Attractive but distant and a little cold. The perfect pad for Harrison Ford?

Who knew that locating a buyer for a $16 million loft conversion in Chelsea would be as hard as finding the Ark of the Covenant? Indiana Jones, a.k.a. Harrison Ford, has certainly had a lot of trouble pinning down buyers for his four-bedroom, 4.5-bath spread at 206 West 17th Street.

The actor first listed his 5,664-square-foot condo for $16 million back in December 2010. Now, some two years later, Mr. Ford is finally in contract, according to the Olshan Luxury Market report. Certainly, it's not the longest time a property has lingered on the market. But let's face it, this place was not moving at the speed of light, or even the speed of a competently-wielded light saber.

It's hard to say for sure, but we'd pin this place's sluggish performance on price. Mr. Ford purchased his bachelor pad for $5.3 million back in 2002 and gave it a sleek makeover. Sure, it helped him woo Calista Flockhart, but did the renovation really justify asking triple the price?  If we were a Hollywood producer negotiating this contract, we'd have taken a hard stand against lavishing that much cash, even on a marquee name. After all, the penthouse's 1101 Architects look may add value, but can it really triple the box office?

Corcoran listing brokers Deborah Grubman and David Dubin seem to think so. They gush that not only does the place come with a huge terrace, four exposures and a private elevator, but that there is "amazing custom craftsmanship" that has wrought industrial touches like "poured concrete radiant heated floors." So authentic for a Chelsea loft! And to think that the fabulously wealthy once put their craftsmen to work doing intricate things with wood and plaster.

Mr. Ford never wavered on price, so it will be interesting to see what this deal closes at. One thing is for certain, however: living here will cost a whole lot more than $16 million. The monthly common charges and taxes on the apartment ate $15,269. And as Donna Olshan points out, that doesn't buy any amenities but a video intercom system.

kvelsey@observer.com

It's a well-worn path. Indeed, Mr. Baldwin is only the latest in a line of older uptown dudes to to head downtown in search of love.

realestate@observer.com

Ford and Craig.

Cowboys & Aliens is one of the silliest movies ever made, but so many otherwise serious people have attached their names to it that, as Arthur Miller wrote in Death of a Salesman, attention must be paid. Steven Spielberg and Ron Howard are among the tangle of producers whose credits stretch from here to the next millennium, the idiotic screenplay boasts no fewer than five writers, and although I cannot imagine this farcical fusion of two separate film genres (science fiction and the Western) appealing to anyone over the age of 12, the two marquee lures at the top of the cast list are not exactly part of the bubble gum brigade. So with all the elements in place, another in a long line of cinematic comic books could be a surprise hit as it reaches its target audience, right up there next to the abysmal Captain America. Never underestimate the desperation of summer moviegoers to escape reality no matter how much they trash their I.Q.’s. They’ll do anything to get out of a heat wave.

Too bad Mr. Spielberg didn’t also direct, instead of Jon Favreau, a terrible TV actor (Robot Chicken) who has somehow morphed into helming third-rate movies (Iron Man). He doesn’t show a single shred of originality as he piles on the clichés in a parody of everything from The Big Country to It Came from Outer Space, but the one Cowboys & Aliens owes the most to is the low-budget and forgotten The Dead and the Damned, in which a meteor lands in the middle of the California Gold Rush and turns everyone into zombies. The result here is equally hilarious, but Cowboys & Aliens works best when it plays it straight (an idea of Harrison Ford’s) instead of campy. And so, from time to time, it actually holds one’s attention between the episodes of violence and carnage.

One morning in the 1870s, Daniel Craig wakes up with amnesia in the desert near Absolution, Ariz. (played by New Mexico), wearing a strange metal bracelet attached to his wrist that looks like unisex jewelry at the Newport Beach art show. He has no memory of who he is or where he came from. He’s filthy, splattered with blood and barefoot, but with a great haircut. Riding alone into town like Shane, he quickly attracts the attention of a vicious, ruthless cattle baron named Colonel Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford), his maniacal son (hysterically overacted by the pickle-faced Paul Dano), a comely barfly named Ella (Olivia Wilde), an honest but outnumbered sheriff (Keith Carradine), a well-meaning preacher (Clancy Brown), a nervous, nerdy saloon keeper who needs a Valium (Sam Rockwell) and an Indian cowhand (Adam Beach).

When the Unknown Man is suddenly recognized as the face on the wanted poster in the local jail—a feared stagecoach robber named Jake Lonergan—the sheriff makes plans to cart him off to the federal marshal. But this is a Western, see, so Shane doesn’t die. Thirty minutes into what looks like a routine sagebrush saga, the shackle on Mr. Craig’s arm lights up, a space ship blows up the town, and a monster from another planet abducts half the citizens, including the colonel’s rabid son, Percy. (A homicidal maniac named Percy? These are the laughs, kids.) Mr. Ford and Mr. Craig have no choice but to pool their two-fisted talents in a rescue mission, form a posse and track the monster to a canyon of death. The rest of the movie is John Ford meets The Twilight Zone. Oh, did I forget to mention the Apaches? It wouldn’t be a Western without the Indians. They join the fray too—but what good is a tomahawk against $50 million of computer-generated special effects designed by George Lucas? The penultimate showdown, between the alien invaders and the Roy Rogers boots, spurs, arrows and six-guns, is noisy but less thrilling than expected. Still, the movie aims for nothing but entertainment, and I must admit it’s fun watching two grizzled roughnecks go at it like they were doing something meaningful and important.

What, in the final analysis, is it all about? It seems the extraterrestrial creatures, who seem to know a lot about the stock market, are looking for gold. In the funniest line in the picture, Harrison Ford wrinkles his face of solid granite and snarls: “Well, that is ridiculous! What are they going to do—buy something?”

rreed@observer.com

COWBOYS & ALIENS

Running time 118 minutes

Written by Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, Damon Lindelof, Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby

Directed by Jon Favreau

Starring Harrison Ford, Daniel Craig, Paul Dano and Olivia Wilde

2/4

The apartment in the Chelsea loft conversion at 206 West 17th Street features four bedrooms and a 2,300-square-foot terrace and served as a bachelor bad for the newly-single actor before he met his new squeeze, Calista Flockhart. He bought the place in 2002 for $5.3 million, a mere fraction of the current listing price. Will the new 1100 Architects-designed look justify the steep price of admission?  

SLIDESHOW: Inside Harrison Ford's Swell Bachelor Pad

lkusisto@observer.com 

The sweet, plaque-free smile of Ms. McAdams is relentlessly captivating as she tackles the role of Becky Fuller, the sunny new producer of "Daybreak", the lowest-rated of TV's top three network morning shows. (There must be another network we don't know about, because The Today Show, CBS Morning News and Good Morning America are all tossed around constantly, and when this movie gets through with them, they all need Band-Aids.) "Daybreak" is a burial ground for every producer who has ever tried to save it, but while Becky has no national news experience, she has enough grit and ambition to hit the ground running. She skins her knee before her first production meeting, and it's downhill from there, as she faces her biggest pothole: the head-butting ego clash between Mike Pomeroy (Harrison Ford), a legendary anchorman formerly of the evening prime-time news who has turned so sour with resentment over his demotion that he will do anything to get out of his forced contract; and his nemesis and co-star, Colleen Peck (Diane Keaton), a babbling, ditsy former beauty queen hanging on to her limited talent and fading ability to project personality at dawn to an audience of viewers so old and tired they can't even find their alarm clocks.

As the center of the inevitable head-butting of two formidable adversaries, Becky is a cheerful, ravaged office heroine going through the perils of Job. At 28, fired by "Good Morning, New Jersey" as a victim of budgetary downsizing, and with the bleakest of prospects for the future, she's got to make this job work. Eternally optimistic, she takes on with pluck abysmal ratings, outdated studios and museum-piece camera equipment harking back to the days of Captain Kangaroo and Ding Dong School and a network CEO (Jeff Goldblum) who doesn't expect her to last beyond the next commercial break. Her one ray of hope is a new love interest with a fellow producer named Adam (Patrick Wilson), but as the demands of the show drives a wedge between them every time they move closer to the bedroom, Becky finds herself black and blue trying to save her love life, her reputation, her job and "Daybreak," too.

The best stuff in Morning Glory, a coin flip between one-liners, is in the first hour, when the Ford-Keaton team work up so much lather hating each other that he storms off the show and she calls him an "A-hole" while the cameras are still running. The chaos in the control room as all this transpires is hilarious. Pomeroy prefers stories about microfinance in Asia to segments on preparing baked Alaska. "Half the people who watch your show have lost their remotes--the other half is waiting for their nurse to turn them over," he rants. Peabodys, Emmys and a Pulitzer--and now this? The hard-drinking rough guy with 40 years of broadcasting experience considers celebrity gossip, weather and cooking tips far beneath his dignity. All of which gives Harrison Ford a role that fits him like a condom. He gets to be gruff, granite-faced, mean-spirited, rude and pessimistic, never cracking a smile and scowling like a rat just died in the studio's air-conditioning pipes. Think Dan Rather. Or better yet, think Eric Sevareid.

Meanwhile, the film takes you to "21", Elaine's and the Algonquin. You rub elbows with Chris Matthews, Morley Safer and Bob Schieffer. You also see a lot of New York before the first crack of dawn that even veteran New Yorkers don't see. You sure get your money's worth, in more ways than one.

Instead of saving "Daybreak," Becky sees it get canceled. In the six weeks she's got left, the Becky does things to get the ratings up that give the movie jolt of energy, filling the a.m. hours with the tackiest, most exaggerated and humiliating crap in TV history: Diane Keaton sumo wrestling, the weather man getting his butt tattooed on camera and worse. Naturally the American public loves it and the ratings go through the roof. The more the co-hosts insult each other, the more viewers can't wait to tune in. Where does this leave Mr. Ford? When he invades the governor's front yard and corners him in an exclusive in the middle of his arrest on racketeering and prostitution charges, he proves a point of his own--that a great story can also be great TV, even at 7 a.m.

The film is not flawless, though. In its final scramble to the finish line, in time for a happy ending, Morning Glory strains credulity and comes dangerously close to falling to pieces. Becky is always rushing to her boss with overnight ratings clutched in her hand to show him how much the show is improving daily. Closer research on the part of screenwriter McKenna and director Roger Michell (Notting Hill) would have proven how phony those scenes are. Executive producers and network CEOs know everything about their programs. They do not need staff members to quote ratings; they get the overnights delivered to their apartments before anyone else ever sees them. Mr. Ford's character is often referred to as "the third worst person in the world." The second worst is Angela Lansbury "and she knows what she did." No further explanation. The audience looks bewildered. Nobody laughs. If this is a joke, it backfires. And then there's the effort to establish a stirring of vulnerability beneath Mr. Ford's granite face, culminating in his striding onto the set voluntarily wearing an apron, heating skillets and cracking eggs to prepare his secret recipe for the perfect "fluffy" frittata. "Later this week," he grins goofily, "I'll show you how to make really fantastic beignets!" Becky is so broadsided she turns down a job with NBC. If you believe this is the way television works, I've got this building called Rockefeller Center I can sell you cheap.

Still, I had such a good time watching Morning Glory that pointing out such small caveats seems churlish. The cast is perfect (scowling irascibly like Clifton Webb, Mr. Ford has never been this good). There's a lot of eye candy. Some of the on-camera bitchery between Mr. Ford and Ms. Keaton is laugh-out-loud witty. For the most part, Morning Glory is a delicious movie that will make you jump for joy.

Morning Glory
Running time 110 minutes
Written by Aline Brosh McKenna
Directed by Roger Mitchell
Starring Rachel McAdams, Diane Keaton, Harrison Ford, Jeff Goldblum, Patrick Wilson

3/4

rreed@observer.com

The Tooth Fairy

What's the story: And you thought Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel was bad. In his continuing effort to become an A-list movie star, Dwayne Johnson (or The Rock, if you're nasty), dons wings and a tutu to play a minor league hockey player turned tooth fairy—because starring in kids' movies worked out so well for Vin Diesel. The trailer for The Tooth Fairy looks excruciating (yes, that is Billy Crystal!), the reviews have been worse and not even the presence of Ricky Gervais' partner-in-crime, Stephen Merchant, can make us muster the strength to approve of its existence. The only positive here? The Tooth Fairy's tag line: "You can't handle the tooth." Ha!

Who should see it: Vin Diesel.

Legion

What's the story: Let's see if we have this straight: God, so upset with the human race, decides to end the world by sending a legion of angels down from heaven to kill everyone. But the Archangel Michael (Paul Bettany) doesn't agree, especially because he thinks that a young girl (Friday Night Lights vixen Adrianne Palicki) is possibly carrying the second coming of Christ. O.K.! But, wouldn't God realize that, too? We're sure God is busy but we don't think something like the second coming would get overlooked. Anyway, we doubt the plot gaps in Legion will matter much to the fanboys who just want to see an angel carry a machine gun. Also of note, the supporting cast, which features Dennis Quaid, Private Practice's Kate Walsh and Gossip Girl's Willa Holland.

Who should see it: Zuzu Bailey.

Extraordinary Measures

What's the story: If you're like us, you've been mimicking Harrison Ford yelling, "I already work around the clock!" for weeks, so at least the trailer for Extraordinary Measures has done its job. In the end, though, that might be the only thing memorable about this film, which looks like a CBS Movie of the Week most likely because it was produced by CBS Films. Heck, even Leslie Moonves worked on the ending! Harrison Ford and Brendan Fraser star, and while logic dictates that the two adventurers would be teaming up to do battle against some ancient mummy (or aliens whose gift was knowledge), here they're just trying to cure an uncurable disease. Tears will be shed, hope will be restored and lives will be changed. Don't be surprised if this maudlin affair becomes a sleeper hit.

Who should see it: Fans of The Blind Side.

Monday: The Bachelorette

All the rose petals, candles, sky-diving, cringing hands-over-face-embarrassment and general buffoonery has led us to tonight, when our Bachelorette finally picks her man on the big finale. And yes, we are sort of un-ironically excited! Who will Jillian, former hot dog connoisseur and hot tub slut, choose? Will it be Ed, the beefy and terribly dressed Midwesterner who had, shall we say, some performance anxiety in the “fantasy suite,” or Kiptyn, who not only has the silliest name ever but is so Ken-doll perfect that he’s downright creepy? Our money is on the evil overlords at ABC to rig up a last-minute confession from our personal favorite, nerdy Reid/Chandler Bing, and make us think something shocking will happen. We’re guessing in the end, though, it will be same old snooze proposal with US Weekly announcing the happy couple’s breakup in six months time. Sigh. [ABC, 9 p.m.] 

Tuesday: Witness

Here’s a fun game we like to play: Which Harrison Ford is the hottest of all time? Is it Han Solo Ford? Indiana Jones Ford or Working Girl Ford? For our money, it’s steamy-almost-sex-with-an-Amish-lady Ford in the great 1985 Peter Weir film Witness. Mr. Ford plays a cop who has to hide out among the Amish and try and protect little Lukas Haas who witnessed (duh) a brutal murder that still makes us feel weird being in the Philadelphia train station to this day. He has an intense flirtation with Kelly McGillis, and learns to wear pants without zippers! This film boasts a heart-fluttering sponge bath, Viggo Mortensen as the best-looking mute Amish carpenter ever, and a death-by-grain scene that the Final Destination folks could only dream of. [AMC, 8:15]

Wednesday: I Survived a Japanese Game Show

When it comes to bad television, we realize we are part of the problem and not the solution (see Monday’s entry). But that being said, WTF is up with this I Survived a Japanese Game Show? According to ABC, 12 Americans went to Japan to compete in challenges with names like “Big Foot Bang Bang,” “Alien Took my Teddy Bear” and “Gopher Make You Crazy” while being led by host Rome Kanda, house mother Mama-San and Judge Bob. Tonight, the six remaining contestants apparently will be dressing up as cats for a milk relay rice and wear Velcro suits to throw themselves at a wall from a trampoline. Good lord. We … just don’t know what to say. [ABC, 9 p.m.]

Thursday: Control

Are you ready to feel all sorts of angsty and restless—kind of like the way you did when you were just a sulky teen, driving around parking lots and smoking cigarettes? Then you should absolutely settle in and watch Control, the beautiful and incredibly moving biopic of Joy Division singer Ian Curtis. Curtis was a troubled soul, committing suicide at age 23 while on the brink of superstardom. Sam Riley is spookily good as Curtis and pulls off a pretty convincing “Love Will Tear Us Apart” to boot. Samantha Morton plays wife Deborah Curtis (the screenplay is based on Ms. Curtis’ Touching From a Distance) and is amazing as always, but take a look at the pretty actress portraying Curtis’ mistress Annik Honoré, Alexandra Maria Lara. Ms. Lara and Mr. Riley got engaged earlier this year. See if you can catch the pair falling in love onscreen. [MOMaxe, 2:35 a.m.]

Friday:  Inside Man

Inside Man is Spike Lee’s 18th feature film and it's up there as being one of the more fun to watch. It’s a good old-fashioned bank heist flick, starring Denzel Washington, Clive Owen (was this the movie that made everyone fall in love with him? We think so) and Jodie Foster. Though this film seems, at first glance, to be a departure for Mr. Lee, reconsider the blue skies over the Manhattan skyline, Mr. Washington’s quick-witted quips about life in the city and all those funny/uncomfortable jokes about post-911 racial profiling. It’s a zippy affair, tightly crafted and exciting. Plus, the hard-to-pronounce Chiwetel Ejiofor is in it, and who doesn’t love that guy? [BET, 1:30 p.m.]

Crossing Over is another of those multilayered movies with myriad plots cross-cut editorially in ways that sometimes seem confusing until they intersect at odd angles to address a common underlying theme. Here, the theme is U.S. immigration, legal and otherwise, approached from several viewpoints on both sides of the law that unfold in fragmented episodes simultaneously. Tying unrelated short stories together under one unifying umbrella is an overworked conceit that includes everything from Robert Altman’s Nashville to such widely acclaimed films as 21 Grams, Babel and Crash. This jigsaw of the desperate and disenfranchised who try to cross over America’s borders in search of a better life lends urgency to the genre, but remains mostly an excuse to line up a diverse group of actors in the cinematic equivalent of a gym workout.

Writer-director Wayne Kramer threads the pieces together, making valid points about the tragedies and triumphs of the U.S. immigration agencies that tie up the lives of desperate people in a never-ending tangle of red tape. And he gets uniformly terrific performances from a fine cast playing pawns in the game of sex, violence and betrayal that diminishes the noble tradition of naturalized citizenship. Now that his blond, pumpkin-tinted hair from the last Indiana Jones movie has grown out gray and natural again, Harrison Ford makes a perfectly cast veteran cop with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency in Los Angeles, whose conscience makes him empathetic to the plight of a Mexican factory worker (Alice Braga) arrested with no papers or work permits and an underage child to support. While he risks his own job to rescue the little boy and personally drive him back to his grandparents in Mexico, another government customs officer who judges visa applications (Ray Liotta) abuses his power by promising a green card to a pretty Australian Nicole Kidman wannabe named Claire (Alice Eve) in exchange for sexual slavery. Her boyfriend Gavin, a British rock musician (Jim Sturgess), goes another route, faking Hebrew credentials to work as a rabbi and winning the sympathy of a real rabbi, who agrees to back him as a teacher. Other stories revolve around a bright, innocent Iranian schoolgirl turned into the F.B.I. task force on terrorism by her own school principal, and deported, for writing an essay about the reasons for jihad; a Korean teenager who robs a convenience store the night before his naturalization ceremony for U.S. citizenship; a hardworking defense attorney for illegal immigrants (Ashley Judd) who is the sexual predator’s wife; a murdered Iranian girl, who worked in a print shop that copies forged visas and work permits, who happens to be the sister of the naturalized L. A. cop (Cliff Curtis) who is Harrison Ford’s friend and partner on the force. As the Los Angeles Convention Center fills with proud, hopeful immigrants taking their oaths of allegiance to become American citizens, the movie juxtaposes the stories of some who made it and others who didn’t, interwoven with the stories of the people along the way with uniforms and badges who exploit, search and destroy them. And still they arrive daily—across rivers, under barbed-wire fences and huddled in the backs of trucks—looking for a better future in a country the rest of us take for granted. The words are still written on the Statue of Liberty: “Give Me your tired, your poor.” It forgets to add “As long as they can pay.”

rreed@observer.com

How to break it all down? Here goes. Harrison Ford—looking great and age-appropriately silver foxy—plays Max Brogan, an immigration officer who seems to have only a cat (yay!) to care for at home and who seems completely overdoing his job rounding up illegal residents. He arrests a beautiful young Mexican woman (Alice Braga), who begs him to look after her son, setting him on a difficult path between duty and compassion. Meanwhile, Max’s partner Hamid Baraheri (Cliff Curtis) has a sister (Melody Khazae) currently being shunned by his family. She is sleeping with her boss, who is making a fake ID for a young Nicole Kidman–esque Australian actress (Alice Eve, whom we loved in Starter for 10), who is simultaneously flirting with the hot English atheist trying to pretend to have found his inner Jew (21’s Jim Sturgess) while she’s also getting blackmailed into sleeping with Ray Liotta—who has never ever been so wonderfully creepy—who is married to Ashley Judd, an immigration lawyer and … We could keep going and try to explain the links to the young Korean gang and the devout Muslim girl, but we’ve already confused ourselves, and needless to say, they are all connected. Sigh.

A couple of these story lines could have gotten dropped along the way, because we actually would have liked to have seen more of some others, particularly Mr. Ford’s; the one scene he had with Melody Khazae had as much sparkage as something out of Working Girl. We’re still not sure whether Ashley Judd was intentionally doing an Angelina Jolie impression, or whether some of the more blatant heart-tugging scenes were really necessary. Manipulations aside, this is a thorny and upsetting subject to deal with. (Here’s one question, though: Are we really supposed to believe that a blond English-speaking bombshell like Alice Eve could have just as tough a time getting a green card as a Mexican worker who sneaks over the border?) Still, writer-director Wayne Kramer (The Cooler) never gives the audience the chance to make their own conclusion, and instead hammers his point home so hard that even if you took a nap for part of the film, you’d still get it. O.K., so we cried a little bit … but that made us resent it more.

Crossing Over opens Friday at Regal E-Walk 42nd Street, Union Square and Lincoln Square Cinemas.

svilkomerson@observer.com

Phew! This already sounds like a total mess. The last thing J.J. Abrams has been able to handle properly is the romantic comedy; just look at his derisible former television show October Road (or do yourself a favor and don't). And while Mr. Michell (Notting Hill), Ms. McKenna and Ms. McAdams are clearly comfortable within the genre, they all seem to fit into different subcategories.

Then there's Harrison Ford. At the risk of blaspheme, we never thought Mr. Ford was a great actor. He was a great movie star, mostly because he was able to slide along on his irascible charm, making girls swoon and boys grin. Unfortunately, that charm has long disappeared. It would be easy to point to his grumpy and sullen performance in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull as the tipping point--Mr. Ford spent the entirety of that film looking like a child sitting in front of a giant plate of broccoli--but we'd argue that he hasn't been charming in nearly twenty years. Spells of tight and unhappy performances litter his resume, from Sabrina to Hollywood Homicide to Firewall (truly one of the worst movies ever produced). At this point in his career, Mr. Ford is totally wrong for a romantic comedy, a genre that lives and dies on the charm of its actors. Barring Meryl Streep being cast as his co-anchor (which, face it, would be awesome), we think this project is doomed to fail under the weight of his frowning visage before it even gets off the ground.