic cable channel. A little skin, a little confusion, fundamentally wacky and lovable people who screw up every thing but eventually get it right and end up with the right mate.

Andy Garcia plays a corrections officer who wants to become an actor. He hides his acting lessons from his wife who believes he must be having an affair. The balance of his family-wife, son and daughter-also have secrets which they harbor from the rest of the family. They all smoke and hide it. The son loves fat women and views them on porn sites. The daughter is a pole dancer/college drop out. Oh! and did I mention that Garcia fathered a son out of wed lock who just happens to show up in his jail? Just like real life, Huh? Actually it is more like a Marx Brother’s plot. Strangely it works and is entertaining-in the Lifetime Network sense of the word.

I like City Island. The place, not the movie. I think it could have been a better movie with the simple addition of more of the actual City Island. It wouldn’t have taken much to include more of the scenery and flavor of the homes and the views that this unique island/village within a city has to offer. The movie was ok. Enjoy it, but don’t go looking for meaningful messages or, for that matter, much of the Town of City Island. The acting is fair and the writing is ok too. I had a few good laughs. It would have been funnier with a couple of cans of Cheap Beer. That is what I rate “City Island”-two cans of cheap beer.