Short version: Bringing Down the House is the funniest new movie I've seen all year. My unfortunate companion found it necessary to poke at me at least twice during the movie because I was laughing loud enough to embarass her.

Theoretically, the basic culture clash premise of the movie might be considered formulaic, but it's all in the execution. It's the details that make it work.

Consider the racial issues with the old white women. The rich heiress client (Mrs. Arness) was just BEGGING for a Charlene (Queen Latifah) slap-down. One of the points where I got poked in the theater was the dinner scene where she wanted Charlene's help in remembering the "Negro spiritual" their family maid used to sing in her youth most of a century ago, something about (singing) "Is massuh gonna sell us today?" Oh, the contortions Charlene/Latifah was going through to stop herself from throttling the woman just killed me.

Then there were the more subtle touches. The Betty White character (sister of Martin's boss) really was a (cheerfully) hateful racist. She just didn't like dark people, and would naturally call the cops if she saw one in the neighborhood "without a leaf blower in their hands." Thinking back through it, by contrast actually Mrs. Arness was really not particularly racist. She was just all around grossly insensitive to everyone, but salvagable. Half the humor of her in the dinner scene was that she had no idea how goddam FURIOUS the black woman would have to be.

Steve Martin's performance at the Down Low Club particularly merits repeat viewings. Really, the joke ends up being how credible his moves actually are. It was NOT a display of self-loathing, of the white guy making a self-debasing display of how uncool he is despite a desperate attempt. In fact, the actor who had the physical comedic skills to make the film All of Me has both the moves and the confidence to be quite competent at getting his freak on out on the dance floor.