Danny Devito

Get Danny DeVito started on a topic he has a boundless enthusiasm for, and then get comfortable.Today, the topic is controversial former Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa, a man both celebrated for helping the working class wrest livable wages from employers and reviled for his thuglike tactics and misappropriating money from the union's pension fund. Which, not coincidentally, is also the topic of Mr. DeVito's latest movie, "Hoffa," which opens Christmas Day. It's the third film Mr. DeVito has directed and, by far, the most ambitious, assured and polished.

Rose M. Cernak, longtime owner of Obrycki's , the East Baltimore bar and crab house whose crab seasoning and jumbo crab cakes earned it undying loyalty from locals as well as actors, sports figures and politicians, died Sunday of cancer at her HarborView condominium. She was 79. Rose Marani, the daughter of an Italian immigrant and first-generation American, was born in Baltimore and raised in Canton in a Potomac Street rowhouse. After graduating in 1948 from the old Patterson Park High School, Mrs. Cernak entered Strayer's Business College.

It seems so logical that you wonder why somebody didn't think of it before. No two sensibilities are more perfectly matched than those of Danny DeVito and Roald Dahl. Both are mean, rotten, scary, nasty and vicious. Perfectly matched for each other and perfect for a kid's movie!So here's "Matilda," based on a book by Dahl and directed by and starring DeVito, which is, just as I had hoped, mean, rotten, scary, nasty and vicious. Kids will love it, little beasts that they are. And for the longest time, it's terrific.

Ratatouille [Disney, $30] The movie received only six negative notices out of 192 on the Web site Rotten Tomatoes to rank as one of the year's best-reviewed films. Filled with beautiful animation, wonderful characters and inventive slapstick comedy, and overflowing with heart and humanity, it is a gem. Written and directed by Brad Bird, who won an Oscar for 2004's The Incredibles, Disney/Pixar's Ratatouille revolves around a rat named Remy (voice of Patton Oswalt) who dreams of becoming a chef at a famous restaurant in Paris.

The big revelation of "The Big Kahuna" is that we're all salesmen, whether we're selling our products or ourselves. Forgive me for being underwhelmed. Unimaginatively directed and too stagebound for the big screen, "The Big Kahuna" features Kevin Spacey and Danny DeVito as industrial-lubricant salesmen determined to land a big client. They'd also like to break in their new partner, who has the peculiar notion there are more important things in life than the hard sell. Spacey is Larry, a smooth talker who, when he's not pitching a product, is being brutally honest with anyone unfortunate enough to be within earshot.

Forget Paris Hilton. The most interesting naked people on-screen these days are savvier and more talented than Hilton. Wrinklier, too. Think of them as the naked and the two-thirds dead -- actors over 50 who are baring all. It's the biggest trend in the movies, with five of them this month alone. The trend didn't come out of nowhere. Sir John Gielgud was revealing his titled, nonagenarian privates as far back as 1991 in Prospero's Books. But Kathy Bates' gutsy hot-tub scene in last year's About Schmidt seems to have kick-started a real trend, to the extent that five former Oscar nominees (Diane Keaton, Jack Nicholson, William H. Macy, Danny DeVito and Helen Mirren)

If Duplex were an apartment instead of a movie, you'd say that it needs tidying up. There are some funny gags and clever ideas in this film, but they're spread out all over the place, piled haphazardly atop one another. Director Danny DeVito and first-time screenwriter Larry Doyle won't be getting the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval for this one, let alone an Oscar. Ben Stiller and Drew Barrymore are Alex and Nancy. He's a serious novelist. She works at a magazine. Together, they're what used to be called a yuppie couple.

Here's how you spot a movie star: No matter how many actors are on the screen with her, no matter how much more technically prepared they may be, she commands the viewer's attention. When she's on, you never want her to leave; if she does, you want her to come back. The camera loves her; the movie curls up and dies without her.All of that describes Queen Latifah. Unfortunately, she is not the star of "Living Out Loud," Richard LaGravenese's contemporary romantic drama. That role is played by Holly Hunter, who delivers an oddly uneven performance of a recently divorced woman striking out on her own in New York.

Danny DeVito, Tim Conway and George "Goober" Lindsey are among the guests stars helping make sweeps month such a special time of year."Beverly Hills, 90210" (8 p.m.-9 p.m., WBFF, Channel 45) -- Proving it's not always fun being on television, Donna (Tori Spelling) gets held hostage at the campus TV station by a dude who's been stalking her who now demands she tell everyone how much she loves him. Fox."Coach" (8: 30 p.m.-9 p.m., WMAR, Channel 2) -- Tim Conway copped an Emmy last year for playing Coach Hayden's former gardener, Kenny.

Money may make the world go 'round, but it really doesn't make Norman Jewison's new film go very far.Conceived as a politically correct assault on the greedhead capitalism of the '80s, and derived from an off-Broadway play of that era, "Other People's Money" is earnest, occasionally funny, a little confusing but finally more or less melts down on the incompatibility of its parts.The movie is built around and stands or falls on the lumpy shoulders of its central figure, Danny DeVito, as gonzo investment commando Lawrence Garfield.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. And when it comes to the movies, it's pretty much inevitable. Nothing wrong with that; trying to duplicate a successful formula is not only human nature, it's good business sense. In the movie biz, that means that when one film is a runaway success, others like it will be sure to follow. But if you're going to follow a successful film's suit, can't you please follow it well? Can't you please put enough care and thought into it that the resulting film could, if necessary, stand on its own legs?

Forget Paris Hilton. The most interesting naked people on-screen these days are savvier and more talented than Hilton. Wrinklier, too. Think of them as the naked and the two-thirds dead -- actors over 50 who are baring all. It's the biggest trend in the movies, with five of them this month alone. The trend didn't come out of nowhere. Sir John Gielgud was revealing his titled, nonagenarian privates as far back as 1991 in Prospero's Books. But Kathy Bates' gutsy hot-tub scene in last year's About Schmidt seems to have kick-started a real trend, to the extent that five former Oscar nominees (Diane Keaton, Jack Nicholson, William H. Macy, Danny DeVito and Helen Mirren)

If Duplex were an apartment instead of a movie, you'd say that it needs tidying up. There are some funny gags and clever ideas in this film, but they're spread out all over the place, piled haphazardly atop one another. Director Danny DeVito and first-time screenwriter Larry Doyle won't be getting the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval for this one, let alone an Oscar. Ben Stiller and Drew Barrymore are Alex and Nancy. He's a serious novelist. She works at a magazine. Together, they're what used to be called a yuppie couple.

The Monty Python troupe used to joke that the difference between life and a Saturday Night Live skit is that life is finite. Think of an SNL skit extended for an hour and a half and you have Death to Smoochy. The script, by hip comedy writer Adam Resnick (he was an executive producer and writer on HBO's terrific The Larry Sanders Show), is like a feeble, R-rated version of an X-rated R. Crumb coloring book. The director, Danny DeVito (who did the marvelous Matilda) has filled it in as if he were a demented kindergartner.

Rated R (language, some violence). Sun score: ** 1/2 Heist is like an improved and streamlined version of last summer's The Score: The writer-director, David Mamet, doesn't even want The to slow down his title. Gene Hackman stars as the canny thief who leads a lean, efficient crew including a stalwart partner (Delroy Lindo), an ace odd-job guy (Ricky Jay) and sometimes his svelte young wife (Rebecca Pidgeon). When his financier and fence (Danny DeVito) reneges on a pay-off unless Hackman's crew pulls another job, the screen is set for a game of cat and mouse.

The big revelation of "The Big Kahuna" is that we're all salesmen, whether we're selling our products or ourselves. Forgive me for being underwhelmed. Unimaginatively directed and too stagebound for the big screen, "The Big Kahuna" features Kevin Spacey and Danny DeVito as industrial-lubricant salesmen determined to land a big client. They'd also like to break in their new partner, who has the peculiar notion there are more important things in life than the hard sell. Spacey is Larry, a smooth talker who, when he's not pitching a product, is being brutally honest with anyone unfortunate enough to be within earshot.

Fans of lowbrow humor who find "What Planet Are You From?" too highfalutin' may want to try "Drowning Mona," a murder caper that could have been written by Agatha Christie during a pub-crawl. When Mona Dearly (Bette Midler) mysteriously drives her car over a cliff and drowns, the citizens of Verplanck, N.Y., are initially elated. But when town police chief Wyatt Rash (Danny DeVito) begins to investigate, they soon begin to eye one another suspiciously. Mona was the most disliked woman in town, but who hated her enough to kill her?

Jack Nicholson as the president of the United States. Jack Nicholson as a Las Vegas hustler. Little green men who say "ack-ack," leer at Playboy centerfolds and turn the entire U.S. Congress to toast. Tom Jones as Tom Jones. Disembodied heads falling in love with each other. Songs by Slim Whitman."Mars Attacks!" has it all, and more. How could this movie not be a riot?Ask Tim Burton, who somehow has managed the impossible. Never has a movie so brimming with potential failed so utterly to deliver.

Fans of lowbrow humor who find "What Planet Are You From?" too highfalutin' may want to try "Drowning Mona," a murder caper that could have been written by Agatha Christie during a pub-crawl. When Mona Dearly (Bette Midler) mysteriously drives her car over a cliff and drowns, the citizens of Verplanck, N.Y., are initially elated. But when town police chief Wyatt Rash (Danny DeVito) begins to investigate, they soon begin to eye one another suspiciously. Mona was the most disliked woman in town, but who hated her enough to kill her?

Here's how you spot a movie star: No matter how many actors are on the screen with her, no matter how much more technically prepared they may be, she commands the viewer's attention. When she's on, you never want her to leave; if she does, you want her to come back. The camera loves her; the movie curls up and dies without her.All of that describes Queen Latifah. Unfortunately, she is not the star of "Living Out Loud," Richard LaGravenese's contemporary romantic drama. That role is played by Holly Hunter, who delivers an oddly uneven performance of a recently divorced woman striking out on her own in New York.